Hey guys –

We hope you’re doing all right out there!

It’s been a while since we communicated about the game.


If you know us from our previous games, you know that we liked to stay closely connected to the community – posting news, organizing events, and responding to messages on the forums.

However, in the spring of 2022, we just burned out.

#Discussions_QuoteBlock_Author

“Like mages in Rund, developers on Steam can also burn out.”

Humans are notoriously fragile; and when you’re a small team where absolutely everyone works on a game, and you get stressed… it’s often difficult to find the time on writing the announcements rather than the storyline for the actual game.

To cut a long story short, it just became too much for me, and I took a break for a month – which became three months, then a year, and it’s only now, at the end of 2023, that I feel ready to return to the regular communication.

We’d like to thank everyone who left messages while we were offline. It’s like when a patient is in a coma, and the friends and family visit the hospital and talk to them: one day, that patient finally wakes up (and immediately proceeds to post a Steam announcement).


Now, let’s talk about Spire of Sorcery.

Since the game launched in Early Access in late 2021, we’ve shipped 4 story chapters for the game, with the last update from May 2022 – and this is the version of the game that’s currently available on Steam.

We also released a demo, with an option to submit feedback.

Here’s what people liked the most:

• that this is a game about mages and magic
  
• that the visuals are good, and the music is excellent
  
• that the game has spellcasting, exploration and crafting at its core

And here’s what people wanted to change:

• many requested a stronger storyline, and a proper lead character
  
• many mentioned that user interface is complex and hard to learn
  
• another common ask was to “fill the world with more things to do”

In May 2022, we sat down with Nkita Kulaga, the game designer behind the wildly successful Graveyard Keeper, to play Spire of Sorcery together and to come up with a recipe of improving the experience.

We ended up writing a new scenario, and designing a new core loop around matrix-based spells and personal progression with 8 schools of magic and 8 paths of personal progression. The game also received a proper lead character (Kaira, a young mage from the Northern Marshes), and the world received its second dimension (the Phantom Realm, accessible via portals).

#Discussions_QuoteBlock_Author

“Kaira from the Northern Marshes is a powerful mage (but she doesn’t know it yet).”

In the process, we realized that there’s no way that we can do this based on Spire of Sorcery, as too many things had to change. Thus, we went on to develop a proof of concept for the new project. At the same time, we engaged a full-time writer to flesh out the storyline. We created a rich palette that includes companions, events, adventures, and memories – all this enhanced with music and illustrations.

#Discussions_QuoteBlock_Author

“Guild Master Nasuto doesn’t like poor people, sick people – or those who practice magic.”

Right now, we’re closing in on the playable demo of that new game, Sister of a Dragon, and plan to release the demo on Steam around the summer of 2024.

Soon enough, we’ll open the Discord server of the new game, and its Steam page. Our main goal is the demo, so that players can check a turn-based strategy game about mages that gives you a taste of power and a sense of wonder.

#Discussions_QuoteBlock_Author

“Campfires restore your party, but be careful – dangers lurk in the night.”

We do not plan to develop any more content for Spire of Sorcery.

If you liked the game and wanted to see more, we’re sorry to disappoint you. We tried our best. Unfortunately, not every game project ends as a success, and here we must bow and accept our failure – with a hope that this experience allows us to deliver a better product next.

On the upside – our team didn’t collapse, we still manage to fund the on-going development with side projects and the sales of our previous games, and we work hard to deliver a better game dedicated to the themes that our audience liked.

#Discussions_QuoteBlock_Author

“They hit me with a club… and then left a negative review. Hard to say, what hurts more…”

Earlier in the month, we considered whether we should stop the sales of Spire of Sorcery completely – or keep the game available on Steam.

It’s still a good game, with at least 4-6 hours of gameplay, original mechanics for spellcasting, and an atmospheric setting. Develop the deck, craft potions, explore different environments – supported by nice visuals and excellent music.

In the end, we decided to keep the game available. If you are considering purchasing it – please try the demo first and buy it only if you’re fine with the 4 chapters that are included in the commercial version, and considering that no further updates are expected to happen.


