Labyrinth
We are working hard to polish up the Tutorial Build for release this week.
Week 39 Progress
Upcoming Build Update
We plan to release the next major update of Labyrinth at the end of next week, September 2 (or thereafter...). It will have these new features:
Tutorial
Store
Card pack opening
Crafting
Ranked play game mode
And improvements, including:
New matchmaking algorithm
Defense slots will unlock once Boss hits max level
Card bug fixes and rebalancing
And more!
This is a taste of what is to come with a few more juicy details below. Much more will be explained in the next progress report when we release the update.
Early Access
When we launched Labyrinth on Steam Early Access we anticipated being done with the game and releasing it at the end of August.
We have taken our time with each milestone to make sure that the quality reaches the high standards we have for the game and we believe that you, our community expects. As you can see, we are making steady progress but the game is not quite yet ready to be released. It's better that we get it right than to rush. Looking at what remains, we now plan to exit Early Access and release the "core set" towards the end of the year.
Tutorial
We know you have worked hard to level up your heroes, and bosses have not leveled up quite to everyone's expectations. Because of all changes we are making in this update, we will again reset all the levels on your heroes and bosses. This will then require everyone to play through the tutorial. Hopefully you will find it fun and engaging and learn a few things along the way that will make you a better player.
Ranked Mode
Once you reach max level 15 with your heroes or bosses, you will be eligible to play them in ranked mode. You can play heroes, or bosses, or both heroes and bosses, as long as they qualify.
To assist you in leveling up Bosses quicker, you will start with 1 Defense slot until your boss reaches level 15, max level. Then you will unlock an additional slot; and so on. We are also rolling out the new matchmaking algorithm that we described last week, which should also help keep hero and boss leveling more on par.
More details on Ranked play will appear in the next progress report.
Store
In order to test out the store, all cards will be locked to start. You will get all the basic cards for three heroes once you have completed the tutorial. Once the tutorial complete, you will start earning experience and be able to level up your characters. As they level you will unlock some cards as currently happens. But opening card packs will be the main way to build your collection.
We will not be selling card packs for real world money just yet. Until we are certain that the store is working as intended, you will be able to use virtual currency which you will get from playing the game to buy card packs. You will also be able to disenchant a card, returning it to a second virtual currency and crafting desired cards directly from that.
All pricing is subject to change at any time.
Development
As you can see from the above, the whole team has been quite busy working on a lot of big features. More of the weekly details are shown below.
The Engineering Team worked on Server replays; Tutorial features - landing scenes; Ranked reward screen; Crafting UI; Ranked play UI; Ranked Match Making Seasons.
The Design Team worked on Tutorial encounters.
The Art Team worked on Pack opening textures; Tutorial dialog art; Pack UI bar; Storm Caller Card.
The Audio Team worked on mixing and reverb; Minion idle sounds; Hero select plan.
Week 38 Progress
Development Progress
Over the past week the team has worked on matchmaking, tutorial, and store features including:
The Engineering Team worked on Migration to Unity 5.4, Tutorial Features; Ranked play; Ranked play UI; Level based Matchmaking; Replays from Server; Card Crafting; Pack opening animations.
The Design Team worked on Tutorial encounters 1 & 2.
The Art Team worked on Badges; Female Warrior; Pack opening; Tutorial Dialog art; Storm Caller card; Feyden and Bladey conversations.
The Audio Team worked on 2 new music pieces; Shell chill music; Boss and Hero rollovers; Spawn in; Hero and Boss idles.
Matchmaking Server
Today around noon Pacific time, we tried to update the matchmaking server, but encountered an issue that required us to roll back to the current live version, which is operational again. We apologize if you were trying to play during that time and could not get connected with another player.
The intent of the change to the matchmaking server is to better match players' heroes against opponents' bosses of similar level. Due to dependencies with other changes in the code that we have already made, we are now planning on folding this improvement into the next major update of the game which will be in a few weeks.
Week 36 Update and Progress
Game Update Notes
We have been busy these past few weeks working on a new game update that includes the following improvements:
Bug fixes for stability
Changes to casual mode matchmaking server
Hero / Boss card balancing
Some UI changes
Other miscellaneous bug fixes
Introduction of Rare, Epic, and Legendary cards! A few new minions!
Half diamonds in the middle of the cards show the color for rarities. The color code is:
Gray = Basic
White = Common
Green = Rare
Purple = Epic
Yellow = Legendary
Wiping Accounts
As we mentioned in the Discussions in the Steam Community Hub, this update wipes your account, resetting any experience you have accumulated for your heroes and bosses to zero. We need to do this since heroes and bosses are out of balance at the moment. It is also necessary because of changes we have made to the game "under the hood." Although Labyrinth is still in Early Access, we really dislike wiping. When we have to wipe, we will have a necessary reason and try to give you a few days advanced notice like we did.
