Hey you guys!

I am happy to announce that V. 0.5 has just been released here on Itch! It has taken over a month to make it, and it introduces a bunch of improvements, bugfixing and highly requested features such as a settings menu with keybindings, sound options and more!

Along with this update, the demo release on Steam is closing in as well! I will make a follow-up update on v. 0.5 to do the last bits of bugfixing and then the Godstone demo will make its way to Steam, all by the end of August this month! :D

With that said, I hope you enjoy the update, and have an awesome day!
- Plant

Behold! The entire changelog for this update:

All the best stuff:

• Added a brand new settings menu, containing sound settings, fullscreen/windowed option, keybindings as well as an option to change fonts with more coming

• Added a brand new ESC menu that allows you to enter the settings menu, return to main menu and quit the game

• Added a brand new map over the area you are in! It also shows the locations of possible bosses, what level you are on and how far there is to the main boss of that area

• Added a new mechanism: Ambush; when entering a room, bars close around the player and 1-2 waves of random enemies must be defeated in order for the bars to open again.

• Added 18 new maps

• Remastered the entire Black Library area, giving it brand new visuals

Balancing:

• Improved Alva’s Mastery, giving her massive energy regeneration for the duration of the ability

• Increased Otai’s health from 80 to 90

Improvements and Changes:

• You can now press ESC to exit the Difficulty Select Menu

• Resolution has been improved, removing the black bars at the side of the screen

• Added a new font to the game based on you guy's feedback

• Updated the setup for the Inventory!

• Removed the containers at the Library entrance

• Altered the level with the secret room riddle

• The volume of screenshakes have been decreased

• Added lighting to the Spark and Snowflake spells

• Altered the main menu, giving it particles, new effects, improved buttons and less intrusive graphics

• Redesigned the Spike sprites to make them more visible

• Speeded up the black screen transition when changing rooms

• Fundamentally changed poison and burn debuff. They no longer trigger items that have effects when taking damage, they no longer make loud damage sounds and have new visual effects on the screen!

• All items that can be picked up now hover over the ground for more visibility

• Recolored pressure plates and dart dispensers to make them more visible

• Permanently removed the Scroll of Transport from the game due to too many issues with it, and instead increased the drop chance for Scroll of Shadow Step

• Improved visuals for paintings

• Added particles to candleliers and lanterns

• Added new props such as tables, chairs, cups, books and candle holders

• Moved Alakai from level 11 to level 10, and Otai from level 14 to level 15. This way, minibosses appear every 5^th level – and they fit the locations I have placed on the map

• Improved the Greed skill: It improves the quality of containers (urns and chests) even more. Setting in this skill 5 times causes only large urns and lots of chests to spawn at the cost of 25% resistances. This leaves for greater risk and reward and a way to manipulate what can be dropped throughout a run

• Polished a bunch of maps

• Temporarily removed the Challenge Orb due to some issues with it – it will return, and in a much more improved state in a nearby update!

• Instead of clicking on an icon in the inventory to get information, simply hovering over it will now cause a small textbox to pop up with the information of the item / ability

• Altered the visuals for Alva’s Mastery, the snowstorm is no longer as visually intense
  

Bugfixes:

• Fixed an issue that allowed the player to exit the game when pressing f1, and restart the game by pressing f2. These were some old developer shortcuts I had forgotten all about, woops xD

• Fixed a bug that made a pop up menu appear in the middle of the screen when clicking a button on the UI

• Fixed a bug that caused Blazing and Chilling Rune to summon 3 sparks / snowflakes instead of 1 as well as their spawn coordinates on the player

• Fixed some bugs with tilesets in some maps

• Fixed a bug that caused bosses to be immune to the chill effect of Alva’s Mastery

• Fixed a bug that caused a frost wielder (ice casting enemy) to fall down in a specific map at level 13

• Fixed a bug that allowed you to activate objects while a menu is open.

• Fixed a bug that caused the screen to flicker when pressing ESC

• Fixed a bug that caused being damage by enemy melee attacks not to trigger the incinerator nor Eye Of Unstable Power

• Fixed a bug that allowed the player to cast spells while melee attacking

• Fixed a bug that caused the player to get stuck in attack animation

• Fixed a bug that allowed Crown of Enchantments to curse Alakai with sleep, causing him to bug out completely.

• Fixed a bug that allowed Meris to curse Alakai if Xileans AoE touches Alakai by aiming it at the skeletons

• Fixed a bug with Alakai that allows players to use scorches, Burning Ring and Flask of Deadveil to damage Alakai in his peaceful state. This is an issue as it does not trigger combat with Alakai – and if it did, would force the player into combat with him whenever any of these items are carried.

• Fixed a bug that caused buttons to not properly despawn after selecting a character

• Fixed a bug that caused skill points to not load properly when using the mouse to click on the skill menu icon on the UI

• Fixed a bug that caused the inventory menu not to appear properly when clicking on the inventory icon on the UI

• Fixed a bug were skill text would appear in front of replacement menues