Eclipse Dawn - 0.13.0 Live

This is a big one, combining a couple of weeks I didn't get a chance to post about, so there's a lot here.

The mountain biome now has an actual roster: 12 base enemies and 5 guardians, all built from scratch, on theme, to spec. Combined with reworked desert and forest guardians and a fully built new boss, that's 27 enemies added or reworked this update, each with its own power, card set, deck, AI, and stats. All of this is currently in testing and will be available in the full release, but it's a huge step towards a complete game.

The forest guardians needed more than a touch up. Several were stubs pointing at the wrong enemy's cards, so I had to create 19 missing .tres files and rewire every deck to actually point at the right content, then bring the scripts up to spec. Desert guardians were closer to done, I edited those in place and gave them real pile mechanics (bury, draw scramble, siphon) instead of placeholder behaviour.

The Herald is the new boss and got a full build: card, deck, AI, and stats files, plus new card replay infrastructure. It tracks every card you played last turn and rolls that into its own decisions the turn after, so its kit reacts directly to how you just played. That required a new array plus a per turn rollover in battle.gd, not just a new enemy file. Really happy with the design of this one, hope you like it too.

To support all of this, BattleStats now has a biome enum, so locations pick a random enemy from the current biome and fall back to tiers only if the biome pool comes up empty. The demo is still locked to one biome for now, but all three biomes exist and are testable internally, which matters a lot once the mountain and desert content starts showing up in public builds.

I've also started development on the next character, the Bloodcurse Revenant, here's a little sneak peek at her concept art:

And the concept art for the mountain biome:

On the UI side, I finally got hand painted versions of the energy container, health and armour container, buttons, and frames into the main theme, along with new top bar icons. These are mostly placeholder, but a step closer to the final vision. Character select got a visual pass too: gold UI is back, starting currency is now part of each character's stats (balanced alongside HP), and the starting deck art was updated to match Oathwrought.

Smaller but still worth flagging: a new visible Evasion status, a per biome slain counter, a reworked AnimationComponent with simpler exports and a ripple shader fix (custom texture buttons were getting flattened by it), the tenuous icon got new cracked gem artwork, and the card tooltip now explains both instant and tenuous with their icons.

Also added a debug battle enemy picker, which lets me jump straight into any enemy fight without playing through a run to reach it. Small tool, huge time saver when you're testing 27 new enemies.

On top of all that, I've just finished going through every card, enemy, and system in the game for a full balance pass, trying to get everything properly tuned ahead of a bigger playtest push in the next few months. It turned up (and fixed) some things that had been quietly broken for a while.

The biggest one

the Ancient chase. Since the threat/chase system went in, it's had two failure modes I hadn't managed to fix, if you play safe and avoid clues you basically never get caught (and never fight the Ancient at all), but if you do get revealed, the boss's momentum ramps up fast enough that catch is close to inevitable no matter how well you're playing. Both of those undercut what's meant to be the game's centrepiece fight.

Fixed now with three changes together

entering the final biome forces a reveal after 3 rooms if it hasn't happened naturally, the boss's momentum is capped at 3 steps a turn so escapes and route choice actually buy you real time instead of delaying the inevitable, and clue rooms now show an 'Ancient's gaze: X%' label so you can see your actual risk instead of guessing at it.

While I was in there I also finally wired in D15's headline modifier, 'The Void', -25% player damage dealt, which had been sitting as an unfinished stub since I added that difficulty tier. And enemy HP now scales properly by act (+25% in the second biome, +50% in the third) instead of being flat across all three, which was making later biomes feel weirdly easier than they should've been.

A few real bugs came out of the balance pass too. Crusader's Gearplate, an artefact that's supposed to trigger off your last turn's cards, turns out has never actually worked, it was reading this turn's card list instead of last turn's, which is always empty at the point it checks. Revenge and Echo of Pain could also whiff to 0 damage if you hadn't been hit that turn, now floored at 10. And stance memory and turn counters could bleed between battles if one ended abruptly mid-round, both fixed now too.

