Welcome to the Gods and Relics update! This update to Inkbound includes two new aspects, the major new Vestige Set feature, Steam Achievements, the removal of in-game monetization, and more. We’ve tried our best to capture accurate patch notes that include all the changes. If you’re interested in all the details, read on!


This patch will be released at approximately 10 am PT (GMT-7) on October 27th, 2023.

The game will have 2-3 hours of downtime starting at approximately 7 am PT on October 27th for the team to prepare the update.


The Chainbreaker smashes their way to victory with nothing but their fists and pure tenacity.

Uppercut enemies right in the face with new powerful Combo mechanics in this new Aspect that is all about in-your-face fisticuffs. You can read more details about the Aspect in a deep dive available here.

To gain access to the Chainbreaker you’ll need to complete the short unlock quest. Talk to Sundance in the Atheneum to get started.



The Godkeeper fights to defend the written Gods of Yore using their divine Purespear to keep their opponents at bay.

This spear-based fighter can attack enemies near and far with a combination of spear thrusts and throws. To maximize their potential you’ll have to position yourself carefully to ensure optimal damage output. You can read more about the Aspect in a deep dive available here.

To gain access to the Godkeeper you’ll need to complete the short unlock quest. Inspect the Impaled Spear in the entrance to the Proving Grounds to get started.



Vestige Sets are a major rework of how players increase in power during a run. Each Vestige has one or more Sets that it belongs to. Upon collecting a certain number of Vestiges with matching Sets, the Set will confer a bonus. The more you invest into a specific Set, the bigger the bonuses grow. Here’s a simple example.

The Vestige Mossed Spyglass is now part of the “Precision” Set. You can see the Set icons in the Vestige description.



If you draft Mossed Spyglass, you’ll get a point into the Precision Set. Hovering the icon will give you the full details.



Upon getting two points in Precision, you’ll gain +10 Crit Chance. Upon three points, you’ll get an additional +15 Crit Chance. And so on.

As a part of this, the design of many Vestiges have been reworked.

There are many new sets with many new types of functionality. We hope you’ll have fun exploring all the new build options!

We’ve added 28 Steam Achievements in this update with a mix of progression and challenge Achievements.

Want to give this one a try?




We’ve heard from players that Sea Breaches were not offering interesting enough choices and rewards. We agree. In this update, all Sea Breaches have been redesigned with stronger rewards and more interesting choices.

We’ve fully refreshed the Victory Board with 108 new objectives and new cosmetics to unlock by completing them.

(The cosmetic rewards from the prior Victory Board have been moved into the Cosmetic Vault.)

We’ve redesigned Ranks 11 through 20 with new challenges. If you were at Rank 11 or higher on either the Solo or Group track before this update your Rank will be reset to 10 so you can climb the refreshed Rank ladder. Completing Rank 20 in each track will earn you a special Nameplate.

Some of the earlier Ranks were also redesigned to smooth out the increase in challenge rank-by-rank.

Binding drafts now show up after battles instead of on their own reward islands. The goal with that change is to improve game flow.

Binding Augment drafts no longer show up as guaranteed rewards, you’ll have to choose battles with those rewards to earn them. The goal with this change is to increase the impact of upgrade choices. In concert with this, common Augments have been removed from the game, and thus Augment power is higher in general.

We decided to replace the concept of Run Quests with the goals in the Vestige Set system. Overall we liked that run quests gave goals that contributed large amounts of power in return for completing their effect, but often they were either too easy or too hard with little middle ground, and this was made worse in multiplayer. Many sets have aspirational bonuses that reward putting in effort to achieve them, and feel more organic as a result than run quests did.

Like Run Quests, we aimed to simplify the way players earn stats by putting them primarily into Vestiges and Vestige Sets. Independently drafting stat upgrades via Fonts of Wisdom has been removed from the game. In general Sets feel like ‘specialized stats’, with each point driving towards new build possibilities. That said, some Sea Breaches still offer the Font of Wisdom style stat upgrades, for those that miss it.

Due to various design changes described above we needed to revisit the design of our existing Trinkets. A variety of the current Trinkets have been refreshed with new functionality to accommodate the addition of Vestige Sets and the removal of other systems.

Ever enter a run and wish you could change your Aspect or equipped Trinket? Well, now you can. We’ve added the ability to change these before entering the first Book of the run.

This can be especially useful if you use Matchmaking to enter a run and want to coordinate with a co-op partner before entering the first Book.

