[Edit: Uploaded 2015.06.30 to fix a crash involving dragging minions over heroic champions! This was the root cause of most of the recent crash reports (it could happen very quickly, so it may even have seemed like you were just clicking a floor or hero).]

I wouldn't normally consider this substantial enough to warrant an update, but some of the changes I made today may make the game a little more stable.

Lately, I've received some troubling crash reports that have been irreplicable on my end, so I spent today investigating this issue; in doing so, I addressed some performance bottlenecks, reduced memory usage, and just generally cleaned up code. I have no reason to believe that this will definitely resolve any issues, but perhaps it may help someone.

If you are still experiencing regular crashes and can spare some time, I am looking for someone who can help me troubleshoot them; go ahead and send me a Steam friend request and drop me a message, and I'll work with you on resolving any issues.

Last night was my least popular update ever. If you disagree with any changes and want to discuss them, let me know; I really want you all to be a part of the game's evolution! That said, I actually decided to reduced the trap costs back to their original prices in this update, because it felt a little overkill on top of the other changes. We'll see if they stay that way.

As this is the second underwhelming update in a row, I now owe you all extra content in the next one =). (Unless the next one is some miracle panacea for random crashes, because that would be important enough to forgo content.)

Changes:

• Trap costs reduced to original prices (about 2 resources less than in 2015.06.29)
  
• "Humanoid" trait has been changed to "Biped," as that is essentially what the trait is for (so necromancers don't raise wolves as bipedal skeletons)

Fixes:

• Worker champs could continue working after being stationed on other floors
  
• Numerous performance tweaks and improvements (the vast majority of which should not be directly noticeable)

[Edit: Uploaded 2015.06.30 to fix a crash involving dragging minions over heroic champions! This was the root cause of most of the recent crash reports (it could happen very quickly, so it may even have seemed like you were just clicking a floor or hero).]

I wouldn't normally consider this substantial enough to warrant an update, but some of the changes I made today may make the game a little more stable.

Lately, I've received some troubling crash reports that have been irreplicable on my end, so I spent today investigating this issue; in doing so, I addressed some performance bottlenecks, reduced memory usage, and just generally cleaned up code. I have no reason to believe that this will definitely resolve any issues, but perhaps it may help someone.

If you are still experiencing regular crashes and can spare some time, I am looking for someone who can help me troubleshoot them; go ahead and send me a Steam friend request and drop me a message, and I'll work with you on resolving any issues.

Last night was my least popular update ever. If you disagree with any changes and want to discuss them, let me know; I really want you all to be a part of the game's evolution! That said, I actually decided to reduced the trap costs back to their original prices in this update, because it felt a little overkill on top of the other changes. We'll see if they stay that way.

As this is the second underwhelming update in a row, I now owe you all extra content in the next one =). (Unless the next one is some miracle panacea for random crashes, because that would be important enough to forgo content.)

Changes:

• Trap costs reduced to original prices (about 2 resources less than in 2015.06.29)
  
• "Humanoid" trait has been changed to "Biped," as that is essentially what the trait is for (so necromancers don't raise wolves as bipedal skeletons)

Fixes:

• Worker champs could continue working after being stationed on other floors
  
• Numerous performance tweaks and improvements (the vast majority of which should not be directly noticeable)

[Edit: Uploaded 2015.05.29b to fix a few bugs created by a file that was inadvertently reverted right before I updated. Sorry if you experienced anything bizarre over the hour it was live!]

Over the last few days, I've seen some very dedicated players achieve ridiculous scores by legacying in a huge dungeon with a lot of traps and actually having a very easy time of it. While it was challenging to reach that point, once you got there, it wasn't difficult to keep it going.

Traps are really only one part of the imbalance, but while I tweaked other things here, the trap changes will be most noticeable. Up until the last couple updates, there weren't really that many trap floors in the game, so testing on such a grand scale was difficult, and balancing even moreso. In this update, I have introduced defensive exceptions to traps; every trap can be ignored by heroes who have the right defense. For example, the recent Deadfall floor can be safely traversed by agility-based heroes. This means roughly one third of heroes are immune to any given trap.

Additionally, a couple of heroes (the Gnomish Engineer and one of the new ones below) will disable traps on floors that they pass through (this is a temporary effect; your traps are restored after these characters have passed.

Finally, all traps are now slightly more expensive (2 extra resources).

