Spire of Sorcery (Limited Early Access) News

We just updated the game to version 202.

This update packs a few dozen improvements in mechanics and UI, and adds new content:

1. The speed of all token animations during encounters has increased. When a target receives, for example, 3 Acid tokens, we used to play Acid, Acid, Acid – now we play Acid just once, and add 3 tokens at the same time (unless there is absorption, deflection, conversion or similar other mechanics at play). This seems like a small change, but we believe this resolved most of the concerns related to "spellcasting takes too long" matters.
   
   
2. In travel mode, indication of move points of the player party moved to the top of the party.
   
   
   
   
3. In travel mode, you now move the player party 1 hex at a time. The overall limit (5 move points per day, by default) hasn't changed, we just found that limiting the move to "1 hex per click" solves a number of issues that were previously challenging (e.g. what happens if party passes a passive object like destroyed giggler haunt on the way to an active object like a party of watchmen).
   
   
   
   The immediate path is now shown with bold line, the path that remains possible within the current day is shown with dotted line and every hex that remains reachable within the current day has an anchor point displayed. If you feel like we should make this indication more pronounced, let us know in the comments!
   
   
4. The mechanics of Retreat is updated: now, player party can retreat from any encounter at any time.
   
   
   
   We didn't think that having certain opponents disallow retreat was too much fun (perhaps the prohibition to retreat will re-appear with some of the big boss encounters).
   
   
5. The consequences of Retreat changed: now characters no longer take a hit on their mood, but rather get Fatigue tokens.
   
   
   
   The default setting is 2 Fatigue tokens per retreating character for each opponent that remains in the encounter. We'll build a more detailed window "this is what's going to happen if you retreat" by the time of the next update.
   
   
6. We added the option to change the cost of retreat to the initial Difficulty Settings at the start of the campaign. "Harder" means getting 2 Fatigue tokens per opponent, "Easier" allows to get only 1 such token.
   
   
   
   Speaking of Difficulty Settings, we made things a bit clearer by labelling two current columns as "HARDER" and "EASIER", to clarify how each change affects the game.
   
   
7. Four personal traits got updated: some mages now are happy to retreat (Mood +2), some are unhappy (Mood -5), some get double the Fatigue penalty and some get half the Fatigue penalty.
   
   
   
   
8. The quest window got a bit of a facelift:
   
   
   
   
9. When the quest can be completed, we now show the button that allows to immediately complete it, without opening the quest window first:
   
   
   
   
10. Player party's sustenance level has moved from personal inventory to Cooking Pot, where it fits better. And this is also the only place where you can consume cooked food, so that you can complete the whole cycle without leaving the same window: check the sustenance, cook a meal, and consume it.
    
    
    
    
11. Use confirmations are in the game, finally! Whenever you are about co consume cooked food, a curative substance, a stat-improving substance, to sample a resource for changing visual appearance – or to use an encounter substance in encounter – we now show a window with the expected effects:
    
    
    
    The notifications for cooked food and alchemic and food resources show everything that they should. There are a few known bugs, however: you can consume (without effect) encounter substances outside of encounter; and the notification for stat-improving substances (a) shows the wrong tag and (b) does not show the main effect (the effect applies properly, though, it's just a UI miss). We'll address these with a hotfix during the coming week.
    
    
    
    
12. You can now appoint default Cook and default Alchemist via character profiles, and also check who is currently appointed – this helps to make better informed choices.
    
    
    
    
13. We added new music to Chapter 1! For the western part of the map, where player party runs away from the Inquisition, Anna created the theme of "Chase"; and once you enter the Wild Lands, the music changes to the theme created specifically for that region.
    
    
    
    
14. We now indicate future spawning! When you'll see this red visual effect, this means there's a party about to spawn here:
    
    
    
    
15. We changed the discovery process: now when you discover a new creature or location, we move the camera to focus on this object as well as drop a small card in the top left corner of the screen (clicking on the card opens the relevant page in Discovery Book).
    
    
    
    
16. We changed the flow of new campaign: now when you press "New campaign", you get the character mulligan followed by Chapter 1, and only then you arrive to the campaign map. That's us getting ready to add the Spire functionality (earlier, with the campaign map available immediately, we had to disallow accessing the Spire before you would complete the first chapter).
    
    
    
    
17. On the campaign map, we now show the dwellers that control the specific regions.
    
    
    
    Each of these icons is clickable and displays the lore behind the creatures (known issue: Protectors of the Forgotten City are not clickable, we'll address this with the hotfix early in the week).
    
