The Opening Finds Its Rhythm

Changes

• The opening now unfolds one beat at a time, so each new mechanic builds on the last instead of throwing everything at you at once.
• The Shadow Lounge now reveals itself in the world when you unlock it: the camera glides down to watch the room build itself, in place of a full-screen title card.

The HUD Learns Some Patience

Changes

• The HUD now reveals its icons only as they become relevant, instead of showing everything at once.
• The carry satchel icon stays hidden until you actually have something to carry.

Choose Your Drifter

New

• You can now choose which drifter to play as, instead of the game picking for you.

Changes

• Early-game dialogue got a rewrite.
• The Chain Puke tank rule is more forgiving now.
• Machines ding when their job finishes.
• The Hunter has new outfit palettes and refined default accessories.

Fixes

• Vomiting no longer overlaps awkwardly, and its audio varies more.
• Gutterbuoy’s blood decal now sits properly on the floor instead of poking through it.
• The investigator kneels beside bodies instead of walking past them.
• You’re nudged out of the way when a patron blocks your view of a milestone unlock.
• Dialogue no longer gets lost behind other panels.
• A cooked brisket delivers properly instead of getting stuck on the floor.
• The Hunter’s skin now smooths like every other character’s.
• Fixtures, Hunter faces, estate surfaces, textiles, and the HUD all got a polish pass.
• The opening room’s lighting is better balanced, and the gramophone is finished.
• Achievement tallies start fresh for each world, and Spotless Record tracks your save’s own clock.

A Bigger Spell Wheel

Changes

• The spell radial wheel is half again as large, so spells are easier to read and pick.
• Graphics quality now follows a profile chosen for your platform; changes to it take effect on restart.

Fixes

• Effects are prepared while the game loads, so the first time you cast a spell it no longer hitches.

A Whole New Icon Set

New

• Every spell, machine and placeable now has a hand-drawn icon in a matching style.
• The spell bar drops its number keys and collapse button for a cleaner, tighter row.
• Patron nameplates can be turned off in Settings > Preferences.
• Actors, wardrobes and estate surfaces got a visual pass, from mansion walls to supernatural effects.

Changes

• Tech tree nodes are wider so long names clear their icons, and all nine rows fit the Enchiridion page.
• Spell icons in the tech tree are twice the size.
• Therewolf and Full Moon Therewolf are back in their original colors.
• Undertaker guests hold their craving bubble up until you open the dossier.
• Guests bark at each other less often.

Fixes

• The block wipe transition no longer leaves gaps at the edges of the screen.
• Vomit particles are back, with a wider splash.
• Both hotdog guests survive to the party now.
• The liquid stream no longer hitches the first time it pours.

New Icons for Old Spells

New

• Knock Knock, All-Eye, Ghost Train and Firefly have new hand-drawn icons.

Fixes

• Spells on cooldown no longer paint a black square behind their icon.
• Vomit splashes stay where they land instead of riding along with the guest.

Smoke and Sparks

Fixes

• Every particle effect is back to the colors and fades it was drawn with, so fire, smoke and dust stop looking washed out.
• The anvil icon shows up again instead of a blank square.
• Yesterday’s vomit, crafting and Well Fed additions got a round of cleanup.

Sick to the Rafters

New

• A vomiting guest now soaks the room, complete with a splash where it lands and a spreading pool of bile.
• Craft directly from the grimoire, paid straight out of your storage tanks.
• Undertakers fed what they’re craving get a Well Fed bonus.

Changes

• Undertaker wages now come out of the same purse as everything else, meals included.
• The resource tree routes its connectors around the cards instead of through them.
• The Modify window keeps the +1 night option on screen where you can reach it.

Fixes

• Closing the crafting screen hands the grimoire back instead of leaving you empty-handed.
• The credits roster fits on the page again.

Say the Word

New

• Undertakers now announce what they’re craving in a speech bubble, so you know what to feed them.
• A spell that goes off near a guest but never reaches them floats a “Miss” overhead.

Changes

• Loading and chopping now out-rank dropping the corpse you’re dragging, and a bone pile at your feet.
• Interaction prompts that land on top of each other now push clear so you can read both.
• The game now tells you that wounding a guest is what draws blood.

Fixes

• A freshly deployed undertaker no longer stalls the moment gravity sets him down.

Fine Print

Changes

• Your charter and your standing wager now show up on the Bureau report, so the terms are in front of you when the year is scored.
• The credits list the sound authors whose work ships in the game.

Dead Weight

Fixes

• A corpse you drag outside keeps the pose it died in instead of snapping upright at the door.
• Fresh graves settle into a proper oval mound of dirt.
• Rotated furniture now covers exactly the tiles it looks like it covers.

Mind the Gap

Fixes

• Demolishing a room no longer drops you through the floor into the void.
• The guest book sits on the entrance hall floor again instead of hovering.
• Rooms and everything in them land on the correct floor when a level loads.

The Clown Stays Found

Fixes

• The clown’s marker sticks around now, so reloading mid-hunt no longer strands the search.
• Popup windows have thicker borders, which keeps them visible on the Steam Deck’s smaller screen.

Lighter On Disk

Changes

• The download and install size is back down; the last build had shipped with oversized textures.

Everything In Its Frame

Fixes

• Settings tabs and room names stay inside their frames no matter which language you play in.

Back On Solid Ground

Fixes

• Decor sits flush on wood and stone floors instead of hovering or sinking.
• Loading a game no longer leaves your spell bar collapsed with the wrong labels.

A Pointer With Personality

New

• Pick your own mouse cursor from a set of new hand-drawn pointers.
• The pointer now changes as you hover, click and drag.

Changes

• Click an undertaker to deploy them; click a patron to see their milestones.
• The whole spell slot is clickable now, not just the glyph in the middle.
• The hand cursor shows up over spell slots and the grimoire button, like everywhere else.
• The loading comet keeps spinning while the game loads in your browser.

Fixes

• Guests no longer steal your click when you are aiming at something behind them.
• Retired the red blob shadow under the cursor.

A Full House Runs Smooth

Changes

• A hundred guests in the house now runs at a steady 60fps.
• Guests far from the action think less often, and you won’t notice the difference.
• Guest lights offscreen stop costing you frames.
• The EKG readout no longer redraws rows you can’t see.

Take It Back

New

• Demolish anything you’ve built and get your money back.
• Set a Max FPS cap in the graphics settings.
• Pick a V-Sync mode, so a stubborn frame no longer drops you to 30fps.

Changes

• Undertakers you deploy now land in the clear instead of on top of the furniture.
• Wiring rings scale to the machine, so a tank’s ring is visible instead of buried underneath.
• Items with no front to aim no longer show a placement arrow.
• The spell wheel opens without its first-time stutter.
• Scream 8 moved to the female voice pool, where it belongs.

Fixes

• Wall colliders line up with the walls again, so you stop bumping into nothing in doorways.
• Decorative lights no longer count as part of an item’s body when you place it.

Picture This

New

• Press Page Up any time to drop a 1920x1080 screenshot straight onto your desktop.

Changes

• Boo and Ghost Train cast without the little hitch they used to have.

Say What You Mean

Changes

• The Bust prompt now admits when a ghost can’t be busted yet, and tells you why.
• Pressing it anyway answers with a refusal sound instead of nothing at all.
• Jeff stops promising a report in 15 days when he means the next moon.
• This Ol’ Wood now describes what its room unlock actually gives you.

Fixes

• Dragging a corpse into the front door, the Shadow Lounge, or a spawning room tells you no. Ordinary wall scrapes stay quiet.
• On a controller, a refused Bust no longer grabs whatever item was standing nearby.
• The Bureau Liaison’s name is spelled right everywhere it appears.
• The wardrobe’s writing is barely legible again, rather than “bareley ledgible”.

The Moon Means Something

New

• The moon now changes what a night is worth.
• Three refiners are open for business, so the Act 3 economy finally runs.
• Twelve new quests, including two scare jobs, two VIP requests, and four Act 1 side jobs.
• Four quests teach the undertaker abilities nobody had told you about.
• The four spells that were never explained now get taught.
• Every quest offer comes with narration instead of arriving cold.
• Investigators announce themselves before they land.
• The Bureau inspection is now about something.
• Corpse disposal has a sound.
• Ghost busts speak up when you name their bones.

Changes

• The investigator warning is legible over whatever room it lands on.
• A full Storage Tank tells you it’s full.
• The locked Bureau Report reads like a page you can’t open yet, not a broken one.
• The Layout page shows the estate you actually built.
• Controls prompts show the keys you bound, not the defaults you replaced.
• A controller can read the credits and cancel a job.

Fixes

• Loading a save no longer destroys what you had.
• Gate Pieces stay where you put them.
• A wired Furnace keeps making Blood Sausage across a reload.
• Nudging a tank no longer empties it.
• Room prices no longer leak in from your last game.
• The story stops replaying itself.
• An investigation you’re already losing stops re-announcing itself.
• Twenty-one more things you could see, from two rounds of play-through audits.

The House Flinches

New

• Everything you place now lands with weight: items squash, settle, and the house flinches around them.
• Items already in the room hop when you drop something down next to them.
• Every item has its own temperament, so a shrine settles differently than a generator.
• Shrines breathe.
• Generators chew audibly through their work cycle.
• Machines now tell you why they stopped, and show it.
• You have footsteps indoors.
• Guests who shrug off a scare now visibly push back.
• Breaking, repairing, and collecting each get their own reaction.

Changes

• Dialogue choices are now grimoire cards.
• Placing, removing, and picking up an item each have their own sound.
• Spending money is now something you can see.
• The scream catcher holds its purple glow and lightning a beat longer.
• The custom cursor is on by default.
• Every new game opens with the Hotdog.
• Chain scares no longer ring a bell; the streak counter does the talking instead.
• The HUD fades out of your way.
• The milestone tier row has its bounce back.
• Guests no longer sprout interact prompts when you walk past them.

Fixes

• Jammed doors reopen properly after you load a save.

Stick the Landing

Fixes

• Characters who drop in from above now land with an audible thump.
• Fixed seven reported issues across the intro, dialogue, crafting, and quests.
• Passersby wandering outside no longer get counted among your guests.

Changes

• The web version now shows its loading screen the instant it opens.
• Web builds recover on their own when your browser is holding onto an old version.

No More Flashes

Fixes

• Fixed a white flash that washed out the screen every few minutes.

Changes

• Resource flow dots now always draw, so the Resource Flow setting is gone.

Smoother in the Browser

Changes

• Browser builds now start on the lightest graphics settings, so the game runs smoothly from the first frame.
• Crank the quality back up in Settings if your machine can take it.

Honest Records

Fixes

• Runs where you used cheats no longer feed your Steam stats or pop achievement progress toasts.

Feats and Factory Wiring

New

• Unlocking a feat now drops a plaque on screen with a satisfying chime.
• Wiring up a factory connection answers back with a sound and a pulse of light along the line.

Changes

• The demo is playable straight from your browser at play.haunt.works.

Fixes

• Factory pipes from other floors no longer show through the one you’re standing on.
• The Mean Girl and the Lamplighter stopped glowing like they were lit from inside.

