Hello again! I've had a whole bunch of events come up recently that have given me an excuse to improve the current build, most notably a shiny new closed playtesting event in Toronto, ON known as 'The GRID' (which is the namesake for this update, if that wasn't clear). If it's an acronym of some sort, I couldn't tell you what it stands for.  I had a great time and received some interesting feedback from players, which has helped inform the next steps for getting the game to the next level. While some of those changes are still a ways off, I wanted to upload the current build of the game anyways! It's hard to realize just how much the quality-of-life improvements shape the experience until I look back at how long has passed since the previous version. Hopefully the next update comes even sooner! It'll either be a very small update to finish off some existing in-development features, or the long-awaited v0.4. Until then!

Changelog:

Major Features:

Scanner

• The Combat Log has been moved to a tab to accommodate the new Scanner function!
• Targeting an enemy will now display their sprite, health and other relevant information in the Scanner tab.

Persistent Spawns

• Every so often, the game will check to see if there is room to spawn another enemy on the map and do so if possible. The exact rate and capacity depend on the game's difficulty.

Loading Screen

• This was way more complicated than it needed to be to get set up.
• In the process of making this, loading times were decreased by around 80%!

Persistent Settings

• Added a config file to save audio settings between gameplay sessions.
• Added 'Skip high score entry' to options, where the name entry phase is skipped if a previous set of initials were put in.

Control Improvements

• You can now type to spell words while in Attack Mode (and to select a tile for use in Swap Mode)!
• Fully implemented keyboard navigation for all menus. It's a little hard to tell with some graphics, but everything is able to be controlled with just the arrow keys and Enter!
• Shift can now be used in Attack Mode to enter Swap Mode and vice versa.
• Tab can now be used in Attack Mode to cycle between targets.
• Warps can now trigger by hitting Enter while in Move mode (matching the UI's behaviour), instead of just while in Attack mode.

Combat Log Improvements

• Added text to indicate point gain upon switching floors/warping.
• Added a few more indicators and easter eggs to the combat log (these were hidden in console before and I forgot to migrate them).
  
• You can now scroll back up. Never mind the empty space at the top, it's a technical limitation for now.

Quality of Life

• Attack Mode now automatically reactivates if there are targets within range at the start of the next round.
  
• Implemented spawn protections:
  • Only one enemy can spawn directly adjacent to the player at level start.
    
  • Only three enemies can spawn in any given room at level start.
• Added 'New Game' button to the game over screen, so you can start a new random seed without returning to the main menu.
  
• Increased high score entry length min/max to 1-10! Most entries should not get cut off.
  

The Rest:

• Added variations of 'vampire' and 'leech' to heal words list.
• Altered combat AI to be less intelligent by default. They will now only attack if you stay within their attack range for a full turn without defeating them! Expect the original behaviours to return for more difficult enemies in a later update.
• Some enemies will now roam around the map on their own!
• Player health display has been converted into a bar for your viewing pleasure.
• Added some extra width to hallway junctions-- this should prevent congestion due to weird missing tiles.
• Decreased visibility of placeholder text in seed field.
• Fixed Swap Mode causing ground tile visuals to desync.
• Fixed Pause activating focus mode.
• Fixed Backspace not updating the ground tile UI.
• Removed HUD toggles due to the new HUD block-in making them redundant. My condolences to the one person who liked having no HUD in move mode.