If you own (or will own) Spire of Sorcery, we will find a way of offering the new game with a special discount. Especially so for the owners of “Support the developer” DLC (to whom we are truly grateful for having the faith). However, there will be no auto-grant option.

#Discussions_QuoteBlock_Author

“This mage is excited about a special discount.”

Once the Steam store page is open, we’ll post the link here; and when the demo is available, we will release another announcement. If we’re successful, you will find the new game ticking every box that the audience has wished for.

Stay well – and thanks for all the fish.

Charlie Oscar

Today’s update adds a new chapter and brings a few nice improvements in the UI.


The southern swamps crawl with poisonous, toxic creatures: creepers, leeches, snarers, drowners, oorls and swamp beasts, as well as swarms of bloodsuckers.



However, the region also offers new alchemic resources, which come helpful when crafting protective and curative potions.



A monster sits tight over an artefact that the Spire needs, and a boss fight awaits you once you get through to it.



As always, this chapter offers a chance to recruit one more mage, and a few side areas to explore – for those who feel adventurous enough and have a good supply of alchemic potions.



Most of the spells in the Spellbooks have been updated, and new spells have been added.



Quite a lot of recipes have been changed, too, and there’s a few new items now that you can craft from the resources that are available in the marshes.





When we released the game in Early Access a few months ago, mages got tokens that accumulated on their stats: for example, Health accumulated Damage, and when overwhelmed, caused Injuries.

That system was designed for interaction: for example, a Restoration token would cancel one token of Damage. But after playing for a while, we didn’t see much potential in it. At the same time, having tokens on stat bars created too much noise in the interface.

In this update we transition to a more classic system where stats lose their value. So that Damage tokens remove Health – and when Health reaches zero, the mage gets a new Injury. In the same way, a curative alchemic potion now restores Health (where previously it removed non-existing tokens of Damage from the stat).



We believe that while this doesn't change the underlying mechanics, it makes the stats more intuitive for everyone.



Before this update, we indicated the intention of an opponent to attack one of the mages with a small portrait next to the target. In complex encounters, this became hard to read.

We now switch to the system where next to each mage, there is a preset space that displays the intentions of the three possible opponents. You can hover over the projected attack to get more details, and these areas also highlight during the actual attack.



We believe that this makes the encounter easier to read and will contribute to a more intuitive understanding of the mechanics.



Before this update, we used to have Environmental Effects with preset effects but different length. For example, if you started a fire in the forest (EE Burning ground), it could last for 3 or 5 rounds. It could also issue tokens once every 2 rounds, or once per round.

This now changes: all EE now last forever. All EE now affect every creature in the encounter. What EE has is a “power”, which defines how many tokens it issues to a random target. So, for example, EE Burning ground N will issue N tokens of Fire to random targets in the encounter, each round.

This retains the mechanics, while making it substantially easier to understand. There is still a variety of effects, some forest fires will be more dangerous than others, but there’s much less confusion.

Additionally, we got rid of Environmental Conditions as a UI feature. Earlier, we would show EC Enclosed space, for example, that would trigger EE Grey flame that issued Acid tokens. Now we just show the effect that can be triggered, and the counter of tokens that can trigger it.

We believe that this change, like other UI changes in the current update, makes the game flow easier to understand without removing the complexity of the mechanics.



The next update, currently scheduled for end of May, will be quite different: we will not work on the next chapter, but instead will focus all our efforts on the core loop.

In the last two weeks, we got a new neighbor in the office – another indie game developer, whose recent game sold a bit over 2 million copies (NOT BAD!!).

We’ve been playing Spire of Sorcery together with their game designer and discussing the ways that the core loop can get better. They loved the content and the mechanics. Their suggestions focus on how to make the game more accessible early on – as well as on how to connect various parts of the game, which currently remain on their own.

We are also on the same page about the main features that we want to tackle: fold the preparation of the food into a Campfire mechanics, improve character progression so that each encounter and each discovery moves the mages forward, add smaller mini-stories to most locations, bring back the day-and-night cycle, and so on.

What we will do during May, then, is re-work the opening of the game – the Chase – to deliver a more intense, and a more interactive, experience. And we’ll be collaborating on an update of the dialogues, too.



Have fun with Dismal Marshes – and please leave a review if you enjoyed the update!

Following our announcement that condemns the Russian war in Ukraine, we got quite a few people coming out with knives at us and wishing the studio to go close. It helps to see that this aggressive crowd is a minority, and that we have an audience that appreciates the game and how it develops.

Until next update,

Studio CO

Hello, peoples!

Having released a big update last Friday, we've spent this week building the plan for the next update – which we aim to release in late April. As usual, it will deliver the next chapter in the story, plus the updated UI and mechanics. Here's what we can share already:





The events of Chapter 4 unfold in Dismal Marshes.

Once, there was a city here. But ages ago, it got flooded – with just a few ruins sticking out of the mud.

Dismal Marshes are a sad, and dangerous, place to be: toxic, infectious, unwelcoming.

Who lives there?



There are two intelligent races in the area: Oorls and Drowners.



There's also a very specific predator: Swamp Beasts. They use mimicry to fool the prey, then strangle it with their roots.



Aside from these, there's bloodsuckers (annoying swarms that deal "taunt" tokens), crawlers (spitting acid), earth leeches (poison!) and snarers (static water-dwelling creatures from which you can extract pearls as a loot).





The Spire can detect another artefact in this region: Weightless Stone.



This artefact allows its owner to control the minds of others.

While it will help the party back at the Spire to open a new room, here in Dismal Marshes it poses a problem: one of the local creatures got it, and is using it to rule the whole region...



As with every previous chapter, here you will be able to find – and free – another new mage, who possesses special powers. I don't think we should spoil the story, so we'll leave it at that ;).



Related to all the new creatures, this chapter will have new alchemic resources, as well as a new mineral that can only be found in the swamps. Plus a new food resource.





Outside of the story, this month we'll work on improving the user interface – and the flow – in encounters. There's a number of small things that beg to be fixed (such as, streamlining the use of alchemy against opponents) and there's a big elephant in the room that we'll try to handle: tokens.

We love the way that tokens combine, stack, convert... but we think our description of the rules is way too complicated! It is very difficult, at first, to grasp that you can get Damage by casting Acid and then converting it, or to answer the question "which token reacts first?" when sending Fire to the target with Acid and Frost.

We've been experimenting with different solutions, and we're now reviewing all the rules, and the UI, to provide a substantial improvement in player experience.



The other matter is targeting.

When you're attacked by 3 opponents, who use multi-turn attacks, some of which are AoE, it can be very challenging to grasp WHO does WHAT to WHOM.

We've been re-working the UI over the last few days, and we hope to deliver a version that's easier to understand and makes the planning of the encounter more efficient!

–––

And this about wraps it for now.

if you have any comments or questions, we're happy to respond here and on Discord.

Over the coming week, we'll be writing the stories, and creating the new resources and items, as well as building the map. We'll see where we are in a week, when we'l share another update.

All the best!


// team CO

Hello there!

We wanted to release this update 4 weeks ago, but two things intervened.

ːdamageː First, the war in Europe (we published our statement here). In a purely practical way this means that our team has less time to spend on the production as we are helping friends flee the conflict and spend sleepless nights thinking about those whose cities are getting bombed by the Russian army.

We cannot remain indifferent to such pain. Since we published our call to stop this war, we’ve been told that we should not talk politics, that war is peace, black is white, etc., but we are not changing our position. We will continue to ban, permanently, anybody who justifies the war. There can be no reason for the mass killings. No whataboutism or propaganda alters the fact that every day the invading Russian army kills innocent people in Ukraine. If you disagree with our position, please don’t buy our games. We’d rather go broke than take the blood money.

ːspellcastingː The second reason for the delay is positive: with Chapter 3, we ship the biggest content update that we’ve made so far. The map is larger, there are more stories and quests, and a whole lot of custom visuals. On top of this, we bring several features that we debated since December.

Let’s look at the key points:



We’re moving ahead with making the characters more different.

You may recall that earlier, the whole party had one Spellbook that they shared.

We then progressed to individual Spellbooks, and now we further increase the specialization of characters:

• Each mage can specialize in up to 2 schools of magic
  
• There are 9 schools of magic in total in the game (more may come, later)
  
• At the start of the game, you choose 1 school per mage (for free)
  
• The choice of initial schools of magic is limited to the 4 that are permitted in the Empire
  
• Later on, you can unlock the second school for each mage (this costs essences)
  
• You can change the mage’s school at a special room at the Spire

Each school of magic now has its own set of elements. When you change the school, you change the composition of the mage’s deck. When you add a second school to a character, their deck expands.

Most decks are complimentary to each other: they contain the elements that are used by the specific school, plus additional elements that help other mages in the party.




Each mage now has a separate Spellbook for each of their schools of magic.

All the spells have been updated and assembled into trees. Certain spells are only accessible once you open the ones that precede them on the tree.

Also, the interface of open Spellbook during encounter changed to take less space, and each school of magic has its own button to call up the relevant Spellbook.





All three chapters now have Monoliths, which are a source of magic energy.

To collect the energy, find the monoliths and step on them. Each map has up to 4 monoliths.

Magic energy is used to operate all the rooms in the Spire.





After Chapter 1, the Spire now gets the following rooms:

• Master’s chambers – read stories from the Truthsayer
  
• Altar of restoration – heal ailments
  
• Living quarters – review all characters and inventory
  
• Scriptorium – change magic schools
  
• Beacon – summon new characters

After Chapter 2, one more room becomes available:

• Cavern of resurrection – bring back the dead

And after Chapter 3, there’s one more room as well:

• Transmutation hall – obtain alchemic resources

The chapter brings the mages into the Elderwood: home to two tribes in conflict, and a dark secret that looms over both.



In addition to the main stories, we also designed several side-quests. Including one that goes back to player’s actions in Chapter 1. We will do more of this in the coming chapters.

To avoid spoilers, we won’t describe here any details.

As any other biome, Elderwood has its own resources and creatures, and with these creatures comes a new token and a couple of new hex effects. We updated the recipes for alchemic potions and added a few more items as well, plus a new food resource.



Once this update is stable, we will move to working on Chapter 4. The events of that chapter happen in the toxic southern swamps and involve two new races that you haven’t seen before.



As to the features and mechanics, we’re working on a better visualization of tokens. The current tooltips are not very helpful and it’s difficult to understand the possibilities of stacking and combinations – unless you experimented with them already.

We’ll try to ship the new update faster, but at this point it’s hard to promise anything since things change so fast. We will keep doing what we can to help our friends who flee the conflict, and we will keep working on the game.

Stay safe!

Hey guys,

Just a a quick note to say that we spent the last two weeks working on the story mode for Chapter 3, and will spend the next week finishing it. We expect to release this month's update around March 2.

In addition to the story (no spoilers, just some visuals below) we're improving the progression of spellbooks, changing spell formulas (as well as adding new spells), and will introduce 9 schools of magic.

We look forward to hearing your comments on that... but first, we should finish the stories, and ship the update for you to enjoy – so we're back to work now! :-D





Have a great weekend,

[CO]

It's been a week since the January update has been released. Here's what happened:


We pushed a small hotfix earlier this week, addressing the issue of overlapping music (sometimes in encounters there would be two themes playing at the same time) – this is no longer happening.

Asides from a couple of outdated tooltips, we haven't seen any reports of something critical, so we'll roll the rest of the minor fixes already with the February update.

If you're playing the current version (v204) and came upon something that needs a fix... please drop a note in the comments here, or submit a bug report from inside of the game – we'll collect all of the feedback and include into the upcoming update.



Our team completed the design of the Story Mode for Chapter 3, and it's now in production.

How can we share some of the details with you, without spoiling the stories and the challenges?

Hmm... Let's try doing this with the introduction of the main forces you will be dealing with!




Captive Wind is the second artefact that the Spire wants restored. Where Arachnid of Resurrection enabled Cavern of Resurrection, bringing the Captive Wind back will restore the Orangerie room as well as the Summoning Hall.

