Apollyon: River of Life
Skulltide Releases this week! See what is in the game...
Skullltide launches today with its full upgrade and gameplay loop realized, feature complete in all its entropic glory. Get it today at a discount, and a greater discount if bundled with the previous game in the Planar Danse, Apollyon: River of Life!
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There are three levels consisting of two more exploratory and the final gauntlet; in the final game the same structure will be echoed, having two more random/exploratory/resource-collecting levels before every "boss" level, whether or not that level has a "boss" or some other greater challenge. There are two ability sets of five abilities, and one additional hidden behind conversation, for a total of eleven abilities you can bind to your bones.
As updates come, minor and major, they will be placed upon the "beta" branch, which can be enabled in the Steam client Library, under game properties. They will remain here for 1+ day(s). For those of you reporting bugs through the Planar Danse discord channel, Steam community, or direct email (for those countries in which the former two locations are banned), please note if you are or are not on the beta branch. :)
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More content will be coming to the game so long as the players & community continue to play, so spread the word to get more dark magic into your hands, and faster! The first update will bring the next enemy type to the toughest level, as well as the first of the third ability set.
Get it in the first week at a discount, and if you've been waiting to try this *and* the previous game from TPD, an additional 25% off can be found when bundled together, also on Steam! Just like Apollyon, more content will be coming to the game so long as the players & community continue to play, so spread the word to get more dark magic into your hands!
I'd like to thank those who stuck with me through the development of this game and the previous one from the Planar Danse. Skulltide will first and foremost always be for the players; the Planar Danse for the readers; and the world to be given & shared.
I wish each and every new skeleton a lengthy & entertaining unlife!
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2814060/Skulltide/
Apollyon 2.1 Released!
Experience network issues? Fixed!
Experience too many deaths early? Fixed!
Experience total confusion, or total invulnerability? Fixed?
Experience the end of the world? Not. Fixed. That one's on you!
The primary complaint I've heard with Apollyon is that they do not have time in their first ritual to understand the rules before getting ambushed by any number of horror from the outer dark. To remedy this, the Apollyic ritual shall tempt new practitioners into the fold with powers and boons... only to revoke them later when you most depend upon them!
A couple of players made a genius suggestion, and so it has been implemented! Using the keys 1, 2, 3, and Tab, the player can now navigate the Spirit cards without using the mouse! It sounds simple but it truly improves game flow, try it yourself!
Additionally, the Veiled Practitioner has been buffed, and can be upgraded into the Learned Practitioner! This character retains the primary benefit of the Veiled Practitioner in the fact that it is twice as likely to pull spirit cards that lead to new character unlocks
Lastly, and perhaps most foolishly, a nasty server error was buried within a player's game logs, and through unearthing it, Apollyon now utilizes 90% less network traffic! Disconnecting and reconnecting mid-game is now quicker than ever, taking only 1.5 seconds in our tests (rather than the erroneous 30-120).
A reminder that bugs and suggestions can be reported in the Steam Community channels or our theplanardanse discord channel.
That is all from the River of Life, but the universe of the Planar Danse continues! Amidst our sixteen-and-one worlds, there are many stories to be told, including a novel yet to be announced, and the brand-new, just announced, second game from theplanardanse.
Skeletons rise in the Skulltide! Join them today!
2.0.5 - MASSIVE network improvements
Catch up on development and news in ThePlanarDanse discord & youtube, new developments are coming...
2.0.2 - Bugfixes and typos!
- Accessibility setting to increase the size of the smallest text and tooltips.
- Logic issues hiding some approaches on four cards erroneously.
- A locked achievement!
The Apollyon sale is still on-going... Now is a great time to invite your friends to summon demons, together!
2.0.1 - Minor post-launch update
- Resolve Effects chatbox correctly displays multiple effects. More effects than you can handle!
- Test value changes.
- Dictionary changes
- Many typos
- Some bugs reported by community, to get involved and report bugs of your own, join the discord!
Small balance update...
Stay closed, Guardian Gates!
Apollyon Full Release!
From an offhand idea to a passion project during a certain world pandemic to a fully published game has been quite the journey, and thank you to all of you who have followed the sporadic development cycle of this game.
Here are a few things you can do in the latest version:
Delve into memory to uncover the lost secrets of a mysterious witch!
Be hunted by the Wild Hunt of the winter court of the fey!
Convene your cult of Apollyic practitioners and plan dark (or good!) deeds.
Journey into ancient necropoli in search of artifacts to change the world!
Upgrade the starting character to be on par with the themed, named, and storied characters!
Find one of five endings with massively different consequences. See if you can find them all!
The latest update has significant content, surely, but Apollyon has been steadily growing for the entire 4 years of development. This latest update finally polishes off the entire story and unlocks the latter half of the game, giving somewhere from 30-60 hours of playtime!
Is this all for Apollyon? Probably not! After so long with this game it is unthinkable to never touch it again. With the full release will come many new players, and with their suggestions and ideas, just like those from long-time players, we might see many more spirit cards or choice-based interactions... And if there is interest, full additional Intentions!
