Genre: Role-playing (RPG), Hack and slash/Beat 'em up, Adventure, Indie
Fabular: Once upon a Spacetime
Developer blog: Designing the Iron Kingdom
The next milestone of Fabular’s Early Access development is the 4th playable realm; the Iron Kingdom. In this blog post we detail some of the design philosophies behind its creation.
Setting the tone
After fighting fierce battles on the Hinterlands, we leave our father’s crumbling realm to find ourselves in the neighboring Iron Kingdom; the land of fiery volcanoes, cinder and smoke. Only to face brand new challenges with an awakened machine-god amongst them.
The first three realms of Fabular’s futuristic Middle Age displayed gothic and post-apocalyptic characteristics. This time we arrive in a steampunk infused medieval space-kingdom (that's a mouthful), where industry, fire, steam and cast iron reign supreme.
Players may explore a once-great industrial realm in its dying hours. Inhabitants scavenge and save what they can, while a religious sect dedicated to the machine-god Molokh usurps the land to fulfill a maniacal prophecy.
Combat and enemies
While gameplay basics stay mostly the same, new enemy types and variations provide brand new challenges. In combat, most of the enemy abilities are centered around fire.
Archers launch fireworks-like projectiles with unpredictable sparks, Warriors may stun you with their heavy mace attacks, and Acolytes cast a damaging fire-shield around their allies.
The Besieger lobs molten lava orbs over long distances, and the Scorcher automatons try to surround you while leaving fire patches in their wake.
Part of the combat challenge will be managing the ‘chaos’ these new enemy types bring to the battlefield, and another part is learning their behavior and move-set, and adapt your combat style accordingly.
Constant small ticks of fire damage will eat your armour on the long run, and mobility is key to avoid area of effect hazards. If you want to get far into this realm, you’d do well to adjust your build with items and upgrades that help you in that regard.
When designing the enemies of Realm IV, our intention was to create a ‘dish’ that’s a mixture of Middle Age and Industrial Revolution era design characteristics. Sprinkle a pinch sci-fi on top and it’s ready to be served.
Events, locations and characters
The medieval-steampunk atmosphere is prevalent in the realm’s events as well. Players may visit grand palaces of manufacture, asteroid mines and industrial cities…
… and meet Factory-barons, Mine-counts and devotees of Molokh who spread his undying prophecy with holy fire and hard steel.
The main task remains to find the stolen Sun and reclaim it from the Void Lords, but in order to find and reach them, the end-level boss Molokh has to be defeated. This boss-fight will bring brand new mechanics to Fabular’s gameplay, but that’s a story for another day and another blog post.
By the time of this next blog post, we will hopefully have more concrete info on the release date regarding the Realm IV update.
Until then, fly safe Space Knights!
Developent Update
Hey all, just a quick Fabular update:
We've had some internal hiccups that slowed down development in the last couple of months considerably. We're now gaining back momentum and working on the next big update, which is Realm 4. It's an open secret that thematically this realm will be centered around 🔥.
Most of the enemies are done and we are working on the boss-fight at the moment, which is bigger and juicier than anything before. It's also a little-bit of a new approach in gameplay so things take a bit more time to develop. We don't want to spoil it too much, but I'll include a tiny teaser.
We still need to do some more events and combat balance as well, so we ask for your patience as things take shape. We'll be doing smaller updates here and on our Discord server as well, when we feel we have something to share.
Thank you for your support, and keep in touch! 🚀
The Starmap Revealed!
Greetings adventurers,
The starmap has changed significantly since we began working on Fabular: Once Upon A Spacetime and this update brings with it another slight modification to the way it works.
Although we really enjoyed the exploration element of the starmap, we are now at a stage where the remaining exploration factor was minimal. Ultimately, it appeared to be more of a hindrance than a source of fun for most players.
Our original vision for the starmap was based on exploration, with the player ship at the center of the screen and the camera following it around. The idea was that each realm was this big unknown ‘terra incognita’ that had to be explored, and should’ve conveyed the feeling of ‘you never know what lies ahead’.
