Boons & Burdens News

It's done. After a long and winding road that had far more twists than any of you will ever know, Boons & Burdens has reached 1.0. This update is incredibly big, and makes changes to address every major concern and request I could manage, while also expanding the content in ways not previously announced.

In addition to a new class, I've made sweeping changes to balance, added two new ways to play, including a new draft mode where you pick all of your upgrades in advance and then try to survive an onslaught of enemies as long as you can. I've also taken care to update just about every other facet of the game in some way or another.

I know my projects don't always connect with everyone (not that they should), but I'm proud of how far the game has come, and I hope my little solo project on a shoe string budget lives up to many of your expectations. If not before, then now. Enough with the sappy stuff, on with the notes!

And please, one last time, if you enjoy the game, leave a review. It helps, and I'd really like to keep making video games!

TL;DR

• New Class: The Geomancer
  
• 2 New Modes: Endless Arena and Limited Draft
  
• 30 New Boons to equip
  
• 10 New Potions. 2 added to all Arena modes, and 8 more in Limited Draft.
  
• Sacrifice Update: Sacrifices now get paired with a random selection of small beneficial perks that can stack, except in Delve difficulty 3.
  
• 15 new achievements
  
• The Arcanacon: Tome of Game Knowledge
  
• Intro tutorial and main menu overhaul
  
• Quality of life updates, major balance changes, and dozens of bug fixes
  

[h2]
The Full Patch Notes[/h2]

New Class: The Geomancer

• The 4th, and final class. A zone controlling wizard with a focus on totemic powers, and playing keep away.
  

New Boons/Talent Trees

• Terra Tether
  
• Spirit Stone
  
• Rune Mastery
  
• Summon Mastery
  

Cursed Boons

• Calling Curse
  
• Spirited Curse
  

New Arena Mode: Limited Draft

• Designed to be a fast, intense, short-form way to play and experiment with builds
  
• Choose 16 boons at the start. Each choice rolls a new selection of upgrades.
  
• Collect gems to earn potions
  
• 10 new potions have been added. 2 potions are available in all arena modes, 8 are only available in Limited Draft.
  
• Rings are disabled.
  
• Survive for as long as you can as threat increases rapidly.
  
• Your best time will be saved
  

New Arena Mode: Endless

• Go beyond 15 minutes, and continue to level up in Arena.
  
• A new type of phantom can show up in late game (endless and draft)
  
• Your best time will be saved
  

Sacrifice Update

• Sacrifices now offer randomly selected benefits except in delve 3
  
• Benefits are randomly applied to sacrifices, in the same way sacrifices are randomly applied to Burdens.
  
• Most benefits can stack, but have varying rarities.
  

New Feature: Arcanacon

• Track all the boons, burdens, enemies, items, and achievements, you've equipped, selected, encountered, collected, and completed (respectively).
  

New Achievements

• Rock Collector: Collect 150 pebbles in a single game
  
• Mosh Pit: Catch 10+ enemies in a single use of the Geomancer's Sand Storm when first cast
  
• Punch Rock: Use your Golem's Fist twice in a row within 10 seconds.
  
• Rock Star: Beat the game in any mode as the Geomancer
  
• Delvis Presley: Beat Delve difficulty 3
  
• Arena Franklin: Beat Arena Difficulty 2
  
• Hold The Door: Survive in Endless Arena for 20 minutes
  
• Grand Slamancer: Beat the game with all 4 classes in any mode
  
• Light Packer: Beat Delve 3 with 20 or fewer boons equipped
  
• 7 Minutes in Heaven: Take damage fewer than 7 times in the first 7 minutes of Arena.
  
• Collect Em All - Unlock every entry for every enemy in the Arcanacon.
  
• Boon-ty Hunter- Unlock every entry for every non-cursed Boon in the Arcanacon.
  
• Accursed - Unlock at least 13 different cursed boon entries in the Arcanacon.
  
• 3 Minutes in Hell: Survive for at least 3 minutes in Limited Draft
  
• Trophy Hunter: Unlock every achievement
  

Balance Updates

• One class-specific talent tree from each class has been moved to the neutral pool. This leaves each class with one unique talent tree, but access to 21 additional potential upgrades to choose from.
  - Snow Guard, Firebomb, Surging Sphere, and Spirit Stones are now neutral talent trees.
  - Snow Guard now triggers from any elemental effects instead of just freeze, now that it is a neutral boon
  
• Enemies move 15% slower on Delve and Arena 1 (and 0)
  
• Threat scales 15% slower on Delve 1 (and 0)
  
• Ring of Theurgy: Now grants +1 second of invulnerability at base, and +2 when mastered. Has a 16 and 12 second recharge time, respectively.
  
