In today’s update we’ll be sharing our plans for this year’s development on Cursebreaker.
The amount of support, feedback and bug reports since our EA release has been truly phenomenal, thank you sincerely everyone who’s been a part of this! It’s been more than we could’ve expected and we’re really grateful. Rest assured, the bug / feedback reports you’ve been sending have been reaching us and we’ve been combing through hundreds of messages in the past week.
Our focus since release has been mostly to document player feedback, and within the hot patches we pushed during this time, we alleviated the most egregious bugs that were preventing main quest progression and addressed QoL issues, such as a WASD movement option and inventory bloat before bank is even accessible.
We will continue shaping the game according to player feedback throughout the rest of the development as well. Underneath we’ve outlined seasonally what we’ll be focusing on in our upcoming development.
Addressing bugs and QoL features is something we’re aiming to do throughout the year. This is just a list of the major features or other things we have already planned, or have started working on. But it does not mean that our development will be strictly confined to what's listed here.
Spring of Side Quest Adventures
Improvements to Thornhill exploration
- Currently side content drops off sharply around the time the player reaches Thornhill city - Will therefore be developing several new quests focusing especially around Thornhill areas - Thornhill covers a large area without any dangers present, so will be adding street thug encounters etc. to create more dangerous parts of the city - Will work on adding sidequesting content to the other bare areas after Thornhill, mainly the surrounding forests, fenwater village (which currently has nothing) and swamp sidequests
Haywind marauders / Bandit Fortress quest chain development
- The marauder plight Haywind is experiencing - mentioned in misc dialogue by several npcs - is getting a larger quest chain related to it - Sequel to the small existing quest involving the mayor's daughter - Leads to the heart of the bandit fortress northwest of Haywind, concluding in a repeatable dungeon - New lootable equipment and... rare drops?
More traits and abilities to Haywind trainers
- Traits give mostly passive bonuses now - We want to add some more active abilities, including to life-skills - We're planning at least a few more traits in each skill tree in Haywind - More traits will be coming later to Thornhill
Workbench furniture obtainable from Thornhill
- All crafting workbenches will be placeable in player houses - Obtainable from Thornhill, but will most likely require completion of a special quest to unlock
Pathfinder improvements
- We've started reworking our pathfinding system - Currently the biggest cause of lag spikes - Will greatly reduce getting stuck issues - Possibility of adding new features like line of sight
Balancing
- Setting up analytics so we get more reliable data to work with - Balancing combat, economy (item value, shop prices), xp gains - Balancing inventory size (solutions include but not limited to: increase stack sizes of certain items, offer more and different storage items, beast of burden or bankrunner followers, allow turning unstackable items to stackable on the go if you have the right tools with you [for example use Mortar and pestle to turn unstackable bones to stackable ground bones])
Summer and The Ghost of Greywall
The Ghost of Greywall late-game quest chain and dungeon
- The old Greywall prison southeast of Haywind is afflicted by a curse, preventing its dead souls from passing onto the afterlife and driving them insane - Includes a chain of multiple quests, each step unlocking access deeper into the dungeon and its boss, The Ghost of Greywall - Dungeon becomes repeatable after completion - New lootable equipment and... rare drops?
Thornhill Academy
- Thornhill trainers will be offering late-game perks and abilities - Possibly trainer / skill related quests
Thornhill Catacombs
- Filling in the extended areas into a dungeon to crawl through - A quest leading to the dungeon's depths
Life-skill minigames
- Various content offering alternative ways to level up skills - Xp rates will depend on gameplay intensity: designed to offer either low but consistent xp rates for those who just want to sit back and relax, but also top tier xp if you're focused and keep up with intense mechanics
Steam cloud saves
- Back up your saves in Steam cloud, access them on multiple devices
Optimization
Focusing on graphics optimization, possibly requires reworking graphics of some elements in game, such as buildings, particle effects and vegetation
Fall Achievements
Achievements
- Achievements on Steam, also an in-game window to check achievement requirements and progress. - Achievements might also unlock new content and add new cosmetic options such as cosmetic gear or house furniture.
