This update has been about 2 months in the making, so hopefully it's been worth the wait. It's another where it's been that long, and I'm so used to all the new things, that I'm not even sure what's new myself anymore, so this will be a journey of discovery for us both as I go through my gargantuan changelog list and rewrite it into something readable.

One Huge change that might be easy to miss because there's no section going into the fine details of it, is that enemies now have attack cycles. This means that, for the most part, they no longer deal the exact same damage every turn. This is potentially most notable for late game spiders and axe skeletons, who no longer cripple you with status stacks.

The Arcade

The challenges and minigames, instead of being burried in the extras menu as before, now have their own button on the main menu, the Arcade.

Challenges

There are now 6 challenges, instead of however many there were before, like 2 or 3? Well they've had a fairly large overhaul, you can now actually continue them all (previously the continue button for each continued the slime challenge), you can restart them instead of being forced to continue (the slime one), and there are unlocks for the main game for completing them, which you get to experience in said challenges.

New tiles

There are two flavours of new for tiles; material, and legend. Legend referring to the thing written on them. On top of the QU tiles you could get previously, there are now diagraphs, ligatures, old english letters, and others. Specifically, you can now get tiles with Þ, Ð, TH, CH, SH, Æ,Œ, ED, ES, LY, and ING on them. They are all tied to effects, so you're not going to be having them naturally land on you.

As for the new materials, they are also tied to effects, both in how they are created, and in what they do, they are:

Braced wood

When this is the last tile, the resulting word also gives you 4 armour.

Jagged bronze

When this is the first tile, the resulting word also inflicts 3 toxin.

Jagged silver

When this is the first tile, the resulting word also inflicts 6 bleed.

Corundum

When this is the first tile, the resulting word also inflicts burn for 3 turns and counts as a spell.

Diamond

When this is the last tile, also neutralizes 3 toxin, gives 3 turns of regeneration, and heals 3, reducing bleed first. Counts as a spell.

New items

There's a lot of new items this time. Depending on how you count things, there's at least 7 new consumables (way, way more if you count things that are technically different items, like different potion fill levels and open/closed scrolls), 7 new passives, 5 new curses, and 22 new equipment.

New consumables

New passives

Plague beak

Toxin has to damage your armour first.

Blacksmith gloves

Burn has to damage your armour first.

Enchanted hand

Increases the number of equipment you can carry by 2.

Adventurers D6

You can reroll adventure rewards.

Crowned skull

Bosses and minibosses drop more gold.

Mortar and pestle

Allows access to potion crafting from the player screen use tab.

Rainbow robe

A magic robe that shifts through various chromatic hues.

New curses

Cursed I-patch

Random tiles you get that would be I have a 50% of being ! instead.

Thorny lisp

Random tiles that would be S have a 50% chance of being Þ instead.

Spicy blood

Bleed life loss is doubled.

Stained paddle

Adventures difficulty is one level higher than listed.

Amnesia

Each turn you forget about a tile. You can't select it that turn.

New equipment

Magic alembic

Once per adventure, activate to fully refill a random empty bottle. Auto activates at the end of an adventure. Allows access to potion crafting from the player screen use tab.

Staff of fire

Each tile you get in refresh has a 5% chance of being a corundum if you have none.

Staff of clarity

Each tile you get in refresh has a 5% chance of being a diamond if you have none.

Targe

Each tile you get in refresh has a 5% chance of being braced wood if you have none.

Vampire pendant

You gain 1 life for each life lost by enemies due to bleed. If you are bleeding this reduces that first.

Corundum dragon

Submitting a fire related word also queues a corundum tile.

Diamond unicorn

Submissions that contain four of a kind also queue a diamond tile.

Staff of the dragon

Crafted from the staff of fire and corundum dragon.

Staff of the unicorn

Crafted from the staff of clarity and diamond unicorn.

Serpentine dagger

Each tile you get in refresh has a 5% chance of being serrated bronze if you have none.

Serrated dagger

Each tile you get in refresh has a 5% chance of being serrated silver if you have none.

