Every chapter.
One growing world.

Supplied 4.2.0 release notes and game data. Availability reflects the upcoming launch.

Version 3.0.3 stays free. The official 4.2.0 release will be paid; price and launch date are to be announced.

Fixes

Finishing a stage no longer throws you to the Eclipse lands. You stay in the region of the stage you just cleared.

Clicking: hovering never selects or clicks anything. Click once to select, click again (or press Enter) to use. Moving the mouse after a click does nothing.

Talking to companions at a campfire no longer shows "undefined" (Kestrel and Grunhild now have their own lines everywhere, and camp no longer breaks when all six companions have joined).

The "Level cleared" pop-up and every title now show clear, full-height numbers, so "Level 12 cleared!" reads as 12 (the old fancy numerals made 1, 2 and 3 look alike).

Camp: your party sits round the fire with you, and companions you left waiting at camp sleep in sleeping bags off to the side. Nobody sits on top of your hero any more.

Stuck? Pause > Unstuck / Respawn (also in Settings > Gameplay). Pick the nearest open ground, the nearest campfire or the area entrance. If you ever end up inside scenery, the game moves you out on its own.

Bigger world

Stage areas are 6x bigger (wilds, the three side lands, the crossroads village and the ancient city). There are more enemies, chests, crates and camps, plus campfires along the road. Every exit, chest and NPC is checked to be reachable, and you never spawn in water or inside scenery.

Crossroads villages are full towns: a street grid, dozens of detailed houses (two storeys, shutters, flower boxes, chimneys, dormers, ivy), a market square, fields, orchards, a pond, a graveyard and 20+ wandering villagers.

Lush nature everywhere: groves of broad leafy trees, flowering bushes, ferns, grass tufts and wildflowers in every biome. Villages have trees along the streets, round the market square and in the back gardens.

Plants part around you: walk through a bush, tall grass, ferns or flowers and they bend away from you. Walk through the middle and they part down the middle; brush one side and they lean the other way. They spring back with a wobble when you step out. Bushes can be walked through and rustle and shed leaves as you push past. Companions and pets part them too.

Animated water: ripples shimmer and drift, glints flash and foam laps at the shore. Lava churns and glows; void pools swirl.

Dust: little dust clouds puff up when you turn around, take sharp turns at a run, skid to a stop, or bump into walls, rocks and other things.

Ruin gates are far more detailed: block-built pillars with carved capitals, an arch of wedge stones with a glowing carved keystone, runes that light up one after another, steps sinking into the dark, flickering torches, and moss and vines, snow and icicles, glowing cracks, crystals or cobwebs depending on the land.

Gambling den: Lucky Oswin now keeps a den on most stages (every even stage and about two in three of the odd ones), on the outskirts of the map, against the edge, in a thicket of bushes and trees. Look for the big yellow question mark, then walk in through the door (see Lucky Oswin's Den below).

The minimap scrolls with you. The big map (M) shows the whole area.

Combat and loot

Enemies hit harder and always land real damage. Fights are longer and more challenging.

The Grimmbladee is the strongest weapon in the game. It scales with your level but is not game-breaking. New look: a jagged silver-green blade, a gold hilt wrapped in leather, and a blue gem in the guard with a gleaming holy aura and holy particles.

Crates are metal with a checkered texture and hold more.

Legendary and Mythic items are much rarer. The gold economy is smoother.

Stats cap at 10,000, and you can train Mana (+8 max mana per point).

Carry weight is 1,000. Strengthen it at the Trainer, +100 a time up to 2,000, for a lot of gold (8,000 rising to 307,500).

Experience comes much more slowly: about a third of what it was on Normal, from every source. Hard gives x2.5 that (and x2.5 gold), and Hardcore x4.

Finding special gear grants bonus experience (once per item, shown in its tooltip): every Mythic item; certain Legendaries (the named unique Legendaries and Legendary armour); and four kinds of Epic (purple) item: Epic greathelms, plate, gauntlets and greaves.

Difficulty: switch between Normal and Hard any time in Settings > Gameplay. Hard foes have x2.5 integrity and deal x2 damage, but give x2.5 gold and experience.

Style

Worn Legendary and Mythic armour has a holographic foil sheen on your character, and on the item icons.

Auras: unlock up to 10 (Ember, Frost, Holy, Shadow, Storm, Verdant, Blood, Starlight, Prismatic, Void). Choose one in Pack > Gear. Gear glows stay.

Retro screen presets (Settings > Video > Screen preset): Game Boy, 90s CRT, Arcade and Old TV (70s/80s). Each has its own adjustable sliders.

The small text uses a new, far more readable font.

Pets and homes

Pets: name them, feed them, play with them, and keep as many as you like. Up to two pets can follow you at once (both help in battle); the rest wait at camp or live at one of your houses. Fed, happy pets fight harder. The Pet Keeper in towns sells pets.

Houses: every village and town has an estate agent (the Land Steward), including each stage's crossroads village. Buy a house in as many places as you like. Tiers: Cottage 20,000 (one room) House 40,000 (a much bigger room) Garden House 60,000 (plus a fenced backyard) Family Home 100,000 (two bedrooms and a bigger backyard) Manor 250,000 (two storeys, four bedrooms upstairs, kitchen and dining room, a big backyard) Grand Estate 1,000,000 (an enormous mansion on the outskirts of town: a great hall, kitchen, dining room, eight bedrooms upstairs, a huge garden and five pastime rooms: a grow room with a Mystical Ganja Gem, a training hall, a library, a game room and a bathhouse) Your furniture moves with you when you upgrade, plus housewarming gifts.

Upgrade menu: every tier with its price, rooms and description. You can jump several tiers at once. Estate agents charge list price. From the Houses tab (anywhere else) a 25% remote-upgrade tax is added.

Pastime rooms (any house can have the furniture): indoor ganja planters (grow and harvest ganja indoors), the Mystical Ganja Gem itself (hot-pink UV and black light that floods the room), a weight rack (+1 training point a day), a grand bookcase (extra experience each morning), a card table (Lucky Oswin's games at home), a billiards table, a hot tub (fully restored and Relaxed for your next fight) and a sauna bench.

Furniture: no limits. Buy as much as you like from the furniture catalogue (estate agents, the Houses tab, or Decorate). It goes to your furniture storage, shared by all your houses. 50+ pieces: beds, sofas, rugs, a piano, an aquarium, a grandfather clock, paintings, tapestries, a kitchen oven and cupboard, a dining table, and for the backyard: vegetable, flower and herb gardens, apple trees, a water fountain, a stone bread oven, a roasting spit, beehives, a fish pond, a gazebo, a hammock, a rose arch and more.

Decorate: use the ledger by the door (or the Houses tab). Pick a piece, then click the floor to place it on the grid. R or right-click turns it through eight angles: straight and slanted (south, south-east, east, north-east, north, north-west, west, south-west). Shift turns it back. Paintings, tapestries and banners hang on any wall, straight or tilted either way: on partition walls, behind shelves and other furniture, and even on the outside back wall in the yard. Pictures can overlap each other. T changes its style; click placed pieces to move, turn or store them. Hold the left mouse button and drag to move the view around freely, right out past the walls. Zoom out with the mouse wheel or + and

to see your whole floor or garden at once (the wheel scrolls the catalogue when the mouse is over it, and zooms only over the map). Nothing can block a doorway, the stairs or the way to a bed or chest.

Turned straight sideways (east or west), chairs, armchairs, sofas, benches, wardrobes, dressers, bookshelves, cupboards, the stove, the piano, desks, the aquarium, the weight rack and the alchemy table show their side, the way you'd really see them.

Sit down: walk up to a chair, armchair, sofa, bench or sauna bench (at home, in a tavern or in Oswin's den) and press interact. Your integrity slowly comes back while you sit, stamina and agility faster. Move or press interact again to stand up.

Storage chests (40 items each) and armour frames are furniture: buy as many as you want. An armour frame opens its own menu: pick a slot, then pick which of your armour pieces hangs there (or swap everything with what you wear in one click).

Many pieces help every morning when you sleep at home: the oven, bread oven, spit, beehive and pond give food, the alchemy table makes potions, the fireplace, piano, flower garden and fountain strengthen your morning blessing, and bedrooms and dining tables make your companions feel at home.