- Halloween Event - Focusing on more endgame challenges (open outdoor boss encounters?) - New items to be looted and crafted
Necromancy quests
- Access to the depths of Spruce Shade crypts - Possibly adding in quests to learn abilities to summon undead minions
Winter and the Ogre Mountains
- Christmas Event - Pausing small updates to prepare for the official release patch, we'll be sharing sneak peeks in social media
Amarien's Mountain Pass
- New mountain areas - New enemies - New quests, probably a multiple-quest chain leading through new areas, surrounded by smaller side quests - New harvestable items - New items and crafting tiers - Increased level cap
- Full release and big update early 2024!
Conclusion
We'll continue to post further updates on our progress in these dev blogs and let you know if our plans happen to change. You can also join our discord community if you haven't already done so, the link can be found below; we're most active in responding to questions there.
Also feel free to follow us on twitter, where we've posted progress updates and behind the scenes content regularly.
Massive thanks once more to everyone playing, giving feedback and supporting the game! Seeing so many players finally really getting to play the game has been incredible to our team.
But for now, stay tuned and happy gaming!
Regards, Pura
Early Access Update 3
Early Access Update 3
Blogpost detailing our plans for future development coming tomorrow!
New:
You can now change camera rotation speed in Options > Gameplay
You can now hide damage numbers in Options > Gameplay
Changes:
Increased wool drop rate from sheep
Decreased Arakite hammer special effect xp multiplier and increased cooldown
Tammi the Forest's Heart now deals physical damage instead of magical
Damage dealt to enemies (and subsequently exp gained) is now capped at the monster's remaining health
Disabled Rich Text in online chat
Fixes:
Improved lag spikes when entering new areas
Critical hit AoE damage increasing uncontrollably when hitting multiple enemies
Players from different geographic regions not being able to see each other in online mode
Lots of pathing and minor graphical issues
Wool missing ground item model
Consumable items (Usually Mistywood Talisman) sometimes removed from inventory in combat
Corrected Novice Woodcutter trait cost to 50 gold (from 200)
Iron hatchet missing Woodsmanship skill requirement
Rain falling inside Spruce Shade Shack
Quick Strike ability hitting from too far after using long range weapons
Shield Block ability not working with Iron kite shield
Bestiary showing loot that's not possible to drop (Mainly Faintly Glowing Bead from higher level monsters)
Fixed a few typos
Early Access Update 2
Early Access Update 2
New:
Added an option to recover the strange gem from a hydrobor wizard in haywind, if you sold the gem to them
Added a new interaction/reward to Meara Rahingar, the mage who starts out arguing beneath the tree in the village in Mistywood
Changes:
Improved damage and accuracy of greatswords, battleaxes, hammers and spears
Adjusted Haywind children dialogue to be more normal
Slightly edited haywind magician boy dialogue
Slightly adjusted haywind magician boy orb stats
Improved 'something suspicious' quest instructions in journal
Made it more obvious in dialogue to the player that they can deliver hunting goods to various Mistywood hunters
Made Mistywood hunters more varied in their requests for creature parts
Improved 'hunting for perfection' quest instructions in journal and dialogue
Eased 'hunting for perfection' requirements to 1 frustrating animal part each instead of requiring a pair
Changed spellcaster robes naming scheme
Improved Mistywood Talisman item description
Improved descriptions for Gabrius' staff and its special spell
Emberstaff - Changed level to 10 (from 1) and price to 800 (from 250)
Fixes:
Resurrecting in wrong location after dying in Temple of Etherlight
Guardian of Etherlight health bar staying visible after leaving the chamber
Equipped items disappearing after a patch if player no longer has requirements to equip the item
Corrected several trainer trait descriptions
Consumable items sometimes removed from inventory in Etherlight Guardian battle
Incorrect monster level in quest Awoken in Fury journal
Emberstaff, Staff of Furious Wind and Staff of Spiteful Seas not removing mana cost when manually selecting the spell from spellbook
Removed duplicate small copper bag spawn in the cave near Grainwater
Emberstaff missing stats
Trees turning white
"Mountain with a name" minimap text
Quest marker popping over hunter ivonna under certain circumstances when no quest was available