• Ring of Surging: Now has a 25 second recharge time. The mastered version no longer grants bonus healing, but reduces the recharge time by 5 seconds.
  
• There is a new boon type: Spirit
  
• Will-o-Wisps are now Spirit Wisps
  
• Innatrix: Now grants 25% recharge time reduction, down from 50%. Attack speed is unchanged.
  
• Sacrosanct: 12 second recharge time, up from 6. +2 seconds of invulnerability, up from +1.
  
• Divinnate: Now grants +5% of your max theurgic energy when you use your innate instead of a flat 15.
  
• Zap Dash: Now triggers every 9th orb collected
  
• Condenser Coil: Now grants 25% recharge time reduction, down from 35%
  
• Godly Gulp Potion: Now grants 6 seconds of invulnerability, down from 8.
  
• The crystalline enemies that steal gems now do so far more aggressively
  
• Theurgic gems are a little less likely to drop as the difficulty increases in on Arena 2+ and Delve 3
  
• Effects that slow enemies now diminish more slowly
  
• Divinnate now states "When you use your innate ability this gains 1 charge. Every 2 charges, gain 5% of your max theurgic energy."
  
• Note: The Deja Yu boon when used with Divinnate now grants an extra charge instead of an extra 5%.
  
• Ring of Divine Inspirations now charges your theurgic meter 25% faster, down from 30%
  
• Close Cull's "Divine Cull" now grants 0.5 theurgic, down from 2.
  
• Eyedols in Arena now automatically die 15 seconds after they begin to attack
  

Quality of Life Updates

• The tutorial system in the main menu has been completely overhauled. There are fewer intro and automatic texts. You can now talk to the wizards not currently equipped to learn more about various things, and quick swap to them.
  
• Arena and Delve have swapped positions in the menu. Arena feels like a better introduction to the game, especially for players coming from other Bullet Heavens, and not twin-stick shooters.
  
• Arena ring descriptions are now the default and the description toggle buttons also reflect this ordering
  
• When the final boss is exploding, all other enemies die
  
• Moved the infernicite counter in the rings menu so the button prompt at the top doesn't overlap it
  
• Updates to how potions work and resolve, increasing optimization and potentially preventing rare bugs
  
• Various menu texts have been cleaned up and clarified
  
• Ring of Delayed Gratification now states that the effect does not stack
  
• Uber Phantoms are now magenta
  
• Added new texts for when you quit to insult and/or guilt you. Probably the single most important update in this patch, to be honest.
  

Audio/Visual Polish

• Wizards now have custom death animations before game over
  
• A Pfazyr's (eyeballs with wings) attack line increase in size as they get ready to dash
  
• The Electromancer's second staff has a new firing sound
  
• Gem Deposits now make a sound when being impacted
  
• Crystal Ruins Deposits now make a sound when being impacted
  
• Crystal Construct now makes a sound when impacted even if it does not trigger a beam
  
• Arcane Mines now have an explosion sound
  
• Added a logo splash page for the musician at start up
  

Bug Fixes

• Ring of Lore should no longer offer duplicates of cursed boons you already own
  
• If you lock a cursed boon, then it is offered by ring of lore and you purchase it, it will no longer show up in the next roll
  
• Fixed an issue that was still causing the Electro innate "Lightspeed" to move inconsistent distances
  
• Fixed a bug that could cause the Electromancer's innate to create two after images, and disable teleportnig back to the starting position if the player held the innate button down.
  
• Fixed a long standing bug that could cause beam spells to fail to find targets within range under various circumstances
  
• Fixed an issue that would allow some texts to overlap the far edge of the text box in rare instances
  
• The Auto-Target toggle should not require an extra press post-game
  
• Runemark curse works with all sources of damage
  
• Fixed a bug that was causing potion times to overlap
  
• Fixed a bug that prevented the player UI from returning from semi-transparent after leaving the top left corner
  
• Bright Charge in the Light Rune tree will charge off of all Runes triggering
  
• Ring of Lore (and some other rings) will no longer function incorrectly if Ring of Vacuity is equipped in Arena
  
• Various visual effects will now stop moving, changing size, and transparency when the game pauses or during dramatic moments such as when Theurgics are cast
  
• Totemic Grit, Optitotem, and Expansion will all now properly apply bonuses to totems equipped before them
  
• Fixed a bug causing Beam Booster to apply 10x the damage bonus
  
• Tome of Fireline should no longer result in getting stuck in a wall if done at specific angles toward the walls
  
• Rings should now show the correct, mastered artwork in the inventory
  
• Chickens will no longer randomly spawn after leveling up in Arena modes
  
• The targeting cursor should no longer become stuck in the reload animation if you level up at the same time as you reload in Arena
  
• The boon selection highlighter will now properly reset to the first boon when rerolling
  
• Upgrade shops should no longer be able to trigger in Arena if you level up exactly when you die
  
• Polybomb Potion should no longer break phantoms and other enemies that utilize visual indicators
  
• Changes to how death works should prevent weird edge cases where enemies still don't die properly, but could have unintended consequences (have not seen any yet).
  
