Based on the feedback and testing from our Discord channel, we are increasing the number of colors in blocks back from 3 to 4. This change should help increase the viability of chain setups by reducing the chance of accidental clears. This version was first made available to our experimental game build, which can be accessed in the Steam Properties page of Spaera. Moving forward, we will be making changes quickly on the experimental build to get feedback. If you would like to be a part of this process, please join the Discord and have some discourse!

• There are now four potential block colors that can show up in pieces.

• Fixed misc. bugs that were causing crashes.
  
• Fixed personal leaderboards not displaying records properly

• Updated the UI for Online Mode selection to match Story Mode UI.

Based on the feedback and testing from our Discord channel, we are increasing the number of colors in blocks back from 3 to 4. This change should help increase the viability of chain setups by reducing the chance of accidental clears. This version was first made available to our experimental game build, which can be accessed in the Steam Properties page of Spaera. Moving forward, we will be making changes quickly on the experimental build to get feedback. If you would like to be a part of this process, please join the Discord and have some discourse!

• There are now four potential block colors that can show up in pieces.

• Fixed misc. bugs that were causing crashes.
  
• Fixed personal leaderboards not displaying records properly

• Updated the UI for Online Mode selection to match Story Mode UI.

We are introducing a tutorial mode that goes over the very basics of the game with this patch. While this probably won't be very useful for most of you who are reading this and are already experts at the game, this hopefully will help ease new players into the game. The mode is currently located under Story mode if you wish to check it out, and we'd greatly appreciate any feedback! As for a more advanced tutorial, that is something we hope to work on at a later date.


One of the feedbacks we've been receiving lately is that the Chain Multiplier mechanic feels more like a distraction and the game would be better off without it.

When we added the Chain Multiplier, it was done in hopes to change large clear setup playstyle from high risk low rewards, to at least high risk high rewards. In Spaera, setups are innately high risk due to the potential threat of opponents' abilities that can wipe away your hard work. Chain Multipliers are supposed to make them more gratifying if someone does decide and manages to pull off a successful setup.

However, that doesn't mean that players should feel like they are punished if they aren't doing chains. We are currently entertaining the thought of removing Chain Multipliers completely, we wanted to try one tweak and also hear your feedback.

• Decreased the number of block clears required to send a line to the opponent from 7 to 6.
  
• 1 chain and 2 chains now share the same multiplier.

Now players are guaranteed to send at least one line every two clears even without chains. This should help end game survival as well as increase the pace of the game.

We are introducing a tutorial mode that goes over the very basics of the game with this patch. While this probably won't be very useful for most of you who are reading this and are already experts at the game, this hopefully will help ease new players into the game. The mode is currently located under Story mode if you wish to check it out, and we'd greatly appreciate any feedback! As for a more advanced tutorial, that is something we hope to work on at a later date.


One of the feedbacks we've been receiving lately is that the Chain Multiplier mechanic feels more like a distraction and the game would be better off without it.

When we added the Chain Multiplier, it was done in hopes to change large clear setup playstyle from high risk low rewards, to at least high risk high rewards. In Spaera, setups are innately high risk due to the potential threat of opponents' abilities that can wipe away your hard work. Chain Multipliers are supposed to make them more gratifying if someone does decide and manages to pull off a successful setup.

However, that doesn't mean that players should feel like they are punished if they aren't doing chains. We are currently entertaining the thought of removing Chain Multipliers completely, we wanted to try one tweak and also hear your feedback.

• Decreased the number of block clears required to send a line to the opponent from 7 to 6.
  
• 1 chain and 2 chains now share the same multiplier.

Now players are guaranteed to send at least one line every two clears even without chains. This should help end game survival as well as increase the pace of the game.

In this patch, we are exploring certain system changes to increase the pace of the game, and the frequency of magic abilities used.

We have been busy restructuring our server architecture to improve stability and better prepare us for upcoming features. While there is still a good amount of work left, we are working towards enabling private match lobbies to support more than 2 players, and spectator mode.

• Increased frequency of pieces containing magic orbs
  
• Changed board to start with 6 rows of garbage blocks
  
• Panic Mode multiplier is now 1.5x when in Panic Mode.

• Fixed a bug that was causing certain assets to display in lower resolutions than intended.
  
• Fixed misc animation glitches.

Since we somehow managed to post the previous patch notes on every place except on Steam, here's the missing patch notes for 0.9.4.0:

Hello All! Today's patch covers mostly quality of life updates and bug fixes surrounding the UI and game animations. The most visible change is the addition of the Drop Shadow, which makes it a lot easier to plan your combos. We know this has been a highly requested feature and we got around to adding it in! We've also tweaked some spells here and there.

• Harland's Orb Eater only takes away exactly one meter, leaving partial meters alone.
  
