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Dreamweaver’s Journal: August 2023

Hello everybody, welcome back to the Dreamweaver’s Journal, where we provide you with a brief update on the progress we've achieved with Dream Tactics! In this edition of the Journal, we aim to take you on a swift tour of one of the five worlds within the Dream World: the Coral Oasis.

[h2]The Coral Oasis[/h2]

Set far away in the furthest corner of Dream World lies the mysterious Coral Oasis. To the uninitiated, it seems like paradise found! With its white-sand beaches, perfect weather, and bountiful resources, who wouldn't want to live here? But this is the Dream World, and of course, there is a catch.

You see, once one sets foot into the oasis, they can never leave! Despite that, the Coral Oasis has a reputation for hiding the most prized and valuable treasure in all of the Dream World. This has inspired many treasure hunters and scholars to come and find the treasure, and perhaps learn about the mysterious civilizations that left it behind. It begs the question: is all the treasure to be found under its sandy shores worth the price of never being able to leave? I suppose that’s for each adventurer to answer for themselves. Regardless, in order to save the Dream World, you must venture deep within the Coral Oasis. With luck on your side, you may evade the fate that ensnared those who were once seduced by the oasis, finding themselves trapped in its sands for eternity.


[h2]Amber[/h2]

Amber ventured to the Coral Oasis, consumed by an unrelenting drive to unearth untold riches and discover the ultimate motherlode. Undaunted by the possibility of never departing from the oasis, she ascended the ranks among accomplished treasure hunters. She has gained considerable notoriety among the Oasis residents for her prowess and her remarkable ability to locate the most valuable treasures.


It's all about fire with Amber. Her fire-themed cards are some of the most powerful you will find. Not only is Amber a dominant damage dealer with her magical abilities, but nearly all of her cards have the additional effect of creating Scorched Earth tiles.



Scorched Earth applies fire to the tile underneath where a unit is standing. If a unit is standing on or walks into a Scorched Earth tile, they will receive a Burn debuff. Burn deals damage to the afflicted unit at the start of each turn proportional to the amount of INT that the caster of Scorched Earth has. The smarter Amber gets, the more damage Burn will do!

Amber is no doubt powerful, but beware, her power can sometimes get the best of her. You see, Amber’s Burn is able to damage her teammates! This catch is unique to Amber’s playstyle and those who wield her must take care not to cause too much harm to her teammates. However, Dream Tactics being a game based on builds and strategy, there may be ways to use Amber’s team damage to your advantage. But you will have to stay tuned for future editions of the Journal to learn more about that!

Each and every one of Amber's cards is powerful and will help you on your quest to save the Dream World. We wanted to take this opportunity and share with you a few of our favourites.

[h3]Fire Shot[/h3]
This card can be used to shoot a fireball far across the battlefield. If Amber is in Scorched Earth, this card's range doubles, allowing players to start fires in far off reaches of the battlefield



[h3]Wild Fire[/h3]
Unleashes a ferocious wave of flames that spreads Scorched Earth tiles to its neighbouring areas. This card allows Amber to create a blazing inferno, and playing multiple copies of it can quickly engulf the entire battlefield in flames, catching both enemies and allies in the crossfire.



[h3]Kindle[/h3]
This card amplifies damage by triggering a fiery explosion on the targeted enemy each time you deal damage. The amount of inflicted damage is proportionate to the INT stat of the unit responsible for playing the Kindle card. Given that Kindle inflicts damage every time the target takes damage, keen players will try to pair it with other cards capable of striking multiple times, thereby optimising the potency of Kindle's effect.


There is no denying that Amber ignites the battlefield with her fiery ferocity, but she is also a valuable support unit for her team.

With cards like Warmth and Extinguish at her disposal, Amber can heal her teammates to keep them in the fight. Additionally, Fire Swap can be used for additional movement by allowing her to swap places with an ally in Scorched Earth.



[h2]Treasure to be Found in The Oasis[/h2]

The Coral Oasis is known to hide the most valuable treasure in all of the Dream World, so of course you can expect to find powerful items here to help aid your quest.