Controller Fixes

Fixes

• Your controller is heard properly now, whichever port it landed in.
• The spell wheel no longer sticks open when you let go.

Changes

• The demo’s milestone track now wraps up at the end of Act 1.

Grimoire Chrome

Changes

• The spell wheel is dressed in grimoire chrome to match your other panels.
• The return hatch is lit now, so it’s easy to spot on your way back.

Point and Turn

New

• Hovering an item in your house shows its tooltip, no clicking required.
• The mouse wheel rotates a placement preview before you set it down.
• An arrow on the preview shows which way the item will face.
• Tap an item’s remove control to move it; hold it to remove it.
• The inventory now opens with Tab.

Changes

• The facing arrow tucks in closer to the item, and items with no front don’t get one.
• Tier unlock quests wait until the tier below them is unlocked.
• The drain objective explains itself in gentler wording.
• The expenses graph drops its redundant “Coins paid” label.

Fixes

• Pausing in the browser ducks the music instead of leaving it at full volume.
• The gamepad’s A button no longer triggers HUD chrome meant for clicks only.
• Items under a locked teleporter reappear correctly when the floor comes back.
• Cloud sync stops stealing focus from the Discord invite.

Wipe Your Feet

Changes

• Dashing kicks up smaller dust puffs indoors, so you stop fogging up your own hallways.
• The web version’s outdoor fog now matches the moonlight blue of the desktop build.
• P works as a second pause and cancel key in the browser.

Fixes

• The shadow lounge hatch tile fades away smoothly instead of blinking out.
• Vomit puddles and mounds no longer turn blank after a cleanup.
• Breadcrumb orbs keep their glow when a trail redraws.
• The startup logo plays at a steady pace no matter how slowly the game loads.

Eat My Dust

Changes

• You run faster now, and dashing kicks up a trail of dust.

Fixes

• The web version no longer hangs while loading, and its periodic stutter is gone.
• Dash trails and undertaker landing puffs no longer cast shadows.
• The pause menu stays put when you close the Steam overlay instead of vanishing.

By the Book

Changes

• The HUD grows with you; the satisfaction bar and ghosts panel stay hidden until you’ve unlocked what they track.
• The undertakers panel waits until you’ve recruited your first undertaker.

Fixes

• The guestbook’s open book sits properly on its tabletop again instead of sinking in.
• Stray characters no longer flash across the loading screen or the main menu backdrop.
• The web version got a round of fixes: controllers respond, explosions have their boom back, and HUD costs display correctly.

Dash and Grab

Changes

• Ghost dashing no longer interrupts gathering; scoop up resources at full speed.
• The notification bell keeps ringing until someone answers the door.
• Guest screams top out a little quieter than they used to.
• Kids scream like kids now, from their own set of screams.
• Milestone unlocks you can’t afford grey out, and the cost you’re short on turns red.
• The crafting list has a proper scrollbar.
• The inventory modal has a close button in its corner.
• InvisiBill’s footprints dim to match the moonlit world.
• The save-wiping key combo is gone from normal play; it only exists in demo-booth mode now.

Fixes

• Saying Goodbye ends the conversation for real; it no longer replays itself.
• Entrance hall decorations no longer sink into the floor.
• The occasional freeze while the world loads in is gone.
• Guests no longer double up their screams.
• Chester and Wynn have their own tails back.

Moonlight

Changes

• The whole world is graded as moonlight now, so lanterns and firelight are the only warm things in it.
• Scares, casts and grabs land with real weight behind them.
• The approach to the house is lit where you actually arrive, and three noisy lampposts are gone.
• Menus, dialogue choices and the mailbox letter all share the grimoire’s binding.
• Grimoire buttons have their key travel back when you press them.
• The Ferris wheel memory falls harder and opens sooner.
• Modularity now explains which way wiring runs when it’s introduced.
• Steam Deck gets larger quest tracker text without inflating it everywhere else.
• The browser build has its outdoor fog again, including in the Ferris wheel memory.
• The credits read as two columns, so the whole roster fits one page.

Fixes

• Rotated items sit on their placement squares instead of beside them.
• Feet no longer sink into rugs, roads and dirt.
• Enki’s summoning glyphs fold along walls instead of cutting through them.
• Amun-Maw’s nameplate stays hidden until you open the bookcase.
• The Ghost Hearse achievement is no longer missing from the list.
• Milestone rewards that had no description now have one.
• Steam stats and achievements report as you play.
• Arrows in the menu pages no longer read as empty boxes on Steam Deck.

Easier On The Eyes

Changes

• The smallest text in the modals is bigger now, so nothing needs squinting.
• The browser build’s lighting matches the desktop game again.

Fixes

• The credits no longer spill outside their panel.

Play It In Your Browser

New

• Hauntworks now runs in the browser on itch.io, a sixty-day vertical slice with no download.
• The game pauses itself when the Steam overlay opens or your controller drops out.

Changes

• The Ferris fall now smears the whole carnival past you as you drop.
• The HUD panels and the spell bar wear the grimoire’s aged-paper look.
• Every remaining modal has been rebound in the same style.
• The inventory grids are wider, so a full collection fits without scrolling.
• Modal headings are bigger and the main menu buttons sit lighter against the scene.
• The Wishlist button moved down under Quit.

Fixes

• The web build renders correctly now and no longer stutters on its way into the menu.
• The AUTO machine no longer bleeds past its panel.
• The Enchiridion’s spine ribbon sits flush with the top edge of the page.

Bound in the Same Leather

Changes

• The pause, settings, and milestone screens now match the grimoire’s aged-paper look.
• Your inventory has been rebound in the same style.
• Confirmation popups, the main menu buttons, and the load game screen all got the same treatment.
• The wordmark’s trim is a richer brown.

Fixes

• The opening flashback rolls into its fall cleanly now, with the wheel’s gondolas rocking as it brakes.
• The flashback’s dissolve sweeps across the scene and closes in on the sleeper.

A New Point of View

New

• A Toggle First Person cheat button lets you wander the house at eye level.

Fixes

• Patron nameplates now tuck away with the rest of the HUD when you hide it.

A Fresh Pair of Eyes

Fixes

• Wynn and Chester both had a misbehaving right eye; they can see you perfectly now.

Behind the scenes, a new crowd of townsfolk arrived for costume fittings. Keep watch for fresh faces wandering in soon.

Keeping Pace

Changes

• The Boo ghost now sprints alongside you when you dash instead of sliding.

Fog and Lamplight

New

• Lampposts now glow with a halo of light in the fog.
• New music outside, including a fresh outdoor playlist.

Changes

• Room materials now debuff guests instead of buffing your spells.

Fixes

• Outdoor shadows no longer pop in and out as you walk around.
• The fence shadows in the flashback stop appearing out of nowhere.
• Ferris wheel seats no longer clip through the wheel during the ride.
• Cleaned up the Wanderer’s face; the stubble is gone.

Centered

Fixes

• The Scream Catcher now sits centered on its cell instead of hanging off the edge.
• Fixed a rare crash when a character portrait was being generated.

Drop the Stick

New

• Chester’s fetch quest finishes when you drop the stick near him, no handoff needed.
• Items in the Storage Tank modal show their tooltips on hover.

Fixes

• The placement overlay paints blocked cells red again.
• Items can no longer be placed through walls.
• The Floor Drain occupies the footprint it shows you.
• Wellshrieker’s False Parade copies no longer linger after you load a save.

The Gate Comes Early

New

• The gate build and the decision that follows now land in Act One.
• Amun-Maw introduces himself at your first ashing, not your first bite.
• Blood Sausage joins the Enchiridion resource tree.
• Making a guest puke now rewards a Floor Drain, which pipes straight into Chain Puke.
• Breadcrumbs follow the floor properly, handle stairs, and can be toggled at any time.
• Jeff gets the full undertaker arrival treatment at the door.
• The dpad-down plus start save reset works outside demo mode now.

Changes

• Patron milestone tiers have been reworked; the Ghost Janitor is gone.
• Undertaker deployment and the guest and ghost modals wear the grimoire theme.
• Top-center banners queue up instead of piling on, capping at three.
• The player holds still for the unlock celebration.
• The machine connection prompt teaches both wire verbs.
• Bureau graph axes are labeled instead of every single point.
• Items can no longer be placed in open doorways; door cells are painted red.
• The Organ? unlock notification has an icon.
• Click-to-move is no longer a player option.
• The vestigial blueprint grid is gone from the Layout survey.

Fixes

• Ghost Dash previews as itself instead of a white blob, and the Knock Knock hand is no longer tiny and disappearing.
• Dialogue no longer gets stuck behind modals that aren’t there.
• Reaction-order dialogue reads with the emphasis it was supposed to have.
• The creative_ceiling objective triggers on the toot itself rather than the laugh that follows.
• Guests fading out on their way to the exit no longer cause trouble if they leave early.

Follow the Crumbs

New

• Hold your breadcrumb key to bring the trail back, then let go to tuck it away again.
• The breadcrumb key can now be rebound in Controls.

Fixes

• Guests no longer lock up mid-laugh and stand frozen for the better part of a minute before carrying on.

Blood That Pools

Changes

• The Exsanguinate flood now pools as a real volume of blood instead of a flat rising sheet.
• Building a room now reveals it with a tint that matches the room’s material.
• Your inventory grid packs items gap-free, with the oldest stack first.
• The Collect Call job now wants the Roamstone delivered into the Wellshrieker’s hands.

Fixes

• Previewing Knock Knock no longer barks or shakes your live camera.
• Removing a connected drain now cleanly severs its pipe.
• One-hit VIPs now read 1/1 instead of showing the wrong count.
• The mind shard quest no longer auto-completes on its own.
• Wired-up machines keep their craft button.
• Resource rates no longer read inflated right after starting a fresh session.
• Drained vomit vanishes completely now, leaving no squelch and no trail behind.

Patron Names, Sharper

Changes

• Patron name labels now cast a purple and black drop shadow, making them easier to read at a glance.

A Hand From Beyond

New

• Your mouse cursor is now a ghostly undead hand.
• Undertakers puff out a cloud of smoke when you deploy them into a room.

Fixes

• Characters no longer slide backward when standing up or kneeling.

The Yard Comes Alive

New

• Guests now stroll your front yard between the gate and the door while the house is open, each one carrying the name and face of a real visitor.
• Jeff finally has a “Goodbye” option, and he only heads off when you dismiss him.

Changes

• Arriving guests wait politely at the entrance until they reach the door.
• Milestone celebrations now cycle through a fresh set of victory clips.
• Machine menus got cleaner chrome and tidy row borders.
• Floating notifications swapped their text outlines for softer drop shadows.
• Enki quest cards share one unified look now.
• Your dash run eases into a smoother glide.

Fixes

• Sprinting with a corpse reliably fires the “Ghost Hearse” achievement again.
• Enki quest text no longer shows “nil” or a stray “Awaiting your seal.”
• Silenced a couple of harsh scream sounds and the per-letter title thuds.
• Undertaker drop shadows render correctly.
• Ghost dashing is blocked while you are on the Shadow Lounge ladder.
• The first Enki milestone no longer auto-offers a redundant quest, and spell rewards skip the extra celebration jump.

