Early Access Dev Log 10
With the December update out, most of our team is taking a holiday break and some will take an additional week off in January to recharge after an intense end of the year. We hope that you, too, will have a chance to get some “lazy days” at the start of the year.
[h3]JANUARY UPDATE[/h3]
We plan to release the next update to the game at the end of January, which leaves 2 weeks to production, and then a few days for testing.
We decided to focus on adding Story Mode to Chapter 2 (Broodmother’s Treasure).
Now, the second chapter is just a “glorified boss fight”: you find the colony, destroy it, and then have a battle with the big monster.
What we’re after is a proper story of an artefact that you will steal from the weavers, supported by a couple of side stories:
We won’t spoil the actual stories here since we want you to have fun exploring them when the update is released. What we can reveal, though, is the redesign of the map: we plan on building a real maze in weaver forest, in parts – impassable, and in parts – passable with a penalty (through hex effects). Navigating such a maze would be a new experience.
[h3]MASTER CHAMBER?[/h3]
Something that was discussed in the community for a while is how the Spire right now is just a functional set of rooms. We agree that this basic design can be improved.
We will start with designing and building a Master Chamber, the central location of the Spire that will hold everything together.
We don’t know if we’ll be able to finish it in time for the January update, but if we will, then this is the place to which you will bring the artefact stolen from the Broodmother, and this is where you will visually see your progress in the campaign.
Those of you who saw the 2019 version of the game will remember a few earlier designs of the Master Chamber. We’ll take one of them and develop fully.
[h3]SPELLS AND SPELLBOOKS[/h3]
One of the things we’re keen to improve is the spells.
The current direct progression (L1-L2-L3) is functional, but it’s not what we have in plan for the whole campaign.
There are two options that we experimented with:
In the end, we decided to combine both approaches, and that’s something for the February update.
At the same time, we’d like to simplify the essence mechanics.
Right now, you can collect 3 different types of essences, depending on the outcome of an encounter. But it doesn’t offer enough fun to justify the split into 3 different types, and so we will progress to having just 1 type of essences that you extract.
Together with this, we plan to change the cost of opening new spells to increased value specifically for each mage. It will cost, say, 10 essences to open mage’s second spell, no matter what that spell is, and it will cost 25 to open their third, and so on.
Which will allow us to bring another thing which was discussed in the community earlier: personal preferences of mages to specific schools of magic. We think that it would be fun to have one mage have a “50% discount” on opening fire-related spells, and another to have the same advantage for acid spells, and so on.
Provided that we allow to see this, and change this, at the start of the campaign, it will give you more control over the initial party – and the way you want to play the game.
[h3]CAMPAIGN – FROM START TO FINISH[/h3]
Once we started working on the change in spell design, we realized that it’s high time to detail the whole campaign, from start to finish, to broadly understand the needs of the mages towards the end of the game.
Will we have opponents that need 10 fire tokens to burn?
Will we have new tokens, and thus new spell schools?
After discussions, this is how we think the campaign will look like:
ːspellcastingː Into the Wild Lands
The escape into the Wild Lands: low-level inquisitors and soldiers, gigglers, shadows, a few demons.
ːspellcastingː Broodmother’s Treasure
Weavers, splitjaws, crawlers (plus higher-level gigglers and shadows) in the forest.
ːspellcastingː Demon Master’s Bidding
Mushroom-eaters and demons, blackpaws, leafclaws and weepers in the elderwood.
ːspellcastingː A Very Wet Place
Oorls and waterlings, earthleeches and creepers, snarers and drowners in the swamps.
ːspellcastingː At the Palace
Soldiers, inquisitors (and someone else, no spoilers) back at the Empire.
ːspellcastingː The Forgotten City
Ashlings, mutants and monsters in ruins and catacombs.
ːspellcastingː White Peaks
Oremasters, stingtails, panzerlings and fluters in hills and mountains.
ːspellcastingː The Distorted Lands
(No details, as we don’t want spoilers)
There are a few ideas for new kinds of tokens, indeed, especially for the catacomb chapter (electricity?) and the chapter set in hills (vibration?) – we’ll experiment with those once we get there.
[h3]WISHING YOU A SAFE 2022![/h3]
With this update, we wrap the year of 2021. Most of this year we spent running weekly sprints, releasing over 30 updates as the game took shape. We thank everyone who trusted us to make it happen, and especially those in the community who took part in the discussions that helped us define what “a game about a party of runaway mages” should play like!
We wish you a happy 2022 – filled with friendship, good conversations, good books, and good games! For us, this will be the year when Spire of Sorcery enters full release, and we look forward to giving you more happy moments with the game’s monthly updates.
Happy New Year!
