Vault of the Void News

Hello everyone! I apologise for my silence over the last few weeks. It’s been a real grind, I’ve been heavily focused on getting the Localisation setup for Vault of the Void. And today -- finally -- I have some great news!

So, with a massive thank you to the amazing community members who have volunteered their time, Vault of the Void is now available to opt in and play in 6 different languages: Chinese (Simplified), Japanese, Italian, Spanish, French and German.

As of right now -- this is a public opt-in branch to ensure everything is all smooth, and things aren’t missing! If all goes well, then I’ll publish this to the live branch next weekend, March 4th!

As a note, I know this isn’t super exciting news for all players. I’d love to be swinging in with a bunch of new content for you all to digest! However, the nature of things is that Localisation had to get done, and it was a big demand in terms of my time. Also, being a solo-developer, that means that all my time spent there leaves 0 for other stuff sadly. 

Fear not however! The update next week will come bundled with 2 new Challenge coins, and I’ll also preview some new Alternative Artwork which I’m super excited about, as well as an update on plans for new stuff coming!! 

[h2]Okay, so first up, some details![/h2]
How do I opt-in?
It’s actually really easy!

• Head to your Steam Library and find Vault of the Void.
  
• Right click and select Properties
  
• You’ll see a “Betas” option on the left. If you head there, drop down the box and select “Localisation”.
  
• Close that screen and Steam will do the rest!
  

Will my save files carry over?
Yes! Any data you had before will carry over between branches, and all games logged on the Localisation branch will indeed be logged to your main profile. Please keep in mind though -- going back to the Live Branch may cause some characters to not appear in game logs etc, as the Live Branch version doesn’t have the support fonts and language files. Ideally, it would be best to play on the Localisation branch until the Live Branch is updated on March 4th.

I’m an English speaker -- any benefit to moving over?
There were also a few small bug fixes included in this build, although to be fair, most of the time was in translation work. However, with all the new font and string changes, it would be awesome to confirm testing in English as well!

Where can I log feedback?
As always, the Discord is a great place to reach out re: this stuff. However, I’ve also set up a stickied forum post right here. I’ll be cycling through this everyday for any issues.

As always, I'm here to answer any questions you may have! I can't stress enough how thankful I am, and I'm sure we all are collectively to the AMAZING people who helped to translate this. Vault of the Void ended up with over 40,000 words that required translation, and I'm blown away by the out pouring of support over the last few months.

谢谢, ありがとう, Grazie, Gracias, Merci & Danke!!

Hello everyone!

Ahh - I finally got here. I’ll admit -- I took the scenic route it seems.. let me explain!

I had originally planned to have this patch out late last week, or over the weekend at the latest. However, life had other plans -- including hitting my family and I with a bout of COVID! Thankfully, it was pretty light for me, only lasting a day or two, but it did set things back a little. My appologies for taking so long with these fixes -- I'd much rather have them out eariler but with Localisation still going on its hard to find a break point to push a build inbetween thing!

However we’re here now, and I’m excited to get this out. Translation is still going on (I’m still pulling strings out of the game!) -- and progressing very well (the game is actually playable in several languages!). However I’ve managed to sneak this update in between all that. Let’s dive in.

[h2]Bug Fixes[/h2]
Let’s start with the boring stuff first hey? Bugs. Ew. But -- there's been a bunch of them. The biggest issues I’ve seen reported seem to be around missing strings. This was because of all the Localisation stuff going on -- really sorry about that. Desync now has a tooltip -- and that tooltip isn’t the Shii tooltip like it’s been. I’ll post a full patch notes below of all the bugs I remember fixing -- I’m sure there were much more!

[h2]Card Stacking[/h2]
So this is something which is a working prototype right now -- card stacking! One of the coolest features (I think) of Vault of the Void is -- no hand size limit. But, that can lead to some ... interesting things when it comes to Hidden Blade spam. Fun to play -- but tricky to interact with.



No longer! Card stacking is now a thing which allows those cards to form up into a neat little stack, once added to your hand! Please let me know of any issues you have with this -- if all is well I’ll probably roll this out to Banes, Dazes and the likes as well!



[h2]Save Game - again.. [/h2]
So, I’ve still been battling some issues with Save Game files. I think I’ve found the solution now! Huge thanks to Valouvalou (who made Loop Odyssey -- go check it out!). Similar situtation with them (and many others), and it looks like they’ve found a solution! I’ve rolled out a simliar fix in this update -- please let me know if you have any more profile/save game wipes (useually this occurs during a black out or PC crash).

