Happy holidays, wizard! We’ve been working since the summer to create a massive update to Fictorum, bringing you brand new content and reworked systems!
Major Changes
Holiday spells & Giftbringer title
We’ve developed brand new spells for Christmas and Hanukkah in this patch—Spread some Holiday cheer by crushing your enemies with cheery magical doom!
Event system overhaul
We’ve been inspired by some of the other games that we’ve played recently, which has caused us to completely rethink our event system. You’ll now see rewards before choices are taken and can even choose between possible rewards! Also, at the start of an Abridged mode game, you’ll be granted a choice between four options that can drastically change your character. In addition, we’ve removed or reworked all “flavor text” events that provide no choices, rewards, nor combat. And finally, the possible rewards or hindrances have been vastly expanded.
Channeling Spell Improvements
Channeling spells were the most often overlooked type of spell prior to 1.2.4. Many runes didn’t work with them, they were terribly inconsistent, and, as a result, were rarely used. With this update to channeling, the working number of runes have been tripled, allowing you more versatility with these spells. But be warned, your enemies will be taking advantage of the enhancements as well!
Targeting Improvements
Targeting has also received an overhaul in this update. Now, you’ll see the placement and trajectory of every instance of the spell that you cast, and the targeting trajectory will scale based on the collision radius. This can be performance intensive, but you can change the maximum number of projectile paths/area targets in the settings menu. Additionally, area spells will now use a trajectory-based targeting and will adjust smoothly to minor changes to pitch and landscape. You can also press the rotate view hotkey while casting a spell will activate the aiming camera, which snaps the camera close to the shoulder and reduces aiming sensitivity by 50%.
Animation improvements
Nearly all animation sets will look much better all around. Now, the Fictorum will take a different idle stance while in combat and can even use different animation sets based on the type of spell being cast.
Completely reworked tutorial
The tutorial has been streamlined and contains much better information, as well as a short chapter map. Upon dying in the tutorial, you’ll be returned to life in a safe location with tips corresponding to how you died. We hope this flattens the learning curve of our game!
Minor Changes
- We've standardized damage for the player and enemies—All player spell damage, enemy health, and destruction thresholds have been reduced to 5%. This should have no effect on playthroughs, but it will make the developer's lives easier.
- Abridged is now the primary game mode
- Facial hair customization has been enhanced
- Game sounds will now change in pitch based on the time speed
- Townsfolk will flee more consistently
- Hair colors will now be three times more vibrant
- Spell purchase and enchanting costs are now much more consistent for all qualities
- Starting the tutorial will now bring you to a special tutorial chapter map
- Pierce and Seek runes on projectile spells will work significantly better
- Characters hit by projectiles will have more realistic impacts
- Fixed a bug that would prevent area spell pierce instances from appearing while looking down
- An Aegis will now absorb spells
- An animated quest prompt will now appear upon entering certain levels
- Enemy movement speed will now be scaled based on movement direction
- Clairvoyance will now show tunnel vision when mana is low
- Camera shake will now behave better while time is slowed
- Flight will now drain mana based on the current altitude of the player
- The inventory tooltip should denote when an item has reached the max level of enchanting
- Clicking a location button in the history scroll will now show any rewards received at that time
- Completing Fictorum will now grant titles/achievements of lower difficulties than the difficulty completed
- Pressing Interact while casting will no longer change shoulders
- Jump height has been increased by 25% for all new characters
- Slight movement for downward channels from storms
- Quests completed will be properly removed from the chapter map
- Resolution and Window mode options in the video settings will now change when hovered with gamepad
- Lightning bolt visual effects will look better over all distances
- Fog and snow VFX will no longer flicker when transitioning the camera distance
- The maximum range of spells with a Familiar or Sentinel rune have been reduced to 50m (was 500m)
- Event choices can no longer be selected while the history is scrolling
- Light plate armor and pauldrons can now be found in-game
- NPC quest markers will behave better when an enemy is knocked down
- Chronomancer will no longer start with a High Velocity rune and will now start with Arcing Ball instead of Fireball, Frost Spear, and Lightning Bolt
- Casters will no longer look like they're casting a nonexistent spell after spotting the player
- Meteor will no longer become invisible after a chain reaction or bounce
- Projectile impacts will be applied similarly to targets in air and on ground
- The Infinite Dragon will now start with Flare
- A short animation will play in the UI when quests are complete/incomplete
- Ascended will now start with a completely different set of runes and Concussion instead of Lightning Bolt
- Flare can now spawn with any color and is much more obvious when being channeled by spellcasters
- Townsfolk will now appear as a light gray in Clairvoyance when they are not part of a quest
- Arrow speed has been increased from 1800-->3000
- Stun has been removed from flare, and will no longer stun briefly upon hitting
- Characters will now pivot vertically to face where they are looking
- The shaping HUD will quickly fade in/out when toggled
- The maximum range of spells with a Storm rune have been reduced to 150m (was 500m)
- Fire, Ice, and Lightning Resistances have been replaced by Magic Resistance
- Targeting materials will become more transparent when closer to the camera
- Loading screen tips will properly keep during the entire level load process
- The currently selected event choice is now much more obvious
- Floating objects remaining after destruction will happen much less frequently.
- Spark Whip and Flareus will now have a more appropriate purchase and enchanting cost
- Stamina will no longer generate while falling
- Removed unnecessary health potions from the tutorial
- Doors will no longer get stuck upon forcing them open
- Clicking the current location on the chapter map will no longer count as an action
- Pierce will accurately detect overlap locations again
- Order and Chaos will now always stop upon final collision
- Going on long walks through houses and towns with Flame Wake should no longer crash the game
- Continue is no longer available after retiring to the void
- Flamethrower tome will now properly display a radius in the description
- Fine bookshelves will properly populate their shelves
- Fixed a bug that would cause weapons to collide with characters after being dropped
- Characters will have a much easier time navigating doors
- Enemies that are knocked off out of level bounds will still be counted for quest completion
- The inventory tooltip will properly display immediately when the inventory is toggled
- Sparkwhip will now drop properly in-game
- Fictorum will no longer turn wildly when walking on debris
- Projectiles fired will properly collide with targets in extreme close range
- Mana regeneration will now be slightly delayed after a cast
- Fixed a bug that would occasionally prevent unlocking an achievement/starting title after a victory
- Townsfolk will no longer be auto-targeted by spells
- Fixed a bug that would occasionally cause a piercing projectile to pierce an enemy multiple times on a single overlap
- Seeking projectiles will no longer enter orbit around targets
- The inventory tooltip offset will now be adjusted based on the screen resolution
- The trash panel on the inventory is now easier to navigate with a gamepad
- Incendium's mana cost has been reduced from 30 to 20.
- The transition into and out of Observer mode has been improved
- The camera can now be rotated while flying
We hope you enjoy these improvements!
Also, if you'd like to chat with us about suggestions to improve our game or share any issues you encounter, we'd love to hear from you! Feel free to reach out to us in whatever way works best for you.