Of Blades & Tails News

Hey everyone!

This is the next big chapter for Of Blades & Tails, which adds a new region to the world, allows you to modify your equipment and offers a few surprises for the brave explorers.

Please refer to the last preview post to learn more about the new content and how the added mechanics work.

[h2]Changelog v0.16.0[/h2]

[h3]Equipment Modifications[/h3]

You can now extract item mods and reuse them on your preferred equipment.
Visit any crafting NPC like blacksmiths or carpenters to use this mechanic.
The whole process is also described in detail here.

[h3]Game World[/h3]

• The game world has been expanded to the north.
  
• A new region has been added: Levendell - Home of the Deer Tribe
  
• Several new NPCs have been added.
  
• A new autumn-based forest biome has been added.
  
• New music tracks have been added.
  
• A new secret region has been added.
  
• A new puzzle mechanic has been added.
  
• Several new dungeons have been added.
  
• Several new types or variations of existing enemies have been added.
  
• New enemies now often have a perk, which can modify their behavior.
  
• New locations have been added: Wasp Hives
  
• New locations have been added: Marksman Camps
  
• The Abandoned Bonfire spot just north of the Haunted Forest has been replaced with a Deer Guard Camp.
  

[h3]Quests[/h3]

• 2 quests have been added to Levendell.
  
• 1 quest has been added to the Deer Innkeeper south of the Haunted Forest.
  

[h3]Items & Equipment[/h3]

• A new type of item has been added: Artifacts
  Their occurance in the game is limited to only a few. The first one can now be found.
  
• A legendary item has been added: Leggings of Beast Banishing
  
• A legendary item has been added: Wasp Stinger
  
• New lore about the human age has been added.
  
• A new Material category has been added to the inventory that is used for extracted item mods.
  

[h3]UI, Controls & Accessibility[/h3]

• Improve inventory performance when new items are added.
  
• Quest rewards are now listed in the message log.
  
• A new icon on the enemy info tooltip (bottom right) will indicate if the enemy has a perk.
  You can then see the perk details when inspecting the enemy.
  
• A small arrow will now indicate better who is talking during a dialoque.
  
• A hint about the Shovel shortcut key has been added to the Treasure Hunt help section.
  

[h3]Achievements[/h3]

3 achievements have been added:

• Modifier
  
• Catch me if you can
  
• Legacy of the Enchanter
  

[h3]Balancing and Fixes[/h3]

• Crit and dodge chance both have been limited to max 75%.
  
• All gatherables in the fox village are now persisted permanently.
  
• Fixed an issue with setting paths in overview mode while the 'hold to move' option is enabled.
  
• Fixed a potential game lock in relation with game menu (ESC) and entity detail view.
  
• Fixed a rare situation where certain quest NPCs would not give all rewards.
  
• Fixed an issue with 0 travel cost if player has no stack of Bug Meat in inventory.
  
• Several smaller fixes.
  
• Improved several translations.
  

[h3]Community Translations[/h3]

Our community added support for the the following languages:

• Chinese (simplified)
  
• Russian
  

[h3]Savegame Compatibility[/h3]

Savegames from version 0.15.x are compatible.

[hr][/hr]

[h2]What's next[/h2]

I will most likely prepare another minor update next, which could contain a new talent line and some UI improvements. Nothing set in stone yet. I'll sort things out within the next week.
What's more certain is the content of World Expansion III: It will feature the home of the boar tribe and a thrilling combat arena! If my theories will work out as expected it might(!) even feature Steam Leaderboards... But I'm not able to promise yet... Just a wild idea (and another teaser) ;)

If you enjoy your time with Of Blades & Tails and the new contents, then please consider writing a short Steam review. It really helps the game to grow and reach more players :)

Until next time, take care everyone!

Felix

Hey everyone!

Disclaimer up front: This preview post is going to be a short one :) At least compared to the others...
I'm still in the middle of content creation and can't show you all the things in detail. However, I figured it's about time to give you all a little insight on what I have planned for the next update 0.16!

