Occulto - Changelog

v12.0 - The Choir Descends, the Dealer Knocks

May 10, 2026

J.D. Vex My older brother is called Michael. He has had my hedge trimmer since November 2021. I have asked for it back five times, including once at our nan's funeral, where my mother told me, in front of the entire congregation, that this was not the moment. I disagreed. I still disagree. The trimmer is a Bosch AHS 50-20 LI cordless, originally £109 from B&Q, the 'lexus' of the premium trimmer market. I'm still gutted about it.

Archangel Michael is the hardest fight I have ever designed. He silences your demons mid-battle. He scores twice as fast as you. His passive scales harder than the queue at a Greggs on a bank holiday.

Five angels in total now stand against you instead of one: Sariel, Cassiel, Uriel, Metatron, and Michael. Each is unique. Each is intentional.

The Shady Dealer has also arrived. He sells items. Twenty of them, all built around the apocrypha of the Solomonic tradition. The Dealer himself is unsigned to any contract and could vanish at any moment. He is, after all, shady. I have not asked his name. He has not offered it. The arrangement suits us both.

Six demons have been reworked. I will not enumerate them here because the page below does so already, but I would direct your attention to Andrealphus, who in this patch is female. The Goetia describes her as a peacock. I have rejected the peacock. Geometry, not vanity, is the load-bearing motif. She knew the angles before angels did. I came up with that line in the bath and have been quietly waiting six weeks to deploy it.

This is the largest patch I have ever shipped. The hedge trimmer remains in my brother's possession. We carry on.

NEW BOSSES & RITUAL STRUCTURE

A run is no longer a single ritual ending in one boss. A run is now four rituals, four angels, and a final reckoning with the Archangel Michael himself. The boss roster has been more than doubled, the progression bar overhauled, and beating the final angel ends the run with a bespoke sequence rather than a return to the menu.

THE FIVE ANGELS

SARIEL

TIER 1

CASSIEL

TIER 1

URIEL

TIER 2

METATRON

TIER 3

MICHAEL

TIER 4 - FINAL

RITUAL PROGRESSION

RITUAL 1

TIER 1

Sariel or Cassiel

RITUAL 2

TIER 2

Uriel

RITUAL 3

TIER 3

Metatron

RITUAL 4

TIER 4 - FINAL

Michael

Each ritual is 17 nodes (trials, shops, choice, boss). The final ritual always ends with Michael. Defeat him to complete the run and unlock endless mode.

Five angels in the roster - Sariel (T1), Cassiel (T1), Uriel (T2), Metatron (T3), Michael (T4). Each comes with their own portrait, passive, signature ability, and turn behaviour.
Coin-flip turn order - boss battles previously hardcoded the angel going first. Now every fight opens with a coin flip: you call heads or tails, the coin spins, and the result decides who plays first for the entire battle. Goes both ways - getting the first move against Michael is a real swing. The flip is persisted through save/resume so the order survives a quit-and-resume mid-fight.
Trumpet of Joshua override - the new item (see Shady Dealer section) skips the coin flip entirely while equipped. You always strike first against every angel.
Cassiel - The Silent Watcher (T1, alternate). A reserved angel who scores in absolute silence, refusing categories until the final round. His passive punishes greed.
Uriel - The Light of God (T2). Burns bright. Scores aggressively into upper-section categories and rerolls more than any T1 boss.
Metatron - The Voice (T3). Names categories at the start of the fight and earns boosted scoring on them. Adapts when you take them away.
Michael - The Archangel (T4, final). Scales hardest, rerolls most, and his signature ability silences one of your equipped demons for the rest of the fight. Beating him completes the run.
Four-ritual run structure - each ritual is the familiar 17-node progression (trials, shops, choice nodes, boss). Cleared bosses gate the next ritual. The final ritual ends with Michael.
Boss Node Card - the small generic boss icon on the trial-complete progression bar has been replaced with a chunky reveal-aware card. Three states: Sealed (silhouette + tooltip), Scouted (full portrait + passive/signature parchment, triggered by the Almadel item), Revealed (auto-fires after the last pre-boss trial). The fourth ritual always shows "FINAL ANGEL" regardless of items.
Endless mode - opens after Michael falls. Runs continue past ritual 4 with escalating boss tiers. The progression bar continues honestly past the cap.

THE SHADY DEALER & 20 ITEMS

At every choice node, you now decide between the familiar Summoner's Shop and the new Shady Dealer - a hooded figure who sells items instead of demons. Items occupy a new bottom-left slot bar (max 3 equipped) and grant passive effects, active abilities, or one-shot consumables drawn from Solomonic apocrypha.

Twenty items have shipped in this patch, each tied to a real Solomonic, Hebrew, or apocryphal artefact. The Dealer offers two at a time, costed in sigils.

PRICING BY RITUAL

Item costs scale with ritual number. The dealer's wares get more expensive as the angels above you get hungrier.

RITUAL 1

SIGILS

RITUAL 2

SIGILS

RITUAL 3

SIGILS

RITUAL 4

SIGILS

ENDLESS

100

SIGILS (CAP)

Mammon's Tongue (see below) shaves 25% off every shop purchase including dealer items.

Hover any item to read its effect.

ALMADEL

AZAZEL'S DAGGER

BRASS VESSEL

HEPTAMERON

TRUMPET OF JOSHUA

HIRAM'S GOLD

MANNA JAR

DARK PENTACLE

WHISPERED GEAS

SUMMONER'S TRIANGLE

HEXBREAKER

TABERNACLE VEIL

WITCH'S LADDER

BRAZEN YOKE

RELIQUARY VIAL

AARON'S ROD

SORTILEGE

SWORD OF FLAMES

WATCHER'S BLOOD

MAMMON'S TONGUE

Items occupy a new bottom-left slot bar (max 3 equipped). Right-click to discard. Items with charges show their charges in the slot UI. The Dealer offers two random items per visit, costed in sigils.

SIX NEW REWORKED DEMONS

KING BELIAL - KING OF TRIBUTE He demands offerings. What is given is never returned.

Passive: Tribute - scoring a Full House, Large Straight, or Occulto generates a fresh standard die. Stacks with itself. The dice pool grows the more big hands you score.

Active: Offering - consume one held die. Belial gains a permanent +1 xMult. Stacks across the run, no cap. The consumed die levitates, glows, slams down, and dissolves into the table in a bespoke ritual animation.

"Belial is the only Goetic spirit the Testament insists requires offerings before he speaks. I have respected this. I have also extended the metaphor: Belial is the only demon who genuinely takes what you give him. The other 71 share their power and remain themselves. Belial keeps it. He has no obligation to give it back. This is, I am told, also how my ex-wife views the divorce settlement."
J.D. Vex

LESSER FOCALOR - DUKE OF DROWNING SEAS He waits a thousand years for a throne that will never come.

Passive: Forgotten - +5 mult per level when you score a hand category that is tied for least-played across the run. Multiple categories can tie. Drowned categories count as zero plays.

Active: Drown - mark any unfilled category. While drowned, it counts as zero plays for Focalor's passive. The mark is consumed when the category is scored. Drowned cells display a sea-cyan anchor icon.

"The Goetia describes Focalor as having been deceived in his hope of a throne for a thousand years. I have always found this to be the most relatable line in the entire Lesser Key. Focalor is not vengeful. He is patient. He gives breath to the things others have held under. I gave him the face of a drowned man because I am tired and cannot draw kelp."
J.D. Vex

LESSER DECARABIA - MARQUIS OF BORROWED SHAPES To repeat is to fall.

Passive: Variety Streak - every score whose category was NOT played in the previous trial grows a streak counter by one. The streak multiplied by Decarabia's level becomes mult on every score. Scoring a category that WAS played in the previous trial breaks the streak. Persists across trials.

Active: Mimic - spawn a temporary die for the current hand whose six faces all match a chosen face from your dice pool. Picker shows every face you own across every die's full pool, including AP, mult, and exploded faces.

"Decarabia changes shape continually. The Goetia is very specific about this: he never wears one form for long. I respect the commitment. I have not changed shape since 2017, when I briefly grew a beard for a wedding and was told by three separate people I looked like a man on the run. I shaved it off in the venue toilet between courses."
J.D. Vex

LESSER GUSION - DUKE OF PAST AND COMING He sees the run laid out as a long table of hands.

Passive: Foretold - +5 mult per level when the current scoring hand's dice total exceeds the dice total of the most recent scored hand. First hand of a run has no comparison and earns nothing.

Active: Echo - opens a modal listing every scored hand of the run grouped by trial. Pick one. Then pick a category. The chosen past hand's score is filled into that category, consuming a score slot. Counts toward the trial target. May complete the trial. In boss fights, Echo skips the category step and deals the past hand's score directly to the angel.

"In 2014 I won the pub quiz at the Black Bull in Tunbridge Wells. On my own. My team name was 'Ross Kemp on Quizzes.' I knew the population of Liechtenstein, the second studio album by Echo and the Bunnymen, and the only mammal that lays eggs (it is two mammals; I was credited for both). I have replayed that evening, in detail, every Sunday since. Gusion's Echo active is built for exactly that feeling. Pick one hand from earlier in the run. Score it again. Be, briefly, the version of yourself the universe glimpsed once and then refused to keep."
J.D. Vex

LESSER MALPHAS - PRESIDENT OF TOWERS Foundation laid. Detonation pending.

Passive: Demolition - +1 mult per blank face anywhere in your dice pool. Walks every die's effective face pool, so exploded dice and transfigured pools all count. Built-in synergy with his own active and with Asmoday's Exploding Dice.

Active: Bomb - plant a bomb on a chosen die. The bomb's fuse ticks down by one each time that die rolls. Held, banished, or petrified dice pause the fuse. On detonation, a NEW exploded die spawns immediately to the right of the bombed die, showing whatever face it landed on. The source die is otherwise untouched.

"When I was nine I left an unopened tin of Heinz beans on the gas hob. I had been called for tea. My mother had told me, twice, to take it off, but Inspector Gadget was on. The tin spent an unknown number of minutes accelerating toward the kind of pressure no domestic appliance is designed to contain. When it went, it took the extractor fan, most of the splashback, and any future enthusiasm my mother had for inviting people round."
J.D. Vex

LESSER ANDREALPHUS - THE SACRED GEOMETER She knew the angles before angels did.

Passive: Higher Form - +5 mult per die in your pool whose face count has been expanded past the standard six. Pure self-synergy with her active. Silent until you start inscribing.

Active: Inscribe - target a die. Etch three random face copies drawn from its current pool, plus one AP face. Existing skew amplifies. Can be cast on the same die repeatedly. Combine with Transfigure to engineer a die toward a specific outcome.

"My mother asked me to put up new fence panels last spring. I drove to B&Q, bought six six-foot lap panels in larch, and arrived at hers by ten. By twelve her next-door neighbour Brian had appeared at the dividing wall and would not leave. He asked how I was. He asked what I did for a living. He asked if the panels were pressure-treated. He asked if I wanted a tea. I made it clear, through tone alone, that I was working. He brought the tea anyway. He stayed an hour. At one point he offered to help. I declined. He observed, gently, that the south corner was slightly out of true. I told him it was deliberate. It was not deliberate. I have not spoken to Brian since."
J.D. Vex

BALANCE CHANGES

AP Generators such as Gaap, Naberius and Vapula can now receive AP via covenant packs, but can no longer receive max AP card upgrades or AP cards in-game to stop looping abuse.
Valefor - his unheld streak no longer scales with level. Each streak point now contributes +1 mult regardless of Valefor's level. Stops late-game runs from snowballing his passive into infinity.
Dantalion - his Mind Control replay now counts as 3 separate score events instead of one. Demons that react on every score (Halphas spawning dice on upper scores, Naberius minting AP faces, Vepar's Four of a Kind bonus, Ronove baking the Ones cell, etc.) now fire on every replay pass. Score slots are still only consumed once per commit.

QUALITY OF LIFE & UI

New trial-complete screen - the small generic boss icon is replaced with a chunky reveal-aware Boss Node Card. Sealed-state silhouettes hint at what is coming. Scouted and Revealed states show the full portrait, passive, and signature. Tooltip anchors to the left so it never overflows when the boss sits at the right edge of the bar.

Run Stats - History tab - the run-stats panel has tabs now (STATS / HISTORY). The new HISTORY tab lists every scored hand of the run, grouped by trial, expandable per trial. Default-expands the current trial. Used as the data source for Gusion's Echo active and the basis for any future "look at past hands" feature.

Valefor streak SFX - the streak-gain bray now plays once per scored hand rather than once per die that gained a streak. Several dice ticking up at the same time no longer stacks the sound on top of itself.
Die tooltip dynamic sizing - the right-click die tooltip now grows to fit dice with expanded face pools (Andrealphus's Inscribe can push a die past 10 faces). No more clipping.
Endless mode entry - completing Michael now correctly opens endless mode. The fresh-run start path was previously skipping the endless-mode unlock check.
New sigil and soul icons - the two run currencies have been redrawn from scratch. Sharper, cleaner, more readable at small sizes, and consistent across every screen they appear on.
Restyled book covers - the grimoire books for Haagenti, Halphas and Seere have been redrawn with the more stylised cover treatment now used across the rest of the roster. Same demons, same mechanics, sharper art.

BUG FIXES

Pack hover dwell delay - hovering at the edge of the Infernal or Covenant pack chest used to fire the open-sound thirty times per second as the cursor slipped across the boundary. Now the cursor must dwell on the chest for 0.2 seconds before the effect engages.
Run loss not kicking the run-over screen - dying mid-trial sometimes left the player staring at the gameplay screen with no clear "you died" feedback. The RunEnded event was firing before the RunOverUI was active, so the subscriber missed it. Fixed.
Cursor texture errors - "Runtime cursors other than the default cursor need to be defined using a texture" log spam came from cursor textures with non-readable or wrong-format properties. Unified all cursor creation through one helper that builds them correctly.
DiceArea slot rebuild row-wrap - growing the dice pool past the column boundary in a single rebuild (which Bomb does often) used to leave one dice slot orphaned in the wrong row. Fixed by removing stale slots from the parent's child list before destroying them.
Boss damage pipes - several boss damage paths were not propagating correctly to BossBattleUI's HP display, causing brief desyncs between the actual HP and the displayed HP. Centralised through one event.
AP card progress bar reveal - the bar was tied to Naberius's specific active. Andrealphus's Inscribe could create AP faces without revealing the bar. Now centralised: any AP face anywhere in your pool reveals the bar.
Ritual structure progression bar - the progression bar was occasionally rebuilding without the boss-card present, leaving an empty slot at the end. Fixed.
Gaap's book art - was rendering with the wrong cover in the shop and the demon viewer. Now displays correctly.
Vepar's passive tooltip - the souls value was rendering as a placeholder token instead of the actual number. Now shows the correct souls per level.
Demon book costs - some demons in the Summoner's Shop were being offered for 1 sigil regardless of rank. Now priced correctly per rarity.

v11.10 - Tongue, Rope and a Lick of Paint

April 25, 2026

There is a room in every man's house that his wife has been telling him to do up for years. He nods. He says he will. He does not. He buys a paint roller in good faith, then the roller sits in its plastic for a season, and a year, and long enough to become part of the furniture. The nagging continues. The nagging never stops. Then one Sunday, with no warning, he rises from the sofa and says: screw it, I will do that room.