But the need quickly arose to show more of the surrounding nodes to allow for some more player agency on which nodes to visit and how to progress towards the boss. Because of this, we moved the player indicator off-center and zoomed out the view a bit, but the rest of the experience remained the same.
After the teleport mechanic made it into the game, we introduced the minimap, but it always felt like a patchwork of a feature rather than something that felt intuitive and fun to use. And as we’ve continued to introduce more kinds of starmap nodes, the need for plannability and strategizing was on top of the list of player feedback. Not to mention running out of fuel due to an unforeseen dead-end, which is probably the #1 most reported negative feedback.
So after some careful consideration, we came up with this new version of the starmap:
We did not want to ‘reinvent the wheel’, and tried to stay true to our original vision as much as possible while prioritising player feedback.
We hope you're as excited about this new direction as we are, and if you like the new direction, we have plenty of ideas regarding expanding the starmap experience for the future.
There are exciting things in the work for Fabular (including Realm 4 👀) and we can't wait to share more with you.
Stay safe space adventurers - Spiritus Games
Full patch notes:
Starmap
The starmap is now revealed from the start, and no longer has to be explored.
The entire starmap now always scales to one screen, it no longer needs to be scrolled.
The minimap has been removed.
Teleportation between nodes can now be achieved on the regular starmap, similarly to how you travel between nodes (different hotkey though).
Every teleportable node is now connected to the player’s current location with a visual effect.
New node added: Battle. This will result in an instant battle. Note that event nodes can also result in a battle scenario.
New node added:
Revamped visuals for the player indicator, nodes, and the overall look of the starmap.
Each realm on the starmap now has a more distinct visual appearance by having differing backgrounds.
Alert level display has been moved to the bottom left corner of the starmap.
Added a banner that displays the current realm name below the alert level meter.
Instant starmap nodes are somewhat scarcer and can no longer contain negative resource values.
You no longer gain Tokens of Exploration for revealing starmap nodes (since they are revealed from the get-go). Instead, they gain them when they travel to unvisited nodes.
Some nodes and connections are now hidden on the starmap, waiting to be found
nodes can contain a event. Ssshhh…
Fixed: player indicator no longer stays opaque after a teleport jump on the starmap.
The first realm can now only contain a Starsmith but not an Alchemist.
Some events and items dealing with old starmap mechanics have been removed or re-worked.
Notes: While we all liked the previous emphasis on exploration and random elements, a lot of our players found it frustrating at times, especially if the randomness resulted in dead-ends or backtracking that led to a depleted fuel tank. So we did away with the exploration, but deem the result to be a more strategic starmap experience, where you can plan your route in advance, and hopefully only run out of fuel on your own accord, such as when you take an obvious risk.
Teleporting to distant nodes is now much more intuitive as well, due to the removal of the minimap as it no longer served a real purpose or added value. All in all, we hope that these changes make the starmap experience much more accessible and enable new ways of strategic planning.
General
Player ships now spend much less time in a helpless ‘spinned-out’ state after colliding with scenery or other ships. This will hopefully make collisions much less frustrating.
The Orb Recuperator item now has its own icon.
Survival:
Fixed: Challenge screen settings no longer apply to Survival mode.
The ‘undo upgrades’ button’s hotkey is now ‘X’ on the controller. It was wrongly mapped to ‘B’ which is used to go back to the starmap from each screen. It also caused issues in Survival mode, where you couldn’t continue without resetting your upgrades.
Cleared up button text even more to reflect where you end up when you continue from a given screen in Survival mode.
WDC World Oceans Day Charity Sale
Greetings Adventurers👋
The WDC World Oceans Day Sale runs from Thursday 8th June at 10 am PDT until Thursday 15th June 10am PDT and during this time, we'll donate 10% of the net profits going directly to WDC to support their conservation work!
WDC, Whale and Dolphin Conservation is the leading global charity dedicated to the protection and conservation of whales and dolphins.
Their aim is to reverse the global decline in whale and dolphin populations by:
Stopping cruelty from deliberate harms such as whaling and captivity.
Creating safe seas, free from the threat of pollution, collisions with vessels and accidental entanglement in fishing gear.
Winning recognition of whales and dolphins as sentient, socially complex beings, and our allies in the fight against climate and nature breakdown.
