[Demo] Patch Notes — v1.0.4901

TRIAD awakenings

Three new MYTHIC cards wake a fusion and a third school's card into one: GALLOWS STORM (deathmark and arc go off as one, and every mark the cut passes on rides the bolt to five more), THUNDERGLASS (stormfire and shatter go off as one, and the cinder bursts every mark round where the bolt ended) and GLACIAL STORM (brittlefire and stormrod go off as one, and its lightning hunts the frozen and freezes two more).

• A triad is a bonus: the wave's own card page comes right after it, so it never costs you a pick, and it counts toward no card limit.
• You need none of its cards in your hand. If you do hold the fusion and the third, they stay and cast a level higher.
• Not in ENDLESS, DAILY RIFT, CASCADE, WILD HUNT or the lab.

Your weapon's own ARSENAL skill

The weapon in your hand now casts its own ARSENAL skill by itself from the first wave, beside the two ARSENAL weapons a run can add: the sword casts RISING CROSS, and each of the forty weapons casts its own. Level cards marked IN HAND take it from LV 1 to FORGED, as often as an ARSENAL weapon's do, and it has its own column on the HUD's damage strip.

• Choosing a weapon now chooses its skill too: the FORMS page and the RUN deal name each weapon's ARSENAL skill under its name, with what it does, what each level adds and its FORGED twist behind a ?.
• A brand-new save fights its first stage with the sword alone. The skill joins as stage 2 opens.
• CONTINUE keeps its level. WILD HUNT and the lab have no hand skill.

Every new stage opens

Each new stage of a run now opens with a dust bloom in its theme's own light, and the ground the stage adds rises with it: each piece comes up the moment the bloom's light reaches it, out from the crystal, while the floor you stood on stays exactly as it was. Stones and stumps on the old edge tip over, are carried out past the new edge and break into pieces that sink out of sight.

• Boss waves open under a crimson seal that brings the new ground in from the walls. The warden adds a heartbeat and a burrow flare.
• The step into ENDLESS gets its own opening: the tide comes in, the lights go out, veins glow below and the floor falls away.
• The camera no longer moves when a stage opens (stages 11, 21 and 31 lose their letterbox pull-back), and the crystal and the floor no longer jump under a resting mouse.

This ascension, charted

The ascension page's THIS CYCLE now charts every run since your last melt: one spark per run, as deep as it went across the themes, the deepest lit at its tip, your record's deepest wave as a dashed line, and a crown on every run that went on into ENDLESS. Hover the chart to read this cycle's deepest theme and wave beside your record's.

Settings

• AUTO ZOOM is off by default: the camera holds one zoom all run, everything the size it is on wave 5 instead of shrinking as the floor grows, and follows your blade from wave 6 on. Zoom all the way out and you still see the whole floor. The new AUTO ZOOM switch under SCREEN brings back the camera that closes in by itself.
• MUTE IN BACKGROUND, under SOUND and on by default: the game goes silent while you are in another window.
• Every settings chapter has its own RESET, which puts back only that chapter's settings. Hovering it lights exactly the rows it would change, and READING's never touches your language.
• READING: AWAKENING STATS can open a card's stats OUTWARD, beside the row where the screen has room, and HOVER ONLY closes them as soon as the mouse leaves the cards.

Changes

• HOW WILL YOU PLAY? opens on the record you played last: one big CONTINUE with its sword, level and deepest theme and wave, and ONLINE and LOCAL as two chips under it. The rest of what the page used to say is behind a ?.
• The crystal now floats over a stone socket, circled by three shards, turning runes and rising motes, and shows faintly through a crowd chewing it.
• A boss kill deals two card picks, not three. CASCADE tables need every player on this update.
• The demo's Steam achievements are now 8 you can finish in a session or two, and Steam and achievement trackers count 8. The rest are in the full game.

Fixes

• The melt page's WHAT GOES shows what Seed Tier, Warm Rows, Molten Core and Banked Coal keep, instead of showing it all lost.
• Zoomed in, the view no longer swoops across the floor when a card page closes into the next stage.
• Settings help cards keep their text inside the card at large text sizes.
• At 150% text, a locked weapon's unlock line stays inside the FORMS page.
• Finnish: the bardiche's skill is spelled KUUNSIRPPI.