Drawn to Battle
Draw

Patch notes · newest first

Fresh ink, documented.

These notes are written in the repository and published with the game. No inbox pings, no unread badge—just a stable record of what changed.

gameplay

The House Picks Up a Pencil

House opponents are leaving their code-drawn stand-ins behind, while raids receive a fairer and more truthful boss-health pass.

  • The private House Sketchbook can load, redraw, extend, flip, and replace existing fighter and equipment presets without a timer, as well as create entirely new presets.
  • House fighters may now receive curated abilities, editable stat spreads, equipped House gear, and the same sticker-placement controls used by player fighters.
  • The old synergy-showcase fighter roster has left the arena; scalable House opponents now resolve through the editable preset collection instead.
  • The Great Eraser takes the current raid spotlight in place of The Crumpler.
  • Raid bosses now enter battle with the health shown by the raid lobby, and Phase 2 preserves the boss-sized health pool instead of falling back to ordinary fighter health.
  • Boss health was reduced to one third of its former tier totals. Percentage-of-maximum-health damage is disabled against raid bosses and called out before launch, closing the gap between impossible-looking fights and percentage-damage shortcuts.
  • My Drawings and its equipment shelf now expose older entries through working Load More controls instead of silently stopping at the newest page.
  • Battle stance, High Risk, and Send to Battle now sit directly below the XP bar, keeping the arena entrance close at hand on desktop and mobile.
  • Public views quietly remove a small set of standalone explicit words from fighter and equipment names while owners retain the names they entered; ordinary words containing the same letters remain untouched.

Did this update improve the arena?

gameplay

The Ink Learns New Tricks

New abilities, nine new synergies, sharper effects, and several important battle interactions arrive together.

  • Civilian and Thief join the inferable ability pool, while Regeneration is now one ability that restores 3 HP plus 2% maximum health each round.
  • King of Doodles, Mjölnir, Inklander, Influencer, Draconic, Duelist, Tommy Gun, Ragebaiter, and Soldier join the synergy roster with deterministic effects and battle VFX.
  • Unrelenting joins the ordinary ability catalog with bounded knockout-earned damage, stun immunity, a one-time return at 10% health, and Speed and Defense bonuses.
  • Explosive now deals 33% of an opponent's maximum health in ordinary battles; Papershred checks at 30% per turn and Papersplitter at 25%.
  • Phase 2 and Grit now resolve before Explosive can finish a fighter, preserving the survival abilities they were meant to provide.
  • Inklander's eye laser now checks at 25% and visibly crosses from the attacker to the opponent; Mjölnir sheds yellow lightning from its target; Gun-family hits use impact-side gunshot effects.
  • A fighter may equip higher-level gear once it reaches half the item's level, rounded up, minus five levels—never below level 1.
  • Drawing Town workforce confirmation now accepts any eligible lineup from one through ten residents instead of demanding all ten slots be filled.

Did this update improve the arena?

community

Short Visits, Bigger Pages

Evolution becomes easier to pace, drawing canvases reclaim the screen, and large collections stop weighing down ordinary page visits.

  • Banked fighter and equipment evolutions are redeemed one sixty-second milestone at a time, preserving the game's quick-drawing rhythm even after many milestones accumulate.
  • Mobile and tablet drawing canvases now dominate the workspace instead of being squeezed by reference text, controls, and empty margins.
  • Fighter pages place Share beside the heart button, and published Drawing Towns have their own share control.
  • Level-15 and higher fighters may lock their level while XP continues accumulating, then release every earned level and stat point when the lock is removed.
  • Owners may rename original and House equipment; independently owned dropped replicas retain the name stamped by their source and cannot be renamed.
  • High-traffic fighter, inventory, reference, Community, Town, raid, and discovery reads now use bounded projections, pagination, and shared visibility rules to reduce Neon transfer without changing battle results.
  • Fighter comments begin with twenty entries and load older discussion on demand, while battle envelopes remain confined to explicit replay paths.

Did this update improve the arena?

gameplay

More Ink, More Often

Your first sixty seconds are only the beginning: every five levels now earns another full minute to expand a drawing.

  • Fighters and equipment now unlock an additive evolution session at every five levels through level 100.
  • Every banked milestone remains a separate sixty-second evolution session, so artists can improve a drawing one short visit at a time.
  • The first-drawing canvas now explains that running out of time does not leave an artist stuck with the first form forever.
  • Drawing Town now sits in Play directly below Raids and above Gauntlets and Legends Circuit.

