Fixed a bug that was making it impossible to find all 25 artifacts if artifact location was randomized

Redid the way that the offline progression routine works, which should prevent an error some people were getting about "possible infinite loop", as well as being faster in general.

First update in a while! One requested feature and a bugfix

• Population growth rate and maximum population is now viewable in-game, from the Game Statistics menu, under the General tab
• Fixed a bug where it was possible to re-build an upgrade you had already built in the castle

First news in a while

Patch 1.1 Darkspar Chapter 2 development update

• Character class #1: Druid. Focused on Summoning and Lightning/Wind magic. This tree adds three unique summons to the game, making a total of four including squirrel.
• Character class #2: Monk. Focused on unarmed attacks and passive shielding to prevent damage. Can attack many times in a turn to power up finishing moves.
• A new map-based chapter of the game. Instead of build timers driving progression players will complete map objectives.
• Fishing and other secondary skills will be added.
• Five slots for champions instead of three.
• Exploration skills (plains/forest/mountain) and the research / build tree mechanics are specific to chapter 1 and will not be present in chapter 2. Crafting will be expanded to compensate.
• You will have the choice of starting in either chapter 1 or chapter 2 when starting a new game. Each chapter is a self-contained experience (but you have the option of continuing from your chapter 1 characters into chapter 2).

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• Three new gameplay modes
• New achievements
• Streamlined crafting
• A new dungeon available in the challenging New Game Plus mode
• Optional randomization settings

Couple of bugfixes

• The bug with bow crafting from the initial 1.05 release was accidentally re-introduced in 1.05e, it is fixed now
• The achievement "Zoology" no longer requires the monsters from the Ancient Temple
• Fixed a very rare crash with an error message about a non-integer input into renpy.randint

Couple of bugfixes

• Fixed an issue where dual-wield crafting wasn't working quite correctly in the new crafting screen
• Fixed an issue where during the early game discovering the zones in a certain order would result in the "discover a combat zone" quest being completed more than once

Couple of small tweaks

• Changed how the Ouroboros runestone is awarded to address a potential issue if someone were playing New Game Plus more than once
• Changed the quests in New Game Plus mode to reflect the goals of that mode (defeating Vix, then defeating the boss of the Ancient Temple)

Couple of bugfixes: [olist]

Couple of quick fixes

• The Imbue button in the crafting screen should now work correctly
• Clicking the character portrait in the crafting screen will now take you to the stats screen for that character

Patch 1.05 is here

New Gameplay Modes

New Game Plus : Start a new game using the characters from an old save. Monsters gain 25 levels. Monster level cap is now 145. Runestones and artifacts are more powerful. There is an additional dungeon after you defeat Vix. You must defeat Vix in Normal or Semi-Turbo mode before you can access New Game Plus mode. [/olist] The Turbo and New Game Plus modes each have new achievements associated with them.

Game Randomization

To enhance replay value and provide a unique challenge, there are now a total of five optional randomization settings which can be enabled when creating a new game. The following things can be randomized: Combat zone locations, Monster Locations, Rune locations, Artifact locations, and Monster Stats. If Monster Stat randomization is enabled, each monster has a chance either to have normal stats, up to 25% reduced stats versus normal, or up to 25% increased stats versus normal. The stat randomization is set at the start of the game and is the same for every monster of that same name for the entire playthrough (it is not set per encounter). There is an achievement for completing the game in any mode with all of the randomization settings enabled.

New Category of Achievements: Rare

Added a new category of achievements "Rare". These achievements are "account wide" (across all of your saves). Most are related to the new game modes.

Crafting Revamp

We took a long look at crafting and decided it was more tedious than it needed to be. As a result, all crafting is now instantaneous. Additionally, crafting has all been relocated to one Crafting screen, which can be accessed from the lower-right menu.

Alerts Redone

Alerts have been redone and are now much more informative.

