Spell Disk News

Hi Spell Disk Community,

As we approach our Version 1.0 release, marking the transition from Early Access to Full Release, we are currently focused on developing the content for the full release version. In Version 1.0, you can expect to encounter more new enemies, as teased in the Compendium, and confront the true final boss of Spell Disk. The new area, which is currently designed to be optionally accessible, will feature significant dialogues shedding light on the lore and the conclusion of the overarching storyline of the dungeon in Spell Disk. We anticipate the Full Release Date to be March 1st, 2024, if we do not have any serious roadblocks or unexpected problems. More announcements regarding Version 1.0 (the full version) will be provided during the month of February.

For the 0.9.0 updates, our primary efforts are directed towards fixing, improving, and polishing the game, alongside implementing some balance adjustments.

• Added four new permanent upgrades in the Root Chamber. The Sword upgrade improves weapon damage, scaling per floor ascended, up to 30%. The Hammer upgrade enhances weapon stun power, scaling per floor ascended, up to 60%. These upgrades are introduced to provide slightly more power to weapon attacks in the later stages of the game, addressing the perceived weakness of weapon attacks in those stages. The Grail upgrades offer you the option to choose an item instead of the boss reward chest. This feature is meant to provide an additional option should the player feel that the treasure chest with health potions is wasteful.
  
• The game will also create backup files for the run history (accessible in the Architect Chamber), in addition to the base save files.
  
• Danger Level will provide 2% more insight per stage progressed. Normally, a stage progress gives 0.5 insight at the end of the run.

• Improved the skill tree image of the Root Chamber.
  
• Improved the sprite image for the old guy after the 3rd boss.
  
• The item upgrade level indicator inside the item info panel UI has been improved to be more visible and consistent with the item's visuals.
  
• Changed the position of extra dice / start spell reroll which can be purchased using insight. Changed the position and the requirement of the scroll permanent upgrade so that it doesn't overlap with some of the permanent functions in the Root Chamber.

• One of the new disk upgrades, passive mana regeneration of the disk, didn't really work as we previously thought it would. Having an exceptional rule that it cannot trigger a linked spell despite providing mana went beyond the player's expectations, which was not the impression we wanted to give. The upgrade type has been changed to "Refund X% of the base mana cost of the linked spell," which should be more effective if the linked spell's mana cost is higher. Old recorded runs with the passive mana regen upgrades on the disks will load the build with the old mod replaced by the new mod.
  
• Summon spells will now have maximum instance limits of 20. If a player attempts to cast a new summon minion spell, a random summoned minion of the same type will immediately die to make room for the new minion. This change is made to prevent massive frame drops or even game crashes that occur when too many summonable minions are summoned. The mana cost of the summon spells has been decreased, and the death animation has been made faster to clear the minion pool more quickly.
  
• Gem spells will have some maximum instance limits of 150, for similar reasons. As these are stop gap measures to improve the game's stability, a better solution might be implemented on a later update to address these issues.
  
• Added visual feedback for ice monolith activation, but included an internal cooldown of 0.2 seconds per activation. Increased the duration slightly.
  
• The Lightning bow has to complete its animation before shooting another arrow, resulting in a 0.2-second cooldown per activation. Increased the duration slightly.
  
• Removed Ice Monolith and Lightning Bow from the survivor item pools, as they required the player to attack with a weapon.
  
• Auto Charge Gauntlet will refill its charge meter completely on elevator ascension.

• Fixed Weapon Master's Mask artifact which incorrectly changed the damage type of the damage which player received.
  
• Corrected the value Might Barbell artifact provided from 1 to 5.
  
• Fixed the arena mode and infinity dungeon giving incorrect amounts of insight (resources for permanent upgrades) upon completion. Now, the arena mode will give 1 insight per 30 seconds and the infinity dungeon will give 1 insight per stage progressed. These insight gains are unaffected by the increased insight gain with the danger level, as their danger level is set to default value for each mode.
  
• Adjusted Fire Wisp's AI. Upon colliding with the wall, it will now start to circle the player instead of being stuck to the wall as it used to.
  
• Fixed the description of Berserk Disk. It used to be percentage-based during the development, but the description was not properly updated to reflect the current version of Berserk Disk. Functionally, the disk remains the same, providing 0.4 mana per second per each missing health point.
  
• Fixed other item descriptions to be more descriptive of their function, such as Rooster set artifacts.
  
• Fixed the language for "Not Discovered" not being correctly translated in the Compendium.

• Added Compendium feature to the main menu, which can be accessible in the main menu. You can use the compendium to view all discovered weapons, items, and enemies along with some of their statistics.
  
• Added a feature to keep track of which items were used to defeat the Dungeon Architect starting from 0.8 versions.
  
  
• Improved controller-based inventory and some menu navigation controls. Adjusted sensitivity and repeat timing for directional navigation, addressing discomfort when using a stick for inventory or menu options.
  
• Fixed a freeze bug that sometimes occurred when using the Ice Throw spell. In rare cases, the ice throw spell (one of the new spells) could be generated inside walls or above pits when items are linked in a certain order. In the event of this error, the game attempts to find the nearest floor area. When it can't, it causes the game to freeze. A safety measure has been implemented to prevent such cases.
  
• Corrected setting menu buttons with incorrect navigation wiring to other buttons.
  
• Divided the creation and finished call of the Axe's charge attack throughout its duration.
  
• Fixed a typo in the overkill disk description.
  
• Reduced the effectiveness of shield artifacts in survivor mode, as they were providing excessive shields when survivor enemies generally dealt less damage.