Patch Notes

What changed in each update, newest first.

0.5 October 28, 2026

Playing on a phone

• Tap a room further off on the map to see the way there, and tap it again to walk.
• The log has more room. The command line now opens from a keyboard button at the foot of the log and goes away with the keyboard.
• Your health and your target sit side by side above your ability bar, with their effects inside each frame, and stay put in a fight.
• The Chat tab has a box to write in, the Map tab is now Quests (Expand above the map still shows the whole area), and the Type tab is now Rest.
• Hold an ability to read what it does. Quick taps no longer zoom or select the page.
• The screen stays on while you play, and on an iPhone you can add the game to your home screen as its own app.

Sound

• Sound on phones and tablets no longer cuts out, and the page no longer crashes from holding too many sounds.
• Sounds are ready sooner: the ones around you load first, and the ones you've already downloaded are kept.
• Under Sound in the settings menu, a new line shows what the sound is doing, to help us track down problems.

Web client

• Keep me logged in on this device brings you back without your password for 30 days.
• A dropped connection now holds your character for five minutes, and quick reconnects put you straight back in.
• A Center button brings the map back to you after you drag it away.

MUD clients

• With 'screenreader' on, quest cards and their reward details no longer draw a box of line symbols around them.

0.4 October 27, 2026

Playing on a phone

• The web client now has a layout made for phones. The map runs along the bottom and is how you move: tap a room next to yours to step into it, tap one further off to walk there, hold a room to look that way first, or tap your own room for its full description. Your ability bar fits on one row, the keyboard comes up only when you tap Type, and Actions and Chat open from tabs along the bottom.
• Phone layout in the settings menu turns it on for a tablet, or off on a phone. 'help phone' has the rest.

Web client

• Buffs and debuffs now show the same icon as the ability that put them there.
• Targeting another player, or a strawjack rival on the Whistling Green, now shows what is on them: their buffs, and their debuffs in red, with your own brighter than anyone else's.
• Hovering a room on the map now shows its name once you have been there, along with what is in it, instead of how many rooms away it is.
• What you say yourself, in any channel, now shows a little fainter than what others say, so a conversation is easier to follow.
• The Actions window has a new Testing tab with Bug, Feedback and Idea buttons, to send a report without typing the command.
• The web client uses much less power, which matters most on a laptop or phone battery. The fog and weather draw less often, and the rest of the screen no longer redraws itself while nothing on it is changing.
• Fog is drawn much more finely, and rain falls as drops rather than lines.
• The settings have a new Weather effects choice. Light draws the fog coarser and slower with fewer raindrops, to save battery. Auto, the default, uses Light on battery and Full when plugged in where your browser can tell, and otherwise picks by the kind of device.
• Arriving somewhere by ferry, coach or wagon now always starts that place's music, and Embergloam's night music now plays when you log in there at night, instead of staying silent for several minutes.

Combat

• Mana given back to you (Siphon Thought, Clarity, Reprieve) now shows in the combat log in the mana bar's blue, so it no longer looks like a heal.

Staying connected

• MUD clients can now connect encrypted, on mud.embergloam.com port 4443. In Mudlet, tick Secure in the connection settings.
• If your connection drops and you log straight back in, you now step back into your character instead of being told the account is already logged in. Logging in somewhere new while your character is still in the world takes it over from the old connection.

Fixes

• On an iPad, the web client's log now keeps scrolling to the newest lines as you move from room to room, instead of stopping short of them.
• In the web client, the action bar and your click bindings now show up right away when you reload the page or log back in to a character still standing in the world, instead of after a wait of up to half a minute.
• In the web client, a piece of music that fails to load is now tried again shortly, instead of staying silent until you reload the page.

The high elves' start

• The high elves' start has new sound in the web client for its biggest moments, and some of them light the screen. Its bell, its shadows and its fights each have a voice of their own, and the wagon ride down to Embergloam is no longer silent.
• In the high elves' start, the rooms, quests and people read more clearly, and a few of its people now go by their own names. The great glasses are now the Great Prisms, and the sky there no longer turns to night while their light holds.

0.3 October 26, 2026

Gameplay

• When another player walks into your room, you now see which way they came from, as in "Maelis arrives from the west."
• In the web client, after a journey by boat, road or air, the music and sky of the place you arrive in now begin when the journey's last line has been read, not partway through it.
• MUD clients that ask for compression, such as Mudlet, MUSHclient and TinTin++, now get the game's text compressed, so it uses less data.

Combat

• Small creatures now attack faster for less damage each hit, and tiny ones faster still, so a rat nips instead of biting for as much as a bear. They deal the same damage over a fight. Large creatures, and the strongest creatures of any size, still land slow, heavy blows.
• Creature attacks vary less from hit to hit, so there are fewer sudden spikes.
• In the web client, clicking a creature's name in a room now targets it instead of attacking it. To have a click attack, type 'clickbehavior attack' or tick Click to attack in the Click bindings window.

Characters

• New character names are letters only, with no numbers, and are shown with one capital letter. A name can't have the same letter three times in a row, needs a vowel, and can't be a word the game already uses, such as a creature's name or a command.
• If staff ask you to rename a character, you choose its new name the next time you play it. Everything else about it stays the same.

