Happy Holidays! We hope everyone is having an enjoyable December!
This month we have focused on getting in some end game challenge and power with Brutal mode. We've also included the remaining hero abilities for the current heroes! We've also added few more ability mods (Still lots to come!), pets and more tuning across the game.
NEW ABILITY MODS:
:sadhf:CLEAVE: FINAL SLASH
The final slash in a Cleave combo fires a piercing wave of damage across the screen.
:sadhf:ARROW: MULTI SHOT Arrow spreads and splits its size and damage across multiple shots. Level 1: 2 arrows Level 2: 3 arrows Level 3: 4 arrows Level 4: 5 arrows *Becomes available at Arrow level 10
:sadhf:ORBITAL FIRE: MULTI FLAME Double and triple the burning power and protection of Orbital fire Level 1: 2 Orbital Fires Level 2: 3 Orbital Fires *Becomes available at Orbital Fire level 15
:sadhf:ICE RING Ice Ring now has a damage rollable stat so it can reach level 25 like all other abilities.
:sadhf:SPEAR CAGE Spears Mod- Spear Cage has been improved. The damage radius has been slightly increased and It now knocks enemies away from the player. Added visual effects, improved animation and sound effect. New Hero Abilities!
NEW HERO ABILITIES :sadhf:MAXINE: SABLE LASER Maxine's cat, Sable charges up to 3 levels of power and releases a massive laser firing in the left or right facing direction. The laser lasts for 4 seconds and does constant damage and knockback to all enemies in its wake. Each level of charge increases the width and damage of the beam. Level 1 charge - 50 damage per hit Level 2 charge - 100 damage per hit Level 3 charge - 150 damage per hit *30 second cooldown per charge
:sadhf:HUGO: GOLDEN LANTERN Hugo spends gold to summon his great lantern. All enemies are attracted to the lantern for 10 seconds. It also fires damaging bolts at enemies. Enemies killed by the lantern drop gold. Golden Lantern is available to use as soon as you have the gold to spend. First cast - 100 gold 2nd cast - 200 gold 3rd cast - 300 gold 4th cast - 400 gold 5th and beyond - 500 gold cap
:sadhf:SHAKPANA: PLAGUE BRINGER We updated Shakpanas Hero Ability to give it more power. Before it was ticking up 1 point every 3 seconds and available at 10 = 30 seconds and maxing at 50. Now its available every 20 seconds, ticks up 3 times faster and maxes at 300. Still poisons all enemies on screen and reduced their move speed by 65%.
NEW PETS
:sadhf:TROVE Trove is a map wielding treasure hunter. He points out the nearest chest using a screen edge indicator making farming those resources.
:sadhf:WEBSTER Casts a large area of web stunning and slowing enemies for a brief time.
:sadhf:PACK RAT This rune hoarder doubles all runes collected after she joins your party.
:sadhf:HEARTY Hearty got a buff to gain more hearts. Old - Level 1: heart every 30 sec, Lvl 2: 20 sec, Lvl 3: 10 sec New - Level 1: heart every 20 sec, Lvl 2: 15 sec, Lvl 3: 10 sec
:sadhf:CHICONRAD Reduced the max level of Chiconrad from 5 to 3 to avoid zero damage from 5 damage swarmers.
BRUTAL MODE!
All 7 current zones now have a 3rd and final difficulty mode with new harder waves and the Scourge, a group of very dangerous enemies that can drop Shadow Souls. Brutal mode is faster and the enemies have much more health and do more damage.
Use the new currency, Shadow Souls to unlock brutal modes and defeat the final hard mode boss, Blitzen to unlock "Brutal Power". This is 164 new Divinity Web nodes focused on late game damage.
Brutal mode is challenging yet is not required to unlock any gameplay. All heroes, abilities, pets, mods, maps, etc are still unlocked through Normal and Hard modes.
:sadhf:GAME SPEED The overall game has been sped up again. All player and enemy base speed has been increased by 12%.
:sadhf:HARD MODE We made some minor tweaks to hard mode zones, enemies and bosses to make some of them a bit easier. Now that we have brutal mode for late game, hard can be easier overall. We will continue tuning this over time.
:sadhf:MOON MUMMY BUFF Moon Mummy now ignores all other enemy and environment collision. He can fly through anything on his relentless quest to destroy you... or at least get a hit in before you swat him like a fly.