The special power of Captive Wind is in accelerating the growth of living things, and it seems like it ended up in the possession of spreaders (formerly known as mushroom-eaters). Geographically, the Spire locates the missing artefact at the edge of the Elderwood...





Elderwood is the ancient forest that's anything but friendly to the outsiders.

Populated by blackpaws and leafclaws, it is the territory of the non-human tribe of spreaders.





Spreaders are the gardeners of the Elderwood, planting mushrooms that ventilate the roots of the trees. They are a collective mind, controlled by the Hive, and operate by establishing outposts from which they propagate the spores.

Walking into a cloud of spores can be disastrous for humans and animals. What can also be disastrous is becoming the seeding ground for spreaders, for they plant in the dead (helping the forest recycle nutrients) and sometimes mistake the wounded for the dying.



Wildlings are the descendants of the runaways from the Empire who settled deep in the Wild Lands. Unlike the folks that stick around the border and get by with a bit of smuggling, wildlings make a living from the land itself and are very much focused on the demands of the continued survival.

Recently, wildlings are growing concerned with the accumulation of imperial troops at the border. They fear that the military campaign, rumoured to start soon, will pass through the forest, and their villages will be burned down along the way. Some of the tribes are being more cautious than others, and have moved in deeper into the Wild Lands – as far as the Elderwood, which the Empire shouldn't be able to penetrate easily.



As much as the spreaders are the masters of the Elderwood, there are certain places that even they cannot enter – known as the "red zones". What's in there, that makes humans and non-humans alike stay away? Who knows...



We currently plan on the following:

• three possible boss encounters
  
• a main story and a side story, both with multiple choices
  
• a chance to get one new character to join the party
  
• compared with Chapters 1 and 2: 7 new opponents, and 1 unique boss

Plus new hex effects and new environment effects, as well as new biome visuals.

As to new features, let's talk about them in the next development update.



We are so happy (and so humbled!) to report that SplatterCat posted a playthrough of Spire of Sorcery this week –>



The review is very kind to us, and we already see a few things that we can improve based on the feedback in the video and in the comments (louder sound effects for spells! setting difficulty to "easy" by default!). We appreciate this a lot.

Stay safe and have a great weekend,

Team CO
Vilnius | Mino/Gifu | Moscow

Welcome back, friends!

This is the third monthly update since the game entered Early Access.

Despite the much tougher schedule (we only had 2 weeks to work on this update because of the holidays!), we decided to stick to the monthly update schedule. We feel that it’s important to deliver new content to you on a regular basis. This has been our promise when we launched the game, and we’re going to stick with it! ːmagic_sparklesː




There are 3 main points:

• Chapter 2 received the story mode.
  
• The Spire received Master’s chamber.
  
• A few mechanics got streamlined.

Everyone’s old friend Alchemist got a whole story of his own:



A new story tells about the fate of the wounded scavenger:



Weavers got their maze, finally!



We knew that they don’t just live on trees. In fact, they change the forest to their needs… But were they always this aggressive?

This is the first story where there is an option to change the map of the chapter using an item, by the way. We plan to explore this mechanic more in the future.

Another new story tells about weavers who left the colony:



Finally, there’s a side story about a mage whom you might save (or not):



No spoilers, so no further details!

We hope that you enjoy the story mode, and we would love to hear your comments about it!



The Spire received an update.



Now new rooms become available after you bring back the lost artifacts. After the first chapter, you already have the Altar of Restoration. And as the campaign progresses, you will see more rooms that unlock additional features.

A new room: Cavern of Resurrection. Indeed, it is now possible to resurrect the dead. We just rolled this feature in and will be exploring it more in the future updates.

Changes: we decided not to build the Slumber Chamber, which seemed like something that’s not necessary (or even fun). Instead, now when you travel to a new location, you get to choose up to 5 characters who will join the adventure.

And finally – Master’s Chambers!



This is where the Spire communicates with the party. We also created the system of artifacts that surround the portal and display your progress in the campaign, and the Truthsayer – a device through which you can learn a bit more about the world.