On the numbers side: Bloodwall's DEF-per-HP-lost dropped from 10 to 3 (it was giving 100+ DEF off a single self-damage card), Wild Frenzy went up from 20 to 25 ATK to actually be worth its HP cost, Iron Guide's card draw is now capped at 5, and the escape button's low-HP glow now only fires under 25% HP (plus a small 10% heal on a risky escape). Cleaned out about 136 stray leftover files from the enemy folders while I was at it.

Artefacts also got new art this stretch, every artefact icon lost its background and got a new colour-coded outline shader with a built in flash when it activates, which also fixed a scaling bug that was shrinking some of the icons incorrectly. I finally added lore text for every pet and enemy in the game too (cards and artefacts already had it from a few weeks back), plus starting deck icons for the Bloodcurse Revenant's three deck variants.

Small tooling additions as well: a reusable projectile/VFX burst scene so I'm not rebuilding the same particle setup for every new attack, a custom icon pack for the Godot editor to make navigating the project less painful, and a debug-only tool that auto-screenshots big hits, kills, and run-ending moments and logs clip markers, mostly because I got tired of manually hunting for good screenshots after the fact.

What's new:

• Mountain biome enemy roster: 12 base enemies and 5 guardians, built from scratch (completed but still in testing, animations still missing, so you'll have to wait a little longer!)

• Forest guardians reconstructed: 19 missing .tres files created, every deck rewired, scripts brought to spec

• Desert guardians reworked in place with real pile mechanics (bury, draw scramble, siphon)

• The Herald boss fully built, including new card replay infrastructure that reacts to your last turn

• Biome enum system so enemy selection pulls from the correct biome pool, with tier fallback

• Hand painted UI pass: energy container, health and armour container, buttons, frames, top bar icons

• AddedCharacter select updatedgold UI back, starting currency added to character stats, Oathwrought starting deck art

• Debug battle enemy picker for instant enemy testing

• New Evasion status, per biome slain counter, AnimationComponent refactor with a ripple shader fix

• Tenuous icon reworked, card tooltip updated to cover instant and tenuous

• AddedAncient chase fixedforced reveal after 3 rooms in the final biome, momentum capped at 3 steps/turn, new 'Ancient's gaze: X%' risk label in clue rooms

• D15 'The Void' -25% player damage modifier finally wired in

• Enemy HP now scales by act/biome (+25%/+50%) instead of flat across all three biomes

• Crusader's Gearplate bug fixed — it's been silently non-functional since it was added

• Revenge / Echo of Pain floored at 10 damage instead of whiffing to 0

• Stance memory and turn counters no longer bleed between battles that end abruptly

• Balance tweaks: Bloodwall DEF/HP-lost 10→3, Wild Frenzy 20→25 ATK, Iron Guide draw capped at 5, escape glow gated under 25% HP + small heal on risky escape

• RemovedNew artefact artbackgrounds removed, new colour outline shader with activation flash

• Lore added for every pet and enemy in the game

• Starting deck icons added for the Bloodcurse Revenant's three deck variants

• New reusable projectile/VFX burst scene, custom editor icon pack, debug auto-screenshot tool for capturing big moments

• ~136 stray leftover files cleaned out of the enemy folders

There's also a batch of smaller fixes and tidy up work from the same stretch: desert (and a few missed forest) enemy cards moved onto the shared card.gd pattern for cleaner code, an incantation bug fixed so it only scales when re-added instead of every turn, mountain biome battle backgrounds added, a colour filter on battle scenes tied to the current biome, debug and editor mode no longer locking map spaces (so testing can jump anywhere), the upside and downside pickers pulled into their own scenes instead of being instanced in code, and general tidy up passes on the settings menu, character select screen, and the web links container. Codex and the City are temporarily hidden until they're further along.

Dan I'm building Hunter's Hand solo in Godot 4. Demo on Steam if you want to try it out yourself. Steam:

Hunters Hand

Full patch notes:

Mountain biome and enemy content:

• Added 12 mountain base enemies and 5 mountain guardians, built from scratch, on theme, to spec

• Reworked 5 desert guardians in place, added real pile mechanics (bury, draw scramble, siphon)

• Reconstructed 5 forest guardians: created 19 missing .tres files, rewired every deck (several were stubs pointing at the wrong enemy's cards), brought scripts to spec

