Soulash 2 News

[h2]Before Soulash 2 existed...[/h2][p]...the journey began with Soulash 1 — and with very humble foundations.
The first game was built entirely in ASCII, not as an artistic choice, but because there were no resources for custom art. For years, Soulash 1 grew on itch.io, shaped by experimentation, community feedback, and countless late nights spent turning a rough prototype into a real world.[/p][p]A failed Kickstarter meant we couldn’t fund the pixel art we hoped for — but instead of stopping, it pushed us to improve. In time, we gained the means to commission proper artwork and deliver Soulash 1 as the game it deserved to be.[/p][p]Those five years of building, failing, improving, and refining the vision laid the foundation for everything that would follow.[/p][p]Two years ago, Soulash 2 began as a solo project — an ambitious rebuild of the ideas introduced in the first game, but aiming for something far bigger: a fully simulated, reactive sandbox world where you can live, build, trade, explore, or conquer entire civilizations.[/p][p]Today, that solo project has grown into a five-person team. The world is richer than ever, the systems deeper, and the simulation far beyond what we imagined at the beginning.[/p][p]As we reach the two-year anniversary of development, it feels like the right moment to look back on everything that has taken shape since day one.[/p][p]This is our story.[/p][hr][/hr][p](Pre-Early Access)[/p][p]Before Soulash 2 reached Early Access, years of groundwork were laid to make the game's world truly alive.[/p][hr][/hr][h3]A deep simulation at its core[/h3][p][/p][p]We've built a world generator capable of creating unique continents every time:[/p]

• [p]simulated geography: rivers, lakes, coastlines, elevation[/p]
• [p]procedural settlements, ruins, dungeons, and other POIs[/p]
• [p]dynamic civilizations shaped by migrations and conflicts[/p]
• [p]persistent timelines tracking world events and NPC lives[/p]

[hr][/hr][h3]A new sandbox philosophy[/h3][p][/p][p]From the beginning, the goal was freedom:[/p]

• [p]harvest any tree or mineral vein[/p]
• [p]craft gear, food, supplies, and components[/p]
• [p]build structures and settlements[/p]
• [p]hire NPCs, trade, and influence local economies[/p]

[p]The world would be something you interact with and leave a mark on.[/p][hr][/hr][h3]Early civilizations and character concepts[/h3][p][/p][p]During early development, core character diversity was established:[/p]

• [p]playable races present at EA launch: Human, Dwarf, Elf, Rasimi[/p]
• [p]skills at EA launch: Adventuring, Athletics, Carpentry, Construction, Leatherworking, Mace Fighting, Protection, Pyromancy, Sword Fighting, Tailoring, Thievery, Weaponsmithing[/p]

[p]These early foundations later expanded into more complex progression paths.[/p][hr][/hr][h3]Fully integrated modding support[/h3][p][/p][p]One of the largest pre-EA efforts was rebuilding the modding architecture from Soulash 1 so modders could create entire civilizations and worlds of their own.

The new tools allow modders to:[/p]

• [p]define new races, items, POIs[/p]
• [p]add new production chains and buildings[/p]
• [p]implement custom abilities and effects[/p]
• [p]integrate seamlessly with Steam Workshop[/p]

[p]This groundwork made Soulash 2’s modding scene far more powerful and accessible than the first game.[/p][hr][/hr][p](2023)[/p][p]Entering Early Access marked the beginning of rapid growth and continuous evolution. For the first time, players could explore, experiment, and shape a world built from tons of pre-EA work. The launch established the foundation for all major systems that would grow over the next two years.[/p][hr][/hr][p](2023–2025)[/p][p]These two years delivered some nice features to Soulash 2.[/p][hr][/hr][h3]Larger, richer procedural worlds[/h3][p][/p][p]We introduced:[/p]

• [p]new large world sizes[/p]
• [p]expanded POI variety[/p]
• [p]more distinct biomes with unique resource profiles[/p]

[p]The world became more diverse, more dangerous, and more alive.[/p][hr][/hr][h3]A deep crafting system[/h3][p][/p][p]Crafting evolved into one of the game’s deepest systems:[/p]

• [p]gear customization through materials and recipes[/p]
• [p]integration with settlements and local economies[/p]

[p]Now you could craft your way in to the world.[/p][hr][/hr][h3]Party system[/h3][p][/p][p]A complete transformation of the RPG foundation:[/p]

• [p]recruit companions[/p]
• [p]shared inventories[/p]
• [p]Improved combat AI[/p]
• [p]follower equipment[/p]