Other Improvements

• Rare crashes related to the unused Gamepad functionality of Renpy should be reduced or eliminated
• Fixed an issue where a rune drop and XP might rarely be awarded more than once after a kill
• The "choose zone" screen now tells you whether there are any artifacts left to be found in each gathering zone
• You can now hover over runestones in the Monsterpedia to see what the runestone does
• The Artifact menu has been relocated to the lower right, to be more consistent with the Runestone menu
• The champion interface has been simplified and the buttons made bigger.
• Character portrait can now be changed under the Crafting menu
• Doubled the effect that Surge has on build timers
• Added an Artifacts and Runestones page to Game Stats in the lower right. These screens will tell you which specific places to go for the remaining artifacts and runestones you are missing. (very useful in Random mode)
• Clicking in slightly the wrong spot in the Artifact menu no longer closes that menu
• Offhand weapons and quivers no longer incorrectly show a item level (these items cannot be upgraded so should not show a level)

[ 2022-04-05 04:23:02 CET ] [ Original post ]

A few minor aesthetic changes in this patch

• Resource tooltip position adjusted slightly
• Game statistics screen now has buttons inside the border and not outside (this was the last holdout as far as buttons being outside the border so now they should all be inside the border)
• Removed total build time from game stats as it is incorrect now since build times are no longer static
• Monsterpedia moved back to center of screen (was slightly off-center in 1.04)

Darkspar at two weeks

In case you missed it

• Removal of the pauses which happened during alerts
• Menus no longer pause the game
• GUI adjusted to make the buttons on the right more easy to find
• More tooltips added to make the UI easier to interpret
• A basic tutorial added to the first few actions in the new game
• Quests to provide optional objectives and clarify how to complete the castle
• Leveling curve of the early game adjusted
• Combat rounds take 5 seconds instead of 10 seconds (adjustable in settings)
• Demo version released containing the first 30 levels of content
• New mechanics added: Settlement Level and Surge, both of which speed up gameplay
• A more traditional Continue option added to the main menu to continue where you left off

We are still seeking feedback

What to expect in the future

We need a few more reviews ...

Thank you

1. Fixed another instance where loading a pre- 1.04 save might sometimes crash the game 2. Fixed an issue that was preventing the Victory rune drop from being written to the game log window

Fixed a bug introduced in 1.04 that would cause the game to cash if you loaded a save that had offline combat progress

Fixed an issue where the 15k Surge cap did not automatically assert itself after hitting Settlement Level 70

A few balance changes to make Surge a little better

• Default surge duration increased from 3 to 5 minutes
• XP required to trigger a surge is now capped at 20k instead of 30k (15k if you have the level 70 milestone)
• Exploration actions now produce 25 settlement XP instead of 20
• Surge now doubles research speed in addition to it's other effects

Content patch 1.04 is here, the most comprehensive update released to date! With it come several changes and new mechanics

New resource: Settlement XP and Settlement Level

New mechanic: Surge

Speed of the early game

Other improvements and requested features

• Decreased the HP of common monsters in the two starting zones
• Reduced the amount of XP needed for the first 10 combat levels
• Added a level up animation to make it more obvious when a champion has leveled up a skill
• Added tooltips to the top panel of the screen (including resources)
• Amount of resources required for some early buildings has been reduced
• Changed the borders for most menus to hopefully make the text buttons on the right more easy to find
• The requirement to recruit a second champion is now to reach Settlement Level 5, and to recruit the third champion to reach Settlement Level 10 (both of which will only take a few minutes)

Couple of small fixes: 1. The previous fix in 1.03a for the runestone achievement issue itself had an issue in it which was fixed in 1.03b 2. Continuing to work on the "value too large to convert to short" issue which is affecting some systems. We think we have narrowed it down to the game log so we redid the way the game log is drawn. If you are having this particular error even after 1.03bb please send a save file to darkspargame@gmail.com

Added an additional check for runestone counts to handle rare occasions where an achievement might not be granted

Thanks to everyone for providing great feedback on Darkspar and continuing to help us improve the game This patch adds a few important improvements: Quests have been added to the game. 1. You now have two tabs on the right which you can switch between, Game Log and Quests. Quests will be added to the quests screen automatically as you play through the game and provide a small to somewhat significant amount of resources when completed. 2. There are two kinds of quests. One is a repeating optional quests providing resources for killing certain monsters. The second is a storyline quest that updates as you play through the game, providing hints on what you should be doing and providing rewards for hitting milestones. 3. We hope that the quest feature will help players who are either stuck at the endgame (which has several steps that must be done in order, now spelled out in Quests) or players who felt like the mechanics weren't spelled out clearly enough Other improvements and requested features 1. You can now view the stat screen of your character by clicking their character panel. This can be done at any time. 2. Estimated research times have been added to the research panel, and research production is listed in the research box. Bug fixes 1. Fixed a couple of places Population was misspelled 2. Stopped Achievement pop ups from disappearing too quickly

Fixed an issue related to the Tier III Runestone drop table crashing the game if you had gotten all but one of the Tier III Runestones

Fixed an issue introduced in the previous patch which caused the name/rename fields to not function correctly

Smaller performance tweak relating to alerts

Made a couple of minor changes to the progress report message upon loading the game that might help with users experiencing "value too large to convert to short" error We are having difficulty duplicating the "value too large to convert to short" error in our testing, if you have a save file that can produce this message please send it to darkspargame@gmail.com

We continue to work to improve Darkspar and bring requested features to the game Improvements: 1. The game will now automatically save when you Quit 2. There is now a Continue option at the main menu which will continue from the save when you last Quit 3. Manual saves are still possible and supported, and auto-saves are still generated while playing (these are under "A" in the load menu) Bugfixes: 1. Added an additional fix for infrequent crashes introduced with 1.01 that had an error message "value too long to convert to short" 2. Fixed an issue with the tooltip for the Constitution Runestone

Fixed a bug where Armor Edge was not dealing it's intended damage

Fixed the tooltip for Weight of the Lizard, which was incorrectly showing the tooltip for Weight of the Lion

1. Alerts will now auto-close again based on the timer set under preferences 2. Fixed a couple of crashes that related to the granary or other buildings, or having too many alerts populate at once

Fixed a bug introduced with 1.01 where achievement popups weren't playing nice with the non-pausing of alerts and could cause a crash after a certain amount of time. (Pausing is now reinstated on achievements)

Patch 1.01 broke combat for people who have unlocked Runestones, should be fixed here

We continue to work to make Darkspar better and respond to player feedback This patch brings the first of several requested QoL changes 1. The various alerts, pop ups, and menus of Darkspar will no longer pause the game. This was a very popularly requested feature. There are still a very few instances were important messages may pause until you click OK. 2. A very basic tutorial and introduction text has been added. The tutorial ends after the first building and and first combat level are gained. We will expand the tutorial in future patches. 3. Gameplay change: the cooldown to recruit a second champion has been reduced to 30 minutes, and the cooldown to recruit the third champion reduced to 1 hour. We've heard the complaints about the pacing and feel this is a change we can make without being too impactful but giving players more to do early on. 4. Gameplay change: there are now two combat speeds- Fast and Original. Fast has a 5 second timer in between rounds and is now the default. Original has a 10 second timer between rounds. This can be changed under preferences. In order to not give too much of advantage to players playing at the high rate of speed, Runestone drop rate is nerfed slightly when playing at the higher speed. 5. Build timers for now are unchanged. We hear your feedback on this point but feel the core of the game is the turn based combat, so we have sped up these areas. We are looking at a building rework to make things feel like they are moving more quickly but haven't worked out the details yet. 6. Bugfix: It is no longer possible to try to upgrade the shield slot without a shield equipped

On the fence about Darkspar? A free demo is now available containing the first 20 levels of content!

Another day another patch Bugfixes/corrections 1. Patch 1.0d broke the "upgrade" function. It is now fixed 2. Fixed a couple of typos that had been reported (no more "resouces" at the top of the screen!)

Thanks for the feedback and for making Darkspar a fun launch! Patch 1.0d brings Bugfix: 1. It should no longer be possible to crash the game while clicking randomly around the screen with the rename or name recruit input boxes open QoL: 1. We got a lot of feedback that the pop up alerts when you find an item (the alerts that have the OK button) were pausing for too long a time so these boxes will now auto-close in 15 seconds instead of 30. If this is too fast, there is now a setting in preferences that allows you to set the auto-close on these type of alerts to 10, 15, or 30 seconds

This patch fixes the error that caused people to get most of the Steam achievements upon launching the game. This patch also allows you to reset your Steam achievements, so that people who had this issue can fix it! You can reset your Steam achievements following these steps: 1. Go to Preferences 2. Change "Clear Steam Achivements" to "Yes" 3. Click Return 4. Click "Start" if you are not already in the game 5. Click "Confirm" when asked if you want to clear Steam achievements 6. You may need to exit the game and reopen in order for the Steam library to reflect the change Thanks to everyone for reporting this issue!

Greetings potential travelers to Darkspar, the current build of the game has been approved for release and it's been some days since we've found any major issues in testing so we've decided to move the release date up to sometime next week. In the meantime, we expect to drop a full gameplay trailer within the next couple of days. We look forward to being able to share the game with you a little earlier than expected!