The main updates, not to mention the minor ones:

1) The demo has been expanded from 3 levels to 5 levels.

2) There is now an online lobby, so we can play with random strangers.

3) An emoticon chat interaction feature has been added.

Adjust the visual effects of the cards and various icons within the scene:

Transition from 2D screen rendering to 3D scene rendering to prepare for future updates.

Beneath buzzing cicadas and a warm summer breeze, Typing Valley has shot up a little taller: street-lights glow at dusk, restaurant patrons sport fresh haircuts, and the splash rings when a fish bites are bigger than ever. Step into the valley and see what new stories await!

---

• Character Progress Panel

  Check your level, portrait, and basic stats at any time and track the life you’ve built in Typing Valley.

• Typing Vocabulary 2.0

  Every interactive object now has a Familiarity meter. The more you type with it, the more related words you unlock—letting the world “talk back” as your understanding deepens.

• Overhauled Recipes

  • New ingredient-type recipes: early cooking is no longer blocked by a single rare fruit—mix and match what you have.

  • Fewer seasoning categories for high-tier dishes, so your backpack (and brain) can finally breathe.

• Restaurant Guest Makeover

  Out-of-place NPCs have been permanently retired. Today’s diners switch hairstyles, aprons, and funky socks at random—occasionally you’ll even spot a suit-and-tie visitor escaping office life.

• Evolved Day-Night Cycle

  A re-drawn light curve: softer sunsets, darker midnights. Street-lamps, windows, and fireflies appear on schedule, and the kitchen window glows at dawn.

• Crop Growth Stages

  Fruit trees and veggies no longer sprout overnight—watch them inch from seedling to harvest with daily visual changes.

• Tool Upgrade Path

  Durability has retired; axes, hammers, and rods now climb an upgrade ladder toward Legendary status.

• Lightweight Pop-ups

  A tidy slip in the lower-left shows loot, stamina recovery, and more—leaving the center of the screen to the scenery.

• Environmental Additions

  A playground, sandcastles, deckchairs, and a shower of shooting stars—Typing Valley now feels like a mini holiday.

• Revamped Fish Ponds

  Every pond has been restocked with species-specific fish—collectors can finally draft a true “Fishing Compendium.”

• Night-time Highlights

  Neon, signs, street-lamps, and window lights illuminate at just the right moments; keep your eyes up on evening jogs.

• Restaurant Mood Tweaks

  Alcohol is off the menu—parents can relax. Guest-unlock pacing has been adjusted so you meet familiar faces sooner.

• Reworked Chest Loot

  Opening a chest is now worth the thrill—key seasonings and rare tools drop more often.

• Higher Seed Drops

  Fruit and vegetable seeds fall more frequently, turning gathering runs into pleasant surprises.

• Backpack Upgrade Sooner

  Reduced friendship threshold means you can haul a bigger bag earlier.

• New Ingredients & Gear

  Dozens of fresh materials join the collection list—kitchens and workbenches just got busier.

• Postal & Museum Typing

  Long entries auto-paginate and track per-character accuracy—write essays without hiccups.

• Full Localization Pass

  Blank quests, recipe hints, vocabulary prompts—every missing string is now translated.

• Fishing Feel Upgrade

  Larger bite ripples, crisper sounds, longer line—learn the rhythm on your very first cast.

• Faint-and-Wake Position Fix

  On collapse you’ll reappear neatly beside your bed, not wandering by the window at 2 a.m.

We also shooed away a swarm of mischievous bugs. The full list would scroll for pages, so we’ll let you discover the smoother Typing Valley experience for yourself.

---

The valley hums louder with every keystroke you make. May summer breezes, glowing lights, and the gentle return key inspire the next chapter of your warm-hearted adventure.

We are nearing the completion of Phase 1- We have a few days of final work for the Operator then we'll be shifting to UI + Bug fixes & performance improvements before we officially enter stage 2.

We thank our community for their continued support and patience! Playing the game with you guys on Discord has been an absolute honor! We will be hosting public discord play sessions almost daily as we work to hunt down bugs and finish phase 1. So consider joining our discord!

Currently we have to port over the remaining abilities to the Operator going into Tuesdayish.

