ALCHEMISTS,
The cauldron is bubbling once more - a new OPEN PLAYTEST for Alchemortis is now LIVE!
If you signed up for the playtest previously, you don't have to do it again - the playtest should be available in your Steam library.
Jump in and experience the updated world of Alchemortis, featuring new items, visual improvements, QoL and much more.
What's new?
20+ new items
full controller support
unlock tree, crit, character and other reworks
legendary alchemy reagents
updated and new art & audio
and much more!
Whether you're a seasoned alchemist or a fresh apprentice, we hope that you'll enjoy the updated version of Alchemortis.
And remember - your feedback is the most legendary item of all. Drop your comments & share your thoughs in the Steam Discussions or join the official Discord Server to meet more fellow Alchemists!
Brew wisely!
Firebelley & Feardemic
PATCH NOTES
New Content
New Items
20+ new items have been added to the game, here are some of them (the rest you will have to discover on your own!)
- Boatman
- Caged Skeleton
- Deepwater Eel
- Eldritch Star
- Eyes of the Forest
- Beast Fang
- Master Til's Skull
- Ghoulish Fencer
- Perceiver
- Giant Harvestman
- Hammer of Judgement
- Merfolk
- Grand Mirror Shard
- Pumpkin Golem
- Salt of Hartshorn
- Shapeshifter
- Shrunken Head
- Skeleton Rogue
- Sporelings
- Succubus
- Tentacle
- Bleedbriar Thorns
- Wheel of Misfortune
### New Artifacts
- Voidstone
- Cello of the Mistress
- Masque of Emotion
- Ring of Departed Lovers
There's more new content beyond what is mentioned here, but again I will leave you to discover everything!
Systems & Features
Full Controller Support
Alchemortis is now fully playable with a controller. However, there are probably controller user experience improvements to be made, so test with a controller and let me know how it feels!
Unlock Tree Rework
The unlocks menu has been redesigned as an unlock tree with individual unlockable items, artifacts, and characters. Unlock conditions have been converted to challenges, meaning that challenges are no longer tied to specific unlocks. Instead, completed challenges now award unlock points.
Combat Summary
The old combat log has been replaced with a Combat Summary that can be viewed both mid-combat and after combat ends.
Alchemy Feedback Improvements
It is now much easier to see what changed during alchemy. Animations show which abilities were added/changed, empty ability slots that will be filled are now indicated, and reagents that protect abilities will specifically show which abilities are protected.
Crit Rework: Crit Bonus
Critical hit multiplier has been replaced with Critical Bonus: a flat amount of bonus damage applied whenever an item crits, rather than a multiplier. Buffs and debuffs (like paralysis) can now crit as well.
Fire Rework
Fire has been reworked (again). Balancing fire such that it feels great for the player, but also not bad when used _against_ the player has been challenging, but I think this iteration gets very close to a state where those two concerns are balanced.
Board Effects
Board growth now presents additional bonuses to items in the added row or column, which should make choosing how to expand your board much more interesting.
New Legendary & Corrupted Abilities
Additional legendary and corrupted abilities have been added to the ability pools, offering more variety in alchemy outcomes.
Character Reworks & Unique Artifacts
The Lich and Brittlebones have had their starting artifacts reworked. Additionally, character starting artifacts are now unique, meaning that no other character can acquire them (typically).
Elite Fights Removed
Elite fights have been removed from the game. The difficulty modifier associated with elite fights has been changed.
Difficulty Selection Improvements
Individual difficulty modifiers can now be selected independently, rather than only choosing from preset tiers.
Unlockable Enemy Items
Enemy items have been added to the unlock menu alongside player items, and have an extra bit of tooltip information indicating their faction. Enemy items are unlocked when you encounter them in combat. Note that this change _does not_ add enemy items to your loot pools by default. This is just for visual and informational purposes.
Legendary Reagents
In order to balance reagent power, instead of simply nerfing certain reagents, they have become rarer and marked as legendary. These legendary reagents are far less common, but have power to match their rarity.
Balance Changes
- Item power adjustment pass
- It's no longer so easy to get low cooldowns and infinitely scaling abilities.
- Shop prices have been reduced noticeably.
- Confusion now increases the self damage dealt in accordance with the critical bonus of the item that applied confuse.
Quality of Life
- Almost everything that has text descriptions has been moved to a tooltip for readability and consistency.
- Health is now visible during non-combat events while alchemy is open.
- Upgrade tooltips now show a diff of what will change before you commit.
- UI panels now have headers.
- Ability wording standardized and cleaned up.
- Map generation has been improved to reduce long roads and prevent certain situations, like obelisks appearing before the final boss.
- The enemy board inspector has been removed.
- Tooltips are now pinned to a side of the board, to prevent tooltips from obscuring other items on the same board.
Art & Audio
- High resolution render mode and font options have been added to the settings menu
- Necromancer art redrawn and reanimated.
- Brittlebones's moth recolored to use cooler tones.
- Several items have had their art improved or redone.
- New scrollbar art.
- New panel art.
- New button art.
- Health globes got a visual refresh.
- Cursor now has idle animations.
- Alchemy pot continues bouncing as items fall into it.
- Alchemy pot now slides in/out when opening the inventory, and the alchemy drawer's position and animations have been reworked.
- More decorations added to the alchemy scene.
- Several new sound effects have been added, and other sound effects have been improved and adjusted.
Bug Fixes
- Fixed a bug where alchemizing two items and immediately quick selling both could get the alchemy board stuck.
- Projected abilities could incorrectly echo.
- Artifacts did not affect the character preview board during character select.
- The "Upgrade Items to Tier 5" challenge now properly checks for tier 5 specifically, rather than max tier.
- Artifact abilities that update state on combat victory weren't being refreshed properly.
- Multiple copies of the Marionette ability could get tangled, showing incorrect tooltip info when copied via alchemy.
- Using Alkahest on an item, then quitting to the menu and returning, would restore the item's original abilities.
- Opening the unlocks menu or settings while the screen was fading out (on win, loss, or abandon) would prevent that screen from fading out properly.
- The difficulty tier price modifier was only affecting the visually displayed shop price, not the actual price charged.
- Items could render at the wrong size after certain alchemy combinations (e.g. Chisel + gem + legendary item).
- Tag enchants incorrectly referenced "card" instead of "item".
- Selling an item and buying from the shop before the currency animation finished could briefly show negative blood.
- Pause menu could be opened during the run-end transition after a victory.
- Clicking Escape on the continue run dialog behaved the same as clicking "No".
- Alchemy could be force-closed by certain events while items were still inside it.
- Fixed numerous incorrect, missing, or inconsistent keyword descriptions and item text.
- A change has been implemented which ensures all relevant keywords are always present for ability descriptions.