Smoother, Faster

New

• Every dash now lives on one button: hold Shift (or controller A) to break into a run, and your faster dashes chain in as you unlock them.

Changes

• The whole cast got a smoothing pass: guests, undertakers, dog patrons, menu ghosts, and both player bodies all have softer edges now.
• Deploying undertakers uses a cleaner, redesigned modal.
• Roamstone holders now reliably show up in the Entrance Hall.
• Therewolf and Funny Bones got portrait touch-ups.

Fixes

• Loading a save no longer re-offers the “Sign the guest book” quest.

Speakeasy Glow

Changes

• A candle in the Shadow Lounge moved to cast better speakeasy light.
• The front door’s inside teleport zone is smaller, so you won’t trip it by accident.

Floor Plan

New

• Placing an item now paints the floor grid, so you can see exactly which cells it will fill.
• Taken cells glow red, and the keep-clear zone around each door gets a blue hatch.
• The overlay follows your cursor in real time and only lights up the room you’re aiming at.
• More NOISE ALCHEMY: a theme for the sliding bookcase, a sting when you start a game, and a new ambient bed.
• Menu and modal buttons now swell slightly and play a sound when you hover them.

Changes

• Placement aims by the item’s center, so pieces land right where your cursor points.
• Placed items sit flush and centered on their tiles instead of drifting off the grid.
• The war horn now sounds the moment you start a new game.
• Pipes are always visible now; the Pipes setting is gone.
• Your celebration jump plays even while you’re walking instead of being skipped.
• The Boo ghost pops up closer to its target.
• The loading spinner moved to the bottom-right corner.
• The Shadow Lounge label wraps onto two lines and keeps clear of the bookcase.

Fixes

• Rugs stay visible under items placed on top of them.
• Amun-Maw’s name label holds still while the bookcase slides open.
• Music no longer snaps back to the wrong track after a celebration.
• A wooden shelf that showed a gray strip now renders its proper wood.
• The first scream of a scare no longer pans hard to one side.

Hold Music

New

• Hold down a crafting row to keep crafting, at every station.
• The main menu has new music: NOISE ALCHEMY’s UNEASY LISTENING 1.
• The main menu backdrop now drifts with a slow camera sway.
• Wood, tile, and stone rooms each draw from their own pool of furniture sets.
• Furniture sets got proper names and a fresh round of redecorating.

Changes

• The Shadow Lounge has a reworked layout, and Enki now waits at his spot when you load in.
• The milestone unlock sting is half as loud.
• The build sound now stretches to last the whole room reveal.

Fixes

• Guests now walk through the middle of doorways instead of squeezing along the frame.
• Wood floors no longer turn invisible during the build reveal; floors fade in with the rest of the room.
• Room name labels no longer go half-dark when a wall fades in front of them.
• Closed the thin corner gap that appeared where two faded walls meet.

Raising the Roof

New

• Building a room is now a show; the floor floods in, the walls rise, and the furniture pops into place.
• Rooms under construction shimmer an eerie purple until the build finishes, capped with a particle burst and a satisfying sound.
• You now leap for joy when a milestone celebration goes off.

Fixes

• Wall cutaways no longer meddle with rooms that are still mid-construction.

Grandpa Gets Misty

New

• Ghostly Grandpa now dissolves into drifting mist from the waist down.
• The Gamer Girl glows with flickering CRT scanlines, like a haunted old television.
• A new Gamma slider in Settings > Graphics lets you brighten or darken the whole game.

Every Guest Is Somebody Now

Changes

• All 19 city guests got a head-to-toe makeover with new color palettes, skin tones, and bolder silhouettes.
• Four guests now arrive in full costume: a chicken suit, a gimp suit, a witch, and a demon.
• Costume guests keep their look even in ghostly form.
• Guests now carry signature props, and some of them light up.
• Each guest has their own subtle glow and personal flourish of effects.
• Guests stand with their own posture instead of sharing one stock pose.
• Guests walk at their own pace and no longer idle in perfect sync.
• The Therewolf now swipes on the move instead of stopping to attack.

Dead Doorways Finally Match Their Walls

Fixes

• Sealed-off doorways in Tile and Stone rooms now blend into the wall instead of patching in wood.
• Guests and undertakers on another floor no longer block your item placement.
• Placement highlights no longer bleed through the hatch to the floor below.
• The near wall of a freshly built room fades out of your way again once the build effect finishes.

Drag and Drop Comes to the Inventory

New

• You can now drag and drop to reorder items in the inventory panel.
• Drag items in and out of the Storage Tank modal the same way.
• Placeable item icons are now color coded by primary versus emotional.
• A new indicator panel shows the status effects on your VIP guests.
• Spare mouse buttons can now be bound to actions.

Changes

• Modular rooms are a touch cozier now, sized down to fit the new layout.
• Undertakers fade to transparent the moment you recruit them.
• The Crafting Table is now always unlocked from the start.
• Furniture props tuck out of sight beneath anything you place over them.
• Placement warnings now name the thing that is in your way.
• You can no longer drop items on top of a standing NPC.
• The one-per-room limit now applies only to the Scream Catcher and Chuckle Canner.
• Guard Goyle has moved to Enki’s first tier.
• Bureau fines are only charged once you actually read the report.
• The compressor now has audible feedback when it runs in auto mode.

Fixes

• Fixed the Wellshrieker turning invisible after you recruit her.
• Fixed spell unlock highlights pointing at the wrong slot.
• Fixed “next quest” stalling on the Shadow Lounge objective.
• Fixed the Chester breadcrumb trail not routing through the backyard wardrobe.
• Fixed a blank white preview on certain milestone rewards.

Altar Progress at a Glance

New

• Each patron altar now shows your milestone progress floating above it.

Cleaner Crafting and Steadier Guests

Changes

• Demolishing a station now hands back whole items instead of scraps.
• Costs you cannot afford now show up in red so you know at a glance.
• Furnace loading reaches twice as far, so you no longer have to stand right on top of it.
• The garden gate glows white once it is built, then turns green when a guest leaves through it.
• The macOS green button now goes to true fullscreen, and Borderless Fullscreen stays in sync with it.
• Player movement speed has been tuned for a smoother stroll.
• Mind Lodestone now costs 1 Pile of Bones and 1 Terror Cube.
• Tin Man’s Desire and Organ recipes have been reworked.

New

• Classic alternate recipes give you a second way to craft certain items.

Fixes

• Guests no longer freeze in place forever after a missed step.
• Vomiting guests stay put instead of wandering mid heave.
• The ghost slide is now visible when you move through the backyard.
• Recipe-teaching quests now complete properly when you produce the item.
• Grandma’s body no longer wanders in as an ordinary guest.
• Fixed a rare crash tied to the VIP trail.

Faster Startup

Changes

• The game launches to the menu dramatically faster now, cutting the wait from about a minute to a handful of seconds.
• Game content loads quietly in the background while you browse the menu, with a small spinner in the corner to show progress.
• Character select now greets you with a “choose your drifter” header.

New

• Stuart Grady joins the sound effects credits.

Changes

• Settings now houses Controls in its own tab.
• Unstuck has moved from the pause menu into Settings, under Preferences.
• The startup logo now plays in full before the menu appears.

Snappier Intro

Changes

• The opening sequence moves faster now, with a quicker carousel, a shorter fall, and a speedier stand-up.

Fits Your Screen

Changes

• The resource bar now scales smoothly to match your screen resolution.

Sharper and Smoother

New

• New graphics settings let you tune render scale and upscaling to balance sharpness and speed.

Fixes

• Autosaving no longer causes a brief stutter while you play.
• Opening menus for the first time no longer hitches.

Smoother Than Ever

Changes

• The whole game runs smoother after a sweep of performance fixes.
• Wood and Stone rooms have swapped their spell bonuses.
• Save slots on the loading screen now show how long you’ve played.
• The machine power toggle is now reachable with a controller in the AUTO recipe view.

Fixes

• Characters with new looks no longer hitch the first time they appear.
• Ghost-sliding no longer locks up when you talk to a patron mid-slide.
• The quest hint banner no longer fills the screen on controller.

A Cast of New Faces

Changes

• Gutterbuoy slinks in as a grimed gutter-wraith, brighter now and with longer reaching arms.
• Cleaveland is a charred husk dotted with glowing embers.
• The Therewolf prowls in stark arctic-white fur.
• The Wellshrieker drifts in as a spectral wraith.
• The gargoyles, TurMoyle and the GuardGoyle, shed their stock look for weathered bronze stone.
• Barnaby Bones holds court as a graveyard king.
• The Sparkly Bloodsucker comes in fresh color variants, with a rogue void-wraith among them.
• Leveling up now lands with a new sting.

Fixes

• Investigators no longer freeze mid-search after a scare makes them flinch.
• Fixed duplicate Sparkly Bloodsuckers and overflowing room names in the recruits panel.

A Thirstier Bloodsucker

New

• The Sparkly Bloodsucker now bites its victims and can Exsanguinate them.

Changes

• Hold the breadcrumb key to hide your trail, and each save remembers whether it was on.
• Wiring connections at the factory stay locked until you take on the modularity quest.

All-Eye and a Brighter Furnace

New

• The All-Eye now reveals secrets to every VIP in the room when you cast it.

Changes

• The furnace lights up while it is cooking.
• Mirror crafting now lists the item names it can produce.
• Patron altars are granted to you directly instead of as blueprints you craft.
• The crafting table costs 10 screams, and the chopping table is half as much at 12.
• The Conflater costs just 2 of each resource to craft.
• Amun-Maw milestone prices and gate piece costs were retuned.
• Enki’s dialogue tab scrolls with the right stick and lists your most recent talks first.
• The rank tutorial waits until you dismiss the VIP-satisfied modal.

Fixes

• Music no longer overlaps itself when you cross between zones mid-fade.

Bust the Ghosts Loose

New

• Free trapped ghosts by holding E to bust them out.
• A breadcrumb trail now lights the way to your next objective.
• The Mind Lodestone quietly gathers mind shards on its own.
• An animated tutorial shows you how to cast a scream during the collect-a-scream quest.

Changes

• Patron shrines now go by their deity names, and bone crafting costs were retuned.
• Enki’s altar takes a tithe on your rate to unlock its tier 3 reward.
• The crafting table gives a satisfying ding when a craft finishes.
• Factory pipes show connection guides, with target highlights and idle direction arrows.
• Resource dots now ride the full length of a pipe from the source.
• Pipe flow runs slower overall and no longer speeds up as items pile on.
• Pipe lines and resource flow have separate visibility settings now.
• Hold to transfer everything at once in the storage tank.
• Your very first scream in the front yard no longer interrupts with a camera pan.
• The main menu button now reads Quit, and the duplicate quit option left the pause menu.

Fixes

• Pipe direction arrows stay hidden until the flow has fully drained.

Falling Through the Dark

Changes

• The Ferris wheel now fades away as the camera zooms in, then re-forms around you during the fall.
• A gust of wind kicks off the plunge and the whole scene cuts to black on impact.