Improved book of metal

Crafted from the book of metal and sonder bookmark.

Charm of explosions

Activate to end your turn and have all burn stacks on the enemy immediately deal their damage and decay.

Red protection charm

Attacks can't give you more than one tile.

Voiceless rough stone charm

Half of all random H tiles you get will be better scoring TH, CH, or SH tiles instead.

Werewolf medallion

If you have no silver tiles whenever the tile queue is refilled, you get a silver tile.

Werewolf dagger

Temp-craft from the serrated dagger and the werewolf medallion.

Slime brooch

An enemy succumbing to status damage causes you to heal for each toxin stack they had, unless you're bleeding.

Safety matches

Attacking with burning tiles inflicts burn on the target.

Yellow heart necklace

Forcing a refresh costs 1 less life.

Board shaker

Once per turn, activate to shuffle the tile board.

Letter blocks

Words with letters in alphabetical order score double.

New item availability

Shops can now have random equipment and passives for sale. Some weaker or more niche items are now only available that way and have been removed from adventure rewards. Village shops and wizard tower shops have different item pools, and inventory can slowly expand.

To coincide with this, a lot of equipment and passives are having their prices changed, since only a few were ever available for purchase before, and most had a semi-placeholder price of 500 gold, or in the cases of perma-upgraded items; 500 times the number of items combined into it. Upgraded items that were actually purchasable had a price that matched their components. This was so that upgrading an item wasn't a potential nerf to a future run by pricing a specific effect higher, and potentially out of your reach when you could have afforded a component. This logic still stands, and now that shops have random gear, is getting properly codified across the whole range.

New equipment prices

Additionally the following have had their listed prices removed, since they are only available through crafting.

New passive prices

New consumables prices

• Small poison: 50 to 20
• Large poison: 25 per dose to 15 per dose
• Scroll of Vowel movements: 50 to 10

Item availability changes

This list might not be exhaustive. But also it might be.

• Runed ring, bracelet, & circlet now also available to adventurer, paladin, & priest.
• Runed ring & bracelet are now randomly available for purchase at wizards towers, but are no longer available from adventure rewards.
• Apothecary now has a 33% chance to sell the potion bandolier, magic alembic, and endless potion bag. These are separately rolled and nonexclusive.
• Rainbow shirt now available to the halfling.
• Rainbow shirt is now randomly available for purchase at village shops, but is no longer available from adventure rewards.
• Woodsman's tunic is now available to the adventurer and paladin and no longer available to the mage or the cultist.
• Assassin now starts with the bandage instead of the bezoar.
• Assassin now starts with a 2 use large poison instead of 2 small poisons.
• Cultist now starts with a 1 use large poison instead of 1 small poison.
• Tower shield can now drop from murdering the paladin.

Refresh changes

In response to a deemed cheese strat whereby you stack health and activate refresh until you get a gold and use that gold to one-shot the enemy and recover all your health, I've added a mechanic whereby each activation gives you 'refresh fatigue'. Refresh fatigue decays by 1 at the start of your turn, and increases the cost of refresh by 1 life. If the total cost, as adjusted by any items, goes above a maximum cost, currently 4, then you can't activate it. There are currently three items that interact with this; the yellow heart necklace, refreshing water, and the book of UwU.

