Withering Rooms News

Some new videogame releases pounce on us like excitable Golden Retrievers, while others become apparent to us more insidiously, like undead Golden Retrievers creeping back from the grave to do their master's bidding unto eternity. Withering Rooms is one of the latter: released out of early access last week, and noticed by me just yesterday, it's a haunted mansion metroidvania in which you are a small girl in a nightie who must use meat cleavers, pentagrams and spells of self-enlargement or possession or incineration to overcome various monsters of the Silently Hilly and/or Residentially Evil persuasion. No, none of the monsters are Golden Retrievers.

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We can speculate about why there are a lot of horror games nowadays, versus barely any at all about 10 years ago. Maybe horror games are less expensive to make and thus more viable for smaller developers, especially when the unheimlich effect of early 3D graphics is so suited to the genre, not to mention the benefits that darkness and repetitive labyrinthine interiors may have on smaller development budgets. Maybe it's an unconscious push back against the brash, saccharine vibe of most popular contemporary videogames; if the Fortnite-ification of everything sets your teeth on edge, maybe an unrelentingly violent game about psychopathic nuns will act as salve. OR: maybe people are just generally more messed up in the 2020s, and love to watch horrible things and be scared...
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Withering Rooms v1.23

Important Fixes

* Under some circumstances, reward items dropped by the Butcher Surgeon could disappear from the inventory. Upon loading a save in this situation on this patch, these reward items will be restored.
* Fix the Quest display in later game chapters appearing to be blank sometimes until reloading into the game.

Polish

* Additional German and Japanese localization improvements and bug fixes
* The NPC at the end of Chapter 3 now has a choice with a warning that continuing will end the chapter. Since all Chapter 3 content is accessible from Chapter 4, this warning was originally deemed not required but it (understandably) caused concern.
* When playing on resolutions below 1080p, i.e. Steam Deck:
* Notes now default to the standard typeface(usually you have to press the Typeface button or press X/Square)
* The font size and zoom level of the full map have been increased

Bug Fixes

* Fix the full map text not updating when changing languages
* Fix being able to press the "Toggle Legibility" keybind/controller button when you shouldn't be able to

Withering Rooms has left Early Access, and to celebrate v1.22 adds new content, new languages, and a ton of polish improvements and bug fixes. Thank you again to everyone who played and gave feedback during Early Access - you truly left your mark on the game.



Rival Witches

A new enemy archetype with two new bestiary entries has been added: the Rival Witches. They wear and use similar equipment to Nightingale, right down to eating Scones when low on health and placing Warding Candles when cursed. Defeating them yields First Angel Kindling, a new resource.



The Bloody Gatehouse & Church of the First Angel

Two new areas have been added to the game.

The Gatehouse is no longer boarded up in Chapter 3/4, although you may not like what's inside.



Defeat your first Rival Witch to gain access to the Church of the First Angel, where you can perform rituals to upgrade your equipment past +3 all the way to +5.

New Outfits

You can now obtain the Skin Mask, Flaming Hood, Punishment Cage, and Bloody Apron.

Enchantable Skeletons

A long requested feature during Early Access, you can now enchant the skeletons in the Byzantine Labyrinth to fight for you, including both the warrior and archer types.



Official Japanese & German Support

Full new professional translations to Japanese and German have been added to the game.



* The player and boss health bars now display a tick every 100 health points to make it easier to see how much is left
* Improve the resolution and appearance of some UI elements
* Artifacts with consistently draining or negative effects, such as the Lantern Familiar, turn off automatically upon starting a new night
* Significant CPU optimizations
* Because some keyboards do not have(or is labeled otherwise) a backquote(~) key, the default presented Toggle Minimap key is now m - note that backquote(~) is still a secondary binding by default so you can continue to use it
* Vibration on controllers is disabled when in menus