Houses tab (Tab menu): every house you own. Click one to travel there instantly, with no road and no fights. Leaving takes you back to exactly where you were.

Ganja and the Ongbay

Ganja: sticky green buds you inhale from the Ongbay, a tall glass vase with a water chamber. One pull restores some integrity, stamina and mana and makes you Mellow for your next fight (+10% crit, 10% less damage taken). The Ongbay bubbles and gurgles in your hands, you blow out a big plume and cough a few times, and clouds of smoke roll out around you.

The high lasts a minute: the world runs in slight slow motion, with a soft green filter and a glowing bloom over everything (a "Mellow" timer shows by your health bars). It fades out gently at the end.

Hotboxing: smoke indoors (your house, a tavern or Oswin's den) and the smoke fills the room and hangs there for about a minute. More pulls, thicker smoke, but it stays see-through.

Where you can smoke: only in your own house (inside or in the backyard), in Lucky Oswin's gambling den, or inside a bar or tavern. Anywhere else, and in battle, you can't. Oswin and the innkeepers lend you their own Ongbay ("Smoke ganja" in their menus); at home use an Ongbay on a stand (furniture) or one you carry. Inhale from the Pack menu too.

Buy ganja and the Ongbay at any village or town general store, or at Oswin's Stash in the gambling den: cheaper, and Oswin pays more for your ganja than shopkeepers do. Sell it like anything else.

Grow it at home (see Farming below).

The Mystical Ganja Gem (hot-pink UV and black light, doubles what indoor planters grow) is no longer a free gift with the Grand Estate. Buy it from the furniture catalogue for 150,000, earn it from Grower Mossbeard's quest "The Green Light" at Ashby's Mill, or find it in a very rare royal, hidden, boss or labyrinth chest. Gems already in your houses stay.

Farming

Plant, grow and harvest at home. Walk up to a vegetable garden, herb garden, ganja patch (backyard) or indoor ganja planter and press interact to plant seeds. They sprout, grow and ripen over game time (sleeping and travelling pass time; the plot tells you how many hours are left), then you harvest them by hand: carrots, potatoes, cabbages and pumpkins, local herbs (sometimes a potion), or 4-6 buds of ganja (2-3 indoors, doubled by a Mystical Ganja Gem). Every harvest gives a seed or two back. Apple trees grow fruit by themselves and grow back.

Seeds: Vegetable, Herb and Ganja Seeds at every general store; Ganja Seeds from Lucky Oswin too. Upgrading to a Garden House comes with some vegetable seeds, and the Grand Estate's grow room with ganja seeds.

Taverns

Walk into any inn. Inside: the bar with the innkeeper behind it (rooms, drinks, rumors, and you may smoke here), patrons at the tables and the bar to talk to, a bard by the fire and a barmaid doing the rounds. Free chairs are yours to sit in.

Lucky Oswin's Den

Walk into Oswin's hideout: the hut behind the question mark on the stages, and Crow's Rest in the forest. Inside, under red and violet lanterns and a permanent haze of smoke: Oswin behind his high table (his games, his stash of ganja, Ongbays and seeds, and his own Ongbay), the Fortune Wheel on the wall, two Grave Slots cabinets, the dice pit, the Three Skulls table and a High or Low card table. Each table and machine starts its game straight away.

A smoking corner with the den's own Ongbay and a chair either side, gamblers to talk to (some sitting in on a hand of cards), Grub the Doorman and Pip the Runner. The door at the bottom takes you back out where you came in.

Quests

12 new town quests, two or more in every town: The Toad Choir, Omens on Black Wings, The Miner's Lament, The Keeper's Light, Lamp Oil for the Docks, Moths of Glass, The Last Signal, Imps in the Bellows, A Blade of Black Glass, Hunters of Falling Stars and The Witch in the Mirror, many with choices and several endings.

Replayable quests: a giver whose quest you finished has new work for you a day or two later, and it's a different variant each time (a different beast to hunt, herb to gather, place to go or midnight mystery to solve). Rewards grow with your level and with each job. The quest log shows which quests replay and when.

Crossroads villages on the road now have quest givers too: the Village Elder (hunts), the Village Quartermaster (supplies) and the Innkeeper's Daughter (midnight mysteries). Their jobs change with the land you're in and can be replayed.

More

Many more cheats, including silly ones (Pocket Hero, Kaiju Mode, Rainbow Hero, Party Time, Piñata Foes, Moon Gravity, Disco Night and more), plus a "Random cheat!" button. Settings > More > Cheats.

Much more dialogue: villagers, merchants, the gambler and companions draw from hundreds of lines and rarely repeat themselves.

Saving: 3 rotating autosaves, a quicksave and 12 manual slots. Autosaves never happen mid-battle or while you are being chased; they wait for a safe moment. Each slot shows where you were, your level and gold.

Menus: every scroll bar can be grabbed and dragged (the mouse wheel works too), and Back works everywhere: the Back button, Esc, Backspace, your mouse's side back button, or a click outside the menu.

Dynamic torch lighting is now automatic (Settings > Video: Auto / On / Off).

The pack menu is reorganised: Gear | Pack | Character | Skills | Party | Pets | Codex | Houses. The caravan Merchant, Smith and Trainer are buttons on the right.

CONTROLS (rebind in Settings > Controls)

Move: WASD / arrows Run: hold Shift Interact: E Pack: I or Tab Map: M Journal: O Pause: Esc F11 fullscreen F12 screenshot

Reconstructed from all changed game modules between the supplied 3.0.2 and 3.0.3 installers. This is the version available free on grimmbladee.com.

Verified changes

• Long notification messages wrap inside the screen instead of extending off the edge. Secondary text respects the larger-text accessibility setting.
• Dialogue choices size themselves to their text, wrap long options, and keep the choice box inside the screen.
• Encounter panels grow upward when there is more text. Choice rows adjust their height, and two-column choices are used only when their labels fit.
• Long area and road-stage headings stay between the portrait panel and minimap; the stage name is shortened when necessary.
• Includes the expanded world, equipment, pets, quests, alchemy, and visible-gear improvements from the earlier 3.x releases. See the 3.0.3 wiki for the full game reference.

Download 3.0.3 — Free Open the 3.0.3 wiki

Reconstructed from all changed game modules between the supplied 3.0.1 and 3.0.2 installers.

Verified changes

• Worn leg armor, backpacks, amulets, rings, trinkets, and the sheathed secondary weapon now appear on the character. Gear changes refresh the character in inventory, world, and map views.
• Epic, Legendary, and Mythic worn gear gains visible magical effects. Inventory adds an aura badge and a list of effects; equipping multiple pieces groups the notices.
• Carry capacity becomes 500 for every character, with backpack bonuses added on top.
• Added ten mana-focused potions: Grand Mana Elixir, Arcane Mending Draught, Mindsurge Tonic, Starlit Quicksilver, Minor Arcane Draught, Twin Moon Elixir, Trinity Draught, Spellward Philter, Channeler’s Brew, and Elixir of the Ninefold Star.
• Mixed potions restore several resources and display layered liquid colors. Grand potions receive additional icon effects.
• Added eleven mana and mixed-potion crafting recipes; expanded alchemist, arcanist, and caravan stocks.
• Mana potions become more available in loot and victory rewards, with additional rewards for casters and bosses. Restored mana appears in battle feedback.
• Chests are kept clear of ruin pillars and moved out from behind obstructing scenery. Crossroads villages receive two loose chests.
• All unopened chests gain a glint and a light. Map chest markers are clearer, include unexplored chests, and have a legend.
• Area maps show their proper names.
• Added remembered monitor selection in the installed desktop game’s video settings.

Reconstructed from all changed game modules between the supplied 3.0.0 and 3.0.1 installers.

Verified changes

• Menus behind an open overlay are now inactive, so background controls cannot steal focus, key presses, or clicks.
• Number selectors gain clickable arrows and a value box that accepts typed values.
• Shift-click or Page Up/Page Down changes supported values by ten.
• Closing a dialog consumes its cancel action, preventing the same press from closing the menu underneath.
• Postgame camp travel accepts typed destination levels.
• Cheat travel properly exits a town or side site, clears the old location, and moves to the selected road stage from 1–100.

