Reki here. Today's update is the beginning of an effort to give the game some more direction for the player. That effort, I call "Curse Cards". You can find Curse Cards as drops from enemies. You can then view them in equip mode. Each has a unique name, and will list a challenge for you to complete. Once you have completed the challenge, you can toggle the card on and off and it'll add a difficulty mod to the area.

At the moment, there are only cards for killing bosses, one for each area. The difficulty mod of all these is to unlock the "giga" mode of each boss. Giga mode triples the boss's health, gives it new attacks, and changes its color. Only the Krunki Garden giga boss is fully complete at the moment, the rest do not have additional attacks yet. Rest assured, they will all be given a brutally challenging, but fair giga mode.

In other news, I have obtained all the software necessary to make fonts, so expect at least one new font to be added to the game at some point, created by me, one more suitable for the game's small resolution than the current one with weird thick lines. Also, I intend to begin adding the soundtrack to the game next week no matter what, please look forward to it.

Happy Halloween!


CONTENT:
- Added Curse Cards to every area.
- Overhauled all boss text.
- Dramatic screen darkening effect added to all boss intros, and removed the same effect from Bandit Warlord encounter.
- Added Stemmie Heart.


GAMEPLAY TWEAKS:
- Merged all potion delivery cats into one that drops a random potion, as they were simply too widespread.
- Pet now snaps into position upon entering equip mode.
- Pet will now drop the item it was carrying upon death.
- You can now block during regular attacks, or cancel into a finisher.


FIXES:
- Made crosshair collision smaller so it doesn't touch multiple buttons in menu.
- Fixed a crash with Boggot bullets.
- Priko Heart passive tail no longer disappears between areas.
- Updated code involving fire effect spreading.
- Fixed some bugs involving reviving bosses.
- Fixed a bug with bouncy status effect bouncing you while midair.

Reki here. Now that a lot of irritating things are finished, it is time to add and polish content. This update is pretty big, I'll try to summarize the important changes... The final area is accessible, there are some new monster hearts and revamped old ones, some new creatures in various areas, changing your color with scraps looks a lot nicer, and the one-button directional attack option now works with dual wield mode. Uhh, I think that's all the major stuff. The game's in a better state than it's ever been. For the future, a soundtrack is still coming, I'm planning on a feature to give proper objectives, and of course, just more of everything. Please enjoy the update.



CONTENT:
- Finished basic level design of Dawn and added creatures. Three of these were repurposed from the old tutorial, two are brand new.
- Added an unused parasite to Skungus Wilds.
- Added an unused parasite to Belly of the Comet God.
- Added a new fish to Dustyhag Mines, and a water section for it to spawn in.
- Rorus now jumps and moves back while shooting.
- Pudon Heart trigger now fires a projectile to apply its status effect.
- Pingpi Heart trigger now creates a projectile destroying circle.
- Boggot Heart undead and ghosts now die after a while. The undead also knock the player and creatures upwards.
- Winged-Ruru Heart trigger and passive overhauled.
- Biter Heart trigger now has a unique visual.
- Added Amu Heart.
- Added Boofrog Heart.
- Added Poi Heart.
- Further improvements to albino visuals.
- Changing your color with scraps now properly hue shifts. This means that those color changes will be as balanced looking as the original colors were.
- Added pumpkins to halloween event areas.
- Tutorial now shows controller prompts when applicable.
- Familiar Shrine now has unique tiles.
- Equipping a key now displays a needle pointing to the correct area to use it.


GAMEPLAY TWEAKS:
- The directional attack option now works in dual wield mode in addition to single.
- Monster projectiles will now hurt other monsters that aren't the intended target.
- Pudons will receive the spiky status effect if they try to grow another spike when all 3 are already grown.
- Items will now disappear after being offscreen too long.
- Maffpap Heart trigger buffed.
- Bootle Heart trigger buffed.
- Wumworm Heart trigger now only deactivates when you press jump.
- Added some measures to stop status effects from spamming sounds and notifications when quickly applied and removed.



FIXES:
- Cornet shouldn't get stuck biting any more.
- Fixed small water puddles not splashing.
- Otimized code for spawning cells as it was some of the oldest in the game.
- Thorns now show status and damage particles.
- Fixed crash when involving pet's inventory being open when entering a different area.
- Made blocking more consistent for both the player and enemies.
- Fixed some leftover code in the tutorial that was sometimes stealing weapons and armor.
- Marked a ton of stuff as enemy projectiles so they work with interactions.
- Fixed Ultimate Weapon Strend getting stuck in the floor after being revived.
- Probably fixed Ultimate Weapon Strend somehow spawning tons of spinning platforms upon death.
- Fixed Priko not dropping its heart.

