1st Major Post-Launch Update 1.1 is live!

[p]Hello adventurers! We've been quiet in 2025, but not for lack of progress: we've just launched the first MAJOR post-update patch for Flowstone Saga! The change list is way too big to itemize, but here are some of the highlights:[/p][previewyoutube][/previewyoutube][h3]BFF Perks[/h3][p]Once the Bistro is built and you begin getting to know eight of the villagers better by seeing their side stories, you can now Buddy Up with one of them to unlock a special BFF Perk! For example:[/p]

• [p]Gon will toss you a random fish buff at the start of every battle[/p]
• [p]Deja boosts your elemental damage[/p]
• [p]Christine increases your damage multiplier from large clears[/p]
• [p]Pari gives you mana regeneration every X pieces dropped[/p]

[p]These perks grow in strength as you deepen your relationships, and are perfect for players that want more ways to customize and complement their playstyle/build.[/p][p][/p][h3]Fishing Upgrades[/h3][p]You can now purchase & upgrade better rods and fishing bait from Gon in town to unlock higher rarities of fish, and make your struggles with them easier! Higher-rarity fish have even more potent buffing effects![/p][p][/p][h3]New Game+ Mode[/h3][p]For those that have conquered all the game had to offer, you can now play it again with increased challenge across the board! In NG+, you keep things like your experience level, stats, perks, and gear, but battles become tougher in several ways:[/p]

• [p]Monster health and damage values are scaled up, especially if you are particularly high level[/p]
• [p]Monsters take less time to wind up and execute their basic attacks[/p]
• [p]Monster charge abilities take less time to charge, and require a minimum of two hits to interrupt[/p]

[p][/p][h3]Demolitionist TNT Revamp[/h3][p]When talking to players, we learned that the Demolitionist Frog Spirit was considered the most difficult to use, mainly because of the randomness of the position TNT drop. Previously, the TNT block could drop anywhere on the board with potentially disastrous consequences.[/p][p]We've revamped this mechanic so that now, the TNT block alternates between the left edge and right edge of the board. This predictability makes things feel much less frustrating without the Frog becoming overpowered. It should be nicely in line with the others now.[/p][p][/p][h3]Endgame Boss Overhauls[/h3][p]Without giving away story specifics, the consensus was that the last few bosses of the game were a letdown in terms of their difficulty. We've gone over these and reworked their stats, skill loadout, and AI, which make them more challenging and appropriate to their place in the game.[/p][p][/p][h3]Arena Rebalance[/h3][p]The Arena is a great way to both earn rewards and flex your battle prowess. However, the difficulty was inconsistent, with some early fights (even in the first tier) being way harder than fights even in later tiers, some boss fights being too easy, and others being simply too repetitive.[/p][p]We've gone over every single Arena encounter and boss to make sure there things actually scale in difficulty as intended from the first fight of the first tier, all the way to the very end. This has involved adding and removing monsters from some fights, adjusting stats, adding and changing abilities, tweaking AI, etc. It feels much better![/p][p][/p][h3]Many, Many Bug Fixes[/h3][p]With a game as big as Flowstone Saga, lots of minor and not-so-minor bugs have been reported. We've fixed about as many as we were able to find.[/p][p][/p][h3]Substantial Switch Port Work (That Helps on PC)[/h3][p]In working on the Switch port of the game (which is about 98% done) we went over many areas of the codebase to optimize memory/CPU usage and various other unexciting, but still important, engine things that should benefit all players on all platforms![/p][p][/p][h2]What's Next?[/h2][p][/p][p]Though the game hasn't sold as well as we had hoped, we're very happy with the reception its received, and we're proud of our 5+ years of work. We have a 2nd major patch on the drawing board right now, but no concrete ETA yet, as our development team has been transitioning to work on Tangledeep 2. We're also working on finalizing the Switch port (with Switch 2 compatibility) here.[/p][p]We'll be watching our Discord in the coming weeks for any bug reports that we can fix rapidly, and of course, if you have any other feedback we're all ears and will track + discuss.[/p][p]Thank you for enjoying our game! (And don't forget to check out our first title Tangledeep!)[/p]