:al_bug: Some Pet cages were spawning off centre so some of them were behind rocks or hidden in environment objects. Resolved! :al_bug: Tubby Screebler missing image in Divinity web. Fixed! :al_bug: Audio bug where Shakpana Hero Ability noise was getting louder after each use. Fixed! :al_bug: Screen indicators covering money when in shops. Squashed! :al_bug: Spearit Skully Bestiary location was wrong. Fixed! :al_bug: Ice Spear was not doing damage to ice-immune enemies. Now they won't freeze, but will still take spear damage. :al_bug: Fixed an issue with Orbital Fire and Magnus Hero ability - where you could end up with abilities not coming back on. :al_bug: Fixed another issue to do with Magnus Hero Ability linked to the above. The issue was on dying when you had fired off the hero ability and had the orbital fire in play. :al_bug: Indicators now render under the hud elements in the top right. :al_bug: Fixed a weird issue with Vivian Soul Vortex hero ability that would leave xp collectables invisible after use. :al_bug: Fixed an invincibility issue where certain abilities like Hugo on damage passive, or Magnus hero ability could have their invincibility turned off. Invincibility now stays on! :al_bug: Fixed camera zooming out further than it should after some adjustments. :al_bug: Vignette not being as intense as we’d like on certain maps. :al_bug: The usual spelling error updates... I'm sure there are still more floating around. :P
:sadhf:Hot Fix - 20.12.22 :al_bug: Shakpana Ice Ring synergy fixed :al_bug: Orbital Fire Multi Flame mod rank requirement reduced from 18 to 15 and description updated :al_bug: Cleave Final Strike mod rank requirement changed to 10
Content patch 05
This month we have been focused Hero Abilities, game changes and planning out the rest of the game. We now have solid gameplay plans for all of the remaining Heroes, Abilities and Zones. We look forward to sharing as we continue to flesh out the game.
We have some hero abilities in!
:sadhf:VIVIAN: SOUL VORTEX Vivian calls upon her siren sisters to create a vortex that collects souls and turns them into a torrent of destruction. This is very powerful so it has a 90-second cooldown.
:sadhf:MAGNUS: VAMPIRE NIGHT Magnus changes into a fast-moving, invincible vampire that steals life from every enemy he touches. This is an incredibly powerful ability, but he can only cast it 5 times per run. It has a 30-second cooldown.
:sadhf:CONRAD: HOLY SHIELDS Conrad slams his shield into the ground creating 4 holy shields that do minor damage, knock enemies back and heal Conrad a small amount for each enemy hit.
:sadhf:SHAKPANA: PLAGUE BRINGER We updated Shakpanas Hero Ability to give it more visual impact like the others. The gameplay is the same - Still poisons all enemies on screen and greatly reduced their movement speed.
*Hugo and Maxines Hero Abilities are both in progress but have some more work needed to finish them. We decided to not delay the patch, so they will be in the next one.
We did some work on Desert Ruins to give our first map a more interesting environment design.
:sadhf:SHOPS We have reworked how shops spawn to make sure they are fewer early and more showing up later in a run when you have all that extra gold on hand.
:sadhf:PET CAGES We have changed the way pet cages are spawning. Now it is possible to find nearly twice as many pet cages in a run.
:sadhf:IMMUNITY CHAOS We know we way overdid the Ice and Poison immunity. We greatly reduced the number of immune enemies and mad it far more simple to understand: *Plants are immune to Poison *Ghosts and Spirits are immune to Ice
:ns_blue: Poison Cloud buff - Reduces enemy move speed by 65% :ns_blue: Shakpana Plague Bringer buff - Reduces enemy move speed by 65% :ns_blue: Minor changes to Desert Ruins normal mode enemies :ns_blue: Minor changes to Spine Dunes normal mode enemies :ns_blue: Miniboss Paul update - more HP and WAY more cones :ns_blue: HP increase - Cemetery Tombstones :ns_blue: UI tweaks - description updates
:sadhf:NEW ANIMATIONS We finished animating all the end bosses and a bunch of other monsters across the game. :ns_blue:Character - Improved Magnus Animations :ns_blue:Boss - Spicy Demise :ns_blue:Boss - Giant Tribal Beetle :ns_blue:Boss - Hammer Horse Knight :ns_blue:Boss - Frostbite Viper :ns_blue:Boss - Molten Tombstone :ns_blue:Enemy - Flame Skull :ns_blue:Enemy - Desert Skeleton :ns_blue:Enemy - Forest Skeleton :ns_blue:Enemy - Shield Skeleton :ns_blue:Enemy - Molten Skeleton
:sadhf:MOON MUMMY BUFF Moon Mummy gained 10% move speed and 10HP and 10% brighter moon art. (Nathan ed: Do we have to?)
