Hey all! 0.17.18 is live! This is another big update expanding Lost Flame in several directions. Please join Lost Flame's Discord server if you want to chat about the game, get notified about much more frequent beta branch updates or just hang around!

Autoexplore

Newest update introduces autoexplore. Just press 'z' and let your character automatically travel to the nearest unexplored tile while collecting valuable items. Once all accessible locations are explored, your character will travel to the nearest unused stairs. You can also use this function during more simple skirmishes as autoexplore will perform basic attacks and use basic skills against the enemies.

Dynamic attack markers

After this update monster attack markers will grow bigger the closer they are to landing. The most important "big" marker is shown 10 ticks before landing, so it allows to land an easy parry or lets you know that it's last opportunity to dodge (assuming you have base speed). If the marker is hovering on the player's character, the character is shown in black if the attack is <=10 ticks to landing and white otherwise. Of course some enemies are attacking faster, so the opportunity to perfectly dodge and parry will not always be there.

Encumbrance system & mobility

Ok, hear me out - this update introduces encumbrance system. Each equippable item (other than jewelry) has an encumbrance value assigned and with higher encumbrance some of the mobility skills are not available (e.g. jump over, lunge, jump away, etc.). However! now "heavy" armor items give stronger defense - most notably kite shields and tower shields. Heavy shields no longer need time to become readied, they just block 2-3 hits each turn at the cost of high encumbrance. But that's not all, now you can dual wield 2 heavy weapons (greatswords, halberds, etc) and be the heaviest hitter you can imagine, just the encumbrance cost of wielding 2 such weapons will be hefty. To flesh it out new ability is being introduced - 'tumble'. Tumble allows to cross 2 tiles in 1 action. It's cooldown is dependent on encumbrance. With super low encumbrance it has no cooldown at all and costs no stamina, so you can actually try to just grab a short sword, buckler and nothing else and you can be a super mobile agile skirmisher. Weapons and armor also got rebalanced - obsidian is the strongest but heaviest material, while silver is the lightest one, adamantite is something in between. Another related change is a feasible unarmed build - no weapons and no shields allows you to strike twice for 1 base damage and parry with very low cooldown. Attacking stunned enemies with bare hands buffs the damage a lot. Also any rings buffing on-hit damage (of damage, glacier, etc) work on both strikes. Remember that you can also wield rings and amulets for 2 more jewelry slots, which still allows you to fight unarmed!

Evocations

Unlock the secrets of arcane magic with the introduction of three distinct schools of magic: witchcraft, waxmancy, and carnomancy, each boasting five related evocations. Discover items that boost your magic skill level (e.g., witchcraft +3) and gain access to new evocations as you progress your magic skill level. Evocations are fueled by a new stat called attunement, which can also be increased by magical items. Attunement also increases the effectiveness of some of the wands and all elemental damage that you deal, so it's not a dead stat even without magic. Additionally, many rings that previously only affected weapon attacks now also augment damage-dealing evocations.

Hythe Monastery small rework and new alternate path

Hythe Monastery has undergone a transformation. Beneath its solemn halls lies a network of catacombs leading to the [spoiler]Castle Istimid[/spoiler], however every now and then there will be a new, optional, more intense (and shorter) path available which skips [spoiler]Istimid[/spoiler] completely.

Shared leadeboard

Say farewell to weekly runs, as they make way for a more inclusive shared leaderboard. Now, all your runs are recorded, complete with detailed statistics and insights. The game tracks various types of stats across multiple runs, including enemies defeated, bottle knight summons, and successful parries. You can easily access and explore these stats from the menu, with plans to expand this feature with even more stat tracking in the future.

There are also multiple smaller changes and fixes introduced:

smaller but still noteworthy:

