Vault of the Void News

Well - it's been a time! I wanted to stop in this week and give an update of what’s been going on, as I know things have been a touch more quiet than usual. Sadly, no patch this weekend, however this update will hopefully show what's coming up!

I’m still adjusting to the major shifts in my full-time work. If you missed the last post, I had a major shake-up in my contract work for my day job, which has sadly led me to quickly have to scramble around for new work. Whilst I’ve managed to secure some work, (which has been a huge relief), the shift in my schedule has taken some adjusting to, and I’m still trying to fix the balance. I’m confident that things will fall into place this week however.

Whilst I’ve still been working on Vault everyday, the duration of that work has dropped pretty heavily. There's probably a fair share of mental stuff going on as well - a side of me reverting to try and ensure my family is looked after and secure, and the stress of that making it hard to work on Vault for extended periods. However again, I think I’m mostly past the fear and uncertainty now - and really, really ready to get things rolling full steam again.

The circle is... interesting. Fear of uncertainty in the day job leading to full focus on that front, which then leads to fear of not updating the game. That then manifests into fear of it dying into obscurity, which drives me to work on it. Which then makes me worry about not spending enough time securing new work contracts haha. It’s some real Lion King, Circle of Life nonsense up in here!

But enough about me! Let's talk card games - and speaking of uncertainty, lets try to remove some of that!

[h3]Roadmap [/h3]
One of the things that is WOEFULLY out of date, is the Vault of the Void Roadmap. I’ve been trying to find an easy and clean solution to keeping things up to date, and showing everyone what's ahead. I’ve been using Trello for my task management for Vault for years now, and it only just occurred to me that a Public Trello board might just do the trick!

If you’re on the Discord, this might be familiar as I previewed this last week. Reception has been good - easy to read and fairly transparent! Hopefully you all don’t mind this format - its a solution that is easy for me to wire into my workflow and keep updated.

Vault of the Void - Trello Roadmap

[h3]The Void Fight Rework [/h3]
This is something that's been on the cards for a while - finally getting around to this. In fact, the artwork is done, and the fight is actually all loaded and in game! I’m doing a touch more clean up on the special effects, then it will be moving to internal testing with the Card Council, and then hopefully out to the Beta Branch mid next week. With any luck, this should be on the live server next weekend, hopefully coupled with the Daughter card expansion!



[h3]Exclusive Card Back [/h3]
One other thing I’ve been working on which I’m excited to share - the first globally exclusive cardback! I’m blown away with all the support and reviews you’ve all been leaving, so I figured it was time to give back! We’re approaching the 250 review mark now, and once we hit it, I’ll be releasing a code to unlock this special cardback. Not only does it look kinda cool (I’m bias I guess, as I painted it..), but it also does something I’ve been dying to try... it moves. Animated cardbacks confirmed??



Well, thats all for me! I’m so sorry there isn’t an update this weekend, but I can promise one next weekend for sure. I’m working hard, back on the horse, and will be back into the regular updates like previous.

Thank you all for the kind message last week also - really appreciate it! Know that all is well here, the adjustment is almost done, and there's plenty more Void to come!

All for now!
- Josh



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We’re here! Sorry about not having a patch last weekend - had a number of real life things come up recently which held me off things for a bit. However this week I was finally able to tie everything together. This is a 90% bug/QoL sweep, with a bunch of new art and animations thrown in as well. It was important to give things another sweep over, bug wise, before starting to dive into new features.

If you’re interested in what has been added, there's a full bug list at the bottom! As usual, I probably missed adding a few things to this list, but it should be pretty complete. Thanks to all who reached out and reported bugs - makes my job a lot easier!

Also, I was overwhelmed with positive responses to the last patch, the UI changes, the card animation, particles etc as well. I'm so glad you all liked them - I'll continue to keep pushing things forward!

[h3]Real Life Update[/h3]
I try to keep any real life/personal stuff out of the notes/public facing side of things - but when things start to affect Vault, I’d prefer to be a bit more open about things.

