Ghostlore News

Hey everyone, we are back with a new update, bringing about a ton of exciting new improvements and content to the game.


The new map once again takes place in Seaport itself, this time bringing you underground, deep into the heart of darkness…

…well, actually, the map ends in a pretty awkward place. This mission, being the penultimate story mission, is supposed to lead directly into the final mission. But the final mission isn’t ready yet. So the ending to this one is a little placeholder-y right now. Please bear with us as we work to finish the final mission, which should be out by next month.

[h2]New Enemy: Aphotic Lurkers[/h2]
We also have a new enemy to go with this sewer-themed area:

These new enemies are swordfish. Geddit? Fish? With swords? Hahahaha... Okay, sorry about that. These ferocious creatures are based on the swordfish found in the famous Singapore legend of Red Hill.



We are also providing a bunch of cool new features that are meant to improve the user experience, based on player feedback.

[h2]Shared Stash[/h2]
We finally have a shared stash, allowing you to transfer items between characters:

[h2]Gem Pouch[/h2]
For those who still struggle with inventory clutter, there is a gem pouch that you can purchase to store your gems away:


Work will continue on the UI. Some players have mentioned that the stat descriptions can be a little bit ambiguous, so the next thing on my agenda is clearer descriptions for stats, and possibly a way to filter/organise them. This is something that I will have to work closely with the programmer Adam.

To give a bit of insight into how we work: I (Andrew) do the art, and Adam does the code. The game design, however, is a shared duty between the both of us.

For example, for the level design I would build various segments of the map, while Adam’s procedural generation algorithm connects them together. For systems design, I would give broad ideas of how things like the glyph system and skill upgrades should function, and then leave the maths to Adam. Occasionally, things will not quite add up, so Adam might tweak certain mechanics to ensure a more balanced and satisfying play experience.

This has resulted in embarrassing situations where players on the Discord will ask me how certain things get calculated, and honestly, I don’t know! You have to ask Adam. But nevertheless, with clearer stat descriptions, hopefully these questions will be put to rest.


The scaling of the Hospital map has been adjusted, and the ectoplasms will not split so much any more. This is to solve the issue of the hospital map being very laggy for some players. If any of you are still encountering this, please let us know.


Based on player demand, we have decided to significantly extend our project scope to include more post game and side content. Here is a sneak preview:
I’ll leave it to you to google what ‘Orang Bunian’ is ;)

Remember Nadir mentioned something early on about an ‘Institute of Paranormal Studies’? Well, let’s just say you’ll get to pay a visit...

So rest assured, we have a clear direction on how we want to expand the game and provide a more varied experience. Do note, however, that these new features are still in the planning stages and might get adjusted along the way. We got one last story map to go, and then we will focus on these. Till next time!

Andrew

Hi all,

We are glad to see that people are enjoying Ghostlore. Presently, we are hard at work developing the game in accordance to our early access plans.




We have just released another new map, Batu Sinaran. Batu Sinaran continues the main narrative of the game, and will be added into the pool of maps in endless Hell Gate mode.



When we initially released Ghostlore with 6 locations, we mentioned that we are 60% done. With the addition of the Hospital in the previous update and with Batu Sinaran in this one, this brings us to 8/10 of the planned locations. A number of people have expressed that this means the narrative is quite short. This is intended; As a first-timer when it comes to writing a videogame, I decided I wanted to keep the story simple.

That being said, since you guys have asked, I have started to think of some ideas for new content. These ideas will expand the lore of the game and will require brand-new art assets. I also will need some time to propose these ideas to the people working with me, and even more time to implement/refine them. I hope to be able to share these ideas with you in the near future.




We are aware that the tooltips for some items, especially legendary items, could sometimes end up being larger that the screen space, which results in information being cut off. Because of this, we have decided to switch to using a more compact font.



This is just one of the many quality-of-life changes we have on the list for the UI. In the coming days, I hope to be able to re-look at the UI and clean up some of the other issues, for a smoother and better experience.




Those of you who are observant might've realized there have been some subtle changes to the visuals over the past few weeks. Basically, the colours for some of the objects have been edited to look more cohesive. Post processing has been tweaked to be easier on the eyes as well. Overall, the game now looks more naturalistic and less like (as someone on Reddit had said previously) 'a technicolor bomb had just went off'. This was actually a pretty serious issue as some people were reporting eye-strain with how strong some of the colours were. Doing this was a lot trickier than one might imagine, different screens are calibrated differently and the game must look good on all of them. It was the result of a great deal of trial and error.

During this time I also took the chance to add some new props and brush up some of the old ones. I was looking at pictures of old Singapore to see how I can make it more evocative of the locale and time period. This is an ongoing effort, new props and set pieces will eventually be added to the maps to better flesh out the world of Ghostlore.

In addition, there is a new shader effect that makes the grass and plants sway gently in the breeze. It's a pretty cool effect that this gif does not give any justice to, so do try the game to see for yourself. We have also improved the lighting for light sources in game and adjusted the lighting at night.



Well, that's all for now. Please look forward to more updates and as always, you can reach out to us via our Discord or Twitter.

- Andrew

Hey everybody,

We're excited to announce that Ghostlore will be taking part in the Indie Live Expo! This is a huge global showcase of indie games which has a combined more than 42.5 million viewers across four shows to date. The event will be simulcast over YouTube, Twitch, and Twitter in English, Japanese, and Chinese.

To celebrate this, Ghostlore will be sale for the next seven days! Don't miss out this chance to get it while it is on discount.



[h3]GAME UPDATES[/h3]
To give a small update, Adam has been working on the sprite importer for modding, as well as other quality of life changes and bug fixes. You can expect that to go out into the Beta branch some time during the Discount week. The documentation for modding is pretty lacking (i.e nonexistent) right now, but you can always head to our Discord to ask us directly on how to use the modding tools.

We hope to be able to provide monthly updates going forward. By the end this month, there should be a new map and a re-look at some of the UI. After that, for the next month, we would be focusing on side content. Thank you.