The improvements to the network code would be quite major by themselves, even bigger is the art style shift commencing in this patch: I decided to remove all generated images from the game. Those that still are in the client can be considered placeholders. During the coming transition period that will precede a period of refinement, the game will look somewhat disjointed. I am convinced, however, that it looks more charming and unique even in this current state of transformation.
Art Style
- Replaced Dagger Illustrations.
- Replaced Pistol Illustrations.
- Replaced Amber Illustrations.
- Replaced Amethyst Illustrations.
- Replaced Emerald Illustrations.
- Replaced Ruby Illustrations.
- Replaced Sapphire Illustrations.
- Replaced Aquamarine Illustrations.
- Replaced Source Illustration.
- Replaced gem images.
- Replaced card frames.
Balance
- While I really like the new Amber Engine, often you found yourself adding Sources each turn to replace the one’s you scrapped. This was somewhat tedious and could easily be rectified by making it so Amber Engine merely discards the Source upon activation instead of scrapping it.
- Modified Sokras’ scaling so they only very rarely bring a second mod to class.
Achievements
- A new achievement, “Oldest of the Old”, rewards those who reach Student Rank 100.
Polish
- When starting a game against Sokras or local multiplayer, you will automatically leave the matchmaking queue. I found that playing while in queue can feel somewhat stressful as you might get pulled out of the game at any moment. Disallowing this leads to a better user experience: You either look for an online opponent and arrange a game if no one is in the queue, or you play against Sokras at your own pace without interruptions.
- During online play, the connection to your opponent is monitored. Should it run into trouble, you are notified, prompted to wait and a log entry is created. When the connection is reestablished, you will get notified and invited to continue play.
- When an error occurs during matchmaking you get feedback and are prompted to try again.
- Major improvements to the matchmaking process further increase reliability. Remaining issues due to delayed response of Steam API calls should happen rarely and be resolved by trying again.
- Rating is not shown anymore during multiplayer games, only on the victory screen. This keeps the game visually clean and decreases pressure when matched against a stronger opponent.
- The portrait frame appeared slightly blurry on bigger screens and is now of higher resolution.