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.observer - e4a1-ing: the 'ing' update 10-01-2026

COMBAT REFINEMENT

corru is a game about exploring. for a long time, combat mechanics didn’t reflect that. it was always a fun mixup to suddenly have combat, but as the game lingered on it more, it got further from the core feeling of discovery. so now, in combat, there are far more ways you can find your way through.

  • all combat encounters have been changed significantly. there are new fights. there are less total fights than there were before this update, but they are more significant

    • my ethos here is that the combat needs to respect your time and only give you a fight when there’s something interesting to be done with it. for many people, they’re only going to do this once, so it better be memorable.

  • a variety of new hit/status-related visuals have been introduced to make combat feel more visceral and intuitive
  • action and status descriptions now have some details hidden behind holding SHIFT (which is prominently noted when relevant), so you aren’t bombarded with info you don’t need in normal play (but is still relevant when you reaaally want to get into the nitty gritty, i.e. FRAME replays)
  • all actions and statuses have been significantly altered.

    • notably, each player character has a very specifically designed ‘set’ that doesn’t change throughout the collapse. combined with other changes, this should make combat a puzzle that can be solved in various fun ways. frenzy works differently is baseline for akizet. destabilize has fun bonus effects. tozik has sauce. cavik’s got an awesome new status. everyone’s a little more interesting.

  • the item system has become the equipment system. they’re now unique things equipped to actors and give passive/active effects. they are no longer consumables, and refresh their ‘uses’ each fight.
  • health is no longer preserved between fights. every encounter is entered at full strength.
  • death no longer kicks you out of your iteration, instead giving you the option to ‘rewind’ to just before you entered the fight. you don’t have to fully reload anymore.
  • you can reorganize your party from the very start of EP2. akizet also doesn’t have to be first anymore. she does have to be in the party though.

COLLAPSE

  • many scenes are now presented in a noticeably different way. what you take away from them shouldn’t change much

    • similar to when we made the ‘Suspicion’ message cyst a bit more interesting, this update revisits several scenes to deliver the same feelings and information, but in a more compelling way.

  • adds a new explorable area accessible through use of masks, each collapse part has two entrances. there is no combat within.
  • enemies no longer move on-stage when you do, all encounters are initiated by the player in a new way
  • optional fights are now visibly far more optional (and some fights that weren’t optional before, now are optional)
  • augments now only exist in FRAME as upgrades and are not present in the story at all

EP2

  • the intro has some new visuals
  • the crimson intruder has a new gimmick. the spirit is the same

EP3

it always bugged me how i left one of the most horrific parts of the story as fodder enemies. this should make them much more interesting, and by virtue, EP3 as a whole, as well…

  • the once-random husks are now a more prominent point, narratively
  • the translation core has a new song to fit its truly evil new functionality

EP4

  • the interface is completely redone to be far less busy on the eye, far easier to intuit right away
  • a new animation system has been implemented that lets us draw effects for actions way easier. as a result, many actions have cool new visuals!
  • there’s a button that lets you fast forward on enemy turns
  • better characterization

    among the biggest parts of the update: making EP4 far better of an experience, with better designed fights that rely less on just throwing tons of things at you like the live version. I was SO burnt out by the time original EP4’s encounters were actually getting coded and it showed.

FRAME

  • humor actions and augments have been significantly reworked to offer a far larger variety of viable ways to succeed
  • enemies (especially daemons) are far deadlier, but so too is the player
  • the shop is replaced with something far more useful and fun. we spin wheels here sir
  • two alternate gamemodes have been added, selectable on the map when dreaming, before your first move
  • there are a bunch of new impulses and modifiers
  • global modifiers are vastly different and more evil in their own ways
  • unlocking FRAME in the Embassy will give a direct entry to it on the iteration selection screen until you complete it the first time, so you don’t HAVE to keep your save in EP3

    ultimately, it’s much faster paced, and should be far faster to complete the first time. but it should feel far more enticing for more people to replay, with so many different ways of succeeding. the new alternate modes can temper it into a slower or different experience, too!

