The Ritual Update
Thanks for every report since the last patch. We read them all, including the ones that arrived before the cards did.
This update gives the front door a proper ritual and closes one more trapdoor beneath online play.
The Ritual Has Better Menus Now
SUMMON has been completely rebuilt into three simple rites:
Choose your game
Shape the rules
Gather the coven
Hosting a lobby should now feel less like filing paperwork in a crypt.
Room codes now appear inside a proper glowing sigil, while arriving players take their seats around the coven table.
Much more ceremonial. Legally still matchmaking.
ENTER has received the same treatment.
Room-code characters now ignite one by one as you type, lobby information is clearer, and empty space no longer looms beneath the menu like an unfinished basement.
VS AI is now THE TRIAL, with proper control over:
Your name
Deck selection
Points required to win
Number of rivals
Power-up frequency
FRENZY has not been sacrificed.
It now lives inside THE TRIAL as an actual setting instead of occupying an entire main-menu button.
The chaos remains available. It has simply been organized, which it deeply resents.
Chess can now be entered through THE TRIAL too, with Easy, Mid, and Hard opponents available from the same screen.
The Hall Remembers
The main menu now contains the HALL OF INFAMY, featuring three global leaderboards:
Card Wins
Hard Slayers
Chess Elo
The top three players are displayed beneath stained glass because ordinary leaderboards were not judgmental enough.
Card-game players now earn increasingly concerning Infamy titles.
Chess players receive rank badges ranging from Certified Blunderer to Vibrating Suspiciously.
Personal growth takes many forms.
Hard Slayers records victories against the Hard chess engine.
Chess Elo remains reserved for summoned player-versus-player duels.
The machines cannot be farmed for social status. They have suffered enough.
Your claimed Hall name is now remembered across the lobby and Trial screens.
You may still change it. Regret remains supported.
Online, Hardened Again
Fixed a rarer version of the missing-card bug where the host had dealt your hand correctly, but your screen had simply declined to acknowledge reality.
The game now checks both the cards you actually have and the cards your screen actually rendered.
If either side reports a completely missing hand, the host will resend the authoritative hand within seconds.
Hand-recovery requests now retry when lost. Previously, the emergency message asking where your cards went could also disappear. A flawless system.
Fixed reconnecting during an unfortunate round transition occasionally leaving the entire hand area hidden.
The cards were there. They were observing you from beyond the veil.
This was tested by deliberately erasing a client’s hand mid-match and forcing the network to recover it.
Zero cards became six.
Science has once again disturbed the dead.