In the previous update we focused on late game and ended up (over-)simplifying wizard loadouts, as we repurposed the starter attack/defense Spells (which we planned to rework, but ran out of time for the update). We recognize though - as many of you rightly pointed out - that this feels like a step back, so we are currently working on improving the Loadout system. Here's a quick peek into what we are experimenting with.
PLEASE NOTE: Screenshots below show experimental and untested content, some of which will never be implemented in the game
Experiment: New starter Spells
One approach we are exploring is basically reintroducing unique attack and defense Spell for each loadout, while attempting to have more build-defining Spells. In Development example of a blood themed Loadout for Fire.
A potential new loadout focused on the Rain countdown mechanic.
A new set of attack/defense Spells for Mulch that relies on midrange dice values.
Experiment: Drafting attack/defense Spells
A struggle we always had with loadouts (and part of the reason for the simplification) is that we want to avoid players keeping all of their starting Spells throughout the game. Ideally, players are finetuning their build after each combat by for example switching out starter spells. Our approach has been making attack/defense Spells comparably weak, pushing you to replace them quickly as you are putting together your build. However this makes it (surprisingly) difficult and time consuming to design attack/defense Spells which both feel unique and interesting.
Another potential approach is using common Spells in loadouts, or draft attack/defense Spells at the start of each run. Some combinations of Spells don't work well, so this approach might require a limited selection of Spells, or instead be an optional game mode.
Experiment: Signature Spell upgrades
The dice focused "signature" Spell that each loadout has, is what has always defined the loadout and is usually the only starting spell you keep throughout the game. Still, the signature Spells usually don't affect your build that much, as many of them behave similarly and are purely for dice control.
One experiment we are trying is adding upgrades to Signature Spells, as a way to support more uniqueness for each loadout. The best types of upgrades are the ones letting you lean into your element’s mechanics.
Experiment: Unique starter Artifacts
For a long time we have had plans to make character selection more interesting by making loadouts even more unique, and have more ways to customize your starting condition.
One approach we are considering is having unique artifacts for loadouts, and/or allow choosing a specific artifact in the loadout selection process. Different Artifacts that could be selected during character selection.
Although we think there is a lot of potential in this approach, we have found it difficult to design a large set of Artifacts like this. It also feels like some of these ideas could just be regular/starter Artifacts, and/or the examples above would be better suited for some form of optional "Challenge Mode" due to their very large impact on how you play. However, having unique Artifacts that lean into different build-archetypes could work well as an “intro” for the more complex build synergies, so they still seem worthwhile to explore further in some capacity.
With all this in mind, we’re looking into doing some public testing for the loadouts and the other features we’re working on, but we will have more to share about that in the near future.
May your dice roll true 🧙
Tim & Thorbjørn
Update 4: Hotfix #1
Greetings Dice Slingers,
Today’s Hotfix patch addresses some of the issues which you have been reporting over the last week, as well as balancing Spells, Artifacts and Enemies. One of our goals is to slightly reduce the difficulty in Act 1, so we have increased wizard starting health, made some Spells easier to cast, and lowered health/damage for a few Enemies.
Upcoming changes
We are currently working on a replacement for the simplified Loadouts from Update 4. We want to bring back the uniqueness from each loadout, and hope to give each of them even more speciality. We already started experimenting with new starter Spells, but we will share more about them in another Steam post early next week and hopefully start testing very soon!
We are still evaluating some of the other design changes from Update 4. Although some of you dislike the new “+value dice overflow” mechanic, we still want to give it a proper chance for it to accomplish the design intention. The goal was to keep turns interesting and avoid players casting the same order of Spells every turn. Sources that provide reliable access to specific dice values often devolve into players “automatically” placing dice which limits player agency and weakens the core of the game. This is also why we previously changed other dice generating effects to roll as larger value ranges such as the Fire “theme” rolling dice from 1-2 -> 1-3. With all that said we are still considering somehow we can bring back the old mechanic in some way.
Keep the feedback coming!
