[Blosharper] Early Access v0.6 Update Notes: Japanese Ruleset & Dice Challenge

Blosharper Early Access v0.6.0 Update Notes

Hello, Sharpers!
To ensure you can enjoy the tense, hardboiled atmosphere of Blosharper even more, we have prepared the v0.6.0 update, featuring the authentic Japanese ruleset, card themes, and a new high-stakes dice challenge.

Japanese Ruleset & Theme Additions

• Ruleset Mode Toggle: You can now switch between Korean Go-Stop and Japanese Koi-Koi rules in Settings. Ruleset changes lock in once a run begins and apply from the start of your next run for layout and scoring stability.
• Japanese Rules Integration: Implemented month swapping (Rain = 11th, Paulownia = 12th) along with their respective scoring methods. Godori is disabled in this mode, replaced by the pig-deer-butterfly combo, Inoshikacho. The September animal (Kikujin) card acts purely as a scoring card rather than a double-junk card in this mode.
• Japanese Localization for Combos: Polished combination text when playing under Japanese rules with a Japanese locale, ensuring combinations like "Ame-Sanko" and "Ame-Chotan" display correctly.
• Hanafuda & Classic Hanafuda Themes: Added two dedicated card themes to go along with the ruleset. Card themes act purely as visual swaps and can be toggled independently of the ruleset.
• Ruleset Application Toast Notification: Added a toast alert at the start of a round when a newly changed ruleset setting actually takes effect.
• Japanese Locale Defaults: Setting Japanese as the primary language on a fresh start now automatically defaults the ruleset to Koi-Koi and the card theme to Hanafuda.
• Modern Theme Unlocked by Default: The clean, vibrant Modern card theme is now available from the very start with no unlock condition. It is also automatically set as the default theme for players starting fresh in English, German, or Russian. In turn, the Classic Hanafuda card theme is now a challenge-reward theme, earned by reaching a specific milestone.

Prove Innocence (Dice Challenge) Mechanic

• High-Stakes Dilemma: When you lack the funds to pay standard commissions, you now face a stark choice instead of taking mandatory health (HP) damage — hand over your precious technique, or risk a last-ditch "Prove Innocence" dice challenge to bypass the penalty entirely.
• Dice Resolution: Roll three dice (3D6) and add a bonus based on your Luck stat to beat a difficulty class (DC) that rises each time you plead innocence — they won't fall for the same trick twice. The difficulty and potential damage are disclosed up front, but once you commit, there is no backing out.
• Outcome Differences:
  - Victory: You successfully convince the collector, completely avoiding the health damage while keeping your technique safe.
  - Defeat: You face a harsh penalty for failing to defend yourself, taking 1.5x increased health damage and accumulating additional suspicion heat. (Your technique stays with you.)

Technique Rebalancing & Input Polish

• Technique Unlock Level Redistribution: Shifted the unlock level pacing for various hand techniques so they unlock gradually across levels rather than all at once in the early game.
• Combination-Seeking Deck Swap Bias: When performing a deck swap technique, if your hand is only 1 card away from completing a combination, the target card has a significantly higher chance to appear in the candidate pool (applied via probability weighting to preserve variety).
• Combination Evaluation Fix: Resolved an issue where certain multi-card synergy techniques (such as Rainbow Burst and Magic Hand) failed to evaluate properly under specific card rule selections.
• VFX Enhancements on Streak Fails:
  - One-Shot: Breaking a One-Shot streak of 10 or more now triggers a dramatic screen puncture effect, and customized monologue variations have been added when choosing to stop after a successful One-Shot.
  - Fortune: Raised the threshold for the Fortune streak break effect to 30 streaks, which now triggers a dramatic glass shatter effect across the screen.

Visuals & UI Enhancements

• Ruleset Option UI Rework: Redesigned the ruleset toggle in Settings into clean radio buttons.
• Range Slider Focus Styling: Polished visual feedback for range sliders (volume controls, etc.) when navigating with a keyboard or controller, making the edit state and focus area stand out.
• Menu Active Underline Cleanup: Adjusted the active tab underlines in the Gallery and Settings menus to match the width of the tab button text.
• Duplicate Card Selection Checkmark: Corrected selection checkmark logic in card choice modals to target the exact instance selected when duplicate cards are present.
• Draw Animation Position Alignment: Resolved a visual bug where cards drew into the hand normally but briefly drifted or snapped abnormally at the end of the animation.
• Removed Spike from Screen Hole VFX: Removed the 3D metal spikes from the screen puncture effect to better align with the 2D noir aesthetic.

Bug Fixes & General Refinements

• Tutorial Dialog Skip Freeze: Hardened input handling to prevent the game from freezing when rapidly skipping dialogue or inputting keys during tutorial story sequences.
• Late-Game Boss Phase Penalty: Added a new threat to the later phases of a certain boss battle, raising the stakes even higher. You'll have to face it yourself to find out.
• Area Exit Block on Boss Battles: Prevented exiting to other areas (Back Alley) during active boss battles, adding appropriate dialogue when attempted.
• Deck Cut (Giri) Timing Adjustment: Shifted the deck cut choice window to trigger immediately after the boss introduction cutscene finishes, smoothing out the round start flow.
• Deck Shuffle Invariant on Session Recovery: Resolved an issue where cards locked in place by certain hand techniques (such as bottom-deck locking or previews) were abnormally reshuffled upon session recovery, ensuring consistent deck ordering.

Thank you as always for playing Blosharper and sharing your feedback.
May luck be on your side in your next high-stakes bet!