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Patch notes

Swish Buckets updates

Every update to Swish Buckets, newest first. Now on v0.18.8, updated Nov 12, 2026.

Play Swish Buckets

November 2026

v0.18.8

The other team misses more

  • A player told us the bots make every shot. On Pro, the other team now hits about 49% of its shots instead of 57%, and 38% of its jump shots instead of 49%. Rookie and Hall of Fame were scaled the same way, and your own teammates shoot exactly as before.
v0.18.7

One click gives the game your keyboard

  • On YouTube, a click in the game now always hands it the keyboard, so keyboard players never have to click around before the controls work.
v0.18.6

A sharper picture when the game turns resolution down

  • On High and Ultra graphics, when the game lowers its resolution to keep the frame rate up, it now rebuilds the picture with a smart upscaler (AMD FSR 1) instead of a plain stretch: sharper court lines, players and ad boards. At full resolution nothing changes.
v0.18.5

Real walls and blacktop

  • The old gym's walls are real painted block, the Yard's blacktop is worn asphalt, and the city buildings around the courts have real facades. Turn Enhanced visuals off in Settings for the classic look.
v0.18.4

Lob passes have their own sound

  • A lob now has its own rounder, hollow sound, different from the chest pass, and catches are crisper, both made for this game. Settings, Sound, Sounds: Classic keeps the old ones.
v0.18.3

Outdoor courts sound like the city

  • Chainlink Yard, Sunset Deck and Voltway now have a quiet city air under the crowd during a match, made for this game. It follows the Crowd volume. Indoor courts stay as they were.
  • The smallest labels on screen (the YOU tag and the stamina label) are bigger, so they are easier to read on a phone.
  • Settings, Audio, Sounds: Classic still brings back the old sounds, with no city air.
v0.18.2

The ball sounds like a basketball

  • A real bounce when you dribble (the dribble had no sound before), a firm catch, and a chest pass, pickup and crossover that each sound different, all made for this game.
  • Settings, Audio, Sounds still switches to the Classic set.
v0.18.1

Music on the court

  • A new music loop plays during the game, and a calmer one on the menus and the final score, both made for Swish Basketball.
  • Settings, Audio, Music volume sets how loud it is, separate from the sound effects.
  • The menu buttons have a new click too.
v0.18.0

New sounds, made for this game

  • The ball bounce, rim, backboard, swish, dunk, sneaker squeak, whistle, buzzer, steals, blocks, catches, the crowd and the organ were all recorded fresh and softened. The school gym has its own smaller, echoey crowd.
  • Prefer the old sounds? Settings, Sound, Sounds: Classic. The menu click keeps its old sound for now.
v0.17.1

The menus have sound

  • Every button clicks, and the arena crowd murmurs behind the menus and the final score.
v0.17.0

The photo-real House on YouTube too

  • The photo-real House now comes in the YouTube version too. It loads a moment after the game opens, so the game starts as fast as before.
  • Fixed: picking Classic or Photo in Settings, Graphics, Arena now changes the arena right away. Before, it changed only after a reload.
v0.16.1

The House looks photo-real

  • The arena is lit like a photographed room, and the stands are full of real-looking fans. The players are unchanged.
  • Prefer the drawn arena? Settings, Graphics, Arena: Classic. The game remembers your pick.
  • The other four courts look the same as before.
v0.16.0

Every court is its own place

  • New: Chainlink Yard is now a park court on blacktop inside a chain-link fence, with trees and apartment blocks around it.
  • New: Old Varnish is now a school gym with wooden bleachers, painted block walls, roof trusses and championship banners.
  • New: Sunset Deck is now a rooftop court with string lights, a water tank and the city below. Voltway is now a street court at night under neon signs.
  • The House is unchanged. Courts open as you win games. Preview any of them now at shiccup.com/play/swish-buckets/?court=chainlink (or varnish, skydeck, voltway).

October 2026

v0.15.0

New hardwood court

  • New: a new hardwood court with Enhanced visuals (Settings, on by default). Turn it off to bring back the classic floor.
  • Fixed: the game now finishes loading even when YouTube starts it paused.
  • Preview: a photo-real arena with real-looking fans at shiccup.com/play/swish-buckets/?style=photo. The normal look is unchanged.
v0.14.0

Real court, rim and crowd sounds

  • All 21 court sounds now play from a studio sample bank: hardwood dribbles, sneaker squeaks, clean net swishes, rim clanks, monster dunks, steals, blocks, whistles, the buzzer horn and crowd roars.
  • Every sound has multiple variations so consecutive bounces, passes and shots never sound identical.
  • Added Player callouts on passes, dunks, steals and green releases, plus a Classic audio toggle in Settings → Audio.
v0.13.10

Volume that works

  • Music and sound effects volume now change the sound straight away, even mid-match.
  • The vibration switch is gone: phones can't vibrate inside a web game, so it did nothing.
v0.13.9

Settings fits phones

  • Settings screen fits phones: every tab is visible, there is much less scrolling, and it is centred on big screens.
v0.13.8

Bigger-headed players preview

  • Swish Buckets preview: players with big round heads and big rounded sneakers, try ?players=figure. Arms and legs are thicker too.
  • Team jerseys, shorts, numbers, hair, skin tones and headbands are unchanged.
  • Without ?players=figure the game looks exactly as before.
v0.13.7

