Balance, Bugs, and Betterment (+Steam Deck Verified!) - Patch Notes 3/25/2026

[p]Greetings, Masters of the Occult. [/p][p][/p][p]Firstly, thank you all for your continued feedback and support of The Killing Stone. [/p][p][/p][p]As an early access title, we are beholden to you, dear player, to find what our next move should be. We are proud to continue our journey with you, and it’s with that in mind that we have been working away on a particularly large patch (and Steam Deck verification!) for you all .[/p][p][/p][p]This is bringing in a number of changes to your overall player experience, and turning our gaze towards balancing. Here are the highlights…[/p]

[p]We have tweaked some cards, bundles, and decks to the family member chapters that should bring some balance to these battles.[/p]
[p]We have added the ability to restart a ritual from the manor house after failure. This means you have a chance to explore, play Optional Rituals, change their familiar, etc. before having to go back into the same ritual you just failed. [/p]
[p]New playthroughs will create a checkpoint at the first real ritual so that restarting Malthe’s chapter will skip the intro and beginning tutorial content.[/p]
[p]We have added a “Story Mode” difficulty change prompt to the failure screens. This is not a judgment on you or your skill, dear player! We are just surfacing our accessibility options in case you need them.[/p]
[p]We have adjusted the logic for the Forge and Cursed Cards so that the forge options are dynamic and respond to if/how many cursed cards you have in your deck.[/p]
[p]We have fixed a glitch so the cleansed Cursed Cards carry between the main run and the Optional Rituals more predictably.[/p]
[p]We have addressed how creatures that directly impact reserves respond to one another. [/p]
[p]We have adjusted our ritual map to include more restoration nodes, giving you more opportunities to choose between rest/health and revelations.[/p]
[p]We have done a general balancing pass on the ritual maps.[/p]
[p]We did a pass on balance for Optional rituals, focusing on the maps.[/p]
[p]We have added further explanation regarding player rewards gained from beating Optional Rituals.[/p]
[p]We have added tooltips to banes, boons, and bargaining screens.[/p]
[p]Made unlocked cards post Ritual hoverable with tooltips.[/p]
[p]Revamped unlock screen to give clarity on what is unlocked, as well as allow inspection of the unlocked cards/boons.[/p]
[p]Added material treatment for modified creatures to better see when an upgraded creature has been placed by either the demon or the player.[/p]

[p]
And for those of you seeking the Full Knowledge, well, we are, of course, here to serve.[/p][p][/p][p][/p]

Full Patch Notes

[p][/p][h2]Changes and Fixes[/h2]

[p]Fixed issue with One Eye’s dialogue at the start of Vollem runs.[/p]
[p]Fixed FTUX soft lock in reserves training if player selected Comet Archer too quickly.[/p]
[p]Fixed FTUX soft lock when failing a ritual.[/p]
[p]Bundle “Scalpel at the Neck” is now rare instead of uncommon.[/p]
[p]Fix for cursed bundle “Bait the Strike” offering Thought Eater at increased cost.[/p]
[p]Fixed guest room bed being prematurely labelled as interactive.[/p]
[p]Fixed dollhouse being available during witching hours and granting an extra optional ritual.[/p]
[p]Fixes for unreachable conversation icons.[/p]
[p]Fix for confusing “wash hands” request in witching hour on Malthe replays.[/p]
[p]Clarification of optional ritual reward mechanics.[/p]
[p]Targeted Withering no longer counts towards forge upgrade limits.[/p]
[p]Fixed a bug where invalid data could roll as an optional ritual reward.[/p]
[p]Updated presentation on battle beginning and ending.[/p]
[p]Changed pact exchange to show a pie chart of deck composition, to better illustrate the overall changes being made.[/p]
[p]“Withering” (card removal) operations no longer count toward pact modification limit in the Forge.[/p]
[p]Re-rolls in the Forge start cheaper (2 Revelations) and increase in cost with each re-roll.[/p]
[p]Updates to Pact Exchange art to connect it to the soul figurines.[/p]
[p]Boon/Bane tooltips will now draw over quips.[/p]
[p]World geometry tweaks for better performance and shadow behavior.[/p]
[p]Added VFX for when Renunciation moves reserves for clarity.[/p]
[p]Added subtle head bob to player movement (and the option to disable this).[/p]
[p]Added missing card art for Haste.[/p]
[p]Numerous tweaks to font sizes and UI elements for Steam Deck Verification.[/p]
[p]Fix for figurines clipping into game board elements when both demon and player have battle line expansion.[/p]
[p]Fixed card tooltip placement to not cover hovered figurine in some cases.[/p]
[p]More very small tweaks and fixes (this list would get too long!).[/p]

