Slaves of Magic - tactical turn-based RPG inspired by XCOM and Guild Wars

[sipibaki]

So...
What do you think about Orban?

Not a fan, and I don't like the direction our country is going. But I don't want to go too off-topic here so I hope that satisfies your curiosity about the matter.

 

[Sweeper]

so I hope that satisfies your curiosity about the matter.

More than enough tbh.

Not a fan, and I don't like the direction our country is going.

You just lost a sale sir.

 

[Infinitron]

 

[sipibaki]

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1442610/view/4231776500625674331

Devlog #27 Preparation for the final major demo patch

Let's take a look at the upcoming new features and changes to the demo.

Spoiler

Hello everyone!

I wanted to give you a sneak peek at the upcoming last major 1.4 patch for the demo!

New equipments

The tier 2 equipments are coming in this patch, so finally, there will be many things to spend your etherglow on, and to keep your scholars busy! Take a look at a few examples:

In addition, health potions and throwing nets are added as new utility items! Throwing nets are a one-use guarantee way to distract enemies as they need to spend actions to get out of it, helping the player out of tough situations. Alternative usage is locking down kiting enemies!

New combat mission

There will be a new generic combat mission introduced in this new patch as well called steal supply! In this mission, you will need to gather multiple chests that are randomly placed on the battlefield. The chest's location is only revealed after teleporting in, so additional scrying charges are very useful in this mission!

Closing thoughts

So that's it for today's devlog! There will be a lot of other subtler changes that will arrive in the next patch, but these are the major new features. After the patch, we can consider the demo feature complete, and that means we are one step closer to the full release! This will be a great time to try out the demo, and if you have any questions feel free to join our Discord.

 

[sipibaki]

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1442610/view/4231776500625674331

New gameplay trailer and 1.4.0 demo patch note

Hello everyone!

I'm happy to announce that we have released our new gameplay trailer, check it out:

Spoiler

1.4.0 patch notes:

New features:
- Units using two-handed hammers can break through walls for extra movement points. The amount of movement point needed depends on the level of the hammer.

- New standard combat mission where the player will need to steal the supply of the enemy army. There will be 5 of them on the combat map, and their location will be revealed after teleporting in, if not found by scrying. The player can simply teleport them home when they are adjacent to them, but only 1 can be teleported away per turn.

- Added adamantine armor and weapons that are researchable and buyable for the resistance.

- Reworked spider web and added a buyable throwing net to the utility slot for the resistance. Now, the netted unit cannot use most of its actions besides escape using its melee attack. Adjacent friendly units can help as well.

- Added healing potions, plus units can share their potions with adjacent units.
- Added a new universal skill called potion master. It increases the amount of potions the unit can bring with them to 3 (from the default 1).
- Hold ground protector skill has been reworked into shield expert skill.
- Added new passive rewards for completing the chosen resistance goals in the campaign map (different rewards for the different goals). For example, if the resistance completes the 30 smiths goal, the second utility slot will unlock for the troops.
- Reworked sprites for dark elf light armor.

- Reworked sprites for cloth armor.

- Reworked sprites for Redeemed.

- Added a new UI option that doubles the thickness of the character outlines.
- Added option to turn off v-sync and to set an FPS limit.
- Restarting is no longer necessary to correctly apply the language setting.

Balance changes:
- Simplified gaining XP. Previously, it was calculated using the number of units in the party, modified by the individual units level compared to the defeated enemies level. Now every unit will need an increased amount of XP to reach the next level, and enemies all provide a hand-set amount of XP regardless of the level difference between them and the player units.
- The XP simplification gave higher control of the possible XP curve, so I made the first level up easier than the rest.
- The second utility slot for units can be used as well from the start.
- Etherdust research has been added as a prerequisite for Alchemy research (potions) and the time and dust requirement has been adjusted.
- Masterwork weapons reduce the critical threshold by 10 (up from 5).
- Reinforced shields increase the shield health by 10 (up from 5).
- Swapped the dwarf soldier reorganized formation skill with shield expert.
- Spider web attack now has a cooldown of 3 (up from 2).
- The priest's guiding light ability now does 6 damage, still guarantees hit but can be blocked by shields.
- Thanks to the increased power level of the resistance, reverted the change to the army level that does the final mission back to 5 (up from 3).