    
    
    
18. Spellbook updates: we removed all combo spells from the initial spellbooks, these were a bit too much for new players; combo spells will return via an upgrade that you can do at the Spire. We also updated a number of spells, including second levels of Fire and Frost, and changed a few formulas.
    
    
    
    
19. Finally, changes in tokens: some of the tokens are now assigned to the Astral group (Fear, Fatigue, Confusion, Blindness) and some to the Corporeal group (Damage, Infection, Poison, Flash, Acid, Frost, Fire). Protection now absorbs only the corporeal tokens, while Dispel now absorbs the astral tokens.
    
    
    
    Additionally, a few changes in the specific token mechanics: Frost used to issue 1 Damage whenever it was "3 or more", now it issues 1 Damage for every 3 tokens of Frost. 3 Flash used to convert into 1 Blindness, now 3 Flash issue 1 Blindness and remain on the target. And 1 Blindness applied to owner with Flash now removes 1 Flash.
    

That's it for today – and we're aiming to release a small hotfix early next week.

The next update will focus on Chapter 2 and further improvements in UI

Team Charlie Oscar
Vilnius, Lithuania

Yesterday, we updated the DEMO to version 200.

The update delivers a few things that were high on the request list, and takes the game one step closer to its release in Early Access! Let's through the major points:

1. The 4 tutorial chapters are removed, since they were getting outdated. We'll bring back a proper tutorial a couple of weeks ahead of the EA launch, but for now we want to focus on the new mechanics and the new content.
   
   
   
   
2. The Mulligan at the start of the campaign changed: we no longer preview stats of the characters, or their driving forces, and we no longer limit your choice to 10 characters generated at start. Now you can keep refreshing the pool as many times as you want, without affecting the characters already selected for the initial party! Full focus on what sort of a group of mages you want to get. As to their stats and preferences... like in life, people are different!
   
   
   
   
3. We re-designed the first chapter of the campaign: it is a new map, with new challenges, and a few new opponents.
   
   
   
   
4. The first chapter, "Into the Wild Lands...", starts with the search parties of Inquisition pursuing the mages. The good news: Inquisitors have problems navigating the forests, so you can use this biome to get confuse them.
   
   
   
   
5. Together with Inquisition, we introduce a new biome: plains. You'll see more of this biome when you'll attempt to infiltrate the Empire later in the story, and then again when you'll try to cross the Deceiving Plains in the east on the way to the Distorted Lands.
   
   
   
   
6. This update brings 2 different Inquisitors to the game: friendly axe-smashing Guides and merciless sword-wielding Liberators (who also possess artefacts that can set mages afire).
   
   
   
   
7. You asked for more "wow" in encounters, and we deliver! This update brings a re-done animation of "RETREATED" outcome (we still are not happy with it, by the way, and will try to change it later this month) and a new animation of "BURNED" outcome (it's a different outcome since you get different loot). We didn't post a GIF here to save on bandwidth, so you'll need to run the demo to appreciate it! (the animation will get own sound effect in a couple of weeks, too).
   
   
   
   
8. Even more importantly, this updates introduces the first spellcasting animations! It took us a while to conceptualise it, since these are connected with spell names, and spell results, but we think we nailed it. In this version, all three levels of Fire spells (Fist of Fire, Firefall and Wall of Fire) have their own custom animations (sound effects are coming in versions 201 or 202).
   
   
   
   
9. The Spellbook design got a bit of a facelift, with a more clear indication of current essences used to upgrade it and larger buttons to switch between "Spellbook" (known spells) and "Cosmic knowledge" (new spells) sections:
   
   
   
   
   
   
10. Character profiles received handy arrows that allow to switch between characters left and right once the profile is open; we forgot to hook up the keyboard arrows, though, so that part is coming later =).
    
    
    
    
11. A new status for opposing parties: "Standing guard". Such parties typically protect a location, and will not move from it even when challenged. The icon for this status is a grey shield (see below).
    
    
    
    
12. This update brings re-balanced attacks of all gigglers and shadows (smaller creatures now have additional one-turn simple actions):
    
    
    
    
13. Finally, we changed the formulas for how parties are seeded across the map, and introduced mixed creature parties – so that opponents from different realms can cause you trouble acting as one team:
    
    

In addition to the points above, we've added new sound effects (you will hear special themes as you get closer to Anomaly and to Magic Node, among other improvements) and fixed a number of bugs – as well as introduce a few new ones ;-D.

Next week we're working on the second chapter ("First contact"), more animations, new creatures and a few new mechanics such as indication of pre-spawning (so that you'll know where to expect the new party of shadows to crawl out of the ground).