Step Right Up

New

• The Ferris wheel flashback now plays out across a full horror carnival midway.
• The Coffin recruits a one-time Sparkly Bloodsucker, and it lives only in the Shadow Lounge now.

Changes

• Wiring previews now trace smooth, evenly spaced dots from their source.
• Room build previews show as a solid purple open box, even on the far walls.
• Each patron’s altar reward now arrives in the tier right before their gate.
• The Controls menu fills the screen and lists accurate bindings.
• Item recipe costs got a rebalance.
• The camera no longer pans to actors who are standing outdoors.

Fixes

• The quests panel no longer puffs up after you collapse and expand it.
• Dialogue choices no longer overlap their glyphs, and the buttons are wider.

Follow the Pipes

New

• Factory machines now connect with real overhead pipes, and you can watch goods flow between them.
• A “Show Pipes” setting lets you pick when pipes appear: never, near you, in the room, or always.
• The Floor Drain pulls vomit out of your halls, and new altar sinks deliver goods straight to your patrons.
• A second death flashback awaits at the Ferris wheel.
• Stu lent his lungs; 86 new screams join the guest scream bank.

Changes

• Reaching a milestone now plays a proper sting that ducks the music, then fades out gently.
• Walls cut away more boldly and fade more cleanly when the camera looks through them.
• Cleaveland settles into a different idle for each of his abilities.
• Hovering an actor in the sidebar pans the camera to them.
• Room upgrades now show on the Enki map for whichever room you select.
• The recipe picker collapses once you choose, with a Change button if you want to swap.
• The guest book keeps its secrets; its name label now reads ”???”.
• You can open the pause menu during flashbacks, and pausing actually freezes them.
• The OBJECTIVE COMPLETE popup is gone for good.

Fixes

• Opening your inventory now cancels any item placement in progress.
• Find the Liaison no longer gets stuck after viewing the Bureau report.
• Gravetide deals gore and disgust damage again.

The Road at Night

Changes

• The flashback of the one who never stayed now plays out as a walk down a night road, with new scenery and captions that cross-fade.
• The deity toast now hails The Mouth That Never Closes instead of Desert Walrus.

Fixes

• Quest props can now be dragged outdoors, so Chester’s stick actually moves in the backyard.

Waking Up

New

• A new first-person intro opens on your eyes blinking awake as you fall.
• A chopping-table revive powers the new “Help I’m Alive” quest in Act 3.
• Craft Blood Sausage at the furnace once Amun-Maw reaches Tier 2.
• An eighth spell slot joins the radial menu.

Changes

• Machines with more than one recipe now ask you to pick one when you wire them.
• Machine modals show the name of the item being crafted.
• Hold a factory connection to remove it.
• Your portrait now appears during dialogue choices.
• The guest satisfaction bar reveals alongside your spell bar.
• Gravetide animates and crawls faster, with its scare landing a beat later.
• Low-level crafts take a little longer and play a work-loop sound.

Fixes

• You no longer vanish behind the backyard facade while ghost-sliding.
• Chester’s stick no longer disappears when you reload mid-fetch.
• Indoor music no longer gets stuck on one track after a Shadow Lounge visit.
• Gravetide now shows up in the milestone preview.
• Danse Macabre’s horror readout no longer flips its sign.
• Fixed a crash when sorting your crafting items.

The Door Jam

New

• A new Door Jam slots into any doorway and reroutes guests around it.

Changes

• Summoning a VIP now waits until you take on the summon quest.
• The Compressor costs 10 Screams to run.

Fixes

• The doorbell no longer rings forever when the Therewolf arrives.
• Shadow Lounge furniture no longer blocks your path; you can walk right through it.
• Patron name labels sit cleanly above each head, with Amun-Maw’s riding above the bookcase.

The Shadow Lounge

New

• A speakeasy lounge opens its doors, with a bar, gramophone, card nook, and a coffin for a coffee table.
• Warm candlelight and a fresh chandelier set the mood downstairs.
• Every patron now wears a floating name label above their head.
• The Bureau itemizes its fabricated fines when it charges you at report time.
• The Furnace learns two new mirror recipes: Bovine Blood and Imitation Goo.
• Settings now let you manually override your input device.

Changes

• Act 1 splits into two journeys: recruiting your patrons, then the climb to the gate.
• Spreading your roots is now the climax of Act 1, with the stairs saved for Act 3.
• Your fateful choice at the gate is now a proper decision you can put off for later.
• The opening hours teach themselves as a clean loop of resources, ending when you summon a VIP.
• Wynn’s Creative Ceiling is now a three-step laughter tutorial, and a reminder points you to her in the backyard.
• Cleaveland only debones a guest when there is a Chopping Table in the room.
• Bone piles now count as evidence; ghosts no longer do.
• The demo ends the moment you dispose of a body, not just discover one.

Fixes

• Bodies can no longer be dragged outdoors, into the Shadow Lounge, or into rooms mid-spawn.
• Fixed placement clearance for the Compressor and Haunted Elevator, and widened the backyard wardrobe.
• Notoriety now resets cleanly after each investigation, with clearer indicted and sanctioned colors.

The Gate Decision

New

• A memory flashback leads you to the gate, where you choose to go or stay.
• All five patrons now offer their mid-game tests as the story heats up.
• The Bureau turns menacing, hitting you with fabricated fines as Act 3 looms.
• A new stretch of guidance ushers you from the tutorial into the mid-game and points the way through Act 1.

Changes

• The late game teaches its own economy, from secrets to cheese and cackle cream to re-homing the mind diamond.
• The Storage Tank now wears a distinct fuel-tank icon.

Fixes

• VIP loop progress now sticks across saves.
• Cleaned up the see the gate dialogue and made sure every patron test is reachable.
• Swept out a few stray em dashes.

Lures, Cobwebs, and Lullabies

New

• A new Firefly spell lays down a living lure trail that pulls guests along behind it.
• Cobwebs coat the floor and slow guests, bunching them up for a bigger scare.
• The Lullaby is a new guest whose calming aura punishes you for scaring the same crowd twice.
• Five new quests arrive, along with the Decor of the Damned achievement.
• Bring Out Your Dead is now a multi-step quest chain, and undertakers greet you with their own recruitment dialogue.

Changes

• The crafting menu has tidier categories and sorts by cost.
• Placing an item no longer cancels when you move or slide.
• The guest modal now spells out how each VIP works right at the bottom.
• Gathering shows a live throughput readout, undertakers haul a bigger bonus, and congestion gates the flow.
• Milestone reward cards get the noise-border frame.
• InvisiBill’s Janit ability now hunts down and mops up only vomit.
• Factory wire flow scales to the actual resources crossing it.
• The Build the Gate quest returns to cap off Enki’s storyline.

Factory Whirlwinds

New

• The Conflater now erupts a horizontal tornado while it runs.
• A new Furnace machine joins the line, and the Compressor and Conflater handle multiple recipes.
• Act intros arrive as a ghost dissolving into view.
• Storage Tanks buffer your machine inputs and outputs.
• The Settings volume tab adds a master slider and per-row mute buttons.

Changes

• Factory wiring moved to Y, and you can reroute a producer’s output to a new node in one press.
• Reversed-order machine pairs now connect automatically.
• Factory flow shows each item’s real collectible mesh, with dots flowing along the wire.
• Each guest rank now grants +1 to every resource that guest generates.
• Satisfied VIPs pop out a blue Mind Glass cube.
• Disconnected machines eject their stranded materials as collectibles you can grab.
• The notification bell pulses yellow and chimes for every door arrival.
• Bloodsuckers now walk all the way up before they bite.
• Chainsaw revs are quieter with a tighter falloff.
• Controller mode shows button glyphs on dialogue choices and machine modals.

Fixes

• Steam Cloud saves no longer drop your factory wiring and other settings.
• The crafting table prompt no longer gets stuck on screen.
• Quests no longer hand out duplicate rewards.

Quest Order

Changes

• Quests now flow through their acts in a cleaner order.
• The bureau report and Jeff stay locked until you finish the Find Tow quest.

Press E Less

Fixes

• The setting to hide the “E” interaction prompt now sticks everywhere it used to sneak back in.

Therewolf at the Door

New

• Pull off a triple chain scare to summon the Therewolf, complete with a doorbell and flickering door light.
• The investigator now prowls her room hunting for bodies.

Changes

• Officer Tanya is much tougher and far better at investigating.
• The Surprise Party balloon no longer makes guests sick.
• Less blood splatters when you drag bodies or debone them.
• Guests keep their hearts and chatter until the hearts fade.
• The Gutterboy undertaker is now the Gutterbuoy.
• The Compressor and Enki Tier 1 now cost just 5 screams to craft.
• The selected undertaker location and behavior buttons now highlight in red.

Fixes

• The Gutterbuoy balloon and the hunting Therewolf deal damage again.
• Cleaned up some lingering fog.
• An achievement tied to collecting evidence now unlocks correctly.

Achievement Polish

Changes

• Achievement descriptions are rewritten to be clearer and a little more fun.
• Several achievements that never unlocked now trigger correctly.

We’re in Beta

New

• The game is now officially in Beta.
• Therewolf now shows up the first time a guest takes physical damage.
• A new Blood toggle lives in Settings, under Accessibility.

Changes

• VIPs now answer your summons at 15 satisfaction instead of higher.
• Tier-1 rewards are reshuffled, and spell quests now hand out their rewards.
• Laughing guests keep a wider berth so they stop clipping into each other.
• Toot no longer deals any physical damage.
• Focused menu buttons now show the ‘A’ button glyph.
• The character-selection modal has a cleaner layout and clearer selection feedback.
• Your hat now shows through the occlusion outline along with the rest of you.
• Switching items or pressing other input now cancels an item placement preview.

Fixes

• Camera shake no longer crashes when a scene is tearing down.

Barnaby digs in with a real shovel, and InvisiBill revs up

New

• Barnaby now wields an actual shovel while he digs.
• Chase down the new Amun-Maw Ghost Janitor milestone.
• Ghosts now count as evidence in Bureau investigations.
• A notification lets you know the moment you can afford a milestone unlock.
• New achievements to earn.

Changes

• InvisiBill’s chainsaw tantrum now has an audible 3D rev.
• The Bureau Bingo card is now a full 5x5.
• Barnaby’s Danse Macabre carries a horror penalty alongside its absurdity bonus.
• Chester’s quest line now routes through Wynn before Curdle the Bile.
• The game reminds you when an undertaker has waited outside more than seven nights.
• Removing a room from the house map now asks you to confirm first.
• Therewolf now faces the guest who triggers his transformation.
• The three-heart health display no longer floats over guests.
• Tanya’s investigation kneel sequence is smoother, and the camera takes a beat before focusing.
• Enki’s milestones are trimmed and his quest dialogue reworded.
• Fear hole camera shake is dialed back.
• The doorbell and Bureau report no longer ambush you the instant a save loads.
• Cleaveland’s Debone ability is hidden in the demo.