We’ve moved all story-related Seasonal quests to the “main questline” and, from now on, only plan on adding story quests to the main questline and not removing them at the end of the season. This means that Season 2 quests will not go away at the end of the season. We’ve also added back all Season 1 quests to the main questline for new players to experience. For players who played any Season 2 content, all Season 1 content will be automatically completed to avoid progression issues, but we will have the ability to reset your story progress in a future update so you can experience all previous seasonal content.

As outlined in detail in an earlier post, we have fully removed in-game monetization in this update. Leveling Passes have been removed and have been converted into optional cosmetic-only “supporter pack” DLC sold via Steam. The in-game store has been renamed to the Cosmetic Vault. You can earn Vault Dust (formerly Shinies) to unlock cosmetics and there is also a chance that a cosmetic chest will drop after defeating a Guardian.

Various cosmetics and Vault Dust can be earned via normal gameplay by leveling up. These unlocks are collected via the Logbook’s Season tab.

See the linked post above for full details on the migration.


Want to see all the little details? Click here for the full list.

The Pumpkin Festival has arrived in Irumesa at Blackwood Village! 🎃

• Talk to Savgar the Pumpkin Trader, to hitch a ride to the event. He can be found in Farwood, Edrivine, Silverlake, and Ardholm!

He may be willing let you adopt some spooky companions too 🐱




The Festival Includes:

• Pumpkin themed decorations in Farwood and Blackwood Village
  
• 4 new quests
  
• 2 new themed NPCs
  
• New instanced mini boss encounter
  
• 3 New mischievous level 14-18 mobs to encounter
  
• 4 New Pet Companions to adopt
  
• 5 new Halloween themed cosmetic drops
  
• Harvestable pumpkin food items & new recipes

Miscellaneous Updates:

• NEW Login Screen Theme to welcome you to Irumesa with Pumpkin Festival vibes
  
• Over 20 new music tracks implemented to the client for exploration, dungeons, and cities.
  
• Scythe and Spears implemented. These are still being tested and we look forward to hearing your feedback regarding these weapons!
  
• Model sizing adjustments for many items in-game, such as dungeon loot drops.
  
• Adjustments to T8 plate attribute scaling.
  
• Corrections to T8 weapon level requirements.
  
• New DPS Staff added to 30-34 Rare Drop Table: Lost Echoes

Join our discord for more frequent updates and community discussion!

~Rare set of circumstances allowing players to accidentally soft-lock should finally be fixed (knock on wood)
~Various fixes re: typos and parallax clipping.

Our latest update for the Multiplayer Public Beta is now live. To participate in the Open Public Beta please refer to the #play_now section of our Discord Server.

This update is largely aimed at fixing and improving multiplayer hosting & joining stability & consistency, along with blueprint & wisdom scroll generation fixes and general quality of life improvements.

Here are some of the notable changes/additions/fixes:

• Improved Multiplayer lobby hosting & joining stability.
  
• Multiplayer Ban System (to be improved upon)
  
• Pasting Components in multiplayer fixed.
  
• Blueprint Fixes.
  
• Shop Economization Fixes.
  
• Added 3D outlines for Marker/Exclude blocks.
  
• New GUI for script created interfaces.
  
• MagicaVoxel color palettes (in-depth guide coming soon).
  
• Many GUI menus ported to the new GUI framework.
  
• Improved sign text readability.
  
• Improved text spacing in books (makes them more readable).
  
• Added new item: Obsidian Shard.
  
• + Many more bug fixes & QoL changes.

There are some bugs and missing features that we are aware of and are currently being worked on. For more information on bug reports & upcoming fixes, please refer to our Discord server.


Thanks for stopping by, and cheers from the TM Development Team: Craig, XBLToothPik, Native Function, Dave, Syn and everyone from our testing team and Discord admins.

Dungeon Tavern is now available in Early Access! The whole team is very excited not only to be able to share what we've been working on, but also to share our plans for the game's future!

Originally, we intended this project as a short but sweet experimental sandbox, a tribute to some of our favorite Japanese "animation unlocker" games. However, as we've worked on it, we realized the potential to use the base that we've developed to be able to tell a story of our own and to expand on the number of interactions possible in the sandbox.

As such we ended up making the decision to release the game in Early Access- so that we would be able to have the time and support needed to add our additional ideas to the game, but also to be able to collect feedback from the community, and possibly incorporate fan-favorite character archetypes and requested features!



As for the time being- launch is usually quite a volatile time in any game's life, and while the team and I have gone through the game several times in preparation for launch, no game is without it's bugs. We'll be staying on standby and keeping a close eye on the forums over the next couple of days, ready to crank out hotfixes if needed.

