Spells that look like their element, and one line that gave every effect its colour back

This round was about how combat looks: every blow, every spell and every shot.

Spells that look like their element

Every spell now takes its colours and its matter from its element:

Each spell is cast from a pixel-art magic circle drawn on the ground at the hero's feet, and the circle is how a spell's power shows. The first spells draw a plain ring; the most demanding draw a dense sigil with a star, spokes and a crown of glyphs. A fully charged cast draws one step grander. All 100 spells, across 9 elements and 5 tiers, now draw their own looks.

Every projectile faces where it is going

Spell bolts are now comets, head first, in the spell's colours. Thirteen enemy attacks (spore, water, nectar, sand and seed spits, grave bolts and others) used to fly without any picture at all. Each now flies as a comet in its own colours, with a trail, pointed at its target. A new test fires shots in all eight directions and checks that every one points along its flight.

The bug that touched every effect

The shader behind every glowing particle ignored each particle's own colour and fade. Slashes, sparks, rings and magic all bloomed to the same flat white. One line fixed it, and every effect in the game now shows its real colour.

It was found by judging effects frame by frame rather than by playing. A capture test films each attack and spell one image per frame, and that is how the bug gave itself away: the brightest pixel of four different spells was the exact same grey. Playing never shows that, because in motion a white flash just reads as "bright".

Enemies react to being hit

The old white-and-red flash is gone. Every regular enemy has five being-hit animations (high, low, side, knock-back and the original), picked at random so the same one never plays twice in a row. Each blow also throws a small pixel spark and a "!!" above the enemy.

Bosses flinch on their first hurt frame instead, and there is a hard reason for that. Four more hit animations in eight directions push a boss's sprite sheet past the largest texture the engine allows, so bosses keep a single flinch.

Weapon mastery goes to ten

Mastery for each weapon type now runs to level 10, like the weapons themselves. At mastery 5 and 10 the hero learns a weapon art on the attack chain: for swords, a gold-edged sweep and a six-cut ring; for bows, a rain of arrows and a falling-star volley.

A party that fights like a team

Companions now hold a wide wedge behind the hero instead of crowding at his back. Thirteen new villager and camper sheets also now match the hero's height, pixel size, look and eyes.

Numbers

• 1,894 automated checks pass.
• The overnight automated run of the morning's build finished the whole route: level 50, 83% of the slice, 8 deaths and one error, since fixed.
• 16 of the 100 spells were filmed and judged frame by frame.