Keeper's Toll News

[h2]Bruce Lee to Shadow Chi[/h2]



The upcoming fighter class has undergone some big changes in design and appearance. From a traditional martial artist to an armored monk, we have now arrived at what will be the final class form: The Shadow Monk. The Shadow Monk is inspired by characters such as Noob Saibot from Mortal Kombat, and of course, our love for Dark Fantasy and Souls-lore. He's got his own set of unique abilities and a completely new combo system we designed just for him that we think you all are going to love. We spent a lot of time working on class design including developing cool synergies and fighting styles that can literally transform the game depending how you build the character. We're doing something different with this class and we can't wait to show you more!

Here's a timeline showing the character art development:



We plan to add the Shadow Monk to the game sometime later next month! Stay posted for lots more details and some videos in the coming weeks.

[h2]Castle Usvit[/h2]

Our newer content is becoming more polished and we have lots of tricks up our sleeve to plan to update older content as we continue development. We'll have some interesting updates soon on Castle Usvit, so stay posted for some previews, lore and some minor details on what to expect and how it takes our design and gameplay to the next level.

[h2]Build 0.5.28 Notes: [/h2]

- NEW: Necromancer Passive Skill: Bone Venom: Skeletons have a chance to proc poison on any hit

- NEW: Ranger Passive Skill: Chilled Shot: Small chance to shoot an icy quick shot, slowing enemies for 5 seconds

- NEW: Bogatyr Passive Skill: Frost Strike: Small chance to shoot an ice-coated quick strike, slowing enemies for 5 seconds

- NEW: Merchant Item: Nimble Boots: Makes the wearer immune to root (excludes enemy attacks) and take 50% reduced damage from spike traps

- Usvit Depths: Reduced HP of the Skelewheel Elite, Armored Monk Elite and Butcher Cursed Elite

- Usvit Depths: Butcher Elites can no longer spawn during a Challenge Event. Only the Cursed elite can be a butcher

- Challenge Event: Elites that are not tied to the event will no longer spawn while the event is active

- Adjusted the Circle for Sundance Curse in usvit Depths. It was improperly scaling resulting in some lines overlapping between sprites

- Bug Fix: Necromancer flail damage boost will now be properly affected by the Thresh Talent

- Bug Fix: Necromancer flail will no longer receive multiplier dmg based on selecting the character over and over again in the character select menu

- Bug Fix: Fixed a null pointer related to enemy Slow logic

- When starting a new game, the game can no longer be paused until the camera fade is complete

- Adjusted some Curse Logic for what can be played with a nightmare cloak in Usvit Depths

- Text Formatting Updates

- Loads of Code refactoring

Don't forget, we have a community thread where you can share ideas for new items to add to the Merchant's pool:

https://steamcommunity.com/app/2002220/discussions/0/3802777561344234382/


We also have a thread for adding ideas for more Curses:

https://steamcommunity.com/app/2002220/discussions/0/3810658408032922878/


Thank you all for your support, and the best is yet to come. We appreciate all the feedback, bug reports, suggestions etc. Never hesitate to reach out. There's lots more to come!

Stingbot

Hi Everyone,

We would like to introduce first boss of Castle Usvit:

[h2]The Gatekeeper[/h2]





The Gatekeeper is a strong and powerful boss, that will test your skills in sparring and avoidance. We are finishing up his art right now and will begin coding the fight this week. He's been a lot of work in terms of design and art creation/animation, but he's coming together nicely and we're very excited to put the fight together.

We're a few months away from releasing the content for Castle Usvit, but we have 3 artists working on the content right now, and assure you it will be worth the wait! We're taking the game to the next level and kicking everything up a notch.

in the meantime, we will continue to push out weekly builds with revisions and additions to existing content, as we have since launching in Early Access. There's lots to come!

[h2]Patch Notes: Version 0.5.26[/h2]

- NEW: Merchant Common Item - Gold Magnet. Idea from Community Member, Djezze. Thank you!

- NEW: Curse - Dead Reckoning. Idea from Community Member, Cookies for Everyone! Thank you!

- New: Curse - Death's Bargain. Idea from Community Member, Cookies for Everyone! Thank you!

- Velya is now invulnerable when first loading to the scene to prevent unwanted damage

- Curses Survived will now be shown on screen in the top left corner when curse mode is active

- Fixed compression on the bomb satchel merchant icon

- Bug Fix: Input will no longer be detected If spamming any input before save data is loaded

- Bug Fix: Firebomb Item will no longer negate Firebomb Powerup

- Curse Modification: Sundance - Circle size has been increased by 20% in Usvit Depths

- Added a sound effect when the Merchant appears

- Modified text to prep for Localization

Thank you for all your feedback and support. Please don't hesitate to reach out to us, and stay posted for future updates!

Stingbot

Hi Everyone,

Version 0.5.24 is Live, and comes with a bunch of QoL improvements, fixes and a couple new things. More on that below.

[h2]Monk Class[/h2]

We're re-naming the Fighter to Monk, as ultimately with the inclusion of his spirit attacks and meditation abilities, that's what he is. He's a monk, and is he going to be interesting! With each new character we want to try something new, and what we have planned for the Monk will be unlike anything you've seen so far in the game. We're going to keep it a secret for now, but as of today, half of the character has been coded, and most of him has been designed. The art team is focusing solely on the next environment of the game, Castle Usvit, so there has not been much love to the creation of the monk or his abilities yet, but we're programming everything in the background. Here's a WIP preview of his new look. He will be refined quite a bit more by the time we're done.



