Spellslinger Towns News

Hello everyone! Last week we got some questions on the win conditions of the game. Since Spellslinger Towns is very much a sandbox, this goes a little bit different from other strategy games. Sit down, relax, and find out more here!



The basic gameplay loop goes as follows:

• Manage your city in real-time, expand, explore, trade, ...
  
• Play cards (more about this in the last devblog!)
  
• Every few card hands, expand your deck
  
• After X deck expansions, you no longer get any extra cards
  
• ...Now what?
  

Good question! In the first few playthroughs, you'll be focused on making sure your city survives the early-game events such as wild fires, raids, droughts, and so on. You'll have to work on your instincts and figure out how you can set up a well-oiled production line, trading agreements, diplomacy and military, regardless of the circumstances you are presented with.

Once you've got the hang of that, it's time for Feats!



Feats are kind of (very much?) like achievements. Because there will be hundreds if not thousands of Feats, we went for the name Feats to avoid confusion with Steam's Achievements. ...Anyway!

Every playthrough presents you with different circumstances. Not only are the biomes, random events and nearby players different every time, so are the cards you are offered. This means that a simple victory condition would not fit very well: what if you don't get the required cards to achieve said victory?

To mitigate this issue, we present you with a vast array of Feats, each with different tiers. Every time you achieve a tier of a Feat, you are rewarded with Paper. Paper is the in-game currency that will be used to buy (cosmetic) rewards (but that's for another devblog!). Paper can only be earned in game. No Microtransactions.



At any point in the game, the game shows you the Feats you're closest to achieving:



If you want to see more, you can always open the Feats menu and see the full spectrum of possible Feats. Note that you can achieve every Feat as many times as you want, but only once per playthrough. For example, reaching 1.000 gold will reward you with Paper every playthrough, regardless of whether you've reached this amount before.





A sandbox game wouldn't be a sandbox game without a large array of settings to configure before starting the game. Want to exclude certain biomes? No AI players, or maybe a huge amount of AI players? No wildfires, or perhaps lots of raids? You name it, you can configure it.

Based on the configuration of your scenario, you will get a Paper multiplier for every Feat you achieve. The more difficult you make things, the bigger the reward! We're also exploring ways to integrate a global leaderboard so you can see the crazy things other people have achieved, or flaunt your own achievements.

This feature is still very much in development, so no screenshots yet, sorry! I promise we'll show this once it's ready.



If you're interested in following the development of Spellslinger Towns, or want to become part of our community, be sure to visit our Discord Server! Additionally, wishlisting the game would really help us out.

Over and out!

Hello everyone! As promised last week, this week's Devblog is all about how cards are incorporated into Spellslinger Towns. Cards are a great way to spice thing up, and if used correctly in strong combo's, will really turn the game into your sandbox. Play things right and see how far you can take things!





Before you start, you'll have to create a starter deck. A start deck consists of exactly 6 cards and can contain as many duplicates as you want. You can freely configure any combination of cards, as long as they are starter cards, marked by a "play" icon on the bottom of the card.



Once the game starts, your deck is shuffled. Every round, you pick 3 (or more) cards from your draw stack. You are allowed to play all cards in your hand as long as you have enough mana. Since you start with 1 mana and 3 cards, you'll have to choose which one you're going with. Once the round is over, all cards you drew are put into the discard stack, regardless of whether you played them that turn. Once your draw stack is empty, the discard stack is shuffled and moved to the draw stack.





Every few turns, you are presented with the option to upgrade your deck. You'll be presented with 8 card options, from which you can pick 3 to add to your deck. Once your deck has been expanded, a new round starts and you can start playing with your new cards!





As you'd expect, there are a few different types of cards. Let's go over them!

• Spell cards are exactly what you think they are: spells to cast on your enemies, buffs for yourself, things that may drastically alter environments or spells that affect your deck such as duplicating and deleting cards. Spell cards have a purple border.
  
  
• Building cards allow you to place special buildings that can not be built in any other way, or perhaps build existing buildings without any cost. They are often used to improve your production lines, accelerate your early game, or provide a quick defense boost when you need it. Building cards have a brown border.
  
  
• Quest cards activate a quest for you and all other players in the game. The first player to reach the goal described in the quest will gain a bonus that is also shown on the card. Be careful, if other players get it done before you, you'll miss out on the reward! Quest cards have a golden border.
  
  
• Unit cards allow you to spawn one-off special units that will fight on your side or provide some other special benefit. Unlike your normal army units, these units cannot be produced any other way (unless you manage to steal one from your enemies with a spell!). Unit cards have a red border for fighting units, and a green border for the other units.
  

