Poker Quest News

The game now has much more appropriate victory conditions. Everything after the World 1 boss is now optional. We believe this update will appeal to all of the players who want less of a challenge, while at the same time we hope the players who enjoy an epic challenge feel like they still get one.

Please read the patch notes in detail to understand how these changes affect the game.

NEW FEATURE: Claim Victory & Raise The Stakes

• After each world, you now have the option to Claim Victory or Raise the Stakes.
  
• "Claim Victory" to end the run early, and get bonus Score & XP.
  
• Or "Raise the Stakes", and keep playing, which increases the bonus XP if you Claim Victory after the next boss fight.
  
• Getting through World 1 is "Victory", World 2 is "Victory+", and so on.
  
• We believe these new victory rankings more accurately represent the challenge involved in achieving them.
  
• Those of you who previously achieved the old "Victory" status have actually been achieving "Victory+++" without knowing it.
  

IMPORTANT CHANGES TO WORLD 4:

• Due to overwhelming demand from players, we shortened the length of the complete game (assuming you always want to Raise the Stakes).
  
• The final boss is now at world 4-1, immediately after the campsite, which shortens the full game by about 25%.
  
• The rest of world 4 (after the final boss) is an optional series of boss fights that rapidly scale up.
  
• After each fight in World 4, you have the option to Claim Victory, or gamble on the next fight for a higher score.
  
• We removed the Palace of Wagers. To get higher scores, try to defeat as much of World 4 as you can.
  

OTHER CHANGES:

• The card deck finally has face card art!
  
• The Queen of Spades energy ability now draws all the Spades for 5 energy.
  
• Removed most of the "Nothing" nodes, they are replaced with small piles of food, chips, and gems.
  
• Wizard Tower and Gem Mines now only cost 1 chip to upgrade your maximum (instead of 3).
  
• Added a new Hero Select option to choose a random hero from the heroes you unlocked.
  
• New Classic, Daily, and Custom Run world modifier: Casino World. Worlds full of casinos!
  
• New Daily and Custom Run world modifier: Enchantress World. Worlds with way too many enchantresses.
  
• Scroll of Greed can no longer be used unless you have more than 50 maximum life.
  
• Reduced Wild Joker's life (relative to other Jokers) by 12%.
  
• The "No Modifiers" option now always shows up as an option in Classic mode.
  
• Count Spade and Vampire (monster) have been rebalanced. They have a new effect called "Restless".
  
• Sleight of Hand now costs 25 chips instead of 20
  
• Enchantresses now appear in Castles again, just not simultaneously with shops.
  
• All pets now scrap for 5 food.
  
• Changed the upgrade prices for Fire Gloves from 15/20/25 to 20/20/20.
  
• Book of Paralysis now has a limit of 3 uses per combat.
  
• Ring of More now costs 11 instead of 8.
  
• Challenge Runs now show 5 challenges instead of 3, to give you more choices.
  
• Fixed Vampire's energy tooltip. It now correctly says +2 energy per map move.
  
• Enflame/Freeze now show decay amounts on enemy items.
  
• Slightly tweaked the options for The Fool and Strange Device.
  
• New Loading Tips to help explain the game better.
  
• New, better looking Victory / Game Over / Mid-run status screens.
  
• We considered it, but the Mighty Titan is not changing (Sorry, Reto)
  
• Renamed the Ninja to "The Dodgy Ninja" to more accurately represent his play style.
  
• Several other minor bug and text fixes.
  

* IMPORTANT: The Daily Run is now called "Daily Bonus Run", and awards +150% XP.
* Increased the number of farms on all maps.
* Farms now cost 1 chip for 3 food instead of 5 chips for 5 food.
* Re-designed Bungling Burglar to make a bit more sense.
* Huntress's energy ability now costs 2 instead of 3.
* Enchantresses now very rarely appear in castles.
* Aegis items now have a limited number of uses per combat.
* Some new artwork.

* New hero! The Greedy Banker. He loves money and is good at making it.
* The button to "Abandon Run" now says "Fold The Run".
* Ninja's starting setup rebalanced.
* Bard now gets 3 energy per world map move, instead of 2.
* Titan now has 250 starting life, instead of 200.
* Time machine now costs 2 chips and has 1 use, instead of 7 chips for 2 uses.
* World maps should no longer be repeated (until you play about 6,000 runs or so).
* Gluttonmaw now steals a maximum of 4 food (instead of 8), and also gives you food if he explodes.
* Items with "30% repeat" no longer return cards when you cancel.
* Fixed a bug where using camping tents and similar things at campsites would disable options on you.
* Fixed a bug where multiple items of the same name didn't show up in the game summary.
* Fixed a bug where Next Enflame didn't stack during "Burnination".
* Fixed a bug where some World Modifiers were missing in Custom Runs.
* Fixed a bug where "Return" would override Charm.
* Fixed some Enflame issues with Revival (on Phoenix)
* Fixed a display issue with score from Hopping.
* Removed the confusing "Revealed Cards" option from Custom Runs.
* Vampire can no longer eat with the Z hotkey.
* Enemies can no longer accomplish the "Straight Flush" and similar achievements for you.
* Fixed a bug where the map appears inconsistent during encounters between nodes.
* Some minor UI improvements.
* New image artwork for some items and monsters.

Big balance & bugfix patch today!

Don't forget to leave a review on Steam (we don't have many): https://store.steampowered.com/app/1184820/Poker_Quest/

And enjoy the update!

Poker Quest v54 (August 2, 2021):
* Kraken (one of the World 3 Bosses) now has about 30% less life, to shorten the grueling endeavor that he can often become.
* Sudden Death now starts after round 100 on bosses, and the text reflects this correctly.
* Wizard towers now give you 5 energy for 1 chip, instead of 10 energy for 4 chips.
* Mines now provide 3 gems for 1 chip, instead of 6 gems for 5 chips.
* Reworked Gluttonmaw to have both items locked, instead of the confusing explosion that would never happen.
* Custom Runs now count for a little bit of XP progress (+3 per node), but you must spend at least 15 minutes playing the run. It is capped to 200 XP per run.
* Changed the Vampire's description text to more clearly reflect what is going on with her energy ability.
* End-of-game music is considered music (instead of sfx) now, so you can control the volume of it.
* Added a "Hide this forever" button for the referral XP Bonus link.
* Fixed some reloading exploits with traveling merchants.
* Added a button to the settings menu to delete your game and start from scratch.
* Made the Gluttony Achievement easier (and fixed it). It now requires you win a run having eaten 125 food.
* Custom runs no longer count towards Steam achievements (sorry...)
* Fixed various text for clarity.
* Added a satisfying shatter effect for when you unfreeze items.

UPDATE! Poker Quest v53 (July 26, 2021):

* NEW HERO! The Tortoise. He is very defensive.

* IMPORTANT: Reduced the amount of XP required for the later heroes. Some of you who have reached these later heroes may immediately unlock them when you start a new run.

* Fixed the text of "Bump" to say "Draw" instead of "Draw or steal"

* Fixed an issue where items like "Holy Mace" were turning into different items.

NOTE: The next time you gain XP, you may notice one or more heroes suddenly unlock. This is not a bug, and will only happen this update. Since we now have 18 available heroes, we re-balanced the XP curve to make it unlock heroes much more quickly.