That room, for me, was the boss battle interface. You, my playerbase, are collectively my wife. Fortunately, I'm not married anymore.

Three demons have been reworked alongside the renovation. Naberius arrives with an entire new system attached - the AP card, a small currency minted by scoring his signature die face and spent on any other demon's ability points. Ronove speaks for the smallest voices, those being the dice showing 1, and bakes their value permanently into the scorecard for the rest of the run. Valefor builds you a fortune by leaving things alone, and ruins it the moment you touch them.

Naberius restores dignity. Ronove gives voice. Valefor takes whatever you set down. The three of them have agreed, as professionals, to share a patch for the sake of the players.

BOSS BATTLE - TOTAL UI OVERHAUL

Boss fights have been rebuilt from the ground up. The previous interface treated the angel as another menu screen. The new one treats them as an opponent. Boss and player face each other directly across the table, every interaction has weight, and the scorecard now reads as a stone tablet contested in real time.

The headline changes:

New face-off layout - boss portrait centered at the top, Solomon directly across the scorecard. A bespoke boss-name header runs along the top-left with custom typography and a slow gleam sweep that catches the metal every ten seconds.
Stone tablet scorecard - cells now sit on a single tablet sprite with translucent state overlays. Filled cells stamp circular portrait cameos: Solomon for the player, the boss portrait for the boss. Boss scores write in gold.
Boss tooltip - the always-on stats panel is gone. Hover the boss portrait for their passive and signature, the same way you read demons.
Damage feedback overhaul - taking a hit shakes the screen red and pulses your dying heart with a heartbeat tone. Landing one shakes the screen yellow with sword and impact sounds. Killing blows trigger a full-screen "YOU HAVE DEFEATED [NAME]" overlay over black, replacing the old splash entirely.
New widgets and polish - live sigils and souls counters in the top-right, a nocturnal moon indicator, a custom-art "BEGIN THE BATTLE" button, a SCORE TO BEAT plaque above the running total, and boss dice that stay on the table between turns showing pentagram backs.
Cleaner exits - save-and-quit and run-end during a boss fight now tear the UI down properly instead of leaving the panel hanging behind the menu.

NEW DEMON REWORKS

NABERIUS - THE THREE-HEADED HOUND He restores lost dignities. He charges them by the head.

Passive: Pack Bonus - gain 20 souls on every score for each total legion level across your equipped demons. Scales with both party size and individual levels.

Active: Conjure AP Face - target a die and replace one face with an AP face. When that face rolls and scores, it ticks the AP card progress bar. Three AP face scores mints one AP card. AP cards can be dragged onto any equipped demon (except AP generators) to grant +1 ability point instantly. Maximum 3 cards in inventory.

"Naberius restores lost dignities. I drew up a list of my own in case I needed his services personally. The list runs to sixteen pages. The first entry, redacted, reads 'the karaoke incident at Steve's 40th'. I have not held a microphone since 2019."
J.D. Vex

RONOVE - THE ORATOR He speaks for the smallest voices. They will not be forgotten.

Passive: Voice for the Humble - every Ones score permanently bakes +10 souls per Ronove level into the Ones cell. The bonus persists across trials and bosses, and survives selling Ronove for the rest of the run.

Active: Acolyte - summon a die whose six faces are all 1. The Acolyte always rolls 1, persists for the rest of the run, and stacks if cast multiple times. Each spawn plays a top-down wet reveal animation.

"Ronove speaks for the part of you that is unloved. The part nobody listens to at the dinner table. I gave him the tongue of a man who has been talked over for forty years and is now finally talking back. The drool is symbolic of all the words he has never been allowed to say to his overbearing wife."
J.D. Vex

VALEFOR - THE DONKEY The friend who hands you the rope.

Passive: Thieves' Honour - every die earns +1 streak per scored hand it survives without being held during any roll. Each streak point on a die contributes +1 mult to your score. Streaks persist across hands, trials, and bosses for the entire run. Holding a die during a roll resets that die's streak to 0, and the die takes on a donkey-grey tint while it carries any streak. Petrified dice are immune to streak break.

Active: Pardoned - target a single die. The next time it would lose its streak by being held during a roll, the reset is skipped instead. The pardon is consumed and lasts one hand. Pardoned dice pulse between full colour and donkey-grey while the pardon stands.

"I once met a donkey at a petting zoo who took my Dairylea Lunchable through the fence while looking me directly in the eye. He chewed for a full minute. He did not break eye contact once. The supervisor said the donkey, whose name was Marcus, was on a behavioural plan. 3 strikes and he'd be taken back to the gypsy campsite he'd come from. We never saw Marcus again."
J.D. Vex

AP CARD SYSTEM (NEW)

A new run-scoped inventory system that lets ability points be carried and applied to any equipped demon. Lives below the dice grid, mints cards from scoring AP faces, and persists across trials and saves.

AP card inventory - persistent run-scoped, max 3 cards. Inventory survives across trials and through save/load.
AP face - a new die face that doesn't contribute to base score. Its only purpose is to tick the AP card progress bar when scored. Created by Naberius's active.
Progress bar - compact horizontal bar above the "Rolls: X/Y" text. Violet fill ticks 1/3 per AP face scored. Border flashes near-white on each tick. Dims to communicate "CARDS FULL" when the inventory cap is hit. Bar only appears once the player creates their first AP face in a run.
Card minting - 3 AP face scores mints 1 card.
Card use - drag a card onto any equipped demon to grant +1 ability point instantly. AP-generator demons (Naberius, Gaap, Vapula) are excluded as targets and will reject the drop.
Visual proc - "+1 AP" popup in violet floats off the AP face when it scores. SFX pitch escalates per AP face scored within a single scoring phase.

BALANCE CHANGES

Halphas (#38) - the upper-section scores required to spawn a new die raised from 2 to 3. Counter on the tooltip updated to show "X/3" instead of "X/2".
Vapula (#60) - starting AP reduced from 2 to 1. Passive reworked: +1 mult per ability cast this run, persists for the full run. No longer scales per level.
Vapula's Trigger Ally active no longer consumes the targeted ally's own AP. The ability fires for free on the ally's behalf.

QUALITY OF LIFE

New book covers for Dantalion and Shax
Halphas spawned dice now fade in with a ghostly haunting animation: scale punch from 1.3x, alpha flicker, tint lerps from icy blue to normal as the die materialises
Demon-specific purchase sounds retired - Andras, Dantalion, Haagenti, Seere and Shax no longer play their own purchase clip. The standard demon-purchase sound covers every demon

FIXES

Contribution mult sounds no longer warp pitch mid-playback. Fixed the "tape effect" where a pitched contribution clip would drop back to base pitch part-way through if another sound fired during its playback.
Upper Bonus activation no longer plays six stacked mult sounds at once. The bonus loops across all six upper categories silently, leaving the announcement ghost text as the single audible cue.
Vepar (#42) chained dice now mirror correctly when the parent is petrified. Children stay in sync with the parent through hold and roll cycles.

v11.9 - Gold, Bones and Exile

April 17, 2026

I was in the car park of a Lidl when the idea for undead dice came to me. A pigeon was eating a chip off the ground and I thought, "that chip is dead but it's still doing something useful." That's undead dice. They're dead. They multiply your score by x2. Then they rot away. I think it's elegant. My therapist says I need to stop finding metaphors in car parks.

This update brings five new demon reworks: a king who refuses to be controlled, a commander who delegates his way to godhood, a necromancer who raises your dice from the dead, a prospector who covers everything in gold dust, and a scholarly soldier who rolls a die to decide his own fate. I also added an entirely new dice type that decays and melts away in front of your eyes. I watched the melt animation forty-seven times in a row. I'm not ashamed of that. Art requires observation.

I've also temporarily disabled talent trees while I focus on getting all 72 demons reworked. They'll come back. Bigger. Weirder. With more branches than the tree in my nan's garden that fell on the neighbour's greenhouse. That was also my fault, technically, but the insurance company disagreed.

NEW DEMON REWORKS

ASMODAY - THE UNCONTROLLABLE KING He once stole Solomon's throne. He'll leave yours whenever he likes.

Passive: Royal Decree - doubles the effectiveness of all other equipped demons' passives. Every souls bonus, every mult bonus - doubled. The king doesn't do the work himself. He makes everyone else do it better.

Active: Uncontrollable - Asmoday leaves. Just... leaves. For 3-7 hands. His portrait dissolves into a spinning dark vortex. Halfway through his exile, you'll hear him whisper "you have no control" in the background. When he returns, he gains +0.5 xMult for every hand he was away. Permanently. Stack it. Again and again.

"I recorded the 'Goodbye Solomon' voice line myself at 2am in my bathroom because the acoustics create the perfect ambience for demon growls. I did seventeen takes. Take 14 had the right amount of menace but I accidentally said 'Goodbye Salmon'. I kept it anyway, filed under 'fish demons - future DLC'. Nothing I commit to the hard drive is ever truly lost."
J.D. Vex

GAAP - THE COMMANDER He hands his legion their strength. Then he multiplies it.

Passive: Legion's Might - xMult equal to the total AP currently held across your equipped demons. Every ability point your legion is carrying feeds Gaap's multiplier. The fuller the pool, the harder he hits.

Active: Restore All AP - refills every other equipped demon's ability points in a single command. Gaap keeps nothing for himself, his own AP is capped at 1. But the legion is suddenly primed to strike, and his xMult surges with every point he just handed out.

"Gaap doesn't cast spells. He delegates them. He stands at the back of the legion with a clipboard and tells the others to get on with it. In an early concept I gave him a whip, but it made him look like he was running a particularly strict Pilates class. I removed the whip. The clipboard is spiritually implied."
J.D. Vex

MURMUR - THE NECROMANCER He summons the souls of the dead. Your dice are next.

Passive: Death Harvest - +5 souls per level for every die that has died this run. Your own undead dice rotting away feeds this. So does Haagenti devouring dice, or anything else that permanently removes a die from your pool. The longer the run, the higher the body count.

Active: Turn Undead - target any die and raise it from the dead. All six faces become x2 mult. The die turns to cracked bone with green pips and a decay counter. After 5 hands, it rots away - the texture cycles through nine frames of decomposition while the die melts from top to bottom. Then it's gone. And Murmur's passive gets stronger.

"I drew the undead die rot animation frame by frame at my desk and watched each one individually for about twenty minutes. Frame 6 is the best one. The bone is still recognisable but the structural integrity is clearly compromised. I submitted Frame 6 to the Central Council of Occult Specialists for their annual pixel decay showcase. I'm still awaiting their response. I have their postal address. I will submit again next year."
J.D. Vex

CIMEJES - THE GOLDEN PROSPECTOR Everything he touches turns to gold. For a price.

Passive: Pack Rat - +1 mult for every infernal pack you've opened this run. Buy packs, get stronger. Simple as that.

Active: Gold Dust - mark a die with gold dust. A golden drip appears on the die. Each gold-marked die has a 10% chance to earn you 5 sigils when you score. The procs fire one at a time during the scoring animation - each one pops up on the die, plays a satisfying coin sound, and the sigil counter in the corner flashes gold.

"I wanted something between 'custard being sneezed on a rock' and 'glorious decadent birthday cake icing'... I think I found the right middle ground. It might just be the best golden dribble that a game has ever seen."
J.D. Vex

ALLOCES - THE SCHOLARLY SOLDIER Roll the die. Fortify your fate.

Passive: Upper Scholar - +10 souls per level when scoring upper section categories (Ones through Sixes). Simple, reliable, always on.

Active: Fortify - a die roll overlay appears. Click to roll it. The faces scroll rapidly and decelerate to a stop. Whichever face lands becomes the fortified upper category, gaining +1 mult per level added to its base mult. The buff shows immediately on the scorecard with a gold flash. Clears after you score.

"The Fortify die roll was supposed to just pick a random category. But I thought, what if the player gets to watch the die spin? What if there's tension? What if the faces scroll past like a slot machine and you're whispering 'fives, fives, fives' at your monitor? That's game design. That's why I'm here."
J.D. Vex

NEW SYSTEMS

Undead Dice - a new die type. All six faces are x2 mult. Multiple undead dice multiply together (two = x4, three = x8). They decay over 5 hands with a visible counter that shifts from green to red, then melt away with a frame-by-frame rot animation
Gold Dust Marks - a new die mark type. Gold drips appear on marked dice. Each has a 10% chance to proc 5 sigils during scoring. Procs fire sequentially with individual animations
Mark Overwrite System - blood marks and gold dust marks are exclusive. If you try to apply one to a die that already has the other, a confirmation prompt appears asking if you want to replace it
Sigil Proc Animation - a new scalable animation system for earning sigils during scoring. Shows a popup on the die, plays a sound, and flashes the sigil counter
Subtotal Pre-Show - demons with multiple scoring triggers now count them up with a ticker above the dice area, flashing each group individually, before pushing the combined total to the running tally in one hit
Next Score Indicator - a new top-right display showing any pending next-score bonuses in turquoise. Shows souls, mult, and xMult values. Fades out when bonuses transfer during scoring

BALANCE CHANGES

Pack Card Crits - upgrade cards from infernal and covenant packs can now crit. A crit doubles the card's value, shows a red border with "CRIT!" text, and reveals with a diagonal slash and screen shake
Pack pricing softened - Infernal and Covenant pack costs now cap at 30 sigils and grow by +5 per purchase after that, instead of escalating exponentially forever. Late-run pack spam is now actually affordable
Base crit chance introduced at 2% for both scoring and pack cards
Sigil Windfall changed from a multiplier of your per-trial amount to a direct grant of 10/20/30/40/50 sigils
Scoring sounds - contribution pitch stepping reduced from 0.08 to 0.04 per step for a more subtle ascending pitch across all scoring
Max dice reduced from 42 to 40
Max score slots hard capped at 13
Valac (#62) promoted from Lesser to Greater
Murmur (#54) demoted from Greater to Lesser

TALENT TREES - TEMPORARILY DISABLED

Talent trees launched as an experimental feature in a previous update to see if players enjoyed the concept. The response was overwhelmingly positive - you clearly love them, and so do I.

However, building a full talent tree for each demon requires knowing that demon's final abilities first. With 72 demons to rework and only a fraction complete, designing talent trees now would mean redesigning them later when the abilities change. That's wasted work, and I'd rather get it right once.

So talent trees are disabled until all demons have their final reworked abilities locked in. When they return, they'll be built on solid foundations and every branch will be designed around the demon's actual kit. The "Coming Soon" seal on each demon card is a promise, not a placeholder.

All existing talent code is preserved. Nothing has been deleted. When the time comes, they'll be back - bigger and better.

