Wardens of Wen - Major Update Notes: v0.62.1

This update bundle covers the major player-facing changes added after v0.49.3, focusing on finished systems, onboarding improvements, Android test-build progress, music controls, quests, blacksmith crafting, environmental destruction, and combat updates.

Destructible Props, Bombs, and Environmental Loot

Wardens can now blow apart destructible parts of the map during a run.

• Destructible trees, braziers, fences, boulders, bridges, and other marked props can be destroyed with bombs.
• Destroyed props stop blocking movement, sight, fire-touch hazards, and static light where applicable.
• Destroyed bridge tiles can remove crossings for the rest of the current run.
• Destroyed props can spill reagent pickups.
• Destroyed map state is run-local: props stay destroyed while that run continues, but fresh runs reload pristine maps.

Small Bombs and Large Bombs are now usable consumables.

• Bombs can drop from enemy consumable loot.
• They can be placed from quick-use or hotbar slots.
• Placed bombs anchor at the Warden's location, play an animated fuse countdown, and explode after a short delay.
• Bomb blasts damage enemies and can also hurt the Warden.
• Large Bombs hit harder and cover a wider area than Small Bombs.

Difficulty-Based Gold Find

Standard run difficulties now directly affect Gold Find.

• Very Easy: 80% Gold Find
• Easy: 90% Gold Find
• Normal: 100% Gold Find
• Hard: 110% Gold Find
• Chaotic: 125% Gold Find
• Insane: 140% Gold Find
• Torment I: 170% Gold Find

The New Game character and difficulty screen now shows the selected difficulty's Gold Find value so players can understand the reward tradeoff before starting.

First-Run Intro Chronicle and Kalibros Onboarding

New profiles now get a proper first-run story introduction instead of a front-loaded tutorial chain.

• Starting a fresh run can play a seven-panel parchment-style Intro Chronicle.
• The Chronicle introduces Wen, the Wardens, survival waves, scavenging, status effects, campaign choices, Verdaxis, Dreadmoor, and the first defense.
• The cinematic uses authored parchment artwork, typewriter-style narration, fade/pan/zoom presentation, music handoff, and skip/advance controls.
• The run now begins behind the final fade-to-black and fades into gameplay cleanly after the Chronicle ends or is skipped.

Kalibros now handles more onboarding contextually.

• Tutorials trigger when the player actually encounters relevant systems: level-ups, copper, pickups, powerups, damage, weather, nightfall, doors, crafting, talents, and special enemies.
• Special enemy lessons are now reserved for enemies with notable mechanics, such as Bursters, Slimes, Fire Skulls, Wraiths, reanimating undead, and enemy healers.
• Trader, Church, Blacksmith, and Pub door guidance now waits until those doors are actually visible through fog-of-war.
• Tutorial pacing has been smoothed so important first-sighting lessons breathe, while pickup and reward lessons can still appear immediately when needed.

Expanded Kalibros Quest, Inventory, and Blacksmith Guidance

Kalibros now explains several important systems more clearly as players encounter them.

• The first accepted quest now triggers a delayed lesson about quest tracking, rewards, reputation, and what reputation changes.
• The first inventory open now teaches left-click gear equip/socketing, consumable assignment to empty R/F quick action slots, and right-click item compare.
• Right-clicking an RmlUI inventory item now pins it in Details for compare instead of entering the unsocket flow.
• The Round 3 town-points tutorial now names the southern Blacksmith alongside Trader, Pub, and Church.

Blacksmith onboarding has also been expanded.

• The first time the Blacksmith door enters current fog-of-war vision, Kalibros highlights it and explains that Grym can provide forge supplies, recipes, bombs, and stronger crafted gear.
• The first time the Forge comes onto the player's screen inside the Blacksmith, Kalibros explains the difference between Grym's Forge and the Recipe Desk.
• That Forge lesson covers recipe-free rotating forge offers, learned recipe crafting, reduced Blacksmith material costs, and stronger forge-crafted output.
• The first time the player acquires a bomb, Kalibros warns that bombs require Flint & Steel, can destroy some map objects including bridges, and can injure the Warden.