:al_bug: Viper Turret was not spawning correctly in Viper Village hard mode. Fixed! :al_bug: Collider issues in Spine Dunes resolved. :al_bug: Spearit Skully Bestiary location fixed. :al_bug: Fixed a few issues with certain triggered passive abilities firing twice and this caused hard-to-replicate issues. Hopefully fixes some issues with Hugo. :al_bug: Fixed an issue where the Freeze Spear mod would not deal any damage to enemies that were immune to freeze. Now they are still immune to the freeze but take damage from the spear as designed. :al_bug: Fixed a minor issue where the banner ability background for pets could be wrong if an ability mod had been used in that slot before. :al_bug: HOTFIX - Version 2252 - Fixed an issue with playing a second round as Conrad resulted in him not being able to die! That issue is fixed now.
WHATS NEXT
Now that we are adding Hero Abilities that make the game easier overall, it's time to add some much-needed late-game challenge. Brutal Mode will come with a new resource and some new Divinity Web power. Plus Maxine and Hugo Hero Abilities and some new pets.
Thank you again to everyone for the amazing ongoing support for Spirit Hunters: Infinite horde. We sincerely hope you are enjoying the game and are as excited about the future content as much as we are.
If you are enjoying the game and updates, please consider leaving a review on steam. ːsteamthumbsupː
Its finally here! A major content update 6 weeks in the making. We have a ton of new content and overall game improvements to get through, so lets get this party started!
:sadhf:NEW HERO: SHAKPANA, THE PLAGUE BRINGER Shakpana is a voodoo master of poison. All creatures, living or dead fear the glowing stare from his cursed mask. It is said that anything he touches becomes plagued.
*Shakpanas' starting synergies add or increase damage over time for all abilities.
Shakpana is the first to get a HERO ABILITY. PLAGUE BRINGER is an active ability that can be used when the player chooses. He has a unique icon next to the health bar. This ticks up every few seconds and becomes usable when the number reaches 10. It can be charged up to 50. Upon activating, all enemies on the screen are hit with a poison attack, slowing them by 60% and hitting them 3 times for that number.
:sadhf:NEW ABILITY: POISON CLOUD Poison Cloud is a low damage, crowd control ability that has strong protection and combos well with heavy attack abilities. A cloud grows around the player making a temporary shield that gets thrown in the facing direction when it reaches its full size. Poisoned enemies are slowed and take damage over time. Some enemies are immune to poison.
:sadhf:ABILITY MODS The primary focus of this update was the inclusion of the Ability Mods. This includes the foundational work to support them going forward, and also the initial mods to get the ball rolling!
Ability mods provide ways to evolve and modify abilities as you progress through a run. Mods are unlockable in the Divinity Web. Each ability will have 2 mods and mods can be combined together to add a lot of new build variety.
The foundational work will allow us to get more mods in a lot quicker in future patches!
How Ability Mods work in Spirit Hunters: Once unlocked in the Divinity Web, new mod banner choices show up at certain ability levels during a run. Example: Reaching Tornado level 8 adds Bouncy Wind mod to the random upgrade pool. Reaching Tornado level 15 adds Chaos Storm mod to the random upgrade pool. Each mod has a different level requirement that shows in the character/ability select screen.
:BlueOrbus:Tornado - Bouncy Wind: Tornados last longer and bounces off environment :BlueOrbus:Tornado - Chaos Storm: Tornado changes to shoot a constant single shot in all directions :BlueOrbus:Spears - Spear Cage: Changes spear formation to spawn in a circle around the player :BlueOrbus:Spears - Frost Spears: Adds a large freeze chance aura to spears :BlueOrbus:Tangle Vines - Bomb Pods: Flowers that grow on the vines and explode when they despawn :BlueOrbus:Tangle Vines - Vine Spitters: Grows turret plants that shoot a stream of piercing projectiles :BlueOrbus:Poison Cloud - Breaking Wind: Each point in BW shoots an extra gust in a random direction from the main cloud :BlueOrbus:Poison Cloud - Poison Trail: Leave a puff of poison behind the character. More points spent thickens the trail.
*All abilities will have mods in future content updates. *All future new abilities will have mods included when released.
:sadhf:ABILITY CHOICES UPDATE We have updated every ability in the game. Before we had a fixed 25 levels in each ability, so you could choose the order of each upgrade, but any max level ability would always be the same. That has been changed to add more player choice. We added more of certain banner choices while still retaining the 25 level cap. Here is an example:
Before: Spears - 10 levels in number, 5 levels in damage, 7 levels in CDR, 3 levels in size = 25
Now: Spears - 25 levels in number, 15 in damage, 7 in CDR, 5 levels in size, 4 levels in Frost Spears, 1 Spear Cage = 57 (still 25 max)
This means now you can fill the screen with +25 number in spears, but they will have low damage, stay small and have a long cooldown. OR you can go crazy high damage, size and CDR, casting a few very large and powerful spears. OR you can use some of your levels on mods to change things up. You can find some pretty OP combos. How you build an ability is more up to you... but now you can also make some pretty bad choices.
