Gemporium News

Hello gem enthusiasts!

Once again, thanks so much for trying out the Gemporium demo! As always, if you want to stay up to date with Gemporium and the happenings of Merge Conflict and/or provide feedback, you can join our Discord!

We've got one main new feature today and some other fixes! Let's get into it.



[h2]Additions and Misc. Changes[/h2]

• Added a new tutorial system! When you start a new save, you will now be asked if you want to do the tutorial. The new tutorial takes place on “Day 0” with no timer running to give you more breathing room to get accustomed to everything in the game.
  
• Added a tutorial popup that lets you know you can return to the mines multiple times a day for new gems.
  
• Added animations to tutorial popups opening and closing.
  
• Added an arrow that bounces over areas you’re being prompted to use in the tutorial to make sure you don’t miss ‘em.
  
• Touched up performance! There should now be less occasional stutters, which we observed was happening for some players.
  
• Slightly increased the buffer time between when buttons linking to external pages on the “Thanks for playing” screen are revealed and when they can be clicked.
  

[h2]Bugfixes[/h2]

• Fixed a bug where if you just finished refining a gem, you could place another already-refined gem on the table and the gem would get huge and cover the whole screen. Glad we stomped that one :)
  
• Fixed an issue where if you didn’t close a tutorial popup and reentered the area that activated it, you could get a duplicate of that popup.
  
• Fixed an issue where the TV would reactivate automatically every time you reentered the main Hub.
  
• Did some UI cleanup for ultrawide monitors in some scenes.
  

Hello gem enthusiasts!

First we would like to thank each and every one of you for trying out the Gemporium Demo, we truly appreciate it! Discord to stay up to date with Gemporium, give us more feedback on the demo and see what else we have cooking at Merge Conflict! Today we have a small update to address some feedback after our first week:



[h2]Bugfixes[/h2]

• Fixed a bug where multiple mining spots would generate over each other, leading to a "phantom" spot that either looked interactable or stayed lit after it was used
  
• Fixed the weird collision issues with stone fragments in the refinement minigame
  
• Fixed a bug where leaving and entering the mines quickly would put a tiny gem on the floor
  
• Fixed a bug where dragging an already refined gem into the refinement spot would make it cover the entire screen
  
• Fixed a bug that allowed you to continue mining for gems while the game was paused
  
• Fixed a bug where sometimes the gem bag upgrade wasn't functioning properly
  
• Fixed a bug with audio settings not loading correctly
  

[h2]Balance Changes[/h2]

• Day length as well as shop length has been extended
  
• Day 1 now has a special longer length to help with onboarding
  
• Added a new timer ticking sound when getting close to shop time
  
• Added a blinking indicator to Bernard's Upgrade Catalogue, the mines entrance, the refinement table and shop to give newer players more direction
  
• Gems can no longer be picked up when the bag is full
  
• Gem bag will give you a notification when it is full
  
• Reworded some of the tutorial popups for clarity
  
• Reduced the range a hammer can damage a gem to prevent it from feeling unfair
  
• Increased the amount of gem veins that will spawn in the mine
  

[h2]Casual Mode[/h2]
There is now a new setting for Casual mode, which disables the in game timer and opens the shop at the start of every day. This allows you to freely mine, refine and sell whenever you would like! Finishing a shop day (whether by leaving the shop, selling all of your gems or running out of customers) will progress you to night time. The demo is not currently balanced around Casual mode, so we do recommend new players to leave it disabled (but I'm not your mom do what you want).