Merry Christmas everyone! \n(Or whatever you wanna celebrate, I don\'t care as long as you have a good time :) )

Before we get into the update, some news: We\'ve been nominated in the category \"Best Student Game 2025\" at the SGDA Awards ! Unfortunately, our plans to win were foiled by https://store.steampowered.com/app/3451290/Pale_Abyss/\"" style="color:#bb86fc;text-decoration:none;">Pale Abyss , a first-person action RPG with a PS1-like art style. This makes us very upset, and we hope Permanent Crab Studios is struck by a terrible fate, like forgetting the keys at home when going out, or eating fajitas that are a bit too spicy. (Jokes aside, congrats! The game looks sick as hell, wishing you luck on future endeavors >:] )

Now, to the actual update: We\'ve adjusted some of the engravings from the last update. In playtesting, there was a bit of information overload & on some playthroughs, descriptions were ignored entirely, so we\'ve reduced some of the clutter. Also, some were a bit too polarizing, so we\'ve reduced the individual effects on those.

Here\'s the big change: We\'ve added a bunch of new engravings, each with a unique effect! These aren\'t just stat upgrades, but provide effects that only they can offer. For instance, look at these:

[img src=\"https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/45321059/709b57ac4890a602c76dfb9f159ec134ff9edd0b.png\"][/img]

All-Consuming Hunger ( Power) \\[Killing an enemy with this weapon gives you a temporary +5% damage on all weapons (Caps at +200%, needs to be fed]

This engraving gives you a considerable damage boost, but requires you to keep killing enemies to maintain that bonus. This is very useful against the hordes, but requires some balancing of weapons & prep for boss fights.

[img src=\"https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/45321059/1fdce01eed848e065d0629d4f742feb127fc9c81.png\"][/img]

Expertise ( Finesse) \\[Equipping other Engravings with the Finesse type to this weapon levels them up by one tier]

This one is for character-builders. It doesn\'t do much right away when you equip it, but with a bit of planning, you can get a lot of value out of it. Plus, it synergizes well with the anvil, allowing massive stat increases!

[img src=\"https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/45321059/7e1acb1c65d865e34fb76cec6568656b8ae4c75e.png\"][/img]

Emblem of Chaos ( Arcana) \\[Whenever you enter a tile, randomize all other engravings equipped to this weapon]

This is just a fun one, seeing what comes out when you travel! It can also be useful when you get some engravings that just aren\'t doing anything for your run. For boss fights, I suggest rerolling a bunch of times to get a good build to face Shadigi. (Also, please don\'t tell Edmund McMillen that I stole his iconic representation of chaos. He will flay me.)

These are just my favorites, but we\'ve added a couple more! Guess you\'ll have to play the game to see them for yourself ;)

New to the game as well: The Orb of Pure Arcana! A new weapon that follows your cursor, allowing you to snipe enemies with pinpoint precision. (As long as they\'re in range).

[img src=\"https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/45321059/4c56c90a1810d1b377aa6913b0c3e0978a571884.png\"][/img]

In addition, we\'ve received some feedback that a lot of the weapons don\'t work as starting weapons. To combat this, a couple of them were buffed & given higher base stats. Hope that gives you more wiggle room to play with. Also, a bit of polish to top things off, check out the patch notes for more details, and give us feedback. I\'m off for the holidays, but expect more updates in the future!

Have a good one, and enjoy the holidays!\nJonas Wiesli\nTeam Quintuple-A

Patch Notes

Changes

• Added 8 new engravings with completely unique effects

  [list]

• New total: 44 different engravings to encounter

  [/*]

Fixes

• Drastically reduced likelihood of starting chest (with the \"Arsenal of Weapons\" unlock) being covered by trees

  [/*]

• Fixed XP Bomb being usable when it shouldn\'t be

  [/*]

• Fixed two engravings sharing the same name

  [/*]

• Fixed various spelling mistakes

  [/*]

• Adjusted main menu sub-menus

  [/*]

Hey y\'all,

there\'s a been a pretty big bug that snuck into last version undetected. This is a good opportunity to have a bit of a technical talk about one of the issues when working with the Godot Engine: Circular dependency.

Now, I am a big fan of the engine compared to others that are around. For making 2D games, it is definitely my personal favorite because of how straight-forward most components are, and by enforcing type-safety in the editor, you still get that robust foundation. And it\'s open source, so anyone can work on it if they wish. All around great stuff, DoH is built on top of Godot 4.3 for those reasons.

