Demo Update 0.9.4: The Tower Redecorated

"I redecorated. Leave the bodies where they fall. They're part of the look." — The Tower

Everything since 0.9.1 in one update: a new look for the whole tower, a real door with a stair behind it, an opening cinematic, and a long list of control fixes.

A NEW LOOK The tower has been relit from the first floor up. Light travels with you, and the edges of the room fall into real dark. Strong colour belongs only to you, the wardens and attack warnings, so the thing that can hurt you is the thing you see first.

• Two looks: LEGENDARY, a coarse pixel look (the default), and MODERN, the same scene smooth at full resolution. Same light, same effects. Switch instantly in Settings › Atmosphere, even mid-run from the pause menu.
• Each tier of the tower has its own light, fog and colour. Reach a new tier and the room starts dark, then lights up in a wave from the door.
• When a warden wakes, the room dims and a spotlight follows it. When it falls, the lights come back on from where it fell.
• Bodies pile up and blood pools stay for the rest of the floor. They never cover an attack warning, loot or a living enemy.
• Enemy strikes wind up where you can see them and flash on impact. Getting hit reads at a glance: a red flash, a thin red edge and a shaking HP bar.
• New weapon effects: muzzle flash, tracers, a readable shotgun spread and sparks where shots land.
• XP drops as a cut crystal and gold as a spinning coin, and both leave a trail as they fly to you.
• Walls reach the ceiling. When one stands between the camera and you, it opens up in a dither pattern, so you never lose yourself behind it.

THE DOOR

• The exit is now a single oak door in a stone arch. When the floor is clear, it swings in and hits the wall.
• Behind it is a real stone stair, and you climb it. The door shuts behind you and the next floor begins.

BEFORE YOU CLIMB

• The first new run you start opens with a cinematic. Hold a button to skip it, or watch it again any time from Settings on the title screen.
• A short studio intro now plays before the title screen. The first time, it plays in full; after that, any key skips it, and that key press never reaches the menu.

CONTROLS

• No more accidental picks: if you were jumping, dashing or mashing when a level-up, reward, market or ult screen opens, those presses are ignored. A thin gold line fills under the button. Look, then press.
• Solo on keyboard and mouse: Enter confirms, 1-4 pick a card, the arrow keys work, and you can point and click on cards, the market, the title menu and the pause menu.
• One rule on every menu: Space, Enter and A use the highlighted row, Esc and B go back one step. In Settings, Space changes the setting, and a run only starts from Start or Continue.
• Restart in the pause menu now asks first.
• Gamepad: nudging the stick on a menu value no longer changes it over and over.

FIXES

• Crisp HUD text. MODERN draws it at your screen's resolution, sharp at 4K; LEGENDARY sets it on its own pixel grid. Japanese, Korean and Chinese keep smooth text.
• The slingshot makes a soft leather snap. The staff fires a crystal shard, sounds like a spell and no longer grates under auto-fire. The ice staff does the same in frost.
• The small hitches that started around floor 5 are gone. The first kill, the first hit you take, the first shot and a warden's arrival now load with the floor.
• Weapons are in proportion: the staff no longer dwarfs your hand, the shotgun is no longer tiny, the spear is slimmer.
• Menus and the top of the screen no longer stack text. The build panel has a proper frame, real item icons and a 5-pip meter per effect.
• On Windows the game now runs on Direct3D 12, which ends rare one-frame flashes of stray triangles on some AMD cards. If it misbehaves on your PC, the launch option --rendering-driver vulkan switches back.

Your demo progress (records, badges, settings, continue) carries over. Everyone starts in LEGENDARY; MODERN is one press away.

See you at Steam Next Fest, October 19-26.

"It's darker up here now. Stay close." — The Tower