A long overdue update to the demo has just been released, bumping the October v0.6.0.7 version to v0.7.2.1, matching the latest alpha released today. Below are some of the more significant changes that happened along the way:
Added
- Two new playable races Djinn and Abomination
- Crop goblins are lurking in the wheat fields. - Added switch for "Directional" movement based on Numpad keys in Keymap settings, with automatic rotation before the move. Movement without rotation can be performed while holding the left ctrl key. - Marked item tooltips with a known recipe to quickly indicate if the item is already learned. - Vastly improved 2560x1600 resolution, and added 64x64 tile dimensions in settings. - Animations for static entities like rivers, campfires, torches, and more.
- It's now possible to rest in the equipment screen by pressing `r` as long as a repairable item is not selected. - Drag & drop functionality for ability placement on the action bar. - Alternative region maps - New indicator for hearing sounds in tiles outside vision. - Option in settings to disable camera shakes. - Damage number animations on hit and damage over time. - New ability "Command allies", encouraging your allies to move or attack entities in the selected area, available to everyone since the start of the game.
Changed - Poacher ability Sense Life now shows glyphs of the actual enemies discovered instead of generic hearing markers. Sense Life cast time is now 0.5 turns (from 0.0).
- Equipping a stackable item (for example, arrows) when there's already a stackable item equipped will combine the stacks instead of replacing it. - Rest until healed and sleep actions now provide a progressive bonus to health regeneration that equals 1 HP / 10 turns passed, until reaching a limit of 1/10th of endurance. - Animations of attacks and abilities performed outside the field of view will be visible. - Humans gained new passive - reduced required souls to level up by 10%.
We've also finished our first basic integration with Steam Workshop and Steam Leaderboards which I'll explain a little more in detail soon. We're currently running limited Closed Beta in preparation for the Steam release, and we plan to announce a release date around the end of this month, so stay tuned!
PS: Trying to improve the frequency and stability of demo updates I've created some automated scripts, this may mean some minor instabilities in the current version, but after resolving these hiccups it will be much easier to keep the demo up to date with the full version. Sorry for the inconvenience.
The world of Soulash preview
Greetings fellow gods,
Today I have for you a little preview of our world in Soulash that you will get to conquer when the game releases on Steam in early 2022. The video contains minor spoilers, as it reveals two major areas in the game.
[previewyoutube="1-D9ezSlTmw;full"]
Our overall progress remains on track and we'll be announcing a modding contest very soon, for access to Steam Closed Beta. We hope to get a couple of people interested in modding to help us test Steam Workshop integration. We plan to start the beta in the first days of January to flesh out everything and integrate Soulash with Steam. During the beta and feedback from the players, we'll decide when to release the game and announce the date. Make sure to join us on Discord or follow us on Twitter to keep an eye on the latest news.
The next Steam demo update will likely come in January or February, probably before the Steam Next Fest. There are already some new exciting races available in the alpha and some interesting improvements. We'll keep you posted.
Demo update v0.6.0.7
Greetings fellow gods,
This patch updates the demo version with the latest alpha version fixes introduced in v0.5.4 and v0.6.0, including the Golem playable race designed by one of our Patrons.
The patch also fixes some stability issues in the demo related to missing entities, which we were able to catch thanks to your crash and bug reports.
As we've managed to accomplish our important milestone in v0.6.0, by introducing enemy gods and world-changing effects into the game, we're looking forward to the final piece missing to "complete" the game - endgame and victory conditions. We already have a vision for how we want the story to end, but we'll keep it spoiler-free.
We hope to get v0.7.0 ready in December this year. Soon after that, we plan to run at least a 3-month long closed beta on Steam to polish the game, integrate Steam Workshop and Achievements, and prepare for the launch. Sometime in November, we're going to announce a couple of contests with beta keys, so make sure you're around on our Discord or following us on Twitter, to not miss your chance to participate.
Until then, enjoy the Golem!
Interview with Blind
Greetings fellow gods,
As some of you might be interested to know more about me, my plans for the game, or how Soulash came to be, there's a very nice interview I had with Blind.
