It Moves Now

Last week I stood in this very spot and told you the cure for my Saturday sins was discipline: one cut, every Monday, no exceptions. This is the Sunday edition of that promise. The build was done, the tests were green, and I have the willpower of a rogue standing on a treasure tile. So the week rolled over early — details below, apology included — and the new build is up.

It moves now

The big one. Until this week, combat was a slideshow: things stood on tiles, then stood on different tiles, and you inferred the violence in between. Now the violence shows its work. Heroes and monsters slide instead of teleport, attacks lunge, the struck flinch, wands throw actual bolts and beams with element-colored light, area magic hazes over the tiles it claims, dashes leave trails, blinks leave ghosts, and the dead fade instead of vanishing like an unpaid actor. It's all engine-driven and the dice never notice — a replayed run animates exactly like the live one did.

New toys, sharper teeth

The identification game got deeper shelves: the ring pool grew to 20 rings — worn two at a time, now including deep-floor powers and a few honest devil's bargains — and the scroll pool to 19 scrolls, four of which you will genuinely regret reading. The enchant cap is gone — scrolls stack as far as your luck holds.

And a balance sweep for the repeat offenders. Miasma now thins with distance instead of filling a room like judgment. Quake respects a cooldown. Snare taxes your movement instead of confiscating your turn. Sunder grinds your armor rather than your bones, Warded creatures resist wands by tier instead of coin-flip, and the boss lifedrain got its allowance cut. Also, for the doorway physicists: a Wary garrison now springs when it sees any damage — not just wands — so the shockwave farm is closed.

Smaller things worth knowing:

• A real Settings menu — volume, separate music/SFX mutes, fullscreen, and a key map. Relatedly, the pause menu no longer mutes the game behind your back.
• Novice hints — one-shot contextual tips, on by default for fresh profiles only. Veterans will never see them; you've already paid the tuition.
• Seed sharing — your run's seed is visible and copyable, and typing one on name entry replays that exact dungeon. Feuds are now portable.
• Ability hotkeys 1–9 and full keyboard aiming, for those who mouse under protest.
• Challenge-mode deaths no longer leave graves in your normal runs — the two worlds keep their dead separate now, as is proper.
• The weekly board shows grave counts, and bug reports can carry a contact email if you want an answer instead of a void.

The early rollover

Cutting on Sunday froze the Jul 20 challenge week where it stood — its board stands, untouched, under the old rules. But if you had a challenge run in flight on the old build today, it can no longer be submitted, and for that I'm sorry; the door is strict by design and I'm the one who moved the doorframe. The Jul 27 week is already open on the new rules, a full day of head start included. The site now handles all of this rollover automatically, so the next time I break my own schedule, at least the machinery won't be surprised.

What's next

A quiet week of tuning, if the Labyrinth allows it. The new rings and scrolls need playtesting bodies — yours, ideally — and the balance sweep needs proving at depth. Two bigger things are stirring beyond that: I'm working on getting the game onto Twitch as a demo — you'll still need to download it, but you'll be able to watch a hero die in real time before deciding to become one yourself — and I've started preparing for a proper Steam release; the descent is heading somewhere with storefront lighting.

And keep the bug reports coming. This week's changes were significant, which is a polite way of saying I have almost certainly missed something. If the Labyrinth does something it shouldn't — or something I shouldn't have let it — the Report a Bug button on the pause menu sends it straight to my desk.

Go read something you shouldn't. See you at the bottom.