Poker Quest News

Today is the day! After four years of development, Poker Quest: Swords and Spades is leaving early access! With over 20 characters, 1500+ possible items, as well as daily runs, custom runs, mod support, and all the other bits of polish we've done, we think it's finally time and we hope you do too. Thank you to all of you that have played the game over the last few years and provided feedback to help improve the game. It's been a fun journey so far and I hope we can continue it!

Today's update includes:

• NEW HEROES: The Priest, Alchemist, and Locksmith!
  
• Lots of balance tweaks, bug fixes, and UI fixes
  
• Kraken redesigned to potentially heal less and poison more.
  
• Added a new world 1 monster: The Dealer.
  
• Challenge names will no longer be hidden.
  
• Weightless and non-weightless items can be more easily swapped.
  
• Attack Booster should now interact correctly with reusable items.
  
• Monsters with revive retain Counterattack during Retaliatory Monsters.
  
• Items with over 8 charges show charge circles properly.
  
• Each random event should no longer trigger multiple times during the same run.
  
• Added a tooltip for Heal.
  
• Healing through vampirism always heal for a minimum of 1.
  
• Blightbolts, Darkbolts, Shockstrikes, and Stormskin all reroll Next lightning when triggered.
  
• Curse Mastery will interact correctly with Dreadshield.
  
• Flailswinger and Giant Tortoise have had their items reordered so that their buffs are no longer irrelevant.
  
• Fixed an issue with Blacksmiths sometimes not having options after continuing a run.
  

* NEW HERO: The Rainbow Knight!
* Phoenix can be killed by Enflame once again.
* Corrected texts on some items (Holy Mace, Splendid Sword of Thunder, Splendid Axe of Flame, Dark Warhammer of Pairs) and Wildsmith.
* Multiple camping tents can now be used at a given node (including camp sites).
* Scroll of Greed can no longer be used without first having enough max life.
* Changed some items (particularly stashes) that had inconsistent enchant conditions.
* Bless should now work correctly with certain status effects (like Hex).
* Shieldbash should now deal the correct amount of damage when enflamed.
* Items with Lock should now refresh correctly after revival.
* Stunbolts will now correctly stun when next lightning is at 20%.
* Enchantment texts should now show the correct values during Sudden Death.
* World modifiers that cause specific cards to be drawn will no longer draw those cards if they are stashed.
* Increased the size of the preview cards for the Foresight mechanic.
* Gargoyle's Armor mechanics should now work properly.
* Explosive mechanics should now correctly deal Fire damage.
* Monsters that steal resources should no longer do so when enflame should have killed them first.
* Item Smash mechanics should now ignore consumables.
* Lightning should now be correctly be affected by the world modifier "Strong Attacks."
* Item bonuses should now work correctly with the "Slow Items" Challenge.
* Spirithorn should no longer cause unexpected deaths during the "Queen of Spades" world modifier.
* Multiple actions can no longer be bound to the same key (which could cause crashes).
* Fixed a crash related issue caused by Mixturedraw.
* Fixed a crash related issue involving the confirmation checkbox when applying status effects.
* Fixed some issues related to Achievements that caused some of them to be unachievable.
* Fixed an issue that prevented importing saves.
* Fixed a tutorial related bug.

Join us for a livestream of Poker Quest a new Fantasy Playing Card Roguelike at 5pm PDT on 10/22/2021.

Afterwards we'll be hosting a developer QA at 6pm PDT so be sure to join us on Discord and ask us anything!