Fingers crossed!!

[h2]Challenge Coins[/h2]
So -- whilst my hands are tied a little expanding too much right now with the Localisation process going on -- there is one thing I can add more off. Challenge Coins! 4 new coins have been added, one for each Class! The reception to the Challenge Coin update has been overwhelming, I apprecaite each and everyone one of you who have enjoyed the new system, and taken the time to let me know! The quest to fill this out with more and more coins will continue!

I hope you enjoy these new ones as much as the past ones!



[h2]750 Review Reward[/h2]
Okay -- so I’m blown away, but we’ve actually already hit the 750 Review Count (just ticked over today)! Unreal -- I can’t thank you all enough. The 750 Community Reward is ready to be claimed in game. Some of you may have seen a new system implemented last patch -- the Alternative Artwork screen under unlocks. Here is a chance for me to start giving out some awesome rewards, in the form of cool artwork variations, animated cards, themed sets -- lots to expand upon.

I’m actually pretty excited about this system -- it has a lot of cool potential! I’d love to see guest artwork featured, crossovers with other games, all fun things like that!

First cab of the rank -- some alternative artwork for everyone's favorite Hidden Blade! That’s right, the Soul Knife can be claimed with the code ‘SoulKnife’ right now! It’s full size, animated, and I hope you like it!! Rather than boring Hidden Blades -- why not weild a weapon powered by the very Souls you collected!



It’s an absolute pleasure to be able to take a little time to make cool rewards and cosmetic unlocks like this. I’ve already got the reward for 1000 Reviews in the making -- a set of Alternative Artwork cards. And the theme is... well... interesting ...

Oh you want to see a preview? Okay...



Oh no? Oh, yessss!

[h2]500 Review Reward[/h2]
So on a slightly more serious note... anyone who has read my posts before knows how upset I was about the 500 Reward situation. I did everything I could to try and avoid something like this happening, and sadly the way the situation unfolded wasn’t great. However, I’m pleased to annouce that -- its finally ready.

Firstly, huge thank you to my fellow artist Mengo for helping me with the base layout here. We worked on this together, I threw down the final rendering and setup things for animation -- and then Sanjeev my animator crushed it. Again. (As a reward, looks like he'll be animated a bunch of Treasure Goblins realllll soon)

So I’ll be upfront, I mentioned this in the Discord, but I was pretty nervous when it game to this. Because of how overdue it is, the drama surronding it, and the anticipation, I was very worried it would be a flop and a let down. An "Oh. Is that it?"...

However, everyone who’s tested it so far has had great things to say -- so I really hope you all think the same!

Firstly -- the code. ‘LateToTheParty’ will unlock this gem for you.

Elements of the board react and light up to things you do -- ending turn, taking threat, killing mobs etc. There is also a little hidden gem in there if you’re feeling particularly... musical. A huge shoutout to Cody from CpawsMusic, (who has done the soundtrack for VotV), but was an absolute legend in helping me out with the Rune sounds. You'll find out when you click on them :)

Who’s going to be the first one to send me a video of them playing a song on the Runes? :D

In closing with all this -- I'm going to vow to never let this happen again. I'm really, REALLY sorry it was overdue. You all did your part in leaving the Reviews. I didn't. I really do hope you enjoy the Battlefield however :)

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Woo ! At the bottom already? I'll close with my usual thank you for all the amazing support and kind words. At least once a day I have someone join the Discord, reach out on Reddit, Twitter or email to express how much Vault means to them and how much they enjoy it. Game dev is exhausting -- but you all make it so worthwhile and such a rewarding experience. Thank you!

More Localisation work for me over the next few weeks. Then -- into that balance pass I've promised (can't do that mid translation :( ) and into some fresh content!!

Take care everyone -- all for now!

