Vapourware Spire of Sorcery - turn-based RPG where you play a party of runaway mages - abandoned in Early Access

[Galdred]

Asians seem to like the concept. And again, I think that is because this game is a magnificent foundation for future non-RPG Maker hentai games.

Asians also tend to review bomb when their language is not supported in a game they are interested in.

 

[ntonystinson]

That video was pretty retarded. LoL he got in a storm and died because he got 20 injuries...

This R&G doesn't look like fun,it is not a game about skills but about die throwing.

They might need to cut down on that a little. But I guess probably that's why it's a "survival" game. Though he did have shit stats tbf

 

[what am i doing]

Stream
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cImk1Mq03qw

 

[ntonystinson]

https://spireofsorcery.com/forum/index.php?/topic/1949-version-143191-released-november-15-2019/

Version 143.19.1: (released November 15, 2019)

GAME EVENTS

ADDED

• New event "Inquisitors spotted!".

MAGIC, ALCHEMY & ARTIFICING

CHANGED & FIXED

• Duration of some spells has been adjusted to prevent some undesirable effects from spellcasting (earlier, disciples could die by using them over and over again).

CHARACTERS

CHANGED & FIXED

• Fixed an issue with the character regeneration bonus (that restored HP) that characters get while resting (without the bonus, characters restore 1HP/day; with the bonus, up to x3 faster).
  

WORLD

CHANGED & FIXED

• Time prediction for foraging / other resource-focused quests should now work correctly.
• Creatures and dwellers now generate more resources, so their deposits won't deplete so quickly.

USER INTERFACE

ADDED

• Halls of Magic now has a new entry for mechanic that consumes magic energy: "Research". It shows a value range of
  
  that is spent daily on research by the mage character.
• Game auto-pauses if it's not in focus or is minimised.
• More Simplified Chinese localisation assets arrived, and are now integrated. Most of the game should now be available in Simplified Chinese.
• More German localization assets arrived, and are now integrated. Most of the game should now be available in German.
• Depleted resource deposits now can't be harvested and their quest icon is removed from the map.
• Game log now contains the records of the magic energy consumption for tasks/spells/etc.

CHANGED & FIXED

• Removed resource costs from the "Upgrade" panel in all rooms, only
  
  is required for now (later this will transition to "properties").
• Quest Report entry "time spent" now has a proper explanation text.
• Quest Report entries "Effect/Disease gained" and "Effect/Disease lost" now have a visual indicator "+"/ "–".
• Quest Report entries "Item used / gained / lost" now have proper icons.
• Quest Report shows destroyed items correctly now.
• Encyclopaedia: Spells / Rituals tabs are working correctly now.
• Removed "Locations" section from Encyclopaedia as it is still too raw to be published.
• Some Russian language mistakes got fixed (thanks to all who reported!)
• Click on a creature icon on a Map will now open quest/task creation form, same as clicking on a quest/task type on the map.
• Indicator of the food reserve in the Spire moved from the main screen to the Kitchen room.

 

[Delterius]

godspeed to all testers and devs you beautiful people you

 

[Infinitron]

 

[Mortmal]

“We expect that Spire of Sorcery will remain in Early Access at least until late 2020, and maybe longer if we decide to pursue certain features that take significant time to build.”

jeez

If anything its a good sign ,i played 4 hours so far i only see a foundation of a game, they warned many systems are not implemented . There's far too much micro , for sending your disciples on exploration, no way to equip them one by one yet and equipment deteriorate extremely fast .To cure injuries when they come back you need to assign one char per injury , that gets boring very quick. Game is stable no crashes at all , but i already get big slowdowns, fast forward is stuttering like mad. Except that ,concept is great ,aesthetic of the game is very good and there's a roguelike feel, no dumbing down, its very promising .
A game like thea 2 the awakening is superior right now.They need to work one year on it for sure, and they deserve our financial support .

 

[Dr Skeleton]

Yeah, I haven't played it but from what I've seen in their videos the game might be really good some day, but what they have now is a foundation and a giant mess of half-implemented ideas and systems. I think I'll wait for the release with this one.

 

[Axioms]

I bought it, played roughly an hour and refunded. Blech. Big disappointment.

 

[spectre]

It seems Good Guy Gabon doesn't wan't me to throw money at shit. I have this on my wishlist, but no option to buy. Interesting thing is, Infinitron's link and in-browser steam works.

 

[Mortmal]

It seems Good Guy Gabon doesn't wan't me to throw money at shit. I have this on my wishlist, but no option to buy. Interesting thing is, Infinitron's link and in-browser steam works.

They just want a few players to try, cause they know its not ready, no reason to despair it's just a work in progress, they are even answering on discord all the time. Game is a bit confusing at first, but i spent a few hours and their concept works , will likely end up a very good game.