Essences are now used only to unlock new spells. The use of rooms at the Spire requires magic energy.



We’re currently talking to a few publishers about the sequel to our other game, Gremlins, Inc. 2 (which takes the existing design of Gremlins, Inc. further towards peer-to-peer multiplayer and fully moddable cards and boards), and several of them also became interested in seeing if we can cooperate on Spire of Sorcery as well.



We don’t know yet, if something happens on this front or not, but at least we wanted to share with you the fact that there’s quite a good interest in this. What we’re after is a bit of extra budget so that we can immediately start on the animations (which are currently on the backburner since the whole core team is busy with the story updates), and a chance to pick a brain of another experienced producer about all the possible extra features (including crafting and use of equipment in encounters).



We will spend a few days after the release of this update on bugfixes and a possible hotfix, and then will start working on the February update.

We have two main ambitions with that update:

• Story mode for Chapter 3.
  
• Updated spells and a new way of their progression.

Chapter 3 currently deals with mushroom-eaters and needs a proper set of adventures. Moreover, here for the first time we want to connect new stories with the stories you already completed in Chapter 1 – it will be a proof of concept for “actions have consequences across the whole campaign” idea.

As to spells, we’re looking at a tree-like progression and possible schools, where for some mages progression in certain types of spells will be easier than for others. With some luck, we will also be able to bring back the deckbuilding, this time through a dedicated room at the Spire.

Stay healthy, enjoy this update – and shout if you find any bugs! We will hunt them down like the Broodmother will hunt down anyone trying to steal her precious artifact!

All the best from Vilnius Old Town,

/ Team CO /

Hey guys, just a quick note to say that we're currently working hard on the story mode for Chapter 2, trying to meet the deadline for the January update. Building a weaver maze, and a couple of new features, as well as trying to finish a new room (Master Chamber) for the Spire. We will do our best to ship the update on January 27, and will update with more details next week.

Have a great weekend!

While most of team is on holidays, we don't have much to report in terms of the actual development. We've been writing the stories for Broodmother's Treasure, and looking into whether we really need a Slumber Chamber at the Spire (we think, not) – but that sort of progress is not very visual. So let's use today's opportunity to talk about something else entirely, that is: the feedback that we receive from those who played the demo of the game.





The demo version of Spire of Sorcery released on Steam in the summer of 2021, as a part of Steam Fest. As of today:

ːmagic_sparklesː 29.214 players have added the demo to their Steam Library
ːmagic_sparklesː 20.636 players have actually launched the demo

From what we know, this is a pretty good ratio.

We are also very happy that so many players have used the chance to "try before you buy", since our game relies on new mechanics and we want people to make informed decisions rather than rush in and then, perhaps, be disappointed.

And how much does an average player spend in the game?

ːmagic_sparklesː 30 minutes.

That's pretty neat, too. This compares to 1 hour 25 minutes that a player spends, on average, with the main game. In other words, if someone liked the demo, they will spend at least x3 times as much time with the main game – and most who enjoy the main game, spend between 4 and 8 hours with it.





As much as we love Steam as a platform, it has some limitations (don't we all?).

In particular, a demo version of the game has its own app ID, but it's invisible. So players cannot publicly post screenshots from the demo, and they have no dedicated forums to comment on. We also have no way of notifying the owners that the demo has been updated.

Additionally, games in Early Access enjoy a somewhat limited visibility on Steam.

All of that contributed to the informal traditions, among independent developers and publishers, of re-releasing their demo versions as "prologues".

When we write it now, it sounds pretty awkward indeed: the same demo exists on Steam in two ways, one on the game's store page and another on its own page, where it's a "play for free" app with a description that says it is a demo. Quite complicated, right? But it's happening because re-releasing your demo as a prologue gives you the opportunity to reach additional audience, who may otherwise not discover the game.

As of now (during two weeks that it's been released):

ːmagic_sparklesː 3.333 players have added the prologue to their Steam Library
ːmagic_sparklesː 200 players have actually launched the prologue

You can see the difference between the audiences immediately: people who added the demo, did so specifically, and most of them tried it out. While people who added the prologue, mostly did so out of curiosity, and most of them haven't had the time to try it yet (and probably never will).