Performance

  • Proxy controls (the thing where you guide it with your mouse) use a new system that runs waaay WAY better on every machine
  • EP4’s combat system should run far better, no longer relying as much on CSS variables alone (expensive!!)
  • pretty sure the freedom mask runs better now too, especially on dark (foggy) stages, which process showing/hiding tiles a little more efficiently

Misc

  • dialogue buttons can be selected via tab now
  • manymanymanymany typo fixes everywhere forever
  • a few new moth chats about old things
  • there are new definitions scattered throughout various texts
  • credits have been updated

Known Issues

  • some items don’t have final graphics yet, they’re just scary black boxes. we’ll get ‘em!
  • firefox has a weird problem happening with borders, where they’ll seem to grow in size and ‘blink’ depending on your camera movement. it’s fucking WEIRD, but mozilla knows about it and is working on it
  • i genuinely might have forgotten to add some stuff to the notes here it’s been a YEAR of work

EXPERIMENTAL - New Accessibility Options

  • the system menu has new contrast controls of varying efficacy, contributed by rainyatrium! those are:
    • Interface Palette: reduces contrast of UI colors across most elements. shouldn’t affect performance
    • Gameplay Backdrop Intensity: blurs and reduces contrast of most combat backgrounds. might affect performance
    • Render Contrast/Brightness: reduces contrast on the main render content by filtering. these might drastically affect performance, so they’re under a dropdown for now.


Advanced/Mod Zone
  • for action and status modders, definitely take a look at how things are done with strings now. I moved a lot of hardcoded strings to new strings maps on each status, so that they can be more easily altered (for eventual localization!)
  • I'm not gonna sugarcoat it. This is gonna break every single mod for everything collapse and FRAME. and if by some miracle, it doesn't, it probably won't align with the new state of things anyway
  • but, there's a new archive link for the pre-ing state, as of just before this patch, here: ep4preingarchive.corru.observer
.observer - e4a1-poke: some overdue streamlining of older mechanics 10-17-2025

EP3 “Melee”

  • simplified the explanation of mechanics both in dialogue and in action definitions
  • fixed some graphical bugs from recent CSS updates

FRAME

  • augments glow when you can afford them, until you interact with one for the first time. tiny change that might help with people not realizing they’re there

Proxy

  • there’s now a “SAFE” indicator when hovering over something that shields you from harm
  • during the recosm spiral phase, there are occasionally smaller cyan-colored “SAFE” spheres pulled in to help introduce that mechanic
  • the checkpoint given in the recosm is now granted when reaching the spiral phase, rather than surviving it
  • removed some overly verbose explanation about proxy controls from our favorite rhombus with regards to the recosm, replaced with one line of explanation prior to proxy use. it really just confused people, and not in a good way!

General

  • a boatload of continuous minor E4A1 fixes (typos/definitions/etc)
  • potentially fixed pointer-lock not working on linux firefox (still observing this issue)
  • mods now load on the credits page in case you want to add stuff in there, though it’s a normal page that lacks all of the typical body/content/page/flags/env variables. anything that doesn’t work in here should fail silently, so I don’t expect any issues
.observer - e4a1: the 'joy' update 09-19-2025

EP4ADD1

  • adds the following
    • 6 new zones of varying size
    • 3 memory holes
    • 2 masks, one of which offering an entirely new system for interacting with 3D scenes
    • a variety of interactions with new and old characters/locations, contingent upon the new masks and what they do
    • new methods for traversing the world of the cyst

Stage

  • ‘evil’ entities on stages can now have more complex algorithms for how they move and interact with the player

Performance

  • the “CSS slaughter” as i’ve been calling internally has been implemented, broadly simplifying CSS selectors, as well as reducing the amount of elements on the page when they aren’t visible (i.e. closed menus). this should equate to decently improved performance especially on lower end machines!

Misc

  • some recollection dialogues now change slightly based on progression
  • new sound effects and talkvoices
  • credits have been updated

Known Issues

  • firefox is getting some weird limited flickering in areas with screen-overlay companions like Gordon, we’re looking into this. it’s not truly game breaking (i think) but it’s a little annoying. this appears to be a browser/CSS implementation-level issue that might need a bug report to mozilla


Advanced/Mod Zone
  • as a part of the CSS overhaul, a lot of old dyp CSS will likely be broken due to CSS specificity changes. so watch out and adjust as needed, you might need to increase specificity on some of your CSS rules for special props
  • on stages, the way 'blocks' is handled has been made fully programmatic and no longer relies on the tile class having pointer-events:none. if you weren't explicitly using blocks as a tile blocking classname like some early corru code wasn't, you'll need to add it now, or use the new function mentioned below
  • tiles can now have a blockIf: ()=> return true/false to have a conditional block state that's checked on entry attempt
  • teleportTarget can now use a tile classname, and that tile classname on the designated stage can specify which direction the player should face when spawning there. some examples of this are in the new scary area's stage declarations. this way you don't have to know the exact tile index, and can move/change the destination stage freely without screwing all your teleports up
  • there's now an env.stage.querySelectorAll() that works exactly like you'd expect in fetching all instances of an entity across both the reference and realgrid. handy for altering entities in stage execs
  • the stage CSS has a bunch of standardized tile distance variables (i.e. var(--tile) for one tile length, var(--tile8) for 8 tile lengths) you can reference, ctrl + F common measures within /css/cystStage.css to see them.
  • in dialogue, there’s a new SILENT:: functionality. it makes it so that the talksound of the line doesn't play!
  • another new dialogue functionality is ____NESTIF blocks. these work just like ____SHOWIF::, but can be nested by incrementing them with + signs, i.e. +___NESTIF::"flag1", ++___NESTIF::"flag2", etc. just remember to also close them with incremented +____END bits.
  • also global buddies are now rendered onEnter rather than onLoad
.observer - e4-bababobo: various cool things i wanted to do 03-24-2025

