Vault of the Void News

Hey everyone!! It seems as though I've published things as a "Full Release" and not "Early Access".

I'm currently working with Steam to get this fixed up!! I'm so sorry!

Wow - so a lot has gone on in the last couple of weeks! For those who haven't seen, the game now has a healthy collection of “Let’s Play” videos on YouTube, a number of Streamers and Content creators have taken to the game positively, which is amazing to see, and still blows me away!

With that success has come an increased demand in people wanting to get their hands on the game! The Beta Key program was completely cleaned out within minutes of the first video going live, and then after a key restock, those were gone in a matter of hours as well! It’s been a lot of reactive play from my end here, as I try to adjust to the massive influx and interest in Vault of the Void. Our humble little Discord server grew from around 150 members to 1000+ literally overnight!

This led me to look towards making a few decisions. I spoke with a number of players privately and asked “Is this game in a state where it feels worthy of an Early Access release?”, and secondly “Is it worth the $14.99 price tag?”. My personal answer to both those questions, I’ve learnt, will always be no - I think it's a case of a creator always undervaluing their work (something I really need to work on!).

Thankfully, out of the 10+ I asked, it was a unanimous “Very much yes to both”.

So, armed with that information and full serve of fear and anxiety, I have decided to release Vault of the Void into Early Access on Nov 20 (a full 3 weeks early!). Yup, that's about 24 hours away. (I actually made that decision and announcement on Discord about a week ago but have fallen behind in updating Steam posts - I’m so sorry!)

[h3]What does this mean? [/h3]
I’m... actually not sure? I’ve never released a game before. I’ve actually never made one before either.

2 years ago, I didn’t even know how to code a simple line of text to appear on the screen. The idea of a Concept Artist just “taking a shot at making a game” seems like a distant memory now, and filled with the vision I had, and mixing that with the support and ideas from the community, coupled with a great amount of testing, Vault is what it is today. There's still a lot more to go (new class hype? Impossible+?), but I do think it's important to release things into the wild. It will never be “ready” in my eyes - there's always something I’d love to fix, or a new feature I’d love to add. But eventually, you have to set things free!

[h3]An Important Note[/h3]
One very important note I want to put out there, as I’m seeing this come up a fair bit now. There's been a number of comments along the lines of “Oh my, he stole artwork from XYZ game!?” or “Yikes, looks like some stolen icons right there!”.

That is 100% incorrect - whilst I’ve tried to get as much of the artwork in Vault to be custom done by myself or other art friends (trust me, there's a lot!), something did have to give. Namely, the artwork for players cards, and also some spells/ability icons.

However, all that artwork was purchased legally from royalty free game dev packs (in fact, you can even grab them for yourself right now, and I encourage you to do so! It’s great for giving your game idea the jump start needed). It just so happens that those other games did the same thing! Monster Slayers, The Last Hex to name a few - all great games who had the same need as I did.

I will mention however, I do, and am in the process of, getting all that repainted with custom artwork over the coming months. It’s my goal by January to have all 200+ player cards all fully painted! I’ll be bringing in some art help to assist with this (on that note, if you’re an artist, feel free to drop me your portfolio!).

[h3]In Closing[/h3]
I’ll have more to say about this all post launch - but please do keep in mind I’ll be learning on the fly a bit! Thankfully I’ve had some great community help step up and assist with the workload where possible, and with keeping things like the Discord running silky smooth.

I’ll close by saying a massive thank you to everyone who has left personal messages of support, emails about their love for the game, comments about how much enjoyment they’ve been getting out of it, etc etc. It truly does blow me away. When I started doing this, there was a lot of advice flying around along the lines of “Your first project won’t make it to market, let alone be a success, so keep working on new ideas and games constantly”. EIther through stubbornness or stupidness (maybe both!), I really wanted to prove the first point wrong at least.

As of tomorrow, I can finally say I did.

- Josh

Howdie all!

Stopping back in for another round up of whats been happening the past few weeks in Beta! Lots of changes and tweaks, lets dive right in.

