Withering Rooms News

New Features

- New timed event item: You can pick up the Doll Outfit by opening the filthy sack in the East Stairwell on any chapter until Dec. 4
- The Sickle melee weapon, which deals significant poison damage, has been added to the game, and can be found in Chapter 2 and beyond

Balance Changes

- Poise now recovers after 5 seconds across the player and all enemies
- Regular enemies with the sigil beneath them in the Labyrinth now drop ancient blood
- Old Sword durability is now only affected by physical damage dealt
- Dodges are no longer interrupted unless poise is actually broken
- Touching a ghost with the Bible will now alert them to your presence
- Knife, Rapier, and Axe damage slightly increased
- Pipe heavy attack made slightly slower
- The Old King boss has a much longer cooldown on spells
- Enchanted Armor does slightly less physical/bleed damage, and much less poise damage

Bug Fixes

- Fixed an issue where the map would stop updating and NPCs would stop spawning under certain circumstances
- Fixed being unable to properly use the Options menu from the Title menu with a controller and related issues
- Fixed several softlocks around entering/leaving rooms while interacting
- Fix issues where Nightingale would sometimes turn away at odd times in melee combat
- Fixed an issue where being grabbed could result in teleporting across the room to a previously chosen hiding spot
- Fixed the doll in Chapter 2 not dying properly and getting into a bad state
- Fixed an issue where chests would sometimes be empty, or would only give treasure after trying to open a few times
- Fixed an issue where peeking and entering a door from the side could sometimes result in Nightingale immediately leaving the room
- Fixed an issue where projectiles would collide against the Fireball Spell
- Fixed the background not always loading when peeking outdoors
- Fixed an issue where using the Bible while turning or being hit by a ghost could result in erratic movement

Note: Many doors were not properly locked in 0.87. This has been fixed. If you managed to reach somewhere in the previous version without a key and are now stuck, you can now choose Options -> Support -> Start New Night to reset with the mansion without losing any items. Please reach out to Support if you have any problems - we can fix saves if need be.

New Features

Melee combat has been significantly overhauled:

• Hold the attack button for a heavy attack
  
• Press the attack button repeatedly for a brief combo
  
• Attacks now push combatants apart
  
• Input buffering has been rewritten to feel better
  
• The damage and animations of all weapons have been significantly rebalanced
  
• Dodge back no longer scales distance with Speed
  
• A new weapon - the Cleaver - has been added, and is now the initial tutorial weapon
  

Feedback is welcome, as this is a sizeable change in the feel of the game. If a weapon you loved you now hate, or you feel like you're struggling with the new system, please get in touch!

Polish

• For the duration of Early Access, you can choose Options -> Support -> Start New Night to begin a new night without losing any items
  

Bug Fixes

• Fixed a major issue where many doors in v0.87 that should be locked were not
  
• Fixed an issue where you could be locked in a room after defeating a boss
  
• Fix some gun targeting issues with some enemies
  
• Initiates no longer attack Big/Little Wretches
  

Balance Changes

- Permanent items like the Samhain Outfit are no longer sellable
- Curse Rot now deals 4% of health per second instead of a flat 4 points
- Corpse Hex does more damage
- Gold Skull Ring and Skull Ring have been adjusted to be more useful
- Rabbit's Heart Ring has been buffed
- Skeletons can no longer bleed

Polish

- The game is no longer extremely dark on HDR displays
- Significant GPU optimizations, particularly on outdoor scenes - some machines may see up to 4x better framerates
- Noise Effect shader has been changed - the appearance is more similar to having Noise Effect off
- The Clerk NPC in the lobby now has a full dialog tree
- The Observatory puzzle has been reworked to fix all ambiguity around counts
- The appearance of the Sheet Beast has been improved
- Dynamic items, such as Labyrinth rings, always appear as "new" items
- The appearances of the Marble Gallery, Painting Gallery, Upper Parlor, Study, Hedge Maze and Rear House Entrance have all been improved

Bug Fixes

- Fixed issues around Photograph display, and improved the appearance of taken photographs particularly in outdoor areas
- Photographs appear in your inventory again
- Fix Swap Places not working from the intended distance and not properly making enemy projectiles hit them
- Fix Door Hex not working on some doors in the Attic or Labyrinth
- Fix Door Hex not doing damage to player when peeking and walking through
- Starry Flesh is properly permanent now, and the associated NPC tells you the correct amount needed
- Fix for several issues around monsters entering and leaving rooms, or entering a room and "spacing out"
- Fix issue where Horace the dog would spawn in odd locations
- Fix map display issue where rooms could be too small when near stairs
- Fix "Explore Robert's Room" quest log not clearing
- Proofreading pass on dialog/lore/items

From Oct. 28th to Nov. 3rd, you can find the Samhain Outfit in the filthy bag of the East Stairwell. You must be on v0.86 of the game. Note: After Nov 3rd, you can obtain this outfit from Tomos in Chapter 2/3/4.

New Features

- A seasonal outfit(the Samhain Outfit) is now available until November 3rd - just open the filthy bag in the East Stairwell in any chapter
- The Golden Spear melee weapon has been added, and can be found as a random drop in the Byzantine Labyrinth
- Through asset optimization, the size of the game has been reduced by half - down to 4.1gb
- A new "quick item found display" feature has been added - items you've found already no longer pause the game and instead appear in a stack on the right side of the HUD. Experienced players can enable this for all items(not just ones you've already found) in the Gameplay Options. Note that until you've picked up an item in 0.86, it will still be considered new.

Balance Changes

- Reduced the speed penalty of poison from 25 to 15
- Nightingale enters/exits crouch faster
- Exquisite Gold Ring heals cursedness more slowly, and stops working when suffering from Curse Rot
- Recall Shrines can no longer be activated when suffering from a negative status effect or below 50% health
- Tomos sells the Initiate Grimoire in Chapter 3 and beyond
- Ghostly Ring no longer makes you invulnerable during dodges when suffering from Curse Rot

Polish

- Exiting rooms now has input buffering, and Nightingale can exit a room immediately after opening a door
- Armor Outfit is now gold, to better fit its origin

Bug Fixes

- Fix NG+ monsters spawning in the basement of Chapter 1 and attic of Chapter 3 during regular NG
- Fix the flamethrower not doing damage as intended
- Fix Nightingale being able to walk or run more slowly than intended with a controller
- Fix Burning Protection continuing to appear on dead Initiates
- Fix a spurious extra health bar on the Upper Balcony Boss
- The elevator now locks when in boss fights
- Fix a rare softlock that can occur when being hit under some circumstances, like exiting