Shuten Doji, Visual Updates, New Archetype - Final Notice V0.5.7

Welcome or Welcome Back!

Got a tonne to show in this new update - this update was actually available in the discord a fair few days early, so if you want to get in to the early beta releases, join the discord using the button at the bottom of the page. With that said, let's get right into it.

New Boss - Shuten Doji

Who?

Shuten Doji is a legendary Oni from Japanese mythology, a demon leader that caused havoc in Kyoto, eventually meeting his demise at the hands of Minamoto no Raiko, where he was poisoned by sake and decapitated.

Funnily enough in classic mythology fashion, this didn't actually kill him and his head kept trying to bite Minamoto monty-python style, who managed to not die to that ridiculous scene via wearing multiple helmets. I picked Shuten cause the story's funny I'm going to be so real.

Mechanics

Shuten being a demon king who loves sake is represented in two ways. His first card of his turn is always one of three cards related to sake, with the reaper either milling two cards, Shuten recovering health or the reaper gaining mortis over turns.

His sake habits (and a nod to the story) are also represented in his unlockable card, Shuten's Sake, but I'll get into the unlockable cards a little later.

His "Demon King" aspect is represented in his unique cards based on how close he is to losing, Dark Pulse and Demon Call, which both add a slew of oni to your hand for you to banish or discard. Be warned - Shuten does recycle your discard back into your deck, so discarding the oni instead of banishing them could come back to bite you!

An example of a few of the oni he can impart, each with different effects!

New Cards and New Way To Play

Steam post image GOOD LORD.

So, I've been working on a new type of playstyle, thanks to the few people in the discord providing suggestions. As you might be able to tell from the above, this is more about getting copies of cards into your deck to inflate it's size or focus on only drawing a certain card over and over again, through use of things like Triplicate Ledger. There's a lot here, so I'll cover Shuten's Sake first, the reward card for beating Shuten Doji, then I'll cover the rest briefly.

Shuten's Sake - 15req, 0 cost

Shuten's Sake is intended to mirror his story, where his sake isn't quite the usual beverage he adored so greatly. Each turn end it shuffles a dead draw into your deck, slowly "poisoning" (haha) your card pool, but on taking the swig you lose a good amount of mortis, at the cost of heavily diluting your draw pool. It can be used as an emergency panic button at it's very base, but it also has a secondary use when paired with a few of the other cards in this list:

Rotting Directive - 0req, 5 cost

Intended to turn Dead Draws into potent value engines, Rotting Directive makes packing your draw pile with what is usually a detriment, a massive positive. Dead Draws become 0 cost cards that increase the boss' mortis by 5. Be warned, this doesn't stack! So packing 4 copies can sometimes be a waste when deck building.

Triplicate Ledger 0req, 3 cost

A delayed reward, Triplicate Ledger shuffles 3 copies of any card in your hand into your deck, this can be especially useful if you've got a card you want a lot of, but otherwise is a general use card that can fit into quite a few decks.

Archive Echo 0req, 6 cost

A card with niche use, Archive Echo shuffles a copy of your deck into your deck. I can imagine there are some decks that might love a card like this, but building around it as a combo piece, I think, will be challenging, but potentially a very interesting puzzle to get working.

Recursive Form 2B 0req, X cost

Suggested by Pax from the discord (I owe 'em like 15 ideas by now), a card that mirrors a certain Slay The Spire card effect joins Final Notice. Playing it shuffles two copies of it into your deck and ups it's cost by 1, but the mortis it gives to the boss equals double the number of copies played. Storm out with it, if you can.

New Waterlogged Effect

You may have noticed a little earlier a different card effect on the cards in my hand in the oni picture. This is the new effect for waterlogged and will be replacing the visuals for it. It's animated, as per usual, and I think it fits nicely in the look.

With all that said, I'll leave you with a teaser for the next boss and a heads up: the next update for this game will mostly focus on the roguelike mode, adding new card buckets along with what is probably a very obvious hint for the upcoming battle -

Till next time!