Soulash 2 News

Greetings fellow gods,

A final demo update is upon us, it's now just 4 days till Early Access begins, and I've been hard at work with the final tests, fixes, and balancing passes. I hope you're excited to delve into more difficult locations, I've updated the Steam page with some new screenshots and gifs if you want a little sneak peek of what's awaiting you on Monday.

Aside from tweaks and fixes the main addition is the ability to favorite NPCs to have an easier time remembering great trainers and crafters.



See the full changelog below:


[h3]Added[/h3]
- Added an option to mark NPCs as favorites to keep them on top of the list in the Knowledge Screen.
- Added information to the world tile description informing if there's a river there.

[h3]Changed[/h3]
- When the player character is selected and attempts to use a damaging ability, the selection is cleared with a warning.
- Ability Amplifier increasing ability range applies only to ranged abilities.
- Resources acquired after a delay, like Apples or Milk, now progress while the player is not in the region.
- Banana, Coconut, and Date Palm can't be cut using woodcutting but serves as a food source that can be gathered repeatedly.
- Claiming region doesn't provide experience after level 1 Construction.
- Dragging objects doesn't provide experience after level 5 Athletics.
- It's now possible to knock enemies off to lower z-levels.
- When applying weight reducing resources to items, the minimum weight of an item is set at 0.1.
- Removed legacy unarmed attack from Equipment Screen tooltips.
- Changed the looks of some trees to make them easier to identify.
- Tiles of maps below z-level 0 are no longer visible if they have a roof.
- Changed how music and sound sliders work so that master volume controls both by percentage set.
- Spider's Silk is now used in Velvet production.
- Fox Fur provides nature resistance on armors.
- Orchid Nectar is now a liquid source.
- Slopes can now be deconstructed.
- Increased sight range for Baboons.
- Improved the chance for constructing a strictly ordering service buildings in settlements during history simulation.
- Increased value of Honey.

[h3]Fixed[/h3]
- Marked and disabled crafting recipes in ordering when NPC doesn't have access to the necessary workstation or tool.
- Fixed an issue where true damage would destroy rivers and ponds.
- Fixed an issue that sometimes prevented changing or assigning resources when upgrading items.
- Disabled walking to target using default action shoot and ranged production actions like fishing.
- Fixed an issue with special location icons sometimes showing too far from the location.
- Added information on the equipment screen that most actions won't work during world travel.
- Fixed an issue that would cause the right side of the weapon tooltip to not display on the Skills screen recipes list.
- Fixed inability to select default movement keys in Keymap.
- Fixed the Fill Container action performed from the Equipment Screen.
- Fixed an issue with some bows that would not play shooting animation and hide arrows.
- Fixed max health recalculation after receiving and dropping the Weaken Body debuff.
- Fixed roofs in Rasimi settlements.
- Fixed stairs up in dwarven guards building.
- Fixed firewood sometimes not stacking together.
- Fixed NPCs spawning on doors without opening them.
- Fixed one Rasimi building having an invalid rope ladder placed.
- Fixed lighting and extinguishing action performed on items on the ground.
- Fixed an issue where crafting didn't start properly while the player moved.
- Fixed an issue that would prevent using the look action on a higher z-level.
- Fixed the lack of a Spinning Wheel in one of the dwarven tailor buildings.

Edit:
Hotfix 0.4.6.1 fixes crashes related to pickpocketing and AI fishing.

Greetings fellow gods,

As the EA release approaches in just 11 days (time flies!), my work was mainly focused on balancing the harder special locations and improving the history simulation to stabilize the growth of settlements, add ways to remove the infinitely created resources to keep prices and availability in check and fix some issues that caused some settlements to starve as the years went by during playthrough.

Only a few things are on my to-do list before the release, so it's not as hectic as expected before a major release. I hope you're excited to play on bigger maps soon!

See full changelog below:

[h3]Added[/h3]
- Added minimap ping for special location objectives if the player character has seen them.
- New properties for items were added - Health Regen and Health Regen Tick, affecting health regeneration and its interval.

[h3]Changed[/h3]
- Lots of tweaks to history simulation to improve growth and sustainability of settlements during playthrough.
- Disabled the Vandalism crime for now.
- Disabled bounty pay off button while the player is in the settlement to spice things up a little.
- Increased landmass to 60% of the world map in world generation.
- Increased probability of generating Swamp biome in world generation.
- Increased probability of generating Dwarven Guards building.
- Some resources now change the carry weight of crafted items.
- Silver Ingot provides electrical resistance to armor and holy damage to weapons.
- Removed Food component from fishes, so they have to be scavenged before being eaten.
- Reduced number of Stones acquired from mining Natural Stone Wall.
- Reduced number of Sandstones acquired from mining Sandstone Wall.
- Destroying Elven Tree Wall will no longer provide Elven Wood.
- Beefed up settlement leaders.
- Backstab target changed from Health to Being.