• added the option to switch left-right weapon at no stamina and time cost (hotkey 'p')
• added a small area near Hythe with all tutorial tablets if you want to reread them after you've completed tutorial
• blessed scrolls of teleport allow you to select where you want to teleport
• cursed scrolls of teleport will teleport you to a nearby group of monsters (similar like soulless witch ability)
• improved the game stability significantly
• added a warning icon to enemies which have weapons with potential very high damage equipped (e.g. * of thirst, * of brutality, Smasher unique axe)
• more options for crafting - added some randomized crafts too, so crafting options are not the same each game
• randomized crafts and items for sale are now based on world seed
• bottle knight will no longer equip identified cursed items (unless you hand it to him directly)
• new randomized rooms in Abysm
• new Abysm monsters
• multiple new affixes, uniques, rings and wands
• rings and amulets are now shown in a separate row in inventory
• shades in Neith now attack anything that is not a shade, not only you
• ranged enemies will be less willing to run away and will attack more aggressively, so chasing should be slightly easier
• some of the staves affixes are more potent when not wielding other weapons or shields (you can still wield a ring or amulet in your offhand)
• shades will now charge up before cursing your equipment, now you have around 20 ticks to either break line of sight or kill them before your equipment gets cursed
• bottle knight will avoid acid and poison better
• removed the penetration stat from the weapons
• enemies will use their push back attacks less often and those attack have been tuned down noticeably
• shortened some of the game areas (Mage's Chambers by 1 level, poison vault by 1 level, Castle Istimid has smaller maps)
• reworked halberds abilities a little bit (all are faster, stab instead of halberd strike, halberd slash is much faster but no longer strikes nearby tiles)
• most weapon skills now take attack speed into consideration (so slow monsters will no longer attack faster with skills such as stab, also most skills will be faster now from player's persepective)
• parry is now bound to the same key for all weapons (default: 'w')
• new music for Calven Duning
• added on-screen notification for monsters and player standing on acid or web, or when getting petrified
• most ranged enemies will appear even outside of FoW when attacking or aiming at the player (e.g flamelobbers, Nixie, all shades)
• cooldown for skills which are on cooldown is now shown on the skills tab
• if you hover over an enemy (with mouse or 'l'ook ability) only their attack markers will be shown, so if you want to you can analyze which enemy is attacking where in a bigger fight
• added a bunch of new strong affixes to staves

less noteworthy:

• fixed Arthar Duning attack marker not being accurate
• added multiple missing sounds
• world seed is shown in bottom right corner when starting the game
• Gargoyle's Cuirass no longer pushes allies away
• added the ability to attack only with right hand weapon (e.g. useful when wielding two heavy weapons, for lower stamina cost), hotkey 's'
• updated tutorial with new info tablets
• shield maiden's amulet no longer hurts allies
• fixed Olivar Steros teleporting the player to Royal Dungeon instead of Neith
• new sprites for tentacles
• cleaned up some items descriptions
• fixed some of the tiles not showing properly on minimap (e.g. prison bars)
• changed order of skills to be more consistent with other items for long swords and great axes
• fixed ctrl+move stopping at front of allies (now it will swap with them into travel direction)
• fixed section selection in vendors being reset to "all" after buying or crafting an item
• fixed wrong attack marker for Cyclone unique halberd
• lowered the acid damage from tentacle a little bit
• one new scroll
• Calven Duning's sword now always has the subdual affix
• ring of fires changed to exploding when hitting something (so still pretty bad for melee combat, but can be useful with evocations, or other ranged builds)
• The Archmage now does not heal after [spoiler]escaping to Neith[/spoiler]
• staves now can parry
• cleared up some in-game text messages
• lowered the price for shields a little
• minor performance improvements (mostly when having lots of allies)
• mending stone now also heals all visible allies
• now monsters which are summoned in a distorted area/world will also get distorted
• fixed main menu not respecting keybindings from options.config
• multishot ability is now faster
• fixed some skill tooltips
• Ivar will spit back any key you try to feed him
• wands of summon monster will summon more powerful monsters with higher enchant
• Ngotraimuucs increasing poison level will displace items that were on a poison tile
• reduced the chance of enemies using shield bash attack
• fixed sparkling elixirs being generated from rings with affixes
• fixed swing and lunge being blocked by an enemy which died during swing part of the skill
• added ambient sound to the destroyed barrier near Abysm
• fixed arrows changing their enchant level randomly when being fired
• reworked gladiator's ring to being active when not wielding any shields
• children of Iphe will no longer transform into living obsidian
• reduced the size of the circular version of hungry caverns
• ctrl+move will no longer walk into acid or poison
• fixed mouse incorrectly showing which tile is aimed on smaller maps
• fixed polymorphed mobs not dropping their original equipment
• removed doors in Cadell's cell which could potentially hardlock the player if entering the room "from the back"
• fixed a bug which would freeze the game when quickly spamming enter near pyres
• living obsidian can no longer be randomly summoned in Hythe Monastery
• blood-soaked scoria is no longer destroyed in NG+
• fixed all campfires still accessible after moving to NG+
• fixed double kill notification appearing after killing a polymorphed unique monster

Hope you enjoy the new content! Bartek