We are currently working on new features, but still need a few more weeks to finish things. So we wanted to let you know what is going on behind the scenes.
Explore the Void!
The main thing we are working on is a deep redesign of the Transcendence (difficulty) system. Instead of simple stages with cumulative challenges, we are introducing the “Void Map”, representing the progress of defeating the Voidwalkers. To traverse the map, you must complete increasingly harder challenges, while unlocking new loadouts/artifacts/relics/etc.
Work in progress, UI may change substantially: Select challenges from a list to match the challenge rating of the Void Map.
New wizard graphics, again
Tim is also working on new character art for wizards, and has made a lot of progress on new Fire and Earth wizard graphics. We’ve got some help from Ghost Ship Games with concepting parts of the new designs with an aim for a stronger ‘personality’, and we’re quite excited for also revamping the wizard animations. The Fire Wizard graphics are going to be available in the next playtest/beta update, but we also hope to have time to finish the new Earth Wizard. We will drop a few more teasers for how they are progressing on twitter and discord, so keep an eye out for those.
Work in Progress: First pass on the new fire wizard graphics.
Work in progress: The new earth wizard art direction.
New map/reward redesign
Thorbjørn started working on redesigning part of the map- and encounter/reward systems, attempting to solve a few different design issues (e.g. shards being too important, too many spells in late-game, shops being too rare). However, only some of these changes will be ready for the next update. There are also a few other changes like how loadouts are going to work, but we will share details on that closer to the next update.
Closed Beta
As a final note, we have been looking into ways to give new people access to the beta. Our plan is to start running short Steam Playtest sessions, but we will combine this with a small closed beta on our Discord. We are expecting to start this process shortly after the next update is released. That's all for now! We will try to write more posts like this in the future, so please let us know in the comments about the subjects you would like to hear more about.
Tim and Thorbjørn
Announcing SpellRogue's new publisher!
Greetings Dice Slingers!
We are extremely excited to announce that we are partnering up with Ghost Ship Publishing, the newly launched publishing branch from the developers of Deep Rock Galactic, to bring you SpellRogue. This collaboration will give us additional support to carry on with our work and free up more of our time so that we can do what we do best, making SpellRogue a great game!
The guys at Ghost Ship are game developers themselves, so they understand our values and how we develop SpellRogue together with the community (they are also big fans of SpellRogue!). Getting on board the Ghost Ship, it feels like we can now truly reach our full vision for what we want SpellRogue to become.
If you haven’t already, please wishlist and follow SpellRogue on Steam, so you can be among the first to hear all the development news. Also, keep an eye out for the Closed Beta signup which we will be accepting signups for soon!
It is really a great time to be slinging dice and casting spells!
Tim & Thorbjørn
SpellRogue Development News
Greetings Dice Slingers.
We have been a bit quiet lately which means a ton of work have been going into making SpellRogue the best that it can be. We still have a ways to go, but rest assured that progress is happening and the game is truly shaping up to be something special!
You may have noticed that we took down the Steam Playtest signups recently. Don't worry if you didn't get a chance to play yet though! We are planning on replacing it with a Closed Beta playtest soon, so there will be other opportunities to have an early peek and help mold SpellRogue with your feedback and thoughts.
In the meantime, we are going to start posting regular news and blog posts so you can keep tabs on the development of SpellRogue.
This past week for instance has been all about updating our Steampage with a new SpellRogue logo, cover art, screenshots and trailer. The page should better reflect the state that the game is in, so do check out the improved Steam Page to see what the game is currently looking like.
Apart from that, Tim has also been working on improving lighting in combat (see the new screenshots), improving the wizard select scene and started work on graphics for all of the Earth spells. You might even be able to spot a few in the new trailer.
Thorbjørn is currently busy making changes to Relic's role in the game and designing some cool new spells and effects as well. We are thinking of writing a blog post to dive deeper into the designs in the future, but let us know what you would like to hear more about! For now, here’s a few interesting new spells that might get you dreaming up some fun builds.
As a final note, we have a very exciting announcement coming up next week, so don't forget to wishlist and follow SpellRogue to stay tuned!
Until then, have a great weekend!
Tim & Thorbjørn
SpellRogue Playtest update v0.8.0
Hi everyone
It has been a while since our last update, but with good reason! We have introduced a third act to the game, a bunch of new enemies, and implemented a major rework of the World Map!