[p]For the first time, players could build true adventuring teams.[/p][hr][/hr][h3]Settlements and Building[/h3][p][/p][p]One of the most ambitious systems we have ever created:[/p]

• [p]construct settlements from scratch[/p]
• [p]place buildings tile-by-tile[/p]
• [p]establish production chains[/p]
• [p]automate gathering & crafting[/p]
• [p]manage jobs and workers[/p]
• [p]build farms, workshops, defenses, and more[/p]

[p]This added an entirely new layer of strategy and creativity.[/p][hr][/hr][h3]Conquest & Warfare[/h3][p][/p][p]A massive update bringing large-scale conflict into the game:[/p]

• [p]command squads and armies[/p]
• [p]conquer cities[/p]
• [p]rule territories[/p]
• [p]manage conquered populations[/p]
• [p]reshape the entire world through force[/p]

[p]The sandbox expanded from personal survival to world domination.[/p][hr][/hr][h3]World and exploration improvements[/h3][h3][/h3][p]Over the two years, we continually added:[/p]

• [p]more unique POIs (156 unique locations, with hundreds more wilderness encounters)[/p]
• [p]improved biome variety[/p]
• [p]better resource distribution[/p]
• [p]new rare locations and secrets[/p]

[p]Exploration rewarded curiosity more than ever.[/p][hr][/hr][h3]Combat, magic and skills[/h3][p][/p][p]We expanded combat depth significantly:[/p]

• [p]new skills to use: Alchemy, Cryomancy, Divine Fists, Floromancy, Hunting, Imbuing, Necromancy, Stormthrowing[/p]
• [p]smarter enemy AI[/p]
• [p]better balance across builds[/p]

[p]Magic especially grew in complexity and playstyle variety.[/p][hr][/hr][h3]UI & QoL evolution[/h3][p][/p][p]Across updates we added:[/p]

• [p]better inventory management[/p]
• [p]improved tooltips & filters[/p]
• [p]reworked windows for crafting, settlements, and jobs[/p]
• [p]cleaner layouts[/p]

[p]Every part of the game became easier to navigate and understand.[/p][hr][/hr][h3]Performance and engine improvements[/h3][p][/p][p]Two years of continuous optimizations brought:[/p]

• [p]faster world generation[/p]
• [p]smoother AI processing[/p]
• [p]improved settlement simulation[/p]
• [p]better memory use[/p]
• [p]faster loading[/p]
• [p]more responsive UI[/p]
• [p]reduced stutters and lag[/p]

[p]The game now runs better than at any other point in development.[/p][hr][/hr][p][/p][p]In two years, Soulash 2 has grown into:[/p]

• [p]a deep, simulated world with real history[/p]
• [p]full settlement-building[/p]
• [p]empire conquest and warfare[/p]
• [p]character progression[/p]
• [p]tactical combat[/p]
• [p]a living economy[/p]
• [p]hundreds of POIs[/p]
• [p]rich crafting and survival systems[/p]
• [p]total modding freedom[/p]

[p]Looking back at these two years, it’s incredible to see how far the project has come. What started as a small continuation of the ideas behind the first Soulash — a hobby born from ASCII prototypes, community feedback, and long nights of experimentation — has grown into a fully simulated world shaped by a passionate five-person team and an even more passionate community.[/p][p]And even after all this time, the vision keeps expanding. New systems, new ideas, entire features waiting to be explored — the future of Soulash feels wide open.
What will the world look like in a few more years?
We’re excited to find out together.[/p][p]None of this would have been possible without you — your feedback, your bug reports, your ideas, your mods, your patience, and your excitement. You’ve helped shape Soulash 2 into the world it is today, and we’re deeply grateful to everyone who has supported us.[/p][hr][/hr][h3]⭐ A small request — and a big thank you[/h3][p]If Soulash 2 has earned a place in your heart, if you’ve enjoyed watching it grow and evolve, or if you simply want to support the work of a small team building a big world, we would be honored to have your vote in this year’s Steam Awards: Labour of Love.[/p][p]This category means a lot to us — because that’s exactly what Soulash 2 is: a long-term, continuously growing project fueled by passion and shaped by a dedicated community.[/p][p]If you feel we’ve earned it, please consider voting for Soulash 2 in the “Labour of Love” category.
Your support helps more than you know.[/p][p]And truly — thank you for being part of this journey.[/p]

