The Hurt in Secret is about to be released in early June. It is available in English, Traditional Chinese and Simplified Chinese. We are looking forward to seeing you in the game in the near future.
Poison Nova: Create a poison nova around you which damages all nearby enemies for 30% spell damage and inflicts them with 2 stacks of Poison for 5 seconds. Poison deals 10% Spell Damage per second per stack. Max 20 stacks.
Flame Nova: Create a flame nova around you which damages all nearby enemies for 100% spell damage and Burns the target for 20% Spell Damage per second for 2.5 seconds. Burn damage stacks up to 75% Spell Damage per second.
Lightning Nova: Create a lightning nova around you which damages all nearby enemies for 80% spell damage and chains to up to 2 additional targets for 50% of the damage dealt. Chain deals 20% increased damage for each remaining chain if the are no more targets to chain to.
Frost Nova: Create an ice nova around you which damages all nearby enemies for 150% spell damage and applies a 35% Chill for 2 seconds.
Fan Of Knives: Throw a flurry of knives around you which damages all nearby enemies for 100% combined weapon damage and Bleeds all targets for the same damage over 5 seconds.
Shatter Nova has been replaced with Shatter Shatter: Detonate all existing Chill effects applied by you, dealing 150% combined weapon damage to each target and consuming the effect.
Hi! Recently we’ve been receiving lots of questions regarding the development process of HordeCore, so we’ve decided to answer the most popular ones! Without further ado, let’s start!
How did the game’s idea evolve through the development process?
Quite a lot, actually! We can’t stress the importance of player-driven feedback enough! While the core groundwork stayed the same throughout development, we’d say that the overall “fun-factor” has definitely been cranked up by a lot!
We had quite a few different phases of prototyping and iteration of our new ideas, and some of them ended up filling in the gaps that were brought to our attention by both our “closed doors'' testers, as well as by everyone who played our Prologue throughout the last few months.
It’s a really good sign that we’re already having a blast with a lot of these features internally, and we can’t wait to show them to everyone!
3 new planned features you are most excited about?
Skill Modifiers! We’re really excited to showcase what we’ve been working on and continue expanding on how we’re allowing the player to further customize their battle-hardened Survivors through skill modifications that can have bombastic results! No, we’re not talking about slight damage adjustments; every modification results in a completely new set of skills for every class. How exciting is that?!
Hordeling Modifiers! We couldn’t let our Survivors have all the fun, so we’re also creating new subclasses for our green-skinned friends with very different aesthetics, resistances, and behaviors! We even saw one of them run away with a pack full of loot the other day.
Our new Quest system! Having exciting new ways to explore our Wastelands and face many different challenges with a combination of dynamically generated content and hand-crafted objectives seriously improve both first-hand enjoyment and replayability!
Where do we look for inspiration? How do we plan new stuff?
As a team, we’ve always preferred to work with a healthy dose of “free-flow” regarding new ideas and influences, meaning we’re very open to discuss the pros and cons of inserting (or, at least, prototyping) any new ideas that have the potential of improving the overall experience.
The balance between adding an extra workload versus said potential is something that definitely takes both the ability to follow a strict timeline and quickly adapt our planning to include these “extras”, keeping in mind that game development is a constant juggle between deadlines and creativity.
That said, while we wouldn’t go as far as defining our development style as a so-called “controlled chaos”, we definitely welcome new, inspiring experiences and allow them to influence our creative process.
How do you test all these fun things?
Videogame Development is a beast that can be faced in very different ways. There are countless creative approaches, but we found that sometimes taking a few steps outside of the “digital” medium is the easiest and most efficient way to tackle certain themes, which was especially true with our Horde Tactics minigame!
Starting with hand-cut pieces of assorted paper and a bunch of fresh ideas on what HordeCore could look like in a tabletop experience, it didn’t take us very long to come up with a fun way to translate the mechanics and theme into a traditional CCG format. We even made some alternative game modes, like “boss hunting” and “2v2”!
