Tales from Oddwater Back to Oddwater
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Alpha Testing Notes

5.1.5

Build 7

Notes posted

What’s New Since Build 6

Tester changelog since Build 6. The road grows longer, the forest deeper, and the Company has more to show for it.

Highlights

  • Two books now wait in Town: The Heart of the Forest opens as a second adventure with its own map, progress, artwork, and music while your Company travels between both.
  • A fresh coat of wild paint: every Heart of the Forest route now has complete layered exploration art, while Forsaken Woods has renewed skies, backgrounds, and ground.
  • Company Rank Rewards are on the ledger: explore the full I–X reward path and see the benefits your Company has already earned.
  • The Watchtower fights back: face the Hollow Warden and Dawn Sentinels, watch for Grave Chill, and choose allies or enemies directly from their figures.
  • More continuity on the road: unfinished expeditions are easier to spot, existing Companies skip the opening prologue, and each adventure keeps its own music playlists.

The Heart of the Forest

  • The Heart of the Forest is now available from Town as a second adventure. It has its own book, map, introductions, ten connected locations, exploration art, and music.
  • Your Company remains shared between adventures: heroes, health and resources, equipment, inventory, attire, recruits, and Reputation all travel with you.
  • Each adventure keeps its own expedition progress, difficulty, discoveries, and save context. You can preview a book without launching it, then return to Town and resume each expedition independently.

A Major Visual Rework

  • All ten Heart of the Forest locations now have complete four-layer exploration paintings.
  • All ten Forsaken Woods locations have new Skybox, Background, and Ground paintings while retaining their established foregrounds and gameplay props.
  • The new artwork preserves the existing parallax roles and ground contact. Please pay special attention to seams, legibility, atmosphere, scrolling, and character contact at the beginning, middle, and end of routes.

Company Rank Rewards

  • Rank Rewards adds an accessible I–X reward reference in the Company Ledger.
  • Higher ranks now show their documented Company-wide traversal, map, shop, healing, training, chest, gold, shelf, and cosmetic benefits in one place.
  • Rewards are a reference for what your Company has earned; they are not items to claim.

Watchtower and Combat

  • Watchtower combat now includes the Hollow Warden and two Dawn Sentinels.
  • The Warden’s one-time Grave Chill can Freeze living heroes. Frost resistance provides the documented mitigation.
  • Tap a living enemy figure to select that enemy, or a living ally figure to select that ally, using the existing combat target selection.

Adventure Shelf, Campaigns, and Music

  • The adventure shelf more clearly marks unfinished expeditions, and the fifth difficulty is labeled Master+ throughout the game.
  • Existing campaigns now continue without replaying the Veyr prologue.
  • Music playlists are assigned per adventure, giving the Heart of the Forest its own exploration and combat music while Forsaken Woods keeps its established playlists.

Saved Games and Compatibility

  • No campaign reset or save wipe is required. Existing Companies, inventory, attire, recruits, Reputation, and completed Forsaken Woods progress remain intact.
  • No stable-ID reorder, storage-path change, or intended save-version bump is part of Build 7.
  • Each adventure stores its own progress while the Company remains shared.

Suggested Tester Focus

  • Open both adventure books from Town, preview without launching, launch each one, return to Town, save/load, and confirm that each book resumes its own progress without changing the Company.
  • Travel multiple routes in each adventure, including backtracking. At every screen width, inspect the new paintings for seams, unwanted repeats, clipped ground, poor character contact, or unclear foreground silhouettes.
  • Open Rank Rewards from the Ledger at several ranks. Check touch and controller navigation, the longer Rank III and X descriptions, and that rewards are read-only rather than claimable.
  • Run the Watchtower and ordinary combats; confirm tapping hero and enemy figures, Grave Chill feedback, status markers, dice, and results remain readable.
  • Check landscape safe areas, background and resume behavior, in-place install preservation, prologue behavior for an existing campaign, audio transitions, and controller focus when hardware is available.

Windows verification and owner smoke testing are complete. Physical-device and physical-controller testing, Apple export and signing, TestFlight upload, and tester-installation acceptance remain to be confirmed.