v0.3 available now!

It's been a long time, but I finally have something new to share!

This is a much bigger update than v0.2, including seven new golems, eight new enemies, three new bosses, and a whole new area to explore once you beat the first boss! It also includes a much-needed aesthetic overhaul, with new visuals across pretty much the whole game, and a new original soundtrack by Ian Bell. A full changelog can be seen below.

Content

• Added a second area!
• 3 new objects (one of them's just a tree, though...)
• 8 new skills
• 8 new enemies
• 7 new golems
• 4 new trinkets
• 3 new bosses

Gameplay and Balance Changes

• Significantly improved enemy AI - see my process here
• Reworked health and attack buff rooms - you can choose between two different benefits now
  
• At golem recruit rooms, if your team of golems is full, you can abandon one to make room
• Now a maximum of 3 skills per golem - trying to learn a fourth requires forgetting a previous skill
• When you are choosing which room to go to next, you will sometimes see hints about what rooms are beyond
• Map height reduced - boss is now on 15th floor instead of 17th
  • (Why did I ever make it 17? That's such an ugly number!)
• In battle, if neither side can hurt the other, the game will declare a stalemate and the player will lose
• Golem and scroll offers are now picked from pools sorted by rarity, instead of uniformly at random
• Enemies are now picked from pools based on type, instead of by "difficulty budget"
• Cross Beam can now be found as a rare skill (previously, it was boss-exclusive)
• The game now uses seeded randomness
• Blast Barrels no longer appear on the back two rows of the board, where your golems start
  • This is to prevent the now-smarter enemies from abusing Blast Barrels to immediately wipe out the player's team 
• Nerfed Blocco (4/4 -> 3/3)
• To compensate for more advanced AI, several enemies have been nerfed:
  • Ghoul Raiser  (6/2 -> 5/0, no longer knows Strike)
  • Dust Bunny (4/1 -> 3/1)
  • Dust Devil (6/2 -> 5/2)
  • Ghoul (4/2 -> 3/2)
  • Mole (5/1 -> 4/1)
  • Skull Torch (4/0 -> 3/0)
  • Spitter (4/1 -> 3/1)
  • Viper (3/3 -> 2/3)

Aesthetic

• New custom soundtrack, made by Ian Bell
• Added background decoration in battle, at crossroads, and in buff rooms
  • Different decoration for each area
• Added main menu background
• Added particle effects for each area
• Most skills and effects have had their animations completely reworked
  • This should make it more obvious what's happening when, say, an enemy uses Snipe
  • Buffs and debuffs now have unique indicators for each status, rather than using the same generic animation
• Units now "hop" as an indicator when their passive is triggered or when using certain skills
• Brand-new sound effects courtesy of Ian Bell
• Board now animates at start of battle

UI and Meta

• Added an options menu
  • Buttons can be rebound here, as well as adjusting game speed, volume, and other stuff
• Added an in-game pause menu [ESC]
• Added a stats & run history screen in the main menu
• Reworked the UI for buff rooms
  
• When resuming an in-progress run from the menu, you will see a summary of the run
• Pamml, Lugg, and Jolt have had their skill order changed for consistency with other golems

Bugfixes

• Units can no longer attack themselves with Snipe
• Board units are now correctly drawn in front based on how close they are to the "camera"

You can play the update on the main game page here. Please let me know what you thought of it by leaving a comment! I'll keep working on the game and posting more devlogs, so follow me if you want to get notified about those too!