:sadhf:SHURIKEN REWORK Shuriken got a major speed buff and a gameplay change. Volleys used to last for 4 seconds making it a super strong boss killer, but making it difficult to use through the majority of a run. Now volleys only last 1.6 seconds so it can switch targets much faster. Banner choices and Dweb nodes have been updated to adjust for the changes.
:sadhf:NEW ZONE: HIGHLANDS NORTHWOOD Welcome to the frigid land of the Frost Trolls. This will be the 3rd and most challenging zone found in the Highlands map and most difficult in the game so far. Beware of the rolling snowballs, very tanky Yak riders and massive swarms of Icesquitos. Some new, very strong minibosses and The largest end bosses with new mechanics will test your spirit hunting skills. With high difficulty comes higher rewards. Expect a great resource multiplier on this one.
:sadhf:NEW MONSTERS Northwood also have a slew of new monster to fight and unlock in the bestiary. :ns_blue:Miniboss - Yak-o-Lantern :ns_blue:Miniboss - Zombie Yak Rider :ns_blue:Miniboss - Pizza Delivery Troll :ns_blue:Frost Trolls :ns_blue:Yak Snowball Rider :ns_blue:Troll Spear Rider :ns_blue:Icesquito :ns_blue:Cold Shellbug :ns_blue:End Boss: Yak Collosus :ns_blue:End Boss: Blitzen
:sadhf:SICK BEATS! We got a sweet new music track from Injekted for the Northwood zone. If you like the Spirit Hunters music, check out some of his other jams here: *INJEKTED SPOTIFY*
:sadhf:GAME SPEED IMPROVEMENTS We did a huge wave of updates to increase the overall speed and pace of the game. All character have been given a speed boost. Abilities move faster, resources move faster to the player, level up choice banners have been sped up. A lot of the enemies move a bit quicker as well. We feel like the overall pace of the game is in a far better state now.
:sadhf:NEW AND IMPROVED ANIMATIONS We have a load of new monster animations in the game. All the normal mode end bosses have been reworked to give them more life. Plus a bunch of others across the game. Here is the full list of new monsters animations: :ns_blue:End Boss: Horned Beetle :ns_blue:End Boss: Horse Knight :ns_blue:End Boss: Tombstone :ns_blue:End Boss: Demise :ns_blue:End Boss: Viper Shaman :ns_blue:End Boss: Tempest :ns_blue:End Boss: Yako Colossus :ns_blue:End Boss: Blitzen :ns_blue:Frozen Rocky :ns_blue:Troll Snowballer :ns_blue:Mega Yako Rider :ns_blue:Troll Spear Rider :ns_blue:Spearit :ns_blue:Frost Troll
:sadhf:NEW STEAM ACHIEVEMENTS Of course with new content comes new achievements. Enjoy these easy ones for now. With Brutal mode achievements are going to be much more challenging in the future. Bwahahahaha! :jydgedeathshead: :ns_blue:Unlock Shakpana :ns_blue:Unlock Poison Cloud :ns_blue:Unlock Highlands Northwood zone (Normal mode) :ns_blue:Unlock Highlands Northwood zone (Hard mode)
:sadhf:MENU UPDATES A bunch of new icons, tooltips, text and changes have spawned across the menus in the game. Here is a list of all the things... thanks in advance for helping us find all the new typos that have come with every one of our menu updates. Making games is hard. Spelling is even harder. :P :ns_blue:Added a Roadmap button to the title screen. So players can always see where the game is heading. :ns_blue:Added Hero Ability icons and tooltips to the character select screen (Shakpana only for now) :ns_blue:Added Mod icons and tooltips to the character select screen :ns_blue:New Divinity Web description updates :ns_blue:New Oracle dialogue lines :ns_blue:Updated choice banner wording improvements :ns_blue:New Bestiary stats and descriptions
:sadhf:PET VFX UPDATES A few pets got some much needed visual clarity to match up with their gameplay. :ns_blue:Nomicron - Now has a clear attack visual tied to its level up damage range. :ns_blue:Scoop - Now has a clear dig visual. :ns_blue:Hearty - Now has healing VFX added to the heart drop.