Fixes

• Demolishing a furniture set on the map no longer crashes.
• Resuming music that was paused mid-fade no longer crashes.
• The map no longer opens when no house is loaded.
• Hellspikes no longer leak across save-loads.
• Returning to the menu no longer flashes grey, and fullscreen resizing behaves.
• Barnaby’s shovel scoop now faces the direction he’s digging.
• InvisiBill’s footprints point the right way in the Shadow Lounge.
• Compress the Terror objectives no longer shift out of order after a milestone step.

New recruits introduce themselves, and the dead get dressed for the apocalypse

New

• Outfits can now be recolored swatch by swatch, with greyscale presets for that end-of-days look.
• Each undertaker now gets their own intro conversation before you reach the recruitment hub.
• Enki keeps his name hidden as ”???” until he introduces himself.
• Enki hands you a Guard Goyle through a line of dialogue.
• The Compress the Terror quest now includes an Enki tier 1 milestone objective.

Changes

• The clown is now your first recruit, and Therewolf shows up the first time you serve Mystery Meat.
• Recruitment dialogue trimmed down to two clean choices.
• The Triple Chain Scare quest now only asks for two built rooms instead of three.
• The Layout map is now titled “Nausoleum No. 9” in spooky type.
• Re-casting a spell on an immune guest now pops an “Already seen” notification.
• Fleeing guests now wander room to room instead of bolting in a straight line.
• The map’s simulated paths now favor the stairs when picking a door.
• Close the pause and inventory modals with B, and the inventory with ESC too.
• Radial spells get a short grace period before deselecting when you release the stick.

Fixes

• The fear hole spell no longer bleeds its effect onto other floors.
• The stale Grave Five intro tip stops nagging once you step inside the house.
• Skipping a conversation now still applies whatever that dialogue was supposed to do.
• Casting Fear Hole near Gravetide no longer crashes.
• Deleting a save slot is reliable now, with no more phantom delete errors.
• Held ESC and other keys no longer repeat and reopen modals you just closed.
• The Map button shows the correct left bumper glyph on controller.

The map opens up and the logo lands with a thud

New

• Press M to open a new fullscreen Layout map with overlay sidebars and a styled floor selector.
• Guest paths animate across the map with marching ants, splitting into a colored exploration leg and a separate exit leg.
• An animated elbow-elbow logo plays at game launch, complete with a coconut pop on impact.
• New Credits button and modal added to the main menu.
• A new Steam poster scene recreates the vertical store art in-engine.

Changes

• Spell bar’s top-left button tray now includes a map button, and active buttons tint yellow.
• Quest completion now slides in as a notification instead of taking over with a modal.
• The camera briefly pans to investigators when they spawn so you actually see them arrive.
• Chester’s stick is now dragged around like a corpse instead of pocketed, and you can hand it over with a new Give interaction.
• Item tooltips and the Furnace tooltip rewritten for clarity and flavor.
• The bureau liaison now mentions the 15-day report cycle in her return bark.
• Milestone modal reshuffled with unlock and cost info above the content, and the Hellspikes preview animates.
• Undertaker location modal pages through rooms, and the room pager stays anchored at the bottom.
• TOW and furnace interaction radii widened, and the player can now chop bodies directly.
• The quit survey CTA softened from “30 seconds” to “a minute”.

Fixes

• Startup logo always plays to completion now and holds for a beat before fading to the menu.
• Engine boot splash suppressed so the startup logo only plays once.
• Boo the ghost properly reports his scares, so two-for-one quests give credit.
• Ghost-slide transparency now covers hats and beards, not just the body.
• Gravetide no longer gets yanked back to its spawn after the pre-cast delay.
• Player portrait, Boo, and Gravetide all route to whichever character you picked.
• Doorway fills now match the materials of the wall they sit in.
• Duplicate key items each react on their own instead of sharing immunity.
• Removed the broken Godot logo preload that was breaking the credits modal.

Apocalypse characters take the stage

New

• New apocalypse character models join the lineup, with animated previews when you hover them in the picker.
• Dressing room gets a SIDEKICK character dropdown for mixing and matching looks.
• Gravedigger now has a proper run animation instead of falling back to fast_run.

Changes

• New games start you on an apocalypse character by default.
• Character previews now hold a neutral idle until you hover them.
• Inside playlist leads with a new track over the old whelp_test placeholder.
• Toot’s squat animation is faster and the VFX lands mid-squat now.
• Removed the dead Umbral Maw slot from the spell bar.

Fixes

• Boo the ghost has been rebuilt on the apocalypse rig so his cast animations play correctly.
• Main menu music no longer restarts when the outside track is already playing.
• Standing-up animations no longer drag apocalypse characters across the floor.
• Running slide keeps its ground contact on apocalypse characters again.
• The new-game picker no longer swaps your model twice.

Main menu tidy-up and a Spooktacular crash fix

Changes

• Main menu bottom buttons stack vertically along the bottom-left corner.

Fixes

• Fixed a crash when the Spooktacular achievement tracker erased entries.

New quests, six new achievements, and Privacy controls

New

• Refinement and Roamstone questlines, with three new achievements.
• Six more achievements: Spooktacular, Five-Star Haunt, Field Marshal, Dos Comas, Wet Work, and Pantheon.
• Two-for-One quest bridges Triple Chain Scare and C-C-C-Combo.
• InvisiBill throws a chainsaw tantrum, apocalypse-flavored.
• Privacy button and modal in the main menu; telemetry opt-out toggle in Settings.
• Telemetry disclosure on the Discord first-launch screen.

Changes

• Refreshed player animations from Mixamo.
• Confirmation modals now use the press effect; kick/abandon UI retired.
• Bugs and Discord main-menu buttons use icons instead of labels.
• Gravedigger’s hat attaches to her head so it tracks her properly.
• Creative Ceiling and Spread Our Roots quests gate on their prereqs.

Fixes

• Player skin variants use the real Synty atlas, no forced scream tint.
• What’s New button hides during game loading.
• Player occlusion outline rebinds correctly when the model swaps.

Player variants, Discord invite, and a spell merger

New

• Player skin variants: Gravedigger and Demon.
• Footstep puffs trail behind the player.
• Subtle camera idle drift adds life to standing around.
• Discord invite shows on first launch.
• Survey button moved into the quit and end-of-demo modals, with a Y-button shortcut.

Changes

• Umbral Maw and All-Eye combined into All-Eye of Shoggoth.
• L3+R3 cheat unlock is back; opening cheats disables achievements for that run.
• Wynn’s questline now waits until you’ve made a guest puke.
• Machine modal progress bar covers the full action button.
• Investigation badge narrowed; What’s New button widened.
• Land skip on the next dialogue choice instead of past it.

Fixes

• Ghosts stop wedging against placed items like the Chuckle Canner.
• Cyclenaut respawn works again, with female screams.
• Dead rogue bloodsuckers no longer bite.
• C-C-C-Combo now counts spell scares.
• Gravetide no longer deals gore damage.
• Compressor SFX continues across modal close.
• Arizona ghost’s hair matches her body color.

Settings overhaul, controller nav, modal polish

New

• Settings split into tabs with segmented controls and steppers.
• D-pad navigation works across the main menu and side panels.
• Controller brand detection swaps input icons to match Xbox, PlayStation, or Switch.
• Bureau Bingo locked cells now show a lock icon.
• Modal names reveal with a typewriter effect.

Changes

• Modals slide in from the bottom of the screen.
• What’s New pins the active day’s date and tightens its scroll behavior.
• Inventory hover and controller focus share one highlight style.
• Spellbar collapses and re-expands when you switch input device.
• Undertaker location modal gets black buttons and a floor pager along the bottom.
• Tooltip pin feature removed.

Fixes

• Main menu controller focus navigation works again.
• Press effect no longer drifts on rapid clicks.
• Row-hover highlight in side panels is visible again.

Spellbar glitch effects, fire experiments

New

• Spell buttons glitch and twitch when pressed.
• Experimental fluid-sim fire variants on the spell bar.
• The backyard fireplace gets a 2D fluid-sim flame.

Changes

• HUD visibility button hides by default and reveals on hover.
• Bark speech bubbles hide while a modal is open.
• Barnaby’s Dig does nothing without a roamstone, or when Grave Five Alive is present.

Quest rewards & spellbar polish

New

• Quest rewards arrive as stacking slide-in notifications.
• Spellbar pulses purple when a VIP summon is available.
• L3/R3 toggle the left and right HUD panels.

Changes

• Footsteps go quiet while sliding.
• Reward sound plays once, on the banner.
• Room panel shows the room name and per-room totals.
• Enki’s summoning shake lasts longer and starts earlier.

Fixes

• Clearer quest hints for puke and laughter ordering.
• Vomit puddles last longer; Chain Puke text is clearer.
• Night spawner stops re-spawning dismissed undertakers.
• Hidden achievements stay masked in Bureau Bingo.

Carnival accessories & menu polish

New

• Dressing Room got a VIP dropdown and an Enki preview slot.
• New carnival accessory pack for the Dressing Room.
• Backspace snaps a screenshot. Filenames end in .png.

Changes

• Main menu title glows blood red.
• Item descriptions live on each item, with more breathing room.

Fixes

• Hidden achievements stay hidden in Bureau Bingo.
• Jock is out of the auto-spawn pool for now.

The Dressing Room opens

New

• Dressing Room scene for previewing undertaker outfits and accessories. Patron and guest dropdowns, camera zoom, split front/iso panes, per-undertaker recolors.
• Wellshrieker’s crystal ball, Barnaby Bones’ procedural pieces, Therewolf’s outfits, and the Count’s hat are all toggleable now.
• New texture-swap outfits for Gutterboy and a Wishing Well outfit for Wellshrieker.
• Recruitment is a slide-in notification under the resource bar.
• An EXIT sign floats over guests who are leaving.
• Steam achievements wired up, with Bureau Bingo content to chase.

Changes

• Demolished rooms stay sealed. Neighbour doors get blocked.
• Blocked doors are passable barriers so guests reroute.
• Dead-end doorways get filled with solid wall.
• Recruit dialogue replaces the old modal flow.

Fixes

• Night spawner stops re-spawning dismissed undertakers.
• Grave Five recruitment no longer breaks on name mismatch.
• Ghost slide and stale laugh cylinders reset on new game.

Room demolition & Grave Five Alive

New

• Demolish a room; guests evacuate. Doorways seal cleanly.
• Per-doorway blocking persists across saves.
• Full Moon Therewolf portrait shows when Hunt is selected.
• Grave Five Alive is now a distinct undertaker.

Changes

• Each guest has a per-guest max for physical health.
• Cyclenaut VIP starts with 1 physical health.
• Machine row focus auto-shows the produced item’s tooltip.
• “Obfuscated Meat” renamed to Mystery Meat.

Fixes

• find_the_clown completes when you greet the clown via recruit dialogue.
• Sparkly Bloodsucker’s walk and idle animations no longer crossed.

Dialogue locks & ghost-slide fixes

Changes

• Controller dialogue choices block movement until you answer.
• Patron actions open the milestone modal directly.