So make sure to drop by the Steam community or the TinyHat Studios Discord and interact with us! Even if you don't have any bugs to report, we're curious to hear what you guys think of the game and if you have any ideas you would like to see us add!

I recently released a NEW FREE GAME made for the SpooktoberVN Game Jam called "Secrets to Success with Dr. Brain", a Retro Corporate Horror game set during the era of popular VHS / VCR technology.


GOOD NEWS!

Your company has enlisted you to try out the new VCR SUCCESS BOOTHS to MOTIVATE YOU to be more PRODUCTIVE!

Meet "Dr. Brain", a philosopher, entrepreneur & psychiatrist who will step you through a FIVE-STEP PROGRAM to being a GO-GETTER!

Don't dilly dally, Lost One! Your key to a NEW LIFE awaits!

TRAILER:

https://youtu.be/g73pNrlKIoY


---

As with "No Robots Allowed", the story of Dr. Brain is part of the "Date Time Universe". Melissa (and Morris) have very brief cameos in the game, and you'll learn a bit more about the corporation behind the Date Time titles.

I hope you enjoy the game as much as I did making it. Thank you again!

CLICK HERE TO PLAY THE GAME [FREE]

---



On top of that, "Date Time" is also a featured game on STEAM SCREAM!

If you haven't already, check out "Date Time's" demo! Thanks again for your support everyone!

~CatTrigger

I've been closely monitoring the feedback on the new enemy, and decided to make it an optional encounter for now rather than push something so experimental on everyone. It's likely I will re-use this enemy in the future for something else though, perhaps as a fightable version in a very difficult encounter.

Patch Notes

• The Immortal Construct pursuer enemy only appears now if you take the Hunter's Mark curse.
  
• Hunter's Mark now has +4 item level bonus (up from +2), and will cause the pursuer to spawn in a fixed amount of time rather than a random range of time on each level.
  
• Fixed bug where starting the animation for one potion and pressing the other potion button would cause you to regenerate the resource of the opposite type of the potion you are drinking
  
• Fixed bug where helena's max passive skill quest reward could sometimes not give you three options even if they are available
  
• Fixed bug where setting contrast to certain values could cause strange colors / artifacts

As the title says, we've decided to add trading cards

Besides that, now we are working on a huge update, which is about to be released next month. There will be new tools, animations, a new ghost and a lot of other stuff!

We hadn't had time to create the update log until now. After these, is a developer log so you know what's going on behind the scenes and what's next.


The demo for CoA was originally intended to only be available for Steam Next Fest between October 9th to October 16th but we decided to extend the availability to allow players to try it for the first time after the game was more widely publicized by content creators. The demo will be available for a little while longer, but, as was planned, will be made unavailable. The current demo is a huge portion of the actual game, a smaller demo may eventually take its place.

To give some context, the demo is currently the entire game because we didn't have time to cut it down. This means that we are currently letting players play a big chunk of the initial full release state of the game for free. While it was a great way for players to get to know the potential of the game, it is of course is more content than we intended for a free demo. A smaller version of the demo may or may not be created to replace this large demo, you can follow news about that in the Discord .

Although this was what was planned since we before releasing the demo, we would like to apologize if it comes as surprise to some of you who may have thought it would be around forever.
There is an option for players who want to keep playing and are willing to assist us with a part of development:

If you enjoy the game and want to become a tester to help with the game's development, head to our Discord for more information! Also if you are a content creator or just like regularly posting gameplay videos to Youtube, go into the Discord and message "Kami", the lead developer.


To become a tester, you'll need to do a few things:

1. Join the Cry of Athena Discord and head to the signup instructions channel linked directly here: Cry of Athena Official Discord
   
2. Fill out an application form found there.
   
3. Follow the instructions to send in sample footage.

• Build is currently PCVR or PC only. You should have an Valve Index, Vive, or Oculus/Meta device with a PC to link to or a game ready PC for non-VR. Other headset compatibility coming.
  
• You should be willing to and able to record gameplay. As a tester, your primary goal is to play the game and capture your gameplay.
  
• Be 13+ years old, be respectful regardless of age.

We've worked hard recently to fix crashes, bugs, implement suggestions and more content with the help of the community. Over 10 updates were added since the demo released.