Reconstructed from the new systems and data in the supplied 3.0.0 installer compared with 2.0.1. This is a recovered feature summary; a complete original changelog was not supplied.

Verified changes

• Added the world map and connected settlements, mines, ruins, hidden sites, side lands, and crossroads villages.
• Expanded story encounters and side quests with decisions, rewards, and recruitable companions Kestrel and Grunhild.
• Added deeper companion systems and seven pet types: dog, cat, crow, fox, owl, slime, and drake.
• Added merchants, trainer services, crafting, and a broader inventory with leg armor, backpacks, named unique items, materials, books, scrolls, goods, and mana potions.
• Expanded combat techniques, spells, weapon families, attributes, proficiencies, and combat displays.
• New town artwork, item icons, loot generation, chest/container systems, and expanded character creation accompany the new world systems.
• The campaign remains 100 road levels across five biomes, with the Last Quarter trial at level 75.

Reconstructed by comparing the supplied 2.0.0 source with the 2.0.1 installer. These are verified code changes, not an original written changelog.

Verified changes

• Expanded equipment to six rarities: Common, Uncommon, Rare, Epic, Legendary, and Mythic. Uncommon is added and Mystic becomes Mythic.
• Optional charged attacks use a faster gauge with 25%, 50%, 75%, and maximum charge stages.
• Enemy attacks pause for a clickable defensive choice, with success based on character stats.
• A victory sequence adds companion remarks, reward tallies, potion drops, and level-up feedback.
• Added F5 quicksave, F9 quickload, a dedicated quicksave slot, and broader access to the pause menu.
• Backspace skips non-choice dialogue; Escape opens pause.
• Stronger 8-bit processing across audio, with quieter chip-style voices.
• Fortune Wheel prizes now match the slice under the pointer; clearer win/loss banners and shell-game labels.
• Labyrinth portal size and collision fixes, map-edge rendering fixes, safer scene transitions, and recovery from isolated frame errors.

Supplied 2.0.0 source archive and completed development notes.

A new adventure

• Rebuilt as a standalone game with a 100-level campaign, five biomes, and ten story chapters.
• New pixel-art characters, equipment, monsters, terrain, and effects, with eight playable races and four classes: Warden, Wayfarer, Spellbinder, and Veilblade.
• Top-down exploration connects wilds, ancient ruins, elite chambers, optional labyrinths, and camps.
• Side-view battles introduce charged strikes, timed blocks, parries, dodges, stances, status effects, and elemental attacks.
• Major bosses at levels 20, 40, 60, 80, and 100; Dark Scarlord has three phases.
• Five story endings, companion bonds, retro music, weather, gamepad support, and rebindable controls.
• The Last Quarter trial moves to level 75 in the rebuilt game.

Archived update notes, cross-checked against the original development chat.

Replacement release, October 2, 2026. Version 1.3.1 and save schema 11 are retained.

Bosses and modes

All scheduled bosses (17, 34, 51, 68, 85) receive 25% more health, 28% more base damage plus four points, and two armor points on top of their existing guardian/boss rules. Growth and player-stat scaling continue to apply. A saved battle preserves its health proportion when these new rules migrate, and does not compound the boost on repeated loads.

Dark Scarlord restores his complete health after each of the first two defeated bars. The same turn cannot skip a restored phase. The player's injuries, resources and cooldowns persist; full-bar phase states survive saves. Scarlord's phase multipliers are 1.0, 1.3 and 1.6. Ordinary life-steal regeneration is disabled for him; his requested full regeneration happens between phases. Every phase has a separate scene.

Hard is now 5x hostile health, damage and signature drains, plus stronger counter odds and more ordinary ruin encounters. X10 remains a separate post-victory replay and awards the exact holographic Grimmbladee sprite, with three weapon book ranks and rune support. Its four IDs are appended after the existing 832 equipment IDs; old equipment IDs remain unchanged.

Art and animation

The original ZIP contents are preserved under assets/supplied-art. Measured crops produce 144 player poses (eight races, three genders, six views/actions), cosmetic layers and 304 item/effect sprites under assets/reference-sprites. asset-map.json records their source mapping. The full character customization/animation boards remain available with the source.

Live rendering uses those supplied models and icons. Armor panels are cropped from their respective supplied pieces and fitted to chest, shoulder and leg positions within the body silhouette. Shields share one held outline and blend when stacked. Weapons align their grips with connected hand sockets; paired weapons occupy both hands. Default models, creator previews, travel, dialogue and battle share the same sprite system.

Walking uses front/back/side views with overlapping thigh/knee joints. Swings use anticipation, arm rotation, follow-through and recovery. Hits have recoil and damage-dependent groans; defeated actors fall. Ash Drake offensive effects originate at its mouth, with separate normal, projectile, magic and special intensities. It does not swing an unrelated body section.

Imported six-frame rarity and enchant effect sheets supplement the live shimmer. Epic gear shines; Legendary gear combines shine, holographic color and particles; Mystic gear adds stronger shine and magic. Enchants and runes remain separate overlays and stack with rarity finishes. Cosmetic options and the supplied gradient material ramps remain independent of stats.

Atmosphere and sound

All 85 levels use scenario-specific mist, rain, forge embers, astral drift, forest pollen or storms. Indoor rooms retain quiet dust and torch ambience. Final phases add progressively denser rain, lightning, embers and mist coloration. Effects honor the weather, particle and density settings and never change combat or campaign RNG.

Dark chiptune arrangements intensify from exploration into battles and bosses. Final phase tempos are 176, 190 and 204 BPM. Filtered gusts, discrete raindrops, fire crackles and delayed thunder accompany their scenarios. Impact and effort vocals are synthesized, quantized 8-bit grunt/groan effects; these are not recorded actor performances. All fourteen mixer channels and their 1 dB sliders remain available.

Late-story ordeal and separate menus

The Last Quarter is offered from level 64. Acceptance makes newly encountered enemies 40% healthier and 60% stronger until six elite/guardian victories, twelve successful active defenses, three charged specials and two maze chests are completed. The unique eight-character code then appears in that save's quest journal. Cheat victories do not satisfy the elite objective.

Settings → More Options / Effects / Intro → Cheats → Sealed Archive / Mods requires that code. Mods is separate from Cheats. More Cheats adds debt clearing, capped training grants, capped stat maxima, combat cooldown reset and charge refill. Mods provides appearance, weather, item finish, actor animation and retro-display options.

Compatibility and verification

Separate saves, deletion, persistence of wounds/RNG, three equipment copies, potion trading, class ownership, unique equipment stats, enchant books, rune books, strategic counters, quests, five endings, the eight-second studio intro and postgame gates remain intact. Real installed files and real saves are not used by automated verification.

The source includes --self-test, --storm-check, --supplied-fit-check and --storm-preview entry points. Supplied fit checks cover every equipment ID on all 24 player models in every permitted position and several arm-swing phases. The full campaign suite traverses twelve seeded 85-level campaigns, using earned equipment, balanced stat training, paid potions and late boss preparation. The exact final results and package checksums are supplied alongside this release.

Earlier revisions within 1.3.1

The original development chat also records these earlier changes under the same version number. Character art went through several replacements before the final supplied-art build above.

• Initial release: 23 enemy and boss sprites, branching story with five endings, harder combat, new potions and enchantments, comparison slots, tutorial, and weather effects.
• Customization and equipment fitting across 24 race/gender models; corrected enemy facing; smoother walking and combat, swing trails, movement dust, and improved groans.
• Shared race faces across genders, removal of face-shape controls, and multiple body-proportion revisions with aligned equipment.
• Postgame exploration and a separate ×10 challenge; Scarlord phase scenes, 1,000-point stat caps, and progression-based difficulty.
• Twelve facial-hair styles, sixteen hairstyles, ten markings, four signature outfits, six eye shapes, and five eye colors.
• Remembered monitor selection; Normal/Hard starting difficulty; X10 replay and free exploration unlocked after the final boss.
• Restored companion artwork, improved walking, weapon swings, magic, hit reactions and 8-bit voices, with characters shrinking near doors.
• The initial combined Mods/Cheats menu was later separated, with Mods locked behind the Last Quarter ordeal.

Archived update notes, cross-checked against the original development chat.

