The Void Rains Upon Her Heart News

[h2]New Event[/h2]

It's still March 21st until I wake up on the 22nd, alright!

This time I've added Storm Veyeral's event, or at least a part of it. As a SPOILER WARNING, I'm going to explain this new event in detail, and my future plans for it, down below. The main takeaway is that I'm going to be patching more content into it, along with other small stage events. The patches will come randomly every few days for the next few weeks!

Early Access updated game version to v8.22

[h2]Content Added[/h2]

• 1 new Event (Total: 66)
  

[h2]Updates and tweaks[/h2]

• Rage Boiler and Voladrome's battles are now affected by the wrathful battle effect (I will also be applying wrathful effects to all the remaining Rage Battles during the next few patches)
  

[h2]Bug Fixes[/h2]

• Bug Fix: You could encounter one of the new stage events while you had a burden effect that would make all challenges impossible to pass
  
• Bug Fix: Day Bloom was accidentally left at +1 burn defense when all other gifts in the flower set were buffed to +1.5 defense
  
• Bug Fix: Rerolling monsters would not always correctly reroll gift challenges that became incompatible with the new monster
  

[h2]Gift Delivery Events[/h2]

Storm Veyeral's event is a sort of an evolved version of a Free Gift Event. I'm calling it a Gift Delivery Event. Some time after a fight with Storm Veyeral, you will get a scene from the perspective of Storm Veyeral who meets with another monster of your choice. During this scene, the other monster will give Storm Veyeral 1 or 2 gifts to deliver to your character. Then after the next battle, Storm will show up to actually give you the gifts that you chose in the previous scene.

Right now, the only choices are always Scrambla, Boiler, Calorie, and "Nobody" which is just Storm Veyeral finding a random gift on her own. The plan is for every single monster with a scene portrait, to have a possible interaction in this event! When I've added enough of them, the choices you get will depend on which monster's you've loved during the run, and if you've actually seen their individual event before. (This way the portrait's aren't spoiled too soon!) There will be around 50 unique monsters with portraits that will qualify.

The purpose of this event is to have more interactions with all the different monsters, and also see how they behave when your chosen Zaraden isn't around. Each monster has their own pool of gifts, and can have different reactions depending on what character you are playing as. There are also some interesting things that can happen when you get to choose gifts that you won't actually receive until after the next battle. I might also play around with how long the delivery takes.

For the next few weeks, I'll be patching in more monster interactions for this event. Along with more Stage Events here and there! Sandrome's event will also be added soon, since it will be the same type of event. Many of the interactions will share the same text between the two, so I'm kinda working on both at the same time! These event's will also get their own Dream/Achievement, but I needed to make more possible interactions first.

[h2]Upcoming Stuff[/h2]

As I said above, I'll be focusing on patching Storm Veyeral and Sandrome's events for the next few weeks.
(Sorry Chionotoh fans, I promise she's next. Actually, I don't promise, I can't be trusted!)

I'm also revealing what type of event all the remaining monsters get. Except for one which I haven't completely decided on yet. It's mostly all Bonding Time though.

• Sandrome (Gift Delivery)
  
• Voladrome (Bonding Time)
  
• Shanx (Bonding Time)
  
• Dendrohai (Bonding Time)
  
• Lavalin (Bonding Time)
  
• Chionotoh (Bonding Time)
  
• Ventra (Bonding Time)
  
• Blizzard Veyeral (???)
  

I won't plan exact days for the next patches, but expect something every few days!

Thank you for playing!
ːradiantheartː ːradiantheartː ːradiantheartː

v8.21a - March 13th, 2025
-2 new Events (Total: 65)
-Moved around some unlocks
-Adjusted the behavior of Null Glacia's spikes
-Changed the wording of Null Glacia's battle tip
-Bug Fix: The Bonus Tetrid gift cap was unintentionally halved in all modes
-Bug Fix: Getting tetrid bonus gifts would reduce boss level in The Towers
-Bug Fix: The 12th and 15th gifts saved into the 7th Quickplay loadout slot would fail to load

[h2]200 New Battles![/h2]

Alright, that is a huge exaggeration, but it's also kinda true! I'm going to walk you through what my last 3 weeks was like.

Last update, I added a new burden effect that flips how the safety bubbles work, so that you'd have to stay outside of them instead of inside. The problem is that this only affected about 15 battles in any meaningful way, and I wanted to get more out of this effect. So, I set up a system that can put the bubbles into any battle while this burden effect is active. At first, I was just going to make it place a few bubbles randomly on screen in every battle, but there are just so many unique fights, and it was causing problems with certain monsters. So, as I always do, I put in all the effort to make it unique to every single battle. This variant is now called a Repelling Battle, and all 107 monsters can have it!