Dialogue

  • backported the “ESC to skip” functionality from EP4 through to most of EP2 and EP3. the speedruns will go crazy

FRAME

  • (dream mode only) using the radio, you can now select from a variety of peaceful/combat/boss tracks to play instead of the default tracks, including ‘random’ or ‘none’!

SYS

  • added separate volume sliders for all / music / sfx
  • save import only looks for .corru files now
  • reduced intensity button now has some meta descriptive text to make it clearer what it does

Combat

  • redirection doesn’t start ticking until your team’s next turn, making it easier to build around guarding actions
  • the EP4-specific combat system has an additional viewing functionality if you hold shift
  • a bunch of other action adjustments and fixes

Minor

  • two entities that were possible to permanently miss are now also marked as scanned if you scan their moved counterparts (the things I must write to hide spoilers)
  • the big-screen exclusive giant spinning dull cube has finally been slain
  • not even gonna list all the bugfixes and tweaks that have been quietly going on over the past two months. let’s pretend they all happened today


da modderzone
  • there's now a completely empty page at /null/?force if you want a blank slate to work with
  • you can now set localStorage['ignoreoverwritewarnings'] = true to permanently ignore the 'this is a debug link and will delete your save' warnings
  • dialogue replies can now have TEXEC:: in their name, i.e. TEXEC::Math.random()<+>someotherbranch
  • modlist won't freak out at empty lines anymore
.observer - e4 01-15-2025

EP4

  • added embassy collapse pt3 and related systems
    • similar to EP3’s release, there are no memory holes or mask interactions to find yet. this is just the main experience

Dialogue

  • added a new “ESC to skip” dialogue function… this is ONLY in EP4 presently, but I plan on backporting it to other memory-based dialogue sequences

SYS

  • added EP4 SELECT save
  • the readout log now only holds up to 80 messages rather than 200 (actually a pretty big performance help)
  • scanner targets can now have a priority, making sure they’re always first in a stack of targets that you right click. fights a chrome issue where sometimes the stack is backwards - for now this is only applied to important embassy characters
  • the system actor dialogue styling (yellow/black on white) has been modified to be easier to read (courtesy of octo)

Combat

  • you can right click to cancel action usage now instead of having to click “Nevermind” directly
  • the way turns advance is slightly different now, and advances will be delayed by continuous hits
    • i.e. a frenzy chain will not continue into the next actor’s turn, but instead delay the end of the current actor’s turn until it ends
  • action usage messages now use a new system that stacks repeated hits/reactions into the same message in a little receipt-like view, rather than spamming your screen with unreadable smaller ones
    • a more detailed list of results (i.e. who got what statuses, how much HP was lost, etc) is also shown in the readout log
  • damage/status floaters now stack when they’re of the same type (i.e. two -2HP hits will result in one -4HP floater, rather than 2 -2HP floaters)
  • all player-visible actions now have a much more detailed hover view that’s easier to understand. the older implementation still works, so it’s backwards compatible
  • all statuses now have icons, and having enough statuses on one character will collapse them into a collection of icons instead of a giant pillar of statuses (usually only encountered in E3A2 content)
  • statuses with ‘advanced’ opposites (i.e. “Million Teeth” being the opposite of “Repairs”) will only show in their hover tip if you’re in content where it’s possible to get them (controlled by page.showAdvancedStatuses)
  • the “use item” button is different and less obtrusive
  • HP and BP have been combined into the same line to reduce actor card height
  • some items have had their drop-batches and max limits altered
  • (E3A2) mending applicators (bone utility augment) uses the stronger version of restorative barrier now
  • base advance rate is now 1.5s, vs the 2s it was before. this is 1s if you’ve been to golem maintenance before
  • on loss, EP4 features a new “retry” system - I plan to backport this to EP3/EP2 to reduce frustration, but it’s only in EP4 for now

