The year is almost over but we have one final update for you! Its not as vast as the last one, because weve also been working on some bigger things for future updates. Theres still some fun stuff to check out though, like the Gnasher, a new enemy exclusive to the Verdant Meadows. There are also some new challenges that reward you with new Wizard Outfits. You can hop on down to the patch notes for the details.
For those counting, 0.7.1 makes the 6th update weve released since our Early Access launch. It has been crazy fun so far, but also crazy busy. We're looking forward to keeping the development train going in 2025, but there are also some well-deserved breaks in place for our hardworking team. With all we've learned from working on the game these last few months, we've gained a solid understanding of what we and our players want to see added in the future. This means we can start working on bigger blocks of content next year and really plan our updates towards a great 1.0 for The Spell Brigade. Does this change anything? Not really. We will keep working on the game, but we will space out our updates a bit more, so we can add more awesome stuff each update. If you want to know what kind of awesome stuff, our ROADMAP gives a pretty good idea. And you can always join our DISCORD, where either a fellow player or Bolt Blaster Dev will help you out.

PATCH NOTES - VERSION 0.7.1.2254 (18-12-24)

NEW

New Enemy: Gnasher 4 new Outfits: Gingerbread Sun Mage, Hattree, Nutcracker King, The North Star

GAMEPLAY IMPROVEMENTS

Added progression for Covenants, making the Harmony Pact and Eternal Bond Covenants unlockable by completing Quests. Improved consistency of applying Ice through different Spells. Made the Stats Menu accessible at any time, without having to access the Pause Menu. Added a system that kicks inactive non-host players (after the second inactive Level Up). Random matchmaking is now biased towards unlocked content.

VISUAL IMPROVEMENTS

Improved the visual for the tornadoes in the Pyrestorm Pit by removing the seam. Made a custom cursor icon. The cursor is now hidden after not using it for a short period. Improved feedback and readability of the location indicators for teammates and objectives. Improved readability of the Solphish Vanquished message. Fixed a visual/animation issue where the background of the Boss Objective message was misplaced. Improved the UI for dead teammates so its easier to see if any teammates are dead. Visually improved the feedback of the timer in the Level Up Menu so its more prominent to players. Fixed some spacing issues where certain texts were overlapping in the Level Up Menu (especially for Russian translations). Updated the layout in the Outfit Menu so it can display more Outfits.

BALANCING

Improved Endless Mode by increasing the difficulty and making the scaling non-linear. Improved Damage splitting for the following Spells: Astral Orb: reduced division factor from 2.5 to 1.8, increasing the Damage per projectile. Magic Missile: reduced division factor from 1.9 to 1.8, increasing the Damage per projectile. Hex Bomb: fixed a division bug and increased Damage by 25%. Improved the rounding of Damage numbers so they round up, fixing the Damage numbers being often displayed as 0.

STABILITY

Fixed an issue where players would sometimes get stuck in the Level Up Menu. Fixed an issue where Invite Friend and Ready were bound to the same control. Fixed an issue where after joining a Lobby with more unlocked content, some players could still access said content when on their own. Fixed an issue where multiple buttons in the Realm and Threat Level Menus could be highlighted/selected at the same time. Fixed an issue where the progress bars shown progress was inaccurate at the start of a Mission. Fixed an issue where the Exploding Tick would drop XP before actually exploding. Fixed an issue where the Falling Stars Spell would wrongfully indicate benefitting from Size upgrades. Fixed an issue where the Falling Stars Augmentation did not actually target the enemy with the highest HP. Fixed an issue where the Moonerangs Range upgrades did not work as intended. Removed the maximum offer limit for Move Speed upgrades, which was originally added unintentionally. Fixed an issue where the Quest for unlocking Star Mage didnt track correctly. Fixed an issue where after a Mission players would be awarded a title that wasnt applicable. Fixed an issue where the game wasnt saved when quitting the game. Further improved stability of the games matchmaking. = changes inspired by community feedback Happy holidays, and see you all in 2025! BOLT BLASTER OUT

[ 2024-12-18 13:59:37 CET ] [ Original post ]

