Familiars.io / Changelog

Note that much of this changelog was written retroactively, so some dates and information may be somewhat inaccurate. But overall it should be pretty close, although minor bug fixes are less frequently included in later years.

1 Oct 2025

Your Gem Hoard

• Gems work differently; they are now persistent rewards for beating a dungeon, which you can show off
• Wager your gems in PVP matches
• Allow players to toggle their public gem counter in the items menu

Dungeon Difficulty Adjustment

• Don't require players to gather automatons' gems to enter a dungeon
• Provide information to the player about what familiars will be in a dungeon
• Lose fewer levels when a familiar is KO'd
• Make the boss automaton switch familiars less aggressively
• Mid-dungeon chests now contain "Big Potions" which restore all of a familiar's health
• Increase the number of mid-dungeon chests
• Add "Candy" as a reward for beating dungeons, which increase a familiar's level

Battle Changes

• Daemon gets a new move, Rebound, instead of Burn-back
• Daemon gets 2 magic armor instead of 1 physical armor
• Matter gets more HP
• Matter learns Mirror
• Buoy learns Pins 1 instead of Trance
• Kettle HP reduced (34 -> 27)
• 100% accuracy for moves: Shoots, Plague, Annoy, Unnerve, Ward, Jinx, Venom
• Venom also deals less damage (5 -> 4)
• Teardrop deals magic damage instead of physical damage
• Teardrop 2 power increase, from 5 to 6
• Vampire 2 sucks only half damage dealt instead of 3/4
• Forgetfulness from Spore lasts less turns (5 -> 4)
• Forgetfulness triggers more often (33% -> 50%)
• Brew 2 heals less HP (8 -> 6)

13 Dec 2024

• Improve menu UI so you can see your team's levels more easily

19 Jan 2024

• Released Familiars.io on Steam
• Added system to sync save files

1 Jan 2024

• Changes to system that spawns rare familiars, to attempt to mitigate more abuse

29 Nov 2023

• Added controller support

15 Nov 2023

• Fixed bug where rare familiars never spawned

8 Nov 2023

• Overhaul spawn system to prevent extinction and mitigate rare-clogging

6 Nov 2023

• Add capacity limit of 200 to Resort, forcing the player to take out a full party if exceeded

1 Nov 2023

• Added 3 potions on floor 2 of each domain

25 Sep 2023

• Stop giving the purple bot Buoy. Too Annoying. Gary instead

13 Sep 2023

• New animation for encountering an automaton

4 Sep 2023

• Added Domains, Gems, and Bravery
• Your defeated familiars no longer disappear, but rather just lose a few levels
• Auto-heal after PVP battles
• You no longer need Balls to capture familiars; you simply invite them to join
• Poison no longer persists after battles
• Removed all items except potions
• Display number of online players on the in-game map
• Several changes to the overworld, mainly to accomodate the dungeon portals
• Patch no longer learns Toxins
• Nap becomes tiered, with Nap 1 healing 3hp, and Nap 2 healing 5hp
• Cobby only learns Nap 1
• Bandit learns Nap 2, and never learns Annoy 1
• Storm 1 is now "never-miss' just like Storm 2
• Consolidate Spotlight and Moonlight
• Remove Cloak 2 as it was too strong
• Make Spores stronger
• Make Scan never miss

9 June 2022

• The move "Vanish" was removed from the game (Wispy and Matter no longer learn it)
• Matter learns a stronger version of Late Bomb (4)
• Make Buoy a bit more common
• Simplify Ball success algorithm
• Show HP and poison status in the team summary menu in the field
• Show battlers' team sizes to spectators in field

1 April 2022

• April Fools: Everyone Is Topple (for a couple hours)

30 March 2022

• In-battle indicator for how many familiars an opponent has left

29 March 2022

• HP bars on idle wild familiars in overworld
• HP bars on lead partner familiars in overworld

20 March 2022

• New spawn area with lots of grass nearby
• Ensure the spawn always has lots of items and wild familiars
• Fix bugs in wild respawn algorithm

8 March 2022

Battle UI Improvements

• Display both familiars' status effects and durations in the UI
• Big chunky HP bar with readable numbers
• Different, more compact symbols for stats
• Show armor and status effects when displaying a familiar in the submenu

Battle Changes

• All status effects stick to a familiar even after it is switched out
• Specific changes to "Stop" status effect
  • It goes away after battle
  • It can happen at the same time as Poison
  • It is now known exactly how long a familiar is Stopped
  • Due to above, moves have been altered to cause stop for exactly 1 or 2 turns
• Specific changes to "Jinx" status effect
  • Lots of added effects, including Stop, Forgetfulness, Spotlight, Plague, and various Debuffs
  • There isn't a chance of doing raw damage anymore
• Oil Can item removed from game (due to Stop changes)
• Fog blocks 100% of the time now, and has a specific failure message
• Spotlight doesn't just pierce fog; it increases all moves' accuracy to 100%
• Cobby tweaks; mainly it learns Sun Rays now, and does not have 2 mag.armor at low levels

7 Jan 2022

• Opening transition for PVP battles with pretty portraits
• Don't allow bots to pick up items