Native Android Test Build and Touch Gameplay Work

A first native Android build path now exists for testing the shared C++ game stack on mobile devices.

• The Android project builds the engine/game stack with SDL2, SDL2_image, SDL2_ttf, SDL2_mixer, RmlUI, and packaged Wardens content.
• The APK copies the packed content archive into app-private storage so authored assets and data can load without broad storage permissions.
• Startup handling was hardened for Pixel 7 and 16 KB page-size devices.

Android gameplay controls have been heavily expanded.

• Live gameplay now has a virtual movement stick and touch buttons for dash, use/interact, quick-use items, hotbar actions, abilities, ultimate, menu, and pause.
• The mobile HUD places health, shield, energy, dash, and Lives in a larger bottom-center cluster.
• A dedicated Menu touch button opens the Hotkeys flyout, while Pause mirrors it on the opposite side.
• The ability buttons now use a controller-style diamond layout and fire abilities directly when tapped.
• Offensive ability taps can use Android Ability Auto-Lock to aim at the nearest valid enemy before casting.
• Utility, heal, summon, stance, disguise, and builder-support abilities keep their normal manual or self-target behavior.
• Pinch zoom is supported, and Android starts new runs at a closer default zoom.
• Touch controls remain usable inside interiors, while menus and major overlays still take priority for normal UI tapping.

Android package metadata was refreshed across the follow-up builds.

• Android package metadata now reports 0.61.6-android.0 for the Blacksmith onboarding update.
• Android package metadata now reports 0.61.7-android.0 for the Forge and bomb onboarding update.
• Android package metadata now reports 0.61.8-android.0 for the expanded Kalibros tutorial coverage update.

Lighting, Brightness, and Bloom Controls

Scene lighting has been made more readable in dense fights.

• Overlapping torches, spells, projectiles, and other light emitters now blend into a bounded glow pass instead of washing the scene toward full white.
• A new Brightness slider is available in Options.
• A Bloom toggle is available in Options.
• Brightness and Bloom preferences persist with the player profile across sessions.

Grym's Blacksmith, Reagents, Bomb Crafting, and Forge Crafting

Grym's Blacksmith is now a real interior and crafting destination.

• The Blacksmith can be entered from town.
• Players can speak with Grym inside.
• Grym sells rotating blacksmith stock, including crafting materials, special consumables, teleport scrolls, rare bombs, rare recipes, and a very rare legendary gear offer.
• Town door prompts now clearly name destinations such as Trader, Pub, Church, and Blacksmith before entry.

Blacksmith crafting has expanded.

• Coal, Gunpowder, and Fuse Spool reagents were added.
• Fire Skulls can rarely drop Gunpowder.
• Orcs can rarely drop Coal.
• Goblins can rarely drop Fuse Spools.
• Flint & Steel and Small Bomb recipes were added.
• Crafted bombs produce stacks of 3, while found or shop bombs remain single items.
• Bombs stack up to 10.
• Using bombs requires Flint & Steel in inventory.
• The first failed bomb use without Flint & Steel triggers a Kalibros lesson pointing players toward Grym or crafting.

Grym's Forge is now available.

• The Forge offers 2-4 randomized craftable items without requiring learned recipes.
• Forge-crafted gear keeps the normal crafting item-level bonus and gains an extra +5 item levels from Grym's forge.
• Crafting inside the Blacksmith costs 20% fewer required materials, including learned recipe crafting.
• Forge offerings stay stable for the current round, even after closing/reopening the forge or leaving and re-entering the Blacksmith.
• The forge list rotates on the next round instead of rerolling every time the forge opens.

New blacksmith consumables were added.

• Lodestone Magnet can now be kept in inventory and activated when used.
• Frenzy Tonic can now be kept in inventory and activated when used.
• Teleport scrolls were added for Trader, Pub, Church, South, North, Eastern Maze, and Western Maze destinations.

Expanded Run Music, Now-Playing Display, and Pause-Menu Music Selector

Runs now use a much larger shuffled gameplay playlist.

