The Last Spell News

Greetings Heroes!

The Last Spell is now one year old! One year filled with Nights, monsters and heroes fighting to survive. One year of updates and players' feedback allowing us to improve the game.

One year, one candle. Off to many more!



To celebrate this first year of The Last Spell, we are sharing with you some insights about the production of the game, from 2018 to 2022. Have a good read!

[h2]FIRST IDEA FOR THE LAST STAND SPELL[/h2]

In 2018, The Last Spell was just an idea our Creative Director gave to Jacques, the Art Director:

"I'm working on something, an asymetric tactical with a handful of heroes battling against a horde of monsters."

And this became the first concept art of the game, then called The Last Stand.



[h2]FIRST TESTS & CLOSED BETAS[/h2]

Summer 2020 saw The Last Spell being tested by players for the first time with the Steam Festival, Gamescom, Closed Beta and the Prologue.

We conducted a second Closed Beta in May 2021, and THANK THE GODDESS we did it because together we found a few nasty things! Players, we owe you one.

[h2]STATS & NUMBERS[/h2]

The Last Spell launched on June 3rd, 2021 and our biggest incredible optimistic objective was 20 000 sales in a week.

[h3]We did 60 000.[/h3]
Fun facts: More than 20% of our users played 40h+. This number goes down to 4% when we look at... those who played 100h+. Which-is-quite-a-lot.

The average time played on The Last Spell is 26h 15min. So just enough time to get beaten to death by Gildenberg at least 10 times.

[h2]LAKEBURG: MAP & REWORK[/h2]

Lakeburg was the very first map we created. We wanted something both simple and adaptable as we didn't know if it would be the only map of the game or not.

Now that we have a broader vision for TLS, we thought it was time to give this map a unique look and gamestyle!



[h2]THE MONSTERS OF THE LAST SPELL[/h2]

When we create new monsters, our priority is to make them easily recognizable and "readable" from the battlefield and their different sides (front/back). What can this monster do? Is it a giant threat? Which behaviour can I expect?



Each monster must look terrifying or unsettling. Too many limbs, blood, bones, excrescence, spikes... And sometimes, they get it all. Monsters also follow a certain colour scheme: the redder an enemy is, the more dangerous it is.



Inspiration for our monsters comes from multiple types of medium: video games, comic books, movies, tv shows...

Here are some examples:

• Ripper: Necromorph in Dead Space
• Boomer: Left 4 Dead
• Hunter: Van Helsing

[h2]THANK YOU[/h2]

It's been 1 year, since we launched The Last Spell in Early Access. One year that players helped us shape its future.

To all of you defending the last bastion of humanity, thank you. We couldn't have done it without you.

May your Nights be short.

Love from Ishtar Games

[h2]BUG FIXES[/h2]

• Fix memory leak (yes the same as the one we already fixed).
  
• Fix of the boomers causing some softlocks.
  
• Fix of the "remaning enemy" count that was wrong sometimes.
  
• Fix a lot of UI bug preventing the player to click on some buttons or displaying wrong tooltips.
  
• Fix the perk "Potion Throw".
  
• Fix Splitters bug where they would hit themselves.
  
• Fix the perk "Relentless" not working with the skill effects maneuver and follow.
  
• Fix custom hero name not refreshing after leaving the customization panel.
  

[h2]BALANCING[/h2]

Production buildings upgrade cost changes:

• Level +++: 280 -> 300
  
• Level ++++: 520 -> 560
  
• Passive production upgrade 1: 100 -> 110
  
• Passive production upgrade 2: 125 -> 130
  
• Worker upgrade 2: 75 -> 80
  
• Worker upgrade 3: 75 -> 100
  

Shop changes:

• Higher level items cost a bit more than before
  

Join us on Discord!

Hello Heroes!

We are doing a new Open Beta for a few weeks, and this time we are focusing our efforts on the rework of Lakeburg, the Shop and several other changes you will see down below. This update will serve as a preparation to the Major Update (Bosses) coming in June.

