Yay! KOTCL won't be the same anymore.
So get ready for a big update🙂

Let's go!


🔸 Added version control for the current run (if the run was started in a different version of the game, a recommendation to start a new one will appear when trying to continue)
🔸 Added Tutorial at the beginning of the game
🔸 Biomes’ maps were changed: Story mode became more story-driven, the overall run time shortened
🔸Added icons of event designation (after the first visit to the event in the next races the corresponding icon will be visible on the map)
🔸 Added 2 new sets: Demonic and Bandit
🔸 Bjorn has 1 less Draw
🔸 Vanadis’ Survivor class set has been changed
🔸 Persival’s Golddigger class set has been changed
🔸 Troll items are not considered as set anymore
🔸 Disabled setting of weights in free run
🔸 Glossary. But be warned, it is still in the process of finalization, so it may not always work correctly
🔸 Event log is available, which accompanies the player during the whole run. The log contains brief descriptions of the events attended and what happened. It is designed to help players keep track of key moments, plot reveals, and important points. The event log displays information pertaining to a specific biome
🔸 Significant improvements have been made to the visual display system for combat effects. We paid special attention to eliminating the problem of non-obviousness, which was mentioned by players in their suggestions and during the streamings
Previously, only icons were used to display buffs and debuffs, but they were too small. We have expanded the range of visual elements that help players better understand the current state of events in battle. Now during the battle you will see a text line that will gradually disappear, as well as clear visual effects. In addition, familiar icons have been given extra emphasis when appearing at the start of battle to make it easier for players to navigate
🔸 Most events have received long-awaited development. If you notice discrepancies, such as missing buttons or mixed-up dialogues, or if something seems illogical, please report it.


Added new sprites for Vanadis’ deck

🔸 Look into Future
🔸 Mighty Pet
🔸 Fox Trap
🔸 Ember (for pet)
🔸 Ember (for Vanadis)
🔸 Dangerous Concentration
🔸 Bitter Pill
🔸 Embrace of Flame
🔸 Shackles of Ice
🔸 Burning Man
🔸 BurningMan (for pet)
🔸 The Cost of Providence
🔸 The Power of Providence
🔸 Bone Shot
🔸 Sacrifice to the Spirits
🔸 The Power of the Spirits
🔸 Critical Limit
🔸 At the Limit of Strength
🔸 Annoying Ant
🔸 Sour Ant
🔸 Sacrifice the pet
🔸 Sacrifice Yourself
🔸 Last Chance
🔸 Knowledge of War
🔸 Knowledge of Peace
🔸 Examine Shortcomings
🔸 Examine Advantages
🔸 Deep Freeze
🔸 Emergency Defrost
🔸 Return
🔸 Ice Pick
🔸 Scatter the Ashes
🔸 Take a Bite
🔸 Best Defense
🔸 Tactics
🔸 Bite Hands
🔸 Reinforcing Attack
🔸 Penetrating Attack

Added new sprites for biomes’ cards

🔸 Drain The Juices
🔸 Forest Breeze
🔸 Boost
🔸 Reconnaissance
🔸 Drain Strength
🔸 Supply
🔸 Golden Scales
🔸 Insatiability
🔸 Resistance Is Futile
🔸 Plague Priest
🔸 Sepsis
🔸 Blow Of The Cursed
🔸 On The Edge Of Survival
🔸 Cursed Immunity
🔸 Core Stabilization
🔸 All In
🔸 Inner Reserves
🔸 Self-Destruction
🔸 Hedgehog
🔸 Hedgehog’s Agility
🔸 Skillful Blow
🔸 Armageddon
🔸 Shield of Fire
🔸 Purifying Flame
🔸 Possessed Attack
🔸 Gift Of Possession
🔸 Gift of Chaos
🔸 Orcs Idol
🔸 Cards for Demonic Set
🔸 Cards for Bandit Set
🔸 Cards for Demon of Greed


New Spine animations have been added to units. The old animation method restrained our development, so we decided to switch to Spine. This decision not only allowed us to create more vibrant and high-quality 2D animations but also sped up the animation process for game elements and events in 4 times.

