Hello Howling Souls,
Today, we’re back with a major update that fixes issues, improves game balance based on your feedback, and introduces two brand new modes: REBIRTH and Custom Mode.
After reading your amazing comments and feedback about the more challenging experience, we felt this update was a natural fit for the game’s DNA. Now, you can return to the Spirit Realm, more dangerous than ever, and tailor its difficulty to your liking, turning it into a true living nightmare.
We haven’t forgotten players who enjoy normal mode, and are adding 7 new totems which now drop from all mini bosses, buffs to certain cards and totems, nerfs to some outlier enemies, and a number of quality of life improvements.
In the meantime we had a moment to record a chat from inside of our little company. Check out a few words from us about the game:
New Modes and Ro Appearance
REBIRTH Mode - is designed to offer a greater challenge and to recreate the feeling of your first playthrough, where every encounter required careful thinking and adaptation. Enemies now have new abilities and increased health, while Realmless cards come with updated names and effects. In addition, Ro will wear a distinctive blue robe in this mode <3.
Custom Mode - is aimed at players looking for extreme challenges and more control over their experience. In this mode, you can adjust both the health of enemies and Ro, available cards, card restrictions, penalties, and more. If you want to push your limits, this mode is for you. It unlocks after completing REBIRTH Mode.
In addition, we have introduced a number of balance changes to the core game, along with various bug fixes and quality of life improvements, which you can find detailed below:
Full Patchnotes
🌟New mode accessible - REBIRTH:
Unlocks after completing the first playthrough
Enemies have new abilities and extra health.
All Realmless cards are changed in the Rebirth mode, with new names, functionality, and colouring.
Ro wears a blue outfit in Rebirth mode! <3
🌟New mode - CUSTOM:
Unlocks after completing Rebirth mode
It has several parameters to customise your playthrough
Rebirth Cards toggle
Rebirth Enemies toggle
Enemy Health %
Ro’s Health
Return to the Grove on Death
Minimum Number of Cards in Deck
Card Crafting Limit
Card Cost Penalty
After starting a Custom mode playthrough, parameters can be viewed (but not changed) from the Pause Menu.
🌟NEW CONTENT AND FEATURES FOR ALL MODES:
7 new (fun!) totems.
Whenever you defeat a miniboss, you get a totem and a teardrop (instead of 3 teardrops).
If you have already defeated one of these minibosses, then you will receive the totem when you load your save file.
2 new small caves added to The Hidden Vale.
New toggles in game settings:
Automatically (or not!) add crafted cards to your deck
Save totem loadouts with a specific deck
🔼CARDS AND TOTEM BUFFS:
Red Rock quest card now has a Keep effect.
Sister’s Flute totem: gives 3 Weak instead of 2.
Repressive Barrier: you now choose the card. Sacrifice: Draw 1.
Frog Leap: First: fill 2 mana instead of one. Sacrifice: fill 1 mana.
Fearless is back to its former version (before last patch nerfs) meaning that the buff lasts all turn.
Deadly Strike: backstab fills 3 mana instead of 2.
Quick Slash: damage increased from 1 to 2.
Repression is now sacrifice: echo instead of sacrifice draw 1.
Shell breaker removes 5 block instead of 4.
Nightmares: you can now choose which cards are discarded.
Distant memories: choose between 4 instead of 2. Mana filled on empty is 2 instead of 1.
Stone Body: costs 1 mana instead of 2.
Hatchling: +1 range.
Bleak Bone spirit card makes curses cost 2 less instead of 1.
Adder Stone Totem changed. Curses cost one less to play, and every other turn, they are all converted into random cards.
🔽ENEMY NERFS AND CHANGES:
Elder Gloom Croak movement reduced from 4 to 3.
Elder Crawling Terror does not freeze you with normal attacks anymore, and now makes you weak instead of vulnerable.
For consistency, we have changed Hatchwing and Crumbler so they can't use their charge through attack after repositioning (similar to other enemies). To compensate for this nerf, we have given those attacks higher damage and given the Hatchwing one more movement.
Eggs have 5 health instead of 3. They felt too weak.
One very hard battle on The Howling Mountain has been made slightly easier. (the one with the Elder Gloom Croak)
Enemies can no longer charge through tall obstacles.
Aurorite can't beam attack through tall walls anymore.
The Wailing Wurm shoots yellow slime now (that disappears over time) instead of green.
The Elder Crawling Terror will no longer be able to freeze you two turns in a row.
