Hell Shuffle News

Hero Mastery, end-game Skull dump mechanism, Bosses randomization, Elite’s rework, Covenants rework, new UI and more!
This update serves as a foundation for the future on the project. It was a hard road but here we are. Thank you very much for your patience and let's see what's inside:

• Hero Mastery
  Hero Mastery is a system which allows Heroes to accumulate experience between the sessions to unlock new cards/talents/elites etc. It's a solid foundation on the future Heroes we are already preparing for you.
  
• End-game skull dump mechanism
  Mechanism which makes the skulls valuable even when all the progression is completed. You will naturally find it out when the time comes.
  
• Boss randomization
  ACTs I and II now have one additional end-boss variation, which will require you to adjust your build and tactic for it. You can see what boss is waiting for you on the adventure map.
  
• Friendly Elite’s rework
  Your Elites are now more valuable than before. When you upgrade them - they not only receive raw stats gain, but also additional effects. The first 2 upgrades (up to level 3) will provide your Elites with additional capabilities, all following one increase in stats. On upgrade 3 Elites receive a massive stats boost. We also added a new UI for your squad which allows you to check your Elites hit points, cooldowns etc. at any time, even between the battles. One more change: you can not swap your Elites anymore - once you choose one it will follow you to the end of the run.
  
• New rare location - Elite Shop
  It's a rare location which will satisfy gold stacking build lovers. All the entities found in these Shops are always Legendary.
  
• Covenant Trees Rework
  From the previous tests it was obvious that the system needed some changes. Now it's much easier to obtain most of the perks, a lot of them are now active even if a Covenant is not chosen. Some perks now have ranks, which makes your choices much more fluent. Many perks were also reworked to match new power levels and new mechanics. The UI was also updated.
  
• Boss and Elite Health Bars
  Bosses and Elites now have fancy additional Heath Bars, to emphasise the fight is dangerous and to make it easier to track their buffs and health.
  
• Adventure map
  Adventure map now looks less like a strict net, we changed some pathing and variations. For example the Adventure map now can have empty spaces, which leads to unusual connections.
  We were also experimenting with the parallax and camera on the Adventure map. You can now zoom in/out and move the camera around with the right mouse button if you want.
  
• Talent distribution rework
  All the talents now also have rarities same as all other content in the game (Common, Rare, Legendary). Your chances to find a rarer talent now depends on the level itself. Additionally maximum level increased to level 10, so if you wish to do EXP build, you have that option now.
  
• Characters' mini dialogues bubbles
  Some characters now interract with the player via saying a few phrases.
  

Added 11 new trinkets:

• Tombstone
  
• Treasure Map
  
• Baobal’s Glove
  
• Crossed List
  
• Smoke Grenade
  
• Chevrons
  
• Enclave Anvil
  
• MRE
  
• Black Leather Cap
  
• Mana Box
  
• Winged Boots
  

Added 6 new talents:

• Battle Trance
  
• Booming Voice
  
• Pathfinder
  
• Ultimatum
  
• Business Shark
  
• Black Blooded
  

Added 4 new enemies:

• Boss ACT I: Rapier Master Pierce
  
• Boss ACT II: Necromancer.
  
• Elite enemy: The Eye
  
• Normal enemy: Zombie
  

Added 7 new cards:

• Repentance
  
• Ice Orb
  
• Explosives!
  
• Blood Orb
  
• X2-ER
  
• Lore Book
  
• Unload
  

Added 3 new events:

• X2-ER
  
• Vending Machine
  
• Crimson Ground
  

• Control tweaks (we changed how users point and click, confirm targets and logic a bit, so it's less clunky, and also added secondary hover indicators like mouse cursor and extra glow level). As well added new targeting animation for cards and units.
  
• Changed animation for how cards are played, divided by the source that it came from (deck or was created in battle), cards also now fly with a trail to a corresponding deck.
  
• Added deck shuffle animation.
  