[h2]Castle Usvit[/h2]

Castle Usvit is a very ambitious part of the game. It has about as much content as the first 2 worlds put together, if not more, with all the secrets and additions we are adding. The scenery will also change from 3 different tile sets: Outdoor, Indoor, and Courtyard.

Here's a pic of the Indoor setting (Work in Progress). We'll showcase lots more as soon as we finish things up.



[h2]Version 0.5.24 Patch Notes[/h2]

- NEW: Merchant Item: Bomb Satchel

- Added Support for Ultra Wide Monitors. Some of the game is not designed to support such wide view angles, and you may notice some enemies or props spawn in during gameplay. The game is not designed to optimally run in such wide resolutions, but the UI and game will now properly scale in ultra wide aspect ratios.

- Began work on adding custom key bindings to the game. There has been a key bindings menu added to the options menu, but it only affects keyboard bindings (not game controllers) and only in-game bindings, not menu navigation. The system requires a major overhaul on the structure of the game and is a WIP and will be updated periodically over several updates until it's fully complete.

- Changed some trigger settings on the player character to slightly boost performance

- Ranger: Reduced the Enemy Knockback Distance from Ranger arrow attacks

- Ranger: Modified and balanced the healing Salve heal amount

- Refactored and restructured loads of skill description code to prep for future Localization

- Reduced time between spawn waves of a challenge event from 20 seconds to 15 seconds

- Increased the cost of Likho's Dice by 100 gold on each purchase

- Curse: Insect Swarm (slow curse) will now toggle on/off every 6 seconds, as opposed to remaining active permanantely

- Catacombs: Added a 1/2 second wind up to the Elite Butcher attack

- Bug Fix: Torch Zombie Runner should now properly dissolve on death

- Bug Fix: Boss Souls will now activate and allow for immediate collection. Collision events will no longer disable the soul if attempting to collect on spawn

- Bug Fix: Challenge Event and Associated UI will now properly disable when teleporting into a boss fight with Autlaic or Velya

- UI: Modified the Options Menu Layout

- Updated key bindings logic and structure

- Code Refactoring

As always, I would like to thank everyone for your support. We appreciate all of the feedback and we look forward to continue building the game with you all.

Stingbot

Hi Everyone,

Version 0.5.22 is Live, and includes a new Curse, a bunch of bug fixes and QoL improvements to the game.

[h2]Castle Usvit[/h2]

Our #1 priority right now is focusing on Castle Usvit. We're working constantly on the art creation and design, and we've also coded one of the bosses already. Once we finish the tile set for the scene we will showcase a bunch of the scenery and characters to give you a preview of things to come. Expect a big Art update in the coming weeks.

[h2]Fighter Class[/h2]

We've started working on the Fighter, and we're taking a lot of player feedback into account for the design of this character. He's going to be very unique and extremely fun to play, with his fast, multi directional attacks and targeting and combo systems. Much more on this later, but we're excited to start working on him. Expect more updates in the coming weeks as well.

[h2]Updated Environments Coming Soon![/h2]

In the coming weeks we'll also be adding more life to the existing environments offering more destructibles and objects to interact with. Below is some early work on some wagons, carts, house remains and a well for Linden Forest.





[h2]Patch Notes[/h2]

- NEW: Curse - Frostveil - Idea by community member DJezze

- Challenge Event; Added a shadow, modified color and added a rune effect to the platform

- Randomized the spawn times for the Challenge Altar and Cursed Altar Events

- Bug Fix: Elites should properly spawn and enter challenge circles at all times when the event is triggered

- Bug Fix: Elite Outlines setting will now save properly

- Bug Fix: Flesh Golem Damage Circles will now deactivate when he dies if he's casting during death

- Bug Fix: Cursed Elite enemies will now toggle outlines

- Bug Fix: Summoned Druids of Warden Grainloch now play death dissolve animation on death

- Bug Fix: Tree Stump Turret shadow is now immediately deactivated on death

- Bug Fix: Movement speed will be properly reset to boosted speed if powerup was active before becoming slowed by an enemy

- Bug Fix: Challenge Event should now always spawn a cursed elite to complete the challenge

- Bug Fix: Pet Rock will no longer set off Ranger Traps

- Bug Fix: Ranger Traps will no longer be set off by anything but enemies

- Bug Fix: Pet Rock will no longer attempt to cache an invalid reference to a boss until it exists

- Added more distance and spawn variation between altars, challenge circles and the Merchant

- Modified the treasure chest hitbox setup

- Updated Credits to include community member designs

- Added a Total Souls Collected counter to the Options Menu. Eventually this will be removed as we will be adding a stats/achievements menu, but just needed to plug it somehwere for now

- Added a shadow to Likho, the Merchant

- Code refactoring


As always, thank you for your support. If you have any questions, comments, suggestions or feedback, please get in touch with us or leave a comment in this thread. We always like to chat and appreciate you all for being with us as we continue our development journey with Soul Survivors.

Stingbot

Found a minor bug w/ Spore King spawn code for his event. Fixed it and also toned down his mine field a little bit.