[TLDR is at the bottom.]

Hello fellow Tiny Rogues,
not even a week ago I released the biggest Tiny Rogues update ever, and now I am happy to follow it up with this massive 0.2.1 patch. I didn’t expect this to get so big, so quickly, but I’m proud of the changes. So let’s get right into it!

From floor 2 onwards you will encounter your good friend the bonfire in the spawn room. At the bonfire you can spend Souls and gain permanent stat boosts. You can also fully recover your hearts and flasks and attune your items at the bonfire.

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Developer Thoughts: A big goal in bringing back stat upgrades to your character was to present it in transparent way and to make the system more flexible. The new system is powerful, flexible, brings interesting changes and choices to veteran players and most importantly it is: simple. The 0.2.0 update made the game quite a bit more complex and this patch introduces a bunch of simple but effective changes to make you feel a little bit more at home from the start, even without knowing and utilizing all the new funky mechanics.
It costs 30 Souls to gain a heart container, a point of stamina or a point of mana. As every boss drops 10 Souls this new system basically equals to the old system, just more flexible. You now can get 3 stat upgrades before floor 10 and if are lucky you might even be able to sneak in a 4th one from time to time. Players further in the game might note though that you need some Souls to go beyond floor 11, for that reason the prices of alignment shops have been reduced a bit. So even when you are deep into the game, you still get to gain at least 2 or 3 powerups.

The patch also brings over 30 new items with it. The main focus of these items was to bolster defensive choices, especially for melee characters.

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Developer Thoughts: I think it is important that players are regularly offered strong defensive options. Not every item has to be a wall of text with intricate effects. It is fine when some items are just there to bolster survivability or damage.

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Developer Thoughts: Having a lot of equip load and equipping some heavy but strong item feels good on a strength character but defensive options for low equip load characters often were lacking. There is a slew of new defensive charms that aid you in your quest to survive on generally squishier builds.

Apart from the new defensive items I also added some support for certain build and effect archetypes that felt quite underwhelming.

The weapon damage bonus per upgrade level has been increased to 10% per upgrade level. (Previously a measly 5%.)

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Developer Thoughts: Weapon upgrades previously felt very underwhelming. Again, while it is cool and all that the game allows for more funky combinations and interactions to make a strong character, I find it very important, especially for new players, that fallback mechanics exist and that they feel impactful. When lacking damage it makes intuitive sense that a player might think to upgrade their weapon and now you should be able to feel the weapon upgrades.

In addition to this change some of the Blacksmith related meta perks have been heavily buffed to make them more enticing.

• All one-handed sword base DMG has been increased by 10% to 30% across the board.
• All mace base DMG has been increased by 10% to 20% across the board.
• All axe base DMG has been increased by 10% to 20%. Twin Axes, Winged Axes and Berserker Axes have been buffed by up to 30% to account for their odd flight behaviors.
• All daggers base DMG has been increased by 10% to 20% across the board.
• All polearms and scythes base DMG has been increased by 10% across the board.

Additionally some of the new items have melee specific effects.

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Developer Thoughts: While you can get a stamina point from the bonfire, I also wanted to add new additional ways to gain stamina. The game throws a lot at you and it is important that as a player you feel like you stand a fighting chance.

There is the new camel companion, that grants +1 stamina.

There is the new tavern NPC, the Dryad selling Green Blossoms.

And there even are two new meta perks relating to stamina availability.

Heart containers and Phoenix Feathers (Granting +1 Revive.) can now appear shops. The main shop (with the Rat Merchant) now also rolls between 3 and 4 offers, instead of always presenting 3 offers.
The Slot Machine now can give Soul Hearts and Soul Hearts in general are a bit more common.
The Nurse in the tavern now also refills your flasks.

You level up a lot quicker now, especially the levels 1 to 15 take a lot less experience. It was an oversight to expect new players to turn on cinder modifiers and mastery shouldn’t be as crazy of a grind as it was previously. Enjoy!

• New bonfire favour feature. (Explained above.)
• Mastery EXP curve has been adjusted so you can level up faster, even without Cinder.
• Tally requirements now have a minimum of 1.#
• Soul Hearts are slightly more common.
• Suppression now comes before your Soul Hearts.
• The Arcade can now grant Soul Hearts.
• The Arcade now can break a lot quicker but the base chance to win has been increased.
• Dice have been added to shops.
• Heart Containers have been added to shops.
• Phoenix Feathers have been added to shops.
• Rat Merchant now presents 3 to 4 offers. Nomad Merchant now presents 4 offers and the Alien Traders now always present 5 offers.
• Soul price now don’t increase with each floor anymore.
• Normal shops don’t ever sell Souls anymore.
• Soul prices for rare, epic and legendary items have been made cheaper overall.
• The Soul Peddler and Charon (Soul Shops) have an inherent discount of 25% now.
• Shops that appear in floor 11 now also affect alignment.
• Curse has less chance to take effect in the range of 1 to 3 curse.
• Fixed how magic find worked for equipment and weapon rewards. Previously it was partially bugged and displaying on the wrong items, that it didn’t actually affect. Magic Find is even better now.

