The Assay Office and the Tavern

Two RulesVersion bumps this week (170 → 172), both in town: Rimhold now has an Assay Office, where the Assayer names unknown items for gold, and a Tavern, where the Barkeep sells rumours about the floors below. There's also an ink scene the first time you climb out, a set of end-screen fixes, and a change to where the game keeps your save data.

If you're certifying runs: anything recorded against last week's build will not replay clean against this one. Expected, not a bug.

Priority this week

• The Assayer's prices. Is paying to name an unknown potion, wand, scroll, or ring worth it next to just drinking, zapping, or reading it? Is any category always worth assaying, or never?
• The Barkeep's rumours. Does a rumour about a deeper floor's boss and graves change how you play that floor — what you buy, what you hold back, whether you go down at all? Is it worth climbing back up to town for?
• Your profile survived the update. The game's save folder moved this week. Check your graves, Player Guide progress, and settings all came across intact.

Added / changed

The Assay Office (GH #559, #567). A third named building in Rimhold, signposted like the others, with the Assayer behind a set of brass scales. Walk into the Assayer to open the counter (free — no turn spent). Pick any unidentified potion, wand, scroll, or ring you're carrying and pay the fee, and that whole item type is named for the rest of the run, exactly as if you'd used one. The fee depends only on the item's category (potions and scrolls cheapest, wands more, rings most), rises a little with the deepest depth you've reached, and Haggle shaves it. There's no limit per visit. The Assayer now has their own sprite and the building has a hanging sign. Test: bring a handful of unknown items up from depth 1–3 and assay one of each category. Then try it later in a run, when you're carrying more. Watch for: a fee that changes between two items of the same category (that would leak what they are), an item that's still unknown after you've paid, a sale going through with too little gold, or the counter offering something you've already identified.

The Tavern and the Barkeep (GH #560). A fourth building, with the Barkeep behind the bar. Walk into the Barkeep for the rumour menu. A rumour is about the nearest floor deeper than any you've reached that holds either this run's boss or a fallen hero's grave: what that floor's theme is, which boss waits there, and whose graves lie there and what crossing them gives. Rumours are always true. You can buy one per trip to town; the price rises with the floor's depth. Everything you've heard stays listed under Heard. The Barkeep uses a generic townsfolk sprite for now — the proper portrait and sign are coming (GH #569). Test: buy a rumour on your first climb out, then go down and check it against what's actually on that floor. Die on a deep floor in one run and see whether the next run's Barkeep tells you about your own grave. --start-depth 5 gets you to boss territory fast; climb back up from there to see a rumour about a later floor. Watch for: any rumour that's wrong (wrong boss, wrong depth, a grave that isn't there, a missing one that is), a second rumour sold on the same visit, the menu offering nothing when a deeper floor clearly has a boss or a grave, or the same rumour coming up twice.

An ink scene on your first climb out (GH #558). The first time in a run you come up onto the rim, a full-screen ink plate of Rimhold at night appears behind a short card; any key dismisses it. Later trips to town in the same run show nothing. Test: climb out from depth 1, dismiss it, go down and come back up. Also try suspending and resuming a run while in town. Watch for: the scene showing again on a second visit, showing after a resume, text clipping off the card, or the card not dismissing.

The game's save folder moved (GH #379). The game is now properly branded for Steam, which moves where Windows keeps its data: from AppData\LocalLow\DefaultCompany\labyrinth-game to AppData\LocalLow\AlternatePorridge\Labyrinth. On first launch the game copies everything across from the old folder — profile, graves, settings, your player ID, a suspended run, and reports. It copies, never moves, and never overwrites, so the old folder is left as it was. Test: just launch the new build over an existing install and play as normal. Watch for: missing graves in the town boneyard, Player Guide fragments you'd found showing as unfound, audio or other settings reset to defaults, or the leaderboard treating you as a new player. If anything's missing, say so in the report and don't delete the old folder.

Fixed

End screens at small resolutions (GH #555, #556). At 1280×720, a win with long leaderboard or Hall of Fame messages could push the bottom of the screen off the edge, and the last line could land on the bare edge of the parchment card rather than on it. Long messages now cut off cleanly at two lines (hover for the full text), and the card always reaches past the last line. Test: play a run to an end at 1280×720, ideally a challenge run, and especially while offline so the server messages are long. Watch for: any text below the bottom edge, or a line sitting outside the card.

Hollow endings show the right depth (GH #566). Claiming or destroying the Heart showed "ended at 11/10" in the run summary. It now reads "Reached the Hollow". Test: any Claim or Renounce ending — --start-depth 10 is the quick route. Watch for: "11" anywhere on the summary.

Also landed

On the website, a release day now always starts a fresh weekly challenge, even if nobody had played last week's yet, so you're never stuck on an old challenge under new rules (GH #565).

Found something? Esc → Report a Bug/Feature, same as always.