It took a long time. but 0.9 is finally here. And what an update it is!

Eerie voices in your ears, dark clouds moving under the mist, sharp spires growing like tumors through the surface. Aether eyes are looking at you.

With this update, we bring you a whole new faction of unique and dangerous inhabitants of primal Aether - the Swarm. Playing by their own rules, they will make every encounter much more interesting and intense.

Rival kingdoms aren't just going to sit and watch - they will use forbidden raw Aether magic as a means to greater power, corrupting factories and challenging your builds and strategies. This system will replace much despised building tier degradation on capture, so you can finally stop worrying about your buildings losing the third tier after one stray fireball.

To help you with those challenges, we introduce the artifact system that requires you to kill swarmlings and collect their remains to charge powerful relics for substantial bonuses on each level. Yes, so very original, but in our defense - we always wanted golems to collect and pillage resources for you, and this first step towards this turned out really nice.

⚠️Important!⚠️
Your old save file is compatible, but it is highly recommended to start a new game to unlock all new features of this update.

- [New] Faction - Aether Swarm
- [New] Swarm Units: Crab, Spider, Crawler, Ranger, Jumper, Swarmie, Medusa
- [New] Swarm Structures - Nest, Spire, Hatcheries
- [New] Game Mechanics - Aether Swarm Waves (triggers every 5 minutes or when Nest is destroyed)
- [New] Game Mechanics - Corruption (boosts some enemy structures, removed upon capturing)
- [New] Game Mechanics - Artifacts (collect Aether shards to charge useful artifacts during the battle)
- [New] Game Mechanics - Worldstones (collect 3 to complete a level)
- [New] Fog of War introduced to make levels more interesting to explore
- [New] Tutorial hints for Aether Swarm, Worldstones and Artifacts
- [New] Trait 'Artifacts', increases maximum amount of active artifacts

- T2/T3 structures can't be 'downgraded' anymore. Yay!
- Better icons for selected structures and golems
- New dodge effect icon
- Abordage platforms won't spawn if player is nearby
- Main Menu UI improvements
- Victory and Game Over screens improvements
- New upper level info panel with a better efficiency bar (in progress)
- New vortex visual effect for vortex levels
- Performance optimization - sleeping state for units under the fog of war
- Move camera with keyboard by holding right [shift]
- Level bounds border becomes visible when you are close to it
- Secondary music theme for Desert Region
- Some other very important things I forgot to write down (Duh!)

- 'Cacti sands' tiles now allow structures placement
- Much shorter range (~50%) for HexBusters (Flame Cannon, Dark Cannon, Heavy Ballista)
- Multiple Firebowl buffs make fireball attack more powerful instead of adding more fireballs
- Poison debuff can be stacked from now on
- Structures are now immune to parasite/poison/freeze debuffs
- AI enemies will counter flying units more often with spells
- AI enemies could use spells more often when receiving huge damage
- T2/T3 structures have more heath, +50hp each stage (e.g. Archery: 200, 250, 300)
- Fleshmound - attack distance 0.4 (was 0.3)
- Elite Archer Golem - reload time 2.0 (was 1.5)
- Wasp Nest - spawn time 3.0 (was 2.0)
- Hornet Nest - spawn time 2.0 (was 1.0)
- Hammer Archont, Sacred Hammer Archont - reload time 1.2 (was 1.5)
- Divine Hammer Archont - reload time 1.0 (was 1.5), damage 14 (was 12)
- Hound Golem - hp 40 (was 50)
- Battle Hound Golem - hp 60 (was 75), armor 2 (was 0), damage 10 (was 8)
- Elite Hound Golem - hp 80 (was 100), armor 5 (was 0), damage 16 (was 12)
- Scarab - damage 8 (was 10)
- Royal Scarab - damage 12 (was 15)
- Sacred Scarab - damage 16 (was 25)

Prepare some warm clothes, my friends, as we are heading north! Last major school of golembuilding, the masters of Order, are reverent, devout and proficient in both magic and mechanical works. They command powerful constructs of steel and ice armed with huge mana cannons, and will not be conquered easily.

