Changes to Horsy's runoff behavior; Horsy's fear-level now ramps up incrementally while player takes damage in combat, before finally taking off. Horsy settles down and the fear resets after a while, when not taking damage. Once Horsy runs off, he'll eventually return to the player, instead of going back to the stables.
Changed cooldown for the ability to quick-summon Horsy down to 10 mins.
Changed the vessel of etherlight essences from a bracelet into a trinket, as it didn't make sense as a bracelet.
Upon saving the Caretaker at the starting crypts he promises to reward you if you meet him again in Haywind, but no reward was ever added... This has now been fixed, and he'll give you something little in thanks.
Adjusted Barley availability in Barnsy's shop, and the prices you get for it at artisan orders.
Online mode: You should now automatically connect to another server if the current server is full, instead of getting stuck in queue.
Sliders for depositing items (for example when adding items to storage bags) now use the maximum value by default.
You should now be able to fast travel to the Lumpy Log Tavern in Prowler's Thicket.
Bugfixes
Fixed the names and descriptions of items in the Etherlight Temple dimensional portal chamber, which had changed appearance in 1.0 update.
Improved pathing on Disengage and Leap abilities to prevent getting stuck, and removed the ability to jump to inaccessible areas.
Fixed a buggy dialogue node on Forvan the Smith when recovering Arakite Hammer.
Fixed an issue causing the perfect critter parts not getting collected by the hunter during quest 'Hunting for Perfection'.
Fixed stablehand dialogue to reflect Horsy's new behavior.
Removed empty bag UI showing for simple bags that can only hold a certain item (they weren't supposed to have display it).
Healing potion now switches to the appropriate 1/2 potion, instead of a Mild healing potion (1/2).
Storage bag interface no longer stays open after banking or dropping the item.
Fixed Mistywood Forager achievement not giving Old Artifacts if another reward was picked first.
Fixed Master Hubbs in Ratcliffe sometimes not appearing correctly (counted as being inside the house despite standing outside).
Required quest items now get removed from inventory in Grainwater Cartshop Keeper and Silderstone Miner tasks.
Fixed instances of snakes spawning underground in the Mistywood.
Fixed a typo in The Prize Fish quest journal.
Fixed some broken seagull spawners north of haywind and made them count for the seagull hunting achievement.
Bugfixes
- Fixed an issue where some early achievements wouldn't reward Old Artifacts as they should have. - Fixed a bug, where reading books gave potentially infinite experience if the book "accidentally" just happened to drop on the floor while selecting a skill. - Fixed some of the harvesting and hunting achievements not progressing as they should have. - Fixed some of the skill achievements not unlocking properly. - Fixed pathing issues in the Aercrest Manor - Fixed crows dropping way too many valuable rings - Fixed homecoming scrolls selling for way too much gold, resulting in an infinite money glitch - Fixed rancher Eryk's dialogue, which got broken in 1.0 update - Smoothed out / shortened prologue banquet cinematics, and the roadblock cinematic in starting cemetery - Changed out weird dialogues in timberwell lumberjack's wife's task. - Fixed Timberwell sheep pen task sometimes not completing.
Bugfixes
Sergeant Miller achievement task not completing
Added missing tailor workbench in Aercrest Manor
Some animals in Timberwell not counting towards achievement kill count
Bugfix
Fixed an issue with dragging items, abilities and spells
Full Release 1.0 Update
Greetings once again, you crazy medieval adventurers!
It's been a little while since our last content update, but today we're coming to you with the next one and we're calling it 1.0! So, does this mean that the game is finally 100% complete?! To be honest, we don't see it that way - we see there's still a lot of room for more updates to come! But it's time to transition the game out of early access.
Thinking back to our early access release in March 2023, the game included content-wise the main quest with the necromancer and... well, that was it for the most part. Since then, we've added much content in an effort to make the world not feel so empty, but worth exploring.
In that vein, today's update will also expand upon the world, but it will also contain additions to a wide range of areas in the game. This update should not break any old save files, which we've always felt is important for the kind of game we've been developing.
So, there's a lot to cover, but here's a quick breakdown of everything new coming in today's update:
A new adventure to go along with Greywall and the main (necromancer) quests, this one begins with discovering a threat to Haywind (a chain of ~10 small to medium-sized quests).
A new endgame focused mountain zone (that increases the game world by about 20% ish).
The level cap for all skills raised to 100, and new crafting recipes, milestones and higher level monsters to go along with that.