Players no longer receive two Foulvenom Curseblades at the beginning of quest 'Reunion of Fire and Death'
Players should now be able to recover the Foulvenom Curseblade in the Hallowed Cave in the event they somehow manage to lose it
Killing Bren Atrik from quest 'Something Suspicious' should no longer trigger a new bestiary entry
Removed brain extract from alchemy crafting since it currently didn't have a use
Fixed missing journal entries for 'Nature's Friend' quest
Fixed an issue that prevented Aaron's dialogue in Timberwell after finishing the quest 'In Search of a Bride'
Lots of pathing and minor graphical issues
Patch notes
New:
You can now enable keyboard movement (WASD) and remap movement keys in Options > Experimental
Added a notification in game whenever there's a new game update available on Steam
Fixes:
Glowing orb in Gathering Power quest pointing in the wrong direction
Gilded fishing rod model missing
Foreman jonas giving wrong dialogue at a certain circumstance
Aaron Summervale giving infinite pickaxes
Candle stand furnishing item cannot be picked up
Cursebreaker Early Access Live Now!
Greetings eager adventurers!
We're happy to announce The Black Grimoire: Cursebreaker Early Access is now live! What the EA currently includes is a fully functioning main story quest chain (we hope you will be surprisingly challenged by the last boss), a large open map to explore and a number of side quests/content to find (much more of that to come soon in future patches).
We will be posting a roadmap of the major content additions we have planned for the coming year soon. However, for now we'd just like to quickly address a few of the concerns that we have seen commonly popping up:
Frequently asked questions
"Inventory is too small!":
This is perhaps the most frequently raised issue at the moment. The way the inventory currently works, it constrains player xp-progression and raw power (in terms of how many consumables you can carry, for example). Additionally, a lot of the content in the game is already balanced around a limited inventory.
We're aware having to manage a limited inventory is not everyone's cup of tea, even as they otherwise may be attracted by the game. However, we do think that much of the current frustration from players of the demo so far may stem from the fact that the early crypt area presents players with lots of new items that they have no way of dealing with (storage access is gained a bit later), nor do they have a concept yet of what items are valuable for their situation (in other words they loot everything).
We've already made some adjustments to alleviate this, but we'll be keeping our eye on the situation and the feedback, and we're prepared to make changes where it seems needed.
"WASD movement?":
It's requested widely enough that we'll probably add it in the coming months as an experimental feature. Our current pathfinding system isn't technically designed for it, so it may not look pretty, but yes it can be added.
"Performance is baddd!":
Yes, we are very aware of performance issues and will definitely keep working on it. We'll prioritize the worst stutters that happen in the more demanding areas, which are the large cities and their immediate surroundings. Afterwards we'll tackle more overall performance. We will work on improving it as we go.
"Keybinds?":
There have been some complaints about the lack of keybinds. We just wanted make sure everyone knows there are shortcuts/keybinds in the game this very moment, even if the game hasn't necessarily done the best job communicating that. But you can open options, and there you can find default keybindings as well as customize them. Just so everyone's aware.
"Quest rewards disappearing?":
Some concerns were raised about this, which seemed to be the case regarding specific types of items in the demo. But for the EA build it has already been fixed. If your inventory is full when you recieve item rewards from quests, the rewards should always spawn on the ground.
"The game really needs more equippable item slots":
At the moment we're focused on filling the game with a good variety of items on the slots we have. Expanding the amount of item slots may be something we do later on in development.
"Is this going to be an MMO?":
In short, no. We'll continue experimenting with new multiplayer features, but if we do end up implementing something, it will be light co-op in nature, such as minigames or instances. But all content will always also be available offline.
Cursebreaker Early Access Releasing March 10th!
Greetings!
The time has come to announce Early Access for The Black Grimoire: Cursebreaker from our fresh indie studio Olipa Games - Releasing on Friday March 10th!
