Soulash 2 News

Greetings fellow gods,

The time has come for our second milestone update v0.7 "Adventuring Parties" introducing party mechanics, hireable and constructible companions, and Leadership, a new skill to support it. Here are some details.

[h2]Leadership[/h2]

Leadership is a skill focused mainly on passive bonuses to all party members. It offers 3 companion slots that we can use to hire new members to travel with us and amplifiers that allow us not to hurt our allies with AoE skills or replicate self-targeted buffs.



[h2]Construction Enhancement[/h2]

You can say goodbye to the golem in a box, as a new dwarven technology has been invented. We'll build the golem permanently and craft custom items for 4 unique slots this time. The Construction skill provides one companion slot alongside the Golem at level 40, and together with the Leadership skills, it allows you to realize your dream of being an artificer protected by beefy adamantine constructs.



[h2]Party System[/h2]

With these additions, it's now possible to hire any military unit from any town, except for generals, as long as the player character has access to an empty companion slot. The price may vary depending on stats, skills, and equipped items. The companions require only a single payment, with no additional upkeep of gold or food.

The companions will follow you anywhere and attack your enemies on their own, but you can also order them to do any activity by selecting their portrait on the left side of the screen.



They will also automatically help you build if they can access the required tools and serve as mules, as you can freely access their equipment and backpack by dropping items on party member portraits. While stashing and trading, you will see all companion backpack items for easy access.

[h2]Steam Leaderboards[/h2]

New Steam Leaderboards have been added for worlds created in v0.7 and later, including the races of Mushmen and Reptilions. As a reminder, these are not protected since the whole game is local, so they are just for casual fun.

The leaderboards are available here: Global Leaderboards

[h2]Changelog[/h2]

Here's the changelog for this update:

[h3]Added[/h3]
- New skill: Leadership.
- Added the Party section to the Equipment screen that shows up when the player acquires a companion slot from any skill.
- Selecting a party member on the Equipment screen allows ordering them to change their equipment and see their statistics.
- Added an option to drag & drop items to and from companions.
- Added a list of companions under player portrait on the game screen. Selecting the companion allows giving orders the same way the player performs actions.
- Added a button that randomizes the player character's name during the character creation.
- Party members who have the necessary tools can help build structures.
- Added 22 new recipes to Construction skill related to Golem parts.

[h3]Changed[/h3]
- The golem recipe has been reworked to be buildable instead of craftable and is now a full companion with custom item slots.
- Golem and Elemental Core are now level 40 construction recipes. There are new recipes for golem items in Construction skill above level 40.
- On the Trading Screen and Stash Screen, the items belonging to the player are shared with the party members, allowing direct sales or stashing from the companion's backpack.
- Changed experience gained from crafting, upgrading, and building to equal 1 per resource used. The exception to that is Agriculture, which adds 2 experience points.
- The green portrait border is now reserved only for the player party members.
- Improved Ostrich Feather bonuses.
- Mycelium Pins added to Agriculture skill.
- Dwarves invented fence doors and integrated them into Sheep Ranches.
- Stash now requires 2 basic wood units to construct.
- Changed the Book item type to Note instead of Usable, since it has no use.
- Increased the chance to spawn new special locations once they drop below a certain global number.

[h3]Fixed[/h3]
- Fixed an issue that would prevent selecting some items on character creation.
- Wooden Fence Doors no longer block the view.
- Item component has been removed from Peat Moss.
- Fixed some tents having walls instead of floors.
- Replaced furnace with the oven in an abandoned farm.
- Fixed some kavian villages not having kavians.
- Fixed flickering effect on item pickup and action selection.
- Swamp Guardian corpse now provides the Swamp Guardian Eye when scavenged.
- Great Larva Slime is correctly categorized as a magic ingredient.
- Fixed an issue that caused many settlement NPCs to have too low move speed.

[h3]Modding[/h3]
- Added an option for passives to apply only to party members.
- New passive effects: Companion, Party Move Speed (details in doc).


I hope you'll enjoy the new mechanics and systems. We're back on weekly updates now, I'll focus on the backlog of bugs reported on Discord and some UX improvements, with the next content target being the Hunting skill. If you missed the Roadmap, the next major update is planned in 3 months and will focus on filling our settlements with NPCs. Remember to join our community on Discord, where you'll find plenty of great players to discuss the game with!

Have fun,
Artur

Greetings fellow gods,

As I hinted last week, we'll skip the weekly update today.

There are some very exciting things in the works regarding Adventuring Parties, the first major milestone update planned in our Roadmap to v1.0 of Soulash 2. Aside from being able to recruit military units to our party, it will include a new Leadership skill that will concentrate on enhancements to the new mechanic, and reworked Golems from the Construction skill to become permanent companions with custom craftable body parts. I gotta say the Construction looks really tasty with these additions.

I think we'll be ready with everything next week, but since it's a major update that will shake things up quite a lot, we may need to take some more time to ensure our new companions perform their duties well.

As always, I'll keep you posted about the progress here and on Discord.

Thank you for playing and following the development,
Artur

Greetings fellow gods,

It's another great Thursday today, with some fun new content for Soulash 2. This time, I felt it was about time to add the second Dexterity combat skill to the game, and since Hunting requires the adventuring parties that will come with the next major update, the choice fell on Pole Fighting.

