THE SYSOP WANTS TO PLAY
Big one. The sysop got bored, the dogs got pettable, and the blood got a LOT messier. Let's get that bread:
NEW: Rock Paper Scissors
The sysop doesn't just challenge you to tic-tac-toe anymore. Sometimes he yanks the channel for Rock Paper Scissors instead.
- First to 2 wins. You get 4 seconds to throw each round.
- Darrell and the sysop both have their own hands. Yes, I drew them.
- He cheats. Not often. But you'll see it.
- Same stakes as tic-tac-toe: beat him and you get paid.
Tic-Tac-Toe, cleaned up
- Bigger board that scales with your screen.
- One taunt, one plain line of rules. No more wall of text while you're trying to play.
- Clear YOU WIN / SYSOP WINS / DRAW at the end.
- Both minigames now time out properly even if the game is minimized, so an idle run never gets stuck waiting on you.
NEW: Pet the dog
You can pet the dogs now. Click any pup in the kennel.
- They wiggle. Hearts come off them.
- Pet fast enough and they get the zoomies.
- Darrell has opinions about each of them.
- It does nothing for your stats. It's a dog. You pet it.
The run bar is a track now
The progress bar at the top was the most boring thing on screen, so I fixed that.
- Darrell's little head rides the bar as he walks.
- A fork marker shows where the fork is on the floor.
- At the end there's a door, or a crowned skull when a guardian is waiting on the next floor.
FLOOR CLEAR / DARRELL DIED
Both screens were old and quiet. They're full arcade banners now, same style as LEVEL UP and RAGE.
- FLOOR CLEAR whips in, tells you where you're headed, and warns you with GUARDIAN AHEAD before a boss floor.
- DARRELL DIED slams in with who killed him and where.
- Both have a drain bar so you know how long until it moves on.
More blood
- About 2x more blood on every hit, crit and kill.
- Bigger chunks, wider spray, messier overall. It still flies the way the punch threw them.
- Slime, bone, embers and the rest all got the same upgrade.
Patch Mastery
- Mastery is quiet until something happens. Each kill floats +XP off the patch, the next pip blinks when you're close, and a level-up punches the patch with a MASTERY slam.
- Hover any patch, in a run or in town, to see exact progress (like "Mastery 2/5 · 31 / 150 to next").
Patch icons + HUD
- All 38 patch icons re-exported at higher resolution. They're way sharper, especially at 1440p and up.
- New art for You're Tired Boss, Meat Hook, Berserker and Blood God, plus a little heart on Mugs Not Hugs.
- The patch row in the run HUD scales properly on big screens now (it was tiny at 2K).
- Patch art in the HUD shows the top of the icon, where the good stuff is.
- Town icons read clean. I'd put scanlines on them that made everything grainy. They're gone.
Balance
- Oooh, Shiny! went from 20% to 40% while mastering, and that was too much. It's now 10% to 20%, still at 3x XP.
Accessibility
- Removed the full-screen blue/orange flash on every block and rage. It was a lot, and it was a migraine trigger. Darrell's pose, the blood and the numbers carry those moments now.
Feedback welcome, go play. Punch stuff. Pet dogs.
Darrell's Other Best Friend,
Fun Adjacent