- Josh




New things!
- There is an option in the menu to auto add Potions during the Void fight
- Hidden Blades and Silent Shivs now stack in your hand! This is a prototype still and will be rolled out to other cards eventually
- Alternative Artwork is now a thing - use the code 'SoulKnife' for the alternative Hidden Blade artwork! (750 Community Reward)
- Finally - the Interactive Background is finished! You can unlock it by using the code 'LateToTheParty'!
- 4 new Challenge Coins
- In your Run History, there is now a Copy Seed button, which you can use with the new...
- Paste Seed button!
- Finally, new artwork for Bane, Daze, Exhaustion, Infection and Remorse.
- In the options menu, there is an option to have a Discovery Tooltip visible. This means that in game, any artifact or card you haven't "Discovered" will gain an extra tooltip
- Void Stones can now be viewed in the Compendium
- Yet again, another Save file system update. Please let me know if you have any issues with data loss!
- The Community Reward tracker has been bumped to 1000!
- New Spell Button on the top bar - allowing you to quickly view your spells in a Tooltip.

Bugs
- Fixed Bruce not having a description on his Passive ability
- Fixed the Soul Merchant showing "0" on the Void Stones
- Fixed an issue with random targeting on some cards
- Finally fixed the min price tooltip when playing with Tight Pockets!
- Fixed the Desync tooltip turning into the Shii tooltip
- Fixed the link to Noxious's Twitter on the Store page
- Added Bane, Daze, Exhaustion, Infection and Remorse to the Compendium
- Fixed an issue with the Merchant, flickering buttons and the Zeal Menu
- Fixed an issue with Fortitude effecting damage prediction
- Fixed the Treasusre Chest re-roll issue
- Fixed an issue with targeting an immune enemy with a Shii attack
- Winged Circlet text fixed
- Bare Bones Coin Challenge now will allow you get the Upgrade Point in the Artifact Chest
- Fixed a bug which stopped Volatile cards from glowing when Discarding
- Fixed Discharge from Tesla Trident ignoring Reroute
- Fixed a bug with Jewel of the Void
- Debt Repaid Purge now affected by Rage
- State of Mind Purge no longer affected by Rage
- Removed the Artifact Chest on the Pre-Fight for Daily Draft
- Fixed issues with Jade Mantis
- Vanguard Shield fixed
- Reworked some card keyword stuff in setup for Localisation
- Tweaking to the Compendium and Card Discovery numbers
- You can now re-enable the Community Reward Main Menu feature from Options-> Debug
- Hold to End Turn now extends to the shortcut (Space Bar)
- Unholy Effigy will now affect Fumble correctly

Hello everyone!

Super quick one today (no serioulsy, I'm giving myself a word limit!) - you may have seen a build go live earlier today. So in last weeks flurry of optimisation, I did manage to catch a few things I missed pretty badly. You may have noticed a few slow downs on any screen showing the Deck/Discard viewer, and potentially in regards to upgraded cards in hand. These have now been fixed (sorry about those). Also a couple of little bug fixes I saw crop up in the logs and Discord reports the last week.

I also dove into another round of crazy optimisation - working with some users in the Discord. I managed to clean up a bunch more things - and you’ll probably notice a few changes visually -- both in todays patch and moving forward as well.

Mostly to do with Fonts.

As things get optimized and moved over to support all the new languages, it’s been important to make sure that that process is streamlined and in place. Previously, Vault used some sprite fonts. This was all well and good when I was dealing with 26 letters and 10 numbers... but now it's a very different story.

I’ve tried my best to keep things clean and readable still. I know first hand that font changes can be very jarring, I’ve tried to keep them to areas which needed to change only. Hopefully it only takes a few fights to get used to - although if something is unbearable, feel free to drop me a ping!

[h2]750 Community Reward[/h2]
So... we are hurtling towards the 750 review mark very quickly. Time to give away a little bit more info about what’s coming up. Keen eyes might notice a new category in the Unlocks screen - the “Alternative Art”. Well, I’ll leave it at that for now!

You can also see that work on the 500 reward is back underway after the hiccup. Still can’t apologize enough for this whole debacle :(

However, onwards and upwards -- this is still an early WIP, but you can see the runes which will be the interactive zones as you take damage, purge cards, end turn etc. Lots more lighting and rendering to go - with a few little features I’m excited to add also! Big thanks to my fellow artist Mengo for stepping in to help out with this - we'll be working on the artwork together to get it all ready to go!



[h2]Localisation[/h2]
My goodness. I’ll be honest - nothing could have prepared me for what was about to unfold when it came to the Localisation work...

This is probably one of the beautiful examples of human friendliness, support and kindness I can remember personally to date, throughout my entire life. I started extracting strings a little while back, and the team that has assembled to VOLUNTEER their time to make this game playable to all is amazing. I can’t extract strings fast enough! Such a dedicated, detail originated group of individuals banding together in support and I’m truly humbled. The work is happening, and it’s happening very quickly. The image below gives you an example of the activity and amount of work already put in.

