tldr: You are invited to come beta test the v1.9 release which you can access in Steam through Golden Krone Hotel -> Properties -> Betas -> experimental.

v1.9 summary:

• New branch GREAT HALL: tons of goblins and explosions
• Three new spells: VORTEX, FETTER, and QUILLS
• Six new abilities: AURA, SHRED, WRING, GUZZLE, ASSASSINATE, and FRENZY
• Abilities now take 0 turns and can be chosen out of 3 options
• Changes to Officer, Apothecary, Assassin, Commander, and Challenger disguises
• UMBRA has been properly nerfed
• Improvements to BLINK, TEMPEST, WARD, LEVITATE, and BLAST
• Options menu reworked. Custom input delay option added to fix numerous control issues.
• Tons of bug fixes, gameplay tweaks, and UI improvements
• Secrets?!?

I'm usually pretty quiet about beta testing, but here's the problem. For a variety of life reasons, I've gotten in a habit of releasing only about once per year. And I only get a flood of feedback after I declare the testing done and publicly announce the release. This results in things like UMBRA being wildy broken for months which is a real shame. I've made a lot of spell and ability changes, so I'm hoping to really kick the tires this time around. Also I want to take a moment to say I'M SUPER PROUD OF THIS RELEASE. The new branch is totally wild and is one of the more interesting branches introduced so far. Some of the new art is among the best the game has ever seen including a new bomb animation. The new vampire abilities are so ridiculous that I can't believe I added them. You'll be shocked the first time you eat a... well, I don't want to spoil it all. And now we have spooky bats on the title screen (shoutout to acro for providing the bat art). :)


I've also fixed an issue that went on steathily for 5+ years and which neither the players that experienced it nor I fully understood, but which totally sucked. Some players would perform an action (like moving or firing the revolver) 10 times a second and they assumed the game was intentionally designed this way (???) so I didn't hear about it for a long time. Full changelog: New Content

• New branch GREAT HALL: tons of goblins and explosions
• New monster Goblin Hurler: throws bomb
• New spell VORTEX: pulls monsters in and around you and damages flying/floating monsters
• New spell FETTER: binds a monster in magical chains that cause levitation and prevent movement
• New spell QUILLS: gives you a magical shield based on your missing health that reflects melee attack damage
• Vampire abilities now take 0 turns and can be chosen out of 3 options just like spells
• New ability AURA: a rapidly shrinking aura of immunity that can be used to shield yourself or allies
• New ability SHRED: damages monsters near you and adds Bleeding
• New ability WRING: causes non-bleeders to become bleeders
• New ability GUZZLE: collects all nearby blood
• New ability ASSASSINATE: teleport next to the closest enemy and give them stunned and vulnerable statuses for 1 turn
• New ability FRENZY: sets your hp to 1 and gives you a quills shield equal to your missing health
• New Legendary Grimoire that gives more spell options or more mana
• New MALLEABLE MODE. All spells, abilities, stat upgrades, etc. are chosen for you.
• Added 4 new entrances to the hotel
• New item Hunter's Lens: improves your critical hit chances

Graphics changes

• The explosion animation has been redrawn to look a lot better
• One turn illumination from spells now draws instantly
• Bats added to the title screen
• Added fadeouts to a few spell animations like FIRESTORM
• Primers have been colored blue to more clearly distinguish them from grimoires
• Now drawing blood behind torches... it looked really weird before
• New chair obstacle with 4 direction sprites
• Reworked camera system that slowly follows player
• Camera pans during dramatic moments and zooms in when talking to friendlies