The Early Access release will feature a complete main story questline, as well as a large open world to explore with side-content to be found!
While the game will be released in Early Access, we'll be working hard to update it throughout the year with new content, features, and improvements. We're still aiming to flesh out the game's skills and perks systems, and to fill the explorable areas with more sidecontent. But we'll be crafting a good olde roadmap detailing our plans for this year, which we'll continue to update as the year progresses if need be.
Also, we wanted to again thank our community and everyone who has provided feedback and helped playtest the game. The continued support, encouragement and interest in the game has been invaluable in helping us shape it up to this point. Rest assured, we've been listening to your comments and suggestions carefully and will continue to do so as we work on future updates and improvements. So if you get ideas for what kind of content you'd like to see more in the game, don't be shy to let us know! It's what early access is ultimately for.
Stay tuned for more updates, and happy gaming!
Olipa Team
Live-stream and Developer Q&A
Greetings!
Join the developers of The Black Grimoire: Cursebreaker, as we play through the demo, talk about the game and answer questions in chat. We'll start streaming at 12pm EST, you should be able to see what that means for your local time in the event side bar.
Cursebreaker Demo Now Live in Time for Next Fest
Greetings!
Cursebreaker demo is now live in time for Steam Next Fest and will continue to be available afterwards leading up to our Early Access release (exact date to be announced soon!). The demo includes areas at the beginning of the game and the quests that kick off the adventure. You can download it now on our store page here:
If you're one of our longtime followers and participated in our previous playtests, apart from small changes and bugfixes, you can expect to have seen what this playtest has to offer already. However, more news on the early access launch is coming very soon.
These red magic barriers set the limit for explorable area in the world for the demo, so you shouldn’t expect to move past them.
As usual, feel free to follow us on twitter, where we post progress updates and behind the scenes content regularly.
Stay tuned and happy gaming!
Pura
Devblog 11 - Cursebreaker Early Access Release Plans
Greetings medieval adventurers!
Thanks again for all the feedback from all of you who participated in the latest playtest, a good number of bugs were spotted and reported by all of you and the overall generic feedback about the game has also been very welcome. We closed this round of playtest sign ups by 21st November, so if you're looking to play now but missed this chance, we're afraid you'll have to wait for the next one.
Steam Next Fest and Early Access release plans: Moving forward, we are set to appear with a demo in Steam Next Fest running next February between 6th - 13th. The demo will be a shorter showcase of the game, a lot restricted compared to the previous playtests. However, once we've gone over the feedback from Next Fest, we're aiming to release the game in Early Access as soon as possible afterwards in late February or early March. We'll announce the specific date probably around the time for Next Fest.
Why Early Access?
Cursebreaker is a large open world game that requires thorough testing, balancing and bugfixing. As we're developing with a small indie team, early access allows us to better receive feedback on such issues from a variety of players with different perspectives. This will also help us in considering different playstyles as we balance the game, making necessary changes to turn the gaming experience as smooth as possible for the official release.
What we're aiming to offer players in the early access release is a full mainstory questline, the areas and character progression associated with it, with some additional sidequest stories.
Over the course of the Early Access we'll work to regularly update the game with new side content, fixing bugs and fleshing out features where need be, culminating in a final official release update, which will most likely be announced some time over the course of the next year.
We're obviously really excited to get our game out there, but we still have a lot of work ahead of us. Huge thanks to all of you who've been sticking with us and following the game thus far! If you want to chat us up for any reason, feel free to do so on our discord server: link down below.
As usual, feel free to follow us on twitter, where we post progress updates and behind the scenes content regularly.
Stay tuned, happy gaming and happy new year!
Regards, Pura
Playtest patch
Bugfixes - Quest tracker sometimes not updating for side quests - Quest Bearer of Bad News reward could be collected twice - Added quest journal texts to Awoken in Fury - Using consumable items while crafting causing unintended behavior - Bridge north of Haywind not showing in minimap
Changes - Balanced enemy levels in the Tomb of Stratificas the Elder - Added a movement path indicator to minimap - Added more map labels to Haywind and nearby areas