Somehow the end of the year is already here, and Glenn is taking full control of the Discord channel! As a thank you to our awesome community, we want to extend our Christmas spirit to all of you with the 10 DAYS OF BRIGADE BLESSINGS. Starting today (December 17th), our Discord activity will be all about you, the player! That means contests, tournaments and yes, giveaways! So, if youre not yet part of our community of Brigadiers, come say hi and be part of the festivities! CLICK HERE TO JOIN OUR DISCORD The remainder of 2024 will look something like this:

• Dec 17: Start of the 10 Days of Brigade Blessings
• Dec 18: Update 0.7.1
• Dec 19: Winter Sales - Get a 20% Discount!
• Dec 25: End of the 10 Days of Brigade Blessings

Some devs would take those final days of December off, but not us! Just kidding, there are some well-deserved breaks planned. But that does not mean that we cannot go out with a bang! BOLT BLASTER OUT

[ 2024-12-17 09:00:57 CET ] [ Original post ]

As part of the Bullet Heaven Festivities, we have partnered with our friends at CremaGames to present to you the Online Co-op Survivors Bundle! Get them both at a discount, or if you already have one or the other, the discount will still apply to the other one. If you like our game, then you'll love Temtem: Swarm as well. So give it a try! https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/46487/ BOLT BLASTER OUT

[ 2024-12-04 16:08:37 CET ] [ Original post ]

We will be part of this years Bullet Heaven Fest, starting tomorrow! Were still offering a 10% discount during this festival, but that means the 20% discount ends today. So get it now while the gettings good. And be sure to check out the festivals line-up tomorrow, as many more awesome games will be featured. So give them some love! BOLT BLASTER GAMES

[ 2024-12-03 14:00:35 CET ] [ Original post ]

STABILITY

Fixed an issue in the endless mode, where objectives started at incorrect times, making some objective UI overlap in the progress bar. Fixed an issue where enemies would get stuck on an obstacle in The Frozen Ancients. = changes inspired by community feedback

[ 2024-11-30 09:24:43 CET ] [ Original post ]

Its that time of the year again where we participate in the Steam Awards, and come together to nominate our favorite games to give them the recognition they deserve. It has been another crazy year for indie games, and this is your moment to let your voice be heard!
Be sure to show The Spell Brigade - among the many other awesome games released this year - some love, it means everything to us! Do you think our game is shit? Then you can still nominate others. VOTE NOW! BOLT BLASTER OUT

[ 2024-11-29 20:53:24 CET ] [ Original post ]

Were working with Makeship to make an awesome Sun Mage plushie! Voted by our community as the top pick, you can now pledge to this great cause and GET YOUR VERY OWN SUN MAGE. BOLT BLASTER OUT

[ 2024-11-27 19:00:42 CET ] [ Original post ]

Watch the devs play the newest version of The Spell Brigade (version 0.7.0).

[ 2024-11-27 16:00:14 CET ] [ Original post ]

0.7 is here! We know this one features some highly requested and anticipated features so lets just get down to it immediately:

INTRODUCING NEW ENEMIES

We've added 2 new enemies. Our questionable naming skills aside, behold... THE SNEAKY BUG Sneaky Bugs roam the Frozen Ancients, only running at you when your backs turned to them (hence sneaky).
THE FLYING MANTA Flying Mantas - get this - fly around the Pyrestorm Pit. Theyll draw on you quickly so beware! Were also currently working on more Realm-specific enemies, but more on that later

INTRODUCING COVENANTS

The highly requested Friendly Fire toggle and Endless Mode have both been implemented in the form of Modifiers, which were calling Covenants. When selecting your Realm and Threat Level, you can now also activate any of the available Covenants to modify the rules of your run.
Activate Harmony Pact to disable Friendly Fire, meaning you cant hurt yourself or your teammates, and they cant either. Activate Eternal Bond to enable Endless Mode, allowing you to keep playing after defeating Solphish, and starting a new cycle. We plan to add more Covenants in the future, so were very excited to see what this brings to the game. Obviously, balancing an endless experience is very challenging, and we will be constantly improving this mode throughout Early Access to get it just right.

