Ember enterers a spooky dreamland, filled with the embodiments of her greatest fears.
Will she be brave enough to stand up to the tormenting voices, shifting in the shadows?

Since Ember's first impressions during this past February's NextFest, we've taken all of the feedback given and poured time and passion into this game; also crafting many features which were previously underdeveloped. We can say that it's come a really long way these many months, as something we are very proud of!

With the festivity of Steam's spooky "Scream Fest", we saw a thematic opportunity to share a good chunk of this fearful yet family-friendly experience we're finishing up! This milestone demo and event are just ahead of the full release of Ember the Werefox, expected to launch before the end of 2024.


Please enjoy the generously-offered portion of this game through our new demo!

As you play, let us know if you have any feedback and please Wishlist if you haven't already!

We'll be keeping an eye out for any comments within Steam, and on our public Discord server[discord.gg] (which we'd be honored to have you join!).

Throughout the fest, we'll have a looping video of us playing EtW, streaming on its Steam Store Page[http//url%3Dhttps], if you care to get a feel for the game without playing it yourself.

Alternatively, you can watch the prerecorded broadcast on YouTube (if you want to scan around instead of watching a broadcast on the Steam page): https://youtu.be/53J57QT_JAs

Otherwise, dig in to Ember's world, and stay tuned for more news soon!

Thank you for checking it out!
-Adam and Arden (LionArc dev bros)

Hello! If you've happened to visit our Steam store page recently, you may have noticed new art. We've been inspired to illustrate some "box art" that conveys the adventure and mystery of Ember the Werefox, without using our title screen or other pixel art.

We're really happy with what we've come up with!

Since there's no simple way to view our store art from the store page directly, I wanted to share a HD version of that here, and also share some demo news (below).

From October 28 - Nov 4th we'll be participating in Steam's spooky-themed-October games fest (tentatively called "Scream Fest"). For that, we've been making a significant push to share all that we've been working on since we first shared our game back in February (during our turn at NextFest). It's come a long way and we hope previous players and new players alike will enjoy all that Ember's initial experience in dreamland has become!

We'll announce that event again when it comes around, but please make a mental note to come enjoy a generous starting portion of this game, in about 10 days!

Hopefully this game will make it onto (and stay on) your Wishlist! Please follow our socials (links below) as we build up to this game's launch in the near future.

We don't have an official release date for Ember the Werefox yet, but we're fairly confident it'll be available before the end of 2024!

LionArc's Instagram[www.instagram.com]
LionArc's Discord Server[discord.gg]
LionArc's Website (email list)[lionarcgames.com]
LionArc's Youtube Page

We originally didn't plan to address this yet, but we've getting feedback that days feel too short.

While we feel the day length provides an appropriate tension, we agree that it can feel short at times, especially as you're learning the game. we came up with a "quick and dirty" way to address this, and wanted to provide some resolution for any players (or poetntial players) that found the balance too unforgiving.

As a first attempt to address this, we're increasing the base day length by 15 seconds. This might not sound like much, but we don't want to swing too far without further testing, and 15 additional seconds can equate to several precious tasks in many situations.

Additionally, we're adding another layer to casual mode that will increase the day length by about 20% (another 30 seconds).
We hope this provides a "cozier" pacing that reduces some tension during the day without blowing the balance out.

Please note, with these changes, not all day music has been fully reworked, and some songs will start about 30 seconds into the day when playing on casual.



Features
• Causal Mode now has longer days
• All day songs have been reworked to be at least 15 seconds longer.

Balance Changes
• Day length increased from 120 seconds to 135 seconds (+15s) in standard difficulty
• Day length increased from 120 seconds to 165 seconds (+45s) in "casual mode" difficulty
• Enemy count & spawn rate reduced slightly
• Enemy "spider" count & spawn rate further reduced for prologue

Fixes
• Fixed a bug that would cause the game to hang for a few seconds after the Boss appeared.

Known Issues
• Two of the four day songs will start 30 seconds late on casual mode, as music is still in process of being reworked.

This hotfix addresses two issues:

The first is a bug involving the crafting guide that would cover the feasting menu, making it virtually unusable... which sounds as annoying as some bathroom bullies, to me.

