Thank you for being a part of the Bytewerkz journey. It is with a heavy heart that we must announce the upcoming closure of Bytewerkz. This was not an easy decision, and it comes after much consideration and exploration of all available options to us.
Effective June 5th, 2025, all Bytewerkz games will be removed from sale on both the Steam and Humble Bundle storefronts. Those who own any Bytewerkz games will continue to be able to play them, however the games will not receive any updates.
We want to express our deepest gratitude for your incredible support, passion, and dedication over the past 3 years. Your enthusiasm for our games has meant the world to us, and we cherish the memories and community we've built together.
Thank you for being a part of the Bytewerkz journey. It is with a heavy heart that we must announce the upcoming closure of Bytewerkz. This was not an easy decision, and it comes after much consideration and exploration of all available options to us.
Effective June 5th, 2025, all Bytewerkz games will be removed from sale on both the Steam and Humble Bundle storefronts. Those who own any Bytewerkz games will continue to be able to play them, however the games will not receive any updates.
We want to express our deepest gratitude for your incredible support, passion, and dedication over the past 3 years. Your enthusiasm for our games has meant the world to us, and we cherish the memories and community we've built together.
It finally happened - Hauntii is verified for Steam Deck! It's always been optimized to play well on Steam Deck, but there were a few minor issues preventing it from being verified until now.
New Build
While preparing a new build for Steam Deck, we also added a number of minor fixes and tweaks. These are mostly audio improvements and a few bug fixes. Version 5.4.16
Independent Games Festival
We were so happy to see that Hauntii won the Excellence in Visual Art award at IGF this year! Thank you judges that is awesome. We've added the badge to to the store page : )
Gamescom Latam
And finally, we have a booth currently at Gamescom Latam in Brazil! If you saw us there leave a comment hehe. We're grateful to have received four award nominations from Brazil Independent Games Festival!
Upcoming
Next up in the works for Hauntii are some improvements for mouse & keyboard input. I'm aware there are some hauntables that have a frustrating experience with this control scheme (I'm lookin at you, sandwhales)
Thank you for being a part of the Bytewerkz journey. It is with a heavy heart that we must announce the upcoming closure of Bytewerkz. This was not an easy decision, and it comes after much consideration and exploration of all available options to us.
Effective June 5th, 2025, all Bytewerkz games will be removed from sale on both the Steam and Humble Bundle storefronts. Those who own any Bytewerkz games will continue to be able to play them, however the games will not receive any updates.
We want to express our deepest gratitude for your incredible support, passion, and dedication over the past 3 years. Your enthusiasm for our games has meant the world to us, and we cherish the memories and community we've built together.
We’ve just rolled out a new patch update focused mainly on enhancing overall performance and making a few minor improvements to the user interface We're continuing to listen to your feedback and working behind the scenes to improve the game further.
Balance Updates: - Fusion is dispelled in Sanctuary - Duplicated Apparition's do not retain phasing indefinitely - Pacted trolls/zombies when hydrated will take the maximum of its normal increased health and its current health - Vampire is displaced 4px upwards when vampire bat expires - Bee's do not benefit from the bonus hitpoints from the druidism familiar - Mind Control will stop working after a radius of 710px (The same radius as a 250 Imp self destruct) - Sand Mite does 5 instances of 1 damage in stead of 5x1 - If Storm Shield kills a unit it'll use up all of its charges for that turn (its still possible to partially use up its charges on units that don't die) - Electrostatic Shield will attempt to use up all its charges when its contacted - Summon Monarchs now only summons 1 but its 50hp and no longer soulbound and available turn 0 (I'll remove the s later) - Autumn Leaves creates terrain if not full seasons - Border hopping will stun you through Protection Shield - Flight & Glide share a cd - Light dmg on mounted units fixed for sunder - Minions with frost jump work like players do (hold space for the bonus jump - default off) - Firecrackers have a 5t cd and a custom fuse length (powered up like a ball, launch speed is always constant) - Christmas Tree can be placed on terrain - Collision Course has infinite uses - Conductor Rod will not spawn a mini chain lightning if it hits an entity (it will instead do full damage). Range scaling increased from 52px to 78px to compensate this buff - Will also not stick to players/terrain anymore - Disruption if used at close range will have its damage halved - Santa Familiar increases size by 6% each level instead of 7.5% (So it can fit in between pyramid blocks) - Wasteland no longer spawns static balls or clockwork bombs - Prickly Barrier Duplicates before deactivating at the start of the turn - Leaves will destroy friendly Butterfly Jars - Weight/Size is multiplicative (Illusion/Cosmos/Holiday/Arcane Monster/Bear) - Acorn spawns a 15hp Queen bee when it lands which can then spawn the beehive - Blood bank acts more like a bank and heals itself for the damage you do (max 75hp) - Burning Sands will scorch the sand that empowers it (rendering that patch of sand no longer sand) - Aura stacking + tree changed to be more intuitive - Sands of Time can be used to gate from the water (if not on cooldown and gate is not available)
