Early Access Dev Log 02
Another week, another update – let’s talk about what we’ve been working on during the last few days.
[h3]SETTING THE PRIORITIES[/h3]
After the release, we’ve listed all the hot issues and graded them by impact (high, medium, low) as well as split them into “risks” and “gains”.
For example, making the Fatigue interface easier to grasp is a “risk” since it causes confusion to some players. While making the Mulligan screen more beautiful is a “gain” since once it’s done, it will add to the player experience.
Essentially, it’s the split between “removing annoying things” ːopponentː and “adding nice things” ːmagic_sparklesː, and we should do both as a matter of balance.
Next, we asked everyone around the table (most of us are back to working from the studio, by the way) to choose just one issue that carries the most impact, and voila, every single team member underlined the same one: better tutorial.
Aside from that, high votes went to:
Plus, the usual suspect: adding more music and more animations.
[h3]THE EXPERIMENTS WITH FATIGUE[/h3]
As you may recall from the last week, we’ve been scratching our heads as to what exactly makes some among those who play the game misunderstand the Fatigue mechanics, which leads to lots of injuries and untimely death.
Discussing this here on Steam as well as internally, we separated the UI issues from the issues of the mechanics itself. And then there’s one more issue with the naming.
Here’s what we’ll fix in UI:
But these UI fixes alone are not enough.
We’ve been experimenting with changes in the mechanics itself:
Here’s what’re changing with the next update, then:
[h3]THE EXPERIMENTS WITH SPECIAL POWERS AND MOOD[/h3]
Another experiment that we ran in the last few days is what to do with the current mood traits. We’re removing the over-powered ones, but what next?
Here’s what we’re building right now, and will add to the update if it proves itself:
After all the discussions that we had, this seems like an improvement to what we currently have. But we first need to play and “feel” it before we commit to shipping this into the game. We’ll have more news on this in the next dev log!
[h3]TUTORIAL CHAPTER[/h3]
Much of our time, however, is spent on preparing a standalone tutorial chapter.
The events are set in a forest camp, where the mages have been convoyed to burn alive the leaders of a rebellious village. By luck, one of the mages manages to break out…
This is a new map, with a new look, and it will have a fully interactive sequence “do this”, “now do this” – intersected with comments from the runaway herself.
From where we are right now, the game’s core loop seems “fairly simple”, but once we sat down to write all the basics we want to explain, the list became quite long –
We’re about 2/3 in the new tutorial, with 65 episodes thus far, and will spend the next few days crunching the rest to meet the deadlines for translations.
That’s it for today – and we’ll see you next week.
If you have any questions or comments, do feel free to ping us here on Steam forums.
Have a great weekend ahead!
/ Team CO /
[h3]SETTING THE PRIORITIES[/h3]
After the release, we’ve listed all the hot issues and graded them by impact (high, medium, low) as well as split them into “risks” and “gains”.
For example, making the Fatigue interface easier to grasp is a “risk” since it causes confusion to some players. While making the Mulligan screen more beautiful is a “gain” since once it’s done, it will add to the player experience.
Essentially, it’s the split between “removing annoying things” ːopponentː and “adding nice things” ːmagic_sparklesː, and we should do both as a matter of balance.
Next, we asked everyone around the table (most of us are back to working from the studio, by the way) to choose just one issue that carries the most impact, and voila, every single team member underlined the same one: better tutorial.
Aside from that, high votes went to:
- Previewing deck sequence during encounters
Balancing personal traits
Giving characters special powers
Updating Mulligan
Improving Fatigue UI/mechanics
Plus, the usual suspect: adding more music and more animations.
[h3]THE EXPERIMENTS WITH FATIGUE[/h3]
As you may recall from the last week, we’ve been scratching our heads as to what exactly makes some among those who play the game misunderstand the Fatigue mechanics, which leads to lots of injuries and untimely death.
Discussing this here on Steam as well as internally, we separated the UI issues from the issues of the mechanics itself. And then there’s one more issue with the naming.
Here’s what we’ll fix in UI:
- Currently, when you’re about to overdraft on the fatigue and exceed endurance, we show you no warning. You just overdraft and get the penalty (ːdamageːːdamageːːdamageː).
ːspellcastingː We’ll display a warning “you’re about to overdraft” to add more control. This should prevent players (both new and old) from getting too carried away with the spellcasting to notice this risk. - Currently, we show fatigue as an icon on the stat bar, but as a number on the action bar.
ːspellcastingː We’ll display action costs the same way as the stat bar. If it costs 2 tokens – we’ll show 2 tokens rather than “2” + icon. It’s a small thing! But small things can build up into a mess. - Currently, when we issue the penalty for the overdraft of Fatigue, we don’t show a separate window like we do with poisonings, injuries, and diseases. We just deal the penalty.
