v0.2.7: Wardens and Kings

👑 v0.2.7: Wardens and Kings

Depth 20 is now Act one, Wardens get a proper entrance, the hold changes as you dig, and the lost Kings come home

Depth 20 is now Act one. Reaching the mithril vein and forging the crown completes Act one instead of “winning”. The screen says so, and a new line opens Act two: long ago the Wardens below took the old Kings of the deep. The button now reads “Go deeper”.
Kings freed tracker. From Depth 20 the depth panel shows “Kings freed 0/2” for the two Kings held by the Wardens at Depth 25 and Depth 35. Hover it to see where they are.
A King’s return. When a Warden falls for the first time, its King’s crown drops by your campfire, their stone chair is set beside the fire, and a short banner names them.
New Knowledge Base entry under Getting Started: The Story. The “Endless Depths” section is now “Biomes & Wardens”.
The depth preview, hints, log and Ascension tooltip no longer call Depth 20 the final depth or “victory”.

Entrances. When a Warden arrives the cave darkens for a moment and a card shows its name and title with a roar. It never stops the game or takes your clicks, and any click or key cuts it short. With Reduce motion it is shorter and gentler; with Calm HUD the screen does not darken.
Boss bar. A slim bar at the top of the screen shows the Warden’s name and HP. Minimal UI shows the name and the bar without the numbers. Challenge banners behind it fade out while it is up.
Smaller fight box. The box at the bottom shows only the fight clock and the dwarves lost. Hover it for the Warden’s HP, how Wardens work, your strike limit and the “outmatched” warning.
Wardens stay clear of your rooms. A Warden now rises in front of the vein and paces there instead of walking over the rooms. Fights take as long as before.
The Warden kill message now lists the blueprints and timber the kill pays, not only ore and mithril.
A Warden can no longer be skipped by leaving the Runic Workshop empty (which also kept dragons away from Depth 25 to 29). It now comes after a short wait anyway, and with no runic crew to fight it, it takes up to 10 miners before it leaves.
Wardens have their own music slot. Until their theme is in, they keep the dragon’s track.

Every five depths above Depth 20 the cave gets its own look:
- Depth 1-5: timber shoring and lanterns, as before.
- Depth 6-10: bare stone, with the first pale crystals in the walls.
- Depth 11-15: old dwarven halls, with carved pillars, rune slabs and a worn crown that hints at the Kings.
- Depth 16-19: slate cut through with glowing mithril seams, under a colder, bluer light.
Crossing into a new band fades the cave over to the next look, and the light changes with it. Looks only: no numbers change. The Spooktober decorations stay up in every band.

New Depth Milestones at Depth 15, 17 and 19. The first time you reach each one you get Rune Shards for the skill tree (2, 3 and 4). Until now the climb to Depth 20 had no milestone at all; the first one was at Depth 25.
The Stats screen’s milestone bar now points at the next of these (15, 17, 19, then 25).
If your deepest depth is already past 19, each one is granted the next time a dig reaches that depth.

A Warden’s roar and its retreat, a hero’s rank-up, a King freed, a piece landing on the display shelf, a trade tier lost, a softer click for menu buttons and a “not allowed” sound. Ascension has its own sound now instead of the New Dig one.

Welcome Back says “1 minute” instead of “1 minutes” after a short break, in every language, and reads more naturally in Italian and Spanish.
The campfire’s hero tooltips separate a hero’s name and title with the right punctuation in Chinese and Japanese.
The depth header stays on one line in every language.
Deep in the endless depths, “Mine N ore” daily quests could flip back to unfinished (or never finish) once huge amounts of ore were mined. They now complete and stay complete.
Changing the language while a King’s banner was showing no longer skips that King’s moment.

If you’re enjoying the dig, a Steam review helps a small game like this one more than anything else. Thank you for digging with us.