First and foremost - a second trial extending to level 20 is available in the Veil and can be challenged immediately upon completing the previous one introduced in the last patch. But how to access it - that is the question.
I've finalized the gimmick surrounding the Veil Trials / Challenge Level. Let's bullet point it for easy understanding:
Starting a trial will set your Challenge Level to 0. Your Challenge Level can be viewed from the Save menu.
Completing the first trial consists of defeating 10 battles one after the other. For each one, your Challenge Level increases by 1.
While your Challenge Level is 10 or higher, you may enter the second Veil Trial.
Completing the second trial consists of defeating 20 battles one after the other. Again, for each one, your Challenge Level will increase by 1.
When the third, fourth, fifth, etc Trial become available, they will require full completion of the previous Trial to access.
However, if Ruby is killed part way through the Trial, you will only have access to Trials corresponding to your Challenge Level. Reminder: Your Challenge Level resets every time you start a new trial!
Therefore, if you fail on battle #9 of the second trial, you won't get a game over, but Ruby will return to the Awoken Veil with Challenge Level 9. With the CL being too low, access to the second trial will be restricted and Ruby will have to defeat the entire first trial to raise the CL high enough to open the second trial.
This will be how it works for however many trials I end up releasing. My goal is 10.
There is a one time completion bonus in a chest behind the boss in each of the Trials. The first two directly affect Ruby's Snake pet.
Starting the trials has no minimum level or story based prerequisite. This can be done as soon as Ruby discovers access to the Awoken Veil. Keep in mind that nothing in the game right now directly points Ruby to these discoveries, but multiple access points exists throughout the world. The easiest and earliest access point would be in the large room upstairs of Ruby's House via the statue. The game is a little too old for me to pretend this information is a spoiler.
Also launching with this update are back end preparations for the Horseman Hunter Pass DLC involving the two NPC who have no visible quests for Ruby in the Team HH Lodge. I don't yet have a timeframe for the launch of this content, but I've spent most of the week on it so far. Here's some info about the plans for that DLC:
$4.99 from the Steam Shop
With the DLC installed, the NPCs in Brandywine Countryside / Team HH Lodge will give Ruby the Special Access Pass which allows access to the Horseman War Campaign.
Current goal: 10 Hunter Lodge Sidequests, including Extinction, Supply, Target, Strike, and Raid. Of these 10, full functionality for the first 2 and preparation for the following 2 are coded in.
Raid takes place in a classic Cross of Auria castle structure, similar to the discoverable Love Is In the Air questline in Agartha. Location currently named Brandywine Manor.
Battle focused high level content structured with enemy levels 30-40.
Lodge quest progress grants access to three new companion pets via "Team HH: Extinction" quests, specifics to be announced later. The completion of these units prompted the previous several patches worth of Skills & Ability changes, particularly the ones with new Mastery effects.
New exclusive gear particularly useful to but not limited to Ruby's pets.
Greater drop rates for the orange quality weapons' crafting materials within Brandywine Manor.
Coming just after the Horseman Hunter Pass is going to be the long awaited changes to Snowdrift Village, which level-wise would occur after the Horseman coming in at 40-50.
Finally, following that, a story wrap up for this game, Cross of Auria, originally titled "Cross of Auria Chapter 1 - The Awakening", will launch and development on CoA will conclude. We've talked about this a bit in the past, but real quick I just want to let you know why we need to move to a second game and it's super simple. The engine keeps crashing. I discovered some information about how to expand the default limitations of the engine, specifically maximum amount of internal data stored for Actors, Classes, Items, Weapons, Armor, Skills, Enemies, Troops, Switches, and Variables. Every time I save, there's a chance that everything on the back end - the things listed above, but nothing saves for the front end - what you as the player experience. For instance, I'll make a ton of changes to a location then go edit mastery effects for a skill and press save, but only the mastery effect will save. The entire location reverts to how it was before I started for the day. This has made development incredibly cumbersome especially in cases of nested event scriptwriting, like the Candy Bag. Every time I get deep on a new concept that requires not exiting out to save for, I get a crash. So we need to, for real this time, wrap it up and move on. And just for complete transparency - after making the game free to download and play, the motivation I've had to extend the game has dropped significantly. This is why I'm focusing heavily right now on this DLC. If you recall, it did not originally intend to extend the game at all beyond the Flame Titan. In terms of 'end game' for chapter one, there's a thread in here somewhere called "Minigame Megathread" that goes over all the "postgame" stuff there used to be before the main story was extended beyond what was originally written for chapter 1.
tldr; I let the scope get way out of control and it can't be reigned in. So it's time to finish the story!
And on that note, here's the official patch notes for everything above. This will launch later tonight. Check the Info tab from the main screen to see if your game has updated. If not, don't fear! It will be public tonight!
Oh PS, bosses just randomly got potentially way harder good luck.
6.8.4.2 [Build #191, Release Date: November 11, 2025]
New:
- The second Veil Trial is now available! This one goes up to Challenge Level 20 and has a unique one-time reward for completion.
Fixes:
- Fixed a teleport issue from the old Halloween events in the Awoken Veil.
- Removed the second Black Forest Halloween access object from the Awoken Veil.
Updates & Changes:
- Reorganized how the Veil Trials will calculate progress used for later rifts.
- The Boss state, in addition to its previous effects, now reduces chance to be afflicted by loss of utility and control effects by 33% (Petrify, Blind, Silence, Confusion, Fascination, Sleep, Stun, HolyStun, Disable, Fear). Also reduces chance to be afflicted by general damage effects by 10% (Poison, Burn, Bleed). Also adds one hit to Normal Attacks. No change to end of turn field damage (Thunderstorm/Blizzard/etc) or niche modificatons (Soak/Poisonfear/etc). This is an overarching effect on all bosses with the Boss status that stacks on top of their custom resistances and weaknesses. Previously, the Boss state only increased parameters by 10% and added a 10% chance for a second action per turn.