As of last week - a good portion of my full time work contract, which has been standing for around 3-4 years, was terminated. This is just due to projects moving away from active production mostly, so it wasn’t anything malicious. But it did leave me with a situation where I needed to start looking for work again. As a Freelance Concept Artist (with a family) - this can be a scary time. Needless to say, family and financial commitments took a priority, and Vault had to hang back for a bit.

This isn’t a cry for help! Infact, it seems I’ve mostly filled all my available time with new contracts and opportunities already, which is awesome! I have a very supportive crew of fellow art friends around me who all helped out instantly. I’m very, very fortunate. However, if you are in the need for a concept artist, feel free to reach out - I’m always open to discussing awesome new projects (shameless self promotion)!

So where does that leave Vault? I’ve been pretty intentional about not taking on as much work as I had previously. The goal is to give more time to Vault in the coming months. I’m so proud of the community and player base that has formed around Vault, and I’m very committed to continue pushing things forward. So hopefully you’ll see much more updates in the near future, however it may just take me a bit to settle into the new routine.

Thats it from me - sorry again for getting a little too personal maybe! But hopefully you all enjoy the changes in this patch, and look forward to adding more meaty content in the next few weeks!

All for now!
- Josh



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General
- Default battlefield has been repainted. 
- Void Stones now have symbols.
- Fixed issue with card Autozooming
- Added Delay Block icon near Threat. 
- Minion tag and tooltip added
- Reduced the cost of the Lost Forest Battlefield
- Particles added to Burning and Poison debuffs
- Hex and Stun symbols are no longer the same
- Fixed some typos in monster attack patterns
- Fixed Bleed trigger damage showing rage scaling
- Hex and Haunted will now both show their remaining value
- Buffs that have a timed element will now have a 'ready' animation (Ceaseless and Bulwalk)
- Enemy passive effects have some partciles to draw attention to them 
- Immune and Blessed Plating now have visual effect added over the enemy 
- Grim Glow tweak of effects
- Fixed an issue where card sizing would go weird in the merchant. 
- Fixed an issue with incoming threat now counting Slow correctly. 
- Fixed an issue with Tutorial prompts and stacking. 
- Fixed an issue in the compendium where searching for a Spell would cause some wild issues with the discovery percentage
- Challenge Coins will no longer display over Impossible Plus on the difficulty selector (they can't be used in that mode)
- You can now view the card upgrade on the Mastery screen
- Potion Pack from the Soul Merchant now correctly states that it gives you 2 Potions. 
- Fixed the button for Foot Wraps getting covered up. 
- Fixed an issue with the Map overlay not displaying correctly right after Floor 1 Guardian
- Added a Tooltip to the AP and Frenzy circles 
- Fixed an issue with % in the compendium in regards to Artifacts. 

Enemies: 
- More animations - almost all of Floor 1 is now animated. 

Items
- Fixed a wild bug with Tiny Gong and Silver Gaunlet which caused endless Draw effects. 
- Playing a Balanced card on the last trigger of Knave Katar will no longer cause it to proc
- Fixed a bug with Straw Hat and Blessed Cuffs

Cards
- Over 24 new card images
- Outpace will now count total stacks of fatigue. 
- Prophesized will project damage correctly now
- Cautious Blow will project damage correctly now 
- Exhale is no longer affected by Rage
- Once More With now has a tooltip for Trigger
- Have added to the Stealth Potion text that the card effect doesn't stack

Whew - it’s here! It’s been a long week filled with 4am wakeups to try and get everything finished around work and family - but I’m really excited to get this out! So excited in fact that I really don’t have a full “Patch Notes” list, as I kind of just went on a tear with things and forgot to document everything down (doh!). But the “Visual Upgrade” patch (as I’m now calling it) is finally live.

Before I go any further however - wow, what a response to my post last week! You are all so amazing and I truly appreciate the support and kind words you all left on last weeks dev post. I was bummed to not get things out last week but now seeing where things are at, I’m glad I waited just that extra 7 days! Thank you again - it really does mean a lot, and I hope you enjoy what's coming!!

