Version Update 1.9.0

Today is a good day for an update, or so I hope!

I'm super excited to finally release it—1.9 has been in the works for what feels like an eternity. Working with a vague deadline has been pretty nice; it allowed me to work on stuff at my own pace without having to cut corners on some features just to push anything out.

I also feel that working when I actually feel like it provides much better results.

But enough yapping, we have stuff to show off! I've prepared a list that I hope is fairly complete, but it's unorganized, so bear with me if the following may be a bit messy. ┗( T﹏T )┛

Aaaaanyway, grab some snacks; it will be a long read!

New Character

Let's get the first thing out of the way, which is the new character I teased a couple of days ago.

Nishi - The Duskbringer

As per usual, let us go over the kit and some design decisions.

The Duskbringer does not have his own archetype; as such, you can build him however you want. We are going back to the roots with this one!

His signature weapon, Divine Judgement,is an AoE Light-type weapon summoning down divine swords from above.

But since his weapon is nothing special and his kit does not reward a specific archetype, isn't he just a simple DPS character?

Well, his ultimate is what makes him stand out! Until I Save You is an ability that allows Nishi to turn back time while retaining part of the power obtained before the time has been reset.

Now a few notes on this ability since it ties to his passive. Whenever Nishi enters the Memory Rift (the boss drop), he will obtain a Core. When he owns at least 5 Cores, the ultimate can be used to reset the stage timer, acquired weapons, items, gold, and gems in exchange for Elemental Damage and Elemental Cooldown buffs depending on the number of Cores owned before the reset.

You can read the in-game description to learn more!

Now, as per usual, let us get into some design decisions!

I wanted to make a character that felt unique in terms of gameplay loop. New characters tend to come out with a new gimmick: Natalie introduced DoT, Mucha made it crit, Amelisana innovated the way I do passives, Nyxaria introduced Elemental Accumulations, and so on. I went back and forth between wanting the last form of Nishi to be playable or not, but the kind of kit I had in my head was just too perfect for him: a character able to grow stronger indefinitely. So I went ahead and tied his kit to the story, and I think it turned out quite well, from the collection of Cores to the screen fade with text into a new cycle. The journey is also reflected on the shards, but the text itself won't be available to read until I'm done with all the other characters.

I fully expect the leaderboard to become a complete mess because of him, but we'll see how it goes.

Character Reworks

As announced earlier, I started working on the older characters to step away from the traditional "level-up increases" into something more interactive. In version 1.9, two characters got their kits reworked.

Adam

Adam was one of the first characters introduced into Requiem For a Lost World back in 2023.

He was supposed to fit into the role of a farming character, allowing players to gather currency more effectively, and it worked back then. I wanted to keep his function while bringing his kit up to more modern standards.

Adam will now properly scale with Luck and Greed stats, allowing him to build into his original farming role while retaining enough damage to actually clear stages.

Chitose

I always kept Chitose in mind as this lively girl running and dashing around. However, the gameplay did not reflect that.

In the spirit of the original idea behind her, she will now properly scale with movement-based stats. She also got her own Special bar that can be filled by dashing or sprinting and provides additional bonuses once full.

Chitose will now be available as a starting character for new and existing players.

New Weapons

We've got plenty of different weapons in the game, but it doesn't hurt to add more!

There are 9 new weapons and 1 new item.

I won't go into big details here (this changelog is long enough as it is).

These new weapons focus on either dealing heavy damage infrequently or empowering elemental reactions!

Read the rest of the changes and go check them out!

New Elemental Reactions

Speaking of empowering elemental reactions. Here are a few new ones for you all to trigger~

• Quanta (Cosmic + Lightning)

  • Enemies take 100% more damage; additionally, deal an instance of damage if the enemy has a Lightning weakness equal to 200% of damage dealt.

• Dilation (Cosmic + Ice)

  • Apply ice-type DoT equal to 50% of damage dealt every 0.5s for 3 seconds.

• Corruption (Cosmic + Dark)

  • Deal a random instance of damage between 100% and 1000% of damage dealt.

• Dilation (Cosmic + Ice)

  • Apply ice-type DoT equal to 50% of damage dealt every 0.5s for 3 seconds.

