Mage Tower: Call of Zadeus News

(Quick hotfix.)

-Fixed an issue where a change from the previous patch was causing Miniboss monsters to not be shuffled near the bottom of the monster deck like they should be.

Hey all, welcome to the New Player Experience patch! This patch is all about making the game more fun and intuitive for new players. In the past few months we've spent dozens of hours watching our friends and family play, while we take notes. We've used that experience to fix a lot of little things that confuse new players.

There are also some new cards, some performance enhancements, and lots of bug fixes. Let's get into it!

[h2]New Animations[/h2]

While the game had a lot of animations to show the player what was going on, many effects still lacked visual indicators. This could lead to the player playing a card, then being unsure about what exactly it did. In this patch we fix that by adding a ton of new animations to communicate the game's effects better to the player. Remember... "Show, don't tell!":

Level Up Cards



Gamestart Effects



Banishing Monsters



Bosses Now Appear and Chase You!



[h2]Huge Card Text Revamp + Tooltips[/h2]

Almost every card's text was rewritten. New keywords were added, unnecessary stuff was removed, and everything just makes a lot more sense! We've also added card tooltips to help make things more clear!:



Toxic Flood used to have so much text that its text box covered part of the artwork. Now its effects have been condensed into three simple keywords that the player sees often. This lets the player immediately recognize what the card does without having to reread a bunch of text.

[h2]New Cards[/h2]

This patch also introduces some new Black Market cards, and a Legendary card!



Ferocity makes arrows do more arrows! Very good for monster kill!



This Legendary card can only be found in dungeons, and lets you use your class's Battle Skill more often. This can drastically alter your deck's strategy.



It's finally time to put that all-Battlement deck together!

More Complex Cards (for advanced players!)



Some spells deal with magic so forbidden that they tend to Attract Attention. Illegal duplication magic is of that sort, though it IS tempting to fill your hand with Venom Blasts...



You can't wield the lost blade without Attracting Attention from the Insidious Four. The blade is incredibly overpowered, but can you fight off those who wish to steal it from you?

[h2]Performance Improvements[/h2]

The patch also has performance improvements. The game should now use less memory, and there is an option to turn off effects so that it uses even less. This may make the game work better on some devices.

The full Patch 2.0.2.2 Patch Notes can be found here: Pach 2.0.2.2 Notes

[h2]2024 Roadmap[/h2]



Here is our tentative Roadmap from now until the 1.0 release! As you can see we are getting close, we just have to implement Kickstarter rewards, a few features, and fill out the game with additional cards/events/potions/enemies/etc.

After that's done who knows? We might see a new card pool, or maybe some (non-DLC) expansions, or perhaps even a new mode with a new card combat system. We're excited to see where the game takes us!

Until next time!

-Brett Brimmer
supermegagames.net

This patch is designed to enhance the New Player Experience. It also improves performance, and adds some new cards!

New Cards

-1 new Legendary card added: Fount of Sorcery.
-5 new Black Market cards added: Ferocity, Last Stand, Lost Blade of Erimos, Lightning Grove, and Architect.

New Player Experience

(We've added new features and animations that better communicate to the player what is going on in the game.)

-Card tooltips have been added! There are tooltips for most major effects (Arrow Damage, Poison, Enflame, etc.) Some effects that had no keyword are now keyworded.
-When your deck is empty and your discard pile is shuffled into it, you'll now see the cards fly out from your discard pile and into your deck.
-Removing a monster from the monster deck with a card like Banish now makes the monster pop out of the deck, float, then disappear. (Like with Enflame cards.)
-Level Up animations now have an animation when they level up.
-Barrel Toss, Fermented Grimberries, Drakkan Twinblade, and some new cards have new visual effects at the start of battle that show you the cards they're creating for you.
-When a boss appears there will be some visual effects, and the boss will appear up and chase you down. (Previously you'd just be sent to a static pre-battle screen, which could be confusing.)

