- Patch Notes v.0.85.0 - 27 June 2026
v.0.85.0Patch SummaryThis patch updates the Crystalloid deck mechanic, adds some new low level cards, balances a few existing ones and adds a new card attribute as well as fixes a few bugs.OverviewCrystalloid UpdatesCrystalloid mechanics have seen the most gameplay changes over the past few patches as they are definitely the most experimental of the base decks. This patch makes another change that builds on the previous update, which made Crystalloids only placeable adjacent to other Crystalloids.Now, Crystal Growth, which is the base element of Crystalloid Decks, loses HP at the end of its turn and adds a new Crystal Growth to your hand. This is similar to the old Crystalloid mechanics where Crystal Growths lost HP and grew new copies of themselves automatically, but it gives you full control of which direction you want to grow by giving you a card you can place yourself.Crystal Growth…
- Patch Notes: v.0.84.2 - 8 May 2026
v.0.84.2Patch OverviewThis is a small update that tweaks the deck generation algorithm and adjusts some card rarities to make more balanced decks in the singleplayer run and fixes a few small visual issues.It also removes a few cards from the enemy deck generation pool. These are cards that had custom script logic for their use by AI that was taken out to speed up the AI thinking speed. They will be re-enabled in a future update.Change ListGameplayGenerated decks will now have a more balanced unit / mount composition.Cards, Ships, Events and BalancingRocket Bay now common rarity.Pulse Cannon now basic rarity.Flak Cannon now basic rarity.Composter, Piezo Crystal and Personal Catapult temporarily removed from enemy decks.Bug FixesFixed map icons rendering on top of popups in overworld mode.
- Patch Notes: v.0.84.1 - 6 May 2026
v.0.84.1Patch OverviewThis is a small update that restores the Remove card button to the player deck in the singleplayer run, fixes a few minor bugs, improves AI think speed and updates some card rarities and the rarity curve in the singleplayer run.Change ListGameplayYou can now remove cards from the deck anywhere again in the Singleplayer Run.Tweaked the rarity curve and changed the rarity of a few cards to increase card variety in the first sector.Optimized some card lookups to increase AI think speed.Cards, Ships, Events and BalancingAdded more default mount points on two fungaloid ships.Reduced the amount of cargo mounts tiles in one of the early enemy ships.Bumper Bot now costs 30 credits.Bug FixesFixed cards overlapping with explainers on battle victory screen.Fixed incorrect deck assignments for a few cards.Fixed challenges info popup not closing with controller in the demo.
- v.0.84.0 Release Notes - 4 May 2026
v.0.84.0Patch SummaryThis is a large update that introduces a card leveling mechanic, a new Scrap mechanic, a new Challenges mode, improved AI, card deck themes, and new cards and special events. ATTENTION: This patch is incompatible with the previous version's save files. If you wish to continue a game from the previous version, please use the version selector in Betas and choose the previous version!OverviewHello, gamers! Apologies for the update radio silence. There were a few smaller updates in the pipeline that were supposed to come out sooner, but they got a bit tangled up together and I decided to release them all as part of one larger update. Because of this, we're jumping 3 whole subversion numbers up! Let's take a look at the changes!Card Leveling and ScrapThis update introduces a card leveling mechanic in both the single player run and in multiplayer / AI versus modes. Almost…
- Patch Notes: v.0.81.3 - 24 January 2026
v.0.81.3Patch OverviewThis patch fixes a few bugs introduced in the last update.Change ListBug FixesFixed Fungaloid Spike attack range being reset to 1.Fixed death effects causing on death specials not to be called.Fixed order of death event resolutions to remove some ambiguities.Poison damage will no longer kill a unit instantly when it's frozen.Plasma Priest won't mutate into Plasmoid Worshipper when dying by poison damage.
- Patch Notes: v.0.81.2 - 22 January 2026
v.0.81.2Patch OverviewThis is a regular bugfix and maintenance update.Change ListGameplayFire now gains dazed when mutated into by fire damage.Cards, Ships and BalancingEmergency Power is now fragile.Blade Dancer attack range is now 1.Bug FixesFixed copy layout overflowing for some locales.String fit checks now use proper UTF8 length.Fixed Bounty Hunter targeting builtin ship weapons and expansion chips.Fixed Plasma Core calling its special multiple times per turn.
- Patch Notes: v.0.81.1 - 17 January 2026
v.0.81.1Patch OverviewThis is a small bugfix update that also makes a small gameplay change regarding fire damage, which now mutates the target into Fire rather than creating a new Fire. This fixes a few bugs related to the order events are processed in on the server, speeds up the game a bit and introduces some additional strategies as the resulting Fire will inherit the target's status effects.Change ListGameplayFire damage now mutates target into Fire rather than creating a new Fire. Bug FixesIf a card references another card it will now swap with explainers on a timer for better visibility.Fixed card explainer copy not fitting properly across different languages.Fixed incorrect card rollover areas.Ship repair option in stations will now not be visible when not needed.Ship repair cost in stations no longer overlaps copy.Fixed some missing localizations in event screens.Fixed flickeri…
- Patch Notes v.0.81.0 - 10 January 2026
v.0.81.0Patch SummaryThis patch introduces new and improved enemy AI, adds some new cards, changes a number of existing ones and fixes a few bugs.ATTENTION: This patch is incompatible with the previous version's save files. If you wish to continue a game from the previous version, please use the version selector in Betas and choose the previous version!OverviewHappy New Year!! After taking a break last month, I am back in full swing development. Expect a bi-weekly update for the next 2-3 months.Improved AIOpponent AI is the most important and complex part of Star Scum. Creating an opponent AI that can play a complex card game with a large board, hidden information and arbitrary cards and do it fast enough to not make the player wait too long even on older hardware, has been quite a journey. This patch is the next big step in that journey. Over the course of the game's development, I exp…
- Patch Notes: v.0.80.3 - 11 November 2025
v.0.80.3Patch OverviewThis is a small bugfix update.Change ListBug FixesFixed generated decks not using card backs that the player hasn't unlocked yet.