With a big THANK YOU to everyone who gives us feedback about the game here on Steam and on the game's Discord, yours as always –

Team Charlie Oscar
Vilnius, Lithuania

Yesterday, we updated the game to version 199.

The update introduces some pretty big changes for the better, and it took us a couple of weeks to make sure these changes were working as intended – since they touch upon multiple mechanics.

1. As an experiment, player party now enjoys 5 move points every day (previously: 3). How does it feel, to be able to move further? So far, we think that it allows us to have larger maps that feel less of a chore to explore. We may also introduce a modification for parties that would affect their move point range.
   
   
   
   
2. Quality of life improvement for those who play only with their mouse (and soon, for those who play on Steam Deck): when all move points are spent in the travel mode, now a replica of "End Day" button shows up over the party icon. Saving the need to reach for "SPACE" or move the cursor into the corner.
   
   
   
   
3. The "action area" of the encounter UI got a facelift: now all actions – moving an element from hand to formula and discarding the deck – are located within the golden frame. Anything outside of that (such as moving elements between two formulas) doesn't cost an action.
   
   
   
   
4. Thanks to feedback here on the forums, the free actions (that do not issue any Fatigue to the mage) now have a different color – beige/brown – than the actions that cause Fatigue – these are painted in blue.
   
   
   
   
5. All elements that are already drawn into the spell formulas, and are in the "mental space" of the mages, are now displayed a bit differently from the elements in their hands to help differentiate the two.
   
   
   
   
6. The first animated outcomes are in! You asked for it, we asked for it, and our animation team (or, to say otherwise, our friend and colleague Monika) delivered! Already in the game: DESTROYED and RETREATED. Coming a few weeks later: burned, ensorcelled, activated and the rest of the gang.
   
   
   
   
7. This may sound like bad news, but this is actually good news: we got rid of the dedicated Party Profile window, and now use its button to open Character Profiles. Advantages: one less window to keep track of (see explanation below), and a convenient button for accessing Character Profile (previously you had to use RMB on the portraits to access it).
   
   
   
   
8. Information about party sustenance, and consumption of cooked food, is now happening through Character Profile. It has become a one-stop place for all things to do with items, and so we also nuked the dedicated button for Inventory which used to be in the lower left corner in travel mode.
   
   
   
   
9. Instead of "read books", "equip clothing", "equip amulets", "consume alchemy" and "consume cooked food", we now have a single "USE" button. We also made it easier to, hmm, use. How it works: you drag and drop the desired item there, or you click on the item and then click on the button, or you just double-click on the item, and it's used automatically. If it's a piece of clothing, it will get equipped. If it's a book, it will be read. And if it's a substance, it will be consumed. This button is how you use any item in the game.
   
   
   
   
10. Equipment and clothing slots have moved to be closer to the character portrait:
    
    
    
    
11. Speaking of equipment, there are 3 new items, all belonging to the class of equipment:
    
    Blackpaw's Paw that comes from the theft-loving creatures that you can encounter in Elderwood, and issues 2 tokens of Protection from Fear;
    Giggler Stomach Mask, which is a facemask made from the insides of a seasoned giggler, and issues 2 tokens of Protection from Infection;
    Blazing soul ring, which is one of the enslaved souls taken off the flaming spitter demon, and issues 1 token of Fire to every Shadow present in the encounter.
    
12. Some of the other equipment got a bit of a re-balancing: Motherstone Amulet now issues 2 tokens of Protection from poison, while Soldier's Amulet issues 1 token of Protection and Amulet of Reflection issues 1 token of Reflection.
    
13. And now for a whole new feature: essences. Essences are a part of the life force of a creature extracted in a high-stress situation. Such as death, change of shape or panic. There are three essences in the world of Rund: Destruction, Transformation and Deflection. Your party earns them when dealing with creatures from any of the three Realms of Rund.
    
14. And what do you need these essences for? That is connected to another big feature: Personal Spellbooks! Now every mage has their own Spellbook.
    
    Initially, 9 spells are available to each character (mostly first-level, but occasionally some of the advanced, too) and the rest are unlocked by specific essences (it costs 1 essence to unlock the spell of the first level, 3 – of the second, and 5 – of the third).
    
    
    
    To access the unlocking mode in the Spellbook, press the button with the lock icon at the top of the Spellbook (in a few weeks this part of user interface will change for the better):
    
    
    
    
15. In encounter mode, a major change has happened to loot, score points and essences: these are all now granted immediately, without waiting for the end of the encounter, and can be used in the same round.
    
