Hello everyone!
Quite a big update for you all this week. Thanks so much for the reviews, feedback and bug reports as always. Let's just dive straight into the details as this is the kind of update you should go play rather than read about.
8 New Dice!
Eight new Dice have been added to the game (and we've fixed the bug that stopped a few previous new ones showing up for you...). These range in effect from offensive options, synergies and defensive. I don't want to spoilt them all as they each come with a conversation with Death, but as a tease, fumblers rejoice! The Bumbler has joined the fray.
Relic Buffs & Reworks
In this update you'll also find some changes to existing Relics - some to make them more appealing, and some to open design space for the future. I'll explain the ones that have made it into this patch.
Nautilus Anchor had fallen behind the general power curve of the game, and the methodology of stacking it up in a safer round earlier was somewhat tedious. Now, Anchor not only has a more appealing countermeasure element by growing in strength the larger values you fumble, but it also allows people wanting to build around it to speed up some of the more tedious play patterns of stacking it up.
Ivory Pawn was always intended to make the self-poisoning downsides of some Relics more manageable, as well as defend against any Poison that Death may utilise. Simply put, it was too weak in this aspect to justify picking. We've reworked it to now fully prevent Poison being applied for the first 150 stacks, while still dealing them as damage to Death if matched up with a Rook.
Probably the most controversial Relic in the game (except the ongoing debate of if Hollow Hand is absolutely terrible or OP) - Runaway's Purse has been changed to take away it's Trinket respawning capabilities. We've replaced it with a buff to Wisp lanterns to make it a more appealing pair with Writing Lily or just for people who love seeing 18 Dice in the bowl.
I know some people may be disappointed to see Purse change, but the most honest explanation is while Purse had it's Trinket spawning effect, it essentially prevented us from adding any other Trinket spawning or Trinket buffing effects to the game, because with Purse in it's old form, it was so powerful that Trinkets were on a constant knife edge when it came to balance. This way, it remains a solid Trinket engine without dominating the design space.
These two are listed together - now at a glance, you may think "but Pickaxe hasn't changed!". It has.
Pickaxe is deliberately vague about what it can dig up, but it no longer has access to digging up Relics. Instead, we've shifted Relic generation to Artisan's Hammer, bringing back some of that Forge-flavour to a more controllable form and giving it a purpose outside of Pickaxe stacks. As for Pickaxe it has lost Relic generation but a good chunk of that has been shifted over to the chances to unearth Dice, so it's not all downside for the miners out there.
Pauper's Cup has also changed to 50 stacks from 75. 75 was too much. That's the explanation.
Quality of Life & Other Stuff
Some pretty nice upgrades to QoL & Bug Fixes in this update:
Game Speed will now save between play sessions meaning you no longer have to toggle your preference upon playing again
Several tooltips that weren't despawning correctly in some cases should no longer remain on screen
Bugs that were causing some newer Dice to not populate into choices for some players should be resolved
Some tooltip inaccuracies & lack of clarity cases have been corrected
Several minor texture fixes
Rest are largely backend bugs or fixes to niche technical issues.
Those are the feature updates for this week! Thanks for playing and let us know how you find the new Dice on the discussions page!
Cheers,
Connagh & Joel
Sea Glass