The Phoenix Witch is here! Warriors? Merchants? Who needs em. The phoenix is the only familiar this witch needs. Keep it happy and trained and it will reward you with faster crafting times and bonus resources. If you can find the elusive Phoenix Tamer, they may even be able to grant you new abilities that benefit both your phoenix and your witch.


Three new languages have come to WitchHand! The game will try to use your computer's default language if possible or you can set it yourself at any point in the options menu.

It's been super cool to finally get the opportunity to localize one of my games. The folks at Level Up Translation are real pros and I'm pumped to bring the game to new players.

I changed up a bunch of stuff! Many research paths have been revamped, some buildings have been totally reworked, Waypoints are easier to craft, and much more! Full patch notes below.


The game-changing Nexus may be acquired much earlier in a run by cracking open the unique Nexus-In-A-Box, gifted from your home realm. Enjoy the large amount of early game storage space and building automation!


When completing a Golden Quest by paying 20 Stardrop Coins, you're now offered a choice of reward. Because sometimes you'd rather have a sword instead of another cat.

- language setting added to options
- two new achievements
- buying explore cards tutorial now also explains selling cards
- new tutorial for familiar corpses
- new video added to first spell purchase tutorial
- first waypoint tutorial explains slotting it to increase explore level
- waypoints renamed to "Waypoint: First", "Waypoint: Second" etc.
- waypoints' recipes now cheaper
- Trader now guaranteed to always have Reagents in stock
- Trader/Trade Hub now sells reagents in bundles of 2 instead of 3
- Void Core added to Trader's possible resources for sale
- Trader now arrives every 8 days instead of 10
- golden quest completion now prompts a choice of reward
- second letter from home now includes a Nexus-In-A-Box
- Magnet: Fireball no longer pulls shackled enemies
- Village in a Bottle Spell prerequisite changed to Capri Pen from Gem Forge
- gem heart removed from Village in a Bottle Spell recipe
- Spell Archive building now creates Spell Pages, recipe changed to Capri Horn x2
- exploring can no longer create multiple enemies in a row
- first time exploring a level 1 explore card always gives a capri
- first time exploring a level 2 explore card always gives a gem deposit
- only record cards now allowed in the jukebox
- storage chest cost reduced to crystal x3 from crystal x4
- storage chest spell now requires population growth, crystal quarry, and herbalist spells instead of first waypoint spell
- first waypoint spell now requires storage chest spell
- waypoints in spell choice now list some of the cards unlocked in the next tier
- cards in the compendium now display their stats (attack, health, value, etc.)
- compendium entries specific to a certain witch now display that witch's icon
- Healing Touch spell cast time decreased to 10 seconds from 15 seconds
- Renewed Village base slots increased to 4 from 3
- Fated Judge now demands 1,000,000 coins, up from 1,000
- placed card stacks now fall into place almost immediately
- jumping cards may now pass through haze on the way to their destination
- increased chance to receive reagents from exploring if you don't have any
- fixed infection event crash if there's suddenly no faerie cities
- fixed card compendium Cards Found count sometimes exceeding the maximum
- fixed board expansion left void nests spawning too far up for some reason
- fixed spellbook button rollover misalignment

WitchHand's big update and new character are nearly upon us!

The Phoenix Witch is nearly here! Warriors? Merchants? Who needs em. The phoenix is the only familiar this witch needs. Keep it happy and trained and it will reward you with faster crafting times and bonus resources. If you can find the elusive Phoenix Tamer, they may even be able to grant you new abilities that benefit both your phoenix and your witch.

Three new languages are coming to WitchHand! It's been super cool to finally get the opportunity to localize one of my games. The folks at Level Up Translation are real pros and I'm pumped to bring the game to new players.

I changed up a bunch of stuff! Many research paths have been revamped, the game-changing Nexus may be acquired much earlier in a run, Waypoints are easier to craft, and much more! (full patch notes to come with release!!)

I've been hard at work getting the new witch character ready! Here's a sneak peek!

Unlike the other witches in WitchHand, the Phoenix Witch needs only one familiar: the Phoenix. The Phoenix has the potential to become very powerful if well taken care of. When happy, it has an increasing chance to produce double resources when crafting.

Because the familiar training buildings no longer have familiars to train, they instead buff the Phoenix in various ways. For example, the Sorcerer's School allows the Phoenix to cast spells and increases its cast speed. Slotting additional Sorcerer's Schools will increase the cast speed even further. With the right set up, a happy enough Phoenix will complete many tasks almost instantly.

You'll also be able to discover new cards that strengthen both your Phoenix and your witch. My current favorite is the Everburning Bond, which allows stat increases to the witch to also apply to the Phoenix, and vice versa.

More than just adding a new playable character, the Phoenix Update will also be making many changes to the balance and progression of the game. Many cards will have their recipes updated, their unlock conditions changed, and in a few cases, their usage totally reworked (looking at you, Spell Archive!)

Also! You'll be getting a special gift from your home realm after building the First Waypoint. Returning players can look forward to a revamped play experience and new players can go in knowing that the experience has been polished to a mirror shine.