    
16. Every party member can now use 1 curative alchemic substance during encounter. To access the list, use the green substance button in the character's hand. To actually use the item, double-click on it, or click and click or drag and drop it to the "USE" icon –
    
    
    
    
17. The use of encounter substances remains limited to 1 per round, and is now accessible via a red substance button. The actual use is similar to use of curative substances, via "USE" button –
    
    
    
    
18. The buttons for individual character decks have moved a little, and now display the counter of elements left. In case you missed the earlier change, they can be switched on/off individually:
    
    
    
    
19. Earlier, we added the indication of the impending attack. It displays the attacker, and hovering over the icon highlights the specific creature, like here:
    
    
    
    With version 199, we make the next step and display the actual expected attack if you hover over the multi-turn indicator – in this case, it's 2 tokens of frost to every party member:
    
    
    
    
20. One last thing about encounters: we now added an "end of encounter" summary that displays the fate of your opponents, and the loot / score / essences that they have yielded. It's not perfect yet, e.g. opponents who retreated are currently not shown there –we'll fix this with one of the future updates!
    
    
    
    
21. Small improvement: discovery cards now appear in the top left corner. Previously they showed up in another spot, which conflicted with other valuable information.
    
    
    
    
22. Finally! We made a small change to Distorted Clouds (which are spawned by Anomalies during the season of the Phantom Moon): instead of killing the whole party, they now kill "just" a random party member.
    
    

If you've read this far – congratulations!

Those were a couple of very intense weeks of development =).

With 15.000 players giving the demo of Spire of Sorcery a try in the last few weeks, and with the wishlists closing on 75.000, we feel the pressure to deliver updates that cause the real impact. Thus from the "weekly" update schedule we now move to "when we complete the next big feature" schedule.

Please keep giving us your feedback about the demo, as specifically as possible, and we will do our best to continue to make this game better for you!

Yours as always,
Team CO / Vilnius, Lithuania

Last Friday, the demo-version of Spire of Sorcery got updated to version 197.



Changes:

• Opponents who use multi-turn attacks now display their intended target when they start preparations, allowing player to better prepare for the attack.
  
  
• Any alchemic substances can now be consumed during encounters (e.g. remove Damage, remove Fatigue, etc.). In one of the upcoming versions, we will introduce a limit of 1 healing substance per 1 character per 1 encounter. For now, there is no limit.
  
  
• When items are used for visual changes, they are not consumed (so you can change the hair color by licking bag of bones as many times a you like). This will get even easier with the upcoming change to 1 slot only ("use") instead of the multiple options we have right now.
  
  
• Every item can only be used in one way. Goodbye, multiple uses! Resources are used in concocting and cooking, and to change visual appearance. Healing substances are used to heal. Encounter substances produce effects in encounters. And this week, we'll finally allow the much-requested "double click = use item" controls.
  
  
• Tooltips now have a delay of 0.5 seconds (previously: 0.1 seconds). It's been inconvenient to have them pop up immediately.
  
  
• Character Profile got re-arranged, with the portrait moving into the middle. It's going to evolve further this week, when we finally kill duplicate inventories and get rid of party profile window – we aim to simplify the interface without sacrificing the mechanics.
  
  
• "Concentration" button is gone (bye-bye!) from the encounter interface, all character actions now happen immediately, without the need to "purchase" them via additional concentration. This provides for faster flow. Accordingly, all concentration-related traits are adjusted.
  
  
• Each character now has a maximum of 4 actions per round in encounters. These actions, and their costs, are displayed next to the character's hand. Coming soon: even better distinction between actions and formulas.
  
  
• Each character's deck and discard piles are now available for review separately, with the deck counter next to the button.
  
  
• When ECs (environmental conditions, e.g. "Closed room") are triggered, they provide effects and then disappear. Earlier, they would exist permanently, and could be triggered multiple times.
  
  
• Motherstone amulet now provides immunity from Poison when equipped, on the travel mode. Coming soon: two more amulets specific for use in travel.
  
  
• Giggler Haunts now exist in 3 versions (contagious, poisonous and populated), which are seeded in Chapter 5 according to their difficulty rating, left-to-right easy-to-difficult. This is also coming to Barrows and Palaces with one of the future updates.
  
  
• A custom illustration is now shown when the party retreats from encounters. There's another custom illustration for the situation of defeat, but you cannot see it for now because the game bugs out when every party member is dead right now =).
  
  
• The animation of Fatigue tokens is now significantly shorter/faster. We'll keep looking for ways to speed things up on the animation side, maybe through an option to turn it off/on.
  
  
• When player party would get hungry, there would be SFX and notification window related to this + immediately SFX/VFX related to change in mood; this is now fixed with a pause between the two events.
  