[h2]The Enlightened - Mindfulness[/h2]
The second spec - named Mindfulness - is now live and running. Mindfulness is the alternative to the Martial spec for the Enlightened, focusing on attacking enemies minds. It centers around a mechanic called Shii, which you build up over time on enemies. Shii reads:



Whilst Shii isn't effected by Vulnerable, its strength comes from the fact that once it's on the board, it stays on the board, bouncing between other creatures on death (albeit in a diminished state). Also keep in mind, Shii triggers at any time, based on the creatures current HP. So throwing some Shii on a creature and then coupling in some direct damage or even Future Strike can help bring it under the threshold, resulting in a brain bursting instant pop!

[h2]Card Balance Update[/h2]
The entire card catalogue has been revisited, with each card being looked at and either tweaked a little, or removed if it doesn't fit the current direction and balance. As a note, the Enlightened and Daughter Soultithe cards got hit the hardest, followed up by any cards that grant you "free" resources (think Draw, Recur etc).

[h2]Stats System[/h2]
Probably something that should have been in from the start! The new Stats system will track data across your runs, with some general stats and also a break down of class specific stats and even Daily Draft data. This system is still in a state, so please feel free to log any issues or concerns with me directly, either via DM or Discord.



[h2]New Damage Prediction Scripts[/h2]
Whilst the damage prediction on cards has been great - it started to run into issues with a few cards, namely some for the Enlightened that applied Future Strike AND Shii (greedy I know!). This required two values to show. Also some cards that would do X damage, and then an secondary, conditional X damage.



The new damage script will show both values on cards like these, and also provide cute little icons which are all around much more visually pleasing.

I've tried to cycle through all cards and accommodate all the changes, however if any numbers go wonky, please feel free to report as well and I'll get them fixed right away.

[h2]New Card Size[/h2]
So cards were running into the issue where they'd start to run out of space pretty quickly. Some cards being 4 lines, and then getting a Void Stone, would cause all sorts of issues. I bit the bullet and made cards a little taller to accommodate for this.

[h2Pre Run Vault Guardians[/h2]
At the start of your run, you'll now be greeted with a screen where the Void chooses his Vault Guardians for the run, along with their Blessings. This is a move to continue to give the player more control and knowledge over the run and whats upcoming. Also, if you're mid run and forgot what was assigned, you can mouseover the Map icon in the top toolbar for a tooltip giving you the information again.

[h2]Leftover Souls[/h2]
Souls are an interesting currency. On one hand, they're powerful, as they're the main way to buy Artifacts to power up your run. On the other hand, their use is limited outside the Soul Merchant and few other, more limited locations. I wanted to provide an option for excess Souls, which is why I setup a "Unleash Souls" option once you reach the Void.

Once inside the Vault, you'll be able to "Unleash excess Souls" upon the Void, setting free the Souls of the damned you collected across your run and dealing damage directly the Void himself. The more Souls, the more damage. Now the choice between spending your Souls or saving them for an extra burst of pre-fight damage is always an option.

[h2]Artifact Artwork[/h2]
For awhile now, some Artifacts have had the "Coming Soon" image next to them. I'm pleased to say I've caught up on all artwork, and all Artifacts now have they're artwork in game! (all 120+). I still have about 30+ more Artifacts to add, but going to do my best to ensure all artwork is done for these before they get pushed live.

[h2]Cursed Item Changes[/h2]
Small change to Cursed Items, you'll now have a few more choices when visiting one!



[h2]Walkaway Option[/h2]
Again, another small change, but more choice for the player. Don't like Elite Artifacts? You can always leave them all and get some Essence and Souls instead!

[h2]New Card Backs and Challenge Coins[/h2]
New Card Backs and Achievements have been added , along with new Challenge Coins!


[h2]Early Access Date![/h2]
And finally - an official Early Access date! Thank you to all who have participated in the Beta for the 12 months or so! It has been absolutely instrumental in making the game what it is. It was a hard decision to delay things for around a year to ensure this Beta program could run, but I'm very glad I did. Theres been a lot more activity around this genre in the last 12 months, and whilst I would of loved to have gotten in "earlier", Vault is now going to be a much better, much smoother experience for new players on launch, which I value a lot higher. Heres hoping the drive and desire to do things differently, and passion (and pain sometimes!) I've poured into the game will be enough to make it stand out from the crowd.