QUALITY OF LIFE

New book covers for Alloces, Asmoday, Murmur, Cimejes, and Andras
New Sabnock portrait - updated at Valk68's request

FIXES

Dantalion's Mind Control now fully procs all pre-score bonuses, passives and actives from other demons on each replay
Petrified dice now auto-hold correctly when petrified mid-round (not just on first roll)
Batch holding dice (hold all, hold by face, hold bloodmarked) now plays one sound instead of a rapid-fire burst for each die
Alloces' contribution no longer plays the mult sound when it should be silent
Leaderboard self-heals if a player is deleted from the server but has local data
xMult text overlay now renders correctly on custom die types

v11.8 - Blood and Brimstone

April 12, 2026

Last Tuesday I was eating a Peperami in the bath when I had a vision of a medieval knight whose armour had rusted shut with him still inside it. I could hear him breathing. Slow. Wet. I got out of the bath, dried one hand, and wrote "heartbeat on the wound" on the back of an electricity bill. That's the kind of developer I am. There's a reason why Eureka was called for the first time in a bath. I'm in good company.

This update brings three full demon reworks, a new face type for dice that currently does nothing but will absolutely ruin someone's day in a future patch, and an upper bonus system that I rebuilt from scratch because the old one was, frankly, beneath me. I also added a font size slider for the scorecard because my mum said she couldn't read it. She doesn't play the game. She was looking over my shoulder while I was testing. I told her it wasn't designed for spectators. She said "well it's not designed for anyone with eyes either, is it." So I added the slider.

Three demons enter the compendium this patch. Amy sets things on fire and watches what happens. Phenex dies on purpose and comes back stronger. Sabnock cuts your dice in half with a sword. I designed all three in a single sitting fuelled by four cans of Monster Energy and a family bag of Quavers. My flatmate said the Sabnock animation was "genuinely unsettling." I told him that was the point. He said "no, I mean your cheesy quaver breath mixed with Monster Energy. It's disgusting." I don't think he understands the creative process.

NEW DEMON REWORKS

AMY - THE INFERNAL PRESIDENT Set the world on fire. See what sticks.

Passive: Pair Bonus - +1 mult per level for each matching pair in your dice. Each pair highlights individually during scoring with an ascending counter above the dice area, then the combined total pushes to the running tally in one satisfying hit.

Active: Blaze - set a die ablaze. When you score, the ablaze die goes molten (+5 mult), then fire spreads left and right to adjacent dice with a 40% chance each. Successful spreads play an ascending-pitch molten sound. Failed spreads sizzle out with smoke rising from the die. Each molten die adds +5 mult live to the running total.

"I spent an unreasonable amount of time making sure the sizzle-out smoke particles rise at exactly the right speed. Too fast and it looks like a kettle. Too slow and it looks like the die is vaping. I found the sweet spot somewhere between 'recently extinguished candle' and 'something is slightly wrong with this toaster.'"
J.D. Vex

PHENEX - THE REBORN From the ashes, always from the ashes.

Passive: Immolate - +10 souls per level for each whiffed hand this run, applied every score. Stacks permanently. Feeds off Bifrons Double or Nothing losses, natural whiffs, and her own active. The more you fail, the stronger Phenex burns.

Active: Rebirth - sacrifice this hand (score 0) to double your next score. A full-screen fire transition plays as Phenex's portrait transforms into a fiery egg. On the next score, "BORN AGAIN" blazes across the screen as the egg cracks and the phoenix returns. Can't be recast until the cycle completes.

"When I was eleven a robin died on our patio. I buried it under the hydrangeas. That night it appeared at the foot of my bed. Not physically. Spiritually. It had unresolved business and it had chosen me to resolve it. I spent the next three weeks leaving seeds on my windowsill and whispering 'you can go now' before sleep. The robin eventually moved on. I like to think I helped. Anyway, that's Phenex. Sometimes things need to die before they can come back. I understood that before most adults do."
J.D. Vex

SABNOCK - THE WOUNDED KNIGHT His wounds never heal. Neither will yours.

Passive: High Roller - +5 souls per level for each die showing 4, 5, or 6. During scoring, dice are highlighted by face value in their signature colours - all the 4s flash together, then the 5s, then the 6s - each group ticking up a counter before the combined total hits.

Active: Wound - slash a die in half. The lower die keeps faces 1-3 (the rest become wounded), the upper die keeps faces 4-6 (the rest become wounded). Wound a wounded die and it splits again - eventually you get dice with only one real face and five wounds. Wounded faces are inert - they don't score and they don't count as blanks. But something tells me another demon will find a use for them...

"One of my favourite ever films is Bedknobs and Broomsticks. I was always fascinated with the final fight when the suits of armour come alive to do battle against the Germans. I bought three sets of medieval armour on eBay, thinking I could help channel a spirit to reanimate each set. My mum made me put them in the shed after one 'fell' on her cat. I still believe it was a spirit who attacked Mr Sprinkles."
J.D. Vex

NEW SYSTEMS

Die Scoring Steps - demons can now inject per-die visual effects into the scoring animation. Dice flash, change state, show popups, and play sounds individually before demon contributions kick in. Amy's molten spread is the first to use this
Subtotal Pre-Show - demons with multiple scoring triggers (pairs, high dice, etc.) now count them up with a ticker above the dice area, flashing each group individually, before pushing the combined total to the running tally in one hit
Wounded Faces - a new face type that doesn't score and doesn't count as blanks. Created by Sabnock's Wound ability. Designed as a future synergy hook - a later demon will feed off these
Die Face Overlay - new rendering system for custom die faces. The standard die renders as the background, and custom face graphics layer on top. All future face types use this automatically

BALANCE CHANGES

Upper Bonus reworked - no longer a one-time 1.5x multiplier. Now permanently adds +5 base mult to all upper section categories for the rest of the trial once the threshold is crossed. You can see the extra mult in your scorecard immediately. Seere's Apex Hymn talent makes it +10

QUALITY OF LIFE

Scorecard Font Size - new setting in the settings menu to scale scorecard text. Cycles through Default, Large, and Extra Large. Applies immediately and persists across sessions

FIXES

Ablaze and Molten dice can now be held - the held indicator shows through the fire visuals
Phenex's Born Again animation no longer fires when Bifrons uses Double or Nothing
Phenex can no longer cast Rebirth while a double is still pending
Fixed demon contributions displaying twice in the portal for some reworked demons
Fixed particle system errors when fire effects were created on already-animated dice
Force Death now works from any run state - shop, boss battle, or active trial. Previously broke when used during shop or boss fights

v11.4 - The Night Stalker

April 9, 2026

I've been sleeping badly. I think it's because I spent the last week staring at a portrait of a man whose face is being eaten from the inside out by some kind of bio-mechanical parasite. Well... It's either that or the fact I've been drinking too many cans of Monster Energy Mango Loco every day.

This update brings nine demon reworks (Foras, Vapula, Stolas, Ose, Leraje, Barbatos, Bifrons, Crocell, Halphas), a full day/night cycle with nocturnal demons and cinematic nightfall transitions, a coin flip gambling mechanic, an egg-cracking minigame, petrified dice, unusable dice faces, a new mult face dice type, unique book art for all reworked demons, and a scoring resolve animation that makes every hand feel like a small thunderstorm.

I showed my mum the Crocell portrait. She said it looked like the angel statue in her garden, except "sadder and with worse posture." I told her it was a duke of Hell who turns dice to stone. She said that sounded like what happens to the biscuits when I leave them on the radiator. I have not been able to look at Crocell the same way since.

NEW DEMON REWORKS

LERAJE - THE NIGHT STALKER By day, the archer. By night, the beast.

Passive: Day/Night Hunter - Day: +5 souls per level per score. Night: +5 mult per level per score. A demon who transforms with the light.

Active: Nightfall - shroud the current trial in darkness. A cinematic transition plays - fog sweeps across the screen, the sun fades to a moon, green mist envelops Leraje's portrait as his night form emerges.

"I spent three days building procedural fog using Perlin noise so that green mist would crawl up Leraje's portrait frame during the nightfall transition. My flatmate asked why I couldn't just use a fade to black. I told him that would be like asking Kubrick to use a jump cut. He said "you're absolutely nothing like Kubrick." He's right. Kubrick didn't make an occult video game masterpiece."
J.D. Vex

BIFRONS - THE TWO-FACED He offers you both sides. You choose which one to believe.

Passive: Two-Faced - if your dice total is odd, gain +1 mult per level. Even total? Nothing. The gamble is baked into every hand you play.

Active: Double or Nothing - activate before rolling. Pick heads or tails on a golden coin. After you score, the coin flips. Win: your entire score is doubled. Lose: you get nothing. Zero. The scorecard eats the hand and moves on.

The coin has two faces - one beautiful and serene, the other a corroded demonic skull. A custom 8-phase sprite animation plays during the flip with a 1.4-second decelerating spin. When you win, the score resolves normally, then "DOUBLED!" appears in gold and the final number jumps. When you lose, the score is instantly whiffed - no demon contributions, no resolve animation, just a 0 on the scorecard.

"When I was nine, my nan took me to a car boot sale in Doncaster. I found a coin on the floor near a man selling broken lawnmowers. It had a face on one side and what I can only describe as 'a different, worse face' on the other. I kept it in my pocket for three years. My mum threw it away because she said it smelled like a hospital. Anyway, that's how I made Bifrons, the two-faced demon."
J.D. Vex

BARBATOS - THE COLLECTOR What Barbatos finds, Barbatos keeps.

Passive: Lucky Find - each die has a 5% chance to discover +50 souls per level when scoring. Per-die popup animations show each find as it happens. Custom goblin "yipee" SFX on each proc.

Active: Scramble - crack open one of five eggs. Two contain prizes (a random upgrade card or +50 bonus souls). Three contain a zombie bird that pops out with a jumpscare, a red screen flash, and a disappointed "NOTHING."

"As it was recently Easter, I was devouring an adult-sized Kinder Egg. As I smashed open the giant adult-toy from its protective plastic shell, a shiny doll of a penguin shot out at me like a rocket. Needless to say, Barbatos was completely inspired by that specific Easter experience."
J.D. Vex

FORAS - THE FACELESS What Foras recovers, he recovers completely.

Passive: +30 souls per level when scoring a hand with 3 or more matching dice.

Active: Reset Category - pick a filled scorecard category to wipe and reuse. Souls you already earned are kept. The score slot comes back. It's as if you never scored there at all.

VAPULA - THE HUNTRESS She makes men skilled in all crafts. Starting with violence.

Passive: Apprentice's Progress - +1 mult per ability used this trial, scaled by level. The more your demons work, the stronger Vapula gets.

Active: Trigger Ally - activate a random ally demon's ability without consuming their AP. Supports interactive abilities including pickers and targeting.

STOLAS - THE CROWNED OWL He teaches the knowledge of precious stones.

Passive: Precious Knowledge - +10 souls per mult face in your dice pool, scaled by level. The more gems you embed, the richer you get.

Active: Precious Stone - add a +10 mult face to a random die. A new face type that adds directly to your hand's base mult when scored.

OSE - THE SHAPESHIFTER He sees the pattern in chaos.

Passive: Upgrades Small Straight and Large Straight base mult to 5 while equipped. Flat bonus, no level scaling.

Active: Wild Die - click a die to turn it wild. Wild dice count as any face for scoring, making straights and patterns far easier to land.

CROCELL - THE STONE ANGEL Where you see a ruined die, she sees a gift.

Passive: Hidden Treasures - +30 souls per die that has at least one modified face (blanks, xMult, addMult, bloodmarked, chained). Scales by modifying more dice, not by level.

Active: Turn to Stone - click a die to petrify it. Petrified dice roll once per hand then lock in place, but grant +30 souls every time you score. They sit there like golden statues, paying dividends while the rest of your pool sweats.

Petrified dice get a custom stone texture with golden pips showing the face value. Before rolling, they display a golden pentagram on stone. They're completely unclickable - no holding, no targeting, no interaction. A deep stone grinding SFX plays when the +30 souls proc fires. The petrification persists across trials.

"I was riding my classic Vespa through the local park recently when a pigeon flew directly into my helmet visor. For a brief, beautiful moment, I felt myself and the bird lift off the ground together. Then I woke up on the tarmac, visor smashed to pieces, with the bird laying stone dead beside me. I got up, looked at myself in the wing mirror, and said 'There's a demon in here somewhere.' There was. Her name is Crocell."
J.D. Vex

GAMEPLAY SYSTEMS

DAY / NIGHT CYCLE The ritual shifts between light and dark.

Nodes 1-7 are Diurnal (day). Nodes 8-16 are Nocturnal (night). Boss nodes are always night. The sun and moon icons on the trial bar show you which phase you're in.

Leraje's Nightfall ability can force any trial into darkness early, unlocking his night form and changing his passive from souls to mult.

The nightfall transition is a cinematic sequence - procedural green fog sweeps across the screen, the sun fades to a moon, and mist crawls up Leraje's portrait to reveal his night form underneath. The background fades to the night variant over 1.5 seconds.

MULT FACES

New additive mult face type. Stolas's Precious Stone ability embeds +10 mult faces onto your dice. When scored, mult faces add directly to the hand's base mult before demons contribute. A die with a mult face shows a green "+10" overlay. Separate from xMult faces - these are additive, not multiplicative.

UNUSABLE DICE

Banished dice now show a bold "X" instead of a blank face. A new Unusable face type has been added to the dice system - any state that renders a die unusable (banished, trapped in the void) sets its face to Unusable, making it immediately obvious which dice are out of play. Future mechanics that disable dice will use the same visual.

SCORING RESOLVE ANIMATION

After demon contributions finish, a new resolve animation plays. Souls and mult values spin down to zero using mechanical flip-board digit rollers. The final calculated score simultaneously ticks up, digit by digit, locking into place from right to left. A lightning crack and purple flash illuminate the screen when the final number lands. Each demon contribution now plays escalating sound effects - crystalline clicks for souls, ominous bell tolls for mult - with independent pitch escalation tracks.

HALPHAS - THE DROWNED ADMIRAL He loads cannons. And what he loads them with, he takes from you.

Passive: Every 2 upper section scores, generate a free die (was every 6).

Active: Load the Cannons - sacrifice 1 held die for a permanent roll (was "Gobble", cost 3 dice).

New portrait - a drowned ghost naval admiral with rotting flesh, a tricorn hat, and a ghost ship silhouette in the background.

"Every game needs a punching bag. A demon you can point at and say 'that one's not finished yet' while you work on the ones that matter. Halphas was that demon. But I realised that all my creations deserve true love. That's why I turned him into a ghost pirate with rotting flesh."
J.D. Vex

QUALITY OF LIFE

All demons now earn XP from scoring contributions and ability use, not just reworked demons. Non-reworked demons level up via XP but don't gain talent points
A shop now opens after every boss defeat before the next ritual begins
Keyboard shortcuts for dice holds: keys 1-6 toggle hold on matching faces, 0 toggles blanks

"One of Occulto's testers said he wanted to 'speed run' the game. I told him he'd never beat me in a foot race, but he said actually all he needed was the hold-all dice buttons to be bound to keyboard numbers. I think he was too scared to try and best me in a 100m dash."
J.D. Vex

Leaderboard now uses abbreviated numbers (K, M, B, T, Qa, Qi)
New covenant card: Dark Empowerment - permanently upgrade a scoring category's base mult
Unique book art for all reworked demons - each cover has a motif matching the demon's identity
Dice total indicator above the hold-all bar showing "Total: X (ODD/EVEN)" - live-updating as you hold and roll
Death screen SFX replaced with a distant wolf howl (the demon laugh was not surviving playtesting)
Feedback prompt now rotates: first run asks "would you buy this for $10?", subsequent runs ask "did you enjoy this run?"