[p]Greetings fellow gods,[/p][p][/p][p]As we're working on multi-tile entities and t5 locations, we have some improvements to wars for you in today's weekly update - ending wars by demanding or paying tribute.[/p][p][/p][p]Here's the full changelog:[/p][p][/p][h3]Added[/h3][p]- State military screen: There is now peace button visible next to wars, which can be used to end the war early (the war automatically ends if either side of conflict accumulates enough war score). If player is winning the enemy will pay tribute, and if enemy is winning we would need to pay tribute from our capital coffers.[/p][p]- New history events for settlements: Settlement Founded [/p][p][/p][h3]Changed[/h3][p]- Selecting army in State military screen will now bring your camera to army location (not their hometown)[/p][p]- When state conquers the settlement and the settlement race is the same as the attacking company hometown race, instead of creating occupying army it will create normal army.[/p][p]- Small crown is rendered next to settlement capital of state when viewing it in world map, instead of text (capital).[/p][p]- Knowledge Screen: Companies page shows a bit more information about company: leader portrait, information about soldier count, battles the company took place and more.[/p][p]- Settlement descriptions now show icons instead of text of mostly produced items. The history tab also shows who founded the settlement and when (will only affect new worlds).[/p][p]- Last Rites now correctly allow targetting a corpse in the range of 2 tiles.[/p][p]- Gathering and Mining are now forbidden in Bone Wraith settlements to tribe outsiders.[/p][p][/p][h3]Fixed[/h3][p]- Changing capital (via settlement button in Settlement View) could make factions file not load correctly after save/load[/p][p]- Clicking on the military company in state military list will zoom to it actual position, instead of it's hometown[/p][p]- War declaration dropdown that only contained one casus belli for now will not lock exit button/accept button when its focused[/p][p]- Asking for peace allows you to immedietly return army home to send it to another war and marks battle as cancelled[/p][p]- Battle animations will not show up for cancelled battles that has no winner[/p][p]- State Overview: Fixed problem filters defaulting to all, if there were no valid problems.[/p][p]- Fixed Haunted Orchard special location icon on world map.[/p][p]- Trolls now require Human Hand as one of the requirements for marriage.[/p][p]- Bloody Necklace recipe is correctly displayed for Imbuing level 21.[/p][p]- Animated Mannequin has correct graphic.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]Have a fun weekend,[/p][p]Artur[/p]

