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Dev Diary: The Wolf Wars!

Greetings Adventurers!

Tomorrow is the big day! We are on the eve of launching our newest DLC: The Wolf Wars, alongside Patch 1.1: The Black Forge, and we are absolutely thrilled for you to experience what we’ve been working on! Over the last few weeks, we’ve given you insights into the many changes and additions coming to Across the Obelisk. Our two new zones are coming with Patch 1.1 - the Black Forge, and the Icy-Sewers below Faeborg (you can read it here). Sought-after changes like improved gamepad support, new Cardbacks for you to earn in our newly revamped Weekly Challenge, and the inclusion of the highly-requested Combat Log (which you can also read here)!

Best of all, all of these changes coming with Patch 1.1 are FREE to all of our players!

As most of you know, The Wolf Wars is an event that is mentioned throughout your adventure in Senenthia. Magnus, one of our leading Heroes, fought bravely in them and earned the respect of his allies and enemies alike, earning his sword the name “Wolfslayer”. In this Dev Diary, let us take a look back and explore such a defining moment in many of our Heroes' histories.

[h2]The Wolf Wars[/h2]
Ten years ago, Queen Amelia’s dream of creating a safe place within Senenthia for all the races of the Kingdom to unify them under one banner was on the verge of realization. After months of strenuous deliberation with the Werewolf Chieftain Gorlo, he decided to stymie negotiations and declared that anyone who entered the Forest would be prey to his werewolves.

Fearing for their safety, the other races of Senenthia pleaded with Queen Amelia for help. Thus, the Queen gathered her army and marched into the forest in search of the Werewolf Chieftain. Queen Amelia’s army was soon joined by Werewolves who refuted Gorio’s command, believing their former Chieftain would bring about destruction and ruin. They sided with the Queen in hopes of a better future.

This is where our story begins…

In order to access the Wolf Wars, you’ll need to read Yogger’s diary found at his encampment on the northern path of Act 1.

Upon entering the new zone, you’ll be given a new party of heroes with preset decks. Since The Wolf Wars takes place ten years in the past, do not expect to earn experience or new cards with your chosen party of heroes - there are plenty of other rewards for you to earn instead!



The Wolf Wars map has three main paths for you to explore, each containing several events and different challenges for you to overcome. It is within these events that you’ll learn more about some of the companions you know in the rest of the game, be it coming to know of their younger selves or even relatives 👀👀👀! Completing these events will earn you skins for five of our Heroes, which will require multiple playthroughs to unlock them all.



After making it to the end and defeating Chieftain Gorio, you’ll unlock our newest hero, the mighty, unparalleled, and immutably brilliant Yogger! (Yes, we are biased...) There will be a lot of events and interactions for you to read through and get more context to the characters' relationships and, as ever, new characters will have the possibility to add more options to events in the game!



Yogger is much like Magnus, a warrior-type hero who will receive subsequent cards that befit a warrior's playstyle with a twist. Yogger’s special ability is to generate “Meat”, a new type of food card that will make use of his innate abilities. What these abilities are and how you utilize his deck is for you to discover! We’re excited to see what kind of combinations you’ll come up with!

Upon starting a new adventure with Yogger in your party, you may find it beneficial if you stop by his old encampment just like with other heroes such as Malukah… there may just be someone else who’d like to join your party!

The big question that a lot of our wonderful community has been asking is how much The Wolf Wars will sell for. Let us answer this simply: $9.99 USD! There's still time to wishlist it, so you don't forget; not that you ever would.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2325780/Across_The_Obelisk_The_Wolf_Wars/

In addition to all of this awesome content, to celebrate the release of the Wolf Wars and Patch 1.1, Across the Obelisk is having a Free-to-Play weekend! Starting March 30th at roughly 19:00 CET, Across the Obelisk will be available for everyone to play during this time, free of charge! Have a friend on the fence about getting the game? Want to test out the game yourself before making a purchase? This is your chance to do just that.



Be sure to join the Discord as well, for throughout the free weekend we’ll have Mentors on standby to help guide you through the initial parts of the game, many veterans who are more than happy to play and form parties through our LFG (looking for group) channels, and a voice channel system that you can create a new voice channel dynamically without the need for admins/moderators to be present! Also, we have a really awesome community of people who love to help answer questions for new players.