Fixes

• Ghosts no longer slide through Shadow Lounge walls.
• Repaired items stop rendering bright white.
• Investigators handle corpse evidence and vomit correctly.
• Undertakers stop clipping on placed furniture.
• Organ variant survives save/load.
• Wynn and Chester block the player properly.

Milestones, music, and a new digger

New

• Grave Five Alive: new mobile undertaker with his own portrait and save state.
• Barnaby’s Dig ability with animation. Grave Five gets Operate.
• Milestone events fire deity reputation notifications.
• All-Eye redesigned: pinched, player-tracking eye with fresh sclera fill. Proper icon in the radial wheel.

Changes

• Milestone modal redesign. Cost sits in a bordered box between Unlock and Track.
• Hovering Unlock shows the full stacked cost tooltip.
• Item removal prompts appear on hover and float over placed items.
• Inside and outside music resume instead of restarting.
• Crafting jobs run on a persistent processor.
• Patron milestones rebalanced.
• Gravetide clones render via MultiMesh; default is double spiral.
• Gravetide horror/disgust applies by room.

Fixes

• Wellshrieker scares guests again.
• upgrade_room quest no longer completes with items in other rooms.
• Joystick recenter deselects the active radial spell.
• Milestone objectives increment for item costs.
• Grave Five’s portrait stays hidden until recruitment.
• Survey button no longer has a stuck purple glow.

Enki’s All-Eye lands

New

• All-Eye spell wired to slot 4 and Enki’s tier 4.

Cha Cha Slide & spell audio polish

New

• Cha Cha Slide achievement: drag a corpse through a wall via Ghost Slide.
• DIG audio audition panels wire spell sounds and tune Gravetide variations.
• A demonic chant drone plays while Umbral Maw is active.
• Guest Screams volume slider in settings.

Changes

• Ghost Slide becomes a passive ability, with a corrected milestone preview.
• Guest rank moves to the RankProgressBar and gates on summon_vip, alongside VIPPhone.
• “Organ?” reveals its mystery in placement previews and milestone previews.
• All resource icons show from game start.
• ResourceBar widens, centers on viewport anchors, and gets tweak sliders.
• Bureau report graphs anchor at day 0 with per-point value labels.
• Resource rank label restored on the resource bar, with split rank/satisfaction tooltips.
• Build a Room quest dialogue explains the room/guest-capacity link.
• Guest rank tooltip rewords to explain the stat boost.
• Ghost Train camera shake intensity halves.
• VIP-summoning quests route through Wynn.
• Dialogue text always left-aligns regardless of portrait side.
• Milestone LB/RB icons hide when no controller is connected.
• Modal and survey button purple glow shadow halves in size.
• Demo mode labels the main menu phase as “demo”.

Fixes

• Gravetide wail no longer fires when spawned from a fear hole, and fear-hole spawns floor-gate properly with a 2.5s stall.
• Mind Glass resource and item totals stay in sync.
• E key responsiveness in exploration dialogue restored.
• Exploration dialogues tag, so callers can cancel them by tag.
• Silent Steam Cloud sync failures now surface.
• Cloud meta drift auto-heals on download.
• GuestsPanel max drives from HouseCapacityManager signal.

Lamplighter trap, Room Boons, and bureau history

New

• Lamplighter trap quest, with a summon_another_vip follow-up; trap_lamplighter folds into the follow-up.
• C-C-C-Combo and Make-a-Guest-Puke quests; C-C-C-Combo lands after Triple Chain Scare.
• A Room Boons panel listing material and upgrade bonuses for the current room.
• A Roaming deployment for Roamstone-holding undertakers, with their live room shown as (Roaming) <room> in the side panel.
• Sanctioned and vindicated investigation outcomes.
• Demo Mode cheat; CheatsModal splits into three columns.
• Show Logs cheat that ships logs to Sentry from the Logs modal.
• Bureau report grows history graphs in each section, with a two-column layout and a satisfaction cap of 20.
• SITE button and survey glow on the main menu.
• Ghostly tether between a ghost and its unprocessed corpse.

Changes

• Bureau report fires every 15 nights instead of 30.
• Summon_vip now requires you to collect a Mind Glass.
• Early access mode gates the VIP button after the final VIP.
• Cheats and Logs modals restyle to match PauseModal.
• Hellspikes milestone cost rises to 5 mind shards.
• Resource collection sound gets a cooldown.
• Laugh cylinders juiced up with pulse, spin, trail, and bouncier physics.
• Cemetery gate Build interaction area widens.
• Undertaker behavior description scales with UI scale.
• Wall B shows the full room number; “Entrance Hall” stays unnumbered in the side panel.
• Fetch quest rewards stack in their own padded panels.
• Enki post-downstairs and gate-piece dialogue tightened.
• Steam authenticates up front using a cached password file.
• MilestoneModal shrinks on Steam Deck so it clears the sidebars.

Fixes

• Room Boons panel fades in with its background instead of without.
• Therewolf Sneak deals damage again.
• Guard Goyle blueprint unlock fires.
• Danse Macabre Barnaby actually amuses guests.
• Wynn portrait framing corrected.
• Nav pause flag sets even when the guest isn’t moving.
• Gutterboy default absurdity zeroes out.
• Behavior stat modifiers align with the actual code constants.
• Sentry skips nav_path_fail reports for PlayerCharacter.
• Freed source_guest read guarded in bile trail spawning.
• Several singleton refs cached in OperateBehavior, GuestsPanel, MovementInterpolator, and the vampire hot path for performance.
• Furnace payback aside trimmed from unlock_milestone quest dialogue.
• Per-frame room update dropped in FearResponseComponent.
• Excludes Secrets, Urn, Pipe, and Wardrobe from “all items” cheats.

Therewolf mid-jump transformation & camera shake

New

• Therewolf’s transformation is now a continuous mid-jump swap, and the howl drops two octaves; the scare lands one second after the transformation starts.
• Camera shake added to spell casts, slide, and player fall, with a delayed slide shake 0.25s in.
• Guests now bleed when they take physical damage or while being dragged.
• DIG main menu gets a scenario loader; autosave defaults off in the editor and on in exported builds.

Changes

• Corpses and ghosts persist across save/load.
• Undertaker deployment behavior persists across save/load.
• Furniture set assignments restore during load bootstrap.
• Max zoom-out lifts to 3.5 both inside and outside the house.
• Knock Knock gets heavier wood impacts, a 19% pitch drop, and a 3-second cooldown.
• Umbral Maw duration halves from 9s to 4.5s.
• Toot leaves smaller fog puffs behind the player while active.
• Hellspikes damage radius lands at 3.0, decoupled from the 2.5 visual radius.
• Player fall and slide camera shake intensities tone down.
• Boo sound pitch drops 5%.

Fixes

• A* short-circuits unreachable rooms so the navigator doesn’t hang.
• DialogueSequencePlayer guards against null current_scene lookups.
• Galaxy particles guard against null current_scene.
• Guest rank manager detected by script path, not group membership.

Changes

• Barnaby’s Danse Macabre swaps to a single floorcombo loop.

Changes

• Vomit pools get a hemisphere mound on top of the decal.
• Gravetide’s gore stat now feeds the disgust system.

Ghost Train scares & dialogue polish

New

• Ghost Train actually scares guests as it passes.
• Toggleable vomit pool visual experiments, with noisy circular splat decals.
• Branching post-downstairs Enki dialogue.
• Demo mode restricted to the intro quests, but save/load still works.

Changes

• Patron milestones restructure with Gate Pieces in the mid tier.
• Bureau report tab gates on meeting Jeff.
• Hide the Body quest reassigns to Enki.
• Endgame Enki quest chain linearized; All We Know Is Up moves to Act 1.
• Room upgrades retuned: Blood Bank dropped, quest targets swapped.
• Dialogue highlights revised; emphasized words tint yellow.
• Dialogue choice buttons pad and wrap; branching choices color by advance vs loop semantics.
• Yellow noise-border overlay replaces the dark-fantasy hover frame.
• Enki and Amun-Maw milestone tiers shift up by one.
• Guests play their walk animation while exiting the haunt.
• Guest barks shorten from 5s to 3s and pace better.
• Autosave throttles to once per 5 minutes, with a settings toggle.
• The False Parade is no longer a player spell.

Fixes

• Flee-to-laugh slide hands nav pause off to laugh, so animation and nav residue clear.
• Guests stop being disgusted by their own vomit trail.
• Post-laugh stand-up blends, so guests stop sliding and sinking.
• In-progress dialogue stops when loading or starting a new game.
• InvisiBill footprints render as Decals to fix zoom-out aliasing, and the sprite swaps when stored in the Shadow Lounge.
• InvisiBill tantrum alternates pull and push on each stop.
• DIG next quest quick actually skips dialogue.

Build the gate & Early Access modal

New

• Build the gate quest, with Gate Pieces granted from the corresponding patron milestones.
• Ghost Brisket is craftable as an Amun-Maw tier 3 unlock.
• An Early Access modal stacks with the demo end modal; the cemetery gate routes to Early Access.
• Demo mode can be enabled locally via the --demo CLI flag.

Changes

• Player occlusion outline skips when you’re outside.
• ImGui experimental section reorganized.

Fixes

• Post-load sidebar, redeploy location, and upgrade_room quest all behave correctly.
• Gutterboy sequence no longer bricks the lights if you descend mid-cutscene.
• Mind shard generates when 3 reactions overlap in the same window.

Tur Moyle and the cemetery gate

New

• Tur Moyle, a gargoyle undertaker with Operate behavior, hatches when you feed a Guard Goyle a Ghost Brisket and walks-and-bartends on deploy.
• Gate Pieces drop as a final-tier reward from every patron, and you assemble them into a cemetery gate via a Build interaction; walking through the finished gate triggers the demo end modal.
• Pipe is a new item that attaches atop a Compressor, Conflater, or Storage Tank.
• Storage Tank is interactable with a deposit/withdraw inventory.
• Haunted Elevator prices in as an end-game craft.
• VIP walked trail renders as a floor-pinned dotted line.
• Player gets a yellow occlusion outline when a wall hides them.

Changes

• Crafting modal layout and cost rendering reworked; held item counts show in the Compressor modal.
• Compressor and conflater outputs go straight to your inventory.
• Cleaveland’s Debone behavior gates on a chopping table being present.
• Guest barks expand for vomit, disgust, laugh, flee-end, entry, room, scare, and end-of-tour.
• Speech bubbles stack to avoid overlap and hide under modals.
• Patron milestones restructure with Gate Pieces in the mid tier.
• Storage Tank moves to Enki Tier 1 at 20 Screams.
• Costs lowered for Ghost Slide, Amun-Maw Tier 1, and Conflater.
• Tin Man’s Desire heartbeat audio tightened; Knock Knock spell gets knock sounds.
• Item stats adjusted: Gate Piece, Mouth Feel, Haunted Elevator.
• Cemetery gate phases animate as you build it.
• VIP Satisfied modal fires when a coffin intercepts a Rogue Bloodsucker.
• Undertaker behavior stat modifiers retuned.
• Furnace ignition splits from player drag, so NPCs can light it.