• Death Tyrants in floor 10 now activate their spinning laser attack staggered instead of all at once.

• NEW: Ignition Burst
• Double Trouble: Instead of doubling critical hit multiplier of repeated attacks, now makes them deal lethal hits.
• One Step Ahead: Additionally to repeating the attack after dash now doubles the critical hit multiplier of repeated attacks.
• Swagger: Additionally now triggers your on dash effects on the tally of 5 primary attacks.
• Near Death Experience: Should appear more often now.

• Each weapon upgrade level now grants 10% more damage, up from 5% more.
• A lot melee weapons had their base damage buffed. (Explained above.)
• All versions of the Hero Sword have been massively buffed and the quest line to repair it has been fixed and improved.

• Added a total of 30 new equipment items.
  • Some of the 30 items are new defensive charms: Soul Heart Charm, Block Charm, Evasion Charm, Stamina Charm, Flask Charm and Suppression Charm.
  • There is a new set for swords, the fencing set: “Touche! Engarde!”
  • The new items include support for on combat start, on picking up mana star and on dash effect builds.
• Dragonscale Greaves: Now also grant +1 Suppression and Combat Prowess buff now grants 30% increased melee damage, up from 20%.
• Heart Charm and Armor Charm are now rare rarity, previously epic.
• Jousting Armor: Now also grants +1 armor.
• Wisp Lantern: Now grants 2.% increased primary attack damage per soul you have, up from 0.5%.

• NEW: Camel Leash, summons a camel companion that grants +1 Stamina.
• Stamina Potion: Is now in the main pool of potions. Previously you would only be able to get this from brewing it in the swamp event.
• Shellfish Surge and Ocean’s Bounty now last 10/20 rooms (depending on the consumable), up from 1/10 rooms.
• Kelp: Now grants 1 stamina permanently, similar to the Starfish consumable that grants +1 mana.

• NEW: Dryad NPC that sells Green Blossom and makes you good. Like the Cleric, she also has a preference for good and will give you a discount if you are good.
• The Nurse now also refills your flasks.
• Farmer and Santa are 5G cheaper.
• Tax Collector now trades you 30G for 10 Souls.

• Necromancer passive ability now grants 2% increased damage per Soul, up from 1.5%. (To compensate a bit for the new Soul sinks.)
• Necromancer now finds more soul rewards than other classes.

• NEW: Evergreen, makes Stamina Surge (from Green Blossoms) last 10 rooms instead of 1.
• NEW: Heart Seeker, makes items that grant hearts 25% more common.
• NEW: Stamina Scout, makes items that grant stamina 25% more common.
• Soul Thief → now named: Thief In the Shadows: If you defeat the boss without getting hit, you gain 25% magic find for the reward selection it presents.
• Inflation and Deflation: Now only work for Gold prices.
• Ethereal Roulette: Now grants 2 bonus ethereal dice, up from only 1.
• Loss Leader: Makes blacksmith prices be 10/15/20/25,… instead of 10/20/30/40,… (Previously was too much of a downside.)
• Worth of a Soul: Now makes weapon upgrades at blacksmiths cost 10 Souls, previously 20. (With the new Soul economy this might need even more changes in the future.)
• Loyalty: The upgrade to level 4 now doesn’t increase the price. (But you have to pick either Loss Leader or Worth of a Soul before, so the 4th upgrade by default costs 25 gold or 10 souls.)

• Unjust Incentive: Now specifies in the description that the spiked doors can be bombed.

• As mentioned above, magic find has been generally buggy.
• Fixed that the calculation of advancing your periodical effects was completely wrong and triggered way too much. (Mainly affects the trait: Dynamo.)

I am thrilled to announce that Tiny Rogues has been a phenomenal hit during the holiday season, maintaining an incredible 2000 concurrent players! Your enthusiasm and support have been nothing short of amazing. And there is even more exciting stuff on the horizon!

First off, I will be fine-tuning the game’s polish. You’ve experienced the depth of the new update, and now it’s time to make it even more accessible. I want to refine descriptions to be crisper and easier to understand. The goal is to streamline your experience, making it intuitive and even more enjoyable.

I will also be working an in-game guide/wiki in which you can read up on every mechanic in detail. But don’t worry – I want to keep the reading light. After all, I want you to spend more time exploring and fighting and less time studying and doing homework on the game.

Your feedback is the magic behind the game’s growth. Join the journey on the community discord and share your thoughts. Screenshots, suggestions, or ideas are all welcome!

Finally, I want to better the game’s visual clarity. Get ready for options that clear up screen clutter, like fading out your own projectiles, companions and more.

Thank you for playing and thank you for all the support, hope you had happy holidays!

Cheers,
RubyDev

TLDR:

• Heart-, Stamina- and Mana power ups are back.
• Lots of new defensive items, especially for melee characters but also for low equip load characters. (E.g.: new defensive charms)
• Upgrading weapons has been massively buffed.
• Base DMG of a lot of melee weapons has been buffed.
• Stamina is more widespread available in the game.

HOTFIX V1: Just did a hotfix which fixes a soft-lock that happened when interacting with blacksmiths that cost Souls and you interacted with them while not having Souls.