:sadhf:OTHER STUFF Some extra little things that make the game better Immunity popups for freeze and poison when an enemy is... immune :ns_blue:Level up VFX updated :ns_blue:Continued localization prep work for future updates :ns_blue:Reworked damage dealing on larger enemies to provide a better and tighter experience. :ns_blue:Pushing escape in bestiary now goes back to Divinity web rather than main menu. :ns_blue:More Moon Mummy
:jydgedeathshead: OBLIGATORY MOON MUMMY BUFF :jydgedeathshead: Moon Mummy moves 10% faster (we didn't tell him that other minibosses also got speed updates) He found out about Shakpana and the Poison Cloud updates then demanded poison immunity. Of course, he is also hidden somewhere in the new Northwood zone because he complains if he is left out of any location.
As always, we will be continuing to hunt down and exterminate as many bugs as we can. We are happy to see the list shrinking as we tackle all the little issues that pop up. :al_bug:Bug: Fixed an issue where abilities would fire off while loading into the game. :al_bug:Bug: Bosses now face the way they die…as it should be. :al_bug:Bug: Fixed missing collision in Hinterlands zone :al_bug:Bug: Arrow and other projectiles now move at a standard speed no matter the direction. :al_bug:Bug: Hopefully a fix for a hard-to-replicate bug where certain SFX could start spamming. :al_bug:Some spelling mistake fixes :al_bug:Bug: Fix for a possible way to get stuck in hardcore mode, where pushing escape would not take you back to the main menu when starting a new hardcore mode play-through. :al_bug:Bug: Put a certain missing punk into the bestiary where they belong.
SO WHATS NEXT???
This was a HUGE patch. The next one is going to be a lot smaller and more focused so it should be out much quicker. For the next one, we will be focusing on getting the active HERO ABILITIES done for Magnus, Maxine, Vivian, Hugo and Conrad. This will add some extra gameplay variety to the different heroes.
Thank you again to everyone for the amazing ongoing support for Spirit Hunters: Infinite horde. We sincerely hope you are enjoying the game and are as excited about the future content as much as we are.
End of the month and end of work being done on the next patch. Here is our regular bi-weekly progress update:
We have the majority of the content in a good place with a few loose ends to tie up and a load of testing, tweaking and bug fixing to get done before releasing into the wild.
Chaos Storm combined with Bouncy Wind getting crazy!
Poison Cloud mods stinking up the place.
Frost Spears might still be a bit too strong. Minor tuning still in the works. :P
Loads of improvements across the game that will be covered in detail in the upcoming patch notes. If all goes well, we hope to get this patch out on Halloween... or a few days later if we all eat too much candy and have to take some time off to recover. :P
Thank you again to everyone for the amazing ongoing support for Spirit Hunters: Infinite horde. We sincerely hope you are enjoying the game and are as excited for the future content as much as we are.
End of the month and end of work being done on the next patch. Here is our regular bi-weekly progress update:
We have the majority of the content in a good place with a few loose ends to tie up and a load of testing, tweaking and bug fixing to get done before releasing into the wild.
Chaos Storm combined with Bouncy Wind getting crazy!
Poison Cloud mods stinking up the place.
Frost Spears might still be a bit too strong. Minor tuning still in the works. :P
Loads of improvements across the game that will be covered in detail in the upcoming patch notes. If all goes well, we hope to get this patch out on Halloween... or a few days later if we all eat too much candy and have to take some time off to recover. :P
Thank you again to everyone for the amazing ongoing support for Spirit Hunters: Infinite horde. We sincerely hope you are enjoying the game and are as excited for the future content as much as we are.
Happy October! Here is our regular bi-weekly progress update:
Since this is another large patch that is taking us a good chunk of time to complete, we figured we would do another progress bars image to show you exactly what is coming and where we are at with everything.
Here is the big list of things we have going on. A lot of progress being done across multiple aspects of the game. Nate did a lot of foundational work to get the Mods systems working great. Lots of new enemies in a very different feeling map. Beware of the huge snowballs constantly rolling down hill! Ant is continuing to add a load of great new animations to the end bosses and other enemies across the game to give a lot more motion and life to the game. A load of minor and major ability tweaks and an overall game speed boost are also happening. We will go into more specific details upon release of the patch.
The new hero Shakpana is coming and he is the first character to get an active ability. All characters will be getting very cool and unique active abilities as we continue to develop the game.
We are making our biggest and baddest boss yet for the new map. Yeti Colossus will crush you!
Got some new Halloween style minibosses in the works for this month. I hear Moon Mummy loves pizza, so don't be surprised when he shows up.