Once we reached something very close to its final iteration, we decided to order a professionally printed CCG set! It was a very amazing tool to get more hands (literally!) on the game so we could “crash-test” the entire experience with our friends, family, and everyone attending our booths in conventions, making the whole process really gratifying.
We can’t wait for everyone to get their hands on the full version of the game! It’ll be an exciting journey for sure!
Don’t forget to add HordeCore to your wishlist, and see you soon!
Hi! Recently we’ve been receiving lots of questions regarding the development process of HordeCore, so we’ve decided to answer the most popular ones! Without further ado, let’s start!
How did the game’s idea evolve through the development process?
Quite a lot, actually! We can’t stress the importance of player-driven feedback enough! While the core groundwork stayed the same throughout development, we’d say that the overall “fun-factor” has definitely been cranked up by a lot!
We had quite a few different phases of prototyping and iteration of our new ideas, and some of them ended up filling in the gaps that were brought to our attention by both our “closed doors'' testers, as well as by everyone who played our Prologue throughout the last few months.
It’s a really good sign that we’re already having a blast with a lot of these features internally, and we can’t wait to show them to everyone!
3 new planned features you are most excited about?
Skill Modifiers! We’re really excited to showcase what we’ve been working on and continue expanding on how we’re allowing the player to further customize their battle-hardened Survivors through skill modifications that can have bombastic results! No, we’re not talking about slight damage adjustments; every modification results in a completely new set of skills for every class. How exciting is that?!
Hordeling Modifiers! We couldn’t let our Survivors have all the fun, so we’re also creating new subclasses for our green-skinned friends with very different aesthetics, resistances, and behaviors! We even saw one of them run away with a pack full of loot the other day.
Our new Quest system! Having exciting new ways to explore our Wastelands and face many different challenges with a combination of dynamically generated content and hand-crafted objectives seriously improve both first-hand enjoyment and replayability!
Where do we look for inspiration? How do we plan new stuff?
As a team, we’ve always preferred to work with a healthy dose of “free-flow” regarding new ideas and influences, meaning we’re very open to discuss the pros and cons of inserting (or, at least, prototyping) any new ideas that have the potential of improving the overall experience.
The balance between adding an extra workload versus said potential is something that definitely takes both the ability to follow a strict timeline and quickly adapt our planning to include these “extras”, keeping in mind that game development is a constant juggle between deadlines and creativity.
That said, while we wouldn’t go as far as defining our development style as a so-called “controlled chaos”, we definitely welcome new, inspiring experiences and allow them to influence our creative process.
How do you test all these fun things?
Videogame Development is a beast that can be faced in very different ways. There are countless creative approaches, but we found that sometimes taking a few steps outside of the “digital” medium is the easiest and most efficient way to tackle certain themes, which was especially true with our Horde Tactics minigame!
Starting with hand-cut pieces of assorted paper and a bunch of fresh ideas on what HordeCore could look like in a tabletop experience, it didn’t take us very long to come up with a fun way to translate the mechanics and theme into a traditional CCG format. We even made some alternative game modes, like “boss hunting” and “2v2”!
Once we reached something very close to its final iteration, we decided to order a professionally printed CCG set! It was a very amazing tool to get more hands (literally!) on the game so we could “crash-test” the entire experience with our friends, family, and everyone attending our booths in conventions, making the whole process really gratifying.
We can’t wait for everyone to get their hands on the full version of the game! It’ll be an exciting journey for sure!
Don’t forget to add HordeCore to your wishlist, and see you soon!
We're proud to announce that the next major free update! for ISG is now available for public testing on Steam's unstable Beta branch!
Please note that 1.3 unstable is an optional beta update. If you want to help test it alongside us you have to manually opt in to get access. In your Steam library, right click on Interstellar Space: Genesis -> Properties -> Betas tab -> Select the "unstable - Unstable Beta Branch for Testing" branch. The game will update and you'll be able to start playing with the new additions and improvements.
1.3 highlights include the brand new Surrender Pact feature! With this new diplomacy treaty, you can now subjugate a rival into a surrender pact, and obtain benefits from it, instead of having to completely wipe it out of the game. Check the release note below for all the details! Also in 1.3 we now have the new Alliance Victory condition, where allies win together.
Steam Achievements were also added to the game! There are 57 achievements, which include 3 hidden ones and 7 for the first expansion pack, Natural Law. The achievements are also displayed in-game in a dedicated 'Achievements' screen.
There's also a ton of major AI improvements, a new diplomacy screen now in full screen, performance improvements, a new UI-scale slider option, QoL improvements, bug fixes, and much more.
We will be monitoring your reports for major bugs in the next few weeks and fixing them. Please report them in our Steam forums, official forums, on our Discord server, or if you prefer just send an email to contact@praxis-games.com (or contact form here) with a save and the Player and Player-prev log files you can find in this folder: C:\\Users\\<your_username>\\AppData\\LocalLow\\Praxis Games\\ISG
Compatibility note: Saves from previous versions are not compatible with 1.3 unstable.
That's it for now. Thanks everyone for reading and for the support!
The Dev Team Praxis Games
UPDATE (June 4th): A small update to 1.3 unstable was released! Details about 1.3 unstable 2 can be found here. UPDATE 2 (June 6th): Another update to 1.3 unstable released. Details here.
Version 1.3 unstable
NEW
New 'Surrender Pact' diplomacy option! Empires facing inevitable defeat can now offer or agree to sign a surrender pact thus removing the need to completely eliminate them from the game. As subject empires, they provide their overlord a hefty percentage of their surplus credits, research points, culture, ship support and strategic resources each turn. Subjects vote for their overlord and contribute to all victory types. An overlord and their subject can make diplomatic coordination requests as if they were allied, but a subject's options are limited. 56 new lines of dialog were added to accommodate the surrender pact diplomacy interactions.
New 'Alliance Victory' condition - When an empire wins, all its allies share victory. It can be enabled or disabled in the new game set up screen.
Steam achievements feature added! 57 achievements, which include 3 hidden ones and 7 for the first expansion pack, Natural Law. The achievements are also displayed in-game in a dedicated 'Achievements' screen.
Maximum number of players is now 10 (was 8 before).
One more zoom-out level available in the bigger map games.
Now possible to set production and research speeds for each player as low as 1% and high as 300%, with a granularity of 1% steps (the 25% steps option is kept along this new high granularity option).
New Government biases provide for additional flavor and early tensions between empires with different and opposing government types. The effect wears off with time, faster in the easier difficulty levels.
Diplomacy UI revamped! The diplomacy dialog screen is now displayed in full screen and the ambassador character is presented much larger, allowing for much more of the character to be seen and the different animations depending on their mood.
New UI-scale slider option in the 'Game Settings' allows enlarging the galaxy map icons and labels, and also the information presented in the system view, which may be especially useful when playing the game in very big monitors and TVs.
AI IMPROVEMENTS
Significant improvements made to the AI in how it invades outposts. It now takes outposts more diligently and at all times it finds it's opportune, especially in the higher difficulty levels.
The AI now plans better on what ships are best suited to be used as escorts given the current circumstances (e.g. to escort civilian ships on their colonization, exploitation or exploration missions). Before, the AI could use ships as escorts that were best suited for other roles (e.g. invasions, defense) leaving systems unprotected or taking too long to launch an invasion.
The AI now goes after Space Monsters more, especially when they guard particularly important systems, not only for their colonization rating but also for their exploitation potential.
The AI now considers building more capital ships and bringing more ships to battle and is also a bit more aggressive in the late game in the higher difficulty levels.
The AI will not send suicidal runs against orbital stations addressed (e.g. 1 frigate against a starbase).
The AI will not be as reluctant to go to war as before (more likely to go to wars in the higher difficulty levels than before, especially early for the warmonger race affinities).
The AI will now make it less obvious where it is amassing its ships when preparing for an invasion.
The AI now considers razing enemy colonies and outposts (it didn't before for design reasons).