• Blessing (Light + Wind)

  • Heal all player characters for 10% of damage dealt.

• Invigorated (Light + Fire)

  • Increase damage dealt by all player characters by 30% for 2 seconds.

As you may have noticed, there are plenty of new cosmic-related reactions.

I always intended the Cosmic element to be reaction-focused. Yami-no-Tokiya boosts elemental reaction effects, Nyxaria heavily implants Cosmic onto enemies, and even Cosmic accumulation boosts elemental reaction effects. But Cosmic itself had no useful reactions, especially since RES PEN was introduced. As a result, you would never build Cosmic to do reaction-based damage.

So it's time to change that. With the new reactions, you can build Cosmic and deal major reaction damage in one go!

Elemental Resonance

Let's continue pushing the elemental topic, shall we?

Version 1.9 introduces a new elemental mechanic that favors single- or dual-element builds.

Elemental Resonance activates after a player obtains three weapons of the same element. Different elements will provide different effects; some of these effects get stronger the more weapons of that element are equipped.

So players can choose between running mono element for increased benefits or dual element to activate two Elemental Resonances at the same time.

As of version 1.9, the following effects can be triggered:

• Fire Resonance

  • Increases health and damage dealt.

• Lightning Resonance

  • A low chance to trigger an additional projectile with each attack; the chance increases with the number of Lightning weapons equipped.

• Ice Resonance

  • A high chance to deal additional damage; the additional damage increases with the number of Ice weapons equipped.

• Physical Resonance

  • Increases crit damage and crit rate.

• Wind Resonance

  • Increases stamina regeneration, movement speed, and DoT dealt.

• Light Resonance

  • Increases healing effects and shard pull distance. Additionally, kills have a chance to spawn a light orb that grants EXP, gold, and gems on pickup.

• Cosmic Resonance

  • Team-wide elemental effect increase and all-type RES PEN.

• Earth Resonance

  • Generates a shield over time; the shield charges faster the more Earth weapons are owned.

• Dark Resonance

  • Grants flat healing per hit and additional life steal.

I hope this will be an interesting mechanic for you all to mess around with!

Northern Tundra Map Overhaul

Ever since the release of this map I felt like it was lacking in the visual department (snow tracks didn't pull their weight). So as part of 1.9, I went ahead and added some detail to the map:

• New trees

• Rocky mountains

• Overhangs

• Frozen Lakes

Just to name a few!

Power Monoliths

While on the topic of maps, let me quickly introduce new rocks that will spawn around the Capital Outskirts and Northern Tundra.

You can interact with them during gameplay to obtain stat increases that last until the end of the run (or time rewind).

A limited number of them will spawn around the map, but they can be activated multiple times after a set cooldown, of course.

Tutorial Stage

A new tutorial stage will be available, introducing the game's basic mechanics.

Initially I added a bunch of tips on the screen during normal gameplay, but later I figured a dedicated tutorial stage would probably be a better decision.

The tutorial will explain how elements, combat, and leveling up work.

UI Stuff

As per usual, the update will also bring a few changes to the UI.

New Shard Graphics

As mentioned in my previous post, I spent a substantial amount of time redoing every shard graphic for each character to get rid of the signature AI-generated look. I will let you all decide if it's an improvement!

You can also inspect each one by clicking the little magnifying glass or pressing the Enter key while highlighting a shard.

New Character Cards

Alongside the shards, I also updated all the character cards to match the same style.

The cards are not 100% finished and will be gradually improved over time as well!

While we are here, a quick change to the character selection screen:

• The passive box is now bigger to show more of the passive description.

• The stat view has been simplified to show only the essential stats.

New Character Tuner UI

I confess I put the previous Tuner interface in as a last-minute requested feature and have hated it ever since.

I finally got around to doing it properly this time. You can switch between weapons and items, filter them based on element, and see the summarized description right there on the screen.

A more detailed view will come later once I figure out exactly how I want it to look.

Improved Leaderboard UI

It's a small change.

You can't see it on the screenshot since only new scores will have it, so you have to trust me on this.

The leaderboard will now display the player's name card on the entry as well

This is the name card, btw:

And top scores now glow a bit.

New Name Cards

A little bit of a side quest while we are on the topic.