1. Medic Healing

2. Engineer Repair/Building

3. Throw Grenade Flash/HE

[carousel autoadvance="true"][/carousel]

[carousel autoadvance="true"][/carousel]

Key Notes:

Press Tab to cycle right through Operator abilities

Press Z or X or cycle left or right

Press G to enable the currently selected ability

https://youtu.be/ZWzgHWIN9d0

• Crash Fixes

  • Fixed crash from Infected melee + blowup guy killing structures.

  • Speculative fixes:

    • Skycrane crash.

    • Final Horde Objective self-destructing in Half Moon Bay.

    • VisionGrid crashes (e.g., VisionGridPerformLineOfSightCheck).

    • DOTS crashes.

    • FinishFormationMove crash.

    • RestoreMaterialsFromMap crash for Cloak_Ability.

    • AddCategoryXP crashfix.

  • Addressed thread safety and destruction order issues in UnitComponent::EndPlay.

• Performance Improvements

  • Converted lighting to a persistent system (removed Master Lighting Level).

  • Optimized network performance:

    • Refactored LandscapeActor.cpp to not replicate by default.

    • Lazy registration for Landscables, reducing Half Moon Bay load times.

    • Improved LandscableManager.cpp and optimized network desyncs.

  • Fixed jittering when units re-target after enemy death.

  • Reduced HMB loading issues related to sun system initialization.

• Log & Debug Improvements

  • Various log cleanups and dev checks.

  • Added safety for Server_ calls when recruiting units.

  • Wrapped debug logs in #endif //WITH_EDITORONLY_DATA.

---

• Half Moon Bay

  • Major detail pass, scripting, border edits, and spawn flow rework.

  • Fixed AI registration on large maps.

  • Improved zone color feedback when infected take over.

  • Addressed water cutout and navmesh bugs.

  • Adjusted sun system registration logic for slower loads.

• Alcatraz

  • Reorganized starting areas: library, play yard, Quartermaster.

  • Added interiors and rooftop access meshes.

  • Updated cutout & HLOD quick start from legacy files.

  • Fixed water cutout bugs.

---

• Combat & AI

  • Increased minigun spread (12 → 18) and price (2000 → 8500).

  • Increased infected base health (150 → 200).

  • Improved threat generation from turrets and SOCS.

  • Blowup guy explosion now does more wall damage.

  • Flamethrower logic redone; now powerful like in legacy.

  • Fixed issue where CERC stared at horde objectives with no enemies.

• Operator Mode

  • Added Operator ability system with UI, tooltips, and selection (Z/X/TAB).

  • Limited to 4 abilities max (for now).

  • Deployed abilities: Rapid Fire, Snipe, DeployGun, Cloak.

  • Aim borders and visuals added for aimed abilities (green border).

  • Human-controlled Operators have doubled effective bullet range.

  • Cloak ability now properly cancels on shooting, shows VFX, and works with glowstick (partial).

  • Fixed DeployGun to exit on OperatorMode entry if unusable.

  • Added name popups & cooldown overlays to ability UI.

  • Fixed 'mixed up operator with another host's' issue.

• AI Perception & Noise

  • PerceptionComponent temporarily disabled until hearing logic is ready.

  • OnHearNoise improved but still in progress.

  • Made combat noise system unified via MakeCombatNoise and MovementNoise attributes.

  • Operators make footsteps noise only when player-controlled.

---

• Introduced Attribute & Ability Point system for Operators:

  • Health, Infection Resist, MovementNoise, etc.

  • UI meters added with live stat changes.

  • Implemented dynamic effects, save/load support.

  • Works in RTS mode; Operator mode still in progress.

• Fixed attribute canceling logic replication and cooldown displays.

• Gunsmith now shows value deltas and live stat previews.

---

• Recoil graph and stat comparison widgets added and refined.

• Foregrip, scope, suppressor attachments now show their stat effects.

• WeaponStatDisplayWidget updated to handle new data asset setup.

• Added:

  • New muzzles, scopes, magazines for M4 and Glock 19.

  • Urban skin for Honzo Lee.

  • Ergo, Operator, and BCM grips.

  • T1 Micro optic (design asset ready).

• Fixed:

  • FNEvolys underbarrel level requirement.

  • Carbine-18 drum mag bug.

  • Gunsmith lighting and SG-12 bugs.

  • Underbarrel animation replication issues.

---

• Speculative fixes to BuildingConstructionComponent.

• 'SeeThruLandscapeable' collision profile added (fences in HMB).