Fixes

• Two crashes squashed: missing Vomit icon and balloon explosion ordering.
• Already-picked-up fetch stick hides on game load.
• Ghost panel rows key by Ghost actor, not the dead Guest.
• Mouse stops warping during controller item placement.
• Undertaker location modal centers on Steam Deck.
• Player occlusion outline tightens up and now detects doors.

Chester joins the roster

New

• Chester becomes a recruitable undertaker via his tier 4 milestone, and he carries his held item right into the deploy modal.
• Roamstone rewarded for completing Spread Our Roots, with a milestone preview.
• New quests: unlock_milestone, find_the_clown, find_wellshrieker, creative_rocket.
• A Killed By modal opens from ghost rows and ghost actors.
• Chevron paging on side panels lifts the quest tracking cap.

Changes

• Spell radial menu restyled to match the SpellBar visuals.
• Mean Girl entourage protection no longer locks in immunity.
• Quest objectives can be OR-grouped, and body decay shows a countdown in the guest interaction modal.
• Chester’s Consume ability renamed to Slurp; milestone shows both organ icons.
• InvisiBill’s Gather ability renamed to Drag.
• Triple Chain Scare excludes Entrance Hall and Shadow Lounge from its room count.
• Behavior-switch quest now completes on any undertaker.
• Auto-offer Chester’s chain_puke quest after stick turn-in.
• Milestone costs halve across the board; Chester tier 1 gets an Organ? reward.
• Tin Man’s Desire costs 3 Vomit now.
• Amun-Maw collapses to 4 tiers; Enki tier 1 gets a Fear Hole.
• Find the Clown moves to right after Recruit.
• VIP stats line up with spawn order and starting health normalizes to 3.
• Item and spell hover tooltips format as aligned stat tables.
• Crafting cost labels go red when you can’t afford them.
• Jeff parents to Outdoors, with a “Find the Liaison” objective.
• SmileDoor renders with live particle smile, toggled in DIG Tweak.
• Body decay countdown moves into the interaction modal.

Fixes

• Gutterboy balloon damage is attributed to the balloon, not Gutterboy.
• Rogue bloodsucker bites blocked on patrons, undertakers, and when a coffin is placed.
• FearHole only triggers for actual Guests.
• Stale ext_resource UIDs refreshed across scenes, with a pre-commit guard.
• Arizona walk animation lookup fixed.
• UndertakerPanel row gradients stop accumulating on refresh.
• “the Enki” / “The Enchiridion” naming cleaned up.
• Room-center nav targets snap to walkable cells.

Haunted Elevator, hitstop, and Jeff becomes a patron

New

• Haunted Elevator lands as a recolored GLB prop with a lantern, sigil, skulls, and cobwebs in the cab.
• Bureau Liaison Jeff is now a patron; choosing the bureau report opens the Enki report directly, and he barks “Thanks Jeff.” once his name is revealed.
• Hitstop on player-spell scares, gated behind a feature flag with DIG tuning.
• An Enki glow rises with the book and turns red on summon.
• 9 new resource-tree items, and Devaporator doubles in scale.
• Giggle Juice gets an inventory icon and color tint.

Changes

• VIP invite modal shows a mainline plus flavor explainer at larger font sizes.
• Enki resource tree drops unused tabs and rebuilds stats as a comparison table.
• Tutorial modals and dialogues are suppressed in robot mode.
• Volumetric fog forces on while the Toot effect is active.
• Speech bubbles scale with camera zoom.
• Mean Girl complaint bark waits until her shield fades out.
• Mean Girl PROTECTED label becomes a shield icon with a follower count.
• VIP phone position raises; inline controller-prompt icons in dialogue go to 64x64.
• Milestone tier buttons styled as interlocking flags.
• Autosave moves from settings menu to a DIG feature flag, and fires on quest completion with a 5-minute idle fallback.
• Backyard process_mode toggles by player area; inside always processes.
• HUD panels stay locked open on Steam Deck.
• Wynn and Chester rewards retuned; Triple Chain Scare gates by room.

Fixes

• Release-build startup crash from ImGui debug scripts now lazy-loads them.
• Door cells and clearance stay walkable, so guests stop getting stuck.
• Dialogue portrait clamps at 240px with centered choices.
• Recruit modal button text centers in keyboard/mouse mode.
• Mind shard generation no longer breaks when 3 reactions overlap on the same tick.

Fixes

• upgrade_room quest auto-completes if you’ve already discovered the Blood Drawing Room.

Mouth Feel, Organ?, and a milestone reshuffle

New

• Mouth Feel placeable carnival entrance lands as a Wynn T3 reward, with placement requiring a connected door.
• Tin Man’s Desire placeable heart, beating with a pulse animation.
• Organ? mystery placeable that randomly spawns a pipe organ or a guts bucket on placement.
• Triple Chain Scare quest, awarded after Find Chester, drops a Fear Hole.
• From Downtown achievement; Full Roster bumped to 7 undertakers.
• Mean Girl’s entourage is now Summer Girl and Hipster Girl by name.

Changes

• Patron milestones restructure around the new resource chains; Generators tab wires up Organ, Mouth Feel, and Tin Man’s Desire.
• Enchiridion renamed to Enki.
• Rogue Vampire VIP renamed to Rogue Bloodsucker.
• Tanya and Dameon drop Mind Glass instead of Mind Shards.
• Fresh Blood drops from hellspike hits; Ghost Goo from guest deaths.
• Sign-Your-Name routes through the quest dialogue overlay; the old PatronQuestModal is gone.
• Guest spawning pulls from a shuffled deck instead of independent random picks.
• Recent interactions cap at 7 with a + N more overflow line.
• Item tooltip stats render one per line.
• Speaker and patron names show uppercase in the UI; “the” moves out of VIP names into the invite prompt.
• Discovery and recruit modals restyled; controller button icons shift 50px right.
• Confirmation modal buttons double in size with centered text.
• SpellBar collapses until you unlock your first spell on keyboard, and stays collapsed on controller.
• Behavior descriptions inline under each undertaker radio button.
• Controls modal restyles to match PauseModal with refreshed bindings.
• Boot splash UID points at the right logo file.
• Cloud saves toggle moves from settings to DIG feature flag.
• HUD panel collapsed state persists across save/load.

Fixes

• Bookcase / Wynn auto-resolution leftover removed.
• GuestsPanel portrait refreshes when a guest is bitten into a rogue vampire.
• Flinch walk-back tween skips guests with no Root Node3D.
• GuestsPanel row clicks guard against freed guests during fade-out.
• Confirmation modal button text centers in keyboard mode.

Knock Knock, VIPPhone, and noise-border chrome

New

• Knock Knock spell lands as Amun-Maw Tier 1, with tooltips and yellow icons; Mirror Dance moves to the experimental bar.
• VIPPhone replaces LevelCircle: a phone icon with a ringing animation, swappable position via DIG.
• A scream-driven ResourceOrb behind a feature flag.
• Investigation badge persists across save/load and joins the HUD eye toggle.

Changes

• Modals unify on a SCREAMS-color noise border with black backgrounds.
• SpellBar wraps in a bordered panel, key badges replaced with named, bordered spell rectangles, and icons tint via the noise shader.
• Notoriety caps at 3 with a 1:1 star UI; investigations escalate Tanya then Dameon.
• Game over now shows Load / Main Menu / Quit instead of a soft-restart, with the full death message shared via a constant.
• Demo end modal turns into a small dismissible “end of demo” prompt.
• VIP Enchiridion dialogue shows only on the first Mean Girl summon.
• Settings dropdowns and toggle ON states pick up the green-in-noise-border treatment.
• ResourceBar layout flattens with uniform 32px gaps.
• Mean Girl shows fangs (with fade) instead of a “BITING!” label.
• GuardGoyle is no longer unique.
• Compact, color-coded resource tree; Enchiridion modal expands.
• Pause modal playtime label font size up; PauseModal background drops to match QuitConfirmation.
• HUD eye toggle moves to the UI layer and hides the whole HUD.
• Loading screen background goes black with a DIG color picker.
• Main menu loading bar matches the rest of the noise-border chrome.

Fixes

• Investigation badge collapse and HUD eye toggle inclusion.
• TextMesh depth disabled on evidence indicators to avoid convex decomp errors.
• Sparkly Bloodsucker registers properly with the save-state spawner.
• Navigation Vector3 state serializes as arrays so saves round-trip.
• Loaded quests no longer get their wrapped objectives clipped.
• Undertaker panel deploy-signal hookup moves to _ready so it always fires.

Guests panel, 3D room labels, EKG hearts

New

• A right-side Guests panel appears once you walk through the gate, with 3D-baked portraits, guest counts, and per-row dead/alive state.
• An EKG pulse readout drives each guest’s heart color and BPM from their emotional state.
• Speech bubbles bark guest emotions over their heads.
• Room names get 3D labels on Wall A instead of a top-of-screen banner.
• A Ghosts panel alongside the Guests panel.
• Toggleable upgrades panel on the right, sitting below the Guests panel.

Changes

• HUD chrome unifies across RankProgressBar, LevelCircle, and roster rows, with a shared noise-overlay shader and inverted corners.
• Top-right HUD buttons tint purple and shift right; panel headers go gold; all-caps Nunito display text everywhere.
• Resource bar widens to fit currency icons, then slims down to just currencies and notoriety.
• Inventory and Enki modals re-sized; inventory frame skull graphic shrinks.
• Objectives and Undertakers panels collapse and auto-size to content.
• Guests panel header shows the live guest count.
• Guest rows fade and slide on enter/leave, with a transparent-to-black gradient background.
• Guest names cap at 13 chars; dead guests render flatlined.
• Humor and disgust bars drain during laugh and vomit.
• House opening re-enables guest spawning correctly.
• Inside music resumes shuffled when loading a save inside the house.

Fixes

• Missing 3D room labels on shared-wall rooms, plus room-number consistency.
• T-posed and orphaned portrait bakes.
• Production crashes from broken release builds.
• Recruits panel signal duplicate-connect guard.
• Recruit row crash when refreshing after a PortraitStudio swap.
• Quest panel slide-out and slot undersizing; completed progress text.
• Cloud save deletion follows local save deletion.

Cloud save conflict modal

New

• Cloud save conflict modal now puts your local and remote saves side by side for comparison.

Changes

• New item icons: compressor, refenestrator, mind shards, mind diamond, furnace, plus a coffin_lorc for the Coffin and dodging_lorc for Ghost Slide.
• InvisiBill’s portrait switches to the Invisible icon.

Amun-Maw & scream variety

New

• Patron formerly known as Amun is now Amun-Maw.
• 11 new female scream variants and a new inside-music track (ablpsh2).
• Cheats menu gets a next-track music cheat, satisfaction reset, and achievement reset, laid out in two columns.

Changes

• VIP rank-up ties to Mind Glass; the VIP button stays gated until the current VIP leaves.
• VIP explanation dialogue refreshed for the re-invite flow.

Fixes

• Wandering undertakers stop leaving their deployed room.
• Undertaker stat display refreshes when you switch behaviors.
• Full Roster achievement catches save-loaded recruits.
• Recruited-undertaker registration is skipped if the node frees mid-await.