So to start, I will mention that I’d call this a “Phase 1”. There is still a lot more I want to add, mostly to do with enemies and unique attack/sound effects across the board. I’m also monitoring performance, and ensuring that all the new particles don’t bottleneck things too much. Most of the improvements have been around the Battle screen. This is where you spend most of your time in Vault, and it really needed the most work. I’ve done as much as I can to try and make it more immersive, more digestible and overall, just give it more life.

Let’s checkout the highlights!

[h3]Enemy Animations[/h3]
I previewed these last week! Only a handful done so far - I’ll be adding new ones each week as the animator finishes them. I did have the option of holding them all back until they’re done - but they’re just too awesome! I really think this adds so much life to the combat, and is well worth the time and money investment moving forward. Let me know what you think!



[h3]New Background Particles and FX[/h3]
All backgrounds now have had custom lighting, particles and effects added which - to put it simply - are there to just look damn cool. The slight bits of movement and lighting help breathe life into things as well. I still have more I want to add - with the Cursed Swamp for example - I’d love to get some glowing eyes on the skull off to the side! More to be added to all as I keep pushing things along.

Please note: if your PC starts to struggle with the new Particles, you can turn them off in the options menu. Please reach out however as I'd love to see where things are falling down!

[h3]New Threat Stack[/h3]
So this was a bit out of left field - didn’t expect to jump onto this this week, but I’m glad it got done.

There's been some concern over Vault of the Void’s “streamablity”. Everything in this patch is aimed at helping that problem - make the game more fun to look at. One thing that a lot of people have had issues with in the past is the Threat/Block/HP related stuff. Where is the HP? What is Threat, and how does that translate to HP loss? Also, when watching on mobile, you literally have NO WAY to see the HP (it's so tiny!).

Enter Threat Stack 2.0



Not only does it have a super sweet animated portrait (more on that later!) - but it also has a much easier way to translate the Threat -> HP interaction, with an interactive HP bar (which is viewable on mobile!). Add in a splash of particle effects, a bundled in fight progress orb (moved from the top bar), and I really think this is a step in the right direction. Is it perfect? Probably not! There's been comments about a lot of circles in the UI now, and a lot of similar textures, but I think overall the presentation is much better for new and verteran players alike. I’ll continue to iterate on it in the coming weeks based on feedback!

Another thing this does is remove the Debuff orbs, which generally, was a pretty heavy confusion point for new players. As you all can probably guess, your Debuffs will now sit where your buffs are, but have a nice purple tint to their frame to show their nastiness.

[h3]New Deckbacks and Achievements [/h3]
So for the Achievement hunters out there, I’ve added 6 new achievements - Perfect Fights vs each of the Vault Guardians currently in the game. Of course, I would never ask you to do something without a reward - how's 6 new exclusive themed deckbacks sound?



[h3]Various FX and Sounds[/h3]
All characters have had various sound and animation effects added to their quiver. Bleed has cool new blood drops squirt out, all cards have a “hit” animation play. Corruption grows with little particles and unleashing will send motes of purple out towards the target. Zen and Chain have their own thing going on as well.

Not to mention just a rework across the board. Breaking fortitude has its own sound effect and animation. Enemies with Vulnerable, Weak or Slow also have custom particles that appear, as well as an overlay effect. Lots and lots in there - and as I mentioned, more to come in the following weeks!

[h3]Animated Character Portraits[/h3]
So, let me expand a bit on future plans now. I never started the design for the new Threat Stack with the intention of having a character portrait, it was really just a happy accident. However now it's there, there has already been talk in the Discord about unlockable portraits and frames. I really, really like this idea - and am going to put some things in motion!

One area I really did think it could expand however, is the Streamer/Content Creator Community content. Some of you may have seen the previous examples of Content Creator deckbacks that have been released for various streamers - hidden behind a code, a great way for their community to share something special. I really like the idea of expanding this to Content Creator animated portraits as well, almost like a bundled package. Just in case it isn’t clear as well - this isn’t paid content! It’s all free, hidden behind a “code unlock” in the Unlocks screen.

