Hunter's Hand Demo · published · build 22342616
Thanks again to everyone who’s been playing the demo and sharing feedback! It’s been incredibly helpful in shaping the direction of the game and tracking down issues.
This update mainly focused on visual improvements, battle presentation, and continuing to stabilise systems after recent refactors. A lot of work also went into improving animation quality and performance across the board.
Over the next few months, development will be shifting toward some major content and system updates:
Threat System Overhaul
Reworking threat into a core gameplay system, fully integrated across combat and mechanics rather than a background calculation for the ancient reveal.
Threat value increases with certain items, relics & events
Threat reveals ancient, but also affects games difficulty, and may also offer greater rewards
I'm toying with the idea that threat also affects how enemies behave in combat, including extra effects if threat is high, or the eclipse has begun.
New events to alter current threat level.
Martyr Subclass Completion
Finalising the Martyr playstyle with its full kit and intended identity. Most of the logic for this is done already, but theres still a lot of work to be done in terms of artwork & animations.
This subclass focuses in on the 'Fading' keyword: When below 50% HP. With cards that deal extra damage when fading, and If wounded (damaged last turn) & Bleed.
Heres a little teaser of a few cards (subject to change!)
New Biome – Desert
This is a big one. A brand new biome with unique visuals, enemies, and encounters. Theres a lot under the hood I need to improve to get this working, but you can expect the following new content:
Enemies x 12
Guardians x 3
New battle background
New Map
Desert-specific Events
Enemy Visual Rework (Final Pass)
Continuing and completing the re-render of all enemy sprites.
General Polish & Bug Fixing
Tightening up the overall experience as systems become more stable.
Animations & Visuals
Added new death animations for both player and enemies
Enemies now use a fiery death effect with shader + particles (inspired by classic Castlevania-style visuals with a modern feel)
Player death animation added and hurt animation reintroduced
Re-rendered enemy animations (around 50% complete, starting with the most problematic cases)
Updated player base and lightning animations to ~4x resolution for improved clarity
Added simple ground shadows beneath player and enemies for better visual grounding
Battle Presentation
Added new static battle background rendered at higher resolution (1.5x) to support zoom
Implemented background shaders (wind sway / heat distortion) for lightweight environmental animation
Added new battle backgrounds (Normal + Eclipse variants)
Camera now zooms in at battle start and zooms out during enemy phase for better presentation
Added colour backing to player and enemy portraits
Performance & Assets
Updated multiple enemy spritesheets to lower resolution for better performance while maintaining quality:
Forest Shade, Wraithbark, Shade of Sylvan Torment, Thornbeast, Wraithwood Guardian
Black Goat enemy updated with re-rendered animations, improving quality and fixing clipping issues
Card System & UI
Added target_has_status helper function to simplify card logic and improve reliability
Reworked Last Vow to play the top card of the deck (original intended design)
Card visuals now tint based on role:
Offensive: Red
Defensive: Blue
Utility: Yellow (subject to further iteration)
Updated card template with clearer placeholder text for debugging
Refined tooltip text to be cleaner and easier to understand
Tooltip system now auto-detects keywords and injects explanations dynamically
Post Processing
Added colour grading shader (experimental, not currently in use)
Battle Systems
Camera logic updated to properly frame larger enemies (Guardians & Ancients) using new scaling flags
Fixed battle particle effects scaling incorrectly with camera zoom
Fixed Black Goat constriction rendering issue (now correctly appears over player)
Added missing ground eruption particles for Black Goat attack
Fixed crash caused by status-checking cards after node structure changes
Fixed shop leave button positioning
Various UI and visual inconsistencies resolved
A lot of this update lays the groundwork for upcoming systems and content. With visuals and performance improving, the next phase will focus more heavily on gameplay depth and new content.
More to come soon, including the first look at the desert biome and the updated threat system.
See you soon,
Dan