If I haven't accepted your join request on Crowdin yet - fear not! We just had to pump the breaks a little to ensure each team was setup in a way that would work moving forward, with Proofreaders in place to ensure consistency and clarity.



Thank you so, so much to anyone who has been involved in this process. So far we have Chinese, Italian, Spanish and French almost at a point where its ready to go (requires more implementation on my end), with Japanese and German getting close as well!



(The above image is sitll a WIP - little formating fixes and keywords to tend to also! )

I won’t even try to form more words on how thankful and humbled I am -- they will fall utterly short of my true feelings. Much, much love.

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Alright - time for me to dash! More JSON strings to cut out!

Will be back next week with another update I dare say. Appreciate all the kind words on the Challenge Coin update by the way -- I see a lot of people enjoying them and interacting with that experience! Whilst I’m busy smashing away the Localisation work - I’m going to try and sneak 1 or 2 more new ones in for next week!

Thanks everyone - take care!

All for now.
- Josh

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Hey everyone!

This week's patch isn’t anything too exciting (sorry!) - a few bug fixes, some optimization and a lot of setup for localisation! It's been a challenging week when it comes to bugs and issues, so many obscure little things cropping up that have taken hours to track down. If you're interested in the full list of changes, I'll post that at the bottom! Otherwise, I’m going to try to be brief this week - so let's dive in!

As a side note, because of the types of changes in this patch, I'm going to keep a sharp eye on things over the next 12-24 hours. ANY problems - please reach out right away and I'll fix the issues!

[h2]Localisation[/h2]
The process to localisation is well underway! One thing that was holding me back originally was not having a platform to make the process easy, especially during development when the game is changing/getting new content constantly. In my research, I stumbled upon Crowdin - and ... it’s been fantastic!

Vault of the Void on Crowdin

Firstly, I can’t say enough about the volunteers who have stepped up to get things moving. Already there is a fair chunk of progress made on things. If you’d like to get involved as well, anyone can contribute by signing up to the project. If you jump onto the Discord as well - feel free to reach out and I can add you to the Localisation role. I can’t thank all the volunteers enough for their work so far (and into the future). It’s very humbling and I greatly appreciate the fact that people would volunteer their time to contribute to the process!

Not all the game strings are pulled out yet - but a huge chunk of them were dealt with this week. Next week should see more of them extracted, looking to hopefully have that process finalized in the next 2 weeks.

[h2]The Memory Leak[/h2]
So in the last patch I spoke about the new save system, created to avoid the profile crashing issue. Whilst the new save system seems great (haven’t had any new reports of that past issue), there was one majorish problem. It did contain a memory leak.

I reached out to the person who built the extension, and we went back and forth on testing what was going on. Turns out - the extension wasn’t leaking, nor was the local code -- seems to be an odd Gamemaker issue! Shrug...

I’ve spent some time this week however writing a new, new system. This one doesn’t leak, uses buffers, and is really quick!

This also kicked me into gear to get some more optimisation work done as well, more on that below.

[h2]Optimisation[/h2]
Spurred on by the Memory issue, I booted up the debugger and started combing through the code to try another optimization pass. This process needs to get done every few months, especially as I add new stuff all the time. From the work done, I was getting about an 25% increase in performance, plus I killed a few other small mem leaks. Overall, things should be much smoother - let me know if something still falls behind but!

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Feeback on the Challenge Coin patch was super, super positive! I've already seen a bunch of people racking up wins across the full board - even achiving all classes on every coin! Insane! Expect a few more of these to drop soon as well!

Other than that - I’ve been busy here preparing for the 750 Community Reward. I’ll have details on that next week, along with hopefully a preview on the 500 Reward still owed (I’ve found a new artist to help with that, after the previous bad situation :( )

Thank you everyone for your continued support. I know there's nothing too flashy here, but once I get the Translations stuff sorted, I’ll pivot back into more content, and try to outline some plans for 2022 as we head towards 1.0!

P.S: The Great Balance Pass of 2022 is still on the cards as well - hoping to start that process in the next week or so.