If you are intrigued about the future Major Updates of The Last Spell, our new roadmap is available here:

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1105670/view/3222896627771752948
[h2]Summary:[/h2]

• Lakeburg rework
  
• Dryads in Glenwald
  
• Obtaining equipment
  
• Shop rework
  
• Production building
  
• Item generation
  
• Production reward reroll
  
• Mist censers & Thin mist rework
  
• Construction menu overhaul
  
• Others
  
• Bug fixes
  

[h2]LAKEBURG REWORK[/h2]

The objective of this rework was to, among other things, have an actual lake in Lakeburg. The initial map was designed as the only map of the game, so it had to be a jack-of-all-trades. Since we now have more maps, we decided to change things up and give Lakeburg a more pronounced topography.



We kept the plains of Lakeburg for two of the sides, but tried to diversify the terrain on the top side of the map. Northwest, the now unused docks of Lakeburg create more narrow passages, akin to Gildenberg. Northeast, a bridge crosses a small river : a great chokepoint to repel the masses. The layout of the city has also changed. Sturdy walls protect the southeast, and the northern part of the city is protected by the lake - or at least it is against most enemies.

Additional changes:

• Winged enemies can now appear in the first two nights of Lakeburg.
  
• A few Bulky enemies can now appear early on in Lakeburg.
  
• The dryad boss has been moved from Lakeburg to Glenwald and replaced by a temporary enemy wave. When the update comes out of beta, a new bossfight will replace it.
  

[h2]DRYADS IN GLENWALD[/h2]



You can now fight a revamped version of the Dryads on the last night of Glenwald. Beware: it is stronger than before! The fight may be a little longer too...

[h2]OBTAINING EQUIPMENT[/h2]

Even though random drops are a big part of roguelites, it can sometimes be frustrating to never get the weapon or piece of equipment you are looking for. With a lot of the following changes, we want to make it a bit easier for players to obtain what they want, without removing the random aspect that can make every run feel different from the previous one.

Players who focus a lot on optimizing their gold and item output may have more resources than before at the end of a run (especially when playing without apocalypse mode on), but these changes should allow for more “loose” and diverse playstyles to work.

[h2]SHOP REWORK[/h2]

Up until now, shop and production buildings were often seen as opposite strategies : you either focused on one or the other. The following changes aim to make it possible to use the shop even if you focus on production, while still making it possible to focus solely on the shop.

• Removed the Level upgrades from the shop. Instead, the level of offered items in the shop now increases automatically over the course of the run.
  
• The number of offered items in the shop will now increase as the player unlocks new equipment over the course of the campaign. This will make it less frustrating to unlock weapons you dislike, as they do not dilute the item pool as much as before.
  
• You can now sort and/or filter the contents of the shop to your liking, allowing you to easily navigate the increased contents of the shop.
  
• Weapons and armor are slightly cheaper than before, especially at lower levels.

[h2]PRODUCTION BUILDING[/h2]

Before, the common strategy when using production buildings was to build one, max it out, and then repeat the process for a second one.

We reworked production buildings in order to make it easier to have more functioning production buildings at once. On the other side, we made it a bit harder to reach high levels of production. It will now be more viable to have multiple production buildings, and these buildings will prove useful with less upgrades than before.



[h3]Shared upgrades[/h3]
Item level upgrades are now shared between production buildings, meaning you only have to do each upgrade once per run, and all your production buildings (Armor Maker, Blacksmith, Bowyer and Magic Shop) profit off of it. Obviously, they’re now way more expensive than before.

• Item Level +: All production buildings give level 1 and 2 items, costs 70
  
• Item Level ++: All production buildings give level 2 and 3 items, costs 120
  
• Item Level +++: All production buildings give level 3 and 4 items, costs 280
  
• Item Level ++++: All production buildings give level 4 and 5 items, costs 520

As a side note, this also means that production buildings will keep their level even if they are destroyed during the night and have to be rebuilt.

[h3]Other upgrades[/h3]
To make production buildings more rewarding faster, we got rid of “half gauges”: everything gives 10 units of production, or a multiple of it.

Also, keep in mind that these upgrades are still individual, they are NOT shared between buildings.

