This update adds a ton of interface and QoL improvements, as well as some mechanical tweaks and a handful of bug fixes. Quicksaves, cursor repeat for gamepads, improved status visuals and targeting visibility, enemy HP bars for Scouts, more information in certain menus, and improvements to mouse support and color assist mode are some of the highlights.

QoL / Interface Enhancements

• Added quicksave and quickload functionality. These default to F5 and F9 respectively, but will be unbound initially if you already have custom control settings.

• Cursor repeat in menus now works on gamepads.

• When choosing a target, all non-targeted enemies display dithered and all targeted enemies display in full brightness, regardless of which row they occupy. If you prefer the previous behavior, you can disable this in the options menu.

• Enemies now have visible HP bars under their sprite if the party has a Scout. Exact HP is still visible to Scouts in the status menu, as before.

• The equipment screen now displays icons for unequipped items. Items that are too heavy for a character will display a small "H" badge over the icon. In color assist mode, heavy items will also display a '-' after their names.

• The weight icon on the equipment screen now behaves the same as in the shop menu, i.e. it will dynamically appear or disappear when selecting equipment according to whether the character will have a final weight penalty after equipping it.

• On the equipment screen, the item description panel will now explicitly show the character's score in the required stat, e.g. a character with Vigor 6 viewing a broadsword will see "Req. VIG: 6/8".

• Mouse buttons now print in menu prompts and the controls menu. Mouse commands have not changed, but did not previously appear in the help text. Currently mouse controls are not rebindable.

• Clicking the name entry field in the character creator with the mouse will prompt the user to choose the physical or virtual keyboard for name entry. This allows the mouse to function for name entry. Previously, the virtual keyboard was only accessible with a gamepad.

• Looted items now display their icon in the loot readout.

• Improved the graphics for HP/MP bars and status icons.

• The Order menu now displays the highlighted character's name and aspect.

• Added option to disable UI SFX.

• The combat main menu now displays a header with the active character's name.

• In color assist mode, invalid menu options (colored red) will also display a white X icon.

• During character creation, characters with a stat of 3 will display NONE in the corresponding equipment proficiency readout.

• Incurable status effects will display a * next to their duration.

• Combat status now displays shield HP, if any.

• Slightly reduced initial delay when holding down a movement key.

Gameplay

• Earth: Crystallize is now only usable out of combat. MP cost has been reduced from 14 to 10.

• Earth: Reduced damage and MP cost of Stone Spike.

• Hunt: Removed hit bonus from Blink (it still always hits, but will not have increased critical chance on top of that).

• Hunt: Slightly increased the duration of Silver Arrow's wound status.

• Moon: Slightly reduced damage of Moon Ray.

• Moon: Infusion restores MP more quickly.

• Storms: Slightly reduced initial damage of Electrify.

• Storms: Slightly reduced damage of Storm Bolt and increased MP cost.

• Storms: Windstorm applies its damage more slowly.

• Vengeance: Removed hit bonus from Blade Boomerang.

• War: Slightly increased base damage of Flashing Blade.

• Riposte now triggers only from melee attacks, not all damaging attacks.

• Reduced turn delay of Salts.

• Clarified the purpose of the Search command in tutorials, which previously only mentioned the assigned hotkey.

• Added tutorial explaining the movement arrow option.

• The tutorial text explaining healing/wiping in the prologue vs. the main game has returned.

• Reduced level scaling of weapon skills.

• Increased XP and Rm rewards for Chirurgeon.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed some heal/damage-over-time skill descriptions displaying inaccurate values.

• Most bindable non-alphanumeric characters should now print their symbols in help text instead of their name (e.g. ; instead of Semicolon). Let me know if you find any that I missed.

• Fixed RMB not opening the field menu when clicked over the movement buttons.

• When attempting to apply a status effect to a character that is immune to it, the status popup will always say IMM. Previously this behavior was inconsistent, as the popup would say RES instead if the initial attack roll failed.

• Adjusted several status icons for consistency or clarity.

• A handful of other minor fixes.

Next Fest is well underway. If you've already tried the demo or are planning to, thank you! If you've got feedback you'd like to share, please drop by the forum. There will be more updates as the game progresses towards release, and your feedback will help make it better.

• Control Room B in the subway can now extend a second bridge to the east as a shortcut back to the recovery point.
• Revised some NPC dialogue at HQ.
• Adjusted some visuals in the subway for clarity.
• Fixate now ticks down at the end of Skunj's turn instead of the target's.
• Minor tweaks to subway text.

Audio

• Updated all music tracks with better instrumentation and improved arrangements.
• Replaced the footstep and bump sound effects with much better ones.
• Sound effects now have more consistent volume with each other and with music.
• Shop menu now plays the correct sound effect when attempting to buy an item without enough money.

Gameplay

• Fixed being unable to purchase an item that costs exactly as much money as the party has.
• Fixed Shield Wall not terminating on user KO.
• Improved the cadence of Jay's dialogue and event text.
• Fixed one of Jay's lines that was incorrectly marked as tutorial text. This meant that the line was skipped if tutorials were disabled, though this did not impact progression.

Interface

• Fixed numeric sliders being overly sensitive to analogue input.
• Fixed options menu not handling default volume settings correctly.
• Hunt: Removed misleading text from Silver Arrow description.

Gameplay

• Skills such as Regrowth that grant an additional turn to the user have been changed to not consume the active turn. The primary difference is that status effects will no longer tick multiple times when using these skills.
• Fixed Grit triggering incorrectly in some circumstances.
• Fixed support skills triggering more frequently than intended, primarily Instinct.
• War: Increased the threat bonus of Champion.
• Minor performance improvements.