After completing some new quests, you will unlock access to a new mountainous area, where new quests, scenery, enemies and harvestables await you! Beware, the enemies will also be beefier, so the additional skill levels from 50 -> 100 should come in handy.
The new items you're able to craft from the materials you find will also naturally make you stronger. While you're out there exploring, so far from home, only some of the ancient portals you find can teleport you back to safety.
If you're not careful, the wandering barbarian ambushers might come for your hide...
Map of the new mountain zone...:
Cozy mountain village, for your banking and shopping needs...:
Dangers out in the wilderness...:
As you travel deeper in...
And deeper...
The danger grows!
New Quests
Unlocking the mountains will involve picking up the journey from the (previously very incomplete) quest named Something Suspicious, which is gained by visiting Haywind town hall. An old friend from the early crypts will also join along for this adventure...
If you're playing on a save where you've already completed this quest, talking to the quest giver at Haywind town hall should start it again from the beginning (as some changes and rewrites to it have been made).
The quests that follow will lead into the mountains...
Wandering ambushers and poachers.
Out in the 'wilderness' you may run into gangs of barbarian ambushers, who drop more loot but also get incrementally more dangerous as you defeat them. Hunting them down will contribute to finding rare crafting ingredients, some unique equippable gear and unlocking new spells.
You'll also run into 'poachers' who are competing for harvestable resources, they may try to defend their territory or run away.
You'll find scoreboards at mountain military camps that keep tally of how many ambushers and poachers you've taken down.
Battle with a large ambusher group:
We've added options for followers / hirelings, which may be unlocked at the mountain village. This trio includes a warrior, a spellcaster and a helpful busy-body battlefield looter. You may only have one with you at any given time.
In exchange for a bit of gold, they'll follow you anywhere, but should be especially helpful against larger groups of enemies in the mountains.
Loras the Nimble in action, being very adept at looting the battlefields for you:
Visual Improvements
Some work has gone to making the game look visually better, for example by improving the trees (which the maps are full of). Contrary to what intuition might tell you, but in typical game development fashion, the better looking assets are also more optimized and thus translate to some performance improvements. There are also more options in graphics settings menu to tweak performance.
New trees:
UI improvements:
Some art has been added to make the action bar feel better. And the dialogue UI has also gained a small visual uplift, plus it now displays the character you're conversing with, which improves the feel of the dialogue by surprisingly quite a bit.
New action bar:
New dialogue window:
Inventory management and bank improvements.
There are tons of different items in the game and that pool has only increased many-fold since we began early access. To accommodate that, the inventory size has now been significantly increased. In addition, you're able to acquire universal bag items in the game, with a separate UI, capable of storing further items.
General Storage Bags
These bags, capable of storing any and all items, come in multiple sizes. You may drag items to the bags to store them within. One bag is granted for free at the beginning of the game and more may be unlocked later.
Bank
The bank UI has received a full rework, which should hopefully resolve the prior glitchyness players have encountered with it and add some much needed QoL. - Added the much requested bank tabs, and the option to rename them. - Buttons to deposit all items from inventory, or all equipped items.
Horsy
- Horsy's bags are also now fully accessible, just like the general bags, with the UI to add or remove any items. - Just like before, you can talk to Horsy to send him off to the bank or the stables, but you may also acquire a new item to summon him without visiting the stables. - Horsy has always been a bit clumsy in combat, so now he's a peace loving Horsy who gets agitated and runs off to the stables when you're in combat for too long. Good thing he can be more easily summoned now.
Scrolls of True Alchemy
New stackable scrolls to turn items to gold on the go. These may be obtained as monster drops, from shops, or crafted at the new Mystic's workbench.
Salvaging
You may encounter new salvager's workbenches and salvager's kits that turn some items into stackable scrap, which may be exchanged for crafting materials and other potentially useful items.
Trading scrap at a new scavenger merchant:
The Scavenger's Yard may be found west of Haywind, which will come to serve all your scrap related needs:
Achievements
New achievement UI has been added into the game, and with it 'achievement content'. Most of these relate to peaceful grinding, and serve as rewarding experience for engaging in such a playstyle.
From completing achievement, you also gain artifacts which may be traded for special item rewards at a new 'achievement shop' in Haywind.
Achievement Shop
Arty M'faktis in Haywind will gladly take your artifacts in exchange for special items and abilities, such as larger storage bags, ability to reduce Homecoming cooldown and calling Horsy from the stables while out in the world.
