Gods of Sand
0.2.6 - Climate System/Ludus Scene Changes/Bug Fixes
- Added a climate system, it will have future uses on quests and other things, for now it's just visual.
Ludus Scene:
- Now you'll get a random climate effect on the scene every day (75% chance of being the default one).
- Added the missing english translation to a button on the contracts panel.
Bug Fixes:
- Fixed a bug where the gladiator was not dying in contracts.
- Fixed a bug where the contracts panel gladiators was not being refreshed properly.
- Fixed a bug where 2 or more gladiators couldn't arrive to the ludus back at the same day when they were doing a contract.
0.2.5 - City/Skills/Contracts/Backend changes
- Due to some feedbacks, the blacksmith will have fresh items every day.
- Fixed a problem where the items were showing only on the first day of the week, if you have a save with empty items just advance a day and it will be fixed.
Skills:
- Concentration: Nerfed from +30% to +20% AGI and DEX. Now it lasts until the end of the fight.
- Mantra: No longer recovers STA.
- Exhaust: Removed. "Reinvigorate" will now take it's place.
- Reinvigorate: Recovers 100% STA.
- Rage: Buffed from +3 to +10 STR. Nerfed from -1 HP per turn to -4% HP per turn.
Contracts:
- Most of the contracts now have a bigger gold prize.
Backend (game code that players won't see):
- The blacksmith inventory system was upgraded to a newer one with less bugs.
0.2.4 - UI/Blacksmith fixes
- Fixed a problem where it was showing duplicated resolutions on the settings panel with no explanation, now it shows the refresh rate.
- Fixed a bug that was causing the Alpha End panel to show before the 4th arena.
City:
- Blacksmith items don't reset anymore when you buy all of them, now they reset on the first day of the week.
0.2.3 - Minor changes
- Fixed a weird behavior due to the player starting position being different to the grid position.
Texts:
- Fixed some mispellings on English and Portuguese languages.
0.2.2 - Minor Bug Fixes and improvements
- Some of the contracts/missions were misconfigured and is now fixed, they weren't giving you gold and the travelling time was instantaneous.
Battle improvements:
- Players/Enemies/Bosses now start the fight closer to each other, previously they were starting on the map bounds.
The Early Access is here! - We want your feedback
I could go on and on about how releasing a game was much harder than we previously thought, how it took us almost a whole year more than we planned in the beginning to get the game into a releasable state, but I don't think the player can really relate to these kinds of struggles (I certainly did not before), and it is totally fine not doing so, because in the end both the players and the devs are concerned about the final product. So, let's talk about the game!
This is an early version, but many of the features implemented are probably staying, so we're building over this foundation. If you've played the game by this point, you'll notice that some aspects are still lacking, and we want to use this opportunity pro improve over the current systems by listening to your feedback.
For me, personally, I think the combat is what is lacking the most at this moment, but I've been told the opposite by some early testers, so it's a matter of waiting for the oppinion of the majority to speak. We have a lot of ideas to improve this system, like: Adding "pokemon-style" battles where you take to combat a team of gladiators with different builds, instead of only one man; Or adding passive skills to the skill tree to take the game to a more "rogue-likish" combat, in a sense of getting extremely powerful and bad-ass on the later levels.
The management aspect of the game is another side to be improved, but it is not as obvious as the combat, in my view, as we want to stay in a line where you can play the game without having to study for 3 hours prior, but making the financial and logistical decisions of the player count. Until we find balance, I think it's fairer to make a too-easy game than a too-hard game, as to include more types of players, although sometimes I almost feel that the game is still too hard.
Well, we're excited to listen to your oppinions, and to work togheter with you guys to make this the go-to gladiator game experience. You can contact us through this steam forums, or at our email: godsofsandgame@gmail.com
If you find any BUGS, please report ASAP!
And thank you everyone for the support :)
Cheers!
One Year of Development!
By the end of September we arrived at the one year mark on the development of Gods of Sand, starting with a random concept art thrown into twitter and now working as a (almost) fully functional game!
This is the first concept art we had, destroyed by twitter's image compression algorithm:
Compared to where we are now:
Not that much of a difference, actually, as we were faithful to this concept from the beginning.
