Keeper's Toll News

Hi everyone,

Thank you for all the feedback on our latest update! I wanted to push a small update out that addressed a few things mainly for the Ranger. There will be a lot more in next week's build, but I just wanted to get this live for the time being. Enjoy!

- Ranger: When mouse hovering above the skills on the pause menu, the correct ability names and descriptions will now be displayed
- Ranger: Fixed a rare bug when loading a marked target into the world that would spawn incorrect enemy types
- Ranger: Soul Arrow should no longer consume red souls while the Corrupted Souls curse is active
- Ranger: Updated ability text descriptions
- Ranger: Reduced the idle time needed to set an explosive trap by 15%
- Sacrifices altars will no longer deactivate if the player declines to sacrifice health
- Usvit Depths: Albino Gator - Reduced damage by 10% and attack range by 25%

Stingbot

Hello, fellow adventurers!

Exciting news awaits in the realm of Soul Survivors! We’ve just achieved a major milestone in our Early Access journey with the arrival of version 0.5.0. This update brings you an all-new character class: The Ranger. If you thrive on lightning-fast heroes armed with rapid-fire skills, then the Ranger might be for you.

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Our character classes are akin to those found in classic RPGs like Diablo, each boasting a distinctive play style. No sharing abilities, mechanics, talents, or stats between characters.

Unlike the Bogatyr and Necromancer, the Ranger operates by an entirely different set of rules. As a seasoned archer, she relies on maintaining a safe distance from her foes due to her relatively lower health and defense. Attempting to wield her like a Bogatyr would only lead to imminent defeat. However, when played to her strengths, the Ranger becomes an unstoppable force of nature.

Swift and fearless, the Ranger moves with unparalleled agility, deftly evading danger while laying traps and peppering enemies with an unrelenting barrage of arrows. With her unique attack style, she tactically positions herself to engage foes from afar, ensuring precision and distance as she obliterates her targets.

Unlock a plethora of talents that elevate your gameplay experience, such as the ability to track down marked targets and take them out for a temporary cooldown boost.

Embrace the thrill of the hunt as the Ranger takes Center stage in Soul Survivors. We look forward to seeing what you all think about our new class. Feel free to discuss in the forums, or join our Discord server and never hesitate to reach out to us. We read everything and do our best to respond to everyone.

Version 0.5.0 also brings a large amount of QoL improvements, fixes and balancing updates.



- Rerolls will now take into account previously omitted abilities, improving the odds of getting the ability you desire

- Added a Gold Bonus to the End of Round based on time survived

- Further modifications/improvements to the collisions system to boost performance

- Fixed an issue where the hitboxes for some Elite Attacks were being left active for too long after the attack took place

- Reduced HP and DMG of Bilee by 10%

- Reduced Movement Speed of Chancellor Autlaic by 15%

- Reduced HP of Chancellor Autlaic by 10%

- Reduced Damage Output of Chancellor Autlaic by 40%

- Reduced HP of Velya by 5%

- Reduced DMG of Flesh Golem by 10%

- Reduced HP of Warden Grainloch by 10%

- Reduced HP of Warden Grainloch's Druids by 40%

- Bogatyr: Boosted Quick Strike Damage by 20%

- Bogatyr: Boosted Butcher's Blade Damage by 15%

- Fixed a rare bug where the level up panel would not fully initialize before the game is paused

- Improved stump mimic transition spawn logic

- Added a shadow to the Firebomb

- Necromancer: Increased Skeleton Enemy targeting range by 5%

- Necromancer: Boosted skeleton pet damage against all bosses by 5%

- Necromancer: Boosted Flesh Pile drop rate chance during Chancellor Autlaic Fight by 20%

- Necromancer: Slightly increased the Soul collection range of the Skeletons

- Modified the coin burst effect, boosting performance

- Slowed the dmg rate for the Open Wound Curse by 20%

- Reduced the Wiggle requirement to break free of Bloodsap's Root Traps by 33%

- Increased Flesh Golem's short range strike attack cooldown from 2 seconds to 3 seconds

- Added an extra check to ensure enemy projectiles cannot collide with the player more than once in a single frame

- Fixed the fog covering Chancellor Autlaic to fill the screen space on 16:10 Displays (Includes Steam Deck)

