Mind Over Magic News

This release was inspired by the resounding chorus of players looking for these tools to build with. Bridge blocks connect towering spires with an outdoor bridge or create walkways within school rooms. Glass Roofs are necessary to create a Greenhouse, but also can be mixed into other roofs.



[h2]New Gameplay: Bridges and Glass Roofs[/h2]

• New Construction Block: Bridge - Connects Floors, indoors or outdoors, without enclosing an area. They require less support than Floors.
  
• New Construction Block: Glass Roof - A Roof Block that is also a window.
  
• New Room Keyword: Skylit - The room is entirely covered by Glass Roof.
  
• New Room Type: Greenhouse - Shields plants from negative events and makes Tending more effective.
  

[h2]More Gameplay Changes[/h2]

• New Event: Wasting - All plants not in a greenhouse stop growing. Occurs in the mid-game for Balanced and Relentless Pressure modes.
  
• Unstable Anemones and Trapdoor Vines will not cast at Ghosts.
  
• Unstable Anemones and Trapdoor Vines can now only be harvested by Staff with 2+ Nature Skill or Quilted Harvesters
  
  

[h2]Improvements[/h2]

• Common Room, Nurses Office, Infirmary and Hospital have new materials and textures.
  
• Stair and Ladder termination alerts can now be dismissed in the feed.
  
• Vsync control added to Graphics settings.
  
• Display selection control added for when full-screen added to Graphics settings.
  
• Add icon for Taunt tracking during combat.
  
• Fog monster explosion sound! WHUUUUBOOOOOM!!!!
  
• Make crafting station output more likely to stack with previous outputs.
  
• Better audio handling for events with auto-pause disabled, so they are easier to hear in situations like disabling Gremlin/Voidshroom auto-pause.
  

[h2]Fixes[/h2]

• Fix wallpaper rendering for rooms at Hallway corners
  
• Fix for some cases where Support Arches weren't providing as much horizontal support as intended.
  
• Chained attacks no longer trigger too many retaliates or other damage related effects.
  
• When re-rolling appearance, also re-roll skin and hair/fur/crystal colors.
  
• Fix an issue with crafting Tasks being taken even though the ingredients aren't reachable.
  
• Fix permanent haste effects not being accounted for in the in the combat turn UI.
  
• Fix issue with the last combatant in round granting Haste to themselves but not getting a turn.
  
• Fix bug when one Mage is trying to deliver to multiple Construction blocks and a different Mage is given a direct order to construct one of those blocks.
  
• Fix Invasion creature not facing camera when exploding.
  
• Fix issues where crafting station outputs and byproducts could drop in the wrong room.
  
• Fix an edge case where the Invasion Creature sometimes isn't fully in the room it wants to invade and so it pouts and gets stuck.
  
• Fix for some back-compat cases where rooms could be fogged over without an associated battle being available.
  
• Fix the Dragon Wok being too loud.
  
• Reduce the playback of impacts on Acid Spit for Furry Mites.
  

These plans will evolve during development, but we are currently working on:

• Regular Release: Quality of Life focused improving Groups functionality and smorgasbord of other improvements.
  
• Major Release: Student advancement changes and a new way to get around the school.
  
• Major Release: Dragons! Always with an exclamation.
  

After that, we plan to attack combat and dig into the Underschool.

• Underschool Stone biome rooms spawn fewer Stone and Sculptstone mineable sources and more pre-mined Sculptstone to replace the latter.
  
• Adjustments to new game Pressure and Challenge selection to help make those more clear.
  
• You can now enable Invasions and Corrupted Mana Lantern events for Relaxed Pressure games, even though they are off by default.
  
• Fix bug where a nearly killed Fog Incarnate could trigger a broken battle.
  
• Fix bug where Stone and Sculptstone sources could spawn in the underschool entrance. Existing Stone and Sculptstone sources in the underschool entrance have been removed and auto-mined to remove any blocking.
  
• Fix for highest tier Corrupted Mana Lanterns occurring too early.
  
• Fix for potential crash when battle crystal is covered by Fog.
  
• Fix for potion reservations for battle when the battle prep screen is cancelled.
  
• Fix to prevent Mana Thirst from affecting 0 mana cost spells.
  
• Fix for taking potions to battle when they had an active Store task.
  

• Fix to losing audio when loading a game from within an existing game.
  
• Fix for Founder ghost not being displayed properly in ritual setup.
  
• Make sure Mages that have their Death's Door expire while being carried will still create Corpses for burial.
  

This update adds new difficulty settings and major changes to balance and pacing, particularly over the first 60 days of gameplay. Future updates will focus on the mid-game economy, improvements to combat, the Underschool, and helping Mages move more quickly around the school.

• The new Pressure setting controls the arrival of threats to Mages and the school itself. Different Pressure settings allow different Event types and have different pacing. Pressure also controls how rapidly the Fog advances.
  
• The Relaxed Pressure setting is now more relaxed than before. Relentless is now MUCH more aggressive. There is also now a new Balanced pressure setting that is in between.
  
• The new Challenge options affect general difficulty, including Starting Staff, Starting Research, Combat, Conviction, and the Conviction effects of the Fog.
  
• Randomize Keywords For Room Types is now independent of other options and can be enabled in any mode.
  