This update also reduces the maximum legacy caps for floors and champions to 10 apiece, so plan wisely. The maximum resource cap has been reduced to 50. The resource cap bonus for completing rituals has been reduced by 1, so it takes longer to increase caps across playthroughs. But on the plus side, I've reduced the cost of many floors that required 25 of a resource to 22 or 24.

All of this and a couple of other small balance tweaks and bug fixes. Please continue letting me know how it plays for you, because I need a wide range of opinions and experience levels to help me make the game feel better for everyone! Thank you ːtotbaconː.

Oh, and there's a newish hero pack: Hunters. The Human Archer has been rebranded as a Human Hunter, and he's joined by a Dwarven Trapper and a Faithful Hound. If you previously earned the Archer prophecy, you will have to re-earn this one; it is initiated by the Snarling Snare. The Archer was one of the early heroes, before I started introducing them in packs of three; there are a couple of other hero prophecies that may get some company in the near future, too.

One again, I invite you to please consider posting a screenshot of the game to help me update the storefront and increase the diversity of images presented there; I'm offering sponsorship credits!

Additions:

• New Hero: Dwarven Trapper (can disable traps, also fatigues agile characters with his crossbow)
  
• New Hero: Faithful Hound (the first Beast hero)
  
• "Trapped" icon to trapped floor nameplates
  
• Traps can now be disabled by special heroes
  
• Each trap has a defensive exception that allows a hero with that type of defense to ignore the trap's effects
  
• Added option to disable the tutorial (disabling and re-enabling it will effectively restart the tutorial)
  
• Added failsafe loss condition: if the Sanctum reaches a maximum occupancy of 50 characters, the game will end (Fire Marshal ending)

Changes:

• Increased brightness of potential matches while sliding tiles, and made them flash a little
  
• Reduced resource cap to 50
  
• Reduced cap bonus for completing rituals by one point
  
• Reduced some floor prices that were over the default resource cap
  
• Limit of 10 legacy floor and 10 legacy champions
  
• Slightly increased cost of traps
  
• Rebalanced some banners (most were nerfed slightly; some effects were expanded to affect heroes as well as your minions)
  
• Difficulty ramp skips ahead a bit every 5 levels
  
• The Tyrant is now always included in a Sanctum fight (previously, you could throw all your champs down there and hope that the Tyrant was never "picked" to be in a fight)

Fixes:

• Fixed a few more legacy loading inconsistencies
  
• Corrected some formatting issues in the Codex
  
• Removed some test entries from the help topics glossary
  
• Addressed a cosmetic transition glitch in the lava layer of the background

[Edit: Uploaded 2015.05.29b to fix a few bugs created by a file that was inadvertently reverted right before I updated. Sorry if you experienced anything bizarre over the hour it was live!]

Over the last few days, I've seen some very dedicated players achieve ridiculous scores by legacying in a huge dungeon with a lot of traps and actually having a very easy time of it. While it was challenging to reach that point, once you got there, it wasn't difficult to keep it going.

Traps are really only one part of the imbalance, but while I tweaked other things here, the trap changes will be most noticeable. Up until the last couple updates, there weren't really that many trap floors in the game, so testing on such a grand scale was difficult, and balancing even moreso. In this update, I have introduced defensive exceptions to traps; every trap can be ignored by heroes who have the right defense. For example, the recent Deadfall floor can be safely traversed by agility-based heroes. This means roughly one third of heroes are immune to any given trap.

Additionally, a couple of heroes (the Gnomish Engineer and one of the new ones below) will disable traps on floors that they pass through (this is a temporary effect; your traps are restored after these characters have passed.

Finally, all traps are now slightly more expensive (2 extra resources).

This update also reduces the maximum legacy caps for floors and champions to 10 apiece, so plan wisely. The maximum resource cap has been reduced to 50. The resource cap bonus for completing rituals has been reduced by 1, so it takes longer to increase caps across playthroughs. But on the plus side, I've reduced the cost of many floors that required 25 of a resource to 22 or 24.

All of this and a couple of other small balance tweaks and bug fixes. Please continue letting me know how it plays for you, because I need a wide range of opinions and experience levels to help me make the game feel better for everyone! Thank you :totbacon:.

Oh, and there's a newish hero pack: Hunters. The Human Archer has been rebranded as a Human Hunter, and he's joined by a Dwarven Trapper and a Faithful Hound. If you previously earned the Archer prophecy, you will have to re-earn this one; it is initiated by the Snarling Snare. The Archer was one of the early heroes, before I started introducing them in packs of three; there are a couple of other hero prophecies that may get some company in the near future, too.

