Potions and Polycules - Jams and Gems Update

Ok, after a long wait, I would like to announce the tentative release of the brand new Potions and Polycules update! 

Right now the new update is download only. I might see in the future if I can squeeze the filesize down a little more to fit within the webplayer, but in the meantime I didn't want to make you guys wait any more than you already have. I've been working on this on and off for a long time to so I'm very excited to finally share it with you all. There's a lot to cover, so I'll get right into it.

And, as with my previous update, be sure to check out the Potions and Polycules Discord if you haven't already

General Changes

• Increased the initial brewing time of concoctions to 10. This was primarily to give me smaller units to work with when balancing effects and existing ingredients have for the most part been rebalanced to maintain their current effectiveness.
• Persistent and Semi-persistent ingredients now have a 1 in 2 chance to be removed when a potion backfires. Super-persistent ingredients have a 1 in 4 chance to be removed. (more on them later)
• Temporary ingredients (such as Bovine Elixirs) are now automatically rerolled at the end of the round.
• Overhauled the colour palette shader to allow for more detailed colour palettes going forward.

New Features

• Added an ingredient encyclopedia.
• Added a basic volume control to the options menu.
• Added keyword tooltips.
• Added the ability to choose 1 of 3 randomised loadouts to start each run with.
• Removed the "Upgrade" reward as I felt it was too easy in the long term to upgrade your ingredient bag to a full suite of max level ingredients - totally negating the physics puzzle aspect of the game.
• Added 4 new rewards:
  • Iterate - Adds an upgraded copy of the chosen ingredient to your bag. More powerful than a Upgrade under the right circumstances, but leaves behind the original lower level ingredient in your bag.
  • Consolidate - Upgrades the chosen ingredient and downgrades all other held ingredients.
  • Persistence - Modifies the chosen ingredient to become Persistent and Single-Use
  • Remove - Self explanatory
• Added the ability to spend gold to reroll the ingredients and rewards available at the end of each round
  • You gain between 2 and 3 gold each round. Gold isn't just a number - it's a new ingredient! and it makes use of that aforementioned "Super-persistent" keyword, meaning it remains in your concoction, not just between casts, but between rounds too.
• Added a bunch of new ingredients, including 2 new subtypes:
  • Syringes - Which inject the first ingredient they come into contact with - with varying effects.
  • Gems - Ingredients with powerful effects that do not combine with each other, instead needing to combine with gold.
• Added 2 new transformations

Balance Changes

• Accelerant Elixir - Now reduces your brewing time by 2 at level 1. Effectiveness increase by +1 per upgrade as before.
• Catalyst Elixir - Now casts a number of the nearest ingredients equal to it's potency when combine. Should hopefully make it a lot more consistent to use.
• Prophesy Elixir - No longer adds the Allure Potions to your bag, instead adding them directly to your concoction when cast. This combined with their new Persistence makes them a lot more powerful than before.
• Glamour Elixir - Now grants 3 allure per level when cast.
• Sticky Elixir - Now adds slime to the opponent's concoction when infused, as opposed to when they are cast, but you still have good reason to cast them, as they now transform into Allure Elixirs after you do so.
• Cowbell - Now converts 2 random ingredients into Bovine Elixirs when infused. A fairly minor drawback, but should hopefully make you think twice before adding 9 of them to your bag.
• Hypnotic Spirals - Can now combine, doubling in effectiveness whenever they do.

And ofcourse a bunch of miscellaneous bug fixes and other changes I'm sure have slipped my mind.

If you're still reading up to this point, let me say a quick thank you for all of your support for this project - hope you enjoy the new update!