More information about the World Oceans Day Steam Sale and the Games for Waves Streaming Week can be found on the official Games For Waves website here: https://games.whales.org/its-game-on-for-world-oceans-day/
Blast off with Fabular's latest update!
We’ve just pushed a big update filled with bug fixes and changes to the game.
The biggest change is:
Undo Upgrades!
You can undo upgrades any time before you travel to your new starmap node and get all your resources back.
Full list of updates:
Fixed: Challenge screen settings no longer apply to Survival mode.
Each realm on the starmap now has a more distinct visual appearance.
Starmap boundaries are no longer as apparent as before.
The name of the current realm is displayed in the Starmap lower left corner.
Player ships now spend much less time in a helpless state after colliding with scenery or other ships.
Fixed: the heavy and perfect attacks of the Shuriken gadget now properly benefit from Rapid Fire subroutine’s extra projectile.
Fixed Shuriken gadget’s heavy and perfect attacks not having the same cooldown values as its quick attack.
Fixed a bug where the Sharpshooter enemies would stop acting after getting stunned by the player.
Fixed ranged damage modifiers not affecting beam-type weapons.
Idle Hunter and Idle Protector subroutines now have 4 levels (up from 3) and cost 5 Subcomponents (down from 6) with each level giving a +5% (down from 10%) bonus.
Fixed Ambuscade subroutine increasing all damage instead of increasing only melee critical damage.
Critical damage multiplier for daggers has been increased to 2 (up from 1.75).
The Ward-O-Mat gadget’s deflection area now ignores projectiles fired by the player.
Ward-O-Mat automaton now follows the player around more tightly and is much more agile.
Picking up an energy orb that you have dropped in the past (due to Discharger enemy’s attack for example) does not count as an energy orb pickup action anymore. Meaning it won’t recharge your shield if you have the Shield Mender subroutine and it won’t give you Kinetic Energy if you have the Kinetic Recharger gadget.
Survival mode begin button now reads ‘Begin Survival’ (instead of ‘Begin Journey’).
Changed the iconography of event choices. A regular choice is now indicated by a pointing hand, and a special choice is indicated by a star.
Fixed some typos in the Challenge screen lore text
An ‘Undo Upgrades’ button has been added to the upgrade screen. This button can be used to undo upgrades you’ve made since the last time you travelled on the starmap. This refunds all resource costs associated with the undone upgrades.
All subroutine descriptions on the upgrade screen have been revised and made visually richer with the addition of icons that represent the most important recurring game mechanics.
The bottom of the right panel on the upgrade screen now displays the requirements for each subroutine and their cost in a more prevalent manner.
Selecting a subroutine on the upgrade screen now displays animated arrows that pinpoint its requirement levels on each Main Attribute’s bar.
Purchased subroutines are now visually connected to the Main Attributes with an animated line.
Cleaned up colors and animations on the upgrade screen.
The Paladin upgrade subroutine ‘Abusive Relationship’ has been renamed to ‘Harmful Connections’
Ways of the Flow Full Patch Notes
View an in-depth guide to the Ways of the Flow update, here: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/645720/view/3689048990890936704
New Meta-currencies
Instead of the old singular Token, we’ve implemented 4 new types of meta-currencies that can be collected and kept between runs.
Meta-currency types and their default collection method:
Token of Exploration: gained when revealing starmap nodes
Token of Valor: gained after victorious battles and doing good deeds in events
Token of Glory: gained after defeating realm bosses
Token of the Void: gained after completing the game
Note: in the future we’re planning to add more ways to collect tokens, for example Token of the Void would be granted after defeating a Void Lord and not strictly when you complete the game. For the current Early Access content though, defeating the final boss (The Endkeep) rewards one of these tokens.
Meta currencies are currently used to unlock and buy Boons at throne room vendors and to unlock Flow Modifiers on the Difficulty screen.
Note: we have more long-term plans with the new meta-currencies besides using them for unlocking Flow Modifiers (see below), such as unlocking more ‘cosmetic’ types of content in the future.
