Curios, Shops and breaking the game. (Devlog 1)

Over the weekend we brought the game to “Let’s break games” where we tested some of the new functionality. It is always a massive pleasure to see players enjoying the game and it was excellent to get some feedback on the new features, including Curios and Shops.

Curios

Curios are permanent buffs which can be attached to individual tomes to provide benefits both inside and outside of battle. The more recent playtest version of the game had this in the form of “innates”, curios will override this system and allow you to modify the buffs and build the tome in different ways.

Initially there will be a limit of 3 per tome but this will vary between tomes and be expandable via shop and event options throughout a run. If you have empty slots you can move a curio, or if you don’t, it can overwrite another curio. Moving and removing curio is something that Paige can help you with, more on that below.

By default combat curios will trigger on the first cast per turn, this is to incentivise players to make use of all their tomes. This is however something that can be overridden with certain cards, secondaries and other curios.

Some examples we're going to start playtesting with are:

• -1 mana for primary spells cast from this tome

• Enemies take 2 damage for each tile they are pushed

• If the tome’s HP is below 50%, add 4 damage

• +1 range to this tome when this tome kills an enemy

• draw a card Cards associated to this tome appear more often as rewards

• Tome heals 5 health at the start of each combat

• +5 movement on the first turn of combat

• When hit, reflects 2 damage to attacker

• All attacks from this tome are Lobs

• Deals 2 damage to any unit whose tile the tome passes through

• +13 Pages (gold) at the end of combat

Shop

Conservator Paige is a bit tired with you constantly bringing her destroyed library property, but she understands why you do it, and she will keep helping you in exchange for you retrieving the arcane pages scattered around the corrupted sections of the library,

At LBG we tested a complete shop also stocking card related items, as can be seen in the screenshot, but Paige in her final implementation will exclusively focus on and your tomes.

At her station you can purchase:

• Book binding and repairs.

• Purchase and installation of curios.

• Removal of bound curios.

• Transfer of simple curios between books.

Spells, secondaries and card related services will be accessible via a different shop that we will cover in a future update.

In addition to the above we have also been working on features listed below:

New features:

• The Librarian is back, he still needs some love and well get a dedicated devlog soon, but he’s had a makeover and doing a bit better.

• Battlescreen Selection UI Overhaul

  • Targeted tiles now have a reticle UI

  • Selected and Selectable tomes have bespoke battlemap UI

  • New UI for hovered tiles

• HUD changes

  • All new UI to show off mana, steps, deck, discard, end turn and rewind.

  • Enemy vitals now displayed in the top right to declutter the battlemap a bit. Also they are sorted in turn order to help forecast the upcoming turn.

  • Additional information about tomes can now be found in the top left hand side.

• Our first tileset, the crypts, has been neglected for months, so we have started redecorating in lovecraftian style.

Changes & Bugfixes:

• Slight buff to Jester innate

• Game now saves on loading any room

• Material improvements to performance through better use of sprite atlases and lights (even my laptop can run it now!)

• Changes to card layout

  • New Mana Icon

• Numbers in the battlemap are more legible thanks to the introduction of new fonts.

• Added Meat cleaver card and prefab to test more of the butcher tome.

• Added GuZombie

• Switched out front shelves for more thematic spites and assets.

• Removed a few thousand sprites that were not being seen by anyone.

• Move highlight no longer breaking after a few moves

• "Esc to main" menu fix

• Several Next turn bugs fixed, (including the infamous “cardswaitingtobedrawn” bug) LBG showed us that some are still lurking.

• Drone bees less likely to succumb to their nature and bug out

• And many more

We are getting closer and closer to releasing a closed playtest, if you want to join in, jump in on the Discord server.

Don’t forget to wishlist!

Tomebound