Dialogue, quests and combat revision

The version remains 1.3.0. Dialogue now reveals as characters speak in original, synthesized, speech-like chatter. The traveler and four companions have different voices. Conversations bridge every level and greet you when entering, passing between, and leaving ruins. Click Continue or press Space/Enter to reveal the current line; press again to advance. Adjust or mute Dialogue separately in the sound mixer.

Press J or choose Quest Journal from Pause to browse requests, accept and track a different quest, check progress, and claim rewards between battles. Camp's Companion Quest opens the same journal. Each new level offers three distinct requests drawn from the companion quest pool, avoiding the previous eight offers. All accepted requests progress together. Claim on the issuing level; completed and uncompleted past requests remain in Journey History. Older journeys retain their current quest and receive three offers when the next level begins.

Bosses now appear at 17, 34, 51, 68 and 85. Dark Scarlord has three required phases. At half health and one-fifth health, he reforms and wards off further damage for the remainder of that turn. Even an enormous attack cannot skip a phase. Subsequent turns can damage him normally; his existing later-phase attacks become more dangerous.

Stamina and agility exhaustion now matter more. Below 40% of either maximum, incoming damage rises gradually and defense success declines. At zero stamina, defense loses 16 chance points; zero agility adds another 12. Together, exhaustion adds up to 22% incoming damage, or 32% when also critically wounded. Brace suffers half the chance penalty; Guard remains available without resources. Costs still apply, so a parry cannot spend stamina you do not have. Potions, Breathe, Second Wind and careful timing are valuable.

All 208 base items and their three enchant ranks — 832 catalog entries — have distinct combinations of positive Power, Guard, Odds and Ally stats. Legendary and Mystic gear provides larger bonuses, while the existing 45% Guard, +14 Odds and +40% Ally caps prevent unrestricted defense or accuracy stacking. Only the weapon in hand supplies ordinary weapon stats.

Selected Legendary/Mystic items also carry Mending, Vigor or Quicksilver. Successful damaging class attacks, weapon arts and charged specials replenish integrity, stamina or agility. Copies stack, and each enchant rank increases the item's recovery by one. Total recovery per hit caps at 6% maximum integrity (minimum cap 2), 8 stamina or 6 agility. Mending shares its health cap with Leech. Increasing maximum integrity through training raises that health cap. Misses, blocked phase damage and idle turns do not replenish resources.

Weapon enchantment books

Open Equipment → Enchant Weapons, or Mage Merchant → Enchant Weapons. This menu lists every discovered weapon in your bag and marks the weapon currently in hand. Stored weapons can be upgraded directly without equipping them first. The existing Enchant Gear tab still supports the equipped weapon and all other gear slots.

Buy Edge I, Edge II and Edge III under Buy Books, then apply them in order. Each book upgrades one weapon copy by one rank, adds 2 weapon power, and adds enchantment glints. The menu shows its current and upgraded power, the required book and how many you own. Confirm before a book is consumed. Its rarity, combat art and equipped/stored location are preserved. Weapons stop at rank III; armor books cannot be used on weapons. Enchanting remains available between battles only.

The product remains 1.3.0. This revision upgrades the internal save format to preserve the quest journal and boss phase wards. Earlier saves load; newly saved journeys require this revised executable.

Movement and combat presentation

Walking through ruins now moves the traveler between tiles with alternating steps, a body bob, directional facing and two alternating stone-footstep sounds. The torch follows the traveler. Equipment and customized appearance remain visible while walking.

Battles add lunges, recoil, idle motion, weapon arcs, magical trails, defensive bursts, recovery particles and a vanquished-enemy animation. Companions enter dialogue with a short animated arrival. Existing red weapon, blue/pink magic and green/purple special impact splashes remain.

Enemy victories, level clears and boss victories each have their own synthesized fanfare. Boss victories use the boss fanfare in place of the level-clear fanfare. Swings, magic, hits, defenses, healing, weapon swaps, chests and exits have action-specific effects with softened harmonics and short fades to avoid clicks.

Retro picture settings

Open Settings → More Options → Retro Display. Changes appear immediately in the game and the preview.

• Original: clean pixels with the new display filters disabled.
• Green Handheld: a four-shade green palette, light scanlines and a subtle glow.
• 80s TV: curved edges, stronger scanlines, color bleed and grain.
• Arcade: the default preset; phosphor color mask, moderate scanlines and gentle curvature.

Customize scanline strength, phosphor mask, curvature, bloom, color bleed, film grain and flicker independently from 0–100. Drag a slider, use the wheel, or select with Up/Down and adjust with Left/Right in one-point steps. Flicker defaults to zero. Character animations and item finishes have separate toggles. Original is also the lightest display mode for slower computers.

These are software CRT/post-processing effects; no separate shader package or GPU runtime is required. Display effects do not change combat, loot, resources or the campaign random stream. Weather remains entirely ambient, with no combat modifiers.

Sound mixer

Settings → Sound Mixer includes separate Footsteps, Hit Impacts and Dialogue channels. All 14 channels support exact 1 dB steps from −60 to 0 dB, individual mute and live adjustment. Footsteps start at −8 dB and dialogue at −10 dB. Existing volume and mute choices survive the update. These are relative game-volume levels, not measured speaker loudness.

Equipment finishes

• Epic, Legendary and Mystic equipment has a moving shine sweep.
• Legendary and Mystic equipment has shifting holographic colors; Mystic is stronger.
• Enchanted items add a prominent cyan veil at roughly 32–53% opacity, with brighter moving glints and more glints at higher ranks. Rarity shine draws above this veil so it remains visible.

Finishes appear on item icons and the equipped character, including weapons. Each equipped armor, shield and accessory layer contributes its finish. Multiple shields still share one blended-color silhouette. Common and Rare items have no rarity shine; enchanted copies still glisten. Disable all finishes in Retro Display if desired.

Battle arsenal and weapon arts

Select Weapons during your combat action to draw any compatible weapon you own. Switching costs 4 stamina, 2 agility and your action. The enemy then responds. Switching changes the weapon's normal equipment bonuses and visible appearance immediately; the previous weapon stays in your inventory.

At mastery 2, discovered weapons gain class-flavored arts. Their effects belong to four families. A successful art deals damage, applies its immediate effect and leaves an echo for the remainder of that battle:

| Echo | Immediate effect | Continuing benefit |

| --- | --- | --- |

| Fury | Break armor | Class attacks deal 8% more damage |

| Aegis | Weaken the next enemy attack | Incoming damage reduced by 6% |

| Precision | Apply bleeding | Class attacks and weapon arts gain 5 hit-chance points |

| Spark | Add 15 special charge | Successful class attacks gain 3 extra charge |

An art costs 10 stamina, 4 agility and your action, and can miss. Arts share a three-turn cooldown; switching does not reset it. The menu shows each weapon's art, current success chance, active echoes and costs. Enchanting preserves the weapon's art family.

You can retain one echo before level 30, two from level 30, and three from level 60. Different effects combine. Repeating the same family refreshes it without multiplying its bonus; a new family replaces the oldest when all slots are filled. Echoes survive weapon switches and saves, but reset at the next encounter. Only the currently held weapon contributes ordinary equipment stats; retained echoes provide the stacking combat abilities.

Armor, shield and accessory changes still happen between battles. Combat mastery and skill-point training remain separate from mage-book enchanting. All existing defense and accuracy caps remain.

Campaign and updating

The 85-level campaign, character creation, named dialogue, random quests, separate journeys, optional mazes, trading, enchanted loot, companion attacks and level-85 Dark Scarlord remain available.

Close any older running copy before installing Grimmbladee-1.3.0-Setup.exe, or extract Grimmbladee-1.3.0-Portable.zip into its own folder and run Grimmbladee.exe. Saves remain in %LOCALAPPDATA%\Grimmbladee\Saves; installed and portable copies share that location.

Older journeys migrate when loaded and retain injuries, resources, equipment, story progress and random rolls. Earlier release downloads remain available. Once a journey is saved by 1.3.0, its new save format cannot be opened in an older executable. Build checks use isolated test saves and do not change your real journeys.

Archived update notes, cross-checked against the original development chat.