 

[Tao]

How do i increase my mana gains? i cant go beyond the intial +20 (100 total minus 80 expenses) and every new acolyte cost 10, so i'm struck with 4 grunts leaving me with only +10 mana gains.

 

[Whisper]

Who is sexy girl in game update video's?

 

[Mortmal]

How do i increase my mana gains? i cant go beyond the intial +20 (100 total minus 80 expenses) and every new acolyte cost 10, so i'm struck with 4 grunts leaving me with only +10 mana gains.

you need to research fundamental magic and obtain exploit node spell.You can get it with experiment or finding a book in some ruin and reading it.

 

[Tao]

How does food works? How many rations do one person need? The food expenses are brutal right now. And i still can't find a way to gain more mana, but ill keep increasing fundamental magic as far as i can. Ty for the tip

 

[Mortmal]

How does food works? How many rations do one person need? The food expenses are brutal right now. And i still can't find a way to gain more mana, but ill keep increasing fundamental magic as far as i can. Ty for the tip

I dont know how much food you really need either, this is indeed brutal and the number one problem you encounter . It's a survival game you are going to starve quick, higher tier last longer and give back your disciples more energy and even hp. You need to do constant supply raids,more and more far from the spire in increasingly dangerous areas , its draining on ressources your equipment rot away very fast, that's huge micro half your time is spent doing food raid . In the wilderness they can still use mana to relief hunger but i dont know if its a good idea to do, they may pick it from their own manapool, in that case its deadly to them as if they dont have enough mana when casting spells they use HP instead, and HP is ultra hard to get back....
If you still dont get enough mana and dont find a node, reduce the call of the spire consumption rate, put it to min. You can only really sustain 5 disciples in the beginning, research will drain your mana pool fast.

 

[Space Satan]

It seems like each mage eats 3 rations a day but I bet it will be changed soon as everyone in EA forums complaining about food and devs saitd they will look into that and asked for suggestions to change

 

[PrettyDeadman]

Why the girl streamer speaks in broken russian? Isn't she supposed to be russian herself? Maybe she is from baltics???
I bought the game to support it, but it seems too complicated for me to grasp. Maybe theyll streamline it in the next patch.

 

[Space Satan]

Russian is her second language

 

[PrettyDeadman]

Russian is her second language

What is her first language? She speaks pretty well (like native) as far as prononciation goes, but it feels like her vocablurary is limited / she makes some annoying stylistic mistakes.

 

[Mortmal]

It seems like each mage eats 3 rations a day but I bet it will be changed soon as everyone in EA forums complaining about food and devs saitd they will look into that and asked for suggestions to change

Yes its 3 a day according devs , so max hp gain is 9 per day. They will also change the hospital to heal disciple.

 

[Space Satan]

A bit over 1,000 players have started to explore the world of Rund by now, coming from nearly 50 countries. 私たちは、このような早い段階での私たちのゲームへの信頼に日本のプレイヤーコミュニティに感謝します。 The next game update is scheduled for end of this week.

 

[Space Satan]

See, asians seem to be fond of this game

 

[Mortmal]

https://spireofsorcery.com/forum/in...pdate-2019-47-released-nov-22-2019-– v144237/

Version 144.23.7 is now released. Enjoy!

Notes: starting from this post and onwards, we will describe release notes with reference to the week when it's expected to be released and only mention the build number once it's released – because we now go through a few versions in the course of the week, and it would be confusing if we kept changing the version number in our communication. So if you see a post "Update 2019-49", this means it's the update which we expect to release in week 49 of 2019.

–––

MAGIC, ALCHEMY & ARTIFICING

CHANGED & FIXED

• Artificing: fewer artificial recipes are now available right at the start of the campaign.
• Artificing: Thieves' tools can now be crafted in Workshop (a recipe was missing in earlier versions).
• Books no longer contain knowledge about items that aren't yet available in the game.
• All the crafting recipes for Thieves' tools now produce 10 items per crafting (formerly they would produce only 1 item).
• Spells "Lighten the burden" and "Acceleration" have been disabled in the game, we'll try to bring them back next in a couple of weeks once they begin to work as intended.
• Item icon "Protective mantle" has been updated to reflect its effects.
• Item icon "Oorl slime" has been coloured up.

CHARACTERS

ADDED

• The mage now has "The Curse of the Spire" condition from the start of the campaign, this condition generally kills the mage in 400 days. This mechanic is optional and can be turned ON/OFF at the start of the new campaign.
• Some equipment items will now defend from physical damage (arm, leg, head and torso locations). The inflicted damage will be reduced by the amount indicated in the effect of the item (currently shown as a tooltip).
• Wounds can now be caused when a character gets high enough damage with one hit. This can be prevented with equipment that reduces such damage.