The ogres' start

• The ogres' start has new sound in the web client for its biggest moments, and some of them shake or light the screen. When a sky-drifter passes over the Great Desert, you see it go over and the ground turn green after its rain. At night you may hear the great herd's drums far off.
• In the ogres' start, Grumble's crew now go by their own names, the desert scavengers are jackals, and many of its room descriptions and quest texts read more clearly. Its fights have new music, led by drums, and the lines about Grumble walking come less often.

Staying connected

• If the web client loses its connection, or you reload the page, it now puts you straight back into your character without logging in again. Your character stays in the world for a minute to wait for you, and until any fight it's in is over.
• Quitting or losing your connection in the middle of a fight with a creature no longer takes you out of it. Your character stays where it is, with nobody at the controls, until the fight is over, as it already did in fights with other players.
• In the web client, logging in again no longer shows OOC chat from your earlier session. It stays when you're put back into your character after a restart or a lost connection.

Fixes

• 'quit' now leaves the game, the same as 'q'.
• In the web client, the hint for gear you could wear now makes its 'wear' command clickable, not the words before it.

0.2 October 26, 2026

Achievements

• Achievements: 80 goals across the game, from exploring every corner of an area to landing every legendary fish. Type 'achievements' to see yours and how close you are, or 'achievements <name>' for another player's. The web client shows a card and plays a sound when you earn one.
• Some achievements give a title, worn after your name. Type 'title' to choose one. A title earned by any of your characters can be worn by all of them.
• The first character to bear each rune, and the first of each promotion, is recorded as a Feat. Type 'achievements feats' to see who holds them.
• The web client has an Achievements window (Alt+H, or the Achievements button): every category, the Feats and who holds each, and your titles, which you can wear from there.

Gameplay

• Merchants, bankers, trainers, quest givers and everyone else you deal with won't serve you while hidden, invisible or disguised by certain illusions, and they don't greet you. Type 'visible' to appear.
• The first time you stop gaining experience for want of a rune, you're told which rune you need. 'help runes' can now be read at any level.
• Creatures you are at peace with are now shown in friendly green.
• If the server crashes, the web client now puts you back where you were once it is up again, as it does after a planned restart.

Discord

• #start-here now shows how the game stands, whether new accounts are open, and where to play. New members choose their pings and agree to the rules as they join, and other servers can follow #announcements and #patch-notes.

Fixes

• The web client no longer gets slower the longer you play.
• Stopping a spell before it lands, even one cast into the next room, no longer leaves you stuck in combat.
• A quest finished out in the world whose reward didn't fit in your bags lost the reward. It now comes to your mail from the quest giver.
• In the rain, water on a window you move, open over or close in the web client no longer hangs where the window was. It falls onto whatever is below.
• A few lines that said only "the stone" now name the Sun-Warmed Stone.

0.1 October 25, 2026

Bags

• Every character now has an 8-slot backpack and 4 bag slots. A new bag goes straight into an empty slot, so there's nothing to move around.
• If your slots are full and you equip a bigger bag, it replaces your smallest one and moves its contents over. equip <bag> bag <n> picks the slot. remove <bag> takes out an empty one.
• Slots are now numbered straight through: backpack 1 to 8, then each bag in turn. Bags go by their slot number: look in 2, put torch in 2.
• A bag you're using can't be sold, dropped, banked, mailed or traded until it's empty and out of its slot.

Combat

• The web client now queues abilities. Press one in the last moment of a cast and it fires the instant the cast ends. No more "You are already casting." spam. Escape clears the queue.
• Fixed: recasting a channel such as Magic Missiles while it was running could fire an extra shot.
• Death and resurrection now show the share of a level you lost or got back as a percentage.

World

• Items left on the ground disappear after 15 minutes.
• New characters now begin with a short scene.
• MUD clients get a new welcome screen. Screen readers that identify themselves skip the art.

Web client

• Every class's abilities have drawn icons. No two buttons in a class share an icon, and a corner mark shows builders (▲) and spenders (●).
• Embergloam has a new icon on the Discord server, the website and your browser tab: a street lantern lit by the glimmerwings inside it. The Glimmerwing bot keeps its moth.
• The settings menu is sorted into sections, with switches for on/off settings.
• Chat lines older than ten minutes dim. Turn this off with "Dim old chat" in the settings menu. Hover over a line to see its time.
• A restart countdown now updates a single line.
• New players start with sound on and the Contrast colors.

Discord

• /help and a topic shows you the game's help pages in Discord. Only you see the answer. If your account is linked, pages you've unlocked in the game show too.
• Choose which pings you get (Announcements, Events, Patch notes) with the buttons in #start-here. Press a button again to turn that ping off.

Community

• A message of the day now greets you when you log in. Type motd to read it again. In the web client its commands are buttons and its links open.
• help rules has new lines: no real-world politics or religion, no posing as staff, no real-money sales, no scamming or griefing, one character in the game at a time and no account sharing.

Privacy

• The website has Terms, a Privacy Policy and the game's rules. You must be 13 or older to play, with a parent or guardian's agreement if you're under 18, and making an account now says so.
• New: help privacy says what the game counts about how you play, and what it never records.
• Delete your whole account, with every character on it and its email, from the character list: delete account in MUD clients, or Delete account in the web client.
• The web client and the website load their fonts from Embergloam itself, not from Google.