The AI now considers asking for a peace treaty more if they happen to be in a very bad situation even if they are furious towards their rival.
The AI algorithm to consider establishing outposts was improved which resulted in a more diligent and aggressive approach to establish (and re-capture) mining and tourism sites on accretion disks, especially when these have strategic resources.
The AI now fires all its weapons in combat when it cans where before it could miss the opportunity to fire some weapons due to not having enough angle aperture to fire at their primary target. Now, AI ships consider other targets if they cannot fire at their primary one.
The AI ships now focus and spread their fire in combat more sensibly, resulting in more aggressive, concentrated and effective attacks.
The AI now also more effective at finishing off their targets more when they are in bad condition where before the AI ships could change their targets in the middle of the fight and not finish off AI ships when it would be better if they did.
AI combat enhancements made to make sure ships spend all their actions in the best way possible, prioritizing firing actions and making sure ships can and will fire all of their weapons as much as possible.
The AI ship design algorithm now considers equipping weapons with different fire arcs more when they think it can result in more effective designs.
The AI now refrains from using tractor beams on its own mind controlled ships.
AI now considers using tractor ships before other AI ships fire at targets.
AI combat improvements on which ships the AI chooses to use first in battle and in which order.
Mind control Titan ability now being considered by the auto-resolve algorithm.
BALANCE
Ship construction cost reduced from +50% to +25% in the 'Low' Ship Support penalty level (less than 10 negative SSP).
Ship Attack and Ship Defense penalties reduced from -20% to -15% in the 'High' Ship Support penalty level (less than 25 negative SSP).
New 'Very High' Ship Support penalty level causes -20% Ship Attack / Ship Defense, +100% ship construction costs and 50BC maintenance per point below the -150 SSP mark.
New 'Extreme' Ship Support penalty level causes a 25% reduction to all ships' Ship Attack (accuracy) and Ship Defense (evasion rating), +300% ship construction costs and 250BC maintenance per negative SSP point when SSP goes below the -350 mark.
Auto-resolve improvements: Point Defense weapons were too much of a factor in countering missiles; also, fleet size had too much weight in the combat auto-resolve algorithm.
Interstellar Geology culture perk now provides a flat +2 strategic resources' bonus instead of a +50% bonus, as that was causing too much production and other excessive effects.
The Neutronium armor coating tech now provides immunity to beam damage when 8 sources of neutronium are available, where before 5 sources were enough to confer immunity making the effect a too powerful one. Each source now provides +12.5% beam damage reduction per available source, where before it offered +20% per source.
Gifts not as powerful of an effect on the Sulak, Cerixx and Human race affinities in diplomacy deals.
Gifts' positive effect wears off faster on the Draguul, Sulak, Human, Palacean, Kaek and Nova race affinities.
Space mirror array now costs 15 BC to maintain, was 10 BC before.
Utopia government now has a -25% research penalty on defense technologies.
GAMEPLAY
Warrior Code unique ability now grants +15% morale per ongoing war (Draguul affinity, also available to custom races).
When the odds are overwhelming in favor of the invader, during a planetary assault, the collateral damage applied when it loses were halved.
Tamara Adams had incorrect leader skills that resulted from a development testing mistake. She now has the scientist, astronautics and activist skills, as designed for this leader. She had espionage skills before.
An Alliance pact now provides information on all colonies and fleets the allies have to their allies, like the espionage intel-gathering expert skills does. This was designed but not working as intended. Now it is in the game.
PERFORMANCE
Turn-time performance improvements, especially noticeable in the late game.
Loading games much faster now.
Significant combat performance improvements. Combat could start to lag after several combat sessions. This was fixed.
SOUND & MUSIC
Diplomacy "angry" tunes now play when an opponent's ambassador leaves when treaties are broken and demands are made that are accepted by the ambassador.
UI / GRAPHICS
The unique technologies found in ancient ruins are now displayed in the tech tree in a specific panel dedicated to these.