Did this update improve the arena?

community

The Town Gates Open

Finished Drawing Towns can now be published as passive, immutable showcases for the community to tour.

  • Publishing saves a versioned snapshot, so private edits cannot silently change what visitors see; owners may update or unpublish it whenever they choose.
  • Drawing Towns joins Explore with bounded Newest and Most Loved galleries, visual resident previews, builder attribution, likes, and comment counts.
  • Visitors can watch autonomous Town life and tap residents for local reactions without live visitor avatars, realtime rooms, or additional Cloudflare infrastructure.
  • Each Town has a visitors’ book with anonymous-first identities, creator blocks, reports that wait for human review, and owner notifications.
  • Gallery queries read compact metadata only; layouts remain in object storage and no battle or Chronicle histories are scanned.

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community

Arcade Ink Tunes Back In

The original loud, playful Arcade Ink MIDI sound is restored with a narrowly targeted fix for uncomfortable siren-like sustains.

  • The classic five-voice square, triangle, saw, pluck, and percussion soundfont, original volume trims, and familiar envelopes are back.
  • Only square and saw notes sustained beyond two seconds receive a gentle high-frequency filter, while abnormally long harsh-wave sustains end after eight seconds.
  • Normal note lengths, melodic pitch, tempo, articulation, and overall Arcade Ink loudness remain unchanged.
  • Themes saved during the brief orchestral renderer remain playable through Arcade Ink, with no database migration or added network traffic.

Did this update improve the arena?

community

The Town Comes Alive

Residents take roster-wide jobs, props become interactive, and knocked-out drawings recover among friends.

  • Confirm up to ten repeatable Medic, Trainer, Blacksmith, and Scavenger roles once per UTC day, with bounded bonuses stamped into battle results.
  • Reusable props now support Sleep, Eat, Play, Work, Inspect, or None plus deterministic cosmetic behavior.
  • Published Towns are passive dioramas: viewers may tap resident drawings for reactions, while visitor avatars, live rooms, occupancy limits, and realtime Cloudflare infrastructure are not part of the roadmap.
  • Up to five knocked-out drawings rest in beds or a recovery row while deterministic residents make supportive ambient visits.

Did this update improve the arena?

gameplay

The Hundredth Page

Level 100 is now the permanent ceiling for fighters and equipment, while lifetime XP continues accumulating beyond it.

  • Reaching level 100 still awards that level's final three stat points and highest decade title.
  • Once level 100 is reached, further XP remains visible as an accumulated lifetime total but cannot create levels or stat points.
  • Evolution milestones now end at level 100, and every progression source shares the same cap.

Did this update improve the arena?

community

The Drawings Build a Town

Drawing Town opens its private-building beta with dioramas, reusable props, residents, and deterministic scene projects.

  • Build one private Town with bounded resident and prop placement.
  • Draw up to fifty reusable transparent props without a timer, AI call, or daily-page cost.
  • Residents patrol, converse, rest, and interact with props through deterministic routines.
  • Public publishing will use passive Town views with likes, moderated comments, and tap reactions on resident drawings—never live visitor avatars or six-player rooms.
  • Private drafts store bounded metadata in Neon while prop art remains in object storage.

Did this update improve the arena?

gameplay

The House Remembers

A level-30 challenge book opens beside the original Gauntlet, with normalized builds, seven familiar opponents, mastery runs, and permanent seals.

  • The introductory ten-stage Gauntlet and its progress remain unchanged.
  • Challenge-book fights use their own proportional 160-point normalizer and are completely safe: no XP, records, Renown, injuries, knockouts, item progress, or drops.
  • Turn the Page, Bare-Handed, and Unsmudged award a badge, Housebreaker title, flourish, background, and trophy without duplicating boss equipment.

Did this update improve the arena?

gameplay

The Legends Circuit Opens

Level-50 drawings can now compete on normalized builds for permanent Renown without distorting the ordinary arena record.

  • Every entrant fights at mechanical level 50 with 150 HP and exactly 40 in every core stat; equipment keeps its art and techniques without breaking the exact stat line.
  • Approved, available user drawings at level 15 or higher fill the opponent pool, with House legends reserved for an empty bracket.
  • Renown uses player Elo, bounded fallback rewards, weekly repeat reductions, and eight-week season compression.
  • Circuit bouts never grant ordinary XP, W/L/D, streaks, KOs, drops, or item progression.
  • As confirmed by the developer, a Circuit KO loss can apply the normal recoverable eight-hour knockout status; protected guest opponents cannot lose Renown or be knocked out, and the challenger’s exact risk is shown before confirmation.