CHANGED & FIXED

• "Exhaustion" conditon
  
  no longer damages HP of a character (it used to result in -5HP/day, horrible!).
• Health stat
  
  of the mage is no longer limited during generation of the character (earlier, this stat for mage character was capped).
• Characters now choose rations more wisely: they won't eat even Primitive Rations if they don't have problems with magic energy, so that cooked food is no longer consumed unnecessarily; however, if characters dislike Practical Magic, they will go and eat cooked food.
• Characters without at least level 1 in theory in Fundamental magic cannot learn or cast spells.
• The issue where some chargers would display as being naked after loading a game is now fixed (only in new games).
• An issue where "Dull pain", "Sharp pain", and "Excruciating pain" did not affect mood properly is now fixed.
• An issue where moderate and severe injuries didn't have "Bleeding" effect on them is now fixed. For now, all injuries have the same power, that is – they remove the same amount of HP per hour. This will be changed later as we balance things out.
• An issue where different injuries didn't stack properly has been fixed. Now no body part might have a few injuries. Instead, the injuries always stack as follows: 2 light injuries of the same body part become a moderate injury of that part. Another injury on top of that makes it a severe injury of that part.

WORLD

CHANGED & FIXED

• Sawmills have been disabled on the map. They will return once we add the ways of interacting with this type of objects.
• Creatures and resources generation algorithm has been changed, now more dangerous creatures and more rare resources are generated further away from the Spire (according to the "danger zones" concept).
• Some rare and uncommon herbs now can be found only in the swamp biomes.
• The number of mineral deposits that can be found inside the Cave locations is now limited to three.
• Now Caves are also generated in the Ancient Forest biomes.
• The total number of Caves in the world has increased.
• Map seed now determines the location of the Anomaly with the Librarian (i.e. when you restart on the same see, the Anomaly will be in the same place).
• The number of stackable items that are available as loot, has been decreased.
• Special ruin types (Ruins of Academy of Crafts, Ruins of Academy of Sciences, Ruins of Academy of Magic) have been removed from the game until they get the proper mechanics (see SUGGESTIONS – the Library/Books topic on this forum, for explanation).
• Rarity level of "Iron" has been decreased to "common", so that now deposits of iron are generated closer to the Spire when the world is being set up in new campaigns.

THE SPIRE

CHANGED & FIXED

• Healer's mixture in the mage's starting equipment has been replaced with Healer's salve, for balancing purposes.
• All books of "unique" and "very rare" levels of rarity are now removed from the equipment of the starting characters.
• Starting magic energy
  
  income the Spire is now lower.
• Initial settings for the amount of magic energy
  
  assigned to the Call of the Spire ritual at the start of the game is now lower.

QUESTS & TASKS

CHANGED & FIXED

• Characters now get more experience for crafting items.

USER INTERFACE

ADDED

• "Spellcasting" activity icon added to Chronicles of the Spire and Quest Reports
• Hypenation support for English and Russian languages (EXPERIMENTAL)
• Autosave, with the ability to set interval in the Settings menu
• Save/Load screen now has an "open folder" button that opens the game's saved files folder in explorer
• Knowledge items in Laboratory now show detailed tooltips for Items / spells & rituals / character conditions / creatures
• Chronicles of Spire now shows % of research progress for knowledge items being researched
• Living Quarters now has a tab that show all living characters with their skills lined up
• Character profile screen now has a Carrying Capacity indicator (near the list of equipment)
• Five new creature icons are now shown on the world map:
  • Dirt leeches
  • Blackpaws
  • Snarers
  • Gigglers
  • Waterlings
• When you Strat a new campaign, the location of the Anomaly with the Librarian is now marked on the map from the very beginning.
• Character Profile screen now has an "Edit character name" button (you asked for it!).
• In Halls of Magic, the control panel for the ritual "Call of the Spire" now shows progress bar.
• Every room in the Spire now has its "Chronicles of the Spire" button, which displays events in the Spire filtered by the current room.
• Character Profile now also has a "Chronicles of the Spire" button, which displays events in the Spire filtered by the current character.
• Event icons in the Quest Report timeline now have different colors to highlight what's more or less important.
• Quest Report now also logs "defence due to items equipped", i.e. when wearing protective gloves prevents some damage during encounter, etc.
• Character conditions, when shown in tooltip, now also display the duration of a specific condition (e.g. "Conflict – 30 hours"). This gives a better idea about the various game mechanics.
• When starting a new game campaign, in "Detailed view", there is now a game option "Curse of the Spire" that allows you to switch the curse on/off, and if turned on, then specify the number of days in which the curse will kill the mage (on average). Enable at your own risk!