• All cards received new look, which better represents the rarity
  
• All talent and trinket cards received new look, which better represents the rarity
  
• Added animation for the cards which are automatically played from hand to make it comprehensible.
  
• Added small delay when most windows pop-up so user can't accidentally choose something
  
• Changed First time user experience to properly work with the new Hero Mastery feature
  
• Added mastery experience bar on victory defeat screen
  
• Added Abandon confirmation window
  
• Added Animated Text for the events
  
• Added secondary tooltip for keywords in talents and trinkets
  
• All backgrounds received a new look with more detalisation
  
• The Attack value in cards now dymanically changes the amount of outgoing damage based on your attack power
  
• Added Level Up Animation and text for the Hero
  
• Defender, Ward, Elite, Boss and Reflection token sprites was updated
  
• Time of the run now calculates correctly
  
• Pause now actually pauses the game, including the timer
  
• Torture mechanic now has a visual counter
  
• Added scroll functionality if you have LOTS of trinkets
  
• Added Discard and Main deck views, you can access it by clicking on the corresponding decks
  
• View of buffs changed not to cause such huge overlap as before
  
• Adjusting the view of Elites’ cooldowns
  
• Added visual for Exhausted cards
  
• Main Menu UI fully reworked
  
• Starting story now only shown once
  
• If you have an active saved run - you will be now automatically load right into the action on game start
  
• Reworked UI for for victory and defeat screens
  
• Added many new UI and gameplay sounds
  
• Added many new VFXes.
  

• Many cards, talents, summons and elites were changed, considering other changes the game should feel fresh, even if you are a veteran Hell Shuffle player
  
• Shop default amount of rerolls increased 1 --- 2
  
• Loot location now always have a choice from two Trinkets instead of one fixed
  
• Difficulties Hard and Hell are now just a little bit easier, bonus health is reduced roughly by 10%.
  
• Saplings, Huge Treant, Noblemans, Big Boy, Shackled Souls, Living Bloods enemies were reworked and received new abilities.
  

• Movement visual bugs
  
• Adjusted logic of play/continue behaviour. Locked the windows which should not be accessible in continue state
  
• Fixed some character VFXes were not following the owner causes visual glitch
  
• Fixed a bug which caused Shop to have repeating goods
  
• Fixed various other bugs.
  

• Our plans are to focus on two new Heroes ASAP. We understand that will have a huge impact on both replayability and mastering new playstyles. Hero number 2 with the working-name Baji is already in the development. Very small sneak peek: it's a beast master type character, who directly controls his pets, gathers trophies from the enemies and ensures his survivability by distracting the enemies and dodging their attacks.
  
• We also have a plan to add a menu in which you can look at all the content in the game, like a Codex. In it you will be able to check all the content you encountered earlier and look for the missing parts of your collection.
  
• As a part of the Codex - we want to add various Hero skins to it, so you can choose the appearance of your Hero. Skins will be a reward for hardest encounters/achievements etc.
  
• We were also thinking about the 4th difficulty level, which might have an additional ACT and a new boss. This is in very early development right now.
  
• Controller support.
  

Additional note is that all previous saves are wiped. We did it for a various reasons, first of all we changed the format of all saves files, so its much more reliant. Secondly, we changed lots of core mechanics, NO MORE SAVES WIPES ARE COMING IN FUTURE PATCHES.

Feel free to join our Discord and Twitter and leave your suggestions and thoughts!

A couple of small changes and some bug fixes.

Cards

• Bloody Ritual - Pay increased 2 --- 3.
  
• Bloody Ritual+ - Pay increased 0 --- 1.
  

Enemies

• Ardeth - health reduced by `10%.
  
• Ardeth - the amount of starting Tenacity reduced by 1.
  

Perks
Cult

• Cultist's Rage reworked - now procs when you play a Status card, damage reduced 3 --- 2.
  

Bug Fixes

• Fixed a critical bug that could appear while Bombs Away Curse was active.
  
• Fixed a critical bug that could appear while Dark Bonding Curse was active.
  