/ Team CO /
[h3]JANUARY UPDATE[/h3]
We plan to release the next update to the game at the end of January, which leaves 2 weeks to production, and then a few days for testing.
We decided to focus on adding Story Mode to Chapter 2 (Broodmother’s Treasure).
Now, the second chapter is just a “glorified boss fight”: you find the colony, destroy it, and then have a battle with the big monster.
What we’re after is a proper story of an artefact that you will steal from the weavers, supported by a couple of side stories:
- Some of the weavers disagreed with the dictatorship of the Broodmother and left her territory, only to run into trouble with scavengers.
- Your party of mages is not the first to approach weavers, and you may find a survivor of the earlier expedition.
We won’t spoil the actual stories here since we want you to have fun exploring them when the update is released. What we can reveal, though, is the redesign of the map: we plan on building a real maze in weaver forest, in parts – impassable, and in parts – passable with a penalty (through hex effects). Navigating such a maze would be a new experience.
[h3]MASTER CHAMBER?[/h3]
Something that was discussed in the community for a while is how the Spire right now is just a functional set of rooms. We agree that this basic design can be improved.
We will start with designing and building a Master Chamber, the central location of the Spire that will hold everything together.
We don’t know if we’ll be able to finish it in time for the January update, but if we will, then this is the place to which you will bring the artefact stolen from the Broodmother, and this is where you will visually see your progress in the campaign.
Those of you who saw the 2019 version of the game will remember a few earlier designs of the Master Chamber. We’ll take one of them and develop fully.
[h3]SPELLS AND SPELLBOOKS[/h3]
One of the things we’re keen to improve is the spells.
The current direct progression (L1-L2-L3) is functional, but it’s not what we have in plan for the whole campaign.
There are two options that we experimented with:
- Instead of opening new spells, to upgrade the existing spells
- To offer a choice of new spells when upgrading
In the end, we decided to combine both approaches, and that’s something for the February update.
At the same time, we’d like to simplify the essence mechanics.
Right now, you can collect 3 different types of essences, depending on the outcome of an encounter. But it doesn’t offer enough fun to justify the split into 3 different types, and so we will progress to having just 1 type of essences that you extract.
Together with this, we plan to change the cost of opening new spells to increased value specifically for each mage. It will cost, say, 10 essences to open mage’s second spell, no matter what that spell is, and it will cost 25 to open their third, and so on.
Which will allow us to bring another thing which was discussed in the community earlier: personal preferences of mages to specific schools of magic. We think that it would be fun to have one mage have a “50% discount” on opening fire-related spells, and another to have the same advantage for acid spells, and so on.
Provided that we allow to see this, and change this, at the start of the campaign, it will give you more control over the initial party – and the way you want to play the game.
[h3]CAMPAIGN – FROM START TO FINISH[/h3]
Once we started working on the change in spell design, we realized that it’s high time to detail the whole campaign, from start to finish, to broadly understand the needs of the mages towards the end of the game.
Will we have opponents that need 10 fire tokens to burn?
Will we have new tokens, and thus new spell schools?
After discussions, this is how we think the campaign will look like:
ːspellcastingː Into the Wild Lands
The escape into the Wild Lands: low-level inquisitors and soldiers, gigglers, shadows, a few demons.
ːspellcastingː Broodmother’s Treasure
Weavers, splitjaws, crawlers (plus higher-level gigglers and shadows) in the forest.
ːspellcastingː Demon Master’s Bidding
Mushroom-eaters and demons, blackpaws, leafclaws and weepers in the elderwood.
ːspellcastingː A Very Wet Place
Oorls and waterlings, earthleeches and creepers, snarers and drowners in the swamps.
ːspellcastingː At the Palace
Soldiers, inquisitors (and someone else, no spoilers) back at the Empire.
ːspellcastingː The Forgotten City
Ashlings, mutants and monsters in ruins and catacombs.
ːspellcastingː White Peaks
Oremasters, stingtails, panzerlings and fluters in hills and mountains.
ːspellcastingː The Distorted Lands
(No details, as we don’t want spoilers)
There are a few ideas for new kinds of tokens, indeed, especially for the catacomb chapter (electricity?) and the chapter set in hills (vibration?) – we’ll experiment with those once we get there.
[h3]WISHING YOU A SAFE 2022![/h3]
With this update, we wrap the year of 2021. Most of this year we spent running weekly sprints, releasing over 30 updates as the game took shape. We thank everyone who trusted us to make it happen, and especially those in the community who took part in the discussions that helped us define what “a game about a party of runaway mages” should play like!
We wish you a happy 2022 – filled with friendship, good conversations, good books, and good games! For us, this will be the year when Spire of Sorcery enters full release, and we look forward to giving you more happy moments with the game’s monthly updates.
Happy New Year!
/ Team CO /