CoA Build 133-136 summary:

• Significant performance improvements:
  
• Great hammer now applies force using velocity of hammer combined with a force pushing away from the player to launch enemies
  
• Much more optimized blood particles
  
• Prevent shader overdraw due to overlapping transparencies in blood decals
  
• Blood spill only occurs at higher Effects settings
  
• Character optimizations
  
• Much more optimized fire explosions
  
• Optimized muzzle flash from characters: removed light emitter for now and extra effects
  
• Grenade trails optimized (was causing shader overdraws)
  
• Grenade explosions optimized
  
• Ranged units: more crouching, strafing movement, and less blindly running into enemies
  
• Zombies move closer during combat
  
• Fixed attached lasers not pointing forward
  
• Added Balloon Gun to spawn menu
  
• Added Tartarus Music
  
• Zombies don't stunlock themselves when attacking
  
• Decreased Size of Blood Decals
  
• Fixed issue of Effects graphic setting being hidden
  
• Fixed certain objects falling really slowly (like the explosive barrel)
  
• Fixed weapons not doing correct damage for non-VR player character

CoA Build 132-133 summary:

• Tartarus level added
  
• Performance optimizations
  
• Rival Forts level added
  
• Night Holdout level added
  
• Fortified Factory level added
  
• Fixed tool guns (physics gun, grappling gun, balloon gun) not working
  
• Non-VR Player Character can carry infinite grenades
  
• Non-VR Player Character can now prime and cook grenades

CoA Build 131 summary:

• Burning animation for human units when set on fire added
  
• Max Dead Bodies menu setting added to General Settings
  
• Fly Mode MG gun damage fixed and increased substantially
  
• Ability to hide controls hint/text for flatscreen via General Settings
  
• Prevent grenade launcher projectiles blowing up if too close to unit/player firing (proximity safety feature)
  
• Fixed Colt 1911 wrong rotation on human units

CoA Builds 125-130 summary:

• Fixed rendering problem causing significant FPS drops in VR
  
• Greek Cavalry: Fixed running in circles
  
• Fixed Cavalry Not Damaging Other Units
  
• Fixed radiomen calling in strikes when AI off or when dead
  
• Melee units relax in animation if no enemies
  
• Fixed Ranged Units not moving to waypoints if no enemies
  
• Ranged units crouch at times especially at longer distances from enemies
  
• Fixed ranged units not stopping movement if on Hold command at times
  
• VR extreme jump height fixed
  
• Local multiplayer button added for VR
  
• Fixed minigun/MG turret keep firing when they aren't supposed to
  
• Fixed muskets perfect accuracy
  
• Fixed Necromancer (Demolitions) not spawning Bombers
  
• Fixed crash errors pertaining to "APEX" plugin
  
• Ability to hide HUD in flatscreen added in Settings
  
• Fixed delete tool not deleting units in VR
  
• How To Play videos progress bar
  
• Various adjustments and fixes

We'd been working on the game non-stop since over a month ago in preparation for Steam Next Fest so while there have been significant updates, we've had to take some time to recover - if we had more energy there would have been more! During the demo, we able were able to fix bugs, crashes, improve performance significantly, unit/weapon imbalances, and add new content with the help and feedback of the community. It has been incredibly hard work but it has been worth it with thousands of people played the game and several dozen play concurrently as we speak. On top of that, a Youtuber called Downloadable Content played the game and gave it a huge boost as well! We're committed to making the game into the best it can possibly be, if you'd like to be involved come join us in the process! Become a tester if you would like to continue playing the game while also being a massive help to us as we prepare for release.

Our next biggest goals are:

• Optimization
  
• Finishing the first version of our Modkit/SDK (first available function is adding custom characters)
  
• In-game unit creator
  
• Unit/weapon rebalancing (AI were remade from scratch recently and most damage values were made with the old AI in mind)
  
• Premade Buildings + Custom Building Creator

Feel free to ask questions here or in the Discord, until next time.

Version 8 Update Log:

Fixed Mini Games Missing
Fixed Toys Missing
Fixed The UI being able to change the colour
Fixed Menu And reverted it back to old working menu
Removed Old Files the game that was 2 years old and not used
Added custom kicks from v7 back in
Fixed channel points
Reverted back to old Website that is working
Added a couple of premade art for walls (More added in future updates)
Local Leaderboards can be reset from streamer settings on https://coins.coinpusherworld.co.uk
Coin store working back to as it was before and working.
Outstanding coins added
Oauth Key now works and no need to restart machine after connecting to twitch
Remove Negitive points chest
Added Jackpot back to lucky wheel
Discord has been updated
Leaderboard settings can be found in Game Menu.

Coming soon:
Affiliates/Partner Program
More Toys
More kick commands
New coins for coin store.

Removed:
Removed website from v7
Leaderboards from v7 will Not work (If you need leaderboard please contact Diamondforce3 via support section)


Any issues Please report them in discord in bug report channel.