On that note, Vault of the Void will be officially released into Early Access on December 11, 2020!

For anyone still wishing to give things a shot, feel free to join the Discord and I'm more than happy to flick around a few more Beta codes.

Next update will give some more information on the upcoming Impossible+ and Instability game mode!

All for now!

- Josh

Wow! Over a month since my last update here, so figured I'd jump in to keep everyone up-to-date on what has been happening with Vault, as I push towards Early Access.

Progress on the Beta has been going very well! The last month has been focused on getting The Enlightened to a solid point, which he is very close to! Feedback on his gameplay mechanics has been great, so progress continues with him. His second Spec and first batch of Artifacts should be in within the next 2 weeks.

Theres been a bunch of patches and changes over the last month. I'll post a full report at the bottom of this post, however I'll highlight some of the noticeable/major changes.

[h3]Black Void Stone Change + Inert Keyword[/h3]
This is probably the biggest change of the patch that just went live. For sometime now, there has been a questionmark next to the Black Void Stone. Rebound is such a strong ability, and it has some issues around being very strong on certain cards. Rebound has a place, and so won't be removed from the game, however it's not the way I want the Black Void Stone to work exactly.

A suggestion was made to have the Black stone instead create a Volatile copy of the card played, rather than Rebound the card. This does a few things:

• Means the card can't be played and then Purged (Volatile cards can't be Purged
  
• Means you can't hold onto the created card across turns. Black Stone quickly became a target for high power cards for players, meaning they could play it, hold it, play it again next turn. Rinse + repeat.
  

I've gone ahead and made that change, giving Black Void Stone the ability to add "Ghost" to card.

Ghost: When you play a card with Ghost, a Volatile copy will be added to your hand.

This also brought up another issue, which was around Multi-Triggers (Combo, Death Strike etc) and the effects of these also triggering Void Stones multiple times (a card triggering 3 times means the Stone triggers 3 times as well!). Whilst I'm, for the most part, very happy for this to be apart of the game - there are some issues around 0 cost cards, Stones and Multi-Triggers being a little too easy to pull off. Hidden Blade (Red Stone) + Mithril Blades + Combo 3, I'm looking at you.

Another community suggestion was around a keyword for some cards which would disabled a Void Stone once it triggers once, clearing at the end of your turn. Welcome the second new Keyword, Inert!

Inert: The first time a Void Stone triggers on a card with Inert, that card's Void Stone will become inactive until the start of your next turn.

Right now, there is only a few cards with this keyword. However, the Black Void Stone also gives the card the Inert keyword. Ghost + Inert, which stops a few silly plays that could spawn from Ghost interactions.

As always, I'll continue to monitor things as we go. I'm a huge fan of simplicity, and the one thing that Inert does do is add a layer of complexity which may not be super visible at first. However for long term success of the game, I do thing it was important to include something along those lines.


[h3]Compendium Changes[/h3]
Finally got around to fixing up parts of the Compendium! As requested by the community, typing is much better now, can now select all, delete etc - all the typing functions you'd expect to see. Also fixed a number of design/QoL things inside the Compendium (multi-select keywords!).

[h3]New Battlefield Backgrounds[/h3]
New Battlefield Backgrounds have been added! There is now a total of 4 in game, under "Unlocks".

[h3]Minimum Cost Tooltips[/h3]
For any Hex which involves spending a currency of some sort (Essence or Souls), I've now included a "Minimum Cost" tooltip which lets you know, on the map view, what the lowest price item inside the room is.

[h3]Keyword Highlighting[/h3]
All keywords on cards which have a tooltip are now highlighted in blue!

[h3]Fatigue - The Enlightened[/h3]
The Fatigue system has been added to the game. You can read about it through tooltips etc, its pretty simple. Each time Future Strike triggers, an enemy will gain 1 point of Fatigue. Each time you apply Future Strike, you will do so an extra X times, equal to the characters Fatigue (because you're beating the s*$% out of them!)