Embassy

  • mask hover text now will hint that there’s very limited use for them in the embassy so you don’t go crazy trying to find interactions
    • just a temporary measure until the next embassy pass where we add all this stuff
  • you can now toggle gakvu’s coat lights in EP3, as well as EP4
  • removed two fights from golem maintenance
    • this is a minor patch on the broader issue of “I don’t like how EP2 and EP3 flow with combat,” I have plans to rework them in more meaningful ways but I’d prefer to work on other stuff first

Misc

  • temporarily swapped to cloudflare hosting in order to limit launch cache issues. if it’s slow for you, consider using the old neocities host at this domain: neocities.corru.observer but beware, it’s a little unstable around launch times.
  • restored floatytiles on firefox finally
  • lots of punctuation and ‘ vs “ adjustments
  • nonstop definition fixes forever
  • added minor post-EP4 interactions in a few spots
  • credits have been updated
  • added various direct hints to ‘explore the cache’ that appear after completing EP4 if you haven’t seen ozo yet
  • new sound effects


Advanced, Or: Cool Stuff Modders Might Appreciate
  • midCombatEnemyAdd and midCombatEnemyRemove have been combined into new midCombatActorAdd and midCombatActorRemove functions. these work for both foes and allies, but there’s still a little weirdness with adding to the left in EP4 so watch out
    • the old functions still exist, but they’re deprecated and just serve as redirects to the new functions - so it’s backwards compatible
  • stages can now have alternate plans without needing entirely new stage declarations (see EP4 stage declarations)
  • a new refreshStage function lets you update the stage the player is currently on without kicking them around, can optionally do this ‘silently’. no idea how this functions on darkstages but it’s great in regular stages
  • there’s a new setCam function for stages that replaces the excessive CSS you used to have to write for any camera angles, it can just be called in dialogue instead. check it out in cystStage.js
  • statuses can now grant actions (only to allies presently), search for grantedActions for details
  • added “this will overwrite your save, are you sure you want to do this” messages to connecting with one of the debug save-loading URL parameters
  • in dialogue, there’s a new THEN:: functionality. it works identically to EXEC::, but is executed after waiting via WAIT::.
    • i.e. you could have an EXEC::, WAIT::2000, and THEN::, where the THEN:: executes after 2 seconds
  • maybe don't use EP4 actions or statuses in FRAME. i have no idea how they'll behave and it probably won't be good
.works - cw-2: the thoughtstream 10-06-2024
  • added a “thoughtstream” visible from the homepage and news page. a shorter-form status-like view for more frequent/less important “here’s where we’re at” type things. kinda like what I used cohost for before, but, ya know…
    • only shows the latest one on-site, but the feed will have all of them in order of date
  • added the corru.works cohost archive! you should be able to take any cohost post link of mine and replace “cohost.org” with “cohost.corru.works”. it’s a little janky but it does the trick! the site’s going down at the end of october, so I wanted to preserve all the old asks and posts. shares/reposts were removed
    • this is also linked on da corru works homepage too
.observer - e3a2-oden: to oden the engo 06-07-2024

Ozo

  • added random events
    • a few aren’t available to firefox users until FF127 is out because otherwise they blow up the renderer LOL
  • someone minor but new can be retrieved

EP3ADD2

  • little nodes appear next to each cache to visibly show you what they offer
  • some iteration revisions with little downside now have (relatively high) caps to how many times you can take them, gradually forcing you to engage with the more chaotic ones if you choose to loop an obscene number of times. if this sucks and isn’t fun I’ll undo it, but it better embodies the “insane escalation” that you’d expect
  • the final sequence can now be replayed
  • various starting parameters can now be adjusted
  • one new cache modifier has been added for each humor
  • two new augments have been added for utility actions that were missing them

Embassy

  • the “Discovery” focus scene has had some awkward wording adjusted to help with understanding (no major changes, it just bugged me how hard it was to really understand why it’s a big deal)
  • there are now less ‘fodder’ enemies in the first part of the collapse because they were kinda pointless

Combat

  • certain statuses now decrement on turn end to make more sense (i.e. focused), sources/amounts given have been adjusted
  • attack/stat handling has been updated so it should generally run waaay better (especially in EP3ADD2)

Misc

  • visual tweaks - some old/early and messy graphics have been slightly updated and had their GIF crust shaved off
  • fundfriend sigils now look a bit different to help with readability/menu size (because there are so many of you!!) - the old styling is still used on corru.works though
  • various little dialogue continuity fixes
  • lots and lots of definitions fixes