Welcome to the (Steam) Early Access versions! This update focuses on further improving the clarity of the tutorial and fleshing out the whole run.

Additional conversations have been added that bridge story beats, and realm 3 enemies have been implemented (albeit mostly with placeholder art, due to me losing a significant chunk of dev time to a motherboard failure).

Thanks for following this journey! The rest of the story will unfold in future updates.

I plan to continue updating and expanding the game mechanics throughout Early Access.

Changelog

v0.7.5 -> v0.8.0

Bug Fixes

- The game speed setting arrow properly reflects the speed when it is reset between runs.
- Cards on the enemy examine screen no longer have the AP cost icon.
- Cards on the enemy examine screen can no longer be examined for upgrades.
- Anti-aliasing setting no longer resets to default when returning to the main menu.
- Enemies no longer announce attacks after the party is already defeated.
- Camera reset no longer centers on a point far away from the board when the party is already defeated.
- Apothecary no longer has a chance to do nothing when it has no allies left.
- Poems now auto-skip again after being viewed for the first time.
- Units are now deselected when a cutscene begins.
- Fixed memories drafted stat behaving weirdly on save and load.
- Prevented a few minor sequence breaks during the tutorial.
- Fixed slight fade in and out when the conversation background hasn't actually changed.

Story

- Added small cutscenes that occur when you clear your main objective depth.

Audio

- Losing a run now has a different stinger than clearing a realm.
- Updated the Tower theme to a version with live cello.

Gameplay

- Added path choices for upgrading Memories (realm 2 and onwards).
- Added path choices for transmuting cards (realm 2 and onwards).
- Path choices that could be chosen 3 times in a run can now only be chosen 2 times.
- Character-specific path choices that could be chosen 2 times in a run can now only be chosen 1 time.
- Stray threats no longer happen when encounter chance is 0%.
- Terrain effects now overwrite existing terrain effects.

Quality of Life

- Tactical view now persists between rooms.
- Most menus can now also be closed by clicking anywhere outside the menu space.
- Memories and items are now larger in list menus.
- Reworded "Snap camera" as "Turn camera".
- Split Instant Camera Turn setting between tactical view and rotation.
- When a card is selected, choosing an out-of-range or out-of-sight target now explains why the target is invalid rather than deselecting the card.
- Added a setting to use the previous behaviour for the above (automatically deselecting).
- Made "Tactical View" indicator fade like character names.
- ESC now deselects cards before opening the pause menu.
- Re-added the tutorial for deselecting cards.
- Added a tooltip for AP/GP indicators.
- Early tutorial enemies no longer act (and thus show intent indicators), to reduce information overload.
- Selecting enemies in the tutorial no longer brings up their portrait.
- Simplified tutorial enemy types.
- Required cards in the tutorial now indicate their required targets when not played on them.
- Added a tutorial section to show that both characters have Actions as well as Gambits.
- Clarified some tutorial tooltips.
- Resources now refill when enemies spawn in partway through the tutorial.
- Tutorial modal "ACKNOWLEDGE" button is more noticeable.
- Tutorial checkboxes are slightly closer to the middle of the screen.
- Most tutorial popups now automatically acknowledge when a card is played.
- Hornet's Shield Bash now has a cooldown of 3, but pushes for 4.
- Hornet's Swarm now deals 5 damage in addition to granting 1 Critical.
- Replaced Hornet's Hive with Shield Punch, which gives 10 Block and deals 5 damage.
- Replaced a few of Hawk's cards in the tutorial with more Talons, which also now cost 1 GP.
- The tutorial path choices are no longer 3 duplicate encounter choices.
- Hid Library button on character select just after the tutorial.
- World tooltips no longer appear through screen-hiding tutorials.
- Screen-hiding tutorial messages no longer let you play cards underneath them.
- Dialogue text now dramatically speeds up rather than instantly appearing after clicking.

Cards

- Cricket:
  - Hammer now does 4 damage rather than 6.
  - Chisel now has a cooldown of 2 rather than 1.
  - Mallet now does 3x2 damage rather than 4x2.
  - Mortise now has a cooldown of 1 rather than 0.

Enemies

- Added the final boss for each realm.
  - Fire: Added Scale of Lament.
  - Water: Added Arrow of Time.
  - Wood: Added Sum of Knowledge.
  - Metal: Added Notion of Eminence.
  - Earth: Added Design of Denial.
  - Universal: Added Void of Nostalgia.
- Fire: 
  - Added Hearth.
  - Added Heat Haze.
- Water:
  - Added Cleanser.
  - Added Slipstream.
- Wood: 
  - Added Cambium.
  - Added Catalogue.
- Metal: 
  - Added Analyzer.
  - Added Mercurial.
- Earth: 
  - Added Quake.
  - Added Compactor.
- Universal:
  - Added Crystalline.
  - Added Reclaimer.