Version 1.4

Version 1.4 is now out on itch!

Patch Notes

New Rings

8 new rings have been added. These give battle strategies a lot more variety - especially against enemies with a 100 speed stat.

• Rage Ring: When hit by an enemy with 100 speed, all your stats will buff.
• Steady Ring: When hit by an enemy with 100 speed, you'll gain 3 mana.
• Sturdy Ring: When hit by an enemy with 100 speed, you'll take 1 less point of damage. (If you can reduce their damage to 0, it'll count as an evade, and you'll get to counter-attack them!)
• Grit Ring: If you fail evading an attack or hit by an enemy with 100 speed, you'll still counter-attack.
• Spike Ring: Enemies will take another point of damage from ailments.
• Focus Ring: When you evade an attack, you'll buff your attack stat.
• Shield Ring: When you evade an attack, you'll buff your defense stat.
• Blood Ring: When you evade an attack, you'll buff your critical stat.

Ring Placements

• Changed the library puzzle reward from a Limit Fruit to a Rage Ring.
• Added some of these new rings to merchants across the game.

Five's Ring Shop

• After buying the Power Gauntlet, Fives will now give you access to his ring shop. He'll sell all the new rings, as well as some other important ones.
• You'll be able to steal from him like other shops if you're on the Parasite gameplay path.
• Moved the original Mercy trader in Five's room to the cavern's final puzzle room.
• Added an NPC who mentions Fives near the 3rd target puzzle.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed the new 1.3 Steam version of Challenge Mode miscounting two puzzles.
• Fixed the Shop, Spell and Skill windows overlapping the scroll sound when scrolling past the top or bottom selection.
• Fixed the moving targets spawning particles even when the game was paused.

Early Tutorials and Guidance

The game now guides the player a little bit more at the start of the game, without crossing the line into being too modern and hand-holdy.

• Stronger Battle System Guidance
  • The battle tutorial now clearly says you must use the letter and arrow keys, or face buttons and the analog stick, to cast spells.
  • Made the direction input icons full arrows.
  • When a combat spell is used outside of battle, the narration now says, "You can only use healing spells outside of battle."

• Stronger Chapter 2 Guidance
  • The dash ability receive window now mentions it can be used to break objects.
  • Added a lost spirit in Normal mode by the white crystals. They wonder how to break through them.
  • Added a hint sign near the white crystals (this might be too hand-holdy...let me know!).
  • The dash crystal narration now says "break through" instead of "break."
  • The hint sign in the glowing sword puzzle now has a marker in the GUI.
  • Missed dashes into the glowing swords that are still somewhat close now read as a hit.
  • Added a sign to the start of the Desert: Dunes area warning that stronger enemies are ahead, and that players should heal and save between them.
• The Blessing key items now use condensed forms of the tutorial window descriptions.

Balancing

• Players start with 3 more HP points in Normal mode to help them avoid early game overs.
• Made the main save point in the Desert: Final Puzzles area a healing point.
• Added two new save points that will avoid potential moderate losses of progress.
• The Ability Break spell now costs 12 mana instead of 10.
• Cut two forced flame battles from Chapter 3
• Reduced the HP of two enemies in Chapter 2 slightly.
• Adjusted some Challenge Mode evade patterns to make them more fair.

GUI

• The way HP bars, etc., are drawn was changed to use sprites instead of geometric shapes. This keeps the way elements are drawn consistent across platforms and graphics cards.

Visuals

• Made the border black in the sequences before and during the start of the abyss area.
• Changed the jumpscare visual; it now foreshadows the ending.

Signs

• Added HUD markers to direction and town signs.
• Added some direction signs.

Steam Page

• Updated some assets to a higher resolution.

Puzzle Walkthrough Video

• I also made a complete guide to solving all 24 puzzles, which you can find here: