Hello, Scribes! We've been hard at work getting ready for October's Next Fest. As things stand right now, all of our progression and content has been implemented; it just needs to be tested and balanced. We have been hearing some feedback regarding game difficulty. To help with this, we added a new setting (enabled by default) that allows players to see their hitbox. This will be shown as a ring, or signet, on the player's hand.
Additionally, we gave Vellum a new option when you click on him. This will explain some of the game's mechanics in more depth in case any of our systems feel a little ambiguous. We have also heard feedback around the clarity of mini-games and encounters, and we plan to shine a spotlight on these in the future.
The biggest focus of this update, however, is The Estate itself. We have overhauled what The Peddler can do in terms of funding and supporting the people seeking refuge in his Estate.
So now, you can throw some coin Vellum's way to gain the ability to strike and favor items in your upcoming runs.
Awaken the Arcane Forge for Sable to provide Artefacts thought lost forever to The Great Flame.
And for those of you who have been really enjoying the game and looking for even more of a challenge: you can help Bastian get his family's armor back, and even trim it (again), allowing for more options and customization in terms of difficulty.
That's not all we've added. There are 3 new Scribes for you to unlock, a couple of new NPCs added to the walls, and other existing NPCs have gotten some love and new functionality. Shout out to Iris for giving everybody some much-needed tunes!
Now, speaking of the future and the looming Next Fest, I'm sure you might be wondering what we have in store.
Let's start by talking about Next Fest. The most important and interesting part to cover is the final NPC you will now be able to find during your runs: Ossian, the Effigist. He is our final form of meta-progression, utilizing the Effigies you've collected from beating bosses. First, he allows you to expand Gimlet's Forge a bit, enabling you to equip more of a given Artefact as well as more Artefacts overall.
Even more importantly, Ossian can empower your Scribes. Now, each Scribe has a series of upgrades available to them with increasing costs leading up to a capstone.
With Next Fest in mind, we will also be increasing the character pool from 15 Scribes to 23. All 5 acts of The Descent will be available, including some side areas for you to challenge and conquer. We will also be adding The Hundred for those of you looking for something more after completing The Descent.
Outside of that, we are working to expand the lore of this little world we've created, detailing the NPCs that lived there and those that remain. This means some light dialogue and maybe some new secrets to be discovered. Hollis, the Farmer, is going to be getting a lot of much-needed attention (no matter how hard I try to forget about him!), and as mentioned above, we will be giving mini-games and encounters a lot of love.
Thank you all for checking out the game and adding Spell Unbound to your wishlists. For anyone interested, we have a Discord server where we are happy to talk about the game and its development, and to listen to any feedback you have. If you are enjoying the game, please feel free to leave us a review on our demo page as well. We are always looking to improve the game in any way possible!