We're currently running a social media event called Share the Banquet to ramp up some hype for our upcoming episode, 16.1 - Banquet for Heroes! Join in and earn some rewards for the whole server, as well as a chance to win our super grand prize!

WarpPortal will also be hosting a Game Night on Friday, May 19! If you're near the Southern California area, sign up to join in on the fun! You can find more information on the WarpPortal Game Night thread!

• Low: Pasana/Skel Prisoner
• Mid: Deathword/Ancient Worm
• High: Agav/Ancient Tree

• Easter Event ends
• 50% EXP & 20% Drops bonus in effect thanks to reaching Tier 2 on the Share the Banquet event!

Lasagna (Town and neighboring Fields and Dungeons)
Next week, Spotlight will change to Verus, Juperos, Magma, and Juno Fields!

• New Sales:
  • May Costume Box
• Continuing Sales:
  • Overseas Care Package V
• Sheila Boxter updated

• The next new Headgear quest, the Droopy Turtle Hat, is available. Speak to Frank in Morocc (156, 194). Certificates can be found in the treasure caches. To create this headgear you'll need the following once you've obtained a certificate:
  • 150 Turtle Shell
  • 100 Prickly Fruit
  • 100 Logs
  • 50 Sleep Arrows
  • 1000 Zeny
  • 1 Droopy Turtle Hat Certificate

• Easter Event ends

• Next Treasure Cache Tier is being finalized. Click here for more info!
  
  Monster spotlight has been changed to Demons, specifically the following monsters:
  • Alicel
  • Aliot
  • Am Mut
  • Banshee
  • Banshee Master
  • Unsealed Baphomet
  • Blazzer
  • Carat
  • Cat O' Nine Tails
  • Dark Frame
  • Dark Illusion
  • Dark Priest
  • Demon Pungus
  • Deviling
  • Deviruchi
  • Diabolic
  • Disguise
  • Dokebi
  • Eremes Guile
  • Flame Skull
  • Frus
  • Gargoyle
  • Gazeti
  • Ghostring
  • Gibbet
  • Giearth
  • Gremlin
  • Harpy
  • Hellhound
  • Hodremlin
  • Heirozoist
  • Imp
  • Incubus
  • Isis
  • Jakk
  • Kaho
  • Knocker
  • Jing Guai
  • Loli Ruri
  • Magnolia
  • Marionette
  • Medusa
  • Mini Demon
  • Miyabi Doll
  • Incarnation of Morocc
  • Incarnation of Morocc
  • Incarnation of Morocc
  • Nightmare
  • Nightmare Terror
  • Owl Baron
  • Owl Duke
  • Raydric Archer
  • Rybio
  • Seyren Windsor
  • Skogul
  • Sohee
  • Succubus
  • Tamruan
  • Tengu
  • Wanderer
  • Whisper
  • Giant Whisper
  • Evil Nymph
  • Wind Ghost

We're currently running a social media event called Share the Banquet to ramp up some hype for our upcoming episode, 16.1 - Banquet for Heroes! Join in and earn some rewards for the whole server, as well as a chance to win our super grand prize!

WarpPortal will also be hosting a Game Night on Friday, May 19! If you're near the Southern California area, sign up to join in on the fun! You can find more information on the WarpPortal Game Night thread!

• Low: Pasana/Skel Prisoner
• Mid: Deathword/Ancient Worm
• High: Agav/Ancient Tree

• Easter Event ends
• 50% EXP & 20% Drops bonus in effect thanks to reaching Tier 2 on the Share the Banquet event!

Lasagna (Town and neighboring Fields and Dungeons)
Next week, Spotlight will change to Verus, Juperos, Magma, and Juno Fields!

