Hi,
You can play against a friend now. This update is the multiplayer mode, in the demo and in the full game, and everything else I built around it since the last one.
Let's get started to list changes briefly.
1. PLAY WITH YOUR FRIENDS is on the menu. You host, you invite a Steam friend through the overlay, they land in your lobby. The lobby shows both of you standing there, your skin steps with the shoulder buttons, and the host sets how many rounds win the match and which mode you play. The line under I'M READY spells out what those two choices add up to, so nobody presses ready without knowing the rules. There is no matchmaking and no ranking, this is for the friend on your list.
2. Every match opens with a draft. The whole forgeable catalogue is on the table, sorted by what a symbol does, blades, spells, rot, shields, heals, gold, control, support. You pick one, your friend picks one, three each, strict turns, 20 seconds a pick, and a symbol taken is gone for the other side. You see their cursor while they think. Those three symbols are your machine for the whole match.
3. Then the round. Both of you fight the same four enemies on your own screens, with a shop after every fight, exactly like a campaign level minus the boss. Kills pay gold and five times the skulls a campaign kill pays. Whoever finishes first gets a waiting screen that tells them which fight the other one is on, with an OPEN SHOP button so the wait is not dead time, and a toast the moment the other side is ready.
4. The duel. Same reels, same symbols, but the enemy is your friend, drawn as the skin they picked. Turns alternate. Your row resolves and hits them, then theirs reveals on the stage cell by cell and hits you, and you see what they drew before it lands. No hidden dice. Whoever falls loses the round. Both of you start every fight at 300 health with a 250 shield cap and no armor, so the draft and the shop decide it, not the meta.
5. Between rounds there is a break. First the shop with the round's payout, then the real anvil. Your match collection is separate from your save, every symbol starts at +0, and the skulls you farmed in the match are what you strike with. The break's anvil keeps the campaign's rule, you can never risk dropping below one symbol per reel. Every strike your rival makes drops in as a toast on your screen, success, burn or slip, and it arrives only after they have seen their own verdict, so nobody learns the outcome before the person holding the hammer.
6. The match ends when someone takes enough rounds, or when someone leaves. Leaving from the pause menu asks you once, then the other side wins. Either way both of you get a report, rounds, kills, damage, gold, skulls, side by side, and CONTINUE drops you both back into the same lobby for a rematch. The winner of a classic duel gets 100 gold and 100 skulls, the loser 50 of each, and nobody's purse is taken. Losing a round to the enemies pays nothing extra.
7. DUEL ONLY is the second mode. No enemies, no waiting, every round is a duel, best of however many the host set. It pays both sides after each round so there is always something to spend in the break.
8. Your stop is your stop. In a friend match the reel lands where you pressed it, on your screen, the instant you press, and the same goes for the skill check bar. The host still runs every rule of the match, but it takes your word on where you stopped as long as it is plausible against its own clock. There is no ranked mode to protect, so the feel won.
9. The demo plays multiplayer too. Everything above works between two demo players, with the full version's depth held back. Rounds to win stops at 2, DUEL ONLY is on the box but locked, two of the 35 skins are open, the draft board shows every symbol but only the demo's 32 can be taken, the rest sit under their own AVAILABLE IN THE FULL VERSION header, and the break's anvil stops at +5, the same ceiling as the campaign. The locked things are visible on purpose, so you know what the full game adds, and the match report says it once more at the end.
10. Challenges. Twenty six of them, each with a rule and a reward, skulls, gems, a symbol, and for the hardest ones a new colour for your anvil ring and reel marquee. You take up to two at a time, they only progress while taken, and the fight screen shows the two you are closest to. The board is on the menu, laid out like the modifiers, and Mother Linden stands next to it. The demo can browse the whole board, completing them is a full version thing.
11. Endless has leaderboards in the full game. A global board and a friends board for the longest streak, plus a separate board for pact runs, and the death card tells you your rank and who is one place above you. The menu shows the top three and your own row. Nothing of this is in the demo, there is no endless there.
12. Achievements are in and there are 13 of them. First win, first forge, first burn, first cat, first pact, a consolation strike, a one spin kill, a perfect catch, clearing heat five, finishing the game, all four cats, every challenge, and finishing the demo. Three of those can be earned in the demo. The list lives on the CHALLENGES board so you can read them in game.
13. Garrick talks. The blacksmith has 39 lines for the anvil, three for every situation, a burn, a streak, coming back after a loss, and he says them at the moment the ring turns, in a bubble that never blocks your input. Every line was written in Turkish first and translated from there.
14. The fight got another juice pass. The hit that breaks your shield or the enemy's armor says SHIELD BROKEN out loud, a telegraphed hit that would kill you makes the screen breathe red until you deal with it, the marquee winces when you take real damage, buying a symbol flies coins into the card, and a run opens on the round card with a tip instead of a loading screen. The poison stack count is back next to the enemy's name, in the campaign and in a match.
15. Every anvil strike pays now. I audited all 112 symbols at every level from +0 to +10 and found strikes that changed nothing on the card. The rule is whole numbers only, every plus adds at least one unit to every value, and the reel pays exactly what the card prints. Rarer symbols climb a little faster so a +10 epic stays above a +10 rare. Life steal, damage to gold and thorns cap at 100%. Gold symbols pay fractions across landings so Coin's dead strikes are gone.
16. Shop prices follow rarity. A symbol's price grows with its forge level by a curve per rarity, commons gently, legendaries steeply, and a +1 offer costs twice the price of the level it takes you to. Prices are readable now, not the old anvil-gain math.
Countless smaller fixes. Abandoning a run really ends it, a forfeited run can no longer pay a challenge. A popup's OK no longer leaks into the row behind it, and two hints in a row no longer freeze the input. The modifiers wallet stops staying red after a purchase. The low health tunnel and heartbeat end with the fight instead of following you into the shop. The box popup explains why a symbol it already holds cannot be added. Bought upgrade cards advertise the right level. Endless got its own economy fixes in the full game, interest, reinforcement prices and the crit ceilings all have limits now, and the curve guarantees that a stacked build still dies eventually.
If you run into anything weird, the fastest way to reach me is Discord. If you try multiplayer, tell me how the stop feels, that one was built on your feedback. If you're enjoying the demo, wishlisting the full game helps me more than you'd think.
Thanks for playing my game,
Furkan