BALANCE

Seere - Banish mult upgraded from x0.5 to x1.5. Between Worlds capstone now x3. Oblivion phantom strike now x3
Andras - Passive changed to flat +1 mult per bloodmark trigger (no level scaling). Vital Pulse talent values increased to +1/2/3/4/5 mult. Hemorrhage values increased to +10/20 mult
Berith - Passive changed to "every 30 sigils = +1 mult per level" (was 20 sigils, flat). Transmute value increased to 60 sigils per die
Leraje - Rank changed from Greater to Lesser. Murmur (#54) promoted from Lesser to Greater to fill the slot
Barbatos - Lucky Find proc chance increased from 2% to 5% per die. Now procs on all dice including blanks and mult faces
Halphas - Passive now triggers every 2 upper section scores (was 6). Active renamed to "Load the Cannons", dice cost reduced from 3 to 1
xMult convention - xMult is now a direct multiplier (x5 means x5, not x6). All displays and calculations updated
Crits - now multiply both souls AND base mult by the crit multiplier (was souls only)
Gaap & Orias - AP capped at 1 max (can't gain more via covenant cards)
DemonAPMax covenant cards now Epic/Legendary only (+1/+2). DemonActiveBoost cards removed entirely

BUG FIXES

Fixed Gaap's passive not working (DemonSlotManager filter wasn't checking xMult)
Fixed chain visuals not appearing during boss battles
Fixed DemonXP covenant cards being blocked for non-talent-tree demons
Fixed scorecard total dropping when Foras resets a category
Fixed pitched SFX not actually changing pitch
Fixed mult faces showing as blank due to parametric face value clamping
Fixed mult face overlay not appearing on unrolled dice
Fixed mult face text showing on dice before first roll
Fixed die tooltip not showing mult face values
Fixed resolve animation not firing when only mult faces contribute
Fixed Occulto lightning firing before coin flip resolves
Fixed Seere's banish targeting - dice are now clickable during banish selection. Petrified dice correctly remain untouchable
Fixed pre-roll abilities (Banish, Double or Nothing) sometimes failing to activate. Pre-roll abilities now only check timing and AP - no other qualifiers
Fixed petrified dice playing both the rock sound and the default soul sound when scoring - now only the rock sound plays
Fixed Barbatos Lucky Find description showing 2% instead of the actual 5% proc chance. Descriptions now pull directly from the behaviour's constants so they can never go out of sync

v11.3 - The Fortune Teller's Hand

April 6, 2026

I bought a Zoltar machine on eBay a few months ago. I've been booting it up every evening to try and get my wish granted. My flatmate tried to curtail me yesterday because apparently "shouting 'MAKE ME BIG!' at the top of your voice at 3AM is unacceptable"... according to him. I told him it was critical research. He told me he's moving out next month. I consider this an absolute win on both accounts.

This update brings four new demon reworks (Furcas, Haures, Vepar, Orias), a full parchment UI overhaul with wax seals, unique ability sounds and core colours for all reworked demons, passive notification animations, an in-game bug report system, a death screen feedback prompt, and mandatory email verification for alpha testers.

If you encounter any issues, please use the new in-game bug report button rather than emailing me directly. The last person who emailed me directly got a four-page response about the theological implications of hexahedral probability on demonic invocation theory. They did not email again.

NEW DEMON REWORKS

FURCAS - THE MENTOR He teaches. You learn. Your demons ascend.

Passive: 20% bonus XP for all reworked demons in your legion. Having Furcas equipped makes every other demon level up faster.

Active: Gift Level - sacrifice 1 permanent roll to instantly grant another demon a level-up. Can't go below 1 permanent roll. Click Furcas's ability, then click the demon you want to level up.

"I showed Furcas's portrait to my mother. She said he looked like my Year 9 geography teacher, Mr Hendricks. Frustratingly, now all I can see when I look at Furcas is Mr Hendricks in his tweed jacket. If you're reading this, Sir, please understand that your likeness was absolutely not intended."
J.D. Vex

HAURES - THE CRIT MACHINE Every crit feeds the next. The ember never dies.

Passive: Each time you crit, permanently gain +10 souls added to crit damage. Stacks infinitely - the more you crit, the stronger your crits become. A floating notification shows you each stack as it happens.

Active: Guaranteed Crit - gain 100% crit chance for the next hand. Time it for your biggest score.

"Haures rewards patience. Every crit makes the next crit hit harder. By the end of a run, a well-timed Guaranteed Crit on a strong hand can produce numbers that I would describe as 'medically inadvisable to look at directly.'"
J.D. Vex

VEPAR - THE CHAIN What sinks together, scores together.

Passive: Dead Anchor - +100 bonus souls on Four of a Kind.

Active: Chain - hold a die, then activate to chain it to a target die. Chained dice always roll the same face, hold together, and share all effects. Banish one, banish all. Wild one, wild all. Chains persist for the entire run.

Chain groups can grow - chaining a third die to an existing pair creates a triple. All dice in a group sync to the leader's face. Physics-simulated chain visuals connect chained dice with iron bolt attachment points. Removing the chain leader breaks the entire chain. Removing a follower just shrinks the group.

"The chain physics took me three days. Real verlet integration. Real gravity. Real bolt attachment points. The chains settle, they sway, they freeze in place. They are, I believe, the most technically sophisticated piece of rope simulation in any dice game ever made."
J.D. Vex

ORIAS - THE FORTUNE TELLER He does not guess at fate. He reads it.

Passive: Star-Cursed - each Chance hand scored permanently gains +5 Luck. Scales with level and covenant boosts. A floating notification shows you each gain as it happens.

Active: Read the Tarot - opens a mid-trial pack overlay where you choose Infernal or Covenant, then pick 1 of 3 upgrade cards. Effects apply immediately. The cards are rolled using your current Luck stat - and since Orias's passive keeps increasing your Luck, the cards get better the longer the run goes.

"I bought a used full-size Zoltar machine from eBay a few months back. I was hoping with all of my occult studies that I'd be able to recreate the Tom Hanks classic and channel my inner child for the making of Occulto. When discussing this with my therapist she told me that maybe I had 'stunted emotional growth'. I told her the only thing stunted was her psychological analysis. 1-0 to me Doctor Williams."
J.D. Vex

UI & QUALITY OF LIFE

PARCHMENT UI OVERHAUL

Demon tooltips and hover cards now use an aged parchment background with sepia ink text instead of the old dark panels
Demon viewer cards restyled to match - parchment background, sepia text, sell button moved below the card
Shop hover tooltips restyled with the same parchment look
Wax seal stamps on all demon cards and tooltips - red "VIEW TALENTS" seal for demons with implemented talent trees (clickable to open the tree), grey "COMING SOON" seal for all others
Shop wax seals are clickable - preview a demon's talent tree before purchasing

DEMON CORE COLOURS

Each reworked demon now has a unique core colour that tints their dust and wisp particle effects and passive stats text on tooltips. Non-reworked demons retain the default purple.

DEMON ABILITY SOUNDS

Every reworked demon now has a unique sound effect when their active ability is used. Each sound has been chosen to match the demon's identity and ability theme.

PASSIVE NOTIFICATIONS

Non-scoring demon passives now show floating text notifications on the demon's portrait when they trigger. Orias displays "+5 Luck" when you score Chance. Haures displays "+10 Crit Damage" when a crit fires. Passive stacks are now visible as they accumulate.

SYSTEMS

BUG REPORTS

New bug report button (beetle icon) in the bottom-right corner of the screen. Click to open a report form with category dropdown and description field. Reports are sent directly to the admin dashboard for tracking.

PLAYER FEEDBACK

The death screen now includes a feedback prompt: "Imagine this game is fully complete, would you pay $10 for Occulto?" with a yes/no option and a free-text field. Feedback must be submitted before starting a new run. All responses are visible in the admin dashboard.

ALPHA EMAIL VERIFICATION

Players are now asked to enter the email they used to sign up for the alpha. This is a one-time verification - once confirmed, you won't be asked again. Existing players will be prompted on their next launch.

BUG FIXES

Fixed music pausing when the game window loses focus
Fixed cursor warning spam when overlays are open
Fixed Chance and N-of-a-Kind scoring being incorrectly reduced by mult dice
Fixed tooltip stats showing "base 20x" on demons that don't scale those values
Fixed phantom roll sounds playing when demon abilities refreshed dice visuals
Fixed crash on first roll from uninitialised die mark overlays

v11.0 - The Awakening

April 2, 2026

I've been told, on more than one occasion, that a single developer cannot build a talent tree system, a visual effects engine, a boss AI overhaul, and completely re-illustrate eight demons in the space of a few weeks.

To those people I say: you clearly haven't met me.

This update represents what I consider to be the most significant leap forward in Occulto's development. Not because of the volume of changes - though there are, I should note, rather a lot of them - but because this is the update where the demons became real. They have faces now. Unsettling ones. They have talent trees. They have visual effects when they cast their abilities. They have, dare I say it, personality.

I spent three days staring at portraits of Andras until his raven skull started appearing in my peripheral vision during breakfast. I consider this a sign that the art direction is working.

Several testers have reported that the new demon portraits make them "mildly uncomfortable." One described Shax as "the thing I see when I have sleep paralysis, except somehow worse." I have framed this feedback. It hangs above my desk.

There are now 150 of you testing this game. I did not expect that. I'm not sure any of you expected Occulto, either. We are all, in our own way, unprepared for what comes next.

Enjoy the update. Or don't. The demons don't care either way. They're watching regardless.

GAMEPLAY MECHANICS

TALENT TREES Your demons evolve. Choose their path.

Every reworked demon now has a full talent tree - three specialisation branches, up to 24 unlockable nodes, and a capstone ability at the end of each branch that fundamentally changes how the demon plays. This is the single biggest system addition to Occulto since launch.

As your demon earns XP during a run, it levels up and earns talent points. You spend these points to unlock nodes in the tree - passive bonuses, ability upgrades, scoring modifiers, economy perks, and more. Every node has its own hand-crafted pixel art icon. Every branch tells a different story about who your demon could become.

The system is designed around meaningful choices. You won't have enough points to fill every branch. You pick a direction, you commit, and your demon becomes something unique to your run. Two players running Andras can end up with completely different builds - one might be a blood-soaked scoring machine, the other a war-economy engine that funds your shop addiction.

Left-click a node to preview the allocation. Your points are shown at the top - spend them wisely, because every point you put into one branch is a point you're not putting into another. Lock in your choices when you're ready. There's no respec. Solomon doesn't get second chances, and neither do you.

CURRENTLY LIVE

MORAX

Forge - dice transformation and value manipulation
Arsenal - stockpiling power for explosive scoring
Chaos - volatile randomness with high ceilings
21 nodes - 3 capstones

View talent tree →

SEERE

Exile - banishment and void manipulation
Spirit - soul channelling and spectral bonds
Sacrifice - trading life for power
20 nodes - 3 capstones

View talent tree →

ANDRAS

Blood - bloodmark synergies and dice protection
War - aggressive scoring and combat economy
Ritual - sacrifice mechanics and sigil generation
20 nodes - 3 capstones

View talent tree →

Berith, Halphas, Shax, Haagenti, and Dantalion talent trees are in development.

TALENT PLANNER

Want to theorycraft builds before your next run? The Talent Planner is a web tool that lets you explore every demon's full talent tree, allocate points, read node descriptions, and plan your build in advance. It mirrors the in-game system exactly - same nodes, same costs, same branch structures. Click any demon to open their tree, allocate points, and see what each capstone does.

Open Talent Planner →

"Each talent tree took roughly forty hours to design, balance, and implement. I did three of them. In a row. I no longer dream in colours. I dream in node connections and tier requirements."
J.D. Vex

DEMON XP Your demons grow. You merely hold the leash.

Reworked demons now have their own XP and levelling system. Demons earn XP naturally as you play through trials. Each time a demon levels up, it earns 1 talent point to spend in its talent tree - unlocking new nodes, powering up branches, and working toward capstones. A vertical XP bar sits beside each demon's portrait, and a level indicator glows above it.

Want to accelerate a specific demon's growth? Infernal Packs now contain XP cards that you can feed directly to a demon of your choice. If your Andras is one level away from a capstone and you spot an XP card in the shop, you can rush it. It turns the shop into a genuine strategic decision - do you buy power now, or save your sigils for the next offering?

The old player-level XP system has been removed entirely. Your demons own their own progression now.

"I removed the player levelling system because, frankly, the demons are more interesting than you are. I don't mean that unkindly. I just mean it factually."
J.D. Vex

BOSS BATTLE IMPROVEMENTS

Head-to-head showdown now clearly announces "SCORE TO BEAT" with the boss's target score displayed prominently, instead of quietly filling the scorecard
Fixed a bug where the boss would never actually score during showdowns, causing the fight to continue forever. The angel was, apparently, too polite to win
Boss AI is smarter - evaluates realistic scoring potential for its current dice rather than always chasing the highest theoretical score. Will strategically take a zero to preserve a strong category
Dantalion's replay passive now correctly triggers during boss battles

"The boss AI used to play like a first-year university student - always going for the flashiest option regardless of whether it made any sense. I've taught it restraint. Humility. The willingness to take a zero in Ones so it can devastate you with a Full House later. It's still an angel. It just plays like one who's been through some things."
J.D. Vex

DEMON CHANGES

ANDRAS - BLOOD RITUAL REWORK

Andras's passive trigger chance reduced from 1 in 3 to 1 in 5. Before you riot: the new talent tree's Crimson Eclipse capstone restores it to 1 in 3. You just have to earn it now.

Full 20-node talent tree across Blood, War, and Ritual branches. Blood Oath prevents bloodmarked dice from rolling below 3. Sacrificial Lamb discounts shop prices. Blood Money capstone gives each held bloodmarked die a chance to generate sigils.

"Andras was, previously, what I would describe as 'a guaranteed win condition with no counterplay.' Some developers would call that a balance issue. I call it a learning experience. For the players, obviously. Not for me. I knew exactly what I was doing."
J.D. Vex

MORAX - RETUNED

Morax's base numbers have been rebalanced around his new talent tree. Passive souls per extra die reduced from 50 → 10. Chaos Dice multiplier per die reduced from x0.5 → x0.1. The base kit is weaker on its own now, but the Forge, Arsenal, and Chaos talent branches scale these values back up and beyond. You just have to invest to get there.

SEERE - RETUNED

Seere's base numbers have been rebalanced around his new talent tree. Passive souls per banished die reduced from 50 → 10. Seere Banish multiplier reduced from x2 → x0.5. Banished dice now stay "unstable in the void" for the rest of the trial. Like Morax, the raw power has shifted into the talent tree - the Exile, Spirit, and Sacrifice branches reward commitment.