Reki here. As promised, there was no update last week. There almost wasn't one this week as well, since I was enjoying myself reading my extensive vampire romance novel collection and forgot about it. However, I managed to desperately cobble together something at the last minute. It is the largest update I've done thus far. Lemme break it down.

The main new feature is the new tutorial. The old tutorial area is totally gone. I hated it and I deleted it. You just start in Kiriki Garden now. It explains the basics of combat and item management. It still needs some polish and doesn't go over absolutely everything, but there's more to come in future updates. I hope that new players will at least be able to survive.

The other major thing is the halloween event. It will run through the rest of October.

Other than that, there are a ton of tweaks that I hope will make for a better general experience. A lot of undocumented or background changes. Some of them very major, very secret things. For instance, the final area is starting to be built, and you can even see a little bit of it, though it's been left not accessible for the most part. And a DJ ai is being built to handle playing music in an intelligent way for when the soundtrack is ready enough to begin adding. Very secret.

Anyways, I'm sure there are some bugs with such a big update, so I'll leave it there and get back to work. Please enjoy.


CONTENT:
- Added a new tutorial.
- Added an event for Halloween.
- Grong-Sages were probably the most boring and dumb creature in the game. All they did was walk around and grow grass, but you could barely even tell that was what they were doing. Their ai has been entirely redone, and their sprites expanded upon.
- Added a new armor to Belly of the Comet God.
- Added a new armor to Bakyarl Prison.
- Bakyarl Prisoner renamed to Yellow-Weight Prisoner, finishing move buffed with shockwaves and gravity adjusted.
- Archive Scholar finishing move no longer drops you to the ground, and raises more spikes.
- Comet Green finishing move now throws another needle behind you.
- Bandit Warlord finishing move now damages all through the attack, not just when it lands.
- Added description to Iron Bruiser.
- Added a new NPC.
- Added a random event to Kiriki Garden to re-obtain starting equipment in case it is lost.
- Added a new weapon to start the game with alongside Boon.
- Re-distributed all the items from the old tutorial across the world.
- Albino creatures look a bit nicer now.


GAMEPLAY TWEAKS:
- Sources of status effects have been adjusted to only apply the effect once in some cases, and will emit blue particles.
- Plague Shield goo size increased slightly for better visibility.
- Friendly fire has been removed on most, if not all creatures spawned by the ecosystem. This was mostly a case with projectiles. This will make a lot of creatures much better pets. However, as a side effect, monsters won't be able to hit each other by accident any more. Will be further adjusted in the future to allow friendly fire on other monsters again.
- Player is now damage immune during any finishing move. This may change, but was done because some finishing moves have the player make contact with enemies, not meshing well with contact damaging enemies. It was applied to all of them to set even expectations across the board.
- Boibe population cap increased to 16 because I like them.


FIXES:

- Fixed an issue with delivery cats not dropping potions.
- Fixed some bugs with sleep status effect not resolving correctly.

Reki here. Weekly update as usual. Next week, there will certainly be no update. Some good stuff in this one though. The last area boss other than the finale of the game, for one. Of course, some bosses still need polish, and I can think of one in particular that needs a larger overhaul, but in general I am satisfied with the variety of bossfights.

I hadn't ever created a boss in a game before Blessed Surface. Well, I didn't create any games at all before Blessed Surface. But I think I've gotten more confident at making bosses. The first few times I tried, I wasted my time giving them huge movesets with hundreds of frames of animation, only to scrap most of the attacks. It's much more natural now, just planning a some moves and how the boss flows between them.

Anyways, just polish, new tutorial, more random events and creatures, the soundtrack, and then the finale of the game. And I will consider Blessed Surface complete. There's still a lot, but the end is in sight. The first game I started working on. And other than cutting a few areas during the decision to enter Early Access and race to the end, I think it has become what I wanted to make. Thanks for the support.


CONTENT:

- Added Holy Cathedral of Dust Boss.
- Added one new aquatic creature each to Kiriki Garden, Cemetery of Bells, Grom wall, and Bakyarl Prison, and adjusted level design to include some pools of water for them to spawn.
- Plague-Blocking Shield directional attack has been overhauled. You can now block with it, then attack with your other weapon.
- Battery slot visuals updated.
- Added some sound effects.


