The Black Grimoire: Cursebreaker
Playtest patch
- Typos
- Pathing issues in Haywind houses and Haywind Militia
Playtest patch
- Possible to get stuck in the gate at Tyroghar's tomb
- North Haywind House pathing issues
- Blocked unintended path from Haywind to Thornhill
- Cleared blocked path near Grainwater
- Fox walk animation not looping
Playtest patch
- Clicking on minimap while horse traveling causing unintended character movement
Playtest patch October 25th
- Incorrect trait tooltips
- Vagrants respawning too quickly at Spruce Shade shack
Aercrest manor:
- Kelanthir duplicate NPC during battle
- Being able to stand on some trees
- Blocked unintended path to inaccessible areas around the manor
The Black Grimoire: Cursebreaker Open Playtest is now Live!
You can join in by clicking “Request Access” for the Cursebreaker playtest on our Steam Store page, you’ll be granted access automatically.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1189290/The_Black_Grimoire_Cursebreaker/
If you've tested our game before, the current playtest should feel very familiar. However, this version will include expanded story content and freedom to roam.
You can give us feedback both through the ingame menus and on our discord channel (link below), where we’re happy to answer your questions as soon as we’re able.
For now we're planning to keep the playtest open until Monday 21st November.
As usual, we recommend you follow us on twitter, where we post progress updates and behind the scenes content regularly.
Regards,
Pura
Cursebreaker Devblog 9 - Upcoming Playtest, Game Locations & Lore
Starting next week we’re opening an updated playtest version, which includes a bit more freedom to roam and more of an emphasis on the questing experience / main quest pacing. We’re obviously excited to hear your thoughts on how we’re doing, but at the same time we’re happy to get to show you a (mostly) functioning part of our game, especially for those of you who didn’t get to play yet. The playtest will go live on Friday October 21st, we’ll announce it on steam as well as on our twitter (link) if you’re following us there.
In the meantime, we thought we'd show some of the explorable areas of the game and ramble a bit about their lore for immersion's sake.
The Aercrest Manor
As the player, you're placed in the shoes of Lord Rothar Aercrest - the feudal ruler to the remote woodlands of Imberthale. Your journey thus begins from the comfort of your family manor, where the Aercrests have ruled Imberthale for centuries.
Resting in northern Imberthale, the manor house overlooks the country's largest lake - Thalefresh - to one side, while being surrounded by Lordswood to the other. The area's aiming for a pleasant "noob aesthetic" with the intention of also accommodating a skippable tutorial further down development.
Haywind
In southern Imberthale, a grand city sprawls in the shelter of Mount Silderstone and the branches of River Aure. Haywind is a new city, having previously existed as small mining and farming communities, Imberthale's damp and cool environment only provided life with hardships. However, some decades back that all changed.
Fleeing the aftershock of a nasty war in distant lands, the Magi of Hydrobor resettled their academy west of Haywind. They brought with them the magical talents to manipulate the weather and soon Haywind's crops flourished. The land prospered and from amidst the farms, a city began to emerge.
But as Haywind’s fortunes have grown, it has attracted some unwanted attention. A seeming horde of marauding bandits have laid siege to its countryside, bent on extorting the city for all it's worth. Haywind struggles to defend itself - a problem further exasperated by the city mayor’s apparent incompetency.
Thornhill
While Haywind, despite its growth pains, is a city on the rise, Imberthale's oldest city - Thornhill - is in decline. It is poorly administered and its ruler, the Lord-Mayor Goldbridge, is only interested in lining his own pockets. Nepotism and corruption run rampant and taxation resembles more of a protection racket, where soldiers rough up whomever fail to make payments.
As if that alone wasn't enough, the city was recently beset upon by a deadly plague. As was befitting of his character, the Lord-Mayor locked himself in his keep while the people on the streets suffered. Some cry the plague must have been the result of witchcraft, of course.
But since the plague began to loosen its grip on the city, the majority has started looking on their "protector" the Lord-Mayor with increasing disgruntlement. Unfortunately their mood is also making the city's soldiers behave even more heavy-handed than usual.
Silvermirror Fen
A swamp with a tainted reputation lies east of Thornhill. Providing cover from the eyes of the civilization and being hard to casually traverse, it has always been attractive to members of the criminal underworld, but also to those wishing to practice dark magics. As far as people can remember, the swamp has always been home to the dreaded 'Witch of the Swamp', or the 'Silvermirror Witch'.