ABILITY VFX Every demon casts differently. Every ability feels alive.

Demon abilities are no longer silent state changes. Each reworked demon now has a unique visual effect sequence when you activate their ability. Seere's banish brings a beam of purple void light descending onto the die. Andras's blood ritual drips crimson particles onto the target. Morax's chaos dice sends fire rippling across every die with a screen shake.

Seere - Void beam descends from above. Die turns purple.
Andras - Blood drips onto the die. Red color wash.
Morax - Fire rises from all dice. Screen shakes.
Dantalion - Sonar rings pulse outward. All dice flash cyan.
Berith - Die turns gold and dissolves into rising particles.
Halphas - Energy arcs from dice back to portrait. Reload click.
Shax - Dark veil sweeps across the dice area.
Haagenti - Acid drip dissolves the die. Gold graft follows.

"I was told visual effects were 'outside the scope of a solo developer.' I found that deeply motivating. I've always done my best work out of spite."
J.D. Vex

NEW DEMON PORTRAITS

All eight reworked demons have new portrait art. The old portraits were too polished, too clean, too... comfortable. The new ones are eerie. Unsettling. Close-up faces in near-darkness, features that are almost human but deeply wrong. These aren't demons you'd put on a heavy metal album cover. These are demons you'd see in a sleep paralysis episode.

Andras

Morax

Seere

Berith

Halphas

Shax

Haagenti

Dantalion

"I wanted the game to feel like something that watches you back. The old portraits were too friendly. Too approachable. Nobody should feel 'at ease' playing Occulto. That's not the experience I'm curating."
J.D. Vex

UI CHANGES

New gothic stone Roll button replacing the old fiery pentagram shield. Carved gravestone aesthetic with "ROLL" etched into weathered stone
New matching Score and Banish buttons with pressed states. All three occupy the exact same position and swap seamlessly
Score button now shows a pressed animation and stays greyed out until the next round, instead of instantly vanishing
Gargoyle bookends on the dice capacity bar
Decorative potion shelf cap on the XP bar
Empty demon slots now show a dark empty room instead of plain black. No effects, no wisps - just emptiness
Non-reworked demons show a shadowy silhouette background with their name in the game's pixel serif font
Talent tree tooltips on the rightmost branch now appear to the left, so they don't get cut off by the screen edge
Demon hover cards align intelligently based on slot position - top aligns to top, middle centres, bottom aligns to bottom
Demons without implemented talents show "TALENTS - Coming Soon" instead of a broken button
In-game leaderboard rebuilt with podium cards for top 3, medal icons, and a cleaner table for remaining ranks
Menu buttons now correctly appear during boss battles and in the shop
Continuing a saved run now skips the theme song and goes straight to gameplay music

BUG FIXES

Fixed a crash when rolling dice with an empty face pool
Fixed score button not reactivating after a trial ends
Removed a server-only API call that logged a warning every session
Fixed portrait rendering order - demon effects and AP wheel now correctly appear on top of the portrait, not behind it
Fixed boss showdown bug where the boss would never score, causing infinite fights
Fixed Dantalion's replay passive not triggering during boss battles

"I don't like the word 'bug.' I prefer 'unintended feature that I have graciously corrected.' The dice crash, for instance, was technically the dice expressing free will. I've put a stop to that."
J.D. Vex

v10.2 - The Reorder Update

March 8, 2026

Solomon's workshop has been cleaned up. The shop gets a visual overhaul, the scoring system gets smarter, demons come alive during boss fights, and the whole game gets a fresh coat of pixel art.

SCORING REWORK Demon order matters. Every slot counts.

The scoring system has been rebuilt from the ground up. Previously, all demon bonuses were collected independently and combined at once - slot order didn't matter. Now, each demon transforms a running score sequentially, in the order they appear in your demon bar. This means placement strategy is just as important as which demons you equip.

HOW SEQUENTIAL SCORING WORKS

Each demon applies its bonus to whatever the score is at that point, not to the original base. Flat bonuses add to the running total. Multipliers multiply the running total.

EXAMPLE: FLAT DEMON FIRST, THEN MULTIPLIER

Base: 100 ➔ Slot 1: +50 flat = 150 ➔ Slot 2: x2 mult = 300

SAME DEMONS, REVERSED ORDER

Base: 100 ➔ Slot 1: x2 mult = 200 ➔ Slot 2: +50 flat = 250

Same demons. Different order. 50 more souls.

DEMON REORDERING

Since order matters, you need a way to control it. Grab any demon frame and drag it to swap positions. Available any time during a run when you have 2+ demons equipped.

The general rule of thumb: flat bonus demons first, multiplier demons last. Flat bonuses increase the number that gets multiplied. But there are exceptions - experiment with your build to find the optimal arrangement.

FULL SCORING PIPELINE

Dice Roll ➔ Level Mult ➔ Occulto ➔ Crit ➔ Mult Dice ➔ Demon Pipeline ➔ Upper Bonus

Each step feeds into the next. Mult dice multiply the base before demons see it. Demons transform the score sequentially. Upper bonus applies last, multiplying the entire final result.

Level bonus reworked from a flat +5 per level to a scaling multiplier: each level adds +20% to your base score (level 2 = 1.2x, level 3 = 1.4x, etc.). First level gives no bonus.
Mult dice repositioned - they now only multiply the base score (after level bonus, occulto, and crit) instead of the entire final score. Strong early, but they don't overshadow demon passives.
Upper bonus reduced from x2 to x1.5 and moved to the end of the pipeline. It now multiplies your entire final score for that hand, including all demon contributions. Demon bonuses to upper categories count toward triggering the threshold.
New scoring animation - a running total appears below the portal. Crits update live. Each mult die lights up sequentially with a "xN" popup and sound, showing the multiplier accumulating in real-time before the demon pipeline kicks in.

BOSS FIGHT UPGRADES Your demons now fight alongside you

DEMONS WAKE UP

Previously, demons were passive spectators during boss fights. Now all demon hooks fire during boss battles - OnTrialStart, OnRoundStart, OnRoll. Your full build is active.

Active abilities like Overcharge, Banish, and Freeze-and-Shatter all work in boss mode. Boss battles route player turns through the same TrialPipeline that powers normal trials, so everything that works in a trial works against a boss.

BOSS AUTO-SAVE

Boss fights now auto-save at every stage - before the fight, and after each completed round. Quit mid-fight and you resume exactly where you left off: same HP, same scorecard, same round. No more save-scumming back to the shop for a free retry.

SHOP & ECONOMY A complete rework of how you browse, buy, and build

GRIMOIRE BROWSING

All demons in the shop now display as hoverable grimoire books instead of flat text cards. Reworked demons show their custom book art, while others show the classic summoning book with their name in a pixel serif font. Hover any book to see the full tooltip with passive, active, AP, and lore details.

PRICE REBALANCE

Lesser 5 10 sigils

Greater 10 20 sigils

King 15 30 sigils

SIGIL REROLLS

Demon rerolls now cost sigils instead of stored charges. Base cost is 5 sigils, increasing by 5 each reroll per shop visit. Resets when you enter a new shop.

Selling removes from pool - selling a demon now removes it from the shop pool for the rest of the run. No more selling and seeing it offered back.
Sigil Harvest reworked - now grants extra sigils per level (+1/+2/+3/+4/+5 by rarity), compounding over time. A Legendary Sigil Harvest at level 3 (14/trial) immediately jumps to 19/trial.
Gothic upgrade cards - pack openings overhauled with double borders, rarity-scaled inner glow, ember particles on Legendary, purple smoke on Epic. Click the whole card to choose - no more separate button.
Shady Dealer locked - temporarily sealed with a "Coming Soon" banner. The graphic and hover effects are still there.

Demons

All demon descriptions rewritten for clarity. Multipliers now show as "Gain 1x mult" instead of "+100% score".
Talent trees temporarily disabled. Demon talent choices (the level 3 and level 5 branching upgrades) have been removed for now while we redesign the system. They'll return in a future patch with a fresh approach. Leveling still works normally - you just won't see talent choices at those thresholds.

BERITH 28th Spirit of the Goetia - Greater Demon

The great duke who rides a red horse and wears a crown of gold. He can turn all metals into gold, and give dignities to men.

PASSIVE - GOLDEN TREASURY

For every 20 sigils you're holding, Berith grants +1x multiplier to your score. The more gold you hoard, the harder you hit.

This creates a tension between spending sigils in the shop and banking them for raw scoring power. At 60 sigils you're getting +3x mult. At 100 you're getting +5x. Berith rewards restraint - every purchase is a tradeoff against your multiplier.

ACTIVE - TRANSMUTE

Sacrifice a die to gain 50 sigils. The alchemist who turns metal into gold.

Transmute feeds directly into the passive - sacrifice a die you don't need, gain 50 sigils, and immediately boost your multiplier by +2x. It's a self-contained economy engine. Pair with demons that add bonus dice and you've got an endless gold supply.

HALPHAS - REWORKED

Halphas no longer requires 3 upper section scores in a single trial to trigger. Instead, once you've scored 6 total upper section categories across your entire run, Halphas grants you an extra die. This can be retriggered as many times as you want - every 6 upper scores earns another die.

The old version was nearly impossible to trigger consistently. The new Halphas rewards a long-term upper section strategy and pairs naturally with the upper bonus threshold - the same scores that push you toward the x1.5 upper bonus also fuel Halphas's die generation.

ANDRAS - NERFED

Bloodmark multiplier gain is now a 1 in 3 chance per held bloodmarked die, instead of guaranteed every roll. Andras was snowballing too fast in the mid-game - a few bloodmarked dice held over consecutive rolls would generate absurd multipliers with zero counterplay.

The RNG element adds risk to the bloodmark strategy. You still want to hold bloodmarked dice, but you can't count on every roll being a guaranteed mult ramp. High rolls feel exciting, dry streaks force you to adapt. Andras is still strong - just less of a guaranteed win condition.

UI & QUALITY OF LIFE Smarter tooltips, cleaner overlays, better information

GLOSSARY TOOLTIP SYSTEM

Game terms like Exploded, Wild, Blank, Bonus, and Extra now appear highlighted and underlined in cyan wherever they show up in demon descriptions. Hover over any highlighted term to see its definition.

Glossary tooltips work inside demon hover cards, the demon viewer, and shop book tooltips. Tooltips now stay open when you move your mouse into them, so you can hover over glossary terms inside a tooltip - they no longer vanish when you leave the demon slot.

FULL-SCREEN OVERLAYS

All overlays (pack opening, demon picker, talent picker) are now full-screen takeovers with opaque backgrounds instead of translucent overlays. Cleaner, more polished, more intentional.

INVENTORY REDESIGN

3 square icon slots in the bottom-left below your demon frames. Empty slots are visible so you always know your capacity. Each item shows its pixel art icon, with a tooltip on hover and right-click to discard.

Consistent notation - portal contribution text, demon stat breakdowns, and post-score descriptions all now use "Xx mult" notation instead of "+X% bonus".
Accurate run stats - "Sigils per Trial" now shows the actual computed amount including level bonuses and Sigil Harvest upgrades.
Streamlined level-up - removed demon rerolls from the level-up trait choice. Level-up now offers Infernal Reroll and Covenant Reroll only.
Shady Dealer items - shown as clean pixel art icons on the dealer's hands. Hover for a tooltip card with name and description.

Visual Overhaul

New main menu background - Solomon stands in a glowing summoning circle in a dark forest, with the Occulto title built into the art.
Main menu redesigned - buttons are now a left-aligned list in a pixel serif font on a dark panel, letting the background art breathe.
Replaced the Summoner's Shop header with a new pixel art banner featuring the shop sign, candelabras, skull, and chains.
Infernal Pack and Covenant Pack titles replaced with custom pixel art text graphics.
"Summon Demons" pixel art header added above the demon book offerings in the shop.
New pixel art icons for the settings cog, Discord button, demon viewer, and run stats buttons.
All bottom-right icons are now consistently sized and aligned.

Bug Fixes

Fixed save/resume: scoring tally, sigils display, and souls display now initialize correctly on resume. Shop reopens properly if saved mid-shop.
Fixed choosing the Shady Dealer at a choice node leaving the game stuck after buying/skipping.
Fixed boss battle victory leaving the game stuck in "BossBattle" state when entering endless mode.
Fixed dice showing held states and stale values from the boss fight when entering the shop after a boss victory.
Fixed the boss battle UI overlaying the shop after a boss victory.
Fixed mult dice and modified dice faces being wiped after boss fights.
Player hearts in boss battles moved to the bottom-left of the screen.

v10 - The First Ritual

March 3, 2026

The seal is broken. Solomon's first ritual takes shape - a structured journey through trials, shops, and choices, ending in a head-to-head battle against an angel sent to punish his hubris. Survive the ritual, and the endless grind begins.

BOSS BATTLES The angels descend to punish Solomon's hubris

The final node of each ritual is a head-to-head dice duel against an angel boss. You share a single 13-category scorecard - the boss rolls and picks a category, then you do the same. Whoever scores higher wins the round and deals 1 damage. First to 4 wins takes the fight.

Your full demon build applies - passives, crits, level bonuses, mult dice, everything. The whole point of the ritual is building toward this fight, and your build needs to carry you through it.

If both sides are tied going into the last category, a Showdown triggers - you both score the same slot for double damage.

Win, and you earn full rewards - your total score from the fight is added to your souls, and you earn sigils just like a normal trial. All effects the boss inflicted on you are restored after the fight. Lose, and your run ends.

BOSS PERSONALITIES

Every boss has a personality that shapes how they fight. The game benchmarks what your build could score on every category with perfect dice, then distributes a percentage of that power across the boss's categories based on weighted preferences. A boss that favours upper section hands will pour most of its budget into Ones through Sixes and score less on big combos like Occulto - so your strategy changes depending on who you're fighting.

Each boss also has a passive ability and a signature ability that activate during the fight, creating unique pressure you need to play around.

SARIEL - ANGEL OF GUIDANCE

Passive: Sariel gains a flat scoring bonus on upper section categories, scaling with the strength of your equipped demons. The stronger your build, the harder she pushes back.

Signature: Every 2 upper section categories Sariel fills, she permanently steals one of your rerolls for herself. She targets bonus rolls first - but once those are gone, she takes from your base. Race to fill upper categories yourself to block her opportunities.

Personality: Upper section specialist. She dumps 60% of her scoring budget into Ones through Sixes (heaviest on Sixes), leaving big hands like Occulto and Large Straight as her weakest categories. Build for combos and you'll outscore her where it matters.

Sariel is just the beginning. New angel bosses with unique personalities, abilities, and scoring styles are coming - along with new rituals to keep every run fresh and challenging.