Challenge Screen and Spiritus Rank
A brand new Challenge screen has been implemented that allows players to customize game difficulty with unlockable ‘Flow Modifiers’. Flow Modifiers can either make the game easier or harder, depending on player choice. This screen is accessible from the ship selection after the player’s second failed run; it will trigger an event featuring the King.
Introducing Spiritus Rank: this number displays the overall difficulty of a run, as set by Flow Modifiers. Adjusting a modifier to make the game harder will increase the rank, and vice versa. Each point in this rank will increase the chances of getting additional meta-currencies, when you gain at least one during a run. With a higher Spiritus Rank, you unlock high tiered currency faster, which allows you to unlock higher tiers of Flow Modifiers to make the game even more challenging. What’s the highest Spiritus Rank you can master?
The previous automatic realm difficulty (star ratings on Cosmic Chart) has been reworked into 3 Flow Modifiers, allowing players to set the individual difficulty levels for each realm.
Note: this is just the very first iteration of the Spiritus Rank system. If players respond well to it, we have plans to expand upon it in the future. Your feedback is crucial in order for us to make the best game possible for everyone, so please share your opinion on our Discord or on the Steam forums. Thanks a lot!
Starmap Experience
Introducing starmap nodes with instant outcomes: there’s no event, you just get the outcome by travelling there. Outcomes can be positive or negative as well.
Currently implemented instant nodes: ±Moonchill, ±Stardust, ±Subroutine, ±Token of Exploration, ±Token of Valour. Other node types are in the pipe such as ± to current Armour, Starmap scanner, Instant teleport node, etc. By default there’s only one instant node unlocked (Token of Exploration). You can unlock more node types at the Architect in the throne room.
All node types (including shops) are now visible when you reveal them.
Event nodes are now marked with a ‘?’. These include events with a battle outcome.
Event generation has been reworked. Encountered events are now less likely to come up again in the next run. This should result in overall more event variety. Note: Our hope with introducing instant nodes is to further enhance strategizing on the starmap. These changes will hopefully result in more battles, less events and a snappier starmap experience overall. We hope you’ll like the changes, do let us know!
Boons & Meta-progression
Some of the throne room boons got reworked, some got removed or worked into Flow Modifiers, and we have a lot of new additions as well.
Boons regarding effectiveness of the main attribute upgrades have been reworked into a singular Flow Modifier. In addition, the default value of each main attribute upgrade is now 3% instead of 1%, which makes upgrades feel more meaningful by default.
Vigorous: has only 2 levels now.
Energetic: has only 2 levels now.
Navigator: has been renamed to ‘Starhopper’ and moved to the Architect.
New boon: Explorer. Start your journey with more Moonchill (+1,+2,+3)
New boon: Introvert. Start your journey with a Thumper in your cargo.
Several new boons added to the Architect that unlock new types of instant starmap nodes.
Lord Chamberlain and the Architect now mention all types of tokens in their respective throne room events, instead of just the one.
General Changes
Fixed: when you have the Cripple subroutine, Malevolent Beam’s malfunctions now correctly apply a slow effect.
Added cooldowns to player starting gadgets: Plasma Blaster (5 sec.) and Shuriken (4 sec.).
Added visual and sound effects to the combat UI when an item comes off of a longer cooldown.
Sound effects added to the UI when you gain/lose resources.
Slightly enhanced the readability of the Paladin ship’s visuals.
Spiritus Rank is now displayed on the Game Over screen.
Survival mode end-screen has now more emphasis on player score.
The icon for throne room vendors has been reworked to indicate the new meta-currencies.
Throne room Boon vendors now display a hint at the bottom when you don’t have enough tokens to buy something.
Cleared up item descriptions involving Kinetic Charge. Now every description contains an info icon and text on how to gain Kinetic Charge by default. This info icon is used in other places as well for general tips about game mechanics.
Chart your course in our Ways of the Flow update!
Difficulty in Fabular has been a hot topic of discussion ever since we released our first public demo. Internally there has been a lot of back and forth on this, as some players find the game too difficult, while others find the game too easy.
That’s why we’re excited to present the latest update for Fabular: The Ways of the Flow. This update focuses on letting players customise their own difficulty settings. This will open the game up to more casual players and continue to challenge hardcore players who have already invested many hours into the game. It can also help to 'ease’ players into the game and gradually introduce them to the harder mechanics.