I've added a few new name cards to the game with plans to add even more in the upcoming versions!

Here is one of them

New Recollection UI and Rules

So I also touched the Recollection UI. It's not like I had anything against the old one, but I decided to get it up to the standards as well.

The new screen now displays the kit overview for the current banner character, including all the rank-up buffs as well.

The previous three additional boosted characters are now gone and replaced with additional banners. Players can now choose which character they want to pull for from the three active banners.

So as we all know, the gacha in Requiem For a Lost World is purely for fun, and the rates guarantee you a character or couple with each 10 pull.

But if you are masochistic, I've also added an option for you:

This is of course off by default, but if you crave the real gacha experience, then this is for you —it lowers the rates to current standards (0.6% for the main character and 5% for side characters respectively).

Do with this option as you please.

Improved Result Screen UI

A few new stats are being displayed at the summary:

• Elemental Reaction trigger count

• Elemental Infliction trigger count

• Total damage taken

• Total healing received

The damage summary will now also display decimal places because precision is important.

The weapon damage summary will now also display DPS on top of total damage dealt.

There is also a toggle for Effective Damage, but we will get into that later.

Improved Level Up UI

When leveling up, players will be able to see basic weapon stats such as damage dealt (non-crit and crit), attack cooldown, and projectile duration. If the upgrade changes any of these stats, the change will also be displayed.

In addition to stat display, weapons that don't scale with attack count, size, or duration increase will also get an appropriate indicator.

New Pause Screen UI

This is a big one, so buckle up.

The new pause screen displays way more information now. Including active effects coming from weapons, skills, or other players.

Similar to the character selection screen, the stats have been simplified but you can view the full list by clicking the magnifying glass button.

This window displays all stats, including hidden stats unavailable for viewing before.

You can filter stats by searching up the name. The new stat system that we will touch upon in a bit allows for per-element boosts, and that menu also accommodates those.

But that's not all the pause screen provides.

When hovering over a weapon or item, a summary will be displayed, including current stats and total damage/damage contributed by this weapon.

The weapon bar can be toggled between weapons and items by clicking the icon above it.

To top it all off, you can toggle the stats and kit display to view a character's kit in case you forgot what they do.

Relic Page Stats UI

In the same fashion as the pause screen, you can view stats modified by equipped relics.

Low Health Indication

When health becomes low, the world will start losing colors, and only red hues will remain. This can be toggled in settings.

New Stats System

This may not impact you as a player, but the entire stats system is now being calculated differently under the hood, which allows me as a developer to do more fancy stuff with it (which I didn't).

The new system allows for per-element, per-weapon-type stat modifications, which wasn't practical with the old system.

I'm mostly outlining it here as a fun fact.

Anyway, back to non-technical stuff.

Effective/Overflow Damage

I've been struggling with balancing out damage numbers for the sake of leaderboards, and I've noticed that the most effective difficulty to play when considering leaderboards is the classic Normal difficulty.

The reason being that enemies were easy to kill and farm damage against.

So by nature of this system, the players capable of beating the harder difficulties were actively punished for playing them.

Starting with 1.9, damage will be split into Effective Damage and Overflow Damage (this is what the toggle in the result screen is for). Effective Damage is the damage used for leaderboard scores; it caps out at a mob's max health, so if the weapon deals 100 damage but the mob has only 5 HP, the leaderboard will add only 5 to the resulting score instead of the original 100.

Higher difficulties give enemies more health, which in turn will allow for higher scores, rewarding the commitment to completing those.

As a result, leaderboard submissions will again accept scores lower than a million for easier submissions! That means old scores will be easier to beat, but there is no need to wipe them away this time.

By default, floating damage numbers will display Effective Damage; you can toggle this in the settings.

Post-Processing Settings

You can now disable and enable specific post-processing effects from the settings screen.

Damage Numbers

There are some minor changes to the looks of damage numbers.

Gradient

Damage numbers got a little bit of a gradient going on; you can toggle this in the settings if you want the single-color ones back.

Reaction Merge

Elemental Reactions/Inflictions triggered by the attack will now display alongside the damage number instead of being a separate text instance.

New Achievements

There are a few new achievements added to the game. Nishi The Duskbringer and Chitose got their character-specific achievements; more character-specific achievements will come in future versions!