While I was at it, I added another burden effect that adds full arena attacks and bubbles that you have to stay inside of just like normal. Of course, these bubbles had to be positioned differently in most battles, but I already had the whole system set up, so I did both variants together as I went through every monster. This variant is called a Wrathful Battle, and it applies to 94 monsters! In the future, I will add some extra effect to the remaining few battles that are already Rage Battles normally.

Now I had about 200 monster variants that would only appear if you had a couple of specific burdens. This kinda seemed like a waste, so I put these both of these effects on new sets of Bounty Gifts. That way they can sometimes appear in story mode too.

Then I was hit with an idea! What if there was a random stage in a story run that forced all the monsters to have one of these bounties? A special stage where every choice was a Wrathful or Repelling Monster. And so a new type of random event was born! These new Stage Events will give specific themes to all the monsters and gifts you have to choose from. Honestly, I can't believe I never thought of doing this before.

Speaking as the scope creeping developer of this seemingly infinitely sprawling game, there are 2 very important things about this new event type, especially for ME!
1) Stage Events are very quick and easy to make. They have no dialog to write, no art to draw, and all they do is arrange pieces of the game that I've already made.
2) I've decided that Stage Events will not have any specific achievement attached to them. Part of the scope creeping problem is that most things I add come with at least one achievement attached to them. Every achievement I add must eventually unlock something else in the future, so I really needed more dead ends for all the unlock chains! (Before anyone calls me out on it, there will be some generic achievements like "Encounter X total stage events" but that is very different than adding one for each event!)

I still had a little more than a week to go, so it was finally time to work on Chionotoh's event... But then Monster Hunter Wilds came out, and I didn't do any work at all last week! So, this is what you get! (If you're one of the few people wondering why this update is a few days late, I actually managed to pull myself away from Monster Hunter long enough release it on time, but as a beta. I needed some people to test and make sure the changes I made to the stage select generation didn't crash the game.)

Early Access updated game version to v8.21

[h2]Content Added[/h2]

• 2 new Events (Total: 63)
  
• 6 new Bounty Gifts (Total: 43)
  
• 2 new Bonus Gifts (Total: 68)
  
• All monster battles that were not already fully rage battles have gained 2 different rage forms that can appear under certain conditions
  

[h2]Updates and tweaks[/h2]

• Blizzard Veyeral's first phase is now a rage phase
  
• Changed the frequency of moving spikes in Totaria's 5th and 7th phases
  
• The Hyperfocus bounty gift is now unlocked from the start
  
• Scarlet's Burden gained a new effect and duration was reduced from 8 to 3
  
• Rage Duet's Burden has a new effect and duration was increased from 1 to 2
  
• Special Monsters and Gem Monsters can now appear with any blessed bounty instead of only the Mote Garden gift
  
• Updated the card art for Quick Mite, Love Mite, Glow Mite, and Star Mite
  
• All 3 bonus gifts of the Radiant Tetrid set have new art and now give additional motes of all types. They now add the same amount of score as all the other bonus tetrid gifts of the same ranks.
  
• The health values of any obstacles that must be broken to avoid taking damage will be scaled down if DPS is lower than expected
  
• Adjusted the mercy rates of bonus gifts becoming heals and panics. These rates were universal before, but now depend on story difficulty. All other game modes will use the same rates as Heavy Rain, which has a slightly lower rate for heals, but the same rate for panics as before.
  

[h2]Bug Fixes[/h2]

• Bug Fix: The Gift Dynamo event should have been blocked by the unlikely case of having 0 tetrids available. The event title would play, but the event was still skipped as expected.
  

[h2]Upcoming Stuff[/h2]

The next main focus is the remaining monster events, but I'll be throwing in new Gifts and Stage Events along the way. Just like with gifts, I have a bunch of ideas for stage events that I've just scrawled out, but no exact number on how many there will be.

9 monster events (not in order)

• Sandrome
  
• Voladrome
  
• Shanx
  
• Dendrohai
  
• Lavalin
  
• Chionotoh
  
• Ventra
  
• Storm Veyeral
  
• Blizzard Veyeral
  

The Quickplay rework beta as mentioned in the previous update notes (Update #96) will probably happen while working on these events, or maybe after they are all done. Then the 6 Tower Bosses will come after all the monster events, and the quickplay beta is done.

The next update will depend on wherever my whimsy takes me, but it will be on March 21st.

