Devblog #3

Much of our time right now is spent “dogfooding". (It’s a real term, I promise!) It basically means trying your own product out and improving as you discover what works and what doesn’t. So right now we are ferociously building features, trying them, noticing what feels off, making adjustments, and then repeating the loop. It is a steady rhythm of small discoveries and small corrections. It’s in this process that the true identity of Wielders takes form. Every test reveals a little more of what feels satisfying, what falls flat, and what surprises us in the best possible way.

This coming week, we will take a nerve-wracking but important step. The first external playtest will be sent out to a small group of players. It is always a strange mix of pride and anxiety to let someone outside the studio try something that still feels unfinished. It is also one of the best ways to learn what truly resonates, so we are excited to hear what they think!

This is an excerpt from the questionnaire we'll be sending out with the first external Steam keys!

Internal playtests have shown that some of your troops still lack a clear presence on the battlefield. The Chelun (A giant turtle) has been a clear example, it moves in fron of the Wielder and it can be easy to miss when the player moves. This has led to experiments with stronger visual upgrades and clearer attack effects.

The Chelun troop currently gets upgraded to gigantic proportions at the final level. What do you think? Too much or not enough?

Several map objects blend into the level a little too well. Chests, books, and cages have had a tendency to end up hiding behind bosses or disappearing in the clutter. We are improving effects and z-sorting to keep them visible. Set pieces, the pre-defined parts of the maps, are being polished so they always stand out clearly but still look like they fit right into the surrounding environments.

The ideas behind the Essence system are in a good place, but the presentation has not kept up through all of our various iterations. Some of us feel it is hard to get a quick and clear view of how much Essence you currently have and how it affects spellcasting. Currently, you both unlock new spell schools with Essence, but you also cast said spells faster the more Essence you have! A new UI is underway to make this system clearer from the get-go.

Essences both unlock spell schools and fuels the casting of spells. It's similar to mana, yet different. Explaining it in an elegant way is one of our current prioritites!

We have also been exploring trinkets (similar to artifacts in Songs of Conquest) as part of both our short and long term progression. We are currently thinking of letting players choose which trinkets can appear in a run, in order to allow for specific builds during a run. Megabonk has a similar feature where tomes and weapons can be toggled on/off before a new run, and we find it quite fun!

Can't go wrong with a good treasure chest in a game! Right?

As you might have noticed by now, finding the fun is rarely a single aha-moment. But rather a process made up of dozens of tiny insights, each pointing us a little closer to the experience we want players to have. With our first (albeit small!) playtest right around the corner, that search takes on a new and exciting