[h3]Retaliator[/h3]
This item causes your unit to launch a counter-attack upon successfully evading an enemy attack. The damage inflicted during this counter-attack is directly proportional to the unit's Dexterity (DEX) attribute. By enhancing the wearer's Agility (AGI), the likelihood of evading incoming attacks is increased, thereby enhancing the overall effectiveness and dependability of the Retaliator.

[h3]Hiltless[/h3]
The unit equipped with this item suffers damage whenever they play a card. Initially, this might seem disadvantageous, but in Dream Tactics, numerous items exist that, when combined with Hiltless, can convert its drawback into your advantage.


Take for example Star Shield. When the unit wears Star Shield, they acquire a Tired debuff each time they take damage. This synergy can prove remarkably potent when paired with the Star Hammer card. Star Hammer's damage is increased with the quantity of Tired debuffs the unit possesses. Therefore, to fully exploit Star Hammer's potential, stacking as many Tired debuffs as possible is essential. An effective approach to achieve this synergy is by combining Hiltless with Star Shield.



That’s it for now. Stay tuned for future editions of the Journal where we will talk about more worlds and characters! If you would like to try Dream Tactics, we encourage you to download the demo. Also, feel free to join our Discord server if you have any questions for us. We are always happy to answer any inquiries and respond to all feedback. Before you go, don't forget to give Dream Tactics a wishlist! Your support will really help make Dream Tactics the best it can be.

Thanks for reading,
Spectra Entertainment

Steam Strategy Fest!

Hey everyone!

We're proud to announce that Dream Tactics is featured in the Steam Strategy Fest!

You can watch a pre-recorded developer stream here, as well as wishlist us (if you haven't already 😉 )

Thanks for your support, and dream on!

Dreamweaver’s Journal: July 2023

Hello everybody, welcome to Dreamweaver’s Journal, where we give you a quick update regarding all the progress we have made on Dream Tactics in the last month. The past few months have been incredibly exciting for us, especially since we have teamed up with our publishing partner, Freedom Games. We are thrilled to be working with them and are confident that this relationship will lead to great things for Dream Tactics.

With that said, here is what we have been working on!

[h3]1. New and Powerful Equipment:[/h3]

Create unique and powerful characters with the introduction of new build-enabling equipment!

In this month’s journal, we would like to showcase some of our favourites that we’ve been working on, such as Echo Hammer:



Echo Hammer is a strength-scaling item that creates a powerful shockwave when your unit moves as a result of a card effect. This item synergizes perfectly with cards like Hop and Slide, which will move your unit to a new tile, triggering the item’s effect. This will allow players to build characters with high mobility without compromising on their damage!



[h3]2. Meet the New Heroes:[/h3]

The art team has been working on the character portraits and designs of two of our unlockable characters:

  • Amber the Pyromancer: A treasure hunter focused on finding the motherlode. Amber’s playstyle is focused around setting the ground on-fire, dealing burning damage to engulfed enemies.
  • Willow the Summoner: A master of both the dark arts and science. Willow can summon pillows to assist your party in combat, and wields powerful ice magic.


We plan on going into more detail about these characters and their unique mechanics in future development updates.



[h3]3. Smarter Enemies:[/h3]

Prepare for more challenging encounters! We've improved the enemy AI, making battles more dynamic and rewarding.



[h3]4. A Window to Progress:[/h3]

We’ve added a preview to each area of the Nexus which displays your progress in collecting chests and breakables. This clear sense of achievement and completion will keep you motivated on your quest and allow you to know if you have collected everything.



[h3]5. Protecting Your Progress:[/h3]

Accidental overwriting of save files can be frustrating, but fear not! We've implemented the ability to lock save files. With this feature, you can choose to lock a save file, making it impossible for you to accidentally overwrite it.



[h3]6. Saving and Loading Improvements:[/h3]

We've enhanced the performance of both the saving and loading processes, ensuring that in-combat saves are now faster and more reliable than ever before.

[h3]7. Banishing Bugs:[/h3]

Our team has been on a bug-hunting spree, and we've successfully squashed tons of these pesky critters. The game is now more polished and stable, providing a smoother gameplay experience for all players.

