**It's important to note that you should uninstall and re-install the game. Do not simply update, as this could cause issues because the new directory does not yet exist.**
Why did we change the game name from Soul Survivors to Keeper's Toll?
1. It gives us a unique identity as opposed to being the 100th + game with Survivors in the title.
2. Being branded as a VS clone does not do us justice. We are not trying to be VS. We are trying to be Keeper's Toll. We take a slower paced, more skill based approach to the gameplay, we have a heavier focus on unique character classes and our plan is and has always been to build an ARPG/Roguelite hybrid with some survivor elements thrown in the mix.
3. Kalinov, the Keeper of Souls, is an NPC you will encounter when we reach version 0.7.x (Castle Usvit). He's very important to the story and premise of the game. We are currently working on integrating story elements into the game. Paying the Keeper's Toll to reclaim your soul is the game's premise, and how you will do this will be unveiled later on.
UPDATING THE GAME
With changing the name, comes some very important things you need to be aware of. Effective immediately:
1. It's important to note that you should uninstall and re-install the game. Do not simply update, as this could cause issues because the new directory does not yet exist.
2. Your Cloud Saves will not work and the game will not run until you update. The reason being is the game is now located in a new directory in Windows.
3. The executable will not launch until you update. The game is now called Keeper's Toll, so if you are stuck on Soul Survivors, the executable name that Steam looks for will no longer exist and the game will fail to launch.
4. We automatically transfer your Save Data when you launch the game, however settings such as Screen Resolution and Windowed Mode will be reset, and you will need to reset these settings to your preference. Your actual data of Gold, Level Unlocks, Achievement data etc, will be automatically migrated for you when you first boot up the new version of the game. The game simply checks the old directory for save data, and if it exists, it will transfer to the new directory automatically. If your data does not transfer properly for whatever reason, we are including another thread on how to manually transfer your save data. It's important to note that if the transfer fails, your data is not lost, so don't worry. It still exists in the old directory. You can view the Save Data Migration thread to manually transfer your data here:
5. It can take some time until the name updates properly in the community hub, so if it says Soul Survivors for a few days longer, that is normal.
Patch Notes: 0.5.32
- New title screen for the rebrand of Keeper's Toll
- Wrote Save Migration code and updated Save Data logic
- Flesh Golem Boss: fixed an exploit that allowed the player to just ignore the boss and farm xp endlessly. The golem will now enrage if not killed within 3 minutes
- Improved player hit detection by applying a bright red shader when the player is hit, and increased the duration of the flash effect
- Boosted the gold collection passive skill from 10-20% bonus gold collected per rank. Also improved the logic to improve drop rates
- Decreased audio volume of soul collect sound FX to feel more balanced and less overpowering
- Bogatyr: Boosted Damage output for Shade of Vengeance
- Rewrote all logic related to enemy projectiles to improve performance and adjusted the collision matrix
- Restructured logic to swapping shaders for enemies or the player at runtime, improving efficiency
- Bug Fix: If player is hit while the frostveil curse is active, the shader will now properly reset to the ice shader instead of the default shader once the player sprite flashes red
- Bug Fix: Fixed an issue with Flesh Golem's stab attack that prevented it from inflicting damage more than once
- Bug Fix: Necromancer - Vital Force passive ability is now working properly. It was calculating HP based on enemy HP, not player HP.
- Bug Fix: Fixed navigating between characters on the Talents Menu
- Updated Save System backend to be more efficient and fixed some very rare bugs
- Updated Game Credits
Thank you to everyone that has been on this journey with us. We've got lots of new content to come, and next week we'll announce what's coming in the near future. Please do not hesitate to get in touch with us if you have any questions, comments or feedback. For direct support we recommend emailing us, DM'ing us or joining our Discord.
Stingbot
Welcome to Keeper's Toll *BE SURE TO UPDATE*
Welcome to Keeper's Toll!
Why did we change the game name from Soul Survivors to Keeper's Toll?
1. It gives us a unique identity as opposed to being the 100th + game with Survivors in the title.
2. Being branded as a VS clone does not do us justice. We are not trying to be VS. We are trying to be Keeper's Toll. We take a slower paced, more skill based approach to the gameplay, we have a heavier focus on unique character classes and our plan is and has always been to build an ARPG/Roguelite hybrid with some survivor elements thrown in the mix.
