Roguebook News

Grab your ink and make your way into the Roguebook this weekend as we join the Steam Tabletop Festival.

For those of you who've yet to discover the Roguebook, you can find 20% off the game and experience all of the updates we've released thus far, including Update 1.7, the Flash Gems patch that launched on Wednesday.

This includes the aforementioned Flash Gems, which are single-use gems acquired as loot that are usable only once but can turn the tide of a fight in your favor. This update also brings new enemies, new narratives, QoL updates, improvements, and more. You can find the full patch notes here.

Today’s update contains a number of additions to Roguebook, as well as the usual bug fixing and optimizations.

While our last update focused more on tracking player data more thoroughly, this update is more content focused. We are happy to introduce: Flash Gems.



[h2]Flash Gems[/h2]

Flash Gems can now be found in the game. These are very powerful gems that shatter after being played only once. They can be acquired as loot randomly from battles.



Flash Gems can be unlocked as an Embellishment toward the top of the Embellishment tree. If you’re a veteran player, make sure to unlock the Embellishment before you begin your next run.

You may carry up to 3 Flash gems at a time.



[h2]Battle Socketing[/h2]

Of course, Flash Gems might not be very useful if you’re unable to craft them into cards during battle. Therefore, we have introduced Battle Socketing.



You now have the ability to socket gems into cards during battle, whether they are Flash Gems or not. This ability is not linked to any new Embellishment, and will be available now in all battles.

You may have noticed with this update that we have also decreased the total amount of inventory slots for gems to 6. Of those 6 slots, up to 3 may be Flash Gems. If you loot a gem when your pack is full, it will simply drop to the ground nearby for you to pick up later. This works for end of chapter bosses as well. (The gem simply follows you to the next Chapter, and lies at your feet)

[h2]New Enemies[/h2]

We have added a new enemy encounter for each chapter.

• Chapter 1: Zephir Vulpine
  
• Chapter 2: Frogtosser
  
• Chapter 3: Unstable Forgeling
  

[h2]New Narratives[/h2]

[h3]Tarum, the Forest World[/h3]

Looking up, it as if a mountain is moving. Birds and more are stirred from massive branches, filling the air with all manner of woodland detritus.
A voice booms forth as if the earth speaks, and it becomes clear this is no lifeless mound.
“Come,” it resonates, “The times are dark. Your bark is soft. I have plenty to spare, as you see.”
If the thing could smile, there was no way of knowing.

Tarum will grant you your choice of defensive blessings.


[h3]Wind Gate[/h3]

The wind picks up, and sand fills the air. A strange tower raises out of the desert here, banners flapping noisily in the gale.
A high pitched tone resonates from the top of the structure, where it seems shaped to harness the flow of the wind in a very precise manner. There is an energy about it. The air feels charged like a battery.
A caretaker speaks from its marbled steps. “Grains of sand. Do you fly forward, or back?”

Wind Gates will allow you to skip to the next chapter, or visit another narrative.

[h3]Chrysalis[/h3]

A strange green casing dangles from a nearby tree. A chrysalis perhaps, but one so large?
Something pulses from within. As they watch, a moth lands on its skin. Slowly and silently, it disappears within.
What danger will be birthed from such a womb?

You may choose to destroy the Chrysalis, or carry it along with you at a cost. Maybe it will hatch into something good?

[h3]Flash Wind[/h3]

A figure is seen in the desert, moving extremely fast. He stops briefly in front of the heroes, and introduces himself as a student of Khalim.
“Greetings, stone feet. Would you race?”

The Flash Wind encounter will add a special swapping card to your deck, or double your speed on the world map.

• Inks and consumables will now drop to the ground when your inventory is full, as well as gems.
  
• There are now card selection hotkeys
  
• You may now disable and reenable Embellishments at will, once purchased.
  
• Added an achievement for beating the new final boss “Twin Chaos”
  

Our data has shown that the newest boss, Twin Chaos, is a bit too easy compared to the other bosses. We’ve given him a slight boost in power to be more of a challenge relative to his counterparts.