With this big content update ready, we finally can move towards the balancing final region, the wretched Mortum.
Thank you for your continued help and support, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

- [New] New region - Bloo (start a New Game to unlock)
- [New] Golems - Hammer Archont, Gun Archont, Ice Elemental
- [New] Structures - Bazaar, Observatory, Gun Shrine, Hammer Shrine, Cryo Machine
- [New] Spell - Lightning Strike with some extra crushing damage
- [New] The Red King boss is guarding Green Region instead of Fireball Wizard
- [New] Ice Wizard and Flame Wizard will be guarding Bloo and Mortum regions (temporary)
- [New] Bonewarriors and Crossboners leave corpses that resurrect as original golems unless destroyed
- [New] Dynamic Music is now a complete set for all regions including some boss-area specific tracks
- [New] Keyboard bindings menu

- Pause the game and session timer completely when pause menu is active (thanks skipydog)
- Hex Editor store and storage will be unlocked for every consequent new game runs
- Some adjustments to the spells shop rng to make it more random between runs
- Ability to disable gamepad input in settings menu (thanks alcaron)

- Reduced prices on some desert tiles so they match similar tiles of other regions
- Farm, Bazaar, Observatory now produce only 'native' resource, while Village produces all three
- Some tweaks made to knockback mechanic making golems fly upon collisions
- Changes to AoE/splash damage so the direct targets gets a full amount
- Boulderswags splash set to 0.3 (was 0.8) so the projectile feels more like a rock not a bomb
- Bonewarriors and Crossboners lower HP (20-30% less) due to new corpse mechanic

- Fix for Shield Generator Crystals to spawn inside the level bounds (thanks Kaki-Senpai)

(Fortress Tower sketches)

- A new danger! Strong Aether currents will dominate some levels, making a giant merry-go-round. With arrows and fireballs.
- Introducing Overcharge mechanic! Now if you increase your building efficiency over the 100%, it will increase spawn rate and health of produced golems.
- Use [Z] to revert the last action (up to 3) in Kingdom Editor. Useful if you sold or merged something unintentionally
- Fix for Level started inside of a cliff destroying some hexagons (thanks delta61251 and others)
- Exiting to menu now will keep all your hexagons even if not connected to the Castle (thanks spacecheese6 and others)

- New art and sfx
- New ground and aerial attack
- Shield Projectors are shown on the main HP bar

- [Fireball Wizard] Additional attack added
- Some inertia added to the golems when two islands collide
- Dynamic music added for Desert Region
- More info is shown for spells in the Shop (e.g. shield hp, boost duration)
- Game time added in pause menu and game completion screen
- 'Structures Lost' stat now includes captured structures not just destroyed ones
- Floating platforms should not spawn near blocked tiles anymore

- Fix for sprites artifacts in Hub on 4k screens
- Fix for Boss HP Bar scaling at 4k screens
- Fix for unexpected camera slide to the center of a level in some cases

Hexworld is slowly getting in shape in terms of content and lore, and this update brings a lot in this regard. First of all, we bring the different golem building styles.

• Life style is based on the essence of living creatures and nature, those are your favorite chunky bois made of clay and dirt. Sturdy, reliable, and really persistent.
  
• Radiant style require hot and sunny places to gather essence, their nomad golems are made of dust and hot air, covered by exquisite canvas. They are swift, can dodge, but a little bit on a frail side.
  
• Death style, well.. let's not yet talk about the Death lords and how they make their battle abominations.

Second, the kingdoms now have proper identity, each of them will reside in a specific region and have preferred golem style buildings.

• Azuria Kingdom and Redplaine Duchy inhabit the Green Continent, and of course, with their grassfields and forests their schools follow a Life style golembuilding
  
• Califate Emeralis and the Empire of Tang occupy the Desert continent, and their artificers build golems using Radiant school teachings
  
• Mortum.. is Mortum, nothing to see here, let's move on.

You can now start your adventure in any of the regions (well, we just have 2 for now :), so if you already played a lot of Green continent, feel free to start from the Desert.

We also made some QoL updates like a better camera pan. And last, but not least, the music got a massive update, we finally made a proper dynamic music engine and a killer track for it, so check out the Green continent music! Now hopefully it's a bit less annoying to play on repeat for several levels :) Desert one is coming along a bit later, too.