3. Kalinov, the Keeper of Souls, is an NPC you will encounter when we reach version 0.7.x (Castle Usvit). He's very important to the story and premise of the game. We are currently working on integrating story elements into the game. Paying the Keeper's Toll to reclaim your soul is the game's premise, and how you will do this will be unveiled later on.
UPDATING THE GAME
With changing the name, comes some very important things you need to be aware of. Effective immediately:
1. You should update to version 0.5.32. If updating isn't working, simply uninstall and reinstall the game.
2. Your Cloud Saves will not work and the game will not run until you update. The reason being is the game is now located in a new directory in Windows.
3. The executable will not launch until you update. The game is now called Keeper's Toll, so if you are stuck on Soul Survivors, the executable name that Steam looks for will no longer exist and the game will fail to launch.
4. We automatically transfer your Save Data when you launch the game, however settings such as Screen Resolution and Windowed Mode will be reset, and you will need to reset these settings to your preference. Your actual data of Gold, Level Unlocks, Achievement data etc, will be automatically migrated for you when you first boot up the new version of the game. The game simply checks the old directory for save data, and if it exists, it will transfer to the new directory automatically. If your data does not transfer properly for whatever reason, we are including another thread on how to manually transfer your save data. It's important to note that if the transfer fails, your data is not lost, so don't worry. It still exists in the old directory. You can view the Save Data Migration thread to manually transfer your data here:
5. It can take some time until the name updates properly in the community hub, so if it says Soul Survivors for a few days longer, that is normal.
Patch Notes: 0.5.32
- New title screen for the rebrand of Keeper's Toll
- Wrote Save Migration code and updated Save Data logic
- Flesh Golem Boss: fixed an exploit that allowed the player to just ignore the boss and farm xp endlessly. The golem will now enrage if not killed within 3 minutes
- Improved player hit detection by applying a bright red shader when the player is hit, and increased the duration of the flash effect
- Boosted the gold collection passive skill from 10-20% bonus gold collected per rank. Also improved the logic to improve drop rates
- Decreased audio volume of soul collect sound FX to feel more balanced and less overpowering
- Bogatyr: Boosted Damage output for Shade of Vengeance
- Rewrote all logic related to enemy projectiles to improve performance and adjusted the collision matrix
- Restructured logic to swapping shaders for enemies or the player at runtime, improving efficiency
- Bug Fix: If player is hit while the frostveil curse is active, the shader will now properly reset to the ice shader instead of the default shader once the player sprite flashes red
- Bug Fix: Fixed an issue with Flesh Golem's stab attack that prevented it from inflicting damage more than once
- Bug Fix: Necromancer - Vital Force passive ability is now working properly. It was calculating HP based on enemy HP, not player HP.
- Bug Fix: Fixed navigating between characters on the Talents Menu
- Updated Save System backend to be more efficient and fixed some very rare bugs
- Updated Game Credits
Thank you to everyone that has been on this journey with us. We've got lots of new content to come, and next week we'll announce what's coming in the near future. Please do not hesitate to get in touch with us if you have any questions, comments or feedback. For direct support we recommend emailing us, DM'ing us or joining our Discord.
Stingbot
REBRANDING Soul Survivors + Build 0.5.30
Big Changes are coming to Soul Survivors, and this first change might come as a shock, but let's start with branding. We realize some people don't like change, but Early Access is and has always been about improving the game to us, and over the past few months we have improved a lot!
Soon, the game will longer be called Soul Survivors. We will be announcing the new name as soon as the new promotional art and logo is finished up (likely next week).
We are not abandoning the game. We are simply re-branding, as we strongly believe this is the right decision for the long term. The game itself is not changing, and we will continue to push out weekly updates as we progress forward in Early Access.
Second, We would like to introduce you to Kalinov, the Keeper of Souls. Kalinov is a key character, not yet in the game, but he will be introduced when we arrive at Castle Usvit in version 0.7.x.
We want to introduce you now, as he is going to play a role in the rebranding of the game.
If you've been here since the beginning you will know there have been a massive amount of changes and improvements we've made to the game, and we will continue to improve the game until it is finished. We released in Early Access to build a small community and get player feedback to develop the best version of this game, and we believe we are succeeding in that. We listen to everything players say and we appreciate the feedback!
