v2.0.4 - Depth Challenger Major Content Update

Heyyo, CraftedCircuitry here! Deep Dark Wrath v2.0.4 brings the biggest update to the game, from the brand new Dried Up Rivers area, gauntlet arenas, new Cards to collect, and some visual updates to better the game. There’s a lot to talk about so let’s go right ahead to what I decided to add.

Dried Up Rivers

The big new area of Deep Dark Wrath, hidden behind a wall in the Forest and only accessible via a special Challenger Trinket you need to find in the Dungeon. It’s a mid-game/end-game area, featuring some old and some more powerful new enemies as the Wrath corrupts the Rivers near the Forest.

Once you acquire the Challenger Trinket, the Wall blocking it in the Somber Forest will go away when you set the Run Option to open the Dried Up Rivers Area before you start a new Dungeon Run.

It has the size of roughly 2 Dungeon Areas. It is big and it has a ton of rewards to plunder. Opening the Dried Up Rivers also blocks you from going further to the Caves and beyond, so you have to choose wisely on what you want to do for that Run.

More Enchanted Cards

There’s now more Cards, a lot less in Stat-focused and more on Dungeon effects that really breaks the Dungeon wide open. You wanna go full on Mage? You got Desolate Flames to make your Fireballs even more potent. Need better learning of the Dungeon, something like the Revealing Eye may help you.

• Shine Sync - One of the first Cards that actually gives Refresh from the start.
• Revealing Eye - A special Veil Card that boosts the efficacy of your Quick Map, not only showing more Interactables but also destroys walls in the Dungeon to make it easier to navigate.
• Desolate Flames - A special Veil Card that lets you summon not 1, not 2, but 3 Fireballs in the adjacent directions. You do lose half of their damage though.

And a bunch more! I’d recommend checking out the ‘Enchanted Cards and You’ book in the Compendium to see the new ones and what they do!

Gauntlet Arenas

Hidden in some parts of the Dungeon are small arenas forcing you to fight a set number of Enemies before you can escape. These will give you some nice Point rewards and some of the new Enchanted Cards.

This was honestly a little bit of a savior feature. With new ideas, means new Enchanted Cards, and where do I put them? Before Gauntlets, I had absolutely no idea. I was thinking I was gonna spam a few in the same area. The Gauntlets gave me new areas to just put them as nice powerful rewards for toughing it out against countless enemies you need to defeat.

The amount of enemies you need is affected by your current amount of Oracle Pieces and the amount you need is mentioned once you enter(and the Wall spawns in to block you in).

New Sword Skins

A previously Android-only Sword Skin is also available on PC now, the chipped metallic Monochrom Sword. v2.0 also comes with the Philippine flag-inspired Tidebreaker Sword. Let the tides of battle favor you with this colorful sword!

Damage Balancing

To help lessen the need for Damage Cards, I’ve added a 0.1 boost to your base damage for each Card you applied and if you have 2 Cards applied.

Basically, if you have:

• 1 Card - No Boost
• 2 Cards - 0.2 Damage Boost
• 3 Cards - 0.3 Damage Boost

This does also prompt Damage to be nerfed by 0.3 Damage on each level. What does this mean? Any Damage Card as long as you have 3 Cards active is basically the same, you really won’t feel the change. But just 3 Cards now allows you to have a boost to your damage. While a small boost and not a big boost for lower health enemies, it does help with higher health threats like Brutes, the new Rivers Area enemies, and the Final Area enemies.

• For example, Brutes have 10 health, you would need 10 hits before. With the new change, 3 Cards now only needs 8 hits, allowing for more survivability against spots where enemies surround you very easily and lessens the need for Damage Cards for higher health threats.

This still could be balanced further, maybe I’ll further nerf Damage but I think it’s in a good spot for now. As much as I want Enchanted Cards to always be powerful, I also don’t want one to be too polarizing that you always need it.

Smaller Updates

• The Compendium’s Map is now made better and uses the updated Quick Map textures so it’s actually precise and doesn’t use the old scribbles I made for it back then.
• For Keyboard users, you no longer have to switch to the Arrow Keys for UI Controls. You now have the UI Helper(Default is LCTRL) that stops movement when holding the input, and allows for UI navigation and UI Quick Access usage.
• For Controller users, inputs have been made far more robust especially when scrolling through the book entries and Inventory.
• There are now Control Helper Visuals so you’re not lost in the HUDs and Functions of the Safe Area. That and the Instructions also update to whatever button you rebound that action to.
• Quick Access option is always active and is no longer an option
• The Stopwatch is now more precise, no longer paused when taking a hit.
• Optimizations in Enemy Spawning were also done to further reduce load on your device and further reduce lag.
• Browser version now available for quick play!

The Future?

I’m gonna quickly talk about my future ideas if I ever get the time and drive to continue this. The game’s experience is based on Monster Hunter, specifically the endgame experience of Iceborne. So there’s a lot of ideas that were derived from playing that franchise. It’s not necessarily a Monster Hunter-like game, but more of evoking the grindy feeling of the endgame experience into a lightweight game. That idea includes how I structure big content updates, Main Game, Main Game’s post-release, Big Expansion, and Big Expansion’s post-release.

• v2.0 features this main post-release update, Depth Challenger. Lots of things that build off of the main game. A more challenging area, new enemies, new Enchanted Cards, and the like.
• v3.0, which is the Big Expansion I had in mind, will be much bigger. It’ll have 3 new Areas, a big new mechanic that alters and strengthens your existing Enchanted Cards, a continuation of the lore, and in turn, a new ending. I don’t plan to make this a Paid DLC expansion.
• v4.0 simply builds off of the Big Expansion, adds a new encounter and an ending that alters the Big Expansion’s ending.

v3.0 and v4.0 are still on paper, and I have no idea if I’ll ever get to it. But it’s nice to have some future plans if I ever have the drive to fully complete the ideas outside of the base game. The main idea is already complete, and for now at least, I’m very, very happy with it so far.

That’s About It

That’s about it for Deep Dark Wrath. This mid/endgame addition is something I wanted to add to give the end a little more substance other than ‘go for more Oracle Pieces and Points’. The gauntlets also give a little bit more challenge. I’m honestly happy to leave this now if life comes in the way, but I may come back for the 2 Big Content ideas I have eventually.

If you’d like a hint on where the item to unlock Dried Up Rivers is hidden, I’d suggest taking a look at the Ruins area. It’s been fun and again, I hope I can do this again in the near future. This has been CraftedCircuitry, signing off for now. (Hoping for not much bugfixes, I tested and let this update cook for a month)