As we hurtle towards the Steam Next Fest Demo, I'm finalizing the build that will go up there, frantically tying things together, bug-fixing and balancing and ... you guessed it ... still adding in new stuff!

One of the things I've always been meaning to add to the game is Character Class selection, something that featured in Swords and Sandals V Redux. Previously, the series would assign an arbitrary class to you based on your best stats : characters with high Defence / Vitality would be Knights, high agility would be rogues and so on.

In Swords and Sandals Immortals you now have six character classes to choose from ( with possibly more to come during early access. )

• Warrior - Battle hardened master of melee and combat
  
• Wizard - Powerful wielder of the arcane arts
  
• Rogue - Crafty and nimble adventurer with many tricks
  
• Knight - Honourable and proud defensive fighter
  
• Priest - Devout and pious defender of the faith
  
• Bard - Uses music and entertainment to bring down enemies

Each of these characters have the following special traits:

• 1 unique talent that cannot be gained any other way
  
• 1 unique skill that cannot be gained any other way
  
• 2 bonus stat points ( strength/attack for warriors, for example)

There may also be more unique talents and skills added during Early Access too, as well as other classes revealed. But for now, what's the difference between a talent and a stat?

A talent is a passive ability that stays with the player the whole time. For example the Warrior's 'Battle Forged' talent means you always have 30% more total health than other gladiator classes.

Askill is an active ability that is assigned to your Battle Circle to be used in combat. Skills like the Warrior's Barbarian Storm, a powerful melee attack than be triggered with a long cooldown.

These character classes are of course just starting points for your gladiator. There's nothing stopping you from creating a wizard who ends up using powerful two handed weapons, or a warrior who also specializes in sonic weapons.

Under a week until the demo launches - I've just put together a new trailer which I can't wait to show you all.

Cheers, Oliver Joyce
Whiskeybarrel Studios

Art by the incredibly talented Gloom Dude: @ElmanoloC
Don't settle for just killing your enemies, make an example, paint the world red! All bosses now rupture and burst into a baptism of blood upon death.

We have been listening to your feedback and have updated Brutal Orchestra to include better tracking for some of the game's trickier achievements, new tutorials for first time players and unique death messages when dying to bosses that gives some hints on how best to counter them as well as many other changes.

We have a large free content update coming soon! If you have been enjoying Brutal Orchestra and want to see more updates like this and larger content updates in the future make sure to drop us a review on Steam!

And now, the changelog.

Content

• Added Gibs to Roids.
  
• Added Gibs to Hickory (Fire).
  
• Added Gibs to Hickory (Fuel).
  
• Added Gibs to Trigger Fingers.
  
• Added Gibs to Mobius.
  
• Added Gibs to The Charcarrion (Alive).
  
• Added Gibs and a unique death animation to The Charcarrion (Dead).
  
• Added Gibs and a unique death animation to The the Head of the Ouroboros.
  
• Added Gibs and a unique death animation to The the Body of the Ouroboros.
  
• Added Gibs and a unique death animation to The the Corpse of the Ouroboros.
  
• Added Gibs and a unique death animation to The the Tail of the Ouroboros.
  
• Added Gibs to Smoothskin.
  
• Added Gibs to the Mother's Visage.
  
• Added Gibs to the Father's Visage.
  
• Added Gibs to the Sibling's Visage.
  
• Added Gibs to My Own Visage.
  
• Added Gibs to This Pitiful Corpse.
  
• Added Gibs to Osman.
  
• Added Gibs to Sinnoks.
  
• Added a unique death animation to Heaven.
  
• Added Gibs to all Incarnate (Red).
  
• Added Gibs to all Incarnate (Blue)
  
• Added Gibs to all Incarnate (Yellow)
  
• Added Gibs to all Incarnate (Purple)
  
• Added a new tutorial upon getting an item for the first time.
  
• Added a new tutorial upon opening a coin chest for the first time.
  
• Added a new tutorial upon speaking to a flavour NPC for the first time.
  
• Added a new scene after starting a new run after killing This Pitiful Corpse for the first time.

Features

• Added a "Slap Tracker" for the achievement "God of Phalanges, Palms and Pain."
  