There is lots of other changes to come over the coming weeks/months, including a new character class, The Shadow Monk, a new XP system, enhanced lighting and scenery with new environment props and additions, and lots more. We will post more on all of this in the coming weeks.
Build 0.5.30 Notes:
- NEW Curse: Avarice Arrows. Greed may get the best of you!
- Inferno Flames spawned from Inferno Boots merchant item are now pooled for a slight performance boost
- Improved Inferno Flames sprite sorting logic so it renders properly relative to other enemies in the scene
- UI - Fixed/Improved Resolution Dropdown scrolling while using a gamepad
- UI - Added the ability to scroll through input bindings using a gamepad
- Improved logic for input detection to easily change between different control schemes
- Bug Fix: when returning to Application from alt-tabbing there should no longer be issues enabling input with the controller
- Bug Fix: Input Bindings - If a binding is currently listening for input then the other bindings will no longer be selectable until the player presses input or exits the menu
- Bug Fix: Input Bindings - When re entering the bindings menu after exiting the menu while listening for input, the buttons are properly re-initialized and navigation is reset
- Bug Fix: fixed an ability pooling issue with some abilities for the ranger
- Changed some logic related to slowing certain types of enemies
- Loads of text has been updated to prep for Localization
- Code refactoring
Thank you for all your support. If you have any questions, comments or feedback, please do not hesitate to reach out. We strive to release a new build every week, so stay posted for more updates. Lots to come!
Stingbot
Build 0.5.29 + DevLog + more!
This week's build is a smaller update, but not because we have not been working hard on the game. Quite the contrary. We're working extremely hard right now as we have so much stuff planned to announce over the course of the next few months. There's going to be some big updates/announcements soon, and we look forward to sharing the details with everyone as soon as we can.
Devlog - World Generation
Are you a game dev, an aspiring game dev or just someone who appreciates how stuff is created? Then you may enjoy our new video we uploaded to YouTube. Did you know our world is a hybrid of random and procedural generation? We share some details about how this system works. Let us know if you would like to see more of this type of stuff and we'd be happy to make some new DevLog videos as we continue development.
Progress Update
Next week we'll have some big announcements along with our weekly build update. In the meantime rest assured we are putting insane hours into the creation of the Shadow Monk class and Castle Usvit. We make more and more progress every week. We'll post more details on all of this soon.
Build 0.5.29 Notes
- NEW: Uncommon Merchant Item: Inferno Boots. Burn your enemies across the battlefield with this powerful new set of boots.
- Added some frost particle FX to Bogatyr's Frost Strike Passive to improve visibility
- Bug Fix: Added a check against an enemy to only become slowed/display slow icon if AI is actually still alive. If becoming slowed during the same frame the enemy is killed, then it should no longer trigger the slow effect on the enmy
- Bug Fix: Cursed Elites will now properly reset shaders after poison fades, displaying the outline if it's toggled on or off
- Improved Key Bindings Logic and added in-game keyboard binding support for Movement (Up,Down,Left,Right). More to come
- Popup windows will now be automatically closed when the merchant window is activated, to prevent UI overlap
- Code refactoring
As always, thank you for your continued support. There's lots more to come. If you have any feedback, bugs to report or just wanna chat, please don't hesitate to get in touch with us.
Stingbot
Bruce Lee to Shadow Chi! + Build 0.5.28
Bruce Lee to Shadow Chi
The upcoming fighter class has undergone some big changes in design and appearance. From a traditional martial artist to an armored monk, we have now arrived at what will be the final class form: The Shadow Monk. The Shadow Monk is inspired by characters such as Noob Saibot from Mortal Kombat, and of course, our love for Dark Fantasy and Souls-lore. He's got his own set of unique abilities and a completely new combo system we designed just for him that we think you all are going to love. We spent a lot of time working on class design including developing cool synergies and fighting styles that can literally transform the game depending how you build the character. We're doing something different with this class and we can't wait to show you more!
Here's a timeline showing the character art development:
We plan to add the Shadow Monk to the game sometime later next month! Stay posted for lots more details and some videos in the coming weeks.
