# Alpha 0.0.293 / 0.0.294 — Systems, Story, Combat, and Cleanup
This update became much larger than expected.
Versions **0.0.293** and **0.0.294** are mostly about strengthening the foundation of *TWOS: A Pups Adventure*. There are new story scenes, new mountain areas, new Ask dialogue, new combat rules, new ailments, new equipment, better shops, stronger battle sound timing, and the first major pass toward the future stat-growth rework.
This is still alpha, so some systems are still being built out, but the game should now feel more consistent in several major areas.
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## New Mountain Route and Palace Ruins
The first version of the **Mountain base route** has been added, starting from the **Northern Path** and leading toward the old **Tiato Palace Ruins**.
The old single palace room has been replaced with a connected multi-room abandoned route, including weather-aware room descriptions, inspection objects, and the **Palace Workshop** side room.
The Palace Workshop introduces **Brannic**, a melancholy ghost NPC haunting the ruins.
Brannic also introduces the first version of **Smithing**, including:
- An eight-hour Smithing lesson.
- Delayed charcoal kiln processing.
- Copper Ore gathering support.
- Mountain Geodes.
- A geode-breaking Smithing process.
Copper Ore can now be found at **Mountain Stream** as a level 12 gathering material. This is mostly foundation work for future Smithing recipes.
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## Craft Unlocks and Recipe Learning
Several crafts now follow a cleaner unlock structure.
Instead of automatically giving every recipe when a craft is unlocked, the game now separates:
- Learning the craft itself.
- Learning individual recipes afterward.
This now applies to:
- **Cooking**, taught by Bethia.
- **Weaving**, taught by Alaric.
- **Enchanting**, taught by Orion.
- **Alchemy**, taught by Tontian.
Bethia now unlocks Cooking after Objective 2, and Mary now requires Zenas to learn Cooking from Bethia before starting Home Economics class.
Dev mode also now unlocks Cooking and visible cooking recipes for testing.
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## Elemental Boss Encounters
A reusable **Elemental enemy system** has been added.
The **Fire Elemental** was added first as a visible boss encounter in North Plains, then the system was expanded to support Fire, Ice, Wind, Electric, Earth, Light, and Dark elemental encounters.
Only one elemental can appear per day.
Elemental boss battles now preserve post-battle HP and MP instead of restoring the party afterward.
Elementals have special behavior:
- They appear visibly in the room.
- They are neutral until engaged.
- They act as boss encounters.
- They absorb or resist their own element.
- They drop elemental crystals and elemental essence.
This is a big step toward making special room encounters feel different from normal random battles.
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## Alcohol, Drunk, and Fermentation
A new **Drunk** condition has been added.
Alcohol now has actual gameplay consequences instead of behaving like a normal recovery item. Higher drunkenness can cause battle turn failures, and hangover or alcohol sickness cannot simply be cured with Cure.
New drink-related items and recipes include:
- Wine.
- Orange Juice.
- Kitten’s Delight.
Wine now ferments in the kitchen for three in-game days before it can be collected. Only one Wine fermentation batch can occupy the kitchen slot at a time.
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## Physical Defense and Magic Defense
Defense has been split into two separate stats:
- **Physical Defense**
- **Magic Defense**
Physical attacks now use Physical Defense.
Magic attacks now use Magic Defense and elemental rules.
This is one of the bigger combat foundation changes because it lets mages, tanks, healers, and physical fighters become more distinct.
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## Central Summon Rework
Central’s battle summon has been redesigned.
Instead of using the old summon behavior, Central now becomes a temporary solo battlefield unit with:
- Shared Zenas MP.
- Separate temporary summon HP.
- Upkeep behavior.
- Withdrawal support.
- Battle-owned summon state.
Central is not added to the normal party array. This should make the summon system cleaner and safer long-term.
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## KO, Injury, Revival, and Hospital Support
KO handling has changed significantly.
KO party members no longer block normal movement by default, including KO Zenas, because Central is the player/controller. However, moving with unconscious party members now takes extra time.
Fast Travel is disabled if active party members are unconscious or critically injured.
Normal healing can no longer revive KO characters.
Proper revival now requires:
- **ERI-KIT**
- **Revive**, a new level 15 Light spell.
Repeated KOs now build hidden **Injury**. At 100 Injury, the character requires hospital care.
The hospital now has a public waiting room, receptionist, nurses, doctors, and surgeon NPCs. The receptionist can provide paid treatment for active-party HP damage, KOs, and removable ailments.
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## Persistent Ailments and New Status Effects
Poison, Confusion, Petrified, Blind, and Silence have all received major updates.
Poison now deals 5% of max HP:
- In battle.
- On successful room movement.
- During Fast Travel, once per room passed through.
- During North Plains grid movement.
Poison, Confusion, and Petrified now persist after battle and through save/load.
New or updated ailment support includes:
- Poison icons.
- Confusion icons.
- Petrified icons.
- Blind icons.
- Silence icons.
- Party Members screen ailment indicators.
- Battle card ailment indicators.
Silence is now a tier 1 Dark spell. Silenced combatants cannot cast magic or use skills, and Silenced Zenas cannot call Central.
Confusion and Esuna were added to Light magic. Smelling Salts now cure Confusion, and Chisel cures fully Petrified party members.
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## Stat Growth Rework: First Foundation Pass
The stat system has started moving away from old random/derived behavior.
Max HP and max MP are now decoupled from VIT and INT. HP and MP are direct resources while the new growth system is being built.
Party members now have deterministic identity-focused stat curves:
- **Zenas**: Summoner/support, stronger MP and intelligence growth.
