Slaves of Magic News

[p]Hello Everyone!

I'm happy to announce our release date, with a new trailer:[/p][p][/p][previewyoutube][/previewyoutube][p][/p][p]In addition, as the demo has not been updated for quite some time, it does not represent the current state of the game. As we would want to focus fully on the release version rather than updating the demo, it will be removed from the store on 2025.08.19.[/p]

Hello Everyone!

I'm quickly getting the bad news out of the way, we sadly won't be able to hit our Q2 release date goal, so I've delayed it to Q3. But fear not, we are on track with the game itself to be feature complete by the end of the month.

One of the reasons for the delay is to give ourselves a bit of time to test/fine-tune the full game with all of its features together, (plus to implement Steam achievements and support cloud saves). The other is that I want to give enough time for reviewers to try out the game, to try and build a bit of momentum ahead of our release.

Now with this out of the way, I can show you our progress since our Steam Next Fest demo:

[h2]Magic system is fully implemented[/h2]

All of the spells in the game have been implemented. Check out some of the flashier ones:




To combat the strength of these spells, we introduced a magic resistance statistic that gives damage reduction against damaging spells and a percentage chance to miss against debuffs. Higher-tier lighter armors will be better in this regard than their heavier counterparts.




Of course, the resistance will be able to learn these spells as well, for a considerable amount of etherglow and research time investment! The order in which the resistance can research the 3 magic schools is randomized per campaign, increasing variety.

[h2]New rogue school[/h2]

Speaking of variety, we have implemented a new regular school called rogue that focuses on a new condition called concealed.




Concealed units are only targetable by enemy units that started their turn next to them, making this a very strong defensive condition, especially against ranged foes. But it doesn't help against area of effect skills, plus the unit automatically loses it at the start of the round if inside an enemy line of sight.

This of course, means the Dark Elves have been reworked to incorporate this school, making them able to properly sneak around the battlefield! Plus, we now have enough school types to give every region on the campaign map two schools instead of one.

[h2]Invader base assault[/h2]

Invader bases are no longer immune to the resistance. It is now possible to learn how to assault these bases and take the fight to the enemy's turf. The resistance's goal in these missions is to quickly find and turn off the defense systems, then assassinate the "pilot" of these structures. Not to mention, exploring these strange structures from the inside could give a glimpse of what is happening behind the scenes.



[h2]Closing thoughts[/h2]

So that's it for today's devlog! We are getting very close to finishing this project, we just need a little bit of extra time to be able to deliver in a way we intended. Hopefully, the next time you hear from us will be the announcement of our exact release date, with a new final trailer! If you have any questions, feel free to join our Discord here.

This is a small patch, addressing the feedback we have received so far on the demo.

• Highlighted the supply chests for better visibility.
  
• Fixed a bug that prevented the retrieval of a supply chest at the start of the round if there was a successful retrieval in the previous round.
  
• Units now correctly face the supply chest when they start the chest retrieving process.
  
• Gave a hint where the player can find the rebel base in the objective description.
  
• Slightly changed the font to make + and - more distinct.
  

This small update fixes bugs that have been found since the previous patch.

• Fixed displaced animation for raising redeemed.
  
• Fixed a visual bug that if a character ends their turn when they have remaining action points but no skill to use, they still had outlines like an unactivated character.
  
• Fixed that constrained units couldn't be helped by allies that moved next to them after being constrained (for example by web).
  
• Fixed passive AI enemies for 1 turn when the player is the one that moves into their sight range while they were not active.
  
• Corrected the colors of the sand on the desert map to properly blend together.
  
• No longer automatically ending turn when a character has zero stamina, rather only if the unit has no skills to activate. This fixes the Ork Shaman who couldn't use their tireless rage skill with 0 stamina.
  
• The race of the recruits generated now only depends on which regions the player has bases in rather than requiring training centers. This should increase the different types of portaits used in general.
  

[h2]New features:[/h2]

• Finished acid rain animation:
  
• Finished adding dynamic lighting for all spells.
  
• Spells no longer cause blood on target where it does not make sense.
  
• Added wall ruins for destroyed walls.
  
• As the temperate map was the first map created, it has received a bit of a visual rework to be more on par with the rest of the maps.
  
• Made the last base attack mission slightly easier as only the rank 4 army will conduct it instead of the hardest rank 5.
  

[h2]Bugfixes:[/h2]

• Fixed the bug that caused the player's last unit to not be able to use its second action in specific situations.
  
• Fixed missing hammer for dwarf soldiers.
  
• Fixed that the acid rain skill could destroy cave walls in the rebel base.
  
• Rephrased a few descriptions for clarity.