Howdy, everyone!

Thank you for the general welcoming response to the news of the update. Before we dive deep into the contents, let’s get something rather important out of the way:

Gastova: The Witches of Arkana Early Access Build update, version 1.02A - "Endgame Build" will be postponed to December 18th, 7pm (PST) - a week from today.

The reason for the postponement: We need to address the situation regarding the game’s balancing issues in the utilization of grimoires and the general difficulty curve across modes. That being said, there is a chance that the game update will come out earlier than the postponement date if we reach a good balance threshold earlier.

Game Development Progress

Structural Changes

• Bosses no longer have casting bars. Easier attacks don’t have alerts, and some of the more jeopardizing attacks contain a discreet warning that will cue the player to dodge or jump out of the way before it’s too late.

• Shop has been phased out for a level system that allows natural progression - all upgrades are unlocked as you play the game, with no need for back-and-forth trips to the town, and you can check them out in your pause menu.

• Cartridges droppables are now treated as Elemental EXP. Killing enemies will grant players regular EXP that counts towards levelling up Gastova.

• Grimoires are finalized, and each Grimoire has an individual cost for performing different tasks. This phases out the potion system. You can only use one Grimoire at a time, and need to wait for the cooldown bar to disappear before casting another magic. Grimoire fuel is not rechargeable by the Goddess Statue, so you need to spend it carefully!

• The menu has had some changes. We’ve received feedback that the keyboard customization system was not behaving appropriately, and for now, we have phased it out. We can revisit this topic once the build is online and consider ways to offer alternative control options.

• The game is now fully voice-acted (except for town NPC dialogues), and some bosses will have voice effects during their combat. If you find this to be a little unpleasant, players can also turn the voice volume down without affecting sound effects, but keep in mind that this will also affect voiced dialogues.

• Chests have been completely phased out as well. Right now, enemies drop Elemental EXP, grimoire stacks, or heal/mana drops, so you don’t have to exhaustively wait for chests to respawn in areas that are hard to access.

• Goddess Stone is now obtained by a rechargeable mechanic. 1 charge per enemy slain, in a total of 400 in the hardest mode, 250 in normal mode, and 100 in easy mode.

• Normal and Hard mode contains the new “enchantment” mechanic, where monsters have additional damage hazards that add a bit of extra difficulty to them. The frequency of the enchantment's appearance varies per mode, and certain kinds of enemies do not spawn with the enchantment.

Endgame Contents Information

For those who have played the game up until now and stopped at Aldebaran, if you head back to the Academy and return to the Shrine of Origins, you’ll find that the entire map there is now accessible. You’ll need to roam the area and find the memories of past witches to unlock the way to the Boss Room. Once you reach it, we advise you to save up before going into the unlocked room, as that is the boss room of that area.

Here is a video showcasing it:

Please note that this video also loads a pre-update save, which resets the player’s level to the very start. At the end of this post, we discuss what happened to the EA saves’s compatibility and what choice you can make in that regard.

After Shrine of Origins, there are two more final areas. We won’t reveal their names for the sake of spoilers, but they’re the endgame areas, with the last one leading to the Final Boss. Upon defeating the Final Boss, you’ll unlock the epilogue scene and the staff roll.

The game will allow the player to continue playing it after the defeat of the Final Boss. For now, there is no additional content (something we can study adding - obviously for free - if the players wish for a new kind of post-game challenge), but players will be able to use said post-game to unlock outfits to be used in other modes, as well as finishing their Steam achievement hunting for that particular playthrough without having to restart the entire game and grind Gastova once more - this can be beneficial to complete the bestiary. That is primarily the function of this post-game world.

Outfits are saved in system save files; therefore, they can be used to unlock/access outfits in fresh playthroughs or other game modes. Staves acquired are still exclusive per playthrough.

Note: If you accidentally delete your system save and lose your outfit unlock progress, don’t panic. So long as you still have the original save playthrough where you have unlocked your outfits, if you reload that save and interact with the goddess statue, the outfits will start to unlock one by one in the game screen, then regenerate a new system save with that information.

Outfits Information

And speaking of outfits, we have some important news. Previously, we’ve mentioned the possibility of paid outfits for four out of the sixteen total outfits for the game.

We’ve completely changed our minds in that regard.

In light of so many delays and development issues, we feel it’d be too disingenuous to seek further monetization from the game that way. As far as paid DLC for the outfit goes, we’re only making an exception to the Festive Witch Outfit: It’ll remain in the store as DLC (as it currently is), and after the early access period is over, it’ll have a symbolic price since it’s an Early Access bonus on Steam. People who buy the game outside the Early Access period will have to purchase the Festive Witch Outfit separately.

The only other paid DLC for this game, aside from the Festive Witch Outfit, is going to be the game’s Digital Soundtrack as an extra support option. All other content (especially gameplay content) is within the game, with no additional costs involved. You buy the game once = You’ll have access to all relevant gameplay content.

The Steam achievements requirements for outfits do not require the Festive Witch Outfit for its completion. If you don’t possess it, it won’t lock you out of obtaining the achievement.

Old Saves Information

There might be quirks associated with loading saves from a previous version of the game that are a byproduct of a slight misalignment in save compatibility due to the numerous structural changes.

So, are old EA saves still compatible? In short, yes, they are. But here are a few things to expect if you load an old save:

• Your previously obtained money and upgraded talents will be rendered null since conversion to the level system could end up breaking several things in the game. This means that Gastova's progress will go back to level 1 even though she's past several bosses. You’ll be required to level up from the ground up in that case - the easiest way to do this without dying in old saves is to go against the enemies at Shrine of Origins and use a strategy of bait and switch + perfect dodge. They have a lot of EXP, and it should help you catch up. Please note that, as we rebalance the game, this strategy might also not work in the long run and change accordingly.

• All the permanent chest upgrades (astrocrystals, gaiajewels, etc) have been swapped with collectibles that will allow you to unlock outfits upon collecting all of them. If you return to a place where a chest had previously been, you will see whether or not you have already obtained the collectible in question.

• There’s a quirk with Title Screen sprites where sometimes, the bosses that were previously defeated in a past save do not display there as expected. We’re still studying ways to fix this, but we believe this happens thanks to system save regenerations between different playthroughs.

We recommend players start a fresh playthrough to avoid coming across odd inconveniences such as the ones mentioned above. But for those who don’t wish to part with their progress, just please keep in mind that you might encounter the quirks we’ve described above!

The Future After the Update

After the update, we’ll be doing some final adjustments to finally ship/release the game, most of which will be finishing touches to the game’s localization, any minor display bugs, and sound effects replacement/fixes.

There is also an open possibility of adding an extra challenge to the game if interest is shown among the playerbase for more content for post-game. We will have to, of course, evaluate the risks of doing it since we don’t wish to keep dragging on the development process any longer than it already has been, but at the very least, with this upcoming update, the game will be fully beatable, which means we have finally achieved what we set out to do.

Parting Words

We believe this is it. Any other information we might wish to impart to players will be delivered with the update in question.

Thank you, everyone, for the amazing support. We apologize for all the inconveniences that have occurred over the years, and most importantly, we’re very grateful for all the kindness everyone has shown us along the way.

That’s it for today, guys. Stay safe!