Hi, huge update this time. We'v work a lot on soft lock issues, spell descriptions, and Dionysus should work way better now.
Features & Improvements
Adding on destroy spells, for crystals.
Adding line numbers in player logs, when error.
Description of spells should be more homogeneous now.
Improving reward tracking in save file.
Adding completed status by quest in save file (you will maybe have to unlock the last quest of your progression again).
Adding versioning inside save file.
Spell descriptions can now have dynamic display, for compound damage. Ex : "8 (2x4) damage"
Bugs Fixes
Added timeout on spell actions so, if error occur the game should continue without soft lock.
Correcting spelling of "die" and "dice".
Spell "Alea Jacta Est", has been fixed.
Spell "Pact of Hell", has been fixed.
Dionysus
Implementing Drunkenness: Drunkenness > 0 : Incantation time add up to your favor. Drunkenness > 2 : your spell cost +1 incantation per drunkenness. Drunkenness > 5 : damages are converted to hangover.
Implementing Hangover: For each stack, deals 2 raw damage at the end of the turn. All stacks are consumed at the end of the turn.
Implementing Alcohol vapor : Consumes a drunkenness and apply a tiredness to the target.
Implementing Fire eater : Deals 1 damage. If the target is in Fire, deals +1 damage per drunkenness. Consumes up to 5 drunkenness.
Implementing Booze: Sacrifice and activate the effect of a crystal.
Implementing Divine: Convert X mana into X drunkenness.
Implementing The drunk man dance: Deals 2 damage. If your drunkenness is greater than 5, then give +1 dodge.
Implementing Maceration: Invoke 1 amphora.
Implementing Amphora: Give +1 drunkenness per turn. Gives +1 of drunkenness to the player who destroys the amphora.
Implementing Magic amphora: Summons 1 Amphora per turn.
What next?
Improving deck editing clarity, right now the default deck system is kind of doing is purpose but it's not really ergonomic to create and edit your deck right now. So, we will probably work on that for the next patch.
Balancing and testing solo, with each gods, to provide more enjoyable overall campaign per god.
Thanks for everyone doing reporting on the game, that's helping us a lot. Our principal difficulties right now is QA testing, because the game scope is far too large to be easily tested by us... We will do our best to have the game in less buggy state, but this will take us a bit of time and effort ːsteamthumbsupː.
Patch 1.1
Hello, before moving on to the bug fixes, we'd like to thank all of you who bought Dice Of Olympus. We're sorry for the problems you've encountered, but thanks to you and your bug reports, we'll be able to fix them more quickly:
- Players can no longer cast spells in the tutorial until the popup is displayed. - Players can no longer end the round before the popup appears. - Added translations for the "Next" button - Added translations for roll/combat phase explanations - Favor spells appear in god selection order - Favor bars display spells in the right place on the bar - Brazier lamp spawns on correct side - Spell loading in the temple has been changed, to allow modification of default owned spells and rewards without impacting the player's save. - Fixed a bug in descriptions with syntax errors, e.g. "Herodata" instead of "HeroData" or "This spell does this". - Visual bug on small spells - Version number in bug report - Server-side error log added when launching a spell or crystal - Save gods when launching a game to avoid having to re-select after a game - Spell descriptions updated - Added missing translations for combat selection
Thanks you,
Dice Team
Multiplayer is here !
Hello,
Thank you very much for your feedback throughout the week. Thanks to you, we're improving the quality of the game every day, and we'd love to be able to patch faster, but don't forget that the development team is only 2 people!
Multiplayer is here
As you can see from the title, you'll be able to battle your friends or other players from all over the world! For the moment, only the "Quick Game" mode is available, with the option of inviting friends to join in later. The "Ranked Game" mode will depend on the game's popularity, so opening a ranking doesn't make much sense if there aren't many people playing the game.
For the time being, you can also only play Ares vs. Ares, of course this is only in the demo.
You can also edit your deck for Multiplayer mode using its dedicated temple!
We invite you to visit the community's Discord server to find other players for multiplayer games.
https://discord.gg/fg5DpqRd
Beugs Fix
- Texts should be consistent with spell effects - AI should cast bonuses less on the player than on itself. - You can alternate properly between single-player and multiplayer. - The Temple works in both single- and multiplayer modes - Improvement of logs when reporting a bug
We hope you enjoy Dice Of Olympus!
Best regards,
Algost Dice Team
Steam Next Fest Patch 01 - ReportBugs, Temple, and more...
