Blooming Dread introduces a new dungeon event: the creeping menace of the Nyris Vine, along with a quest to uncover its secrets.

Save files from version 0.5.11 are compatible.

A mysterious vine of otherworldly origin has begun appearing throughout the wilderness and within dungeons.

While most commonly found in forests, this strange vine can also spawn in other biomes, such as deserts and mountains, as well as inside dungeons like castles, temples, and ancient crypts.

(Warning: spoilers and mechanics explanations below.)

A Growing Threat
The plant begins as a single seed and slowly grows, spreading its vines and spawning Virelings to defend itself. Initially weak and easy to manage, the Nyris Vine becomes exponentially more dangerous if allowed to grow unchecked. Destroying seeds clears nearby vines and weakens the plant's overall strength.

Mutation
Entities stepping on the vines risk being strangled and mutated by the plant. Attacking the vines frees them from entanglement, but their mutation remains (how to remove mutation we'll leave to you to discover!).

Nyris Maw
If the central seed fully matures and is destroyed, it summons the Nyris Maw, a powerful elite enemy. The Maw's strength scales with the size of the vine network, making it the highest level monster in the game when fully empowered.

Key Mechanics

• The Nyris Vine begins as a single seed, gradually spreading over time.
• Destroying seeds weakens the plant and clears nearby vines.
• Virelings spawn to protect the plant and assist in spreading its growth.
• Entities stepping on vines may become overgrown and mutated, turning hostile and gaining enhanced abilities.
• Flowers bloom near the vines and can be harvested for new crafting ingredients.
• The Nyris Maw spawns when the central seed matures and is destroyed, presenting a high-risk, high-reward encounter.
• New items and crafting recipes tied to this event provide valuable rewards.

Accompanying the Nyris Vine is a new quest, available to all adventurers. A local town in Greenhaven is seeking assistance to investigate the growing threat.

The quest is added to a random town in Greenhaven. If you're continuing from a previous save, it will be added automatically upon loading your game.

Insanity is a new mechanic that causes illusions to appear. The higher your insanity, the more likely you are to see things that aren't really there.

This effect can currently be gained through the Nyris Plant but will be integrated into more areas of the game in future updates.

Expect the insanity mechanic to evolve over time, with new types of illusions and surprises being added as development continues.

• Items in your inventory that apply an effect even while not equipped, such as Decay Orbs, now will display a wound icon to clearly show an effect is being applied, and have had their tooltips updated to clearly state their "Carried Effect".
• Flying creatures (Hawks, Bees, Dune Flyers) will no longer set off traps.

• Fixed displayed energy cost on toggle ability tooltips not taking into account energy reductions.
• Fixed "Sparks" enchantment giving 100x too much stun chance (500% instead of 5%, 700% instead of 7%).
• Fixed weapon swap speed stat displayed as a flat number instead of a percent.
• Fixed "Mindmeld" enchantment giving 10x too much weapon swap speed.

The new Athletics skill tree is here!

Save files from version 0.5.10 are compatible.

The Athletics skill has been reworked into a skill tree format with new abilities, icons, and improvements.
New abilities emphasize positioning and movement efficiency. For example, "Room to Maneuver" grants a dodge bonus when at least three adjacent tiles are empty.
Or take "Wall Jump," a faster and more efficient jump that requires you to be next to a wall.
At the top of the skill tree, you'll unlock "Shadow Mirage," allowing you to leave behind a shadow copy of yourself when dashing, jumping, or lunging—enemies will waste their attacks on this decoy.
Summary of Changes:

• Added 11 new abilities.
  
• Removed: "Evasive Maneuvers", "Feline Reflex", "Endurance Training", "Fleetfoot".
  
• Reworked: "Evasive Fury", "Sprint", "Tumbling", "Jump", "Aeralist", "Trap Reaction".
  
• Added upgrade path to Sprint.

This is part of the ongoing effort to convert all skills to a skill tree structure. With Athletics updated, only Travel, Reading, Alchemy, and Weapon skills remain to be reworked (plus new skills on the horizon).

Need to reset your skill tree?
If you need to reset your athletics skill tree from v0.5.10, enable debug mode in options, open console commands using F8, and enter the command "skillreset athletics" to refund your focus points (its recommended to turn off debug mode after).

Dodge and Accuracy mechanics have been updated. We’ve transitioned from a percentage-based accuracy system to an accuracy rating system, introducing a more dynamic curve.

To help explain everything, tooltips have been updated, showing example values and your hit chance against your last target:
Early-game balance remains similar, where a single point of accuracy converts to roughly 1% hit chance. However, stacking accuracy and dodge now introduces diminishing returns, allowing for late-game bonuses without breaking the game.
Special thank you to myrix for help crunching the numbers and refining the system. Couldn’t have done it without you!

Fixed several issues related to save files.

• Added a new option, "Save Log," to enable detailed logging of save and load events.
  
• Zone files are no longer copied if no changes have occurred to that zone, improving performance.
  
• Added a 10-second timeout on auto-saves. If the auto-save fails for any reason, the save is skipped.
  
• Fixed the initial save directory being titled "player" instead of the player's name.
  
• Improved file handling to prevent corrupt files if an issue occurs during the save process.
  
• Added small millisecond delays between save file updates to improve compatibility with AntiVirus software and other processes.
  
• Improved error handling during save/load events. The error screen now provides more detailed information if something goes wrong.

• Added key bindings for zoom in and zoom out ("-" and "="). These can also be modified in options.
  
• Ability "Achilles Bane" - increased cooldown by 2 turns.
  
• Added new dash/jump animations to the following abilities: "Sliding Strike", "Duelist Advance", "Vicious Lunge", "Mighty Lunge", and "Gutting Reave".
  
• Updated open and close sound for doors.
  
• When a stun is applied due to a Knockback ability, "Wall Stun" text now appears above the player or monster's head.

• Fixed game crash that could occur during dungeon load due to attempting to place an entity before the map exists. (Exception: Cannot invoke "dot.tilemap.TileMap.isInBounds(int, int)" because "activeMap" is null).
  
• Fixed Dreadheart abilities "Savage Bleed" and "Savage Efficiency" missing upgrades.
  
• Fixed lore book "Voice of Khualexx" incorrect reading requirement; fixed "A New Magic" missing XP reward.