On another note, the addition of Flash Gems and Battle Socketing is a general upgrade for player power level across the board. We hope they give players a few more options in those tough battles where they need just a little boost to pull it off.

• Fixed many miscellaneous crashes.
  
• New sound balancing + various sound fixes
  
• Autofocus should behave more intuitively when selecting a card from hand
  
• Multiple voice lines can no longer be played at the same time
  
• Adamant Blood now properly increases Seifer's life by 10
  
• 0 cost Defends should now properly swap
  
• Epilogue 15+ entries in run summary are now consistent
  
• Tooltips should no longer linger when choosing rewards in narratives
  
• Fixed a special case when playing Spirit Spice as your last card in hand
  
• The intro can no longer be skipped when launching the game for the first time
  
• Fixed gold auto pickup in the Greed is Good Epilogue
  
• Radiant Heart tooltips should no longer become stuck on screen
  
• Fixed an issue where you couldn't use a directional ink without inputting a direction on the controller
  
• Referenced card and tooltips should no longer remain after exiting compendium
  
• Fixed an issue where you could press Drop Run twice on a slower machine
  
• Fixed an issue where the Epilogue tutorial could be skipped
  

We hope you enjoy our latest update. We are already working on the next, and have some really exciting features planned.

If what you were looking for wasn’t in this update, perhaps it will be in the next. Please keep letting us know. The best place for that is here on Steam, or on our official Discord server at discord.gg/Roguebook.



We are currently actively working on improving our localisation through community efforts.

We seem to have French and German fairly well covered at this time, but if you’re fluent in one of the other languages supported by Roguebook - please feel free to reach out to us and we can work with you to improve the game. If you’re interested, please contact us in our Discord server.





Along with today’s patch, we are also announcing the winner of the Black Lotus design contest live on stream @17:30 CEST with Richard Garfield on the following channels:

• twitch.tv/FaeriaTV
• twitch.tv/nacon

Please make sure to follow so you don’t miss us go live. We’ll be going over many honorable mentions as well.

Thank you for playing our game that we work very hard on.

Join us tomorrow on http://twitch.tv/Nacon where Richard Garfield and the team will reveal the winner of the Roguebook Design contest!

The winner will have their cards brought into the game and receive one of the rarest cards in Magic the Gathering, the fabled 'Black Lotus'.

Thank you to everyone who submitted their designs for the contest, we had so many creative entries and will be highlighting some of our favorites on stream.

We've released a small update today that fixes a few of the major issues we've seen since the release of 1.6. Thank you for your continued reports/feedback.

We don't normally like to make smaller balance changes between major updates, but the case of Magda's Scissors was a bit severe. You'll now need to search a little harder for this special tool.

• Epilogue page rewards should now be awarded in the correct amount
  
• Magda's Scissors have been moved to Epic rarity
  
• Fixed a crash that occurred in Russian language
  

As always, feel free to discuss things here, or with us in our official Discord server at discord.gg/Roguebook.

Today we are releasing a major Roguebook update for PC, Mac, and Linux versions.

Before we go further, it is important to note that runs from previous versions will become incompatible with 1.6.

If you have a run in progress, you will be prompted the following when you log in:



From here, you may either drop your current run and begin anew in 1.6, or choose to downgrade your version and continue. Once you downgrade, however, you will need to re-update in order to continue playing.

Please find further detailed instructions in this separate news post:

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1076200/view/2979683242489856953

Without further ado, here’s what’s new:



[h2]Controller support[/h2]

Roguebook is now fully supported on controller. Here are most of the default bindings:



[h2]Legacy and Run Summaries[/h2]

There will now be a comprehensive history logged of all your previous runs. You can find this in the "Progression" area of the main menu.



In addition, each completed run will now have its own summary page where you can view your journey in brief. This summary will be shown at the end of each run, and can be accessed again at any time in the Legacy menu.



[h2]Hero Progress Revamp[/h2]

We have revamped the Hero Progress screen in the main menu. Where previously it only showed your progress to the next level up, it now shows:

• Your wins with each hero pair.
  
• Your total runs
  
• Highest Epilogue reached with each hero pair
  
• Your highest and current win streaks in various tiers of Epilogues.
  