[p][/p][h2]Card and Battle Updates[/h2]

[p]Lost Voice now only pulls the host into reserve. Any reserves are deployed in place. The cost was reduced 3 → 2.[/p]
[p]Spectral Bomb’s description is now: Target any Reserve. Deal wounds equal to its health to its Host.[/p]
[p]Hell’s Heart and Burnout no longer damage Eyes.[/p]
[p]Enemy minion deck “Intrusion” has been tuned to decrease its direct damage capabilities in favor of creature elimination.[/p]
[p]Enemy boss Yoke and Shackle no longer has the “Man Blinders” bane in family rituals. It’s been replaced with “Boom and Bust” -On Gather: Gain 1 AP on odd turns, lose 1 AP on even turns.[/p]
[p]Vollem’s boon no longer reduces chant cost, only grants extra reserve slots.[/p]
[p]New Boon “Polyglot” reduces overall chant cost now.[/p]
[p]Enemy deck Press Gang no longer uses “Expanded Mind Token” as a deck-specific bane.[/p]
[p]No Plan Survives now counts discards made over the whole turn - not just the ones made after NPS is played.[/p]
[p]“Cycles” has been removed from the game.[/p]
[p]The DSB "Overturned Dirt" used by mini boss deck "A History of Dust" has been replaced by Flush Hand.[/p]
[p]Cards “Changeling-Gate”, “Skald”, and “Fate-Trader” have been removed and replaced with…[/p]
[p]“Vardøgr Omen” is now Creature: Parasite - If this is played in reserve, send host back to the owner’s hand. Destroys copies. Cost: 3, STR: 1, HP: 1[/p]
[p]“Ransomed Heir” is now Chant: Parasite - On Deploy: Send the most recent Host to the owner of this card's hand. Cost: 2, HP: 1[/p]
[p]”Fate Thief” - Invocation: Steal the highest strength card from your opponent’s hand. Cost: 4[/p]
[p]Siren’s health increased 2 → 3[/p]
[p]“The card Nullwhere Spirit” was renamed to “Doomed Overguard”.[/p]
[p]Sleeping Bomb’s description edited for clarity, but keeping its original behavior. It now reads: “When this Wakes, it immediately attacks. When this attacks, it dies.”[/p]
[p]Closer of Paths now applies a strength bonus based on the number of enemy discards rather than dealing wounds on gather.[/p]
[p]Valravn’s boon no longer pulls from the enemy graveyard. It now steals from their hand and forces them to discard the original. So now Val’s power will always yield a result.[/p]
[p]Demon deck Ugly Sentiments no longer double buffs Altar Calls.[/p]
[p]Rotten Rung text clarification.[/p]
[p]Black Milk’s Boon now grants an Ephemeral Spark card on discard.[/p]
[p]The bundle “Disparate Visions” now contains two Legions instead of 2 Closer of Paths.[/p]
[p]New “Soul Trader” bane for One-Eye. Related to the ongoing work on the Reckoning.[/p]

[p][/p][h3]Thanks For The Feedback![/h3][p]And now we come to the end of this large update. Again, we wish to thank you and ask of you one thing. [/p][p]If you have enjoyed The Killing Stone please consider leaving a review here on Steam! [/p][p]For all games, reviews make a big difference to how many people Steam shows the game to, so it would mean the world to us if you did. Similarly, we really appreciate those of you who have joined the Discord and left us feedback and suggestions in there. [/p][p]Lastly, this update really did make the most of many F8 bug reports that Early Access players have been sending in, so thank you to everyone who has been submitting those. They help a lot![/p][p][/p][p]Until next time, Maven.[/p][p]
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