As a last note, modding Apollyon is still possible, but the Workshop tool requires some polish to not be nightmarish for new users. Join the discord if you're interested in adding your own spirit cards, self aspects, effects, lore pages, characters, or even full intentions!
1.3.2.2 - Spirits, Sales, and Stories!
First off, for those who struggle with the first stages of Apollyon, there is a new setting in the settings menu to show the position of the Tokens large, in the center, and in the proper direction. This can be turned on for the entire game, but by default, it will be shown in the tutorial and hidden through the rest of the game. Hopefully, the core gameplay mechanic of 2 axes is learned quickly enough, as I believe this UI element breaks the atmosphere.
Next up, art!
By now, nearly all the placeholder art from the first stages of nonserious development has been replaced. We have passed 700 pieces, and all placeholder art is now replaced, save for a couple towards the end that will only be present in the final update (2.0). These pictures above is a preview of some new ones!
The "The Seeker Returns" spirit card and arc that follows has been changed to an invokable card. In this case, you can choose when to take on this grueling challenge, rather than it coming randomly throughout your playthroughs and ending them. It will be required to complete at some point, however.
Intention; Talon, the Machine City, is getting some updates, including a new train of spirit cards dealing with Ryo'shyr, and a brand new market in the Carnelian that you can make purchases at!
1.3.3 is coming very soon, with big content updates to Past Sacrifice and Lore pages, as well as the new right-click self/invocation feature!
1.3.2
Here, you can see the new way to select the tokens... just hover and click on the names!
- New players will be sent immediately to the tutorial!
- Tutorial has a new musical intro, as well as animation
- Select tokens by hovering and clicking the names
- Removed a limitation in my own coding base for Apollyon... letting the story now have quotations, like it should! Formerly it was just single quotes or two single quotes.
- All popups now include images! Selecting Effects shows their image in a larger size!
- RIGHT CLICKING any Invocation or Self card will also show it larger, and will provide some small information about its use! Many cards are missing text, the next update will send me going back to every Invokable spirit and Self card and adding this text.
- Moved tokens will now pulsate from darker to lighter than they were before. Being bright but unmoving caused them to be missed, and the player should be able to easily see what tokens they've moved!
- Removed the flickering in the chatbox when the game has gone on a very long time
- No longer does the game kill players in between moving tokens and the Invocation Set beginning. This can significantly change the use of player abilities. It aides the pacing of the game and removes and chance at a player invoking a card that only they could interact with, then dying.
- The Effect sliders are reworked and no longer have extraneous visual errors
- Server will authorize and reject invokes in addition to the client, rather than just relying on the client's condition testing
- Ryo'shyr will now aide you spy upon the Lords of Jeria
- Aedan can now no longer heal mercenaries he doesn't have
- Braxen now is not allowed to take over the Guardian Faith
- Dying and winning at the same time no longer causes ui errors
- Dead players cannot invoke story cards while Sutier is banished and spiritual
- Removed a bug that made untyped physical and mental tests receive the augments from the tokens twice, making Torfield and Medicopia absurdly powerful.
- You now cannot buy a charm you already possess at the Arcane Carnival
- Wandering spirit is more stable and less expensive
- Changing the intention selection will properly "un-ready" players that have readied up.
Coming up next, the removal of the last placeholder art, additions to the Talon Intention, a change to the Cistern battle, updated Past Sacrifice, and more lore!
Update 1.3.1
- Fixed accidental bug in 1.3.0 that made the black fading screens fade away too soon
- All effects will now show their image in a larger size, as well as their description
- Call Out spirit card fully added
- Descriptions on missing Self cards
- Deia-rei hyperlink fixed
- Spirit Card back button now throbs when the open card is resolved. MANY new players get confused about how to close the spirit card.
- Cooldown on some chatbox messages
- Added tutorial pushes so you are more likely to unlock the character that is aligned with your tutorial answers
- Game Setup animations fixed, could select options accidentally.
- Disconnect/Reconnect (DCRC) massively reworked, now functions much, much quicker. Players can be disconnected or lose internet access at any time and return to the ritual. If the host's PC turns off or something, however, the ritual still treats it as if you died. This likely won't be changed. Apollyon has never crashed.
- Player disconnection unselects tokens
- Taara's Kharmic abilities go to the chat, instead of popup functions.
- Reconnecting players cant move tokens.
- Steam profile pictures are now squares.
- New Menu links
- The Compass on the ritual menu will now highlight the current token position while not hovered
- Opening Z once you see the Wandering Spirit no longer avoids it
- Standard tale cards fully open their theme, and step an opposing theme closed twice. not fully.
- Fixed replication for effects that occur when a spirit is closed, as well as those that change the music pitch.
- Changed how many variables replicate to allow faster joining. Random variables will now work over very bad pings.
- New Dark Bargains objectives