This is a smaller update we wanted to get out (relatively) quickly to try address some of the stability issues with 0.1.0, but it also includes a bunch of other neat things, including new card and enemy art, a rework to Frozen, and mysterious new shrines.

Stability Improvements

The game is currently built on an old engine that is really showing its age and rough corners. Unfortunately with all the new art and features in 0.1.0, it was a bit unstable for a lot of players. We’ve spent time on trying to improve this, and while we can’t be sure it’s a solved problem, it seems much better in all our tests. One thing we’ve done is limit the resolution to about 1080p. In general the game should be a bit snappier and (hopefully) not crash as often.

Art for Cards, Enemies, Environment

We’ve added about two dozen new pieces of card art in this update. Still many old placeholder art to replace, but check these gorgeous art pieces already in the game:

We’ve done a pass on all the enemies. They should now be a lot more cohesive:

And we’ve done a general pass on the environment art in the game, to try to get the visual hierarchy to be better and generally improve the visuals. Have a look and let us know what you think!

Mysterious New Shrines

Some new mysterious shrines have started appearing in the titans. If you see one, try to figure out its mystery and you will be greatly rewarded… (trying not to spoil the fun of discovering them on your own)

Frozen Rework

Frozen and the Frostmancer have had a rework in this update. Frozen used to be “permanent” — it would stay in effect until disturbed. Now it slowly decays every turn, after gravity. This makes it harder to use and dominate a level, but still very powerful. Along with this, the Freeze card has been reworked a bit to be simpler (no spreading), there’s a new Ice Pick card, and the Frostmancer’s starting deck has been modified a bit for some of these changes.

Balance

• Iron Skin is ignored in more scenarios, including enemy-enemy attacks, pushing enemies and (still) Poison.
• Queen Attack can target intermediate movement locations
• Jump: give back 1 energy (still costs 2)
• Stomp is now playable without a gap below the player
• Cracked Walls can be correctly targeted by more things, and damaged by enemies

Other Changes

• The start of the audio system has been added. Just a single UI sound and some background music for now, but we’ll be adding more in the next update. You can mute these in the settings menu.
• Add "Save & Exit" to the game menu. The game actually saves automatically after every action, but this is just a handy button.
• Some wording clarification that you’re gaining more health, and can always gain more, not healing up to a max.
• Reduce size of highlighted cards when drawing/playing
• Count interaction cards (using a shrine or exit) as cards played this turn
• Show titan appearing in background after UI is hidden
• Show loading text for starting game
• Fix some issues with health change animation
• Fix for bug when using mouse wheel during animations

Known Issues

There are a few known issues in this version:

• The meta progression is severely lacking
• Charms and darkness are a bit weird and confusing
• Little to no tutorialization/onboarding yet

Feedback

Any feedback or advice is appreciated, but for this version we’re especially interested in:

1. Do you like the new art for cards, enemies and the environment?
2. Did you find and figure out any of the mysterious shrines? Did you like the reward?
3. Does the Frostmancer and Frozen feel more balanced?
4. Any stability/crash issues?
5. Did you come up with any new fun/interesting combos/strategies?
6. General impressions?