Wages and Mages crosses the STORE_READY line: boss phase abilities make every encounter dynamic rather than scripted, an enemy rebalance plus xref bug fix pushes the test suite to 24,643 passing / 0 failing, ITCH_STORE.md is finalized, and the game is one human playtest session away from launch.
Wages and Mages pushes from itch_ready to PLAYTESTING through ten QA expansion waves that grew the test suite 3.4x to 23,339 tests and 2,064 screenshots — surviving a pipeline segfault, documenting two hidden zones, and proving the build is adversarially robust before the one test that cannot be automated: human hands.
Wages and Mages earns itch_ready status through four QA expansion waves that pushed automated tests from 4,047 to 6,808 and screenshots from 307 to 1,002 — every narrator line verified, every night wave stress-tested, every building placement validated, and one world entry bug caught in the act.
Wages and Mages earns PLAYTESTING status through a polish sprint covering dungeon glow, audio, dark frame elimination, screenshot expansion from 86 to 307, an opening cinematic, hub visual overhaul, store page, UX audit, and a QA push to 4,047 tests with zero failures.
Wages and Mages gets a full world engine, two explorable zones (North Pass and Ice Kingdom), a Mirror World, a modular plugin system for exploration, and a QA suite that doubled from 1000 to 2500 tests.
Second devlog for Wages and Mages: quest log UI, full narrator wiring, passive skills and skill trees feeding combat, equipment management, audio atmosphere, and QA expansion from 244 to 1000+ tests.
First devlog for Wages and Mages: how four resources feed three competing systems — day combat, night defense, between-shift crafting — and why the shared economy is the real design bet.
The Neverending Epic: Wages and Mages is an RPG fused with grid-based tower defense and base building. Day combat, night defense, craft between shifts. Two AI narrators who cannot agree on anything. The Dark Factory's tenth game.