All the game and galaxy map options information is now presented in the in-game menu screen (e.g. number of space monsters, number of planets, resources, which victory conditions are enabled, etc).
The empire widgets displayed in the diplomacy status screen now show the biome art behind the ambassador's portrait. Biome art now also displayed behind the rulers running in the galactic council's election.
War declaration notifications on the human player are now clickable, showing a much larger rival ambassador's character in the new diplomacy screen, including the war declaration statement, for increased immersion.
The successful and failed invasion notifications for the Human player are now shown in purple.
The diplomacy screen is now automatically displayed when an AI player declares war and attacks the Human player for a more dramatic notice.
Clicking on ships or fleets in the overview panel on the left now centers the map on that fleet or ship.
Notice added to the tech tree's galactic wonders tooltips indicating if a wonder was already built, and if so by who and where it is located.
Several icons received some touch ups to make them more crisp and clean (e.g. capital icon, ruins icon and several notification icons).
The ships' crew experience is now displayed in the ships' overview panel on the left for each ship.
Auto-fire weapon modification animation speed increased a little.
Combat HUD now hidden during Auto-Combat for a more cinematic experience.
Floating damage notices now a bit faster in super-fast autocombat. It could lag quite a bit when there were many floating notices.
The fleets' ETA is now displayed in the fleets' overview panel on the left.
The leader icon in the ships' overview panel now has a more comprehensive tooltip. And clicking on the leader icon takes you to the leaders screen.
New keyboard shortcut 'SHIFT + O' can be used to show/hide the Overview panel.
The 'Larger Text in Tooltips' option in the Game Settings now provides for even bigger text in tooltips (font size was increased).
Galactic council tooltip text revised to clarify that the terms of refusing the new galactic ruler is bound to human player decision only.
The 'Offer Ships' diplomacy option now has a tooltip to clarify that ships can be gifted only if they can reach the capital system of the player receiving the ship gifts.
The 'Ice Age' term used in the corresponding planet special where a planet is cooling down rapidly at a global scale was replaced with the more appropriate "Global Cooling' term.
New game loading hint provided for the different ways on how leaders can gain experience.
Applied a bit of transparency to the 'Constructions built' panel in the colony view.
Tooltips added to treaties in the diplomacy screen treaties list.
Tribute requests now have a tooltip in the diplomacy screen with information on how much credits are expected to be obtained from the deal.
BUG FIXES
Fixed a bug that was causing too few Space Monster offspring to be spawned.
Fixed a glitch in the gravity tooltip in the colony view (the one at the top of the colony screen). The color presented was correct but the information presented in the tooltip was not.
Fixed a bug that prevented a game to end, and show the corresponding celebrations cinematic, when that game was started right after ending a previous one without quitting to desktop first after ending the first game while choosing the "Just one more turn" option.
Fixed a rare bug that would cause the game to hang when a gifted ship could not travel to the giftee's territory or to anywhere else and would remain in the origin system without exploring it. If a combat encounter would happen there the game would hang.
Fixed an issue that could cause bigger save files than usual when starting a new game right after exiting a previous one without quitting to desktop first.
Fixed a bug that was causing the wrong empires to be considered and sometimes notified when making an alliance coordination request when only AI empires were involved.
Fixed a bug that was allowing the human player to control their AI allies' production allocation, construction options and even scrapping buildings in their colonies.
Fixed a bug that was allowing ships with stunned crews caused by neutron beams to flee from combat.
Fixed an issue that could be causing a bit too many treaties to be broken by the AI at times.
Fixed an issue in the spy detection chance tooltip. The value was being applied correctly but it could show an incorrect value in the "Pick an espionage mission" tooltip screen when hovering over the Detection Chance for the race that has this bonus.
Fixed an issue that was not allowing the star distance measuring tool to be activated with 'shift' key.
Fixed a glitch that was causing the 'Remote exploration' tooltip/panel to sometimes open up on top of 'Overview' text when the overview panel was closed.
Fixed an issue that was causing panning the map to be too slow with the arrow and WASD keys (mouse dragging was fine though).
