More News and Development Progress

Hello Everyone!

Steam post image We're here once more. A couple of months ago we made an update to tell you of more news about the game. Now, let's start with a few things of notice:

• Regarding our original plan of sharing news and updates in mid to late November, we're significantly delayed in delivering that commitment and that is entirely on us, but we actually do have way more things to divulge now thanks to the delay.

• The control scheme survey release also got delayed. We will likely postpone it until after we can have everyone test the new default scheme via the upcoming update and in order to have accurate feedbacks due to the myriad of gameplay changes.

For all the constant delays, please allow us to offer once again, our sincerest apologies.

Release of Endgame Patch Date Changes

A couple of weeks ago we were presented with a rather difficult choice. Continue with the already divulged plans of releasing the game on January 6th, or do what we believe to be the best thing for the game and postpone the update once more.

If we released the game as is in the coming weeks, there is a chance some things wouldn't work as we intend it, and we feel like that would be a massive letdown. For that purpose, we're going to suspend the EA patch release for now. The only thing we can say at this point now is that we're working hard and trying our best, and we hope this update will help reassure our players of that, even if only partially.

For now we are unsure what the next best release date would be. We'll do our best to give another heads up as soon as we are firmly in just beta testing territory. We apologize for the disappointing news.

Game Progress: The Overhauls

Now, let us move on to slightly more positive news! We believe it's time to discuss what has been happening to the game behind the scenes and what really changes with the upcoming update. Here we go!

Game Difficulty Rebalance

We have been working to make sure that enemies and bosses would have a more balanced approach as far as damage and placement goes. Our primary objective is to make sure that the easy and normal modes are enjoyable to casual and regular players, while the hard mode would be truly hellish.

The first thing that will contribute to that effect would be to rework the math behind the enemies and their elemental resistances. We're also tweaking and testing the staves to make sure the difficulty is proportionate, but that will also depend on Gastova herself (more about Gastova below).

New Mechanic: Enemy Enchantments

This is a Hard Mode exclusive mechanic. We decided that the enemies are not giving the players enough of a hard time in that mode, so why not make it more chaotic?

This system will place a random elemental enchantment on almost every regular enemy in the game. Depending on the element of the enchantment, the enemy will receive an extra ability that'll make them far more threatening than their regular counterparts.

They will also look different thanks to a visual effect that will be placed on them. Here are the visuals of the enchantments!

Overhaul of Character and Element Progression

In our current build, the game's progression system is based off of collecting money and material drops from enemies and utilizing those currencies in the shop to buy upgrades. The problem with this system is that drop rates for money is high while drop rates for mats is too low, making the actual late stage upgrades much harder to obtain. Another problem is that players would also accumulate a high amount of money but have very few items to spend it on afterwards. Overall, it was a balancing nightmare that is very difficult due to how everyone plays the game differently.

So we decided to completely change that system to a different approach. The changes will be as follows:

• AddedWe have completely removed the game's economyCurrency no longer exists, and shop upgrades are no longer available as buyable items. In its place, Money Drops will be converted into EXP Drops, and Gastova levels up automatically. This means the player doesn't have to go back and forth just to buy a new upgrade, and can benefit from it automatically to improve her stats such as HP, Mana, and Critical Chance/Damage.

• Materials such as Essence Orbs and Crystallized Animals and others that can be found as drops and in chests, will be converted into Element EXP Drop. This EXP will provide a different set of level upgrades to the elemental powers, and we'll call this system "Elemental Talents". To increase the chance of a element specific EXP Drop, you can use more of that element's power when defeating enemies (via things such as staves, summons and busters).

• Consumable items that could be obtained via shop purchases becomes rechargeable items instead. This is what happens to Goddess Stone, and potion usage will be replaced by a new mechanic called "Grimoire".

In general, while seemingly a bit drastic, we hope these changes will finally streamline the gameplay and progression while also making the level system a bit more intuitive and accessible to players, while also dealing with the issues created by the previous empty economy. Mr. Piggy's Pawn Shop will not be completely removed despite the changes, and will instead be retooled into a new system. More on that to come in future updates.

New Mechanic: Grimoires

We have received feedback mentioning that potion abuse was making the game too easy. We also reflected on the lack of consumable options as well as the lack of good passive abilities, so we decided to combine these issues to solve them all in one go.

With this, we introduce the Grimoire System. In the place of potions, you now have access to 8 new spells, with varying effects. Each Grimoire needs to spend a charge, which is just the existing potion slots, but will also have a cooldown to avoid unnecessary spamming. The slots will increase as Gastova levels up.

Here's a sneak peek of a Grimoire in action: The Boon of the Queen Bee, a healing Grimoire!

To unlock new Grimoires, you need to defeat the subbosses. Here is the splash visuals for the grimoires:

Overhaul of Game Menus

In addition to gameplay changes, we also decided to fix issues with existing menus. We added new functionalities while also making sure the QoL for existing menus was improved, to make sure the game experience feels better for you all.

Let's quickly showcase how some of the menus look:

The State of Boss Fights

We're still working on improving the Boss Fights, but we cannot go into much details of endgame fights without spoiling the plot. But one fight we can quickly mention is the Mansion bosses, Isabelle&Isadora. Their animations were limited in the old version, so we have finally decided to give them an upgrade!

We're also gonna change the attacks and dynamics of their fight. Hopefully that will make things more interesting!

Preview of Voice Overs

We thought it would be fun to showcase some v.o previews for you guys! Shoutout to the amazing Miss Shellah and Monica Flatley, voicing Gastova and Tenebrea respectively!

Final Words

That's it from us for now. Right now we are taking part in Steam's Winter sale. We encourage people to try out the game if they wish to compare the differences of current build vs the future patch update!

Also, don't forget to grab the Festive Witch DLC!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2224100

This is a paid DLC that will continue to be free during the period of EA, so we really encourage everyone to get it while they can!

As usual, we'll continue to troubleshoot the current version of the game, but bear in mind we won't be able to make a minor patch of fixes just yet thanks to the game being under the mentioned overhauls. Please let us know what you think about this update, we're always happy to hear feedback from you guys!

Thank you and stay safe and sound, everyone. Until next time!