Maps are now procedurally generated (spoiler: previously all maps were hand-made!), with random rewards placed for each combat encounter.
We have also reworked how enemy Intents are displayed, now showing the specific debuff and buffs they will use. You no longer have to guess what might happen! There is also a bit of new content and balance changes, primarily in the form of new artifacts and tweaks to enemies- and spells.
As a final note, we are planning to make 0.8 the final version available in open playtesting, but we will reveal more about that at a later point.
We hope you enjoy!
New procedural world map layout example.
Features
Act 3, beware the dangers in The Void!
World Map Rework, procedural maps & restructuring of rewards.
Enemy intents now show their full action in detail.
Content
Act 3: 7 encounters, 1 elite and 1 boss.
Added 10 new artifacts.
Added Act 2 Elite: “Witch Doctor” - Shoutout to @Nyknak on Discord for the collaboration.
Added “Trap” type debuffs triggering off dice rolls and their value.
Redesigned some Relic upgrades (replacing most “-cooldown” upgrades).
Many smaller adjustments to spells and enemies.
Graphics & UI
New dice enchant graphics: Stygian, blood, infectious
New Spell buff graphics: Portent, Unstable.
Tons of new icons for new and old effects.
Various Act 3 things, although mostly unpolished.
And many other undocumented changes and bugfixes...
Note:Things are a little shaky in terms of game balance, especially due to the map changes which are very substantial. We have for instance gone back to having Elite fights instead of minibosses, and a single Relic is now rewarded at the Act 1 boss, at Act 2 you will be getting the +1 Dice reward. Since maps are now procedurally generated, they might also be a little lopsided in terms of rewards and balance. Don't fret though, we intend to improve the algorithms and continually finetune things.
SpellRogue Playtest update 0.7.13
Hello everyone.
We have been busy working on the much requested difficulty and meta systems for SpellRogue which we are releasing in todays Playtest update 0.7.13:
“Transcendence” is going to be a fairly recognizable difficulty system known from other games and has 5 levels for now. Most are simpler numerical changes in health and damage values, but we hope to make more unique additions later on. Wizard Levels are now gained at the End Score of each run and added as XP to that wizard. Level ups unlock content such as spells and artifacts, and are intended to reward progressively more complicated spells for players as they come to grips with the base game content.
We want to expand both Wizard Levels and Transcendence down the line, but for now there are 5 levels of each.
We have also made content changes and added more graphics for enemies. The difficulty is a bit in flux, especially with the difficulty system getting its debut, but the overarching goal is to make the base game slightly easier but harder with Transcendence levels enabled.
We hope you enjoy it.
Features
Added 5 Transcendence difficulty levels.
Added 5 wizard levels and content unlocks.
New wizard selection scene & UI.
Content
Added 10 new fire spells.
Increased Base health 50 -> 60.
Tweaked some combat encounters in act 1.
Redesigned Heart of the Forest mechanics.
Redesigned Imp Power, now transfers power to random friendly upon death
Broken can now be repaired by spending just a single Dice.
A bunch of tweaks to relics and spells.
Graphics & UI
Added Devil Assassin Graphics.
Added Devil Spellcaster Graphics.
And many other undocumented changes...
SpellRogue Playtest update 0.7.12
The illusionary Djinn prowls the deserts in search of magical artifacts.
For the last few weeks, we have been working on a system for showing your previous runs with details about your build. The system will not have your old runs, but all new runs will be added there which is accessible in the main menu. We have also added new content in the form of spells & artifacts, and continued the work on graphics for Act 2 enemies.
In the coming weeks we are planning on designing and implementing systems for difficulty, a loadout redesign and other meta systems.
We hope you enjoy it.
Features
“Run History”: An overview of all previous runs.
Revamped the Victory/Defeat screen.
Content
Added 6 new Artifacts.
Added 24 new Spells (5 Arcane, 7 Earth, 5 Fire and 7 Water).
Balanced and tweaked a ton of Spells.
Rejigged and improved some Events.
Mechanics
Spell buffs can now have stacks and most have slightly different mechanics.
Locked more Relics to wizards where they are useful.
“Uses do not restore” spells now have the “Unrestorable” keyword, and can no longer regain charges in combat.
Weak is now always removed at the end of turn.
Graphics & UI
Added graphics for Shadowfire Twins, Desert Spirit, Magus & the Djinn.
