Journey to the Void News

[p]Congrats to Pogolo for being the fastest at beating the demo (for now!) and to all other players. We'll be contacting the five speedrun winners in our Discord, and we'll add the 10 giveaway winners on Steam to send them the key.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]Please accept Drone00's friend request.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]It's been exciting to see players compete for the top spots on the leaderboards, and we're heartened to know that the game is fun and will only get better with player feedback and suggestions for its January release.[/p]

[p]To celebrate, we’re hosting a special event for Journey to the Void![/p][p][/p][h2]New Speedrun Leaderboard[/h2][p]If you launch the demo, you’ll notice a brand-new section: Speedrun Mode. We’ll be collecting the best completion times across the three difficulties (Beginner, Normal, and Hardcore).[/p][p][/p][p]At the end of Steam Next Fest, the top five players of the Normal difficulty will each receive a free full game key once the game is released in January 2026 (of course, our developers don't count! Drone00, I'm talking to you!).[/p][p][/p][h2]Random Giveaway [/h2][p]And don’t worry if speedrunning isn’t your thing: we’ll also randomly select ten players from everyone who tried the demo and gift them a key as well. To be eligible for the Random Giveaway, you must have killed at least 50 enemies. You can check your kill stats on the Enemies Slayed Leaderboard.[/p][p][/p][h2]Rules[/h2][p]We will take a screenshot of the leaderboard at 13:00 GMT+2 on 21st October. Records achieved after that deadline will not be counted.[/p][p][/p][p]Happy speedrunning to everyone![/p]

[p]Hello everyone![/p][p]We are super excited to share with you the new update of the "Journey to the Void" demo! We have carefully read all your feedback, and we can proudly say that this update is the result of your contribution![/p][p][/p][p][/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]We've collected all the valuable feedback we've received from players and improved the gameplay experience. We've revamped the enemy drop system, tied some fights to the selected background to avoid invincible fights, balanced the game's difficulty by tweaking some enemy values, added tooltips to many elements that didn't have them, and rebalanced some choices in specific punishment events.[/p][p][/p][p]There are still tons of elements we're refining for the game's release in January, but to explore them all and get a thorough, comprehensive look at the game, we need your feedback. If you play the demo, please leave a review on Steam! Additionally, our Discord server is open to everyone and has dedicated channels for discussing strategies and reporting feedback from your experience.[/p][p][/p][p]We can't wait to hear what you have to say about this version, into which we've poured all our sweat and expertise.[/p][p][/p][p]Thank you for your time, and have a good Journey![/p][p][/p]

[p]We've dedicated significant effort to optimizing the game, ensuring a smooth and immersive experience on Valve's portable powerhouse. Get ready to explore the void wherever you go![/p][p][/p][p]Journey to the Void was not merely adapted for Steam Deck; it was designed from the ground up with Valve's handheld platform in mind. Our primary goal is to ensure a fluid, responsive, and above all, enjoyable gaming experience for all players, wherever they may be.[/p][p][/p][p]On-screen glyphs will help you to learn the commands in a couple of fights easily. We were super happy during the playtest to see how easily players got confident with the game![/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]With Journey to the Void on Steam Deck, performance is paramount. You can effortlessly enjoy the game at 60 or even 90 frames per second on the OLED version, ensuring a super smooth experience. [/p][p][/p][p]For those looking to extend battery life, especially during travel, our in-game options allow you to cap the frame rate at 30 FPS, offering significant power savings without sacrificing fun. But to be honest, we run the game at Svilupparty for seven hours at 90 fps without charging the deck![/p][p]
[/p]

Hello everyone!

We are super excited to share with you the new update of the "Journey to the Void" demo! We have carefully read all your feedback, and we can proudly say that this update is the result of your contribution!

We are a small indie studio, and we really care about making you feel part of the project. So, get ready, because we have listened to your requests and worked hard to implement them!

Here's a short list for those who don't want to go into detail:

• New Card Art
  
• Difficulty Selection
  
• Card Rewards Rework
  
• QOL Updates
  
  • Intention Icons
    
  • Tutorial Skip
    
  • Deck-specific Fights
    
  • Long Press for Controller
    
  • Deck Inspector after a Fight
    
  • Colored stats in Traits
    
• Game Balancing
  
• Bug Fixes

If you want to leave feedback, suggest other changes, report a bug, or just engage with the community, pop into our official discord!


This is the most visible change made to the demo: we updated all card art, and now each card has its unique artwork! We've heard your feedback, and now cards will be recognizable even from the art alone, without needing to read the name or effects.
Here are a few examples, but many more can be found in the demo!