- [New] Dynamic Music Engine and new dynamic track in Green region
- [New] Screen - Regions Map
- [New] Desert structures - Chakram Palace, Dagger Palace, Scarab Lair
- [New] Mortum structures - Bone Archery, Bone Barracks
- [New] Azuri structure - Hound Stable
- [New] Desert golems - Chakram Nomad, Dagger Nomad, Scarab
- [New] Mortum golems - Crossboner, Bonewarrior
- [New] Azuri golem - Hound
- [New] Azuri tiles - Meadow, Steppe
- [New] Mortum tile - Dead Forest
- [New] Art for Boulderswag Pit and Giant Pit structures
- [New] pan camera control, more precise and feels much better than the old one
- Camera pan sensitivity setting added to settings menu
- Slide camera pan option is disabled. We may or may not bring it back at some point

- Simplified Chinese locale added
- Ru-ru locale added
- We are not enabling official "supported languages" in Steam yet for these locales
- You can switch locale in settings menu
- Locales are stored in \StreamingAssets\Locales folder of the game

- HexDamage is reduced for Giants and Boulderswags to 10 (was 25) means they will less likely destroy your hexagons
- Giants and Boulderswags spawn pattern is now 2 units max at T3 (was 3 units max at T3)
- Better splash damage control. Now limited by x2 max in the hit epicenter
- Forge: ArmorAdd 5 (was 10), SpeedMod 0.7 (was 0.6), AttackSpeed 1.3 (was 1.5)
- Global MinDamage is now 1.0 (was 0.1) to counter extremely high armor values in some cases
- Few tweaks to desert tiles (e.g. Oasis +3Ra/+3Li, Savannah +2Ra/+2Li)
- Red Pillars tiles give same amount of Iron as Mountain tiles
- Oasis tile has a passive healing aura (+3 hp per second)
- Mortum units now ignore necro tile slowdown effect

- Introduced LODs for tiles and units. When you zoom out - less details will be shown consuming less GPU resources.
- Introduces Pooling for projectiles and visual effects. Means they will be recycled instead of allocated/deallocated spending CPU cycles.

- [Editor] Fix for weird offset when dragging a hexagon in some cases.
- [Fireball Wizard Boss] Now you can not kill the boss by destroying the hexagon he is staying on

- Three difficulty modes introduced - easy, normal, hard
- Difficulty modes adjust amount of higher tier spawners per level as well as defense structures and spells that enemy can use
- Available for any new game started, can not be changed during that game
- Your existing game before this update counts as "normal" difficulty

- Each tile now adds hit points to base hexagon hp
- Base hexagon hp: 300
- Grass, oasis, cacti, graveyard +100 hp
- Forest +200 hp
- Small mountains +300 hp
- Large mountains +600 hp
- This should help reinforce your formation against hex busters

- Introduced weaker and stronger versions of Flame Cannon and Heavy Ballista (weaker in Region 1, stronger in Region 3)
- Ballista arrow now does shrapnel shots when it hits a structure
- Proper attack sectors now visible for Flame Cannon, Dark cannon and Heavy Ballista

- Golem health bars! Shown automatically when golems are spawned with low HP or when you hover a cursor over a hexagon for a couple seconds
- Golem info now shows correct amount of golem health and all the reductions or buffs applied to that health and max health

- Fix for flag hotkeys [1-5] not working sometimes
- Hawks are now called Bees, Wasps and Hornets depeding on their grade
- Fireball Wizard now has lower dps (7 fireballs instead of 9, 3.7 seconds reload instead of 3.0)
- New effects for Fortress Tower attacks

TLDR: Hexagons are now destructible, angry hexbusters added, but there are also bubble shields.

- Hexagons now can be damaged and destroyed by a special Crush Damage property on some attacks
- Hexagon tile will be destroyed first (e.g. forest, mountains) and downgraded to a simple tile (e.g. dirt or stone)
- Crush Damage is enabled for Giants and Boulderswags but only when hitting non-ally hexagons
- Crush Damage is also applied when hexagon is collided with static obstacles and cliffs
- [Structure] Flame Cannon - enemy only, burst fire, medium Crush Damage
- [Structure] Dark Cannon - enemy only, extremely limited angle, high Crush Damage
- [Structure] Heavy Ballista - enemy only, shots long range arrows with piercing
- [Spell] Great Heal - Greatly restores health of ally golems
- [Spell] Magic Barrier - Creates a magic barrier that prevents projectiles from passing through
- [Spell] Stasis - Immobilize enemy ground golems for a significant period of time
- Purify Tile spell now restores hexagon hp
- [Trait] Storage Slots (7 max). Unlocks when storage is unlocked
- New level modifiers added. These level modifiers are marked with a star on a Aether Map
- [Level Modifier] Artillery - higher chance of artillery towers presence
- [Level Modifier] Air Raid - some spawners replaced with air golem spawners