[h2]Equipment Modifications[/h2]

Even though Update 0.16 will be focused on adding new content, there will be also a new mechanic introduced: Modification of your equipment!



This means you'll be able to extract stats from equipment items and put them on another item.

Here's an example:
Let's say you're playing a Quarterstaff/Crossbow/Athletics build. You just defeated this creepy insect boss in that dungeon and the loot contains a heavy armor helmet, that has +Dexterity.
Well, +Dexterity is great, but heavy armor is not what you're looking for!
Thankfully, most crafting NPCs are now able to modify the stats on your equipment. So you take the heavy armor nonetheless and give it to the local blacksmith. They can extract the +Dexterity bonus, which will destroy the heavy armor, but you'll receive the +Dexterity modification as a new material in your inventory.
So you decide to do just that and then pick your beloved crossbow, which already has great stats, but you very much prefer an extra dexterity bonus instead of the +Combat Exp bonus that is on the crossbow right now. The blacksmith will gladly use your extracted +Dexterity material and replaces the +Combat Exp bonus with it. This replacement will cost you a small fee to the blacksmith, but your crossbow will be much more awesome now!

TL;DR: Here's a 1 min video that shows the new modification process :D
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nz14XHK5rrk

There are also some restrictions:
- You can't modify Legendary items. They are somewhat unique and their stats are fixed.
- You can't add more stats to an item. You can only replace existing stats. The number of item stats is defined by the item's quality.

I'm really looking forward to this addition because it will hopefully make some unfortunate loot drops, much less unfortunate and gives you more freedom to tweak your build :)



[h2]Levendell and the Autumn Forests[/h2]

The Home of the Deer Tribe and the surrounding areas will be the next stop on our Road through Early Access Valley.
It will feature a colorful, autumn-inspired biome and new music tracks!



It's also in extreme contrast to the dark and eerie Haunted Forest, so squint your eyes if you leave it heading north in the future! ;)





The village Levendell is almost ready, but there's still much work to be done when it comes to filling the new region with meaningful content.



So that's why I will just share these few impressions with you but can't dive deeper into any more details right now.


[h3]What else to expect?[/h3]

What you can expect is of course more of the things that you'll probably already love about the game:

- New enemies with different traits
- New puzzle mechanics
- New secrets
- New locations
- New legendary items
- New side quests

The storyline quest will most likely not continue with this update. I would like to wait until all the world content is set up and in a good shape, before making the next steps here.
That was the original strategy anyway, so I hope you're okay with that. It just makes more sense for me to put it together once all the mechanics are in the game.


[h2]Official Wiki[/h2]

You may be interested to know that our Discord community has already started working on an Of Blades & Tails Wiki!
It already includes a list of all legendary items and their locations, how to solve certain secrets and quests, and a few more things!

Wiki: https://of-blades-and-tails.fandom.com/wiki/


Everyone is welcome to jump in and add content! There are many things still missing, but I believe it's a very good starting point and can help players who want to experience 100% of the game or struggle with that one thing :)


[h2]Update 0.16 when?[/h2]

Right now I'm expecting to release it mid May.
Plus I can already assure you that current savegames will be 100% compatible (as always so far ;)).

I hope you're happy with the things I introduced in this preview post, even though it was a short one. Would love to read your thoughts in the comments!

Until next time, take care everyone!

Felix

• Fixed an issue with water tiles in the "closed bridge" level that could cause the player to get stuck.
  
• Fixed an issue where player summons spawned globally instead of in the current level.
  
• Enforced regular font for turkish language since the default pixel font doesn't support all characters.
  
• Updated and fixed translation strings.
  

• Fixed potential visual issue with Reik during level transitions.
  
• Added missing translations for Turkish.
  
• Updated several other translations.
  

• Spawned enemy healing plants will (again) wait 1 turn before preparing their healing ability.
  
• Disabled exp gain for any spawned entities (enemy and allies).
  
• Fixed some localization issues.
  
• Fixed translator name in credits.