We're now finished with Corruption of Arcana as a university project, with our project deadline a few days ago! Not to worry though, the team still has lots in store for you all and we have many updates and are now looking to the future.  Expect another Devlog in the next few days outlining our plans as we continue on against the corruption.

Although this is the end of the team's time here at university, we're actively working on the next stage of development and will have more information to share with you all soon. If you want to get the latest information as soon as it drops, make sure you're following on Twitter and have joined the community discord server!

 Without further delay, here are the patch notes to Corruption of Arcana 1.6.0!

New Features

There are a lot of changes in this one so be prepared for a long read.

Story Changes

• A new intro has been added
  • This tells the story of the past, how the corruption is here and why Taro is here to stop it.
• A new tutorial has been added
  • This is an optional system accessed through the intro or through the arena
  • It will help newer players understand basic combat mechanics
  • A more in-depth tutorial is being looked into by the team, which will feature advanced card mechanics and deckbuilding techniques.
• The main quest line now extends into two new areas
  • Players can now journey through the forest clearing into a corrupted cave to defeat the game's first major boss.
• We have also populated the areas with some sidequests! Get out there and see what there is to find!

World Changes

• Thoth has undergone some more art style changes
  • The cows in the farm have been updated to a newer sprite
  • The Uniformed stepping stones have been removed, and have been replaced by a nicer-looking texture. This helps performance and looks better overall
  • An earth-like texture has been added to the dirt paths
  • The log ramp has been replaced with a flat collider to smooth the transition up to the mid-layer of Thoth
• The East Forest has undergone further development
  • The knights' camp has been upgraded to include:
    • Defences
    • Tents, crates and other decorative items
    • NPC Knights
• The Eastern Cave has undergone further development
  • The cave size has been reduced to better fit Taro's size
  • New texture for rocks in the Eastern Cave
    
  • We now have a puzzle section in the level
  • The cave is now finished, with enemies and story elements for you all to explore! 

New Mechanics

• Loot pools have been added
  • Rewards vary from potions, cards and weapons
• Quest Rewards have been updated
  • The main quest has received fixed rewards
  • Side quests have a mix between fixed rewards and loot pool rewards
• Card Upgrades
  • Players can now use the new menu to combine 3 of the same cards to upgrade to the next tier of card. Talk to Lt. Hierophante to make your deck stronger.
• Compass Icons
  • Quest markers now appear on the compass
• AI have had a few new features & updates, notably:
  • Enemies will now bunch up in the overworld, with weaker enemies following a "boss" in certain areas.
  • Improvements to the AI's wandering mean that they shouldn't wander too far and means they will remain findable by the player.
  • With the new patrol editing workflow that the team is using, patrolling AI should be more prevalent throughout the world.

Interfaces

• Added the artwork and functionality to the compass on the exploration UI
• Added new artwork to the interact popup
• Added new artwork to the quest tracker on the exploration UI
• Added a new weapons menu
  • This will allow you to change weapons to have different minor arcana cards in your deck
• Added a new potions menu
  • This will allow you to track the amount of potions you have and what each one of them does
• Added a new card upgrade menu
  • This will allow you to upgrade your major arcana cards to have a stronger effect
  • This is a temporary menu and will be moved to a vendor later in development
• Updated the Victory and Defeat combat interfaces

Combat

• New VFX have been added to a range of attacks
  • The Star card now has a unique beam effect
  • The Wand cards have a fireball projectile effect
• New enemy sprites
  • Beaver
  • Wolf
  • The Marauder Boss

Audio

• Otis' audio test tone has been removed
  • We hope you laughed at this tone if you found it, our in-house tester had no idea what it was so it wasn't brought up until it had been there for a couple of months

Art 

• New sprites for coins with variations for different denominations
• New trinkets have been added
  • We would tell you what they are but that ruins the fun of hiding them ;)
• New card art has been added to the game
• A new game icon is here!
  • The crystal is gone; a new icon that better represents Corruption of Arcana has been made and can be seen on the tab for our itch page and on the game application
• New sprites for each of the weapons, each weapon type has 4 variants
  • Axes
  • Shields
  • Sword
  • Sword-Staff
  • Wands

Miscellaneous:

• The save system is now fully implemented, it now saves the player's state (position, rotation), their cards, weapons, potions and quests completed (NOTE: Any save data from prior versions of CoA WILL NOT work. Make sure to start a new game!)
• Fixed "Progress Saved" message when saving the game
• Fixed footstep audio in Thoth
• Added dialogue box to tell the player if there is no saved data present

Fixed Issues

• Letter spacing has been increased on the quest tracker to improve readability
  • This was based on feedback given by players
• Resolved a timescale issue which caused the game not to pause correctly
• Resolved an issue which would mean the game stay paused after clicking a resume, continue or close menu button

Known Issues

• Due to the deck scaling, if you empty the cards in the deck-building menu, it can be a bit awkward to place cards

A lot of changes and some new additions are still on the way, so make sure to keep an eye out on our Twitter for more updates! That's everything we have for you today, enjoy the new update. 

Community Discord: https://discord.com/invite/2RTndr8U9D

Fortune favors the bold! - JD & MR