The Fusion Update is out — stones rank up, skills are yours to draft

Quick one today — the update I’ve been polishing all week is live on Steam. (The onboarding rebuild from the last post is still in the oven; this one is about what happens after the game clicks.)

Two of Starfend’s core systems grew up.

Stones finally have somewhere to go

Stones used to pile up in your inventory, all roughly equal, most of them ignored. Now every stone rolls one of ten rarity ranks — from humble Stardust all the way to Cosmic — and higher ranks mean stronger buffs, better sell prices, and frames that look the part.

The fun part: fusion. Five stones of the same rank fuse into one stone of the next rank, right from the preparation screen. That mountain of early-game Stardust is now raw material for something Cosmic. And the deeper your runs go, the rarer the drops — depth finally pays.

Skills stopped being a lucky drop

Here’s the design confession: skills used to come from destroying giant meteors, which meant some runs you got the skill you wanted, and some runs the game just… didn’t cooperate. That’s not a decision, that’s a slot machine.

So I reworked it into a draft:

• You start every run with a skill — the one matching your drone body’s color. From wave 1 there’s a button to press.
• Every 5 waves, after the wave buff, you pick a new skill drawn from the colors of the meteors you’re actually fighting.
• Pick the right colors and skills fuse into stronger tiers — with a proper little cinematic: charge-up, clash, shockwave. I spent an embarrassing amount of time on that animation and I regret nothing.

Giant meteors still matter — they just drop stones now. Loot from the kills, skills on the schedule.

Also in this build

• Non-Steam controllers now match the Steam Input layout (call waves, zoom, and level up your drone with the same buttons).
• Placement effects follow your selection color on controller, same as mouse hover.
• Fixed second-run bugs, a survival timer that kept ticking on the reward screen, and a keyboard tip that showed up on controller — that last one thanks to a review team’s report. Keep those coming.
• Defeat is quicker and more dramatic: a short slow-mo beat instead of a long crawl.

Try it this week

Starfend is 30% off during the Summer Sale (until July 9), and the free demo goes all the way to level 25 — the whole new stone and skill flow is in it. If the draft-and-fuse loop sounds like your kind of thing, this is a good week to find out.

Wishlist / play the demo on Steam →

More soon — the first-five-minutes rebuild is next.

— Ranieri