Pole Fighting is a skill that focuses on mobility and ranged melee attacks. It offers some new unique mechanics like dodging and has some powerful amplifiers and passives that can synergize well with other skills.

Here's the full changelog:

[h3]Added[/h3]
- New skill: Pole Fighting.
- Added a tooltip describing the Movement Speed property in the Equipment Screen.
- Added Critical Damage entry in the Statistics section of Equipment Screen.
- Added options in graphics to disable wind and 3D effects.
- Added Bat Ranch to potential Mushmen buildings.
- Added more portrait backgrounds for Mushmen.

[h3]Changed[/h3]
- Cotton and Raspberry Bush can now be planted in Grasslands.
- Bedroll bonus works from a backpack without the need to drop it on the floor.
- Werelions are now hostile against Rasimi.
- At least level 1 Mycelium and Mush Log is guaranteed in Mushmen settlements.
- Barley fields were added to the world's natural resources.
- Improved chances to build some Mushmen buildings.

[h3]Fixed[/h3]
- Prowling Rabbit Ear can now be sold.
- When the player character is the best trainer, the ping on the map indicating the trainer's position no longer persists.
- Fixed Ring type targeting to not include extra tiles in the middle of the ring.
- Fixed assigned amplifier list in ability tooltips.
- Fixed an issue that caused basic resources to be added to items on the ground when returning to the region or reloading the game.
- Fixed Mycelium Wardens building name generation.

[h3]Modding[/h3]
- Passive that disables the hunger and thirst unlocks the path distance on world map as well.

Next week we'll likely skip the update unless there's a need for some major bug fixes so we can focus entirely on the next major v0.7 release since March is almost upon us. If everything goes well, I'll prepare a preview next week to show you what's to come.

As always, thank you all for playing the game, reporting issues, and offering suggestions. I'm happy to see how much joy the game brings you all. A quick reminder that I'm available on Discord as always, so hop in if you would like to talk about the game.

Till next time,
Artur

Greetings fellow gods,

Another civilization rises in the Boreal Forests of our procedural worlds - Mushmen. They live in an underground network of caves and come with new bows, clothing options, and usable items.

Here's the full changelog for today's update:

[h3]Added[/h3]
- New civilization: Mushmen.
- 15 new items and recipes for Adventuring, Agriculture, Carpentry, Construction and Tailoring.
- Added scrolling to Building Menu.

[h3]Changed[/h3]
- All Reptilions have train conversation option.

[h3]Fixed[/h3]
- Multiple GUI fixes and improvements for 1600x900 resolution.
- Few GUI fixes for 2560x1600 resolution.
- Stackable craftable items like arrows don't lose used resources when stashing.
- Fixed Medusa's Garden missing z-2 level.
- Fixed Trail of Flame ability.
- Fixed Nettle Seedling growth timer.
- Fixed Move Speed and Magic Power stacking improperly when upgrading items.
- Fixed attack speed summary in crafting outcome preview.
- Fixed missing dialogues for settlement beings.

[h3]Modding[/h3]
- Fixed crash related to editing Explosion ability.
- Custom spritesheet correctly shows in Ability Maker.
- Moved amplifier backgrounds to a separate spritesheet.


Have fun,
Artur


Edit hotfix v0.6.5.1:
- Fixed crash related to stash
- Fixed modded ability icons on the Skills Screen.

Greetings fellow gods,

Smaller update this week as I've been hit by the flu. This update adds a few improvements for starting family relations, allowing us to work in the family buildings without committing crimes and have an easier time finding them.

There are also important fixes dealing with various procgen issues and missing entities that didn't spawn in special locations or in the world.

[h3]Added[/h3]
- Few new resources added to swamp, forest and savanna regions.

[h3]Changed[/h3]
- The player character has generated relationship connections when starting as a part of a family, which is visible on the Knowledge Screen.
- Forbidden Production Actions that are not unforgivable are now allowed in the building areas owned by the player's family.
- Harvesting is now forbidden in Human settlements.
- Family buildings are marked with different colors when asking for directions.
- Equipment button keys are now clickable.
- Ground Breaker Stone Spike spawn duration is reduced to 10 turns from infinite.
- Knowledge -> Beings tab no longer resets to Relations when changing the entity.
- Removed 3D effect on max zoom out to improve performance in mountain areas.
- Weapon Swap action now displays newly equipped items in message log.
- Buffed Abzudar the Knowing.

[h3]Fixed[/h3]
- Fixed multiple issues causing various entities to not spawn in the world or in special locations.
- Uhorn corpses correctly provide their horns upon scavenging.
- Fixed Huge Slug portrait.
- Fixed missing ability mentioned in usable item tooltips.
- Fixed an issue with weight calculation on item upgrade.
- Improved "Consume Blood" Swordfighting amplifier description.
- Amber can now be found in the regions.
- Fixed few rare crashes.
- Added missing special location dialogue option to Reptilion Hunters.
- Fixes +Sight property not transferring from resource to finished item.
- Fixed sight-related properties not refreshing after unequipping.
- Fixed crafting max count for some types of recipes like Gingerbread.


In the background, we've already begun working on another civilization, this time for Boreal Forest, and I've been slowly adding mechanics for the big v0.7 update introducing Adventuring Parties. Hopefully I'll recover soon and can pick up the normal pace.

Have fun, and see you next week,
Artur