This patch took half a week longer than usual because I kept finding bugs when testing the build. Sorry about the delay and we will be back to more regular updates shortly.
Yes I couldn't not implement new tiles so here we are: 6 new tiles, mostly for deck management.
There is also game saving (and loading) for the first time – but only in the beta branch (join our Discord to sign up for it): If you quit, you should be able to continue next time you drop by.
And finally there's very experimental native Steam Deck support as well as general controller support.
Also here's Joe Baxter-Webb first being a little bit confused, then for a brief phase critical and finally getting completely immersed in Sparrow Warfare and forgetting to even talk to chat:
New features
Six new tiles added
Phalanx (Phoenix) — attacks for the number of tiles currently in your draw pile.
Fluff Up — shuffles your discard pile back into the draw pile, then draws 3 tiles
Open Skies — discards one status tile for each frozen opponent.
Compress — discards the lowest-value tiles of the suit played alongside it from the draw pile.
Palisade (Phoenix) — blocks for the number of tiles currently in your discard pile.
Hedge — moves all status tiles from hand to the draw pile.
Initial controller support — gamepad input is now recognised across core game interactions.
Gameplay changes
Status tiles now in a nice shade of blue.
Drums ramp up in intensity when the boss enters the field, increasing tension during boss encounters.
Boss defeat animation revised — the transition is now a softer dissolve rather than a hard wipe.
Buttons resized to accommodate longer localised strings
Game now pauses automatically when the settings menu is opened.
Bug fixes
Update draw & discard pile counters on tiles at every change
Pressing ESC during deck viewing doesn't break the game anymore
Fixed sorting of hand sometimes not happening
Fixed Tiles not being selectable at times
Fixed Joker tile failing to end the player's turn after being played.
Fixed Ironbird not functioning correctly in the current build.
Fixed invincibility being granted to the player even when no enemy was frozen.