Hey everyone, I intended to have this dev talk earlier this week, but did not have all the pieces together back then.
I am happy to say that the commissioned artwork is finished! I have replaced the AI-generated capsule with the artwork, and did the cropping for all the variations.
I have made a ton of updates to the demo, which I will attach as a brief changelog.
PvP development went better than I thought, so it is live in the demo build now, with a toggle for Co-op and dedicated PvP lobbies. Player can customize their build freely. The PvP lobby supports up to 4v4, and also includes bot support.
Thanks to the release of Fable 5, I was able to do a general audit of the game this week and fixed numerous bugs, unfortunately it is taken away yesterday... Oh well.
Demo update: v1.503 -> v1.674
Major arcs
Chaos-sim & test scaffolding (v1.503–v1.509)
Enemy reworks + Ancient Schematics (v1.510–v1.519)
Reworked Shield Warden, Core Sentinel (two-mode flip), Data Tyrant; added Cipher Lock elite + Data Warden duo; F3 boss pass (Crimson Archon, Nexus Omnirange). New Tier IV ANCIENT rarity + ~8 schematic cards traded at the Engineering Bay.
MP-client autoplay/sync hardening (v1.520–v1.537)
Fixed autoplay desync, zombie CardUI, hand-sync on move broadcasts; correlation IDs for autoplay requests; Deck-as-sole-writer for hand mutations.
MP client-UI test harness (v1.538–v1.559)
Big multi-version effort: real-BattleScene 2-process loopback, five invariant categories, ACK correlation, chaos (--drop-prob/latency), reconnect E2E, up to 8-peer N-client mode.
PvP rebuild (v1.566–v1.620)
Host-authoritative live-duel engine from the ground up: 1v1 → NvN team duels, lobby team selection, loadout presets/builder, bot opponents, best-of-N scoring, reconnect/resume, spectator rendering, coop-event duels (Standoff/Bounty/Mutiny). Plus extensive audit fixes (wrong-side FX, status mirroring, Thorns/Backfire credit, turn-handoff, the per-duelist-turns systemic bug).
Audit sweeps & difficulty (v1.621–v1.661)
Bug-report/claim sweeps (drone-split stacking, kill-credit unification, power leaks), F2/F3 difficulty (boss opening pressure + elite/setpiece ladder), save/load audit, parallel 16-worker SP sim, implant faucet trim, event-text honesty pass.
Card-balance batches (v1.662–v1.674)
Per-class rework clusters reworking duplicate cards into real gaps: sabotage batch, Infiltrator (Backfire/converters/teleport-finishers), Striker (Execute pillar), Vanguard (reactive-AP/Thorns→block), Technician (offensive-drone synergy + Full Cover); shared deck-tech cards; Ancient Schematic rarity pass