The best way to make things clear is by showing some early examples!

• Healing Fire is an early-game card that provides healing to nearby units. Very useful for when it starts snowing and your units are freezing to death, or you are being attacked by a small group of bandits and need to recover.
  
  
• Lumberjack is an early-game quest card that provides permanent woodcutting bonuses to the first player that gathers 100 wood. If you're planning to go all-in on Wood (and get your other resources by trading, for example), this is the way to go!
  

• Firestorm has a name that says it all. Spawn fire near your enemies and watch it spread. Better hope they have no way to extinguish it! Firestorm also costs Mana Crystals, a resource often used for spells. It can be mined in some biomes, but not all.
  
  
• No good way of getting Mana Crystals? The Spellforge can help you out! It automatically produces the valuable crystals over time. It also has a special modifier that makes it run 20% more efficiently when in a magical environment. What that means is for another Devblog!
  

• The Mercenary comes with a hefty price tag, but is an excellent soldier. Need that extra oomph and have a few coins to spare? He's your guy.
  
  
• Mimic is a great combo spell. It casts your next spell twice. What's better than one firestorm? That's right. Two firestorms.
  
  

Also, if you're interested in following the development of Spellslinger Towns, or want to become part of our community, be sure to visit our Discord Server! Additionally, wishlisting the game would really help us out.

Over and out!

Hello everyone! We're trying out this Devblog format to gauge how interested you guys are in finding out about our game through this format. Our first entry will talk about the basics of the game: What's the idea? How do you get started? What are the cards for? Find out in this Devblog!


The game starts off with a single building, your Town Center. Your Town Center provides a few different things: a bit of storage space, some basic food production, and a place to drop off the goods your citizens or buildings produce. New villagers will also spawn from here!




You'll quickly find out that the units in your city aren't directly controllable. Let's take [ INSERT NAME ] here for example. While we can click on a unit to see some of their properties, there is no way to directly control their behaviour. That's the case for every single unit in the game. All units will live their own live independently, and react to situations on their own.



Some examples:

• Units will automatically move around, based on the parameters you set (more on that later!)
  
• Units will automatically decide to attack or flee from enemies, depending on whether or not they are armed.
  
• Units will automatically build new houses if needed, and transport goods where they are required.
  
• Wild animals may decide to attack your town, or leave it alone.
  
• Settlements filled with bandits could decide to raid your city.
  

So... why does everything happen automagically? We want you to focus on the big picture, on building a big city, managing diplomacy, trade, and resource production lines. We want you to think strategically about which spells you're going to be casting and when they might be the most useful. If you're always busy micro-managing every single unit, that can't happen!



Of course, to grow your city, you'll need various resources. Some resources can be gathered, while others must be crafted or refined. Let's start with gathering.



In this screen, you can configure which resources are gathered, in which proportions, by your citizens. They will automatically distribute themselves (to the best of their ability) based on the weights your decide. For example, if you see that your city is getting low on food, it might be smart to increase the amount of units that should be gathering Berries or Fish. You'll only be able to gather resources that are close to a dropoff point, such as your Town Center, so expanding your city is the way to get access to more resources!



Some resources, like planks, cannot be gathered. Instead, they must be refined from other resources, in this case Wood. We can construct a Sawmill to get that done. You can place a construction site for the Sawmill, and once all the required resources are available, a villager will start building our Sawmill. The simulation will take care of the rest: move wood to the Sawmill, produce planks, and move the produced planks back to our storage.



As you gain more resources, the inhabitants will build new houses for new members of your society, provided there is enough food available. Be sure to keep the growth under control! You don't want to end up with starving people because you can no longer supply enough food.




There's still a very important aspect of the game we haven't talked about so far, and that's the cards. Cards deserve their very own Devblog, but let's give a very quick overview of the gameplay loop concerning cards:

• Start with a deck of handpicked cards.
  
• Draw from your deck and play the cards that ideally fit the current situation.
  
• As the playthrough progresses, you'll be able to add new cards to your deck in a classic deckbuilding manner
  
• Play crazy combinations with your cards, and try to break the simulation. Control an army of armored huskies? If you have the cards, Spellslinger Towns will let you do it.
  

This is just a (very!) small part of the game we're making, and of what is still to come. More information in the next Devblog!

Also, if you're interested in following the development of Spellslinger Towns, or want to become part of our community, be sure to visit our Discord Server! Additionally, wishlisting the game would really help us out.

Over and out!