It's no secret that with Vault, its success is going to be tied pretty heavily to Streamers/Content Creators. I knew this from the start - I don’t have a marketing manager/publisher etc - its just me when it comes to that side of things! For that reason, I really, really wanted to show my appreciation to anyone who streamed the game to their community, or published YouTube content etc - which is why the deckback program exists!

I’d love to expand this more, so if you know of anyone currently creating content, feel free to reach out, I’d love to touch base and see if we can do something up! Also, if you have a favourite content creator you think would like Vault, feel free to pass it along in the hopes we can get something of this ilk going!

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Other than that - I think we're done here for now! I'll be monitoring things over the weekend of course and hotfixing anything that shows up as quickly as possible! I'm really happy with this patch, and I think it does a LOT for the game in terms of visibility and playability. I even knocked up a new trailer to celebrate - so I'll get that uploading on the main store page!

Also a few little bug fixes were addressed, however next week I'll really be focusing on all the reports made in the Discord, and also tracked through the crash logs.

Thank you all for making Vault what it is today. To celebrate, I wanted to show a quick little 1 min recap of Vault and its first 3 months.... The change from launch to today's patch. Enjoy!

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

All for now!
- Josh

So it’s not a joke - there isn’t a patch this weekend :(

I’ve been super busy getting this one going and I want to give it another week to get things tested and fleshed out a bit more. It’s exciting - let me explain... (this will probably be wordy).

One of the things I’m quickly learning with this whole “game development” thing (still have to quotation mark that as I still feel like an imposter haha), is that there are two lists.

• List of “Things I Think I’m Going To Work On”
  
• List of “Things That I Actually Work On”
  

I’ve been pretty transparent with this. If you look at the roadmap - (which I really need to fixup this week!), you’ll notice that the 4th class should have been out by now. The only reason it isn’t is because I shifted focus. Whilst I thought the 4th class was the next thing to be added after launching back in Nov, I had a lot of feedback come my way about UI issues, small text, boring card design etc etc. It became apparent pretty quickly that I needed to fix this - so I jumped over and switched focus. A lot of the feedback was “There's plenty of content here for now! Just present it a touch better please!”

That was the first case of the two lists clashing. Player feedback won that battle - and always will. I try to pride myself on responding as quickly as possible to feedback, bugs etc where I can.

So when this week started, I was keen to get into a meeting with Card Council about new Daughter cards, look at some new card artwork and then implement the new Void fight... (uh - spoiler tag?). But one piece of feedback has been showing up often enough, and that is :

[h3]Vault is a super fun game to play! But it’s not great to stream.[/h3]

First time I heard this I thought, and rightfully so, it was because of the UI. I’ve reworked that a great deal back in December and the feedback has been super positive. But the truth is, Vault still lacks that little bit of “punch”, that zap that keeps things interesting when watching someone play. It’s different when you’re behind the cards, because planning your path, card play order and combo searching is pretty satisfying. And if you understand the game - watching someone do that is also satisfying. But if you’re new - Vault definitely lacks that sparkle that draws you in, and makes you want to learn the game.

This is due to a number of things. The enemies being cards probably doesn’t help. But it's also due to a lack of special effects, particles, sound effects and movement during battle. So this week, I rolled up the sleeves and got cracking on things.

At this point - I’m pretty much hand auditing every fight. I’ve added new sound effects and overlays for Vulnerable, Weak, Slow, Fortitude gain - even breaking an enemies Fortitude now plays a special sound and overlay effect!

There's also a bunch of new stuff for each class. The Daughter has nice little particles shoot out each time she gains corruption, and motes of energy that suck into her Corruption globe as it grows, and then fire out at the enemy when she Unleashes. Same treatment with the Enlightened and the Hidden - new sound effects when Blades are summoned. Bleeding an enemy will cause blood particles to fly out in every direction.

Oh, and the enemies now move? Neat.



(I’m totally underplaying that - I LOVE this new effect).

Going through each spell, each attack, each ability etc is just taking some time however. Which is why I’m going to leave it for another week to try and make sure I get everything. Not to mention, I’ll need to now profile this build on lower end machines to ensure all the new shiny stuff doesn’t bottleneck anything. The process of getting all the enemies moving is going to take a touch longer, however I’m happy to drip feed those in over the span of a few weeks. The animator is working hard (and doing an amazing job!)