GAMEPLAY TWEAKS:

- The falloff of sound effects has been adjusted. No longer should sounds be a huge amount louder when close to you, it's more subtle now. However, many effects require adjustment now, which will be done in future updates.
- Damage is now capped on most things so that they can only deal damage every so often. Hopefully this means that poorly programmed damage sources doing hundreds of damage to creatures within seconds will no longer be a thing.
- Buffed Grachi Heart.
- Boofrog behavior updated.
- Curse Charges now disappear on their own without any special curse equipment.


FIXES:

- Fixed that under certain circumstances, invasive species would get their populations set to 49 instead of being removed from the area.
- Fixed inaccurate visuals when monsters heal.
- Bosses behave a bit better when the player hasn't entered their arena yet.

Reki here. Still sick, but here's an update anyways. Totally gonna take next week off, for real this time. Thinking hard about new tutorial and Cathedral boss, but in the meantime, it's time to start filling the world with more events, landmarks, and creatures, and polishing any subpar existing content. Gotta start working on the finale of the game soon, too. While I do intend to fill this world with plenty of content, the end is in sight. It's a lot easier putting meat on a skeleton rather than creating a skeleton from scratch. There's a lot to do, but the scope has been set and it's very achievable.

CONTENT:

- Added 6 potions, each found in a certain type of random event. A certain one of these potions can be used to remove your familiar.
- Added Blue Scrap.
- Added Yellow Scrap.
- Added Purple Scrap.

GAMEPLAY TWEAKS:

- Adjusted some level design at Cemetery of Bells, Belly of the Comet God, Flooded Passages, Dustyhag Mines, and Holy Cathedral of Dust.
- Added a second gravestone to Flooded Passages
- Hag Lamonte renamed to Crone Lamonte to avoid confusion with Dustyhag Mines.
- Frozen status effect no longer freezes you in place while in water, just slows you like it would outside water.
- Removed some daily bosses for now, to be inspected for visual/mechanical quality. The remaining ones were made rare events, up from uncommon events.
- Removed all but one Well Shrine.
- Vertical, downwards knockback no longer interferes with gravity.

FIXES:

- The effect that plays after eating a heart now releases the correct color of blood.
- Fixed death messages appearing when the player wasn't actually dead.
- Fixed a typo with consuming Red Scrap.
- Fixed an issue causing the player to appear lighter colored than usual.

Reki here. Last week I lied and said there wouldn't be an update this week, but there totally is one. Just some fun/quality of life stuff. I thought up a way to do a pet system early this week, so I had to do it, so I did it, and then I kept thinking of other stuff I wanted to change real quick and it turned into a proper update. Next week will actually be no update.

CONTENT:

- The Familiar Shrine has been added to Great Grom Wall. Any egg hatched there will become your familiar. Familiars will follow you, attack enemies, and can carry an item. However, they need to be fed once a week, or they will starve to death.

- Scraps are now consumables that allow you to change your color. The color change is reset when you consume another scrap of the same color. You can also change the color of your familiar's ribbon.

- Updated visuals of Great Grom Wall wind traps to make them more distinct looking from the area's waterfalls.

GAMEPLAY TWEAKS:

- Item names now appear above the player when grabbed in equip mode.

- Increased chance of eggs spawning.

- Large creature can now lay eggs too, to increase the amount of possible Familiars.

- Items, NPCs, and other objects you can read more about now display a small talk prompt.

- Edible items are now labelled so in equip mode.

- Added text describing the effects when consuming some edible items.

- Shellbug Bludgeon is now found inside a chest.

FIXES:

- Small amounts of horizontal knockback, like Grom wind traps and Rotprawns, are no longer cancelled out when moving in the same direction. This makes them a lot smoother.

- Balloon Gunner can pick up things more reliably now.

- Start can no longer be rebound on controller, since the pause menu needs it.

Reki here. Controller rebinding is here too. And a boatload of other stuff I did while I was procrastinating working on controller rebinding, because it was kind of a pain. Some pretty bad crashes fixed, and I discovered the ecosystem was going totally berserk with invasive species. It's really hard to catch stuff like that, that doesn't outright crash the game. After fixing and testing more carefully to make sure it didn't happen again, I can say that I'm pretty happy with the ecosystem's balance. It's about how I envisioned it now. Anyways, please enjoy this update. Next, I'll likely be working on an improved tutorial, as I have some ideas for that. I'm kind of sick though, so I'm gonna say no update next week. Hopefully this update is big enough to make up for it.

CONTENT:

- Controller rebinding

- Added a new creature to Belly of the Comet God.

- A new gunner drops from Fossil's Passage boss.

- A new gunner drops from Belly of the Comet God boss.

- A new gunner drops from Dustyhag Mine boss.

- A new gunner drops from Bakyarl Prison boss.

- A new gunner drops from Skungus Wilds boss.