Graphics / UI

• Added a sparkle visual and sound effect when transforming between dungeons and HQ.
• Repositioned damage popups for back-row enemies for better readability.

Gameplay / Content

• Staves and wands now convert the Attack command to M. Attack, which deals medium-range energy damage. They still function as short-range physical weapons when used with weapon skills, as before. Stats on these weapons have been adjusted slightly.
• Added a few more secrets and points of interest to the hospital maps.
• Riposte will now trigger when targeted by a damaging attack, not when actually damaged. This means that missed or shielded attacks will now trigger Riposte.
• Riposte will no longer trigger when disabled (e.g. asleep).
• Pursuit damage will no longer disrupt Sleep (e.g. when using Poppy Dust with Pursuit active).
• The second Leather Whip has been removed from the subway.
• Updated the weapon type/range tutorials for clarity.
• Slightly reduced power of Dueling Blade.
• Slightly increased stats of Surgeon's Examiner.

UI / Graphics

• Added more skills to the aspect previews in character creation, including calling out all revive-type skills.
• Improved environment design in some rooms for interest, clarity, or consistency.
• Hunt: Blink skill description now displays the correct accuracy bonus (+40).
• Hunt: Fixed debuff icons for Blink and Tear Shadows.
• Storms: Fixed Electrify status name and icon.
• Fixed the on-screen name entry keyboard not playing confirm SFX.
• Minor updates to gate and stone arch textures.

User Interface

• Added a party quick view menu. This will display a one-page overview of party build information and status. This is bound to the X key or left stick by default, but if you have already set custom bindings, it may be unbound. It is also available from the new "Party" option in the field menu.
• Negative stat comparisons or stats affected by weight in the character, shop, and equipment menus now display in a lighter color for better visibility. Stats affected by weight will also display a '-' in color assist mode.
• Renamed the Status menu to Character and reorganized the field menu options slightly.
• Added left/right character pagers to skill, character, and equipment menus. The pagers will display the selected character aspect on the skill menu and the position and rank on the character and equipment menus.
• Character, equip, and skill menus will now open to the last character slot selected in that menu.
• The weight icon in the shop menu will now appear if the character currently has weight when no item is highlighted, or when the character's weight after equipping the highlighted item will be greater than zero, considering all other currently equipped items. Previously, the icon only appeared if the highlighted item had weight for that character.
• The field skill menu now allows viewing skills for KOed party members.
• Cursor memory now correctly resets when starting a new game.
• Fixed a rare issue where specific pages of text could appear blank. As far as I know this did not occur in any demo content, but it's fixed just in case.

Audio

• Fixed numerous inconsistencies with how UI sound effects behave. Some unnecessary or unintended sound effects have been removed.
• Updated HQ background music.
• Fixed combat SFX not playing in certain scenarios.
• Recovery stations will now play a sound effect when activated.

Gameplay

• Reduced the chance to hit on Ossipede's bleed touch.
• Ossipede's Strangle now has a 1-turn cooldown.
• Traps can no longer critically hit.
• Single-target traps will now correctly target the first available character if the character in the first slot is KOed.

• When starting a new game, you will be presented with a menu with three options: default or custom party, tutorials on or off, and play or skip prologue. If you choose to skip the prologue, you will begin the game at headquarters with immediate access to the first dungeon. You will start at level 2 with some Rm, but no other treasure from the subway. Tutorials can still be controlled from the options menu at any time, as before.
• Swordbreaker now correctly reduces enemy attack power.
• Combined the encounter tutorial event with the first encounter event.
• Cleaned up some unused state flags in save data.

• You can now hold down a movement direction to continuously move in that direction. You can also turn or sidestep without interrupting your movement. This also works for the on-screen movement buttons.
• Added a preview of key skills to aspect descriptions during character creation.
• Condensed, revised, or removed some text events in the subway for better pacing.
• Replaced the bronze glaive in the subway with a second leather whip. This should be more useful for most parties who want more ranged weapons than they start with.
• Fixed analog noise causing duplicate button input on some devices.
• Fixed input only respecting the first controller in some circumstances.
• Fixed the movement buttons appearing over Crowe's dialogue menu after closing the shop menu.
• The menu prompt is now less sensitive to analog noise.
• Improved the art and animation for the movement buttons.

• Shield Wall now terminates correctly.
• Random encounters now correctly reset when leaving and re-entering the dungeon.
• Fixed minor misalignments on some enemy status indicators.
• Fixed a tutorial-only event symbol in Hospital 1E being visible with tutorials disabled.
• Fixed map icons for tutorial-only events being visible with tutorials disabled.
• Fixed false wall map indicators not resetting when starting a new game after quitting to menu.
• Removed a visible out-of-bounds event symbol from Hospital 1C.

This update fixes an issue where the accept button would close the active menu instead of confirming the current selection if accept was bound to the same key as the currently open menu (e.g. X is bound to both accept and the skill menu). Accept now has priority over menu hotkeys. This was already the case for the cancel button. Menus such as the map screen that have no selectable GUI controls will behave the same as before.

This update fixes a lock that could occur when interacting with the optional switch at the end of the subway. Very sorry about that!

The free demo of Minerva Labyrinth is now available! In the demo, you'll be able to attain the fourth level of experience and explore three full dungeon levels: the prologue in the subway, plus the first two areas of the hospital. I hope you enjoy it, and I welcome any feedback you may have. Stay tuned for details on the full release!