[h3]Developer Gameplay Video[/h3]
I've been asked a few times now if it was possible to put together a video demo'ing the gameplay of Vault for those who aren't in the Beta, or maybe undecided. I managed to put together a video showcasing some of the differences and talking about some of the decisions I made when making Vault.

Just a note: I don't think I'll be switching careers to a YouTube Star anytime soon - sorry if the video drones on a bit!

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

[h3]Amazing Community Guide![/h3]
Dabor, from our Discord community, has taken the time and effort to put together an extensive guide which excellent. I strongly suggest you take a read when you get some time, its an great overview of all different aspects of the game, and some tips to help plan/play more optimised. Although sections of it are aimed at the new player, I'll admit I learnt a lot from different areas, and the Class breakdown sections help a lot for those struggling with different classes. Massive thanks to Dabor for the effort, it's not a small guide, and I think it's an excellent thing moving forward for Vault.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2175704525

Thats it from me for now! I'm sure I'm missing something, but hopefully nothing major! As always, please feel free to join our excellent Discord community, or if you have any questions feel free to leave a comment and I'll answer back as soon as I can!

Thanks all for the support!
- Josh



[h3]Full Patch Notes from the last 5 weeks: [/h3]

CHANGES
- 4th and final (for launch) battlefiled background added!
- Regal Monocle is now Uncommon
- Purifier Diadem reduces Debuffs by 1 now
- The Disheveled Salesman now has scaling prices for difficulty
- Have added a byline to the Foresight toottip:
If no cards in your Deck are eligible to be a target, your Discard will be reshuffled. The other option would be to just cancel the effect, however I did like how this was somewhat of an exception, and ment the effect was never wasted. Happy to be wrong.
- Removed Quick Strike from the Unholy Creations for now.
- Have tweaked how Zen/Chain works, you'll no longer get a chain from the 5th (and final) card you play in Zen mode. This card still benifits from the reduced cost.
- Max Handsize has been removed, and many "handsize" related items etc have been removed/retrofitted. The only references to handsize now are:
Draw Potion, Cripple, Bottle of Whiskey
- I've gone through all cards and highlighted any "keywords" (pretty much anything that has a tooltip) with a blue colour. This was a part automated/part manual process, please let me know if I've missed anything!
- Minimum Cost Tooltip; On Hex's that require spending SOMETHING, for the most part, I've added a "Minimum Cost" tooltip letting you know how much the cheapest item is, or the baseline cost for something (Class trainer etc), to avoid those times where you head to a hex and get PRICED OUT
- Added tooltips to icons above your "deck" in the Deck Manager
- The filter opening/closing animation has been sped up for those on Fast Play
- Backpack sort settings will save
- Continued tweaks to the card rendering system
- Added all class artwork to the Main Menu, on cycle
- Added rarity to items Tooltip
- Visual changes to the Dark Idol
- Have updated the fight descriptions for many missing fights
- Have moved the text for "buffs" below the icons, which should help on smaller screens and lighter icons
- Continued progress and support for larger fonts. Replacing bits and pieces where I find them
- New artwork around the place
- New card keyword: Transfer
- New Background added
- 20+ new Artifacts (Artwork still on the way!)
- Huge new system/optimisation implemented for the way card text is drawn. This should improve performance a lot (I gained about an extra 100-150 frames). This has only been applied to some card instances to start with, just until I know its working correctly, then it will be rolled out all.
- Have moved any cards which show on tooltips for creatures to the right, to stop them clashing with icons for debuffs
- You'll now be able to see your cooldown on all spells in your Spellbook, not just your active
- When you mouseover cards in your hand, they'll now appear larger
- Mousing over the Void Stone in your menu bar will now give details on the Void Stone you're working towards.
- Reduced the opacity on the black box that appears when Discarding
- Arkaos now has tooltips for his Artifacts
- Removed Green Rune from being your free bonus starting Rune
- You can now view all the player data stuff during card upgrades
- The Past Runs screen will now show a breakdown of your score for each tile.
- Bonus Void Stone from Loot the Dead will no longer give you the same stone as the one you're currently working towards
- New Deck Sort/Filtering in the Deck manager! Long overdue, and phase one of the new layout is deployed. There is still LOTS more to be done here, but you'll see the filtering/sorting has moved to a small fold out panel to the right hand side - close to the Void Stones.
- Tweaks to the Profile screen
- Clears Skies name changed

