The Divine Auto-Battle Update

Hello everyone!

First, I owe you an apology for how long this update has taken.

After experiencing laptop issues, I lost what I believed was the only remaining copy of the project. I hadn’t used Git or maintained a proper backup, and for a year I genuinely thought the project was gone for good and frozen in time.

Just recently, however, I discovered an orphaned copy sitting on an old, forgotten hard drive in a cupboard at my old place. The project was outdated, but after confirming that it still worked, I decided to bring it back to life and give the game a much-needed polish pass and try to fix any big issues such as Hercules not Herculesing.

Cards of Divinity was my very first project. When I began making it, I had no real experience with programming, software architecture, or professional game design. Building it became a genuine trial by fire, making mistakes, breaking things, and gradually figuring out how to put everything back together afterwards.

This isn’t a complete remake, but it is a substantial quality-of-life update that improves combat, progression, onboarding, and the overall feel of the game.

Automatic Combat

Heroes will now attack automatically!

The original combat required players to manually click their heroes for every attack. This could quickly become repetitive and made battles feel more cumbersome than they needed to be.

Combat now follows a cleaner back-and-forth rhythm:

• One hero attacks automatically.

• The enemy team then takes its turn.

• Heroes wait for their current attack to finish before beginning another.

• Target selection and attack sequencing have been made more reliable.

• Heroes should no longer gradually drift away from their proper positions while attacking.

Manual spellcasting remains an important part of combat, allowing you to focus on tactical decisions while your heroes handle their business.

The existing Heroic Legacy and forced hero-cycling systems have been retained. These remain important for preventing a single hero from being strengthened indefinitely and encouraging you not to put all your eggs in one basket.

Improved Combat Animations

Hero attacks have received a substantial animation polish pass.

Attacks now have more anticipation, weight, impact, and recovery, basically more everything.

The result should feel considerably less stiff and give every exchange a bit more presence.

Herculean Fix (All for Herc)

Hercules’s ability was previously behaving contrary to its intended design.

His Axeback ability now correctly increases Hercules’s current Power whenever he strikes, with a minimum increase of 2 Power.

Direct Steam Leaderboards

The old third-party leaderboard middleware has been removed from the project.

Leaderboards are now connected directly through Steamworks, giving me greater control over their operation and reducing the project’s reliance on outdated external systems.

Character Selection and Deck Saving

Several problems affecting the character-selection screen and saved decks have been addressed:

• Heroes intended to be locked should no longer incorrectly appear in a fresh player’s deck.

• Starter heroes should now be available correctly for new players.

• Deck changes are now saved and restored more reliably between playthroughs.

Improved First-Run Experience

New players now begin with a proper nine-hero starter deck containing:

• Ajax

• Hercules

• Hippolyta

• Antiope

• Circe

• Penelope

• Achilles

• Chiron

• Odysseus

Demeter is now the default leader for the first run.

I also fixed several issues that could cause the tutorial run to begin without cards, prevent the opening hand from being drawn, or stop hero tokens from summoning a hero.

The help panel should no longer force itself open when entering the game for the first time. Tutorial guidance can now appear during normal gameplay without obstructing the board, and outdated instructions about manually clicking heroes to attack have been replaced with the new automatic-combat explanations.

Thank you to everyone who played the game, reported problems, or simply kept the game in their library during this very long silence.

Discovering that old copy of the project gave me an unexpected opportunity to return to something I thought had been lost forever.

I hope this update makes Cards of Divinity smoother, more enjoyable, and perhaps gets people to give it another quick go.

Thank you so much for your patience, and have fun!