• Added new death dialogue hints for Roids.
  
• Added new death dialogue hints for Hickory.
  
• Added new death dialogue hints for Trigger Fingers.
  
• Added new death dialogue hints for Mobius.
  
• Added new death dialogue hints for The Charcarrion.
  
• Added new death dialogue hints for The Ouroboros.
  
• Added new death dialogue hints for The Smoothskin.
  
• Added new death dialogue hints for This Pitiful Corpse.
  
• Added new death dialogue hints for Heaven.
  
• Added new death dialogue hints for Osman Sinnoks.
  
• The intro cinematic can now be replayed by replaying the tutorial.
  
• The skip cinematic button has been added to the intro cinematic.

Character Balance

• Reworked "Rebuild" to also heal the caster at all levels.
  
• Reworked "Pressure Point" to consume pigment before dealing damage to enemies.
  
• Hans can now appear as a free fool in the Far Shore.
  
• Boyle can now appear as a free fool in the Far Shore.

Enemy Balance

• "Starvation" now has a 50% chance to inflict 2 frail to the Ouroboros to incentivize attacking after Starvation has been performed.
  
• Increased the Likelihood of Heaven performing "Come Home".
  
• "Decompose" now deals 5-20 self damage.
  
• The Charcarrion no longer exhausts the players abilities when "Fatalism" is triggered. Fatalism no longer consumes all overflow.

Item Balance

• Rebalanced "Fishing Rods" item pool. (It is still amazing, don't worry.)
  
• Increased "Colon Coins" consume chance to 4%
  
• Decreased "Take a Penny, Leave a Penny"s consume chance to 4%.

Quest Balance

• Mordrake can no longer appear until Bimini, Gospel and Leviat have been unlocked.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed an issue where Anton's quest would encounter a critical error if you payed him over 10 coins before we decreased his initial hiring cost.
  
• Fixed an issue where items gained over the inventory cap would not be added correctly.
  
• Upon death enemies no longer display "All Status Removed".
  
• Mordrake no Longer need to be spoken to twice to complete his quest.
  
• "Effigy of the Mettle Mother" Now properly prevents fire from decreasing.
  
• Fixed a layering issue in Thype's overworld room.
  
• Fixed a minor issue with the overworld boss portal sprites that only Maceo would ever care about because it really wasn't a big deal but was just bugging me so badly seriously a bunch of pixels were the wrong colour how did I manage to screw that up.
  
• Improved layering in Smoothskin's boss Arena.
  
• Improved layering in the Garden's combat background.
  
• Improved layering in the Roid's boss Arena.
  
• Improved layering in the Mobius boss Arena.
  
• When attacking an enemy or party member with Divine protection 0 damage will no longer be displayed if the damage is direct.

Typo

• Reworded "Come Home" to make its effect more clear.
  
• Reworded "The Scars Weep" to make its effect more clear.
  
• Reworded "Reclaim Conviction" to make its effect more clear.
  
• Reworded Osman Sinnoks' Decay description clearer.
  
• Reworded Body Scream's description to make it more accurate to its function.
  
• Fixed a typo in "Domination".
  
• Fixed a typo in "Marrow Lust".
  
• Fixed a typo in "Body Scream".
  
• Fixed an issue where Bronzo would be referred to as Bronze upon completing his quest.
  
• Fixed a typo is the passive effect "Messiah's" description.
  
• Fixed a typo in "Bloating Coffers" description.
  
• Fixed a typo in "Brigade of Dis" description.
  
• Fixed a typo in "Czech Hedgehog" Description.
  
• Fixed a typo in "The Scars Weep".
  
• Fixed a typo in "Reclaim Conviction".
  
• Fixed a typo in the "Ideal form of Trash" flavour text.
  
• Fixed a typo in "Peg Legs" description.

[Part 2] Sandra “Mouth Mutation” event limited as a one off event (as it should have been)

[Part 1+ art] Fixed image links for purple and red werm infestation passages. Fixed starfish image links for cases of infesting other than the 1st pair of breasts

[Part 2] When teacher is fully infested (neck choker and breasts starfish) and nurse if fully infested (neck choker, breasts starfish, vagina canal and werms in mouth, breasts, vagina, anus) there is a special infestation scene in the classroom after all sex education classes

[Part 3] Profile images(when infesting a character from part 2) links changed to lowercase and added brett and linda profile image links

Hi there Clashers!

