Build 26491252

Fair tidings, Captain!

Wraithbinder v0.9.5 is here: Weapons, Wonders & Wilder Floors. Pick up a spear, mace or hammer and keep your weapon across runs. Find new items that hold your mana at maximum or protect your wraiths for a whole floor. Act I has a new floor art style, some connector floors are now procedurally generated, and the controls are snappier.

Why Has It Been So Long?

Some of you may know I'm a solo developer, which means I do all of Wraithbinder's code, artwork, music, story and business. I went through a challenging season in which I lost my job, my health and my love. But I promised I'd finish Wraithbinder, and I'm a man of my word. I'm back on my feet now. Wraithbinder is going to be freaking awesome.

Let's take a look at what's new.

The Spear

One press, three quick strikes. Each strike lands a little lighter than the last, but together they often deal more damage than a single swing. The spear also has long reach, so you can hit a pack of enemies before they reach you. Pick it up when you want to hit first.

The Mace

The mace swings like the sword, with a lot more weight behind it and much more knockback. Its signature: only the mace can knock enemies off a ledge to their death. Line them up against the sky and let gravity finish the job.

The Hammer

The hammer is the axe's bigger, angrier sibling. It hits for nearly twice the axe's damage, with even more knockback. The cost is time: the windup and the cooldown are much slower than any other weapon's. Every swing is a commitment, and when it lands, the room notices.

You unlock new weapons with ability keys at the start of a run: the axe costs 1 key, the knuckles 2, the spear 4, the mace 6 and the hammer 8.

Your Weapon Stays With You

You used to drop your weapon when you died and start over with a new one. Now you keep it across runs, the same way you keep your armor. At the start of each run you can stick with it, swap to a new one, or unlock the next.

Weapons now roll magical attributes, like armor: attack speed, critical chance and multiplier, stun chance and duration, HP and MP steal, and melee elemental damage. Swap to another weapon type and the roll comes with you, so a Rad Hammer of Infliction becomes Rad Knuckles of Infliction.

The weapons you find match the tier for your character's level, like armor. A weapon you carry keeps the tier it had when you found it, which is a good reason to keep looking. Before you pick one up, you see its full stats compared against the weapon in your hand: green is better, red is worse.

You can also power up your weapons at the Mystic with the new Weapons scroll, which costs 10 tears.

A Few New Wonders

The Channeler holds your mana at maximum for 90 seconds. The Warder makes you invincible for 30 seconds. And the Wraith Warder makes your wraiths invincible for the rest of the floor. A little insurance for your borrowed army.

The Amplifier doubles the next healing item you pick up. There's also a tiny Red Orb that restores 2 HP, and an Exit Portal that sends you straight to the current floor's exit.

Experience Orbs now grant a percentage of the experience needed for your next level instead of a fixed amount. Chests also wait until you have the Mystic before dropping Light.

Wilder Floors, Clearer Fights

Act I has a new floor art style, and some connector floors are now procedurally generated instead of bespoke. Runner chests start running immediately. I also fixed a bug that could leave a floor without an exit.

Archers now show a slim warning along their line of fire, so you can see where the shot is coming from. Characters and item previews look better, particles jitter less, and the opening scene's mountains now catch shadows.

The renderer makes greater use of the GPU to improve performance. Sounds also keep playing correctly when the camera rotates.

Snappier Controls

Your character now speeds up twice as fast (from 0.26s to 0.12s) and turns instantly (the turning cooldown went from 0.2s to 0s). Gamepad input feels much more responsive.

There's also a new Dead Zone option in Settings -> Input. If you have a good controller, set it low and steer more finely.

Other Improvements

Damage numbers now pop when you hit things. They're especially satisfying with the hammer.

Boss health bars now show the boss's name, and boss deaths land harder: a well-timed explosion, with the other audio silenced so you can hear it.

Relics and armor have a sweet new pickup animation, and the "got item" flourish now plays only for things you don't already have.