- Modified various UI elements to properly support 16:10 Aspect Ratios (Includes Steam Deck)

- Fixed an index check issue for screen resolutions if monitor has changed since the last startup

- Fixed a bug to prevent player from leveling up if game state is not registered in a play state

- If an enemy is killed by the Necromancer's Invoke Fear talent and the souls curse is active and a soul is hazardous, it will no longer be consumed and inflict damage on the player

- Fixed a bug with the mimics that was applying an incorrect amount of HP

- Various text updates






Don’t forget, we are running a contest for the month of June. Design an Elite for our next environment, Usvit Castle, and enter for a chance to win some prizes! Submissions can be made via the contest thread or in Discord. Check out the contest page for more details.

CONTEST PAGE



There’s a lot more to come in version 0.5.x moving forward, including the Merchant/Items system, new Curses, new features, and lots more requests. We plan to continue to release at least 1 new build every week. If you have already made a request to us, please understand we have noted it. There’s been a lot of requests and we’ll work things in as we continue development in Early Access. There’s much more to come and we’re excited to build Soul Survivors, together!

Hi Everyone,

Weekly build time! In case you haven't noticed, our plan in Early Access is to release 1 new build each week until the game is complete and out of Early Access. Next week we are planning to launch the Ranger class, so it's gonna be a big one. It's possible it could be delayed, but we're working really hard on finishing her up and balancing the class and we can't wait to see what you all think of her.

As for this week's build, some new features and lots of QoL improvements, bug fixes and performance boosts!

UPDATE NOTES

- Added Damage Stats to End of Round. Now you can see how much damage you inflicted with each type of attack, including Talents!

- Improved multithreaded collision system, boosting performance. We've seen average boost between 20-30% per platform. Steam Deck performance has also been vastly improved. There's still more to come, but this is a big step in the right direction. We're diving into lots of multi threading to boost performance in many areas of the game.

- Added some small clusters of destructable crates/barrels to the environment for a little more variation

- Refactored code for Necromancer's skill, Bonecaster, improving performance

- Improved performance of various sprite animations by switching to a custom animator setup

- Reduced the Necromancer's Skeleton targeting range so they stay closer to the Necromancer

- Reduced the damage output of Bloodsap and his Seed Projectile Attacks by 25%

- Slightly reduced damage output of Flesh Golem (5%)

- Modified the hitboxes for Flesh Golem's arm spikes ground attack

- Fixed the hitbox for the Wraith in Linden Forest. It was offsetting too low on initialization

- Fixed a bug at end of Bloodsap fight that would reset player attacks 2x instead of once

- Changed the Blood Altar UI selection to default to Yes, instead of No, when asked to sacrifice

- Fixed a rare bug where the player could still level up and be presented with level up options after they are dead

- Reduced hitbox size for the Hammer Smash Zombie in Usvit Depths

- Refactored code, providing a slight performance boost of Necromancer's skill: Fulmination

- Refactored code, providing a large performance of the Treasure Snail's gold drops

- Fixed a time delay issue with initialization on the Tree Stump Mimic

- Necromancer's Auto Flail is now affected by cooldowns, but at a reduced rate

- When elites and mimics are stunned, they will now break and reset from their attacks if attacking

- Modified Necromancer's passive skill: Soul Rip logic to properly affect the Auto Flail

- Updated the Throwing Dagger Powerup Effect

- Usvit Depths: Fixed a bug w/ stone guardian offset not resetting properly after jumping


We continue to make the game better and better because of you all. If your request is not in this update, please understand we have a lot we're always working on, but we'll continue to add more requests in and reduce our backlog as often as possible.

Thank you for all the feedback and your support. It means a lot and there's lot more to come!

Stingbot

Hi Everyone,

Summer is upon us and we want to start it off with a contest! Among many things, we are currently designing the next world to be added to the game: Usvit Castle. We have a clear direction we are headed, but we are looking for some fresh ideas for Elite Enemies and thought it would be fun to get the community involved and see what you all come up with. We are running a contest throughout the month of June, which we are accepting ideas/submission for Elite Enemies for Usvit Castle.

Below is a sketch of Usvit Castle. It all begins with a sketch!



