Looking at the code, right now the first tier is unlocked by: WhiteOpal, Walnut, QuartzRock, QuartzRock, QuartzRock
Turns out I hadn't unlocked quartz, even though I was still in possession of a piece from the old days. Got that unlocked now. Although it does leave me with a minor quibble. The game doesn't tell me that a new spell is now available now, which would be nice. If I hadn't set out to get Plasma Bolt, I'd have no idea. If I go to the crafting bench, it doesn't mention it under 'learn new spell.' Fair enough, I can't really learn it yet, I need to go hunt down a couple more quartz. But there's nothing else to really notify me of that. Equip known spell? Well if I go to Equip Any Known Spell, it's not listed there. Equip By Tier > Tier I... still doesn't list it. The only place I can find it is Equip By Category > Offensive Long Range, or Equip By Element > Light. So if I don't know already that I'd unlocked a new spell, I'd need to go to the crafting bench and go through every single category every time I unlock a new material to try and figure out if I've unlocked something that will give me a new spell or not. No bueno!
Completely unrelated subject: Fall damage. Let me go ahead and open what might be a can of worms and say that I'm not liking it very much. Even though it's currently (thankfully!) turned off, I see that damage come up a lot. Even 10% damage is a pretty weighty hit compared to what most enemies do to you. The first time I lose a health buff to this I can foresee much rage. And when you get into fighting bat bosses in some of the lower caves where platforms are few and far between, it's incredibly easy to slip up and find yourself standing over a long fall with your double jumps already used up and staring at the drop like Wile E. Coyote. It encourages a play style that seems to run counter to the rest of the game, which up until now seemed to encourage you to make high jumps off cliffs and hope there was a landing somewhere on the other side. It's also rather easy to hit the low end damage, even by just double jumping off of a small hill and landing next to it.
And taking damage by hitting water, while realistic, will probably be one of those things that gets reported as a bug endlessly. It just doesn't match the standard video game trope. Everyone just 'knows' that in a game you can fall out of low earth orbit and be perfectly safe as long as you land in 6 inches of water.
And also I feel like I shouldn't take damage when moving down the wood platform 'ladders'. They encourage downward movement by standing at the top and holding down until you hit the bottom. Having to drop, stop, drop again just doesn't feel right.
Whew. I think I'm done grumbling for now. I should mention that otherwise I'm enjoying the game a lot and playing much more than I had been over the last few months. I criticize because I love!