All for now!
- Josh

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The Big Ol' List o' Stuff
- Lots of work on performance and memory management!
- Mute Audio in background toggle has been added!
- Original Card Cost option added, which will show you the cards original cost in brackets
- Magnetic Pavise Block increased from 1 to 2
- Artifacts which aren't in the game have been hidden from the Compendium (Crown of Thorns, Light/Heavy Armor, Waterbender, Sharpening Stone.
- One-Punch Monk fixed so it removes the right amount of Rage
- Blood Libraries won't appear on the Perfection coin
- A new "Evaded" text/effect will play if you clear a room and have Threat still on the stack
- Fixed damage projection on a few fights, mostly Arkaos and Blood suckers
- Promise of Jewels now gives 2 different colour stones
- Phantom Spike will now not trigger twice (doh), but will include Fatigue! (yay!)
- Winged Circlet - now gains Block instead of Delay Block
- Added auto exit to the Shrine and the Matron of Memory
- Endless Suffering passive now just casts Vulnerable once, and won't tick down below 1.
- Fixed a bug where the game would crash if you chose a challenge coin for a class you didn't have unlocked yet.
- Secret Treasure Chests won't spawn an upgrade point when playing on Wild Talent Challenge Coin
- Fixed a really obscure bug that would cause some Solo effects + some shii transfer to not go correctly.
- You can no longer heal at the Shrine with the Worksite Acccident Challenge Coin.

Hey everyone - Happy Holidays! Exciting time of year as we hurtle towards the end of 2021, and finally - the Challenge Coin update is ready to go! I’ve been excited to get this update out and finally share it with you all, so lets get into it. There's a few other things I’ll address as well, and also get a change to share plans for the future. Let’s dive in.

Just a quick note, this one is long... even for my standards haha. Might want a cup bucket of hot cocoa for this one...

[h2]Interactive Battlefield[/h2]
I’m going to get the bad news out first - as this is the thing that I’ve been the most upset about the last week or so. As you may know - the 500 Review milestone was absolutely smashed last week, in such blazing speed as well (much faster than I anticipated!!) My goal was to ensure that interactive battlefield was ready to go for this patch - however there's been a hold up with a 3rd party which I’ve been battling against.

I don’t want to go into details here, nor throw anyone under the bus. Whilst a deadline has been missed, personally I’m just hoping the person is safe and well right now.

What’s the resolution?
I’m hoping to hear from the artist within the next week or so with the final product. The game systems are good to go, and the animator is ready and waiting to jump into things. After a week, if I don’t manage to hear back, I’ll jump onto the tools myself and get a background painted up!

I love doing the artwork for Vault, however because of the time required with backgrounds, I tend to outsource these where possible, this one included. Although at this stage I’ll drop everything and get this finished up if I don't hear back, its super important to me.

In the end, I feel like I’ve let you all down by not having this ready. You all have been so supportive of Vault, especially the last month or so, and I wanted nothing more to deliver on my end of the deal. When I knew it wouldn’t be delivered on time, I felt like I had to get something to you all at least to bridge the gap. I’ve scrambled over the last few days to bring... something a little fun and light hearted. Let’s talk about Under the Mistletoe...

[h2]Under the Mistletoe[/h2]
So I’ve dived into the Christmas spirit here and painted up a fun little piece with everyone's favorite, the Treasure Goblin. Huge thanks to my animator Sanjeev for getting this animated in such a short time!



So - I could have just given this one behind a code yeah? But I decided to have some fun with it! To unlock this Deck Back - all you need to do is kill (not let him run away!) the Treasure Goblin in any run between now and the end of December. Then... it’s all yours!

I know it’s not a battlefield :( But I hope you enjoy it! And the battlefield is coming - I promise!

[h2]Challenge Coins[/h2]
Okay - so here is the meat and potatoes of this update - and it actually turned out to be way more content than I thought! Let’s talk Challenge Coins.

So the Challenge Coin system has been in place since launch. The system itself I thought was great -- funky little artifacts that combined other artifacts that shook up runs a little. Quirky little reasons to play differently. Despite the name, not all of them are "challenges" per say - just fun ways to engage with the game systems differently.

Although be warned, some are... pretty hard.

However, the delivery ... wasn’t great. UI was awkward, purchasing them in a different screen then loading them elsewhere... no support for I+. It wasn't great.

Enter, the new Challenge Coin system!



