- minor bug fixes
- shader redesign
- updated vfx
- updated sfx

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So far the design diaries are still very much in the pre-production phase, where I am trying to sort out my thoughts on what kind of game I want to make, before actually figuring out all the various details. Today I put together my thinking about the incentives games put on players to make decisions and seek goals.

A lot of game design is about applying pressure on the player to create an interesting end state for a game. In a competitive game, the end is important and the pressure is typically another player who is competing against you. For a single player game however, both pressure and end state become important factors that have to be manually shaped. Early on in thinking through Amberspire's design, the question was simple enough - what is pushing the player forward?

My design tendency is to make anything the player is doing important and relevant to the system overall as a whole. I find it very rewarding for the player when all the threads of a design are pulling their strongest towards a single goal, but this can feel overwhelming if every decision has a great importance. Certainly The Banished Vault has this, for better and worse. For Amberspire I don't want decisions to feel pointless but I do want to encourage 'messing around', for lack of a better term.

Pressure can be vague so I’ll be specific - essentially I see it as a reason the player should do something, to actively choose one action over another. You take a move to advance a position in chess, because the other player will gain territory if you make a ‘useless’ move. The pressure is in doing one specific action over another, or suffer some penalty. In The Banished Vault, you visit planets with the resources you need, because you have a limited time in the solar system. The ultimate end conditions for a game directly drive these pressures, but as I'll elaborate below, not all of them! Chess is sufficiently interesting with the sole threat of your opponent winning.

For Amberspire, my goal is to have these end state pressures be relatively minimal, to reduce that "every move must count" feeling. This is partly because the game is so dice driven - the consequence of most rolls are fairly mild, and resolving those consequences is not complex or time-consuming. My goal is for a lighter city-builder instead of an intense strategy game where every action has multiple and immediate consequences.

This affords the messing around. I highly value messing around in games of all kinds, and I think the majority of players do too. Messing around in our context is simply taking actions that do not further the player's position in the game towards an end point. This is very straightforward in open world videogames or crpgs - a sidequest. In something like a tabletop rpg, one could argue the entire goal is to mess around. For a board game, which typically has more specific end points and competitors, messing around can be exploring the design space to see what might be possible.

By making dice such a central factor in Amberspire, I am actively embracing messing around. The dice are meant to nudge you around in your pursuit of your goals, and add unpredictability to how your city grows. Even so, because of the generally light pressures on the player, messing around is encouraged. Rolling a bunch of dice and seeing what happens is a perfectly valid way to play the game, and will still result in interesting outcomes. The goal in this early phase of the design was to construct a system that encourages this without feeling like actions are pointless or meant nothing at all.

So, what are the end states and what goals do they give the player? In some ways these are nebulous. There’s certainly a version of this game that is more run-based, where cities fail and the player should try again with better luck and/or strategy. Or, as city builders typically do, there is no strictly defined end goal. Big simulationist city builders end when the player no longer has interest in running this particular city, or eventually the homeostatic processes fail and the city falls to ruin, or both.

Neither of these felt particularly right for Amberspire. I wasn’t making a simulationist game, but I also didn’t want to impose a strong loss condition. I also want to explore a kind of ‘maintenance’ play, where the city does not grow or shrink but still provides challenge and drama for the player. As it stands now, the game does have a demarcated end state, but it's both optional and somewhere between 'totally start over' and 'play forever'.

Without a strong win/loss condition, as a designer I want to be aware of the goals the player will approach the game with. In my notes I outlined what I thought those goals might be, mostly to keep them in mind for myself. Those goals are:

• Expression - designing and organizing the city in a specific manner
  
• Growth - making as large a city as they can imagine or the game will allow
  
• Storytelling - narratively interesting events arising from the systems or player actions
  
• Stability - Creating a city that can handle unexpected events or bad dice rolls
  
• Luck & Drama - creating a plan that hinges on lucky dice rolls, or generally exploring the dice system
  
• Efficiency - using only the dice and resources necessary (or a small city) for maximum achievement of other values listed here

Not all of these are equally supported by the game, or given a full suite of tools to explore to the fullest. Nor is this probably a complete list! But early on to give a design some direction or some metric to judge ideas upon, it's a pretty good start.

