Cadence here. Apparently people hated Milkworm? This kind of surprised me, since it was just a slightly remixed version of the Bookworm fight... In any case, it was one of the weakest shadows design-wise and we thought we could do better, so we did!

Milkworm now inflicts tiles with “gunk,” which prevents them from falling and below tiles from being restocked. It’s a pretty similar concept to burning tiles (use these tiles or have less tiles on the next turn), but it’s a little more dynamic and interesting.

We also added two new unlockable spells that make use of the gimmick: Expired Ration applies gunk + special faces to random tiles, and Mood Screw pins a topmost tile in place and turns into a space tile on the next turn. Shoutouts to Cynthia for letting us steal her mod idea[i.imgur.com] for Mood Screw! Tomorrow’s daily will be fixed to feature Milkworm and the two new spells.

Also, Housebroken now pees herself when you tap her too many times. Yay!

Gameplay changes:

• Nerfed MBA:

  • Now has a common letter charge (previously automatically recharged each turn).

  • Words submitted with MBA no longer charge spells.

  • Silver lining: you can now give MBA more charges with fuel ration.

• Salt & Pepper can now transform wildcards into bombs like Salt.

• Yuri, yaoi, ivory, and concrete now count as separate statuses for the purpose of unlocking DNA Tweezers.

• Shift now targets the leftmost tile in a row as opposed to tiles in the first column.

  • This means the spell is slightly more versatile with gunk and when inside of Brutalist.

• Various technical changes for modding.

• 1 is no longer a prime number, even though it obviously is.

Polish:

• Housebroken now pees herself after being tapped 100 times.

  • The number of taps required to make her pee again is multiplied by 10 each time she pisses herself (at least until it integer overflows, then she pees after every tap).

  • Note: this doesn’t work in the Phonebook. You have to earn it.

• New Cop has a new voiceline for shooting a blank space or an already hole-punched tile.

• Added muzzle flash to Bookworm/Milkworm when firing projectiles.

• Receiver now has unbleached roots when looking down.

• Red Letter is “cursed” on Hazel Clearance (visual flavor).

• Orange clearance is more orange.

Update art by our friend Jordy[bsky.app].