But, working with it so much, there is one issue that has cropped up a bunch of times in our projects. It happens when you have scripts that need to load other scripts in order to work. Broadly simplified, if you happen to have multiple scripts that need other scripts to be loaded first to function, and those scripts need that script in order to function, you get something that\'s called a \"circular dependency\".

[img src=\"https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/45321059/9eef24951ff5d2317c94ae60c8f2705ba0bb8707.png\"][/img]

Now, you might be thinking: \"this seems pretty avoidable, just don\'t do it like that!\" That\'s easy to say for the example above. But, when you have so many moving parts & multiple people working on it, your code base starts to look a little bit closer to this after a while:

[img src=\"https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/45321059/521d2eed88e39766c41d40e31f600740d7d1f507.png\"][/img]

It gets harder to spot, especially when you\'re knee-deep inside of a different rework & lose focus of the grander architecture.

Now, this wouldn\'t be that bad if you could detect that while working on it, and if it showed you exactly where you\'ve added the dependency. Unfortunately, when working on the game in the editor, it doesn\'t care & handles these dependencies fine, so nothing breaks until you export it. By that point, you get a crash or a bug at a seemingly random point in the game with a vague error message, and you have the scrounge your entire code base to find it.

In our case, I added a feature that would display the available engravings in an area in the HUD. And, if you had no available engravings left, it should display an exp bomb, since that\'s what you get instead. I figured I\'d load the Icon directly from the pickup, if we ever decide to change that icon. However, somewhere in that chain, a circular dependency was created. Now, that meant that in the export, the scene containing the exp bomb was unable to load, so whenever the game tried to spawn one, it just didn\'t. When trading with the fruit market, it even crashed. Working backwards from that back to the UI was really annoying, especially with having to export everything over and over. The fix was to load the texture directly into the UI.

So, in short, we couldn\'t catch the error while working on it, and it was a pain in the ass to find it afterwards.

Enjoy the update, folks, and have a good one.\nJonas Wiesli\nTeam Quintuple-A

Patch Notes

Changes

• Added more obstacles for the crystal biome

  [/*]

• \"Attacks\" -> Split up into \"Attack Base\" & \"Attack Mult\" respectively

  [/*]

Bug Fixes

• Fixed a bug where trying to spawn an Exp Bomb would either not spawn anything or crash the game

  [/*]

• Fixed another bug where bosses would not use their abilities

  [/*]

This is a big one, folks!

We\'ve been hard at work, reworking major systems. The most central change has been reworking the engraving system: Now, there are distinct categories that correspond to different attributes. On one hand, it makes the inventory system a lot more understandable to new players, on the other, it gives us a lot more wiggle room when designing new engravings. This has resulted in more than doubling the available engraving count!

[img src=\"https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/45321059/fb3d6f8fce666431dc4fed99bc98fa94d4283a53.png\"][/img]

Also, when & how many enemies spawn were adjusted as well, enhancing the pacing & making the game more engaging beyond the first two bosses. In addition, there are two new weapons! The Rod of Lightning is very effective when dealing with wide hordes of enemies, while the Halberd is great at close-quarters melee combat. They also have some crazy scaling with the new engravings, so go wild & experiment!

Alongside that, art & sound both got a neat upgrade. All bosses now have imposing arenas of their own, a lot of UI Elements got a nice touch-up (also UX-wise) and the crystal biome got a bit more love. Small improvements to the soundscape make everything feel a lot more polished.

For people that are more experienced, we have added hard mode and a weapon selection at the start of the game. This should hopefully give some more incentive to push for mastery.

It\'s a lot, so we\'re very proud with this update, and we hope you have as much fun as we did exploring the big changes!

Also, engravings with drawbacks are no longer classified as unique. Get ready for some truly unique engravings... in the next update!

Have a good one!\nJonas Wiesli\nTeam Quintuple-A

Patch Notes

Changes

• Overhauled engraving system. Engravings & engraving slots now are attributed to one of four categories:

  [list]

• Body: Character Stats. Body & Mind. Doesn\'t belong on Weapons (usually). Stat changes are applied to all weapons.

  [/*]

• Power: Brawn, brute strength, raw power. Constitution & Protection.

  [/*]

• Arcana: Magic & the Arcane. Teleportation, Illusions, the inexplicable.

  [/*]

• Finesse: Speed, Elusiveness, Death by a Thousand Cuts.

