Aug 28, 2020

Skul: The Hero Slayer - Skul: The Hero Slayer

Skul Squad!

This patch features the long-awaited ‘Inscription System’!

Each item will have two inscriptions, and the more of the same type that you collect, the more powerful they become.

This update also brings with it several quality-of-life improvements to the game’s UI and features as well as balancing adjustments.

We also have some exciting news regarding Gamescom and the Awesome Indie Showcase. We’ll be providing a sneak peek of some of the contents we have planned for the full version of Skul! Make sure to tune in at the link below to see it revealed live on air.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3JdqCSysZSo @ 8/29 5PM (UTC)

Please see below for a breakdown of this update’s contents.

System

New System: Inscriptions

- Every item will have two inherent inscriptions.
- Each inscription provides a beneficial effect that can be amplified by collecting more of the same type.

#Discussions_QuoteBlock_Author
Developer Comment: We hope that this system will allow you to mold your character however you see fit. This should really emphasize the uniqueness of each item and make them shine.

New Feature: Restock

- For a fixed price, you can now request that the Collector restocks its items. Different items for sale will then appear at random.

UI Improvements

- Changed it so that items can now be destroyed by holding down the button.
- You can now destroy items without acquiring them first.

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- When already at max item capacity, you can now utilize a new UI to compare and exchange items when picking up another one.

Misc.

- Reduced the increase in dash distance caused by an increase in movement speed.
- Slightly bumped up the increase in dash distance for tackle-type dashes when you have an increase in movement speed.
- The damage dealt by all status effects is now fixed.
- Changed it so that skills which can be used repeatedly during a set period of time will invoke ‘when skill used’ effects only once, not each time the skill is used.
- Increased the shield capacity gained from destroying a steel altar from 20 to 30.

#Discussions_QuoteBlock_Author
Developer Comment: Honestly speaking, this bug was a ton of fun. Especially for the Predator ;) However it needed to be fixed in order not to take away from other unique skulls and items.

Items

Grudge Stone
- Increased radius of explosion.
Thief Armor
- Reduced damage of shurikens that shoot out after a critical strike.
Dark Priest Robe
- Reduced cooltime of barrier from 90 to 60 seconds.
Rear Blast
- Reduced duration of effect from 3 to 2 seconds and physical attack increase from 100 to 80%.
Fire Spirit Salamander/Water Spirit Undine/Earth Spirit Gnome/Wind Spirit Sylphid/Dark Spirit Shade
- Even if a Spirit’s cooltime is over, it will not attack or waste it’s chance to attack if no enemies are in range.

#Discussions_QuoteBlock_Author
Developer Comment: Spirits should be much more efficient than before.

Quintessence

Cyclops
- Increased the shield’s capacity from 20 to 30.

Enemies

- Increased the HP of all enemies (especially for enemies in the later chapters)

Fan art Highlights

#Discussions_QuoteBlock_Author
Not sure how we feel about this, but it looks cool, right? ;)

TheGuyWhoSaidLol : https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2207257735

Streamer of the Week

Beelz
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wk44ek3h0A

Jul 21, 2020

Early Access Patch Notes #13(Edited)

Skul: The Hero Slayer - Skul: The Hero Slayer

We've dispatched a hotfix to fix some bugs that were occuring in the Release 2.1 build.

1. Fixed it so that the Ghoul can no longer grow to an abnormal size.
2. Fixed an issue where the attack upgrade effect of items didn't register properly for some Quintessence.
3. Fixed bug where the Rock Star would freeze under certain conditions.
------------------------------

Hello Everyone!
This new patch introduces 3 new skulls to the Land of Harmonia!
First we have the Rock Star, which harnesses the ‘Power of Heavy Metal’ to wreak havoc on its enemies. Try it out for yourself, but make sure to play until the very end of the song for a little surprise. You can see what we’re talking about below~

Next we have the Ghoul, which can wipe out multiple enemies with one belly flop and even grow in size to squash Carleon Soldiers like peas.

Last but definitely not least we have the Archmage, which can charge up to unleash devastating AoE attacks. This lends itself to a different playstyle than the other skulls and should add a really interesting dynamic to your runs.