If all the testing goes well, we are looking to have this next patch out sometime in late October.
Progress Report
Its been 2 weeks since the Bestiary update and Roadmap with plans for the 1.0 release. Here is a progress report explaining what we are working on now and what will be in the next patch.
We are primarily focused on getting 2 ability mods for each of the existing abilities. These will give a lot more player choice and options for making unique builds. For the first ability patch we are focusing on 3 existing abilities and a new one. Here is what we are playing with now. Please understand that these are work in progress and can change if we dont think they are working well enough for the game. ːsadhfː
ːns_blueːSPEARS (testing) Spears is getting 2 new banner mods: Spear Cage and Frost Spears Spear Cage - Changes Spears from random spawn locations to a ring around the player. This trades overall damage since default spears hit enemies every time, for full control and predictability. Frost Spears - Frost spears adds the ability to freeze enemies at a small reduced damage cost. Frost Spears can work with both normal and cage modes.
ːns_blueːTORNADOS (testing) Tornado is getting 2 new banner mods: Chaos Storm and Bouncy Wind (best name ever?) Chaos Storm - Changes Tornado to shoot one at a time very rapidly in random directions. Bouncy Wind - Tornados now bounce off objects so things can get pretty crazy in tight areas. These can combo together to make different tornado builds.
ːns_blueːVINES (testing) Vines is getting 2 new banner mods: Bombs, and Spitters Bombs - Choosing bombs will grow explosive pods on your vines. Spitters - Choosing spitters will grow monster plants that shoots poison. You can only choose either bombs or spitters. Choosing one will remove the other from that run.
ːns_blueːPOISON CLOUD All future abilities will be getting multiple mods from the start. So we will have the base ability plus the 2 mods on release. This one is still in prototype/figure it out mode, so cant give solid details yet :)
A new hero is coming with this coming update: Shakpana the Plague Master With the new poison debuff system and the new ability we are working on, it makes sense to release this new hero with it. Plus he will be the first to get an active hero ability.
ːns_blueːNEW ZONE AND ENEMIES We are adding a new zone to the Highlands map: Northwood is the home to the Frost Trolls and their Yax they ride. These are some tanky beasts so you will need to have some good Dweb progress before trying this one. There will be a load of other new enemies and minibosses as well... and more Moon Mummy.
ːmp_starːPlus lots of new boss and enemy animations, some minor bug fixes, and hopefully some new music.ːmp_starː
ROADMAP: Content plans for Spirit Hunters 1.0
Hello Spirit Hunters! We have been planning and figuring out our future plans for Spirit Hunters based on our current budget and timeline for the final game. Here are the core features that we will be working on over in the coming months as we head towards the 1.0 full release. Please keep in mind, that a lot of these are WIP concepts and are subject to change as we develop them.
ːsadhfːABILITY UPDATES
This is our primary focus that we are already in the process of creating. We will be adding loads of variations to existing abilities. Once we get this system in, there will be a bunch of different ways to build any ability in the game. We will also be working on new abilities, with the first being Poison Cloud. Poison cloud will also come with a new enemy status effect that we can use across multiple ability variations.
ːsadhfːNEW HEROES The next 3 heroes in Spirit Hunters are going to add a lot of uniqueness to the game:
ːns_blueːShakpana - The voodoo plague master. ːns_blueːSickle - The miniboss reaper traitor. ːns_blueːMcDiggins - The crazed miner.
ːsadhfːHERO ABILITIES Each hero will be gaining a usable ability that matches their play style. We have concepts for each character to further push their gameplay variety.
ːsadhfːNEW PETS We will also be working on a bunch of new pets that we will roll out throughout the development cycle.
ːsadhfːSKINS! We are excited to announce collectable skins for heroes and pets. These will be unlockable through doing quests and earning achievements. Keep an eye on our discord and future steam posts for some fun ways to get your ideas into the game!
ːsadhfːNEW MAP The Ancient Caverns is the final map of the game. This is where you will fight the hardest enemies and the final bosses.
ːsadhfːNEW MODES Brutal mode will be the final difficulty and add a lot of challenges for the end-game players. We are also going to roll out a new mode that is different from anything else in the game. We will talk more about this later towards the end of early access.
ːsadhfːNEW ZONES We will be adding more zones with a load of new, unique enemies to fight. The next one is Highlands Northwood, a snowy zone which is home to the Frost Trolls.
ːsadhfːORACLES LEDGER This will be our quest progression and tracking system. Each character will have a wide range of quests that will greatly change the way you play a run. They will range from super easy to very challenging.