The second is that we believe the boss is a little too hard for the demo. So we're removing the boss's "defense" so it takes full damage, and increasing the overall HP for a net 23% less health.

Happy Nightmare slaying!


Balance Changes
• The Chapter 1 Boss now takes 100% damage instead of 50% damage.
• The Chapter 1 Boss HP increased from 650 to 1000 (with the above change, this is about 23% less health)

Fixes & tweaks
• Fixed a bug that would draw the crafting guide on top of the feast menu if it was the last tab opened.

This update aims at making three changes to the demo.

The first goal is to provide a "casual mode" for players who are looking for a less challenging experience. Our first attempt at this is done by reducing damage received and reducing enemy quantity by 50% each. We are very open to changing this to meet player expectations, so please provide any feedback if you are looking for a less challenging experience.

Our second goal is to provide a more "snappy" combat experience to reduce any felt sluggishness during combat. The overall attack now takes fewer frames, has a shorter "recovery time", and a few other QoL changes that are common in modern games.

Our third and final goal was to optimize the game some to reduce the chance of slowdown on some machines. There is definitely still room for further optimization, but now static offscreen objects are culled/disabled, which showed about a 40% improvement to game speed in internal testing. If you are still experiencing slowdown, please try adjusting the video settings to remove silhouettes and simplify lighting and let us know of your results.


Features
• A "Casual Mode" difficulty option has been added, which reduces damage received by 50% and reduces enemy count by 50%. This should remove some friction for players not looking for as much challenge in the night segments. This option can be changed at any time in the gameplay settings menu.

Balance Changes
• The attack animation now has a faster windup (from about 12 frames to about 6 frames)
• The attack cooldown has been reduced from 1 second to .5 seconds (triggered at attack start)
• Attacks now trigger from input presses, and no longer repeat when holding the attack input
• Added .25s (about 15 frames) input buffering for attacks, to allow you to "queue up" attacks before the previous animaiton is finished.
• Pressing the dash input mid-attack will now cancel the recovery portion of the attack animation even if you can't dash. This will allow you to have your full movement speed back, but the attack cooldown will still be in effect.
• Increased most enemy HP slightly to compensate for faster attack speeds

Fixes & tweaks
• optimization - static offscreen objects are now disabled, resulting in ~40% faster game speed
• Improved the experimental "Auto Attack" gameplay setting to feel smarter, account for current attack range, and not trigger if either the attack or dash input is pressed. (Still not perfect, and still marked experimental)
• Fixed a bug with the transform plate that would cause it to provide some willpower when blue

Join us on our first stream of NextFest for a premiere look at Ember the Werefox.

We're thrilled to share this unique combination of Roguelite, simple-crafting and action-adventure game, set mostly in the dreams of young Ember.

We'll play the demo and possibly beyond, giving a better sense for the scope of the full game; once it's released later this year. Both of us brothers will be around to make jokes, answer questions, respond to feedback and hopefully make it a fun, interactive and insightful experience!

Come hang out with us!
-Adam and Arden, Brother Devs @ LionArc

Join us on our second stream of NextFest for a premiere look at Ember the Werefox.

We're thrilled to share this unique combination of Roguelite, simple-crafting and action-adventure game, set mostly in the dreams of young Ember.

We'll play the demo and possibly beyond, giving a better sense for the scope of the full game; once it's released later this year. Both of us brothers will be around to make jokes, answer questions, respond to feedback and hopefully make it a fun, interactive and insightful experience!

Come hang out with us!
-Adam and Arden, Brother Devs @ LionArc

To make sure our livestream settings are are optimized and ready to go for our NextFest featured broadcasts, we decided to have this "event" to repeat a prerecorded video.

Check out our main broadcasts on Wednesday Feb 7th at 1pm (EST) and Friday Feb9th at 1pm (EST)!

-Adam and Arden

Hey Players!

Here with a quick hotfix that resolves an issue in the opening dream.
Please let us know if you find any issues or have any feedback!


Fixes & Tweaks
• Fixed a bug that could prevent a fully grown berry from spawning on the bush in the opening dream