Hopefully we improved the balance so that it is harder to beat bosses, but they should level faster, as well as improved matchmaking so there is more variety in the opponents and their bosses that you fight.
Development Progress
Recently week the team has furthered development in the following areas:
The Engineering Team worked on Card Crafting; In-Game Store; Purchasing; Item Bundles; Store UI; and Tutorial and Adventure element system.
The Design Team worked on Tutorial Content.
The Art Team worked on Spirit Magma; Badges; Storm Caller; and Golem.
The Audio Team worked on Deck Building chiller music; Cave Spider audio; and Smoothing transitions between audio tracks.
Week 34 Progress
Events
From July 18th through the 20th, Chris and Wayne were at Casual Connect in San Francisco. Labyrinth came away with the "Best Game Art" award in the Indie Prize competition!
Upcoming
Skybound will be live streaming Labyrinth at ComicCon San Diego from 5:00 to 5:30 pm PDT on Friday July 22 with Chris, Bradley, and some other special guests!
https://www.twitch.tv/skybound
Development
The Engineering Team worked on Store UI; match logic; Tutorial and Adventure element system; server load testing; match analytics; loot tables; shop exploration; Stardust display rewards; Gold and Stardust collection.
The Design Team worked on Dynamic text for perked cards.
The Art Team worked on Storm Caller; Golem; Legendary Warlord.
The Audio Team worked on battle music.
Week 33 Game Update and Progress
Week 33 Progress and Game Update
In this update we are addressing some game hangs and crashes, as well as disconnects players are having.
Patch Notes
Bug Fixes
Priestess Cure + Compounding Cure was causing hangs
Extra Cards were being given to the player's hand on the start of second battle
Known Issues
Spear Of Wrath hangs replay - Possibly still happening, hard to reproduce
Game hangs if Hero's gets their wind-ups canceled
Progress Update
Below is a list of what the team has been working on for the next major update. These features are not for this patch, but a brief overview of what the whole team has been working on.
The Engineering Team worked on Tutorial outline; analytics to server; match making; ranked play; Wind-up refactor; Graphics Menu.
The Design Team worked on Card revisions.
The Art Team worked on Legendary Warlord; Celestial Armorer; Ardelon Variant; Ember Hound; Blizzard Golem; Ranok textures.
The Audio Team worked on a tan.
Week 32 Game Update
Release Notes
Character Progression Build
July 8, 2016
New Features
In this build, we have overhauled some existing systems and added our first functional pass of certain key features of the game. These new features include:
Experience and Level
Boss Traits
Matchmaking - Casual Mode
New Characters - Marrik and Adolphus
New Card Type - Equipment
Experience
At the end of each battle, characters now gain experience which applies toward advancing level. The schedule of experience is the same for both Heroes and Bosses. Characters gain experience for certain actions within a battle, for surviving a certain number of ticks, and for victory. Characters that lose a battle will still gain experience, though not as much as they would by winning!
Gaining Levels
Each character can gain levels, up to a level cap of 15. The experience required to gain the next level grows logarithmically, so leveling up takes more effort the higher your level.
Leveling Rewards
Each level, characters unlock new rewards. These include:
Additional Perk slots
Higher Star cap
New Hero-specific cards
New Discipline or Trait cards that are shared with your other characters
New abilities
As cards are unlocked, they are automatically added to your collection. As you unlock Stars or Perk slots, check back into the deck builder--you may have new options available to you!
New Card Set
For the last few months, we have been extensively playtesting the game, locking down the remaining core rules, and refining the primary mechanics for heroes and bosses. In that time, we have designed and redesigned a *lot* of cards.
In this new release, we have added over a hundred new cards, and removed many that didn’t fit the latest design for one reason or another. We have made a thorough balance pass, and reorganized the set with an eye toward our final rarities. For now, our focus is on the basic and common cards, so these are the cards that you will find in the deck builder.
Boss Traits
In addition to all the lovely new cards, in the Deck Builder you will find that the boss cards are organised by a new category: Traits. Put simply, Traits are like Disciplines for bosses. The difference is that each boss has not one, but two Traits. This gives deckbuilding a new dimension for bosses, and helps to give each boss its own identity, by combining the strategies of its two Traits.
There are eight Traits in core game:
Beast
Warlord
Caster
Giant
Elemental
Spirit
Celestial
Mechanical
Beast
Beasts are large, terrifying monsters with powerful melee attacks and a suite of endurance abilities. They seek to close distance and deal damage to the opposing heroes directly. The minions that they summon tend to be on the larger side, with more health than the average minion.