Discovery modals & Thoth into the bookcase

New

• First-time discovery modals for items and room upgrades.
• Thoth folds into the bookcase as the Amun patron, showing his reputation in the action modal.

Changes

• Room material modal widens to fit longer room names.
• Sparkly Bloodsucker can be deployed after coffin recruitment.
• Crafting via gamepad A now validates item_costs.

Fixes

• Ghost Slide radial wheel uses the right icon, drops its cooldown, and highlights when active.
• Bookcase crash on Thoth interaction.
• Controller undertaker item assign works again.
• hide_the_body resolves cleanly and spread_our_roots seeds from existing rooms.
• Discovery modal OK button pinned to a fixed bottom offset.
• Meathead break-radius debug cylinder gone.

Fixes

• Release builds no longer skip dialogue validation.

Dialogue choices & Bureau Liaison Jeff

New

• Bureau Liaison Jeff joins as a guest; Dameon moves to the no-auto-spawn list.
• Dialogue choices with id-based branching, 2x2 grid, and quest/item effects.
• All we know is up quest from This Ol’ Wood.
• Ceiling fans animate and cast downward spotlights, with a DIG tweak panel.
• Sanctuary and Screamatorium are the new names for stone rooms; the Screamatorium upgrade is gone.
• Stone furniture sets get statues, cages, candelabra, and a chandelier.

Changes

• HUD tightens up: purple borders, smaller top-right buttons, white VIP fill that matches the rank bar.
• Resource bar enlarges 25% with a purple border.
• LeftPanel splits 40/60 between Objectives and Undertakers.
• Base furniture-set names become the default room name, and each set is consumed at most once per save.
• Build material modal previews named base furniture-set rooms.
• Dark fantasy framed buttons drop their hover tint.
• PauseModal grows 30px when cheats are unlocked, with DIG controls for tuning.

Fixes

• Resource notification stops flashing at (0,0).
• This Ol’ Wood quest indicator offsets dialed in.

Detectives, vampires, and Count bite

New

• Detective Dameon joins the cast as the notoriety-2 escalation, with a DIG detectives section.
• Sparkly Bloodsucker undertaker, with a rogue-vampire fix to go with it.
• Hide the body quest fires the first time a guest dies.
• The Count’s bite is fully fleshed out: animations, approach, same-room gate, infection, once-per-room, stat sync.

Changes

• Quests in the side panel now look like undertaker rows, with an inline untrack button.
• Guest fear bars drain gradually during flee.
• Coffins can only be placed in the Shadow Lounge, with an error message everywhere else.
• Postal VIP retired; orphaned Slayer milestone reward cleaned up.

Fixes

• Sparkly Bloodsucker’s idle animation in the Shadow Lounge.
• Cyclenaut animations stop dragging the root bone around.
• Count’s hat and hair properly attach to the head bone.
• Blank-white meshes in archived Props.tscn replaced with scene instances.

New quests, Ghost Slide, and patron rework

New

• Ghost Slide is a toggleable spell unlocked at This Ol’ Wood tier 1.
• Safety Mittens is a holdable, unlocked on Chester’s tier 1 milestone, and holdables now surface in the inventory.
• Creative Ceiling quest from Wynn.
• Spread Our Roots 9-room quest from This Ol’ Wood.
• Chester’s chain puke quest joins the lineup.
• Cyclenaut added to the VIP button sequence, and dedicated characters now back each VIP.
• A live slot-machine reel animates the resource bar counters.

Changes

• Lamplighter aura grants +1 to all stats, with a breakdown shown in her modal.
• Wellshrieker’s Haunt ability becomes Ritual Sacrifice.
• Late-game quest gating reworked; tracked objectives cap at 3.
• Meathead break chance buffed; SLAYER VIP removed.
• Patron action modal restyled on ModalDialog and now states the patron’s reputation.
• Patron milestone rewards and costs rebalanced.
• Stick pickup and fetch turn-in adjust patron reputation, with a notification.
• Talk and Tithe hotkeys swap places in the action modal.
• Enki resource tree shows item tooltips and icons on hover.
• Slip Between spell removed; Soulstrom moves from Conflater to Scream Catcher with a 0.1s effect.
• Slide steering rate doubles to 6.0.
• Mailbox intro modal animates “dead” and the final “scare”.
• Horror stat stripped from non-scarer items.
• Refenestrator gets a real prop scene in place of the bingo machine.

Fixes

• Meathead rushes break items reliably; guests stop stalling on arrival.
• Chester stick turn-in line now addresses you directly.
• Barnaby’s Danse Macabre transitions smooth out and auto-restart.
• Stick pickup is gated on the fetch quest being active.
• VIP button shifts further left and down.

Chester’s real fetch quest

New

• Chester’s stick quest is a real fetch now: pick up the stick, turn it in.
• Guard Goyle is a unique, uncraftable item.
• DIG section for per-actor quest indicator offsets.

Changes

• VIP button gets bigger and slides left, sitting beside the rank bar; rank numeral lands in the bar center.
• Any unaccepted patron offer lights up the quest indicator.
• Material modal hides its frame; each material panel gets its own colored border, with a tinted V banner and red unaffordable cost.
• Show/hide toggles use Lucide eye icons.
• SpellBar drops its background panel; left panel highlights with yellow borders and a balanced quest/recruit split.
• Undertaker rows color by highest stat and rebalance behavior modifiers.
• Navigation pauses during vomit instead of stopping outright.
• find_undertakers lists each undertaker by name.

Fixes

• Chester’s quest indicator floats above his seated pose.
• Loaded games stop darkening when the saved house was already open.
• Placed items now play impact sounds.
• Double-clicking Load only fires once.
• UndertakerLocationModal falls back to a portrait icon when needed.
• Keyboard key labels hide on inventory, Enki, and gear buttons.
• Chester stick-quest MilestoneModal blocker resolved.

This Ol’ Wood, Tanya’s death, and a real Enki quest log

New

• This Ol’ Wood gets a Whispy Woods face, a portrait, and Great Deku as an alternate variant.
• BasementHatch wired into the Return Wardrobe, with a Wall B backyard wardrobe teleporter door in the Shadow Lounge.
• Enki gets a Quest Log tab with tracked and untracked quest state.
• Hellspikes unlock via Enki tier 1, dealing 1 physical damage.
• Blood Drawing Room upgrade lands, and one-per-room items are enforced.
• Roamstone shows up in the crafting modal under a new Held category.
• Officer Tanya has a death animation, ghost scene, and the missing Mixamo anims.

Changes

• Confirmation modals all share the purple-glow style.
• Find Chester boils down to just stepping into the backyard.
• Furnace interaction radius doubles.
• Thoth Tier 1 unlock now wants 25 screams alongside the 10 vomit.
• Furnace, Chopping Table, and Fear Hole milestone costs retuned.
• Tutorial and recruitment copy polished; Shadow Lounge banner tweaked.
• Window resizing is disabled; settings menu still resizes itself.
• Chain Scare quest now requires a still-fleeing guest.

Fixes

• Crashes and double-connects during save-load bootstrap.
• TOW stick-quest dialogue no longer cut off by premature objective completion.
• Mind Shards inventory icon matches the rest of the UI.
• Chester portrait framing and InvisiBill icon orientation fixed.
• InvisiBill blank portrait swapped for a clean 2D icon; 3D footprints retired.
• Dead guests no longer count against spawner capacity.
• Spell BadgeGem hides on controller regardless of label nesting.
• Quest untrack button is sized so the Blinded icon actually renders.
• Wall B doorway clears so Chester tier 1 objective resolves.
• Pause modal grows taller when cheats unlock.
• Navigation pauses during laugh instead of stopping outright.

Bureau Report quest & dialogue overhaul

New

• A Bureau Report quest unlocks on night 30, rewarding Knowledge.
• New dark_fantasy_hud icon set is baked in and on by default.
• find_patrons and find_undertakers split out of Explore the Grounds, each listing names you still need to meet.
• TOW stick quest reply is now a multi-step exploration dialogue.

Changes

• Exploration dialogue panel reworked: new layout, portraits, framing, and copy.
• One shared dialogue panel fades between speakers instead of swapping.
• You can click the panel to advance, and a bobbing indicator points the way.
• Hold-to-move works alongside click-to-move, with tighter arrival.
• Mean Girl VIP_spawned holds off until her explanation dialogue finishes.
• Grave Five fear tutorial re-splits across spawner and scream catcher.
• Inventory modal framing, positioning, and typography all get a pass.
• Pause modal buttons jump to 32pt; spell badge gems rotate by slot in the SpellBar.
• Quest entries indent in the left side panel; Gutterboy Surprise Party shows +1 Damage.
• Material modal shows the controller A-icon only on the focused column.
• LevelCircle shifts 25px left; exploration dialogue panel rises 50px.
• Ghost train whistle now waits 2 seconds.
• Menu chrome: hover-only tint, save-list sizing, pause border.

Fixes

• Save/load no longer locks up if you save between quests.
• Tutorial text reads as proper speaker/text dialogue steps.
• Button Y icon path typo corrected.
• Cross-room pathfinding failures are logged for diagnosis.
• Held Item and Assign Item labels center over their slots.

Room upgrades simplified

Changes

• Material modal drops the upgrade list and shows static bonuses instead, with a Cost label above the row.
• Every room upgrade is now available on every floor type.
• Save list and settings buttons get the dark fantasy hover frame.
• Room badge upgrades panel restyled.
• Sign-Your-Name objectives tick the moment you start signing, not after.
• Dropping a scream catcher auto-opens the house, with the OPEN notification deferred.
• House lighting stays constant when the house opens.
• Game window centers on screen at launch.

Fixes

• Guestbook quest indicator sits above the book itself.

Explore the Grounds & menu glow-up

New

• Explore the Grounds quest gets you out into the yard to meet patrons and undertakers by proximity.
• Resource Tree moves into the Enki modal as its own tab.
• Wardrobe reward panel shows up for the upgrade_room quest.

Changes

• Pause menu gets a dark fantasy frame, dimmed background, and a purple glow behind the panel.
• Settings modal buttons match the new pause-menu hover treatment.
• Resource bar shrinks; side-panel headers use the Julius display font.
• Title screen layout and font scaling are kinder to small windows.
• Modals scale their width with your font setting.
• Recruit modal centers; bureau report sticks to the middle third.
• Tutorial input hints catch up with the new movement controls; Switch A icon points the right way.
• Resource tree flows left to right with cleaner arrows and routing.
• Guest screams auto-load with the right gender.
• Enki tabs group under section headers.
• Outside ambient gets darker; landing rumble hits harder.
• InvisiBill flavor text rewritten.

Fixes

• VIP summon on dpad-left is blocked while you’re outside.
• Talked-to patrons get credit in Explore the Grounds, and Grave Five is skipped.
• Undertakers stop trying to navigate to negative floors.
• All-items cheat skips uniques you already own.
• Assign picker shows an empty slot when there’s nothing to assign, and held-slot position holds steady.
• Undertakers can only carry one held item at a time.