THE ENLIGHTENED
- You can now Foresight Void cards
- New cards added to the Monk's Mastery
- New cards added (Deceleration, Better Future, Chaotic Blur, Mix Up, Memento Mori)
- Zen now has a card limit (5)
- Foresight pannel is now hideable
- Monk runs will no longer show the class as "0" (PLEASE NOTE: this is changed moving forward, and won't fix any runs done previous to this patch)
- Fixed a bug that would cause a crash when using Foresight on an empty Discard
- Follow-Up abilities will now trigger if you're in Zen.
- Fixed a few intances where Future Strike was being applied outside of general card play, and Fatigue wasn't being taken into account (Flurry of Blows and Back in Time)
- Future Strike will now say "Will trigger this turn" in the tooltip if you mouse over it, and it is indeed going to trigger this turn.
- Future Strike will now also have a "(X)" showing the vulnerable value
- Echos of the Past has gained Expel
- Repeating Deflection light buff - now 3/5
- Changed sound effect for applying/triggering future strike

CARDS
- Better Future cost reduced
- Mix Up increased cost
- Repeating Deflection: changed upgrade to 5/8
- No Time: reduced to cost 1
- No Kando: upgrade reduced to 2
- Renewal: reduced to cost 1
- Smack to the Future: upgrade reduced to 1

BUGS
- Fixed an issue with Sneak Attack being able to target Evasive
- Fixed an issue with Cursed Blades damage projection
- Fixed a display issue with some keywords
- Fixed Lost Sword's clone not carrying over Void Stone
- Fixed a bug where Foresight was causing crashes with cards that couldn't be Foreseen.
- Fixed text on Self-inflicted Agony
- Fixed Unbalanced Fury setting you straight into Zen
- Fixed issue with UI font in the Deck Viewer
- Fixed issue with card numbers being a different font
- Fixed an issue with Cards not showing in the Deck Manager
- Fixed an issue with Unbalanced Fury
- Fixed an issue with Deceleration
- Fixed an issue with Mix Up
- Fixed an issue with the Post Run screen
- Fixed the issue with Arkaos' tooltips being jumbled
- Fixed an issue where cards in the deckmanager could break out of their desired location
- Fixed an issue with Run Time being incorrect on the run detail screen. This change will effect future runs. I can't fix previous runs sorry!
- Fixed daily run Leader board showing "Rounds"
- Fixed a big bug which stopped the difficuly/unlocks increasing when you won (big doh!)
- Fixed an issue which caused the text to be misaligned on the Postfight screen
- Stopped tooltips for potions show up through card rewards
- The Map will no longer show when viewing the Compendium and pressing "M"
- Fixed an issue where "card mastery" wasn't being skipped (and crashing) if you already had everything mastered
- Fixed Blessing of Energy being stupid
- Fixed some issues with Arcane Overload & Furious Assault
- Fixed a bug which was causing Immune targets to crash the game
- Theres another bug floating around which players are getting randomly. I've adding some more debugging support to help track this down
- Fixed issue with buying background
- Fixed issue wiht starting Daily Draft
- Fixed issue with Rage applying twice to Futurestrike

It's been sometime since my last update here on Steam so decided to make sure those who aren't in the Discord are still informed!

There's been a lot going on ! A few big additions have come through recently, one of the biggest being the inclusion of the Daily Draft!

The Daily Draft
The Daily Draft is great for those who don't want to commit to a full Vault of the Void run, but would rather a quick 30 min, "straight-into-the-action", experience.