[previewyoutube="DBokQrOmexg;full"]
If you don't know Blind, he's an amazing content creator on YouTube. He has plenty of long-form interviews with many great developers, he has a lot of news about the upcoming Dwarf Fortress Steam version you will probably not find anywhere else, and he's a very entertaining streamer on Twitch. You should definitely check him out!
If you're waiting for some more news about the game, I'll drop a demo patch in the next 2 weeks with a new player-designed Golem race, with some new unique mechanics to play around with.
I'm also wrapping up the 0.6 patch that will introduce gods into the alpha version, so we're making a big leap toward the Steam release. We're getting close to having the base graphic tiles and animations for all existing content, including the new content in 0.6. When we get close to 0.7 update with endgame content we should have some exciting news about where we go from there. Expect it close to the end of this year. If you would like to follow along with the most recent developments, probably the best place for that is our official Discord channel.
Thank you all for taking an interest in the game and stay tuned for news of the upcoming updates.
Demo update v0.6.0.5
Greetings fellow gods,
This patch updates the demo version with the latest alpha version fixes, including 3 new playable races designed by our Patrons: Demons, Bone Wraiths, and Lizardmen.
I would like to thank everyone who tried the demo and submitted crash reports, everyone who provided us with feedback on Steam community boards, as well as everyone who joined us on discord, Patreon, and ASCII alpha version and help us improve the game. We will continue to work very hard to make this game the best experience you all deserve.
Soulash is now in over 8.5k wishlists on Steam and it keeps growing every day. The demo has been played by over 6000 players. Because of your incredible support, we're continuing to push on with our roadmap despite the failed Kickstarter - it's all thanks to all of you!
I've seen some of you were worried about the future of Soulash and I wanted to assure you we're still on schedule. There are still 3 big updates we target for this year - gods, endgame, and full graphics mod. When we have all of them ready, we'll decide how we would like to approach Steam release plans as we get closer to the end of the year. We're considering going early access for a couple of months or run a closed beta to polish and add quality of life updates before the 1.0 release. If you would like to follow along with the development more closely, discord is probably the best place, as it's pretty active and you can find me lurking there often.
Until next time, Artur
Demo update v0.6.0.3
Greetings fellow gods,
Path notes for the demo v0.6.0.3 update can be found below:
Added
- Added info about looking at tiles on cursor position that will display at the start of every game until the look action is performed at least once. - Added back the use key in the backpack for items that give access to abilities. It will assign the ability to action bar either in the first empty slot or override the last one and then try to immediately select it for use.
Fixed
- Fixed negative experience bar at level 3. - Using a recipe that's already known will consume the item correctly. - Blood doesn't make the tile walkable anymore. - Fixed not being able to click the repair button twice. - Fixed tooltips to be displayed in screen bounds for items in the equipment screen and entities on the map. - Fixed message log window requiring to click twice to move sometimes.
Also, a friendly reminder that our Kickstarter is ending in just 38 hours, so if you found the game worthwhile, consider supporting it https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/asmiarowski/soulash-classic-fantasy-roguelike
Hope you're enjoying the demo, and please leave some feedback so we can keep improving the game.
Final 72 hours of Kickstarter!
Greeting fellow gods,
We have reached the final 3 days of our Kickstarter campaign, and we're still missing ~34% of our funding goal to create the graphics mod for the full game of Soulash. Finishing this graphics mod will be a necessity to release the game on Steam, and we could use your help. If you've been enjoying the demo, consider contributing to the campaign, maybe pick up one of the unique rewards that we won't offer again, like getting closed beta access, designing your own item, race, profession, location, or even a god in the game that will be the cause of many players tears as it sends their characters to the cemetery.
Your pledges can bring many goods to Soulash before 1.0 release next year already: 2 gods with unique abilities, 10 races (including Rage demon, Lizardmen, Wishborn, and Shadow folk), 1 miniboss, 2 new enemies, 10 items, 52 tombstones, and of course the new graphics overhaul as an alternative to the existing ASCII version in Soulash. If we won't hit our funding goal within the next 72 hours, we won't be able to include this in the game, and we'll need to struggle to find alternative ways to fund the graphics mod. Kickstarters are all or nothing!