Hello,
Here is the list of resolved bugs:
- Editing a deck in the temple should now work, remember you have to create a new deck, the default deck is not editable. - The credits scene should now display correctly - The Discord button on the main menu correctly links to the Dice Of Olympus Discord server. - The "Report bugs" button at the top right of the screen is working again, so you can see the feedbacks sent by players in the appropriate channel on our Discord server. - Cyclops' HP is updated once resurrection is complete
Thank you to all those who have started playing the game, we hope you've had a great time, don't forget to fill in the feedback form on the main menu and wishlist the game!
Best regards,
Algost Bathyscaphe Studio
La démo de Dice Of Olympus est disponible !
We're taking part in Steam Next Fest
.
This means that we've made a demo, and so you can come and try it out for a week for free, so that you can make up your own mind about the game.
In this demo you'll find :
- 3 Tutorials - 3 Fights - Ares - The Temple
We're very sad to say that the multiplayer mode and an additional god are not included in the demo at the moment. We'll try to sort this out as soon as possible, but we can't promise that we'll get it right.
We're super excited and can't wait to see your feedback on the game!
Enjoy the game,
Algost.
Playtest of February 2023
Hello dear mortals!
We are thrilled to announce that a new playtest of Dice Of Olympus is available !
From February 21, 2023 to February 27, 2023 come to discover or rediscover Dice Of Olympus, before passing to the changes, at the time of our tests in-house it sometimes happened to us to be blocked with the launching of a part with the message: "Loading save files..."
If it is the case, go to : C:\Users\[USERNAME]\AppData\LocalLow\Bathyphere Studio\DiceOfOlympus
and delete the saves (save_0.es3, save_1.es3, save_2.es3), that should correct the problem !
here is the list of the big changes in the game :
Tutorials revamp
We understood that the tutorial was too long, that it presented too many things at once and did not help the player to enter the game universe, so we reworked it from top to bottom. From now on you will have not 1 or 2 but 3 tutorials at your disposal:
- A tutorial for the basics of the game - A tutorial for the velocity - A tutorial for the advanced mechanics (Crystals and Favor)
We hope that this division in 3 will facilitate the learning of the game!
Dice and combat animation
We also realized that rolling a dice or attacking with a dice was not that satisfying. Which, for a dice-based game, is problematic. So we created new animations for rolling and attacking with dice. I'll let you discover them in the game. Don't hesitate to tell us on the Discord or in comments what you think about it!
Gameplay modification
Coins
The coin mechanics in Dice Of Olympus seemed to add more confusion than anything else. So we decided to remove the coins and the economic aspect to offer you a simpler solution to facilitate the learning of the game while keeping the interest of the choice brought by the economy.
From now on, every 3 rounds you will have the choice between 2 bonuses:
- Unlock an extra dice - Gain a mana point
We believe that this system brings the same benefits as the coins without the complexity.
[The favor When you cast a spell, the velocity score was added to your favor points to "passively" increase the favor
We removed this system in favor of a passive favor increase of +5 points each turn, starting on turn 2.
This system seems simpler and more coherent to us, as velocity was a very complex mechanic that overlapped with favor spells and played an unwanted double role.
With this passive increase your favor will increase as the game goes on. You can always improve your favor score via dedicated spells.
Another thing, a favor spell is now cast once, no need to go back and forth with your favor score to hope to cast an overly powerful spell over and over.
Conclusion
This playtest allows you to try the 3 new tutorials as well as 3 single player battles only, another multiplayer playtest will take place later this year. We hope you will enjoy these new changes, don't forget to fill the feedback form and join the Dice Of Olympus discord to participate with the community and have a more direct exchange with you.
Enjoy the game!
Algost
Dice News #3 Décembre 2022
Hello, welcome to this new Dice News dedicated to the music but especially to the returns of the festival "Turn Based Fest" which took place from 8 to 12 December 2022 with on our side a playtest open to everyone in order to take the temperature with you the community on what should be done for the continuation of the game! Let's get to the heart of the subject.
Music
If you were able to try the playtest last week you could hear the beautiful music of Dice Of Olympus, they are composed by Thibaut "Oathr" Dellaforest, his sitejust released so if you need music for your game do not hesitate to call him!
The music is orchestral and some of it is just background music so it doesn't take over the action of the game. We are very satisfied with the music and we hope you will enjoy it during your battles.
Return on the Turn Based Fest
Despite a huge crunch on our part (and that we never want to do again) to make a clean launch of the playtest some mistakes were made (due to lack of time) and unfortunately the playtest did not go as well as expected. Missing translations, the impossibility to launch a multiplayer game at the beginning, the impossibility to leave a game once the victory screen was displayed, in short we had some problems.
These issues, you identified them thanks to the beugs report tool and we are very grateful to all of you who participate to make Dice Of Olympus a better game! Now theses bugs are fixed
During the whole festival the requests for access to the playtests have only increased to reach 242, which at our scale is gigantic, we thank you once again for that!