And a big thanks to everyone who has been reporting bugs, issues and voiced their opinion, we truly do read it all! And we will keep on monitoring raised complaints about Update 4 and look for ways to address the issues, but for now, here’s the changes for this patch:
SpellRogue 0.9.4 Hotfix #1:
General
Buffs to various spells, upgrades, artifacts. Slight nerfs to various enemies. Increased Wizard Health 50 -> 60. More Events have the option for “Rune Drafts”. Chance for Pre-Runed Spells in drafts has been increased slightly. Updated translations.
Bug fixes
Fixed Sentinel Sigil artifact, no longer double triggers and corrected charge amount. Rune Catalog now has a tighter layout to remove scrollbar. Fixed Runes seen in drafts not adding user knowledge. Fixed Fury Rune missing "Has Uses" requirement. Changed Stygian dice to not attack if slotted in Spell
This is a big one, with major structural and mechanical changes, new exciting content and a bunch of quality of life improvements across the game. Our primary focus has been on enhancing the late-game experience by increasing build variety and making player choices more compelling and impactful.
Umbraxis the Great Lindwyrm
The face of the update is the addition of our new Void boss, Umbraxis the Lindwyrm! https://youtu.be/RBIYhZet16Y The Wyrm joins the pantheon of Void Gods, with a unique new battle to test your skills against. The primary mechanic is his summoned hands. These limbs damage the body once killed much like the Desert Hydra. Beware though, as Umbraxis will re-summon increasingly stronger hands. As you can imagine, Area of Effect or single target nukes are great for bursting down hands with their limited health and thus avoiding their attacks. So make sure you plan and adjust your strategy in Act 3 once you know which Void God you’re up against!
Spell overhaul and Runes
To reiterate the previous dev post, we have made major changes to the balance of Spell rarity and added “Runes” as a modular upgrade system on top. The important thing to note is that higher rarity spells are now generally stronger than their common counterparts, and that rare Spells are more likely to show up in the drafts of later acts. Sometimes Spells even come with a Rune already slotted in!
The goal is to give more incentive to change your build throughout the game and let Spells continue to be viable options into the late game. Combined with Runes, things should feel more dynamic than ever!
Loadout changes
We streamlined loadouts so that wizards use the same starting attack and block Spells for all 4 of their loadouts. The unused starter spells have instead been converted to common spells available in standard drafts. We are planning further changes for additional loadout customization down the road, but didn’t manage to get it ready for update 4.
We feel like this is not a major change as the affected starting spells are still something you are not intended to keep for long, so it felt unnecessary that each starting spell pair was unique. We also redesigned and balanced a few signature spells to fit the new structure.
Effect changes
We have taken a look at a few of the existing mechanics and made them slightly less predictable. We feel that elements of randomness are important to keep players thinking and not just cycling through the same line of spells each turn!
An example is the (somewhat hidden) mechanic of increasing dice value over 6. Previously, we would simply generate another dice with the overflow value, and thus were a very predictable way of generating additional dice with certain values. We have now changed the “overflow” to instead split the dice in question. This means that if the value would total 7, it is split into 2 dice of random values that total 7 (2 and 5 for instance). While this takes a few runs to get used to, it is way more fun to gamble on what dice you will be getting, and it has the added benefit of splitting an enchanted dice into multiple dice.
We have also made some changes to Spell effects to have more unique effects and combos, and to avoid relying too heavily on Power (at least for Water and Fire). As an example, more Water spells now have “Rain” (which now triggers on dice rolls), and “Hailstorm” being permanent for the combat. There’s more but this post is already long enough so we will let you explore those on your own.
Map changes
We made some changes to map tiles in an attempt to make the path you take more interesting. Maps are slightly shorter with less battles overall. Shards are now given from Elites but Elites are somewhat more difficult, and Shards slightly less important to pick up. The map generation algorithm has also been improved to avoid unlucky map rolls affecting your run too much.
Sanctuary has been simplified and has the option of “rerolling” a Spell.
Shops have been slightly reworked, with Artifacts replaced with a “choose 1 of 3 artifacts” option.
Random events now often has the option of adding Runes to your Spells.
Balance and difficulty!
There are tons of changes that affect balance in this update. This means that the game can feel a fair bit more difficult, and although we spent a lot of time balancing there is likely still some overpowered/underpowered Spells and combos. We will continue tweaking content according to player metrics and the feedback you provide us on Discord and the Steam forums.
