Huntsman Against Darkness — Mid-Summer Update

Greetings, Huntsmen!

We've been hard at work these past weeks polishing the arena experience, squashing bugs, and adding new content. This update brings 5 new arena upgrades, a material loot system, major boss-fight improvements, and dozens of stability fixes. We're pushing this from the debug branch to the default branch for everyone — read on for the full details.

⚔️ New Arena Upgrades

Five new upgrades can now appear in the level-up screen during arena runs:

• Critical Chance — Each pellet has a chance to deal 2× damage on hit. Stacks up to 5 times (10% per stack).
• Piercing Shots — Pellets pass through enemies instead of being destroyed on contact. Each stack adds +1 pierce (max 3).
• Knockback Force — Increases the knockback applied to enemies on hit. Stacks up to 3 times.
• Thorns Aura — Passively damages nearby enemies every 0.5 seconds. Stacks up to 4 times, increasing DPS.
• XP Bonus — Increases all XP gained from gems by 15% per stack (max 5).

Material Drops from Enemies

Enemies now have a 10% chance to drop materials (Coins, Wood, or Stone) when they die.

• Materials bounce out with a small arc animation and play a landing sound before becoming collectible.
• Boss enemies are guaranteed to drop 1 of each material type plus a burst of XP gems on death.
• Collected materials are added as bonus loot to your end-of-run rewards on top of the performance-based calculation.
• A new HUD section shows your gathered materials during the run.

Consumable Chests Reworked

Arena chests have been completely rebuilt. Instead of directly healing you, chests now grant consumable items:

• Healing Chest — Adds a Healing Potion to your inventory.
• Poison Chest — Adds a Poison Flask to your inventory.
• Honey Chest — Adds a Honey Salve to your inventory.

If your inventory for that consumable is already full, a floating message warns you and tells you which building can increase your capacity. Picking up a chest type for the first time triggers a brief tutorial pop-up explaining how to use it.

Boss Combat Improvements

• All boss attacks (projectiles, lasers, grenades) now originate from the boss's visual attack point instead of its feet, making the action feel much more natural.
• Boss projectile collision is now properly offset to match the visual height, fixing shots that appeared to fly through walls.
• Bosses now use separation steering so they no longer stack on top of each other.
• Laser attacks correctly account for wall collisions at floor level while drawing the beam at head height.

Poison Flask Visual Overhaul

• Poison flasks now create a ground fog cloud that expands and fades naturally when they explode, replacing the old particle puff.
• Flasks now detect wall collisions and explode on impact instead of passing through obstacles.
• A new hit sound plays when the poison cloud damages enemies.

Story Intro — Subtitles

• The story intro cinematic now displays timed subtitles at the bottom of the screen, synced to the narration.
• Separate video files for desktop and mobile for better performance on each platform.

Aiming & Weapon Fixes

• The aim trajectory line and reticle for thrown items now originates from the player's chest instead of their feet, matching the visual throw arc.
• Weapon and sawblade systems now target the enemy's visual center (hurtbox/sprite) instead of their feet, resulting in much more accurate auto-aim.
• Sawblades now play a hit sound effect when they damage enemies.
• Weapon position adjusted to sit higher on the player sprite for a more natural look.

Stability & Physics Fixes

• Depth rendering overhaul — Removed manual z_index overrides on players, enemies, and bosses. Everything now uses native Y-sorting for consistent layering.
• Pellet wall collision fix — Raycast for wall detection now uses a floor-level offset, preventing pellets from passing through low walls.
• Game-over screen guard — A 1-second interaction lock prevents accidental menu taps when the death screen appears.
• Level-up screen guard — Same interaction lock prevents accidental upgrade picks.
• Death sequence fix — Replaced async timer with a dedicated Timer node to prevent crashes if the player node is freed early.
• Node cleanup — All queue_free calls in projectiles, enemies, and spawning logic use deferred calls to prevent physics-callback crashes.
• Honey Salve speed fix — Honey Salve regen now completes in 2 seconds instead of the previous 20 seconds, as originally intended.
• Level-up aura now damages and knocks back enemies it touches as it expands.

⚙️ Settings & Quality of Life

• New "Hide Village Descriptions" setting — Disables building description tooltips and chest tutorials for experienced players.
• New in-game Tooltip / Tutorial modal — Pauses the game and explains mechanics the first time they are encountered.
• Freed family member save data now migrates old naming conventions automatically.

What's Next?

We're working on the Mac build pipeline and a dedicated Help / How-to-Play section. Stay tuned!

Thank you for your continued feedback — it's shaping Huntsman into the game we all want it to be!

Keep fighting the Darkness, Cheers!

— Dan @ Rosdan Media