Novus Orbis News

Hello everyone!

After working on the game for a while, the biggest gripe for many players was that my game doesn't follow the StS formula of having intents.

At some point I decided to add them in the shape you've seen so far.
But, turns out that it was still probably not enough.
The game as it was, was in a weird spot between not being tactical enough, nor "classic RPG" enough.
And while I still think the system had its merits, I have to understand when I should be stubborn, and when I shouldn't.

With this update, I've implemented an intents system much closer to the one in Slay the Spire, while still maintaining my countdown system.

The biggest challenge was the fact that enemies actions were decided right before they came, so deciding them right after the last action risked ruining the overall game balance. I worked around that, fixing a few specific cases where it could give issues.

The second problem I had was the fact that stronger enemies have multiple actions per turn. While in the previous version all intents were "condensed" into one single icon and tooltip, this wasn't going to work when I need to show values for attacks. The logical thing was to have multiple intents somewhere around the enemy, but it wasn't as straightforward as it may seem.
The final solution was to move the countdown icon to the right of the enemy's HP bar, and stack all intents on its left. I needed to move some enemies sprites to avoid having intents cover them in crucial parts like their faces, but I think that in the end the result is good looking (and it's way more menacing to see a tower of 5 intents next to a Mimic lol).

Enemies will now have an exclamation mark over them when at 1 Countdown, which will turn into an arrow icon during their attack. I hope this will help better follow the game's flow.

Together with this big change, you may notice some other small tweaks to the game.

I've rearranged the enemies position on the screen, to better avoid the risk of them overlapping with cards, and to space them more evenly between each other.

I've also reworked the tutorial to reflect the new changes.
Please note that now the tutorial will be forced on your next run, then it will be inaccessible. I plan to add a way to access it after first launch.

That's it!
I'm working on making the game run as bug free as possible at the moment.
Early Access launch is around the corner, and I'm both excited and stressed a lot!

Thank you as always!

It's been a while!

Let's start with the announcement.
The game is almost ready for release. The plan was to release by the end of the year, but following the publisher's advice, that would be one of the worst moments to release a game. That, together with sales and events, made me decide to shift release for a few months.

Novus Orbis will release in Early Access in February!
The exact date is still not final, I will announce it as soon as possible :D

In conjunction with that, I'm also announcing that I've given up on the Kickstarter.
I wasn't getting enough traction to make it worthwhile, and I preferred focusing on the game itself.
Hopefully you'll give the Early Access release a try, and follow the project until I complete my whole vision.

That being said, I've been working on various improvements for the game, and some of them will reflect in the demo, too.

Since it's been a while, and I haven't been keeping track of all the changes I've made, this is probably a non complete list of changes:

• Skipping a card reward will now heal you.
  
• Changes to visuals for some parts of the game, like the class selection screen.
  
• Added an alternative font option. This should hopefully be more readable on smaller screen as well as for people with sight issues.
  
• Pets now have (again) tooltips that tell you what their possible actions are.
  
• Item, Equipment and Special cards now have their specific keyword that tell you they get consumed/are one time use.
  
• Changed the cards background art: the text box is now bigger. I also removed the line art from the text box, this should make text more readable in general.
  
• Cards now also state their type (attack, skilll, equipment, etc.) on the bottom of the card.
  
• You'll see an Achievements button in the start screen and in the in game menu. This will work in the release version, but deactivated in the demo.
  
• Some parts of the game are now more clear in telling you how much damage/healing you're getting (like from the portals' modifiers and the firepit).
  
• Removed French and Polish from the game. I realized it was too difficult to keep the translations up to date while constantly making changes. They will come back in the future when things are more final.
  

There will probably more additions/changes to the gameplay before the release.

Thank you for reading!

Hello everyone!

Next Fest is over!
I have to admit I hoped for a few more wishlists in the beginning, but the tail after the initial peak was better than I thought, so the overall results weren't too bad :D

Wishlists aside, I've had about 100 people playing the demo each day for the whole week now, and I'm very happy about it!