We are really happy with this direction for SpellRogue and are having a lot of fun playing our game, but we hope you can forgive us if we broke your favorite mechanic or Spell. Please do let us know though!
You can check out all the changes and new content added below!
SpellRogue 0.9.4: “Umbraxis, the Great Lindwyrm”
General:
New Act 3 boss: Umbraxis, the Great Lindwyrm! New Rune mechanic: Modular upgrades to spells! Major overhaul of Spells! 9 new Spells, 2 new Artifacts, 1 new Potion, 7 new Mutators! Spells: Rare Spells more powerful but less frequent in early game Spells: Rebalanced and reworked Spells to have more unique effects and useful upgrades. Spells: “Loadouts” now only change the signature Spell. Potions: Rare Potions more powerful. Rituals: Rebalanced and added additional actions to some Rituals. Enemies: Rebalanced some combat encounters and made Elites more challenging. Mutators: Initial Mutation selection can now be rerolled once. Mutators: Rebalanced and reworked several mutators. Mechanics: Redesigned Vex, Hailstorm, Rain, Lifesteal, Icy. Mechanics: Increasing dice values over 6 now splits the dice randomly. Map: Slightly shorter maps and improved tile placement algorithm. Map: Removed random Shard tiles and moved Shard to Elites. Map: Added random Artifact tile to each act and free Shard tile to act 1. Map: Sanctuary reworked slightly and forced one before bosses. Map: Ritual removed from bosses and added free Ritual to start of act 2. Map: Also added random Ritual tile in act 2 and 3. Map: Shop Spell costs increased especially for rare Spells and Potions, added guaranteed rare Potion, replaced Artifacts with Artifact draft with increasing cost. Map: Start with more gold (30->50) and increased gold from combats in act 2 and 3. Map: Increased draft reroll cost 15->20. Map: Spell drafts now exclude Spells you have already seen. Map: Rebalanced and reworked some random events. QOL: Increased gameplay speed: Quicker dice rolls and visual effects. (We’re still planning to add additional ways to speed the game up for veterans.) QOL: Added tooltips for a few previously unexplained mechanics and keywords. QOL: Added "Are you sure?" dialog when leaving Shop. QOL: Improved and streamlined descriptions for some Spell/Artifact/Mutator/etc. effects
Bug fixes:
Fixed Reinforce applying block multiplier before Sap/Fortfiy. Fixed Elemental Overdrive Ritual not displaying increased status effect on some Spell. Fixed Spell Echo + Concoction interaction. Fixed Spell Echo showing previews for random effects in some cases. Fixed controller "inspect mode" not working in combat in some cases. Fixed controller tile selected resetting when opening and closing menu. Fixed Malady triggering before e.g. Barrier applied. Fixed Sight Shield + Ossuary's Touch interaction. Fixed some cases where effects applied to invalid Spell targets. Fixed Golem action not showing preview of incoming damage. Fixed Finger of Justice not applying Dazed to all hits. Fixed back button missing when selling spells in shop in some cases. Fixed some cases where random effects were shown in previews. Fixed Lifelink not canceled by Nullify Fixed some Spells not showing glowing/disabled description when requirement fulfilled
Full Changelog
For the full changelog please visit our Discord or the SpellRogue website, as 20ish pages is too long to fit in this steam post!
Final Thoughts
All of this obviously changes the game dramatically, which is why we are expecting to make a small “companion balance update” fairly soon to address the biggest issues we may have overlooked in the beta testing.
For the future, we do not expect to be making as big structural and mechanical changes to the game, and are instead going to be focusing on tweaking other non-core aspects of the game such as progression, unlocks, achievements (The 45 minute speedrunning one comes to mind), game modes and the Mutation difficulty system in the coming months.
We think update 4 is a ton of fun with the improved flexibility of Runes along with the new boss, but do let us know if there are aspects that you don’t like or think are a poor experience. We will continue to evaluate or roll back things if necessary!
May your dice roll true 🧙 Tim & Thorbjørn
Dev Blog #5: Upcoming update sneak peek
Greetings Dice Slingers!