In addition to that, we slightly reduced the HP of enemies in Chapter 1 & 2 to make it a little easier for newer players to adjust to the game. We also fixed a bunch of bugs that you reported.
See below for more details.

System

Fixed problem where the color code for attack types didn’t display properly in the inventory.
Added 1 ‘Effect Count’ to all food purchased in the Black Market to address the issue of losing 1 ‘Effect Count’ when leaving the Market.

Stage & Level Design

Reduced the HP of normal enemies in Chapter 1 & 2.
Food being sold in the Black Market now heals a percentage of health rather than a fixed amount.

Skulls

New Skulls Added
- Rock Star
- Ghoul
- Archmage

Rock Star

Grade: Rare
Type: Speed

A bone-shaking heavy metal maniac

Ghoul

Grade: Rare
Type: Power

A belly-flopping nightmare with an insatiable hunger

Archmage

Grade: Unique
Type: Balance

A mage with limitless power in its 2… I mean 4 hands

Thief

Fixed problem where sound and visual effects didn’t register when the projectiles disappeared.

Item

Priestess Veil : Fixed problem where the HP increase option became standard.

Enemies

Fixed bug where you could take out the Rookie Hero with a ranged attack before starting the conversation.
Fixed problem where the Adventurer Mage would sometimes freeze when being knocked back while slamming into the ground and attacking.
Fixed problem where columns that were supposed to fall during the 3rd Boss battle (Chimera) didn’t because of a skill that slowed or stopped time.
Fixed problem where the buff effect of Chp 1 Infantrymen sometimes appeared to be way too large.
Fixed problem where the buff of spirits summoned by high-level Alchemists sometimes didn’t display properly.

(Now that’s what I call Rock-n-Roll!)
Feel free to suggest a good band name in the comments ;)

Jun 23, 2020

Early Access Patch Notes #11 (Edited)

Skul: The Hero Slayer - Skul: The Hero Slayer

We've dispatched a hotfix to fix some bugs that were occuring in the Release 2.0 build.

1. Fixed a bug where the in-game graphics would not display properly.
2. Fixed a bug where some of the text descriptions would display a code instead of the intended text.
3. Fixed a bug where the player did not die when attacked by the First Hero with 100% damage decrease stat active.

-----------------------------------------------------------
Hey guys!
It’s finally here, the big update we’ve been developing restlessly over is now live!

This update brings a lot of overall changes to our game. We’ve tweaked skills, items, quintessence and made level design changes so that you’ll be able to enjoy the game at a more fun, faster pace. We’ve also implemented a new system where you can choose your own path after clearing a map depending on what you need. Two random doors will appear after each level out of a total of three different doors. Each door will lead you to one of the three rewards: skulls, items or gold.
On top of that, we’ve simplified over 10 different attack-related character stats down to just 2 stats: “Physical Attack” and “Magic Attack.” With this change, we’re hoping that it will be clearer which items you want to obtain and buy when playing your runs and try strategizing building certain combinations.
One final announcement, we’re bringing you an official collaboration skull with the popular roguelite game: Dead Cells!
We’ve had a blast developing the new Prisoner skull and want to give a special shoutout to Motion Twin who has been wonderful to work with.
With the new update, you’ll be able to play as the agile and spectacular Prisoner skull.

Check out the full details of this patch down below!

Skul x Dead Cells CROSSOVER

Prisoner

Grade: Unique
Type: Speed

Aren’t you that Beheaded fellow?

System

New Reward System

Three types of reward doors added. Can choose between [Gold], [Skull], [Item].
After a level has been cleared, two doors will appear instead of one.
#Discussions_QuoteBlock_Author
Developer comment We hope that with this change, each run will feel unique and different from the last.

Stat Changes

All attack related stats have been simplified down to two stats: [Physical Attack] and [Magic Attack]
All damage related stats have been simplified down to three stats: [Physical Damage], [Magic Damage] and [True Damage]
- [Physical Damage] is influenced by [Physical Attack]
- [Magic Damage] is influenced by [Magic Attack]
- [True Damage] is not influenced by any stats.
Most basic attacks deal [Physical Damage], most skills deal [Magic Damage]
Active components of items and quintessences will also either deal [Physical Damage] or [Magic Damage] and will be affected by the character’s [Physical Attack], [Magic Attack] stats.