• Fixed refunding units in Recruitment Queue not accounting for weapon cost.

---

• Increased max wave size by 50%.

• Made enemy health, damage, and respawn rate dynamic to wave count.

• Nerfed income: now based on active spawning sectors, not all objectives.

• Updated spawner tool and exposed Rush mode variables.

• Invalidated northern region for building.

---

• Enhanced attribute meters with delta indicators and labels.

• Updated attribute allocation bar with better visual and logical handling.

• Added zoom dampening and improved camera speed logic.

• Drag selection now blocked in landscape mode.

• UI improvements for:

  • Recruit popup, cooldown overlays, unit refund, operator abilities.

  • Weapon selector, recoil graph, dropdown hover preview.

---

• Reorganized project folders (e.g., Honzo folder).

• Removed outdated meshes and cleaned redirectors.

• Setup logic to prevent duplicate Operator recruitment.

• Applied various crash fixes to DOTS, flamethrower VFX attach logic, and session joins.

• Disabled some bulk buy options where inappropriate.

---

• Opening the Pause Menu breaks the Quartermaster mouse

• Half Moon Bay is at 75% in terms of being ready for full playtests. We are still working on refinement some aspects. We know that because of the recent changes for zones units can have pathting issues we are aware of this and working on this going into Monday.

We have had Winters who has far more experience with UX/UI work with our concept artist while ive been working to wrap up phase 1 from a structural/Gameplay standpoint. Here is the latest "Draft" let us know what you think of the UI. The Operator and all menus will be getting a pass next from a design standpoint once this UI is approved by myself.

More at this week's CERC HQ!

[carousel][/carousel]

https://youtu.be/ZifUT_qzSkE

---

We’re thrilled to share our vision for the future of Cepheus Protocol! With your continued support, we’re working tirelessly to refine the game and introduce exciting new features that elevate the experience.

---

• Experimental SP/Co-op Horde Mode Now live via the cerc-hq-public branch — up to 16 players in hybrid RTS/TPS.

• Operator System (Hero Units) Possess and control elite units in RTS/TPS mode with leveling, perks, and loadouts.

• Add more Operator weapons and equipment.; Michael is working through a backlog of 20 Operator weapons and more Operators/Skin variants atm.

  

• RPG Progression System
  Operators gain experience, unlock skills, and equip customizable weapons.

• UI Overhaul A new interface to support RTS/ Operators & Menu's

• Monterey Bay Horde Map
  Large-scale co-op testing with new wave mechanics and future extraction goals.

• Tracking down Desyncs, bugs & crashes!

---

• Finalize and polish Phase 1 by mid-July

• Launch Phase 2: Expanded DNA Research + Doctrine gameplay

• Prepare Phase 3: Pandemic Return

---

Check our stickied Roadmap post on the Steam forums

---

• Play the experimental SP/co-op mode!

• Try Operator mode using the in-game console command: PossessFirstOperator

• Report bugs, give feedback, and wishlist new content

• Join our Discord to engage with the team and community

Thank you for continuing to support the game — this is just the beginning. 🛠️

---

Head over to our Discord Server or Steam Discussions to connect with other players and the development team. Together, we’re building something truly special. Thank you for being part of this journey with us!

We also hosted a Playtest on Discord last week with 10 people check it out here!

https://youtu.be/JGQjU-UWl5Q

New Features

• Secondary Fire

  • Replaces precision fire mode with different selectable secondary fire types.

    • Sniper: a high precision, long range shot (this is what was previously the precision fire)

    • Wave Shot: a wide, slow moving projectile that pierces all targets

  • No longer gain secondary ammo by killing enemies, but ammo crystals appear more often and more perks provide different ways of gaining secondary ammo.

• Shields

  • Certain upgrades and abilities give you shields, which block one instance of damage and then break.

• Overflow

  • Certain upgrades and abilities overflow your primary ammo, which temporarily fills it beyond its normal maximum capacity.

Blessings

• Blessing now have names

• Removed blessing category that was specific to precision fire. Some of these blessings (e.g. true sight on aim and stamina refill on precision kill) have been converted to trigger off of secondary fire and have been moved into different categories.

• Four new blessings focusing on health and shields:

  • Extra Protection: Gain 1 shield when destroying a health crystal.

  • Deflect: Push away nearby enemies when you lose a shield.

  • Lifeline: Health crystals spawn more often.