Added or renewed animations for events

🔸 “Who Cares”,
🔸 “Armory”,
🔸 “Last Fly”,
🔸 “Elixir of Growth”,
🔸 “Mushrooms”,
🔸 “Gram or Gorbigon?”,
🔸 “Dishonor”,
🔸 “Crazy alchemist”,
🔸 “Sad Troll”,
🔸 “Father and Son”,
🔸 “Scout”,
🔸 “Peace Pipe”,
🔸 “Ritual”,
🔸 “Abandoned Village”
🔸 "Catching Worms"
🔸 "Well"
🔸 "Arena"
🔸 "Oath Of Loyalty"
🔸 "Ancestors Care"
🔸 "Marshal Lupen"
🔸 “Orc Spearman”
🔸 "ChooseYourSide" - added sequence of events animations
🔸 Battle backgrounds in Frontier, Steppes, Swapms
🔸 Background animation for traveling from Frontier to Steppes
🔸 New vendors
🔸 Animation of bag on the head was added to “Elven Hospitality” event

Added or renewed animations for units

🔸 Priestess (“Three graves” event)
🔸 Elven Archdruid
🔸 Elven champion
🔸 Bandit
🔸 Cannibal
🔸 Veteran Brother-in-arms
🔸 Brother-in-arms
🔸 Witches from “Double, Double Toil and Trouble” event
🔸 Swamp zombies
🔸 Mite
🔸 Cultist
🔸 Poisoned Blades
🔸 The Golden goblin
🔸 Volg
🔸 Millenis’ Vessel
🔸 Mite’s Queen
🔸 Orc Spearman
🔸 High Goblin
🔸 Boar
🔸 Bow Orc
🔸 Lycan
🔸 Vendors


Added new music for events

🔸 Holiday Main theme
🔸 “Gram”
🔸 “Gorbigon”
🔸 “Marshal Lupen”
🔸 “Catching Worms”
🔸 “Who Cares”
🔸 “Crazy alchemist”
🔸 “Anthony”
🔸 “Demonic Blacksmith”
🔸 “Mad Doctor”
🔸 “Wandering Merchant”
🔸 “Well”
🔸 “Dying Bandit”
🔸 “Father and Son”
🔸 “Desperate Scout”
🔸 “Elven Hospitality”
🔸 “Bomber”
🔸 “Hide and Seek”
🔸 “Corpse”
🔸 “Stop or We''ll Shoot!”
🔸 “Sharpshooter”
🔸 “Ferocious Bear”
🔸 “Down with Idols”
🔸 “A Powerful Thirst”
🔸 “Sad Troll”
🔸 “Mite''s Bride”
🔸 Renewed answer and nod sounds in Frontier and Steppes

Added or renewed sounds for units

🔸 Bomer
🔸 Champion
🔸 Sigizmund (all forms)
🔸 Golem
🔸 Commander of the Fire Brothers
🔸 Steel-Clad Zombie
🔸 Warriors of the Cult
🔸 Fat demon
🔸 Millenis’ vipers
🔸 Fire Brothers units
🔸 Ghost
🔸 Nazim
🔸“Dwarven Loot”
🔸 Moggot
🔸 Elven Archdruid
🔸 Weakling and Fatso zombies
🔸 Robber
🔸 The General
🔸 Mosquitoes
🔸 Batu
🔸 Pudge zombie
🔸 Thresher
🔸 Golden Goblin
🔸 Father (“Father and Son” event)
🔸 Son (“Father and Son” event)
🔸 Witches from “Double, Double Toil and Trouble” event
🔸 Cultist
🔸 Orc Spearman
🔸 Orc Archer
🔸 Mites

Renewed ambient sounds

🔸 “Mosquitoes”
🔸 “Oath of Fealty”
🔸 “Chest” (The Castle location)
🔸 “Sharpshooter”
🔸 “Golem”
🔸 “Steel-Clad Zombie”
🔸 “Elven Hospitality”
🔸 “Stop or We''ll Shoot!”
🔸 ”The Puddle”
🔸 “Sad Troll”
🔸 “Dishonor”
🔸 “Zombie Haul”
🔸 “Secret meeting place”
🔸 “Crazy alchemist”
🔸 “Killy and Philly”
🔸 “Armory”
🔸 “Marshal Lupen”
🔸 Gram
🔸 Gorbigon
🔸 Fire Idol


🔸 Fixed the visualization of block (receiving, removing, changing, and working in complex situations)
🔸 The character class selection screen now has the option to go back by pressing ESC
🔸 Fixed the display of descriptions for certain buff
🔸 Disabled the exit to the menu button during the end of a battle. (Previously, when exiting to the menu during a unit's death, the reward panel loaded)
🔸 Health bars now immediately appear on summoned units.
🔸 Intent tooltips now dynamically change their size, and additional special properties panels open downwards when more than one (previously they opened sideways and only one)
🔸 The position of the tooltip with a description of set items in the inventory has been corrected; previously it could be displayed below the screen
🔸 Upgraded Rush card now triples the Strength properly
🔸 Fixed events related to Marcus Pass
🔸 Fixed softlocks when selecting certain answers in different events
🔸 Fixed softlock in the Ancestors Care event
🔸 Intent tooltips now dynamically change their size, and additional special properties panels open downwards when more than one (previously they opened sideways and only one)
🔸 Fixed a bug with the repeated event Demonic Gatekeeper in story mode
🔸 Fixed Anthony's death animation in his first form
🔸 Fixed freezing of the summoned Illusion unit after the death of the owner
🔸 The black stripes at the top and bottom have been removed from the Oasis event
🔸 Fixed the display of Elven boots in battle among set items
🔸 Fixed Carving Set, now correctly increases maximum health
🔸 Fixed the display of the Plague Defense intent for the Undead the Thing unit
🔸 Fixed display of Series Strikes intent for the Keeper of Hatred Demon
🔸 Fixed progression in the “Swamp Fever” event
🔸 Added the correct tooltip for the golem to the “Demonic Blacksmith” event
🔸 Fixed skipping an event battle in some events when loading a save from it
🔸 Fixed chances to escape in “Worm’s nest” and “Double, Double Toil and Trouble”
🔸 Improved visuals in the "Mite’s Bride" event
🔸 "Clutch of Eggs" event mobs no longer change their position when new ones appear. In other words, they no longer overlap
🔸Technical and narrative fix for using the Elixir of Oblivion
🔸 Elven set (5) miss now correctly blocked by Ward and similar effects
🔸 Fixed clouds
🔸 Battle with Mosquitoes can’t last endlessly

Other

🔸 Added new vendors
🔸 Added new arts while opening new hero’s class
🔸 Added animated avatars for the classes: Boar Tamer and Fox Apprentice
🔸 Renewed visual effects at the beginning of the battle (buffs, debuffs)
🔸 Added new dialogues for chests
🔸 Added unique enemy in “Three graves’ event
🔸 Expanded dialogue in the Clan Chief And Shaman boss battle
🔸 Disabled personal and event endings after defeating Sigismund for further processing
🔸 Millenis Nightmares are switched off
🔸 Deleted “Can’t stop” achievement

Persival

🔸 Added new sounds for Persival in Glossary
🔸 Renewed about 900 VFX
🔸 Fixed Thundering Mountain helmet dasplaying
🔸 Fixed display of Vassal Armor, returned the animation of punches
🔸 Fixed a bug with a duplicate response in the Turmoil event
🔸 All button sounds for Percival for Frontier, Steppes, Swamps and Castle have been reworked
🔸Fixed the double appearance of the continuation of the "Double, Double Toil and Trouble" event
🔸 Fixed the missing button in the "Arena" event
🔸 Knight's sword display issue resolved
🔸 Persival no longer jerks his hand when entering the inventory
🔸 Display issues with "Golden Armor" corrected.
🔸 Display issues with "Crimson Boots" corrected.
🔸 Display issues with "Obsidian Knife" corrected.
🔸 Additional dialogue added to the "Dishonor" event.

Bjorn

🔸 Added about 1000 new answers and nod
🔸 Reworked the Tumbleweed event
🔸 The Worm's Nest event has been reworked
🔸 Fixed death animation in Lycan form
🔸Fixed the animation of the Moon Druid portrait on the character class selection page.
🔸Fixed the relationship in the Unknown Idol and Oblivion Grass events
🔸Added commentary keys to the effects in the Last Flight
🔸Fixed the Court Mage
🔸Removed inappropriate note from Mortis after the Elixir of Growth event
🔸 Bjorn's path to Father and Son has been removed. This event and battle are no longer accessible for Bjorn (plot-justified).
🔸 Bjorn’s Stun card now work properly
🔸 Key issue fixed on the button in the "Healing Potion" event for Bjorn

Vanadis

🔸Added about 500 new answers
🔸 Added animated avatars for the classes: Boar Tamer and Fox Apprentice
🔸 The display of the Hundred Year Raven Boots has been corrected
🔸 Added punching animation
🔸 Unarmed attack animation now looks like a one-handed weapon strike instead of a bowshot.
🔸 Artwork added for the Look to the Future/Mighty Pet card
🔸 Fixed the soft lock in the "Worm Nest" event for Vanadis.


🔸 Effects are not always displayed correctly. The effect of getting hit is not always displayed on the character
🔸 Events in the glossary can be opened in all characters at once
🔸 There is no Vanadis final battle, it will only be available in the release version of the game 🔸 Not all monsters in the glossary are displayed after encountering them. Will be fixed in future updates
🔸 Events appear randomly in the Castle and may be duplicated
🔸 Localization of new and changed items may not match. Please send reports
🔸 Several sprites may not appear in dialogues

Ho-ho-ho, travelers!

It's that time of year when the crunch of snow underfoot could just as easily be the stomping of an elite boss or the footsteps of our intrepid heros setting out on a new journey.

As the holidays wrap us in their warm embrace, all of us here want to extend a heartfelt “Thank you” and wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!



Best Wishes and Happy Gaming,
RedBoon Team 🎮🌟🎄

Knock-knock, seekers!
This year is swiftly drawing to an end, and we are striving to keep up. This is almost the final note of the year for our diaries. After that there will be even more varied and interesting news for you. Shall we begin?


A fresh shipment from the KOTCL card workshop arrived just in time for this diary release. We're excited to show it to you, especially since there are novelties for Vanadis and her pets’ deck.






The new vendors are already actively running their businesses, disregarding the dangers of the KOTCL world. However, they’ve complained that their individual portraits do not match reality, which negatively affects their customers’ trust. They don’t look very good either, let's be honest. Well, we agree and we're making amends! Now, when purchasing items from vendors, heroes will see who they are actually dealing with.





We're making progress in visually enriching the gameplay and making it clearer. This week, we've been working on a special effect that shows the curse leaving the hand and simultaneously damaging all enemies. We've picked the shape, but we can't settle on the color. We're torn between the two options below. What do you think? We're looking forward to your opinions in the comments.




Getting back to our animation “operating room”, some adversaries are not willing to bravely face their fate on the battlefield so they have decided to flee without looking back. We already have just the right animation for such cases. But thanks to transitioning to Spine, we have made their escape livelier and added a bit of individuality to each deserter.






Our artists have delved headfirst into the ominous demonic theme. We're eager to share the process of creating art for the Mother of Imps and her... um, children? It turned out great. Just take a look at those little, amusing demon-babies :) (Although they don't seem quite so amusing in battle.




Many of you long ago realized that Millenis is truly powerful and truly insidious. As for us, we’ve once again fallen into the trap of her strong magic. Our eyes were recently delighted with these new cosplay photos, and we just can't help but share them with you. She truly cast a spell over us and our players!




Andrew from RedBoon here again.

Curiouser and curiouser! That’s how I'd describe these last days of the year. It's all because we're preparing hard for next week’s update. Yes, we plan to release a major patch live that will fundamentally change the game. But no spoilers yet, although you probably already know a lot, especially if you follow our diaries. For now, we need to make final adjustments and fix the remaining bugs. Stay tuned and expect news next week.

Everyone is wrapping up the outgoing year now, and I've decided not to stand out from the bunch. I've gathered some interesting statistics for you. Who doesn't like numbers, right? Everyone loves numbers!


Total tasks created: 2849

Bugs, soft- and hard locks found and fixed: 1984

Bugs in work: 47

Art pieces created for events: 13

Art pieces created for decks: 99

Various icons created: 183

Character animations created in Spine: 585

Animated events in Spine: 32

Various sounds created for events: 2829

SFX (Sounds, Voices): 5382

Musical compositions and jingles written: 130

Words added: 63152

Impressive figures, don't you think? It feels good to summarize my team's work over a year like this to see how much work we have accomplished.

I guess we can end this diary entry here. We'll definitely catch up next week. Don't miss it!

Don't forget about our social media. We're always happy to chat with you and answer any of your questions

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Hello everyone!

Today’s post is kind of concise, but we’d like to raise quite an important issue.

We rebalanced the game, changed maps, made the UI more clear and suddenly realized that we still don’t like how Vanadis' mechanics work.

Continue to receive lots of feedback where gamers don’t understand how Vanadis’ cards work, they’re just funny to play.

It makes us think about reworking Vanadis' mechanics to make them more user-friendly and intuitive. To say at once - we’re not going to redo the full concept completely.

Share your opinion on playing as Vanadis.
How fast did you figure out how her cards work or not at all? What things would be helpful to you? How do you generally rate the difficulty and fun of playing as our archer?

Please, give us your feedback, it will really give us A LOT of help!

Knock-knock, travelers! This wonderful day can become even more wonderful with our help as we’d like to release a huge update for Open Beta Test! So, prepare for a quite long patchnote to read. Shall we start?

🔸 New balance, which affected the whole game: biome maps, sets, and off-set items, amulets, enemies, cards for hero decks and even heroes themselves (Bjorn has 1 less draw , class items of Vanadis (Survivor) and Percival (Golddigger) that were set items are now new) - all have been changed
🔸 Routes have become shorter, which has shortened the run time
🔸 Added icons of event designation (after the first visit to the event in the next races the corresponding icon will be visible on the map)
🔸 Cards for decks, items and sets have been massively updated too (Troll items now don't count as a set)
🔸 Added version control for the current run (if the run was started in a different version of the game, a recommendation to start a new one will appear when trying to continue)
🔸 Disabled setting of weights in free run
🔸 Glossary. But be warned, it is still in the process of finalization, so it may not always work correctly
🔸 Event log is available, which accompanies the player during the whole run. The log contains brief descriptions of the events attended and what happened. It is designed to help players keep track of key moments, plot reveals, and important points. The event log displays information pertaining to a specific biome
🔸Significant improvements have been made to the visual display system for combat effects. We paid special attention to eliminating the problem of non-obviousness, which was mentioned by players in their suggestions and during the streamings
Previously, only icons were used to display buffs and debuffs, but they were too small. We have expanded the range of visual elements that help players better understand the current state of events in battle
Now during the battle you will see a text line that will gradually disappear, as well as clear visual effects. In addition, familiar icons have been given extra emphasis when appearing at the start of battle to make it easier for players to navigate
🔸 Most events have received long-awaited improvements. If you notice discrepancies, such as missing buttons or mixed-up dialogues, or if something seems illogical, please report it.
🔸 New Spine animations have been added to units. The old animation method restrained our development, so we decided to switch to Spine. This decision not only allowed us to create more vibrant and high-quality 2D animations but also sped up the animation process for game elements and events in 4 times. Unfortunately, we had to rebuild almost all animations in the game, so if you notice any bugs, strange animation speed, or jitteriness, please report them immediately!
🔸 Added animations, music and sounds to many events, such as "WhoCares", "Armory", "Last Flight", "Elixir of Growth", "Mushrooms", "Gram or Gorbigon? ", "Humiliation", "Alchemist", "Sad Troll", "Father and Son", "Scout", "Peace Pipe", "Ritual", "Abandoned Village", and many, many more.
🔸 Updated artwork when unlocking a new character class
🔸 Added animated avatars of Vanadis’ classes the Boar Tamer and the Fox Apprentice
🔸 Updated visual effects at the start of battle before the first turn
🔸 Health bar now appears immediately on summoned units
🔸 Fixed block visualization (getting, removing, changing and behavior in difficult situations)
🔸 Added ability to exit back to the character class selection screen by pressing ESC
🔸 Fixed display of descriptions of some buffs
🔸 Disabled the button to exit to the menu during the end of the battle. (Previously, when exiting during the death of a unit in the menu, the panel with rewards was loaded)
🔸 Expanded dialogs in the battle with the boss "Grutall and Moggoth"
🔸 Bjorn's path to the "Father and Son" event has been removed. This event and battle is no longer available for Bjorn (story justification)
🔸 Bjorn's Stun card now stuns enemies correctly
🔸 Intent tooltips are now dynamically resized, and additional special property windows open downwards and more than one (used to open sideways and only one)
🔸 Multiple card selections (e.g. to reset or to return from the Burned) now happen within a single panel (previously a separate panel for each card)
🔸 Fixed the position of the tooltip, with the description of set items in the inventory, previously could be displayed below the screen
🔸 Improved Rush card now correctly overtimes its power.
🔸 Fixed events related to Marcus' pass
🔸 Added several new sprites for Vanadis deck
🔸 Fixed the Lens trophy: it now works in boss battles against illusions
🔸 Added a number of clarifying effects on answers in events
🔸 Fixed scrolling in events, now automatically flips the text down once it's filled in
🔸 Tooltips on the battlefield have been changed to the same style
🔸 In the class selection window, when changing the selected class, the sound of the past class now stops playing
🔸 Removed scrolling arrows in inventory if you don't need to scroll through the list of items
🔸 Added fist punch animation for Vanadis
🔸 Fixed escape chances in Worm's Nest and Little Pot Stop Cooking events
🔸 Fixed a huge number of bugs, soft and hard locks
🔸 And many more added....

Known issues that we are already working on:
🔸 Dialogs in events appear at once, not smoothly
🔸 Effects are not always displayed correctly. The effect of getting hit is not always displayed on the character
Important: The effect of flying arrows may not work correctly. They may appear at an inappropriate moment or trigger with the opposite effect (visual buff when receiving a debuff and vice versa). Please, if you notice this bug - write us about it
🔸 Not all text columns are filled in the new daily runs interface
🔸 Events in the glossary can be opened in all characters at once
🔸 Still missing a number of sprites for the new Vanadis deck
🔸 There is no Vanadis final battle, it will only be available in the release version of the game This applies to the Vanadis video as well
🔸 Not all monsters in the glossary are displayed after encountering them. Will be fixed in future updates
🔸 Roads on new maps may merge in some places. Working on separating them
🔸 There are extra points on the left and right side of the castle (made to make it look not so empty, but we will fix it)
🔸 We are aware that a number of events may not appear. If you have any questions or inconsistencies after attending the event, please let us know
🔸 Events appear randomly in the Castle and may be duplicated
🔸 Localization of new and changed items may not match. Please send reports

Knock-knock, travelers!

Once again, Friday marks another entry in our developer diaries. Let's show you what this week has brought us.


The thought of upgrading the character selection screen has been gnawing at us for a while. We really wanted to add various details that would improve both the overall picture and the atmosphere.



For instance, we’ve reworked Vanadis's coffin a bit by adding one of the lock variants. Soon, we'll add more life to it; that is, animations. What do you think about it? Write your answer in the comments!




Life wouldn't be as interesting and thrilling without emotions. Of course, this applies to gaming worlds as well. Currently, in dialogues, our characters remain unflinching despite all the hardships, adversity; even joys don't seem to affect them at all. ‘That won't do’ we thought, so we turned the emotions switch on. They can no longer hide their true reactions!






We continue to accompany events with atmospheric artwork. We're eager to share our artists' fantasies for one of the demonic events. We think it turned out great and very menacing at the same time, sending shivers down our spines, just how we like it. The screamer adds to the horror. You'll find out which version will make it into the game in the next episodes.










Why yes, of course! Did you think we'd let you go without them? No way. Today, the animation menu presents the following items.

We're thinking up and trying out buff and debuff effects, with the one and only Persival as the model.

What will getting 10 health points for each curse in hand look like? Here's a sneak peek.



When evasion inflicts Miss on the attacker, there’s always an urge to make some kind of swoosh.



Absence of block at the end of a turn grants Evasion.



This is what immunity to periodic damage looks like, and if there's Burning, a fiery aura appears around the character.



Now, let's add a bit of occult Spine magic.




And finally, here are some new event animations:






Andrew aka Innrey, the founder of RedBoon, is back on the air. The week has been dynamic, eventful, and a bit tense. But let's take it step by step.

We've almost finished the tutorial; all that’s left to do is a bit more tweaking. I've already watched and tested it myself, so to speak. I can say it turned out to be challenging and tedious. To be honest, the tutorial is still very much not fun. But finding a way to explain and show everything to a player who's seeing KOTCL for the first time, making it all understandable and, preferably, not boring is still a puzzle for us. But we've added the option of disabling hints so that players can go through the tutorial without them. We've also added a small prologue to our story in the tutorial, giving a little more insight. No spoilers!

The final battle. Oh, the final battle, my blessing and my curse. We really tried to come up with something cool and memorable to achieve that 'WOW' effect and all of that. But it turned out to be much more complicated than I thought. We came up with what we thought was a fun feature – spells that you draw with the cursor. But when we put it all together and tested it, the result disappointed us, to put it mildly. We had to abandon this mechanic, and now we're thinking about how to redo everything without taking an unimaginable amount of time, all while still maintaining quality.

We shared our pain on Reddit and asked developers about cases where a brilliant idea turned out to be not so brilliant in the end, after a considerable amount of time and other resources had already been spent on its development. It turned out to be a pretty good discussion, you can read it here.

By the way, did you know that to make the storyline crystal clear, you need to cram a huge number of various cues, arrows, and other hints into the game? Captions and other pointers are something everyone has gotten used to. For example, in 2008, quests in WoW looked like simple descriptions of the area. You had to figure out where to go and what to do on your own. At that time, an add-on that showed specific locations and specific enemies needed to complete a quest was growing in popularity. Nowadays, it's an integral part of any game, and without it, it seems like "game designers are fools".

What am I driving at? Well, we get a lot of questions from you about how to survive the powerful attack from Millenis and defeat her. Some players, seeing for the first time her intention to deal 100 damage 3 times in one turn, got quite upset and rushed to write negative reviews. The one-shot from Millenis may look like a game design error, but let me assure you – it's not. We want the player to lose and start exploring the world in search of solutions. Right now, that need is not altogether clear as we're missing specific quests, arrows, and hints. Perhaps the easiest way would be to make Millenis simply kill the hero without any attacks or intentions. But we still want our players to have a chance to defeat a boss even without quest-derived solutions.

I'll conclude by saying that the work on quest chains is in progress. There are enough of them to immerse oneself in the world of KOTCL and, at the same time, find a few ways to outsmart the bosses. We hope that we'll be able to show those ways to you in the first patch of the next year. This should convey our idea and hopefully lower the temperature a bit on the feedback and critiques.

That's all for today. See you next Friday!

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Greetings, travelers!

The masters of sound magic have once again created a powerful musical artifact, which we have decided to share with you in this special edition of Mystery Sound.

Imagine a ship sailing towards uncharted lands. What awaits the heroes on that shore? What challenges will befall them?

Exciting, isn't it?

Have you guessed where our heroes will hear this mysterious melody? We await your ideas in the comments!

Knock-knock, seekers!

Following our old tradition, we're opening our travel notes once again to make a new entry. Let's not linger; let’s get down to it!


Many of us ask ourselves the same question every day – what should I wear? However, for our heroes, this question holds special significance, one might even say vital. Otherwise, they risk not surviving their journey to its end. This week, cunning and diligent goblins forged their signature armor and brought it to us for a fitting, so to speak. We liked it, and it fits our heroes perfectly. What do you think about it?





Our answer: as usual and as always, many, many things! Let's take a look at this week's results.

Let's move to the impassable bog, where cultists, mites, zombies, and all sorts of other unclean creatures roam. In addition to the aforementioned, you can come across cannibals traveling through those quite unpleasant places. But you already knew that, didn’t you? For example, one of the representatives of this class has emerged recently straight from under our animator's Spine-knife (oh, the irony).


"You're next," he seems to be hinting, doesn’t he?


Yum. And with that he also casts a buff.


What are we waiting for?


And if something goes wrong, you can always disappear into thin air.

And now, to the new batch of backgrounds. Let's use teleport and head to the Steppes.


Remember how you chose a side last week? This goblin deserved better.


Want it or not, you’ll start feeling like a gladiator in an arena like this.


Great news! KOTCL will be participating in The Storyteller's Festival organized by Two and a Half Studios.
This event features games in which a thrilling plot and a story are the main part. The festival presents a wide range of visual novels and narrative games in other genres, showcasing the best of interactive fiction. Everyone will find something to their liking — from heart-wrenching dramas to carefree romances, and even horrors.

Visit the festival’s page; there are many things to discover there!


Hello everyone! Andrew, aka Innrey, the founder of RedBoon, is here. I’m just dropping by briefly to tell you how we’re getting on.

We’ve finished working on the balance of the new, shortened map and tested it, too. We are happy with the results. Sure, it isn’t going without difficulties, but that’s exactly why the whole team is diligently working away on finding and fixing any problems. We’re preparing a big update for you.



I’m hoping that next week there’ll be even more interesting news.

Well, we’ll finish our Friday entry here. See you!

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Knock-knock!

As we promised, we are here exactly a week later and we’re very glad to see you. Are you ready for a new edition of developer diaries? Then let's go, travelers!


New cards for heroes’ decks continue to come on line. We aren’t going to forget to share our artists' work with you. We won't tell you what these cards are capable of just yet, but we'll definitely show you them in the game soon!





There are three things you can watch forever: a fire burning, water flowing, and our new event animations. And that’s no surprise, because they’re so smooth, beautiful, and... looped :D
Switching to Spine is doing its job!


Calmness and tranquility (for the time being)


Have you already chosen whose side you're on?


Ever heard of the cat that was very curious? Exactly.


What can be better than animals? More animals. Another dose of cuteness from the RedBoon team has arrived to set you up for a great weekend!




After the recent patch in the closed beta, there was a curious bug in the inventory code that caused Persival not only to increase in size but also to get into places he shouldn't have. We certainly had a good laugh, after which we did an investigation, and eventually, after finding the reason for such behavior, fixed everything.
But you have to admit it, it looks very funny.




Andrew a.k.a. Innrey, the founder of RedBoon, is here again.
Well, the total rework of the biome maps is complete. Right now, our whole team is actively testing and trying out the result of the diligent and painstaking work of our game designers, artists, and programmers. I can say from myself that it all turned out great and playing in story mode isn’t so tedious anymore. The standard run time has been reduced, and events intertwine harmoniously with battles, not letting you get bored with constant fights (but there are still enough battles). In general, everything turned out just as we planned. I'm really happy.

Our main person for balance and card reworking, a.k.a. designer Ksay, shared his impressions with me after completing this task. His main take-away is "It was very painful and tedious, but I'm happy with the result." He added that he likes how everything works (still some bugs, but more on that later), how the cards are now more story-oriented, and the overall picture has also become much more organic. On top of that, new diverse backgrounds for battles in free play will be added, which will enhance players' experiences and gameplay.

According to him, the biggest difficulty arose in working with legacy code, where everything possible is adjusted manually and in no other way. Between two points on the map there can be 20 different settings, and they are all interconnected. Do something wrong in one spot, and as they sometimes say on the Internet, if you make just one mistake, then… you’ll have made one mistake! And it’s a fatal mistake, too – the map simply won't work until you find the problem. For example, in the Frontier, there are 67 points and 243 roads, and searching for even a small bug turns into an engrossing (not really) amusement ride.
Ksay also noted what a wonderful feeling of freedom and relief he experienced once he finished this long and energy-consuming work. Of course, when you grind for many days in a row without rest, meticulously and carefully thinking everything through, you'll be happy to reach the end and finally tackle other tasks with even greater enthusiasm.

Of course, massive changes like that leave their mark, and various bugs and conflicts have emerged during testing, and new sets and biome cards have not yet been added either, because they don't work as intended. But that's what tests are for – everything will be fixed by the time of the update.

I want to once again highlight what a great job everyone who participated in this process has done; I'm very proud of my team!

In general, there will be even more new content and even more changes! :)

We can end this diary entry here. Don't forget about our social media! We're always happy to chat and answer your questions.

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Knock-knock, seekers!

We're bursting into this Friday to diligently write down a new entry in our diaries, noting everything we did this week.


Summing up the voting for Mortis' notes icon: it ended in favor of the light and graceful quill by a narrow margin. We've made some slight adjustments to the icon's design, and soon it will proudly adorn our dialogue boxes. Thanks to all who participated in the vote!




We get so absorbed in our work that we can’t always keep in mind all the changes that have occurred to the game during its development. But we stumbled upon some early game screenshots in the archives. We laughed, we felt sentimental, we brushed away a nostalgic tear, and we set off to work with renewed vigor. Enjoy this little retrospective as much as we did!




Some new and successful results of the transition from Unity to Spine have come out of the animators room. This week, tranquil (very tranquil, uh huh…) event-backgrounds prevail


Still waters... don’t run deep, relax. At least, not here they don’t.


Orcish urban planning is surely epic.


And how is it that that it all doesn’t fall apart? Now that’s some skill!


Sometimes, you come across incredible things in the great spaces of code. We still haven't quite figured out what the author meant, but just in case, we had a laugh and created another local meme.




Anyway, it’s me, Andrew aka Innrey, the founder of RedBoon, at the keyboard. The past few days have indeed been tough, and here's why.

We're deep into rebalancing the biome maps and making sure not to disturb our game designer, Ksay, so as to not distract him from this laborious task. The Steppes are behind us, the Frontier is in progress, and the Castle is up next. We knew it wouldn't be easy, but unlike samurais, we have a goal — to achieve that elusive balance we've been harping on about for so long. We're looking forward to the end and hoping it turns out great and not too stuffy :)

Also, we recently released a patch for the closed beta and received a bunch of new reports – same good old process. First we'll test the patch thoroughly, and then we'll start thinking about updating the live version. In short, we're making progress. Slowly but surely, we’re moving toward the logical conclusion. There's still a lot to do, and finish, and polish, and we don't want to rush and release an unfinished game just for the sake of releasing it; that's not why we're here.

By the way, this week on Reddit we discussed ambitions and their direct influence on the releases and development of games. We also talked about the role and influence of ambitions and how they can motivate and give that magical push, and also highlighted their problematic aspects during game development. So ultimately what conclusion did we come to? Right, that it's important to find the right balance. And that it’s also important to critically assess one's abilities as well as temper excessive ambitiousness.
Speaking on Reddit, there we often delve into various pressing topics; for instance, you can read a post about professional deformation in game development here.

As for us, we'll go track down our beloved worms we mean bugs and fix them, all while working to bring KOTCL closer to the big day.

Wishing everyone a great weekend and a productive week!

See you next week, same place, same time.



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