We are getting close to having the next SpellRogue update ready! Our main goal for this update has been adding more customization possibilities and synergies, as well as making late game drafting more engaging, with more interesting choices and varied builds. Without further ado, here's a sneak peek at just some of what's in store!
Runes
Introducing Runes, a new way to further enhance your Spells! A Rune can be inserted into a Spell to provide permanent improvements, and are intended to bridge builds and help give you that bit of synergy a Spell might lack by itself. Pre-Runed Spells can also tempt you when choosing new Spells, even if it isn’t a perfect fit for your current build.
Runes are found in random events and occasionally in Spell drafts.
Overhaul of Spells & Upgrades
While most Spells have kept their role and identity, we’ve made a lot of adjustments to make Spells fit into multiple different builds. Additionally, we tweaked the rarity of Spells so that Common spells are slightly weaker, while Rare Spells are somewhat stronger (but tend to show up later). Many Spell upgrades have also received significant changes to provide better synergy & combo potential, while slightly reducing their average strength. Our ongoing goal is to make Shards more in line with other rewards, so that you are not only concerned about gathering as many Shards as possible (the new Rune system also helps a lot!).
Some Spells have been reworked to provide more interesting effects and different ways to use them.
Some upgrades, status effects and dice enchantments have been reworked to open up for alternative playstyles.
Certain strong Spells have gotten more specific dice requirements.
We even redesigned a few Signature Spells.
PLEASE NOTE: The above examples may still change as we are still balancing and tweaking numbers.
Legends speaks of a divine beast
Prepare yourself for a great menace lurking in the shadows of the void. From a realm beyond your comprehension, a new terror is awakening, ready to unleash havoc in Update 4. Are you ready to encounter the new divine threat in the Void?
“Experimental” design changes
While we are really happy with the state of the update, there are a ton of changes. Our ultimate goal is to make SpellRogue the very best it can be, so we are experimenting with every part of the game - even if some changes can feel odd initially. This is the exact reason for being in Early Access in the first place, so please drop by our Discord server or post on the Steam forums and join the discussion! We will be listening closely to your feedback, and are planning to make a follow-up patch shortly after Update 4 in particular to address any bigger balance issues that may crop up due to the amount of new stuff. We hope you’re as excited about these changes as we are! Update 4 is ready fairly soon, so keep your eyes peeled 👀
May your dice roll true 🧙
Tim & Thorbjørn
Update 3 Hotfix
Greetings Dice Slingers,
This small patch is to fix bugs, adjust some balance issues and update missing translations.
The biggest change is that we have added a normal Spell draft back into the Elite reward again. We initially removed it to reduce how many spells you gain each run, and thus make drafts more important throughout the game (especially towards the end). However, Elites ended up too rarely being worth the risk, so this is a small band-aid to improve it while we work on the next update.
Fixed Finger of Justice incorrect amount of Dazed. Fixed Alchemy locking potions from later drafts Fixed Alchemy + Spell Echo issue Fixed Sentinel Sigil not targeting random spell. Fixed Multi-Jet counting as 2 attacks Fixed Inhibition depleting non-charge spells Fixed Inhibition able to trigger multiple times in a turn Fixed Sorcery Shift causing wrong spell keyboard shortcuts Fixed Sorcery Shift adding charge to unrestorable spells
May your dice roll true 🧙
Tim & Thorbjørn
Update 3: “Ritual Mastery"
Greetings Dice Slingers,
Today we are releasing the third update for SpellRogue!
A big focus for this one has been to improve Rituals and their place in SpellRogue. We felt like Rituals occasionally became a button you simply had to remember to press, so one of our primary goals has been to have more interesting choices for deciding when to cast them.
Many Rituals are now usable at intervals with different effects and added choices.
We also reworked map tiles and map generation: The elite reward has been severely reduced and now only provides an Artifact draft along with its high gold reward (so no more bonus Spell draft!), while dedicated Shard tiles only give a Shard and no gold/potions. There are also other important changes like how Rituals are now mainly gained as boss rewards along with the regular Boss Artifact that you are used to receiving there. We’re quite happy with the new direction as the balance between rewards seem to offer much more interesting choices on the world map, but we’re also eager to hear what you think of the changes!