We gathered a lot of data and listened to all player feedback regarding the demo difficulty. We realized that the game was targeted at a very expert playerbase: the hardcore nature of the game left little to no space for mistakes or distraction, and even one single wrong turn could result in the end of the run.
On one hand, that was the challenging experience we wanted to provide, on the other hand, some players just wanted to enjoy a cute game and the difficulty spike of the first battles was a bit too steep for them. Since we didn’t want to compromise, we decided to do some extra work and implement a difficulty system. From this version of the demo, when creating a new save slot (or starting from scratch), players will be able to select between three difficulties: beginner, normal, and hardcore.
The beginner difficulty is for those who just want to relax and enjoy the game without worrying too much about strategy and mistakes, the normal difficulty is for players who want a challenge but are not already familiar with the deckbuilding roguelike genre: this mode can be a little more forgiving and allows the player to experiment without being punished. The last difficulty is hardcore: we wanted to preserve the original experience, but now, under this new label, players are warned and will know what they're getting into.
Here is a little preview of how it will be presented in game:




In previous versions of the demo, at the end of each battle, the player was presented with three individual cards from their card pool. Those cards were always random, and while they did a good job of showcasing the various deckbuilding possibilities, we came up with a more specific method for cards to appear, since we wanted to increase player agency in what they could build in a run.
The most notable improvement is that we have increased the number of slots from 3 to 4, and each slot has specific characteristics on the type of cards that can appear in it. This will allow the player to always have a very wide and varied range of possibilities to choose from.
Each slot will have a specific and varied pool of cards that can appear, so that players are always presented with a meaningful choice.


In this section, we will show you some improvements we have made to the game in terms of quality of life:
[h3]Intention Icons[/h3]
Following strong requests from many players, we have decided to implement a small icon that displays the monsters' intentions at all times.
This intention represents what the enemy plans to do if nothing changes. However, if during the player's or enemies' turn, the conditions that led to that plan are no longer valid — for example, another enemy moves onto the tile they intended to reach — the intention will be updated accordingly.
For the more experienced players who want a cleaner gaming experience, it is possible to disable the display of this icon in the settings.
[h3]Tutorial Skip[/h3]
When a new profile is created, if there is already at least one in the save files that has completed the tutorial, the option to skip the tutorial and avoid repeating all the explanations will appear, allowing the player to be thrown directly into the first real run.
[h3]Deck-specific Fights[/h3]
We noticed that some early fights presented specific difficulties if the player used a particular deck. We decided to make some fights exclusive to certain decks, so that if a player chooses a particular deck at the beginning of the run, they are not penalized in the early fights by a series of challenging enemies to handle.
[h3]Long Press for Controller[/h3]
We noticed that some players, while using the controller, would occasionally pass their turn accidentally. To solve this problem, we have implemented a light hold on the button to confirm the turn, in order to avoid unintentional presses.
[h3]Deck Inspector after a Fight[/h3]
Some players felt the need to check their deck before choosing a card at the end of a battle. So we added a quick-access system to view the deck more easily.
[h3]Colored stats in Traits[/h3]
When choosing a new character for a run, the traits will have colored text that matches the primary stats color, so that players can easily visualize the stats affected by traits.


While we have created various difficulties to allow players to experience the game in the way they want, we have still adjusted some values to make the game experience as balanced as possible.
Here is a list of all the changes compared to the previous version of the demo:

• Enemies Balancing:
  
  • Ghost HP: 5 → 3
    
  • Strange Mountain Yeti HP: 25 → 38
    
  • Strange Gritty Embermander HP: 21 → 32
• Damage potions are now more effective
  
  • Minor Strength Potion: +1 PD → +3 PD
    
  • Medium Strength Potion: +2 PD → + 5 PD
    
  • Powerful Strength Potion: +3 PD → + 7 PD
    
  • Minor Resonance Potion: +1 ED → +3 ED
    
  • Medium Resonance Potion: +2 ED → + 5 ED
    
  • Powerful Resonance Potion: +3 ED → + 7 ED
• Cards Balancing:
  
  • Minor Heal → can now be obtained with all three targets.
    
  • Full Restore: 30 → 99 (added Not Scalable effect)
    
  • Energy Boost → can now be obtained with all three targets.
    
  • Clear Mind targets: ⬛⬛⬛ → ⬜⬛⬜ (added Not Scalable effect)
    
  • Blizzard effect: Freeze, Not Scalable → Ice Hinder
    
  • Blizzard cost: 5 → 4
    
  • Blizzard base power: 0 → 6
    
  • Ice Wall effect: Ice Hinder → Freeze, Not Scalable
    
  • Ice Wall cost: 3 → 5
    
  • Ice Wall base power: 2 → 0
    
  • Flame Cone effect: Flaming → Flaming, Double Damage

We took the opportunity to fix some bugs: here is a list of the bugs we fixed in this version of the demo:

• Energy and Skill Points usage statistics were wrongly tracked
  
• Some texts were missing for the ice shopper
  
• Fix the wrong card selection with the mouse
  
• The training event appears only for the Villager deck
  
• The postcard stamps now appear only on Boss's death
  
• More readable graphics for wait intention
  
• Fix Italian localization errors
  
• Fix a particular behaviour, quitting the game after the dead scene
  
• Fixed card discard in the tutorial phase
  
• Fixes cards appear on the screen when quitting the run
  
• Fixed the fire boss attack icon
  
• Fixed the wrong Italian enemy description for a monster