Card Text Updates (Also part of the New Player Experience)

-Text was changed on most cards to simplify wordings, or to add keywords. Too many changes to list everything here, but the changes should be intuitive, especially along with the new card tooltips.
-Any card that is one-use-per-battle now has the "Deplete" keyword instead of the "Void Stone" icon. (The icon didn't end up being as intuitive as a keyword for most players.)
-All Wizardry cards were changed to Ability cards and given the "Deplete" keyword.
-All Treasure cards were changed to Ability cards and given the "Unplayable" keyword.
-"Permanent" cards had the name of their card type changed to "Ongoing Effect". (A "Permanent" is a long-lasting hair wave produced by mechanical and chemical means.)
-Arrow Damage is now worded as "Deal X Arrow Damage" instead of "Deal X damage —>." This should make the syntax more understandable for new players. It also makes more logical sense to read out loud as it's written. It's also easier to remember what it's called, since the term "Arrow Damage" is only mentioned in the tutorial.
-"Hulking" (the ability that said a monster is immune to Destroy/Transform/Purge effects) was removed. This keyword was confusing since it introduced *three* additional keywords to describe itself, without defining those keywords. The few cards that cared about Hulking were reworded so they still can't hit big monsters. Essentially we saved a lot of text box space, removed a confusing keyword, and the gameplay is pretty much the same.
-The term "removed from the game" is no longer used. Instead, the term "removed from this battle" is used.

Performance

-Many unused sprites were deleted so that the game uses less memory and runs smoother.
-A new setting was added to the Settings menu called "Disable Glow Effects". It disables animations for things like cards glowing, zadeus tentacles glowing and animating, and more. Using this setting will make the game use less memory and may make load times faster. It also may make the game work better on devices where it formerly had issues. This is just the start of future performance options.

Card Changes

-Golden Golem now has an extra effect: If it's discarded from your hand, you gain 1 gold.
-Gate Guard (a Black Market card previously called Strong Man) has had its health increased by 3. (It's now a 0/7 instead of a 0/4.)
-Cosmigorius now deals 6 damage to all non-angry monsters instead of destroying them. (Generally intended as a buff compared to the previous build, since before it couldn't hit large/"Hulking" monsters, and now it can.)

Mastery Changes

(The TLDR here is that there was too big a difficulty jump from Mastery 4 to 5, so we're making Mastery 5 a little easier.)

-Masteries 5+: Enemies no longer spawn faster. Enemies are no longer more aggressive. Your starting gold will not be reduced more than it was at Mastery 4.
-Instead of buffing "normal" enemies at Mastery 5, we're now buffing boss/elite enemies at Mastery 5, and moving the "normal" enemy buffs back to Mastery 6. This is to make Mastery 5 easier since "normal" enemies were already buffed at Mastery 4, so doing it twice in a row made things really tough.

Other Changes

-The Bazaar's Black Market cards had their costs reduced from 300 Bloodrunes to a range of 225-300 Bloodrunes.
-Bazaars now sell 4 non-Black market cards instead of 5.
-Cosmigorius and Irko's Tome are unlockable again, through the Beastiary achievements. (They were not unlockable for a while due to an oversight.)
-Artwork was updated on many cards. Black Market cards were originally going to be themed around a demonic carnival, but we decided not to go with that theme. So the art and names of those cards were updated to traditional fantasy.
-Slay and Stupefy, which can be used on Goblins, can now also be used on Goblin Blowpipers and Goblin Guards. (Monsters in the Cave Goblins fight.)
-You can no longer get Fara's Commnad as a random starting rare card. (Some very niche cards like this are excluded.)
-Irko's Gift now asks if you're sure when you pick a card to remove from the battle.
-Reality Shift can no longer duplicate Wisp (a card you get from an artifact.)
-Some cards that have several other cards associated with them (such as Irko's Tome, Argatamos's Bargain, and Lost Blade of Erimos) now show those cards on mouseover. Also, Irko's Tome will only show which "Irko's" cards are left so you know which ones you'll get to pick from.
-Build was replaced with the identical card Gem Mine. This was just so we could use Build's art for the new Architect card since it was such a good fit.
-The names of the game speeds were changed from "Normal/Fast/Very Fast/Super Fast" to "Very Slow/Slow/Normal/Fast". Since the 3rd speed is the default it made more sense for that to be "Normal".