  • Explosive Recovery: Health crystals explode when destroyed.

• Improved blessings:

  • Conditioning: Dashing costs 50% less stamina.

  • Replenishing Dash: Dashing refills 50% of your primary ammo.

  • Transfer of Power: Secondary fire kills increase primary fire damage by 10% to a max of +50%. Reloading resets the damage bonus.

  • Under Pressure: Primary fire damage increases as its ammo decreases. +5% damage for each shot below max ammo capacity.

Perks

• Perks now have names

• Perks have been overhauled. Instead of small, incremental upgrades that are leveled up multiple times, perks are now one-time unlocks that are significantly more impactful right from the start. All perks are either completely new or have had their effects improved.

• New perks:

  • Infusion: Casting your light spell completely refills primary ammo, and casting your heavy spell overflows it by +100%.

  • Quickcharge: Quick reload restores 10% light spell charge.

  • Linger: +100% enemy status effect duration.

  • Kill Tally: Killing 5 enemies with primary fire refills 1 secondary ammo. Reloading resets the count.

  • Quickbreak: Quick reload destroys all health and ammo crystals.

  • Voidguard: Gain 1 shield after remaining undamaged for 45 seconds, and start with 2 shields (each shield negates all damage one time).

  • Endurance: +50% stamina recharge rate.

  • Pain Response: Emit a pulse when damaged.

  • Shrouded Recovery: +100% stamina recharge rate when no pulses are active.

  • Quickpulse: Emit a pulse when performing a quick reload

• Improved perks:

  • Primary Reserves: +50% primary ammo capacity.

  • Secondary Reserves: +50% secondary ammo capacity.

  • Body and Mind: Restore 10% health on level up.

  • Invigoration: When stamina is below 50%, collecting an XP pickup restores a small amount of stamina.

  • Blightbane: -50% blight durations.

  • Tempo: +50% pulse rate.

  • Sustain: +50% pulse duration.

  • Focused Recall: Your pulser returns 50% faster after casting a spell.

Difficulty Modifiers

• Difficulty modifiers now apply a multiplier to currency earned at the end of a run

• New difficulty modifiers:

  • Headrush: Dashing dissipates all pulses.

  • Jumpstart: Stamina doesn't start recharging until you reload.

  • Contaminated: Whenever a blight appears while leveling up, all blessing choices are blighted.

  • Heavy Munitions: -10% move speed per secondary ammo.

  • Crabwalk: You can only move left and right.

Balance Changes

• Reduced the number of enemy spawns later in the run. Should be much more manageable at the default difficulty level.

• If no enemies are alive, an extra group of enemies will spawn. So if you’re efficient at clearing out enemies you’ll get a few more to keep you busy, but if not then they will just spawn at the normal rate.

• Increased size of wyrm enemy to make it easier to hit

• Accuracy of wyrm projectiles decreases the further away the player is

• Added a 0.5 second period of invulnerability after taking damage

• Grenade light spell now also poisons enemies in a large radius around the explosion

• Decreased damage falloff of sniper secondary fire (*previously precision fire)

• Increased amount of health restored from health crystals

• Health crystals now apply healing instantly

• Ammo crystals now always completely fill secondary ammo

• Increased poison duration and significantly increased poison damage

Misc. Changes

• Save system has been rewritten to make future content additions/changes easier to deal with. Because of this, save data will be reset with this update.

• Separate inputs for quick reload and shoot. No more accidentally failing the quick reload because you were spamming the trigger.

• Pressing tab brings up tooltips for all currently on-screen keywords

• Improved feedback on player health and stamina bars

• True sight now only uses the portal VFX for certain abilities. For abilities that trigger very frequently true sight instantly applies across the entire screen without waiting for the portal to open.

