X MARKS THE SPOT

To kick off this week’s Pupdate, there’s now an Ephemeral Tale demo available for people to try if they’re on the fence! This demo will soon be available on Steam (going through the approval process as we speak), and is currently available on Itch.io, the Microsoft Store, and is also available on Xbox One! Yes, you read that correctly-- Ephemeral Tale is coming to console! When Ephemeral Tale leaves Early Access later this year (SoonTM, still some content surprises left to go first), it will release on Xbox One. In the coming weeks, we'll discuss this more in-depth, and talk about the challenges faced when bringing the game to Xbox. But for now, let's talk about this week's changelog!

Ephemeral Tale 1.16.1 Changelog

• Added a new animation for Mire’s Gambit’s burst ability that treats pixels with the respect that they deserve
• Added more feedback to the runic crystals in the main dungeon hub to better indicate that the player should be interacting with them
• Lowered the rate that Darune appears in the Occluded Oasis
• Added flavor text to some items that were lacking flavor text
• Whenever an item drops in combat, a sound effect will now play
• Note: This should inherit from your SFX volume, if it doesn’t for whatever reason please let me know!
• Fixed an issue with passability in the Mute Mountains
• Fixed a bug where the screen could be perpetually on fire after re-challenging Bobbity-Boo
• Added Corrupted Castle to the title screen
• Added new foundation to allow for controlled stat assignment in the future

This week’s changelog finds us addressing some community feedback and reported issues. I’ve changed an animation to treat pixels with respect (all pixels are equal, and should be treated as such), with more being worked on behind-the-scenes. Lots of SFX polish to do on those, yet. Additionally, I’m trying to better achieve a balance of “this game is comprehensible” and “this game doesn’t hold my hand like a child.” There’s a lot of weird little obtuse edges I’m trying to sand down in that regard, so if that’s been an issue for you please let me know.

Darune has had his appearance rate dropped by ~50% to reduce the likelihood that new players will get their butts removed from their bodies by him at random. Following that same train of thought, I’m starting to build out (internally) the ability for gear rolls to be more controlled. Right now, they assign their points completely at random, and so most pieces are split in terms of usefulness, and “god rolls” are hard to come by. The plan is that in the coming weeks, I’ll be able to allow for rolls to dump all of their points into 3-5 stats as opposed to the 8 they currently do, and this should increase the playability of various pieces of gear substantially in addition to allowing you guys more granular control over your builds. This will also allow for even more controlled rolls in New Game+, as well.

This Pupdate is on the shorter side, as I've been busy working on getting the demo ready to go and managing a bunch of behind the scenes stuff, but next week we'll discuss the next upcoming major update (which is still a number of weeks away), and what it means for the rest of the course of development.

Until next time, stay safe and have fun!
-- Ryan
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