We have just shipped an updated Steam Deck Client to the Preview/Beta channel.

General

• Fixed an error on the Downloads page when a Free to Play game is removed during installation

Steam Input

• Reduced polling rate while the Steam Frame Limiter is active to save additional power. This can save up to 6% on battery life when running at 30fps in a low-power game like HL2

• Fixed an error on the virtual menu settings when bound to gyro

Faithful players, we have an very special announcement to make!

Our next game is titled Past Mistakes - Act I, developed under our Cock-N-Tiel Studios umbrella, and we’re looking to release the first chapter very soon!

💎 WISHLITST NOW 💎



🏆 ABOUT THE GAME



Two worlds - Two fates! Experience the story of Cyrus, a man in a transitional point in his life, mired in past mistakes, fractured relationships and unresolved trauma. While attempting to restart his life in a new city with a new job, he is thrust into the fantasy world of Cadagan, tasked with taking down the evil insurgent king Monn Molian. But, due to a mishap in the spell bringing him to Cadagan, Cyrus is now tethered to both worlds, forcing him to alternate days between each and overcome his seemingly-insurmountable and conflicting priorities. Turbulent relationships from days gone by and past mistakes will resurface in Cyrus’s life, both in his world and in the fantasy realm, leaving him to deal with the consequences.



Past Mistakes is a straight visual novel, both in the sense that the structure is very traditional to a normal visual novel, with many branching pathways and multiple endings, and in that the sexual content is mostly geared toward straight male-on-female scenes. By default the game is to be released on Steam as a streamlined version without its sexual content, alongside a free patch that unlocks said content.

The game’s Steam and Epic Store pages are now live, so be sure to wishlist it and show your interest leading up to the game’s launch!

💎 WISHLITST NOW 💎

We’re anxious and excited to show off more of Past Mistakes as we continue to work on it! We’re hard at rendering, editing and rewriting the game’s first release and we can’t wait to see what you think!

Love, Cock-N-Tiel Studios!

Quick one today - I've been quietly working in the background over the last few weeks on a new monster taming system. I rolled it out a few weeks ago in the Veil for current endgame players and then added it to the very beginning of the game for new players. If you missed that beginning of game pickup, it can be encountered in the Veil after the Orc War begins and all additional party members are found. This is the first time you can name an ally!

More recently, a new "epic quality" sword pattern can be pieced together in the Frostbrood Lair after the Titan is defeated. The challenge was created using level 10 enemies to combat the recent massive expansion to the An'ura-side rewards.


6.605 [Build #165, Release Date: February 13, 2025]
Notes:
- Patch note data for the 6.603-6.604 builds have been lost, but their contents are still in game.
New:
- A new sword can be built in the Frostbrood Lair after the Titan is gone with parts gathered from nearby rifts.

6.602 [Build #163, Release Date: February 01, 2025]
New:
- A new ally can be found in the very beginning of the game. If missed, they are instead wandering the Veil during the Orc War campaign. If collected during the Orc War, they immediately raise to level 20.
Fixes:
- When exiting the costumed Halloween event, the original versions of Miles and Riley are returned to the party even if the save file had the alternate costume versions.
Updates & Changes:
- Removed the script conditions for separating DLC from non DLC files. Now, only the DLC maps are removed.

Players are now not invulnerable anymore (accidentally left developer cheat active)
Fixed animation for spear throw stance when walking/running

Hey everyone! Just a quick reminder that our FREE Playtest goes live on April 30th! This is your chance to jump in and experience the combat we've been crafting.

🔥 Play as:

✅ Black Ant
✅ Termite
✅ Honey Bee
✅ Jumping Spider

Try out each character’s unique abilities and get a feel for the battles ahead! Later this year, we’ll be adding even more playable creatures as we continue developing the sandbox campaign mode.