An 85-level campaign

The first five chapters remain. Levels 51–60 now reveal the Mist Regent, a discarded shadow of Dark Scarlord. The road continues through the Saltglass Reach (61–70), Thunder Citadel (71–80), and Night Between Worlds (81–85). The Tidebound Judge and Tempest Marshal are new chapter bosses. Dark Scarlord is the final encounter at 85, with three escalating phases.

All 85 levels have distinct scenery renders and generated chiptune compositions, with exploration, battle, urgent and boss arrangements. Expeditions retain branching rooms, three or four mandatory battles, optional roaming areas and chance mazes.

Create a traveler

Start Game opens a new scene and a separate character-creation screen before class selection. Enter a name of up to 18 letters, digits, spaces, hyphens or apostrophes. Choose Human, Orc, Dwarf, Dogfolk, Catfolk, Elf, Goblin or Dragonkin; Man, Woman or Nonbinary; six styles, eight skin/fur colors, six hair colors, five eye colors and six cloak colors.

Your saved appearance is used during exploration, combat and dialogue. Equipment still changes the outfit. Name, gender and ancestry are cosmetic; class determines starting combat stats. The party addresses you by name, which also appears in the save browser.

Experience and combat training

Each victory awards 24 + floor(level / 2) experience, with +18 for elites or +70 for bosses. Quest rewards add experience. Mastery ranks grant two skill points each. The cumulative threshold for rank R is 50 × (R−1) × R, through rank 30.

At Camp → Combat Trainer, skill points teach and upgrade combat skills to rank III. Rank I/II/III costs 1/2/3 skill points. Each further rank requires two more mastery ranks. Your first two class attacks start at rank I. Third and fourth class attacks become learnable at mastery 3 and 6.

• Class attack upgrades: each rank above I adds 7% damage, +2 hit chance and reduces stamina cost by 1, with a minimum cost of 3.
• Measured feint (mastery 2): 6 stamina/4 agility. Next class attack gains 12/16/20 hit chance and 20/25/30 critical chance by rank. Three-turn cooldown.
• Counter stance (mastery 3): 8 stamina/3 agility. Your next Guard halves its remaining damage and counters for 35/45/55% power by rank. Four-turn cooldown.
• Disarming strike (mastery 4): 11 stamina/5 agility. 81/86/91% success by rank; cancels melee/heavy attacks or weakens other attacks, and deals damage that grows with rank. Four-turn cooldown.
• Second wind (mastery 5): 4 agility. Restores 20/24/28 stamina and 5/7/9% maximum integrity by rank. Six-turn cooldown.
• Momentum: three successful class attacks build momentum. The next class attack gains 15% damage; a hit spends the meter and a miss loses one momentum.

Techniques use your combat action. Enemies still respond. Cooldowns advance with reactions and persist when the battle is saved.

Enchanting is separate: Mage Merchant books upgrade individual weapons, armor, shields and accessories. They do not grant combat skill ranks or spend skill points. Camp stat-cap training still uses gold or level-clear points and never refills resources.

Combat balance

Low integrity adds 10% enemy pressure, and low stamina/agility add 6% each (22% combined), reduced from the previous 40% combined. The common incoming-damage multiplier is capped at 2.25 before enemy-specific phase modifiers and equipment defenses. Enemies remain dangerous when resources are low; potions and Breathe still permit a response.

All prior gear-defense, accuracy and companion-damage caps remain. Dark Scarlord has a larger final-chapter baseline, a 1.65× integrity multiplier, armor penetration during signatures, and three phases. Read his telegraphed attacks and prepare upgraded gear and supplies.

Story and random requests

Every level starts with saved companion dialogue. Chapter openings include all four companions. Named room introductions and pre-battle exchanges lead into the actual generated room and enemy.

There are 24 quest offers across Orin, Veyr, Aelith and Bramble, avoiding the last eight offers. Objectives involve battles, caches, successful defenses or charged specials. Accept or decline at the end of the conversation. Track and claim rewards at Camp → Companion Quest before advancing to the next level.

Completed quests award 38 + level × 2 gold, 28 + floor(level / 2) experience and one mending potion. Gold respects existing loot pledges and equipped fortune bonuses. Rewards can only be claimed once. Dialogue position, quest progress and RNG state are saved together.

Ambient weather and graphics

Weather has no combat or movement modifiers. The older Crosswind and Runic Haze accuracy/counter bonuses and penalties were also removed; those encounter settings are now neutral broken arches and faded runes. Physical footing on gravel and narrow bridges retains its existing tactical effects. Grave mist, forest pollen, forge embers, astral drift, salt rain and citadel storms match their regions. Indoor ruins show subtle dust. Rendering uses no campaign random rolls, so changing visual settings cannot change loot or combat outcomes.

Weather and palette lighting can be toggled separately in More Options → Weather & Lighting. The visual treatment uses software color grading, edge shading, existing torch lighting and CRT scanlines; it does not require a separate GPU shader runtime. Particle density, impact splashes and screen shake remain configurable.

The original supplied menu remains intact. The supplied concept atlas is used for the creator's dungeon backdrop and four original creature silhouettes. Custom travelers, new guardians and additional scenery extend the same palette and pixel style.

Retained systems

208 base equipment items, including 12 Mystic items, plus three enchant ranks per item; four classes; companion attack powers from level 30; optional mazes; weighted RNG loot; 1–7 chests by normal room size; ten equipment slots; three armor/shield/accessory slots each; blended shield colors; drag-and-drop equipment; duplicate groups; right-click duplicate sales; quantity inputs; mage potion sales; rescue debt choices; separate journey saves and confirmed deletion; the supplied icon and studio intro; and independent 1 dB audio sliders.

Maze chests still award one item using the agreed relative weights: 51.85% Rare, 37.04% Epic, 7.41% Legendary and 3.70% Mystic. Normal caches retain 0.05% Mystic odds.

Updating

Close the older game, then run the 1.2.0 installer or extract the portable archive into its own folder. Older release downloads remain available. Existing user saves are not edited during build verification.

Loaded older journeys preserve their wounds and possessions, receive experience based on recorded wins, and retain class moves already unlocked by the former level gates. The old level-60 ending reopens the road to 85. Very old completed saves without an expedition resume at chapter seven. Existing level-60 boss states become the Mist Regent without resetting their remaining health.

Version 1.2.0 saves use a new format and cannot be reopened in older executables.

Archived update notes, cross-checked against the original development chat.

Expanded equipment and Mystic discoveries

This revision adds 80 more base items: 20 weapons, 20 armor pieces, 20 shields and 20 accessories. Each category contains 5 common, 5 rare, 4 epic, 3 legendary and 3 Mystic items. That is 12 Mystic treasures and 208 base items total, with three enchantment ranks per item (832 entries including upgrades).

Discover new blades, bows, staves, daggers, plate, robes, wards and charms. Mystic weapons adapt to any class. Mystic armor, shields and accessories have powerful bonuses and passives while still respecting the game's stacking caps. Examples include The World Unmaker, Skin of the First Star, Mirror of All Worlds and The Eternal Confluence. New gear can be equipped, enchanted, stacked where allowed and sold like your existing equipment.

Maze chests give exactly one item. Your selected 70:50:10:5 relative weights are normalized to approximately 52% rare, 37% epic, 7% legendary and 4% Mystic (the exact 10,000-roll allocation is listed below). Normal cache probabilities: empty 10%, gold 20%, potion 40%, common 24%, rare 5%, epic 0.70%, legendary 0.25%, Mystic 0.05% (1 in 2,000 caches). Optional maze chests contain 51.85% rare / 37.04% epic / 7.41% legendary / 3.70% Mystic loot. Items are chosen randomly within their rarity, with ordinary weapons matched to your class. A copy exceeding storage limits becomes gold at its item value.

More dangerous enemies

Six new enemy families bring the total to 18, each with its own appearance, lore and combat behavior:

• Road Bandit: signature hits drain 5 stamina.
• Ash Cutpurse: signature hits steal gold. Defeat that enemy to recover the stolen amount.
• Blackbanner Captain: signature strikes pierce half of your equipment protection.
• Mist Stalker: signature turns reduce your accuracy by 12; landed signatures drain 6 agility.
• Bone Alchemist: signature hits drain 4 stamina and 2 agility, and heal the enemy for a third of damage dealt.
• Grave Berserker: deals 25% more damage at half integrity or below.