• Harland's Tweets of the Afterlife has new Pixel Arts!
  
• Joseph's Raging Waters now has a 2x bonus per orb stolen

• Drop Shadow added to current play piece

• Fixed some Leon spell animation glitches
  
• Fixed some animation glitches for Pone's Lava Geyser
  
• Fixed Personal leaderboards. They are now functional again
  
• Fixed some layer issues with some spells

In this patch, we are exploring certain system changes to increase the pace of the game, and the frequency of magic abilities used.

We have been busy restructuring our server architecture to improve stability and better prepare us for upcoming features. While there is still a good amount of work left, we are working towards enabling private match lobbies to support more than 2 players, and spectator mode.

• Increased frequency of pieces containing magic orbs
  
• Changed board to start with 6 rows of garbage blocks
  
• Panic Mode multiplier is now 1.5x when in Panic Mode.

• Fixed a bug that was causing certain assets to display in lower resolutions than intended.
  
• Fixed misc animation glitches.

Since we somehow managed to post the previous patch notes on every place except on Steam, here's the missing patch notes for 0.9.4.0:

Hello All! Today's patch covers mostly quality of life updates and bug fixes surrounding the UI and game animations. The most visible change is the addition of the Drop Shadow, which makes it a lot easier to plan your combos. We know this has been a highly requested feature and we got around to adding it in! We've also tweaked some spells here and there.

• Harland's Orb Eater only takes away exactly one meter, leaving partial meters alone.
  
• Harland's Tweets of the Afterlife has new Pixel Arts!
  
• Joseph's Raging Waters now has a 2x bonus per orb stolen

• Drop Shadow added to current play piece

• Fixed some Leon spell animation glitches
  
• Fixed some animation glitches for Pone's Lava Geyser
  
• Fixed Personal leaderboards. They are now functional again
  
• Fixed some layer issues with some spells

We will be performing scheduled maintenance at 6 pm PDT today. Servers are expected to be down for a few hours as we upgrade them. Online mode will be inaccessible during this time.

We will be performing scheduled maintenance at 6 pm PDT today. Servers are expected to be down for a few hours as we upgrade them. Online mode will be inaccessible during this time.

Today we are re-introducing the 8th playable character for the initial version of Spaera, Leon. As many of you might recognize him from our initial Beta, Leon has been placed on the sidelines since the huge system change last year. With the game system finally stabilizing with perhaps a few tweaks left, we'd like to push out the current iteration of Leon for you to try.



Leon retains his counterpunch style of play, but now with a bit more offense. His Level 4, Thrust of 9000+, has been his signature move, and we made it a focus to keep it as faithful as possible.

His level 3, Kogoro Stance, has been replaced with an Offense move, Slash Slash. Slash Slash adds two slashes of bricks to the opponent's board.

• Slothy Guard Stance
  For each of the next 2 pieces, stops up to 5 lines from being added to your board.
  
  
• Swift My Sword
  Removes the top 3 lines of your board.
  
  
• Slash Slash
  Adds two slashes of bricks to the top of the opponent's board.
  
  
• Thrust of 9000+
  For 2 pieces, any clear will trigger all blocks to cascade downwards if there is empty space. When active, this will prevent magic orbs and exploder blocks from dropping.

• Rafael's Lingering Intermezzo Duration Reduced from 5 turns to 4

• Panic Mode text now has transparency for better visibility

• Memory Allocation Performance has been greatly improved
  
• Misc Crash fixes

Today we are re-introducing the 8th playable character for the initial version of Spaera, Leon. As many of you might recognize him from our initial Beta, Leon has been placed on the sidelines since the huge system change last year. With the game system finally stabilizing with perhaps a few tweaks left, we'd like to push out the current iteration of Leon for you to try.



Leon retains his counterpunch style of play, but now with a bit more offense. His Level 4, Thrust of 9000+, has been his signature move, and we made it a focus to keep it as faithful as possible.

His level 3, Kogoro Stance, has been replaced with an Offense move, Slash Slash. Slash Slash adds two slashes of bricks to the opponent's board.

• Slothy Guard Stance
  For each of the next 2 pieces, stops up to 5 lines from being added to your board.
  
  
• Swift My Sword
  Removes the top 3 lines of your board.
  
  
• Slash Slash
  Adds two slashes of bricks to the top of the opponent's board.
  
  
• Thrust of 9000+
  For 2 pieces, any clear will trigger all blocks to cascade downwards if there is empty space. When active, this will prevent magic orbs and exploder blocks from dropping.

• Rafael's Lingering Intermezzo Duration Reduced from 5 turns to 4

• Panic Mode text now has transparency for better visibility

• Memory Allocation Performance has been greatly improved
  
• Misc Crash fixes