0.19.001 is an early access update that features not one single big thing but lots of important changes and improvements, along with the usual host of smaller improvements. But these new features can be clearly felt all over the game! I’ve been talking about a few of them on the devlog, and will detail the reasons for more of them in the future. All in all, this was a big chunk of work, with lots of testing to make sure it plays well.

From where I stand this was the last piece of heavy lifting before the game is finally gold. Anything else coming now will mostly be balancing, polishing and tweaking as I start to ramp up for launch and the marketing work that comes with it. After about four years of development it’s really time, if you ask me…

So what changed? Let’s have a look at that infamous changelog, shall we?

Major changes

Weather Effects

• Added weather FX to combat scenes

• Weather FX used depends on the location

Leader Leveling changed

• Which cards are offered each level was changed to transition softly between rarities

• Added a highlight when one of the rare cards is turned over

Removing Leader Cards changed

• Player now gains Focus points with each level up.

• Focus points are used to remove cards from the leader deck.

• When visiting a Teacher you can now either learn a new card or purchase an extra focus point.

Luxury Items changed

• Luxury items now produce less hope

• Luxury items grant a temporary status effect that grants advantages and extra hope in the next battle

• Hope, Battery and food maximums have been increased to 999

Convoy “The Hermit” improved

• Custom fourth convoy perk: Maximum size of convoy deck reduced but also prevents all damage from empty convoy deck

• The hermit’s sole card is now a unique, mythic beast follower

Minor changes

Tutorial

• A reminder for leader cards was added

• A tutorial after leveling up explains HP gain and focus points

• A tutorial before sharing explains luxury items

• A tutorial when sharing a luxury item explains the temporary status effects

Balancing

• Equipment cost adjusted and a few equipment buffs tweaked

Interface

• You can now simply drag cards that have no specific target into the battlefield to trigger them

• The stat gains through leveling are now visualized

• Lots of typos have been fixed in events

• Colors of units on the battlefield have been adjusted a bit (borders are darker)

• The back hotkey has been tweaked to work more uniformly

• A button to show the battlefield during the Mulligan phase has been added.

• An option to adjust how long the enemy cards are shown as preview during battle

• Events can now hide some text if the player doesn’t have the appropriate follower

• Convoy details view was cleaned up a bit

• The game starts more smoothly now, especially if you load mid-battle

• Visual effects for lootable obstacles that add stats directly now show amount of stats added

• The description for status effect durations is now clearer that it resets each battle

Bugfixes

• If you loaded a game mid-combat and it would trigger a tutorial, then the game froze.

• Strategist now triggers properly again

• Leper Headquarters now drop the appropriate mythic card

• Headhunter event now gives you batteries if you sell your follower out

• Item grids should now always update properly