First and foremost, I hope you are all doing well. You'll all be happy to hear that I come to you with some tournament news!

Starting next Sunday we will be hosting a tournament on a bi-monthly basis, which will grant qualifying points towards a bi-yearly championship. I will be announcing more details about the championship later this week, as well as opening up the registration for next weekend's tournament, which will be a Gold Rank, Double-Elimination, Bo1 (except the final which will be a handicapped Bo3).

Also, if you're looking for a way to have fun this weekend, come participate in our Crystal Clash Discord Challenge! All you need to do is post a screenshot of a victory in 4:00 or less over the Silver Tier Crystal Legion in the Coop-Challenge channel over on Discord.

The FIRST 25 teams will receive some goodies! Check out our Discord for all the details.

Only using the OpenVR XR provider until we can sort out why it's loading the wrong one for some people

• Increased drop rate of Lucky Envelopes from champions, bosses
  
• Increased event item drop rate in general slightly from champs/bosses

• The “Counter Swallow” attack of the Nian monster and Tyrant Dragon no longer affects corral pets
  
• The dungeon floor name in the upper left should no longer overlap UI at some resolutions
  
• Fixed bottom HUD UI positioning issues at various resolutions
  
• Bottom hud UI should no longer overlap full-screen UI at various resolutions
  
• Pressing “Escape” to open the options menu should now correctly show a full background behind the entire screen at all resolutions
  
• Fixed bug related to duplicate pets on game load… again
  
• Riverstone Waterway unlock should be global now

Hey there!

Hope you're doing well!

I had a good day today at the Boston Festival of Indie Games, and in my downtime I finished some updates that were long overdue.

Most of them are related to Happy Tanksgiving. The tank collision detection system has been a problem for so long, and since you're fighting against hovertanks that can, uhh, hover... I figure you should be able to drive under them. So no more getting pinned in place by a viewer. Accuracy of the tank cannon has also been improved for the streamer's super tank, so bullets don't veer off in a ridiculous direction. I think the accuracy can be off by only 8 degrees in an extreme case now, and it'll be perfectly accurate 25% of the time.

The system to unlock games has also changed!

Since Splat Chat is the simplest game, it will now function as a tutorial game, and it'll be the only one you can play at first. Once you complete a single game with any number of players, Minesweeper Extreme: 100 will be unlocked. From there, if 25 people play Minesweeper Extreme: 100, Happy Tanksgiving will unlock. And if 50 people play Happy Tanksgiving, you'll get access to the very experimental Bombertown.

The only other change in this version is more translation support for other languages. I'm making good progress here, but I still have more work to get done before I can update the Steam page.


Again, to everyone that has invited me into their stream, or taken the time to play and provide feedback, I am so thankful for you, and it's because of you that these games are getting better and things are getting fixed. Please keep the feedback coming!

All the best,
-Jaime

Realizing all the danger and sometimes the senselessness of their path, each Wanderer wants to bring all his exploits and deeds into history.
Then ink, paper and the crackle of a fire become faithful helpers.

Let's not beat around the bush and get acquainted with the first wanderer – Lickmoru.

He grew up in an ordinary Brutland family, a perky blond child. As a child, he did not differ much from his brothers and sisters and, having lived to the age of five, received a name in honor of his overseas great-grandfather – Lickmoru.

At the age of eight, while walking in the forest, Lickmoru fought off his own and, not knowing better, went deep into dangerous parts of the forest. There, with difficulty pushing through the branches, he stumbled upon a monster – a werewolf. Whether it was the owner of the local forests, or a monster who accidentally passed through them, who knows?

The werewolf lunged at the child, jaws digging into flesh, and after a cry of pain, there was silence. The adults, who were combing the forest by this moment, heard a scream and rushed to help. Seeing the wounded, they hurriedly carried him to the village, where for three days and three nights the healers fought for the fading life. However, their efforts were in vain and on the fourth day the werewolf died.

