Weekly Update # 1

Greetings, fellow inhabitants of our little forest! A week has passed since the release. It was a difficult and exciting week for us. It was very interesting to receive the first reviews, to look at the first video recordings how people perceive the game.
After the update, it is highly recommended that you start a new campaign.

What's New in version 0.124:

1. Reworked the system of experience and rewards for leveling up. Now the hero has a maximum level of 20. The amount of experience required to level up is increased. In the beginning, this is almost not noticeable, but after about 12 levels it becomes more noticeable. Reduced experience modifier for the number of opponents in heavy battles. On the other hand, each level up now significantly enhances the hero. You no longer get dull +2 hp. Instead, almost every level gives: a random common item, an increasing health bonus and one of three: an increasing power bonus (damage from all cards), a bonus to starting energy and energy gain. Exception is the first 3 levels. Also, leveling up restores 20% of current health, which should somewhat facilitate the exploration of the map at the beginning of the campaign. About the reasons for such changes at the end of the post.
2. Redesigned the mechanics for determining the danger level for the player. Now it has become more sparing. And a little more fair. Opponents will no longer grow in strength so fast. Rather, it will be more dependent on the player’s actions in the process of moving over the map.
3. Inventory opens automatically when a new item is obtained. I have often observed situations when players receive good items, but forget to add them to the bag. They go to the next battle and lose because of this. I also got a lot of feedback on this topic. I myself sometimes forgot to add new items to my bag =_=
4. Changed the temp for battle escalation. Now, the growth of enemy damage in battle occurs every second turn starting from the fifth.
5. Changed the danger bonus for completing the region and the starting danger bonus in the central region.
6. Added the ability to view your deck on the region screen. Feature was requested a lot =) In fact, it has long been in the plans, but it always seems that I have more important tasks to do.
7. Added the ability to view unlocked cards in the main menu. Now you can examine all the cards known to your hero and estimate how many unknowns remain.
8. Big changes for the tutorial. Removed half of the dialog popups. Half made contextual. You will not see them until they are needed. I tried to make the dialogs less saturated with text, more visually informative. Ok, I realized that people do not like to read. Unfortunately, it makes no sense to create an interactive tutorial right now, as the game can change a lot more than once in next updates. But still, the game has a lot of important mechanics and rules. Somehow they need to be explained.
9. A tutorial about the level of danger and rarity of cards has been added. If you did not know, our cards have rarity level and this is visually represented =_=
10. Replaced fonts almost everywhere in the game. The text began to look stylish, but still comfortable to read.
11. Added a special frame for items that can not be removed from the bag. Now they are especially distinguished from the others and help to avoid accidental additions.
12. Added tooltip for energy income bar. Well, you never know, players sometimes considered it to be armor.
13. Reduced the delay in the appearance for the tooltip in the game to 0.1 seconds. It was 0.2 seconds and many thought it was very long.
14. Updated game interface. On the way update of the interface for the battle scene.
15. Added a beautiful splash screen at the start, smoothly transitioning to the main menu.
16. Added a special campaign end dialog. This is still not how the adventure of our hero should end, but at least something. I look forward to implement the story module of the game.
17. Added a menu button on the campaign screen.

Bugfix:

1. Fixed display of the danger level in the profile of the hero
2. Fixed a bug for items that gives armor at the beginning of the turn. Before that, they always skipped the first turn.
3. Added description of exactly how much HP the “Restoration" card will restore
4. Fixed presentation of items in the dialog box for selecting an item.
5. Cards no longer request combo selection if no opponents remain in the battle. The exception is cards that with their combo abilities can restore the player’s health or bring some gold
6. Fixed incorrect tooltip for energy bar in battle scene. It described the conversion of a card into energy by dragging a card into an energy zone. It used to work that way. I thoroughly simplified the mechanics, but I forgot to change the description. Believe me, you are lucky that you have not seen this way of conversion =)
7. Fixed bug interface responding poorly to button presses. Sometimes this could be noticed when going through a tutorial or closing dialogs. It tormented me for a long time, but I just could not understand what was the matter. Problem was in the plugin for implementing the interface we use.
8. Fixed bug for card preview not showing on cursor hover.
9. The image for the “Eexploooosion!” card has been changed. Before that, there was the same picture that “Fireball” had.
10. Corrected a typo in English localization in the description of “Super Potion”: helath -> health
11. Fixed a number of grammatical errors in English localization. If you found some grammar errors in the game - please let me know. All translation is made by myself and I’m not a native speaker. Before release we will try to find native speakers to proof read all texts. And may be add more localizations with community help. But it will not happen soon.

About the experience. I would like the players to have a sense of global progress, and the game somehow softens the feeling of many unsuccessful attempts to go through the region. The game should not be played in an hour from scratch. But it should not slide into an endless grind either. Bonuses for leveling up are primarily a help mechanics. And only then a way to convey to the player the feeling that his character has become stronger. Ideally, the player should be able to go level 1 to the central region and defeat the King at level 2 or 3. So far, this is extremely difficult, if possible at all. But in the future it will be fixed. The essence of the game is not in the goal, but in the path that you make. But to understand this, you will need a story module.
In general, it is very difficult to find a balance so that the player was also interested in playing at the first level in the first region with a weak deck as well as at level 20 in the last region with a deck full of heroic cards. But I will continue to work on this, as it is very important. Current changes are just the first step.

What to expect in next weekly updates:

1. Next week I plan to closely engage in the redesign of about half of the existing cards. Many cards were completely useless, although they seemed pretty good during design. I don’t want the game to have useless cards. This greatly affects the progress of the player when in the reward player is offered a choice of 3 useless cards. Several such situations in a row can put an end for the run of the region. And opponents may begin to seem unreasonably strong. It should not be that way.
2. The merchant must adjust his assortment to the player's progress in the region. The further you go on the map, the more interesting the cards should be. Keep in mind, the merchant sells only those cards that you already unlocked!
3. Gold. It works very poorly as a resource now. This is partly due to the fact that few cards uses it and there is rarely any motivation to spend it for the merchant.
4. Some items are too weak. Some are too boring. Some are never used. This will be fixed.
5. New foes. Art for the north foes is almost 80% ready. Most likely, next week new inhabitants will appear in our forest. And in the future they will have their own special traits. If you did not know, then each opponent has a fixed set of traits =) Although not all of them are equally interesting. Yet.