Merry Christmas Goblin Gang! Or happy whatever winter holiday you celebrate!
We’ve been diligently reworking our character controller and optimizing Watch Out for Goblins! so it runs more smoothly on more hardware. This is a pretty big rework and it’s going to take us some time, but we think it will absolutely be worth it.

In the meantime, we’ve added a bit of winter weather to the Skrimble Isles and warped it up nice with new combat animations. It’s a small update, but it’s a good update.

• Big Bold Combat Animations - Our first run at combat animations was timid. We wanted snappy controls so we stayed away from anticipation frames, but this left the goblins with weak little punches that hardly looked like punches. No more of that! Our new punches have a ton of windup. The Gob’s now step in with wild haymakers that put their whole body into the punch. It feels so much better. Shove and uppercut animations have a similar glow up.
  
• More Goblin Stabilization - We’ve got another sackful of tweaks and changes that all have the goal of reducing the “scrambling” that happens when the goblins take a big hit. Scrambling is much reduced in this build- but it’s still there. We are going to keep trying to reduce it but it’s a struggle Unity’s physics engine has when chains of joints experience extreme forces. Dedicated Goblins will probably always be able to find a way to scramble if that’s the kind of thing you are into.
  
• Christmas Cosmetic - A fun new piece of goblin garb to collect. Jolly good fun.

• A Short Holiday Break - At least next week, we are going to work on not working on WOFG! We are going to spend Christmas and new years with our friends and families. Don’t worry, we will be back to dev in 2025.
  
• Building a Great Goblin - We have a good goblin. We want a Great Goblin. This is going to take some time. Over the last month we’ve been skill building and planning out everything we want the new goblin to be able to do. Early work is moving in a promising direction. If you want more details (maybe too many details) you can check our dev blog here: https://sqyd.studio/dev-blog/

We plan to keep bringing improvements to the WOFG! The Demo! when they are ready. As always, thank you to everyone playing the demo and giving us your honest feedback. It only helps us keep making the game better.

We will be back early in 2025 with another development update. Over the holidays- remember to watch out for goblins wherever you go. I think they like to roll around in dirty snowbanks.

Fixes on trail cams, menus, loading screen update!

Been a while :)
I have been busy working on Seeker of the Ruins, so stay tuned for that, and be sure to check it out and try the demo. However, it doesn't mean Cryptic Escape will be forgotten!
So in honor if the Winter sale here is a small but significant update

• Reworked the dungeon creation so no more: Random floor tiles, blocked off areas, odd walls
  
• (Hopefully) More interesting and dynamic dungeons.
  
• Monsters getting stuck

Cryptic Escape is now available for mac and linux! (Still no controller support though)

Plushie Donate Link: https://www.makeship.com/petitions/zorti

• You will find the lobby full of christmas decorations! Also don't forget to press alt + 3 on the snow!
  
• Many things in levels are adjusted so they suit the christmas theme.
  
• Added christmas gifts to all episodes. Random things will happen when you open them!

• This is a lever that sets the chaos value for your next playthrough.
  
• It tweaks spawn times, monster values and many other things!
  
• Since this breaks the game in many ways, you can't play a level with chaos value before finishing it once.

• This is an item that comes back to you. Any items it touched will also be picked up.
  
• Be careful with it though, since it is dangerous.
  
• See how it interacts with other things in the game!

• Added the two robots that Telerick is talking about.
  
• Now you can't bring down the net before the mudur event.
  
• Now host can force players back to level selection lobby.
  
• Fixed mines sometimes not triggering.
  
• Fixed getting stuck on collision in a cinematic in second level.
  
• Fixed sanity post process not correctly working on first level.
  
• Now zoomies will be affected by Mudur and mines.
  
• Adjusted Mudur's disabled texture so it is more clear when it happens.
  
• Adjusted LODs for many models so they don't popup very clearly.
  
• Now mine explosions can be chained.
  
• Fixed light probes not updating when active scene is changed. (Black items and ultra bright main menu)

https://store.steampowered.com/curator/34834919-Graphium-Studio/#browse


https://store.steampowered.com/dlc/1538750/Master_of_Pieces__Jigsaw_Puzzle/#browse


https://store.steampowered.com/dlc/2549870/My_Hobby_Needlework_Galore/#browse


Happy Holidays!

Dear friends, Dear Willies,

As Christmas approaches, we thought to reflect on everything that has happened this year and also to shed a bit of light on what you can expect from us in 2025.

2024 has been a pivotal year for both Half Sword Games and Game Seer. What started with a mere business meeting in Stockholm in February has blossomed into a real studio, strong friendship and unwavering support for the arduous task that is making a video game.

We hope that Half Sword feels as special to you as it feels to us, because it is made by an extremely tight-knit & independent team of game developers, many not yet 30 years old whose sole aim is to up the ante as far as what players can expect from a physics-based experience.

