Hello everyone, and welcome to the Tea Party of the Damned Playtest - now on Steam! This test is only available to backers who pledged the Town Council tier (or higher), but we'll soon be rolling it out to other backers once more features are in place.

Here are the changes in patch #2:

Atmospheric/Tactical camera:

• Camera changes - The game is now in 'Atmospheric mode' by default. This is more zoomed in than past builds, however the camera zooms out when you look/aim at a distance. We feel this makes the game less frantic, plus you can see more of that pretty pixel art! Note: In atmospheric mode, the game will also zoom out during tactical pause (coming in a future patch). Also there's currently no option to swap back to tactical mode, but we'll add it when we fill out the options screen.

Enemies:

• New enemy: Forgotten Whaler. Watch out for the harpoon!
• New enemy: Jailer Mor'baz.
• Skeletons now correctly cycle between one of three running animations.
• Non-roaming Skeletons have new idle animations (sitting, etc).

Combat:

• We've temporarily given the Innkeeper a Tommy gun.
• Some melee, thrown and ranged weapon skills now rank up in combat. Higher skill ranks = a higher chance to hit with that weapon type.
• Improvements made to 'Quickfire' mode (LMB). No longer triggers the 'look' action, and now has a cooldown to prevent spam-clicking.
• You can now target/un-target enemies while aiming.
• Blocking is in the game! Characters with the skill can now block melee attacks on themselves and nearby allies, redirecting the damage to themselves and reducing it by 25%. Equipping a shield item will reduce blocked damage by an extra 25%. Only one shield can be equipped at a time.
• AI-controlled characters will no longer use potions out of combat.
• Potion code has been greatly improved and future-proofed. Healing potions can critically heal.
• Status effects and equipment can temporarily unlock defensive abilities (Evade Potions grant access to the Evade skill for their duration, etc).

Balance:

• Enemies can vary in level, and their stats and skills scale to match.
• Slightly reduced the accuracy of all attacks and weapons.
• Reduced several characters' access to Evasion. This should make spellcaster type characters, as well as static enemies (like the spawners) easier to hit.
• Tougher enemies now have AC (armor class), slightly reducing the damage of physical attacks made against them. 1 point of AC = roughly 1% to 2% damage reduced. Armor Class is capped at AC 50 and starts to drop in value at numbers higher than 20.
• Damage resistances slightly reworked - it's now percentage based, rather than in tiered brackets.

Levels:

• Mini-dungeon challenge! In order to beat the sewers, you must clear 5 rooms of a mini-dungeon. If you wipe you will not lose your progress but instead be transported back to the safe room with your HP/MP/STAM restored. *
• Extra level added to the sewers (entrance to mini-dungeon).
• Sewer exit room redesigned.
• Loot containers added to the following areas: Sewers Safe Room, Whale Interior (beach 3), Sewer Pipe Gauntlet.
• New hazard: Acrid Seawater.
• New hazard: Rushing Water. * Note: Mini-dungeon rooms and encounters are currently linear, but they will include procedural generation in the future.

Story:

• 2 new cutscenes added to the sewers.
• Tweaked the timings and trigger proximity of the first Shelby cutscene.
• Added a 'Shelby wants to speak with you' trigger, which prompts the player to use their Shelby item at moments where he has something to say.
• Added several more dialogue outcomes to speaking with Shelby from backpack, in particular when asking him for directions.

Items & Looting:

• Several new loot objects added to the beach and sewers.
• Starter items have new tooltips/descriptions.
• New item 'Worn Shooting Gloves' added to the Beach starter chest.
• New item 'Driftwood Shield' added to the Beach starter chest.
• New item 'Leather Undershirt'.
• New item 'Wretched Sealskin Cloak'.
• New item 'Acolyte's Hood'.
• New item 'Potion of Evasion'.
• New item 'Tainted Rejuvenation Potion'. Smells like rotten eggs. Perhaps the Alchemist can do something with these when she's added to the game.
• New item 'Broken Spectacles'.
• New item 'Chicago Typewriter'.

UI:

• Added tooltip info for 'Armor Class' in the character pane.

Party screen and Character Creation:

• Lots of extra mouseovers, UI sounds and tooltips!
• 'Auto Party' renamed 'Reset Party'. Game now asks for confirmation when resetting/clearing non-premade characters.
• Trapper 'Marksmanship' (rifle upgrade) skill renamed 'Gunsmithing'.

Minor changes:

• Made improvements to the music code. Minor enemies should no longer trigger combat music.
• Entering a cutscene will now clear your current target.
• New SFX for waterfalls, levers, cages, being stunned and more!
• Created a universal system for shockwaves (used in spells and abilities).
• Added version checking, mostly to warn players who are trying to load savegames from outdated game versions.
• Added several new message log notifications.
• More physics objects (tin cans, bottles) have been placed around the sewer and beach levels.

Optimization, bugfixes and crashes:

• Players will no longer target friendly AI after taking friendly fire.
• Fixed some instances of the cutscene crash (level_switch variant).
• Optimised friendly and enemy AI (agro radius, status effects, stat checks).
• Fixed some resolution/UI issues on 16:10 monitors.
• Fixed a slowdown which occurred when looking/aiming over long periods.
• Fixed some issues with aiming firearms and weapon swapping, including one bug where you could softlock the game.
• Fixed an issue where enemies were regenerating HP in combat.
• Fixed a crash involving the Shelby backpack cutscene on Beach 01.

We hope you enjoy Patch #2. Be sure to send us your feedback and bug reports via discord or email!