One again, I invite you to please consider posting a screenshot of the game to help me update the storefront and increase the diversity of images presented there; I'm offering sponsorship credits!

Additions:

• New Hero: Dwarven Trapper (can disable traps, also fatigues agile characters with his crossbow)
  
• New Hero: Faithful Hound (the first Beast hero)
  
• "Trapped" icon to trapped floor nameplates
  
• Traps can now be disabled by special heroes
  
• Each trap has a defensive exception that allows a hero with that type of defense to ignore the trap's effects
  
• Added option to disable the tutorial (disabling and re-enabling it will effectively restart the tutorial)
  
• Added failsafe loss condition: if the Sanctum reaches a maximum occupancy of 50 characters, the game will end (Fire Marshal ending)

Changes:

• Increased brightness of potential matches while sliding tiles, and made them flash a little
  
• Reduced resource cap to 50
  
• Reduced cap bonus for completing rituals by one point
  
• Reduced some floor prices that were over the default resource cap
  
• Limit of 10 legacy floor and 10 legacy champions
  
• Slightly increased cost of traps
  
• Rebalanced some banners (most were nerfed slightly; some effects were expanded to affect heroes as well as your minions)
  
• Difficulty ramp skips ahead a bit every 5 levels
  
• The Tyrant is now always included in a Sanctum fight (previously, you could throw all your champs down there and hope that the Tyrant was never "picked" to be in a fight)

Fixes:

• Fixed a few more legacy loading inconsistencies
  
• Corrected some formatting issues in the Codex
  
• Removed some test entries from the help topics glossary
  
• Addressed a cosmetic transition glitch in the lava layer of the background

Today's new floor is the Dreadful Deadfall, another trap floor, but this time, it's direct damage from the Goblin tree.

I also moved the codex close button up to the top of the bookmarks--because that's closer to where people expect close buttons to be--, addressed some legacy inconsistencies, made legibility adjustments to the "handwritten" font, and fixed several other things. Thank you for all of the suggestions and assistance with diagnosing some of these bugs!

One again, I invite you to please consider posting a screenshot of the game to help me update the storefront and increase the diversity of images presented there; I'm offering sponsorship credits!

Additions:

• New trap floor: the Dreadful Deadfall

Changes:

• Lots of little adjustments to the "handwritten" font, to improve legibility
  
• Moved "close codex" to top of bookmarks, to be closer to the upper right, where people expect close buttons to live
  
• Legacy candidates now display a gray lock icon rather than a gold one, when they have not yet been locked into your legacy

Fixes:

• Legacied champs could bring their fatigue and some other statuses into the next game; they should now be restored to normal
  
• Pool prophecy wasn't appearing at the right time
  
• Inconsistencies with legacied resources, between continuing a new game or relaunching the game
  
• Legacied resources that were are less than the starting minimum were not getting restored to the starting minimum at the end of the game
  
• Controller input was still being processed sometimes, causing some things to wig out a bit, as controllers are not currently supported (they will be again in the near future)
  
• Frightened characters were not behaving as intended
  
• Game wasn't booting up with the view quite centered, causing a small camera jump to the left after hitting "Play" for the first time
  
• Hoard tiles weren't fully colored in the title screen when first starting up the game (only noticeable with DHV enabled)

Today's new floor is the Dreadful Deadfall, another trap floor, but this time, it's direct damage from the Goblin tree.

I also moved the codex close button up to the top of the bookmarks--because that's closer to where people expect close buttons to be--, addressed some legacy inconsistencies, made legibility adjustments to the "handwritten" font, and fixed several other things. Thank you for all of the suggestions and assistance with diagnosing some of these bugs!

One again, I invite you to please consider posting a screenshot of the game to help me update the storefront and increase the diversity of images presented there; I'm offering sponsorship credits!

