5.4

Highlights

• Combat and exploration go full screen: artwork fills the physical landscape display while text and controls keep to the safe area, with the Company, targets, results, and road given clearer places to live.
• Battle information has found its lanes: portraits and resources sit above, results and inspection settle lower-left, calculations center, conditions gain a shared row, and history can be browsed without changing the fight.
• Spells and Pouch open illustrated drawers: larger icons, wrapping names, aligned badges, recipient portraits, proper paging, and solid input boundaries keep choices readable without moving the battlefield.
• Every screen gets a better frame: Arena, the Veyr opening, Town pages, campaigns, books, reports, settings, portraits, shields, rewards, and ultrawide materials all receive a more deliberate presentation.
• Controls mind their manners: Blind Mode hides only top initiative/history, while friendly selection, help, and old interrupted battles all behave more reliably.

Availability

These notes are posted for the selected Build 18 source; they do not announce an app release. Windows development and QA are complete. The owner selected product version 5.4 on Athena; native build and deployment receipts will follow in the return handoff. These notes do not announce completed Build 18 delivery or TestFlight availability. Build 17 remains the latest confirmed Apple release.

Full-screen combat

Ordinary combat now uses a full-screen landscape arrangement. Background art reaches the physical display behind notch and home-indicator insets, while controls and text remain safe. Party portraits and resource plaques line the upper HUD; the current actor gets a stronger blue-white outline, while a friendly recipient gets a separate underline.

ROUND stays in a fixed-size initiative line. The latest event sits beneath it, with arrows for older and newer history; browsing changes neither targets, initiative, nor game state. Committed results and target inspection live lower-left, calculations have a center lane, and outcomes center vertically. Full Weaknesses and Resistances labels, effective AC shields, framed HP strips, and separate persistent conditions complete the clearer read.

Action captions are FLEE, ATTACK/ESCAPE, DEFEND, SPELLS/ABILITY/RELIC, and POUCH as applicable. Casters use SPELLS even at zero MP; active artifacts use RELIC. Compact creature titles and ordinals improve readability without changing canonical names or records.

Illustrated drawers and Blind Mode

Spells, abilities, relics, and Pouch open on larger illustrated sheets at the left, with larger icons, wrapping names, MP/count badges, recipient portraits, aligned amounts, IMMUNE states, Back, paging arrows, and counters. Opening or closing a drawer does not move the road, spend resources, or let a gap pass a click to the battlefield.

Blind Mode is a saved Game Settings preference, off by default. It hides only the top initiative/history panel and its arrows. Results, target information, actions, portraits, dice, and Continue remain visible; turning it off or restoring defaults brings the top panel back immediately.

Exploration, Arena, and Veyr

Exploration shares the new material and frame language: adventure/difficulty upper-left, location below, toolbar and full-word PROVISIONS upper-right, description lower-center, and one eligible Interact or Travel control lower-right. A circular arrow supports both directions. Existing stops, interactions, travel permission, completion, and saves remain intact.

Arena and the scripted Veyr opening use specialized versions of the same arrangement. Arena keeps venue art, daily purse, Yield, protected Company state, and once-only rewards, now with charcoal-and-silver panels, venue-specific floors, and ultrawide stone surrounds. Veyr retains story/video, Skip, scripted defeat, aftermath, Town return, and replay prevention; it has not become an ordinary fight.

Portraits, shields, rewards, treasure, and dice

Small portraits now share face/head registration across heroes and outfits in headers, sheets, camp cards, reports, and drawers. Transparent ornaments preserve faces; AC shields sit clearly above frames with larger centered numerals. Frozen creatures remain blue but easier to see. Post-combat and restored reward art keeps measured battlefield scale, even when large art extends beyond its panel.

Journal headings now fit completely, while ordinary treasure keeps a fixed readable wrapped description box. Chest d20s settle and show their result before the bonus d6 begins, with a 1.5-second pause—or 2.2 seconds on a natural 20. Fixed dice land by the result or enemy area; Free Dice stays optional, and chest/minigame dice keep dedicated positions. Natural 1/20 announcements retain their centered, once-only behavior.

Town, books, reports, settings, and ultrawide

• Campaigns use continuous parchment rows, a selected frame, fitted thumbnails, clearer tagline, and metal More control; storage, rename/delete, and bounded long labels remain unchanged.
• Blacksmith, Temple, Guild, Shop, and nested pages share consistent Return to Town geometry. Artifact/spell cards, adventure badges, completion marks, combat reports, paging, and compact Settings gain clearer proportional artwork.
• Lobby fades now cover the complete physical canvas. At desktop widths, battlefield/scenery stay centered in a 21:9 budget; 32:9 adds surrounding material instead of spreading HUD and combatants. Menus and protected modals use a centered 16:9 budget.
• Owner-supplied surrounds retain their original color and fit without extra tint or divider rules; frames use fixed corners, tiled rails, and uninterrupted interior material.

Inputs and compatibility

Portraits no longer intercept their parent button’s clicks: portrait, label, shield, and the full framed rectangle activate the proper owner. Right-click help and touch-hold suppression remain distinct from activation. Keyboard selection now tolerates a stale destroyed EventSystem target, campaign frames build safely without an adventure page, and older interrupted-combat saves gain only a missing presentation alias from their stable creature ID. Battle statistics and progress remain authoritative.

Existing campaigns, unlocks, combat costs, rewards, gameplay rules, and paid receipts are preserved; no campaign wipe is intended. Moonbones remains unlimited for internal testing. Black Tundra and Adventure Five remain development content, and tvOS remains a separate local-development baseline.