Patch v0.4.1.0

New consumable - Traitbloom
Drag and drop a Traitbloom onto a unit to reroll your current Crop to a new Crop that matches one of the unit’s Traits.

Traitblooms give you more agency to select rewards that enable the teamcomp you’re building toward. Higher-tier units are now more accessible, and “vertical” (lots of one Trait) teamcomps are more attainable.

New run start options
A selection of 4 of 12 possible run start options are now presented at the beginning of each run. Several options include new Trinkets which are not otherwise attainable in the game.

• Harvest the saplings - Get Tier I Crop x3
  
• Harvest the tall trees - Get Tier II and Tier III Crop
  
• Search the cellar - Get 2 random Lesser Equipment
  
• Scour the tower - Get a random non-Trait Lesser Trinket
  
• Pick some flowers - Get Traitbloom x2
  
• Peer from the hill - Get a lv2 [Lorelei, Vizreaper, or Wallerant] and a Phaisy’s Favor
  
• Grab the grab bag - Get a Tier I Crop, each Elyggdrien consumable, a random bomb, and 5 Water
  
• Fill your flask - Get 20 water
  
• Follow Phaisy’s footsteps - Get Sprouts of Spring (**new trinket** - Each time you beat a boss or miniboss, get a Phaisy’s Favor)
  
• Resign yourself to suffering - Get Tactician’s Gambit (**new trinket** - When you lose vs a non-boss enemy, get 5 Health and 2 Water)
  
• Partner up - Get a Tier IV unit and a Traitbloom, but also the Frail Cultivar (**new trinket** - Whenever you lose a fight, your team counts as having 1 extra Dark unit)
  
• Plan your path - Get a +1 Trait Trinket and 2 matching units (Note: This option has a 2x chance of appearing)
  

New enemies:

• Hill-like Growth
  
• Curse Jar
  
• Poison Jar
  
• Blitz Jar
  
• Deadwater
  
• Mother Statue
  
• Cerberus
  
• Vicilicar Painseeker
  
• Surrelior Soothsayer
  
• Infested Mound
  
• Echo Panic
  

These enemies have their final models and their full spells / effects (though note that their spell visuals are still placeholder, as is the case for all spell visuals). When you come across these new foes, right-click them to view their abilities and adjust your strategy accordingly—or, just mash the Engage button and hope for the best like yours truly.

Engage “Guardrails”
Before hitting “Engage,” we’ll warn you if any of the following conditions are met:

• You can fit more units on the board
  
• You have 2 or more Equipment in your inventory (you can move Equipment in this game, so it’s always good to use it if you have it)
  
• You have 5 or more Crops waiting to be parsed
  
• You have no active Traits and your team size is 4 or greater
  

If you wish, you can ignore the warning and engage anyway by clicking the button again.

Enemy group rework
Previously, there were a total of 33 enemy groups, organized by increasing difficulty and represented numerically on the map. The groups above 10 (or thereabouts) were very homogenous and were always intended to be placeholder; every “difficulty level 12” enemy group was the same as every other “level 12” group, and additionally, that group wasn’t very different from the “level 11” and “level 13” enemy groups.

Now, there are 5 levels of enemy difficulty per map, represented by stars. The vast majority of these difficulties can yield 1 of 3 unique enemy groups for that difficulty level; no longer do you face (basically) the same groups Round after Round!

Note that with this change, it’s more frequently possible to opt into winnable fights each Round; in other words, you can pick on weaklings if you don’t care what rewards you get. The overall difficulty of the game has decreased.

Tutorial revamp
We heard the feedback that our placeholder tutorial was more confusing than helpful, so we built a new integrated tutorial experience to introduce new players to our game and our UI. (The previous tutorial has been renamed “the Manual”; you can still view it from Settings.)

Please let us know if you encounter any bugs, including crashes, while you’re going through the new tutorial flow.

More updates:

• (UX) Tooltips are now visible from buttons (e.g. at run start and at Ruins)
  
• (UX) New map tile sprites added
  
• (Traits) Tower Trait buffed from 10% -> 15%
  
• (Traits) The Dark Trait has been reworked to be purely detrimental. There is no benefit to activating this Trait; it should be avoided when composing your team.
  
• (Units) Everett and Mildred’s spells have been swapped (with some slight tweaks) to better suit their respective Traits
  
• (Units) Absalom heal buffed
  
• (Units) Kincaid starting MP buffed
  
• (Units) Alruna spell speed buff
  
• (Enemies) Needle Archer nerfed (no longer infinitely scales)
  
• (Enemies) Many enemies now have starting MP values > 0
  
• (Enemies) Brutalist shield slightly buffed
  
• (Misc.) Loot tables have been tweaked
  
• (Misc.) Target selection in combat improved
  
• And more!
  

Model updates:
Placeholder models have been replaced with final visuals for the following:

• Hazenloth
  
• Dancing Lancer
  
• Skeleton (summon)
  
• Alyosha (summon)
  
• Soulspawn (summon)
  
• Soldier (summon)
  
• Extremely Dense Beast (Miniboss)
  
• Anemone Tree and Minemone (Miniboss)
  

Portrait updates:
Piece by piece, we’re replacing AI-generated art with the human kind! Here’s what’s we have so far:

• Terra
  
• Metal Soldier
  
• Amalladean
  
• Phaisy
  
• Anatye
  
• Old-World Jar
  
• Toadstaff
  
• Ennio
  
• Walking Factory
  
• Zilch
  
• Faceless
  
• Plus, ALL Tier IV and V units (another 23!)
  

• Phaisy’s Initiative can no longer shield enemies if they’ve been swapped onto the player’s side of the board via False God
  
• Fixed some crashes related to Effect range indicators
  
• Trait Grafts are now properly tradeable again
  
• Severer’s spell now properly “executes” rather than doing the inverse
  
• Alruna’s Reap now properly triggers if an enemy dies while Initiatives are resolving
  
• And more!
  

Looking forward, we’ll be refining the balance of the game by focusing on some of our biggest remaining outliers: economy (how Water is attained, how Shelters work, etc), equipment (expect a nerf to Greater Equipment across the board), and Minibosses / Bosses (the minibosses on maps 2 and 3 are currently still placeholder). We are also planning to introduce a 30 second combat timer for fights, after which damage will greatly increase. In the meantime, hit us up with feedback, and please share the game with anyone who might be interested.