The biggest update of Nadir’s Prologue is already here!
We’ve spent a lot of time and effort to bring you, what we believe to be the best version of our game! A lot has changed so let’s take a look at all of the new and updated features:
Double Cards
The highlight of this update, double cards bring a lot of new features with them. But let’s take a closer look at the cards themselves.
From now on each card is divided into two parts: blue and red, each with its own unique effects. When you play the card on the blue enemy card, the blue part of the card will activate. Play the same card on the red Enemy Card, and the red effect will activate instead.
Why did we do it?
Cards in 2 separate colors may seem ok, but they generated a lot of problems the longer you were playing. The task of keeping your deck in balance was put on you, players, which was less than ideal. Also, other mechanics like Deck Change and Shop started to fall apart. We had to start introducing more and more safe mechanisms for the game to not fall apart which make it more and more overcomplicated.
Double cards solved all of the issues above, by simply... being double cards. You ALWAYS have the same amount of blue and red options in your hand, as every card is blue and red at the same time.
How does it look now?
With the introduction of double cards, the gameplay is smoother and also more unique. No more situations where your hand was unplayable, simply choose a card and play. It also gave us a great opportunity to add more fun features like…
Cards Crafting
This is as huge as the double cards themselves as it changes the approach to the “deckbuilding” question itself. It’s not that you choose one of the cards presented to you, no no, you can MAKE your new cards. Mix and match your blue and red parts to create your own deck, and bring it to battle!
Why did we do it?
We couldn’t let an opportunity like that slide. Also making battle rewards as double cards would be very difficult to balance and we would for sure left out some of the combos you wold like to see. We opted for a more open system, but also one that is pretty unique for a card game.
How does it look now?
After each combat you will choose 1 red and 1 blue card part to use in crafting. The new Deck Change station on the map is the place where you can put those parts together into a new card. You can mix and match the parts as long as their cost stays the same.
You can also dismantle existing cards to make new combinations of your own, or simply reduce your deck size.
City Management
We added a “base” for your characters, a place they could call home. The titular City of Nadir finds its place in-game. Expand on the City by adding new structures, and unlock new characters, enemies, cards, and more.
Why did we do it?
Every modern roguelite has some kind of “meta progression” in it and its our take on the idea. Instead of filling some Experience Bars we decided to make a city that can grow as progress through the game.
How does it look now?
- Each beaten enemy will leave some resources for you to gather. Bring those resources back to the City and you will be able to spend them on some structures.
- The whole run structure changed with that as well. Now you can return to the city in between battles if you feel that the resources you gathered are enough for now.
New Cards and Effects
With such a huge change what’s written on our cards had to change as well. Some effects changed the way they work, some of them were fixed, a few highlights:
- Ethereal cards: special cards added by the enemy or other cards. They will disappear after using them or when you use the Redraw option.
- Boost effect: each time you use a card with boost, the next time it shows up, the Damage will be higher by the Boost effect. Be careful, as enemies also have access to this effect.
- Breaking: deals Damage to only Armor, but now it also clears any Shielded buff from the target, making it more useful.
Why did we do it?
Redesigning a deck or making new enemies also begs for some new effects or changes to the existing ones. We also gathered a lot of feedback from our community that helped us make the game more fun.
How does it look now?
Each effect now has a tooltip explaining what does it, so make sure you read them all, as some of the effects you may be familiar with could change.
Improved Cards Descriptions
We improved the way the text on our cards is written. We use way more formatting options than before, making the cards more readable and comfortable to use. We also have some cool icons in the text!
Why did we do it?
The old way of formatting did not necessarily make it easy to read and understand. Lines were jumping where they shouldn’t and keywords were not highlighted properly. And in a game about cards, it is more than important to make the cards look good.
How does it look now?
- Keywords are written in bold and are highlighted with gold color.
- Each status effect has a proper icon right before its name.
- Words for Actions are written in italic.
- All of the above also applies to tooltips. We are really happy with the results, and we do plan to expand on it in the future.
Enemies - New and Old
A completely new set of adversaries awaits you. You will encounter rebalanced enemies from the old version of the prologue as well as completely new ones.
Right now you can fight 12 common types of enemies, 2 elites and a completely new boss: Belzebub, the Lord of the Flies.
UI & UX Improvements
Almost every panel and other UI element has been touched upon. We’ve added some card animations to clearly show where they are coming from and where they are going after use. It’s not fully finished yet and we will polish it till the very release date, but we are happy with the improvements.
We also added some changes to the naming of things. You will notice that the stelas are now called enemy cards.
Why did we do it?
UX is the “make or break” of every game, and we constantly try to improve it in Nadir. Through gathered feedback, we found out that players have some problems with the onboarding process of our game. Thanks to that we changed the tutorial and decided to rename stelas to enemy cards (let's be honest, not many people know what a stela is in the first place). It also made the game more consistent.
How does it look now?
Take a look yourself! UX is something you need to feel yourself. Don’t forget to leave some feedback!
More Music and Sound Effects
We’ve added a lot of new audio samples to the game. Cards now make more sounds when used, drawn, or discarded. We also added new music tracks which are pretty cool!
That's all, folks!
We hope you will enjoy playing this updated version of Nadir as much as we enjoyed working on it!
Remember that you can always join our Community Discord to leave some feedback, ask questions, and get some early access to big updates like this.