ːspellcastingː With the next update, we’ll do that to be clearer about what is happening.
But these UI fixes alone are not enough.
We’ve been experimenting with changes in the mechanics itself:
- Changing Endurance/Fatigue from progress bar to a counter. So that you won’t have Fatigue as a token, but rather have Endurance as a value – say, 20 – and every action will deduct from it.
We didn’t like it, since it removes Fatigue from the interaction with all the other tokens, and token mechanics is at the core of the game. - Changing Endurance from a stat that restores between encounters to a stat that is set for the whole chapter. You start with, say, Endurance of 100 and with each encounter you draw from this pool until you’re at zero, and no more extra actions are possible.
We played with this system for a day, and we didn’t feel like it adds something special. Actually, it drives you to over-spend early on (“I’m rich! I can do 4 actions every turn!”) and then face the boss monster with insufficient energy, and that’s not much fun. - Changing penalty for overdraft to something other than 3 Damage tokens
We feel like this is one of those counter-intuitive solutions, where every little thing bundles up into a bigger mess. Getting Damage when you overdraft on Endurance from casting spells sounds like a stretch, really.
Here’s what’re changing with the next update, then:
- ːspellcastingː Fatigue tokens become Chaos tokens.
We don’t really make the mages perform physical exercises, and term “fatigue” was somewhat misleading. On the other hand, mages do dip into the Chaos to draw the energy for their spells and can burn up if not careful. - ːspellcastingː Endurance stat becomes Concentration stat.
Same logic as above, the stat is not about running a marathon or scaling a wall, it’s about the mage’s ability to cast spells without resting. - ːspellcastingː The penalty for exceeding Concentration with Chaos is “Chaos burn”.
We want something special here, not just other tokens. Chaos burn removes 1 element from the hand of the mage. Chaos burns stack. Chaos burns are automatically removed upon return to the Spire, and each party member loses 1 burn per each campsite used.
[h3]THE EXPERIMENTS WITH SPECIAL POWERS AND MOOD[/h3]
Another experiment that we ran in the last few days is what to do with the current mood traits. We’re removing the over-powered ones, but what next?
- We don’t like having 3 grades of each negative and positive mood trait. This limits the available options a lot and introduces a bunch of unnecessary counters.
- We want the party members to have “superpowers”, which means something they will use occasionally rather than in every encounter.
- We feel like mood should have its own dynamic, and not stay at the same level once reached (i.e. nobody should remain depressed or euphoric on their own, day after day).
Here’s what we’re building right now, and will add to the update if it proves itself:
- ːspellcastingː Positive mood traits to be replaced with 1 special power per character
- ːspellcastingː Every special power is unique (get 4 elements in hand, remove all environment effects, get 3 “wild card” elements in your hand, and so on)
- ːspellcastingː Special power becomes available once party member scores enough inspiration points
- ːspellcastingː Activating special power costs inspiration points
- ːspellcastingː Inspiration points accumulate every day when the mood is positive
After all the discussions that we had, this seems like an improvement to what we currently have. But we first need to play and “feel” it before we commit to shipping this into the game. We’ll have more news on this in the next dev log!
[h3]TUTORIAL CHAPTER[/h3]
Much of our time, however, is spent on preparing a standalone tutorial chapter.
The events are set in a forest camp, where the mages have been convoyed to burn alive the leaders of a rebellious village. By luck, one of the mages manages to break out…
This is a new map, with a new look, and it will have a fully interactive sequence “do this”, “now do this” – intersected with comments from the runaway herself.
From where we are right now, the game’s core loop seems “fairly simple”, but once we sat down to write all the basics we want to explain, the list became quite long –
- Move around the map and end turns
- Pick up resources
- Cook food and eat it
- Start encounters with active opponents
- Choose spells
- Assemble and cast spells
- Concoct alchemic substances
- Start encounters with parties that protect locations
- Use alchemy during encounters
- Convert tokens (acid to fire, acid to frost)
- Preview deck sequence
- Discard elements and end rounds in encounters
- Complete adventures
- Use curative substances
- Get injuries and observe ailment counter
- Assemble one spell from multiple hands
- Use environmental conditions to start environmental effects
- Retreat
We’re about 2/3 in the new tutorial, with 65 episodes thus far, and will spend the next few days crunching the rest to meet the deadlines for translations.
That’s it for today – and we’ll see you next week.
If you have any questions or comments, do feel free to ping us here on Steam forums.
Have a great weekend ahead!
/ Team CO /