Hello again, my friends!
We’ve got a smorgasbord of new content and mechanical tweaks ready to show off today: first, we'll take a closer look at our freshly forged passive relics, then an in‑depth run‑through of our re-vamped dodge, heavy attack, and shield systems and as a cherry on top we garnish with some UI changes.
Let's get into the action.
Passive Relics: Objects of Power
Passive relics are mystical artifacts left behind by celestial knights. And they’re the backbone of what will make Colt a powerhouse throughout your different runs. What roguelike/lite would be complete without em right?
So today we’re spotlighting two fun examples:
With passive relics we'll be aiming to do the regular stuff like boost damage yada yada...we'll also make things more interesting by trigger these bonuses at various timings. For example, our lovely Mimic Maiden will give you +60% Shadow, Poison, and Arcane damage boosts whenever you open a chest. So hopefully you'll be more enticed to explore and find the chests in each level. Some like the 1st Edition Holographic Swordlizard makes it so Rare and Mythic quality swords deal +100% base damage, but ONLY if you have Rare or Mythic items in your inventory. This might make you re-think how'd you'd like to cultivate your arsenal and item choices.
And every relic will of course also feature it's very own wacky icon!
Also note that we've made some updates to the item reveal UI. It's now a sword shape that displays information but it also gleams oooo...shiny.
Stamina? Just some guy I used to hang out with...
After watching alot of the older play sessions and recent testing, we decided the stamina mechanic and bar was more frustration than fun. So we ripped it out in favor of cooldowns and shield charges. Here’s precisely what changed because of that:
Dodge and Heavy Attack Cooldowns:
Both dodging and heavy attack are now on a cooldown. They have their own separate own radial timers, complete with vfx when they refill. You can opt into an above‑character display for health and dodge status that stays visible, let it hide automatically after use, or turn it off entirely.
3 Charge Shielding:
Shields now use three charges that regenerate over time. Lose all charges and your next block leaves you guardbroken (which kind of never really came into play much before).
Dodge Cancel Freedom:
Since dodge is now a resource that's on cooldown, we felt that it also needed to become more powerful. For maximum responsiveness, you can now cancel any light or heavy attack into a dodge, even after the attack has started. This gives you instant reaction power without feeling punished for committing to an attack if you have a dodge to spend.
These changes are to push the idea that every dodge is a deliberate choice, shielding feels more meaningful when you don't have dodge available, and heavy attacks can pack more punch + uniqueness without being spammable.
As always, we're thankful for your support as we continue to sharpen Swordcery into a fine blade!
With much stab,
Don and Mike