Your feedback is invaluable, so let us know what you think! See you in the fight on April 30th! 🏆

See you all there,

Arcane Worlds.

Hi, thanks for the continued support and feedback!

There are 4 main changes:

• Holding down the upgrade button on ponds is faster now, making it more easily noticable.
  
• The in-game achievement that was very hard to get has been removed. (Reach lv. 100)
  
• Added a new achievement for unlocking the last fish!
  
• Added an option to disable the sound effects of ponds, intended for late game usage.

-Skye
c:

• Adjustments to auto transparency scaling
  
• Legendary and ascended weapon effects are now displayed in character selection screen (v.0.9.11.0c3)
  
• Moving the player effect transparency slider will automatically deactivate the auto effect adjustment (v.0.9.11.0d)
  
• You can now close stats and crafting window by pressing the esc button on keys and controller (v.0.9.11.0k)

• Slightly increased awakened gatekeeper spawn chance scaling
  
• Slightly increased spawn chance of Echoes Of Fate world event
  
• Dodge regeneration skill nodes now grant +10 % dodge reg (was +40 before). (v.0.9.11.0g)
  
• Slightly reduced grace time after dodge trigger, as with the new added dodge cancelation possibilities would allow for permanent invincibility (v.0.9.11.0g)
  
• Heleja blink specialisation now has +1 dodge cost and as compensation grants +1 max dodge (v.0.9.11.0i)
  
• Gloomtide has reduced resource cost 6 endurnce (was 10) and 6 energy (was 10) (v.0.9.11.0g)
  
• Reduced movement speed of epic map mod enemy effect (0.9.11.0h)
  
• Reduced boss spawn rate (v.0.9.11.0k)

• Fixed crashes for World Event that spawn specific enemies and bosses
  
• Fixed not able to attack after closing crafting window from in game
  
• Fixed wrong updated map info
  
• Fixed echo weapons showing icons on minimap
  
• Fixed multiple generated maps after unlocking the pathfinder for the first time
  
• Fixed long idle time for companions after respawn
  
• Fixed a bug that caused shapeshift trinket attacks to consume more resources as indicated
  
• Fixed lost focus for controller on eacho weapon crafting
  
• Fixed auto effect transparency setting not being correctly saved and applied (v.0.9.11.0c2)
  
• Fixed legendary and ascened weapon effects not being displayed directly after loading save file (v.0.9.11.0c3)
  
• Fix of a performance regression in latest hotfix for companions (v.0.9.11.0d)
  
• Fixed normal map bosses take over a shield from last boss fight (v.0.9.11.0d)
  
• Fixed a but that caused Echoes of Fate to be removed from maps (v.0.9.11.0f)
  
• Fixed shooting traps not shooting consistant (v.0.9.11.0h)
  
• Fixed a bug that caused emerald staff not having weapon resource cost applied (v.0.9.11.0j)
  
• Fixed condition damage not being updated directly after changing your skills (v.0.9.11.0l)
  
• Fixed map reset after completing a rift (v.0.9.11.0l)

For our one-week anniversary, we have... another small patch!
These are probably going to be reducing in frequency now that the game has stabilized substantially.

Fixed instances of dialogue scenes not starting properly sometimes
Fixed crashing issue when pressing “Next Unit” immediately as the player phase starts
Fixed controller binds not saving sometimes
Fixed instances of low FPS on deployment phase
Fixed issues with the “Here Comes the Cavalry” achievement
Fixed rare instance of items having negative stacks after events where you donate items
Gaining money from an item in the middle of an event allows you to select options you couldn’t previously afford
You can no longer choose to send your Unit’s equipped weapon to the Caravan when getting an item with a full inventory
Game text and UI tweaks

We are still trying to investigate why the game is having trouble on some people's Steam Decks. Truth be told, some of us on the dev team have Steam Decks and the game works fine on those, so it's been a tricky one to solve. Please let us know as many details as you can if you're trying to play the game on a Steam Deck and the game locks up.