Lickmoru quickly recovered, but longing settled in his soul, and in moments of anger he completely became like a beast. The world began to seem faded and dull to him, and there was little that pleased the boy. He soon left the village, choosing the life of a hermit.

Two decades have passed since then, and during this time Lickmoru's hair has darkened, and his temper has darkened. Living on his own, he learned a lot and also found a new passion in brewing. Who knows where he was worn all these years, but his further fate begins at the village of Badger Hole, lost between the rivers and forests of Cryborn.

All about Lickmoru:

• Unsociable – communication with other characters reduces sanity

• Rage – in battle accumulates anger and releases the inner beast

• Special drinks – uses special drinks to set the right mood

• Born survivor – can recover even after the death blow

• Jack of all trades – a wide range of crafted items

• Hermit – knows how to survive in the wild



More news about the game on our facebook page: https://web.facebook.com/groups/623435452086903

I just wanted to say thanks to everyone who has shown interest and support over the past 3 years of development, it's meant a lot to me to know you're out there and are excited about the game! This has been a long journey for me, and I can definitely say that I've put my best into The Star Legation.

Just a little background information, if you're interested: This is my first time programming a game, which is why I used the Tyranobuilder visual novel engine to make it. Tyranobuilder has an excellent modular system that allows for tools to be assembled without the need to write much code. Of course, over time, I did learn to write some code, and I added in a lot of cinematic animations and cutscenes to embellish the storytelling.

Who am I? I'm a professional musician, a writer, and a tabletop role-playing game writer and designer of Solar Echoes. 3 years ago, I decided to try making my first video game...

I spent my first year writing the huge story for The Star Legation, which ended up being almost 1000 pages long--the length of 3 large novels! Of course, playing the game won't feel as long because there are multiple routes and experiences you won't have with only 1 playthrough of the game. During the time I was working on the story, I also was playing around with Tyranobuilder so I knew what I was going to be using. It helped me write the story script in a style that was easy to cut and paste into the game.

I also commissioned a lot of artwork during that first year, and I'm glad I did it then, because art takes a lot of time and direction. I had the pleasure of working with 4 very talented artists at different times--each was specialized in what they did:
John Fell: character artist
Lee Madison: starship and space artist
Alexis Rill: starship interior background artist
Aeghite: CG's, outdoor and some indoor background artist (plus the Omul character and Kaori's casual outfit)

The next two years were spent programming, customizing artwork assets, and composing. I wrote a lot of the music alongside the scenes that I was doing, and I often played parts of the scene while humming to come up with my musical ideas. You can find more details, if you're interested, in my composer notes that are included with the 99 minute, 40 track OST.

I did encounter some very difficult times during development, however. The game engine, Tyranobulder (TB), stopped exporting my game to a playable application because the game had grown too large. Thankfully, in August of 2021, TB was updated to version 2.0, and this fixed that issue, along with many others. However, as with most updates, some things became problems. Camera movement became inconsistent in some areas that I had to rework, and character sprite facings (left and right) were reversed in the code, so I needed to go through the entire game and invert the code so people were facing the correct way when talking. There were also odd animation issues to rework and work around.

And, the biggest issue that I still haven't been able to resolve: TB 2.0 currently does not export to Mac anymore. This is why a demo for Mac existed, but I currently don't have a Mac version for sale. I'm still trying out some workarounds on this issue, but until I'm confident the Mac version runs properly through the entire game (which I can't test because I don't own a Mac), I won't release a Mac version.

Despite those few issues with TB, though, I never would have been able to build this game without it. I'm very thankful to have found a development program that fit my limited experience in programming, and I've learned a lot since I started using it.

So anyway, that's my journey as a first-time game developer. I really hope you all enjoy the story and find it meaningful, thought-provoking, and fun. I also hope you really love the characters--I had a great time writing them and I honestly miss them now. Thanks again, so much, for your interest and support! Feel free to share your experiences and thoughts about the game here. Hearing your reactions and opinions is very rewarding to me.

Have fun!
Best,
Andy

🔹The game's main user interface has been upgraded with new graphics!