• Fixed a critical bug that could appear if you load the game with Sorbitt.
  
• Fixed a bug that increased the health of the mobs 2 times if you load the game on Hard and HELL difficulties.
  

Join our Discord and share your suggestions!

Difficulties, More Content, Visual Improvements, Russian Language!
This update is a very important step for Hell Shuffle. We added and changed a lot of things: Difficulties, improved graphics, made a huge balance and flow changes, added music, and much more. Thank you very much for your patience and let's see what's inside:

General

• Added 2 more difficulties: Hard and Hell.
  Difficulties not only increase the overall damage and health of the enemies but also bring some modifications. These modifications are called Curses. Starting from the Hard difficulty your run will get two random Curses out of 12 (18 for the Hell difficulty).
  
• Russian localization added
  Language change UI is located in the options menu.
  
• New achievements for difficulties and new elite enemies added.
  

Visual

• Fonts have been completely changed.
  
• Backgrounds art updated.
  
• Added many new visual effects.
  
• Camera Shake added.
  
• Updated the view of intentions (target colors also changed).
  
• Several cards received a visual update.
  
• Bosses are bigger now.
  
• Changed the death animation to a new juicy one.
  
• The point where tokens clash with each other is adjusted.
  

Quality of Life changes

• Cards in hand behavior changed to make it much easier to choose/read/play cards.
  
• Cards in hand now glow if you have enough mana to play it.
  
• Fixed Z-fighting of the cards in hand.
  
• Fixed Buffs on the battlefield were closer to the camera than cards.
  
• Added battle text for more events such as gold gain, Warded, Immune.
  
• Added a generic VFX that shows if the unit’s trigger triggered (for example on Reflex).
  
• Many effects that previously took too much time are faster now (for example Minigun card).
  
• Card Decks now do a small pulse when you take or put a card in it.
  
• Card Glow color when mouseover “Skip all rewards” button changed to red.
  
• Blocked battle text replaced with -Armor.
  
• Adjusted several descriptions to make things more clear.
  
• Skip button in the intro now works as it should.
  
• Connection lines on the map are easier to read now.
  

Sound

• Added music for each Act.
  
• Added several sounds here and there.
  

General Gameplay

• Hero start HP reduced 40 — 35.
  
• Most of the elite allies’ health increased by 10-20%.
  
• Status cards now proc at the end of the turn, so it is easier for you to manage it (Blood Boil and Poison).
  
• Blood Boil and Poison deal more dmg now.
  
• Ardeth received a complete rework.
  
• The chance to find rare trinkets in act 1 increased by 5%.
  
• The chance to find rare trinkets in act 2 increased by 10%.
  
• Act 2 can’t consist of 2 lanes anymore.
  
• Reduced the number of connections between lanes of the map.
  
• Player’s Lifesteal nerfed 100% — 50%.
  
• The price of the common and rare trinkets in Acts 1 and 2 slightly increased.
  

Added new trinkets

• Iron Maiden’s Boots
  
• Life Router
  
• Chalice of Summoning
  
• Double Barrel
  
• Arcane orb
  
• Blinkfire Ring
  
• Badly-Balanced Sword
  
• Amplifier
  
• Swifttrackers
  

Added new talents

• Simulation Matrix
  
• Unreliable Suppliers
  
• Golden Complexion
  
• Metalbolism
  Added new ally elites
  
• Martyrr the Trapped
  
• Master Yarman
  
• Sorbitt
  

Added new enemies

• Sapling
  
• Sharpshooter
  
• Huge Treant
  
• Vengeful Angel
  
• Brun and Rams
  
• Bladedancer
  
• Untouchable
  

Added new card

• Rogue
  

Other Balance
Many things received minor balance changes, mostly to buff outsiders.
The following text will only represent big changes or reworks

Cards
Common

• Explosimp+ now applies Burning to its target.
  

Rare

• Demonic Spikes can now be cast on enemies.
  