Can't wait to share more.
Jon

I call the cards you get after you've learned every spell "Advancement" Cards but someone in the Steam forums referred to them as "Spell Mastery" cards and that's Very Good.

Either way, you can put them in chests now.

- advancement cards (Rising Sunlight, Harmonic Casting) are now able to be put into chests.
- reworked chest storage limit calculations. Vault Wonder no longer overwrites Expanded Interiors advancement
- chest cards now display their storage limits in their tooltip
- fixed compendium showing descriptions of unknown spell cards

Back again with another quick round of fixes and quality of life improvements!

Improved Ultra Widescreen Support
- Display Ratio setting added to options
- ui elements better react to display changes

- the Mystic Workflow Wonder now prioritizes Scout familiars
- improved Watchtower performance
- fixed special chests (fortune teller, lighthouse) sometimes allowing stacks of mixed cards

Quick balance and fixes patch for ya today

- increased Astrologian production speed boost to +20% from +10%
- increased Archivist's Pasta production speed boost to +30% from +10%
- reworked village collision behavior while grabbed
- fixed Familiar Neighborhood incorrect description. Now reads "Increases your Familiar Cap by 5."

Hello friends! Happy WitchHand release week! Thank you to everyone who played the game and left a review and thank you for everyone's feedback and all around good vibes. It's been an exciting time over here!

Let's get right into WitchHand's first post-launch update:

We got three (3) new cards!

• Fated Delegate - Fated Quests that ask for a tribute of resources may be slotted here. They will automatically pull the cards they need from a Nexus. Requires Autocaster, Blacksmith, and Armory spells to learn.
  
• Magnet: Fireball - Newly created attack spell cards (Fireball, Shackle, Freeze etc.) will be pulled here. Learned alongside the base Magnet spell. (existing save files will automatically have this spell added to their spellbooks)
  
• Burial Spell - Permanently lays Corpse cards to rest. Creates 2 random resources. A good way to use up Corpse cards that you do not intend on reviving. Requires the Revival spell to learn.

Over the past week, I've also put out a few patches that -- amongst the bug fixes -- included new features like:

- support for widescreen displays
- villages now have production toggles that toggle all slotted buildings
- can now click during most end of day events to skip through them (Turn on "Fast Witching Hour" in the options to get through them even faster)
- "Allow Camera Pan with Interact" setting added to controls screen
- card symbols added to temple of rites outline sprite

Steam approved WitchHand for community items! :wh_cat:

I'm excited to see my art in those official Steam card frames. I don't know. It just feels really good.

Good question! A lot of things are still up in the air as I balance continued WitchHand support with other ongoing projects. I don't want to make any grand promises on what I wish or hope to do for this game. That said, the game will be getting, at the very least, one (1) new witch. Stay tuned.

- swords, shields, flame cake, armored smoothie now have better tooltips when being used
- fixed source cards able to craft on top of enemies
- fixed explore tooltips not showing the correct explore contents
- fixed collapsed village outline collision not factoring for the radiant beacon max seven slots

Thank you. I've made three games now and this one is far and away my most successful* game (in terms of sales and reception). Thank you for making that happen. I appreciate all of you.

<3
Jon

Yooo it's bug fix and balancing time! Notable new features with this patch are villages getting their own production toggle that toggles all buildings slotted to that village, the ability to click through most end of day events, and a setting in the controls menu to disable camera pan with left click.

Also! WitchHand became eligible for Steam Community Items so be on the look out for those once they're approved!

- villages now have production toggles that toggle all slotted buildings
- can now click during most end of day events to skip through them
- familiar corpse cards now function with magnet cards
- newly created cards now choose randomly from all eligible magnets instead of always jumping to the closest (with a slight bias towards nexus chests)
- allow camera pan with interact setting added to controls screen
- made the Judgment Quests harder again
- celestial link and chef friendly soup recipe output now better checks for "building" recipe types (exploring with an unslotted celestial link in the stack was causing a crash)
- fixed a crash when tooltips try to display an improperly set crafting timer
- fixed escape key on controls screen unpausing the game
- fixed too many message card packs spawning under certain circumstances
- fixed [REDACTED] cards unfreezing on death and dealing damage

Another round of bug fixes for ya! And some balancing sprinkled in too, for flavor. Thanks again to everyone providing bug reports and feedback.

- soul trainer spell now requires first waypoint spell to learn instead of sorcerers school spell
- familiar cap base value decreased to 2 from 3
- first waypoint spell now requires village upgrade spell, crystal quarry spell, and herbalist spell to learn instead of familiar home spell
- familiar home spell now requires first waypoint spell to learn
- familiar home recipe cost increased to crystal x5 from crystal x3
- fixed corpses and advancements functioning with the autosorter
- fixed [REDACTED]'s cards sometimes becoming misaligned
- fixed [REDACTED]'s cards sometimes causing a crash when defeated by a stack of familiars
- fixed golden quest not granting achievement for chaos witch
- fixed forests having a below average chance to spawn compared to other land cards
- fixed Chaos Witch's flameblood spell not being consistent with its 1hp cost
- hud witch health now shows proper damage taken effect when flameblood spell is used