Item 'encyclopedia' function.
Right click an item in inventory or press "I" while browsing the item tooltip to open a new UI window. For the most part, you'll be able to see which shops sell the item, which monsters drop it and what crafting recipes it may be used in.
Revamped prologue areas.
We reworked some freedom into the prologue, the ability to engage with the core skills of the game without being stuck in story, and a few optional tasks around the manor that reward experience.
Aercrest Manor has a new look!
You can engage with some npcs, tasks and crafting from the get go:
Manual monster respawn function.
When enemies are in the process of respawning nearby, a timer icon will appear in the top left corner. You can click it to manually speed up respawn times of enemies, if you're waiting for specific ones. The option is only available while out of combat.
Steam deck and controller improvements.
The game isn't exactly "officially fully supports steam deck" status, but some effort has gone into making it run better on the deck nonetheless.
Improvements have been made to the UI so it fits smaller screens better, and we've added 1 button commands for some actions that could only be made using a mouse before. You can bind these in the keyboard shortcut options, they include: - Attack nearest enemy - Interact with nearest object / NPC - Pick up nearest loot
Misc QoL, improvements, bugfixes
- ESC key should now close most windows - There is now an exit to main menu button in options - There is now a pause game button in options - Quest starting locations mostly now show in world map - Additional drops (like acorns from trees) no longer consume the health of the resource - Npc harvesters no longer consume resource health if near player - Pistario nuts sometimes stop working after 1 use - Effects and abilities that move your character (e.g. knockback, and abilities like leap attack and disengage) can no longer throw you to inaccessible locations - Clicking the minimap compass now resets the camera - Enemy kill counts now visible in bestiary - Possible to craft exceptional bracelets and trinkets now - Shops now show restock times - Artisan orders now also accept bank notes and can be completed multiple times - Etherlight quest items should be a little clearer now - Increased pathfinder range (previously your character would stop halfway if you clicked too far, now the path should be recalculated as you move to reach the target.)
Original Game Soundtrack
We've uploaded the game soundtrack to both spotify and youtube :)
What does the future of the game look like?
We’re by no means done providing updates for the game. For the immediate future we’ll be focused on balancing loot, enemy stats, fixing bugs etc. based on your feedback. Arguably we gave ourselves a little too much to chew through in terms of new content additions in this update and didn’t take as much time reviewing prior content and making balancing adjustments as we ideally would have liked.
With that said, we’re happy to deliver all the aforementioned changes and additions to the game and will focus on delivering manageable, smaller updates for improvements in the near future, before planning any new, larger content additions. As for potential future content, we're certainly not short on ideas, but we'll let you know once we get to that point!
As always, if you have any burning questions, we'll do our best to answer them on our discord server, which is where you're most likely to get a hold of us - the link's included down below. A special shout out to Splattercat for his coverage of our game - it really has meant a lot to us - and to all the super active and helpful members of our discord community!
With that, it's once again time to wish you the most important thing of all - happy gaming!
Regards, Pura
Bug report improvements
Added options in the bug report menu to capture and include a screenshot and automatically send a copy of the save file to the developers for debugging purposes.
Temple of Etherlight Bugfix
Fixed a bug that resulted in the game freezing and crashing when entering the Guardian's Chamber in the Temple of Etherlight
Bugfixes
- Fixed cutscenes sometimes getting stuck in quests 'The Prize Fish' and 'Love Hurts, literally...' - Fixed a few instances where it was possible to exploit infinite gold from recovering items from certain npcs. - The dubious brewmaker did not give out poisons in correct amounts, nor removed ingredients, resulting in infinite poisons from his dialogue - this is now fixed. - Fixed a typo in the trait 'Mighty Resolve'.
Bugfix
Bugfix: Items placed on a desk inside a player house despawn after loading back into the game
Devblog 17 - Full Release Update Coming October 27th!
Summer greetings, medieval adventurers!
First things first, as per the title, we're excited to announce October 27th as the date for full release update for The Black Grimoire: Cursebreaker!
Upcoming Features in the Full Release Update
To sum up our plans on transitioning away from early access, we aim to clean up some of the existing content, provide more full skill progression and expand the late game experience for those who enjoy spending more time with the game.
To that end, the full release will be accompanied by a major content update including (though not limited to...)