Enemy Changes

-Enchantress's "Cold Snap" card now only gives Frost Drakes +1/+1 instead of +3/+3. (Frost Drakes are already powerful, and giving them +3/+3 was too often a run-ending effect. Frost Drakes are annoying enough without it.)

Notable Bug Fixes

-Fixed a bug that was preventing the player from drinking Health Potions at the Bazaar and on some other screens.
-Fixed a bug where Ferocity Serum on Beast Companion caused the companion to not heal at end of turn.

Minor Bug Fixes

-Hunter's "Time Stop" will now update your "Death Imminent" status after you play it.
-Fixed an issue where, when the card Rogue's Dagger showed up as a dungeon reward, it showed a picture of a non-existent artifact instead.
-Fixed a bug where the cards from Search wouldn't be aligned correctly.
-Fixed a bug where monsters would continue walking around while you were at an Event.
-Fixed an issue where Bazaars, Events, and Obelisks were only spawning on the bottom half of the map, and could occasionally spawn outside the map.
-Fixed an issue where map locations (towns/bazaars/obelisks/etc.) were able to spawn top of each other.
-Fixed an issue where the glow around Stalwart Knight when it levelled up was the wrong size.
-Fixed Outpost and Otherworldly Draught tooltips saying they'd work in Elite battles.
-Fixed an issue where Poison Daggers said it dealt Enflame damage equal to double the Poison on the monster board instead of just the amount of Poison (i.e. there is no doubling.)
-Fixed a bug where Poison Bomb could damage The Tidebringer.
-Fixed a soft lock that could happen if you tried to play a Poison card while the only monster on the board was The Tidebringer.
-Fixed a bug where the game log said Poison damage was happening at the end of your turn instead of the start.
-Fixed a bug where Artifacts could be attached to Flame Blast, causing them to be lost. (Flame Blast is received from an artifact and can't be upgraded or enhanced with artifacts.)
-Fixed an issue where the message telling you to pick a card from Lost Cities would say the wrong card count.
-Fixed a bug where Enhance Magic would cause costless cards to say they now costed 8.
-Fixed a bug where when trying to play an Equipment card with no Defenders in play it would incorrectly say "Not Enough Energy".
-Fixed a bug where Irko's Gift could soft lock the game if you used it while your deck and hand were otherwise empty.
-Fixed an isssue where Constellation Mirror's tooltip went off-screen on the dungeon clue screen if it was a dungeon reward.
-Fixed an issue where Ice Strider would incorrectly say it was removing a card from your deck when your deck and discard pile were empty.
-Fixed a bug where the "Poison" icon on a monster card would be misaligned if the monster had Slow as well.
-Fixed an issue where Element Cannon couldn't be activated if the closest monster was a monster that used to have the "Hulking" ability.
-Fixed a bug where monsters who had received an attack bonus were having their attack bonus calculuted twice when checking if your death is imminent.
-Fixed a bug where River Stalker and Grimgut's Maul damage wasn't counting when deciding whether death is imminent.
-Fixed a bug where Brewmaster's Boast ability to fight a harder enemy didn't work against Glade Nymph.
-Fixed 20+ more minor bugs not listed here.

Hey all, I'm temporarily reverting the Steam build to version 2.1.2.1.6. Versions 2.1.2.1.7 and 2.1.2.1.8 were mostly UI enhancements and minor changes so there won't be a huge difference.

This is because the UI enhancements weren't ready and caused the tutorial to break and caused some crash bugs. I thought I could release the patch for the minor balance changes but the UI features should have been tested more.

2.1.2.1.6 is very stable and has had many many hours of testing. I've personally watched someone play over 40 hours on this version and it works great and is stable.

A new more well-tested update with all the UI enhancements from 2.1.2.1.7 and 2.1.2.1.8 (and more) will be coming in the next few weeks.

(Small patch, mostly to fix a crash bug.)

Major Bug Fixes

-Fixed a crash bug that could happen very rarely when playing a card.

Quality of Life

-New visuals and sound fx were added for when you level up a "Level Up" card.