So right now there are 15 Coins (3 old ones, 1 which has converted the "Bare Bones" Achivement to a coin, to make it easier, 7 generalist and 4 class specific). With each coin, you can earn yourself 4 medals. 1 each for beating it on Normal, Hard, Impossible, I+30. Each coin has a custom I+30 modifier setup and preloaded (big thanks to Dabor for hand picking those. Also now you know who to blame for the ones with Ambush :P ). Once you do beat it on the preloaded I+30 setup, you are free to replay it again with your own custom settings.

Each coin also has an Achievement for each medal, and of course, if you beat it on a harder difficulty, you’ll be back credited for the easier one. So win on I+30, and you’ll get all 4 medals and achievements!

The UI also tracks what classes you’ve done them on, for the ones that are possible on multiple classes.



Each coin costs a set amount of Void Points, and once unlocked, it’s yours forever!!

I’m really, really happy with how the system came out. The content is great as well - and feedback from the Beta Testers has been excellent. However what I’m really excited about is the future from here. This is just the start of Challenge Coins. Now that the system is setup in a clean, easy to read, easy to digest way -- expect lots more CCs in the future. I definitely see a world where a couple get dropped every month!

In the end though - I really do hope you enjoy it! Between regular runs, Daily Draft and now Challenge Coins, I do feel Vault has a pretty decent slice of content to digest. If you have any feedback, please feel free to let me know!

And of course - huge shoutout and digital hug of thanks to all the Beta Testers. Without you all playing this stuff on the Beta Branch, patches would never be as smooth as they are. You the real MVP!

[h2]Matron of Memories[/h2]
As I mentioned - I love doing artwork for Vault. Thankfully I got a chance to dive in here and paint up a few pieces for some rooms that got a change! I hope you like them!



Firstly - the “Loot the Dead” event at the start of the run has now been changed to the Matron of Memories. It’s a separate room now that you step into, rather than a little popup. This was for a few reasons, a lot of them technical (that UI was bugggggy), but it also allowed me to inject more life, lore and art into Vault - rather than a dopey popup.

The Cursed Item has also had the same treatment. No longer a popup, and with its own flavourful spin and artwork. You’ll also see the Shrine has been changed to this new layout.

Overall, I really like the new layout these rooms use and will probably stick with these moving forward for more generic “multi-choice” rooms.

[h2]Balance[/h2]
There are a few calls planned next week, where the full card list is going to be looked at, one-by-one, and the stats and player feedback are going to be addressed. Expect a BIG change to cards (both good and bad) soon - I wanted to actually get this done this week but time didn’t allow it sadly.

We did however take a quick look at encounters. There were a few ... underperformers, who have gotten a little bump to help bring them into line. Plus a few little nerfs. All the details will be listed below!

[h2]Save system[/h2]
Okay so this is something I wanted to address for a while now. Every now and then I get a bug report about a player losing their entire Profile. They boot up the game, and it prompts them to make a new Profile. Lolwat?



So, the funny thing is - this always is after a PC crash of some kind - thunder storm (looking at you Tempest...), power outage, Windows crash etc. I’ve looked into it, and it seems a common thing with Gamemaker projects.

So thankfully - long ago I setup a profile backup system, so so far, anyone who has reported the issue on Discord, I’ve been able to help restore their profile. I do plan to automate this, however for now, I’ll put the instructions in a sticky post on the Forums! If you have any troubles though - please just join the Discord and DM me, I’ll help right away !

In light of this, I think I’ve managed to setup a new save system that will avoid these problems. I say think, because I can’t manage to test it here. I’ve been trying all sorts of things, flicking the power off at the wall, going out and tripping the power box (wife wasn’t happy). No luck. But, fingers crossed this solution will avoid the issues moving forward.

Just wanted to make people aware that I’m looking into it and trying to find a solution! Also, there is a restore ability if needed.

[h2]Translations - a look at what’s ahead[/h2]
So, I’ve been putting this one off for a bit - but it’s definitely time to get this moving. Over the next couple of weeks, I’m going to be pulling out all the text in game which isn’t in the localisation file, and moving it out into that file. This is a super long, manual process, but it’s really past the point when it should of been done. I’m dumb for not accounting for it sooner.

The good news is - the game is setup to support translations. It just needs to have all text put into the translation files.

What it does mean is that I’ll have my hands tied for a while getting that setup, which obviously comes at the expense of new content. However - it’s exciting news for all of you who have been waiting for the localisation process! There is a number of amazing people who are already waiting to get their hands on the file and translate it all for you! Chinese and Japanese are on the radar first up - as well as Russian. More details as we move closer on this.