The new families use signature attacks every fourth turn, including at early levels. Preventing the hit also prevents its on-hit effects. Inspect your enemy and read its attack type before choosing a defense.

All encounters gain another +4 base damage over the previous 1.1.3 build, bringing the total increase over 1.1.2 to +9, applied after the mob profile and before attack multipliers and defenses. This is a flat per-encounter increase, not an endlessly accumulating bonus.

Dark Scarlord — level 60

The new final boss is Dark Scarlord, a crowned villain made of black mist who consumed the hollow throne. His animated mist, scarred face, spectral blade, lore and story ending replace the former final boss presentation.

He has 85% more integrity than the previous final-boss baseline, stronger damage and additional armor. At 50% and 20% integrity he enters increasingly dangerous phases. Later phases use signature attacks every second turn, deal more damage and obscure your aim more heavily. Landed signatures drain energy and pierce some equipment protection. Mist eruptions, executions and collapsing ground call for different defenses. Bring upgraded equipment, trained stats, potions and level-30 companion powers.

Darker, clearer ruins

Ruins have much less decorative clutter. Sparse cracks, chipped masonry, small rubble and moss mark the worn rooms, leaving the walkable ground easier to read. A carried torch flickers beside your character, lights nearby corridors and is blocked by walls. Distant explored ground becomes dark again, while the minimap remembers explored paths.

Lighting does not change chest contents or enemy rolls. Existing explored areas remain in your saved journey.

Optional maze rooms

Each room on the expedition has a 25% chance to offer a Chance Labyrinth. Visit the room, open Room Areas (or Wander → that room), and choose its optional third area. The normal two side areas remain available.

The labyrinth is a large 27 × 19 maze with branching corridors, dead ends, fog of discovery, and one chest at the farthest reachable dead end. Its rare-item odds are listed above. No prowlers or chest ambushes occur in the maze, but walking still consumes stamina and agility. Bring energy potions for the return journey. Exit through the green entrance.

Maze layout, reward roll, explored tiles and opened chest persist across revisits and saves; leaving never skips the room's choice or fight.

Mage merchant and enchantment books

Open Mage Merchant from Camp or Equipment. Use Sell Potions to sell any of the five potion types, including your class brews and tonics. Select the quantity by typing, scrolling, or using the arrows; confirm the displayed total. Back or Esc exits reliably, including after equipment detours, purchases, sales and enchanting. Buy a book, open Enchant Gear, and choose an equipped slot. Review and confirm to consume one book and upgrade exactly one copy. Equip a bag item first to enchant it. Enchantments are guaranteed and must be applied in order: I → II → III.

| Book | Equipment | Gain per rank | Rank I / II / III cost |

|---|---|---|---|

| Edge | Weapon | +2 attack power | 80 / 155 / 275 gold |

| Bastion | Armor | +2 percentage points damage reduction | 65 / 140 / 260 gold |

| Aegis | Shield | +2 percentage points damage reduction | 65 / 140 / 260 gold |

| Resonance | Accessory | +1 power, +1 accuracy, +2% companion damage | 65 / 140 / 260 gold |

Books belong to their saved journey. Buying does not apply them. Canceling an upgrade consumes nothing. Wounds and resources stay unchanged. Upgraded and unupgraded copies stay separate in inventory; equipped copies remain protected when selling. Each upgrade adds one quarter of its book price to base resale value, preventing a buy-and-sell profit loop. Fortune bonuses and loot-pledge rules still apply.

Combined damage reduction caps at 45%, accuracy at +14, and companion damage at +40%. Multiple shields still display as one shield with blended colors. Higher-value equipment trades power, protection, precision and abilities; enchantment increases strength and resale value without changing rarity.

New exploration controls and save deletion

• Q: quick-open the chest you are standing on. Normal quick searches keep their 15% ambush risk; maze chests have no ambush.
• C: careful search, costing 3 stamina and 2 agility, with a 3% normal-cache ambush chance.
• E: leave the ruins only while standing on or directly next to the green exit. It cannot leave from elsewhere or open a chest.
• F: use a blue passage or inspect a purple landmark.

In Load Game, select Delete beside a journey to remove that journey's autosave, manual slots and backups, or select the journey first and delete a single slot. The confirmation identifies the selected save. Other journeys and settings remain intact. Deleting an open journey or its autosave returns to the main menu so autosave cannot recreate it. Deletion is permanent; canceling changes nothing. Unreadable saves can also be deleted.

Saves and installation

Close the running game and run Grimmbladee-1.1.3-Setup.exe, or extract the new portable ZIP into a separate folder and launch it. Existing journeys, original item IDs, enchanted copies, equipment slots, duplicates, gold, debt, wounds and explored areas are preserved. Saved ongoing enemies receive the damage adjustment once. An unfinished saved level-60 boss becomes Dark Scarlord while keeping its proportion of remaining integrity.

Do not reopen a journey saved by this revision in an earlier build, including the previous 1.1.3 executable. Synthetic migration tests cover prior formats; keep your existing save backups.

The supplied menu, game icon, Sender Studios intro, sound mixer, quantity-based selling, separate journeys, 60-level story and earlier features remain included.

Archived update notes, cross-checked against the original development chat.

Right-click selling and quantities — still 1.1.2

Right-click an occupied equipment slot or an item card in Equipment to sell its spare duplicates directly. This works in All Items and Duplicated Items. Equipped copies stay in place, and this shortcut keeps at least one owned copy. If every copy is equipped, unequip one first.

The sale window now has a quantity selector. Type a number, turn the mouse wheel, use the Up/Down keys, or click the up/down arrow buttons. Click the number or press Ctrl+A to replace it. Empty or zero amounts cannot be sold, and quantities are limited to what is available. The selector also works for regular Treasures and potion sales.

Review the total gold going to your purse and any loot-pledge payment, then choose Confirm. Go Back or Esc cancels without changing anything. Sales autosave and preserve your equipped slots, appearance, resources, and journey. An equipped copy is never sold by this shortcut.

Equipment menu and duplicated items — still 1.1.2

Open Equipment from Camp or Treasures for a separate drag-and-drop screen with a live character preview.

• Drag an item from the bag to a matching slot. Compatible slots highlight green. There is one weapon slot and three slots each for armor, shields, and accessories.
• Drop onto an occupied slot to replace its item; the displaced copy returns to the bag. Drag between equipped slots to swap them, or drag a slotted item back to the bag to unequip it. No copies are consumed.
• You can also click an item and then a slot. Select an equipped item and choose Return to Bag to remove it. Esc cancels a selection; another Esc returns to the previous menu.
• Armor changes body armor, head/shoulder details, and leg guards according to slot. All equipped shields appear as one shield whose color and trim blend equally from each equipped copy. Shield bonuses still combine across all three slots. Accessories add gems and charms. Gear colors and trim reflect the item and rarity. The appearance is used in the preview, roaming, hero status bars, and battles.
• Duplicated Items is available in both Equipment and Treasures. It shows items with at least two owned copies, including any equipped ones, with quantities for owned, equipped, and free copies. Sell free duplicates by right-clicking their card or equipped slot, or use Sell in Treasures. When only one remains, that item stays in All Items.
• Slot placements, empty slots, and appearance persist in saves. Existing gear is arranged automatically when an older save is loaded. All stacking limits, bonus caps, class restrictions, wounds, and resources are preserved. Changes apply and autosave immediately between battles.