Shards are now randomly placed on the map as well. There’s even an occasional Ritual Tile.
We added new “Destroy Dice” interactions to the game. Although we had this mechanic for a while, the game was really missing some more ways to combo and play around with dice destruction.
Ending turn with available dice now also destroys the unused ones!
There are also a couple of new monsters & combat encounters, improved graphics for several monsters in act 3, and added artwork for the random events throughout the game (although in various states of work-in-progress).
These poor Imp’s act as the vessel of the Master’s fiery magic.
Examples of some of the new event artwork being added.
Please note!: There are a lot of changes in this update, some of which we are still not 100% sure about. Please let us know what you think on the SpellRogue Discord or on the Steam forums. We want to keep experimenting and improving mechanics, so we hope you can forgive us if we broke your favorite mechanic or spell.
There are also a whole bunch of other changes and new content, which you can check out in more detail below!
SpellRogue 0.9.3: “Ritual Mastery”
General
Major overhaul of Rituals, 9 new Rituals and unique effects!
New content: 8 Spells, 2 Artifacts, 17 Mutators, and 3 enemies!
Map tile reward reworked and map generation tweaks.
“Random Event” UI improved with added story and image.
Mutator rebalance and slight difficulty increase on higher stages.
Reworked some Dice enchantments (Sapling/Ether/a few others) and added “Remnant” enchantment.
Shops now have 2 Void Spells available, and 1 more artifact
Improved text readability (new font, larger font sizes, etc.)
Enemy graphics update: Fierce Voidling, Wrath Voidling, Guardian Voidling and Door to Beyond.
Fixed Spell upgrade socket highlight issue. Fixed preview issue for Ignite + Rupture + targeted attack spell. Fixed Arkanax preview showing ‘9999 stacks’ in some cases. Fixed Flame Surge description for upgrade A. Fixed issue when returning to menu during map intro animation. Fixed persisting dice locking sockets in multi socket spells. Fixed some random effects showing up in previews. Fixed typos and grammatical issues.
If you have gotten this far, thanks for reading! One final thing we wanted to let you know about is the small Supporter Pack dlc we put together for SpellRogue, that will soon be available on the Steam page. It gives some minor cosmetic changes in the form of gold trimmings on characters, but it is essentially just a way to further support our work.
May your dice roll true 🧙
Tim & Thorbjørn
SpellRogue Development Blog #4
Greetings Dice Slingers!
Just dropping a quick steam post to share some news on what’s happening with SpellRogue.
Update 3 is taking a little longer than originally expected, but we’re starting to wrap things up and aiming to release it in early May.
For this update we have been taking a step back to reevaluate systems and mechanics, so we have been playing around with a lot of experimental changes. This includes testing a new Ritual design, experimenting with separating Artifacts and Shards rewards on the map and looking into replacing the draft “reroll for gold” with “skip to gain gold” (NOTE: We are still not sure which experimental changes will make it into Update 3).
Besides that we have also been cooking up a few other notable changes:
Added story text and image to Event map tiles.
Changed font and increased font sizes to improve readability.
Improved graphics for several The Void enemies.
In other news, Ghost Ship is hosting another “On the Horizon” live stream this week, where we have a timeslot to discuss our Early Access journey so far, and talk more in depth about the upcoming changes! Read more about it on their Agenda Steam post:
Finally, a shout out to As We Descend: A gorgeous strategy roguelike deckbuilder being developed by our friends at Box Dragon being published by Coffee Stain Publishing:
Go check out the beautiful art, and give some love to our fellow turn based roguelike devs by wishlisting their game! They are also running a closed beta so go sign up here for a chance to check out an early version of the game, it’s great!
May your dice roll true 🧙
Tim & Thorbjørn
Hotfix
Greetings Dice Slingers,
This hotfix addresses the issue resulting in a black screen when ending the game and entering the summary screen when playing in languages other than english.
Apologies to those who have been affected.