- Updated visuals of Rusty Gunner (formerly Kiriki Gunner).

- Updated visuals for quick status effect.

- Updated visuals for spiky status effect.

- Updated visuals for floaty status effect.

- Updated visuals for bouncy status effect.

- Updated visuals for energized status effect.

- Updated visuals for rotten status effect.

- Updated visuals for and renamed Fossil's Basin (formerly Fossil's Passage).

- Added Bootle Heart trigger ability, and added a visual for its passive, as well as a couple tweaks to make it more usable.

- Added plants to Skungus Wilds.

- Chests now glow yellow when unlooted, or green when an item is stored in them.


GAMEPLAY TWEAKS:

- The cursor is no longer confined to an area around the player, free to go wherever on the screen, whenever. Except in gunner mode.

- Improved accuracy of gunner mode crosshair. A trickier process than one might think, due to the necessity of moving the actual mouse cursor rather than an object in-game, since you can switch between manual and auto target modes.

- Rusty Gunner now drops from Kiriki Garden boss.

- Status effects now state their effects in the bottom text bar, and several have new names.

- Brambles in Kiriki Garden now inflict bleed.

- Chain-Walker max population lowered.

- Crab Lord lasts a little longer, and cannot hurt other Crab Lords.

- Moldguts will no longer enter their shooting phase if there is a ceiling directly above them.

- Switched chest locations of Book of Decay and Seed Alembic.

- Moved cell spawn away from Skungus Wilds boss locks.

- Removed light effects from Creslug and lanterns.

- Cemetery of Bells boss will make sure to spawn minions closer sometimes.

- Cemetery of Bells boss now only changes direction upon being hit in phase 2 if it is rolling away from you.

- Cemetery of Bells boss health increased slightly.

- Lowered amount of creature spawns in Belly of the Comet God.


FIXES:

- Fixed a horrific bug that caused hundreds of invasive species to fill areas and destroy any meaning to the ecosystem balance. Those hundreds of invasive species will still be present in saves, so either a save wipe or a hell of a lot of monster hunting will be required to get numbers down to what they should be.

- Monster hearts no longer change their blood type when retreived from storage.

- Fixed crashes when killing Flooded Passages and Grom Wall bosses.

- Fixed a crash involving certain monsters dying to things other than player.

- Fixed bleed not saving or resolving properly.

- Fixed a whole bunch of other status effect related problems.

- Made Butterfruit Beans less slippery.

- Creature hearts no longer lose their consumability when changing areas.

- Creatures should be slightly more resilient to getting stuck in walls when turning.

- Fixed a bug with Cemetery of Bells boss where the caps to its minions were not working.

- Chubo perk now works properly when submerged.

- Fixed a bug with chests involving not getting your item back after putting the original item in after removing a stored item.

- Fixed that single wield directional attack option would disappear on controller.

- Fixed controller vibration carrying over to pause screen.

Reki here. A decent size update this week. The Bakyarl Prison boss as promised, but also Belly of the Comet God has been overhauled, two npcs have been set loose, and a bunch of other junk. Likely will be focusing on a tutorial overhaul now, with some loose bits of content here and there. A tutorial is probably the most painful thing to develop, so it may take time.

CONTENT:
- Added area boss to Bakyarl Prison. Some graphics and polish may not be finished, but I hope this more melee focused boss will be enjoyed.
- Added Drillbot random event to Fossil's Passage
- Bell-Worm Heart trigger ability added.
- Ruru Heart trigger ability added.
- Rotprawn Heart passive ability added.
- There are now death messages, which usually tell you what killed you.
- Overhauled much of Belly of the Comet God level design and tilesets.
- A couple NPCs can be found now.

GAMEPLAY TWEAKS:
- Switch Schwiver cleaver mode self knockback adjusted.
- Passive heart abilities are no longer active when killed or fast traveling.
- Increased size of Iron Bruiser finisher hitbox.
- Curse Charges now save upon exiting the game, and are capped at 30.
- Player is now immune to damage during Curse Dweller finishing move.
- Bright Mode alignment is no longer affected by using finishing moves. It is purely determined by how you deal with receiving damage now.
- Only creatures spawned by the ecosystem can drop hearts now.
- Halved Dubble's rate of fire for ice cube breath.
- Dubble health lowered from 10 to 7.
- Boofrogs now deal damage.
- Increased Knight Kyrha's health to 150 for the difficulty to be more in line with the other bosses. While it's a hectic fight, it's easy to get a lot of damage in during the beam phase.
- Lowered Kyrha's damage threshold before using ice pillar attack.
- Kyrha will no longer be stuck in the floor when revived.
- Kyrha now drops a small corpse instead of a big one.
- Altered Rorus projectile sprite.
- Added progress bar and soul counter for spots you can spend souls at.
- Gold Coins now use the same spending method as souls.

