CHAPTER 4 HAS ARRIVED!
Today’s update adds a new chapter and brings a few nice improvements in the UI.
[h3]DISMAL MARCHES[/h3]
The southern swamps crawl with poisonous, toxic creatures: creepers, leeches, snarers, drowners, oorls and swamp beasts, as well as swarms of bloodsuckers.
However, the region also offers new alchemic resources, which come helpful when crafting protective and curative potions.
A monster sits tight over an artefact that the Spire needs, and a boss fight awaits you once you get through to it.
As always, this chapter offers a chance to recruit one more mage, and a few side areas to explore – for those who feel adventurous enough and have a good supply of alchemic potions.
[h3]SPELLS AND ITEMS[/h3]
Most of the spells in the Spellbooks have been updated, and new spells have been added.
Quite a lot of recipes have been changed, too, and there’s a few new items now that you can craft from the resources that are available in the marshes.
[h3]CHANGE IN HOW STATS ARE DISPLAYED[/h3]
When we released the game in Early Access a few months ago, mages got tokens that accumulated on their stats: for example, Health accumulated Damage, and when overwhelmed, caused Injuries.
That system was designed for interaction: for example, a Restoration token would cancel one token of Damage. But after playing for a while, we didn’t see much potential in it. At the same time, having tokens on stat bars created too much noise in the interface.
In this update we transition to a more classic system where stats lose their value. So that Damage tokens remove Health – and when Health reaches zero, the mage gets a new Injury. In the same way, a curative alchemic potion now restores Health (where previously it removed non-existing tokens of Damage from the stat).
We believe that while this doesn't change the underlying mechanics, it makes the stats more intuitive for everyone.
[h3]UPDATED TARGETING SYSTEM[/h3]
Before this update, we indicated the intention of an opponent to attack one of the mages with a small portrait next to the target. In complex encounters, this became hard to read.
We now switch to the system where next to each mage, there is a preset space that displays the intentions of the three possible opponents. You can hover over the projected attack to get more details, and these areas also highlight during the actual attack.
We believe that this makes the encounter easier to read and will contribute to a more intuitive understanding of the mechanics.
[h3]CHANGE IN ENVIRONMENTAL CONDITIONS AND EFFECTS[/h3]
Before this update, we used to have Environmental Effects with preset effects but different length. For example, if you started a fire in the forest (EE Burning ground), it could last for 3 or 5 rounds. It could also issue tokens once every 2 rounds, or once per round.
This now changes: all EE now last forever. All EE now affect every creature in the encounter. What EE has is a “power”, which defines how many tokens it issues to a random target. So, for example, EE Burning ground N will issue N tokens of Fire to random targets in the encounter, each round.
This retains the mechanics, while making it substantially easier to understand. There is still a variety of effects, some forest fires will be more dangerous than others, but there’s much less confusion.
Additionally, we got rid of Environmental Conditions as a UI feature. Earlier, we would show EC Enclosed space, for example, that would trigger EE Grey flame that issued Acid tokens. Now we just show the effect that can be triggered, and the counter of tokens that can trigger it.
We believe that this change, like other UI changes in the current update, makes the game flow easier to understand without removing the complexity of the mechanics.
[h3]WHAT’S NEXT?[/h3]
The next update, currently scheduled for end of May, will be quite different: we will not work on the next chapter, but instead will focus all our efforts on the core loop.
In the last two weeks, we got a new neighbor in the office – another indie game developer, whose recent game sold a bit over 2 million copies (NOT BAD!!).
We’ve been playing Spire of Sorcery together with their game designer and discussing the ways that the core loop can get better. They loved the content and the mechanics. Their suggestions focus on how to make the game more accessible early on – as well as on how to connect various parts of the game, which currently remain on their own.
We are also on the same page about the main features that we want to tackle: fold the preparation of the food into a Campfire mechanics, improve character progression so that each encounter and each discovery moves the mages forward, add smaller mini-stories to most locations, bring back the day-and-night cycle, and so on.
What we will do during May, then, is re-work the opening of the game – the Chase – to deliver a more intense, and a more interactive, experience. And we’ll be collaborating on an update of the dialogues, too.
Have fun with Dismal Marshes – and please leave a review if you enjoyed the update!
Following our announcement that condemns the Russian war in Ukraine, we got quite a few people coming out with knives at us and wishing the studio to go close. It helps to see that this aggressive crowd is a minority, and that we have an audience that appreciates the game and how it develops.
Until next update,
Studio CO