Through our exchanges on Discord as well as via the feedback form we understand that the tutorial did not totally seduce you. Without being 100% bad, it deserves to be modified, however making a good tutorial requires a lot of time and it is often done last during the production of a game. That's why we might come back to the video format for the next playtest, maybe less interactive but more digestible.
We don't have any date to communicate yet about a possible new playtest.
Almost all the feedbacks talk about a huge lack of feedback during a game of Dice Of Olympus, we are aware of this, we do not discover this problem in the game but it was not yet the time to deal with it. Now we feel that the game is running relatively smoothly and that almost all the basic UI and features are present, so we can say that the beginning of 2023 will be devoted to improving the quality of feedback in Dice Of Olympus.
UI change to be expected
During the playtest a French game developer with the nickname of "L'Alkemiste" made a lot of relevant remarks about the things that were good and bad in the game. This person is none other than the Art Director behind the game "Foretales". (a game, which we recommend to you)
He told us that according to him, health points and resources like mana, re-rolls and statuses should be constantly displayed. Since we have been building our UI this is not a remark we have heard very frequently. However, Alain's (that's his first name) experience with this kind of game makes us wonder about the practicality of our UI.
We are currently modelling interfaces to see if we can continue to combine sobriety with clarity, to be continued...
News in no particular order
New hero
I promised you in the last blogpost to reveal a new playable God, but even if it is ready I think this post is already quite full of information so you'll have to wait until 2023 :P
Roadmap
Thanks to your feedback we have on a list all the changes we hope to make as soon as possible. If we have the time (and the courage) maybe an infographic could help you see what has been done, and what is left to do.
New UI
The Mulligan as well as the store in-game has received a facelift, they are according to us much clearer and more pleasant to use.
Mulligan :
Store :
Next step: The quest selection screen :
Steam Neo Fest
We had registered for the Steam Neo Fest in February 2023 but due to the feedback and the workload, we preferred to postpone our registration to June 2023. This necessarily shifts the release date of the game.
Holidays
After having done our best to deliver a playable alpha during the Turn Based Fest, we allow ourselves some time and rest for the end of the year
So, it is with these words that the whole team of Bathyscaphe Studio (Nico and myself, we are still only 2 eh) wishes you a happy holiday season! ːsteamhappyː
Algost
Ouverture du playtest #1
Hello,
Today is a special game for us at Bathyscaphe Studio, because the last time we opened the doors of Olympus to players, it was to our most active community (the one of Discord) and it was mostly people we knew or friends of friends and most of all, it was in March 2020!
Now the world is not the same, we no longer go through an indie launcher (Patchkit, thank you to them) but we put the small dishes in the big scale by using the playtest feature directly on Steam.
So I have the great honor to announce that the first Steam playtest of Dice Of Olympus is open!
From December 8th to December 12th during the "Turn Based Festival" come and play Dice Of Olympus for free!
To play it is very simple:
1 Go to the Steam page of Dice Of Olympus
2 Below the "Add to Wishlist" button is another button "Request Access". Click on it.
3 And there you go, you are now eligible for the Dice Of Olympus playtest, congratulations to you!
What is the content of the playtest ?
You will find in the I 3 fights of the solo mode plus the tutorial, the temple to edit your faces as well as the multiplayer mode.
However only Ares is playable for the moment!
The purpose of this playtest is to get feedback on the tutorial, on the ergonomics of our interfaces, on the performance of the game on your machines, as well as to test the multiplayer on a larger scale.
We haven't focused much on face balancing, but your feedback or ideas are welcome.
A form to rule them all!
You will find on the main menu a button that will redirect you to a form that is very important to collect your feedbacks! We hope it is not too long, make us feedback on the feedback form haha ːsteamhappyː
Have fun in Olympus!
Algost
Dice News #2 (New god, new vilains, and a festival)
Hello,
We are back for a new Dice News, to tell you what we did during the previous month!
Very soon after our previous blogpost we contacted Marie Uzan, a 3D modeler who agreed to work with us to bring to life 4 new characters. And these characters are Gods so you will be able to play them in single player as well as multiplayer.
We are going to unveil 1 God today, for the next ones you will have to be patient, feast and refill your drink for...
Dionysus
Here are some sketches and preparatory diagrams, we hope to be able to show it to you in-game next month:
Turn Based Lovers is a Youtube channel promoting turn based games, you guessed it.
They are organizing from December 8th to 12th their first festival the Turn Base Fest. We are pleased to announce that we have been selected to participate! We will probably do an additional post at the launch of the festival. We will also try to launch a first playtest in the same period in order to gather a maximum of feedbacks on the game!