Melee, ranged, speed, explosive and jump abilities now unlock in a fixed order across runs.

I also fixed many, many mistranslated strings and added some missing Chinese ones.

What About Online Co-op?

When Wraithbinder launched into Early Access, the plan was to add online co-op during Early Access. That plan has changed. Online co-op is no longer a planned feature. Couch co-op is what Early Access will deliver.

Returning Players

Your characters are safe. You keep them through this update. Because Wraithbinder is in Early Access, items and stats can change as the game evolves, and this update changes a few.

Each armor slot now rolls its own kind of attribute. Rings roll ranged and elemental power, helmets roll ability cost and MP regen, cloaks roll movement and gold/light, and every armor piece can roll HP. Rings no longer roll crit, attack speed or stun; those moved to weapons.

Because of that, gear you already own re-rolls its attributes when you load, and some item names change (for example, "…of Efficiency").

Rolled attribute strength is cut from 40% to 10%, and how many attributes an item rolls now depends mostly on its kind, not your Mystic level.

Epic items no longer come from regular chests or the Blacksmith. Bosses are where you'll mostly find them now.

The Steam Deck controller issue that appeared around Patch #4 has been magically resolved. It started happening with a Steam update and then resolved itself with a later one.

Please Share Your Feedback

Grab a spear, a mace or a hammer and see which one you keep. Then tell me how it went on Wraithbinder's Discord server. Your feedback helps make this game more awesome.

If you have a minute, please leave a Steam review. Whatever you think, it helps other players find Wraithbinder and helps me make it better.

Release Notes

Here's the full release notes for Wraithbinder's version 0.9.5, in case you want all the details:

v0.9.5 : November 6, 2026

Gameplay:

• Created the Spear weapon, which makes three quick attacks per button press
• Created the Mace weapon with extra knockback powers (only the mace can knock enemies off a ledge to their death)
• Created the Hammer weapon with high damage and massive knockback
• Gave explosions, the hammer, the spear and more a circular hit area
• Made the Sword the first weapon you find, and the only weapon available on your first run
• Made later runs offer new weapons like the Axe, Knuckles, Spear, Mace and Hammer, unlocked with ability keys (1, 2, 4, 6 and 8 keys)
• Charged weapon unlock keys at every tier
• Made weapon choices on floor 1 deterministic
• Kept your current weapon across runs like armor; it is no longer dropped when you die
• Gave weapons magical attributes: attack speed, crit chance & multiplier, stun chance & duration, HP/MP steal and melee elemental damage
• Carried a weapon's rolled attributes over when you swap weapon types
• Made the weapons you find match the tier for your character's level, like armor (floor 1 weapons too)
• Made boss chests and some miniboss chests drop weapons
• Let chests drop your own weapon type with a new roll
• Fixed chests dropping weapons you don't own
• Showed weapon stats before you pick a weapon up, compared to your current weapon
• Kept your very first weapon simple by hiding its stats panel
• Made weapons able to be powered up at the Mystic with the new Weapons scroll (10 tears)
• Allowed unequipping your weapon to fight with your Fists
• Announced whenever there is a new weapon to pick up
• Held the weapon aloft when you pick it up
• Left your old weapon on the ground when you pick up a new one, so you can swap back
• Animated the ability bar when you pick up a weapon mid-run
• Sped up the new weapons' animations when attack speed is increased
• Created the Red Orb Extra Small item, which restores 2 HP
• Created the Exit Portal item, which teleports you to the current floor's exit
• Created the Channeler item, which holds your mana at maximum for 90 seconds
• Created the Warder item, which makes you invincible for 30 seconds
• Created the Wraith Warder item, which makes your wraiths invincible for the rest of the floor
• Created the Amplifier item, which doubles the next healing item you pick up
• Made runner chests start running immediately
• Made some connector floors procedurally generated instead of bespoke
• Offered a ranged weapon choice once you own every melee weapon
• Gave archers a slim line-of-fire attack warning
• Fixed some floors ending abruptly without an exit