Thank you all for continuing to support our game, and sharing in this journey with us. We're having a blast and we hope that you do, too!

- Across the Obelisk Team

P.S. Bonus Yogger!

Dev Diary: Combat Log (Update 1.1)

Greetings Adventurers!

We’re rapidly approaching the launch date for our next DLC, The Wolf Wars, and Update 1.1: The Black Forge! In our last Dev Diary, we took the opportunity to reveal both zones that’ll be introduced with 1.1, along with their respective bosses. Today we’ll look at some of the new features coming to Across the Obelisk, as well as some tweaks to existing systems within the game!



[h2]The Combat Log![/h2]
Sometimes you just need to know how that last round went, other times, you’ll be scratching your head to figure out what the boss just did. Our latest addition is sure to delight both novice and veteran players alike and should help you dissect each turn with clarity so that you can create better strategies next time!

[h2]Improved Gamepad support![/h2]
We’ve heard the requests and we are ready to deliver! In Update 1.1 we’ll be adding improvements to those seeking to move away from keyboard and mouse, in favor of Steam-supported gamepads! Combat should be remarkably improved on controllers/gamepads, along with full functionality across the menus! There are still further improvements to be made in later patches, so please be sure to let us know what you think; we’ll be looking for your feedback to help refine and polish this feature to be intuitive and smooth for anyone wanting to play with a gamepad.



[h2]Weekly Challenge[/h2]
Also coming with Update 1.1 is our rework of the Weekly Challenge system! In case you’ve never tried our Weekly challenges, the concept is simple: you take a fixed party of heroes on a custom "seeded" run designed to test your capabilities! Each Weekly Challenge will have its own specific theme, with special modifiers and corruptions unique to each week’s event!



Completing each challenge will now reward you with exclusive cardbacks that you can’t earn elsewhere in the game! Though, don't worry if you miss a cardback you like, we’ll be sure to rotate cardbacks from previous weeks into additional Weekly Challenges later on!



That’s all for this Dev Diary! In the next, we will be looking in-depth into the additions coming with the Wolf Wars DLC!

Dev Diary: Update 1.1 Details

Greetings Adventuers!

Today marks the first of our Dev Diaries leading up to the release of our newest DLC: The Wolf Wars! We know you want to know more about the DLC, but we're going to take a small detour and talk about our previously teased update, Patch 1.1, which will be releasing alongside The Wolf Wars!

This update will be completely free for all Across the Obelisk players. For this Dev Diary, we’ll be taking an in-depth look at the two new zones, as well as the bosses you’ll encounter in them.



The Black Forge, a once powerful settlement the Dwarves built deep in the Volcano of Velkarath has long been sealed away. What led them to seal away this once great city? All will be revealed in time.

You and your friends may stumble upon the entrance of the lost abandoned city at the base of the Volcano, the looming Gates of the Black Forge barred and heated to the touch. Should your party tempt fate, seeking treasures and knowledge locked away, be prepared to fight the machinations the Dwarves left behind. From constructs to living crucibles, be ready to suffer the heat of the Velkarath’s Volcano given form! All the enemies within the Black Forge embody their environment, representative of the heat that helped forge them into existence.

As you reach the deepest depths of the Forge You'll come across a relic of a bygone era, a Machine of War left to rust.



DT-800, fueled by the flames of Velkarath’s Volcano is our Zone Boss for the Black Forge! Serving as a 4-piece Boss, you’ll need to quickly prioritize the order in which you dismantle DT-800 whilst managing the burn stacks he applies - gaining shielding for every stack of Burn you let linger upon your party!



Velkarath is not the only place with secrets hidden below the surface. Deep in the sewers below the Elven city of Faeborg lies a place where the Ratmen once settled. During the activation of the Obelisk, the descent of the Frost Calamity laid waste to the Sewers of Faeborg, freezing everything in its wake.

You’ll find two entrances into the Sewers of Faeborg: one locked by key, the likes of which you’ll learn to obtain on your own! The other, is a crack in Faeborg’s walls, leading to icy-waters that’ll see you descend into the Sewers. The skittering hordes of Ratmen, long frozen by the Frost Calamity are now under the command of Faeborg’s Dracomancers.

