Novus Orbis News

[h3]Today kicks off the big 2 Left Thumbs Publisher Sale![/h3]
Explore the full event page to scope out loads of discounts, free games, bundles and more!



[h2]How about a FREE game?![/h2]
Croak Crusader: Spawn of the Spore Spectre launched TODAY, and is available 100% for free!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2997920/Croak_Crusader_Spawn_of_the_Spore_Spectre/

This free title introduces the general gameplay, protagonist and antagonists of the upcoming (paid) release, Croak Crusader: the Champion of Canada. Be sure to add that to your Wishlist!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3152060/Croak_Crusader_the_Champion_of_Canada/

[h2]COMING SOON[/h2]
Very VERY soon! Novus Orbis is a combo-based roguelike deckbuilder, set to release into Early Access on February 10th. There's already dozens of hours of content, and the game will only be getting deeper and more varied from here!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2437330/Novus_Orbis/

[h2]NEW UPDATES[/h2]
A collection of games have all timed free updates and big announcements for this event!

[h3]WizardChess[/h3]
WizardChess is a chess-like tactical roguelike with a near infinitely replayable amount of variety and depth. And today takes us a step closer to FULLY infinite replayability, with the addition of Daily Runs!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1274210/WizardChess/

[h3]Starground[/h3]
At the end of 2024 Starground revealed a planned development roadmap. Today sees the Brewconomic Cropdate, adding animals, fishing, potion brewing, and an improved Space Hub.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2793380/Starground/

[h3]Magenta Horizon[/h3]
In addition to making the awesome art for this sale, solo-dev Maddison Baek has crafted new community items for Magenta Horizon! Play the game to earn Trading Cards, and unlock awesome profile backgrounds and other Steam goodies.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2109060/Magenta_Horizon__Neverending_Harvest/

[h3]Schism[/h3]
Schism has a new update dropping Feb 10th that adds some end-game content, and enhanced controller support. Keep your eyes peeled for that! But the BIG news here, is that Schism is leaving Early Access MARCH 10th!! There is no discount now, so as not to conflict with that launch discount.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2084300/Schism/

[h3]Tower of Kalemonvo[/h3]
While this classic-style hack n slash ARPG isn't out yet, it did just receive yet another demo update. The name of the game right now is polish, preparing for our newly set released date of MARCH 28th!!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2351860/Tower_of_Kalemonvo/

[h2]FOLLOW ALONG[/h2]
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[h2]LOGO UPDATE[/h2]
I'm burying the lead a little here. But as a part of this event, I'm also debuting a redesigned 2 Left Thumbs Publishing logo - made by Fiend Folio artist RedRachis!

This will hopefully be the last content update to the demo until the release.

The score screen when you win or die has always been relatively underwhelming both in presentation and contents.

Also, I was taking into account the game time to calculate the score, which in a game like this doesn't make much sense (and also created issues with the speed multiplier).

So, I introduce a new score screen!
The score still has no purpose other than "here's how you did", but there is more information in it, and most importantly, now it keeps track of your stats between runs, giving you a high score value for each of the categories that are used to calculate the score.

There is also a "difficulty multiplier" that has no use in the demo, but in the final release will take into account the number of set challenges, or if you've set easy mode.

Moreover, it now includes a victories and losses counter.


Overall this was a needed inclusion to make a more complete game, and I hope it's satisfying enough.
There's a chance I may add more variables if players feel they need them, but I think I've covered basically everything of interest.



Finally, with the last update I had introduced a few issues, like the tutorial being forced every time you open the game, and the tutorial having some input problems.
Everything should be solved now!

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!