• Ring Mastery Text should properly disappear when selecting a different equipped item or boon in the inventory with mouse controls
  
• Red X's from Signature Boons that are disabled will no longer persist on screen when selecting other boons without locked Signatures when using mouse controls
  
• Optimized the code that handles runes and runeseekers, removed a memory leak related to certain runes with specific trigger types. This may improve performance of things like "Light Up"
  
• Phantoms summoned by curses should now create aoe indicators
  
• Ring of Innergy should now trigger the Innate Ready sound
  
• The Giant's Horn Theurgic should now properly grant invulnerability that aligns with its full duration
  
• Fixed a bug that would cause a severe memory leak and slowdown if Divinnate was equipped
  
• Fixed a bug that could cause the inventory icons to get shuffled around visually in the post-game inventory
  
• Fixed a bug that could cause visual fx to be moved to the wrong place if certain projectiles with fx trails were created
  

• Just a quick fix to prevent controls from locking on mouse/keyboard if you press the tab button
  

On July 16th, Boons & Burdens will receive its 1.0 content update, and exit Early Access!

Before I jump into the specifics of what that means for the game, I just want to thank everyone that has contributed to making this little game so much better since it first launched. I couldn't have done this without you all. With games like Gunlocked and Boons & Burdens, there are so many systems and upgrades interacting at any moment, that testing all of them, in every scenario, as a solo developer would be nearly impossible (at least with my time and budget, haha). Your feedback, bug reports, uploaded screenshots and videos, and reviews have helped me and this game in so many ways.

Since entering Early Access, I've added a new class, new bosses and enemies, new normal and cursed upgrades, new burdens and sacrifices (and completely revamped both of these systems), the Arena game mode, multiple difficulty settings with unique challenges, unlockable alternate equipment for every class, 30 magic rings to unlock and upgrade, and dozens of achievements! And I've learned so much along the way.

I hope I'll be able to use the many lessons (like "don't use an ampersand in your game's name") learned here on future games.

[h3]Now, onto the launch details![/h3]

Patch 1.0 for Boons & Burdens will be the biggest content update since Early Access began. I'm not going to detail every change and new feature here, just some of the most important updates.

• The Geomancer: A new class with a focus on zone control and totemic mastery. The Geomancer will throw sand in your face and rub salt in your wounds.
  
• Endless Arena: The final option for Arena mode will let you go beyond 15 minutes, facing ever increasing challenges and expanding your builds even further than Arena will normally allow.
  
• New Upgrades: Dozens of new boons to discover and equip
  
• Achievements: A significant portion of new goals to achieve for all you completionists.
  
• Polish: Expect new visual fx, sounds, and animations to kick everything up a notch.
  
• And More: There's always an "and more", and you better believe there is more! I'll save the rest for July 16th though, so save the date!
  

With all of these updates (and more), and the many that have come before, Boons & Burdens will also be getting a small price increase when it exits Early Access. So if you've been holding off until you could trust that the game would be complete to grab a copy, now is the time. You have until launch to get Boons & Burdens at its current price.

I'll see you all then!

Bug Fixes

• Added some fixes to hopefully prevent certain units from not properly being removed on death (chests, phantoms, eyedols)
  
• When using auto-aim, the Pyromancer's Fire Fan will now trigger the attack effect in the correct direction
  
• The Ring of Curses should now trigger in a larger area, and has had its targets increased at both levels. It also has a unique visual effect, distinct from the previous placeholder effect (this effect will be improved in 1.0)
• Ring of Shoving now deals the correct damage
  
• Eyedols will no longer spawn alongside other arena events in Arena 2. Previously, once an Eyedol (laser eyes) event would trigger, every event that spawned enemies would trigger them again.
  
• The Slime Event in Arena will now spawn the proper amount of Slimes.
  
• Made some small changes to how burdens are selected.
  - Note: If you select a burden and the objective text in-game says "Burden of" and then nothing, and you can't complete the burden, please let me know which controls you use, what round it happened on, and any other details you can show or tell me.