The Elder Coiled Seducer has a ranged spit attack (if it doesn't have to move first).
Totemite Doom timer is 6 rounds instead of 7 (an enemy dying sooner is a nerf, right?).
🔄️POLISH AND MINOR FEATURES:
Ro will now try to avoid slime and bonfire when pathfinding. She will still always take the shortest path.
Improved movement AI for Fylge and enemies.
The Moose explains the concept of realms in greater detail now.
Logo intro can now also be skipped with space and enter.
Added more details to the environment in The Breathing Chasm.
New sounds when you defeat a great spirit.
New sounds and visuals when playing Curses of Cantharsis.
Improvements to auto discard: Cards will be discarded automatically if less cards need to be discarded than what is in hand and if no cards have a sacrifice effect.
Enemy colour corrections in the Mountain.
Backgrounds of all locations have been polished.
Ambient audio tweaks in The Wailing Marshes.
New fast travel sound.
Audio and music levels mixing improvements.
Mouse cursor color change in The Hidden Vale.
“Leave combat" button prompt when playing with a controller.
The player is now sent directly to the overworld map if no map is available (like in a cave).
Improvements to the presentation of Sorg’s dialogues.
Sparkles in the Glacial Maw have been improved. They no longer look like the secret treasure sparks.
New audio when the whale appears under the ice in The Hidden Vale.
New visual effects when unlocking different-sized powers in the skill tree
New visual effect when the face of the Mother speaks in the Valley of Desolation.
Berry Bush added to Forest of Howling Shadows, Dead Roots, and Cadaver Dunes.
Added more UI highlighting to the settings menu.
The Start New Game button is always visible in the Title menu, and if no save slots are available, you will be told so and sent to the profile menu (to delete a profile).
🐛BUGFIXES
Fixed area not loading when going from the top sacred grove in The Wailing Marshes into the Valley of Desolation.
The quest spear in The Breathing Chasm can now be found where you found its parts after removing it from the deck.
Fixed issues where exclamation points persist whenever you have tears.
Fixed bug where you could partially or fully leave the Eggle’s cave while the event is running.
Fixed invisible obstacle tiles in the cave where you fight the Stick Fylge.
Engraved Rock card rarity has been changed from rare to common.
Fixed a visual glitch where the player's mana would sometimes briefly appear and then disappear at the start of combat.
Fixed a bug where jumping enemies would not jump when they are surrounded.
Fixed a bug where Infected Molar would attack special tiles like the Totemite and the Lifeblood plant instead of murdering Ro.
Fixed card amount indicator dots not being updated in card manager after changing deck in the deck manager.
Fixed recipe for Hurl Rock and Hurl Block. They were unreasonably hard to craft.
Fixed a case of an inaccessible tile in one of the encounters in The Hidden Vale, where the player could end up when teleporting.
Fixed bugs related to pushing with damage buff.
Fixed an issue while playing with a controller where events start when you pick up a material while being within the event area.
Fixed the cave interact icon not always showing the correct direction on the controller.
Adjusted the overworld map button prompt placement on a controller.
Fixed a visual glitch at the beginning of Dragonfly encounter.
Fixed UI highlight persisting after activating the Overwhelmed mode with a controller.
Fixed a bug where some status effects would overlap with others when more than 4 status icons were active.
Fixed the Eggle soft lock that occurred when it died to its own eggs.
Fixed “Last: Keep” effect. Now, it works in the same way as other 'Last' effects.
Fixed out-of-bounds and navigation grid issues in the Cadaver Dunes and The Hidden Vale.
Fixed the settings of several poison cards. No more unintended interactions with damage buffs.
Burning Voids now remember if they were frozen after transforming.
Minor cosmetic fixes to Meadow of Delusion, Valley of Desolation, and The Glacial Maw.
Changes to the scurry system.
Fixed a bug with random damage also targeting dead enemies.
Fixed an issue with repeating attacks (like Waves of Frost) not always playing the entire animation.
Status effects now always show their tooltip.
Fixed a bug where cards would not dissolve when grabbed quickly after being drawn.
Fixed the target type of some Gloomy Waters cards.
Thank you once again for being with us all this time and for the amazing reception of the game. We hope you’ll have plenty of fun (and maybe a bit of suffering 😀) exploring these new game modes.
Take care, and don’t forget to share your feedback about the update on our Reddit and Discord!
~ The Outer Zone and 11 bit studios Teams