Alpha Update 2.23

Hey everyone.

Here is update 2.23! Next update on itch.io will be in a few weeks, but the 2.3 update is already available on Patreon.

The 2.2 build is mostly focused around systems updates. There is a new merchant UI and some under-the-hood changes to go with it. The merchants are going to be expanded further in future updates, but for now you should enjoy having a lot more information readily available each time you interact with them.

There are a new class of weapons available as well - polearms. The spear and halberd use your defense dice pool for their attacks, and gain a damage bonus from agility. The first craftable boss weapon is working now as well - the wightblade. You'll need Ailis and a working forge to use it.

On that note, Ailis can now upgrade your gear up to +5 and can craft armor and weapons for you. You'll need ores and coals to make this happen - and to that end there are new ores and ways to get those ores.

There are a few other goodies and fixes in there as well.

Added

• New SFX
• New Music Track
• Audio options menu. You can now set master, sfx, and music volume.
• 3 new weapons: Spear, Halberd, Wightblade
• Spear and Halberd are polearms. They roll from your defense dice pool. They give you +1 dice when blocking, and gain +1 damage for each 2 agility dice you have
• Wightblade rolls from your magic dice pool. It deals magic damage instead of physical, restores mana on attack, and gains +1 damage for each attunement dice you have
• New Gear screen: gear screen now has tool tips for equipment traits + enchants.
• New Forge Materials: Deepiron and Mithril
• Dwarven expeditions will get more ambitious as time goes on, offering better rewards.
• Forge upgrades: Ailis can upgrade your weapons and armor at the forge - raising the max upgrade rank from 3 to +5.
• Forge Gear: Ailis can forge armor and weapons for you. This takes time, coal, and ores.
• Complete merchant rework. The UI is much nicer and the merchants have portraits now. This will be expanded on in the future.
• New Sex Scene (Lucy + Ellie)
• New Event
• New night POI for Scout (forvalaka hunting)
• New Event art
• New Sex Scene (Scout)
• Temp fix: If you are playing an old save where you missed Ailis during the winter, a button to add her to the party will show up starting in spring. Has not been thoroughly tested, use at your own risk.

Adjustments

• Companion POIs on the patrol map have a small animation to make them more obvious
• Weighted chances of unlocking some scenes quicker
• Adjusted inn guest payouts. The reputation level of your inn has a bigger impact.
• If you choose not to fight the Wight with Scout, you can still do night patrols until you're ready to face it
• Redraw of hardplate armor
• Ability to adjust storage bonus provided by the Cellar
• Your friend-shaped lizard has expanded their inventory to include shinier rocks
• The Patrol POIs for recruiting Scout, the Dryad, and Ellie now show up in both patrol and hunting modes
• You can forge coal and materials at the same time
• Adjusted forge times and outputs
• General goods are available for purchase even when the road is dangerous
• Slightly lowered the maximum food and alcohol cost for the army staying at the inn

Fixes

• Possible to be blocked from donating to the dwarves even if you had enough resources
• Spell tomes were missing from the merchant menu
• Willow's scene picker wasn't working
• Scout was generously contributing more rent than intended
• Greenhouse was giving false positives on finished projects (blades + armor)
• Could go negative gold bartering with soldiers
• Crafting armor could result in crafting weapons
• UI bugs
• Using spacebar to progress dialog during events could soft lock the game (caused by a default key binding in godot). 
• Could not use the guests quick-buy options after winter
• Fracture art showing up scout's combat portrait
• A sequence break that could lock you out of late-night reading during scout's questline
• Gear screen wasn't showing player + lucy spell bonuses correctly
• It was possible to go negative into your patrol notes
• The game could crash in some instances when you encountered a wolf at too high of a level
• Various typos