Additions: - Alt Underdark - Book of Necromancy - Player familiar levels are displayed next to their health bars - *Armageddons have waning indicators for where they will next go off *Not applicable - Presents/Totem/Rising Lava/Shooting Stars/Duplication *Custom Armageddons have indicators whether it makes sense or not - More pings (Attack/Defend/Move/Danger) - New Bear Form graphics - 10 new achievements + outfits - New minion skins - New tournament outfits - Unrated games (all games) now require every player to ready up - AFK indicators for those in the lobby/game lobby (10 minutes)
Bug Fixes: - Monolith stray pixels removed (preventing it from being cast right next to other objects) - Replays: Familiars are not recreated when taking control - Downloaded/Spectated replays will not start with chat active (preventing you from using hotkeys) - Prickly Barrier should behave properly against towers and properly search for enemies on cast - Descriptions: Scatter Rock, Thorn Bomb, Brine Bomb - Death message: Self Destruct, Map Border - Bucket of Sand will not detonate thorns - Electrostatic Charge will not fall slightly when hit - Light damage won't get applied twice when hitting a mounted lich on an undead minion - Forestation will remove glyphs - Retribution is not applied inside of Sanctuary - Frost familiar frost walking damage reduction is properly applied to towers - Meteor Shower is no longer in the list of familiar spells - Burning Sands won't crash if it hits thorns (will explode them) - Brine Burst added to the list of familiar spells - The friends invite setting is not case sensitive - Tree will not fall through units due to them being close to its center - Damage that destroys a tower will stun the user - Infection will hit all available targets on its initial explosion - Random Elementals will not incorrectly give you spells of your elemental (other then arcane) - Zooming in and/or out will provide the same zoom levels both ways - Turn 1.5 spells are now shown as turn 1 spells - Fixed some portal interactions allowing effectors to trigger twice at the start of your turn - Removed the arch light from the 10g/60g tourny stave's
- Added new statistics in the profile showing the number of time an enemy killed the player and more. - Added a new Stat button at the end of each game, showing stats of the game that has just been played. - Comet drops now starts with less comets, their number increases with each drop. - Lots of small adjustments (sounds and small bugs)
Kat (Mcartiie) is our new scene artist, and she has been helping create new backgrounds for the individual levels. You'll see some of her work in Grade 4, Levels 1 and 2 (the Sunken Library). She is an extremely talented digital artist and I am so excited to have her on board! Please follow her on X and BlueSky :)
Game Updates
* Grades 4, 5, 6, Middle School Kanji, and Jinmeiyou Kanji, and MORE are all accessible! Kanji Count has gone from 400 to ~5800! :) NOTE: Some bosses in Grades 4-6 are NOT implemented, but see note below about Boss substitution.
* Settings Menu Overhaul: The settings menu has been fully redesigned! You will find an SRS tab and a Graphics tab which currently are *not* functional but will be later.
* Stamp Book Overhaul: The dictionary / stampbook layout has been completely redesigned!
* New Enemies: Bumbuzzle and Tearbear! * New Bosses: Play to find these! :)
* Boss Placeholders: If you progress to a part of the game with no Boss defined yet, a random boss will be selected. The questions will still be for that grade/level, but the stats will be the same. This is so you can play around with all the Kanji while bosses and areas are being designed! * Fishing Minigame: You can now find the fish you've caught in your inventory! Click to sell your fish for coins. * Leveling Enhancements: Every level up increases maxHP by 2 and restores health. Every 3 levels increases damage and defense by 1. XP scaling is now level based. * Enemy Scaling: Enemy (not Bosses) health and attack now SCALES proportionately to your level. * Vocabulary Expansion: Added new vocabulary to Grade 3 Kanji (still a work in progress). * Kana-Insensitive Fill-in-the-Blank: When answering onyomi/kunyomi questions, the engine no longer cares whether or not you typed hiragana or katakana for the answer. * Scene Improvements: Previously, if a scene hadn't been created yet for an area, it would show a placeholder image. Now, a random, existing scene image will be chosen - so you can play through all the new areas without interruption! * Code refactoring: Previously hardcoded data is now spread out across multiple files. * Events: Improved some event handling (such as popup menus). * Question Types: Stroke Count and Radical identification question types were restored + improved!
Roadmap
* Continue to add vocabulary to individual lessons up to and including Grade 6. Past this, it isn't planned to add more vocabulary. * Drawing the level specific scenes (this will take the most time). * Designing more enemies and drawing the planned remaining bosses. * Designing many more items (cosmetics, badges, weapons) and implementing them. * Create more music for different areas. * Vocabulary List / Explorer * Hiragana / Katakana chart * SRS flashcards mode (create custom decks)
Features Under Consideration
* Some sort of grammar training mode, or a grammar "viewer" at least
Scrapped
* Gacha game. It didn't make sense to have, and it cluttered the shop screen's space a bit. This has been replaced with the fishing minigame instead.
It would mean a lot if you previously left a review to take the time to play the new content, and if applicable redo the review. I know many were frustrated at the lack of updates while I was out sick, and it's understandable! There should have been better communication and for that I apologize. I will continue to work hard and show my commitment to completing the game and making it as great as it can be <3