MATCHMAKING IMPROVEMENTS

While these new features add a lot of value to the game, we quickly realized that this would also impact the matchmaking, as more choices for your run will also create more scattering of lobbies, making it potentially harder to match with the right players. And while our numbers are definitely growing, our player base is not THAT big to have many matches for each particular run choice. Thats why we took some more time to not only improve the matchmaking process technically, but also give players some more options when trying to find players.
By accessing the Matchmaking Options, you can now choose to prioritize your own run choices, or match with players in any run setup. We also added a meter for Wizard Activity, which essentially gives you a rough estimate of how easily you can find other players. There are many more tiny fixes and improvements added, you can find those in the patch notes below:

PATCH NOTES - VERSION 0.7.0.2018

NEW A new Covenant: Harmony Pact (disables Friendly Fire) A new Covenant: Eternal Bond (enables Endless Mode) A new Enemy: Sneaky Bug A new Enemy: Flying Manta Added a menu for Matchmaking Preferences. IMPROVEMENTS Added new player icons that match the players equipped Outfit for each Wizard. Added some very cool trees to the environment of the Verdant Meadows. Improved Enemy syncing between clients. Made Enemy Statues invulnerable to lava in the Pyrestorm Pit. Optimized texture resolutions for better performance. Improved the UI for Realm, Threat Level and Covenant selection. Improved UI readability by adding a blur effect where necessary. Added a fancy Roadmap button to the Start Menu. Removed time limit for Matchmaking. Improved Matchmaking by giving priority to fuller Lobbies when searching for Players. BALANCING Magic Missile: increased Range and Range Upgrades with 10%. Aether Beam: increased DPS boost to 20% when adding additional projectiles by. Aether Beam: rebalanced the dividing of Damage over multiple Beams, so the correct amount of Damage is always dealt. Sulfur Geysers: increased Damage and increased the Cooldown by 30%. Changed application of Speed Upgrade logic so its only applied once. Doubled values for Move Speed increases for standard Upgrades, Relics, Enchantments and Wizard stats to adjust for this fix. STABILITY Fixed an issue where collected Funghi wouldnt count towards Quest progress for clients. Fixed an issue where Relics couldnt be picked up immediately. Fixed an issue where Solphish and the Golden Flesh Crab would spawn outside of the map in the Pyrestorm Pit. Fixed an issue where projectiles would sometimes despawn on the worlds 0 position. Fixed an issue on the Steam Deck where button prompts werent shown accurately. Fixed an issue where the Falling Stars Explosion Augmentation would clip through other effects. Fixed an issue where the Main Menus Leave button would still be interactable while in the Loading screen, resulting in the game breaking. Fixed an issue where some Fire Damage ticks were skipped on high Fire Rates. = changes inspired by community feedback Enjoy the update! Weve also joined the Autumn Sales and gave the game a 20% discount, so if theres ever a time to try it out with your friends, its now. BOLT BLASTER OUT

[ 2024-11-27 14:48:10 CET ] [ Original post ]

That's right! We're part of the festivities too! So get yourself and your friends a copy and try it out! We're also releasing our fifth update today, and we have a final one planned for the very end of the year. You can check out the ROADMAP, and join our DISCORD if you have any feedback for us! We're always eager to hear what you think and we've gathered quite a community so far that would love to help you out. So enjoy the Autumn Sale, and we'll see you soon! BOLT BLASTER OUT

[ 2024-11-25 15:39:22 CET ] [ Original post ]

STABILITY

Fixed an issue where Aldric isn't shown as frozen. Fixed an issue where Range improvements didn't work for the Aether Beam. Fixed an issue where collected Fungi wouldn't count towards challenge progress for clients.

KNOWN ISSUES

Some spells stop casting sometimes. = changes inspired by community feedback

[ 2024-11-15 16:13:09 CET ] [ Original post ]

Howdy Brigadeers! Its been about 2 months since our launch into Early Access and its safe to say that it has been a crazy ride so far! Today, we have a smaller update for you while were hard at work on the next one. It mainly features some balancing, some improvements and another cool Wizard. His name is Aldric, and hes an absolute unit.

