Aliosso News

Path of the Djinn is becoming Aliosso. The game has evolved so much from its infancy that the original name no longer fits the game. We wanted a name that more closely suggested the theme of the game one way or another.

The term "Aliossi" comes from an ancient way of using animal knucklebones to make dice, if you want to know more, I suggest following the rabbit hole on Wikipedia, it's quite interesting.

The community hub might show the old name for a couple of days.

This playtest sees a slight restructuring of the rhythm of traveling. Every 3 rounds, a battle will be forced, while, on other rounds, there will always be a battle and 2 scenarios to pick from.

Merchants can no longer be found as scenarios, instead, they will be visited after every battle. Merchants have also had some changes, you'll now be able to buy dice and vases, which grant a pick out of N cards/runes.

The following rewards have been introduced for battles:

• No prayer used: +1 Gold
  
• No damage received: +1 Gold
  
• No rerolls used: +1 Gold
  
• Win on first turn: +1 Gold
  

Green Runes:

• Rune of the Ouroboros: Creates the last Rune used during this run. Excluding Rune of the Ouroboros.
  
• Quenching Rune: +10 Water.
  
• Oasis Rune: Leads to an Oasis scenario. Can only be used when traveling.

Blue Runes:

• Weakness: Applies 1 stack of Weakness to the target (Requires an Attack).
  
• Mastery Rune: Replace the selected ability die face with a random ability.
  
• Spiral Rune: Replace the selected ability die face with a random face from the same die.
  
• Peregrine's Gaze Rune: Select 2 ability Dice, copy the face from the left die to the right die.

Yellow Runes:

• Moonlight: Reduces the cost of the next prayer to 0.
  
• Crabs Touch Rune: Increases the value of all numerical faces of the selected support die by 4.

Prayers:

• Utu: Removes the current boss card.
  
• Lizard's touch: Applies 1 Weakness to all enemies.
  
• Gasam: Increases the value of all active numerical faces by 1. Can only be used in battle.

New Scenarios:

• Golden Beetle: Double your gold (add a maximum of 60).
  
• Abandoned Staff:
  
  • Exile: Apply Avoidance to the set Dice.
    
  • Shuffle: Destroy a random card. Obtain up to 2 random cards.
    

New Dice:

• Die of the Depths: Increases Power by the face's value. On trigger, 1 in 4 chance to create a blue rune (must have room).
  
• Die of the Stampede: Increases Power by the face's value. On trigger, the value of the active numeric face of all stampede dice is increased by 1>.

New Cards:

• Diceomancy: Dice at merchants are free.
  
• Borrowed Time: +40 Power. Loses 10 Power after each battle.
  
• Eruption: Played Volcano Dice trigger one additional time.
  
• Compounded Violence: +X Power. This value is increased by 2 every time a Red Die triggers.
  
• Null Null: "0" faces can't be rolled into.
  

Today we're releasing Playtest #4, which brings exciting changes on different fronts: new dice, new runes, new scenarios, a dedicated traveling area, and, most importantly, changes the game from a team-based adventure to a solo one.
Existing "work in progress" art has been updated and UX has been improved across the game.


Each run will now be about a single character at a time. We concluded that this would allow us to make game mechanics deeper and improve replayability.



Traveling happens in a dedicated scene, with scenario cards coming up. Not much to say here, we just thought it would be nicer. We're excited about seeing how players react to the blazing-fast (TM) loading we worked on.




New scenarios allow us to introduce new mechanics, like new ways to customize dice or make use of them in another way. Broadly speaking, scenarios act as a sort of dialogs, whereas others are dedicated to particular mechanics of Path of the Djinn, like prayers.




We're introducing new runes, new dice, and new prayers. While we like most of them, they are definitively not set in stone and might not survive between one playtest and another.




We are working towards a demo or playtest #5. We aren't sure it will make the cut for the Steam Fest of October, so we might ditch this one in favor of the one in February.

We've given our Steam page a new look to reflect the latest changes to the game, which came thanks to the incredible feedback we got through the playtests. If you missed out on those, the new page and trailer will catch you up to speed, but here's the gist of it.

In Path of the Djinn, you now control a single character at a time, each character having run-altering abilities and powers. The game blends cards and dice, with runes taking a step back in the form of consumables that can be applied to dice, used to grant miscellaneous effects, etc.

The game is now a mix of Balatro, Slice and Dice and Astrea. Each turn, you'll roll dice to get them to a desired state, then, by pressing play, cards and dice will trigger to boost your Power, cast abilities or unleash a cascade of effects.

Last but not least, we are thankful to the heroes that grant us the privilege to develop our game by defending Ukraine's freedom. If you ever feel like donating to help them in their effort, now's a great time. We aren't sure we can link to anything of the sort on Steam, but a quick Google search will provide plenty of options.

We're excited to share the new development of the Path of the Djinn playtest, which introduces traveling, merchants, new cards, new runes and finally new die types.


Traveling will allow you to move from one scenario to the next, eventually reaching the boss. Scenarios can have bonuses, like a merchant having a discount, a battle providing certain rewards on win, and so on. While for this version battles are somewhat simple, we plan to make them more interesting, likely by attaching maluses or by showing what enemies you'd be fighting.



Merchants are mostly in the business of selling runes and cards, but you might find that some of them also sell water. For your convenience, merchants will show new wares in exchange for gold ;). The introduction of gold and traveling has been a great opportunity to introduce cards which mechanics are, you guessed it, related to gold and traveling.




Green runes make their debut in this playtest, while yellow and blue ones affect support and character dice respectively, these ones have miscellaneous effects, like traveling to an oasis, transforming cards, or providing gold when sold to merchants.




New dice! The mechanics of some of these dice are triggered by all faces, whereas other types can be seen as a bunch of numerical faces with some "special" faces. We aren't exactly sure if we prefer the former or the latter yet, we definitively want to hear from you about this.




The next playtest will likely introduce one or more travel scenarios, we're also eyeing the idea of making it so that you only play one character at a time, with each character affecting the game mechanics in an important way.
Last but not least, the Ukrainian games festival will be taking place from August 19 to 26, so the next few weeks are going to be really busy, with a new playtest and the Steam page remake.