Hi everyone,
Embercast 0.3.26 is out for Windows and Mac. It's the biggest change to how you play with friends so far, and it brings along the friends update from 0.3.24, which I shipped without an email.
When you're in a party, the menus now sit on top of the Courtyard with your whole party standing in it. Everyone is really there, in the outfit they're wearing right now, with their name over their head. Press Esc to close the menu and you can run, jump and fly around together. There's a loose ember to knock around too, no score, no clock.
When someone equips a new hat or changes their skin, you see it on their wizard straight away, so it's the place to show off a new embercast.
When the leader wants to play, they start a party match and everyone moves to the Forest Court together to pick teams, team size and bots. After the match, the party goes back to the Courtyard. Friends can drop into the Courtyard any time, even while everyone's already hanging out.
Your friends live in a tray now. Press Y on a controller or F on the keyboard, or click Friends in the top right, and it slides in from the right over whatever you're doing. Your party is at the top, then friend requests, then who's online and what they're up to, and your offline friends folded away at the bottom. Invites land at the top of the tray with Join and Not now.
From 0.3.24: friends go both ways now. Adding someone by player name sends them a request, and once they accept, you each see when the other is online. You can also queue for a 2v2 match with one friend, and the two of you always end up on the same team.
I also reorganised the menus so there's less to wade through. Home is now Play, Practice, Wardrobe, Profile and Settings. Collection, the item shop and Embercasting are tabs of one Wardrobe. Your career, match history and the Top 100 live under Profile.
Your name floats over your wizard on the home screen now, above whatever hat you're wearing.
The Wardrobe has a new Outfits shelf. A set like The Beekeeper is one card now: pick it and your wizard tries on every piece at once, and Equip outfit puts the whole look on. One-piece costumes like Box of Trouble live there too. Single robes have their own Robes shelf, and Unequip everything takes your wizard back to the plain look in one go.
Tall hats are never cut off at the top anymore, anywhere your wizard is shown. Browsing your collection is smoother, controller prompts show L1, R1, L2 and R2 for switching shelves and pages, and wizards standing side by side no longer blink at the same moment.
Everyone needs 0.3.26 to play online together, including in parties. Download it here: https://embercastgame.com/download/
Every update I've sent, with all its pictures, is on the site: https://embercastgame.com/log/
Thanks for playing. Grab a friend and come hang out in the Courtyard.