The DD is based off a worldwide seed (so everyone experiences the same thing!), which will give you a random collection of Spells, Artifacts, Void Stones, and of course, Cards! Your opening Booster will contain 22 cards, which everyone in the world will receive the same cards from. You'll then be thrown into a much smaller, single floor Map which only contains fights - no rewards, no events, nothing! Just Vaults fast paced combat system, with nothing to slow you down.

Your goal is to use the cards, Void Stones and Spells given to make your way through the floor in the shortest amount of Battlerounds possible. A Leaderboard everyday will track who has the best run. Compete against friends and strangers to see who can craft the most optimised deck and strategy from the same resources as everyone else.

There have been a bunch more changes and tweaks as well, I'll try to list as much as I can down below! Some of the awesome new inclusions: Unlockable Battlefield Backgrounds, new Deck Backs, new Items, and a very experimental new calls - The Enlightened!

I'm excited to see everyone experience the Daily Draft, and as always, would love to hear feedback on how to make things better. You can always find me on the Discord if you ever want to chat!

All for now!
- Josh

Patch Notes:

Daily Draft
- Fixed an issue with leader board results not publishing
- Fixed starting deck issues
- Added Health Potions to start with.
- Added an option to reset from the main menu
- Added icon on the Guardian square to show you'll heal
- Added fight tips to the mouseover tooltips for those who don't know the fights off by heart
- Increased Upgrade Points
- Runes will now Save
- Disabled for players who haven't done the Introduction mode

General
- Fixed an issue with the page number in the Compendium
- Fixed an issue with the map showing when you're trying to type a deck's name to save
- New map system! You'll now be able to see the Guardian, and also the card rewards for each tile. This is also based of objects instead of a sprite loop so performance should be much better!
- Added glow to icons under enemy on mouseover (better player response)
- Added a check to ensure if you finish a Daily Draft after the daily has finished, it posts and shows the right leader board.
- Reworked some code on Corruption cards to correctly project damage
- Minor tweaks to the damage prediction scripts in general
- Hide Panel option added! This will enable you to hide the cards when Sifting, Recuring, Probing etc so you can view other things that may inform your decision. This is still a WIP, so please notify me of any bugs that occur.
- Changes to timer system
- Have told the "Alert Rings/Pings" to CALM DOWN. They should now ping in a much more ordered fashion.
- After a tutorial has been open for longer than 3 seconds, an force close button will appear.
- Sped up mouseover for enemy threat notification
- Reactivated the modifiers for difficulty in game (these were "disabled" whilst testing new HP levels)
- Class based streak system implemented! Lets see how high you can get
- The new Game Over screen will give you a breakdown of each room you sent to (and fights for each floor as well)


Monk
- More cards added, it's enough that he is now in a playable state! Many changes and more to come.
- Minor card tweaks
- Future Sight X -> Vision X
- Future Cast -> Foresight

Enemy Abilities
- Run Around will now correctly inflict Temporary Exhaustion cards
- Fixed the numbers on Short Fuse

Cards
- Bleed It Out upgrade changed to 2 Bleed
- Self-Inflicted Agony tweaks
- Malice order of operations has been fixed on double trigger. Also the second value will no longer be effected by Rage.

Challenge Coins
- New Challenge Coin - Worksite Accident - has been added!
- Gaining the achiv for CC's will give you the achiv for lower difficulties also!

Battlefield Backgrounds
- You can now unlock the first Battlefield background ! More are coming.
- New Deck Backs - based off achievements but 2 new deck backs are in, with another 5-6 dropping next week.

Items
- Couple of new items have been added for the Daughter
- Got another round of artwork in, meaning less "IMAGE COMING" items! Yay!
Lots more minor stuff, balance tweaks, tooltip changes, new achievements, performance updates etc that I didn't have time/space to list here

Bugs
- Fixed Cycle of Agony
- Beast of Malice's Pummel ability is now added to the incoming damage
- Hide Panel bug fixed
- Holy Effigy now fixed to work with Haunted
- Text Updates on various debuffs etc. Temporary, will get a full pass during localisation
- Fixed Muck it Ups animation breaking the game

Lots more small bug fixes as noted in the #bug-resolutions channel in Discord!