Happy Wednesday, Scribes! Vellum Early Access blinks forward today with Interlude Patch: Preposition!
Positions are key in the two new combat Arenas - and Scribes can now equip themselves with a potent teleport: Foreshadow! New Font Powers will now appear in Tomes and the game sees widespread performance improvements, bug-fixes, and some nice quality of life features!
As always, the Vellum Roadmap tracks our journey across the Early Access process - check it out in-game to see what comes next!
New Arenas - A Destination Shredding!
Today brings two new combat Arenas! Push back the Torn on a tropical island inlet, complete with boardwalks and palm trees!
Don't let your ink dry too fast in the second Arena - a mysterious ritual site deep in the desert... High ground, choke points, and a doorway fit for last stands and holdouts!
How shall the Scribes traverse such spaces?
New Spell - Foreshadow
Foreshadow. With two charges and unlimited range, this Spell lets bold Scribes warp themselves to face their targets head-on.
Be it aggressive gap-closing or panicked escapes - Foreshadow opens the door for incredibly fast-paced bursts of action.
Performance Improvements
There are a lot of ground effects in Vellum at the same time (and sometimes the same space) - which makes today's performance improvements all the more impactful.
Projectors see a massive upgrade, affecting a large number of our area of effect spells and abilities. This should allow for smoother play under those high-load encounters - like when you've chosen "Raving area size increased by 50%" and can't seem to kill off all those darn scorpions...
Status effects - another widespread pillar of the game - have also seen dramatic improvements. Vellum now handles big stack counts (like with Orange's Survey effect) much more efficiently!
Font Powers - Thank Our Lucky Stars
We're adding some fresh new options to the general pool of Font Powers! These powers come in all shapes and sizes - including new drops, some anti-Torn counterplay, a BELL?!, and more.
With 16 new options in the pool, we're looking forward to hearing about your mid-run choices and discoveries!
Epilogue and Errata
Interlude Patch: Preposition comes fresh off the heels of a massive Chapter VI update. We're continually energized to be reading and digesting your feedback - from feelings on the Mana rework to questions on story elements, it is always an exciting and driving force for us to hear your experiences with Vellum.
We're also thrilled and intrigued when seeing new bug reports! The detail and back-and-forth is consistently helpful for us - and often sets up exciting puzzles for us to solve. Like Scribes, we get to explore the deep dark intricacies of the unknown and come out victorious!
Thank you for playing and helping to make the game better each step of the way!
- The Vellum Team
Interlude Patch: Preposition - Full Patch Notes
Features
New Movement Spell: Foreshadow
- Warp from any distance to face your current foe.
- Starts with 2 charges and may be cast without a target to blink forward a short distance.
New Combat Arenas
- Two new Arenas can now appear in Tomes
Performance Enhancements + Quality of Life
- Massive increase in efficiency for Projectors
- Dramatic improvement to Status Effects (especially in large quantities)
- New "Unstuck" button in Pause Menu
Font Power Pool Expansion
- 16 New Font Powers can now appear in Tomes
Gameplay & General
- Splice Elite: The Wringer will now properly appear in Tomes (Who could've thought the Torn would be so shy? Oops!)
- Algorithm fixes for Movement Spells gaining increasing damage interactions/avenues
- Spell: Vault now has a maximum usable height of 35 (was 20) and will partially refund cooldown if limited by height maximum
- Spell: Vault has adjusted visuals and sound
- Spell: Weave should now behave better with effects like Resourceful Seafarers Font Power
- Appendix Scaling slightly accelerated, with roughly 20% increase at Appendix 5
- Font Powers (like Sisyphus) will now have more natural spawn locations at chapter start
- Page of Power: Inscribed has been reworked and re-added to the pool
- Page of Power: Alamo now grants 15% of damage as barrier (max 50) (was 20% (max 100))
- Page of Power: Bamphlet now implodes the departure area and explodes the arrival area
- Page of Power: Chaos Theory now cycles through random teleport locations more slowly while Flutterstep is held
- Page of Power: Discordant should no longer refuse to give power
- Page of Power: Father of Quill should now behave properly with the Resourceful Seafarers Font Power
- Page of Power: Seismography should no longer be able to damage Scribes at the ends of Chapters
- Torn Page: Grounding Presence visual will no longer persist through death
- Torn Page: Grounding Presence now has a range of 12m (was 20m)
- Yellow Signature Spell should no longer double dip from the Radiant Inscription
- Yellow Signature Spell should now properly apply bonuses to Eclipse casts
- Inscription: Opportunist should no longer eat partially charged Mana
- Inkling Casts will no longer push the inkling backwards
- Raving Boss: Missra has some VFX adjustment to pools
- Many effects that move enemies will now sync more accurately in multiplayer
- Binding UI will no longer show +1 when maximally Attuned
- Fixed an issue with some Quests not properly awarding credit
- Various arena improvements when combined with Lava Floor Bindings
- Fixed navigation spots in Vignette: Seaside Path
- Fixed navigation spots in Vignette: Cavern Pass
- Fixed navigation spots in Boss Arenas
- Fixed an issue with improper Scriptorium navigation