#Discussions_QuoteBlock_Author
Developer comment We felt that there were too many stats regarding attack and damage and some of them were vague and confusing. We’re making appropriate changes so that you’ll know exactly what you’ll be getting when acquiring or buying items and quintessences.

Increased item inventory slots

We’ve increased the total amount of items from 6 → 9.

#Discussions_QuoteBlock_Author
Developer comment Go nuts and experiment with different item combinations!

Others

Damage floaters will now have colors to represent which type of damage it's dealing.
We’ve applied physics to enemy remains! You can now hit and move around enemies you’ve defeated.
The amount of enemies left in a level will now be displayed on top of the minimap.
Skill casting animation speed will now be affected by attack speed.

Changes to Level Design

Number of levels in each chapter has been decreased

Decreased the amount of levels in each chapter.
The number of levels for early game chapters has been decreased more.

#Discussions_QuoteBlock_Author
Developer comment We want to increase the pace of our game and make the game less tedious to replay after each run.

Decreased the rate of increase of item prices based on progression

Decreased the rate of item price increase as the game progresses.
The increased amount of gold earned in lart parts of the game has also been decreased accordingly.

#Discussions_QuoteBlock_Author
Developer comment We want gold to remain as an important currency that users will have to strategically spend. With this change, users that have been saving up gold from earlier parts of the game will be rewarded by being able to spend more gold on higher tier items in the marketplace.

Buffs to offensive items

Increased the effects of offensive items.

#Discussions_QuoteBlock_Author
Developer comment We’ve buffed offensive items so that users will be able to really feel more powerful with each new item they equip. It also allows users to strive for extreme item combinations.

Reduced the amount of ‘% Healing’ effects

Changed many ‘max HP % healing’ effects to ‘static number healing’ effects.
Rookie Mode effect has been changed to ‘Decrease incoming damage by 50%’

#Discussions_QuoteBlock_Author
Developer comment We want to differentiate the concept of Max HP and Decreased incoming damage stats.

Reduced critical damage

Reduced critical damage from 2x → 1.5x

#Discussions_QuoteBlock_Author
Development comment Critical damage was too powerful in some situations and item combinations, so we decided to give this stat a nerf.

Making each skull type unique

All skulls will gain a bonus according to its type as follows:
- Power: Physical Attack +20%
- Balance: Magic Attack +20%
- Speed: Critical Hit Chance +10%

#Discussions_QuoteBlock_Author
Development comment This is an experimental change that we want to test out to try to differentiate each skull type by giving them its own uniqueness.

Others

Witch upgrade [Flexible Spine]’s effect time has been reduced. “Dashing makes you Invincible for (0.2 seconds /0.4 seconds) → (0.2 seconds /0.3 seconds)”
Reduced the HP of all Altars.
Altar of Energy - Reduced the amount of healing.
Altar of Steel - Increased the shield duration when the altar is destroyed.
Removed the knock back resistance effect enemies gained when near an active Altar of Steel.
Increased the damage of traps dealt to enemies.
New levels that are more difficult than normal levels have been added.

Skull

General

All swap skills have been buffed.
All skills’ damage has been increased and cooltime shortened.
Decreased the hit-stop duration of enemies when hit.
Increased pre-input time of all attack inputs.
Improved VFX for some skulls.

Sneak

[Gold Toss]
- Increased number of Gold Coin projectiles: 3 → 5
- Increased amount of gold used: 3 → 5

Carleon Recruit

Increased the damage of a fully charged basic attack.
[Hey-ho!]
- Increased duration time: 8 sec → 10 sec
- Increased Physical Attack: 30% → 50%

Skeleton - Shield

Increased the time needed to fully charge a basic attack, attack distance greatly increased for a fully charged basic attack.
Reduced animation delay when landing after a mid-air basic attack.
Swap skill
- Increased duration time: 4 sec → 5 sec
- Increased shield amount: 15 → 20
[Shield Strike]
- Increased duration time: 6 sec→ 8 sec
[Shield Rush]
- Increased duration time: 4 sec → 5 sec

Skeleton - Spear

Deleted dash attack increase stat from passive skill.
No changes to Dash attack itself.
[Rush! Rush!]
- Increased duration time: 6 sec → 10 sec
- Increased dash attack damage: 100% → 300%

Skeleton - Sword

Swap skill
- Increased duration time: 5 sec → 6 sec
[Tetanus]
- Increased duration time: 5 sec → 7 sec

Ent

Reduced animation delay when landing after a mid-air basic attack.
Swap skill
- Increased AoE

Mummy

[Mummy Poison]
- Now poisons all enemies upon impact.
[Mummy Ball]
- Fixed a bug where the skill only affected one enemy.
- Increased the amount of charges: 2 → 5

Skeleton - Bomber

Swap skill
- Increased duration time: 4 sec → 5 sec
- Increased movement speed: 100% → 200%
Improved SFX
- Fixed a bug where the fuse SFX would play even after the user has swapped skulls.
- Fixed a bug where the fuse SFX would not play when the skull is obtained.

Gargoyle

Passive skill
- Increased aerial basic attack speed: 50% → 100%

Glacial Skull

Passive skill
- Increased changed of freezing enemies: 5% → 10%

Minotaur

Reduced animation delay when landing after a mid-air basic attack.

Werewolf

Swap skill
- Now damages all enemies within the skill’s range
[Hunt]
- Increased debuff duration time of enemy receiving 100% more damage: 2 sec → 3 sec

Hunter

Increased the damage of uncharged basic attacks
Decreased the time needed to fully charged a basic attack
[Siege Shot]
- Increased the speed of the projectiles
[Steady Shot]
- Decreased duration time: 3 sec → 2 sec
- Increased attack speed: 150% → 200%

Rider

Passive skill
- Critical hit chance is now affected by movement speed.
[Flame Boots]
- Increased buff duration time: 6 sec → 7 sec

Samurai

Passive skill
- Increased max amount of marks: 5 → 9
- Increased the damage of each mark deals when removed by [Single Slash]

Berserker

Passive skill
- Increased the max attack damage amplification based on HP loss: 30% → 80%
Swap skill
- Increased duration time: 5 sec → 6 sec
- Basic attack damage increase: 30% → 50%
[Berserker's Roar]
- Increased duration time: 8 sec → 10 sec

Predator

Swap skill
- Increased attack speed: 20% → 40%
[Whirlwind]
- Increased attack speed
[Hack]
- Increased attack speed

Dark Paladin

Passive skill
- Increased Magic Attack amplification: 20% → 30%

Yaksha

[Yaksha Fist]
- Fully charged skill attack AoE increased.

Grim Reaper

Passive skill
- Projectiles will no longer collide with terrain
Swap skill
- Increased the AoE of Hellfire

Fighter

Changed Type: Power → Speed
Changed basic attack combo
Passive skill
- Increased the duration and stat buffs when in Berserk mode, decreased time-slow.
- Increased the amount of Energy gain with basic attacks.
[Parry]
- Added a energy gain bonus after a successful Parry

Enemies

General

Changed some enemy attack patterns.
Improved some enemy VFX.

Adventurers

Changed some adventurer attack patterns.
Increased casting time for special skills.
Increased the amount of damage needed to interrupt a special skill cast.

Elder Ent: Yggdrasil

Added platforms on Yggdrasil’s body.
Fixed a bug where the dust cloud VFX after Yggdrasil is defeated didn’t disappear.

Gold Mane Knights Adjutants: Leiana Sisters

Reduced the amount of time the Leiana Sisters fight the character alone.

Distorted Goddess: Chimera

Increased attack speed of the Chimera based on how low her HP is.
Made changes to an attack pattern where the Chimera rapidly spews toxic liquid at the character.

Jun 12, 2020

Upcoming Update Preview!

Skul: The Hero Slayer - Skul: The Hero Slayer

Hello, SouthPAW Games here!

Our next update is planned to be released next week! That being said, the update contains a lot of experimental design elements and pretty big changes to our game.
We want you to know that we’re always listening to your feedback and making this game together as gamers. With this experimental update, we’re trying to implement all the things that we think that will make the game more fun to play.

“We think this will make the game more fun, what do you think?”

Here’s a teaser of what will change with next week’s update.

1. Balance Changes

We’ve made balance changes to all Skulls, Items and Quintessences.
As always we’ll be open to feedback and insights you can provide us. Here are the changes:
- Skills changed to be more powerful. Cooltime on skills reduced.
- Increased the efficiency of swapping skulls. Users will be rewarded for being able to masterfully swap between skulls.
- Overall buffs to items across the board.
- Increased the usefulness of the Active element of Quintessences compared to their Passive stats.

2. Level Design Changes

We’ve received many feedback from our users saying that our game could benefit from having a faster gameplay pace. We’ve been looking into how to make the game have a faster pace while also making it fun.
In our next patch, you’ll be able to play our new level design that hopefully makes the game both more fun and feel fast-paced.

3.New Reward Mechanism

We thought that having an entire map dedicated to having one Grave or Treasure Chest prop disrupted the flow of the run.
So we’ve created a new reward mechanism that will allow you to pick up your skulls, items or gold after clearing each map without having to enter a whole different map.
With the new update, there will be 2 doors instead of just 1 that you can choose to proceed to after clearing a map. Different doors will grant you different rewards, (skull door, item door, gold door) so you can choose which door you want to enter depending on what you need at that given moment in your run.
We’re planning to further develop this method of placing rewards and also add more variety of rewards so that each of your runs feels unique.

4. Simplifying in-game Stats

We have a lot of different stats right now. (Damage, Basic Damage, Skill Damage, Melee Damage, Ranged Damage, Projectile Damage, Item Damage, Quintessence Damage… we have 10+ stats related to just the damage aspect of our game!)
We know that most of you have felt that the sheer number of stats to be confusing, and with good reason.
Now we’ve narrowed damage related stats to just 2 types of stats: Physical Damage and Magical Damage
WIth the new update, most basic attacks will deal Physical Damage and most skill attacks will be considered Magical Damage.
There are some exceptions, a few skulls will have basic attacks that will have magical damage and have skills that deal physical damage.
Items and Quintessences will now clearly display which of the 2 damage that they’ll increase or deal.
We hope with these new changes, you’ll be able to more clearly be able to stack synergies between different items, quintessences and skulls and have fun testing out creative strategies each run.

5. Item Slot Increase

We’ve decided to increase the amount of items you can equip from 6 to 9!
We want you to have more fun trying out different item combinations and continue to feel more and more powerful as you obtain better items.

As always, thank you so much for having fun playing our game. Keep those wonderful feedback coming. We’ll be posting the full detail of the update once the patch is live!

Jun 4, 2020

Development update & addressing user feedback

Skul: The Hero Slayer - Skul: The Hero Slayer

Hey guys, SouthPAW Games here!

Since our ‘Development Roadmap’ post in late April, we’ve been receiving a lot of user feedback regarding our game.
We appreciate all of you who have played our game and those that went the extra mile to send us feedback.

Based on some of your great feedback, we’re improving the current state of our Early Access build. Of course, we’re also simultaneously developing our planned contents for official launch.

Please understand that we weren’t able to address each and every one of your feedback. So if your feedback didn’t make it onto the list today, maybe we can talk about them at a later date!
We hope that through this post, we can address your curiosities, concerns, and excitement for our game.

For our next patch, we’re looking to make balance and level design changes. We’re trying to take the time we need before implementing this to our live client, but please do stay tuned for our next update!

Without further ado, let’s talk about some of the most requested feedback that you’ve sent us.

Q: There seems to be lots of different stats that affect my character during gameplay but this is not very clear during my play at the moment. Can we have some way to show what items are affecting which of my character’s stats?

A: We agree that this needs to be addressed. We’re planning to make it so that it’s intuitively clear which stats affect your attacks and skills by using color.
We’re also planning to simplify the stats in the game by removing many unclear stats.