- Patch Notes: v.0.80.2 - 28 October 2025
v.0.80.2Patch OverviewThis is a regular maintenance and balancing update.Change ListGameplayUpdated AI to not backtrack units in certain cases.Cards, Ships and BalancingReduced Tactical Planning cost to $30.Graphics and VisualsAdded special damage explainers to cards that deal special damage.Bug FixesFixed incorrect icons being displayed on some cards.
- Patch Notes: v.0.80.1 - 25 October 2025
v.0.80.1Patch OverviewThis is a regular maintenance and balancing update.Change ListGameplayWormhole collapse now moves slightly slower if you're beyond the pale to give you a chance to catch up with it.Fixed AI jumping units back and forth between ships. It is now more aggressive.AI values Fire on opponent ship more now (this was preventing the AI from playing some cards properly before).Cards, Ships and BalancingRepair Bot now adds +1 HP to a random adjacent friendly mount. Now costs 2 command points.Ion Shield now 3 range.Energy Bubble now 4 range.Remote Detonator now a death effect instead of blowing up immediately and can be cast on enemy units and now does 2 damage.Send My Regards is now Rare rarity, does 2 damage and is $250.Increased chance of skill cards in generated decks.Made a number of skills lowest rarity.Core Flush now gains up to 8 energy.Cargo Pod ship has 2 less cargo…
- Patch Notes v.0.80.0 - 18 October 2025
v.0.80.0Patch SummaryThis patch adds adds a wormhole collapse to the singleplayer run that pushes the player forward, reworks the final boss and adjusts difficulty of event battles as well as some bug fixes and visual updates.OverviewWormhole CollapseThe first version of Star Scum's singleplayer mode featured an open-world map where you could freely go wherever you pleased at your own pace. Over the course of playtesting, the map was reduced more and more to limit lateral movement and direct players towards the goal. While the map ended up resembling the modern deckbuilder run tree in the end, I still wanted to give players a way to move around the map as freely as possible to create a sense of space and provide more opportunities to loot ships for new cards.What ended up happening of course is that many players visited EVERY node on the map to maximize their chances of getting the best…
- Patch Notes v.0.79.0 - 14 September 2025
v.0.79.0Patch SummaryThis patch adds the ability for players to re-draw cards in their starting hand, adds a number of new cards, removes the concept of maximum HP for entities, tweaks the difficulty curve as well as adds some visual updates and bug fixes.OverviewMulliganThis patch adds the ability for players (and of course the AI) to re-draw cards in their starting hand at the beginning of the battle. There has been some player frustration with the starting hand as it can be a very important factor in the way that the early battles play out, much more so than in StS-style card games where the hand is re-shuffled every turn.This change should give players more control in the strategy at the start of the battle and allow them a chance to get more ship defenses up if they wish to do so. The selected cards are shuffled in the back of the deck and are replaced with new cards from the top o…
- Demo now available! - 22 August 2025
The demo version of Star Scum is now available to download! Play up to the first boss with the first starting deck in the singleplayer run!If you've been waiting to try the game, the demo is a good way to take it for a spin!
- Patch Notes: v.0.78.1 - 22 August 2025
v.0.78.1Patch OverviewThis is a small maintenance update.Change ListGraphics and VisualsAdded application icon.Fixed some battle backgrounds.Bug FixesSelling cards in Skirmish and Multiplayer now refunds the full amount.Fixed move point showing up on mounts in some cases.Fixed ships at the beginning of the run all being crystalloid.
- Patch Notes: v.0.78.0 - 16 August 2025
v.0.78.0Patch OverviewSummaryThis patch addresses difficulty issues in the Singleplayer Run, visual readability issues and card balance and adds a change to the unit movement system and some tutorial updates.Reduced glare and readability improvements.To address visual readability issues reported by some players, a Glare setting was added to the graphics settings defaulting to a "Low" setting. If you wish, you can now turn off Glare entirely or if you liked the original glow, you can set it back to "High". Some battle UI, background and text colors were also adjusted for better readability.Difficulty reduction.The difficulty was tweaked across all difficulty modes with Normal difficulty receiving the most changes. The opponent AI skill on Normal was reduced and the difficulty curve of the singleplayer run was adjusted to be quite a bit easier.The ability to spend money to repair the ship…
- Star Scum Demo OpenGL Version Released - 3 March 2025
The custom engine Star Scum uses was developed as a future-facing platform that takes advantage of modern GPU features and was primarily developed using the Vulkan API. After getting a number of reports of the game not running on some older hardware, I have added an OpenGL renderer to the engine, which should work on a much wider variety of platforms. If you had trouble running the game previously or experienced any sorts of glitches, please try the new "OpenGL" launch option, which should hopefully work for everyone! If the new version still doesn't work for you, please update your graphics drivers, and if it doesn't work after that, please report a bug in the Steam Discussion Forums or the game's Discord server (https://discord.com/invite/7PTCf4sCP6). Thank you!