Miscellaneous additions

• Added more than 85 thousand words collected by the Bookworm Adventures Speedrunning community to the dictionary.
• Added the ability to save colour swatches for character creation.
• Added bonus damage words when attacking treants and skeletons.
• Added slimes with health potions in them.
• Added notes to the item selection screen and shop when things can be combined, if you've ever visited a wizards tower.
• Added a representation of equipped passives while in an adventure.
• Added attack cycles to most enemies.
• Added different attack animations to the greatsword skeleton.
• Added a note about gold bordered tiles on the rpg info screen.
• Added the option for 3 silver wildcards from shrine rewards.
• Added burn damage indicator to enemies on the enemy tracker.
• Added a visual representation for the main damaging status effects.
• Added an explosion effect for fire spells.
• Added the ability to activate the books of fire and metal each once per adventure for the best scoring word from those books.
• Added the status effects "terror" and "caution", which are like "fear" but at different extreme thresholds.
• Added the ability for the book of UwU to inflict terror and caution.
• Added eagle noise if you submit MURICA or AMERICA.
• Added ultrawide support for some versionf of the inventory screen.
• Added a representation of your character on the main menu above the continue button.
• Added the option to disable the hints button using wildcards.
• Added colour indication on the almanac for special unlock and crafted items.
• Added groupings in the almanac for different fill levels of the same potions, and intermediate crafted items with the final forms.
• Added a soundboard.
• Added the ability to mix small and large poisons together.
• Added a notification flag the first time you exceed the max number of gear items equipped.
• Added sound effects when combining potions.
• Added attack and potion drink animations to cultist and mage.
• Added gear representations to cultist and mage for a bunch of things.
• Added the ability to change the hem colour for the cultist and mage.
• Added a separate icon for the "sealed" health potion.
• Added an animation when an enemy drops an item.
• Added refresh discount, tile immune, and regen to the effects of the book of UwU.
• Added an explanation tooltip note when you try to use the following items to no effect:
  • Antivenom
  • Large and small poisons
  • Health potions
  • Antiserum
  • Crystal ball
  • Sacrificial dagger
  • Tower shield
  • Exsanguinating dagger
  • Wedge shield
  • Carbon paper
  • Adrenaline shot

Miscellaneous changes

• Antivenom will now glow if you're poisoned.
• Shrine minigame now colours letters differently if the word doesn't have repeats.
• The "all-the-rare-potions" apothecary event now has 8 items from their pool at any given time, as opposed to an overwhelming everything.
• Tile representation used by the enemy attack info UI now uses the main tile draw function. (Meaning it's now more accurate.)
• The woodsman now starts with half a health potion instead of a mostly empty antivenom.
• If you have a counted number of turns of regen remaining at the end of combat, it is now applied to your health.
• Improved indicative highlighting on the crafting screen so it's easier to see what crafts with what.
• Improved typing with ligature tiles; before normal behaviour it will now try to swap out the previously selected tile with a ligature of that tiles letter and key you just pressed.
• Improved status value representations from permanent sources.
• Removed support for loading V16 save-structure adventure area information.
  • If you've not played since then, you should probably start over anyway. That was before classes were added.
• The rollover effect for health and iron skin potions no longer take into account damage that enemies are about to deal to you.
• Changed the icons for the status-weak and status-decay status effects to make them more distinct from the actual status effects.
• Changed the courage potion to set fire to enemies for 10 turns instead of forever.
• Gaining consumables now inserts them before any non-functional items; empty bottles and firewood that are at the end of your inventory.
• If you have the book of fire or book of metal, the hint button will prioritise words from them.
• The enemy tracker status indicators now check the next attack and the one after that.
• Halved the chance of getting 0 numbered tiles from exploding enemies.
• Improved the colour differentiation of bronze and wooden tiles.
• Crafting screen now only highlights consumables with recipes.
• Clarified the sacrificial description to mention that it's an activated ability.
• The depart option at the capital is now free if you've completed a specific adventure at the start node.
• Merged the two travel tutorials that are triggered on trying to travel to somewhere that you can't.
• Slightly reduced the space widths in text.
• Effects that reference boosting 'spellbooks' now reference 'spells' instead.
• Fate messages on the top of stats entries now have more potential values, and take into account status procs and if you were in a challenge.
• The trapping kit is now a passive instead of an equipment.
• The woodsman's tunic is now a passive instead of an equipment and no longer adds burn weakness or toxin decay.
• The medicated bandage is now a passive.
  • The bezoar and bandage are still equipment.
• Regular shops can now have random gear items appearing in them.
• Shops can now give discounts.
• Saving a village from an attack now gives you a 25% discount.
• Clarified that the bronze bonsai and curse of wood affects the refresh at the start of your turn.
• The sacrificial and exsanguinating daggers now only highlight during your turn.
• Shops no longer list the stock of gear and passives they carry. It's 1 or it's sold out.
• Removed the abbreviations expwy, exrx, exsec, ext, and extg.
• The infinitives gauntlet and pieces of it can now give ligature tiles.
• Removed the accents from the name Áurea Vázquez-Rijos so it renders correctly.
• The ironskin potion can now be used if you need less than 8 armour, and will be partially drank in that situation.
• Replaced the images for the jade crafted items.
• Selecting a tile is now done on mouse press rather than mouse release.
• The buy up to two random gear event cost reduced from 800, 500 to 500, 300.
  • The "buy one" option has been clarified to that it's see two pick one.
  • Added a 3rd buy option at 200 for a single random item.
• Shop description text rework:
  • Now uses full area width if the shop doesn't accept sales.
  • Now scrolls up and down if the description is too long.
  • Now indicates what type of item it is.