Skill level caps increased to 100
Plenty of new craftables included
Unlockable high level ogre mountain area with new quests, mobs, new dungeons and lots of new gear
Achievements (on Steam and in-game)
Visual improvements
Bugfixes and performance improvements
Balancing enemy stats and drops
We already detailed some of these plans in our previous dev blog, in case you're curious to have a look there. However, we'll also share more details and screenshots by the time we're ready to release.
Your feedback is still most welcome!
Over the course of our Early Access period we've received tons of feedback and bug reports from all of you, which has helped us greatly in identifying and fixing many bugs and problems within the game. However, while we've been busy with development and prioritizing different things, it's possible we sometimes miss things from your feedback.
So if you as a player feel like there's something fundamental bugging you about the game, even if it may have been raised by someone else already, don't be shy to bring it up and discuss it on our Discord or Steam forums, or send us a report in-game.
Upcoming changes to inventory management.
Having to deal with a restricted inventory was a foundational design decision from the early onset of this game - you were never meant to be able to loot absolutely everything all the time, or were expected to make choices around what you valued to loot most - but it's fair to say that widely players have just found the inventory experience frustrating.
While we soon made adjustments to it after the EA release (Horsy the Packmule, refining ores into stacks, changed stack sizes for some items found in abundance...), we've now worked on some additional tools to give players more options on how to manage the inventory (some of which may come into play before getting access to personal storage or before encountering Horsy).
Straight up more inventory space - 35 inventory slots up from 24, in a 7 x 5 rows presentation as opposed to current 6 x 4.
Scroll of True Alchemy - a new magical, consumable item that immediately converts an item into its worth in gold.
Salvaging - workbenches and salvage kits that turn items into stackable scrap, which may be exchanged for crafting materials.
Universal Bags - a few special bag items that may hold a number of any items within.
Horsy Upgrades - you'll be able to acquire items that speed up Horsy's return from the bank, or call him back without visiting a stables after having sent him away.
Salvaging workbenches can be found in various locations
Quick Q&A
Q: Will the price of the game increase upon full release?
A: No, for now we've decided to keep the price unchanged.
Q: Will the Main Story Quests be expanded in the upcoming release?
A: No, although what is already in place may receive some polish. We're not yet ruling out delivering a major update post release to expand on the quest chain involving Gabrius and Eloria, but more than likely we'll prefer to continue that adventure in another title entirely.
Q: Will the release update bring the option to play as female?
A: No, for now we're prioritizing other aspects of the game. However, we may add this feature later down the line, we're not ideologically opposed to it due to story/lore reasons. But it does require more work than simply adding a button in the character creation; the dialogues will need to be edited to distinguish between Lord/Lady and the vast majority of armor models do not as of now support other than the male body model.
Q: Are necromancer/raise dead abilities coming to the game?
A: This was a feature we were entertaining around the time of the EA launch and has periodically been asked about since. Unfortunately, after experimenting with it this past spring, we decided to put it in the freezer for now. We may return to it post launch but it will not be a part of the upcoming release update.
Q: Can we skip the prologue?
A: One of the most frequent complaints we see relates to the prologue. Aside from some awkward pacing related to the amount and length of the cutscenes, we've identified that the most glaring issue with the prologue is that in its current form it acts as something of a story obstacle, where the "real game" doesn't quite begin until you've cleared it.
In initial versions of the game it was actually quite packed with cute little sidequests, such as searching the castle grounds for your children, training sword fighting with your son, hunting deer with the groundskeeper etc. Alas, these were deemed deadly boring by our earliest testers and we had some difficulty cobbling the whole thing together... I'd like to think we've come a long way since developing that bit of content.
In any case, though we're reluctant to deal away with the prologue entirely, we've been looking at ways to rework it so that it would feel like the game begins from the actual beginning, instead of needing to sit through a somewhat separate story sequence first. To that end, you should be able to encage with most of the skills and find some form of side content through exploration of the manor grounds. But we'll keep you updated on where we land with this.
Q: Will there be multiplayer?
A: The short answer is no. The social online function may sometimes give the impression that the game might not be that far off from true multiplayer functionality, but that's just not the case. The game relays chat messages between players, but to have it relay literally everything else is a challenge a team our size is not fit to deal with. Light co-op multiplayer features may be in the realm of possibility in the future, such as a minigame that could be played together with another player, but it's definitely not anything we're committed to at this time.
That's our news for now.
As always, if you have any burning questions, we'll do our best to answer them on our discord server. which is where you're most likely to get a hold of us - the link's included down below. With that said, it's time to wish you all happy gaming and enjoyable rest of your summer!