- Improved level start button icon and interactions
- New resource icons instead of obscure symbols (added in structure and hexagon info panel only)
- Golem info now shows extra attack info instead of "WEP_FireballSmall" when extra attack is present
- Towers range indicator shows when you hover on any tower structure
- Hexagon selector stays when hexagon is selected
- Double tap hotkey to remove any placed flag
- Shortcuts [Q] + 1 ... 4 for hex runes (detach, swap, merge, sacrifice)
- Shortcuts [E] + 1 ... 9 for spells

- Defense structures balance to make them more effective at close range and less effective on siege range.
- Flame Tower, Frost Tower - AttackDistance 4.5 (was 7)
- Sentry Tower, Guard Tower, Defense Tower - AttackDistance 6.3 (was 10)
- Some tweaks for Guard Tower and Defense Tower to use burst fire instead of multiple projectiles per shot
- [Kingdom Editor] New gold prices introduced for T1, T2, T3 variations of structures. Selling 2xT1 still gives more gold value than selling 1xT2
- [Aether Map] Max levels per region is set to 12 (was 20)
- Structures with low efficiency now spawn raw units with HP% equal to the efficiency (e.g. giant den supplied with 5% essence will produce units with 5% HP)
- Boosters are now more impactful, stronger, but also require more resources. Together with the previous change they should be much more interesting to use
- Fortress Tower HP is set to 5000 (was 10000)

- Fix for hexagon formation stuck for 2 seconds when hexagon with mountains tile is sold
- Fix for gray border line that appears when formation is updated in some cases
- Fix for Fortress Tower inaccuracy, but it is still easy to dodge it

- Some work done towards multiple languages support but still work in progress
- Locales are moved to Hexworld_Data\StreamingAssets\Locales and could be modified externally
- Chinese characters support added
- Latin, Creek, Cyrillic, Thai, Georgian, Armenian alphabets are also supported
- More info on locales in future patch notes, no ETA for exact languages support

(in-game cursor concept art)

- Added new in-game cursor that changes for different actions (drag-drop, spells)
- Added settings option to switch back to system cursor
- Added hexagon hover indication in Kingdom Editor and during the play
- Added hexagon highlight when a spell is picked

- Tweaked Aether Map nodes to have less jittery animation
- Sacrifice hexagon action can not be applied on a hexagon with enemy golems
- Less overlapping sound effects on level completion, especially in boss levels
- Player castle now should ignore all movement input when captured by another team, player still can use spells but not 'detach' action

(spell related highlight)

Unexpected Monday patch due to some severe exploit found. 👀

Fixes and Improvements:
- Fix for exploit allowing free structure upgrades (thanks Mefistofel)
- Floating hexagons now should fly around obstacles on a level
- Floating hexagons can not be sacrificed, sold or swapped anymore
- [Abilities] Fireball Strike L3 now shoots 6 projectiles per tile instead of 4 (thanks Rose)
- [Abilities] Fortify Structure and Disable Structure should not use mana when cast on empty tiles
- [Abilities] Purify Tile can be applied on tiles with structures now

- Golem info preview - proper stats in the Editor
- Golem info preview - boosted stats are now visible
- Golem info preview - highlight for values changed
- Golem info preview - unit speed added
- Fix for "the Editor does not show hexagons acquired after victory before clicking proceed" (thanks @captainwolf, @SireGimps)
- Fix for "unit preview in the Editor shows GolemT1 for any structure picked" (thanks @Kezzbo)
- Fix for "hexagon colored outline being active after guard tower or portal is destroyed"
- Possible fix for "victory is not triggering when all enemies are cleared"

- Grey area outline instead of team color outline in some cases
- Collision issues in some Region 3 levels


Updated Golem info preview: