Hello,
It's been a while since we announced our last update. We've been gradually patching the game, and we thought this a good time to share what we have been working on since the last update!
Help us with the testing!
We would love to have your help in testing some key features. For each feature you test, we would love to have your specific feedback about that feature:
- Interactive Tutorials: Checkout the new interactive tutorials and help us deliver a great game entry experience to new players.
- Participate in the Home Defense Tournament: Create the toughest Home Defense you can come up with and share it with the community.
- Nightmare Game Mode: We have made major improvements over the Nightmare Game Mode. It's a very different game now. Check the new progression and show us how far you can get! Help us test the progression, the quests, and the special Nightmare rewards!
New Features and Content Updates
- Interactive Tutorials: We have introduced a set of 4 mandatory interactive tutorials that will help new players to learn how to play the game. Tutorials are mandatory for both new and old players.
- Ice Void Archetype Starter Decks: After completing the tutorials, users will be awarded with a free starter deck that can be one of the 3 Ice Void archetypes: Beast Hunter, Corrupted Frostbite and Unstable Winter based on some of the Native, Nightmare and Mirage mechanics.
- Nightmare Mode Revamped: We have revamped the entire Nightmare game mode. There's five new decks you will play against, each one with its own AI and play style. Nightmare creatures will keep improving as you level up, but this time you will gain new powers (Rays and Pillars) that will help you to keep up with the increased difficulty. We have reset Nightmare Level to 1 for all players.
- New Cards: We have introduced a total of 18 new cards. Some of these are Nightmare exclusive: Ray of Submission/Dominance, Pillar of Exalting/Transcendence. The other ones reinforce the new archetypes. Mirage: Ethereal Rain, Stabilize. Nightmare: Defile the Land/Vicious to Noxious. Native: Ice Elemental/Beast Lore.
- Game pace change: The overall game pace was a bit slower than what we were trying to achieve. We have made adjustments to all creatures so they can take actions faster. Action should feel smoother now.
- Creature Casting Improvements: In previous versions, for all creatures, it was required that the players selected the Soul Well to cast them. This caused players to lose focus from the battle. This has been changed and now the creatures will be cast in front of the caster and automatically assigned to the closest Soul Well. Also the creature will now try to attack the closest creature on cast.
- Dynamic Crosshair: We have implemented a dynamic cross hair that will change depending on the type of card the user has selected. The new crosshair contains useful information that lets the user know about the targets for the selected spell.
- Home Defense Wait Action: As it was, setting up the rhythm of a Home Defense was a little bit tricky. We are now allowing users to add timed pauses as actions when building their home defenses. This feature allows to create home defenses that are more interesting to challenge.
- Curated Home Defenses: Old home defenses that didn't comply with minimum playability standards have been removed from the tournament.
User Interface Changes
- Tooltips for card descriptions: We have added some additional tooltips that show a basic card description when hovering over the card in different parts of the UI.
- Web tours: We have added web tours that will help new users to get used to some of the experiences in the web screens.
Bug Fixes
- Performance improvements for web based screens: Performance has been greatly improved for access to web screens.
- Spell and ability fixes: Several bug fixes have been implemented for some spells and abilities like Ice Blast, Journey Through Helgast and Unleashed.
- Creature AI bug fixes: We have implemented major bug fixes for creature AI. This includes fixes for flying creatures AI, ranged creatures AI, creature positioning in the board, auto-migrate abilities and much more. We have much more improvements to work on in this area, but overall, AI feels better now.
Thanks for joining the community in this early phase. Your contribution (testing and feedback) is what will make this a great game! And remember, you can join us on Discord (https://discord.gg/M3q3Zbb) to get more information and updates!
Soul Shards Dev Team.