Predictably, players have already managed to greatly surprise me with scores they have obtained on several stages, and as such I do need to adjust some score thresholds before things go way out of hand. I also have decided to slightly buff the scores on 1-5. Hopefully I won't regret that.

• Changed the score thresholds on 1-5:

  • ★: 1.000.000.000 -> 800.000.000

  • +1: 250.000.000 -> 200.000.000

• Changed the score thresholds on 1-6

  • ★: 120.000.000 -> 100.000.000

  • +1: +15.000.000 -> +20.000.000

• Changed the score thresholds on 2-4

  • B: 600.000 -> 800.000

  • A: 1.800.000 -> 3.200.000

  • S: 3.600.000 -> 9.600.000

  • ★: 6.400.000 -> 12.800,000

  • +1: +1.200.000 -> 2.400.000

• Changed the score thresholds on 2-5:

  • A: 250.000 -> 2.500.000

  • S: 1.000.000 -> 7.500.000

  • ★: 4.000.000 -> 12.500.000

  • +1: +4.000.000 -> +7.500.000

• Added division gates to the item list visible in map mode.

• Fixed a typo in one of the room names on 2-4.

• Fixed a typo in EX-3 referring to a wrong item name.

• Added a failsafe to handle the situation of a corrupted savestates file.

• Reduced the verbosity of log files.

I will keep monitoring the situation if further nerfs will be necessary, especially on 1-6 and 2-6... but hopefully not 😅. I will also do a small change in my future plans and try to push out rebindable controls before the achievements, as it was show to me it is a far more necessary feature than I initially thought. Unfortunately it will require some work from me to implement, but hopefully it won't end up hellish.

The game is finally here! I am so happy to have finally reached this point, and I am excited to see how players are going to break the stages apart. As expected for the game launches, there is a kickoff sale - in this case a 20% off for an entire week!

• The full game is out, extending the stage count to 15.

• The stage clear dialog now shows what is the score threshold to obtaining one more gem.

• An overscore softcap has been implemented that increases the overscore thresholds past the ★+100 grade - however it should be irrelevant for now, as the

• Slightly changed the layout of 2-1 and siginificiantly nerfed the overscore on this stage.

• Changed one wall tile to a reinforced one on 1-4.

• Fixed several bugs related to the full map screenshot functionality.

First and foremost, I will monitor the situation for any necessary balance changes - whether some stages need a buff to the gem gains, or - what is more likely to be honest - a nerf. After all, with a game that has as much complexity as this one, I am unable to test every possible strategy - and even with the relatively simple demo stages I have been consistently surprised by the players on the Discord server.

As for content, for the version 0.5 I plan to implement achievements. Some of these will be just a pure progression achievements - like getting 100 gems or 20 crowns - but some will be challenge achievements, like getting through to the dark crown on the stage using as few metaprogression resources as possible. And of course there will be a room for something funny too.

The plans go one more version further too - for the version 0.6 I do want to begin the third chapter with a tutorial stage for the next major mechanic. What that mechanic is going to be, you may ask? Well, I will give the answer when the right time comes (read: the design will be properly finalized), but for now at least the veterans of magic tower games may certainly ponder some things.

And past that? Well, we'll see - it might be some QoL improvements, it might be more stages, it all depends on the player feedback both on the community forums and the Discord server.

As for the demo, it will stay. I did not plan to remove the demo after the release, and that plan has not changed in the slightest. The demo will even be kept in sync with the full version too, sharing the bugfixes and the QoL improvements with it - so if you want to show the game to someone, you will be able to just throw a demo at them just fine!