Perk Tree

I'm not going to stall the release any further. Can't say I'm too happy with it, and things will probably change in the future, but it is functional enough in the current state.

You obtain one skill point every time a character levels up (the character level, not the in-game levels!). And those can be used to unlock different nodes that provide a variety of specific buffs.

Characters get more difficult to level up over time, so it should nudge you to play other characters for a change. (●'◡'●)

The Beginner's Blessing

Version 1.9 will also introduce an additional effect to the Normal difficulty.

I figured unlocking new weapons can be difficult or not obvious for some players, and to make the early experience a bit more interesting when playing the Normal difficulty, players will randomly unlock 3 locked weapons for that run!

Weapons unlocked this way have a special indicator on the level-up screen.

New Main Menu Theme

As for every major version of the game. The main menu theme has also been updated. Reminded that you can always switch back to the old ones from the settings!

New Steam Assets

As you may have noticed I also updated the Steam banner and game header to match the current aesthetics! It's old, but new!

Minor Improvements and Bug Fixes

• Memory Rifts will now reward additional gold and gems upon entering them.

• Previously selected stage will now be remembered

• Added option to quickly reset filters in Collection and Achievement menus

• Added back the STPP upscaling method to the settings (should work correctly now)

• Added dot shadow at enemies' feet

• Renamed game speed settings to closer reflect their meaning

• Removed unreleased maps from various menu filters

• Removed AI narrator when selecting characters (it was annoying)

• Fixed scrolling in settings that only worked when hovering over a setting entry

• Discarding relics via the recollection popup will now correctly grant relic pieces

• Added pop-up notification when trying to perform Recollection without sufficient amount of gems

• Fixed Amelia's title that didn't match the achievement text

• Fixed elemental reaction events not triggering when damage numbers were disabled

• Fixed a bug that prevented players from closing the character list with the Escape button

• Fixed a potential bug that could cause screen controls to show up on PCs with no touch support

• Fixed UI text blur caused by anti-aliasing

• Fixed incorrect orientation of the Lightning Spear projectiles

• Fixed an error occurring when exiting the run

Afterword

I spent a long time working on this update—4 months if I'm not mistaken—and I still failed to deliver everything I intended to. For that, I'm very sorry (┬┬﹏┬┬)

Unfortunately, it turns out writing is not my strong suit. As much as I had the bigger picture of the story in mind, I failed to fully patch up and tie together all the smaller plot points—which, in the end, turned out to not be so minor after all.

The story will come out before or with 2.0. That much, you have my word!

Another thing I fell short on (though I at least provided a partial implementation) is the perk tree. I went through a bunch of iterations but ultimately couldn’t find anything I felt was good enough. I even went as far as rewriting the entire stat system (which took weeks of development time) to make the perk tree more flexible, but it still didn’t do as much as I’d hoped.

I’ll continue iterating on that system in future versions. Worst case scenario, we’ll stick with what we have, and I’ll just expand it by adding more nodes.

But enough about the failures!

I shaped 1.9 up to be the biggest update to Requiem For a Lost World to date. Whether I succeeded or not is up for you to decide, but personally I’m happy with it (even if I expected to cram in even more content).

Working on it without a tight deadline was also pretty nice. I’ll admit I took breaks in between features, but I didn’t end up beating myself up over it, which was refreshing.

The new character assets look pretty good as well. There’s still some room for improvement since I cut corners on the backgrounds, but nothing that can’t be fixed later.

Speaking of the future—the next version shouldn’t be too far off, though I’d like to aim for 2.0 right away.

Here’s an overview of what I expect to be working on (not a definitive list):

• A new map: Forbidden Zone

• A new character: Clara

• Shop UI improvements

• Possibly a main menu improvement

• CO-OP improvements

I especially want to focus on stabilizing the CO-OP experience since it’s pretty bumpy right now—and probably only got worse in this version.

In preparation for the full release in 2.0, I’ll also be focusing on smaller additions like more achievements, name cards, and skins. These will take priority over some of the elements listed above.

Of course, 2.0 is still some months off, so we’ll see what makes it into the release version.

For now, thank you all for the support, and I’ll see you around for the next patch notes!