[h3]8. Presenting our Identity:[/h3]

We've added a splash screen that proudly showcases our studio logo alongside the logo of our publishing partner, Freedom Games.

That’s it for now. Stay tuned for future editions of the Journal! If you would like to try Dream Tactics, we encourage you to download the demo. Also, feel free to join our Discord server if you have any questions for us. We are always happy to answer any inquiries and respond to all feedback. Before you go, don't forget to give Dream Tactics a wishlist! Your support will really help make Dream Tactics the best it can be.

Thanks for reading,
Spectra Entertainment

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1897650/Dream_Tactics/

Publisher Announcement ✨

Hello everyone!

We are proud to announce that Dream Tactics is now being published by Freedom Games. For those of you who may not know, a game publisher can take care of a lot of the business and marketing side of releasing a game. That includes managing our store pages, marketing and advertising the game, helping showcase the game at both digital and live events, PR, and a lot more. Working together with Freedom allows us to focus on making the game the best it can be and provides us with the resources to do so. We’re very excited to see what this brings for us as devs, and for you as fans of Dream Tactics!

You may also be concerned about horror stories of publishers ruining the vision of a game or forcing arbitrary restrictions on the dev team. For Freedom, that couldn't be further from the truth. Freedom has been a great partner to us, only enhancing and supporting our vision. We were very careful when considering whether to go with a publisher or not, and selected Freedom because they are committed to our vision of the game, and only want to see it reach its full potential as we see it. We maintain complete creative and development control, and Freedom wouldn’t have it any other way!

Thank you for your continued support, as always, and we’re looking forward to what our new partnership with Freedom will bring!

That being said, we’re always happy to answer any questions and chat about Dream Tactics! Feel free to join our Discord and check us out on Twitter to connect with us and the rest of the Dream Tactics community!

Thanks for reading,
Spectra Entertainment

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1897650/Dream_Tactics/

Version 0.2.8 Demo Patch Notes

New Features
  • The Merchant: This pillow will accompany Neru throughout her journey, allowing players to buy and sell items more frequently.
  • Separation of EP into Red and Blue points: Equipment will now cost either Red or Blue EP to equip, depending on whether the item is offensive or defensive.
  • New and Improved Level Up Flow: Stat increases from leveling will now be shown for each unit after combat.
  • Saving in Combat: Players can now save and exit the game in the middle of a fight, allowing them to load back in to play it later.
  • Hardcore Difficulty: Permadeath for veterans of the genre! Be wary, as once selected, this difficulty cannot be changed.
Balance


[h2]Cards[/h2]
  • Carrot Missile: Redesigned. Now, if the unit is on top of a carrot from Harvest, this card will always deal a critical hit.
  • Star Hammer: Now scales off of both STR and INT and removes only 1 stack of Tired instead of all of them.
  • Wake: Improved INT stat scaling from 60 -> 75.
  • Joust: Reduced the damage bonus per tile moved from 10% -> 5%.
  • Lullaby: Changed rarity from Rare -> Common. Neru now starts with 4 Lullaby instead of 2.
  • Star Slam: Changed rarity from Common -> Rare. Neru now starts with 2 Star Slams instead of 4.

[h2]Equipment[/h2]
  • Dagger of Dusk: Now gives +3 INT, +3 DEX.
  • Luna's Lunch Box: Now costs 3 Red EP instead of 4.

[h2]Status Effects[/h2]
  • Initiation Stance: Now gives +10% STR.
  • Follow-Up Stance: Now gives +10% DEX.
  • Tired: Reduced the amount of DEX and AGI lost per stack from -20% -> -10%.

[h2]Characters[/h2]
  • Buffed the stat growths of Neru, Luna, and Sophie.
  • Increased the initial amount of Trade Points from 10 to 15.
Misc
  • Save and Load Menu now defaults to the current save slot instead of always the first one.
  • Sophie now comes with starting equipment: Short Sword and Life Orb.
  • Stats shown in the Party Menu now represent the unit's base stats instead of their grand total, including equipment.
  • Improved card targeting behavior.
  • Adjusted the versioning scheme of the game.