Patch 0.4.1: Companions in the fight, skins you unlock, Custom Game

Update 19 October: 0.4.2 fixes a crash at start-up in 0.4.1. Everything below is in 0.4.2.

Patch 0.4.1 brings your Companions into the fight, turns skins into something you unlock by playing, and adds a Custom Game. Fights also open without the freeze.

In this update

• Companions in the fight
• Skins
• Custom Game and menus
• Fights
• Smoother play
• Fixes

Companions in the fight

• Companions now appear in the fight. Use one and it stands in gold light in front of your hero, does its move and leaves.
• Each Companion has its own figure, dressed like its portrait, and a move that fits its weapon. Spears thrust, blades swing, slingers whirl their sling, others hurl stones, boulders or javelins, and casters send fire or frost.
• Companions that give Boons, Blessings or Coins hold the gift up on the palm in a ring of gold light.
• With Reduced motion on, your hero does the Companion's work, as before.

Skins

• Skins are now unlocked by playing. Each hero's usual outfit and the first piece of each gear are always open.
• Outfits: win a conquest with the hero, then win at Labour IV, then at Labour VIII.
• Gear: each piece is unlocked by its own achievement. The Skins screen shows which.
• Wins and achievements from your earlier games count.
• A locked skin you wore before is put away until you unlock it.
• New gear skins. Aeneas: shields. Odysseus: swords and scarf colours. Atalanta: daggers and bows. Medea: her summoned sword and her halo.
• New Skins screen on the title menu. See every outfit and piece of gear on the turning hero, and how to unlock each one. Click an open one to wear it.
• The skin picker on the hero page has one row for the outfit and one for each piece of gear, each with a picture. The arrows skip locked pieces.
• On the map, Odysseus wears his sword and Atalanta her daggers at the hip, so your pick shows.
• Outfits are cleaned up. Plumed helm, Troy burning and King of Ithaca wear new helmets, with no hair showing through.
• Crowns, circlets and the beggar's hood now sit on top of the hair, with no hair poking through. Medea's shoulder pieces stay under her long hair.
• Cloak trims match their cloaks. Atalanta's lion pelt is a matte tawny. Medea's Serpent ring is a winding snake reaching for its tail.
• Odysseus now wears his outfit's colours in fights too.

Custom Game and menus

• New: Custom Game, beside Standard Solo Conquest. Set the rounds, the turns, each city's level and the scoring, and add Labours one by one.
• A Custom Game does not move you up the Labours and has no Ironman.
• Solo, local and online games no longer have a Rules step. Change the rules in a Custom Game instead.
• The title menu is shorter: Compendium and Skins share a row, and so do Settings and Quit.

Fights

• Ilion Falls: the fire rain falls on every enemy, not only the first.
• The Earth Shakes and Wall of Fire change an enemy's Armour when the crack or the flames reach it, not at your hero's slam.
• Odysseus raises his bow and then draws it. Atalanta does the same on her first shot.
• An enemy who summons steps well back while the creature rises, and walks back to his spot afterwards.
• The superhero landing at the start: your hero's left arm now goes out to the side for balance.

Smoother play

• Fights open without the freeze. The first fight of a run used to stop the screen for most of a second; now an opening is a short blink at most.
• Medea, Atalanta and Aeneas no longer pause at the start of every fight.
• The End Turn that ends a round is about three times quicker.
• No more pause when an enemy summons another, at the first night fight in each kind of place, or at the first fight with Cerberus or a city commander.
• Fights with Ember Seers run smoother.
• The first hit in a fight, and the first time an enemy catches fire, no longer freeze the screen for a moment.
• Uncovering a tile and playing a card are a little quicker on the map.
• Enemies use about 230 MB less video memory.
• The game takes a few seconds longer on the loading screen, so less is loaded during play.

Fixes

• Medea casts her new spell moves in every skin, not only her own outfit.
• Clicking the map while you only browse a counter leaves it and walks you there. After buying or fighting, the warning says why you cannot move, instead of a wrong Move count.