Additions:

• New trap floor: the Dreadful Deadfall

Changes:

• Lots of little adjustments to the "handwritten" font, to improve legibility
  
• Moved "close codex" to top of bookmarks, to be closer to the upper right, where people expect close buttons to live
  
• Legacy candidates now display a gray lock icon rather than a gold one, when they have not yet been locked into your legacy

Fixes:

• Legacied champs could bring their fatigue and some other statuses into the next game; they should now be restored to normal
  
• Pool prophecy wasn't appearing at the right time
  
• Inconsistencies with legacied resources, between continuing a new game or relaunching the game
  
• Legacied resources that were are less than the starting minimum were not getting restored to the starting minimum at the end of the game
  
• Controller input was still being processed sometimes, causing some things to wig out a bit, as controllers are not currently supported (they will be again in the near future)
  
• Frightened characters were not behaving as intended
  
• Game wasn't booting up with the view quite centered, causing a small camera jump to the left after hitting "Play" for the first time
  
• Hoard tiles weren't fully colored in the title screen when first starting up the game (only noticeable with DHV enabled)

Yay! I'm back to naming updates after actual content, rather than after bug fixes or just general things I worked on! This update fixes several things, makes many adjustments to tutorials, UI, and plots, and adds one new floor: the Pulsating Pool, a trap floor that inflicts shadow damage and fear!

I want to thank everyone who picked up the game today, and especially those who gave me feedback! It was a very busy day for me, but I've incorporated many of your suggestions and reports into this update. Thank you!

I have had a few people mention that they feel the game is too easy, and as a result, I've altered the tutorial to turn off Casual Mode sooner. Because there's a lot of alien stuff being thrown at new players, Casual Mode is enabled by default, but is eventually disabled by the tutorial when it thinks you are doing well enough (and now, it alternatively does it after four games). If you feel that the game is too easy or it's not as frantic as you'd hoped, Casual Mode is probably still turned on, and you should disable it =).

Also, please consider posting a screenshot of the game to help me update the storefront and increase the diversity of images presented there; I'm offering sponsorship credits!

Additions:

• New Floor: Pulsating Pool (Requires Dwelling--trap floor that deals shadow damage and inflicts fear)
  
• Alternative Casual Mode tutorial entry that disables Casual Mode after four or five games--you are then free to turn it back on, if you prefer a more leisurely pace
  
• Added a few sponsors to the codex/credits

Changes:

• No more four-member starter hero party when bringing in legacied floors/champs (made for kind of a slow start)
  
• Characters drop more tiles when the Hoard is emptier
  
• Reduced some early prophecy requirements so new players unlock things like the Cordial faster
  
• Most tutorial entries now pause the game when they are triggered
  
• Closing tutorial entries resumes the game
  
• The "Close" button on tutorial entries is now a "Continue" checkmark (a better visual cue that you are meant to click it)
  
• Revised the wording of many tutorial entries
  
• "Top Off Your Resource Pools" plot is now easier--you don't have to max everything, just get close

Fixes:

• Some UI interactions could bleed through the dedicated Hoard view when it was over the Surface
  
• Floors were using standard pricing to determine visibility in the Floor UI, even in Casual Mode where they cost less (they were charging the appropriate amount, though)
  
• The game now unpauses when restarting (previously only happened if you paused and then Usurped)
  
• Manually positioning the codex could cause it to behave strangely for a moment after closing the pause menu with the codex open
  
• When dedicated Hoard view was disabled, it was sometimes still possible to grab tiles on the left
  
• If a legacied champ was out pillaging when the game ended, the pillaging timer continued to tick down, even though the champ is instantly moved to the Sanctum
  
• Starting up the game with several legacied floors caused the tile queue to play catch-up for a few moments
  
• Changing to casual mode with a plot in progress will remove the plot immediately, rather than waiting it out

Yay! I'm back to naming updates after actual content, rather than after bug fixes or just general things I worked on! This update fixes several things, makes many adjustments to tutorials, UI, and plots, and adds one new floor: the Pulsating Pool, a trap floor that inflicts shadow damage and fear!

I want to thank everyone who picked up the game today, and especially those who gave me feedback! It was a very busy day for me, but I've incorporated many of your suggestions and reports into this update. Thank you!

I have had a few people mention that they feel the game is too easy, and as a result, I've altered the tutorial to turn off Casual Mode sooner. Because there's a lot of alien stuff being thrown at new players, Casual Mode is enabled by default, but is eventually disabled by the tutorial when it thinks you are doing well enough (and now, it alternatively does it after four games). If you feel that the game is too easy or it's not as frantic as you'd hoped, Casual Mode is probably still turned on, and you should disable it =).

Also, please consider posting a screenshot of the game to help me update the storefront and increase the diversity of images presented there; I'm offering sponsorship credits!