Update 2: “Dreams of the Void"
Greetings Dice Slingers,
Today we are releasing the second update for SpellRogue! We added a brand new elite encounter in the Void: Behold the Dreamweaver, a nightmarish entity born in the unfathomable depths of cosmic oblivion. Legends speak of their ability to manifest lifebonded imitations of their prey, so take caution as you venture into the depths.
We also reworked and rebalanced enemies and added several new group constellations of enemies. Additionally the update includes new content in the form of Spells, Artifacts and Events, as well as balance changes and bug fixes.
For upcoming updates we are planning to take another pass on some existing gameplay systems. First of all we will be evaluating Rituals, as most of them doesn’t as work very well as combo pieces. So expect changes and maybe even reworks in this area for the next update! We are planning to post an updated roadmap later this week, where we will further discuss our plans.
A note about localization: We are sorry for the lack of translations for a few texts in the game right now - we are planning to make a hotfix with everything translated in the coming week! For future updates this should go a bit smoother.
Anyway, here are all the juicy details!:
SpellRogue 0.9.2: “Dreams of the Void”
General
New Dreamweaver elite void encounter.
Enemy encounter overhaul and rework/rebalance of enemies.
New content!: 4 Spells, 6 Artifacts, 1 Potion, 1 Event
Balance tweaks, especially for Spells and Mutators
“Trap” debuffs applied by enemies are no longer removed each round
Content
NEW: Spell (Void) GAZE FROM BEYOND
NEW: Spell (Earth) GRANITE GUARD
NEW: Spell (Earth) THORNLASH
NEW: Spell (Water) RISING TORRENT
NEW: Artifact RAGE BLADE
NEW: Artifact LIFEBLOOD VESSEL
NEW: Artifact ROD OF RESURGENCE
NEW: Artifact ARCTIC AXE
NEW: Artifact LIFEDRINKER
NEW: Artifact SENTINEL SIGIL
NEW: Potion PLURALITY PHILTER
NEW: Enemy DREAMWEAVER
NEW: Enemy MAJOR VOID OOZE
NEW: Event CHAPEL
Spells
Spell (Void) DARK ARTS Sockets: [*8*] -> [*7*]
Spell (Void) DARK ARTS+B Sockets: [*5*] -> [*4*]
Spell (Void) POWER NEXUS Sockets: [*6*] -> [*7*]
Spell (Void) POWER NEXUS Block: 2 -> 1
Spell (Void) POWER NEXUS+A Lose Power -> 1
Spell (Void) TENDRILS Damage: 2 -> 4
Spell (Earth) ASPECT OF EARTH Sockets: [*9*] -> [*10*]
Spell (Earth) ASPECT OF EARTH Redesigned: 'Gain 2 Block. Increase by 1 for each Spell cast this round.'
Spell (Earth) ASPECT OF EARTH Charges: 1 -> 2
Spell (Earth) BLOOM BOLT Deal Damage: 6+1 per stacks -> 4+1 per stacks
We just updated SpellRogue with our first proper patch that includes new Spells, Artifacts and Events, as well as a ton of balance changes and bug fixes (a big thanks to everyone who has been submitting bug reports and giving feedback on the SpellRogue Discord!).
Examples of new Spells available in your runs.
If you didn’t catch the Living Roadmap we posted last week, this update is just a small step in our plans. Future updates will in general be larger, as we start implementing some of the bigger features and mechanics. https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1990110/view/4166462894411580119?l=english
Anyway, here are all the juicy details!:
SpellRogue 0.9.1: “Balance in all things”
General:
5 new Spells, 3 new Artifacts, 1 new Event!
Balance changes for 130+ entities!
Improved Mutator selection algorithm.
Added “back”-functionality for rerolled Spell draft.
Updated and improved translations (NOTE: A few translations are still missing, we are planning to fix this in a hotfix soon).
Scene cameras are now vertically fitted, so height is always the same (fix for ultra wide screen).
Improved preview of Spell charges spent.
Added enemy type to enemy-catalog.
Stygian Dice can now be picked up & spent in Spells.
Wound Dice tooltip now shows exactly how much damage you take.
Tweaked Friar actions (fixes softlock when e.g. only using Thorns).
Energized Dice is now triggering on “Spent” instead of “Inserted”.
