Sternly Worded Adventures is a roguelite word puzzle RPG inspired by Bookworm Adventures where you travel through a forested peninsula with Yorkshire-sounding place names fighting monsters with the power of words to uncover whatever dark secrets may be lurking beyond.
Here is a MASSIVE update to the demo! The main thing I was tackling ended up being a involved in a bit of tangled central logic and I kept procrastinating on it and doing other things. That being reworking what happens with pressing the submit button specifically with regards to spells, which ended up involving how wildcards are handled, and turn phases, animation tracking, and a bunch more.
[h2]PATCH NOTES[/h2]
[h3]General changes:[/h3]
[list][*] Engine upgraded from LÖVE 11.4 to LÖVE 11.5. (Except for appimage, which had an export bug I couldn't handle in time).
[*] Added the option to configure the mean adventure length (Abridged: 3 enemies, Complete: 12, Extended: 24)
[*] Warrior unlock criteria changed from pressing continue on the postgame screen to making it to the post game screen after killing an enemy.
[*] Reworked the options screen into tabs.
[*] Changed the options screen quit button into a quit to main menu button.
[*] You can now get to the stats page from the minesweeper page by clicking the time and mine count buttons.
[*] Slight optimisation to legal move check.
[*] Shops where you can't sell now have a view inventory button.
[*] You are no longer prevented from using items before the first adventure.
[*] ! and number tiles now fall off the bottom of the board instead of disappearing.
[*] Did a cosmetic overhaul of the almanac and made the back buttons on its sub-pages pages more consistent.
[*] Dead enemies will now continue releasing status particles, except bleed, for a while after they died.
[*] Upcoming tile preview has been moved above the tileboard instead of below it.
[*] Dictionary page now has key functions, backspace; copy; paste, on press instead of release.
[*] Eulogising a character from the new-game menu now shows you the eulogy and any other callback screens before taking you to a new game.
[*] Added a quote before taking you into a game when starting a new game without eulogising a different character.
[*] Eulogy screens no longer have the 'current player' left corner health and money stats.
[*] Reworked player attack damage phases so things look less out of sequence.
[*] Added a UI so you can choose what and if to cast a spell as, if it would apply for multiple books.
[*] Added an option to skip the cast-as screen if it'd only show regular attack and one spell.
[*] Submitting a word now has it yeet off in the direction of the enemy instead of just pop out of existence.
[*] Reduced the maximum frame delay to 0.1 seconds.
[*] Added achievements.
[*] Added the option to hide in-game achievement notifications.
[*] Added a preparation screen to adventures.
[*] Added real tiles to the title screen logo.
[*] Added a credit to the title screen logo when it shows the correct game name.
[*] Added gear visualisations to character creation page.
[*] Added new skeleton names.
[*] Added the option to ignore the first tap when buying and using items with touch controls.
[*] Added a bunch of diacritic and other character support.
[*] Fixed a crash on the character select screen if an item selected as a boon was used in a persistent craft.
[*] Fixed a crash if you mouse over the empty slot during the item give animation.
[*] Fixed a crash when combining the voiceless rough stone charm with any item that can generate non-standard H tiles.
[*] It now gives gold borders if there's no defined "better" material.
[*] Fixed RPG tutorial button showing when the rest of the UI hides.
[*] Fixed the equipped UI if you had more slots than there were rows. (15+)
[*] This change also makes them no longer look stretched at some item counts.
[*] Fixed some icons on minesweeper.
[*] Fixed tile tooltips potentially getting stuck on board clear.
[*] Fixed the player overworld sprite swapping to the raft graphic when just near water.
[*] Fixed passives UI floating down the screen on narrower resolutions.
[*] Fixed boon and curse selections only getting saved if you back out of the character creator menu.
[*] Fixed enemy attack estimates persisting after they attack.
[*] Fixed arcade gold listing double the correct value on the player stats.
[*] Fixed classes with potion drink animations doing it with any item use.
[*] Fixed options button hiding on the main menu with the option to hide it in game.
[*] Fixed mouse press on the item almanac not halting flick-scroll velocity.
[*] Fixed setting the heart:bar ratio to 0 breaking the player screen and the stats screen.
[*] The Heart:bar slider now shows you a representation of the max number of hearts.
[*] Fixed health bar width calculations always assuming display was in hearts not a bar.[/list]
[h3]Crafting changes:[/h3]
[list][*] Added section headings to the crafting screen.