We humbly submit the goal of making something that feels as fun to play as it is to make while we relentlessly keep an eye on what to improve. We constantly throw new ideas to each other in the team and abide by an open-minded approach to constructive criticism, be it from within, or from our now over 3 million Willies.

As far as timeline, Half Sword will release into early access towards the end of 2025 on PC on Steam. Along the way we will provide you with a progress presentation towards the second quarter of 2025, we will celebrate the game with you with a strong on-site presence at Gamescom 2025 (18+ booth) and we will showcase a compelling early-access version for Steam Next Fest shortly before commercially releasing the game.

We plan to obsessively build, expand, fix & polish the experimentation with Half Sword upon and after its release and cannot wait to show you elements that are not yet public. While combats are central, we are hard at work to build deep systems on top and around of them.

We are a discreet bunch, our studio is around 10 people and Game Seer’s publishing team is 2 persons and one crazy jester. However trust us when we say that if you like what you have now, you will definitely love what we prepare for you.

If we do things well with Early Access, we will potentially have the strength to keep the game alive for the years to come as we will move into other platforms, formats & will seek the technical ability for players to challenge each other with high stakes consequences.

2025 will be a crucial year where we put our fate in your hands. In Half Sword, yours will always be decided by the blade.

''When you stare into the abyss, the abyss stares back at you''

Merry Christmas,

Half Sword Games & Game Seer

First of all this patch fixes a bug introduced in the previous patch, where a AI database caching problem caused NPCs to not respond to thrown rocks in some circumstances.

With the enhancements to controller in the last patch, I feel there's still more player friction. So I decided to do away with the "hold LT to enter grid cursor mode", and instead, as soon as you hover the cursor over an inventory grid, it'll automatically enter the grid mode. To exit from that, you simply move the grid cursor to the edge of the grid as if it's the actual cursor, and then the real cursor will show up there. I think this change makes inventory management a lot more enjoyable than before.

But you can still hold LT or use the Dpad while in the grid cursor mode. This will ensure that the cursor doesn't "leave the grid" when at the edge, and the movement is slightly slower to help you pinpoint the position.

This fix has been a... nightmare to implement, so to speak :) So I hope there's no issues with it, but if you do, please let me know in the forums :)

Other fixes included in the patch:

- Kicking won't shake the camera if you aren't hitting anything with your foot

- While holding an item in grid cursor mode, the entire item is highlighted instead of just showing the grid cursor at the bottom left corner of the item

- You won't be able to enter grid mode if the inventory grid is not accessible for the item you are holding

Hi, Gamers!

Tina here—Social Media Expert and Host at RolldBox Games. Today, I’m chatting with Ferran, one of our Co-Founders, as well as the Game Designer and Creative Director of the studio. 👋

After working on this project for a long time and with the release of the DEMO, we’re excited to share what’s being done to bring the development process to completion. We’ll keep sharing tidbits with you so you can get a sneak peek behind the scenes. Let’s get started!
That’s why we’re thrilled to share insights into the production of Masks of the Void, from the unique perspectives of our team members.


As we progress in the development of Masks of the Void, we’ve been working on several features and want to create a space for you to catch a glimpse of what’s in the works and how it’s evolving.
One thing we were excited to share, for example, is the evolution of the UI and how it has changed over time through playtesting. Among all the UI elements, the upgrades screen stands out—the one that allows IRET to develop its power during a run. This UI has undergone several changes, as we’ve been simplifying and refining it over time, such as:

1st Iteration



2nd iteration



And now it looks like:



Developing this UI was a massive effort, trying to balance letting the player know what can be done without overwhelming them with too many buttons. We ended up placing all the options on the same screen, with an unbalanced distribution, to let players know they can develop IRET and also perform some secondary actions with the Energy.

Sneak Peek of Upcoming Content

In every Devlog, we will be showing some of the upcoming details of the game as part of the full development of Masks of the Void. For today’s opening blog, we are delighted to share what the Void realm looks like! Have you ever wondered where the Cultists come from?

More to share

In the demo, you can already practice with two masks!

Reach the end of the story, and you’ll unlock a second one: the Blood mask, where you’ll discover new forms of telekinesis. Give it a try and let us know what you think!

See you in the next Devlog with more and better!

Don’t forget to join our Discord server! Let us know what you’d like us to talk about next from there!

See you in the Void!

Hey folks, I'm releasing a small hotfix to address some of the issues that appeared with version 1.2 that released earlier today.

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• Fixed an issue preventing players from adding templates to the recently added classes.
  
• Fixed a bug that was causing the Classes for templates to show in the same manner as it did in the previous version of this patch.

For the full patch notes of patch 1.2: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/2016080/view/527581830427181929?l=english

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Happy holidays, and happy Questing! 🎄

There was an issue where level-up stats for Sara were inaccurately affected when the Health Ring was equipped. That should now be fixed.
Thank you!