We changed the base passive production rate of production buildings, as well as passive production upgrades:

• Base: 10 passive production (1 item per day)
  
• Upgrade 1: +10 passive production, costs 100
  
• Upgrade 2: +10 passive production, costs 125
  

The worker action of production buildings has been changed, as well as worker upgrades:

• Base action : Spend 2 workers to gain 10 production units (Max 1 use per day)
  
• Upgrade 1 : Spend 1 worker to gain 10 production units, costs 50
  
• Upgrade 2 : Max uses per day from 1 to 2, costs 75
  
• Upgrade 3 : Max uses per day from 2 to 3, costs 75

[h3]
Misc[/h3]
Armor maker, Blacksmith, Bowyer and Magic Shop prices from 70 to 60 gold.

Non-upgraded production buildings give lower level items (max item level you can obtain remains unchanged, as there is an additional item level upgrade).

[h2]ITEM GENERATION[/h2]

• Changed the way item drops are rolled. Some meta upgrades should not affect item drop chances as much as before (for example, players with respectively 2 and 7 different short swords unlocked will have the same chances of dropping a short sword, which was not the case before).
  
• Night rewards now scale for the entirety of the run (stopped scaling after night 4 until now)

[h2]PRODUCTION REWARD REROLL[/h2]

• Added a feature to reroll the offered items for a single production reward, a limited amount of times a day. The feature can be unlocked in the Oraculum to get 1 reroll per day, and further unlocks can increase the number of rerolls to 3 per day.
  

[h2]MIST CENSERS & THIN MIST REWORK[/h2]

• Changed the way thin mist works: enemies under the effect of thin mist are untargetable, but can still be hit and damaged by AoE attacks, propagations, poison, etc…
  
• Mist Censers (added by Apocalypse 3) are now destroyed at the end of every night, and new ones respawn at the start of every day in different locations.
  
• Mist Censers now have scaling health pools (from 150 to 600 HP over the course of a run). They are now easier to kill at all stages of the game, but especially early on.
  
• The number of Mist Censers now increases over the course of a run.
  

[h2]CONSTRUCTION MENU OVERHAUL[/h2]

• You can now easily switch between the different sections of the construction menu.
  
• Repairing now has a dedicated section in the construction menu.
  
• New repairing options to make repairing multiple buildings faster: Repair identical buildings, Repair structures, Repair defenses, Repair barricades and Repair walls.
  

[h2]OTHERS[/h2]

[h3]Glenwald[/h3]

• Glenwald now has better night rewards (more gold and materials, slightly stronger items).
  

[h3]Gildenberg[/h3]

• The mist is now a bit further away from the city.
  
• Enemies on night 5 are now less spread out.
  
• Slightly reduced the number of enemies on nights 4, 5 and 6.
  

[h3]Level up[/h3]

• Available stat choices after rerolls from 5/3/1 to 5/3/2 (you will keep getting 2 choices if you keep rerolling after that).
  

[h3]Optimization[/h3]

• We’ve updated our game engine during this month and you should expect some performance increase thanks to that. But we still have a lot to do in optimization before the end of the early access.
  

[h2]BUG FIXES[/h2]

• Fix of an exploit enabling the player to have infinite gold thanks to the shop.
  
• Fix a softlock caused by the BOOM! perk when killing an ally or when killing a Boomer.
  
• Fix enemies stuck in the fog in Glenwald causing some nights to never end.
  
• Heroes generated in the inn had too many experience points (the experience gain attribute was taken into account).
  

Thank you for reading, and see you on Discord!

Hello Heroes!

After some fierceful fights and your help, we have been able to locate & fix the memory leak issue some of you were having while playing The Last Spell. Thank you for your patience, and we are truly sorry you've had to experience such an annoying problem.

[h2]BUG FIX[/h2]

• Fixed a memory leak introduced with the new update "Over the mist & far away". The memory leak caused the game to progressively slow down as you play (framerate loss)
  

https://steamcommunity.com/games/1105670/announcements/detail/3222896627771752949
Thank you for playing, and see you on Discord!

Hello Heroes of the Night!

Since we completed our previous roadmap with the major update of March, we needed a new one and we KNEW you were eagerly waiting for it.

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1105670/view/3133947998942677988
Just below, we are happy to reveal our new roadmap for The Last Spell, going from now to the official release! We still have a long way to go, but we will give you updates and glimpses as we progress! We are already sharing a few things in the #sneak-peek channel on Discord.



As we did for the previous roadmaps, this one will be updated when we release the updates (TLS store page & here).