  [/*]

• 16 different engravings 36 different engravings

  [/*]

Bug Fixes

• Fixed various issues relating to tracking time, both in normal gameplay & in boss fights

  [/*]

• Fixed a bug where available engravings would not appear when leveling up

  [/*]

• Fixed a bug where achievement progress towards \"Domain Expansion: Jungle\" would be displayed incorrectly

  [/*]

• Adjusted position of a tree where people would get stuck between tree & wall

  [/*]

Hey everyone! We\'re back with another small update to give you something to chew on while while we\'re cooking up the engraving overhaul.

Key here is more of a technical change to the way save systems work. We\'ve switched to a system powered by Steam Stats before launch, but we later realized some issues regarding having to be always online to play the game. So, Marcel got to work & rewrote the entire system again to run locally. Say thank you to Marcel.

Also, on a more gameplay-focused note, now all weapons are impacted by all stats. That means no longer needing to slot all your Penetration into Magic Shot, because the other weapons also benefit from it as well. (Although, with the big change to the engraving system coming up, those strategies might change fundamentally soon ;) )

Take care & have a good one!\nJonas Wiesli\nTeam Quintuple-A

Patch Notes

Changes

• Decoupled save system from Steam

  [/*]

• Added ability to add multiple save files on a single account

  [/*]

• All engraving attributes now affect all weapons in the game

  [list]

• Flame Orb: Penetration spawns small additional flames on hit

  [/*]

• Flame Orb: Fire Rate now affects rotation speed

  [/*]

• Boomerang: Projectiles now need Penetration to pierce enemies

  [/*]

• Boomerang: Attack Count now affects amount of projectiles

  [/*]

Bug Fixes

• Fixed players getting stuck in the tree inside of the boss arena

  [/*]

• Fixed screen flicker when enemies spawn while delirious

  [/*]

• Fixed starting tiles counting towards achievement progress

  [/*]

• Fixed some buttons not having audio

  [/*]

Hello everybody! Thanks for joining the early access & already playing so actively.

Last weekend, we spent three days at HeroFest 2025 in Bern, showing off the game to the public for the second time (after Fantasy Basel this year). And we ended up winning an award:

The Valiant Indie Games Award - Nox Award for Technical & Mechanical Excellence!

[img src=\"https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/45321059/1ca0ef4ce5a16d70805a7eb9b998c7819f78e61d.png\"][/img]

(Those two dudes on the right are Jonas Wiesli (Director) & Marcel Schrch (Meta-Progression Master). You can tell this is day three of the con by how crusted up we are.)

It was a huge honor, and we\'re very proud of the whole team for putting together something like this. It\'s a nice confirmation that we aren\'t just weird tinkerers making something only we enjoy, but that we\'re weird tinkerers making something someone else can enjoy as well.

Well, I think we\'ve definitely proven our technical excellence by having a huge bug right in the loot menu for everyone to see!

[img src=\"https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/45321059/38a2578334a6b5c2bdbfcf13ed443b38ea006282.png\"][/img]

Looks like the Skip button didn\'t work.

Whoops.

Let\'s fix that. We\'ve also decided to add two new achievements & unlocks related to the skip button, reworking it so that it appears throughout progression. We\'ve also decided to reduce the starting health of the jungle boss a bit, since players starting out usually don\'t know how to make the most efficient builds yet. That led to very long and drawn-out battles against the fiend of foliage, which should be less punishing now. Instead, we\'ve added the long & drawn-out battle as an achievement, so if you\'re already feeling nostalgic for that, go nuts.

In addition, there\'s been a bunch of squashed bugs, check em out:

Full Changelog

Changes

• Two new achievements & machine nodes added

  [list]

• Skip button for loot menu must now be unlocked via metaprogression

  [/*]

Bug Fixes

• Skip Button works again

  [/*]

• Skip Button now makes Button sounds

  [/*]

• Tier 0 Engravings no longer show up in item pool

  [/*]

• Tasted Bad!-Text now spawns in the right place

  [/*]

• Fixed bug where expiring Coconuts were not counted towards achievement progress properly

  [/*]

• Fixed Delirious Achievement

  [/*]

• When an item is rejected by the anvil, it no longer repeats said rejection infinitely

  [/*]

• Fixed Progress Bar for Slow Killer Achievement

  [/*]

• Fixed Bug related to trading Tile Rerolls at the Fruit Market

  [/*]

Hope you\'re happy skipping engravings for now, because those are going to be the next major thing we wanna overhaul!

Have a good one & see ya then,\nTeam Quintuple-A