Example:



[h2]Epilogue 15+ Mode[/h2]

We have introduced a sandbox mode for those who have completed Epilogue 15. You may now enter Epilogue 15+ mode, which allows you to stack additional modifiers on top of the most difficult ones in the game.



While we have plans for more challenges in the future, for now we found this to be a pretty simple way to introduce a new mode of play for the time being. This feature is more intended to be something extra to enjoy, rather than become ‘the highest level’ of play.

[h2]Epilogue Completion Tracking[/h2]

Each Epilogue now tracks which heroes you have completed them with.



In the above screenshot, Sharra is the only hero left to complete this specific Epilogue modifier.



[h2]New Final boss:[/h2]

We have introduced an additional final boss in the last chapter: Twin Chaos. This will bring the total number of potential final bosses to 3.

Twin Chaos is a battle against two manifestations of the Roguebook: Pain and Wrath



You’ll need to manage your attacks against both. You’ll be unable to swap until you hit one of them, and must hit the other as much as possible to reduce its damage. Good luck.

[h2]New Treasures[/h2]

Five new treasures have been added to the game. These treasures are globally available in all future runs.



[h2]New Narratives[/h2]

Four new narrative events have been added to the game, including three that are hero-specific. This rounds out the hero-specific narratives to all four heroes. (Aurora had one previously)

• Sharra: Day of the Dragons
  
• Sorocco: Ogre Dance
  
• Seifer: Blood Song
  
• All heroes: Celeste, Crystal Dragon
  

[h2]New Animations[/h2]

We’ve added new hero animations to the following cards:

• Sharra: Gain Dagger
  
• Aurora: Gain Sip
  
• Sorocco: Gain Headbang
  
• Sorocco: Firebreath
  
• Sorocco: Flatten
  
• Sorocco: Hammertime
  
• Seifer: Disintegrate
  
• Seifer: Doom
  

Several of these are the result of our last community survey on what card they would like to see animated most. The most common response was Firebreath, followed by Flatten and Hammer Time… apparently people like seeing Sorocco do things. Disintegrate and Doom were the highest voted Seifer cards, so we put those in too. We also added in some animations for the stackable cards.

[h2]Balancing[/h2]

Overall, we’ve determined the increase in difficulty in the higher Epilogues from version 1.5 was a bit too much. Here is some data we have on what happened to the overall win rates across three sections of Epilogue groups. (Blue =1-5, Green = 6-10, Purple = 11-16)



You can see the dip on August 11th, when 1.5 was released. This is a bit more dramatic of an increase in difficulty than we intended, so we have toned it back a bit. The earlier Epilogues were unaffected, so we have not made many changes there.

Here are the major balance changes that come with version 1.6:

• In the Exploration category: Four epilogue modifiers have been swapped in their order in an effort to smooth that particular category's progression of difficulty.
  
• The scaling of Chapter 1 and 2 Elites and Bosses has been decreased in the higher epilogue levels.
  
• Tiki Palanquin and Cap-10 in particular have much weaker scaling.
  
• Lantern faeries have less health at all Epilogues.
  
• Gem Mine Traps now have less health at all epilogues, and lowered Epilogue scaling.
  

[h2]Other specific changes and fixes[/h2]

• The entire system for saving the progress of a run has changed. This involved a huge refactoring of the code and will be mostly unnoticeable to players, except for the above mentioned issues with continuing a run from the previous version.
  
• It is now possible to Use or Discard healing hearts while the loot bag is opened. This is useful when all 3 slots are full while on the loot bag UI.
  
• Naddim will no longer inappropriately turn his back to you. Was a bit rude.
  
• Camera position improvements on the main menu.
  
• The amount of particles on the sky of Chapter 2 has been reduced.
  
• Several performance improvements to background particles in general.
  
• The Gem Mine background texture has had some improvements.
  

Thank you for your continued feedback when playing Roguebook. We have more major updates planned, and are already in the process of working on the next. While this one may not have the content you’re looking for, perhaps it will appear in the next. As always, feel free to leave us feedback here on Steam, or in our official Discord at discord.gg/Roguebook.