Not a huge patch, but iterative. Sorry it's been a busy week!
[ UI ]
The health indicator + shield indicator now shows on the left hand side by default.
You can toggle this to revert back to the right hand side in the Options Menu -> "Other" -> "Health # on Left"
Enemies now throw a little pickaxe to indicate they are doing damage. It's not perfect and will be improved further.
East Wind battle modifier now has little wind particles.
Updraft shovel and it's upgrade now also has little wind particles when they trigger.
When damage is taken and blocked by shield, the shield drops a little shield to let you know. (Also not perfect.)
Spear Shovel has had icon slightly changed to make it visually more clear.
[ BALANCE ]
Angry enemies now "grow stronger" each turn. Example with a hypothetical enemy
Calm enemy: [Turn 1] 3 damage, [Turn 2] 3 damage, [Turn 3] 3 damage.
Angry enemy: [Turn 1] 3 damage, [Turn 2] 4 damage, [Turn 3 ] 5 damage.
This added strength "persists" until the enemy is defeated. So, the angry enemy above, if they became calm, would still do 5 damage every turn.
Key Collector (upgrade to Key Strength) has had it's effect slightly modified to be more helpful. Before, it was making unlocks actually more difficult, an unintended consequence.
[ BUGS ]
Feedback on the main menu now correctly leads to the feedback form, not "Other". (Thank you for the bug report!)
Upon defeat, bosses should stay on screen slightly longer before disappearing so it's more likely to see the total damage done.
A few purple trigger tags were missing, particularly on Copy Tiger.
[ ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ]
Thank you to everyone for your energy and encouragement. I wanted to address 2 pieces of anonymous player feedback: "Chests with 2 of the same gem are almost impossible to open imo :)"
I was thinking something similar recently. Because chests with 2 of the same are going to necessarily cause a forge. I might have it limited to chests with only 1 lock, or maybe limited to enemies with extremely strong defenses, or I might try to code up something to make sure it never happens. I will probably prototype one of these locally and see how it goes. I'm not sure if it'll be next patch or 2-3 patches away.
"Nurturing Mother is a trash boss. :("
I think Nuturing Mother seems to catch players off guard in a way that's not fun or fair, and I'm sorry for that. Recently there's been a discussion on the Steam Community Hub from another player with a similar experience.
In short, I'm leaning toward something like the Earth Mother has increased defense unless a diamond is forged, but not full-heals.
Back when the HP was something like 3000, it was sometimes more feasible to one-shot kill the boss (e.g. TimeToGrind's playthrough video), but this was also equally kind of disappointing. So I will try to add in a little more build flexibility while still encouraging a unique condition.
Additionally, I need to reflect more on the sheer amount of tar / lava, it might be a little too much.
[ NEXT PATCH ] I am excited to try and improve performance. I noticed recently on Steam Deck that the game is chugging a little bit, especially with a lot of rocks. (Turning Lighting to "Max Perf." helps on steam deck).
I'm going to see if there's anything I can do to improve it further, so it's a bit uncertain whether that will bear fruit, and how much (if at all) it will help. I will keep an eye on feedback, as well as the notes above about Earth Mother and same-gem-locks.
I also want to do a little marketing to see whether the new UI + gameplay changes are overwhelming for new players.