  
• Mouse cursor was lagging on some configurations due to special animation, we now turned this animation off.
  
  
• Fixed issue where restarting Chapter 1 while already in progress in Chapter 1, would create a NullRef error.
  
  
• Fixed issue where Japanese version would not display a few characters in the "DESTROYED!" notification window. Sorry about that.
  
  
• A number of SFX got updated: first, we fixed a few instances where the effects could have caused unpleasant emotions in some people; secondly, improved specific effects e.g. "opponent is preparing a multi-turn action".
  
  
• The first experimental "music themes of objects" are in the game now – Anomalies have their own tunes that play on top of everything else when you're in encounter with these objects.
  

Due to significant changes, saved games from the earlier versions are not compatible with the updated version.

Next update's ETA: end of this week. We're working on "essences" (will be used in Travel magic as well as to unlock spells in individual Spellbooks), improvements in inventory and encounter UI (one "use" button instead of multiple, one inventory across the game).

/ Team CO (Vilnius)

Hey guys,

Steam Next Fest is over and it’s time to catch up on sleep, wash the dishes – and summarise our impressions. Here’s what happened during the event:


[h3]THE BEST STREAM ABOUT THE GAME[/h3]

Hats off to SplatterCatGaming for recording a great overview of the current state of the game! This video, as well as the comments of the community, are spot-on, and provide a treasure trove of valuable feedback for our team. Thanks to everyone who contributed to the discussion!

Watch it here:

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

As a small team, we’re spending 100% of our time on the development, with little to no chances to reach out to any streamers. Steam Next Fest made it possible for us to reach that audience.


[h3]NUMBERS[/h3]

As of this writing:

• 15.000 people added the demo Spire of Sorcery to their Steam libraries
  
• 10.000 people have played it at least once
  
• 8.000 people have wishlisted the game in the recent week
  

The current wishlist of Spire of Sorcery went from 62.000 to 70.000 during the recent week, which gives us both the confidence and the motivation to keep improving things as we prepare for the Early Access release in August/September.


[h3]COUNTRIES[/h3]

Here’s the countries where the ten thousand people who tried the demo last week came from:



Top 10 countries:

1. China
   
2. USA
   
3. Russia
   
4. Germany
   
5. France
   
6. UK
   
7. Japan
   
8. Canada
   
9. Poland
   
10. Korea
    

For being able to reach such an international audience, we owe the debt of gratitude to our localization partners who worked around the clock to deliver the translations:

• Akebono Translation (Aya Pickard, Cindy Kim, Niu Peng Fei, Loek van Kooten) worked on Japanese, Korean and Simplified Chinese
  
• Rolf Klischewski worked on German
  
• Words of Magic worked on French
  

Dear fellow developers, we highly recommend these teams – they are passionate about video games and bring a wealth of experience!


[h3]FEEDBACK[/h3]

The closest analogy that we can come up with, is being a chef in a new restaurant, and serving the menu for the first time to the people who stopped by to try the food.

The good:

It was really, really great to hear that most players loved the visuals and the music and sounds.



The expected:

Our makeshift tutorial was better than nothing, but still rather confusing. We held no illusions about it, and yes, indeed, a lot of people got lost trying to learn how to cook Fermented slug jelly and how to concoct Dead man’s tears.



The unexpected:

We facepalmed like crazy when watching people play and seeing them confused about such things (obvious to us after 2.000 hours in the game!!) as how to eat Bloodfroth, how to lick a Giggler Skull, or how to combine Fire and Frost spells into a combo Damage spell... To us, these were the blind spots, since we know our game inside out. Seeing new players discover these things (often failing at the first attempt) made us realize which areas we need to improve the game in.



The excellent:

Several players shared their impressions in a way that was extremely helpful. It’s not about the level of details, or the specific suggestions, it’s rather about reading their stories and suddenly getting hit with a bolt of lightning about how to make the game better.




[h3]EARLY ACCESS[/h3]

Thanks to the feedback from Steam Next Fest, we remain committed to our plan to release the game in general Early Access in August/September of this year.

In 8 to 12 weeks, you should be able to take control of the Spire, build kennels (or dungeon?) and engage with the first non-human tribes of Rund!




[h3]DEMO WILL REMAIN AVAILABLE[/h3]

Even though the festival is over, we decided to keep the demo-version available on the Steam store page of Spire of Sorcery – since it’s the best way to explain just what exactly we are building ;-).

Please enjoy the demo, share it with friends and feel free to leave us your feedback! We will be updating the demo as we improve core mechanics (and the tutorial!) all the way until the Early Access launch, and even beyond!

Thanks for making the festival a special thing for us, and see you around!