Other features of this update are enhancing the game's meta progression and revamping the star map.
There’s an introductory video here that will talk you through everything included in the update or there’s a written version further down.
The Starmap
We’ve had a lot of feedback about the star map since launching Fabular last year. This began with our week 1 patch, where we limited punishing dead ends and increased the amount of fuel you start with, as well as drop rates.
But we didn’t think this was enough. We’ve now implemented an improved starmap, which now features icons attached to each node. This will be familiar to you if you’ve previously played games like Slay the Spire and Cult of the Lamb. The benefit of this is that you’ll now have agency over your journey as you’ll be able to make a more informed decision on which nodes to take on your route toward the boss.
The Starsmith and Alchemist both have their own icons, while previous event/battle encounters are now marked with a ?. We've also introduced instant outcomes nodes: when you fly there, there’s no event, and you simply get the reward or punishment by entering it. You can unlock more types of these nodes at a throne room vendor.
Flow Modifiers and Spiritus Rank (aka Difficulty)
The new difficulty settings are accessed via a new Modify Challenge button on the ship select screen.
They allow you to change a number of the base aspects of the game, including increasing or decreasing enemy or collision damage, max hitpoints, energy slots, and more.
If you would prefer gameplay to be easier, then set modifiers towards the green diamonds, while hardcore players should select red diamonds to increase the game’s difficulty. Combining both green and red diamonds can help to keep your Spiritus rank balanced while fine-tuning the gameplay toward your personal preferences.
By making the difficulty harder, you will increase your Spiritus Rank. This, in turn, increases the chance of getting additional meta-currencies, when you gain at least one during a run.
Four new types of meta-currencies have also been added to the game and can be used to unlock Flow Modifiers or Boons in the throne room. These are:
Token of Exploration: gained when revealing starmap nodes
Token of Valor: gained after victorious battles and doing good deeds in events
Token of Glory: gained after defeating realm bosses
Token of the Void: gained after completing the game
This is just the beginning for the Spiritus Rank, but we’d really appreciate any feedback so we can continue to expand and improve the system.
We really hope you enjoy this new update. Full update notes can be found below.
For our first devlog of 2023, we’d like to do a deep dive into the Paladin class!
The Paladin is the first class that players can experience in Fabular: Once Upon a Spacetime. It’s designed to be an introductory class that makes the game a little easier while players learn the mechanics.
The class’ main ability is its shield.
The Paladin’s shield can block incoming damage if activated, but it does have a number of hitpoints. If the shield takes more damage than it has hit points then it will break, preventing you from blocking any more hits.
Don’t worry though! This only lasts for the rest of that specific fight. Once you’ve won the battle and returned to the star map, your shield will regenerate.
The Paladin can also do a perfect block!
Blocking at the last second before an enemy’s attack will result in a perfect block, which negates all damage from the enemy’s attack.
But the Paladin isn’t just defensive! There is also a range of weapons available to this class for damage purposes.
There are currently 9 different melee weapons available for the Paladin - Bearded Axe, Great Axe, Throwing Axe, Flanged Mace, Morningstar, Warhammer, Broad Sword, Claymore, and Great Sword.
You can also play the Paladin your way!
With the Paladin’s extensive upgrade tree, you can create an energy- or malfunction-focused build, or just one that buffs the power of your hits!
We hope you enjoyed this little introduction to our first class!
If you have any questions, please drop them in the replies!
Until next time,
- Spiritus Games
Patch notes 0.9.5774 (hotfix)
Since the last update, we've had a number of reports about automation enemies preventing a battle from completing. These enemies are not signposted, so they can be challenging to find on the ever-expanding map.
Thanks to this hotfix, you are no longer required to defeat all of the automation-type enemies in order to progress to the next wave.
Patch notes 0.9.5728 (hotfix)
Since the last update, we've had a number of reports about automation enemies preventing a battle from completing. These enemies are not signposted, so they can be challenging to find on the ever-expanding map.
Thanks to this hotfix, you are no longer required to defeat all of the automation-type enemies in order to progress to the next wave.
