Monk Took Book Patch Notes

SquarePlay Games patches in public Steam posts, often with a medieval joke in the title. This page is a readable map of those posts, not a paste of every line. At launch on 3 September 2026 the last numbered changelog players could read in full was demo 0.6.3.7 (Next Fest, June 2026), covering everything since 0.5.7.4. The March 0.5.x hotfixes sit under it. If a 1.0 hotfix lands after you read this, start at updates and treat the new number as law.

We group changes the way you hit them in the abbey: Books, Combat, UI, then Netcode. Cross-links go to combat and settings when a slider or a parry window is the real fix. For day-one store facts, use launch news. For the free app that still cannot join you, use demo versus full game.

How to read a SquarePlay number

Builds look like 0.6.3.7. The left digits are the public chapter; the right digits are the hotfix. Alastair asked players to press F1 in the demo to file bugs. That pipeline is why ladder drops, 16:10 HUDs, and shelf prices moved in days rather than months. Keep F1 bound. Discord is for conversation; F1 is for a repro.

0.6.3.7 is also the reason a March save can feel like a different game. Book silhouettes multiplied, ghosts were replaced with Viking draugr, torches started spitting embers, and a four-player night shrank to about 55% of solo time. If your group last played during Women’s Day Sale, read this page before you blame a host.

Books, shelves, and the dock

0.6.3.7 answered the most common organisation complaint: too many volumes looked the same in the hand. SquarePlay added more book sizes, then skewed the distribution so large tomes are less common. Half-books got narrower so a shelf reads as a shelf instead of a brick wall. Placement gained a green/red clamp so you cannot ghost a folio into invalid air. Overlap detection improved. Books refuse to be destroyed for one second after they spawn, which stops a barge from eating itself when a stack collapses on the dock. Destroyed volumes return the next day as tattered copies, so a fire is a scar, not a delete key. You can no longer pick up a book someone else already grabbed. Phantom collisions when seating a volume, books self-destructing near the dock, and a shelf-unlock bug above max progression were removed. New shelf pieces with hostile architecture arrived, and stacking a book on a bay above another bay finally behaves.

The loading sequence now unlocks shelves before books spawn, which is why a reconnect should no longer dump a delivery onto missing wood. That pairs with an older 0.5.x fix that disabled beasts on the loading screen so a skeleton did not audition during a hitch.

0.5.x also corrected a Blessings bug: shelves were charging a flat six each. They should start at four and increase. If a guide still says every bay costs six, it is stale. Spend with blessings and plan bays with how to organize. Extra sizes from 0.6.3.7 are why the memory planner talks about silhouettes, not only cover art.

Combat, pests, and fire

Next Fest rebuilt the night. Enemy models were replaced. Melee threats now include Viking draugr Grunt, Raider, and Berserker. The Book Thief steals volumes and leaves green footprints; on death the prints fade and the books drop instead of vanishing into a void. Targeting and flee speed were tuned so a thief is a chase, not a teleport. Lord Fluffy arrived as the fluffy new presence SquarePlay teased in the Next Fest trailer — a creature you will meet in the stacks, not a store sticker.

Combat gained depth without turning the abbey into a souls-like. Alongside a normal parry you can land a Perfect Parry if you block on the attack: the foe dazes and you get a counter window. Enemy damage was tuned down and some hit points up, so a night is busy rather than a one-shot quiz. Fire arrows gained a 50% ember chance. Torches now spit visible embers that bounce and can ignite books, which is why fire is readable instead of a silent surprise. The Torch Perk shrine in the crypt reduces that ember chance, all the way to 0% if you invest. Pray animations were shortened and the sound corrected, so a Blessing dip in the crypt is less of a standing gag. Four-player night time is 55% of solo, which is the single most important co-op number on this page.

0.5.x taught pests manners, then took some manners back: rats and spiders AI was patched, then pests were allowed to appear in daytime, so a chill morning is not a promise. Ladder bugs (including a ladder you could not drop) were fixed in 0.5.5.8. If you still fight the island, read combat and weapon ranks. If you do not want to, settings still let you reduce or disable enemies, pests, and fires. Arachnophobia mode, added in 0.6.3.7, replaces spider models rather than asking you to squint.

UI, tutorial, Deck, and options

0.6.3.7 is the controller chapter. Menu navigation hot-swaps between d-pad, keyboard, and mouse. Full controller and d-pad support landed, with a virtual cursor when you use the left stick. The controls HUD updates if you rebind during play. Slider clicks no longer lose selection. Invert Y cannot be double-selected. Dialogue and menu buttons animate on select. The menu is no longer a black void, and it correctly shows paused versus unpaused in solo and multiplayer. Missing back buttons, remap confirm justification, titles menu, player-list layout (mic volumes, lobby code, fonts), text chat formatting, holo box visuals, and squashed icons on large books were cleaned up. An auto-run toggle arrived for thumbs that do not want to hold a stick. SquarePlay called out better Steam Deck behaviour in the same pass, which matches the live Playable Deck rating.

Tutorial popups no longer pause the island. They queue, sit in better corners, and let you keep walking a stack. The first skeleton lesson shows again. An initial function dialog was added so a novice is not dumped into a barge with no verbs. Loading, kick dialogs, and the demo-over screen were corrected. 0.5.6.8 had already moved action prompts; 0.5.5.3 stopped HUD pieces falling off 16:10 panels. Widescreen and camera comfort sliders (FoV, headbob, gamma, camera shake, Max Shadows) live in settings. If a Deck hitch remains, drop Max Shadows before you assume the abbey is broken; that tip showed up in the same hotfix era as the loading-screen beasts.

Hotbar pickup now hot-swaps into an empty slot, which sounds tiny until you are holding a torch, a dagger, and a wet folio during a thief chase. Bind that behaviour into muscle memory via controls.

Netcode and session flow

The Next Fest notes are quieter on netcode than on books, but the post that sold 0.6.3.7 called out mid-session drops and rejoins. A monk who disconnects should be able to return without resetting the night for everyone. Event and input systems now stay alive when you enter the main menu, which stops a host from going deaf to joins. Public and private lobbies, Steam invites, and copy-paste codes were already in; the work here is that they survive a pause, a kick dialog, and a player list that actually shows mic volumes.

Four-player time compression is a rules change, not a packet-loss symptom. If your duo feels fair and your quartet feels like a fire drill, that is the 55% clock. Read co-op and solo versus co-op before you turn enemies off as a workaround. Host from the paid app. A demo client will never attach, no matter how clean the code looks.

0.5.x hotfix timeline (notable, not complete)

• 0.5.5.1 (9 March 2026): first public hotfix after the 6 March demo launch; F1 feedback already in the loop.
• 0.5.5.3 (10 March): 16:10 HUD offscreen fix.
• 0.5.5.7 / 0.5.5.8 (mid-March): more F1 mail, ladder drop fix, continued AI and collision work.
• 0.5.6.8 (23 March): action UI placement.
• 0.5.7.4 (30 March): last 0.5 chapter before the Next Fest jump.
• Daylight pests, rat and spider AI, shelf price (4 then up, not a flat 6), and loading-screen beasts sit in this band even when a post mixed several bullets.

Treat 0.6.3.7 as the last public demo grammar of the abbey. If a 1.0 hotfix lands, return here and ignore trailer dates; the number on the Steam news post is the only version that shelves books.