Legendary

• Holy kitty reworked. Now has a Deathwish to buff his allies with Ward.
  
• Forest keeper+ now has a reflection.
  

Perks
Northstar

• Echos’ versions of Flurry chance to create a copy reduced 50 — 30.
  

Cult

• Belch chance to proc increased.
  
• Mass Belch chance to proc reduced.
  
• Cult Tattoos bonus healing changed from 20% to +1.
  

Elite Allies

• Uncle Dangul now summons Explosimp+
  

Talents

• Seraphim's chance to apply ward reduced 50 — 30.
  
• Imp mother is now a low-level talent, but its stats reduced.
  
• Petrification no longer reduces healing at the end of the Act but reduces max health.
  
• Voracity amount of max health per Pay reduced 4 — 2.
  

Trinkets

• Golden Tooth is now a Legendary trinket and it gives a 50% Shop discount.
  
• Almost Winner Cup is now a Rare trinket and upgrades 3 cards.
  
• Lucky Rabbit Foot is Shop only now.
  
• Feather now also provides Reflex which gives a chance to Draw a card.
  
• Serenity Globe now gives 20 max health instead of 20 healing.
  
• Ancient Pendant now also gives hero 3 armor on each crit.
  
• Health Globe now also gives bonus health to elite allies.
  
• Prismatic Bulwark now only procs once per heal.
  

Enemies
ACT 2

• Greed now has 3 adds instead of 2.
  
• Greed Adds damage reduced but health increased.
  

ACT 3

• Shackled Souls now have a chance not to die and attack directly more often.
  
• Fiery Projection Attack reduced.
  

Other fixed bugs

• Fixed a bug that could make you instantly lose without reason while operating in the hero deck.
  
• Fixed a bug that allowed you to play items during the enemy turn.
  
• Fixed a bug that made enemies who skip turns to spend some time thinking.
  
• Fixed a very rare bug that could spawn an immortal pink-colored enemy.
  
• Fixed a bug that could make your mana go below zero.
  

What's next?

• Our main goal, for now, is to focus on the marketing campaign to get more players into Hell Shuffle.
  
• Speaking about plans: our next points are Boss variations and Second Hero.
  
• We will continue to update VFXes and SFXes in most future builds.
  

Known Issues

• The first run after the update might lead to a Critical Error or Incorrect Save if you had an active game before. It might happen because of the difference in Save versions. To fix it, restart the game after the crash or start the new game/abandon your previous run. You will not lose any progress, but the current run.
  
• We know about 1-2 rare bugs that might happen during runs but can't consistently repeat it yet, but made some fixes. Your help to find it is appreciated.
  

Feel free to join our Discord and leave your suggestions and thoughts!

Hello everyone!

As you could mention we did not update the game in the last couple of months. It was a hard decision for us to make our community wait. All this time we have been working on the big 0.5 update. The idea was to concentrate new features for the future marketing campaign, so we could show the game to more players with one big push.
What we can see from the statistics - those of you who already play Hell Shuffle like it a lot. It is more than 10 hours of average gameplay time between all players! It is incredible and very supportive for us!

Thank you for your patience and participation!

Let us take a sneak peek of what we work on:

Difficulties
For those of you who already mastered the game - it might be not enough challenge right now. So we added more difficulties to the game. Difficulties not only increase the overall damage and health of the enemies but also bring some modifications. These modifications are called Curses. Starting from the second difficulty your run will get two random Curses out of 12 (18 for the third difficulty). Curses are designed in such a way that they do not only make the game harder but also give you an opportunity to utilize them or to use some cards you usually don't. For example, the "Six Fingers" Curse will Exhaust the right-most card in your hand every turn.

Visual Improvements
We have updated backgrounds, added more visual effects, camera shake, replaced some temp art, made cards in the hand move smoother and easier to read, improved battle text, changed the design of Intentions, made a custom lower time delay for repetitive skills (such as Minigun) and much more.

Music and Sound
As many of you asked we added in-game Music, as well as more sounds to make the overall feeling of the game better.