We're only missing 1/3rd of our funding goal - we can still do this!
Please consider contributing, especially if you've been enjoying the demo and would like it to be developed further. Is there a reward you'd like to receive, but we didn't include it anywhere? Interested in an addon that we haven't thought about? Let us know - we may add some special last-minute tiers or add-ons based on your requests. Spread the word to your friends and any community you know of that enjoys playing indie games or roguelikes specifically. Even 1 EUR contribution can come a long way if we get picked up by the Kickstarter algorithm.
If you're on the fence, wondering if Soulash is a good choice to support at this stage, we're happy to answer any questions you may have, so feel free to ask them here, or through Kickstarter or Discord.
We're very happy that so many of you decided to try out the demo and for the support you've shown us. We will always do our best to give you one of the best games out there, with the resources we will have at our disposal. So right now, let's work together to make this final push through the finish line, and turn this story into a great success!
Artur & Xiclu
Soulash roadmap to stable 1.0 release and beyond
Greetings fellow gods,
As there's a lot of questions about where the game is and what needs to happen before we get to the 1.0 release, I've prepared a draft of a roadmap to clarify what's before us.
Where is Soulash now
So starting from where we are. Soulash has been developed over the past 4 years and it's in an alpha state for the past 2. It's available in ASCII only version right now, and we're attempting to gather funds through Kickstarter that would help us finalize the Soulash graphic mod that can be seen in the trailer. The graphics demo was created in 3 months, so there is still a lot of work before us to cover all of the entities, abilities and hopefully, a new GUI that would fit the new style better. For me, Soulash was and always will be a project of passion, as I've already invested over 6000 hours into making this game while working full time, so I didn't expect to trade my time for money with this project. That being said, even though I have the skills to develop any mechanics for the game, I really can't do art at all and I'm not a musician.
That's why I reinvested back all of the income from the game, to make it better, by getting us some assets like music or graphic.
See for yourself, the early versions of Soulash that I made all by my lonesome.
Very early game version
Early GUI
The game came a long way since then, which can be seen in the latest trailer. [previewyoutube="rELSyLP2gNk;full"]
If we reach our Kickstarter goal, that means we can ensure the new graphics mod will be finished independently of random situations, like me losing my job. Times are unfortunately still uncertain, but let's look into the future.
Kickstarter ends, what now?
Let's stay positive and assume Soulash gets funded. The first thing that's going to happen is for everyone who picked up a digital copy of the game, I will send an itch key to the alpha version that is in ASCII only. I will then contact everyone to gather information about names they want to be included, items, races, professions, gods, locations, and all of the other content that you chose to design for the core game.
If Soulash is not funded by the 25th of May, nobody is going to be charged and every tier is going to be canceled, unfortunately, Kickstarter is all or nothing. There are still 9 days left. If Kickstarter fails, and the graphics mod is a deal-breaker for you to enjoy Soulash, it will probably be safer to wait for the Steam release, as the game will not come to Steam until the graphics mod is finalized.
First major update v0.6 Gods and Miracles
The next major update titled Gods and Miracles is currently in progress. It's planned for July/August 2021 and it will finally bring gods of the new pantheon to hunt you down.
Killing a god will have a major impact on the whole world of Soulash, as you can see below, the death of Sangre, the God of Blood turning every river in the world into blood and causing a rain of blood to fall down from the sky.
The miracles are something you will also gain by consuming the soul of a god. It will be very powerful effects that will enable you to cause rainfall, teleport to any known location in the world, and a couple of other unique and powerful effects. Obviously moddable as well.
Any god tier rewards from the Kickstarter campaign will be included in this update and it will come to Itch alpha version, still in ASCII.
If you want to be featured as a god in Soulash and destroy players dreams about world domination, the Kickstarter is your only chance!
We will also include all of the NPC names and tombstones that we will receive from Kickstarter backers in this patch.