Castle Usvit
Our newer content is becoming more polished and we have lots of tricks up our sleeve to plan to update older content as we continue development. We'll have some interesting updates soon on Castle Usvit, so stay posted for some previews, lore and some minor details on what to expect and how it takes our design and gameplay to the next level.
Build 0.5.28 Notes:
- NEW: Necromancer Passive Skill: Bone Venom: Skeletons have a chance to proc poison on any hit
- NEW: Ranger Passive Skill: Chilled Shot: Small chance to shoot an icy quick shot, slowing enemies for 5 seconds
- NEW: Bogatyr Passive Skill: Frost Strike: Small chance to shoot an ice-coated quick strike, slowing enemies for 5 seconds
- NEW: Merchant Item: Nimble Boots: Makes the wearer immune to root (excludes enemy attacks) and take 50% reduced damage from spike traps
- Usvit Depths: Reduced HP of the Skelewheel Elite, Armored Monk Elite and Butcher Cursed Elite
- Usvit Depths: Butcher Elites can no longer spawn during a Challenge Event. Only the Cursed elite can be a butcher
- Challenge Event: Elites that are not tied to the event will no longer spawn while the event is active
- Adjusted the Circle for Sundance Curse in usvit Depths. It was improperly scaling resulting in some lines overlapping between sprites
- Bug Fix: Necromancer flail damage boost will now be properly affected by the Thresh Talent
- Bug Fix: Necromancer flail will no longer receive multiplier dmg based on selecting the character over and over again in the character select menu
- Bug Fix: Fixed a null pointer related to enemy Slow logic
- When starting a new game, the game can no longer be paused until the camera fade is complete
- Adjusted some Curse Logic for what can be played with a nightmare cloak in Usvit Depths
- Text Formatting Updates
- Loads of Code refactoring
Don't forget, we have a community thread where you can share ideas for new items to add to the Merchant's pool:
Thank you all for your support, and the best is yet to come. We appreciate all the feedback, bug reports, suggestions etc. Never hesitate to reach out. There's lots more to come!
Stingbot
Castle Usvit Boss & New Build (0.5.26) is Live!
Hi Everyone,
We would like to introduce first boss of Castle Usvit:
The Gatekeeper
The Gatekeeper is a strong and powerful boss, that will test your skills in sparring and avoidance. We are finishing up his art right now and will begin coding the fight this week. He's been a lot of work in terms of design and art creation/animation, but he's coming together nicely and we're very excited to put the fight together.
We're a few months away from releasing the content for Castle Usvit, but we have 3 artists working on the content right now, and assure you it will be worth the wait! We're taking the game to the next level and kicking everything up a notch.
in the meantime, we will continue to push out weekly builds with revisions and additions to existing content, as we have since launching in Early Access. There's lots to come!
Patch Notes: Version 0.5.26
- NEW: Merchant Common Item - Gold Magnet. Idea from Community Member, Djezze. Thank you!
- NEW: Curse - Dead Reckoning. Idea from Community Member, Cookies for Everyone! Thank you!
- New: Curse - Death's Bargain. Idea from Community Member, Cookies for Everyone! Thank you!
- Velya is now invulnerable when first loading to the scene to prevent unwanted damage
- Curses Survived will now be shown on screen in the top left corner when curse mode is active
- Fixed compression on the bomb satchel merchant icon
- Bug Fix: Input will no longer be detected If spamming any input before save data is loaded
- Bug Fix: Firebomb Item will no longer negate Firebomb Powerup
- Curse Modification: Sundance - Circle size has been increased by 20% in Usvit Depths
- Added a sound effect when the Merchant appears
- Modified text to prep for Localization
Thank you for all your feedback and support. Please don't hesitate to reach out to us, and stay posted for future updates!
Stingbot
Monk? New Class Coming? Build 0.5.24 is Live!
Hi Everyone,
Version 0.5.24 is Live, and comes with a bunch of QoL improvements, fixes and a couple new things. More on that below.
Monk Class
We're re-naming the Fighter to Monk, as ultimately with the inclusion of his spirit attacks and meditation abilities, that's what he is. He's a monk, and is he going to be interesting! With each new character we want to try something new, and what we have planned for the Monk will be unlike anything you've seen so far in the game. We're going to keep it a secret for now, but as of today, half of the character has been coded, and most of him has been designed. The art team is focusing solely on the next environment of the game, Castle Usvit, so there has not been much love to the creation of the monk or his abilities yet, but we're programming everything in the background. Here's a WIP preview of his new look. He will be refined quite a bit more by the time we're done.
