It’s been a while since I or one of my fellow Council members have been able to directly update you on the advancements here on Titan, but that is merely because we have been busy getting things in line for your biggest venture yet. The business landscape has changed and more competitors have emerged, so we’re here to equip you with new technology and strategies for you to employ to ensure your enterprise’s success.
COMING SOON
Campaign Mode
Firstly, we’ve developed a system that will allow you to expand your empire even further than was previously feasible, one sector at a time. Once you’ve accomplished your goals in your starting sector, you can then set up your headquarters in an adjacent zone, conquer that one, and so on. However, not every area of Titan will present the same resources and challenges. Sectors will vary in terms of their environment, degree of rebel activity, Rivals you may encounter, and victory conditions, giving you a new scenario to tackle each time.
Therefore, you need to stay on your toes and utilize different tactics in order to overcome various obstacles and thwart the competition. To aid you in this, you will be provided with Council Favor for every sector you wrest control of which will grant you significant advantages going forward. The better your performance, the more Favor you will earn. Once you conquer two of the special sectors that we have highlighted as being particularly vital, you will achieve the ultimate form of victory, thus earning yourself a seat on this very Council–right next to me, if you’re lucky.
Hospitals, Parks, & Livability
Though the well-being of one’s citizens can be an afterthought when building your city-corporation, there are increasingly more places on Titan that migrants may deem more desirable to start their life in. We supposed it was time to encourage the construction of buildings that will increase your city’s placement on the livability index: hospitals, which will also improve the health regeneration of nearby citizens (should you care about that sort of thing), and parks, which will give your citizens a taste of vibrant and very nearly realistic nature to while away their leisure hours in. Other aspects of city-corporation life may positively or negatively impact livability as well, such as a citizen’s proximity to their workplace or the presence of certain other types of buildings near their residence.
Admittedly, the motivations behind the implementation of these buildings are not entirely altruistic. Word spreads fast, and the more livable your current citizens find their environment, the more migrants will be enticed to move in and help you rake in more of that ever-important currency.
New Starting Bonuses & Tech
With all of this change comes the need for technology that can keep up with it, so Dr. Braxton Daw has been hard at work developing a total of 11 brand new techs for you to research in your Science Lab, including upgrades to your hospitals, reductions to the power requirements for various buildings, and faster construction times for buildings or devices. We can also now offer you 4 new Starting Bonuses to choose from when founding your city-corporation (all of which come with their own drawbacks, of course):
Experimental Fuel Tanks - Fuel Silos that are built next to crevices will automatically fill up, but Fuel Silos have less health and create a bigger explosion when destroyed.
Super Highways - Trucks travel much faster, but roads grant negative livability.
Bypass Structural Standards - Buildings take less time to build, but have less health.
Slumlord - Residential buildings can house more citizens, but citizens generate more waste.
New Rivals
As I stated earlier, some new faces have arrived on Titan who may just give you a run for your money–Kennar Ruari, Tiann Garra, Kota Tendo, Orenna Kierke, and Ryn Kierke, to be precise. These potential rivals have a colorful range of personalities, each with their own set of goals and level of aggression that they will use against you to achieve those goals. Don’t fret, however, as the Council will be sure to keep you briefed on each competitor you choose to take on… in whatever way you choose to take them on.
I look forward to seeing your empire flourish, Founder.
Happy Halloween and welcome to Steam Chronicle #7! 🎃
First, some quick news. Weather permitting, Shrine's Legacy will be showcased at MAGFest 2023 in January! It's in the National Harbor area in Maryland. Alan and myself will be there in person, so if you are going, it's a great opportunity to say hi and visit our booth. 😊 It'd be an honor to meet you there! 🙋♂️
With that out of the way, let's get into what's been completed since last time!
Dungeon Design Progress
Dungeon progress has been very good this month. In fact, we've managed to get the basic floor plans for nearly every dungeon complete! Not only that, but elevations, obstacle layouts, and key/lock functionality has been placed for most of the dungeons.
We still have to make them actually look pretty and finish tiling them, but having the functionality there is a big step in the right direction.
Frost and Foxes
Hope you are ready for Winter! We got started mocking up the snowy town of Illdar where the fox people called Vulpecs live. Here's the very first WIP look at the town:
Brrr...! I hope you brought a jacket
Spoopy Woods...?
Oh! Since it's Halloween, we'd thought it would be cool to share something a little... spoopy too. This is a very very early preview of some of the foggy forestry of Moglore Woods.
It's still very early WIP, but already looking pretty spooky!
Closing
That's all for Steam Chronicle #7, hope you enjoyed what we had to show today! Can't wait to get even more of these dungeons completed!
As you may have noticed, Press A For Achievements, has a new name.
We thought long and hard about this, and decided that a name change was necessary and better for the game.
We didn't want to be associated with trophy grabs (no shade), and wanted a name that truly represented our game.
So, welcome SUPER 56!
The premise of the game is the same as before, a 56 mini-game collection which challenges players to get through as many stages as possible using a single controller button. Gameplay increases in intensity as the player passes each stage and players gain coins and XP. Earn mod-stones to mix up gameplay and make your next playthrough a little bit more challenging, easier, or rewarding!
you can watch the brand new trailer here, you may recognise some ol' favourites, as well as some new ones...