So that leaves me here - empty handed. Sorry I wasn’t able to get something out but I’d rather save all this and drop it in one nice big patch next weekend.

So until next week - thank you all again for the positive reviews and excellent feedback and bug reporting. Closing in on 200 reviews which is so exciting! I’ll be sure to show more on the Discord and on Twitter as things progress! Look forward to releasing things soon!

All for now.
Josh

F's in chat.

Hey everyone - not a huge patch coming in here this week - mostly just Bug fixes and QoL stuff. There's a cool new Deck Back and Battlefield design for those who have managed to snag certain Instability Achievements! Other than that, more artwork, some more animations and general smoothing out of things. Oh, I also redesigned the Difficulty Selector to look a touch more “professional” - I hope you like it!

As always - full list of bugs etc are down below. Huge shoutout again to all for the positive comments towards Vault, and for all the Bug reports and text error reports over the last little while. I’ve been trying to fix things as quickly as possible!

I also noticed today that we've hit 150 reviews on the Steam page, in a little under 3 months! This is amazing support from everyone and I apprecaite everyone who's taken the time to leave a review - it helps so much with things!

Two things of note! Esty8Nine, who has been a huge supporter of Vault from the start, will be streaming some Vault of the Void on his Twitch channel tomorrow! Be sure to check him out if you’d love to watch some Vault gameplay, and to throw him some love and support!

Also, Zérodaim from the Discord server has been working hard at getting the Bot up and running inside of Discord. You can see this in action over at the #wiki channel right now, however it can be used anywhere. If you ever need to remember what a card does, you can fire off the [[Card Name]] command in Discord now and have the magic robots spit back an instant answer! Huge thank you to Zero for the work there. There are plans to expand this to Items and Tooltips as well!

Other than that - have a great weekend and happy gaming!

All for now!
- Josh



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[h3]General[/h3]
- New UI for Difficulty Selector
- The Card Back and Battlefield rewards for Instability 20 & Instability 50 achievements have been added to the game.
- More updates to card artwork!
- Have standardised when 'Volatile', 'Scrap' and such cards are discarded. This happens at the End of Turn, which is, after creatures attack. This is of note for those who use a lot of Volatile cards in fights such as the Taxidermist.


[h3]Card Changes[/h3]
- Unleash Darkness has had its Discard effect added to the base card, and upgrade tweaked.
- Backpedal and Nick have been removed from The Hidden Mastery. Replaced by Slick Strike and Main Gauche
- Zig Zag has lost the Discard tooltip
- Fixed a few cards that weren't showing their spawn cards on mouse over

[h3]Bugs[/h3]
- Potion Quickbar will now show the Potion card on mouseover
- Exit to Menu has been reworded to 'Save and Exit'
- Card Auto-Zoom will no longer effect tutorials in a negative way
- You can now drop Void Stones on cards that are "greyed out" in your backpack.
- Cards will no longer have the subtle movement when being zoomed.
- Mastery Card info text has been updated to be more clear.
- Flask of Purple juice now works in the Vault.
- Skeleton Mage will now show a tooltip for Confusion
- Sifting an Infection card will now correctly Destroy it.
- New Bleed artifacts removed from the global pool (doh!!)
- Fixed the Missing Translation error on the Mastery page
- Fixed the Void card showing when mousing over the Void's ability.
- Fixed Upgraded Stability damage prediction
- Fixed an issue with Potions and Daily Draft adding too many times.
- Potions will now show when clicking back to 'All' in the Compendium
- Fixed Underhand Tactics upgraded projecting more damage that it would do.
- Fixed Agility not giving Max Combo when played at Combo 3.
- Fixed Open Up not co-operating with Bleed effects/items/abilities. So yeah, it does now work with Regal Monocle...
- Opposing Force will only glow 'Opener' on base card now.
- The Discard effect when using Blue Void Stone, Fear etc has now got a limiter on how wide cards can expand out and better logic on the top most cards. This should stop energy/combo being covered.