Castle Usvit
Castle Usvit is a very ambitious part of the game. It has about as much content as the first 2 worlds put together, if not more, with all the secrets and additions we are adding. The scenery will also change from 3 different tile sets: Outdoor, Indoor, and Courtyard.
Here's a pic of the Indoor setting (Work in Progress). We'll showcase lots more as soon as we finish things up.
Version 0.5.24 Patch Notes
- NEW: Merchant Item: Bomb Satchel
- Added Support for Ultra Wide Monitors. Some of the game is not designed to support such wide view angles, and you may notice some enemies or props spawn in during gameplay. The game is not designed to optimally run in such wide resolutions, but the UI and game will now properly scale in ultra wide aspect ratios.
- Began work on adding custom key bindings to the game. There has been a key bindings menu added to the options menu, but it only affects keyboard bindings (not game controllers) and only in-game bindings, not menu navigation. The system requires a major overhaul on the structure of the game and is a WIP and will be updated periodically over several updates until it's fully complete.
- Changed some trigger settings on the player character to slightly boost performance
- Ranger: Reduced the Enemy Knockback Distance from Ranger arrow attacks
- Ranger: Modified and balanced the healing Salve heal amount
- Refactored and restructured loads of skill description code to prep for future Localization
- Reduced time between spawn waves of a challenge event from 20 seconds to 15 seconds
- Increased the cost of Likho's Dice by 100 gold on each purchase
- Curse: Insect Swarm (slow curse) will now toggle on/off every 6 seconds, as opposed to remaining active permanantely
- Catacombs: Added a 1/2 second wind up to the Elite Butcher attack
- Bug Fix: Torch Zombie Runner should now properly dissolve on death
- Bug Fix: Boss Souls will now activate and allow for immediate collection. Collision events will no longer disable the soul if attempting to collect on spawn
- Bug Fix: Challenge Event and Associated UI will now properly disable when teleporting into a boss fight with Autlaic or Velya
- UI: Modified the Options Menu Layout
- Updated key bindings logic and structure
- Code Refactoring
As always, I would like to thank everyone for your support. We appreciate all of the feedback and we look forward to continue building the game with you all.
Stingbot
Version 0.5.22 is Live! + Progress Update on New Content
Hi Everyone,
Version 0.5.22 is Live, and includes a new Curse, a bunch of bug fixes and QoL improvements to the game.
Castle Usvit
Our #1 priority right now is focusing on Castle Usvit. We're working constantly on the art creation and design, and we've also coded one of the bosses already. Once we finish the tile set for the scene we will showcase a bunch of the scenery and characters to give you a preview of things to come. Expect a big Art update in the coming weeks.
Fighter Class
We've started working on the Fighter, and we're taking a lot of player feedback into account for the design of this character. He's going to be very unique and extremely fun to play, with his fast, multi directional attacks and targeting and combo systems. Much more on this later, but we're excited to start working on him. Expect more updates in the coming weeks as well.
Updated Environments Coming Soon!
In the coming weeks we'll also be adding more life to the existing environments offering more destructibles and objects to interact with. Below is some early work on some wagons, carts, house remains and a well for Linden Forest.
Patch Notes
- NEW: Curse - Frostveil - Idea by community member DJezze
- Challenge Event; Added a shadow, modified color and added a rune effect to the platform
- Randomized the spawn times for the Challenge Altar and Cursed Altar Events
- Bug Fix: Elites should properly spawn and enter challenge circles at all times when the event is triggered
- Bug Fix: Elite Outlines setting will now save properly
- Bug Fix: Flesh Golem Damage Circles will now deactivate when he dies if he's casting during death
- Bug Fix: Cursed Elite enemies will now toggle outlines
- Bug Fix: Summoned Druids of Warden Grainloch now play death dissolve animation on death
- Bug Fix: Tree Stump Turret shadow is now immediately deactivated on death
- Bug Fix: Movement speed will be properly reset to boosted speed if powerup was active before becoming slowed by an enemy
- Bug Fix: Challenge Event should now always spawn a cursed elite to complete the challenge
- Bug Fix: Pet Rock will no longer set off Ranger Traps
- Bug Fix: Ranger Traps will no longer be set off by anything but enemies
- Bug Fix: Pet Rock will no longer attempt to cache an invalid reference to a boss until it exists
- Added more distance and spawn variation between altars, challenge circles and the Merchant
- Modified the treasure chest hitbox setup
- Updated Credits to include community member designs
- Added a Total Souls Collected counter to the Options Menu. Eventually this will be removed as we will be adding a stats/achievements menu, but just needed to plug it somehwere for now
- Added a shadow to Likho, the Merchant
- Code refactoring
As always, thank you for your support. If you have any questions, comments, suggestions or feedback, please get in touch with us or leave a comment in this thread. We always like to chat and appreciate you all for being with us as we continue our development journey with Soul Survivors.