Fixed a bug that was allowing fleeing fleets to sometimes go back to the system they once were and fled from.
Fixed a glitch that could sometimes present the minimum damage to be slightly superior to the maximum damage in the ship design screen in some particular circumstances.
Fixed an issue that was causing the tourism strategic value to show only 1 decimal place in the corresponding accretion disk tooltip.
Fixed a bug that was allowing a 'Psy-Ops' leader influence action to be requested from the player when none could be performed in some scenarios where no rival leader could be influenced or the rival simply run out of leaders to be influenced.
Fixed a bug that was not allowing a colony leader with the 'colonize a planet' desire to fulfill their desire after the planet where the colonization request was made had suffered a planet construction action (e.g. a Barren planet). Now, the barren world can be (re-)constructed and after colonization the leader will see their leader fulfilled.
Fixed a glitch that was causing the race modifiers' text to not be displayed in the 'Race customization' screen in a few specific monitor resolutions when using the window mode.
Fixed an issue that was causing the construction ETA to be incorrect in very specific cases where production overflow was involved. The ETA calculations were correct but the displayed value was not.
Fixed a bug that was allowing some AI ships to flee under a containment field (Cerixx unique ability) in rare occasions.
Fixed the 'Maneuverability Bonus' Titan ship special ability to clarify the Titan ship does not gain its own bonus but only the surrounding ships. Also, the Ship Attack (accuracy) bonus was missing and the Ship Defense (evasion rating) bonus was not being displayed correctly in the tooltip, although the value was being correctly applied in the calculations.
Fixed tractor beams sometimes left on the battlefield or left hanging with no identified source or target during auto-combat.
Fixed an issue that was not allowing access to strategic resources tech options when conquering a colony that had the Galactic Space Port. The tech options were unlocked when building the Galactic Space Port but not when acquiring it.
Fixed a glitch that was causing the fleet set for Humans to reset in the New Game screen to one belonging to a previously selected player. This issue was only visual and would clear up after using the humans alternative fleet set switch for the first time.
Fixed an issue that was causing the wrong difficulty symbols to be presented for the 'Hard', 'Severe' and 'Impossible' difficulties. It now shows the rook for the 'Hard' difficulty, queen for 'Severe' and the king piece for 'Impossible'.
Fixed an issue in the 'Galactic Council' with the ultrawide resolutions where you could see bars for the two candidates extend beyond the bounds of the election window. Also, the empire info panel above was shown and could be interacted with.
A big DemonCrawl update has just been released! It includes the two masteries we announced last week, Ghost and Poisoner, along with the following goodies:
10 new items
5 new boss mods
3 new emblems
3 new sigils
A new daily mission
Various improvements and fixes
Here's a closer look at some of the new items in v1.75:
Full patch notes are available below. Enjoy!
---
New Features
New mastery: Ghost - "Death is meaningless."
New mastery: Poisoner - "Strike monsters and strangers alike with deadly toxins!"
Added 2 new mementos and mastery dolls
Added Nomad that sells treasure chests
New magic item: Poison Blade - "[90 Mana] Kill target monster or stranger in 5 turns, applying Toxic to its cell after it dies. Cancel the cast to poison yourself."
New magic item: Dessert - "[250 Mana] Automatically discharges whenever a status effect expires. Gain the same status effect."
New magic item: Moonflower - "[140 Mana] Increase your status effect counters by 20."
New passive item: War Paint - "Whenever a living object dies, solve 5 cells."
New passive item: Rosin - "After you use a magic item, your next chord will be a powerchord."
New passive item: Nanobot - "Whenever you lose life, restore that much life after opening 100 cells."
New passive item: Ectoplasm - "You can become a ghost. After opening 200 cells as a ghost, you lose."
New passive item: Hand of Glory - "Whenever you leave a stage, steal coins from all visible strangers equal to their price."
New consumable item: Spider Fang - "The next time a monster is revealed, kill it before you can take damage."
New consumable item: Cardboard Box - "Lose your mastery, coins, and all of your items. Get them back at the start of the next stage."
