Dev Update — Balance Overhaul, Bug Squashing & a Demo Incoming
Every build retuned, a pile of bugs fixed (including a nasty one that deleted your run when you quit), and a free Act 1 demo on the way ahead of Early Access.
Operators,
We’ve been heads-down ahead of Early Access on August 11 — here’s what’s landed in the build.
⚔️ Every build retuned
We built a headless simulator that plays the game thousands of times per balance pass, then spent weeks iterating on the results:
- Bleed, Poison and Thorns builds hit meaningfully harder — DoT engines ramp faster, and the big payoff cards (Hemorrhage, Concentrated Venom) now punch straight through Energy Shield.
- Armor stacking got real teeth: Shield Bash converts at 1.25× your armor and Bulwark Slam swings harder, so the tank fantasy actually closes fights instead of outlasting them.
- New Thorns finishers (Impale, Skewer) convert your spike stacks into targeted damage.
- Enemy ranged/melee logic is consistent now: close the gap on a sniper and it hits softer; let a bruiser reach you and it hits harder. Positioning matters the way it should.
- Boss immunities are gone (regular mobs keep theirs), event payouts got sane caps, and a handful of never-pick cards (Parry, Quick Shot, Dodge) got real identities.
🐛 Bug sweep
The one we’re most glad is dead: “Exit to Menu” used to delete your run. It’s now a proper Save & Quit — your run is saved and waiting on the main menu, with a preview of exactly where you left off. Also fixed: the final boss dumping you into a pointless card reward instead of the ending, hand overflow when you chain big draws, enemy telegraphs clipping off their frames, shops letting the map bleed through, EMP Burst doing nothing at all, and a long tail of smaller issues.
👁 Quality of life
- Incoming-damage readout — see the total telegraphed damage vs your block + shield at a glance.
- View your deck during card rewards — judge every offer against what you already own.
- Hover any greyed-out card to see why it can’t be played.
- Confirmation dialogs on every destructive action, ESC closes overlays, bigger fonts for handheld screens, and a “progress saved” indicator so you never wonder.
🎮 What’s next
- A free demo — Act 1, all three classes — is in final prep for the Steam page.
- Full controller support and Steam Deck polish are next on the bench.
- More balance passes as your feedback rolls in — the simulator means we can test a change against a few hundred full runs in about two minutes.
If AI Apocalypse looks like your kind of deckbuilder, wishlisting on Steam is the single most helpful thing you can do before launch. See you in the apocalypse. 🖤
— Scuffed Studios