More Content
More enemies, more elites, more cards, talents, trinkets - all that you like to combine and experiment with. Balance changes are also in.

Localization
The marketing campaign will start from Russia so we are adding Russian language. However, with the code base now ready - it will be much easier to add more languages in the future.

These are the main points of the update, but we also fixed a lot of minor bugs, made minor UI tweaks, etc. A full list of changes will be posted when the update comes live.

The update is ready for `80% right now, there are some critical bugs and technical stuff we need to polish first to ensure the best game experience.
We decided it is mandatory to make a post like this, so you know we did not forget about you and the game. We really love Hell Shuffle and making our best to keep it up.

All yours,
ICE T team.

This update is mostly focused on the balance. Many changes are made based on your feedback: some cards felt like they are weaker than others, some cards upgrades weren't feeling fun or impactful. Another pack of changes is made to synergize cards better.

General

• Starting deck now contains 2 Bloodemons.
  
• Effects “when Hero takes damage” now also trigger when Pay is used.
  
• Metamorphosis buff reworked. Now grants your Hero Critical.
  
• You can’t find an upgraded card in ACT 1 Shop anymore.
  
• Upgraded cards gold price increased `20%.
  
• Act 1 backgrounds art updated.
  
• Fixed a bug that did not allow you to save a run during Boss fights.
  

Quality of Life changes

• Covenant trees colors adjusted to make it more comfortable to see Сross-сovenant and Paired Perks.
  
• Dots’ position on enemy intentions adjusted a little bit.
  

Cards
Common

• New Card: Neophyte Cleric. At the end of each turn heals an ally in front but loses some hp.
  
• Rashness reworked - now deals damage to all enemies but applies Vulnerability to your Hero.
  
• Rashness manacost increased 1 --- 2.
  
• Siegebreaker reworked. Now deals damage to a target and to the target behind it.
  
• Ignite+ reworked - now has 50% to cast itself again on a random target.
  
• City Badge reworked and renamed to Winter badge.
  
• Winter Badge applies a buff that doubles the next Armor application on your Hero.
  
• Winter badge now unlocks in the first Northstar Card Pack.
  
• Consume/+ healing increased 2 --- 3.
  
• Spiked Minibot+ stats changed 1/1 - 4/2
  
• Spiked Minibot+ Reflection reduced 5 --- 3.
  
• Counter Attack mana cost reduced 6 --- 5.
  
• Counter Attack damage reduced 7 --- 6.
  
• Demonic Spikes/+ can’t target enemies anymore.
  
• Demonic Spikes+ now gives Resistance.
  
• Demonic Spikes+ Reflection reduced 4 --- 3.
  
• Cover Shot damage increased 2 --- 3
  
• Cover Shot+ damage increased 3 --- 4.
  
• SDAT scout+ now has Draw (1) component.
  
• SDAT scout+ stats reduced 4/3 -- 3/2.
  
• Mugging gold gain decreased 5 --- 3.
  
• Mugging+ gold gain decreased 8 --- 6.
  
• Peacekeeper health increased 7 --- 9.
  
• Coordinated attack plus mana cost reduced 1 --- 0.
  
• Coordinated attack+ damage reduced 4 --- 3.
  

Rare

• New Card: Fluffy Shieldcarrier - at the end of each turn allies below and above of Shieldcarrier gain 2 Armor.
  
• Ice Armor reworked - now provides armor and Tenacity buff.
  
• Shield Slam is moved from the Card pack and can drop from the start of the game.
  
• Heal the Weak/+ healing reduced 7 --- 5.
  
• Crimson Fortitude Pay reduced 3 --- 2.
  
• Crimson Fortitude+ Pay reduced 2 --- 1.
  
• Rearm mana cost reduced 3 --- 2.
  
• Rearm draw reduced 4 --- 3.
  
• Fire Shield+ armor gain increased 8 --- 9.
  
• Magnet-1C rarity changed Rare --- Legendary
  
• Magnetic stats increased to 2/2.
  
