THE SHADOW DRAWS NEAR

Hello again, my fellow puppers! This week, I've been busier than usual (which seems to me, is becoming the usual)! I've got a lot of bug fixes scheduled for you, and next week is a bunch of balance changes that I've been considering. Before we get into that, let's talk about the changelog. For my itch.io folks this week, an apology! I maybe forgot to upload the patch to itch last week. So, I've included the relevant patch notes from last week in this week's notes! My apologies!

Ephemeral Tale 1.26.4 Changelog

• Adjusted some item icons a smidge
• Updated the “buff applied” animation
• Additionally, updated the “rescued” animation for Clarke’s unlock mechanism to be pixel-compliant
• Replaced the mouse movement indicator with a less annoying one
• Fixed a bug where Clarke could potentially rescue you with a whopping 0 HP
• Fixed a bug where Bulwark could leave a weird visual artifact on the HP bar
• Fixed a bug where certain unlock texts weren’t properly centered (Clarke, Siegfried, Merlin)
• Fixed a bug where the Snowbro that starts a side quest could lose his head
• Fixed a bug where Snowbros would be far too attached to their arms and not give them when necessary
• Fixed a bug where Darune could spawn in the safety of the Traveller’s Respite (strictly verboten, Darune. Not cool!)
• Fixed a bug where randomized chests in the Oasis could reset while inside of the dungeon
• NOTE: the remaining items were actually part of last week's patch
• Added a new side quest, it can be started deep within the Mute Mountains
• After completion of this side quest, the reward can be farmed for off of Snowbros inside of the Mute Mountains
• Added a new chest to the Lost Caverns, along with some text to (hopefully) improve the new player experience
• Added a dialogue interaction w/ Dabby in the Occluded Oasis to better guide players towards the overarching goal of the zone
• Fixed a bug where a Twitter promotional text had accidentally been left in the game

Like I said, tons of bug fixes! Marker #4 (mouse movement indicator) should prove to be a big QoL update for all of my mouse players out there (and mobile, when the time comes). Now, on to some less fun talk.

THE SHADOW'S PAUSE

Next week's update is almost complete, and I'll be putting the finishing touches on it probably a few hours after you read this. At which point, it'll get uploaded to the queue, and release on the 6th. That'll be a fun one, as it introduces a majorly requested feature (control over the encounter rate), and helps balance a bunch of weird rough edges in the current version of Ephemeral Tale. Stuff like Potions being so frequent, certain bosses being a pushover, stuff like that. However, after I upload that update, the mainline branch of Ephemeral Tale will be locked until the next major update is complete.

Each zone more or less has three main things to contend with during the design phase. The maps, the enemies, and the loot. The maps for Bayou Bog and Graveyard Grove are fully completed + plugged up, with the final of the three zones being almost complete in that regard. The enemies are almost done as well, and I'm fleshing out the boss fights to prepare for an internal alpha test of everything. Lastly, the loot: the loot is actually complete! I keep a list of all un-used loot in the game (as I design stuff intermittently and throw it in when I can, find a place for it later), and the list is pretty lengthy at the moment.

So, the good news is that the dungeons themselves are almost complete! I suspect that Major Update #5 will release on the 13th of October. However, complications can always occur with development, and so please treat that as a soft date. I still need to plug in the new dark world dungeon hub, all of the dialogue for it, and give it a thorough testing before release. These things take time, and aren't always clean as a process. With that said, the dungeons are by a mile the most time demanding part of this whole shtick, so knowing that they're almost done allows me to feel comfortable giving you guys a date to look forward to.

Should I miss that date, there will still be a blog post like normal detailing where I'm at in the process, however there won't be a patch that week. The reason is similar to when I was working on Major Update #1: since everything would be in the main branch, that's much harder to implement and separate at a moment's notice. So, please be patient as we enter this final stretch. I promise, these dungeons are worth the wait! They're some of the best feeling, best looking, and more interesting dungeons I've created yet, and I can't wait for you to get your greedy lil mitts on 'em.

With that said, that's all for this week-- have fun, and we'll talk more next time!
-- Ryan
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