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Okay... even for me this one is getting long. If you’ve made it this far - congrats! I actually had an idea this week of a cool thing to add to the bottom of these to spark some discussion - a little question that I’d love to hear your opinion on each time! So here goes:

[h3]Question of the Week Update: What is your favorite encounter in Vault of the Void, visually?[/h3]



So mechanics aside - which is your favorite designed encounter, based purely on looks? For me, it’s either the Forgotten (the Goat, Game and Vulture) or the Veiled Watchers. Something about that creepy cult like vibe which I really dig!

[h3]Wouldn’t be a patch notes without me gushing about how amazing you’ve all been with your beautiful reviews. I mean, over 100 in the last 30 days? I’ve run out of words at this point, you keep surprising me every week and I’m so thankful for each of you![/h3]

I hope you all have a wonderful holiday time, however you spend it. Thank you all for making 2021 a year of beautiful surprises. I’m so excited for 2022, and can’t wait to grow the game with you all.

As a quick note; I’m aware that Christmas can be a sad time for some, without those close to spend it to. I did just want to mention and extend an invite to the Discord server again. If you need to chat, or just have a place to hang out - it really is such a great positive community there. I'm there everyday as well, and will be more than happy to chat and hang out whenever I can!

Stay safe everyone - see you next year!

All for now
- Josh

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The Big Ol' List o' Stuff
- Challenge Coins! Whole new system, whole new coins and a whole bunch of new Achievements!
- The Under the Mistletoe event is live! Go kill the Treasure Goblin for a (somewhat questionable) Deck Back.
- New Save system which I mentioned above. If you still have Profile loss issues, please reach out and I’ll help restore a back up!
- New artwork and layout on the Booster pack screen
- New artwork and layout on the Unlocks screen - much easier to find Deck Backs and Battlefields now.
- Reworked the code on buttons to stop them from appearing/disappearing. If you find any menus that start playing up - just let me know!
- Blood Library can now be re-entered! (finally)
- New artwork and layout for the Matron of Memories, The Raven’s Gift (Cursed Item) and the Shrine
- Bleed it Out and Scatter Shot are now Heavy cards
- Added an option in Settings to enable a tooltip which, whenever you mouse over a card, will show you how many of that card is in your Deck and Backpack.
- Tooltip added to Deck button in the top right corner which shows you Void/Sin count as well, at a glance.
- New artwork for both those buttons as well
- Mind over Matter now has a counter indicating how many cards it will pull back
- A warning has been added when you place the King’s Balance stone on a non-swift card.
- Once More WIth now carries across turns
- Artifacts can now be viewed when choosing Arkaos’s Bead or Swamp Mistress’s spell
- Several little bug fixes

Encounter Balance Changes;
- Birth Pit: -1 AP on Hard/Impossible, Pinkies have 10% less HP and do 11x1 instead of 6x2 on Impossible.
- Blood Hive: Has 8% more HP. Minions all have a bit more HP and AP to start with. Can't start with two poison-inflicting minions.
- Beast of Malice: Pummel doesn't normally hit as hard on Normal/Hard. Hits for 16 and 24 respectively instead of a whopping 30 every time.
- Dolus: Way more HP (about 60%). Let's see you race that poison now! Her Serpent's Bite no longer removes your Poison, and she also throws on Confussion.
- Hag: Starts with 1 more AP on Normal and 1 more Frenzy on Hard/Impossible. Applies 3 more Burn with her Burn action. Also a lot more HP (about 40%).
- Starcaller: About 15% less HP, but hit a chunk harder across all difficulties. Their Haunted move also now causes Fumble 1.
- Puppet Master: About 22% more HP and 1 more AP across all difficulties.
- Queen of Ages: Weavers have +1 AP.
- Dragon Mother: About 11% more HP and 2 more AP across all difficulties.
- The Forgotten: Deal a bit more damage on Hard and a lot more on Impossible. Also a bit more HP across all difficulties. They forgot (teehee) how to throw around Banes before, so now their Hide and Fear actions both shuffle a Bane in.
- Arkaos: Him and his arm and his other arm have about 30% more HP across all difficulties. 'Twas merely a flesh wound! Axe arm now has half the damage and twice the frenzy. Would be a real shame if someone brought slow to this fight.