New Features
Exiting a run now goes straight to your Upgrades tab if you can afford one: pressing Exit (Game Over) or Back to Menu (Victory) skips the Start Screen, with a note next to the Upgrades button explaining why and your Shard counter animating up to the new total.
New Tier 2 relic: Targeting System. Line-clear damage always hits whichever enemy you've selected instead of the frontmost one, at 25% less damage as the tradeoff. Switch targets with new Direct Relic Control keys (Options, Controls), defaulting to Q/E or LB/RB. The selected enemy is marked with a small triangle overhead.
New Tier 2 relic: Gem Madness. Your equipped gems and gem bag shuffle together at the start of every battle, and at the end of each battle a random gem is upgraded a tier while a different one is destroyed.
New Tier 1 relic: Spiked Armor. Any enemy that attacks you takes damage equal to your current armor.
Options, Gameplay: new Hit Feedback section. 4-Line Flash and Shake Intensity moved here from Accessibility, alongside a new Controller Rumble slider (0 to 500%, default 100%).
Gem Vendor: new Restock button lets you spend gold to reroll all 6 offered gems for a fresh selection. Cost starts at 20 gold and climbs 15 gold each time you use it, resetting at your next vendor.
Changes
Combat hit feel overhaul: taking damage now briefly dips time to 25% speed instead of freezing it outright, adds a controller rumble pulse scaled to the hit, and enemies flash white, knock back (regular enemies only, not bosses), and squash-and-spring on every hit, including the killing blow.
Screen shake now respects the Shake Intensity setting everywhere, not just on line clears, and a stronger shake landing right after an earlier one is no longer cut short.
Options screen: Accessibility, Gameplay, and Display tabs reorganized with clearer section headers. Handling settings (DAS, ARR, Soft-Drop Repeat, Test Controls) now come before Rotation System in Gameplay, and Horizontal Next Queue moved to Display alongside Border Style and Color Scheme.
Pressing Soft Drop on a piece that's already grounded now locks it instantly instead of waiting out the lock delay, matching Sonic Drop's existing behavior.
Pause menu: your 4 equipped gems can now be inspected with keyboard or controller, not just mouse hover.
Gem Vendor stock quality now scales with stage, just like battle gem rewards, so higher stages offer better gems on average. The vendor now shows 6 gems at a time instead of 10.
Gem Vendor base prices adjusted to 30/45/75/100/130 at Stage 1.
Multiplayer
The Forge (the Attacker's own board) no longer shakes from the Defender's combat, and its own line clears no longer trigger screen shake on the Defender's side.
The networked Attacker's mirrored view of the Defender's battle now shows the same hit feel as the real thing: screen shake, hit-flash, knockback, and squash-stretch.
Fixed a crash risk in a networked spectator's view of the stage 3 boss if it rendered before its first state update arrived from the host.
Fixes
Fixed a boss dying while a summon or escort enemy was still alive letting that enemy land one more attack on you during the victory transition, even though you'd already won.