Bug Fixes
Lowered Audio levels for Battle-intro/victory/defeat stingers.
Disabled ESC key closing the shop menu to avoid accidentally closing it.
Shadowfire Twins get stunned when they merge.
Life steal healing effects are now rounded up.
Fixed Root of the Forest’s status effect texts.
Dodge was redesigned slightly.
And many other undocumented changes...
Version 0.7.11 - Hotfix 1
This is just a quick patch to fix the most obvious balance issues and bugs with 0.7.11.
Spell Changes
Earthly Stillness: Changed dice slot to 3-6 and nerfed dice increase.
Gleaming Strike: Increased damage.
Iron Lash: Increased damage.
Mend Magic: Nerfed dice slot and level 3 upgrade.
Revitalize: Nerfed level 2+3.
Mana Purifier: Nerfed level 2+3.
Deluge: Block is now halved when cast.
Sea Ward: Nerfed dice slot.
Rewrite Reality: Nerfed dice slot.
Bug Fixes
Fixed full heal at Sanctuary.
Fixed clicking tiles through reward screen.
SpellRogue Playtest update 0.7.11
The imps from are known to be able to conjure fire from the desert air.
We have been working hard on improving the game experience these last couple of weeks. There are a bunch of new mechanics, new items to find, and a ton of tweaked- and redesigned content.
SpellRogue Playtest update 0.7.11
Content
Added new Act 2 boss “Shadowfire Twins” (with placeholder art).
Added 4 new spells, 4 new artifacts
Removed “Signature spells” as a concept. They have been converted to normal starter spells for simplicity’s sake.
Redesigned most Relics. They are now always “active use buttons” with cooldowns based on the number of spells cast in the combat.
Balance tweaks to a ton of spells and artifacts.
Mechanics:
“+value” effects on dice can now always overflow into new dice when going above 6.
Snare spell-debuff is now removed when the debuffed spell is played.
Removed all Cleanse effects from water spells.
Graphics & UI
Replaced Act 1’s old forest combat scene with 2 new combat scenes.
Added graphics for 4 Imp enemies in Act 2.
Improved World Map scrolling & mouse input.
..and many other miscellaneous UI changes.
Bug Fixes
Fixed dice sockets confusing tooltip text.
Fixed issues when dying on the world map.
Fixed various damage/effect previews.
Fixed and changed many tooltips.
Fixed dice overlapping popups
Health cost buttons at events are now greyed out and disabled if they would kill you.
..and many more undocumented fixes.
Note: Some new bugs might appear in this build, as we’ve been making some substantial changes under the hood. Also, you can probably find unbalanced builds and combos in all the new and tweaked content. Please let us know when/if you find anything that is causing problems. We read all the feedback and suggestions that you post.
Version 0.7.10 - Hotfix 1
This is just a quick patch to squash a couple of bugs.
Bug Fixes - Fixed some “Broken” spelldebuff interactions that softlocked spells. - Fixed Target Lock feature (also for the Djinn). - Changed “skip rewards” button layout and placement. - Fixed various edge case bugs for dice placement, rolling etc. - Fixed Desert Magus not taking an action on Turn 6 (and gave him a slight nerf). - “Red Candle” now correctly triggers after casting 3 spells instead of 2. - Repairing “Broken” no longer counts as if dice was used in that spell. - Fixed “Ignited” spelldebuff damage being increased by Energized enchanted Dice. - Infected now shows up in damage preview. - Fixed “Reality Ripple” not rolling a new dice in level 2. - Updated “Treasure in a Bottle” description. - The random artifact from “Treasure in a Bottle” can now only be of the uncommon type. - Fixed “Upgrade” ui text under shards resource overlapping with spellbook. - Fixed direction of some arrows in the world map. - “Lifelink” now only correctly triggers from direct damage spells. - Fixed Fury tooltip missing Critical text if upgraded. - Fixed Relics not having tooltips in draft & spellbook. - Can no longer close shop with ESC key.
SpellRogue at Tiny Teams
We are happy to announce that SpellRogue will be a part of the Tiny Teams festival on Steam! Watch the streams on the Yogscast Twitch channel where SpellRogue will be featured during the Roguelike timeslot on Thursday the 4th of August between 2PM - 5PM BST.
Make sure to also catch the other streams and watch the Yogscast crew play through dozens upon dozens of great indie games made by tiny development teams.
Check out the full schedule on the Yogscast Twitter or the image below:
