Patch 0.8.5b - January 28th, 2025

This patch adds a new gauntlet to the arena and fixes a few annoyances with the new content.

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ADDITIONS

-A new gauntlet has been added to Karen's Arena and can be seen after completing the Caretakers questline. It's the Penoculus Gauntlet!

 -This gauntlet features shapeshifting Hydro Hunters, rematches with various Caretakers (including a guaranteed encounter with one of three different Mallory bosses), and a chance to encounter a new vore boss that's exclusive to this gauntlet (here's a hint: the odds of seeing this boss go way up if you let Nell deal with Iona in the 'Wanted: Iona the Sphinx' quest.)

 -Completing the gauntlet rewards you with arena tokens AND marble eyes!

-The cutscene featuring Vespa's altercation with the Demon Slayer Soup in Whiteshore can now be unlocked and rewatched in the Penoculus Archives!

TWEAKS

-Updated the Vespa scene in Whiteshore with better sound effects, pacing, and so on.

-Increased the odds of a vorish melkai (Ambushers, Cultists, Hunters) being hungry at the start of a fight from 50% to 66%.

 -Additionally, if a vorish melkai expresses they're hungry at the start of a fight, they now have a 100% chance of attempting to eat a party member, rather than a mere 50% chance.

  -Any of these sorts of melkai encountered during fights with other vorish enemies (such as Ula and the Ravenous Catshark) will continue to not use vore skills for the sake of game balance.

-Reduced Mallory's Max HP by 1000 during her encounter in the Sunken Starship.

-Lowered the base damage of Mallory's PEC skill by 100 and reduced its potential damage variance from 30 to 27%

-Reduced the MAT of Lorenzo in his final form by 10.

 -Slightly reduced the odds of Lorenzo dropping more than one Marble Eye on defeat.

 -Reduced the odds of each hydro hunter variant dropping a Marble Eye on defeat.

-Reduced the ATK and AGI of all Hydro Hunter variants (including HH07)

-Updated Nell and Vespa's character cards with their new art (I'd listed this as done in the main update's patchnotes when it wasn't. Sorry about that!)

-Abby's temporary skills 'Yeet Mallory', 'Two-Thousand Claws', and 'PEC' now use an icon of Mallory.

-'Two-Thousand Claws' is now a certain hit move rather than a physical attack, meaning it cannot miss and is unaffected by the counterattack status.

-Pie items now have pie icons and actual useful descriptions!

-The Pygmy Scuttlebug, Thunder Guppy, and Troglobyte Loach items now have unique icons.

BUGFIXES

~Softlocks~

-Claire's LET'S GO TOGETHER! skill is temporarily unavailable due to the sheer number of potential softlocks it was enabling. This patch  should fix any issues you might be having with cutscenes scenes randomly softlocking the game on save files where you've used the skill at least once (this was occurring in the Guscorp Vault map and likely anywhere else where the 'gather followers' command was triggered by events.)

-Fixed the new hookshot route in Baba's Garden getting Claire stuck in the side of a cliff. Sorry about that.

~Relationship, Dating, bloating and weight gain Bugfixes~

-Nell and Vespa's weight variables will now properly increase upon successfully using Devour. Sorry about that!

-Fixed the Plushcake item not doing anything when used on Claire. Claire is now panicking.

-Fixed a weird mistake where Arci would ask to have a conversation with you at 75 approval but wouldn't actually say anything different when spoken to. (This occurred only at -exactly- 75 approval. At 76 and up, she'd ask to converse, then actually follow through if talked to lol.)

~Exploit Fixes~

-Fixed Karen's Arena not actually taking your money when you sign up for a gauntlet.

~Minor Bugfixes~

-The 'Side Area' Cutscene can now be viewed via the Archives while on Lani's route, due to it taking place at the start of the game before the player chooses between Lani and Nell.

-Fixed the enemy 'Ground Pound' skill not having an animation.