• New Sales:
  • May Costume Box
• Continuing Sales:
  • Overseas Care Package V
• Sheila Boxter updated

• The next new Headgear quest, the Droopy Turtle Hat, is available. Speak to Frank in Morocc (156, 194). Certificates can be found in the treasure caches. To create this headgear you'll need the following once you've obtained a certificate:
  • 150 Turtle Shell
  • 100 Prickly Fruit
  • 100 Logs
  • 50 Sleep Arrows
  • 1000 Zeny
  • 1 Droopy Turtle Hat Certificate

• Easter Event ends

• Next Treasure Cache Tier is being finalized. Click here for more info!
  
  Monster spotlight has been changed to Demons, specifically the following monsters:
  • Alicel
  • Aliot
  • Am Mut
  • Banshee
  • Banshee Master
  • Unsealed Baphomet
  • Blazzer
  • Carat
  • Cat O' Nine Tails
  • Dark Frame
  • Dark Illusion
  • Dark Priest
  • Demon Pungus
  • Deviling
  • Deviruchi
  • Diabolic
  • Disguise
  • Dokebi
  • Eremes Guile
  • Flame Skull
  • Frus
  • Gargoyle
  • Gazeti
  • Ghostring
  • Gibbet
  • Giearth
  • Gremlin
  • Harpy
  • Hellhound
  • Hodremlin
  • Heirozoist
  • Imp
  • Incubus
  • Isis
  • Jakk
  • Kaho
  • Knocker
  • Jing Guai
  • Loli Ruri
  • Magnolia
  • Marionette
  • Medusa
  • Mini Demon
  • Miyabi Doll
  • Incarnation of Morocc
  • Incarnation of Morocc
  • Incarnation of Morocc
  • Nightmare
  • Nightmare Terror
  • Owl Baron
  • Owl Duke
  • Raydric Archer
  • Rybio
  • Seyren Windsor
  • Skogul
  • Sohee
  • Succubus
  • Tamruan
  • Tengu
  • Wanderer
  • Whisper
  • Giant Whisper
  • Evil Nymph
  • Wind Ghost

Join us on Friday on the Trion Worlds Twitch channel for the next Trove livestream! Catch up with the dev team as they drop knowledge about upcoming game updates, answer your questions, and do our famous giveaways!

Trove Livestream

Twitch Channel: http://www.twitch.tv/trionworlds
Start Time: Friday, May 5 at 12:30 PM PDT / 7:30 PM GMT
Duration: 45 minutes

Winners of giveaways will be notified via direct message on Twitch ASAP. Be sure to check the Other inbox in Twitch as our messages are often sent there.

We'll see you there!

Join us on Friday on the Trion Worlds Twitch channel for the next Trove livestream! Catch up with the dev team as they drop knowledge about upcoming game updates, answer your questions, and do our famous giveaways!

Trove Livestream

Twitch Channel: http://www.twitch.tv/trionworlds
Start Time: Friday, May 5 at 12:30 PM PDT / 7:30 PM GMT
Duration: 45 minutes

Winners of giveaways will be notified via direct message on Twitch ASAP. Be sure to check the Other inbox in Twitch as our messages are often sent there.

We'll see you there!

It's a game changing update this week: most components can be crafted in the Research Table using scrap, the Twig building tier and Ladders ignore Tool Cupboard restrictions to help raids, and all the servers are wiped. Have fun!

It's a game changing update this week: most components can be crafted in the Research Table using scrap, the Twig building tier and Ladders ignore Tool Cupboard restrictions to help raids, and all the servers are wiped. Have fun!

We are proud to announce that ARC Continuum is now full release. We have spent the last few months taking your feedback, improving systems and finishing the content for the game. The final release continues the story with it additional levels, puzzles and enemies variations. As we move forward we look forward to receiving your feedback to continually improve the game.

We would like to thank everyone who participated in the Early Access program and helped us continue working on the game. We hope the continued interest will flourish and allow us to expand the ARC Continuum universe.

We are proud to announce that ARC Continuum is now full release. We have spent the last few months taking your feedback, improving systems and finishing the content for the game. The final release continues the story with it additional levels, puzzles and enemies variations. As we move forward we look forward to receiving your feedback to continually improve the game.