ːsadhfːMORE STEAM ACHIEVMENTS Of course, we will be adding a load more steam achievements as we continue adding more content.
ːsadhfːSTEAM TRADING CARDS We can already do this, we just need to find the time to make it happen... BAD MOON MUMMY! You don't get a card!
ːsadhfːLOCALIZATION We are adding in support for localisation, and We will have a bunch of language options available in the near future.
ːsadhfːCONTROLLER UPDATES The game already has full Xbox controller support, but it needs some refining and support for other controllers. It's certainly on the list of things we need to get done before 1.0, and we want to give it a proper pass!
ːsadhfːCONSOLES We will also be releasing Spirit Hunters on Switch, Xbox, Playstation and hopefully... Dreamcast!
We will have larger versions of all the images on our Discord if you want to see anything better. Come by and chat about things, ask questions or give us some feedback. As always we appreciate the input. :)
Content Update 03
Welcome back Spirit Hunters! This is our second smaller quality of life update where we focused on adding some much needed features, a bit of balance and Dweb RNG cleanup. We have also done a lot of behind the scenes foundational planning and work on the schedule/roadmap. The next update will be another bigger one with a lot of new gameplay. :mb2spark:
:sadhf:BESTIARY Our primary update this month is the Bestiary. It feels like half the questions we get about the game is asking the location of a certain enemy. Once you defeat any enemy once, you get their name, location and stats along with a fun little bio for each of the 170+ enemies in the game. Before doing this we did some localization setup prep... seemed like a good time, since this added 30x more text to the game...
We appreciate all the typo feedback that will likely pour in since all 3 of us are terrible at spelling. hehe. Thanks in advance! ːsteamhappyː
:sadhf:PET RE-ROLLS A feature players have been heavily requesting is pet rerolls. The cost is higher than ability rerolls due to the pets in shops economy balance, but now you can use your gold to have a far better chance of maxing the pets you want in any given run.
:sadhf:NEW MONSTERS :ns_blue: Fairy Caster :ns_blue: Banshee Spector :ns_blue: Bone Guard Spearit :ns_blue: Flame Bat :ns_blue: Lil Twista Bros
:sadhf:MORE MONSTER ANIMATIONS We continue to add more unique animation to our monsters, and this is a task that we will be working on throughout updates during our early access development.
Our musical maestro Injeckted has provided some new custom tracks for Spine Dunes, and Viper Village. Enjoy!
:sadhf:KILL GATE UPDATES We removed all the RNG based minibosses from kill-gates and replaced the remaining ones with new enemies. So now there is no more luck required to complete the Divinity Web and the speed runners can rejoice!
:sadhf:MONSTER BALANCE Some general monster tuning has happened across many zones. Monster counts, HP and damage tweaks to continue ironing out the game balance.
:sadhf:PET BALANCE Scoop got a minor buff: Level 1: 10 - 8 sec cooldown. Level 2: 8 -6 sec cooldown.
:sadhf:MOON MUMMY We convinced him that being on the Bestiary icon and the patch notes title graphic is better than a buff and he fell for it. So no Moon Mummy upgrade this time.
All pet shop prices have been adjusted to account for changes and pet reroll balance. Some costs went up some went down.
Bugs are an ever-present danger, and must be squished! There are still some outstanding, but with each patch, we remove more, and more.
:ns_blue: Indicator Drawing Off screen Fixed an issue where indicators are either being drawn off-screen or closer to the player rather than around the bounds of the screen. This should be fixed now.
:ns_blue: Controller Navigation in in-run menus Fix for controllers not getting control over menu navigation within in-run menus such as level up choices, pet choices or pet shops etc.
:ns_blue: Fix for more controller support Support for more controllers and hopefully fixed issues where controllers were not working Found and hopefully fixed an issue for a range of controllers where they were not responsive (not causing the cursor to move in the main menu etc).
:ns_blue: Incorrect image(s) for kill gates There were one or two of these that we have fixed.
:ns_blue: Ram enemy vs Vivian The ram in highlands has been adjusted so it doesn’t just push Vivian along and properly deals damage to her. (I had to rewrite this patch note after realising how it initially sounded).
We are excited to share some of the ROADMAP plans that clarify the future of Spirit Hunters development on our quest to 1.0. We will share that in a separate update tomorrow so people don't miss this one.
As always thanks for any and all feedback!
Content Update 02
It has been 2 weeks since our first major content update. We are planning to do a few smaller improvement-focused updates that address feedback, set up systems for future work and make the current game experience better.