Loot trading, stacked gear, and larger rooms — still 1.1.2

• Open Treasures between battles and choose Sell to trade your chosen quantity of unwanted, unequipped copies for gold. Equipped copies stay protected. The confirmation shows the exact amount you receive and any loot-pledge repayment. Class Potions at camp also lets you choose how many spare potions to sell. Sales autosave.
• Gear sells for 20 / 55 / 90 / 125 gold by common / rare / epic / legendary rarity. Potions sell for half their purchase price. Fortune applies to sales; loot pledges take up to half of the proceeds. Story relics cannot be sold.
• Equip one weapon, three armor pieces, three shields, and three accessories. Each non-weapon item can be owned and equipped up to three times, so identical copies stack too. The inventory shows owned and equipped quantities. Equip and Unequip move one copy at a time. Copies beyond the storage limit automatically become gold; weapons retain their one-copy limit.
• Equipment stats add together. Damage reduction still caps at 35%, accuracy at +14, and companion damage at +40%. Each passive ability stacks up to three times: Riposte +12% counter damage per copy, Reservoir +4 stamina from Breathe, Kindle +4 hit charge, Leech +2% maximum integrity healing on class hits, Bulwark another 8% guard reduction per copy, and Fortune +10% gold per copy. Each equipped active-accessory copy grants one use per battle, with the usual enemy response.
• Newly entered areas randomly become small (45%), large (35%), or vast (20%). They contain 6, 9, or 12 connected chambers, branching corridors, looping routes, and alcoves. Their maps are 15×11, 21×15, or 27×19 tiles. The view follows your character, and a minimap shows explored ground.
• Small areas contain 1–3 chests, large areas 3–5, and vast areas 4–7. Chest positions and loot use independent random rolls. The chest count, map, opened caches, and random sequence persist in saves; revisiting cannot refill or reroll loot. Legendary odds remain 0.25% per chest.

Existing explored areas keep their saved layout and loot. Enter an unvisited area or advance to the next level to find the new room layouts. Journeys, wounds, supplies, and equipment remain intact. Close the game and run the replacement Grimmbladee-1.1.2-Setup.exe to update.

Expanded roaming — still 1.1.2

Every level now has three roaming areas, and every room you enter unlocks two side areas. With seven or eight rooms on the chosen route, that is 17–19 optional areas per level. Unvisited branches stay locked.

Choose Wander from the tabletop map, including before a room's battle. Choose Room Areas during a story event or after a victory. The area browser lists the level grounds and all rooms you have visited on that level, with chest and exploration progress.

• Green entrance: return to the same room, event, or victory screen. At the entrance, Areas opens the location browser.
• Blue passage: stand on it and press F, or click F Passage, to reach the next area within that location.
• Purple landmark: press F or F Inspect to uncover companion dialogue and add it to your journal.
• Areas use six scenery styles with randomly connected chambers, varied details, separate explored paths, and finite loot. Opened chests and checked patrols stay that way when revisiting or loading.
• New areas contain 1–3, 3–5, or 4–7 chests according to their randomly chosen size. Legendary odds remain 0.25% per cache.
• Original level grounds have two patrol tiles with 50% encounter chances. The two additional level areas each have one at 30%; room areas each have one at 20%. Careful and quick chest-search ambush chances remain 3% and 15%.
• Walking and searching still spend stamina and agility. Travel never heals, refreshes supplies, skips a mandatory battle, or resets an event choice.

Existing 1.1.2 saves keep their current roaming map, position, loot, wounds, and random sequence. Older areas gain access to the other locations through the Areas button at the entrance. Moving to the next level creates a new set of locations; previous levels cannot be revisited.

Sound mixer revision — still 1.1.2

This replacement build smooths the soundtrack while retaining its retro instruments, ominous melodies, and escalating battle arrangements. It removes coarse 8-bit amplitude steps, softens sharp waveforms, and uses 44.1 kHz / 16-bit output with smooth note endings and volume changes.

Open Settings → Sound Mixer / Decibel Sliders. Eleven sliders control Master, Music, Ambience, All Effects, Weapons, Magic, Specials, Healing, Victory, Menu, and Studio Intro.

• Drag a slider from −60 dB to 0 dB, with an exact 1 dB readout and steps.
• Use − / +, the mouse wheel over a slider, or Left / Right for precise adjustments.
• Up / Down or Tab selects a row; Home / End chooses the minimum or maximum.
• Each row has Mute; Space mutes the selected row. Effect rows have Test buttons. Music and ambience change live.
• M mutes everything and restores your previous mix when pressed again.
• Changes save automatically. Adjusting volume does not restart the current music.
• Reset Audio restores the default mix. Previous percentage volume and music/effects switches migrate automatically.

The dB values are relative game-volume adjustments: 0 dB keeps the original level and −6 dB is approximately half the signal amplitude. Master affects every sound; All Effects also affects the individual effects and studio intro. Their reductions add together. Use Mute for complete silence; −60 dB remains a very quiet signal. The Music & Ambience and Retro Sound Effects switches on the main Settings page still apply.

The version remains 1.1.2. Close Grimmbladee and run the replacement installer to update the existing installation. Saved journeys are preserved.

Presentation

• The supplied GB icon is now the game's executable, window, installer, and shortcut icon. Its original pixels are embedded in the Windows icon file.
• The supplied Sender Studios logo fades in at startup while SENDERSTUDIOSINTRO.wav plays, then fades into the game menu. The sound lasts about 10 seconds. Space, Enter, Esc, or Skip Intro skips it. The intro respects sound settings and can be disabled.
• The original Grimmbladee menu artwork remains intact. Quit Game appears beside it, and the pause menu includes Save & Quit.
• New controls cover impact splashes, screen shake, floating damage numbers, particle density, and the studio intro, alongside the existing audio and retro display options.

More useful loot

The equipment collection grows from 16 to 80 pieces: 16 class weapons, 16 armor pieces, 16 shields, and 32 accessories, including the original treasures. Each rarity has 20 designs. Weapons found in chests match your class.

Equip one weapon, three armor pieces, three shields, and three accessories, in addition to the two chapter relics. Equipment never refills resources. Combined damage reduction is capped at 35%, accuracy bonuses at 14 percentage points, and companion damage bonuses at 40%. Keep up to three identical non-weapon pieces; extra copies and duplicate weapons become gold.

Accessories can strengthen counters, improve Breathe, accelerate special charge, heal a small amount on class-attack hits, improve Guard, or increase gold rewards. Wardcall, Refresh, and Disrupt accessories provide selectable powers under Gear Powers. Each equipped active accessory copy works once per battle and uses your action.

| Chest result | Chance |

|---|---:|

| Empty | 10% |

| Gold | 20% |

| Potion | 40% |

| Common equipment | 24% |

| Rare equipment | 5% |

| Epic equipment | 0.75% |

| Legendary equipment | 0.25% — 1 in 400 |

Potion drops are weighted toward healing: 60% mending, 13% vigor, 13% quicksilver, 10% your class brew, and 4% your class tonic. Ordinary battle victories now have a 78% potion chance; roaming victories have a 70% chance. Health-potion probability from an ordinary victory therefore rises from 16% in 1.1.1 to 46.8%.

Battle gold rises to 35–52 plus 12 per difficulty tier, with another 24 for elites or 90 for bosses. Prowlers give 28–43 plus 9 per tier. Gold chests give 35–65 plus 10 per tier. Fortune accessories add 10% to gold rewards per equipped copy, up to 30%.

Class alchemy

Each class starts with one recovery brew and can find or buy more. Drinking during combat still gives the enemy a response.

| Class | Recovery brew | Combat tonic |

|---|---|---|

| Warden | Ironblood: heal 32% integrity and restore 12 stamina | Bastion: 25% less damage from the next three enemy attacks |

| Wayfarer | Wildroot: heal 28% integrity and restore 16 agility | Hawkeye: +12 accuracy for three class attacks |

| Spellbinder | Astral: heal 28% integrity and restore 18 stamina | Overchannel: +25% damage for three class attacks |

| Veilblade | Nightshade: heal 30% integrity and restore 10 stamina and 10 agility | Phantom: +8 accuracy and +15% damage for three class attacks |

Brews cost 32 gold and tonics cost 38 gold at camp. Tonics are used in combat; they do not stack above three uses. A brew cannot be wasted when all the resources it restores are full.

Charged special attacks

The charge meter starts at zero in each battle. Class-attack hits add 18 charge, misses add 7, companion attacks add 12 on a hit or 5 on a miss, and enemy responses add charge according to damage and defense. Kindle accessories add four charge per equipped copy to successful class attacks, up to twelve.

At 100 charge, choose Z Special or press Z. The attack spends the meter, 10 stamina, and 5 agility, and uses your action. It can miss. Each class has a different special:

• Warden — Oath of the Unburied: damage, armor break, and a weakened incoming attack.
• Wayfarer — Thousand-Star Rain: armor-piercing damage and bleeding.
• Spellbinder — Astral Cataclysm: armor-piercing damage and cancellation of the next airborne spell or projectile.
• Veilblade — Requiem of Shadows: damage, bleeding, and healing equal to 18% of damage dealt.