We would like to thank everyone who participated in the Early Access program and helped us continue working on the game. We hope the continued interest will flourish and allow us to expand the ARC Continuum universe.

Hello, Heroes!

My name’s Tom “Wimbles” Wimbush, Lead Designer of Fable Fortune from Mediatonic, and I’m here today with another Sneak Peek at some of the new features that we’re currently working on. This Sneak Peek is all about collecting cards and building decks. As I mentioned last time, we’re making some pretty significant improvements to this area of the game, and I wanted to take this opportunity to share some of those changes with you all.

It’s worth saying that any screenshots here represent work that is currently in progress and therefore subject to change, but that we’re all working super hard to get these changes into the game to you as part of our move to Early Access.

Let’s dive into it.

Improved Deck Assets

The way that your decks are currently displayed on the collection screen leaves a lot to be desired. You can’t really tell which deck belongs to which Hero, so you often have to give your decks quite obtuse names to help you remember which is which. Enter our new deck designs:



These colour-coded, Heroic looking decks paint a much clearer and prettier picture of which deck belongs to who. We’ve also resized and reshaped them while making some improvements to their fonts in order to help with legibility, particularly at lower resolutions.

You might have spotted the pencil icon below the name. Clicking on this icon will allow you to rename that deck (!!!), which I know is something that you guys have been asking for for a while. We’ve also updated the ‘delete’ button asset to be more in keeping with the new style so you can still quickly and easily delete any decks that you noknow longer want.

Deck List Update
In much the same way, we’ve also been implementing a big change to how the list of cards in each deck are currently displayed during deck-building. We wanted to make it much easier to see more of your deck at a glance so that you don’t have to do so much scrolling back and forth while putting your deck together. Unveiling Deck Lists 2.0:



This new and improved display can show you the contents of an entire deck in a single pane if your deck is composed of two copies of 15 different cards. Duplicate copies of cards now handily stack together for ease of viewing and even if you use a lot of unique cards in a deck, scrolling up and down the list to look through all the cards is a breeze.

Each card ‘token’ also features its art, not just because the art is gorgeous and worth showing in as many places as possible, but also to help more visual thinkers remember which card is which. They are also coloured to match their Hero with Neutral shown as grey to help get a feeling for how much of your deck is made up of Hero specific cards.

There’s also a sweet animation that plays once you have completed your deck as a way of celebrating what should be a really cool moment. I can’t wait for you guys to try it out.

Highlighting ’New’ Cards

Once you’ve busted open some packs, the first thing you often want to do is go and check out all the new cards in your collection. This is something that we’ve made much easier with our ‘New’ card highlight.



This effect is shown during pack opening to highlight any cards that you don’t already own a copy of, which makes busting open your first stack of packs really exciting.



Once you’re done opening packs and you head into your collection, the card categories which contain new cards will have a notification showing you that the category features some new cards. You can then go and flick through your collection and mouseover or inspect the cards to dismiss the notification. You can also use the search bar, which I spoke about last time, to search for your new cards by just typing in ‘new’, which is a great way to start thinking of new decks that you can build around your recent acquisitions.

These are all improvements that we're looking to add into the game as we move into Early Access, but as I said at the start this is all subject to change as we race towards that goal. This also isn’t everything that we’ve been working on, but I’ll be saving some of those juicy details for a future Sneak Peek.

Let us know what you think by posting a comment. As always, we love getting your feedback as it helps us focus our efforts on the areas which affect you guys the most.

Happy chicken chasing!

- Tom “Wimbles” Wimbush, Lead Designer (Mediatonic)

How have you been?  I'm sorry for the delay in an official update, but I had to deal with an unexpected move last month.  Thankfully I'm all settled into the new space now and my focus is back on Soul Saga!

https://twitter.com/disastercake/status/850439771092434944


Oh, and please say hello to my new teammate, Senpai the Shiba Inu!

https://twitter.com/disastercake/status/831580118048927744

Senpai and Phoebe love to hate each other, but I sometimes glimpse a hint of love inside small moments.

https://twitter.com/disastercake/status/852952629529288704

Even though the last few months have been very busy, I still got a ton of work done on Soul Saga!  Most of what I do can't be revealed due to them being major spoilers, but here's some of what I've gotten done in the beta...