Gameplay & UI

• Commander now starts with AURA, Assassin with FADE, and Alchemist with WRING
• Apothecary given another extra poison resist level
• Officer now gets a full HP/MP heal on level up
• Challenger now starts with an ability when starting as vampire
• Significantly buffed weekly challenge archenemies (they were real pushovers before)
• Raised the chance for Challenger to start as vampire to 50:50
• UMBRA has been nerfed. It should still be a great spell but not so good it trivializes the game.
• UMBRA minions are sped up but weaker, so you don't have to wait on them so much.
• No more UMBRA healing on Revenant
• Hotel stairs can now collapse. Collapsed stairs require an extra turn to climb.
• Allied vampires no longer steal your blood unless they need it and you don't
• Stun and frozen moment now reduce evasion to 0
• Fixed a bug with Vulnerable inadvertently reducing Defense. With this change, Vulnerable should cause slightly less extra damage.
• Critical chance is shown on the character sheet
• Werewolves have been reworked: They now have a huge crit chance and heal/satiate on crit
• SWAP has been folded into BLINK (if a monster is in that direction, you swap)
• TEMPEST is now a lot more consistent
• BLINK has been made more accurate with further guaranteed distance
• WARD cost reduced
• BLAST can now destroy walls starting at level 2
• QUAKE damage now requires line of sight
• LEVITATE speed up increased by 1
• Big sludge XP cut in half (because you also get XP for the spawned sludges)
• Ice Houses are now immune to cold so they won't die in the icy water
• Spiridus has been made flying
• Demon Blood potions are again guaranteed in every run
• Bleeding now does 1 damage in Easy, 3 in Despair
• Monsters will now stay in the same relative position when climbing stairs with you if possible
• Reduced Magma Golem chance per turn to create magma
• Bounty Potion payout is now purely based on turn count which should be way more consistent
• Tooltips added to small disguise buttons
• Message added if user tries and fails to use diagonal movement for various reasons
• Moroi and Samca are now vulnerable to moonlight
• Hunter gets QUILLS now instead of ENRAGE, which wasn't really something you could play around
• Added the times when you changed form to the morgue
• Goblin Anarchist now only combusts with a 1 tile radius regardless of if they blow up before or after death

Options & Controls

• The option menu has been reworked: options are now grouped by subheaders
• All options now have detailed descriptions
• Added visible values to slider options
• Added a custom input repeat option that fixes a slew of horrible control issues for some people (this includes accidentally flying across the map if you hold down a movement key or shooting the revolver 10 times in a split second and ruining the tutorial)
• Added the ability to bind some arbitrary keys that were not supported before (e.g. Alt)
• Option added to disable xp sound
• Added a button to open the minimap
• Added a button to open the hotel map
• The "center" controller button is now mappable
• Added playstation controller icons
• Ability direction selection has been improved
• Right click now works for examine in keyboard examine mode
• The player can no longer "shoot themselves" which previously did nothing but wasted a bullet

UI

• Spell and ability names are greyed out when unusable
• Broken windows are highlighted on the minimap
• Hunger status is now shown for non-human forms like bat form
• Low level human spell casters now show all possible spells on description so you don't have to examine each one
• Resistance tooltips now have precise detail
• Shadow Form description now shows total values instead of per level values
• Added success rate chance to CHARM failure messages
• Next Page indicator on books
• Added a death tip about examine
• Added a death tip if you die with Vulnerable
• Death tips now have red highlighting on important words
• Added a note on fountain descriptions to say they might identify the associated potion

Bug fixes & Tweaks

• FINALLY fixed the generation of ugly doors, I think
• Fixed some display issues with the health bar
• Fixed a bug with Samca and frozen moment
• Fixed a weird display message involving Holy Water
• Fixed some dash bugs
• Fixed river portal sprite
• Fixed several ASCII display issues
• Fixed a display issue with commander and firefly
• Fixed a bug with pushing Samcas through sunlight while vulnerable
• Fixed some bugs with shadow minions dying to sunlight
• Fixed an issue with Goblin Anarchist allies hurting you, which was annoying
• Fixed some staircases not spawning far enough from boss
• Fixed a double death message from Goblin Anarchist
• Fixed a bug with talking to bats, which you can now properly do
• Fixed a bug with allies refusing to swap with you if near water
• Clarity reworded, for clarity
• Fixed a bug with tooltips overlapping hotel map and other menus
• Fixed some issues with low screenshake values overriding higher ones
• More clarity on staying in the SHADOWS in the tutorial

Enjoy, but please expect bugs! Please share any feedback on our discord or the steam forums. Last thing, here's some seeds that guarantee the new branch:

• goblin1
• goblin3
• goblin5