[Blosharper] Early Access v1.1 Update: The Doors of Reward Open

Blosharper Early Access v1.1 Update

Hello, Sharpers!
With today's update, Blosharper steps up to v1.1. The tempering toward full release continues — and this step moves in two directions at once: honest prices at the table, and everything you have already lived through back where it belongs.

Doors of Reward

• Beat the boss and the Doors of Reward open: bring a boss down and the doors open before the envelope. Behind them wait a Specialist, a Noble Envelope and Sleight of Hand, and you receive only what lies behind the doors you pick. The more Go you called that round, the more doors open — three or more Go opens two, seven or more opens three. That rule is now written above the doors as well, so even on a round where you never went Go you can see where the line sits. The face of the opponent you just beat hangs above them, and nothing is settled until you press confirm; until then you may change your mind as often as you like. The boss's sleight of hand, which used to fall to you by luck, is now yours for certain if you pick that door.
• The Hwatu deck's multiplier now names what it applies to: the badge that carries a reworked deck's multiplier now says outright that the multiplier is score only. You were told as much when you reworked the deck — that the inflated share is stripped out at settlement — but nowhere that stayed in front of you while you played.
• The door that reworks your deck — Specialist: pick this door and one specialist skill that reworks your Hwatu deck is yours on the spot. It reworks your deck right away — the ones that deal in any Pi or any card rework two cards, the rest one — and grows like any other specialist afterward. When cards go in or come out you choose them yourself from a grid of the whole deck, with a mark beside the ones worth taking and the ones you would regret losing.
• Specialists no longer turn up in shop bonuses: specialist skills have been taken out of the shop's bonus offers, and specialists are now met only behind the Doors of Reward. And the further you go in your Training Journey, the more of them you can meet there — where you pick your specialist, it now also tells you which stage of the journey widens the pool next, and by how many.

Balance

• Reworking your Hwatu deck now costs a fee: change your deck at the shop and the rework fee is paid there and then, while the deck itself changes from the next round. The fee is a deposit — cancel the reservation and it comes back, and swapping a reservation for a different deck costs nothing more. If your purse is short, the rest is drawn from your account.
• From Act 3, falling costs you the bank as well: One rule changes when Act 3 opens — from that point on, being taken down claims not just the coin in your purse but whatever you left at the bank. You will not walk into it blind: the table tells you as Act 3 begins, and the moment you fall it shows you exactly how much was collected.
• Your opponent actually plays their deck: Opponents used to fall back on the same instincts no matter what deck they held. They now play to the character of the deck in their hands, so a different deck means a different game.
• Twelve skills, repriced: six moved up in price and tier (Cornering the Market · The Syndicate · Awaken: Firepower Maniac · Bomb Aficionado · Double-Pi Aficionado · Pi Aficionado), and six moved down (Winning Streak · Awaken: Nature's Blessing · Awaken: Arcane Mastery · Awaken: Wanderer · Awaken: Emperor of Pi · Garden of Pi). The price now matches what each one actually does at the table.
• Level caps move with the tiers: a skill that moved up now caps at a lower level, and one that moved down caps higher. If you had already leveled past a new cap, it adjusts itself the moment your save loads — nothing for you to do.
• When a skill counts Pi, Double-Pi does not count: skills that count Pi in your deck or among the cards you have played used to treat Double-Pi as Pi in some places and not in others. That is settled now — Pi means Pi, everywhere. The bar that opens Garden of Pi was re-set to match the new count, so on ordinary decks it opens and closes just as it did before — though stacking Double-Pi to force it open no longer works. The skills' descriptions have been updated to match what they truly count.
• Interest Play pays on what you earned this run: interest used to accrue on every coin in your wallet. It now accrues on the money you earned this run and still hold — a fortune moved in from elsewhere is no longer part of the base. A run already underway loses nothing: when you continue, whatever sat in your wallet is credited as your base.
• One rule for shop discounts: stacked discounts used to be tallied differently from place to place. They now follow a single rule everywhere.
• A seal stops the stacking too: fixed a sealed skill quietly building up power whenever its condition was met, along with the counting that looked right past the seal.

Bug Fixes & Stability

• Scores and money that stopped climbing past a certain point — fixed: those of you who pushed deep into a run found your score, your wallet and your bank balance stuck at a certain figure, and the winnings from a round you had just won never reaching the wallet. The cause was ours — we had set the limit on the numbers we can handle far lower than it ever needed to be, and that limit now sits far above anything a run can reach. We are sorry for the trouble. Records already saved in their reduced form, however, we cannot give back — whatever score, wallet, bank balance or debt stood above the old limit at that moment no longer holds its original figure. From this fix onward it cannot happen again.
• Skill descriptions that stated the wrong number: at its maximum level, Arcane Mastery announced a multiplier twice the size of the one it actually applied, and one skill carried another skill's wording in its Current Effect line. Ribbon Wrapper's accrued figure, written as though it were score, now reads as the multiplier it has always been. Only the wording changed — no skill became stronger or weaker.
• Scenes you had watched, missing from recall: some scenes you had sat through to the very end were still shown locked in Story Recall. A scene is now recorded the moment it begins, and it stays recorded even if you step away partway. Anything you have already been through fills itself back in the moment your save loads — nothing for you to do. Do take a look at what came back.
• A downed run settles nothing: fixed edges where parts of settlement and record-keeping could still run after a run had already ended. A downed run now stops right where it fell.
• Notes that appeared on their own: fixed pop-up descriptions appearing where nothing was being pointed at, or lingering after what they described was gone.
• Side doors close during scenes and the tutorial: fixed some shortcuts and menus being able to open other screens while a story scene or the tutorial was underway.
• Text that grew too large: fixed text showing far larger than intended on the Skill Pouch and skill descriptions, and on the pharmacy, Game Guide, and Settings screens.
• Assorted display tidying: fixed several display issues — some screens (Awakening, Stats) overflowing their frame in small windows, and markers and notices showing untranslated in some languages among them.
• One card at a time — still: the opening hand landing all at once was fixed in an earlier update, but one gap remained — linger a long while on the title screen, and the promise could slip when the deal began. That gap is now closed as well.
• Settings' General tab, tidied up: display and audio options are now grouped separately from gameplay options.
• Confirm and cancel sit in the same place everywhere: the order of the confirm and cancel buttons, and which of them your hand lands on first, used to differ from screen to screen. They now follow one rule, and stepping back with ESC was brought in line with it.
• Number keys leave the table alone while a window is open: fixed number keys picking the cards behind an open window.
• Card glows losing their color in Performance Mode: with Performance Mode switched on in Settings, the glow around cards on the Skill Awakening screen, on the specialist cards behind the Doors of Reward, and on the tutorial's demonstration card could lose its proper color or sit frozen. Fixed.
• A fresher foundation: modernized what the game runs on and tightened overall stability.

Experimental Pixel Effect Option Added

• A new entry in Settings — Experimental: precise pixel rendering: draws the retro effect that wraps the table as real pixels instead of a filter. Turn it on and the pixels stand crisp, as if they were truly struck that way rather than textured to look like it. It is still being tempered, so it comes switched off and applies from the next launch. Performance varies by setup and some effects may not yet run evenly, so switch it back off whenever it does not suit you.

Rating Notice

• A rating notice on launch: every time you start the game, a brief screen shows the rating for a few seconds before it fades away.

Thank you, as always, for tempering this table with us on the road to full release.
May fortune find your sharpest fingertips — at a table made honest again!