Enemies and effects

The six existing mobs receive additional visual detail. Six new families join them: Ossuary Archer, Mire Leech, Glass Witch, Iron Scarab, Bell Revenant, and Ash Drake. Every family has its own silhouette, lore, attack preferences, stat profile, and signature attack. Inspect Foe explains the current enemy's behavior, trait, and terrain. The six chapter bosses have expanded descriptions and visual effects.

Normal enemies announce signature attacks every fourth turn from level 11. Bosses announce them every third turn. Signatures deal 30% more damage, so choosing a suitable defense matters. Low-resource pressure remains active: enemies can still attack and defeat an exhausted, wounded hero.

Impacts produce animated pixel splashes, streaks, bursts, floating numbers, and optional shake:

• Red: weapon damage and physical hits.
• Blue and pink: magic damage, including magical enemy projectiles.
• Green and purple: charged specials and enemy signature attacks.

Less crowded roaming

The original level grounds contain two patrol tiles instead of six, and crossing one has a 50% encounter chance. Additional level areas have one patrol at 30%; each room area has one at 20%. Each patrol is checked only once. A careful chest search now has a 3% ambush chance; quick search has 15%. Previously these were 8% and 40%. Existing saved ruins retain their explored paths and chests, while excess pending patrols are removed during migration.

Choose how to fund a rescue

If you already own a mending potion, use it to revive. If you have none, choose:

1. Pay gold: pay immediately from your purse.

2. Pledge loot: receive the rescue potion now; half of future gold rewards pays the balance until cleared.

3. Take debt: owe 25% more, rounded up; keep your future loot and repay manually at camp.

Base rescue price is 40 + 2 × (level − 1) + 12 × difficulty tier gold. It rises from 40 at level 1 to 218 at level 60. The manual-loan fee is fixed when borrowed; there is no ticking interest. Rescue Account at camp shows both balances and allows repayment. Existing automatic debt becomes a loot pledge when an older save is loaded.

Sixty scenes and scores

Every level has a distinct scenery composition with its own landmark arrangement, terrain, lighting, and chapter palette. Battle backgrounds, the tabletop route, and surrounding scenery use the current level's scene.

Each level also has an original synthesized chiptune composition. Exploration uses slow, ominous arrangements; battles accelerate; serious danger adds urgency; bosses use faster, more dramatic percussion and harmony. The score is generated locally with softened retro waveforms and clean 16-bit output. No internet connection is required.

Separate journeys

Each new game creates a distinct journey folder with its own autosave and three manual slots. Load Game opens the journey browser before the slot list. Starting another class does not overwrite previous journeys.

Previous-version saves remain available as Legacy Journey. Loading and saving one copies that journey into the new folder structure while retaining the original files. Your current resources, inventory, progress, active encounter, and random sequence are preserved. Older already-created enemies retain their saved base values.

Close the game and run Grimmbladee-1.1.2-Setup.exe to update. The installer preserves saves.

Shield presentation revision

The original development chat also confirms that multiple equipped shields were combined into one visible shield with blended colors, while retaining their combined stats.

Archived update notes, cross-checked against the original development chat.

Harder enemies

New encounters have increased enemy integrity and damage, with further increases every ten levels. Enemies exploit depleted resources:

| Your current resource | Enemy damage increase |

|---|---:|

| Integrity at 35% or less | +20% |

| Stamina at 25% or less | +10% |

| Agility at 25% or less | +10% |

These bonuses stack to +40%. The battle screen shows your current exposure and the enemy's damage range. Low resources also make enemies more likely to choose feints, seeking attacks, or charged strikes. Their attacks can defeat you at any remaining health. Drinking a potion, breathing, or calling a companion still gives a surviving enemy its response. Combat remains turn based, with time to choose a defense.

Wander into the ruins

Wander opens between expedition rooms on every third level and every chapter boss level: 24 optional areas across the campaign. Each area has a randomized, connected map, fog of war, four hidden caches, and prowlers. Use WASD, arrow keys, or click an adjacent floor tile. Return to the green entrance to leave.

Walking spends one stamina every two steps and one agility every four steps. You can still move when exhausted, but enemies can ambush you in that state. Supplies and treasure equipment are available while exploring. Winning an ambush returns you to the same area without advancing the main expedition or restoring your resources.

On a cache, choose:

• Careful Search: costs 3 stamina and 2 agility; 8% chance of a guarding enemy.
• Quick Search: no resource cost; 40% chance of a guarding enemy.

Both use the same loot table. An area's loot rolls, searched caches, cleared prowlers, map, and position persist in saves. Revisiting does not create fresh loot. Cache contents are kept if a search triggers a fight, even if you later need rescue.

| Result per cache | Chance |

|---|---:|

| Empty | 20% |

| Gold | 25% |

| Potion | 30% |

| Common treasure | 20% |

| Rare treasure | 4% |

| Epic treasure | 0.75% |

| Legendary treasure | 0.25% — 1 in 400 |

There are 16 treasures, including four legendary items. A legendary is not guaranteed during a campaign. Equip two treasures in addition to your chapter relics. They can improve attack damage, damage reduction, accuracy, or companion attack damage. Duplicate treasures become gold. Equipping items does not heal or refill anything.

Eight companion attacks at level 30

Choose Call Companion → Choose → Use Attack. Each companion has two new attacks, available from level 30 in normal encounters, ambushes, and boss battles. Original support abilities remain available before level 30.

| Companion | Attack | Effect |

|---|---|---|

| Master Orin | Astral Lance | Pierces and breaks armor |

| Master Orin | Cinder Seal | Deals damage and halves the incoming attack |

| Veyr | Soul Rend | Deals damage and restores integrity equal to 20% of that damage |

| Veyr | Nightfall Chain | Deals damage and applies three rounds of bleeding |

| Aelith | Dawnpiercer | Accurate, armor-piercing arrow |

| Aelith | Thorn Snare | Deals damage and halves the incoming attack |

| Bramble | Mountain Sunder | Heavy damage through armor; breaks armor |

| Bramble | Giant's Judgment | Axe finisher with 60% extra damage against broken armor |

The selection panel shows each move's resource costs, damage range, and success chance. Attacks use your action, can miss, and share a five-turn cooldown with that companion's support ability. Training power and equipping treasures improve their damage. Cooldowns carry between battles and levels.

Updating

Close the game, open Grimmbladee-1.1.1-Setup.exe, and select Update to 1.1.1. Your saved journeys remain in place. Version 1.1 saves retain the current expedition, active battle, wounds, supplies, cooldowns, and random sequence. An enemy already stored in a 1.1 save keeps its existing base stats; newly created encounters use the harder values. Resource-pressure bonuses apply to both.

The exact supplied main-menu artwork, 60-level story, branching routes, original chiptunes, retro effects, and persistent resource rules are retained.

Archived update notes, cross-checked against the original development chat.

• Replaced single-fight levels with branching, seven- or eight-room expeditions containing three or four battles each.
• Added 36 story events with 108 distinct authored choices, visible costs and risks, a shuffled pool, and protection against repeating the last 18 visited events.
• Added randomized enemy traits, terrain, intentions, hit rolls, criticals, damage, defensive outcomes, healing amounts, and loot.
• Added Steady, Aim, and Press stances. The timing gauge is removed.
• Integrity, stamina, and agility now persist through battles and level transitions. Wins and training no longer refill them; passive turn regeneration is removed.
• Recovery requires potions or deliberate actions. Companion skills now have resource costs, and their cooldowns carry between fights. Field Mend spends stamina and agility and is limited to once per level.
• Defeat requires a mending potion to resume. Emergency potion loans create gold debt; completed rooms cannot be farmed for duplicate rewards.
• Replaced the main menu with the exact supplied artwork and clickable scrolls.
• Added support for importing 1.0 saves while preserving character progress, current resource values, and inventory. An unfinished level gets a new expedition layout.
• Updated the installer and executable version to 1.1.

To update: close the game, run Grimmbladee-1.1-Setup.exe, and choose Update to 1.1. Existing saves remain in place.

Original development chat and the 1.1 save-import notes.

The first standalone Windows release introduced a 60-level campaign, four classes, four companions, integrity/stamina/agility combat, parries, airborne counters, upgrades, potions, saves, and retro audio.