11 December 2021

• Fix bug where familiars may have more than their max HP after balancing tweaks are made

9 December 2021

• Show number of online players in top-right corner of title screen

7 December 2021

• PVP-enabled players appear red on the map
• Fix odd bug where one player witnessing another howdy-ing and disconnecting may crash the server eventually
• Other bug fixes

6 December 2021

• Added automatons! AI players that wander the map!
• Minimap! See where other players are!
• Make Spore induce forgetfulness instead of poison
• Rascal learns Toxins instead of Forget
• Toxins is now 100% accurate
• Manna now heals only 2hp per turn
• Goober learns Toxins
• Change Stench into a field effect
• Spawn algorithm is a bit different
• Ball success chances increased at higher HP
• Game no longer asks if you want to continue; it's just assumed that you do
• Fix issue where "field menu" was still active and responding to button presses and trying to send commands even after entering battle
• Probably some other minor changes, due to server rewrite

3 July 2021

• New familiar: Buoy!
• Map has expanded!

26 June 2021

• New familiar: Kettle!
• Cobby learns Nap instead of Vanish
• Cobby has more HP
• Corn Gun is now 100% accurate
• Nap works even if the user is stopped
• Fix description of move Roulette
• Fix: poison damage should not happen after fleeing
• Fix: Late Bomb should do damage even if user is KO'kd
• Remove rare familiars from Endless Clash

19 June 2021

• New familiar: Rascal!
• Simplify ball success equation

12 June 2021

• New familiar: Matter!
• Damage formula tweak: attack debuffs can totally negate an attack now, instead of doing a minimum 1 damagec
• Fixed: items were not supposed to be allowed in PVP battles again

4 June 2021

Additions

• New familiar: Bunion!
• Add move animation for Stench
• Add move animation for Firewall
• Add move animation for Plague
• Add move animation for Storm
• Add move animation for Roulette
• Add unique move animation for Expel
• Add unique move animation for Possess
• Add unique move animation for Ward

Battle Changes

• Leaf type no longer resists Slime attacks
• Watt: Learn Scan instead of Gaze 1
• Sensor: Fast Bomb 2
• Prints: Reduced HP, no longer learns Scry
• Cobby: Reduced HP, no longer learns Toxins
• Goober: No longer learns Fog
• Firewall does not go away after switching
• Spotlight does not go away after switching
• Spotlight behavior changed; removes chance to avoid foe's attacks, whether in fog or not
• Plague now only harms the opposing side
• Moonbeam effect changed; heals user
• Fog has lower priority (e.g. usually goes last, even with faster user)
• Sun Rays does physical damage instead of magic
• Accuracy in Fog greatly reduced
• Storm has greater chance of causing Fog
• Scan reveals the foe's party instead of its moveset
• You may now choose which familiar switches in after one is knocked out
• Tweak Ball success rate
• Reverted: Balls' behavior has gone back to not healing captured familiars

Misc

• Fleeing PVP battle in Free-Play does not reduce all familiars' HP to 1
• Fixed wild familiars not staying damaged after the player flees
• Fix various move descriptions
• Minor graphic fixes

15 April 2021

• Familiars follow you :)

12 April 2021

• Safe PVP

11 April 2021

• Endless Clash released!

25 February 2021

• Had to update the auth scheme away from JWT because I exposed Redis to the world :/

19 January 2021

• Fix bizarre audio bugs which only happened on monitors with refresh rate higher than 60hz

11 January 2021

• Improve graphics for seeing others battling wild familiars
• Update spawn algorithm
• Don't allow dropping-off familiars too close to the spawn area
• Decorate title screen with wild familiars

10 January 2021

• Add Resort!

31 December 2020

• Show level and HP when selecting familiar in field menu

25 December 2020

• Burn-back shouldn't work unless foe's attack actually hits

24 December 2020

• Inferno should not hit against Vanished foe
• Firewall should not activate against magic damage

23 December 2020

• Fix negative HP bug when poisoned

22 December 2020

• Add Rare battle music
• Update beach music

21 December 2020

Music

• Add beach music!

Battle Changes

• Increase poison strength to about 1/10 HP
• Plush now resists slime, not the other way around
• Slime is now weak to water (mutual weakness!)
• Buff Corn Gun
• Buff Expel, but make it override its user's Poisoning
• Change Moonbeam
• Buff Patchwork
• Buff Possess
• Buff Riptide's accuracy
• Buff Splatter 2
• Nerf Stop status effect

19 December 2020

• Fix duplication glitch

18 December 2020

• Dropoff familiars
• Don't remove item from field when inventory is full

16 December 2020

• Fix crash when using Plague if plague is already on the field
• Disable healing items in PVP
• Wild familiars remain damaged after fleeing
• Add rare familiars

14 December 2020

• installable webapp on android
• two new underground BGM's

13 December 2020

• Be more careful about removing player tokens
• Remove "start over" option on server error

12 December 2020

• PVP has different music, and "You stare down another player"
• Basement music

11 December 2020

• Initial public release
• Bugfixes throughout the day
• Disable non-mutual PVP
• Disable bots