Beta Test - Hunter's Path now available!

Hello hunters!

[p align="start"]Today we are opening up the **Hunter's Path Beta **to a wider audience!

[p align="start"]For the past couple of weeks, our Discord community has been quietly testing our upcoming patch, reporting crashes, bugs, and giving feedback to help us prepare the content for a wider release. Thank you to everyone who has participated so far! A **lot **has changed about the game in the past 5 months, so if you're interested in being part of the final phase of testing the content (or even just getting an early peek at what's coming out soon) check out the beta!

New Minibosses and Hunts

• Added 9 new minibosses to the game, for a total of 16 minibosses

• Added "miniboss hunts" for each miniboss in the game

• Hunter's Path challenges have been added to each hunt

Hunter's Path

• The Heartstone system has been replaced with a new "Hunter's Path" talent system

  • Earn Heart Shards by doing the Hunter's Path challenges in each hunt

  • Heart Shards can be spent to create talent builds that increase your hunter's power

  • Unlock new talents by collecting Heartstones from Boss Rots

Frenzy System Changes

• The idea of frenzy 1 - 3 is gone, being simply replaced with "Frenzy"

• Miniboss Hunts with Anomalies are always frenzied, with increasing difficulty as you progress through the story

• Boss Hunts become permanently frenzied after the final Boss Rot has been defeated

• Super Frenzy is unlocked after completing a boss hunt's frenzy mode

Anomaly System Changes

• Multiple anomalies can be active at the same time

• Anomalies will only be active on miniboss hunts, boss hunts cannot have anomalies

• Additional Heart Shards can be earned by doing Anomalied hunts

Market Room Changes

• Each Boss Hunt (and it's related Miniboss Hunts) now sell specific sets of armour and weapons that will only appear within those locations

Relationship System

• You can now give gifts to the villagers in your town to increase your relationship level with them & get various benefits

  • Access the relationship screen through your Diary, located near the Chest

Character Selection & Creation Flow

• Faster creation of characters, and allows multiple characters to be created or selected at the same time

  • Full character creator still accessible in town

Mannequin Changes

• The mannequin is now used to access the new Loadout system

• Loadouts save equipment, gem and talent selections

• Your loadouts can be accessed from any mannequin

Equipment Screen Improvements

• You can now upgrade & equip armour and weapons from the same station

New Character Customization Options

• Added new customization options to the Ogre species (now called the Neander species), allowing creation of a character that looks human.

Misc

• QOL changes throughout the UI and Town

• Added many new random events

How to play

1. Close Rotwood if it is running.

2. In Steam, click on Library > Games.

3. Scroll down to Rotwood.

4. Right click, select Properties.

5. Go to the **Betas **tab.

6. In the dropdown, select the 'publicbeta' branch.* (You may need to restart Steam to see this branch)*

7. In that same properties window, go to the **Installed Files **tab.

8. Click Verify integrity of game files.

9. Your game will now be updated to the beta branch.

Save files

The beta branch uses a completely separate save file, due to its experimental nature.

[p align="start"]The beta branch is to gather feedback and ensure stability before release to the live game. If you were to copy over your existing savefile, it would work, but** it is strongly recommended to store a backup of your save file if you did so**. We are not treating this branch as a live branch, so we will not be taking extra precautions to support moving your save file back to the live branch.