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
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