Hello, everyone! This has been a crazy first week for Once Ever After - I'm glad that so many of you have enjoyed the game. ^-^ This post will include multiple things: discussion of the new difficulty mode just added, a full changelog for 0.6.1, previews of future additions, and a question regarding Steam trading cards for all players! [b]Difficulty Options[/b] One of the biggest changes to the game is the addition of four new items that will change the combat difficulty. You can now find a white-colored NPC in every major town (Bangville, Hoodton, New Canisan, Grimmton) who will give them to you. Equipping them will create something more along the lines of story/easy mode. I think that this will be closer to the experience that some players want, and in any case it's designed to be a more relaxed experience. Using these items doesn't lock off any story or scene content, though it does change how some of the optional bosses work. This is a "first draft" - I've done my best with these, but there's obviously no time to thoroughly retest an entire game. I welcome additional feedback from anyone using this equipment. [b]Full 0.6.1 Changelog[/b] Balance Changes [list] [*] The difficulty mode items mentioned above. [*] A number of enemies have been tweaked, particularly in the Overgrown Tale and Canisan Mine. [*] Certain defensive skills have been altered so that they scale better at higher levels. [*] The AP granted by many bosses and mini-bosses has been increased. [*] Gold given by enemies has shifted, largely increasing. [/list] Minor Changes [list] [*] More detail added to the dancing minigame tutorial. [*] Various anti-frustration mechanics added. [*] Various minor bugs have been fixed and other details polished. Most of these are edge cases. [/list] There are a few bugs that have been reported that are a bit more mysterious: they appear to only affect one or two players and can't be replicated on my end. It is suspected that the game engine has a memory leak, as the problems seem to be more common with less RAM. I'll do my best to fix these, but they can be slippery, so in the meantime you should know that closing the game occasionally during long play sessions should help. Also, hopefully the autosaves should prevent loss of progress! [b]Future Updates[/b] Please continue to provide feedback on the game! I wanted to get this update out now for the sake of players who might be returning to the game this weekend, but there are more improvements in the works that will take longer to finish: [list] [*] I intend to add a system that allows you to refund AP you have spent on skills. This requires non-trivial new coding, however, so can't be added instantly. [*] The Arena Champion will soon be getting a new sprite of custom pixel art! Feel free to request other characters you'd like to see get a makeover. [*] Some additional sidequests are being planned, but it takes longer to conceive and create new content. [/list] [b]Steam Trading Cards and Point Shop Assets[/b] This game was approved for trading cards almost immediately, but developing them can be a bit time-consuming and I thought it was more important to respond to player feedback. However, you can expect them sooner rather than later! Please let me know what you'd like for the cards... high resolution character art? A glimpse at the original sketches of the characters? Steam is also encouraging devs to make items to put in the points shop. Is this something that players want? Is there anything you'd like to see? On my own, I'd probably just focus on the game, but I'm happy to look into this more if it's something that people are interested in. Okay, I think that's all for now. Look forward to more updates as OEA advances through the Early Access period!