[p]Greetings fellow gods,[/p][p][/p][p]Today's update introduces a new screen for military management, enhancing the process of starting and ending wars, as well as deploying armies to conquer our neighbors.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]The full changelog can be found below:[/p][p][/p][h3]Added[/h3][p]- Added a Military Screen tab to State Management. This allows renaming armies, viewing soldier lists, sending troops to conquer, checking active wars, recalling occupying forces, and more.[/p][p]- Added a Move Capital button to the Settlement Screen, allowing you to relocate your capital to any controlled (non-occupied) settlement.[/p][p]- Categorization Update: "Move Capital" features expenditures are listed as State Expenses in the wealth tooltip in the Settlement Screen.[/p][p]- New historical event — "War Ended with Status Quo", triggered when a state pays to end a war early.[/p][p]- Added Skill Difficulty to the character creation screen - a text indicator showing which skills are easier or harder to learn. Magic-related skills are intentionally made harder to learn due to the rarity of their teachers.[/p][p]- Added 3 new locations for Troublesome POIs.[/p][p]- Added 1 new location for Hard POI.[/p][p]- Added 2 new milestones for Leatherworking.[/p][p]- Added 3 new milestones for Tailoring.[/p][p]- Added 1 new milestone for Agriculture.[/p][p]- Added 1 new milestone for Armorsmithing[/p][p]- Elven Ears can now be baked.[/p][p][/p][h3]Changed[/h3][p]- Ruined settlements are now displayed without banners, on a grey background, even if controlled. A dedicated ruined-settlement icon now appears in settlement and state overview screens.[/p][p]- Descendant characters can no longer select skills to boost during selecting them to play — they can already have higher skill levels due to prior work.[/p][p]- When asking family members to migrate, the player now migrates together with them.[/p][p]- Fuel resources like coal or firewood will not be consumed below 10 units during simulation.[/p][p]- Player's family is now marked with a crown icon next to their name in the settlement screen.[/p][p]- Empire Management Overview screen now shows all controlled settlements, not only player-created ones.[/p][p]- Skill books are now consumed even if the player has no potential in that skill. They can now grant the first level of the relevant skill.[/p][p]- Removed the old "Send Military Company" button and dropdown from the settlement screen. You now send armies via the military screen.[/p][p]- Adjusted war-ending logic — states will now continue wars longer instead of stopping immediately after a single battle (unless the enemy's last settlement is conquered).[/p][p]- Occupying armies with 0 soldiers are now automatically disbanded, and control returns to the previous settlement owner.[/p][p]- Corpses no longer disappear after drinking their blood.[/p][p]- Stone Crown and Stone Shield now need a workbench instead of an anvil.[/p][p]- Bumped blood amount in humanoid and orc corpses.[/p][p]- Tweaked Meat Hand statistics.[/p][p][/p][h3]Fixed[/h3][p]- Abandoning a conquered settlement now correctly returns the occupying army to their hometown — as recruits (if the hometown is free) or citizens in their families.[/p][p]- Abandoning the capital now correctly moves it to the largest valid non-conquered, controlled city (by population).[/p][p]- Fixed a bug causing conquering armies to incorrectly show their hometown in the state overview problems list as "Battle is taking place here."[/p][p]- Fixed an issue where crafters without inputs (e.g., blacksmiths, leatherworkers) incorrectly showed as lacking inputs in State Overview → Problems.[/p][p]- Fixed a missing overlay when opening the State Overview Problems Filter.[/p][p]- Fixed an issue where starting as a descendant made your spouse appear as a "previous spouse".[/p][p]- Fixed a crash that occurred when removing deceased people from settlement buildings.[/p][p]- Fixed Mage Tower treasure chest spawning to remain within the constraints of the tower.[/p][p]- Fixed invalid damage message on attack in Polish translation.[/p][p]- Removed caravan leaders from the teacher list — as they don't spawn on the region map.[/p][p]- Removing a building from a family now correctly resets all workers in that building’s occupation back to "none".[/p][p]- Skeletons and Vampires in player towns don't consume settlement food during simulation.[/p][p]- Alchemy tooltip explains how to train it.[/p][p]- Preventing multiple actors on the same tile when digging graves.[/p][p]- Fixed an issue where sometimes the trading screen showed stocks of previously interacted with family.[/p][p]- Fixed Vampire Nightborns dealing too much damage.[/p][p]- Fixed display of world tile description at \[0,0] coordinates.[/p][p]- Disabled the possibility of families purchasing settlement buildings that don't allow any workers, like settlement centers.[/p][p]- Map filters no trigger work when the filter window is closed.[/p][p]- Paralyzing Mushroom Pins correctly grow into gatherable Paralyzing Mushrooms.[/p][p]- Thirst On Effect from Rainy Day no longer works to sate Bloodlust.[/p][p]- Ripped Oak now has a correct graphic.[/p][p]- Mushmen no longer build the Human Leatherworker Building.[/p][p]- You can now talk to Rasimi Smelter in your settlement.[/p][p]- Player can no longer ask a Vampire to marry them.[/p][p]- Vampire cities now have the correct graphics.[/p][p]- Meat Golems won't use ranged weapons anymore.[/p][p]- Collegium Magicae in Human settlements is correctly categorized as a military building.[/p][p]- Fixed missing or incorrect occupation icons for druids, berserkers, maulers, and archers.[/p][p]- Fixed Snail Tooth's wrong image.[/p][p][/p][h3]Modding[/h3][p]- Persona component in entities exposes a new optional field, called: "occupationIconIndex". It is the image index of the professions icons tileset. Setting it to a custom icon will override the military screen unit icon.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]Starting next week, I will resume working on multi-tile entities for T5 locations, to have them ready for you by the end of the year. There are two additional Empire management screens planned to enhance visualization and aid in planning: trade (to manage caravans between settlements) and production (to view the output of various cities within our empire). The rest of our time will be spent refining what we already have in the game, such as improvements to the economy, performance enhancements, and other related aspects, over the next two months.[/p][p][/p][p]Have a fun weekend,[/p][p]Artur[/p]

