Did they ever get the first game updated? I remember it was one of those games that was way behind the Steam release and then eventually abandoned on GOG

No idea if it's still outdated, but it's not on the Games that treat GOG customers as 2nd Class v2 list anymore.

https://www.gog.com/forum/general/games_that_treat_gog_customers_as_second_class_citizens_v2/page1
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1zjwUN1mtJdCkgtTDRB2IoFp7PP41fraY-oFNY00fEkI/edit

The first game was left broken and abandoned by the developer while it received fixes and updates on Steam. Buyer beware. I don't care about general updates, but the game was left with a completely game breaking bug on this platform.

I played it not so long ago. It was ok as far as I could tell bug-wise (nothing that made the game insurmountable), but the game was such a grind-fest that I'm not particularly interested in having an "encore".

That being said, yeah, apparently, updates on GOG were lagging behind regardless. I don't believe we have the latest version.

The first half of the game was nice, and the other half was just boring repetitive grind, not to mention the absurd ending, which makes me think that the game was rushed and unfinished. Too bad.

It was? Both my brother and I finished the GOG version on computers with very different setups and the game never exhibited any bugs. Go figure...

The Dark Fist update introduced major bugs that were likely to come up when playing normally. It went on for at least 9 months, with Steam receiving the update. I have no idea if the fix eventually made it to GOG, since 2016 was a long-ish time ago now. AFAIK the developer and publisher have never communicated about why that happened, and I don't know if you played an updated version. If you played prior to Dark Fist, that also would've been bug-free.

I vaguely remember digging for the info, and apparently, it should be on par with the Steam version.

An user mentions Punch Club 1's update appears to be mislabeled here on GOG:
https://www.gog.com/forum/punch_club/no_more_update/post5

Thanks for the info. Now that you mention it, I think you are right that the game progressively got more grindy as it went along. I recall that I definitely didn't get that impression in the first tourney, though at some point, the improvement points slowed down to a crawl and it was mostly about keeping up physical stats. I think that's when it got tedious.

Near the end, boxing becomes your full-time job, so the juggling act that gets you through the lower leagues pivots to a late-game grindfest. You get coffee/pizza for days, but you don't have to farm money anymore, and the soft cap on how big you can get after attrition is higher. In all fairness, it wasn't the worst grind I've ever seen, but it's definitely slower at this point.

Oh, so it is. Got a clue in the form of a tossed bottle cap with blurred writing on it. Saw it on my Steam client yesterday.

Boycott Tinybuild and their abandoned games on GOG. For example, Party Hard is still outdated, no "High Crimes" DLC or level editor.