• AddedThe Herald boss fully builtadded card replay infrastructure (all_player_cards_played_last_turn plus per turn rollover in battle.gd), created all 5 .tres files, deck, AI, and stats, wired its animation

• Added new mountain biome battle backgrounds

• Added colour filter to battle scenes based on current biome (reuses the eclipse filter)

• Demo remains limited to 1 biome, but all 3 biomes now exist for internal testing of future content

Systems:

• BattleStats now has a biome enum, locations pick a random enemy from the current biome, tiers used as fallback if the biome pool is empty

• Added new visible Evasion status

• Added per biome slain counter

• Added Herald card history array

• Ancient chase backstop: entering the final biome forces a boss reveal after 3 rooms if it hasn't triggered naturally

• Boss momentum capped at 3 steps per turn so escapes/route choice meaningfully delay the catch

• New 'Ancient's gaze: X%' odds label shown in clue rooms

• D15 'The Void' -25% player damage multiplier wired into the damage calculator (previously a stub)

• Enemy HP now scales by act/biome: +25% in the second biome, +50% in the third

• New run-metrics instrumentation tracking threat/rooms/HP around Ancient reveals and escape attempts, for tuning data going forward

Balancing:

• AdjustedBloodwall (Bloodcurse Revenant)DEF gained per HP lost this turn reduced from 10 to 3
• AdjustedWild Frenzy (Bloodcurse Revenant)ATK increased from 20 to 25

• Iron Guide: card draw capped at 5

• Revenge / Echo of Pain: damage floored at 10 (previously could whiff to 0 if not hit last turn)

• Escape button's low-HP glow now gated to under 25% HP, plus a small (10%) heal on a risky escape

• Assorted smaller numeric tweaks across characters, subject to change as testing continues

UI and visuals:

• AdjustedAdded hand painted UIenergy container, health and armour container, buttons, frames, updated main theme to include them

• Updated top bar UI icons to newer hand painted versions

• Updated character select screen visuals

• Re-added gold UI to character select screen, added starting currency to character stats (balanced alongside HP)

• Set character select card artwork to Oathwrought starting deck art

• Re-added tenuous icon with new cracked gem artwork

• Updated card tooltip to describe instant and tenuous with their icons

• Battle card piles readjusted with a deck UI icon

• New artefact artwork with backgrounds removed

• New colour-coded outline shader for artefacts with a built-in flash on activation

• Fixed a scaling bug that was shrinking some artefact icons down incorrectly

Content:

• Lore text added for every pet and enemy in the game (cards and artefacts already had lore)

• Starting deck icons added for the Bloodcurse Revenant's onslaught, ritualist, and base deck variants

Technical / tools:

• AnimationComponent refactor, simplified exports for easier control

• Fixed ripple shader being applied incorrectly, custom texture buttons were being converted into flat buttons

• Desert enemies (and a few missed forest enemies) moved onto the shared card.gd pattern, cleaner code and a couple of incidental bug fixes

• Added debug battle enemy picker, allows testing any enemy battle instantly without playing through a run

• New reusable projectile and particle burst scene for easier VFX setup between player/enemy attacks and treasure scenes

• Custom icon addon for the Godot editor with classnames, for easier project navigation

• New debug-only MarketingCaptureManager: auto-screenshots big hits/kills/run-ending moments and logs OBS clip markers (feeds directly into my own marketing folder)

Bugfixes:

• Incantation delta fix, no longer scales every turn, only scales when re-added

• Crusader's Gearplate was reading this-turn's played cards instead of last-turn's, meaning it could never actually trigger — fixed

• Stance memory could bleed between battles — fixed

• Stale round/turn counters and played-card lists could carry over if a battle ended abruptly mid-round — fixed

Other polish and tidy up:

• Set up the upside and downside picker as separate scenes instead of instancing in code, allowing custom UI per option

• Adjusted blessing and curse option UI

• Tidied up settings menu

• Tidied up character select screen

• Minor tweaks to the web links container

• Debug and editor mode no longer lock map spaces, can now move to any location for faster testing

• Codex and The City temporarily hidden until complete

• Fixed a broken game export caused by missing dependencies on culled export content — added proper demo-gating for future content

• Cleaned up roughly 136 stray .bak/.tmp files left in the enemy folders

Demo on Steam:

Hunters Hand