PATCH NOTES - VERSION 0.6.4.1846 (13-11-24)

NEW

A new Wizard: Aldric 2 new Outfits: Aldric the Crustworthy & Grovewarden Aldric 3 new Quests

IMPROVEMENTS

Reduced the minimum cast distance for the Falling Stars Spell. Made sure the last selected Wizard and Outfit are saved across multiple sessions. Made sure the Astral Orbs, Magic Missile and Aether Beam try to avoid obstacles when casted. The Delayed Fate Relic is now not offered before Players have unlocked Rerolls. Reduced maximum number of concurrent Buffer enemies. Hid the More Info prompt in the Level Up menu where it wasnt needed.

BALANCING

Increased the Aether Beams Damage by 5% and reduced Cooldown by 10%. Increased the Falling Stars Damage by 5% and reduced an Augmentations explosion damage by 50%.

STABILITY

Fixed an issue where some enemies would not heal. Fixed an issue where the Pause Menu could be opened right after a Level Up choice, resulting in an open Pause Menu while the game runs in the background. Fixed an issue where explosions from Spell Augmentations would damage the caster. Fixed an issue where the Time Played stat wrapped back to 0 each passing hour. = changes inspired by community feedback Last update we promised an Endless Mode and a Friendly Fire Toggle. These features are still on track and will be there in the next update at the end of this month (among other things). But no worries, weve also updated our Roadmap once again! Thanks to our awesome community, we have a pretty good idea about what it is we want to add and what you guys want to see.
So yeah, enjoy the new Wizard, and be sure to check in with us in a few weeks when we roll out our biggest update so far! BOLT BLASTER OUT

[ 2024-11-13 13:54:23 CET ] [ Original post ]

When we hit the 100k mark a few weeks ago, we were simply too busy with the last update to celebrate. This milestone may sound less catchy, but its arguably even better, so ONE. HUNDRED. TWENTY. FIVE. THOUSAND. WHAT. As a studio, we still need to learn to stop and celebrate once in a while, but this really blew our wizard hats off! From the bottom of our hearts, we want to thank each and every one of you for your enthusiasm, dedication and trust in the work we do. Knowing that this many people are playing the game and eagerly anticipating the next update has rejuvenated us to make this game the best thing we can possibly make. So again, thank you, thank you, thank you! And for those waiting, yes, we are working on an endless mode and also one without friendly fire. We have a teeny tiny update planned for next week and a bigger one at the end of the month that should include those, among other things of course. So stay tuned! This is only the beginning BOLT BLASTER OUT

[ 2024-11-07 13:00:07 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hi there! As you know, we have a very awesome discord community you can join to discuss anything Spell Brigade, check out development progress or ask questions to the devs. You can do so here: https://discord.gg/the-spell-brigade-1220022672210268320 However, we're aware that this platform isn't used in all regions, and started looking into some alternatives, mainly for our Chinese-speaking audience.

QQ

QQ server: https://qm.qq.com/q/ZLE4B6vNqE QQ group number: 619306654 You can also scan the QR code below:

Bilibili

We've also created a Bilibili account: https://b23.tv/v7LaPrO If you have any feedback or request for us, please let us know in either of these channels so we can investigate them. We want to keep expanding our community beyond our current platforms to make it more easy and convenient for everyone. BOLT BLASTER OUT!

[ 2024-11-05 15:01:26 CET ] [ Original post ]

STABILITY

Fixed an issue where negative Move Speed was applied double. Fixed an issue where Delayed Fate didn't add Luck when in consecutive stores. Fixed an issue where Rocky Road's Size didn't count towards Quests anymore.

