Torch of Shadows Devlog #1— “Balance in Chaos” Update 🕯️

Hey everyone!

Time for a juicy new devlog straight from the shadowy halls of Torch of Shadows. In the never-ending struggle to keep both Light and Dark happy (and not crashing the game), we’ve been squashing bugs, revamping UI, and sprinkling new features all over the map.

Here’s everything we actually got done — and yes, some of these things took way longer than we care to admit!

✨ Gameplay & Mechanics

  • Main Upgrades Got Smarter
    • Attacks unlocked in the main upgrade screen no longer immediately pop into your in-game slots. Now, we check if you’ve actually unlocked them before letting you spam them. Order restored!
  • New Skills, New Problems (Now Fixed)
    • Both Light Sphere and Dark Sphere explosions now work as intended. Explosions? Explode.
  • Speed Demons Tamed
    • Player speed bug is fixed. No more accidental Sonic cosplay.
  • Enemies Behave (Mostly)
    • Fast enemies have stopped speedrunning to the player.
    • Tank enemies got their speed slightly reduced, so you can actually escape them now.
    • Spawn rates and enemy HP finally make sense. No more infinite bullet-sponge mobs.
    • Continuous attacks (auras etc.) no longer spawn infinitely — you get one, and you’d better like it.
    • Contact attacks no longer try to “boomerang” and re-target after hitting.
    • Ricochet damage got nerfed: now second hits only deal 70% damage.
  • Map & Progression
    • When the player dies, the main map now properly updates control zones.
    • Map details show clear info about what % possession actually means.
    • Entering a map now previews what you’ll face (so you can start regretting it immediately).
    • When a map hits 100%, borders turn red as a friendly “maybe chill out?” warning.
    • Zone bars now reflect actual values (and not just vibes).
    • “Dominate” button is now “Equilibrate.” Because we are not dominating, we are equilibrating.
  • Victory, Defeat & All That Jazz
    • New Run Win Summary and Fail Summary screens, each with their own dramatic particle effects. Lose with style!
    • Heal flask added. Collect more, heal more!
    • Heal flask count increase and cooldown reduction are now upgradable.
    • Dash ability added, with cooldown upgrades.
    • Dash and heal cooldowns now have proper UI timers.

🖥️ UI & UX Overhaul

  • Menus & Visuals
    • Main menu logo completely redrawn by hand and added to the game.
    • Company logo created. Now we’re official!
    • All skill names cleaned up — no more variable gibberish in your upgrade lists.
    • Main upgrade screen now shows your actual Sun Particles & Moon Fragments.
    • Main menu now displays version info and total summary.
    • New font! (Because typography matters.)
    • Placeholder text removed and replaced with real details. Your immersion is safe.
    • UI scaled down by 75%. Now you can see more of the battlefield and less of the HUD.
  • Tooltip Mania
    • Tooltips for upgrades are live, including upgrade cost and current level info.
    • Main upgrade debug sections removed, replaced by… real info.
    • Collectible values no longer spam your screen (debug text removed).
  • Quality-of-Life Improvements
    • Pause screen added. Because sometimes you need to catch your breath.
    • Timer and XP bar bugs fixed.
    • Dash cooldown UI bug fixed.

🧰 Under the Hood & Technical

  • Bugs Absolutely Annihilated
    • Moon Fragment & Sun Particle tallies now update correctly at game end.
    • Forfeit button now properly updates resource values.
    • Ingame upgrades no longer carry over between runs — everything resets like it should.
    • All globals now reset on new runs. Your runs are officially untainted.
    • FPS issues and memory leaks fixed. (If you still crash, it’s probably your PC’s fault now.)
    • Created a debug check system to help sniff out future memory leaks.
  • Main Upgrade System, Reinvented
    • The whole main upgrade system was rewritten. Ingame upgrades can’t overwrite your main upgrades anymore — what a concept!

📊 Stats & Summaries

  • Stats, Stats, Stats
    • Skill stats, map stats, and zone stats are now tracked and viewable.
    • Skill stat names cleaned up (no more variable code in your stat screens).
    • Run summaries at the end of each game. Know exactly how much you’ve dominated… sorry, equilibrated.
  • Intro & Tutorial
    • A mysterious new intro was added.
    • Tutorial area created. Finally, you have a clue what’s going on.

🌟 The Little Things

  • New collectibles now glow with that satisfying, “pick me up!” shine.
  • Randomized, wobbly tree trunks used for map collisions. Now you literally can’t walk out of bounds.
  • Miscellaneous UI placeholders replaced with the real deal.
  • And yes, the main upgrade screen finally has a tooltip area.

That’s all for this update! Thanks for reading! Follow for more devlogs and chaos! – DEVTEAM