• Magnetic+ stats increased to 3/3.
  
• Demonic Swine attack increased 4 --- 5.
  
• Demonic Swine+ attack increased 6 --- 7.
  
• Firestarter battlecry now affects two targets.
  
• Firestarter battlecry does not deal damage.
  
• Firestarter+ battlecry now affects all enemies.
  
• Headshot+ now has 100% chance to crit.
  
• Headshot+ damage reduced 10 --- 8.
  
• Patient Goliath/+ mana cost reduction per turn increased 1 --- 2.
  
• Sickbomb/+ deathwish damage increased 4 --- 5.
  

Legendary

• Holy kitty can now attack twice.
  
• Holy kitty is not Defender anymore.
  
• Hol Kitty Attack increased.
  
• Forest Keeper stats increased 0/27 --- 5/27
  
• Forest Keeper can now Attack.
  
• Robber Good renamed to Bounty Hunter
  
• Bounty Hunter rarity changed legendary --- rare
  
• Bounty Hunter/+ gold gain reduced 5(10) --- 3(3)
  
• Bounty Hunter stats reduced from 5/3 --- 4/2
  
• Bounty Hunter+ now has Critical
  
• Prayer of Warding rarity changed Legendary ---- Rare
  
• Prayer of Warding mana cost increased by (1).
  

Elite Allies

• New elite Ally - Souldrainer. Active: forces hero to Pay twice. Heals himself.
  
• Alchemist gold gain reduced 5 --- 4
  
• Juggernatta health reduced 21 --- 18
  
• Decimatta health reduced 22 --- 18
  
• Supervisor Pain Reworked - now receives Attack Power (1) when any unit dies.
  
• Supervisor Pain stats adjusted 4/22 --- 2/19.
  
• Supervisor Pain is moved from the Card pack and can drop from the start of the game.
  
• Arasha now unlocks in the Cult Card Pack.
  
• Aberraht art updated.
  

Trinkets

• New Trinket added - Stout horns - hero gains Reflection (1). When any allied unit with Reflection is attacked - they gain 2 Armor.
  
• Iron Chalice heal increased 1 --- 2.
  
• Golden Tooth bonus shop rerolls increased 1 --- 3.
  
• Golden Tooth shop discount removed.
  
• Golden Ducky gold gain bonus reduced 30% --- 20%.
  
• Ancient Gong renamed to Ancient pendant.
  
• Ancient Pendant is not Shop only trinket now.
  
• Portable Black Hole now applies Weakness instead of Reducing Attack Power.
  
• Ankh healing reduced 50 --- 30.
  

Talents

• Lucky Hundreds renamed to Lucky Clover.
  
• Lucky Clover gold gain increased 100 --- 250.
  
• Lucky Clover no longer gives you a trinket.
  
• Infestation damage per turn reduced 4 --- 3.
  

Covenants
Enclave

• Magnate Enterprise gold gain reduced from 5-9 --- 5-8
  
• Mass Cash no longer provides bonus roll.
  
• Mass Cash now provides 10% Shop Discount.
  

Enemies
ACT 1

• Priestess (elite) - health increased 28 --- 30.
  
• Insane Rat (elite) health increased 37 --- 39.
  
• Thief Queen (elite) attack while in Resistant mode increased 5 --- 7.
  

ACT 3

• Armor eater (elite) attack reduced 20 --- 16.
  
• Armor eater (elite) armor reduced 140 --- 120.
  
• Armor Eating reworked - now grants Piercing.
  
• Hard Knight damage increased 10 --- 12.
  

Events

• The Escape event difficulty increased.
  

Known Issues

• Z-fighting of the cards in hand still not beaten.
  
• There is a very small chance to spawn a purple untargetable enemy. Solution: save and load the game.
  

What to expect in nearest updates?

• Music.
  
• VFX updates.
  
• More diffuculties.
  

Feel free to join our discord and share your suggestions and thoughts!