IMPROVEMENTS

Carried over playtime for Star Mage Challenge so it can be unlocked quicker. = changes inspired by community feedback

[ 2024-10-24 15:34:32 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hi! Weve mentioned before that a big priority is expanding the games content with more spells, quests and maybe even a wizard, and thats exactly what weve done! Be sure to check out our roadmap for more info. You can find the patch notes right here:

PATCH NOTES - VERSION 0.6.3.1766 (23-10-24)

NEW

A new Wizard: Star Mage 2 new Outfits: Starfish Mage & The Starblight A new Spell: Chthonic Charge A new Spell: Scepter Mesh A new Spell: Aether Beam 9 new Augmentations 11 new Quests

IMPROVEMENTS

Side-Objectives now count retroactively for the Bountiful Quests Relic. Added visual feedback to the Healing Augmentations in the Solar Pulse, Hex Bomb, Necro Whirl and Phantom Blades. Fixed an issue where the challenges menu scrollbar visual was not updated when using the mouse scroll wheel. Added latency indicator in the gameplay UI. Implemented new VFX for bouncing Lightning. Added sound FX for Falling Stars.

BALANCING

Spells Increased Magic Missile's Damage and Lifetime by 10% Reduced Lifetime decrease by 25% when splitting Astral Orb or Magic Missile Increased the Rocky Roads Range by 15% and reduced Cooldown by 15% Decreased the Hex Bombs Cooldown by 10% Increased the Boomerangs Damage by 10% and reduced Range by 5% Increased the Falling Stars Cooldown by 5% and decreased the Damage boost for additional Stars by 10% Augmentations Offensive Defense: added Decrease Move Speed by 0.25% per Armor

STABILITY

Improved general Matchmaking stability. Various performance improvements. Fixed an issue where players couldn't cast after unpausing the game. Fixed an issue where picking Archangels Blessing while being revived would revive a player 2 times.

LOCALIZATION

Improved German localization. Improved Portuguese localization (both European and Brazilian). Improved Russian localization. Added Ukrainian localization. = changes inspired by community feedback

NEW BUNDLE

Weve also got a new bundle for you, this time with Soulstone Survivors! If you havent yet (how?!), be sure to check that game out, as we take a lot of inspiration from this giant in the survivors-like genre. Its very fun, and the amount of content the game already has inspires us greatly. https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/46037/Soulstone_Brigade/

COMING SOON

And speaking of exciting news - we're happy to announce that we plan to add two of your most requested features in our Black Friday update: Endless Mode and No-Friendly-Fire Mode! Stay tuned for more details coming soon. We hope youll enjoy the new stuff weve added! Have a great Halloween and enjoy Steam Scream next week! BOLT BLASTER OUT

[ 2024-10-23 14:03:18 CET ] [ Original post ]

Fixed an issue where players could reroll unlimited times in multiplayer Multiple stability improvements = changes inspired by community feedback

[ 2024-10-07 14:15:30 CET ] [ Original post ]

Weve got another update for you! Weve included many fixes and improvements as well as some new stuff! Nothing too fancy because were also working on new content for upcoming updates. You can read the patch notes below (and scroll a bit further down for our updated Roadmap).

PATCH NOTES - VERSION 0.6.2.1709

NEW

A new Relic: Fist of Support A new Relic: Bountiful Quests A new Relic: Offensive Defense A new Relic: Savior Focus A new Relic: Alchemic Pull

IMPROVEMENTS

Added Tooltips for Stats and Elements so players can understand more clearly what they do. Added a special Reroll option for Spell Augmentations and Relics that require HP payment. Added indicators to the players Spell Slots that show what Spells are affected by the selected Upgrade. Slightly improved the generating of Upgrades, Relics and Augmentations, so the choices are more relevant. Streamlined the Spell Cards in the Level Up Menu by removing double info about the level of the Spell or Upgrade. Improved the colliders on some obstacles in the Verdant Meadows and the Frozen Ancients, removing some safe spot exploits for players.

