Thanks to everyone who sent feedback after the last playtest. Difficulty was the lowest rated category, and most of what you told us pointed at the same three things: the opening was punishing without being interesting, the middle of a run repeated itself, and the end of a run fell flat. This update rebuilds all of that.
The short version
- Every enemy has a new deck. Before, six of eleven enemies shared a deck with another enemy. Now none of them do.
- The opening is calmer and more readable. No runes, no location effects, no upgrades, and no cheap cards that stack buffs on turn one.
- The end of a run is now the hardest part. It used to be the easiest.
- No fight runs out the clock any more.
- Ten cards changed values. Nine got stronger, one got weaker.
- Every line of text in the game got a pass. One word per concept, colour coded values, and a shorter tutorial.
Cards
CardCost / InfluenceUpgradedWhat changedCielo2/5 → 2/82/9 → 2/12Now the tempo two-dropPoseidon4/7 → 3/84/11 → 3/12Moves down a cost tierTwardowski4/7 → 5/114/10 → 5/17Moves up a cost tier. Breakthrough needs a full Place of PowerSpartan4/8 → 4/104/14 → 4/15Xaver4/6 → 4/84/10 → 4/12Donar7/12 → 7/157/20 → 7/23Dionysos3/6 → 3/73/10 → 3/11Elpis5/5 → 5/65/10 unchangedLoreley2/2 → 2/32/5 unchangedSmall on purpose: she is a build-aroundGolem6/5 unchanged5/10 → 6/8Nerf. Upgrade no longer reduces cost
Golem is the only nerf, and it was the single most reported card. Losing the cost reduction is a real loss, so it gets influence back in exchange.
Loreley barely moved, and that is deliberate. She measures poorly in a generic deck and extremely well in a deck built around her.
The two-cost tier now has three distinct roles
- Talia 2/2 — Aura enabler for one-cost cards
- Loreley 2/3 — Ramp, build-around for expensive curves
- Cielo 2/8 — Tempo, raw stats plus disruption
Previously none of the three was the best choice at cost 2 for anything.
Enemies
All eleven enemies have new decks, and each one is a distinct archetype.
PositionThemeHealthUpgraded cardsOpening fight AFamiliar mirror5 → 31 → 0Opening fight BSteadfast5 → 42 → 0Opening fight CSurf5 → 53 → 0First minibossSwarm10 → 84 → 2Mid fight AHarassment8 → 85 → 0Mid fight BRamp8 → 96 → 6Mid fight CDenial9 → 98 → 8Second minibossAura wall13 → 134 → 8Late fight AAura copy11 → 138 → 8Late fight BOverwhelm10 → 1310 → 8Final bossLoreley ramp15 → 1312 → 8
- The final boss now plays Loreley cards.
- Every fight introduces one card you have not seen from that enemy before, with at least two copies.
- Golem and Elpis no longer appear in enemy decks.
- Opening fights have no runes and no location effects. Later fights vary in starting slots and whether all three Places of Power are open from turn one.
Difficulty
This is not "harder everywhere". The opening costs less life. From the first miniboss onward it costs more, and the boss is genuinely dangerous.
A complete simulated run now costs 118 life across all fights, against 97 on the previous build. The opening costs 44 percent less.
No fight reaches the nine-turn limit any more. The longest averages 7.6 turns of nine.
Tutorial and text
- Ares goes from 16 to 12 health. He had more health than the final boss of an entire run.
- One word per concept: Places of Power, Cards, turns, Hero Ability. Deck actions are Add Card, Upgrade Card and Remove Card. Upgraded cards say UPGRADED. The Matron of Nothing is named Apathy.
- Values are colour coded. Energy and Base Cost are gold, Influence is purple, healing and Life are red, keywords are cyan.
- Two keywords now have explanations: Here and Place of Power.
- The tutorial is shorter and stops teaching rules we do not have.
- The mulligan screen now reads Starting Hand, Keep or replace Cards, Redraws left.
- Three rules are now written down: the deck does not reshuffle when it runs out; cost checks use printed Base Cost; Penny Dreadful helps the enemy as much as it helps you.
Bugfixes
- Places of Power with no rune no longer show a visible but unusable centre slot.
- Summoning no longer happens without a visible rune.
- Slot tooltips no longer vanish entirely when summoning is off. Only the summoning sentence is removed.
- Ending your turn while still holding a card no longer lets that card drop onto the board.
- The End Turn button stays green only on your turn, and only when you have nothing left to play.
- Card hover and the large card overlay no longer stick after a fight ends.
- Hidden location effects and descriptions now stay hidden in regular fights, not only in the tutorial.
- Tooltips sit beside the card, slot, or UI they belong to instead of covering what you are looking at.
- Hero Ability tooltips keep their icons instead of stripping them.
- Tutorial Life and Energy arrows now show together on the first explanation.
- WebGL mouse and input recover after leaving progression and other screen transitions.
- Talk notes stay visible under the deck overlay.
- The tutorial continues correctly after inspecting the deck.
- Artifact pickup labels show the right text.
- Shadow-match god names and the black-and-white fade before they fly in.