• Iron Mage Save Mode is a new option that lets you opt into restrictions that make it more difficult to reload to avoid negative situations.
  

• Existing saves default to Pressure: Relaxed and Challenge: Hopeful Horizons. This is intentionally a low pressure and low challenge setting, even if you had harder settings on previously. Many effects have changed, so this gives you a chance to get a sense of the update before taking on the difficulty levels.
  
• You may modify Difficulty settings for an existing game using the Escape menu at any time. A popup will offer to take you there when you load a save from before this update.
  
• When you save a game that is older than this version, we will make a backup so you can return to it if needed.
  
• Active Events will be cancelled because many have changed in their pacing and how they work.
  

• Arcane Scroll gates in Research have been completely removed, as have Arcane Scrolls.
  
• Death Saves have been removed from the game. Mages reduced to zero HP are now “At Death’s Door” and must be transported to a Medical Bed for a Revive ritual before their timer expires and they die permanently.
  
• Trauma lasts much less time. There are now new forms of Trauma with different kinds of effects, not just Conviction penalties.
  
• There are new Events and most existing Events have been updated. Poltergeists now appear from Rifts that can be battled before the Poltergeist even arrives.
  
• All natural Iron sources are now in the Underschool. Some iron can be mined before doing any battles.
  
• Medical beds now cost less Iron.
  
• The new Nurse's Office Room has simple requirements and speeds up healing, but impacts Conviction negatively.
  
• Mana Burst is the new Human faction power. Each cast, in or out of combat, has a chance of costing no mana.
  
• The Underschool is now opened by the first Repel Fog ritual at the beginning of the game.
  

• Repair speed now scales with Mage skill.
  
• Gremlins and Oozes will focus on attacking targets with prior damage.
  
• Poltergeists that can’t find a target may begin to breaking Wall blocks.
  
• Doors not attached to walls do not provide luxury.
  
• Early Spine and Stone biome Underschool battles now always drop Iron.
  
• Deeper Stone biome rooms are guaranteed to drop Sculptstone.
  
• Malice Crystals are no longer destroyed by the Fog. You can repel fog to reveal them if they are covered.
  
• Losing or fleeing an Invasion battle will no longer end the Invasion.
  

• Many Events will now auto-pause the game to give an opportunity to react. This behavior can be modified in Settings under Gameplay.
  
• Resources are now counted differently for the UI and for deliveries to help prevent situations where Rituals or other tasks in progress have their resources grabbed by a different Task.
  
• You can now hover items in the Resources panel to see what resources are currently in use. This helps to show why the Resources pane might show 0 of a resource, but you can still see it in the world.
  
• The "No Research Selected" alert no longer displays if all research is complete.
  
• Enemy combat spell descriptions explain if a spell is AoE or not.
  
• There's now a button for Aid tasks that can be use to disable rescuing Death's Door, Cursebound, and Bound mages.
  
• During initial Staff selection, you can specify the wand type for a Mage.
  
• Mages actively eating will finish their meal even if their scheduled eating time ends. Half-eaten meals are now dropped instead of destroyed if Eating is interrupted by a Direct Order, Break, or other immediate Task.
  
• Improved the alerts about invalid ladder placement in many cases where the placement was valid.
  
• Added action buttons to toggle Tasks for Filling Medical Beds and Tending Plots and Planters.
  
• Added control over animation speed during Battles.
  
• The right-click selection buttons now try to stay on screen when activated.
  
• Improved targeting visuals for combat to be more clear when drawing over lava.
  
• Incoming Rain and Thunderstorms now link to information about Rain/Thunderstorms.
  

• Fix for delivery issues when some of the ingredients you want have Move errands on them.
  
• Don't display healing info on medical beds until the character is IN the bed.
  
• Filth no longer shows up as "None" on multiselect.
  
• Fix not being able to place ladders in some cases where it should be possible.
  
• Fix for some statuses showing up in the event feed more than once.
  
• Don't show a 99 skill requirement for cleaning.
  
• Fix direct orders not being available for Students in some cases where they should be, like Recreation.
  
• Fix typos and improper terms used on a number of Statuses
  
• Fix ritual positions for Funeral ritual to avoid character overlaps.
  
• Fix Mage pathing issues when the space they used to get into a bed is no longer a valid place to stand.
  
• Fix for Skill Cap Medallions not always working properly.
  
• Fix the way that Shrinks are counted for the Resources panel.
  
• Fix typo in New Student Conviction bonus hover.
  
• Fix up the smaller conviction bar when a Mage is selected so the pointers are more accurate.
  
• Change status effects that say "may not" to "cannot", to make it more clear that Mages are unable to do the thing.
  
• Fix not being able to click on roof confirmation UI when it is over a room invasion UI.
  
• Fix to some combat icons showing a value when they should not.
  
• Fix for a case where the Ritual UI can be superimposed on the Combat UI.
  
• Fix for missing divider line on Recreation need bar.
  
• Fix some spell impact audio not playing.
  
• Fix all duration-without-status badges to explicitly state that the days must be consecutive.
  
• Fix 'Saw a Gremlin' and 'Saw an Ooze' statuses being incorrectly applied in some cases.
  
• Fix ritual animations starting on game load when they should not.