Fixes

• Fixed tile falling speed being framerate dependant.
• Fixed upcoming tile preview not correctly displaying non-standard tiles.
• Fixed the mindfog dagger not counting tiles in the tile queue.
• Fixed runed bracelet and ring not highlighting when granting spell bonus.
• Fixed buttons not rescaling text if it changed.
• Fixed the price on shop items being slightly out of align.
• Fixed a typo in the vial of blood description.
• Fixed the armour of enemies not counting against how much you'd heal from overkill if you dealt enough damage to one-shot them when they still had armour.
• Fixed the "mark as seen" flag potentially not getting saved on unlocking something.
• Fixed the four-heal open scroll counting as a component.
• Fixed the green worm idol giving no bonus.
• Fixed trying to go to the next page on the store after buying out some things potentially leaving you on an empty page.
• Fixed the exsanguinating dagger self-inflicting 1 bleed on activation.
• Fixed variants of the infinitives gauntlet without the charm of suffixes incorrectly stating that they have that effect. (They didn't.)
• Fixed variants of the infinitives gauntlet with the charm of suffixes not highlighting on all suffix words.
• Fixed the power level of enemies going down if less enemies were rolled, instead of up.
• Fixed the UI background elements on the rewards screen on ultrawide.
• Fixed some cases of tiles visually overlapping while falling on the tile board.
• Fixed a typo in the tooltip for the icon when an enemies attack will inflict multiple tiles.
• Fixed typos in the status decay tooltips.
• Fixed artificially gold tiles having the gold border overlay drawn over them.
• Fixed the consumables UI not fully hiding if you have no consumables.
• Fixed the teabags not checking how much health you have.
• Fixed reloading into enemies after the required portion potentially being desynced.
• Fixed the dreamcatcher not clearing special ! tiles.
• Fixed the word board not hiding with the rest of the UI, allowing keyboard input to show.
• Fixed item almanac crashing on specific old saves.
• Damage estimation fixes:
  • Fixed the enemies indicated damage not correctly showing burn reduction during their turn after it ticks down by 1 but before their attack.
  • Fixed cursed book incorrectly implying it will heal you.
  • Fixed not taking into account spells that are about to set enemies on fire, and damage from burn.
  • Fixed not taking into account enemies that are about to run away.
  • Fixed using poisons, the exsanguinating dagger, or the immunity potion not triggering an update.
  • Fixed antivenom rollover effect potentially not reverting to the correct estimate after mouse leaving.
• Ligature tile fixes:
  • Fixed the bookkeepers items not behaving correctly with ligature tiles.
  • Fixed ligature tiles counting against word-based unlocks. Specifically quoth.
  • Fixed the raven idol considering the U from the QU ligature in previously input words as wildcards.
  • Fixed ligature tiles counting against the monoceros necklace.
  • Fixed the weird veiny beige thumb not triggering on UEI words if the U was from the Qu ligature.
    • This affected the words alqueire, appliqueing, aqueity, and quisqueite. You're welcome.