Swords and Sandals 3 Redux News

[p]Hey all, Oli here - thanks so much for all the awesome feedback on the game. You can play a game a million times, test it more and still miss out on things. Fix one bug, another appears. Balance one thing, another is unbalanced. I'll be doing these little patches when I see stuff I can fix in the days ahead and that'll slow down as the game stabilizes - and I'll add the patch notes here , at least for the first few days.

Good luck in the arena, gladiators!
Cheers, Oliver Joyce Whiskeybarrel Studios

v 1.0.6 (November 18)[/p][p]* WIP - Attempt to fix issue where things sometimes bug out when gladiators are pushed off cliffs but survive. As part of this, I have disabled 'stun' when "This is Brandor" knocks gladiators to edge of cliff. It's not perfect but seems to be working a bit better now.[/p][p]* Fixed a bug where skill buttons disappeared to the bottom of the screen when assigning[/p][p]* Reduced the essence costs of most skills[/p][p]* Slightly reduced the damage Arcane Blast does[/p][p]* Improved translations[/p][p]

v 1.0.5 (November 15-16, rolling patch)[/p][p]* *** NEW *** - When you lose battles, you no longer suffer a gold loss penalty, instead you just win a fraction of the gold you would have won. This is to stop the fatal loop of low level gladiators continuing to lose and eventually having no choice but to abandon their character[/p][p]* Removed level requirements from enchanting items with blueprints/runes[/p][p]* Significantly lowered cost of enchanting, forging and unmaking items[/p][p]* Added a button in settings to turn on and off "Limb Loss" , (may be helpful for players using Permadeath mode!). If this is set to off, gladiators never lose limbs (aside from the Automatons who choose to use the Detonate skill at the end of their battle)[/p][p]* Added a bow to the Evil Ninja Redux[/p][p]* Arena Champions can now switch weapons if they have a secondary weapon and choose to ( code was in game but hidden - its not used often by gladiators)[/p][p]* Updated the head sprites of a few classic sprite arena champions[/p][p]* Fixed a bug where you could attempt to respec talents at level 1 and softlock the game ( only opens at level 2 now)[/p][p]* Fixed a bug on Automaton reset panel where talents could be selected outside of Automaton tree[/p][p]* Fixed a bug where Simulacrums showed the wrong champion number

V 1.0.4 (November 14, rolling patch)
[/p][p]* Fixed a bug where Evil Ninja Redux skils were not being imported[/p][p]* Fixed a bug where you could gain Tough Battle achievement at the training dummy[/p][p]* Vital Stats panel now displays Necrotic Resist[/p][p]* Significantly lowered the cost of unmaking items at the Forge/Enchant panel[/p][p]* Fixed a bug where Ultratus Omega had only 1 stamina !

V 1.0.3 (November 13-14, rolling patch)[/p][p]* Reduced health regeneration from stamina[/p][p]* Increased essence gain from stamina [/p][p]* Changed buff on the Boneslinger's weapon[/p][p]* Fixed a bug where Hellscape completion achievement wouldn't trigger[/p][p]* Fixed missing translation text in Ultratus Forge[/p][p]* Updated some boss pillar sprites to better match champions[/p][p]* Reduced fights needed for restock of shop items from 8 to 6[/p][p]* Increased frequency of rare items in some shops[/p][p]* End Battle panel button speedup


V 1.0.2 (November 13 2025, rolling patch)[/p][p]* Increased difficulty adjustor for "Tough Bosses Setting" from +0.5 to 1.0 (meaning bosses will be twice as hard as what they were on whatever given difficulty for EXTRA challenge[/p][p]* Fixed a bug where sometimes the LFK Magic Shoppe wouldn't show any items until you clicked buy/sell[/p][p]* Fixed missing Bhaargle's Circlet inventory item[/p][p]* Removed Survival Battles (will restore in a later patch, just a bit buggy at present)[/p][p]* Allowed capital letters in character names after first character ( eg you can now call yourself TheHero or whatever)[/p][p]* Removed leftover unused blueprints from Immortals (Stargazer, mercantile etc) as they're mostly unused in S&S 3. You may currently still have an item with one but they *should* not appear in shops anymore. Will monitor this.[/p][p]* Nerfed magical damage / essence cost for elemental based attacks by roughly 25%.[/p][p]* Fixed bug in TOUGH OPPONENTS achievement[/p][p]* Increased gold cost of higher level items slightly[/p][p]* Reduced optional gold prize for defeating Arena Champions slightly
[/p][p]V 1.0.1 (November 12 2025, rolling patch)[/p][p]* Added option to turn off Sagan Blob's child voices for those gladiators who find them too terrifying[/p][p]* Language ranslation improvements[/p][p]* Fixed bug where Arena Rules panel sometimes appeared in champion battles[/p][p]* Slight balancing to magical damage[/p][p]* Slight nerf on health regeneration (vitality doesn't return quite as much health now)[/p][p]* Fixed issue with festival discounts[/p][p]* Lowered starting stats of low level NPC gladiators (gradually increasing over time)[/p]