Now, about the state of development: In about two weeks we're starting intern testing to seek the perfect balance in the fighting (stats, skills) and also the game progression and "grinding", trying to make it hard enough to give the player a challenge, but fun enough to keep you playing.
If you've been keeping up with the our few updates, you know I'm terrible at predicting dates, so I'll just stop promising any release date: the early access will be released when our team feels that the game is fun, and that it has at least 2 to 4 hours of content so you have enough playing time to experience it properly.
Some of the things we've worked on, and are now already implemented are:
- Quests with meaningful dialogues and choices.
- Four bosses, each with unique abilities.
- Skills and usable items that change the way you fight.
Also, check out our steam page; we've uploaded a lot of new screenshots and gifs that show how our progress is goins, like these for example:
Since we're near to the release of the Alpha version, the next Devlog will probably be on it's annoucement, hopefully until the end of this year, but realistically on the beggining of the next.
Thank you for following us and wishlisting our game. We'll see you soon on the sands of the arena!
Road to Early Access! - DevLog #7
It's been a while since our last diary entry, so today we bring you a lot of news. First of all, thank you for all the new wishlist additions we've been getting, you guys are awesome! This is helping the game to get even more visibility!
About a RELEASE DATE: We prefer not to set any expectations, as we learned that with our latest promises, although it will certainly be this year, maybe some months from now. After almost finishing the early access build, we felt the game was missing something, so we decided to put some work on more systems, like a skill tree and queslines. Also, a lot of the code is being refactored. We're aiming at a short (the early access will have about 4 hours of gameplay) but solid experience, making it easy for us to quickly build up new content over it.
The development keeps going on, but posting updates on twitter or even this page seems to communicate with only a really small part of the public. It feels really counterproductive, as we could be using this time to work even more on the game, so as you must have realised by now, we are not giving too much of an attention to the public relations. But be patient, soon you'll be able to get your hands in the game.
Here's what to expect for our first Early Access release:
• 4 arenas with 4 bosses.
The temple, the pits, the desert and the greek theater, each one with it's unique boss. The bosses are all ready to be implemented, but we'll leave them as a surprise for you.
• 5 tiers of armor
All armor pieces are completely interchangeable, giving the characters this asymmetrical gladiatorial look.
• The market
This is the place where you can buy/sell items and gladiators, or upgrade your ludus.
• Questlines
Random events can appear to you at the beginning of each day. Depending on how you respond to these events, you can enter on long and rewarding questlines. Also, we hired a professional writer to create the quests, so expect captivating stories of all sorts.
• Skill System (still being implemented)
This early version of the game has 16 skills which can be picked from a skill tree as your character win battles. The skill tree is not guided by skill lines, so you can "buy" skills from any line to any character.
About translations:
The early access will cover: English, Portuguese (our native language), Spanish and broken German. As soon as possible, we intend on fixing the German translation and adding Russian, French and Chinese (普通话). If you'd like to help us, and speak any language other than english and portuguese, we would be grateful if you could translate it to your language. We have an excel sheet with all the phrases in the game, and adding a language is just a matter of getting this sheet and adding the translation to the side of the english one. If you're interested, or has any doubts, you can contact us at: godsofsandgame@gmail.com
And that's it for this diary. So we'll see you guys in a few months when we launch the early access, then we'll really need your help on balancing the game. Thank you for everything until now!
Cheers!
Gods of Sand - DevLog #6
This past couple weeks we've been finishing the whole management part of the game, testing new systems and concepts, and creating a playable experience for the soon-to-come "pre-alpha" build. One of the things we tackled was the world map. We're now implementing a system where you have to defeat an arena 2 times before you can face the boss. This will open the opportunity of grinding through a more fun method (by fighting), instead of just training in the ludus or sending your gladiators into quests.
We also added 2 new bosses to the game: An "odalisque" that wears a snake as a scarf, and a minotaur automaton/puppet which will fight you in a theater:
In the meanwhile our "art department" is working on new arenas. We expect releasing the game with 8 arenas, which the player will unlock as he/she progresses with the gladiators.
And that's it for this time. As soon as we release the pre-alpha version, we would be glad to hear your thoughts on the game, and how we can improve it. Stay tuned to our steam page for more news, and thank you guys for all the support! :)