Perhaps in reality there have been many witches throughout the ages, at times even a coven. But where reality and peasants' imaginations meet is that the swamp is indeed a dangerous place. Over time its witches have often abducted unsuspecting travelers and through gruesome experiments, turned them into various monsters that now prowl the swamp.
Mistywood
These old woods are sacred to the druids of Imberthale, some of whom reside here. They look with disdain upon the emerging civilization in Haywind towards the west and especially the Magi of Hydrobor - their tampering with the weather risks defiling nature's sacred order. In their ignorance they may be inviting nature to one day lash back.
Mistywood also provides home to many different beasts, such as bears, snakes and spiders. But considered worst of all by the peasantry are the goblins, who have set up many small encampments throughout the forest. Logging efforts have without fault become ambushed by the little creatures and bounties on goblin heads are commonplace. The druids, however, appreciate the goblins as nature's way of protecting itself from the greed of humans.
If you got this far, thanks for reading! As usual, we recommend you follow us on twitter, where we post progress updates and behind the scenes content regularly. Also feel free to engage in conversation with us on our discord server at any time, don't be shy to ask us questions and maybe let us know which games you've been enjoying.
Regards,
Pura
Cursebreaker Devblog 8 - Player Housing
You’ll be able to unlock several houses of varying types and sizes throughout your adventures in the game - some through questing - but for the most part you’re needed to pay hefty sums of gold. Early on during the main quest you may unlock your first player house simply by getting through the early quests. It might not look like much, but hey – it’s a free shelter!
There’s no limit to how many houses you can own – if it’s for sale, you can buy it. But you should be prepared to sink lots of the gold you hoarded from your adventures into the more luxurious estates. For now, interacting with the “for sale” sign in front of a house presents the option to purchase it.
After unlocking a new house, you obviously need to make it look and feel like your own. Furnishings can potentially be bought from merchants, or gained as quest rewards. Once acquired, you’ll be able to freely place them within any of your newly acquired homes.
Most furniture is cosmetic, however, some of it can be quite useful too. These can range from extra storage chests, to crafting workbenches, to altars that grant temporary buffs.
With some restrictions, you can also drop items on your house floors without fear that they'll eventually disappear, as they do elsewhere in the world. Player housing basically acts as your regional base(s), where you're able to return to from anywhere out in the world, (at any time, provided you have a return spell or house teleport scroll available), and resupply and recover from battles.
If you haven’t already, you may like to follow us on twitter, where we post progress updates and behind the scenes content regularly. Also feel free to engage in conversation with us on our discord server at any time don't be shy to ask us questions and maybe let us know which games you've been enjoying.
We'll bring you more updates of our development in the future, have a great week everyone!
Regards,
Pura
Cursebreaker Dev Blog 7 – New Gameplay Trailer & Summer Greetings!
However, we’re also planning on probably having one more fully open playtest event with improvements on gold/xp/stats balance and somewhat more questing content, as well as some tester QoL improvements (such as fast-forwarding cinematics). We’ll write more news on that at a later point.
We’re currently busy fleshing out the questing experience, adding depth to the skills and traits systems and balancing the sense of progression in every aspect, so our tiny dedicated team has its hands full. In addition we've updated our trailer showing some new environments, bosses etc. We're also aiming to include in-house music in the game as much as possible, you're able to hear a sample of that in the trailer as well. Check it out!
In upcoming dev posts we plan on covering some of our vision for how the skills and traits systems drive character progression in Cursebreaker, as well as about the lore and locations you’ll be able to explore in the game.
We're also looking to showcase our player housing system - after all, a weary traveler needs somewhere to rest their bones and store their loot - so stay tuned!
If you haven’t already, you may also like to follow us on twitter (link: https://twitter.com/OlipaGames), where we post progress updates and behind the scenes content regularly. Also feel free to engage in conversation with us on our discord channel at any time (link: https://discord.com/invite/gsBnQAbJ6t); you can let us know what games you enjoy playing and what you like about them, for example.
Regards,
Pura
Playtest patch
- Bank items withdrawing when trying to move them
- Haywind Armorer not accessible
Playtest patch April 18th
- Added item stat icons
- Spell Errenwyr's Spacetime Distortion level to 7 (from 25)
- Spell Botecian Transience level to 25 (from 7)
Bugfixes:
- Wrong item amounts when withdrawing items from bank
- Troll nails missing from Cave Troll droptable
- Haywind teleport location partly inside a market stall
- Glitchy pathing in several buildings