A month ago we added to the demo, and to the prologue, the questionnaire at the end of the game asking three questions:

ːspellcastingː what did you like about the game?
ːspellcastingː what do you suggest to improve?
ːspellcastingː would you buy the full game?

Since then, we received nearly 500 responses, and it's extremely interesting to us, because this feedback comes directly from people who tried the demo.

Let's look at the most common answers.

What do people report as the features that they liked the most?

• the system of elements and the system of spells
  
• playing through magic, and playing for mages
  
• the look of the game, the visuals
  
• the combination of different mechanics of alchemy and spells
  
• the fact that the game offers original mechanics
  
• the setting of the game, the world, and the theme

If you follow this dev blog for some time, you may remember how back in November we discussed if we need to simplify some of the mechanics of the game, and the overwhelming majority of players said "please, not" – because to most of the people who like the game, the nuances of various mechanics are exactly what makes it fun.

In other words, we take this feedback as a proof that we should continue developing the spell system (e.g. a forked tree of progression) and the deck of elements (e.g. deck management), and not be afraid to introduce more original solutions (e.g. the Chaos Burn).

And now let's see what people report as something that we should change / what confused them the most:

• the game could use fewer clicks to perform the same actions
  
• some of the icons are confusing (such as outcomes in encounters)
  
• some of the menus obscure the game when opened
  
• the game needs deck management!
  
• the game needs more obvious flow for upgrading your characters!
  
• the game needs more lore!

Once such feedback accumulated, we were relieved to see that we don't have the audience splitting into "two camps", which sometimes happens in discussions. For example, one "camp" would say "we want more stories" and the other would say "we want to skip stories".

Here, it's obvious that our UI needs more polishing, and more optimisation. Currently, using Spellbook in encounters takes several clicks, where it could do with just 2 (open/select) if we get smarter about showing the spells. And the same applies to other areas. This is something that we improve with each update, and there is still work to do.

The same applies to the use of icons in the game. The Encyclopaedia is still pretty raw and hard to navigate. We updated the icons in the encounter, and the character stats, just two weeks ago, and now this is easier to grasp. However, there is still work to do with encounter outcomes and the solution of "what can I do with this situation" in general.

As to the lore, and stories, and deck management, all of these are what we work on for the next updates, so we're happy to see that we move in the same direction as desired by most of the players.





What do you think about the answer to the question about buying the whole game – what was the most common response?

The vast majority of those who answered the questionnaire in the demo said that they will buy the game – however, they have had bad experiences with Early Access, and thus will wait until the game is either in full release or closer to completion.

We actually tend to forget about this, because like every developer (including those who fail and those who succeed), we believe in what we do, and are fully committed to the game. Yet realistically, it's a fact that projects fail on Kickstarter and in Early Access and once you get burned, you may be unwilling to take more risks.

The good news is that a lot of people do enjoy the game, are not scared away by its original mechanics and look forward to its release. Spire of Sorcery's current wishlist stands a bit above ːhypnoheartː 70.000 ːhypnoheartː and keeps growing by more than ːfire_tokenː 1.000 ːfire_tokenː every month, and we look forward to seeing more players get the game once it receives more content, and moves closer to its full release.

With this, we big farewell until the next week – when the whole team is back from holidays.

Stay safe!

/ Team CO /

With the December update out, most of our team is taking a holiday break and some will take an additional week off in January to recharge after an intense end of the year. We hope that you, too, will have a chance to get some “lazy days” at the start of the year.



We plan to release the next update to the game at the end of January, which leaves 2 weeks to production, and then a few days for testing.

We decided to focus on adding Story Mode to Chapter 2 (Broodmother’s Treasure).



Now, the second chapter is just a “glorified boss fight”: you find the colony, destroy it, and then have a battle with the big monster.

What we’re after is a proper story of an artefact that you will steal from the weavers, supported by a couple of side stories:

• Some of the weavers disagreed with the dictatorship of the Broodmother and left her territory, only to run into trouble with scavengers.
  
