Greetings Wizards,
We'd like to thank all those who have tested the beta so far, your feedback and testing is invaluable to us and the game is getting better every day because of you. Starting in July we'll be adding larger groups of beta players so we can get more testing and feedback in an effort see where we are at and nail down an official release date.
During the last two months in one of our biggest pushes for new content we added 15 new monster variations complete with new artwork skins and totally new unique abilities. The new monsters include:
- Fury - teleports enemies near targets
- Tempest - lobs eggs that can hatch into monsters or electric fields
- Guardian - shields other enemies
- Gryphon - causes ice slicks that all actors slide on
- Malignancy - 2 moves per turn and explodes when next to targets
- Sticky Blob - upon death leaves expanding goo that halts movement for a couple of turns
- Aberration - causes hallucinations for a few turns (see monsters that aren't real)
- Mystic - heals other enemies
- Hellion - summons flying spectral axes which can melee or hurl themselves across the room and explode
- Dominator - causes a rock cave in that knocks actors around
- Skeleton Lord - enemies that die nearby can be raised as a skeleton
- Greedling - treasure goblin that teleports in and has great loot if you can kill him before he escapes
- Yeti - charges when clear straight line from a distance and causes knockback on contact
- Sasquatch - freezes targets (the old Yeti ability, so not technically new maybe)
- Mudslinger - lobs mud missiles that obscure the screen
Below is a screenshot of the Mudslinger enemy, this guy lobs clusters of mud at the player that cause a screen space mud splat which obscures the playfield for a few turns before it falls away.
We've also now completed the last background environment, a firely volcanic valley and it looks super cool with all the animated particles and parallax layers.
Finally, we've put a ton of work into getting the story mode complete and playable. We're proud to annouce now that the entire story is now playable from start to finish. Of course we'll be tuning the difficulty, balance, and progression going forward but just having the whole thing in there is a huge milestone. Below is one of the new battle arenas that have been created for each of the seven Guild Wizard bosses, these wizards also got a couple of new shared abilities for their fight.
Here are some of the recent development highlights, or read the full list of changes on the Spellbind Studios news blog
Major Changes
- 14 new enemies: Fury, Tempest, Guardian, Gryphon, Malignancy, Sticky Blob, Aberration, Mystic, Hellion, Dominator, Skeleton Lord, Greedling, Sasquatch, Mudslinger
- Entire game is now playable from start to finish
- New "Lava" background environment
- Added Maugris boss
- Added Hosperak boss with unique background environment of the "Master Rift"
- New battle arenas for all 8 bosses
- All Guild Wizard bosses can now teleport, throw a ball of energy, and get 2 actions per turn
- Added end game cinematic scene and music
- New music for the 7 Guild Wizard bosses including new victory music after you beat them
- New music for Hosperak battle
Minor Changes
- Shield now cheaper but protects less
- Sentinel defense decreased by 50%
- Health affix group is now "health minor" and is no longer allowed on body armor
- Added health major affixes that have 2x the benefit but are only allowed on body armor
- Decreased the material cost of many spells
- Decreased singularity damage amount
- Shield now prevents all forms of knockback
- Tweaked the colors for all elemental rifts
- Elemental rifts now contain only monsters from that elemental school
- Added new portals for the master rifts based on the plasma orb effect
- Animated title screen
- Spectral axe now has more health
- Decrease transmute chance for Anomaly
- Wizard/Hosperak bosses now drop materials when damaged 60% of the time
- Golems now have 2 moves per turn
- Drastically less overall spell points are now awarded
- Malignancy now has a 20% change to melee attack instead of blow up
- Followers defense reduced 50%
- Ice guild wizard attack strength reduced 25%
- Lance and sword damage decreased slightly
- Eggs now more likely to hatch monsters
- Mystic heal amount increased and can now be cast on and from champions
Fixes
- Fixed being able to place spell runes in the enchantment shrine
- Fixed spectral axes not dying when their boss owner (or boss ultimate owner) died
- Fixed Tempest eggs not being destroyed if their owner (or ultimate owner) was a boss when the boss died
- Fixed infinite loop crash in the Fury "Advance Skill" logic
- Fixed Maugris quest closing logic so that it is closed when you enter the master rift
- Fixed blue materials setting a minimap floor color
- Fixed AIs always attacking the same target when there was another possible target at same range
- Fixed forgestone UI sizing
- Fixed spectral axe not attacking
- Fixed save game corruption when you got over 128 properties
Company
- Submitted for consideration to be included in the IndieMegabooth at PAX Prime and IndieCade 2016, wish us luck!