[h3]Fixed[/h3]
- Fixed crash related to item ordering.
- Fixed crash related to simulation that could occur after a few player characters died.
- World travel stops correctly once starvation or dehydration reaches 4.
- Fixed an issue that sometimes caused NPC ability effects to display in the message log despite NPCs not being in sight range.
- Fixed resource tooltips going outside of screen boundaries in the crafting menu.
- Fixed an issue that would cause ponds to disappear on ability attack.
- Fixed an issue that caused families not to change their surname when they created new ones during simulation.
- Fixed an issue that allowed purchasing the same item multiple times.
- Fixed an issue that would cause player character to pick fish caught by NPC fishermen.
- Fixed z-level 0 stairs sometimes spawning leading up instead of down in procedural locations.
- Fixed Rasimi Weaponsmith missing access to recipes.
- Fixed an issue during simulation that would cause the caravan to trade resources despite the settlement's inability to pay for them.
- Fixed an issue during simulation that sometimes caused Rasimi settlements to build infinite hunters buildings.
- Fixed an issue during simulation that could cause Bone Wraith settlements to fall into ruin due to not gathering bones to replenish their population.
- The carry weight is correctly recalculated after buying resources on the order screen.
- Added recipes to Rasimi Leatherworkers.
- Fixed NPCs with farmer occupation in Dwarven Tailor buildings.
- Fixed owlfolk sometimes spawn in an inaccessible roof area.

Greetings fellow gods,

Only 18 days till EA begins, who's excited? Time flies as I'm keeping myself busy with work. We'll have one or two more demo updates and shift entirely to EA.

Full changelog of the weekly update below:

[h3]Added[/h3]
- Added aging system. See the tutorial entry for more information.
- Added name and age of player character above resource bars.
- Added markers to the world map indicating plundered locations.
- As time progresses, new buildings may be placed in the already explored settlements.
- Added a button to copy world seed to the clipboard.
- Added a sound effect indicating lack of stamina to act.

[h3]Changed[/h3]
- Changed how the settlement population is counted to exclude children that do not spawn and include military units.
- Shield Slam cooldown increased to 12 turns.
- Axe Fighting amplifier that reduces cooldown changed to -2 turns from -4.

[h3]Fixed[/h3]
- Fixed crash on character creation related to portrait clothing colors.
- Fixed crash related to trading.
- Fixed a rare issue with some locations not generating beings or rewards below ground in some special locations.
- Fixed an issue related to stack pickup that would cause carrying items over the limit.
- Fixed an issue that would allow picking up too many items and resources from Stash despite having no carry capacity or backpack slots.
- Fixed resource type display on a Glowing Crystal Piece.
- Fixed an issue that sometimes caused Elven Settlements not to generate an exit correctly.
- Removed treasure chest from one of the swamp non-special locations.
- Fixed a procedural generation issue that caused stalactites and stalagmites to generate on grass outside caverns.
- Fixed missing information about salvaging skill gain on some item tooltips.
- Fixed AI issue where archers wouldn't know what to do when they didn't have arrows.
- Fixed an issue in one of the elven tavern alternatives that would cause walls to spawn under doors and prohibit passage.
- Fixed flickering menus with nothing to drink except blood covering our items.
- Fixed an issue that caused extra backpack slots not to get removed when dragging off a Fur Pouch.
- Fixed Yew tree to produce yew log instead of mahogany.
- Fixed Rage ability damage bonus.
- Attacking non-collidable objects no longer moves our character on top of them.
- Fixed Burn and Poison effects damage by applying resistances.
- Fixed damage over time indicator to more accurately represent how much damage it will do.
- Fixed an issue that sometimes caused food to be consumed in player settlements.
- Fixed drag & drop abilities onto the action bar on higher resolutions.
- Fixed action options flickering when attempting to talk to Human Archer.
- Fixed an issue when selecting building recipe caused incorrectly picked default resources.
- Fixed an issue on Knowledge screen that would not clear the filter on beings list.
- NPCs re-learned how to find their own beds.

Greetings fellow gods,

Today, we have a regular weekly update with many fixes and improvements, including critical stability fixes. The main addition is Demolition action for removing constructions in our settlements.