We're hoping to release SUPER 56 early next year, so stay tuned for more updates as the release date gets closer.
Welcome to patch notes for Patch 73.5! This patch has art updates, bug fixes, and rules changes - no balance changes this time (we are planning on including significant balance changes in the mid-November patch). Let's jump in and take a look at what just dropped.
Art Updates
Here's a list of the updated cards, but if you would like to see the full art you can check out a gallery in the patch notes on our site!
Copycat
Cupid
Fireball
For Glory!
Heartwood Guardian (was Heartwood Elder)
Juliet (revival)
Luna's Grace
Phoenix Angel (was Snow Angel)
Poison Apple
Ride of the Valkyries
Type Changes
Copycat - now an Animal (was Animal Mage)
Renames
Several cards were renamed to better match their new art:
Heartwood Guardian (was Heartwood Elder)
Jekyll's Concoction (was Worm Root)
Shrink Drink (was Shrink Spell)
Expo-Natural Growth (was Flourish)
Phoenix Angel (was Snow Angel)
Bug Fixes & Improvements
Rules Change: "Everywhere" buffs e.g. from Puff Puffs now persist through transforms and other effects.
When an effect buffs something "everywhere", it applies to both current and future characters e.g. characters you buy, summon, transform, or type-change later.
Those buffs remain frozen in their current state if the character becomes ineligible due to a later effect, such as a transform or another type-change.
A specific buff won't reapply later e.g. if you transform a Puff into a non-Puff and back into a Puff again, you won't double-up the bonuses.
If you manage to combine (triple) multiple characters with "everywhere" buffs on them, those buffs will stack. Any future buffs will apply normally. (at 1x)
Your buffs are distinct from your opponents', so if you manage to Kidnap an opposing Puff Puff while you also have Puff Puffs, it will have both players' buffs. (the buff from your opponent will not continue to grow, of course)
Rules Change: Alignment buffs have been reworked to have more intuitive interactions, and to specifically never rely on "hidden" information such as total number of buffs.
When a one-shot effect sets a character's alignment (such as Beauty's Influence or Evil Twin) it will override all previous one-shot effects. You now only need a single Beauty's Influence to undo two Evil Twins that were tripled.
Auras such as Crown of Atlas always take precedence over one-shot effects, even effects added later; the one-shot effects remain "underneath" for when the aura goes away.
Conflicting auras e.g. Crown of Atlas plus Corrupted Heartwood will both apply simultaneously. (the game cannot currently visualize both alignments, but your animals are both Good and Evil in this case)
When combining characters via tripling, only one-shot alignment buffs that are different from the character's "base" alignment are retained. In effect, a one-shot effect that restores a character's natural alignment is treated exactly the same as a character with no alignment buffs.
Note that Shard of the Ice Queen has not changed- this effect selects a random "naturally evil" character, but it does not set the character's alignment explicitly. Any existing alignment buffs e.g. Beauty's Influence will remain on the newly-transformed "evil" character.
Improved: When you cast It Was All a Dream and select Goldilocks, you will immediately get +2 gold and your next full shop will be "just right".
Fixed: When you Roll the Dice on a locked character, the chains are now visually removed from the acquired character.
Fixed: When you summon a pair of Humpty Dumptys (via Wombats + Reduplicator) and one dies, the other one will no longer be destroyed immediately.
Fixed: Monster Manual buffs now stack properly on characters summoned from off-board, such as by Mordred. (previously, only one total buff would ever apply)
Fixed: Buffs from Merlin's Test no longer double-up on characters summoned from off-board, such as by Mordred.
Fixed: Masquerade Ball can no longer transform a character into a copy of the same character. (which could previously happen for level 6 characters)
Fixed: If Hercules dies and is revived by Phoenix Feather, the revived unit will have any quest progress that was made right before dying.
Fixed: If you Kidnap a quest character that completed its quest during the brawl, it will no longer combine (triple) with other characters you already have before upgrading naturally from the quest completion.
We have changed "Timer" volume to "Alerts" volume within the Options menu, this currently will affect your "Game started" sound and in-game "Timer" sound.
The "Level Up" sound is fixed and now tied to the "SFX" volume.
It's been another great month in the development of INSPIRE. This month I haven't introduced many new features, instead, I've been working hard on polishing everything for the upcoming public demo.
NEW FEATURE One major quality-of-life improvement that has been added to the game is fading out of trees and big objects in front of the player. This greatly improves the joy of playing the game.
NEW PLAYTEST There's a new playtest coming this Friday! I'm currently building the demo out for everyone to play later this year but I'm really looking for people who can playtest the current state of the demo so I know where improvements should be made.
For the playtest, I've also made a DEBUG menu where you can easily toggle on and off certain things like invincibility, UI, Music, and a way to select a specific zone or weather.
If you're interested in helping me out, feel free to head over to my discord. It would really help me out.
That's all from me this update, It's time for me to re-do the INSPIRE trailer, I hope you're having a fantastic day.
---------------------------------- I appreciate all your support and if you'd like to be the first to know about updates, make sure to follow the INSPIRE socials!