Did this update improve the arena?

community

Every Line Has a Life

Fighter profiles now tell compact, factual life stories with owner lore and a dated Chronicle—without making AI calls or scanning battle logs on page load.

  • Deterministic Origin, Rise, Arsenal, Rivalries, Trials, and Legacy sections use only verified cached facts.
  • Owners choose pronouns, add moderated Creator Lore, and control whether biography, lore, both, or neither appear.
  • Chronicle milestones are written by authoritative actions and backfilled in bounded batches of 25 to protect Neon.

Did this update improve the arena?

gameplay

The Arena Finds Its Feet

Achievements, community trading, better drawing tools, safer battles, clearer navigation, and a great many sharpened edges arrived after permanent death left the building.

  • Ranked matchmaking now has an absolute three-level gap in either direction. The arena will decline a match instead of quietly drafting an overwhelming opponent.
  • Vampire Bite and every other healing effect now respect the fighter's current life bar; Phase 2's 40% opening bar and 60% transformed bar can no longer be overfilled.
  • Achievements arrived with 24 permanent account honors, hand-drawn emblems, wearable titles, secret feats, fighter showcases, public collections, and careful credit for proven past deeds.
  • Career marks now distinguish early artists and long-lived competitors, while decade titles such as the Proven and the Menace remain tied to each fighter's own level.
  • Evolution now preserves every previously on-brand stat and only adds newly recognized strengths. A new form can never forget an old strength again.
  • Descendants may now be drawn from any owned fighter—not only a fallen one—and may inherit one owner-chosen ability from their parent.
  • The drawing desk now lets artists switch between fighter, weapon, and artifact, restart the page and timer together, and use an existing owned drawing as a collapsible visual reference.
  • Pencil, bucket fill, and soft spray tools joined the desk alongside an expanded palette. Fill reaches cleanly into boundary pixels, spray paints a smooth radial cloud, and erased equipment pixels stay transparent in sticker cutouts.
  • Mobile artists received larger, unified canvases, compact two-row colors, a single neat tool row, collapsible references, and repaired weapon and artifact layouts.
  • Original forged equipment can now be shared through Community without leaving its owner's Armory. Other artists claim independent replicas, with a two-item daily sharing limit outside the developer account.
  • Community posts can be edited, liked, and sorted by newest, oldest, random, most liked, or equipment shared. Only original forged items—not somebody else's replicas—may be offered.
  • Replica drops now reject a creator's own original, reset every dropped copy to its saved base stats, allow replicas to evolve, and let an original's artist see which public fighters carry its copies.
  • Equipment portraits gained front-or-back placement, horizontal and vertical sticker flips, and whole-portrait mirroring that keeps the fighter and every attached sticker together.
  • Boss rewards now equip through the same validated slot flow as forged gear, while stamped equipment abilities join inherent abilities when battle VFX are reconstructed.
  • The home page now carries the newest arena replay and a compact stream of recent fights, with mobile overflow repaired and developer test views cleared from Famous Fights.
  • Custom MIDI playback now releases long or interrupted notes reliably. A fighter's theme plays while defending, or while attacking when the defender has no custom theme, as the music editor now explains.
  • Gungnir joined the synergy roster for Overthrow, Spearman, and Aura, accompanied by its piercing lance effect. Lasers, Colorful, and Grim became drawing-inferable abilities, and Foresight returned to the engraving pool.
  • Classic battle stances returned with stronger identities: Aggressive commits harder to attack, Guarded trades offense for defense, and Chaotic doubles event pressure while sharply raising critical chance.
  • Spoiler Alert now begins at 70% dodge, loses three percentage points whenever it is hit or dodges, bottoms out at 40%, and can recover toward 70%.
  • Anonymous artists receive a stable numbered Doodler identity only after creating their first drawing, making their public profiles and collections recognizable without forcing sign-in.
  • A fighter that loses three times may receive a skippable Forge suggestion, with a per-fighter Don't Show Again choice rather than an account-wide dismissal.
  • Navigation was regrouped around the game's essentials, with Gallery promoted and the remaining destinations organized into Explore and News & Help so newcomers face fewer competing buttons.
  • The Drawn to Battle team can publish, edit, and remove large hand-drawn urgent notices on the home page, and the moderation desk receives in-site notice when a drawing is reported.
  • The site now publishes a crawler-friendly sitemap and robots policy, while public feeds, Community, achievements, and cached pages use bounded projections and backfills to sharply reduce Neon database transfer.
  • Moderated drawings leave public discovery surfaces and their artists receive a named notification explaining what happened.
  • Every release note now accepts one Like or Dislike per artist, with public totals and the option to change or clear a reaction.
  • Studied raid techniques now occupy one dedicated fighter slot beyond ordinary ability caps. After earning a raid unlock, players may choose its technique directly during initial fighter creation or evolution without needing the AI judges to recognize a matching drawing; equipment abilities remain strictly player-engraved.
  • As promised to the affected artists, every fighter still knocked out when this release arrives is immediately restored to normal condition without changing its history or records.
  • New player feedback now rings the private development inbox and links directly to the feedback entry, matching the existing drawing-report alert flow.

