Soulash 2 News

Greetings fellow gods,
Hotfix today will address some stability issues related to procgen and one major issue with new buildings spawning during a playthrough.

[h3]Fixed[/h3]
- Fixed an issue where buildings have not spawned correctly after they have been built by settlement during playthrough, causing various issues, like NPCs not going to their work buildings or not being able to find them by the "Ask for directions" conversation option.
- Fixed crash related to Monk Temple's special location.
- Fixed crash related to knockback enemies over the region map edge.
- Fixed crash related to challenge ability.
- Fixed Mountain Maze location.
- Throw action now takes 1 turn.
- Added missing tool type into workstation recipes.
- Goblin Bow swapped with Bow recipes in Carpentry skill.
- Fixed various typos and descriptions.
- Fixed physical abilities tooltip damage display.
- Fixed Dragon Bone stats.

Quick hotfix to deal with some history simulation and region generation crashes.

No need to regenerate worlds. It will affect existing ones.

Greetings fellow gods,

Early Access has just begun! The time has come to explore the procedural worlds of Soulash 2!

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

[h3]The road so far[/h3]

It's been such a wild ride to get to this point, with so many difficulties and challenges related to getting procedural generation to produce something workable and figuring out a development pace that would be quick enough and not make me burn out after going full-time indie, but seeing the game as it is right now and where it is still just locked in my head, I'm so glad I decided to take this journey.

I want to take this opportunity to thank all of the Soulash fans who made it possible, those who played the first game and shared their enthusiasm with me, those who followed Soulash 2 devlogs for almost 2 years and shared their excitement about the new direction, all the Patrons who were patiently waiting for the sequel, players who offered so much of their time to help catch bugs in the demo, and all of the fans who stayed on our Discord even when it wasn't very active at times. The game would not exist without your support. I appreciate all of you and hope to continue building exceptional gaming experiences for you all. Thank you so much!

And please remember about the Soulash Series bundle to get the sequel at an extra 15% discount if you own the first game!

Since the first Soulash release, I've spent 4,500 hours completely rebuilding the "murder hobo simulator", as many liked to call the first Soulash game, into this new direction of a sandbox RPG roguelike that many players, including me, craved. I've introduced procedural worlds and regions, history simulation, and interactable NPCs, completely redesigned the progression system to be skill-based and detached from killing, added a new building system, and redesigned and deepened the crafting system, among many other things. It's a significant shift towards a sandbox experience where we can adventure and be a part of a changing world rather than the more typical roguelike formula of killing everything that moves, although that direction is still available.

After all that work, this is just the beginning of what I have envisioned - the fundaments underneath a unique dark fantasy game about worlds on the brink of destruction. A tale of our ascension to become a new god of this world if we so desire. Soulash 2 takes place after the end of Soulash 1, and the story continuation will be introduced once the game matures to a 1.0 version in about a year.

[h3]Where do we go from here?[/h3]

The start of Early Access marks a second significant milestone for the game's development, with the first one being the release of the demo back in October, which fortunately found its way to many old and new fans alike. Since then, I've kept the pace of a weekly update, and I plan to continue to do that every Thursday with occasional exceptions to take a breather from the grind. Aside from weekly updates, I plan to hit a major milestone update every 3 months, as listed in order in the EA announcement.

During December, I will prioritize polishing and fixing what we already have, according to your feedback. I'll also flesh out modding tools, which I plan to release this year alongside Steam Workshop support. The modding tools require some GUI work, and we plan to do video tutorials to explain step by step how to introduce new things like races, civilizations, procedural portraits, items, resources, abilities, and animations and hope to invite many more players to give it a try because it's so easy and fun that my six years old son is having a blast making new maps.

While I have a strong vision for what I want to build, and it will revolve around those 4 major milestones that I mentioned before - adventuring parties, settlement management, conquest, and story, I wanted to start with Early Access to provide you an opportunity to tell me what you would like to see in the game. Because of the problematic development history of the first game, we only had a full release and ASCII alpha on Itch alone before it. Many players who discovered the game on release were very vocal about how they like participating in games that continue to develop in public so they can affect their shape and have a reason to return to them as they grow, so this Early Access is such an opportunity.

As things unfold in December and I gather your feedback and suggestions, I will provide a more detailed 2024 roadmap in January. I would also like to invite you all to our Discord server, where we have a great place to leave your suggestions and discuss them with over a thousand other fans.

For those who like soundtracks, the OST will come to Steam with a bit of a delay, as I didn't manage to set it up on time, but it will come.

Thank you for taking an interest in my game, and I wish you all great adventures and many memorable encounters,
Artur

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.