Warlord
Warlords are mighty warriors that command their minions from the front lines. They have a mixture of abilities that enhance their minions and deal damage to the heroes directly.
Caster
Casters are powerful wizards that use guile and subtlety to eliminate their enemies from a distance. They tend to be more fragile than other bosses, and rely on their minions and magic to protect themselves.
Giant
Giants are huge! These awesome warriors strike terror in their enemies with slow, devastating attacks. By themselves, Giants summon no minions to their aid, and focus entirely on their own abilities.
Elemental
Elementals are living embodiments of the primal forces of the cosmos. Some elemental bosses aren’t actually incarnations, but wield elemental magic. Elemental minions are living spells, and tend to have death effects or effects that impact the board in ways other than simple damage.
Spirit
Spirits are the souls of the past, returned from the other side of the Veil. Some bosses wield spirit magic. Spirit is the dominant “summoner” trait, conjuring armies of minions to swarm and overwhelm their enemies.
Celestial
Celestials are unearthly servants of the gods. Celestial spells and minions are some of the largest and most powerful in the game. Many celestial minions summon other minions.
Week 29 Progress
E3 - Electronic Entertainment Expo
Free Range Games has partnered with BlackBoxTV and FullDome to showcase Labyrinth on the E3 Expo floor inside a large dome! When you watch the above video, imagine yourself looking up into the dome as the battle plays out around you. Who knows? This could be the future of esports and Labyrinth. An example of what a small dome looks like.
Also our CEO, Chris Scholz, can be found in the booth and walking around they show carrying Labyrinth on an iPad Pro! Labyrinth is steps closer to being cross platform.
Development
Over the last week our team has worked on a large variety of content for Labyrinth. Below is a list of what we have worked on.
The Engineering Team worked on Win/Loss Stats; iOS input; Ranked play client logic; reveal card system; button logic refractor; raid transitions; Hero HUD's; casual mode to rank mode toggle; and card content extractor for wiki.
The Design Team worked on leveling card rewards; card unlocking; Celestial cards; Hero cards; Boss card unlocking; deck rules; Lair rules; Starter decks; and Elemental defense cards.
The Art Team worked on Reaper of Death; Centurion windup and hit animations; Defense screen; Store screen; Celestial Armorer; rewards; and treasure display.
The Audio Team worked on UI Audio; Dome Demo Video; and Mecha Scorpion audio.
Week 28 Progress
Progression Build Update
We are postponing the "Progression Build" to the first week of July, most likely releasing sometime between July 5-8. This is because we added a lot of inter-related systems to Labyrinth to make progression and leveling possible and we have had more conflicting problems than we anticipated.
After a week of testing and quite a few late nights, we are not in a more stable place with the game than we found ourselves last Wednesday. Disabling the interconnected progression systems so we can release what we have now would add too much time to the schedule. So we just need to move forward with development and release this update later.
We are also doing a holistic overhaul of all the cards for elegance, symmetry, and to emphasize the strengths and weaknesses of hero disciplines and boss types. The current in-between state we have now is confusing. So yet another reason to release later.
While we will add a few features from next milestone into this one, the focus for the next few weeks will be on stability of the current features and testing all the systems surrounding leveling heroes and bosses.
Development
The Engineering Team worked on Leveling rewards; staging match making; matchmaking by boss complete; raid flow; HUD user experience; server stability; level dialogs.
The Design Team worked on Beast cards; Hero decks; Star cost rules; default decks; start speed fixes; Amp spending; default boss decks; new hero cards; mechanical cards; stealth change.
The Art Team worked on Centurion attack, spell casting, and hit animations; Temple Oracle clothes; Mechascorpion; Defense screen integration; rewards.
The Audio Team worked on UI sounds; Celestial Giant model; various buttons; UI sounds.
Week 27 Progress
Development
Getting ready for the next major update to be released around June 8, the team worked on the following in the past week:
Engineering
The engineering team worked on UI, including leveling dialogs, deck builder, autocomplete and filtering for deck building, raid flow, Defense menu screen, and the HUD; gameplay, including camera polish and gameplay bugs; as well as backend systems, including adding XP accrual and rewards systems, improving server stability, cleaning up the database, implementing a log server, improving the matchmaking algorithm and adding matchmaking analytics.
Art
The art team worked on UI, including rewards screen, defense screen, and hero tags; and in-game card polish, Celestial Giant model, and Centurion animations.
Audio
The audio team worked on attaching various UI sounds to their respective visuals.
Design
The design team worked on boss/hero card holistic design, new hero cards, revised boss setup, Mech defense cards, and Caster spells and perks.
Look forward to more Labyrinth next week! New progression systems will be added.