CHANGED & FIXED

• Now it's no longer possible to assign the same reading task twice in the Library
• Skill check tooltip now shows the items that affected this check
• The way that Next/Previous buttons work in the Intro section is now fixed
• Individual books now can no longer be selected as the goal of a reading task in the Library
• Layout of personal rooms in Living Quarters has changed, now the screen cat fit many more rooms
• Current day/time indicator on the main screen has been moved a little, so that it's not overlapped with the words "Development Build" any more in certain resolutions.
• "Completed Quests/Tasks tab" in Character Profile works correctly now.
• The "Final summary" button is now gone from Task Reports (it was useless there, anyway).
• Completed Tasks/Quests and their reports are now stored for 90 (game) days, and removed afterwards as no longer relevant.
• The notifications for spells cast in the Spire (e.g. "Relieve Hunger") are now gone, as they were too distracting/focused new players too much on procuring cooked food.
• Healer can now be changed/removed from the healing task before it has started.
• Hospital now shows only treatable conditions – Diseases and Injuries.

TECH ISSUES

CHANGED & FIXED

• Sometimes, missing tag in localization caused to the loading process of a saved game to break; this is now fixed.
• "Space" key displayed some weird behaviour, this is now fixed: it only toggles PAUSE state of the game, nothing else is affected.
• Fixed problem with missing/deleted saved game files.
• Improved memory management while loading saved games.

 

[Mortmal]

Turn-based + direct control + hex-based
Dear friends,

In August 2019, we invited a small group of players from 10 different countries to play Spire of Sorcery for the very first time. Three months later, in November, we released the game on Steam under the Limited Early Access program – which currently remains restricted to the game’s core player community of about 1,500 players.

Throughout all this time, we’ve read every single comment that players have posted about their experience. The vast majority of player feedback that we got matched our own impressions – which was very reassuring (i.e. we did not go mad during our development, and we were on the same wavelength as our players). Some comments were pretty direct ("this interface solution works, and that solution doesn't") while others hinted at issues that were larger in scope (for example, we think that the requests of automation for equipment on quests actually indicate a problem with how inventory items are used on quests in general, and how predictable those quests are).

However, the most important gift that we received during this time from players was the courage: the courage to do whatever needs to be done, in order to make Spire of Sorcery into an exceptional game – including the changes that would take us outside of our comfort zone.

On one hand, the world of Rund is well-received, and the visuals of the game are well-liked. The key concept of the game – exploring a large dangerous world with the help of alchemy, magic and artificing employed by characters who have different personalities – is also appreciated by pretty much everyone in the community.

On the other hand, what bothered us for a long time remained in place despite the multiple game updates that we shipped and the additional content that we introduced. Managing time through a “start-stop” real-time system is still confusing, and the lack of control over characters and their parties still results in sub-optimal engagement.

As the New Year’s Eve rolled over us, most of our development team took different airplane, train and car journeys to join our families for the holidays. And while we were flying, riding and driving east, west and north of Vilnius, we kept thinking that we’re not changing the game enough to address the most crucial aspects of player experience.

Something had to change at the very core level to make a significant impact on everyone’s player experience. And as we got together for the first time after the holiday break, we finally found the courage to commit to the following changes:

• We’re moving the game from a “start-stop” system to a proper turn-based system.
  
  The current prototype that we already work on, has three turns per day (two in the daytime, one at night).
  
  
• We’re changing the map from a “free-flow map” to a hex-based map.
  
  We currently work on the map that is made out of "regions" (e.g. "Bloodsucker swamp" and "Black Forest"), each of which consists of 6 to 12 hexes of the same biome type. Visually, we don't plan to highlight the actual hex grid that much, however the hex grid will remain as the backbone of the map, giving it structure and scale.
  
  
• We’re giving players the ability to influence character decisions on the go, displaying game events as they happen.
  
  We think it's going to be a lot of fun to decide on your own, whether you want the particular party to explore the newly found cave – or walk around it, and explore ruins instead; whether to fight a bunch of stingtails with battle magic, or use the knowledge of monstrology to lure them away; and which character exactly should try disarming a particular trap; as well as, in general, to direct the parties wherever you want them to venture, changing their direction on the go.
  While all of these changes require a considerable effort from our team, we believe that they hold the key to delivering to you a game that will be considerably more fun.

In the next few weeks, we will not be releasing any game updates while we work on these fundamental changes. We thank you for the trust that you have graciously placed in us in the last few months, and for your patience that you exhibited while we shipped the last six weekly updates.

We now ask you for one more thing: to give us the extra time that we now need to bring to you “Spire of Sorcery 2.0” – a version of the game that will be fully turn-based, that will happen on a hex-based map, and that will give you a lot more control over the parties and the events as they unfold.

We believe that this is “the change” that we need to make Spire of Sorcery into a great game that we all want, making the existing game mechanics shine better as the result, and we’re willing to spend everything that we made with Gremlins, Inc. (and more!) in order to make that happen.

Please bear with us for a while longer, and we hope that the next big update of the game, when it happens, will give you a great deal of fun!


With kind regards,
The dev team at Charlie Oscar