It's been a while once more -- but I come bearing gifts in this Yuletide season of bitter snow. Not only do I have updates on the project's development for you, I have a genuine present for those who have purchased the game or who are subscribed to my SubscribeStar. But that'd be unwrapping the gift before reading the tag -- so let's bite in, shall we?

What's New?

(Some of this may be a little redundant if you've read the previous dev log; I'm going off my full patch notes list)

• A small collection of new shaders have overhauled the overall look of the game, giving it more of the 'gritty retro TV' feel I'd always intended. These will be togglable features eventually but are baked in  at this moment. They also grant a bit of visual 'oomph' to the RED in the game's art, which I'd always intended to represent mystical or miraculous forces.

• Combat Items are in, along with a Throwing Knife and Healing Potion to test them out.

• Alongside them, Spells are now officially available in Combat. These are generally more powerful than Combat Items -- but typically they will cost your precious Sanity to cast and the most powerful of them will burn from your investigator's mind on use. Presently the only means to acquire them is to gain them from defeated Foes (who now drop items by-the-by, including precious Trophies and Clues).
• Minigames for Loot and Challenge cards in the Dungeon are now in, albeit both are somewhat primitive in their stages of development.
  • In the case of Challenge cards, you'll be given two choices. To test your Investigator's Luck to pass the Challenge or to Challenge Fate through a random and short minigame which will test you, the Player's, skill in order to aid your Investigator's hand and twist Fate towards them.
    • Presently, the only Challenge is a Magic Rune Disarm challenge where you must race the clock to first locate hidden runes underneath tiles (Minesweeper, but you lose time instead of the game if you detonate a bomb); once the runes are located, you must draw a disarming sigil by following a series of rapid instructions and then incanting.
    • Success means you grant the Investigator an automatic die (to-be-evaluated-later 'a number of dice based on how fast you completed the challenge') to their check to evade the Challenge's failure results.
  • There are stakes for both winning and losing Challenges. Generally, you'll find things a bit more exciting than those offered by Loot tiles in Dungeons should you succeed against Challenges. The harder the Challenge, the better the reward.

• Loot is, meanwhile, currently a 'guessing game'. What you might gain is shown in brief as the cards are spread before you; then it is up to your eyes to keep track of where the card you want goes. Some Loots may have negative rewards built in (e.g. more Terror, losing XP, gaining Afflictions or even Cursing your Dice).
• Not only have the Dungeons begun to finish in their foundational construction, so is your Homebase! Gone is the old-style layout (and old art!); now is the time for tabs and modular window designs (as well as hints on where the gameplay is expected to go from here)

• World Events are in. These are events which will spontaneously occur in various Locations throughout The City. You can think of them as 'little time bombs' which, if left unattended, will detonate to typically poor result. While active, they increase the amount of Terror being generated per turn. Some may be related to your current Mystery; some may not. They're intended to be small vignettes that show the growing influence of the stirring Slaughtered God.
• The World tab has been overhauled to accommodate the new World Events system as well as to show Districts with high Danger Levels. Danger can dramatically increase the risk of Random Encounters while investigating a District instead of gaining an Investigation event.

• I've rewritten a bunch of Flowers in the Mist's case introduction to be a little more engaging in flow and style (this also applies to a fair number of events throughout the game)
• I added a thick outline and shadow to the game's text to enhance readability throughout the project.
• I've nailed down a number of problems that have been plaguing the project and causing bugs and/or inaccessible UX.

You said something about 'a gift'?

That's right! I'm presently working on a playable build of the game due to be launched perhaps as early as tonight, depending on how my tests go. This is still a very early prototype of the game and there is much (much!) to be done before this is a full experience but it is at least playable, runs largely smoothly, and many of the edge-cases have been smoothed down to less sharp points.

In short: Expect a major announcement of a playable build within the next few hours to the next few days! From there-on I'll be switching to a model which delivers the next build early to my Subscribestar supporters and itch.io will gain that version which the next version after that releases.

Thank you, as always, for your support. Please hit the like button and hit that Subscribestar link on the game's page if you'd love to see even more of this game even faster! The more money I have to work with and the more excitement to inspire me, the faster I can push this boulder up the hill. I am only one developer; it is your hands that give me wings!

Until your next Dark Dreams!