- **Fauna**: Fragile healer/support, high MP and better Magic Defense.
- **Faxan**: Scout/ranged striker, strong Dexterity, Agility, and Luck.
- **Rin**: Destructive mage, low HP, very high MP, strong Magic.
- **Maya**: Fast physical brawler with high speed, accuracy, evasion, and critical potential.
- **Hagen**: Physical tank with very high HP growth and strong Vitality.
Level-up stat points and Woolcott stat training were removed. Level-ups now grant remaining rewards, such as skill points, without the old stat-point spending system.
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## Enemy Balance and Battle Behavior
Several early enemy types were reworked.
Feral wolf pups now scale properly for Plains swarm balance and prefer Bite when they have enough MP.
Adult Feral Wolves now have better scaling and smarter Defender behavior. They protect pups when appropriate, but otherwise prioritize Bite before basic attacks.
Feral Alpha Wolves now act more like pack leaders. Wolves and pups can intercept attacks aimed at the alpha, while the alpha commands the pack and uses Maul and Bite.
Jackalopes are now fragile glass-cannon ambushers with higher evasion and dangerous Sneak Attack behavior.
Bite is no longer void damage. It is now plain physical damage at 2x power.
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## Equipment and Shop Updates
Zenas can no longer equip gear meant for other party members, while generic equipment remains shared.
New equipment and shop additions include:
- Zenas’ level 1 Trainee Focus equipment set.
- Shared starter clothing.
- Level 6 leather armor upgrades.
- Level 12 reinforced leather armor.
- Hagen’s level 1, 6, and 12 shield progression.
- Level 6 character-specific weapons.
- Level 12 character-specific weapons.
- Zack’s daily found-accessory stock.
Merchant storefronts have also been modernized with:
- Full-screen layouts.
- Buy/sell tabs.
- Category filters.
- Better item details.
- Ownership counts.
- Equipment eligibility.
- Comparison notes.
- Clearer disabled-action reasons.
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## Battle Audio and Timing Cleanup
Battle sound timing has received a major pass.
Battle result messages now stay visible for at least **0.75 seconds** after fully appearing, even on fast text speed.
Battle actions now wait for required sound effects before showing result text or advancing turns.
This applies to:
- Basic attacks.
- Physical skills.
- Thrown battle items.
- Poison ticks.
- Battle damage reactions.
- Party spell casts.
- Enemy spell casts.
- Cure.
- Elemental spells.
- Critical hits.
- Misses.
- Character-specific weapon attacks.
Party members now also play hurt reactions when damaged and KO reactions when knocked out.
Battle command buttons now use the standard UI click sound.
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## Party Members Screen Improvements
The Party Members screen now hides empty party slots and compacts active members in the intended display order:
**Zenas, Fauna, Faxan, Rin, Hagen, Maya**
Party cards now show:
- HP warning colors.
- Danger states.
- KO badge/tint.
- Persistent ailment icons.
- Drunk condition support within the two-row card layout.
This should make party condition much easier to read at a glance.
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## Talk and Ask Improvements
The Talk screen has been redesigned so it focuses on the selected NPC with their portrait and name.
Ask topics now open in a right-side panel with vertical topic buttons instead of crowding the bottom action row.
Ask topics now show an **“(asked)”** marker after Zenas has already selected them, while still staying available for rereading.
A large amount of family-history Ask dialogue was added for characters including Orion, Bethia, Veda, Fern, Cinnamon, Maya, Woolcott, and others.
Bethia also now has Winter Hell-specific Ask dialogue for family, caretaker, and cooking topics.
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## Objective Updates
Objective 3 and Objective 4 received major story and progression additions.
Objective 3 now includes:
- Central’s betrothed-assistance cutscene.
- Cinnamon’s temporary iron-wolf Ask topic.
- Party training guidance.
- Tiato guard hunting-pass progression.
- Central’s departure cutscene after Zenas earns the Hunting pass.
- The CDS dream contact scene after sleeping at night.
Objective 4 now includes:
- Central coming back online after the CDS dream.
- Central Ask topics for Fauna, Faxan, Rin, Hagen, and Maya.
- Zenas’s bathroom cutscene.
- Alba’s school lesson cutscene.
- A requirement for all six party members to reach level 5.
- The level 5 quake cutscene.
- Repair time skip.
- Objective 5 placeholder handoff.
Several objective soft-locks were also fixed, including Objective One’s duplicate Wooden Ring requirement and Objective 2’s guard-job wait issue.
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## Removed Generic “Bad” Actions
Generic Bad actions are no longer available from Talk or Pebble use.
Max’s tutorial now explains Talk and Ask without advertising Bad actions.
This is part of a larger cleanup to keep Zenas’ behavior and the story direction more consistent.
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## Other Fixes and Improvements
Other changes include:
- Food now plays an eating sound when successfully eaten.
- Drinks stay silent.
- Soft Drink pickup messaging was fixed.
- Kitchen Soft Drinks are blocked from merchant sell lists.
- Fast Travel now refreshes destination room audio correctly.
- Loading a save now says, “Welcome back, Central.”
- Loading a save now plays the welcome-back sound once.
- Gameplay confirmations and dev prompts now use in-game modals instead of browser popups.
- Max now has Objective and Quest reminder buttons.
- Dev-mode Fast Travel now lists every explorable room for testing.
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## Final Note
This was one of those updates where the game’s foundation changed almost as much as the visible content.
The short version is:
**More story. More systems. Better battle pacing. Better shops. Better Talk UI. Better ailment handling. Better objective flow. Better party identity. Less chaos.**
Still alpha. Still messy in places. But the game is becoming much more stable under the hood.