[*] Changed the example potions in the crafting tutorial.
[*] Fixed large health potions not being highlighted in crafting.
[*] Fixed the crafting screen showing 'no recipes' if you used up all recipes, left, and came back with more in the same session.
[*] Sealed potions are no longer barred from crafting, just from the first slot, along with the fragile potion.
[*] The crafting 'result' for consolidating potions now has a more indicative icon.
[*] Added fill and max fill level indicators to potion crafting.
[*] Fixed ironskin potions not being combinable.
[*] Fixed refreshing water bottles not being combinable.
[*] Hints changes:
[*] Fixed a crash if a hinted word wasn't in the main dictionary.
[*] Added support for hints involving 3 letter tiles.
[*] Hints now prioritise common 7 letter words if available.
[*] Using the hint button with no valid moves now gives you a warning instead of forcing a refresh.
[*] Wildcard & ligature changes:
[*] Fixed special material tiles affected by the lisp curse losing the ligature data and becoming 'th' tiles instead of thorn tiles.
[*] Burning ligatures now have a special tooltip explaining both of those things.
[*] Reworked how the game handles wildcards and ligatures when typing to feel more natural.
[*] Added an onscreen keyboard to pick the letter when selecting a wildcard without using a physical keyboard.
[*] Added a letter representation to wildcards with temp-defined letters.
[*] Wildcards now count for effects that previously excluded them.
[*] Basic wildcard tiles now better explain their points noncontributions.
[*] Refresh changes:
[*] Clarified language for 'refill' vs 'refresh' in item descriptions.
[*] Refresh button no longer naturally clears unselectable tiles, instead letting them fall to the bottom.
[*] Refresh now does the 'pop' animation like when exploding.[/list]
[h3]Item changes:[/h3]
[list][*] Blood is now stored like gold instead of as an item.
[*] Added a particle effect when draining blood from an enemy.
[*] Added a sound effect when gaining or dragging around some items.
[*] The bloodstained gold heart necklace now has a status icon instead of highlighting.
[*] Remove the word 'tiles' from the vowel movement item descriptions, since they care about letters and can be cast with AE and OE ligatures.
[*] The raven idol can now be unlocked by submitting RAVEN.
[*] Fixed the raven idol mentioning tiles when really it cares about letters.
[*] Fixed the blank locket not highlighting when you have a word with wildcards in.
[*] Changed the descriptions of numerous items that referenced excluding or accepting wildcards.
[*] The bronze bonsai now lists that the tiles are worth 25% more than wood.
[*] The voiceless rough stone charm is now more explicit about how much better scoring the tiles are.
[*] The tiles produced by the infinitives gauntlet (and components) are now effected by the bronze bonsai and curse of wood.
[*] Refreshing water now says 'cumulative', so people (hopefully) realise it stacks.
[*] Refreshing water now also makes the next refresh clear unselectable tiles.
[*] Using the crystal ball or insight potion with no valid moves no longer forces a refresh, and instead gives you a fail message.
[*] Changed the description of the potion of clueless wisdom such that it more accurately describes the effect.
[*] The foresight, eight-sight, dodeceyes rings, and cultist and mage passives now reveal expected enemies during adventure preparation.
[*] Fixed the werewolf medallion not correctly overwriting tiles that would have otherwise been bronzed wood from the bonsai.
[*] Clarified the language in the descriptions of the 4-of items, so it's clearer what they check for.
[*] Added icons to tiles showing the effect that created them, applies to:
([i]Infinitives gauntlet and its components; Staff of the dragon and its components; Staff of the unicorn and its components; Werewolf dagger and its components; Wild trinket & blank locket; Jade idol & things it crafts into; Bloodstained gold heart necklace & things it crafts into; Monstrous jade idol; Targe; Serpentine dagger; Pyrite cookie; Vowel movement spells; Profane book[/i])
[*] Added icons to tiles showing effect that modified them, applies to:
([i]Amnesia; Gilded pommel & things it crafts into; Gold leaf potion; Cursed I-patch; Thorny lisp; Voiceless rough stone charm; Wild ruby & things it crafts into; Antiserum[/i]) [/list]
[h3]Definition changes:[/h3]
[list]
[*] Fixed instances of pre-escaped " characters also escaping the escape character in definitions.
[*] Fixed instances of unclosed