FIXES:
- Fixed Curse Hive boss blocks opening incorrectly when Seal Jiing is defeated.
- Curse Hive leaves behind a corpse now.
- Ultimate Weapon Strend leaves behind a corpse now.
- To prevent certain ai bugs, bosses leave their corpses in the middle of their arenas now.
- Creatures can now invade areas upwards properly.
- Fixed a freeze with Bell-Mankyu Heart trigger.

Reki here. Update's a bit later in the week, this time because I was messing with the ecosystem mechanics quite a bit, experimenting, seeing what worked. While it may need further balancing, I'm happy with the new changes. Next update, Prison boss. Controller rebinding and a new tutorial are also still high priority, though those might take a while to develop. For this update though, a bit light on new content, but loads of balance and tweaks and fixes that should help make for a better experience.


CONTENT:

- Added Boofrogs to Belly of the Comet God.

- Rotprawn Heart trigger effect added.


GAMEPLAY TWEAKS:

- All creature populations have been lowered considerably, and spawn rates have been adjusted to this change. The intent is to make creatures easier to drive to near extinction, allowing the ecosystem to have much more impact on gameplay.

- Killing creatures grows the populations of all native species excluding that of the creature killed. This ensures that, while you can control the populations of certain creatures by singling them out, it is difficult to empty out an area, leaving you alone in an empty world.

- Creature populations now replenish at a rate of one third of their max population per day.

- Populations of invasive species are now limited to a third of their native populations. This will make it easier to exterminate invasive species as well as ensure the native populations aren't overwhelmed too much.

- Creatures with only 1 hp can no longer be albinos.

- Rainwater now disappears on its own after a while.

- Entering bright modes now notifies you with text.

- Portals will remove enemies that walk into them, and then disappear.

- Priko Heart tail no longer damages player, instead gets destroyed, with a five second cooldown before a new one grows.

- Rowu Heart crab lord is now summoned below you if there is space when triggered, allowing you to ride it. Also fixed an issue with it colliding with the player.

- Ruru Heart passive is no longer interrupted by jumping.

- Garden-Drone Heart no longer interferes with jumping in water. Instead, it propels you upwards.

- Shellbug Bludgeon is now a bit faster. Dang thing shows up in every week's patch notes.

- Cemetery of Bells boss now spawns minions at a much more consistent rate.

- Chests can only be opened with melee weapons now.


FIXES:

- Consuming hearts can no longer override permanent, soul slotted hearts.

- Heart slots now display text for hearts with unfinished trigger effects.

- You can no longer hold jump on the ground to constantly jump attack without moving.

- Some Fungus Wild creatures no longer disappear when entering a new area.

- Kiriki Garden trams no longer show damage particles.

- Damage particles now scale their size better on large objects.

- Fixed bugs involving turning things.

- Fixed a bug where screen would flash when an albino spawns.

- Fixed a bug where Bell-Worms would turn in place rapidly.

- Fixed some bugs with Curse Hive.

- Mouse trap now only applies after you've pressed a button.

- Fixed a crash involving certain hearts missing a value.

- Fixed a crash involving Boggot Heart.

- Fixed a crash involving critical hits.

Reki here. Big update, so a little later in the week than usual. The first perk update! Introducing monster hearts. They drop from their corresponding monster and can be consumed to obtain abilities. They last for one day, but you can make them permanent with a soul. You can view and remove hearts at the red, green, and blue slots found around the world. Some are missing abilities, or have placeholder effects, but I hope this update turns out to be a lot of fun despite the lack of polish. There are some pretty ridiculous ones to find.

CONTENT:
- Added 25 monster hearts.
- Added an unused monster to Belly of the Comet God.

GAMEPLAY TWEAKS:
- Added particles to damage sources. Red is regular damage, green is damage that cannot be blocked. It is unintentional that some of the player's attacks show these, and it will be adjusted in a future update.
- You can now ride monsters between area transitions.
- Damaging enemies by jumping into them is now more reliable.

FIXES:
- Fixed crash involving certain objects dropping into acid.
- Fixed rain lasting forever in areas with hotter climates.
- Slightly improved optimization of rain, water, and other effects.
- Added a safeguard to every area to ensure native creature populations cannot disappear.
- Shellbug Bludgeon no longer disappears when entering a different area.
- Fixed cases of the game freezing when certain objects would try to turn around.