• New runs shuffle Go Forth! together with authored run tracks.
• The playlist reshuffles after it finishes.
• Pack 1 through Pack 5 add 23 more authored songs to the gameplay playlist.
• Gameplay music data now lives in a data file, making future track additions easier.
• Track transitions fade out near the end of the current song and fade into the next.
• The new run songs have been normalized to better match the existing gameplay music volume.

A compact now-playing mini-player has been added.

• When gameplay music changes, a small Playing popup appears below the Copper/Gold wallet.
• Long song titles scroll inside the mini-player instead of being cut off.
• Long titles remain visible long enough to complete multiple marquee loops.

The in-game pause menu now includes a full music control panel.

• The pause menu now shows the current gameplay track and visible track names.
• Music controls include Back, Play/Pause, Next, Shuffle, and Repeat.
• Players can disable individual in-game tracks.
• Players can mark tracks as favorites.
• Players can create local Mix playlists from the authored in-game music library.
• Music preferences and local playlists save to saves/music_preferences.json, separate from progression saves.

The pause-menu music track list has also been improved.

• The pause-menu music track list is now scrollable.
• Mouse wheel input scrolls the hovered track list.
• Controller up/down selection keeps the highlighted track visible.
• A slim scrollbar appears when more than eight tracks are available.

NPC Quests, Dialogue Turn-Ins, and Reputation

NPC work has grown into a run-local quest and reputation layer.

• NPCs can now generate run-local fetch, payment, courier, rare-item, kill, and Grym forge errands.
• Mathias, Grym, Jules, and Trax now show only a small number of quest offers per round instead of dumping every generated job at once.
• Completed or failed procedural errands clear on round change so each round can roll fresh local work.
• Active quest responses now appear directly in relevant NPC dialogue hubs.
• Delivery and fetch objectives no longer hide behind the original work submenu.
• Message delivery quests can be completed by speaking to the target NPC, including Mathias-to-Trax and Trax-to-Mathias courier jobs.
• Kill quests can target specific enemy archetypes, and the Quest Log names that target in progress text.
• Generated quest responses now read more naturally as the player's answer to an NPC prompt.

Run-local reputation has been added.

• Quests can reward faction reputation for The Crown, The Church, Traders' Circle, The Pub, and The Craftsmen's Guild.
• The Quest Log now includes a Reputation view showing each faction's current run standing and unlock direction.
• Enemy kills can be tracked by broad faction buckets such as Goblins, Orcs, Undead, and Beasts for future quest objectives.
• Higher Traders' Circle reputation improves Trax's chance to stock RPG equipment within his existing four-offer shop layout.
• Higher NPC reputation modestly improves quest XP and currency rewards for that faction during the current run.

Expanded NPC Services: Mathias and Trax

Father Mathias and Trax now provide more useful town services.

• Father Mathias can offer paid healing through a confirmation step.
• Father Mathias can prepare a paid shield blessing that activates after leaving the Church.
• Healing and shield blessing options remain visible even if the player cannot currently afford them, allowing the confirmation step to explain the cost or failure.

Trax can now rent rooms.

• Trax can rent the player a room and assign Bed One or Bed Two.
• Sleeping advances only the day/night phase.
• Sleeping fades smoothly to black, applies the time jump while hidden, then fades back in.
• Very rare dream events can grant a round-long buff.
• Nightmares can apply a round-long debuff.
• Room rental now follows the same confirmation pattern as other services, with payment failure handled after confirmation.

Jade Lightning Bolt Overcharge

Jade's Lightning Bolt now supports overcharge casting.

• Lightning Bolt fires when the hotkey is released.
• Quick taps produce a short, single-segment bolt toward the cursor.
• Holding the spell extends the bolt and increases its damage.
• Held bolts grow toward the cursor by the overcharge threshold and can extend farther when charged longer.
• The hotbar icon jiggles and fills with a pale charge overlay while the spell is being held.
• Fully overcharged bolts pierce projectile-blocking walls and barriers instead of stopping at the first center-line blocker.