Still working away here, adding quality-of-life features, small narrative additions, and bug fixes. Thanks so much for your continued support and reviews- they really help and it's amazing to see how much people are enjoying the narrative! :-)

Patch Notes 1.185-1.186

• Minions can now carry bodies (this is a bit complex so hopefully no bugs)

• Fixed a bug with the Animate ritual

• Added an extra hint that the chapter 8 double-date is in the North Gate Tavern, not Garnet’s

• Made skillchecks in the picnic a bit easier

• Added automatic data on any errors that happened leading up to a bug report being sent in-game– hopefully this will assist diagnosing some issues

Patch Notes 1.187 

• Added wall torches in your basement and crypt, that can be turned on/off

• Added wilderness map labels (added as you discover important locations) and wilderness fast travel (but only from chapter 14- there’s too many trigger spots prior to that, so teleporting around wouldn’t be a good idea).

• Fixed a bug that was occasionally breaking the final scene in the throne room in chapter 16

Patch Notes 1.188 

• Fixed some places where zombies might inadvertently walk off into the city and get captured  while following you around the perimeter wall

• Stopped the player from accidentally leaving the barracks too soon while doing their evil thing there

• Fixed a bug with the “Sometimes, Dead is Better” plot (Sybil)

• Fixed a bug when switching an unloaded missile weapon from inventory to equipped during combat - military benefit was not being applied to reload APs

• Fixed a bug whereby you could talk to the guards at the Grim before meeting them

• Added an extra hint about how to use Dominion of Phobos

• Cleaned up Rosario’s woodland allies after the chapter 13 combat

• Cleaned up some inconsistencies in Fen’s conversation if Varenth has left

• Fixed a bug that sometimes had NPCs not pause walking while talking to you, which could cause knock-on-problems with e.g. hugging animations

• Fixed invisible text in the save-game renaming window

Patch Notes 1.189 

• Added the option to change your mind about refusing Gustav’s offer for the paintings. If you refused to even let Balaban look at them, though, there’s still no way back.

• Fixed a bug where cancelling a ‘save as new file’ would save anyway (into your current slot)

• Your known battle spells are now listed on your character sheet

The game also got officially "verified" for the Steam Deck by Valve this week. Awesome!

It is a big update which will change your experience from the game completely.
Here is what was changed / added:

-Ability to free / sell girls / boys from harem added. If you are against gay content, you can sell the boys from the harem without much interaction with them. In the future update we will also add the ability to execute them.

-The mini game made more challenging so that it is not easy to conquer all countries. In the future update we will change the difficulty based on the country, so every conquest will feel differently.

-The bug when there is game over even when relationship with Yazir is good was resolved, the overall relationships with wife / minister and population made more balanced.

-Russian and Portuguese translations improved. We might add new languages if there is a demand.

-More scenes/questions added to the Ministry room

-Some new questions, events, scenes added

-Buttons locations made more user-friendly

-Femboy added

-Some minor bugs fixed

Hey people,

Alex 13 here.

First of all - the Demo will be updated next Friday. Expect more polish and QoL features, a bunch of new enemy types, and a Faction system.

All enemies in ToP are divided into Factions like Outlaws, Hordes, Undead etc.

When the Dungeon is generated, the game now determines which Faction will primarily inhabit it. No more mixed salad of Orc Warlords (Hordes), Wizards (Outlaws) and Rats (Monsters). There will now be consistency with some randomness - so if it's an Undead-inhabited dungeon, expect lots of Undead with occasional representatives of other factions.

Faction enemies differ in their typical resistances - Undead, for example, have high resistance to Dark damage but no resistance at all to Light damage.

Since the game will now show the type of dungeon inhabitants, it's another decision making layer for you, adventurers. Is your party Dar magic heavy? Don't go fight undead! Full of Paladins and Clerics? Yes, you will crush them!

The last map is coming into shape pretty well - and it's my favorite in terms of atmosphere. I love dark crypts, you know.

A bunch of new high-level spells are implemented, so more tools to play with in the full game.

After months of working on our first Visual Novel, Remembering Emily, knowing that it will be available on Steam on August 13th... fills us with pride.

Tortita Studio is a two-person team: an illustrator and a writer/programmer. We came together to create the kind of Visual Novels we love to play the most. Stories of mystery and intrigue that you can play in 3-4 hours and leave feeling good afterward.

We hope you like our first work as Tortita Studio, and we promise to listen to your feedback to continue working on future Visual Novels, which are already in pre-production.

Thank you!

corrected a couple misplaced assets

• Menu UI navigation is now smoother and more dynamic.
  
• We are working on fixing bugs in the settings and pause menus.

I fixed the freebuild not booting up for some users, turned out to be some quirky little nullref..
Hope it's fixed now in BETA.

go to game properties and select the beta patch.
Once I have a few confirmations its solid then I will move it to live..

cheerio,
Tomas

Fixing a bug introduced in v0.9.3, overzealous DNA validation zeroing out valid DNA opcodes.

Minor fix for Steam Deck control visual.

On August 19th, we’ll be at Courage Cologne during DevCom 2025 in Köln, Germany. This will be the very first time Orebits is shown publicly. We couldn’t be more excited to share it with you!

We’re bringing a fresh demo build for the event, and the flyers, shirts and stand decorations are coming in! Here’s a peek:

[carousel][/carousel]

This showcase and 'real' physical stuff makes our game dev journey even more 'real'!

We’ll also be walking the floors at GamesCom on Thursday to soak in all the gaming goodness.

If you’re showcasing or visiting DevCom or GamesCom and want to meet up: drop a comment below! We’d love to meet fellow devs, gamers, and anyone curious about Orebits.

See you in Germany!