See the full changelog below:

[h3]Added[/h3]
- Added Demolition action to Construction skill.
- A few new building recipes for Carpentry and Construction.
- Added Flour and Bread recipes to Adventuring skill.
- Filled the ponds and rivers with fish.

[h3]Changed[/h3]
- Usable and Resource items no longer inherit used resource attributes.
- Food Everywhere passive changed to 20% chance to provide 1 unit of random food instead of 100%.
- Players begin with their starting settlement fully discovered on z-level 0.
- Shell Workbench moved to level 8 Construction.
- Ice Walls and Ice Spires can now be mined for Ice Blocks.
- Added a flashy border to the "you have new stats" button.
- Ending conversations with NPCs unselects them to prevent confusion related to fixed sight.
- Gathering speed scales with endurance now.
- Starting in a settlement makes it fully discovered.
- Elven Door and Elven Bed now require Elven Wood instead of wood resources.
- All items other than raw resources suffer the same sales penalty as weapons and armor.
- Bumped the chance to immobilize on cobwebs.
- Purchasing too heavy resources on the ordering screen is no longer possible, and weight displays under the resources list.
- Palm Wood now provides a parry bonus to both weapons and armor.
- Changed minimum ability damage done to beings to 1.
- Disabled crafting and upgrading while traveling on the world map.
- Equipping items with Light Source property will light them up automatically.
- Woodcutting action has been removed from potential default actions to prevent accidental attempts when escaping.

[h3]Fixed[/h3]
- Fixed memory leak related to region generation.
- Fixed crashes related to ordering products.
- Fixed crashes related to upgrading items.
- Fixed crashes related to Tundra region generation.
- Fixed crashes on character creation.
- Fixed an issue that sometimes caused enemies to not be aggressive after using Vanish.
- Fixed Net to offer the appropriate single-use ability.
- Fixed Magic Power property not transferring from resources to crafted items correctly.
- Fixed an issue that could cause Tundra Cavern not to spawn.
- Alternative weapons show up in the upgradeable items list.
- Removed trading option from Human Soldier.
- Fixed Chain amplifier.
- Placing building objects out of range no longer activates the progress bar.
- Fixed an issue with scrolling windows while talking to NPCs.
- Well Informed passive uncovers the question marks.
- Fixed an issue causing arrows to revert to crude when shot.
- Water tiles no longer burn down.
- Item backgrounds on the Stashing screen no longer incorrectly mark items as stolen.

Soulash 2 Early Access will begin December 4, 2023 on Steam and Itch and is planned for at least a year of active development.

The game will have a base price of $17.99, with regional pricing suggested by Steam. There will be a 10% launch discount, and Soulash 2 will be released alongside a Soulash Series Bundle that will provide an additional 15% discount to owners of the first game. I plan to increase the base price every 6 months of active development.

Many players asked what's the difference between the demo and the EA, so here's a list of key differences as of today:

• 4 tiers of special location difficulty. The demo has 33 small, easy locations. The Early Access begins with over 100 different procedural locations of varying sizes and difficulty.
  
• All 14 skills with 50 maximum potential levels instead of 20. Additional skills will be implemented during the EA period.
  
• Medium and Big world sizes for longer adventures.
  
• History progression before starting a new game, which will expand some settlements up to tier 3 and unlock more buildings and related NPCs to interact with.
  

Modding tools and Steam Workshop will come a few weeks after the EA release, as I want to give it a proper spotlight this time.

The EA roadmap will be released in January, so I have time to gather your suggestions and have a chance to adjust my plans to include some of the things you'll want to see in the game.

The game will be updated weekly, with possible hotfixes in between, and major milestone updates once every 3 months. The four key milestones I want to hit during Early Access (in order):

1. Party mechanics, adventuring with NPCs.
   
2. Settlement Management, inviting NPCs to our settlements.
   
3. Armies and Conquest mechanics, taking over other NPC settlements, tier 5 special locations for big battles.
   
4. Continuation of the story from the first game as part of the history simulation process, worldwide events.
   

This is the scope of the 1.0 release, which is my core vision for this game. As I mentioned, a more detailed roadmap will come in January. The primary purpose of this Early Access is for me to hear your suggestions and include the best ones in the game. If you like contributing and shaping games you play, this will be the best stage to join in.

I'm very excited to begin this next chapter with you all. It's been a long grind since I've decided to make the sequel, and I wish you all a lot of joy playing with it in the years to come. As always, I'm available to discuss the game on Discord alongside more than 1,200 of our fans, so join us there, and let's have some fun together!

Artur