New Lv1 emblem: Lost Soul
New Lv2 emblem: Wild West
New Lv3 emblem: Murderous Intent
New sigil reflex: Combos - "X% chance to increase your chain length by 2 instead of 1."
New sigil reflex: Conditions - "Add X to new status effect counters."
New sigil reflex: Deal - "Reduce the price of all visible strangers by X."
New daily mission: Crack the Code - "Acquire a Treasure Key. Reward: 10 Tokens"
New boss mod: Judge - "Activate mistake effects whenever you incorrectly chord a cell."
New boss mod: Ornate - "Collect 3 Dark Hearts whenever you use your mastery, sigil, or heirloom."
New boss mod: Overprotective - "You cannot interact with objects that are in the same quadrant as the boss."
New boss mod: Tough - "Has additional resistance against effects that can kill it."
New boss mod: Surprise - "After opening half of all empty cells, gain 2 boss mods."
New paint: Icy Sunset by community member juh9870
Quality of Life
Added search box to the Customize menu
Added toast when you can't gain a status effect due to being at the status effect limit
Improved performance of status effects
We can now specify customized strings for status effect reward tooltips - check Rewind or Postbox as examples
Updated Codex keyword from "favor" to "favored"
Balance Changes
Detective I buff: "Each stage has a guaranteed stranger. Solve a cell whenever you activate a stranger."
Hunter I buff: "Begin the quest with 4 Minions."
Warlock I nerf: "Once per turn, you may right-click your mastery to cast Blood Magic."
Powder Keg price reduced from 50 to 45
Pendulum price reduced from 19 to 16
Trust Buster price reduced from 45 to 41
Leftovers price increased from 35 to 45
Leftovers crafting recipe removed
Perfume price increased from 18 to 22
Badge of Honor price increased from 18 to 24
Nunchucks self-inflicted damage reduced from 5 to 3
Seismic mod difficulty rating increased from 1 to 2
Bug Fixes
Fixed an issue with a few kinds of stage objects that could overwrite guaranteed chests
Fixed a visual glitch where a new status effect could appear without its icon
Fixed a potential memory leak related to status effect icons
Fixed a visual glitch where the mastery icon could go missing after using an Academy
Fixed an issue where Red Dye could bypass omen immunity
Fixed a few issues related to the Demonlord hero trial effect
Fixed Timeless stage mod not affecting realtime status effects like Sleeping Powder
Fixed Sacred Ground emblem not applying Immutable mod
Fixed a crash related to using Trash Bin with a magic radius upgrade
Fixed a crash related to using Vampiric Blade on a frozen cell
Fixed a rare crash related to Manaboard and Scalpel
Fixed a softlock related to the Seismic mod with the board rumble setting disabled
Addressed a few minor inconsistencies in achievement icons
Welcome to the Kourend Chronicles, a six-part series of tales from Kourend's murky past! You can see a full list of all the stories so far on our A Kingdom Divided round-up.
On any ordinary day, the Grand Museum of Civitas illa Fortis would be bustling with visitors hoping to get a glimpse at the rare treasures within – the icon of Ralos, the armour of the Cloud Titan and, of course, the Royal Accord of Twill, finally taking pride of place in the glass cabinet found in the Hall of Kourend's centre.
Queen Zyanyi Arkan stood by the glass, looking over the aged parchment with a practised eye. The fat, pale snake that habitually hung around her shoulders flickered its tongue and gently bumped its snout against the glass.
“You can hardly tell that it’s a replica,” she remarked. The curator beside her smiled but didn’t seem quite sure what to say – she was too busy eyeing the snake, no doubt hoping it had already had its lunch. The pair of Kualti on either side of the Queen impassively stood by.
“Of course, after the last incident I don’t blame them in the least for sending a copy,” the Queen continued, “It’s really quite fantastic workmanship.”
The third Kualti, Yorah, was doing their level best to remember their training and remain still as a statue.