[p]Greetings fellow gods,[/p][p][/p][p]With some delays and a broken release schedule, we finally have some significant features and content updates for you: the introduction of the Vampire civilization and the overview section of the State Management screen.[/p][p][/p][p]Let's talk State Management first. We have a new screen where we'll manage our ever-growing empires and see what we can improve, like delivering missing input resources for buildings or re-shuffling buildings among families so they keep producing wealth.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]On this new screen, we can create a state and edit it by changing its name or banner.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]The warnings for various settlements are filterable, so we can customize which parts are relevant for us. They also link to specific settlements in the Settlement Management screen.[/p][p][/p][p]This screen will continue to be expanded in our minor updates to cover more areas of State Management, such as managing the military forces, the caravan economy, and more. With the traditional roguelike and sandbox framework already solid, we're entering the strategy-genre-inspired phase of the Soulash 2 endgame gameplay to finalize the core game design.[/p][p][/p][p]Now onto the final civilization promised in our Roadmap. The Vampires are not immediately playable, just like the Undead. Instead, a transformation is available through the Necromancy skill, as an alternative to becoming a Lich. The vampires come with a single settlement in the grasslands and, like any civilization, will require time to develop in a new world. Through Vampirism, it's possible to offer immortal life through the gift of our blood to our beloved, before they die and have to be resurrected as a zombie. Possibly a better deal, but still not exactly alive.[/p][p][/p][p]Here's the full changelog for today's update:[/p][p][/p][h3]Added[/h3][p]- State Management Screen - Overview: this new screen displays stats of all controlled settlements, allows changing the state name, crest, or faction colors, and shows problems our towns have.[/p][p]- New civilization: Vampires.[/p][p]- Added a new alternative path for the Necromancy skill to become an immortal Vampire.[/p][p]- Added a Necromancy ability to turn NPCs residing in our towns into Vampires.[/p][p][/p][h3]Changed[/h3][p]- Reverted Crafting Screen change that caused crafting sometimes to produce incorrect stack size.[/p][p]- Only adults can lead caravans/work in buildings/gather tile resources/work in military companies.[/p][p]- Occupation armies cannot be sent to conquer.[/p][p]- You cannot enlist the local population from conquered towns in the occupying army.[/p][p]- The settlement screen now shows if the settlement is capital or conquered by you.[/p][p]- Player state capital is rendered on the world map with an extra crown icon.[/p][p]- Vampiric Touch will now provide 25% of its damage as Bloodlust for Vampire characters.[/p][p]- Added more state name generation variety for Dwarves, Elves, Goblins, Orcs, and Trolls.[/p][p]- Displaying the race of characters in tooltips.[/p][p]- Color coding liquid types in container tooltips.[/p][p][/p][h3]Fixed[/h3][p]- Fixed some dropdowns incorrectly processing input keys.[/p][p]- Fixed dropdowns' handling of keyboard navigation: up & down, tab for cycling, and enter for selecting.[/p][p]- Fixed recruits counting as two people in the settlement screen exploit.[/p][p]- Fixed removing soldiers from buildings not changing the military stat of the settlement.[/p][p]- Fixed assignments from and to the Recruit positions.[/p][p]- Fixed deleting a military building in the settlement screen not removing members from the company.[/p][p]- Hearth returned to require a Stone entity instead of a Stone resource type, as that slight stone shift caused the collapse of the entire Human civilization in the world simulation.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]Updates may remain irregular for a while, as we figure out a good pace. The primary goals are the t5 locations with multi-tile bosses and extensions to the newly introduced State Management Screen. After that, the Events System, and then I'll check again on what kind of fantastic suggestions you all have been leaving us on Discord's s2-suggestions channel, so make sure to leave your feedback there, and upvote what you like to see in the game (just please, no more sex stuff).[/p][p][/p][p]Also, for those who don't yet know, we have tutorials and short stories on our YouTube channel. I've been thinking about using it to create a series on official lore. Would you like to see the Soulash universe summarized and expanded into a video format? Make sure to subscribe and let us know.[/p][p][/p][p]Have fun slurping blood and turning your mush-family into vampires,[/p][p]Artur[/p]

Greetings fellow gods,

A bunch of fixes today as we work on bigger features. Here's the changelog:

[h3]Changed[/h3]
- Ice Wall and Frozen Dirt Wall can fulfill the Stonemason building requirement.
- Wishing Well takes 10 turns for its action instead of 30.
- Hearth building can now take any stone instead of the basic Stone entity.
- Changed Gloomy Village treasure chest spawn to be in the castle rather than on a random roof.
- Wishing Well drop rates tweaked.

[h3]Fixed[/h3]
- Fixed a crash related to battling.
- Fixed a crash in Knowledge Screen.
- Fixed a crash in Settlement Screen.
- Fixed a crash related to asking for special locations nearby.
- Fixed a crash related to invalid modded recipes in Crafting.
- Sandstone Glass Window has a proper background color.
- Fixed Collegium Magicae and Cryoqua Nexus breaking UI in the Settlement Screen on 2560х1440 resolution.
- Fixed settlements going out of list bounds in the Knowledge - State screen.
- Fixed settlement population and military sometimes having incorrect values
- Fixed crafted stackable items causing the Crafting Screen to go blank.
- Fixed the setting screen's close button so that it does not overlap with the changing z-level button
- Fixed mouse 4 and mouse 5 buttons showing correctly in the options/keymap screen
- Fixed the elixir of power not granting magic power
- Fixed usable items taking out of the stash not granting active abilities
- Fixed the ability hotkey under "-", as it was conflicting with the "look down" action.

Have fun,
Artur