Yet not everything is under the Faeborg’s Dracomancers control, The once Great Rat King Ratone has escaped the freeze! King Ratone, benevolent in his own ways, may offer you a pact that you may choose to accept. The terms of Ratone’s offer are yours to discover on your own when the patch releases! Be warned - if you do not accept his offer, be prepared to fight. The Great King of Rats will not take your refusal lightly.



Blessed by the Frost Calamity, King Ratone embodies the elements of Frost and the “Curse” of the Ratmen. We wish our players the best of luck in taking on the challenges patch 1.1 presents! Join us at this time next week as we dive into what else we have lined up in the next free update coming to Across the Obelisk that we think you'll really be excited about. We promise that before we launch The Wolf Wars DLC, you'll get a full dev diary about that, too!

Thank you to everyone who continues to support our game! Be sure to join our Discord for future updates and announcements!

Across the Obelisk: The Wolf Wars Releasing March 30th

Greetings Adventurers!

On March 30th we’ll release our newest DLC, The Wolf Wars! Check out the trailer right here.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

This will accompany a free update we’ve been teasing that includes The Black Forge and Sewer sub-zones. Over the next few weeks, we’ll be releasing Dev Diaries that’ll talk more in-depth about what to expect coming up at the end of the month. If you’re not already part of our Discord community, you should probably join because we will share sneak peeks in the dev-showcase channel before anywhere else!

Wishlist Across the Obelisk: The Wolf Wars right here!
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2325780

Join our Discord: https://discord.gg/VuQKR2yVxC
Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/acrossobelisk

Dev Diary: An Amazing Year & Winter Sale Begins!

Greetings and salutations, mighty adventurers!

It has been a little while since we last sat around a campfire and regaled you with tales of our daring exploits and adventures in the world of Across the Obelisk’s development. We have been battling bug(bear)s, working to improve the quality of everyone’s lives, and bringing balance to the For… cards.

In our last dev diary, we talked about the upcoming content that we have been working on – which is still ongoing and has been the main focus of our time – So we've added a little sneaky, behind-the-scenes look at the boss and some minions later on in this dev diary! Rhin has been hard at work writing and designing the encounters in the new zones and a few new items that could become build-defining. More on that in the future, though.

Meanwhile, Hans has focused on doing battle with a combat log feature, making sure that it is in a state that is satisfying to use and has all the relevant information to keep abreast of what is happening in the battles that you fight. This is no small task, and there's still a lot left to be done! We're looking forward to being able to share our progress on this once we have a little more information.

That’s not all, though. Jjnicolart is working on some awesome new art that we can’t quite show you yet but we just know you will love it because we love it! All of the new zones, the bosses, and monsters along the way has been his amazing work so you know we are dying to show you. Soon you will see, we promise!

Of course, we have not forgotten about balancing the gameplay and cards, or working on the bugs that appear in the game, there’s a good amount of movement behind the scenes each day that is keeping us very busy right up until the holidays!

We will be taking a short break over the holidays to spend time with our families and loved ones because this is important for everyone. But don't fret, we will return to our adventures in early January to make sure we are keeping on track with our content goals and bringing you more cool things in the new year and beyond.

[h2]Before we show you the cool thing…[/h2]
We are excited and happy to say that we are part of the Steam Winter Sale happening right now, that means that if you are looking to recruit more adventurers in your quest to journey Across the Obelisk, or you simply wish to give someone the joy of our awesome little game, now is absolutely the time to do so! Both the base game (-25%) and Spooky Night in Senenthia DLC (-10%) are part of the Winter Sale right now.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1385380/Across_the_Obelisk/
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2168960/Across_The_Obelisk_Spooky_night_in_Senenthia/

[h2]The Cool Things![/h2]
Now, without further ado, let us show you what you really came here to see: The Black Forge’s boss!



That boss is cool, but we couldn’t let you go without giving you another little bonus sneak peek at new monster pets. They’re cute. They’re SUPER cute.



Also, because these little critters are so adorable, when they are available in the game we will be adding them to our Discord emojis list. 🥳

Until the next time, we want to tell you that we appreciate your love and support for our game. The dedication that our community shows each day is truly unique, and we want to wish you all a very, very happy holiday and new year. Whether you celebrate this holiday or not, it is a time to celebrate and share appreciation with those around you. We have had an incredible year because of you all, and that is the best gift we could ever receive.

Thank you, and happy new year!
- The ATO Team