Big Visual Upgrade + Desert Biome Tease - Patch 0.11.1

Thanks again to everyone who’s been playing the demo and sharing feedback! It’s been incredibly helpful in shaping the direction of the game and tracking down issues.

This update mainly focused on visual improvements, battle presentation, and continuing to stabilise systems after recent refactors. A lot of work also went into improving animation quality and performance across the board.

What’s Coming Next

Over the next few months, development will be shifting toward some major content and system updates:

• Threat System Overhaul Reworking threat into a core gameplay system, fully integrated across combat and mechanics rather than a background calculation for the ancient reveal.

  • Threat value increases with certain items, relics & events

  • Threat reveals ancient, but also affects games difficulty, and may also offer greater rewards

  • I'm toying with the idea that threat also affects how enemies behave in combat, including extra effects if threat is high, or the eclipse has begun.

  • New events to alter current threat level.

• Martyr Subclass Completion Finalising the Martyr playstyle with its full kit and intended identity. Most of the logic for this is done already, but theres still a lot of work to be done in terms of artwork & animations.

  • This subclass focuses in on the 'Fading' keyword: When below 50% HP. With cards that deal extra damage when fading, and If wounded (damaged last turn) & Bleed. Heres a little teaser of a few cards (subject to change!) Steam post image

• New Biome – Desert This is a big one. A brand new biome with unique visuals, enemies, and encounters. Theres a lot under the hood I need to improve to get this working, but you can expect the following new content:

  • Enemies x 12

  • Guardians x 3

  • New battle background

  • New Map

  • Desert-specific Events

• Enemy Visual Rework (Final Pass) Continuing and completing the re-render of all enemy sprites.

• General Polish & Bug Fixing Tightening up the overall experience as systems become more stable.

Changes & Improvements

Animations & Visuals

• Added new death animations for both player and enemies

• Enemies now use a fiery death effect with shader + particles (inspired by classic Castlevania-style visuals with a modern feel) Steam post image

• Player death animation added and hurt animation reintroduced

• Re-rendered enemy animations (around 50% complete, starting with the most problematic cases) Steam post imageSteam post image

• Updated player base and lightning animations to ~4x resolution for improved clarity

• Added simple ground shadows beneath player and enemies for better visual grounding

Battle Presentation

• Added new static battle background rendered at higher resolution (1.5x) to support zoom Steam post image

• Implemented background shaders (wind sway / heat distortion) for lightweight environmental animation

• Added new battle backgrounds (Normal + Eclipse variants) Steam post image

• Camera now zooms in at battle start and zooms out during enemy phase for better presentation Steam post image

• Added colour backing to player and enemy portraits

Performance & Assets

• Updated multiple enemy spritesheets to lower resolution for better performance while maintaining quality: Forest Shade, Wraithbark, Shade of Sylvan Torment, Thornbeast, Wraithwood Guardian

• Black Goat enemy updated with re-rendered animations, improving quality and fixing clipping issues

Card System & UI

• Added [c]target_has_status[/c] helper function to simplify card logic and improve reliability

• Reworked Last Vow to play the top card of the deck (original intended design)

• Card visuals now tint based on role:

  • Offensive: Red

  • Defensive: Blue

  • Utility: Yellow (subject to further iteration)

• Updated card template with clearer placeholder text for debugging

• Refined tooltip text to be cleaner and easier to understand

• Tooltip system now auto-detects keywords and injects explanations dynamically

Post Processing

• Added colour grading shader (experimental, not currently in use)

Battle Systems

• Camera logic updated to properly frame larger enemies (Guardians & Ancients) using new scaling flags

Bug Fixes

• Fixed battle particle effects scaling incorrectly with camera zoom

• Fixed Black Goat constriction rendering issue (now correctly appears over player)

• Added missing ground eruption particles for Black Goat attack

• Fixed crash caused by status-checking cards after node structure changes

• Fixed shop leave button positioning

• Various UI and visual inconsistencies resolved

Ongoing Work

A lot of this update lays the groundwork for upcoming systems and content. With visuals and performance improving, the next phase will focus more heavily on gameplay depth and new content.

More to come soon, including the first look at the desert biome and the updated threat system.

See you soon, Dan