Chunkier rounded players preview

  • Swish Buckets preview: chunkier rounded players, try ?players=figure. Bigger round heads, thicker arms and legs, rounder jerseys, bulkier sneakers and bigger mitten hands.
  • Team jerseys, shorts, numbers, hair, skin tones and headbands are unchanged. Taller and broader centres and shorter, quicker guards keep their sizes.
  • Without ?players=figure the game looks exactly as before.
v0.13.6

Rounded players preview

  • Preview: new rounded players made in Blender, try ?players=figure
v0.13.5

Menu fits a phone

  • The menu fits a phone on its side: the squad cards keep their normal size and "Play a friend" sits right under PLAY.
  • Settings: no more cut-off section tab on a phone. The tab row fades where there are more tabs, and the tab you open scrolls fully into view.
v0.13.4

Bolder art styles

  • Art style previews are now much bolder: toon has thick ink outlines and hard cartoon shading, watercolour is painted with soft washes but no longer blurry, and pixel uses bigger pixels and a fixed retro palette.
  • Fixed: in the toon style, the crowd behind the backboard no longer draws lines across the glass.
v0.13.3

Toy players preview

  • Preview: rounder toy players with ?players=toy (works with the art styles)
v0.13.2

Sharper picture

  • Sharper picture: the Resolution setting now draws real pixels for your window. 1080p is 1080 real lines of picture in a window, in the embedded player and in fullscreen, not a smaller picture stretched up and smoothed.
v0.13.1

Layup fix

  • Fixed: the ball no longer jumps to the other side of the hoop after a layup
v0.13.0

New settings screen

  • New settings screen, themed to the game; fully works with keyboard and controller
  • Settings are split into sections down the side: switch sections with Q and E or the shoulder buttons, move with the arrows or d-pad, and press Esc or B to back out.
  • Anything you have changed is marked, with a one-tap reset beside it.
v0.12.2

Art style preview

  • Preview: try art styles with ?style=toon, ?style=watercolor or ?style=pixel
v0.12.1

Bold lighting preview

  • Preview: try the bold broadcast lighting with ?look=bold
v0.12.0

Arena lighting

  • Arena lighting like a TV broadcast: the court is lit by the lamps overhead, so the floor is brightest where their beams overlap.
  • Soft shadows from every light: players and the ball now throw faint shadows away from each lamp, on top of one softer main shadow.
  • A glossy floor: on High and Ultra the lamps glow and reflect in the polished hardwood.
v0.11.0

Better ball sounds

  • New sounds: the ball, rim, backboard, net, shoes and whistle were rebuilt to sound like the real thing. A harder bounce is now louder and sharper than a soft dribble.
  • A clean swish sounds different from a shot that rattled in or banked off the glass.
  • Fixed the ball floating away from the hands during dunks.
v0.10.0

Play a friend

  • Play a friend: send a link, play head-to-head online. Tap "Play a friend" on the main menu, make a room, and send the link or the short code to a friend.

September 2026

Camera shake fix

  • Fixed camera shake on big moments (like dunks) sometimes getting cut short by a smaller shake right after.

Net, court, and animation polish

  • Scoring now shows the net snapping for real, instead of a flash effect — and the cloth net moves at every graphics setting, not just the highest.
  • Running players' feet no longer slide across the floor when planted.
  • New animations for jukes, layups, ankle-breaker moves, and celebrations.
  • Camera fixes: it no longer gets stuck behind the hoop's support pole, and the jumbotron lifts out of the way when the camera zooms in close.
  • Rain on outdoor courts now looks like small specks instead of white blobs.

New lighting and controller support

  • New lighting: a bolder key light over the court.
  • Plug in a game controller or arcade-cabinet controls and play from the title screen.
  • A Resolution setting on computers, and the picture adjusts itself to keep the game smooth on every device.
v0.9.6

iPhone fixes

  • The HUD and controls stay clear of the notch and the home bar.
  • Two fingers on the screen no longer zoom the page.

Nets and new materials

  • Hoop nets move like real cloth on the Ultra setting.
  • Shadows, glow and richer materials on the court and the players.
  • Fixed the net-swish moment waiting on the wrong team's score.

Career mode

  • Build your own player and your squad, with sliders that show what each body does on court.
  • A season ladder with training and a finals game.
  • Five court themes to unlock and pick from.
  • Big players get real edges on rebounds and finishing through contact.
  • Fixed dunks and alley-oops that could launch from behind the backboard.

August 2026

5v5 and more squads

  • A 5v5 full-court mode alongside 3v3.
  • A women's league with its own roster.
  • Pick the CPU's squad, and choose stick or D-pad touch controls.
  • Fixed crowd volume Off not silencing the crowd.

Dunks, layups and a crowd

  • Dunks, alley-oops, jukes and a full family of layups.
  • The rim rattles on near-misses, and the ball bounces off the rim and net properly.
  • A crowd that cheers, chants and reacts, and sneakers that squeak.
  • Rookie, Pro and Hall of Fame difficulty, a tip-off jump ball, and and-one finishes.
v0.5.0

Swish Buckets arrives

  • 3v3 full-court arcade basketball, free in the browser.
  • Computer players on both teams, and a broadcast-style camera.
  • Early build: animations and shot balance still rough.