The launch date is nearly here! This gigantic patch that I've been working on since March will bring the game to 95% of the state it was always meant to be in. Many of the existing mechanics have either been overhauled or enhanced in some way, and several new ones have been introduced. 

Since the start of development, I've been mostly focusing on adding new content, but a lot of what was there was never quite finished or fleshed out. Many of these mechanics were unfinished altogether - a lot of the Feats you could take, for example, weren't even implemented! 

Since Zone 2 is as far as you can go in the demo, I came to the realization that I need to make the best possible impression on the content that is there, rather than trying to make even more content that players will not see. And there was so much stuff that was half-finished in some way: the UI was obviously incomplete (you like viewing gray boxes?), the spell system was clumsy and didn't scale well, Feats weren't fully implemented, and enemy AI was not able to chase you down in a way that made them a convincing threat.

That all changes with this update. I've gone back and revisited nearly every part of the game and made adjustments and changes based on what I knew needed to be done, as well as the feedback I've repeatedly heard from players. The result is a complete overhaul of the game that will make it the game it was always meant to be. 

--------------------

This is a nearly-exhaustive list of everything that will be included in the v0.30 patch:

-The resolution of the game has been upscaled from 360x270 to 400x300.

-The UI in the game has been completely re-drawn. Gone are all those drab grey boxes - now every menu has custom designs, borders, and colors. An example of this change was shown in this devlog post.

-Three new mechanics have been added into the game: Roll dodges, ranged weapons, and stamina. You can read more about these changes here.

-Enemies will now be able to switch between direct and smart pathfinding depending on whether they are able to directly reach the player. When they are blocked by a wall, they will switch to grid-based smart pathfinding that lets them navigate around corners and walls to continue pursuing you. I've also included lots of smaller enemy AI improvements throughout.

-Nine new spells have been added into the game, and all spells are now able to be upgraded to higher tiers. Each playable race will receive a different list of spells they can learn and upgrade over the course of the game, and spell scrolls have been entirely done away with. The mechanic to upgrade spells is Arcane Energy, which can be accumulated by casting spells, killing enemies with spells, leveling up, and more. Some additional info was included in this post.

-Racial bonuses have been adjusted, making them contrast with each other more. This will give players more of a reason to be picky over who they choose. The Character Creation screen has also been overhauled to make it more clear for players.

-Many new racial Feats have been added, and some generic Feats have been either added, removed, or made into racial Feats. All races get six racial Feats they can take, and the generic pool of Feats has been shuffled around a bit depending on which race you pick as well. I included some additional information here.

-Several generic Feats have been overhauled to be more useful. For example, Regeneration and Rejuvenation now passively restore Health and Mana respectively, whereas before they were essentially useless.

-A proper tutorial has been added into the game, replacing those ineffective signs.

-If you get stuck on a particular stage, there is a special NPC who will give your character a growing stat boost to help you get through it. This should prevent any softlocking of the game in the event you keep dying on a stage and can't progress.

-The Forge has been enhanced - you can now use alloys to enhance your crafted gear even further.

-The Slime Warrens has been overhauled. It has been given two additional stages and an expanded hub world with new dialogue options, secrets, and a quest line. Some of the existing stages have also been adjusted a bit. The Steamworks Foundry has been shortened from 15 stages to 12, making it feel much more reasonable in length.

-The game now has a new, custom-designed font.

-The shops have new gear to purchase.

-Some areas have been beautified and enhanced with better graphics and more decorations.

-In-line color text has been added, and this is used to highlight key words throughout the game.

-Pressing ESC when in control of your character gives you an option to go to the main menu now.

-A small indicator shows whenever dialogue has finished writing to the screen.

-Many, many bug fixes.

-Many small graphical fixes and improvements.

-Additional race-specific dialogues.

-More dialogues can be skipped over.

-A new musical jingle plays when you defeat a zone boss.

-A special and very rare item can now drop from enemies that you'll definitely want to get. ;)

-------------

This is intended to be the last major patch for the demo - changes from this point on will be mostly minor, primarily involving bug fixes and addressing any common source of complaints. If any new content is included from this point on, it will likely be an early version of the game's Infinite Mode, something that has been promised since the start of development. I have no immediate plans to add that in - but stay tuned.

In the meantime, I'll continue to post updates and videos on the new content I'm working in, and very soon I'll have a Steam page up for the game. I'll be excited to share information as that date approaches!

And if you'd like to follow development closely and join a community of other game developers, artists, and musicians, I highly encourage you to join the game's Discord channel: https://discord.gg/pqVmjgAtX7