• Your party of mages is not the first to approach weavers, and you may find a survivor of the earlier expedition.

We won’t spoil the actual stories here since we want you to have fun exploring them when the update is released. What we can reveal, though, is the redesign of the map: we plan on building a real maze in weaver forest, in parts – impassable, and in parts – passable with a penalty (through hex effects). Navigating such a maze would be a new experience.





Something that was discussed in the community for a while is how the Spire right now is just a functional set of rooms. We agree that this basic design can be improved.

We will start with designing and building a Master Chamber, the central location of the Spire that will hold everything together.

We don’t know if we’ll be able to finish it in time for the January update, but if we will, then this is the place to which you will bring the artefact stolen from the Broodmother, and this is where you will visually see your progress in the campaign.

Those of you who saw the 2019 version of the game will remember a few earlier designs of the Master Chamber. We’ll take one of them and develop fully.



One of the things we’re keen to improve is the spells.



The current direct progression (L1-L2-L3) is functional, but it’s not what we have in plan for the whole campaign.

There are two options that we experimented with:

• Instead of opening new spells, to upgrade the existing spells
  
• To offer a choice of new spells when upgrading

In the end, we decided to combine both approaches, and that’s something for the February update.

At the same time, we’d like to simplify the essence mechanics.

Right now, you can collect 3 different types of essences, depending on the outcome of an encounter. But it doesn’t offer enough fun to justify the split into 3 different types, and so we will progress to having just 1 type of essences that you extract.

Together with this, we plan to change the cost of opening new spells to increased value specifically for each mage. It will cost, say, 10 essences to open mage’s second spell, no matter what that spell is, and it will cost 25 to open their third, and so on.

Which will allow us to bring another thing which was discussed in the community earlier: personal preferences of mages to specific schools of magic. We think that it would be fun to have one mage have a “50% discount” on opening fire-related spells, and another to have the same advantage for acid spells, and so on.

Provided that we allow to see this, and change this, at the start of the campaign, it will give you more control over the initial party – and the way you want to play the game.



Once we started working on the change in spell design, we realized that it’s high time to detail the whole campaign, from start to finish, to broadly understand the needs of the mages towards the end of the game.

Will we have opponents that need 10 fire tokens to burn?

Will we have new tokens, and thus new spell schools?

After discussions, this is how we think the campaign will look like:

ːspellcastingː Into the Wild Lands
The escape into the Wild Lands: low-level inquisitors and soldiers, gigglers, shadows, a few demons.



ːspellcastingː Broodmother’s Treasure
Weavers, splitjaws, crawlers (plus higher-level gigglers and shadows) in the forest.



ːspellcastingː Demon Master’s Bidding
Mushroom-eaters and demons, blackpaws, leafclaws and weepers in the elderwood.



ːspellcastingː A Very Wet Place
Oorls and waterlings, earthleeches and creepers, snarers and drowners in the swamps.



ːspellcastingː At the Palace
Soldiers, inquisitors (and someone else, no spoilers) back at the Empire.



ːspellcastingː The Forgotten City
Ashlings, mutants and monsters in ruins and catacombs.



ːspellcastingː White Peaks
Oremasters, stingtails, panzerlings and fluters in hills and mountains.



ːspellcastingː The Distorted Lands
(No details, as we don’t want spoilers)



There are a few ideas for new kinds of tokens, indeed, especially for the catacomb chapter (electricity?) and the chapter set in hills (vibration?) – we’ll experiment with those once we get there.



With this update, we wrap the year of 2021. Most of this year we spent running weekly sprints, releasing over 30 updates as the game took shape. We thank everyone who trusted us to make it happen, and especially those in the community who took part in the discussions that helped us define what “a game about a party of runaway mages” should play like!

We wish you a happy 2022 – filled with friendship, good conversations, good books, and good games! For us, this will be the year when Spire of Sorcery enters full release, and we look forward to giving you more happy moments with the game’s monthly updates.

Happy New Year!

/ Team CO /