For this update, we focused on improving some game clarity issues and making harder monsters more valuable... and of course cleaning up some annoying bugs. :al_bug:
:sadhf:DIVINITY WEB VISIBILITY We heard all the feedback about not being able to plan where to go on the Divinity Web due to unlocks being hidden. So we reworked the way things are displayed. You can now see the name and type of all major nodes from the start of the game. The minor nodes and costs are still hidden, but every skill, hero, pet, map, and all passives are now dark grey icons with visible information. We also used this opportunity to improve some of the visuals on the divinity web for clarity reasons.
:sadhf:INDICATOR SYSTEM We've introduced a new indicator system, to provide more clarity on certain objects, and to perhaps do some "interesting" stuff in the future.
:sadhf:MINIBOSS INDICATORS As soon as a miniboss spawns, an arrow with an icon will point out the direction it is (if offscreen) and it will stay onscreen until you defeat it or the end boss spawns. So you can always chase them down or if you are trying to avoid a miniboss like that evil Fire Cactus with the massive aura, you will always know where it is coming from. If the boss dies offscreen, the indicator will be used to point at the chest it drops.
:sadhf:SHOP INDICATORS "I have all this money and I can't find a shop!" We hear this a lot, so we added shop indicators. When you get close to a shop, an arrow will point it out. Once you have found a shop, an indicator will point towards it but will begin to fade out the further you get away from it.
:sadhf:HIGHER XP SOULS Since all enemies have the same soul drop chance, small easy enemies were worth the same value as harder ones. Now we added higher value souls that drop from harder enemies and a rare white soul that can drop from chests.
:sadhf:SPINE DUNES LAYOUT UPDATE Spine Dunes had too many very long walls and a bunch of dead ends making it really difficult to traverse. So we changed the layout to have far more openings and removed all dead ends. It's still not open like some other zones, but it's a lot easier to explore and get out of tough situations.
:sadhf: NEW MONSTER ANIMATIONS Some monsters have had new and more interesting animations added. Things like rocks burst into rubble on impact now. This will be ongoing and more and more monsters will be further animated as development continues.
:sadhf: SAVE FILE CLARITY Before it looked like every new save file was automatically set to hardcore after you unlocked it in the Dweb. Now its more clear that it's a checkbox that is set to default by... default. You have to check the hardcore box to change it into a hardcore save file.
:sadhf: MOON MUMMY Our self-appointed mascot gained 7HP... It's not much, but it fulfils our contractual obligation to give him a buff in every update. *Edit Nate - Dammit Peet! We don't have a contractual obligation! Stop buffing Moon mummy!*
As always we are continuing to address all the bugs we see in the Steam forum and our Discord.
:al_bug: A projectile issue has been resolved. This was primarily on Viper Village bosses and a few other rare situations. Basically, in magical circumstances, it was possible for projectiles not to be initialised, and have zero speed or damage. So they'd just sorta float from the place they were fired from. :al_bug: Invisible mouse cursor when the controller plugged in issue should be fixed. These were some changes to help enhance controller support in the future but should have the added benefit of HOPEFULLY fixing the drift bug that caused the controller UI to drift. :al_bug: Controller cursor checkbox issue fixed. :al_bug: Issue fixed on the map screen, where your map selection could reset upon hitting "start" when using a controller. :al_bug: We have an issue where upon updates some anti-virus applications flag the executable as a false positive. This can put the game in a sorta "sandbox" where the game cannot save/load properly and save games end up getting corrupted. We've now added a flow where when you click start, and before the save slots are shown, a few tests are made. If problems happen then you will be shown a warning screen with some information on where to go for more information. This is less of a bug, and more of some hopefully help prevention as we look into ways to resolve this false-positive flagging. If you run into issues with saves - checkout discussion Topic on our steam forum
:al_bug: Certain enemies exploding can no longer shoot the player across the screen... even though it was a pretty fun bug... unless it happens on the end boss and you are launched into the death spikes. hehe :P :al_bug: Maxine randomly starting with Vivian data should be fixed. :al_bug: Hugo clipping through Cemetery treelines is fixed. :al_bug: Minor environment collision fixes across multiple zones. :al_bug: Some optimisation work on what gets loaded into the maps.
So what's next on the list?.....
Next Content Update: Bestiary + Pet Rerolls + Core Roadmap!
Here is an early concept for the Bestiary. There are still some things to solve, but we have a pretty good plan in place for it, and we're excited to get it in the game.
We are also working hard on future ability and progression system designs that will add massive depth to the game. Hopefully, we can share some of this soon. :)
As always we greatly appreciate your patience and we continue to refine the game. We will continue to welcome and read any and all feedback.