Well, here we are. The last major patch before the gargantuan 1.0 update (more on that in another post very soon). This patch does for Arena what a recent patch did for Delve, adding more content, variety, balance, and polish to the mode.

I've also managed to fix just about every reported bug I can find at this point, with another long list of updates at the bottom of these notes. This includes a couple changes that will further improve late game stability and performance. Oh, and after a couple of changes, we're now Steam Deck Verified!

Things are going to be pretty quiet for a little while, as I work on the 1.0 update and everything that will add to the game. If you want to spoil what's coming, you can opt into the steam beta with the password: catmanapplebro. I'll be updating that branch in the coming weeks, likely a couple of times at least, before the full release, but the main branch will not see any updates until that patch is complete.

[h3]Patch 0.80 Notes[/h3]

Arena Difficulty 2 has been added

• Includes more difficult versions of Arena combat events
  
• Includes new combat events that only appear on Arena Difficulty 2
  
• Includes 2 new enemy types that only appear in Arena Difficulty 2
  
• Includes new enemy types from Delve difficulties 2 and 3
  
• Has increased enemy scaling
  

Ring Updates for Arena: Because the game modes have significant differences, some rings require distinct powers between the modes. Previously, only a small handful of rings had their abilities adapted for Arena.These updates complete the necessary Arena-based ring updates (and do not apply to Delve).

• Ring of Choice: The mastered Ring of Choice now grants 2 extra boon choices (+1) on the first roll each time you earn an upgrade.
  
• Ring of Rerolls: Now grants an extra free reroll every 3rd time you earn an upgrade. When mastered, grants an extra reroll every time you earn an upgrade.
  
• Ring of Blood Money: After earning an upgrade, drains 4 health and spawns 30 gems, if you're above 80 health. The mastered version spawns 50 gems, and only drains 3 health.
  
• Ring of Support: Now spawns a chest every 15 damage you take without limit to the number of chests. The mastered ring spawns a chest every 10 damage.
  
• Ring of Divine Inspiration: The mastered version of this ring spawns 7 theurgic gems when an upgrade beacon activates.
  
• Ring of Self-serving: This ring now heals you for 5 upon leveling up, if you're below 80 health. This effect can trigger 4 times per game. The mastered version restores +2 health, and can trigger 5 times per game.
  
• Ring of Bargains: Now spawns 1 extra upgrade beacon after 5 minutes once no other beacons are on the battlefield. The mastered version repeats this after 10 minutes.
  

QoL

• In the Ring menu, the button for ring text that previously said "Classic" now says "Delve"
  
• The Thunderbird's Feather theurgic text now shows the correct damage
  

Balance

• The first upgrade beacon in Arena now appears after 1.5 minutes (down from 2.5 minutes), and subsequent beacons spawn 2 minutes after the last was activated (down from 2.5 minutes).
  
• Parting Gift Boon: No longer triggers during boss fights.
  
• Mini Slimes that spawn from larger slimes no longer drop gems
  

Bug Fixes

• Memory Leaks that could cause late game instability have been identified and fixed
  
• When attempting to surrender from the first burden menu in Delve, the correct menu and function will now be available
  
• Pyromancer's Giant's Heart will no longer be able to count other runes toward healing in rare circumstances
  
• The Pyromancer's "Heat Wave" boon will no longer interfere with other upgrades, causing weird outcomes and interactions (including with theurgic abilities, such as Giant's Heart)
  
• The Ring of Lore should always offer a cursed boon in Arena now.
  
• Should no longer be possible to open the pause menu while the game continues on when using mouse and keyboard
  
• Fixed a bug that could allow a user to pause during a tutorial tip popup, causing the tooltip to become stuck on the screen
  
• The Pyromancer's equips now properly receive the burn tag and can benefit from burn upgrade modifiers
  
• Sacrifice Destinations should no longer add extra destinations after it resolves
  
• The inventory should now show the correct text at all times when viewing rings
  
• Ring of Delayed Gratification will no longer heal during pause or in a menu
  
• Ring of Cataclysms should now adapt its range to the current portal radius when dealing damage
  
• Ring of Blood Money will no longer apply before the first round
  
• Ring of Blood Money now correctly states that it costs 4 health instead of 5
  
• Ring of Self Serving will no longer heal twice when selecting that option in the Burden menu with mouse controls
  
• Ring of Shining will now properly scale with beam-type modifiers
  
• Ring of Delayed Graitification should now always trigger the correct number of times
  
• Ring of Support properly resets its damage count after spawning a chest
  
• Fixed a bug that would prevent synergy tags from updating when using mouse controls in specific instances