Ritual Progression

Runs are now structured as a 17-node ritual - 9 trials with scaling difficulty, shops and choice nodes between them, and a boss fight at the end
A progression bar appears on the Trial Completed screen showing your journey through the ritual. Completed nodes glow gold, the next node pulses so you always know what's coming
The ritual is split into Diurnal and Nocturnal halves with distinct visual tinting on the progression bar
Trial targets now scale naturally using a growth rate formula, and the boss hits 1.5x harder than the final trial

Choice Nodes

Choice nodes now present a full-screen "Choose Your Path" overlay with two cards side by side
On the left: Summoner's Shop - hover to see the shop doors open with a purple smoke effect, click to browse demons and packs as usual
On the right: Demon Trader - a full persistent item system is coming soon, but for now you'll have to wait and see what items will be in stock
The Trial Completed button text updates to reflect whether the next stop is a shop, a choice, or the boss

Endless Mode

Beating the boss no longer ends your run - an "ENTER ENDLESS MODE" button appears after the victory splash
Endless mode loops you back through trials and shops with continuously scaling difficulty - trial targets keep rising based on your running trial count
The progression bar drops the boss node in endless (16 nodes instead of 17) and choice nodes are replaced with shops
Your full state is saved and restored in endless, so you can quit and resume mid-loop

v9.5 - Settings & Save System

March 2, 2026

Control returns to the summoner. A proper settings menu replaces the old corner buttons, and your runs now save automatically so you never lose progress to a stray alt-F4.

Settings & UI

Added a proper Settings menu with music/SFX volume sliders and fullscreen/windowed toggle
Removed the old corner buttons (M, S, F/W) - all settings are now in the new overlay
Volume sliders replace the mute toggles - fine-tune music and sound effects independently
Your audio and display preferences persist across sessions
Custom icons for the settings and Discord buttons in the bottom-right corner
Hover tooltips on all bottom bar icons (Demons, Stats, Settings, Discord)
Settings menu restyled to match the Run Stats overlay
"Force Death" button added to settings during runs for when you want to end a run early

Save & Resume

Your run is now automatically saved at the start of each round and when entering/exiting the shop
If you quit mid-run, a "Continue Run" button appears on the main menu to pick up where you left off
"Save & Exit" button in settings saves your progress and returns to main menu with confirmation
Starting a new run while a save exists shows a warning to prevent accidental progress loss
Completing or losing a run automatically clears the save file

Balance

Gaap now starts with 1 AP instead of 2 - his Restore All AP is powerful enough to warrant a slower start
Reworked upper section bonus - now 2x the triggering hand score (was a visual-only 2x on total that never actually granted souls)
Upper bonus threshold lowered to 50% of the trial target (was 65%) - easier to reach but the reward is more focused
Purson's Harvest talent now gives x4 hand multiplier on the upper bonus (was x3)

Bug Fixes

Fixed dice, scoreboard, XP bar, demon viewer, and run stats all properly restoring when loading a saved run
Fixed resuming mid-roll now correctly shows your rolled dice with held states and remaining rolls
Fixed upper section bonus actually granting bonus souls when triggered (previously was display-only)

v9.4 - The Chaos Update

March 2, 2026

Order crumbles. Two more demons have been fully reworked, the scoring system has been overhauled, and new sounds echo through the halls.

Two new demon reworks, a completely reworked upper section bonus, new sound effects throughout, and a wave of bug fixes and quality-of-life improvements.

HALPHAS 38th Spirit of the Goetia - Lesser Demon

An earl who builds towers and stocks them with ammunition.

PASSIVE - ARSENAL

Every 3 upper section scores, Halphas generates a free die and adds it to your pool permanently.

Focus on filling upper categories to steadily grow your dice pool. More dice means more scoring options and synergies with dice-count demons like Morax.

ACTIVE - RELOAD

Hold exactly 3 dice, then activate to consume them for a permanent extra roll. Starts with 1 AP.

Trade dice for rerolls. Sacrifice a bad hand to get another chance at a better one. Pairs well with dice-generating abilities to keep your pool healthy.

Covenant upgrades temporarily locked. Halphas's kit is powerful enough at base level that level ups, passive boosts, and active boosts are disabled. AP Restore and AP Max still work.

MORAX 21st Spirit of the Goetia - Greater Demon

A president and earl who appears as a bull with a man's face.

PASSIVE - HORDE STRENGTH

50 bonus souls per die beyond your starting 5 every time you score. The bigger your dice pool, the bigger every score becomes.

Pair with dice-generating demons and upgrades to snowball your pool size into massive soul payoffs every single hand.

ACTIVE - CHAOS DICE

Force an immediate final roll of ALL dice (including held ones), lock out holds and rerolls, then score with a x0.5 per die multiplier.

With 8 dice that's a x4 multiplier on whatever hand you land on. High risk, high reward - you can't control the outcome, but the payoff scales with your pool size.

Covenant upgrades temporarily locked. Morax's kit is powerful enough at base level that level ups, passive boosts, and active boosts are disabled. AP Restore and AP Max still work.

Upper Section Bonus Rework

The old flat +35 bonus for reaching 63 in the upper section has been completely reworked
Reaching the threshold now doubles your entire scorecard total (x2)
The threshold is always 65% of the trial's target score, so it scales naturally as trials get harder
When achieved, the entire upper section flashes green with "x2 ACHIEVED!" for 2 seconds
Purson's talents updated to match - Insight reduces threshold to 55%, Harvest upgrades the multiplier to x3

Sound & Polish

New SFX: replaced dice roll and score lock sounds with custom audio
New SFX: custom shop open sound, looping shop ambience while the shop is open
New SFX: distinct purchase sounds for demons, infernal packs, and covenant packs
New SFX: card-select sound when picking from any pack
New SFX: level-up sound effect
Split the scoring sound into two distinct sounds - lock-in confirmation when pressing Score, and a dedicated score-update sound when the score resolves on the scorecard
New SFX: trial victory sound plays when you beat a trial's target, replacing the normal score sound on the final scoring turn
Game window title and executable now show "Occulto" with a custom app icon

Gameplay Changes

Gaap's Restore All AP now restores all other demons' AP but not Gaap's own, preventing infinite ability loops
You can no longer roll when all your dice are held - the roll button disables until at least one die is unheld
Exploding Dice can now only lock onto a standard face (1-6). Mult faces and blank faces can no longer be chosen
Changed mult dice color from gold to bright platinum/white-gold so it's clearly distinct from the orange held dice tint
Dice-generating actives (Exploding Dice, Split Die, Extra Die, Temporary Die) can no longer receive Active Boost from covenant packs
Scoring a 0 (whiff) is now completely inert - no demon bonuses, multipliers, crits, mult dice, or OnScore triggers fire
Sigil Windfall cards now scale by rarity: Common = x1, Uncommon = x2, Rare = x3, Epic = x4, Legendary = x5
"Summoning Portal" button renamed to "Visit Summoner's Shop"

UI Improvements

Dice grid now uses a 10-column layout with tighter spacing, scaling much better as your pool grows
Roll, Score, and Rolls Remaining controls are now fixed in position - they no longer shift around as you gain more dice
Run stats dice pool now shows mult faces alongside standard faces. Grid expands dynamically to fit
Run stats now shows bloodmarked dice count below the dice pool
Added a "Hold all" quick-action bar above the dice grid - face buttons appear for every face type present after rolling. Click one to hold/unhold all dice of that face at once. Bloodmark button appears when you have bloodmarked dice
The shop now properly falls back through demon ranks when a tier is exhausted, showing "SOLD OUT" when every demon has been purchased

Bug Fixes

Fixed a bug where extremely high scores could overflow and go negative. All scoring now uses 64-bit integers
Fixed upper/lower section demon passives and OnScore effects firing on ALL categories instead of only their intended section
Fixed whiffing (scoring 0) still getting the level bonus added at level 2+
Fixed Bathin's passive not tracking actual trials beaten when bought mid-run
Fixed sigil count in the shop not updating immediately from infernal pack upgrades
Fixed the shop offering the same demon twice when only one demon remained in a rank pool
Fixed Morax's Chaos Dice not draining rolls or forcing you to score

Seere Balance Changes

Banish now costs 1 AP per die instead of 1 AP for the entire batch. Starts with 4 AP (down from 8)
Banish can now only be used before the first roll of each trial - forces upfront commitment
AP wheel pulses green before the first roll, turns red once you roll to show the window is closed
Can no longer banish all dice - at least one rollable die must always remain
Tooltip now shows "Bonus Souls: [n]" matching Andras's clean style

v9.0 - The Blood Pact Update

February 28, 2026

The pact is sealed in blood. Your dice remember every mark, every sacrifice. The shop has been rebuilt from the ground up - darker, sharper, dripping with intent. Three more demons have awakened.

Three new demon reworks, a brand new dice marking system, a completely overhauled shop, and 9 new music tracks. Shax, Seere, and Andras join the reworked roster with unique kits that change how you build your runs. The Bloodmarked system introduces persistent dice tags that last the entire run, and the shop has been redesigned from header to packs with new artwork, effects, and layout.

SHAX 44th Spirit of the Goetia - Lesser Demon

A marquis who appears as a stork and steals sight and hearing.

PASSIVE - VOID HARVEST

Every time you score, Shax counts the blank faces in your dice pool and grants 50 bonus souls per blank face. Blank faces come from exploded dice and Shax's own active ability.

The more blank faces you accumulate, the bigger every single score becomes. Build around void dice for massive payoffs.

ACTIVE - UNSEEN VEIL

Free reroll of all unheld dice. Any that land on a 1 or 2 are permanently converted to blank faces for the rest of the run.

Use it to both reroll for better hands and feed your passive. The more blanks you create, the higher your soul bonus climbs on every future score.

Covenant upgrades temporarily locked. Shax's kit is powerful enough at base level that level ups, passive boosts, and active boosts are disabled. AP Restore and AP Max still work.

SEERE 70th Spirit of the Goetia - Lesser Demon

A prince who appears as a man on a winged horse.

PASSIVE - VOID ECHO

Every die you banish permanently adds +50 bonus souls to every hand for the rest of the run. The bonus is flat and stacks with each banished die.

Sacrifice early, score big later. Each banished die makes every remaining score more valuable for the entire run.

ACTIVE - BANISH

Send dice into the void before rolling. Banished dice become x2 mult faces for one scoring hand, then stay trapped - can't roll, can't score - for the rest of the trial before releasing at the start of the next.

Select multiple dice to banish, click them again to undo, then confirm with the purple BANISH button (or press Escape to cancel). Risk vs. reward - fewer dice now, huge multiplier payoff, permanent passive stacking.

Covenant upgrades temporarily locked. Seere's kit is powerful enough at base level that level ups, passive boosts, and active boosts are disabled. AP Restore and AP Max still work.

ANDRAS 63rd Spirit of the Goetia - Lesser Demon

A marquis who appears as an angel with a raven head riding a black wolf.

PASSIVE - BLOOD FRENZY

Gain a permanent +10% multiplier each time a bloodmarked die is held through a roll. Stacks infinitely and persists the entire run.

The more bloodmarked dice you hold, the faster this snowballs. Mark early, hold often, and watch your multiplier climb through the roof.

ACTIVE - BLOOD RITUAL

Mark a die with blood, tagging it with a blood splatter overlay for the rest of the run. Bloodmarked dice are permanent - once marked, they stay marked.

Each bloodmarked die is a multiplier engine. Hold it through rolls to trigger Blood Frenzy and stack your bonus higher and higher. The more dice you mark, the more opportunities per roll to grow your power.

Covenant upgrades temporarily locked. Andras's kit is powerful enough at base level that level ups, passive boosts, and active boosts are disabled. AP Restore and AP Max still work.

Other Demon Changes

Alloces, Marchosias, and Balam no longer have Banish Die. They now have Bonus Rolls instead - gain free bonus rerolls when activated (1 for Lesser, 2 for Greater, 3 for King). Scales with active boost upgrades

Bloodmarked Dice

New system: Bloodmarked - a persistent tag that marks dice with a blood splatter overlay for the rest of the run. Future demons and mechanics can interact with bloodmarked dice in different ways
Andras synergy - holding a bloodmarked die through a roll permanently boosts your scoring multiplier. The more bloodmarked dice you hold, the faster it snowballs

Shop Overhaul

New layout - the shop is now split into two sections: demon offerings on the left, upgrade packs on the right, with a subtle vertical divider between them
Gothic header - dark "Summoner's Shop" header with blood-red gradient bars, decorative arch symbols, and animated blood drips that slowly fade in and out
Infernal Pack - the chest image is bigger with a molten red-hot gradient title. Hovering the chest now triggers a fiery red/orange smoke glow effect
Covenant Pack - replaced the placeholder gem with hand-drawn scroll artwork. Hovering the scroll swaps it open and triggers a purple smoke glow effect, matching the Infernal Pack's treatment
Covenant Pack always visible - appears greyed out and unclickable until you summon a demon, so you always know it's there
Repeat purchases - both Infernal and Covenant packs can now be purchased multiple times per shop visit (prices still escalate)
Smarter hover - hover effects now only apply to the artwork (chest, scroll, book). Titles and costs no longer lift or respond to hover
Disabled packs don't react - greyed-out packs no longer show hover effects, sprite swaps, or smoke when you mouse over them

Shop Demon Pool

Rotation queues - each rarity now has a shuffled rotation queue. You'll cycle through all available demons of a rarity before seeing any repeats
Reroll rarity - rerolling re-rolls the rarity per slot (using luck) but pulls the next unseen demon from that rarity's queue
Purchased demons removed - purchased demons are permanently removed from the shop pool for the rest of the run, even if you sell them later

Audio

9 new music tracks - the shuffled playlist now has 12 tracks total plus the theme, all original compositions

Bug Fixes

Devour Dice fix - cancelling during step 2 (choosing mult target) now correctly restores the devoured die instead of permanently losing it

v8.9 - The Transmutation Update

February 27, 2026

He appears as a mighty bull with griffin wings. He makes all things golden. He turns water to wine, blood to oil, and your dice into something far more dangerous.

The second demon rework is here. Haagenti joins Dantalion as a fully designed demon with unique mechanics, custom art, and a kit that changes how you play. This patch also introduces Mult Dice - a new face type that multiplies your entire score - along with a complete overhaul of the ability system from cooldowns to AP, a new theme tune, and reworked demon presentation in the shop and party frames.

HAAGENTI 48th Spirit of the Goetia - Lesser Demon

A president who appears as a bull with griffin wings. He makes men wise, transmutes metals into gold, and turns water into wine.

PASSIVE - SIGIL HARVEST

Every time you score, Haagenti harvests your sigils. You gain bonus souls equal to your current sigil count. The more sigils you've banked throughout the run, the bigger every single score becomes.

This rewards sigil-generating builds and synergizes with the Sigil Gain infernal upgrade. Stack sigils early and Haagenti turns every score into a windfall.

ACTIVE - DEVOUR DICE

Haagenti's active is Occulto's first two-step targeting ability. Step one: choose a die to permanently devour - it's removed from your pool for the rest of the run. Step two: choose another die to receive a x2 mult face, replacing one of its normal faces.

The result: fewer dice, but when that mult face lands, your entire final score doubles. Multiple mult faces stack multiplicatively. Use it aggressively to trade dice pool size for raw scoring power.

Covenant upgrades temporarily locked. Like Dantalion, Haagenti's kit is powerful enough at base level that level ups, passive boosts, and active boosts are disabled. AP Restore and AP Max still work.

