Early Access Dev Log 03
We’re a couple of weeks away from the November update, and there’s now more visibility into what is likely to make the cut. The November update focuses on mechanics and interface, while the December update will be dedicated to new chapters.
[h3]THE FOREST CAMP[/h3]
The biggest thing that we ship in November is the interactive tutorial, built as a separate map.
Tutorials are the luxury of games development, because to build a good one you preferably need to have the game finished first. Thus, you either wait to finish the game, then make the tutorial, and then go into full release – or you update your dev process to include an interactive tutorial into the very core loop of the game, and then the tutorial grows together with the game.
With the localization, we already achieved that – we develop the game from day one as a multi-language product and extinguish out all and any “temporary” texts that otherwise tend to grow like weeds at the prototyping stage.
With the tutorial, we still must get better at that. A big contributing factor here is that as you create the game, you add features one by one, and thus on the inside everything is completely “obvious”. The same, by the way, happens with localization for teams that create just in one language (English or Japanese, for example). You become “blind” to text and then you end up having multiple untranslated strings that seem to pop up out of nowhere.
Anyways, what we’ll ship with this month’s update is a fully interactive mini chapter that explores the basics of the game: how to concoct, how to use alchemy in battle, how to heal, how to use multiple hands when spellcasting, and so on.
In terms of setting, it’s a standalone story of a runaway mage that escapes a forest camp of the Inquisition – a prequel to Chapter 1.
Looking at the game's Steam Achievements, 70% of players cooked food – 56% concocted alchemic substance – but only 36% used alchemy in battles. We think that the new tutorial will help players to discover more features of the game.
[h3]NEW MULLIGAN[/h3]
There’s been quite a lot of feedback on the mulligan screen, and we act on it in the coming update.
If you followed the game for some time, you may recall the transition between “get many characters, have them die and get replacements” and the current “get the characters you sympathize with, and take good care of them” approaches.
Many players wanted to have more influence over the initial party, but there were 2 things that kept us from following that route: the idea that personal traits could become revealed as they were used (hence previewing them at start was unfeasible) and the generation formula that was intentionally random (you could get a very strong, or a very weak, character).
The November update changes that: you will be able to re-roll just the portraits, leaving stats and traits in place, and you will be able to re-roll just the values on their own. And yes, we will show all the values upfront: driving forces, stats, personal traits, and mood-related mechanics.
But this would have been impossible without the next item on the list…
[h3]REBALANCED TRAITS, CHARACTER FORMULA, SPECIAL POWERS[/h3]
We’ve cleaned up the traits that were obviously OP: no longer will someone concoct an extra substance or cook a second portion of the food. Expanding the list of traits to nearly 50, we now give each a “weight” (+2, –1, etc.) and balance them, together with stats, to result in a “slightly positive sum total”.
This rebalancing and the introduction of formula now makes it fair to see all the values of the initial party, for you cannot “cheat” by going for the strongest characters – there are no longer “winners” and “losers”. Rather, you choose the specific combination of traits.
Speaking of traits, we nuked the old mood traits and replaced them with Special Powers (good) and Negative Mood Effects (bad). The way it works now is that every day when a party member is in a good mood, they accumulate inspiration points. Once enough accumulates, that character can use their special power. And every day when a party member is in a bad mood… they lose their inspiration.
In the upcoming version, you’ll see the following special powers:
[h3]WHAT NOW?[/h3]
In addition to the big things above, there’s a bunch of smaller improvements. There will be 2 new music tracks (for Chapter 3) as well as changes in endurance/concentration, and digestive system mechanics. Plus, our favorite “small but impactful” change – the preview of the upcoming elements in the deck.
We’ll spend the next week working to finish all the tasks for the update, and then will open a password-free BETA branch on Steam to play with the updated version for a few days ahead of the public release of the update. And then, between November 22 and November 24, we’ll push the update to both the main game and to the DEMO.
Stay safe, stay happy, and see you next week!
/ Team CO /
[h3]THE FOREST CAMP[/h3]
The biggest thing that we ship in November is the interactive tutorial, built as a separate map.
