Hi everyone! Welcome to 0.3 of Malys!
The Story So Far
As of last week, we released the beta for players. You can read about it here, but ultimately we wanted to make sure we gave the most dedicated of you an option to try the changes we're proposing ahead of time. This has already been super useful - shoutout to the 10% of you that are playing and engaging with it, and thank you to those submitting feedback and bug reports!
We've been able to fix a number of issues thanks to your reports, and have made some adjustments based on your suggestions as well.
On to the exciting stuff!
Early Access Update v0.3 - New Content
We've added a new region for you to try: The Strip. Yes, there are now two regions in game for you to play through. What this means is a bunch of changes to regions in general - read on!
As we mentioned in our devlog the other week, this has involved a significant rebuild of region generation and the rules involved to support multiple shorter regions as intended, rather than the single longer region you've been used to. This region change also comes with new demons, and a new region boss.
With the addition of region 2, we've shortened the length of region 1 through this rebuild of region generation. This means the regions better match what an in-game region will play like length wise in the full release.
Cozzie livs (that's Australian for cost-of-living) is high, and it's the same in the city of Malys. We've made adjustments so you won't encounter shops in a run before you have a chance to accumulate some Faith to spend.
We've adjusted the width of each region to be 5 nodes instead of 4 - meaning more options for your decision making!
REGION 2: THE STRIP
Region 2: The Strip is here, with new music from the excellent Belinda Coomes!
Included in The Strip are three new demons (Levekh of the Cold, Iaison the Devourer, and Zhal Chort) with their own unique challenges, plus a new Boss at the end of the region (Baalzebuth)
When they are burned, Cards now gain the Ashed status for the rest of the turn, which prevents them from being burned again (Thanks Eric F. for the inspiration!)
Mammon now has a unique exorcism prelude!
Early Access Update v0.3 - Mammon
A number of you have been giving us feedback on the Mammon fight. At the moment for a lot of you, it's feeling not only difficult to defeat Mammon but at times, really drawn out.
We quickly realised that we'd made a bit of a math error. Whoops. Mammon has been strolling along with 1 stack of Fortify too many, making him incredibly difficult to defeat. We've fixed this for this update, as well as lowered the amount of Restrict he applies slightly. We'd love to know if the fight feels better, or if you're still feeling that drag.
We've also updated a few other exorcisms such as Pearl Eye based on your feedback, and fixed various incorrect or broken abilities.
Hopefully Mammon will be a little less painful here on out!
Early Access Update v0.3 - Player Visual Feedback
The other piece of feedback we generally tend to see the most is on player feedback in game. There's a lot going on in the systems of Malys, so making sure it's all clear to players as it happens is an ongoing process that we'll be continuing to iterate on.
We've made a bunch of updates, including:
Updating card mouseover/selection visual feedback for consistency and to be more intuitive. Selecting rewards should now be a little clearer!
Updated and added a bunch of VFX across a number of cards and actions. This includes things like adding visual feedback when a card gains or loses a keyword during an exorcism, as well as VFX when you gain and lose Faith.
Early Access Update v0.3 - Bugfixes/General
UI/UX & TEXT FIXES
Cards gaining Volatile or Unburnable (as well as the new Sealed keyword) while in your hand now update their visuals
Using Light on Allies now displays correctly
Tooltips on Allies are now easier to get and no longer obscure their statuses
Minion and Ally death animations now play properly
Various minor UI fixes, updates and polish
GAMEPLAY FIXES
Mammon's exorcism should now be less mind-numbingly grindy
When you finish your battle with Mammon, you now gain your Greed reward
You should now only be able to encounter each Greater Demon once per run
Miscellaneous fixes for demon abilities
QUALITY OF LIFE IMPROVEMENTS
Card Selection has been updated to be clearer
Map legend should now be a little clearer - we heard a lot of feedback on this one!
OTHER CHANGES
Region 1 (The Stacks) has been shortened to match final length
In Region 1, shops now only appear after the third vertical node
Regions are now 5 nodes across, to create some more run option breadth
If you are given cards during the Demon's turn, you can no longer draw over your hand draw max (usually 6)
Lesser demons have been buffed in difficulty
Lesser Demon Will now scales as you progress through the game
Greater Demon Will now scales as you progress through a region
Doomed Curse card cost has been reduced to 1
Salt cards are now Unburnable, preventing them from becoming an infinite resource with a card draw build
One of our new demons, the mysterious puppeteer, Zhal Chort.
Current known issues:
NEW (8/8/2025) - Baalzebuth's Verse status is not added by Baalzabuth's Curse cards (and thus they are missing the relevant tooltip)
NEW (7/8/2025) - Statuses on demons don't always disappear when they should, causing it to seem like they have multiple of the same status
NEW (7/8/2025) - Shame's Arm minions don't currently work as intended, and just sit there looking oddly protective
NEW (7/8/2025) - Regression: Every now and then on the map, one of the nodes' connecting lines is invisible - it's still there, but you won't see it til you come out of its event
If you abandon a run and then start a new one without quitting entirely, a myriad of potential issues can ensue such as doubling cards, demons becoming un-targetable, infinite loading screens, and more. The easiest fix for now is to quit out and restart!
Multiple minions doing actions (particularly the Feed minions) feel very slow
The Center Must Hold card is broken and its effects are persistent
Some cards have the wrong art in Gideon's shop
Pocket needs reworking as it is currently somewhat broken
Storylet skip doesn't work consistently the same way, and the Continue button is too far away from the final line for comfort
Damage rounding being inconsistent is causing minor variances in some damage numbers
Things We're Working On
As we mentioned in the previous devlog, we've been working a lot on systems for further balancing to set ourselves up well in iterating on the difficulty curve of Malys. Your feedback is crucial to know when we're drifting to either too hard or too easy, but this work of building models to understand and adjust at scale is going to take more time. System-wide rebalances interact with a lot, so we appreciate your patience as we do it piece by piece. Your feedback on exorcisms has been critical for this, as it helps us to understand where the fights are excelling and where they're falling a little flat.
The in-game codex we mentioned is still in progress, and the digital online version isn't ready just yet either. Our focus on regions overtook it this week, but it's still in the works - we promise.
We've started work on a refresh of Demon Intent display, which is coming along well, and are also starting to design new mechanics and a further raft of new content for v0.4 and beyond.
What We Need From You
Please continue submitting feedback, and if you haven't already - please consider leaving a review!
You can submit all your feedback on exorcisms (and the new content we've added, and bugs we've hopefully fixed) via bit (dot) ly / malysfeedback. If you run into a new bug, you can submit it at bit (dot) ly / malysbugreport
What we'd love to hear about this week is specifically around the regions - how does the adjustment in length feel, what would you change, what do you like about them?
Stay Up To Date
We’ll be in touch next week with a new devlog to talk about what we’re hearing and what we’ll be focusing on for the following update.
We'll also be posting on our socials when the devlog goes live, so stay in touch via Bluesky or sign up to our mailing list.
Speak soon, exorcists!