Mult Dice

New face type: Mult - demon abilities can now add mult faces (x1.5, x2, x3, x4) to your dice, replacing one normal face. When a die lands on a mult face, it doesn't count toward hand patterns but multiplies your score
Multiplicative stacking - multiple mult faces showing at once stack multiplicatively. Two x2 faces = x4 total
Applied last - mult dice multiply your entire final score after all demon modifiers, crits, and bonus soul hooks. The mult animation shows last in the contribution sequence so you can see the full impact
Works with replays - Dantalion's Mind Control replays mult dice along with everything else, so each replay gets the full multiplier

Ability Points

Cooldowns removed - demon abilities are now gated purely by AP (Ability Points). No more waiting between trials to use your actives - if you have AP, you can fire
New AP wheel - the text-based "CD:" and "AP:" displays are replaced with a radial fill wheel in the top-right corner of the portrait. Blue when you have AP, dark blue when depleted with an "x" marker, amber when you need to hold a die first
Gaap updated - Gaap's active changed from "Reset Cooldowns" to "Restore All AP" to match the new system
Cooldown Reduce removed - the Cooldown Reduce covenant upgrade has been removed from packs since cooldowns no longer exist

Reworked Demon Presentation

Summoning books - reworked demons now appear as leather-bound summoning books in the shop instead of the standard card layout. The book shows the demon's unique art with cost and summon button underneath
Portraits - reworked demons display their portrait inside the gothic frame when equipped, replacing the name text. The portrait sits above the smoke and ember effects
Summon sounds - reworked demons now have a vocal summon clip that plays when purchased from the shop
Covenant lock - all reworked demons block level up, passive boost, and active boost covenant upgrades. AP Restore and AP Max cards still work

Audio

Theme tune - Occulto now has a proper theme that plays when you launch the game. After the theme finishes, background tracks play in a shuffled order, then the whole playlist loops. The background track order is randomized each session
4 new original tracks - the music rotation now has 5 tracks total (including the main theme), all original compositions written specifically for Occulto

v8.8 - The Mind Control Update

February 22, 2026

He reads your patterns. He knows your favourite hand. And now he's going to make you play it again. And again. And again.

This patch introduces the first fully designed demon in Occulto - a ground-up rework of Dantalion with two brand new mechanics that don't exist anywhere else in the game. This is the template for what every demon will eventually become: a unique kit with synergistic abilities that change the way you play. Expect more demons to receive this treatment as we go.

DANTALION 71st Spirit of the Goetia - Lesser Demon

He knows the thoughts of all people and can change them at will. He teaches all arts and sciences and declares the secret counsel of anyone.

PASSIVE - MIND CONTROL

When you score your most played hand category, Dantalion seizes control. The entire scoring sequence - base score, demon contributions, crits, lightning, everything - replays 3 times with the score accumulating across each play.

Between each replay, Dantalion's slot flashes teal and the portal displays "MIND CONTROL" in glowing teal text with a sound effect. Only 1 score slot is consumed for the entire sequence - you're getting triple value from a single score.

The game tracks which hand category you've scored the most throughout your run. If you've been playing a lot of Threes, that becomes your trigger. Every time you score Threes, the Mind Control loop fires. Build around a single category and Dantalion rewards your commitment.

ACTIVE - WILD DICE

Activate Dantalion's ability and all your dice become wild. Wild dice count as any number for pattern matching - straights, n-of-a-kind, full house, Occulto - but keep their actual face value for sum calculations.

Wild dice glow teal with a pulsing aura so you can always tell when they're active. The wild state persists through rolls - you can keep rolling and holding while wild, building toward the perfect hand. Wild clears when you score and the round resets.

The synergy with Mind Control is deliberate: go wild, guarantee your most-played category, then watch the triple replay fire. Use it to force an Occulto, land a Large Straight with mismatched dice, or just guarantee the hand you've been building around.

Covenant upgrades temporarily locked. Dantalion's Mind Control and Wild Dice kit is powerful enough at base level that we want to see how it plays before letting upgrades scale it further. Level ups, passive boosts, active boosts, and cooldown reductions are all disabled for now. AP Restore and AP Max still work. You'll see a "LOCKED" label in the Covenant picker. This will be unlocked in a future patch once balance has been evaluated.

The First of Many

Dantalion is the first demon to receive a full design pass - two abilities that are mechanically unique, visually distinct, and synergize with each other. Every other demon in the game currently runs on the shared passive/active system (multipliers, soul bonuses, dice manipulation). They work, but they're interchangeable.

The goal going forward is to give every demon this level of identity. Unique mechanics, custom visuals, synergies that change how you approach a run. Dantalion is the proof of concept - expect more demons to receive the same treatment as we go. The 72 spirits of the Goetia deserve better than generic stat modifiers.

Wild Dice

New die state: Wild - dice glow teal with a pulsing aura when wild. Wild dice count as any value for pattern matching (straights, n-of-a-kind, full house, Occulto) but use their actual face value for sum calculations
Scorecard previews now correctly account for wild dice when showing potential scores
Wild persists through rolls and clears when you score and the round resets

Run Stats Redesign

Complete visual overhaul of the Run Stats overlay with a premium dashboard look inspired by this very website
Two-column layout: upgrades and progress on the left, hand history and dice pool on the right
Progress stat cards: large green numbers for Trials, Total Souls, Sigils, and Best Hand in bordered cards
Hand History: tracks how many times you've scored each category, with your most-played hand highlighted in green with a "BEST" badge
Dice Pool: shows the actual dice face images in a horizontal strip with counts underneath - faces with zero count are dimmed out
Visual polish: left accent bars on every row, bordered card panels with drop shadows, purple and green colour accents throughout

v8.7 - The Grimoire Update

February 22, 2026

The old scrolls have been rebound. The shop smells of leather and brimstone now.

This patch adds the Occulto Bonus - a reward for hitting all matching dice on Occulto - overhauls the crit display so you can actually see what happened, and redesigns the demon shop cards as leather-bound grimoire book covers.

Occulto Bonus

New scoring mechanic: Scoring Occulto now grants up to +50 bonus to your base score, rewarding you for hitting all matching dice. The bonus depreciates by 10 for each extra die beyond your starting 5 (so 5 dice = +50, 6 = +40, ... 10+ = +0). This bonus is part of your base score, so it benefits from crits and demon multipliers
Lightning celebration updated: The Occulto lightning now shows the bonus amount underneath in blue - e.g. "(+50 Bonus Added)" - so you know exactly how much the Occulto bonus contributed. Hidden when the bonus is 0
Scorecard previews now include the Occulto bonus so the number you see before locking in matches what you actually get

Crit Display Overhaul

Crit effect now shows "CRIT! x2 Base Score" (with the actual multiplier) and displays the crit'd score value underneath, so you can see exactly what the crit did. The scorecard also updates to the crit'd value during the animation instead of waiting until after

Shop Visual Overhaul

Grimoire book covers: Demon shop cards now look like leather-bound grimoire book covers instead of flat colored rectangles. The book texture shows through semi-transparent section overlays, with brass-gold divider lines between sections and warm parchment-toned text for an aged spellbook feel

Fixes

Fixed the scorecard dropping to the raw dice score when you lock in a category - it now correctly shows your adjusted base (including level bonus and Occulto bonus) as the staged score before demon contributions animate
Fixed Demon Level Up appearing at Common/Uncommon rarity with +0 levels - the pack generator was ignoring minimum rarity constraints
Renamed the "Yahtzee" category to "Occulto" throughout to match the UI display name
Windowed mode added - you can now toggle between fullscreen and windowed. Known issue: toggling back to fullscreen can cause colour changes, so try to only use the button once for now

v8.5 - Lucky Bastards

February 21, 2026

Fortune favours the bold. And the ones who actually invest in Luck.

This patch splits rolls into two distinct systems so demon passives and upgrade cards actually do what you'd expect, and massively buffs the Luck upgrade so investing in pack quality pays off way sooner.

Roll Mechanics Redesign

Extra Rolls from demons are now permanent: Equip a demon with an Extra Roll passive and your rolls per round increase immediately (3/3 becomes 4/4). Remove the demon and it goes back down. No more confusing bonus pool that resets every trial
New Banked Rolls system: Rolls from upgrade cards (Bonus Roll), demon abilities, and on-score rewards now go into a run-wide bank. They persist across rounds and trials - use them whenever you need them, but once spent they're gone for good
Banked rolls display: When you have banked rolls, "Bonus: N" appears next to your regular roll counter so you always know what you've got in reserve
Run Stats updated: The stats page now shows extra rolls from demons separately and displays your banked roll count

Luck Overhaul

Luck cards give 2x more Luck: Values increased to +10/+20/+30/+40/+50 (up from +5/+10/+15/+20/+25). A single Common Luck card now makes a real difference
Luck scaling buffed 2.5x: Each point of Luck now shifts pack rarity weights 2.5 times harder than before. You'll start seeing Uncommon and Rare cards showing up noticeably after just one or two Luck investments instead of needing an unreachable mountain of the stuff

v8.3 - Mercy Patch

February 21, 2026

v8.2 was brutal. Fred was such a pussy that he moaned until we made the demons weaker. Here's some relief for the rest of you too.

After the harsh economy changes in 8.2, this patch softens the blow with new ways to power up. A brand new crit system rewards leveling, three new Infernal cards give you more build options, packs no longer waste your sigils on duplicate cards, and the scorecard finally shows you what you're actually going to get.

Critical Hits

New mechanic: Every score now has a chance to crit for 150% damage. Crit chance starts at 0% and increases by 1% per player level - the higher you climb, the more often you'll see a big shaking "CRIT!" slam across the screen
Level-up screen now shows your cumulative crit chance alongside the existing sigil and score bonuses, so you can track all three stats as you grow

New Infernal Cards

Critical Edge (Common) - increases your crit chance. Stack these to make crits a regular occurrence
Brutal Strike (Uncommon) - increases your crit damage beyond the base 150%. Pairs perfectly with Critical Edge
Sigil Windfall (Common) - instantly grants sigils equal to your current per-trial sigil reward. Gets stronger the more you've invested in Sigil Harvest and leveling

Balance Changes

Demon costs flattened: All demons now cost a flat rate per rank - Lesser 5, Greater 10, King 15. No more guessing what a demon will cost
Packs cheaper to start: Infernal and Covenant packs now start at 5 sigils (down from 10), so you can grab a pack right after your first trial
Sigil Harvest buffed: Now grants +2 bonus sigils per scorecard category filled at Common (up from +1), increasing by 1 per rarity tier
Score Slot moved from Rare to Uncommon - easier to find extra scoring slots when you need them
Cooldown Reduce moved from Common to Uncommon in Covenant packs
Soul Siphon reworked: Bonus souls now only apply to XP toward leveling, not your total score. Level faster without inflating your run score

Pack Quality

Unique cards per pack: Infernal and Covenant packs now guarantee all three cards are different types - no more seeing the same upgrade twice (or three times!)

UI & Fixes

Scorecard previews now show accurate scores including level bonuses, demon passives, and all other modifiers
Gamble Souls demons now show their outcome through the portal with colour-coded results
Gamble Souls ability is now grayed out when you have 0 souls
Fixed demon shop cards showing outdated costs instead of the correct per-rank values

v8.2 - Economy Tuning

February 21, 2026

Ability Points (AP): Demons now have AP that is consumed when using their active ability. Each demon starts with 1/1 AP. Once spent, the active is unavailable for the rest of the run unless restored. Active abilities are now a strategic resource - choose when to use them wisely.
New Covenant upgrades: "Arcane Renewal" (restore AP to a demon, Common+) and "Arcane Reservoir" (increase a demon's max AP, Rare+)
Escalating pack costs: Both Infernal and Covenant packs start at 10 sigils but cost 1.2x more each time you buy one (10 → 12 → 14 → 17 → 20 → ...). Each pack type escalates independently, so buying Infernal packs doesn't raise Covenant prices. Costs reset at the start of each run.
Steeper leveling curve: Base cost increased from 50 to 60, growth multiplier from 1.5x to 2.0x per level. Expect roughly 1 level-up every 2 trials instead of almost every trial.
Rebalanced pack rarity weights: Common 90%, Uncommon 8%, Rare 1.5%, Epic 0.4%, Legendary 0.1%. Also fixed a bug where the rarity floor system was inflating Rare/Epic/Legendary chances to ~4.4% each regardless of luck - rare cards should actually be rare now.

v8.1 - Hotfix

February 21, 2026

Fixed Lesser demon passive abilities not scaling with covenant passive boosts (affected Seere, Andras, Camio, Cimejes, Decarabia, Orias, Andrealphus, Ose, Dantalion)
Fixed Sigil Gain bonus not multiplying by the number of scores used in a trial
Fixed Trial complete screen now shows base sigils and bonus sigils separately
Fixed Trial complete screen layout - bonus sigils no longer hidden behind the Summoning Portal button

v8.0 - The Portal Update

February 20, 2026

The veil thins. The portal opens. Do you think that you can beat us?

Version 8.0 overhauls the core screens you spend the most time on - the splash, main menu, and the main game board. The centrepiece is a new demonic portal that serves as the game's notification hub, replacing the old full-screen overlay with something far more atmospheric. We've also added new tools for inspecting your dice, tracking your run, and distinguishing between dice states at a glance, plus several bug fixes for exploded dice and face transfigure.

Portal - Central Notification Hub

A swirling demonic portal now dominates the centre of the game board. When your demons contribute to scoring, their messages materialise inside the portal - text reveals left-to-right in an eerie green glow, holds, then fades away. No more full-screen dark overlay blocking the action. The portal is always visible during a run and hides on the main menu.

Start-of-run taunt. Begin a new run and the demons will have something to say…

Complete UI Overhaul

New splash screen: Redesigned studio intro sequence
New main menu: Cinzel font throughout with refined text effects and layout
Roll screen rework: Every element on the play screen has been rebuilt from scratch: dice tray, score panel, demon bar, header, and resource displays
New sigil & soul icons: Bespoke icons replace the old placeholder text
New roll button: Completely new graphic in the Occulto style with a new sound effect, plus it's actually visible and clickable now

Streamlined scorecard: Clear Upper/Lower section split with dedicated headers, tighter row spacing, and improved readability
Die face tooltip: Right-click any die to inspect its full face pool in a 3×2 grid. Modified dice (transfigured or exploded) display an orange "MODIFIED" header

Run Stats button: New icon in the top-left corner to view your current run statistics at any time

Distinct dice states: Pre-roll dice now show a glowing pentagram; blank faces on exploded dice use a separate dark stone sprite for clarity

Fixes

Fixed Face Transfigure not working on exploded dice - blank faces (value 0) can now be targeted and replaced correctly
Fixed die tooltip not updating after transfiguring faces on an exploded die
Fixed exploded dice ignoring their modified face pool after transfigure (they now roll from the actual pool instead of the hardcoded 1-in-6 logic)

v7.5 - Face Transfigure & Covenant Caps

February 19, 2026

Rewrite the laws of probability. One face at a time.

Face Transfigure - New Mechanic

The old Duplicate Die ability has been completely replaced with Face Transfigure, a permanent die modification system.

