Patch 19 - Levla 2 is here

Hey there Levlans!

Your favorite dev is back with another banger patch, and this one I am particularly proud of. It's some of my best work yet, and finally going live with it feels like Christmas.

For the past week, maybe even a little more, I've been working crazy hours to get this out as fast as possible, and it's finally here!

Internally we've been testing this for a few days, and it has been dubbed the "Levla 2 Patch" (in a good way, of course). There is a LOT to cover, so let's jump into it.

🎉 First off, HURRAY US!

Levla is growing super rapidly, it's honestly crazy. We are now averaging over 400 users every single day. To think that this app I built is being used daily by over 400 people is completely nuts, and hearing all the love and feedback brings me so much joy and meaning, so thank you!

We also just passed 500 members in our Discord server, which makes me very happy. If you haven't joined already, feel free to pop in, I'm in there all day chatting with you all and collecting feedback.

Anyway, enough of that, let's get into the update!

📌 PSA: Time to adjust

There are so many changes in this patch that it might take some time to adjust to the new UI, and I'm sorry for that. There will not be any more big overhauls like this for a long time, but this one had to be done. I hope you'll enjoy the update nevertheless!

🎨 Levla UI Overhaul

Very soon after our official launch, I kept hearing the same thing: the UI and UX is confusing, it's bloated, there are buttons everywhere and so on.

Today's patch is all about combatting that. The focus is to make everything much easier to consume and understand.

This update completely reshapes Levla visually. All the underlying systems are pretty much the same, but presented in a brand new way, and my testers say it's night and day compared to before.

So let's see what changed:

The Layers of Levla

Levla is now split into two layers: the Productivity Layer and the Game Layer.

When you want to be productive, you stay on the productivity layer. That's where you manage your todos, habits, reflections, settings and the new stats screen.

When you want to progress your character with what you earned from the productivity layer, you enter the game world.

Switching between the two is as simple as pressing the middle button in the new tab navigation.

These changes also gave us a lot more real estate to work with, which meant the Backlog screens could move to their very own screens!

Let me know what you think, but the feedback on this has been really good, so I hope you like it!

Realtime Character Screen

The character screen has been completely revamped and redesigned. This is now where the action happens. There is no longer an activity screen, you start your adventures straight from the character screen.

Immersion

Your character now stands in a scene that reflects where in the world of Levla your character currently is.

You can also set a custom idle background, unlockable in various ways. Right now there is one default and one for our members that everyone can unlock, but I'll be adding more backgrounds shortly that can be unlocked in different ways!

Your character will now also speak and say random things based on your activities in the app. There are a few easter eggs in there!

Realtime Adventures

Adventures are now shown in realtime. You can see your XP increase, the drops you receive and your actual progress in the adventure.

Some adventures even have animations playing, with more coming soon (limited resources and all), but at least now you can see our vision!

Every action your character takes in an adventure, like taking damage, eating food, drinking potions, dealing damage and receiving loot, is now shown very nicely.

It's also much easier to understand the underlying mechanics of the game now!

New Profiles

Profiles have also gotten a refresh this patch to match the new character screen.

Realtime

You can now see where in the world an adventurer currently is!

Highlight Items

You can now highlight items to show off on your profile (wink wink). To do so, open the item details sheet, press the new "..." button in the top right corner, and press "Highlight Item on profile".

Adventure Log & Trading Post Listings

Profiles now show the 20 most recent adventure log entries, so you can see what someone's been up to. Maybe use it as inspiration?

Trading post listings are also shown on profiles now, and you can purchase from them directly.

New Adventure UI & Flow

The whole adventure flow and UI has gotten a complete redesign. The goal was to minimize clicks throughout the entire flow and make things easier to understand for both new and existing users.

Choose Adventure & Adventure Hub

Previously, adventures happened through an activities screen that was bloated, hard to understand and made it hard to figure out "what to do next".

I've now built a new Browse Adventure popup that works as your "what's next". It shows actionable adventures recommended to you based on your level, quest progress and bounties.

You can also favorite any type of adventure now for quick access.

And if you're more into browsing and seeing everything available in the world of Levla, there is a full-screen Adventure Hub for that.

With these changes, the old quick actions system has been removed.

Start Adventure Sheets

All the start adventure sheets have gotten a UX overhaul too. They now clearly show your current stamina, how the adventure will affect it, and even estimated rewards for the upcoming adventure. Pretty sweet!

The Homestead

With the changes to adventures, farming and bounties needed a new home. They now live under the "World" tab in what we call The Homestead. Think of it as your base, and more things will be added to it in the future.

More to discover

There are hundreds of other design changes to discover in this patch, like new stamina and HP bars, a new darker color palette and much much more, more than I can remember!

⚔️ Levla Supply & Combat Changes

Also on the chopping block this patch: our clunky and hard to understand supply and combat system. The goal here was to make things much easier to understand.

Combat Forecast & Combat Preview

Previously we had two weird systems fighting each other: a combat forecast that was supposed to explain how much food you'd need and how you'd hold up against the enemy, and a combat preview showing how much damage you and the enemy deal.