Tutorials are the luxury of games development, because to build a good one you preferably need to have the game finished first. Thus, you either wait to finish the game, then make the tutorial, and then go into full release – or you update your dev process to include an interactive tutorial into the very core loop of the game, and then the tutorial grows together with the game.
With the localization, we already achieved that – we develop the game from day one as a multi-language product and extinguish out all and any “temporary” texts that otherwise tend to grow like weeds at the prototyping stage.
With the tutorial, we still must get better at that. A big contributing factor here is that as you create the game, you add features one by one, and thus on the inside everything is completely “obvious”. The same, by the way, happens with localization for teams that create just in one language (English or Japanese, for example). You become “blind” to text and then you end up having multiple untranslated strings that seem to pop up out of nowhere.
Anyways, what we’ll ship with this month’s update is a fully interactive mini chapter that explores the basics of the game: how to concoct, how to use alchemy in battle, how to heal, how to use multiple hands when spellcasting, and so on.
In terms of setting, it’s a standalone story of a runaway mage that escapes a forest camp of the Inquisition – a prequel to Chapter 1.
Looking at the game's Steam Achievements, 70% of players cooked food – 56% concocted alchemic substance – but only 36% used alchemy in battles. We think that the new tutorial will help players to discover more features of the game.
[h3]NEW MULLIGAN[/h3]
There’s been quite a lot of feedback on the mulligan screen, and we act on it in the coming update.
If you followed the game for some time, you may recall the transition between “get many characters, have them die and get replacements” and the current “get the characters you sympathize with, and take good care of them” approaches.
Many players wanted to have more influence over the initial party, but there were 2 things that kept us from following that route: the idea that personal traits could become revealed as they were used (hence previewing them at start was unfeasible) and the generation formula that was intentionally random (you could get a very strong, or a very weak, character).
The November update changes that: you will be able to re-roll just the portraits, leaving stats and traits in place, and you will be able to re-roll just the values on their own. And yes, we will show all the values upfront: driving forces, stats, personal traits, and mood-related mechanics.
But this would have been impossible without the next item on the list…
[h3]REBALANCED TRAITS, CHARACTER FORMULA, SPECIAL POWERS[/h3]
We’ve cleaned up the traits that were obviously OP: no longer will someone concoct an extra substance or cook a second portion of the food. Expanding the list of traits to nearly 50, we now give each a “weight” (+2, –1, etc.) and balance them, together with stats, to result in a “slightly positive sum total”.
This rebalancing and the introduction of formula now makes it fair to see all the values of the initial party, for you cannot “cheat” by going for the strongest characters – there are no longer “winners” and “losers”. Rather, you choose the specific combination of traits.
Speaking of traits, we nuked the old mood traits and replaced them with Special Powers (good) and Negative Mood Effects (bad). The way it works now is that every day when a party member is in a good mood, they accumulate inspiration points. Once enough accumulates, that character can use their special power. And every day when a party member is in a bad mood… they lose their inspiration.
In the upcoming version, you’ll see the following special powers:
- Expanded consciousness: 1 extra element in hand
- Flow state: action costs -1
- Magic barrier: remove all environmental effects and conditions
- Wild hand: change hand to wild elements that fit any formula
- Surge of power: get 3 power tokens (once)
- Vanishing: retreat without penalties
- Cleansing: remove all temporal tokens (once)
- Warcry: initiate morale boost mechanics for everyone
[h3]WHAT NOW?[/h3]
In addition to the big things above, there’s a bunch of smaller improvements. There will be 2 new music tracks (for Chapter 3) as well as changes in endurance/concentration, and digestive system mechanics. Plus, our favorite “small but impactful” change – the preview of the upcoming elements in the deck.
We’ll spend the next week working to finish all the tasks for the update, and then will open a password-free BETA branch on Steam to play with the updated version for a few days ahead of the public release of the update. And then, between November 22 and November 24, we’ll push the update to both the main game and to the DEMO.
Stay safe, stay happy, and see you next week!
/ Team CO /