I realize that some players are either abandoning the game very quickly, or playing it for a very long time, for a demo.
Please feel free to leave any feedback! While I may not be able to make everyone happy, I'll do my best to make it a fun and enjoyable experience for as many people as possible :)

One feedback I had already had in the past, and that came back during the fest, is that people seem to be used to dragging cards in this kind of game. Which is not how I usually play them, and because of that I opted for the "click on card to pick, click again to use" version we've had so far (which I also considered safe, avoiding potential misplays).

I decided to follow the advice, and implemented a drag and drop input mode!

This will now be the default option when you next launch the game, for both new and existing players.
You can still select the old input system from the menu.

Now you can drag cards from your hand towards the top.
Cards that don't have a single enemy target will be automatically played once you drop them above a certain line.
Single target attacks can be placed directly on an enemy to attack it, or if placed not on an enemy, you'll get the attack arrow we've always had so far.

I have to admit that now the game plays way more fluidly! I'm really happy with the result :)

I have tested it and everything seems to work well, but there's still a chance I've introduced new bugs with this update, so again, please let me know if anything weird happens!

Also, join the Discord if you haven't already!

Thank you all for playing!

Hi everyone!

I've been silently updating the demo to address a few issues, but I'm going to announce this 2.5.0 version just in time for Next Fest next week!

Aside from a lot of bug fixes (and bug additions, and fixes, and additions...), a few changes, mostly visual:

• Reworked start menu. Looks cleaner and should be easier to navigate.
  
• Portals and interactables now give a visual feedback when the cursor is on them.
  
• Enemies' Countdown value will now pulsate when at 2, to help you focus on the fact that they're close to act.
  
• Changed Defense and Great Defense's icon, since it was too similar to Block's. I used the icon that was used for Physical Resistance (the Slime's status that I removed a while back).
  
• A reward system, similar to StS, where you'll get a reward at the start of a run if you've reached at least the first boss.
  
• Italian localization.
  

Now, to the actual game's release.
If you check the Store Page, you may notice that I have updated it with screenshots that are not from the demo.
I am pleased to say that, regarding content, the game is basically ready to be shipped!

The first Early Access release will contain:

• The two classes that are in the demo, with some new cards and mechanics for both classes.
  
• New blessings.
  
• Four different levels.
  
• Many new enemies, mini bosses and bosses.
  
• 65 Achievements, all linked to unlocking something in the game (cards, blessings, pets and more)
  
• A Challenges system: each class will be able to unlock five Challenges to make the game more difficult and unlock even more things.
  
• An Easy Mode where enemies will be weaker. Getting Achievements will be locked in this mode.
  

For an experienced player this should keep you entertained for more than 30 hours.

The plan after the first release is to gradually update the game at least monthly, but likely more often. There will be two big updates that will add a new class and two more sets of levels, bringing the game to a total of 9 different levels when everything is ready. I will post a more in-depth roadmap in the future.

Now to some not great news, my plan was to release by the end of the year, but I'm discussing with the publisher, and it may be a better logistic choice to wait for the beginning of next year. Nothing has been decided yet.

Finally, together with Next Fest I will soon launch a second try for a Kickstarter campaign. I hope that the two events will bring interest to each other!
I've recently reached 3000 wishlists, and I really hope this Fest will bring me closer to the magic 7000.
In case you're not following it yet, here is the Kickstarter Campaign Page.
Whoever backs to buy the game will gain access to the Beta for the Early Access release. Basically you'll be able to start enjoying the game a few months in advance, and you'll be able to see it grow and change with your help.

As always, thank you everyone for following the project and the support!

It was brought to my attention that there was a pretty bad bug, where the game wasn't "forgetting" the blessings you've seen during a run, when restarting a run. Which meant that at some point you'd run out of blessings.
This was bad enough to require an update.

Together with that, I have been fixing other issues for the game release.
For the few people who may care, I have finally managed to finalize how I handle localization (for now I have Japanese, French and Polish, and Italian should come soon). Now special characters will properly display, and the original English version should appear in case a localized entry is missing.

I also introduced two new portal modifiers: one will make enemies weaker (and smaller), and one that will steal some monster blood.

Thank you to whoever is still playing the demo, I can't wait to finally release!

[h3]KICKSTARTER[/h3]
We will be running a Kickstarter campaign for Novus Orbis later this year. Please be sure to give that a Follow so you don't miss out on your chance to support the game and earn cool rewards!



[h3]STAY UPDATED[/h3]