It was really confusing, so in today's patch I thought, less is more.

Dungeons and fight creature screens now show one simple card explaining how you will hold up. It's either red, orange or green with some short details. It should be very accurate, and a quick glance is all you need to make a decision!

Inventory is now Bank

The old inventory is now called Bank. It's just a rename, but honestly that's what it was from the beginning anyway. Nothing else has changed here.

Character Inventory

From this patch, your character has its own inventory, accessible from all start adventure sheets as well as the adventure home screen.

This is what your character has access to. So instead of selecting supplies every time you go on an adventure, you just make sure your character inventory is stocked.

You can deposit Food, Potions and Ether, and your character will automatically use whatever is available:

Your character now eats to full when starting an adventure, removing the need to "eat to full" beforehand
Your character now casts defensive spells and drinks potions (even Freeze Ward) if the buffs aren't already applied. No more checking your buffs and pre-drinking potions before engaging certain content
Loot received during adventures goes into the character inventory, then into your bank once claimed. You can preview the inventory at any time
You'll also see effects being applied on the new adventure home screen, like when your character eats and drinks potions (animations coming later)

Let me know how this feels!

📊 Stats/Analytics

On the productivity side of Levla, a new Stats tab has been added, giving you a nice overview of the last 7 days and previous weeks.

Here you can clearly see which habits you're struggling with the most, and which days you perform best on. This was very liked amongst the testers, let me know what you think!

🔥 New Streaks System

Today's patch also includes our first implementation of a streaks reward system.

Now, I know streaks can lead to dark patterns, and that's something we're fully aware of. It's why we don't really talk about or push streaks much in Levla (you can even hide them!).

But for some people, streaks are a great motivator, so today we're pushing some new streak related functionality.

7-Day Reward: ???

By logging a habit, todo or reflection every day for 7 days in a row, you will now be rewarded with a new companion. I'm not going to say more than that, I'll let it speak for itself, but it is a very special one!

If you already have an ongoing streak of more than 7 days, you should see this reward the next time you open the app after the update!

Streak XP Multiplier

Not many know this, but there has been a hidden streak multiplier running in the background. It's now visible through popups that appear on certain streak milestones.

NEW: Special popup on milestones
NEW: Subtle popup on normal days
NEW: Freeze Token item type added
NEW: 7-day streak celebration for our first streak reward

🐣 New "New Player" Experience

The new player experience has been revamped. Bob The Wise now guides new users through Levla, helps them go on their first adventure, and explains what happens if they stay consistent for 7 days.

The old Tutorial Island has also gotten a new step to further help new users get started.

✨ QOL / Other Nice Things

NEW: Dungeons no longer have a minimum time to run
NEW: You can now run multiple dungeons in a row by using multiple keys
NEW: Gathering adventures can now run for 12 hours
NEW: There is now a "Repair All" button at Grumdar
NEW: In settings, you can now disable game updates while on the productivity layer (called Work Mode)
NEW: In settings, you can now disable the navigation labels
NEW: In settings, you can now turn on a "low animation mode" for the adventure home / character screen
NEW: You can now see your guild passive effects on the guild screen, with an explanation of what they do
NEW: You can now engage a bounty target straight from the Homestead
NEW: New confirmation/error popups and toasts, designed to be more compact and less blocking
NEW: Skill Training XP has been boosted (then nerfed, now it should be balanced)
NEW: You can now see your active buffs and item effects on the home screen
NEW (iOS): Updated live activities design slightly
NEW (iOS): iOS now sometimes attaches media to notifications when possible
NEW: Item added: Chronotome (resets XP and refunds 60% of it)
NEW: Item added: Orb of Identity (changes your username)
NEW: You can now create habits and todos when in focus mode
NEW: You can now share your profiles from the new adventure/character screen, it takes a cool screenshot of your character with your stats + habits/todos completions

🐛 Bug Fixes

Fixed Greater Ether sell pricing at shops other than Veigar's
Fixed a grammar error with bartering
Removed the placeholder beer description
Fixed a bug where boar meat and boar stew weren't consumable
Fixed a bug where seeds from gardeners gave 20.03 XP instead of 20
Fixed a bug where bird nests weren't properly giving items
Fixed a bug where quality bonuses weren't shown in the item detail sheet when viewing from the trading post
Fixed a bug where in-app notifications wouldn't show the right amount claimed from the trading post or crafting
Fixed a bunch of filter issues on the backlog screens
Fixed a weird edge case where crafting popups appeared when creating todos
Fixed an issue where multi completion habits didn't disappear after completing one of the groups, even with show completed disabled
Tuned up anti cheat metrics since the cap was being reached legitimately
Fixed an issue where repeat patterns would overflow in the creation sheets
Fixed a crash related to reflection prompts
Permanently fixed the issue where buttons were under the native nav bar on Android
Fixed a bug where Harmony's Rest gave full stamina rewards at early tiers
Fixed a lot of crashes and other weird bugs