Did this update improve the arena?

gameplay

Nobody Stays Down

Permanent death is gone. Arena knockouts now mean eight hours of recovery, then a normal return.

  • Every previously dead drawing returns immediately in normal condition.
  • A ranked knockout puts a fighter on the sidelines for eight hours instead of ending its life.
  • Existing kill totals are now presented as KO totals.
  • The Hall of Legends now shows the fighters currently knocked out and their recovery time.

Did this update improve the arena?

community

The Crowd Picks Up a Pencil

Fighter pages now have player comments, community reporting, and a leaderboard that puts wins first.

  • Leave a public note on another artist's approved drawing, with anonymous-first play still supported.
  • Report abusive comments to the private moderation desk; reports never auto-hide somebody else's words.
  • Comment authors can erase their own notes, while moderators can keep or remove reported comments.
  • The all-time leaderboard now ranks by wins, then level, then KOs.
  • Archiving or unarchiving a fighter now refreshes every leaderboard board immediately.

Did this update improve the arena?

equipment

Equipment Finds Its Balance

Weapons and artifacts now strengthen their wearer through bounded percentage boosts instead of raw stat addition.

  • Each item point adds 0.5% of the wearer's matching base stat.
  • Each DEF point also adds 0.25% battle-only maximum HP.
  • Sword, spear, and mace techniques come automatically from weapon type without using an engraving slot.
  • The Armory now uses queued stat spending, and the Forge warns before leaving engraving slots empty.
  • Equipment works consistently in ranked battles, duels, exhibitions, Gauntlet, and solo or party raids.

Did this update improve the arena?

equipment

The Armory Learns New Tricks

Equipment now levels, evolves, drops from ranked battles, and comes with a Field Guide for the whole game.

  • Collect player-drawn replicas from ranked PvP with duplicate protection and pity.
  • Level, improve, and evolve original or replica equipment while preserving former forms.
  • Earn ten house items from INKZILLA and the weekly raid bosses.
  • Follow the new persistent Field Guide from first battle through evolution.

Did this update improve the arena?

equipment

The Forge Opens

Draw weapons and artifacts, engrave abilities, and place them on your fighters as stickers.

  • Weapons and artifacts share the daily page budget.
  • Items pass through the moderation desk before public display.

Did this update improve the arena?

community

The Sketchbook Makes Noise

Original synth music, battle sound effects, and fighter-authored MIDI themes arrived.

  • The defender's custom theme has priority; the attacker's plays when the defender has none.
  • Raids, duels, victories, and falls each received house music.

Did this update improve the arena?

gameplay

The Bosses Found the Front Door

Solo and party raids now rotate weekly with account-wide techniques to study.

  • Bring three fighters or invite two friends.
  • Clear higher tiers for one-time weekly XP bounties.

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gameplay

Thirty-Five New Ways to Misbehave

The Ability Expansion introduced level-gated kits, synergies, signature attacks, and a lot more chaos.

  • Abilities are granted without ever replacing earned kit.
  • Purple synergy chips assemble automatically from compatible abilities.

Did this update improve the arena?

launch

The Arena Opens

Draw a fighter in sixty seconds, let the judges read the ink, and send it into a replayable battle.

  • Anonymous-first play with optional account claiming.
  • Progression, injury, and the original Hall of Legends launched with the arena.

Did this update improve the arena?