Took me a while for this one!
This update introduces two major changes to the game’s core systems:
Card Marking System
A big part of most deckbuilder roguelikes is the ability to power up your cards. While Novus Orbis has always had its combo system, which effectively gives each card a “normal” and “stronger” version, the lack of further customization has always been a weak point.
To be honest, I couldn’t find an elegant way to add card upgrades on top of the systems already in place—until suddenly, I could. Like many things in development, it just clicked one day.
Inspired by systems like Wildfrost’s charms, Novus Orbis now has a marking system.
How it works:
Cards can now receive a single mark, which modifies how they behave.
There are 5 positive and 2 negative marks:
Double Damage – The card deals twice as much damage.
Free Card – The card costs 0 SP (cannot be used on cards that already cost 0).
Double Use – The card activates twice when played.
First Draw – Always appears in your opening hand.
Keep – Not discarded at the end of your turn.
Costly – Increases the card’s cost by 1.
Less Damage – Decreases the card’s base damage by 5.
Not all marks can be applied to all cards (e.g., “Free Card” won't work on 0-cost cards).
There are a few ways to obtain marks:
A new portal type now appears in levels, offering a choice between two random positive marks.
The Shop has a new fifth tentacle that sells a mark.
A new Sanctuary Spirit has been added:
Recruiting it will apply a random negative mark to one of your cards.
Interacting with it in the Sanctuary rewards you with a mark of any type.
Not all marks have the same impact on your hand, so I decided to make them more or less rare depending on the type. Specifically, Double Use and Free Card are more difficult to find than the others.
You'll have at least 2 chances to mark cards each level, once at the shop, and once in the specific mark room.
Variable Room Layouts
The addition of the new “mark” portal inspired a broader change to dungeon layout.
Previously, room types were fixed per level. That’s no longer the case.
What’s new:
Each level now has a semi-randomized layout.
The sequence of combat and random rooms stays the same, but every special room slot is now a randomized pair.
For example: a slot may be Treasure OR Spring, or Firepit OR Mark, etc.
Each type of special room (Treasure, Spring, Firepit, Shop, Mark) is guaranteed to appear at least once per level (but you may be forced to take one or the other option: if you find a Firepit / Mark pair, you'll have to choose which to prioritize).
Balance Note
These are big changes, especially the introduction of card marks, which can significantly increase player power. I’ll be monitoring balance closely and making adjustments as needed.
Additions:
(General) Cards Marking system.
(Event) New "Marking" Sanctuary Spirit
(Shop) The shop will now also sell the option to mark a card.
(UI) Cards will now show cost and values in red when they're worse than their original value.
(UI) You can now hold down the mouse button when clicking on the up and down arrows when viewing your deck or the archive, to quickly scroll through the list without having to single click multiple times.
(Event) Added Angel Form and Flush to the pool of cards that heal the hurt creature.
Changes:
(General) New rooms layout for all levels.
(General) Better interaction with the in-level map. It should now have a better responsiveness in opening and closing. In addition, each symbol will now show a tooltip when hovered on with the mouse.
(General) I tried to improve how the game handles "no input" phases during combat. This should make a smoother experience, as well as make my life easier developing from now on.
(Visual) Improved visuals for the Firepit.
(Visual) The Shop's tentacles and eye's animation now doesn't speed up with increased game speed.
(Blessing) Risk of Ruin wasn't accounting for Spongy status, leading to dealing 0 damage. Fixed, meaning that now Necrocube can be cheesed if you have this blessing.
(Event) Blood Bank is now forced in Hell level.
(Event) Sanctuary Spirit encounter event is now forced as either the first or second event in both Caves and Echo Tower. It is also now encountered only once per run.
(Enemies) Ovomycete, Abyss Gaze, The Core and the two Mimics had attacks that show "???" for damage, because they were calculated on the player's current HP when the attack comes. I decided to rework these actions so that the value is set when the intent is called, and not modified further, allowing the game to show the actual value in the intent.
(Enemy) As a consequence of the previous point, the Mimics' "Chomp" attack will now always be calculated only on the player's current HP, and not on Block. This should make the two Mimics fights more challenging.
(Enemy) Removed "Shield Cut" attack from The Core. This was meant to avoid the player having too much Block, but it made it too difficult to reliably show a value in the intent, and with Permanent Armor now keeping only half of the current Block, this attack is not as needed as it was.
(Card) Parasite lacked a sound effect, added.
(Event) Increased the chance to find the Sanctuary portal (for levels 2-3-4 the chance is now 33-66-99%)
Bug Fixes:
Added a tentative way to avoid cards being removed from the deck (and from the savefile) when encountering certain bugs. This should take care of issues like cards getting stuck in the middle of the screen in a "combat" state while out of combat, or having cards misplaced in strange positions when checking your deck.
Fixed the fact that when opening a chest you could check your deck, close it, and then access portals while still having the card choice on screen.
Fixed blessing No Pressure not working properly.
Fixed rain sound not being removed after clearing Lands-Storm.
Storm card still said "Advance" in description, as well as elemental requirements, despite them being removed. FIxed.
Solved some issues when interacting with the shop with a game pad.
Fixed the game not showing the enemy's intent properly after status Blind goes away.
Fixed a bug that could leave an empty tooltip over the enemy's HP when getting Blind status.
Fixed cases where a card that was affected by a Parasite card couldn't be used even after that fight was over.
Fixed some issues with Wipeout card.
Fixed an error with Grand Strategy's cost.
Fixed Ignite not showing as unlocked in the archive.
Fixed the fact that some blessings could be shown as "?" in the archive even after being unlocked.
Fixed the "card" sanctuary spirit not actually removing your card when recruiting it.
Thank you as always for the support!
Remember, if you like the game, each single positive review helps me a lot!
If you have any feedback or want to discuss about the game, join my Discord server.