• Run timer now counts down instead of up (it was always the case that runs had a max duration of 25 minutes, so counting down should make that more obvious)

• Improved flash pulse VFX on level up

• New wyrm enemy projectile VFX

• Changed colour of turret spawn VFX to make it more visible

• UI icons scale better at different resolutions

• Boss health bar has the same VFX as the player health bar

• Selected loadout appears on pause screen

• Improvements to various enemy telegraph SFX, which should make it easier to locate enemies using sound when they spawn or perform certain actions

• Ammo crystals added to the tutorial

• Much higher quality desktop shortcut icon (to get the new icon, uninstall the playtest and then reinstall it)

• Various optimizations and performance improvements

Bug Fixes

• Fixed lightning strike blessing sometimes not triggering

• Fixed text boxes sometimes not displaying at the right size

• Fixed text boxes sometimes going off-screen

• Fixed text boxes sometimes not highlighting keywords

• Fixed firing VFX freezing and staying alive too long when firing then immediately exiting aiming mode

• Fixed several UI visual bugs

• Fixed several visual glitches that occurred while true sight is active

• Fixed text not fitting on the blessing selection screen with certain blessing/blight combinations

• Fixed blessing and blight icons not fitting on the pause screen after reaching a certain amount of them

Even though the network error situation has been more stable, there still have been reports of cases where the error cannot be resolved through retry or restart. This update introduces better logging and clearer popup dialogs to facilitate troubleshooting for the remaining cases.

This update also introduced support for non-standard aspect ratios, which includes ultra-wide monitors.


- Support for ultra-wide monitors
- Support for other non-standard aspect ratios
- Improved error dialogs and logging
- Potential fix for new persistent network error

Sorry for the inconvenience and frustration caused by mid-game network errors in the most recent patches.

Hopefully we can get to the bottom of these issues with this update. Please reach out on Discord or other socials if you experience any errors that don't resolve upon retry or restart.

Cheers,
Kohari

Update Notice for 7/8–7/19

The major update during this period is the implementation of the "Ascensions" feature on the 19th. This is a new element that unlocks after clearing the game and progressively increases the game's difficulty with each new playthrough. As balancing is tricky, it is being released as a beta version for now and will be applied to the regular version after some time.

[Content Additions & Specification Changes] (Beta Only)

1. Added "Ascensions" as post-clear content. There are up to 10 trials, with one unlocking each time you clear the previous one. They can be selected from the New Game screen.
   
2. Significantly increased the HP of gate-type buildings.
   
3. Adjusted damage from battering rams and hammer units to buildings from 5x to 2x.

[Bug Fixes] (Applied to Regular Version)

1. Fixed a bug where ports sometimes wouldn't function.
   
2. Fixed a bug where the technology meant to reduce the cost of Musketeers and Cannoneers wasn't working.
   
3. Fixed a bug where the last digit of the final item in the cost display would disappear.
   
4. Fixed a bug where, when moving a warehouse, dropped item quantities were counted twice, causing incorrect display of item counts at the top.

[Bug Fixes] (Beta Only)

1. Fixed a bug where character bodies for LOD would remain when adding units via mods.
   
2. Fixed an issue where the construction cost for the Staff Technique Dojo was incorrect.

This new system allows for better long-term balancing and a more readable difficulty curve for players.
Before, the difficulty was too difficult at wave 30, we tried to push the deadly difficulty back to wave 50 ! Don't hesitate to give us feedback on the balancing, it's thanks to your feedback that we improve the game <3 !

📊 New Difficulty Balancing – Enemy Health Progression 📊
1 Very easy start – onboarding phase
2 Gentle progression begins
5 First curve bump
10 End of first scaling tier
11 New tier begins – health rises faster
15 Stable increase – still manageable
20 Infinite mode begins – challenge builds
25 Progression continues steadily
27 Controlled curve before late game
30+ Difficulty scales up gradually
-> 50 ːsteamthisː ːsteamthisː ːsteamthisː

- Debug cursed/black orbs, which sometimes get stuck at the end of a wave, which stays for the next ones.

1、解除自定义模式地图的人数限制
2、现在自定义模式完成对局也会获得G币和经验了

1. Fixed a bug where the price prompt arrow may not display correctly

2. Fixed a bug where exploration failure would increase city exploration and allow unlimited goods

3. Fixed a bug where the flamethrower would not work on enemies summoned by event cards

4. Fixed a bug where waste heat recovery would cause the temperature to become 0 degrees when it was above 0 degrees

5. Fixed a bug where, after going to the rest area in a game, pressing M in the shelter to open the map would open the rest area interface by mistake

As of today, we have optimized dozens of game content and fixed dozens of bugs

We have completed most of the parts that need to be adjusted and fixed in the demo

Thank you very much to every player who has experienced it, and thank you even more for the players who actively proposed modifications and found bugs for us

In the future, we will make irregular updates in the demo (if necessary), and hope that every player can have fun in the world of "Snow Ash"!