Hello Warriors!
Halloween is nearly upon us, and until next week, The Last Spell AND its DLCs are on sale, so that could give you an idea of screaming when losing AGAIN against Cetusia.
Last time, we showed you one of the new features of the upcoming DLC, the Divergences. That brought a LOT of... passionate comments from players! We definitely read them all, and we understand that didn’t fully explain the core loop of the DLC, and how each system works with each other.
This is why before going deeper into the Epiphanies, we will present to you the Altar, and how all the new systems work with each other!
Like the last time, I will let Victor, game designer on The Last Spell, take over this blogpost!
Hello! Before presenting the true subject of this blogpost – Epiphanies – I will be presenting the Altar, which is a new building that will appear in any runs you launch if you have the DLC. It grants the player access to a new interface that centralizes most of the new features from the DLC.
The Altar has two tabs: one of them is the Divergence tab, which we talked about in the last Blogpost, and the other is the Epiphanies tab.
Epiphanies are a new mechanic we are introducing with this DLC. They are bonuses that last for the whole run and let the player specialize their run. To activate an Epiphany, the player must choose that Epiphany and then complete it by gaining Memories and filling the Memory gauge. Once an Epiphany is completed, the player can choose another one.
Epiphanies can have various effects:
Give a very powerful item
Grant a perk to all Heroes
Grant a global passive effect
These last for the entire run.
Now that you know about Divergences and Epiphanies, we can show you how the 4 new mechanics of the DLC will mesh together. Here’s a simple diagram of the new mechanics:
There are a total of 100+ Epiphanies in the DLC. At the start, the player has access to 25 of them, and the rest can be unlocked by playing the DLC.
Our objective with Epiphanies is to make global bonuses that have an impact on your entire run, and shape how you build your haven, your heroes, or how you play the nights. Think of it as something that can create “builds” not just for your Heroes, but for your entire Haven. Different Epiphanies will affect different aspects of the game: Heroes, Economy, Defenses... and will generally reward you for committing to a certain playstyle.
When starting a run, a given number of Epiphanies are chosen at random to constitute the Epiphany pool for this run. This lets players adapt and plan their run from the start, and makes it so that you won’t have to go for the same Epiphanies every run. For example, if you start a run and see multiple Epiphanies that affect Defenses in the Altar, you may want to focus more on building defenses during this run.
As we don't have Icons at this stage of development, we use the names of the Epiphanies for now. Some of them give a good idea of what their effect could be.
Epiphanies are separated into 3 tiers with different Memory values: these represent how many Memories you have to accumulate to complete the Epiphany. After completing an Epiphany, the cost of all other Epiphanies is increased for the remainder of the run. This means that the first Epiphanies you complete are cheaper than the rest, so be careful about what you want to complete first, as some have an effect that is more interesting to get early. In a single run, players should be able to complete at least 3-4 Epiphanies, but you can go higher by playing on longer maps, completing as many Divergences as possible, or just taking the Epiphanies that cost less.
Next, here are various examples of Epiphanies that will be available in the DLC:
Examples
This Epiphany, as the name says, grants spikes to your walls, which will automatically damage nearby enemies during the night. Here’s how it looks in-game:
If you take this Epiphany, you’ll probably want to build a lot of walls to maximize its effect. Maybe you can even think of a clever pattern in which to build your walls?
This Epiphany focuses more on the economic aspect of the run. When you complete a night at rank S or rank A, you will gain more Gold and Materials. You will probably want to take this Epiphany early, in a run where you focus on keeping Panic low.
This Epiphany grants an item called “Aello’s Head”. It’s a new kind of item called a Unique Item. Unique Items are, as the name says, unique: every Unique Item can only be obtained through a specific Epiphany. Moreover, a single Hero can only equip a single Unique Item at a time, so choose carefully.
As usual, all values here are subject to change: damage, range, cost... may be higher in the final version.
Aello’s Head is one in a series of Unique Items inspired by the Bosses of The Last Spell. This one lets you use “Flying Assault” a skill of the Harpies from Gildenberg. Players following us on Discord or other social media may have already seen it as a sneak peak, but here’s the item in action:
While most Epiphanies have a global effect, Unique items can only be equipped on one Hero at a time, so they will only affect one of your Heroes. This one grants a high mobility skill for cheap, which can be strong for a Hero that plays with momentum, or a build that generally lacks mobility. Since the skill uses Adaptative damage, you can use it to full effect on Heroes specialized in any kind of damage.
Nighttime Cravings is an Epiphany that is inspired by the Ripper enemy, which can eat clawers to boost himself. This Epiphany grants a special skill to all your Heroes, that lets them “eat” a Clawer every turn for just 1 Action Point, to regenerate health.
As the range is restricted to melee and it grants health, this Epiphany is best used with many Heroes that play in melee range and risk losing Health.
That's it for today, but we'll keep revealing a bit more Epiphanies in the next Blogposts. I’d just like to tease one last type of Unique Item that will come in this DLC...
What do you think these are, and what do you think they do? You’ll get the answer in a future blogpost. That’s it for me, as I’ll let Bruno conclude this blogpost.
We’re getting closer to the release of the final DLC of The Last Spell. (yes, we’re not calling it The Last DLC, we know), and we would like to invite YOU to play an early version of this DLC for a limited time.
We’re looking for ~20/25 players to try the new features of this DLC, and give us some feedback about them!
To participate in this beta:
Join our Discord server: https://discord.com/invite/ishtargames
Be part of the “Ishtar Betas” role
And once you have that role, fill the form you will find in the “ishtar betas announcement” channel!
We’re very excited about this final DLC! Next time, we will talk about the Ordeals.
Take care <3