Soul Saga's beta has been updated to version 11.1.  Version 11.1 of the Soul Saga beta brings with it several graphical enhancements in different environments and cutscenes as well as all the following changes.  If you have purchased the Soul Saga beta, you can now download it from your Humble Bundle library for Windows, Mac, and Linux.  Please report any bugs to one of the following locations:

Easy Bug Reporting Form

Advanced Bug Reporting Database


The Disastercake community is a very active, mature, and friendly group of people that I have been honored to be surrounded by since I had my Kickstarter.  In an attempt to connect with fans even more I created a Discord server a few weeks ago that has gone very well!  Discord can be ran from the browser, desktop installation, or mobile devices.

I also whipped us up some custom emojis for you to play with!  You might recognize the adorable Torne, unique Grumplins, the cutest cupcakes you've every seen, and Mithos!  I'll try to find time to add some more later on!



When you join the Disastercake Discord server, please message me on Kickstarter or send me an e-mail with your account name and I'll set you up with a backer role to give your name some flair!

You can join us on the Discord server here: https://discord.gg/k5PW5aZ

In Soul Saga your teammates follow you directly on the map while exploring.  This follow the leader type attitude makes exploring feel less lonely and the world more alive.  It does come with technical complications, though!  One of the issues I ran into was loading the characters in the map.  In some previous iterations of Soul Saga there were no teammates following, so I had designed the levels to have only a single spawn point.  Rather than go through and add more spawn points for additional team members, I decided that a more versatile way would be to have them load in as the player moves their main character away from the original spawn point.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5yeNwqWk-0

In Soul Saga there are many NPCs, including various animals!  Here's a glance at how I work with a visual graph tool to create the roaming intelligence of the Squabble NPCs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jwMgVN4Rj4

A question that was asked in Discord was what exactly a "scene" is in terms of working with game development.  A scene is a single loaded area.  In Soul Saga, dungeons are made up of several smaller (sometimes medium sized) scenes.  The reason they are cut into smaller segments is for performance reasons.  Here you can see what a scene looks like from the game view and then from the editor view where I work on it.  The scene is created in a way that the part gamers see gives them the belief the world is large and seamless, but in actuality it is decoupled and smaller so performance can be tight.



 

 
In Soul Saga, the land of Medonia has been shattered into small islands.  Because of this, most major traveling between islands is done via airship.  However each major island has several points of interest on it.  For a while, I had been using a classic looking overworld map to represent walking around the islands.  However after consideration, I recently made a tweet gauging what Soul Saga fans think about possibly replacing the overworld with explorable paths.

https://twitter.com/disastercake/status/855529198328233985

The results were pretty split, so I went about prototyping the connecting roads to get more accurate feedback.  What I came up with was met with overall very positive feedback.  Personally I feel these explorable areas are much better at adding personality to the islands.  In time I will add more content to them as well, like sidequests, treasures, and secret areas, though their primary purpose is to connect the major points of interest on an island.  Here is a video of the comparison:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OV6ckKP4-NI



Important news for the Steam gaming community is that Steam Greenlight will be cancelled in the foreseeable future.  Soul Saga already flew through Steam Greenlight thanks to many fans' help, so this news does not affect Soul Saga in any way.  However it is interesting to know the reasons behind Valve's decision to do this as it reflects how the market has become so saturated that gamers require new technologies to get relevant games in front of them.  I have written up my thoughts based on my experiences as a developer and wrote an article for you here: http://www.disastercake.com/blog/steam-removing-greenlight-indie-developers-interpretation/

Your feedback has shaped Soul Saga into the beautiful game it's becoming, so please keep it coming!  Let me know what you think by commenting below or joining us all in the Disastercake Discord.  You can also follow me on Twitter and Facebook to keep up to date on more frequent news.