[p]Greetings, mighty gladiators!

I'm thrilled to finally be able to push the LAUNCH button on the demo for Swords and Sandals III Redux.[/p][p]The original S&S 3 was one of the most popular games in the series, and easily the most requested for a 'remake' over the years. Over the last year or so I've been tinkering away at it and now the time has come to throw the demo version into the arena of public opinion!

This demo allows you to play the first TWELVE days of your life as a gladiator, and / or to defeat the first TWO arena champions. It's not a long demo but I hope it demonstrates a taste of what's to come in the full version of the game.[/p][p]I'm aiming to have the full game wrapped up and ready to launch in the first week of November.[/p][p]Until then, if you like what you see be sure to give me a wishlist to show Steam we've got something special cooking.[/p][p]Also, don't forget to let me know your thoughts in the comments, balancing, bugfixes, whatever takes your fancy.

Until then, gladiators, I salute you!

Cheers, Oliver Joyce
Whiskeybarrel Studios.[/p][p] [/p][p][/p]

[p]Greetings, gladiators![/p][p][/p][p]I bring good tidings from the world of Swords and Sandals 3 Redux! Since the game was announced earlier this year, I've been working hard on reimagining the original S&S 3 and bringing it back to life once more.[/p][p][/p][p]And now, I can confidently say the demo will be live sometime in late September, approximately 8 weeks from now.[/p][p]
All seven arenas from the original are now in the game, from the terrors of the Bone Pit to the giddy heights of the Vertigo Tower. The original shopkeepers also return, with a bonus shopkeeper/trainer you may be familiar with !
[/p][p]I'm currently working my way through the many bosses of S&S 3, that's probably the most time consuming part of the project. Because the stats and systems from the original S&S 3 don't translate exactly to the S&S Immortals engine (which I'm using to make the game) , I'm having to be a bit clever in how I translate the bosses to remain true to the spirit of the original, while best using the systems from the new game. Because the game uses the Immortals armour set, these bosses will in many cases be wearing fine new clothes, but I'm working very carely to ensure they still have their famous unique headgear and of course remain looking true to their old selves. (Boarhide Trader Pigsus still has a pig nose and sombrero , and now a big gut!) [/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]I've done the first few bosses (only 20+ to go, woohoo!) and am just waiting on the final batch of art for the game, the boss weapons, before I tackle them all. You'll notice in the screenshot below, the Fearful Prisoner is still using a club while I wait for his special magic staff.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]One thing a lot of people loved about the remake of Swords and Sandals 2 was the option to use the classic town background art. I've gone a step further here and also have now included the options to use the classic shopkeeper and even gladiator sprites! (The only thing that will not use classic art is the armour and weapons as there were just too many of them to remake.) You'll be able to toggle these on and off at any time.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]So, the next few months will be spent completing the Arena Champions and also working on the Robotics tree for Automatons. These powerful metal gladiators will not be playable in the demo but we'll be able to use them in the full version, which will drop before the end of the year, most likely just a few weeks after October's Next Fest concludes![/p][p][/p][p]Having worked on the remake and tinkered with playing it the last few days, I really find it a joy to play. It feels like a more streamlined, faster paced version of Immortals. There's only the one map, you can challenge Champions at any time, everything feels a bit more snappy.

I always intended for S&S 3 and S&S Immortals to be sort of companion 'bookends' to each other, and I can't wait for you guys to check it out in September.

Cheers, Oliver Joyce,
Whiskeybarrel Studios[/p][p][/p]