Over a year ago, I announced plans to rework major mechanics in the form of an opt-in beta. I provided details up front because I wanted to hear your opinions, and I'm grateful for everything you shared. However, over that year, the little development time I had spiralled from one experimental overhaul into another, and now a year has passed and the "big beta" still hasn't materialized--the beta build is currently a convoluted mess of insane changes.

I've always wanted Tomb's development to be responsive and this year has been anything but; you all deserve more than the handful of meager updates I've provided in this time--there hasn't even been a new floor since last Halloween!

Fortunately, while the big beta is far from releasable, there are a lot of elements that are completely ready to go--many of which I feel confident releasing outside of a controlled beta. So I've decided to spend the next few months porting those changes and some content from the beta copy into the standard release. My development time is still limited, so this may take a while, but at least you'll start seeing new stuff on a more regular basis, and I can continue to hear and iterate upon your thoughts.

The first change I've brought over is the hiding of the original dungeon Hoard, so that the left-hand Hoard is the only one you'll play with. The dual-Hoard setup was the result of a desire to provide a more practical left-hand Hoard without ditching the one at the bottom of the dungeon--which was a core part of the game's original premise. However, a lot of players make comments about how silly or confusing this looks, and they're absolutely right. I am sorry it took so long to see that.

Secondly, the Fence, Shop, and Guildhall have been collectively altered. These floors were unique in that they were the last example of floors altering what later floors provided; this one-off mechanic was being phased out, but these floors didn't get handled before beta development started. Now, the Fence will produce the existing Thief minion, the Goblin Sneak has been changed into a Goblin Swindler and placed in the Shop, and a new Goblin Ringleader has been added to the Guildhall. The net result of these changes is that all floors finally produce either a minion or a trap, and none of it is dependent upon other floors.

As for those minion changes, the Swindler has a unique "bargain" ability; when a Swindler is purchased or resurrected, another minion will be purchased or resurrected for free. The Ringleader has a new "delegate" ability, which directs a more powerful minion to attack in their stead; you may place the Ringleader on a floor with one of your most powerful minions to essentially give that minion an extra attack every round.

There's also a new Creepy Cabin floor that produces Psychopaths, some more shader revisions, a larger default window size, and some other assorted fixes and improvements. As always, let me know what you think!

What's Next?

There is still a bunch of finished stuff in the beta that I can pull into the standard release, and my current plan is to start with damage changes. The beta removes the separate-damages-by-slot mechanic and allows some attacks to deal two or more types of damage. This means that slot placement will matter a lot less than floor composition; previously, you could have a minion that buffed fear damage, and a minion that only dealt fear damage in a certain slot, and you would have to be sure you placed both correctly in order to benefit, but now that second minion may have an attack that deals some fear and some cold damage, so the fear buff will apply to them in any slot--and another minion could be buffing their cold damage, to boot!

Of course, that change requires bringing in a lot of character damage changes, and while I'm at it, I will try to bring in some of the other character changes (new abilities and visual improvements). The game is moving away from all of those different damages and instead giving each minion one damage and possibly one special ability; as a result, more characters are receiving the latter.

I'll also pull in another floor and maybe a new item or two from the beta. I'll slowly bring in most of this stuff, and maybe doing so will help me get a better grip on the focus of the beta, because it's pretty crazy right now.

Thank you, again, for all of your continued suggestions and support this year, even in the face of sparse updates. I greatly appreciate all of it ːtotcordialː!

Changelog

Additions:

• Creepy Cabin floor; produces Psychopath, a fear damage dealer
  
• Goblin Ringleader added to Guildhall; they can provide powerful minions with an additional attack
  
• More hats for the Masquerade banner
  

Changes:

• Dungeon hoard has been hidden
  
• Thief moved to Fence
  
• Goblin Sneak changed to Swindler and moved to Shop
  
• Guildhall now produces Goblin Ringleader
  
• Visual options now affect the pause menu
  
• Menu dims the background image slightly more, to reduce visual noise in the menu
  
• Several visual changes to some existing characters
  
• Minor improvements to shaders
  

Fixes:

• "B" button icon appeared on Codex when controller was detected, even when not in use
  
• Genies and Ifrit were not marked "hattable," so hat banners weren't affecting them--unacceptable!
  
• Minions wouldn't always receive a randomized visual appearance when newly spawned