To be continued...
We've updated our Steam page with a better short description, new gifs and banners to make the text more airy and prominent, so if you're reading this and haven't added Dice Of Olympus to your wishlist yet (which I think is unlikely, but you never know) then now is a good time to do so !
Because the Gods are not going to fight against the wind, they have to bring back these vile creatures in the prison of Tartarus! Ladies and Gentlemen, here too a thunderous applause for Medusa and Autolycos!
The fight against Medusa is a fight against the clock because at the beginning of the game she casts a curse that will kill you within 12 turns (for the moment) thus forcing you to hurry to defeat her.
Concerning our thief Autolycos this one will come to draw in your purse in order to steal your coins thus making your progression during the fight much more complicated. Expect to stay on 3 dice or with 3 mana a little longer than usual.
Next month we'll tell you about...
Feedback additions we've made to improve the understanding of a turn
Feedback on the Turn Base Festival
The progress of Dionysus and maybe the next God
Music about the game
New spells that have joined the adventure!
If we can do all that, you'll have a lot of reading to do!
Thanks again for your support, and don't forget to talk about Dice Of Olympus, we need you !
Algost
What's up doc ?
Hummm, but tell me? *look at his notes* it's been 6 months since we haven't seen each other?
What happened, where is the next god, where are the women editors, are the carrots cooked ?
Calm down Marty, sit comfortably in the Dolorean, everything will be fine!
Disillusionment
During the month of May we participated in the event "Add-on" (a event for the video game industry). Our goal was to meet people from the industry, to learn from the many conferences, but especially to meet publishers, to get financing.
- And then it went well?
But why, no?
Having gameplay is not enough, you also have to send a visual slap and have past experience otherwise it does not pass. Another key point is to have a sufficiently robust single player progression system, something we didn't have in this version.
And finally, multiplayer is not recommended for an indie game, because if your community is not enough your Matchmacking will take 3 hours to find a game.
So multiplayer interests very few publishers and is perceived as a risk for the others.
Following this demoralizing experience, from June to August we got in touch with Clara Dubreuil (Art Director) to help us on the visual coherence in Dice and Florian Boue (3D Modeller) in order to make a new map.
Here is the final concept-art of this collaboration :
- Cool, when is it coming out?
Well, probably never, because in parallel to that my dear Marty, there is the creation of a company, and for all that to be well done, we don't do everything ourselves, so we need some money too.
For this reason and because a big part of the architecture of the game is already coded Nicolas ("Babiole" for the intimates), found a full-time job in order to be able to pay the expenses of creation of company, those related to the graphics and to put enough in the capital of the company to obtain subsidies.
We are obviously two to participate in the expenses, but the rhythm of development is not at all the same as before.
And concretely, to get all this in the same month of September, it's a little bit difficult...
- And why not wait another month, to put more money aside?
The objective of the creation of the company was to create a pitch-deck (explanatory document of the game for the editors) and to deposit a file to the CNC in order to have subsidies of assistance to the pre-production.
We managed to finalize a pitch-deck with Clara's help, and we were able to send it to editors again. However, we realized that it was impossible to finish the CNC file in the allotted time, which postpones the request for aid by 6 months and thus the project by 6 months too.
- And why not wait 6 more months?
Because having a project on the go all the time is mentally exhausting, and the goal is not to finish on the kneecaps. And, unfortunately, this extra time, falls like a knife on our motivation and our morale
- But now, what's next? Is Dice Of Olympus over?
We have made the decision to release Dice Of Olympus as a self-publishing game in the first quarter of 2023
This obviously implies a lighter version compared to our original vision, especially in terms of single-player content and progression. The multiplayer should remain part of the game though, as this is where the Dice community was born ːsteamhappyː
We hope you enjoy it, and if success and finances allow some content updates might come out after the launch, who knows ;)
- How much will it cost?
The price of the game will of course be adjusted accordingly, we don't have a final price to tell you yet, but it should be relatively low (under 10€).
- Anything planned before the release?
We can also announce that we should participate in the next Steam Next Fest in February 2023, and that this will be the last event before the launch of the game according to our schedule.
We hope you will enjoy the content of this future demo. ːsteamthumbsupː
We are trying to identify the mistakes we made during our journey in order to make the most of them for the future, and we will probably talk about them again at the time of the release.
In spite of all these adventures we are still proud of the path we have taken, and we have learned a lot during these last two years. We have always made sure to have a clear communication around the game, and we hope you appreciate this effort from our side, if so, please feel free to express yourself in the comments or on Twitter, as support is more than ever needed ːsteamhappyː
(Nicolas "Babiole" Constanty on the left, and Anton "Algost" Bodin Marty on the right)