Balance:

• Reduced magical attribute strength from 40% to 10%, and made the number of attributes depend mostly on item kind instead of Mystic power level
• Made rolled attributes distinct per equipment type: rings roll ranged & elemental power, helmets roll ability cost & MP regen, cloaks roll movement & gold/light, and every armor piece can roll HP
• Moved crit, attack speed and stun from rings to weapons
• Let magical rings roll ranged elements
• Removed the epic item chance from regular chests and the Blacksmith
• Made melee, ranged, speed, explosive and jump abilities unlock in a fixed order across runs
• Made bosses and minibosses prefer dropping ability points
• Made Guardian towers faster to fire initially (delay reduced from 1.5s to 0.2s)
• Made experience Orbs grant a percentage of the experience needed for your next level instead of a fixed amount
• Stopped chests dropping Light until you have the Mystic

Effects & Animations:

• Showed damage numbers when you hit other beings
• Created a sweet new animation for picking up relics and armor
• Only played the "got item" animation for items you don't already have, and not for your first light or gold
• Improved the boss death sound with a well-timed explosion
• Silenced most audio effects during the boss death animation
• Made Radruiel's small form death animation faster
• Improved hero rendering: bracelets and other team colors now render over skin
• Improved hero rendering: used a mathematical trick so faces always render 3 pixels tall instead of collapsing into 2
• Gave big chests a floor so they don't look weird when open
• Made the end-of-dialogue sound less piercing
• Stopped your blade visually dropping when you die
• Fixed some high-res characters having a black eye
• Added a new art style for Act I floors
• Improved the quality and viewing angle of high-res character models
• Made high-res and in-game voxel models fade less toward the bottom
• Rendered high-res item models at the same angle as armor images
• Cast shadows onto the mountain backdrop in the opening scene
• Stopped particles jittering by projecting them before rounding
• Kept sounds playing after camera rotation, with the listener centered on the player
• Kept looping sounds playing while the window is unfocused
• Stopped idle unsheathing animations with knuckles or no weapon
• Stopped trying on an item immediately after unequipping it

UI & UX:

• Showed the boss name on the boss health bar
• Moved announcements to the bottom of the screen when they would cover a player
• Announced odd-tiered weapons and armor, and armor from small chests
• Told players who are out of teleport charges where to buy more
• Hid the abilities HUD on the ship
• Hid player names unless there are multiple players
• Showed a lock icon on unused armor slots, for now
• Fixed gold and light multiplier percentages saying 101%
• Fixed the HP bar overdrive running past the end
• Fitted the item pickup panel to the number of stat lines
• Cleared a stuck Use prompt when the hold action ends
• Made completed tutorial checkmarks distort and disappear once all are done
• Checked off manual aiming while the fire button is still held
• Hid the heading indicator in the opening scene
• Fixed items sometimes saying +2 maximum health when they only grant +1
• Added two more suffix variants for every attribute, such as "of Welling" and "of the Tireless"

Input:

• Made input snappier by decreasing acceleration time from 0.26s to 0.12s and the turning cooldown from 0.2s to 0s
• Added a Dead Zone option to Settings -> Input for even more gamepad snappiness
• Fixed the menu cursor repeat-keying on any held button
• Fixed ESC not opening the menu
• Fixed mousing over menu tabs not working

Localization:

• Fixed many, many mistranslated strings
• Added some missing Chinese strings

Bug Fixes:

• Fixed picking up a weapon replacing it with the wrong one
• Fixed picking up a weapon from a boss chest destroying the other items
• Fixed losing your sword when picking up Blink

Misc.:

• Improved rendering performance by making greater use of the GPU
• Improved collision detection performance
• Fixed inherited items overwriting their base item data

Thanks for playing Wraithbinder!

Nat (the dev)