Hey Rogueforters,
Another day, another lil patch for the demo. I'll be a little more dot point-y with this one, as this is the format I'll likely adopt for smaller patches as we head into the next couple months leading up to the full game release. Just as there'll be so many on the way :-)
Build menu rework — The persistent build strip is gone. Building is now a pill in the panel-tab row that opens a modal flyout above the playfield, so the message log gets the bottom of the screen back (~8 lines in overworld, was 3). Right-click an item to pin it as a favourite (★, up to 5) for one-click placement. Open with B or click the pill; category hotkeys 1–9, 0, h, n still work.
Accessible keyboard/controller build flow — The flyout is fully cursor-navigable: arrows/WASD/D-pad move a highlighted cursor across every item (auto-scrolls), up/down switch category, Enter selects. Once a build is armed, WASD/arrows still walk — press Enter (or `) to place on the tile you face. Press ` again to open an aim reticle for precise/ranged placement; two-tap rectangle fill works for walls/floors/fences/paving (up to 32 tiles).
Gamepad build radial — Y opens a 2-level radial (group wedges → category wedges) with stick-direction highlight, A confirm, B back. Y was rebound from Inventory; inventory now opens via the Items pill or i.
Animated ghost preview + build-mode indicator — Every armed build now shows a breathing, semi-transparent preview on the tile it would land on, green when buildable and red when not. A persistent top-centre banner shows the item, place/aim hints, and is click-to-cancel so you always know you're in build mode.
Lattice Geodes — New tile spawns biome-weighted across the overworld (dense in mountain/volcanic, sparse in desert). Bump-mine for a weighted roll across 5 tiers (common→legendary). Each pop layers tier-scaled juice: chip debris, sparkle particle bursts, tile flash, screen shake, layered SFX. Legendaries fire gold+crystal debris, a sparkle-text ring, and an afterglow beat. The demo is clamped to common/uncommon rolls... sorry!
Weapons can harvest — Axes chop trees, blunt weapons (mace/maul) mine stone, with power scaling by rarity and material tier so a legendary axe fells in roughly one strike. Dedicated tools keep their yield and fell/bonus edge. New , (keyboard) / LB (gamepad) hotkey cycles the main hand through your weapon and every harvest tool in the pack — no inventory trip mid-dungeon.
Quick-slot context menu — Pulling an item back out of a quick slot (and Eat/Use) is now reachable on keyboard (= after jumping to the slot with 1/2), gamepad (X), and mouse right-click — not just the mouse-only red ×.
Dragon's Lair payoff — Lair bookshelves are now stocked (1–2 lore books each), volcanic-family floors guarantee a rare lore book (The Final Inscription, +5 max HP), and both fire-dragon bosses guarantee-drop the legendary Volcanic Grand (fire-aura cheese). The abandoned altar is examinable in dungeons (bump for ominous lore).
Lava is a real hazard — Lava no longer behaves as red-painted water. Bumping lava on volcanic floors no longer opens a Drink/Fish menu; standing on it sears 8 HP/turn with its own death cause. The dragon's knockback can now shove you into lava on volcanic floors.
Per-dungeon identity — The demo's themed dungeons (Mossy Grotto, Briar Hollow, Drowned Cellar, Stonefang, Kharn-Dural, Dragon's Lair, the Deepheart) now have distinct floor names, arrival flavor lines on descent, and chest loot that biases richer T1→T3 with depth. The Deepheart names every floor by band (Sunken Reaches / Underdelve / Magma Descent / the Heart).
23 new entity sprites — Community-submitted art (thanks to the team - you can get in touch with them on Discord): temple/stone/rind/scorpion/animated_idol guardians, legendary/large/exotic fish, scout/cultist/bandit raiders, iron/gem/cheese golems, mummy, pharaoh, hydra, ghost_knight, crystal_hound, cinder_sprite, rat_swarm, venomfang.
Right analog stick scrolls modal panels — Tall modals (Character Creation worst-offender — the Start Game button could hide below the fold on 1280×800 Decks) are now scrollable on gamepad. Covers Settings, Help, Leaderboard, Character Creation, Inventory, Crew Roster, Credits, Worker Biography, Fort Select, and the Panel Hub.
Start button opens the pause menu in Adventure mode (was Settings, which had no Save & Quit). Steam Deck players finally have a gamepad path to save and quit.
HUD no longer scrunches at large UI scales — The top-bar collapse trigger now measures actual overlap between the centre stat bars and the time/weather block, instead of a hardcoded 1200px breakpoint that ignored UI scale and weather/crystal/worker/boat badges.
Inventory context-menu input leak + item dup — Arrow/confirm/cancel keys no longer leak from the item context menu into the backpack list (cursor drift, double-assign, Esc closing the whole panel). A double-tap on "Add to Quick Slot" can no longer duplicate the item. The hover tooltip no longer paints over the menu. Added = as a built-in keyboard default for opening the menu, for laptops without a physical Menu key.
Cleared dungeon floors stay cleared across save/load — Descending deep into a mega-dungeon (Deepheart), saving, and returning no longer respawns enemies and loot on floors you already cleared.
Deep water no longer strands you in dungeons — The Deepheart's connectivity check wrongly counted mineable decor as walkable, so up to 58% of a floor could be cut off behind deep water with no ford. Now carves real walkable fords (and a bedrock tunnel as a last-resort backstop); 100% of floors are reachable on foot across every biome and every Deepheart depth.
Dungeon flora no longer eats stairs across floors — A shy mushroom on floor N could survive onto floor N+1 and overwrite the new floor's stairs up. Floor entry/change/exit now purges dungeon-scoped tile data; already-corrupted saves self-heal.
Diagonal squeeze movement restored — An anti-squeeze rule was blocking manual diagonal moves while auto-explore still planned them, desyncing the auto-path. Manual movement and pathfinding are now consistent again.
Dungeon lava renders as fire, not blue water — Volcanic Deepheart bands and the Dragon's Lair now carry the warm palette (red/deep-orange), with an ember shimmer instead of the blue one.
Deepheart bands render their real biome — Bushes on the forest band no longer sit on grey brick; volcanic/rocky/etc. bands get their real floor and wall textures.
Harvested dungeon tiles revert to the right floor — Chopping a bush on the Deepheart forest band no longer leaves a grey brick patch. All 15 runtime floor-revert sites now key off the current floor's biome.
No more black outline around dungeon water — The inset margin around dungeon water pools is now filled with the water's own biome colour, not the overworld ground colour (which crushed to near-black under dim dungeon light).
Golden cow bugs — Golden cows no longer render green, drop deer hide, breed without end, or feel immortal. Adds a cow_hide material, an 8-neighbour breeding cap (max 10 per base species), and a combat-damage-preserving health sync.
Livestock coat flicker fixed — Cows, goats, and sheep no longer drop to their base coat for the duration of each walk step.
Homing pigeon double outline fixed.
Flowers no longer "eat" paintings — Custom paintings on harvested-flower tiles survive when flowers regrow (closed two remaining flora write paths beyond the earlier fix).
Per-creature death SFX restored — A duplicated audio dispatcher was falling through to the generic enemy_death sound for all non-dragon creatures.
Sprite submission palette fix — Submitted sprites with dynamic-preview greens no longer bake those greens in on acceptance.
Thanks for playing! If you're reading this you've probably wishlisted, so maybe if you haven't joined the Discord yet, consider popping in for a visit and an ale around the hearth.
Tim