Second major update v0.7 Endgame
The last major feature update before stabilizing for the 1.0 release will bring the endgame content and will also be deployed on Itch. I will not go much into details to avoid spoilers, but the goal of this patch is to introduce a win condition into the game, with multiple paths to the end as we have an open world and at least two ways to end the story. The endgame will not be forced and you can get there at your own pace, as I know some of you just want to chill on your skull thrones while farming cabbages and carrots.
The update is planned for the end of 2021 (Nov/Dec most likely).
Closed beta access on Steam
Very soon after v0.7 (1 - 2 weeks), we plan to start a closed beta on Steam with graphics mod and all of the content so far, where we will focus on polishing and stabilizing the game, adding support for Steam Workshop, filling in the story gaps, adding achievements, attempting Linux build, and adding any other improvements that we will receive from players with access.
At this stage, we will implement all items, races, professions, and locations that players chose to design during the Kickstarter campaign. The reason we'll be doing this here and not sooner is to confirm the end result with everyone involved during the closed beta and have time to iterate if needed.
The closed beta will be available to all of the backers who chose to support us with the appropriate tier on Kickstarter and selected modders that will be willing to help us with polishing the editors and prepare some unofficial goodies together for launch.
This stage will last 3 - 6 months, as we don't want to rush it.
Stable version 1.0 launch
Soulash will launch in version 1.0 on Steam and Itch at the same time, between March and June of 2022 with graphics mod and everything else. The exact date will be decided during the closed beta.
We have 2 Kickstarter stretch goals picked by our fellow gods on discord. If we reach them, we will deliver factions 6 months after the 1.0 release and the building system in additional 3 months. You can read more about them in the Kickstarter stretch goals section.
It's a long time before we get there, so we're not going to make plans further just yet. But other things like procedural world generator in a sandbox game mode, servants, or different ability system are possible depending on the success of the game. We might also begin working on a sequel, as we have a cool idea about how the story may continue.
As with all plans, this one might change as well, depending on the outcome of our Kickstarter campaign, or some unpredicted events along the way. But the goals are clear, the timeframe is reasonable, and backed by experience with previous patches of similar size, so I'm confident we will get there.
Hope it clarifies where the project is heading, but if you have any more questions, I'm lurking on our discord and would be happy to answer!
Artur
Soulash Kickstarter launched!
Greetings fellow gods,
As this is the first announcement related to the game, let me explain what is Soulash about. In this game, you'll be playing as a long-forgotten god who came back to the mortal world to destroy it. At the beginning of your game, you'll be relatively weak. You just took over a host body of a mortal (or kind of a mortal, when we look at a vampire or lich) to sustain your presence in this realm. While you traverse the open world, you'll come across different mortal beings, and you'll devour their souls to regain your strength. You will leave only a trail of blood and ash on your path.
Soulash is a traditional, turn-based fantasy roguelike with permadeath. It's been in active development for 4 years, and it has been available in the alpha early access for the past 2 years. For the most part, I've been the sole developer of this game, working on it in my spare time. I've recently partnered with a talented graphic designer who's making a beautiful tileset as an alternative to our ASCII mode. You can see our latest trailer below.
[previewyoutube="rELSyLP2gNk;full"]
We've recently launched a Kickstarter campaign to gather funds to secure our graphics mod for the game and extend the game with a couple of significant features that players asked for over recent years like procedural world generator, factions, servants, building, and more.
We would also love for everyone to have the opportunity to contribute to the game directly as we move toward our first stable release. We've set up a couple of exciting tiers for everyone who likes to play as some specific race or profession currently missing in the game. We're already getting an evolving Demon race, designed by one of the contributors, and we have two more already picked up if we get funded!
Soulash will release on Steam as a stable 1.0 version in 2022. Still, we plan to run a closed beta starting close to the end of 2021, where we will polish the game and implement important quality of life improvements, including Steam Workshop, Achievements, and other goodies. If you would like to join us during this time, we have a contribution tier on Kickstarter that guarantees such access.
If you would like to contribute and be immortalized in the game either on a gravestone, as an NPC, or even a god, support us on Kickstarter here https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/asmiarowski/soulash-classic-fantasy-roguelike
In case of any questions, you can catch me or other fans of Soulash on our discord https://discord.gg/Y2dwG4c