Here's a few character sprites we’ve created that will be coming to this location of the game, to give you an idea of where things are headed:



RULES FOR ENTRY

1. Provide a description of an Elite Enemy and include what its special attack will be. All elite mobs will have special attacks. For instance, our Pinwheel character in Usvit Depths has its charge/roll attack. The Troll in Linden Forest flings a mud pile at the player, which, if hit, slows movement temporarily.

2. Art/Sketches are not needed and are not required, but if you can visualize and present your idea, we are more than happy to take a look.

3. Entries can be submitted as a comment in this thread or in our Discord under the public Contest Channel.

4. You can provide as many enemy ideas as you like, but this doesn’t necessarily guarantee you will win. Quality over Quantity.

5. All entries must be submitted by July 1, 2023 to be considered

6. In the event multiple entries are created with very similar character designs, the earliest of all entries will be considered based on the time stamp of creation.

PRIZES

The Top 2 selected entries will receive the following:
1. $20 Steam Gift Card
2. Your Elite Enemy will be created by us and added to the game
3. Your name will be listed in the game credits

The top 3 runner ups will receive the following:
1. $20 Steam Gift Card

HOW TO WIN

1. The enemy must fit within a castle environment and dark fantasy theme

2. Creativity from both enemy design and the special attack of the enemy. Please keep in mind the characters in Soul Survivors are all hand drawn animated sprites, so if you want a triple backflip, forward lunge spin attack which spawns a poison burst on collision and then the enemy backflips back out: well it’s unlikely we would select this due to the massive workload this entails. Simple, but unique attacks is what we are looking for.

3. How much we like something. If it’s cool and you love it, we probably will too!

Winners will be announced by July 3, 2023. In the event a participant fails to respond or collect their reward, we will issue a reward to another participant until all prizes have been collected.

By participating in this contest, you are not being given any rights to Soul Survivors, our IP, of or relating to the character you design or the game as a whole. You will not be entitled to any revenue shares or additional compensation outside of what is listed in our Prizes above. Winners will be required to E-Sign a simple form that states these terms when claiming their reward.

We are running this contest because we believe it is a fun way to involve players in the creation and development of Soul Survivors.We look forward to seeing what players come up with!

We will not respond to any entries, but we will read them all. We will, however, respond to any questions you have as soon as possible.

Thank you!

Stingbot Games

Hi Everyone,

We've been working hard on the Ranger update, but still have more coming to improve existing content. Here's what's new in our latest build:

- Added a save data check to verify all save files are properly working when first loading the game. If a file is determined to be missing or corrupted the game will now notify you and direct you to a support page



If you see this screen when loading the game, do not worry. This is expected if your save data is corrupt or not being read properly. If you follow the instructions or get in contact with us, we'll get you sorted. We added a check at the beginning of the game so players can't access the game and experience weird bugs from data not loading properly. This is just the better route to go.

- Separated current gold and total gold collected in the game's UI, improving clarity

- Modified Necromancer's Soul Rip passive. Reduced HP reduction by 2% and increased flail damage output by 5%

- Modified Bogatyr's Quake passive. Iron Smash and Iron Strike Attack Range increased from 5 to 10% per rank

- Fixed a bug where Warden Grainloch's Druids would sometimes spin out of control far away from the Warden

- Improved the AI targeting of Ally Lord Cerveris

- Tree Stump Turret hitboxes will no longer remain active for a few seconds when the stump is destroyed

- Improved spawn logic for Environment props and destructables

- Reduced the AOE radius of the Flammable Goods curse explosions

- Fixed a bug with sacrifice altar that was allowing rank 5 skills to be upgraded

- Modified the Necromancer's Fulmination skulls AOE, slightly boosting performance

- Modified Bogatyr's Iron Strike AOE attack, slightly boosting performance

- Modified the Cooldown effect of Bogatyr's War Cry. Rank 1 is now a 30% CDR and Ranks 2-5 Add 5% CDR for duration of the effect

- Fixed a sorting order issue with some props in Usvit Depths

- Structural changes to AI initialization and reference code, offering slight performance boosts

- Various Bug Fixes

- Code refactoring

We will likely release 1-2 more builds and then the Ranger will be live in the game. There's lots to come. Thanks for all the feedback. It means a lot and we enjoy chatting with you all.

Stingbot