Additions:

• New Floor: Pulsating Pool (Requires Dwelling--trap floor that deals shadow damage and inflicts fear)
  
• Alternative Casual Mode tutorial entry that disables Casual Mode after four or five games--you are then free to turn it back on, if you prefer a more leisurely pace
  
• Added a few sponsors to the codex/credits

Changes:

• No more four-member starter hero party when bringing in legacied floors/champs (made for kind of a slow start)
  
• Characters drop more tiles when the Hoard is emptier
  
• Reduced some early prophecy requirements so new players unlock things like the Cordial faster
  
• Most tutorial entries now pause the game when they are triggered
  
• Closing tutorial entries resumes the game
  
• The "Close" button on tutorial entries is now a "Continue" checkmark (a better visual cue that you are meant to click it)
  
• Revised the wording of many tutorial entries
  
• "Top Off Your Resource Pools" plot is now easier--you don't have to max everything, just get close

Fixes:

• Some UI interactions could bleed through the dedicated Hoard view when it was over the Surface
  
• Floors were using standard pricing to determine visibility in the Floor UI, even in Casual Mode where they cost less (they were charging the appropriate amount, though)
  
• The game now unpauses when restarting (previously only happened if you paused and then Usurped)
  
• Manually positioning the codex could cause it to behave strangely for a moment after closing the pause menu with the codex open
  
• When dedicated Hoard view was disabled, it was sometimes still possible to grab tiles on the left
  
• If a legacied champ was out pillaging when the game ended, the pillaging timer continued to tick down, even though the champ is instantly moved to the Sanctum
  
• Starting up the game with several legacied floors caused the tile queue to play catch-up for a few moments
  
• Changing to casual mode with a plot in progress will remove the plot immediately, rather than waiting it out

This is the game's first standard release. I am transitioning out of beta and Early Access and into the, well, not "full" or "complete" release, because I expect to greatly expand the game's content over the coming months, but I think "standard" release is an okay term. This update adds a new glossary of general help topics (around 30 of them) to the Codex.

Mechanically, the game is really about where I expected it to be upon release; there are a few things that didn't quite make the cut, and there are other things that were added that I hadn't originally planned on, but overall, I'm pretty satisfied with how far the game has come and where it is now.

That said, there is plenty I still want to do with the game, and some of that depends on you, the community! Just because we're exiting Early Access doesn't mean I'm done listening to your feedback; the game wouldn't be what it is now without all of your opinions, suggestions, bug reports, and support, so thank you ːtotcordialː! Please continue telling me what you enjoy, what you'd like to see more of, and what needs work!

Also, please consider taking and posting a screenshot of the game to help me update the storefront and increase the diversity of images presented there; I'm offering sponsorship credits!

Additions:

• Help topics glossary
  
• About 30 general help topics

Changes:

• Scorching Scrapheaps now requires the Furnace and the Junkyard (making it significantly more rare--been meaning to do this for some time, though)
  
• Resource pools are hard capped at 99, just in case

Fixes:

• Right-clicking on the rituals in the dedicated Hoard view did not open the ritual topic in the Codex

This is the game's first standard release. I am transitioning out of beta and Early Access and into the, well, not "full" or "complete" release, because I expect to greatly expand the game's content over the coming months, but I think "standard" release is an okay term. This update adds a new glossary of general help topics (around 30 of them) to the Codex.

Mechanically, the game is really about where I expected it to be upon release; there are a few things that didn't quite make the cut, and there are other things that were added that I hadn't originally planned on, but overall, I'm pretty satisfied with how far the game has come and where it is now.

That said, there is plenty I still want to do with the game, and some of that depends on you, the community! Just because we're exiting Early Access doesn't mean I'm done listening to your feedback; the game wouldn't be what it is now without all of your opinions, suggestions, bug reports, and support, so thank you :totcordial:! Please continue telling me what you enjoy, what you'd like to see more of, and what needs work!

Also, please consider taking and posting a screenshot of the game to help me update the storefront and increase the diversity of images presented there; I'm offering sponsorship credits!

Additions:

• Help topics glossary
  
• About 30 general help topics

Changes:

• Scorching Scrapheaps now requires the Furnace and the Junkyard (making it significantly more rare--been meaning to do this for some time, though)
  
• Resource pools are hard capped at 99, just in case

Fixes:

• Right-clicking on the rituals in the dedicated Hoard view did not open the ritual topic in the Codex