Thank you for playing!
ːradiantheartː ːradiantheartː ːradiantheartː

v8.20a - February 16th, 2025
-Added memory text to all the new blessings and burdens that were missing it
-Scarlet Burden duration increased from 7 to 8
-Bug Fix: You could receive multiple copies of the new upgrade gifts in The Towers mode
-Bug Fix: The Gift Dynamo could only generate rank 1 gifts
-Fixed some typos (and probably made more)

[h2]Anniversary[/h2]
Happy 7th Birthday to The Void Rains Upon Her Heart! Seven years and a little bit of scope creep later, and the game is much bigger than I had envisioned at the start. We are currently in the middle of version 8 which is likely to be the largest one, at least in terms of time it takes for me to build it all. Down below I'll be detailing the rest of the plans for Version 8.

For today, I've added 2 new events to the towers. I know I've been saying there would be an event themed around removing a burden effect from yourself, but it somehow turned into something completely different. It's a perfect event for Valentines Day! It involves a lot of garbage and dumpster diving. The event host has a lovely personality too, you'll see.

All the newest monsters added since The Towers were introduced have also gained their Blessings and Burdens now. A lot of their burdens have silly new effects, so good luck with that!

Early Access updated game version to v8.20

[h2]Content Added[/h2]

• 2 new events for the towers (Total: 61)
  
• 4 new dreams to fulfill (Total: 738)
  
• 8 new Blessings (Total: 130)
  
• 8 new Burdens (Total: 120)
  

[h2]Updates and tweaks[/h2]

• Flip Flap's Burden has a new effect
  
• Sentinel 0x's Burden has a new effect
  
• Added a few more detailed hints for undiscovered gifts in the collection
  
• The Attributes page details now explain what happens when crit rates go above 100% better
  
• Dot has a new reaction to reaching max mood, and the event will end early if her mood is maxed before time runs out
  
• Falling Star and Shooting Star gifts are buffed
  
• The Star Shower gift is now unlocked by a dream again
  
• Switched around several unlock dreams for some gifts and Syncron's event
  

[h2]Bug Fixes[/h2]

• None this time
  

[h2]Version 8 plans[/h2]

[h3]Monster Events[/h3]
First, I plan to finish all the remaining monster events. There are 9 monsters left to make events for. These are not in order, but I do want to finish them all before moving on to the Tower Bosses. Fortunately for me, most of these will involve variants of minigames that are already finished, so it will be all the dialog writing that takes the most time now.

• Sandrome
  
• Voladrome
  
• Shanx
  
• Dendrohai
  
• Lavalin
  
• Chionotoh
  
• Ventra
  
• Storm Veyeral
  
• Blizzard Veyeral
  

[h3]Quickplay Beta[/h3]
Ever since I updated Endless Stress mode with the Love Power calculator, I realized the same sort of formula could be used in Quickplay mode to help balance it out better. The star system has a lot of flaws and the starting power that each heart has is impossible to balance. I was also very restricted when designing power gifts because of how they would affect Quickplay balancing. A simple example is how I could never make any 1 star gifts that give you a single stock denial shield, because it would instantly invalidate the Denial gift in quickplay. But if every shield filled in the same amount of quickplay power, then this situation could be avoided.

Sometime during the making of all the monster events, there will be a beta for these quickplay changes. There is a possibility that this idea doesn't go well, but if that happens I'll just scrap the idea.

[h3]Tower Bosses[/h3]
I want to release all these bosses close together, so I'll be working on them all consecutively after all the events are done.

• Shamble Tower Boss
  
• Guardian Tower Boss
  
• Glyph Tower Boss
  
• Zaramech Tower Boss
  
• Glass Flora Tower Boss
  
• Veyeral Tower Boss
  

[h3]Endless Towers[/h3]
After all the bosses are done, I'll finally add in the last endless mode. This is also where I'll add the event I had planned for Endless Stress too.

[h3]Minigames Mode[/h3]
If you've ever found yourself wanting to play the all the bonding time minigames outside of story events, then I have good news for you. There will be a sort of quickplay mode for each minigame. It will probably involve earning high scores and medals too.

[h3]Final Adjustments[/h3]
This is where I want to go through all the content in the game and make sure everything is where I want it to be. There's a lot that could go into this section, but most of it is just vague ideas to solve problems I have written down. It's mostly miscellaneous fixes to tiny problems that I've meant to get to for a long time. Basically, I want to clear out the "To Do" checklist right here.

[h3]A Little Bit of Story[/h3]
Finally, I'll be adding a small amount of the missing story. First Defect's fake early access ending will be replaced by the real one. Her Heart and Defect (and their alters) will get their intros and ending scenes for Altered Story mode. There might also be a few extra bits added here and there. This should help me gauge how long it will take to finish all the story in Version 9!

The next update will be on March 7th with another monster event.

Happy Voidentines Day!
ːradiantheartː ːradiantheartː ːradiantheartː