Q: Can we be able to sell Quintessences like we can with items?

A: Of course, we'll look into having this function implemented after checking that this doesn’t cause unforeseen issues with the game.

Q: Can we have a ‘Save’ function? I would like to be able to save and return to my game.

A: We didn’t think about implementing this feature during our early stages of development, but we’ve received so many requests for this function that we’re recently feeling the need to. However we’re going to have to develop this from the ground-up, which is a massive task, so we’re going to need a lot of time for this.

Q: Can we have more upgrades available through the Witch NPC?

A: Yes, in fact, we’ve mentioned this on our roadmap. We feel that permanent upgrades are a big fun factor when it comes to rogue-lite games. We already made some progress with new upgrades to come and we think they’re really fun. Hope you guys will feel the same way!

Q: Can we have more NPC related in-game events?

A: This is a great idea! We could definitely give the world of Harmonia some depth through NPC interactions and events. But until our official launch, we’re going to focus on making the core game. We’ll keep this idea in mind for updates to come after launch though.

Q: Can we have more map diversity?

A: Yes, creating new maps is a priority task for us. We’re also trying to find a better way to make each of your runs feel exciting and fresh.

Q: Any plans for a hard mode?

A: We’re thinking that this feedback came from one of our more dedicated players looking for an extra challenge. If you are one of those players, we would like to extend our greatest gratitude to you for playing our game to this extent. However, until our official launch, we’re trying to focus our development effort on the overall experience of the game: from starting the game to finishing the game and reaching our game’s ending.

Q: Can you revert the color of the Rider Skull back to its fiery color? (Orange, not green)

A: We were very surprised to see this much feedback about this. We’ll make sure that the Rider Skull will have its original fiery orange color back by our official launch date. On top of this, a handful of other skulls will be receiving visual upgrades so look out for those!

Q: We need MORE skulls!

A: Yes we do. We’re hoping to have 50 skulls by our official launch. This is double the amount we started out with in Early Access. We strongly believe that the amount of skulls directly affects how fun our game is as a rogue-lite game. Stay tuned for more skulls to come, and keep all those cool skull ideas/suggestions coming!

Q: Any plans for local co-op?

A: Local co-op is a feature that we would definitely like to develop later down the road. We’re expecting to add this feature after our official launch so that you’ll be able to take on the Imperial Army with a buddy!

Q: Can we be able to control how high my character jumps with the jump input? (hold to jump higher, release to descend)

A: We think that this comes down to user preference. We’ve designed our game so that the game doesn’t require you to use this function. Also, there are nifty ways that you can cancel your jumps mid-air so there’s also the matter of rewarding skilled gameplay that we want to keep. So for right now, we’re going to leave the jump mechanism as it is!

Q: “I think it would be cool if the Carleon Recruit that appears with Carleon Recruit skull’s [Comrade: Recruit] skill had something marking him as a traitor like a red scarf or something” (@Heyo)

A: That’s a fun idea, we’ll make it happen!

Q: Anybody else thinks that Skeleton - Spear skull’s [Rush Forward!] skill is a bit OP?

A: We’re always attempting to create new fun skills, but in this case it seems like most of you thought that this particular skill was a bit overpowered. We’ll try to balance this out while still keeping the fun aspect alive.

Q: Can we have randomized maps?

A: This is a huge development task and doesn’t align with the gaming experience we want to deliver with our game. That being said, we don’t have any plans of adding this feature at the moment.

Q: Can we have ‘finished’ items that can be made with certain item recipes?

A: Another great opinion! We’ll look into having powerful items that can be made with combining certain items together.

Q: Any plans for achievements?

A: No worries, we’re going to have achievements!

Q: Can we have a UI that tells me how far along I am with my run?

A: We’re thinking of clever ways of showing users their level progression during their run. We’ll make sure to think of one and implement it by our official launch.

Once again we thank you all so much for supporting us in the form of playtime and feedback, we’ll try our best to deliver a fun gaming experience by adding new contents and developing different features.

Cheers!