https://discord.gg/R5Y6DctqCf

* NEW HERO! The Blacksmith. He can upgrade all his items for a large amount of energy.
* IMPORTANT: Starvation no longer kills you. Instead, it takes you to a minimum of 1 life. An exception is made for the Vampire hero.
* WARNING: The "Walking is Hard" random event can now actually kill you. (Before this update, it wouldn't kill you). It is still very rare.
* IMPORTANT CHANGES TO POISON:
* - Poison now triggers at the end of each turn, instead of the start of each turn.
* - Poison now decays at 25% instead of 33% (it stays higher for longer)
* IMPORTANT CHANGE TO HEX: Hex now persists between rounds, and only decrements when cards are taken.
* IMPORTANT CHANGE TO CHARM: Charm now persists between rounds, and only decrements when cards are taken.
* IMPORTANT CHANGE TO RECOVERY: Recovery now decrements for each card returned to you. Items and effects that give you battle-length recovery are reworded to gain Recovery 1 each round.
* Made some balance and theme improvements to several enemies, especially those affected by the above changes.
* NEW: Actual working completion stars on Challenge Runs (v58's patch note was a mistake)
* Paladin's energy ability now gives 3 Armor instead of 4.
* Tortoise's Stone Skin now costs a fixed 2 life and has no upgrades.
* Hop now actually lets you jump as far as you can see.
* Replaced one of Queen's Poison Brooches with Toxicity.
* Bard's Pet Snake now does 2x poison damage, and no Anemic.
* Huntress's Duke now has Attack 25 in addition to his stun. Upgrades to 40, 55, 70.
* Huntress's Duke no longer has a cooldown.
* Duke can run away now. (Sincerest apologies to anyone who was previously offended)
* Banker's energy ability now works anywhere.
* Scaled up the score bonuses you receive from the boss rush in world 4 to make the achievements more achievable.
* Fixed some achievement issues, victory-star issues, and other bug fixes.

* NEW HERO: THE WITCH! She likes to hoard cards.
* IMPORTANT CHANGE TO CURSE: Rebalanced most Curse enemies, and clarified their effects with new tooltips: "Arbitrary" and "Distinct" item targeting. Pay attention to the detailed tooltips so you know what the enemy will do.
* NEW: Completion stars for Heroes.
* NEW: Completion stars for Challenges.
* Steam Workshop mod functionality is now in early stages of testing. Check it out in your Steam library! For more information (such as how to make mods and install them), visit the Discord channel.
* You can now check out the combat log after you lose the game.
* Challenge Runs can now unlock with partial completion of previous challenges.
* Some of the first upgrades in Upgrades Mode are now free.
* Several monsters now have Perfect Kill rewards.
* Significantly reduced the tax for subsequent Blacksmith upgrades from 3,5,7,8 to 1,2,3,4. This should make blacksmiths a much bigger part of the game now, and a partial alternative to shops.
* Armor now adds Block each turn, instead of being its own block.
* Rebalanced the World 4 boss rush in Classic mode. Enemies have less life, but draw more cards, and hide more cards, and hit hard.
* Temporarily removed the World 4 boss rush from Upgrades Mode (temporarily!) until we can properly rebalance it for this game mode.
* Raised the spawn rate for random Ambush events.
* Rebalanced The Stormy Joker. He should be easier to understand now.
* Rebalanced The Charitable Joker. Now gives your resources back if you win (for the boss rush).
* Rebalanced several poison and curse items so they scale more closely with other items.
* Reduced Paladin's Holy Mace's upgrade costs and Enflame All amounts.
* Witherstrike reduced from 30% to 20%
* Changed One For All's price from 15 to 12, and upgrade costs from 6/8/10 to 8/8/8.
* Reduced Queen's life from 90 to 80.
* Raised Throwing Knives shop price from 5 to 6, and upgrade costs from 2 to 3.
* Warlock's Soulseeker now always costs 2 life, upgrades to increase Reveal amount.
* Titan's Shockwave rebalanced to be a little more accessible in the early game.
* Fixed some bugs with end-game scoring.
* Many shop items got minor balance changes (costs, values, etc.).
* Lowered chip rewards on boss fights.
* Reduced the number of options available at Castle Blackheart and Chateau de Spade by 1.
* Tray of Chips now provides slightly fewer chips.
* Pet fights no longer close shops.
* Fixed some bugs with Daily Run stats reporting.
* Lowered the volume of the drumroll at the start of each world.
* Added a "Claim Victory" button to the world map on the final boss. This also fixes the Always Raise the Stakes option
* Made the first three choices in Upgrades mode free.