Bugfixes:
- It's no longer possible to swap places with units that are unmovable (because of being webbed for example).
- The previous movement path will no longer be shown after a blue move.
- Fixed that it was theoretically possible to research etherglow analysis before finishing the gather 2 etherglow goal.
- Fixed a crash trying to load a save where the resistance goal has not been chosen.
- Fixed a rare crash that could occur when a unit is next to someone with the attack of opportunity skill.
- In the party select screen, it is no longer possible to click on units or go back to the campaign map after pushing the start mission button, but before the map has been loaded. In addition, for users that didn't finish loading while the teleport animation was ongoing, added a loading text to make it clear that it was loading the map.
- Fixed open door action being duplicated when pushed away or rotated away from the door.
- Fixed that certain profile pictures could not be clicked on on the combat map on lower resolutions.

 

[Beastro]

I read the title at first glance as "Slavs of Magic", and given that this is the Codex, found the title not being that more surprising than me seeing it wrong.

 

[Darth Canoli]

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1442610/view/4231776500625674331

New gameplay trailer and 1.4.0 demo patch note

Hello everyone!

I'm happy to announce that we have released our new gameplay trailer, check it out:

Spoiler

1.4.0 patch notes:

New features:
- Units using two-handed hammers can break through walls for extra movement points. The amount of movement point needed depends on the level of the hammer.

- New standard combat mission where the player will need to steal the supply of the enemy army. There will be 5 of them on the combat map, and their location will be revealed after teleporting in, if not found by scrying. The player can simply teleport them home when they are adjacent to them, but only 1 can be teleported away per turn.

- Added adamantine armor and weapons that are researchable and buyable for the resistance.

- Reworked spider web and added a buyable throwing net to the utility slot for the resistance. Now, the netted unit cannot use most of its actions besides escape using its melee attack. Adjacent friendly units can help as well.

- Added healing potions, plus units can share their potions with adjacent units.
- Added a new universal skill called potion master. It increases the amount of potions the unit can bring with them to 3 (from the default 1).
- Hold ground protector skill has been reworked into shield expert skill.
- Added new passive rewards for completing the chosen resistance goals in the campaign map (different rewards for the different goals). For example, if the resistance completes the 30 smiths goal, the second utility slot will unlock for the troops.
- Reworked sprites for dark elf light armor.

- Reworked sprites for cloth armor.

- Reworked sprites for Redeemed.

- Added a new UI option that doubles the thickness of the character outlines.
- Added option to turn off v-sync and to set an FPS limit.
- Restarting is no longer necessary to correctly apply the language setting.

Balance changes:
- Simplified gaining XP. Previously, it was calculated using the number of units in the party, modified by the individual units level compared to the defeated enemies level. Now every unit will need an increased amount of XP to reach the next level, and enemies all provide a hand-set amount of XP regardless of the level difference between them and the player units.
- The XP simplification gave higher control of the possible XP curve, so I made the first level up easier than the rest.
- The second utility slot for units can be used as well from the start.
- Etherdust research has been added as a prerequisite for Alchemy research (potions) and the time and dust requirement has been adjusted.
- Masterwork weapons reduce the critical threshold by 10 (up from 5).
- Reinforced shields increase the shield health by 10 (up from 5).
- Swapped the dwarf soldier reorganized formation skill with shield expert.
- Spider web attack now has a cooldown of 3 (up from 2).
- The priest's guiding light ability now does 6 damage, still guarantees hit but can be blocked by shields.
- Thanks to the increased power level of the resistance, reverted the change to the army level that does the final mission back to 5 (up from 3).

Bugfixes:
- It's no longer possible to swap places with units that are unmovable (because of being webbed for example).
- The previous movement path will no longer be shown after a blue move.
- Fixed that it was theoretically possible to research etherglow analysis before finishing the gather 2 etherglow goal.
- Fixed a crash trying to load a save where the resistance goal has not been chosen.
- Fixed a rare crash that could occur when a unit is next to someone with the attack of opportunity skill.
- In the party select screen, it is no longer possible to click on units or go back to the campaign map after pushing the start mission button, but before the map has been loaded. In addition, for users that didn't finish loading while the teleport animation was ongoing, added a loading text to make it clear that it was loading the map.
- Fixed open door action being duplicated when pushed away or rotated away from the door.
- Fixed that certain profile pictures could not be clicked on on the combat map on lower resolutions.

You've come a long way.
Any release date?
I might give the new demo a spin.

 

[sipibaki]

Yeah, it was definitely an interesting journey, and it has not ended yet, though we might be close to it!

I'm a bit cautious with the release date after all these years. We still have a lot of work to do on the late-game content + balancing. My current estimate is that it will be finished by the end of the year, but we are probably going to release it somewhere at the start of next year to avoid the holiday season.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1442610/view/7100576625992157087

Demo 1.4.10 patch note and release date change
Hello everyone!

I know I promised no new features to the demo, but I had a few ideas that I really wanted to implement that affect the early game in a meaningful way. This, of course, doesn't mean to stop sharing your feedback with us, it will still help us shape the full game, and will still fix game-breaking bugs if found in the demo.

Considering our plans for the future, we are aiming to have a feature-complete game by the end of the year, but we want to avoid releasing it during the Christmas season. So we delay our release until the start of next year, sometime after participating in the February Steam Next Fest. Now onto the patch note itself!

1.4.10 patch note
Visual changes:

• Bloodrage condition (and it's level) is now visually represented on the character if active.
  
  
  
  
• Stunned condition is now visually represented on the unit while active.
  
  
  
  
• Units will actually visually raise shield when affected by the raised shield condition.
  
  
  
  
• Ranged attacks firing animation has been modified to improve clarity.
  
  
  
  

Gameplay changes:

• New Inquisitor enemies:
  • Inquisitor recruit, which replaces the shielded redeemed. This unit provides a more smoother transition for the player toward the more armored Inquisitor variants.
  • Inquisitor archer and arbarest, which replaces the two-handed sword using soldier, and the two-handed hammer using soldier. This adds a bit more variance to the Inqusitor enemies, as the last Inqusitor can be either a ranged threat or an armored two-handed axe-wielding soldier, forcing the player to adapt.
• Reworked Assassinate mission. The 2 leaders will be more vulnerable with fewer bodyguards, and they will be stationary till they see a player unit. Their location will be revealed after the combat phase if the player has not found them in the planning phase. The other pods will patrol as usual. This should help to make this mission more distinct from a simple kill of every enemy with guaranteed 2 leaders that was previously.
• Teleport sickness mechanics added. This means every unit after a combat mission will receive the teleport sickness debuff for a few days. This doesn't prevent them from going to further missions, but the penalty for not letting them rest will mean they will get some injuries after the mission (even if they did not suffer any damage). Two new traits have been added as well, Teleport phobia which increases the teleport sickness time, and teleport resistance which completely eliminates it. One of the reasons for including this feature is to make sure the player needs to manage at least 2 teams worth of soldiers improving the importance of training and recruiting soldiers as a result. The other is to better balance the XP spread between ranged and melee troops, as ranged combatants generally take fewer wounds, meaning they could go on more missions.
• Stunned condition has received a mini-rework. Now, it will cancel the target's raised shield, the affected unit has no threat range nor can use any reaction (like attack of opportunity). It will be removed at the start of the unit's next activation. Won't stack.
• Removed the cooldown from the one-handed hammer's stunning strike skill as it is no longer necessary as the stun no longer stacks.
• Increased the minimum damage by 1 and the maximum damage by 2 for ork weapons.

UI changes:

• In the combat layer planning phase, when a unit is selected, the unit's basic commands will be seeable instead of the scrying command.
  
  
  
  
• When hovering over enemy units while a friendly unit movement command is active will now show the enemy movement range.
  
  

Bugfixes:

• Fixed that the scrying command was not being selected when pressing the 1 key.

 

[sipibaki]

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1442610/view/4490746800993470887

Hello everyone!

I know that we have been a bit quiet in the past few months, but fear not, the reason was that we were climbing the content mountain that we want to be included in the full game! And I'm happy to say that we started to see the top of the mountain, so we are generally on track for a release in the first half of next year! Check out a few of the new enemy types that will be included in the full game:

At the start of the next year, we plan to enter the next Steam Next Fest, with an updated demo. Some of the bigger changes that are coming for it:

• Placeholder leader enemies have been replaced by their spellcasting variant.
• Added a new Marksman school, dedicated to skills that improve the ranged capabilities of the unit.
• Reworked headquarter chooser screen. Now regional equipment only affects the starting equipment of the units.
• Completely rebalanced progression, generally speeding up the player's progress.
• Reworked escort missions to give higher emphasis on scrying before starting the mission. Now there will be 2 valid escape tiles for the VIP and the player will need to decide which one he/she will use.

Taking into account our preparation for the Steam Next Fest, I have modified our planned release date to Q2 2025. This will give us some time to integrate the feedback we receive from it into the full game.

So that's it for today's devlog! The next year is going to be a very exciting one for sure! If you have any questions, feel free to join our Discord channel here.