How it works: Hold exactly one die (the source), then click the demon slot. A "CHOOSE TARGET" prompt appears with cyan-highlighted eligible dice. Click any other die to permanently graft the source's face onto the target's face pool. The target loses one instance of its current face and gains the source's face instead.

Example: Source shows 6, target shows 1. The target's pool changes from [1,2,3,4,5,6] to [6,2,3,4,5,6]. That die can never roll 1 again, and now has a 2-in-6 chance of rolling 6. Multiple transfigures stack - you could end up with [6,6,6,4,5,6].

Changes are permanent for the rest of the run. Face pools reset between runs.

Scales with Covenant Active Boosts. Base activation grafts 1 face. Each point of active boost grafts an additional face in the same activation (replacing more of the target's original faces). Maxes out at 5 upgrades (6 total grafts - a full rewrite of the die).

Affected demons: Amon (#7, Greater), Sallos (#19, Greater), Gusion (#11, Lesser), Malphas (#39, Lesser), Orobas (#55, Lesser), Seere (#70, Lesser). All now have a base cooldown of 3.

Covenant Upgrade Caps

Some mechanics now have a maximum active upgrade level. When a demon hits its cap, the Covenant demon picker shows "MAXED" instead of "SELECT" and the button is disabled. No more wasted upgrades.

Face Transfigure: Max 5 active upgrades (6 total grafts per activation)
Exploding Dice: Max 3 active upgrades (4 total exploded dice per activation)

Leaderboard

New full leaderboard screen with 6 columns: Rank, Name, Souls, Level, Trial, and Version
Top 3 players get gold rank text; your own row is highlighted with a "YOU" tag
Your leaderboard rank now displays on the run over screen, fetched live after each run

Leveling & Economy

Player leveling cost curve now uses exponential growth (base 50, ×1.5 per level) - early levels are faster, late levels require real investment
Cooldowns now tick at the start of each round instead of on every dice roll

v7.3 - Exploding Dice Rework

February 19, 2026

Hold your die. Choose your fate. Watch them multiply.

Exploding Dice - Complete Rework

Volatile dice. Exploded dice are no longer clones. Each spawned die has 5 blank faces and 1 real face. You get a 1-in-6 chance of hitting your chosen number on every roll. Blanks show a distinct blank-face sprite and score 0. They don't count toward hand patterns (straights, full houses, n-of-a-kind, Occulto), so you can't cheese scoring with dead dice.

Choose your explode face. On first use, hold exactly one die, then press the demon's active. That held die's face becomes your permanent explode number for that demon. The slot stays darkened with a "Hold 1 die" prompt until you've selected exactly one. After the face is locked, future activations fire automatically without needing to hold anything.

Scales with Covenant Active Boosts. Base activation spawns 1 exploded die. Each point of Covenant Active Boost adds another. Stack boosts and you'll have a swarm of volatile dice rolling for your chosen face.

Affected demons: Asmoday (#32, King), Leraje (#14, Greater), Forneus (#30, Greater), Sabnock (#43, Lesser), Amy (#58, Lesser).

Quality of Life

Covenant cooldown reduction is instant. Buying a Cooldown Reduce upgrade from a Covenant Pack now immediately reduces your demon's current cooldown. No more waiting out the old timer - if you're at 3/5 and pick up a -1, you're now at 2/4.

New dice are usable immediately. Dice spawned by any demon ability (explode, extra die, split, etc.) now appear in the scorecard calculations right away. No more needing an extra roll just to make them count.

Fixes

Fixed crash (IndexOutOfRangeException) when rendering blank-faced dice in the dice tray
Fixed new dice from abilities not counting toward potential scores until the next roll
Fixed cooldown reduction upgrades not reflecting in the demon bar until the next trial
Exploding Dice demon tooltips now show [?] before a face is chosen and [N] after selection
Removed unused NumberPickerUI overlay and DemonFaceChoicePending event

Full Changes

ExplodingDice activation reworked: hold 1 die + click slot to lock face (replaces NumberPickerUI)
Exploded dice have 5 blank faces (score 0) and 1 real face (1/6 chance per roll)
Covenant Active Boost on ExplodingDice demons scales the number of spawned dice
ScoreCalculator excludes 0-valued dice from all hand pattern checks
Demon slots darken with "Hold 1 die" prompt when ExplodingDice face hasn't been chosen
DemonStatsChanged event added for instant UI refresh after covenant upgrades
DemonBarUI refreshes on ShopClosed and DemonStatsChanged events
ScoreCardUI refreshes potential scores after any demon ability activation
ApplyCooldownReduce now clamps current cooldown to the new effective max immediately
Per-demon state key (explode_face_{goetiaNumber}) supports multiple ExplodingDice demons with different faces

v7 - The Uberstat Upgrade

February 19, 2026

Every demon now reads from the same infernal scripture. Upgrade a passive, and the whole chain lights up: tooltips, scoring, contributions. The pact is real this time.

LEADERBOARD RESET

Due to the volume of changes and mechanics upgrades in this patch, the leaderboard has been reset. Time to climb again.

Who will be first to make it to the end of the run?

Demons

All 72 demons now pull from a single unified data source. Every Lesser, Greater, and King reads its passive values from the same DemonDef definition. No more hardcoded numbers buried in individual behaviors. What you see on the card is what drives the score.

Covenant Passive Boosts actually work now. Buying a Passive Boost from a Covenant Pack applies a multiplicative upgrade to your demon's passive: (Base + Base × Covenant Bonus) × Level. A single Common boost doubles the passive. Stack them and watch the numbers climb.

New demon frames. Demons are now summoned through a black mirror. The old portrait frames have been replaced with a dark, reflective mirror aesthetic that fits the occult theme.

Expanded trials. The run now stretches across 50 trials instead of the old ~24, giving your demons room to grow and your builds time to pay off.

Forneus - Full Rework

Forneus (#30, Greater) has been completely reworked. The Sea Monster now runs a threshold-based multiplier system instead of a flat bonus. His passive grants +0.5% multiplier for each point your dice total exceeds 15, scaling per level. Land a sum of 25 and that's +5% at level 1, +25% at level 5.

Base: +0.5% multiplier per point above threshold 15 (per level)
Tier 1A - Tidal Wave: Threshold lowered to 12, making it far easier to trigger
Tier 1B - Leviathan: +0.75% per point instead of +0.5% (1.5x scaling)
Tier 2A - Maelstrom: Dice sum 25 or higher grants a bonus +x1.5 multiplier
Tier 2B - Depths: Always gain flat bonus equal to your dice sum, regardless of threshold

Demon Balance - Souls Passives (10x Buff)

Every demon with a souls-based passive has been scaled up by 10x. Demon contributions now feel meaningful from the first trial instead of rounding away to nothing.

Kings

Eligos: traight Builder: 4 → 40 souls per die in a consecutive run
Vine: oul Farmer: 3 → 30 souls whenever you score

Greaters

Vassago: oresight: 2 → 20 souls per empty category
Marbas: ealer: 3 → 30 souls on every score
Buer: hilosopher: 2 → 20 souls per die in a consecutive run
Botis: iper: 3 → 30 souls per group of matching dice
Bathin: ourneyman: 1 → 10 souls per trial beaten this run
Aim: niper: 2 → 20 souls per die showing 1 or 2
Naberius: cholar: 2 → 20 souls each time you score
Berith: oldsmith: 3 → 30 souls per die matching its slot number
Foras: erbalist: 3 → 30 souls per distinct number showing
Stolas: targazer: 4 → 40 souls per die showing 2, 3, or 5

Lessers

Agares: 1 → 10 souls per die showing 2
Samigina: 1 → 10 souls when your score is 8+
Valefor: 1 → 10 souls when dice total is 15 or less
Barbatos: 2 → 20 souls when all dice show different numbers
Gusion: 1 → 10 souls on upper section scores
Ronove: 1 → 10 souls when 3+ different numbers showing
Phenex: 1 → 10 souls when your score is 15+
Halphas: 1 → 10 souls per die showing 4 or higher
Malphas: 2 → 20 souls on Three of a Kind
Raum: 1 → 10 souls when scoring lower section
Focalor: 1 → 10 souls per die showing 3
Vepar: 2 → 20 souls on Full House
Sabnock: 2 → 20 souls on Four of a Kind
Shax: 1 → 10 souls per die showing 4
Bifrons: 1 → 10 souls when highest/lowest dice differ by 4+
Uvall: 1 → 10 souls per die showing 6
Haagenti: 1 → 10 souls when any pair is showing
Crocell: 2 → 20 souls on Small Straight
Furcas: 1 → 10 souls per die showing 1
Alloces: 2 → 20 souls on Chance
Murmur: 1 → 10 souls on lower section scores
Orobas: 1 → 10 souls per die showing 5
Gremory: 1 → 10 souls when you score a Full House
Amy: 1 → 10 souls when scoring upper section
Vapula: 1 → 10 souls when 3+ dice match
Valac: 3 → 30 souls on Occulto
Haures: 2 → 20 souls on Large Straight
Amdusias: 1 → 10 souls when 3+ dice match

Multiplier Demons (Unchanged Base, Now Scale with Covenants)

Multiplier-based passives kept their base values but now properly scale with Covenant Passive Boosts. All talent variants also scale correctly.

Bael (King) : +100% when 3+ dice match
Paimon (King) : +100% on any Straight
Beleth (King) : +100% per filled upper category
Purson (King) : +50% upper bonus triggers earlier
Gaap (King) : +200% but lose 1 roll
Furfur (King) : +100% if reroll improves
Belial (King) : +200% on secret category
Balam (King) : +300% but a category is locked
Astaroth (King) : +200% but only 4 dice
Amon (Greater) : +50% with pair + different values
Sitri (Greater) : +30% per even die
Leraje (Greater) : +20% on upper scores
Zepar (Greater) : +20% per die showing 5 or 6
Sallos (Greater) : +50% with any pair
Morax (Greater) : +50% when dice total is odd
Ipos (Greater) : +20% per filled category
Glasya-Labolas (Greater) : +30% per die matching the mode
Bune (Greater) : +20% on lower scores
Marchosias (Greater) : +20% per roll used this round
Forneus (Greater) : +0.5% per point above 15 (REWORKED, see above)
Camio (Lesser) : +10% when total is 20+
Ose (Lesser) : +10% when dice spread is 3 or less
Orias (Lesser) : +10% on Small Straight
Andras (Lesser) : +10% with both a 1 and a 6
Andrealphus (Lesser) : +10% when total is even
Cimejes (Lesser) : +10% on Three of a Kind
Decarabia (Lesser) : +10% on Four of a Kind
Seere (Lesser) : +10% while fewer than 6 categories filled
Dantalion (Lesser) : +10% when only 2 different numbers showing

Scoring

Covenant upgrades scale properly. The passive boost formula was fixed from an additive model (barely noticeable) to a true multiplicative one. A +1 boost now genuinely doubles the passive, +2 triples it, and so on. The math finally matches the intent.

Unified value pipeline. Talent paths that modify a demon's passive (Catalog vs Synthesis, Charge vs Skirmish, etc.) now scale off the same base as everything else. Covenant boosts apply to talent variants too, not just the default path.

Terminology consolidated. "Flat bonus," "score bonus," and "points" are all gone. Everything is souls now, in descriptions, tooltips, and the scoring breakdown.

UI

New demon cards. Cards in the shop, demon viewer, and covenant picker all use a new detailed layout with colored sections: dark purple header, blue passive zone, warm gold active zone. You can parse a demon's kit at a glance.

Tooltips now show the full stat breakdown. Hover over any demon slot and you'll see base value, covenant upgrade multiplier, level scaling, and the final total. No more guessing whether your upgrade did anything. The numbers are right there in green.

Dynamic {v} values in descriptions. Demon passive and active descriptions now pull their numbers directly from the data. "+10 bonus souls per 4 rolled" updates automatically if the base value changes. One source of truth for everything.

"(per level)" labels. Stat values in descriptions now show "(per level)" inline so it's clear that they scale with demon level-ups.

New dice. Fresh dice visuals to match the updated art direction.

Full Changes

All 72 demon behaviors converted from hardcoded values to unified DemonDef data source
Covenant Passive Boost formula fixed: now multiplicative. Base × (1 + bonus) × Level
All souls-based passive values scaled 10× across every demon
Forneus (#30) completely reworked with threshold multiplier system and new talent tree
Tooltips display "Base: +X / (+Yx upgrade) / Total: +Z" stat breakdown
Demon frames replaced with black mirror aesthetic
New detailed demon card layout with colored sections (header, passive, active, footer)
Dynamic {v} placeholder system. Descriptions auto-resolve values from DemonDef
Added "(per level)" inline labels on scaling stats
Consolidated all bonus terminology to "souls" across UI, tooltips, and scoring
Trials expanded from ~24 to 100
New dice visuals
Talent path variants now scale with covenant boosts (same multiplicative formula)
Removed stale "+X per level" stat lines, replaced with inline notation

v4 - The Occulto Update

February 18, 2026

Roll all five matching dice and see what happens. Go on. We dare you.

The Big One

Yahtzee is dead. Long live OCCULTO. The biggest hand in the game has a new name - and a new entrance. Land all five matching dice, hit Score, and watch lightning bolts crack across the screen while "OCCULTO" blazes in giant letters with a thunderclap. It's the kind of moment that makes you want to do it again immediately. And don't worry - the game waits for the whole show to finish before moving on. No trial clears or level-ups stealing your thunder.

Quality of Life

You can now view your demons at any time. No matter what screen you're on - mid-trial, in the shop, wherever - you can pull up your full demon roster and see all their details. Passives, actives, cooldowns, talents, everything.

Demon actives feel way better. They now trigger instantly when you tap them instead of waiting for another event to fire. You'll see a text notification confirming the ability went off. They're also properly disabled before your first roll or when the dice are blank, so no more confusing dead clicks.

New cursor! Clickable items and buttons now show a custom pointer cursor so it's always clear what you can interact with.

UI Polish

Covenant Pack cards got a glow-up. When picking which demon to apply an upgrade to, those cards used to be tiny stat blocks. Now they show the full detailed card - passive and active descriptions, cooldown info, talent choices, the works. Same card style as the shop and demon viewer.

Balance

Demon leveling rebalanced. The +1 level upgrade has been moved to uncommon only, making it a more meaningful find when it shows up in your packs.

Fixes

Fixed leaderboard showing duplicate 1st place entry
"Yahtzee" renamed to Occulto across all UI - scorecard, run summary, demon cards, talent descriptions

Full Changes

Scoring an Occulto triggers a full-screen lightning strike with procedural bolts, double flash, "OCCULTO" text, and thunder sound
Lightning plays immediately on score confirm, before demon contributions or trial results
Added demon viewer button - view your full demon roster from any screen
Demon actives now trigger instantly with on-screen confirmation text
Demon actives disabled before first roll / when dice are blank
Custom pointer cursor on all clickable buttons and items
Covenant Pack demon picker now uses full detailed demon cards
Demon +1 level upgrade moved to uncommon pool only
Fixed leaderboard showing duplicate 1st place entry
"Yahtzee" renamed to Occulto across all UI