Patches/2022-03-02

## New skin, balance changes, tutorial, oh my!

It’s that time again - we’ve made some sweet updates to Storybook Brawl, and you can read all about them in these patch notes. Royals rise, Dwarves fall, and a few new characters have entered the scene - take a look!

### Trash Panda Potion Master Skin

Firstly, we are happy to introduce the Trash Panda Potion Master Hero Skin! Potion Master is one of our favorites, and this skin truly does him justice - there’s even a nice easter egg for those of you who buy XP spells as frequently as we do. Like with Dragon Master Gwen and Morgana of the Rose, this will be available in the store for 200 gems.

### Dwarves

Dwarves have been at the top of the heap for a while now, and we’ve decided to take more action here. These three changes aim to cut Dwarves down to size, and reduce how often they show up as lobby-winning comps.

### Bossy

Cut.

This change went into effect a few weeks ago as a hotfix, but I wanted to mention it here. Bossy isn’t the biggest piece of the puzzle, but every bit matters, and an early Bossy could be overwhelming. Plus, the Glassdoor reviews of Dwarves who left the company really didn’t help.

### Dwarven Forge

Cut.

Dwarven Forge led to too many upgraded Dwarves too early, especially when combined with Tweedle and Lordy. It also exacerbated the damage dealt by Dwarf squads, and was a real menace in the midgame. The good news is that if you liked this effect, check out the new Sky Castle.

### Tweedle Dee

-> Level 5 8/2

This is the most impactful change, both to Dwarves and to the character pool overall. Tweedle was the strongest level 4 character, and had a warping effect no matter how it was used. As a result of Tweedle’s dominance, it’s getting a promotion to level 5, and a stat bump to go along with it.

### Sky Castle

-> You only need two copies to Upgrade a Prince or Princess.

We liked Dwarven Forge’s effect, even if it was too pushy in Dwarves specifically. Royals have needed a boost for a while now, and Sky Castle offers them a lot more of what they are looking for, especially when you take Arthur and Mihri’s text boxes into account.

### Fountain of Youth

-> Your Goodcharacters have +1/+1.

These Treasures weren’t the strongest or most interesting, so we are swapping them out for a pair that give you a reason to build towards good or evil comps.

## Characters

### Oni King

-> Level 5 7/7 +7/+7

Oni King didn’t have quite the punch we wanted in lategame comps, so we are moving him down to level five (with some stat adjustments). Monsters are back on the menu, and seeing Oni King sooner and more often definitely will give them some direction.

### Gingerbread Knight

Gingerbread Knight - new Level 4 Good Prince - 7/7 - +7/+7 if you have 20 or less health.

Gingerbread Knight helps make up for a bad start - if you’ve taken a bunch of early damage, it gives you a huge character at a low level. We wanted to give players more tools to come back, and this textbox is a start.

### Burning Tree

Burning Tree - new Level 5 Evil Treant - 5/20 - Bonuses to my Attack also add to my Health.

Treants died on the vine a little once Shoulder Faeries stopped working with Echowood, and we wanted to plant some new seeds. Burning Tree is a massive threat if you can buff it, and works perfectly with Ashwood Elm.

### Time Flies

Time Flies - Level 5 Animal 3/3 - When one of your characters dies, summon me from your hand.

Time Flies when you’re winning brawls, and this definitely gives you a little extra punch. There are plenty of combos to be found with this one as well, and we will leave those for you to discover.

### Feasting Dragon

Feasting Dragon - level 5 12/8 - Slay: For the rest of the game, characters in your shop have +1/+1.

This Dragon is hungry, and given a few feasts can buff your upcoming characters nicely. People had been asking for more Dragons, so here we are, even if it’s eaten a bit too much to fly like some of the other Dragons.

## Heroes

### Pan's Shadow

Pan's Shadow -> When you reach level 4, level 2 and 3 characters no longer appear in your shop.

Pan’s Shadow was one of the least popular Heroes, so we are trying a different take on it. Instead of making Evil characters cheaper, it now gives you a stronger selection of characters later in the game.

### The Fates

The Fates -> Your Upgraded characters have +3/+3. The first character you buy is destined to Upgrade.

The Fates is another Hero we wanted to give a little love to. The bonus you get is smaller now, but you are guaranteed to upgrade the first character you buy, as it will continue to show up in your shop until you’ve tripled it. Find out what your fate holds the next time you see The Fates, as this change is a big one.

### Evella

Evella -> Your Evil characters have +1 Attack. They have an additional +1 Attack for each of your Animals that died this brawl.

Evella has bounced around a bit, and this iteration gives her a little more power to start with. She’s a great Hero for Evil comps, and gives you additional value if you go down the Animal route as well.

## New Art

Shepherd's Sling

Wand of Weirding

Shoulder Faeries

## New Features

### Tutorial

We have implemented our first pass at a tutorial for new players. This should help guide new players through how to play, and even has shopkeeper VO! This is a work in progress and we’ll continue to improve this flow, so don’t hesitate to send feedback our way.

### Fail Feedback

Taking illegal actions like trying to buy a character you can’t afford or buying a 2nd spell will trigger a fail feedback message. Some of these also have VO, and we will work towards getting all of them VO.

### Attack VFX

We are updating our attack VFX to make ranged attacks more clear and improve the feel of attacks in general. We’ve also added new tech that allows us to add different VFX for larger attacks, so look forward to us iterating more on this.

### Screen shake

To emphasize the massive damage some of your characters do we’ve added a screen shake effect. We realize that some players don’t like this effect so you’ll find an option to turn it off in the settings.

### Treasure replace UI update

To address feedback of not being able to skip treasures during replacement we’ve reworked the Treasure Replace UI to all be done in one screen.

### Roll/Lock key bindings

We are adding key bindings for the roll and lock buttons. Lock is “CTRL” or “L” and Roll is “Space Bar” or “R”. Our plan is to expand on this feature in the future with adding custom bindings.

## BUG FIXES & IMPROVEMENTS

* More changes to the networking logic to improve stability and have added better error messaging around common errors

* Fixed a bug where King Midas would use up Treasure Map or Runes Stones upon getting a second copy of a character

* Fixed a bug that if you were Charon or had Coin of Charon along with Trojan Donkey and the character off Donkey’s summon would die first it got the buff.

* Fixed a bug where if you faced a player before their health during the vs scene would not update correctly

* Fixed a bug where under certain conditions Mimic would not work with Fancy Pants

* We updated the timing on Shrivel to occur when damage effects happen

* Fixed a bug where a Shriveled Tweedle Dee could summon a Tweedle Dum with 0 health

* Fixed a bug where Summoning Portal was counting the creation of spells as summons