Update set 0.79.x: Easy mode, pets, new ability + more outfits, audio 🎵...

Introducing a new system of Pets

• These companions that will follow you around as you navigate the labyrinths of death and the realms beyond.
• As with most systems (starting gear/worlds/character backgrounds/skins) their unlock cost is discounted during early access. Keep an eye out for those egg collectables...

🎼 New Audio

Additional sound effects have been added to the grotto.

We also have a new boss 🎶 piece for the necromancer

New skin tones and outfits

Leading to over 27 new cosmetic combinations since the previous update set.

New Difficulty Mode

A few players have asked for a more gradual difficulty curve.
The easy mode provides a much more forgiving game experience, whilst retaining a degree of the core challenge.

In case you're wondering what the differences are between the 3 difficulties:
Easy:

• Most noticeably there is no timer for the hunter's appearance, so you can take as much time as you like without having to evade it.
• Special pursuit level themes (lava,gas,fading lights...) move slower.
• Your attacks are stronger
• Take 12% less damage.
• Many enemy moves are nerfed including having slower and fewer projectiles.
• Health potions are more effective.

Moderate: The Standard experience.
Note that health potions have been adjusted slightly due to the addition of the previous mode.

Hard 💀: Designed for the masters

• Bosses have more health and enter their enraged phases sooner.
• Certain enemy moves are faster and happen more frequently (e.g. skeletal warriors become much better at dodging).
• Enemies are more resilient to harm and will deal out more damage per attack.
• Starting health and recovery is smaller.
• Pursuit level themes (lava/pollen flood/fading light etc.) move faster.
• Made slightly harder as of this update.
• Bonuses: + 30% XP, hardest achievement markers and bragging rights.

New Ability: Sphere of influence

This is a handy spell that knits the life energy of creatures together, allowing you to chain up opponents.

Injuring one opponent in the chain, injures them all. Setting one on fire also spreads the light through the connected...
Can be particularly powerful against groups of enemies or for hitting more elusive monsters with the right planning.

GUI and other graphics

• Added shield gauntlet collapsed state; actively drawn on character.
• New menu for purchasing pets.
• Better scaling of existing menu elements for wide screen.
• Notification icons now appear when a new item/character background/pet becomes available.
• Fixed up the control rebind menu so it is fully compatible with the Xbox controller.
• Additional background set pieces including parallax statues for the grotto and chains for the temple.
• Updated credits screen.

Narrative

We added an intro transition screen for a bit of exposition.
Some environmental art has also been added to convey more of the setting
It's no substitute for an epic story, but it does set things up for the narrative we have planned for the game...

Optimization

• Reduced the number of draw calls and render textures created across the entire game.
• Render textures are cached more instead of creating new ones to save on memory and performance.
• Fixed Rare OpenGL memory issue which randomly skipped rendering the lighting layer for a chunk.

Bug fixes and rebalancing

• Behavior for grapple release adjusted to be more intuitive on controller.
• You can stand on fallen stalactites now.
• Nerfed orb mage pre-hard difficulty. It will no longer jet away from you as fast to dish out pain.
• Skeletal soldiers will roll away from you at close range.
• Crystal eye telegraphs where it's going to fire.
• Repeater dart trap have been slowed slightly
• Firebrands/embers are no longer acting like straphnel.
• Fixed issue with notification text not appearing
• Multiple other tweaks
• Additional time before the hunter's summoning is given on the higher levels.
• Progress Menu now shows character backgrounds and pet unlocks at the end of each run (not just equipment items).

Patch 0.79.18

15th July

• Certain pets now glow.
• Fixed uncommon generation glitch where 1 block waterfalls could spawn.

Patch 0.79.20

20th July

• Pets cloak along with their owner.
• Added new version of level end stinger for completing a boss level.
• Items in quick slots are now much more visible.
• Added Advanced Graphics Options menu.
• Changed damage resistance of Easy mode from 12% -> 15%
• Added an option to change how quick slots are displayed (see advanced graphics options menu)

Patch 0.79.21.5

• Added Legacy Tile Render option (for the rare case of older drivers running out of OpenGL memory). Go to Graphics->Options->Advanced->Tile Renderer on starting the game.
• Added a couple more background art objects to the temple.
• Health potions and vampirism orbs now heal you 8% and 20% more respectively on Easy mode.

Patch 0.79.22.5

11th August
Changed the default tile renderer back to legacy for any new players.

This was in light of a windows 10 update throttling the amount of memory available to OpenGL on certain drivers. This lead to a rare Out of Memory exception on a few machines (crash/white fog)

If your driver is updated to have enough memory you can change this in
Graphics->Options->Advanced->Tile renderer.

Patch 0.79.23

• Added options to invert X/Y axis on controller right analog stick. As well as an option to swap them. This could give better support for PS4 controller.
• Added more clarity to grotto foreground tiles.

We've been working on much more for the next update set in the background...

Side note: This was merged with the next update set on November the 12th for Itch.IO. More details on that soon...

Have fun!