Stingbot
Hot Fix 0.5.20
Found a minor bug w/ Spore King spawn code for his event. Fixed it and also toned down his mine field a little bit.
Build 0.5.19 is Live! New Events!
Hi Everyone,
We have some fun new features in this week's build, including 2 new events. Jump into Linden Forest and check out some new stuff!
The Spore King makes his first appearance in the game, but you won't get to battle it out with him until later in development when we add in Hard Mode (name TBD).
Discover these mysterious circles and see if you have what it takes to win the challenge!
Castle Usvit Update
Our main focus has shifted to developing Castle Usvit, so we're working very hard on this right now. We will have more to share on this environment soon. Each week we will share some progress updates. There's lots being worked on right now. Castle Usvit is the largest area of the game, and also contains the most content. It will be introduced when we reach version 0.6.0 of the game.
There's lots of other exciting news we'll be announcing in the coming weeks, so stay posted for more updates!
Curses
We have created a new thread in the forums for Curses. Curses will continue to become a more important part of the game as we continue deeper into development. If anyone would like to contribute ideas to Curses we encourage you to do so. We will have a community credits section added within the game and will display your name if your idea is selected and implemented into the game. The thread is located here:
We will continue to add more common and uncommon items to the Merchant's Inventory. If you would like to contribute ideas for fun items to be added to the game, you can do so here:
- NEW - Cursed Events. Interact with a mysterious circle and see what happens
- NEW - Meet the Spore King. Random event in Linden Forest
- NEW - Curse added to Linden Forest: Deathcaps
- Bogatyr: Modified Ironclad Passive Skill. Completely new skill focusing on health to damage/def boosts offering a fun playstyle
- Killing Invader Lord Cerveris will now reward you with an item
- Class Passive Skill Icons are now displayed with ranks on the Pause Menu
- UI: adjusted the positioning of all item icons in the pause menu
- UI: Added a 1/2 second delay on input detection when level up UI opens, to prevent accidentally selecting an ability if you are spamming Enter/Confirm
- UI: Modified passive skill descriptions for various abilities
- Souls and environment props should no longer spawn in very close proximity to the player on level start
- Options: Added a toggle to display Elite Sprite Outlines
- Ranger: Revised ability descriptions for Multi Shot and Prey
- Curses will now scale based on difficulty. Easier curses will be activated during the beginning of Cursed mode while harder curses will not activate until the player has survived a theshold of curses
- Curse: Under Fire - Arrow Barrage will now only collides with the player and not the environment
- Bug fix: Ranger will no longer toggle kiting mode when closing cursed altar UI
- Bug Fix: Flesh Golem should no longer spawn 2 boss souls on death
- Bug Fix: Player can no longer skip from level 1 to level 3
- Refactored XP Gain code
- Bug Fix: Fixed an issue where UI panels could overlap if activated within the same frame or a very similar timeframe of each other
- Bug Fix: Ranger will now toggle kiting mode when standing still or moving only vertical
- Bug Fix: Bogatyr's Talent for Defense Bonus was not adding properly. Fixed
- Bug Fix: Grub enemy in Linden Forest will now properly sort sprite order against other enemies in the scene
- Linden Forest: Vine Traps will now deactivate if within the vicinity of a spawned altar or challenge circle
- Code refactoring
Thank you for all of your support. If you have any questions, comments, bug reports or suggestions please do not hesitate to reach out to us.