In just under an hour, Yorah would meet the High Priest to hand over their predecessor’s dagger and cement their place as one of the Kualti. All those years in the army, and the rigorous training they’d undergone as a Knight of Varlamore, had been building to this very ceremony.
But Yorah felt as though Ozomah’s dagger was burning a hole through the ceremonial pouch hanging from their waist. It was all they’d thought about since they’d received it that morning – if it was lost, then so was Ozomah’s memory… along with Yorah’s place in the Kualti. Every so often they felt the sudden urge to check that it was still there – although of course, they didn’t act on it. A Kualti must never be distracted from their one, crucial purpose: to protect the Queen.
Nonetheless, a distraction there was – a flash of white, between the columns that told the story of Kourend’s history. A person? Yorah’s eyes narrowed. Nobody except the Queen, her Kualti, the curator and the High Priest had clearance for this area – but none of them had any reason to be sneaking around.
Subtly, so as not to distress the Queen, they craned their neck. Yes – moving down the room just past the Column of Imafore’s Betrayal was a bone-white cloak. As soon as they saw it, it vanished again. Yorah made eye contact with one of the other Kualti and nodded, firmly. One of them whispered something in the Queen’s ear. Her snake tilted its head, curious.
“An excellent suggestion,” she said, turning towards the clueless curator, “I’d like to see the Tempestus model. It’s new, isn’t it?”
The Queen effortlessly hefted the snake across her shoulders and the group eased away. Yorah let themselves relax somewhat. Whoever the interloper was, the Queen was at least out of their reach.
Silently, Yorah readied their hasta and advanced down the centre of the hall, eyes darting to and fro. Another flash of white – just a ray of light reflecting off an old Kourendian shield. Another! Now Yorah was certain. They were not alone.
A creak of ancient wood pinpointed the intruder’s location – the Dagger room, at the end of the hall. Yorah’s heart leapt into their mouth. If you planned to steal a Kualti Dagger, there was no better time to do it than an initiation ceremony; the one time when every eye in the kingdom would be otherwise occupied.
In a single, graceful movement they kicked the door open, ready to strike.
“State your business!” they called, “This is a restricted area!”
Nothing. Only the rows and rows of Kualti daggers, arranged neatly by the ruler under which their owner served. A glittering array of gold and blue – and nothing else. Yorah glanced up at the ceiling, found it equally empty, and stepped cautiously into the room.
It was impossible, they thought, as they slowly peered behind each cabinet. They’d seen the intruder enter – and the only exit was the door back to the Kourendian Hall. There wasn’t even a window to jump through. No human being could hide so well.
“Reveal yourself and state your business!” Yorah called out again. The sound bounced off the cabinets, echoing off the empty walls.
With a sudden jolt of fear, Yorah clasped their free hand around the pouch at their waist, feeling for the handle of Ozomah’s dagger. It was still there, cold and ownerless. In a matter of hours, it would sit in one of the many empty spots in Zyanyi’s cabinet; another memorial to a fallen Kualti.
Yorah exhaled and felt their heartbeat slow to normal. There was no danger – perhaps they’d never seen anything to begin with. Or perhaps the figure in white was Ozomah’s spirit, clinging on in hope of one last test. It was as good an explanation as any.
Outside, they could hear one of the Bards from the College striking up a song. The crowd was waiting, and no doubt the Queen was waiting too. At least none of the other Kualti had been there to see them barge in on thin air. Shaking their head, they left the room and closed the door behind them.
Listen. We know it's not easy being as rich, successful, and good-looking as you are. You've got SO many responsibilities - all those jobs, all those women, that ginormous mansion you live in... Sure, it can be a little hard to keep track of everything, but that's what you have staff for, right?
On that note, you might want to check your messages! Lieutenant Commander Chambermaid Willow wants to remind you of a certain work-related task you must complete. What could it be? Another housekeeping emergency? Something to do with the newly-constructed seventh floor? There's only one way to find out!
This is part 1 of Willow's new 3-part conversation, so keep an eye out for the next installment! Enjoy your chat, and remember…