* A Chapter 2 Nowhere NPC sells additional spell related items and rings
* The Vicar of St. Elli's now continues to appear in Chapter 2 in New Game +
* The Upper Parlor merchant sells additional items
* In order to make it easier to obtain a Sentinel Candle in Chapter 1, the Cursed Explorer ring is guaranteed to be on sale from a merchant
* Summoned minions can no longer hit each other with projectiles
* Curse Sentinels only spawn once per area, and never respawn. Additionally, they will spawn in a shorter and more consistent timespan once reaching the necessary Cursedness threshold if not already holding a Sentinel Candle.
* Corpse Hand now scales the movement distance of enemies along with their speed, making it much more effective at keeping them at a distance
* Enemies are more likely to target the Dummy Spell dummy
* The Comforting Bear heals much more cursedness per second
* The Whip does more physical damage
* The New Game + boss has more health
* Labyrinth & Blackett House NPCs now sell Photographic Dry Plates
* The effective range(i.e. for capturing spirits) of photographs has increased
* Additional Angels were added to the Byzantine Labyrinth in New Game +
* Holy Pentagram, Pentagram of Blood, Golden Pentagram, Cursed Flesh Ring, Gold Skull Ring, Skull Ring have been buffed
* All headwear with damage % effects and Vampire Locket now affect base damage



* Fix various melee weapons not producing any controller rumble on hit, and all melee weapons not producing rumble upon hitting a wall
* Fix aiming while exiting sideways out of a room not exiting the room
* Fix the "grabbed" animation not playing when being grabbed, i.e. by a charging enemy
* Fix the time to actually start "blocking" not taking into account Speed stat
* Fix being able to use a left hand item while switching which left hand item is equipped
* Fix the body bags summoned by the Chapter 2 Upper Banquet hall boss potentially having odd swinging physics
* Fix bear traps sometimes playing their snap effect multiple times
* Fix the Whip's animation not properly scaling with Speed
* Fix installing a Blackett House Electrical Generator creating a redundant quest if another is found
* Fix solving the Seance Room puzzle and immediately trying to interact with the painting causing a softlock
* Fix some doors locking but not visually closing when encountering a boss
* Fix unequipping the Evasion Codex while dodging leaving the Spirit Form visual effect on
* Fix visual artifacts around Nightingale's hands when using the Nurse Outfit
* Fix doors being able to become permanently blocked by allies or enemies exiting them
* Fix being able to stand up when just on the other side of crouch only doors, leading to odd behavior
* Fix the Cholera Clinic puzzle not resetting upon leaving and re-entering
* Fix some items, such as the Goat Fashion Record, being awarded again in New Game +
* Fix Cholera Clinic boss coming back to life when quitting and reloading in the same room
* Fix some enemies, such as the clowns in the Circus Show, not counting towards the night's kill count
* Fix the achievement for reaching level 40 not counting some sources of levelling up
* Fix photographs not counting many friendly NPCs in their total subject count, making achievements like Action Shot harder than intended
* Fix arena related quests not being marked as complete in the quest log
* Fix Epilogue B becoming soft locked under circumstances
* Fix an issue where the Pocket Nowhere Mirror could leave the screen black if Nightingale is poise broken just before teleporting
* Fix NPCs sometimes head tracking objects like the lantern familiar instead of the player
* Fix some monsters being counted as "guardians" for sealed treasure chests that shouldn't be, such as Possessed Paintings
* Fix monsters sometimes pathing, dodging or being knocked beyond open side doors, making them hard to fight
* Fix a softlock that could occur after the cemetery invasion battle
* Fix Warding Candles being able to be placed on top of one another
* Fix Curse Form not working while the Flight Codex is equipped
* Fix the Build Display UI showing Weirdness twice instead of Immunity

Update: The release date has moved from Tuesday(the 2nd) to Friday(the 5th) to better align with some exciting business things!

Withering Rooms is leaving Early Access and heading to Steam and consoles on April 5th! Check out the new trailer:

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

If you look closely, you'll notice a few new surprises have been added to the game to celebrate the full release.



The full release will also feature new professional translations to Japanese and German. If the game sells well, additional translations can be funded.

Thank you again to everyone who has played and given feedback during Early Access. Withering Rooms has been massively improved by your suggestions and bug reports, and would be a very different game without your support.