Welcome to the November devlog for Helms of Fury!  Over these past two months we worked on the boss in Ghost Spire Castle, new level exits using stairs, better naming for attunements, new website designs, and updates and polish to our combat and AI.

Boss of Ghost Spire Castle

Last Halloween we shared an animated gif of one of our bosses, giving a spooky glimpse into the spirit realm.  This month we worked to bring that idea into the game.  In Ghost Spire Castle you will face a skeletal dragon in an otherworldly boss battle full of summoned spirits, ghostly illusions, and bullets... lots of bullets!

Stairs as Exits

In our last devlog we mentioned working on Stairs as new Exits.  These are now implemented, so when a player enters the Stairs they are taken to the next stage, and when entering a Portal they will be taken to the next level.

Choose Your Path

Attunements are now renamed to Paths.  A Path determines the type of upgrades you can find, and you can have up to three active during a run.  There are five Paths available which each offer unique upgrades and benefits - which path will you choose?

New Website Designs

Along with the game, we have updated the design of our abitawake.com studio website.  Our helmsoffury.com game website has also been revised with more focus on the trailer.

Updates & Polish

• Lots of playtesting was done over these past few weeks to tweak ability cooldowns and damage for game balance.
• Our map generation and minimap code was refactored to be simpler and easier to understand, with support added for the new stairs exits.
• Our object placement code was improved to better support interactions between objects in rooms, such as shop signs and merchants.
  
• Enemy AI for several attacks were improved to work better near walls and edges.
• A rare graphical glitch with enemy spawn animations was fixed.
  
• Players can now be poisoned by enemies or traps.
  
• Pet combat was improved, with better chasing and targeting of enemies, and smoother easing when following a player.
• Bombs and arrows now only trace towards targets for a short distance.
• Knockback effects from traps were improved to be more accurate.
• Fixed an issue with room gates not properly closing due to certain pets.

That's all for this update, cya next month!