BALANCING

Reduced Magnet drop chance by 20%. Reduced Ice potency by 10%. Increased the Ice resistance of Solphish, the Long One by 50%. RELICS Hard Lessons: Gain 15% -> 25% more XP when below 150HP -> 200HP. Go-Getters Grace: Your Revive Speed is increased by 25% -> 33% for every Objective you complete. Power of Friendship: Your Damage is increased by 10% -> 12% for each teammate nearby. Evasion Mend: You regain 50HP -> 75HP every time you dodge an attack. Pacification: Reduce Friendly Fire by 20% -> 50%. Delayed Fate: Your Luck is increased each time you dont reroll (Max 8 -> 10). Healthy Growth: You regain 50HP -> 100HP every time you Level Up. Sudden Revival: Your Revive Speed is increased by 10% -> 20% each time you help revive a teammate. SPELLS Increased the Rune Bursts Base Cooldown by 10%. Reduced the Falling Stars Base Damage by 5%, and increased Base Cooldown by 5%. Increased the Magic Missiles damage by 10%. Reduced the Moonerangs Cooldown by 6%. AUGMENTATIONS Increased Critical Damage on the Moonerangs furthest point by 5%. Increased Size of the Moonerang when lingering at its furthest point by 10%. Increased Damage of split Magic Missiles by 30%. Increased the value of the base stats included in the Aim at Highest HP Augmentation by 2-3%.

STABILITY

Fixed an issue where some enemies couldnt move through certain gaps in the Frozen Ancients. Fixed an issue where the Golden Flesh Crab Objective would break the audio when failed. Fixed an issue where the Quest for Ludwig the Accursed was unlockable with any Spell (instead of the Arcane Broadsword). Fixed an issue where the Quest for Supernova Sun Mage was unlockable with any Spell (instead of the Solar Pulse). Fixed an issue where the host player could get stuck in the Dead state when teammates disconnected. Fixed an issue where some players would join a Lobby that was already full. Fixed an issue where entering matchmaking with 4 players would freeze the game. Added save file backups to revert to when the save file gets corrupted. Added a visual to indicate when the game is saving.

LOCALIZATION

Improved some descriptions so theyre more accurate. Improved the translations for Simplified Chinese. Improved the translations for Dutch. = changes inspired by community feedback

ROADMAP

Many people have played the game and shared their thoughts with us, enough so that we have made a new revision to our Roadmap! It addresses some things were working on to release soon, and some new additions inspired by you guys!

NEW BUNDLE

Oh and one more thing We have a new bundle with our friends from Embers and Oro, the peeps behind Murky Divers! If you havent already, be sure to check it out. Its hilarious co-op madness (you can see why we like it). https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/45750/Wizards__Divers/ Thats all! You can find a new countdown to our next update in the game (wont spoil that one). We had some issues with the timezones for this update, as some peoples countdowns were a day early and were asking us about the update. But that should be fixed now! BOLT BLASTER OUT

[ 2024-10-03 14:00:52 CET ] [ Original post ]

The Spell Brigade has gone through the review process and we are officially Steam Deck Verified! Does this change anything? Basically, no. We made sure that the game was a fun time on the Deck from release, but we just had to wait for Valve to review it and bless us with that awesome green checkmark. You can read more about it in this previous post we made. We made sure the game is playable with different kinds of input, though we DO recommend playing it with a controller, or a Steam Deck (if you have one), for the best experience. Anyway, that's all for now! Stay tuned for another small update tomorrow (and maybe some more news as well). BOLT BLASTER OUT

[ 2024-10-02 09:04:32 CET ] [ Original post ]

BALANCING

Reduced the chance of Archmages Blessing appearing in the Level Up Menu for downed players to incentivize more player revives.

IMPROVEMENTS

Improved the targeting for the Necro Whirl and Falling Stars Spells to ensure that Statues are prioritized. The Pause Menu can now be closed by pressing Back (ESC/B button).

STABILITY

Fixed an issue where music didnt change dynamically for everyone except the Party Leader. Disabled screenshake for the explosion Augmentations of the Falling Stars and Magic Missile. Fixed an issue where the game was still paused after closing the Pause Menu. Fixed an issue where the settings would be changed outside of the Options Menu. = changes inspired by community feedback

[ 2024-09-27 11:50:28 CET ] [ Original post ]

Its been a little over a week since we unleashed The Spell Brigade on all of you. Weve released some small patches to get out some of the most prominent bugs and improve on some things like the matchmaking and the balancing. In the meantime, weve also made some more stuff we wanted to release in a quick larger-than-the-last-but-relatively-still-small update! Check out the patch notes below:

PATCH NOTES - VERSION 0.6.1.1683

NEW

Falling Stars: a new Spell Archmages Blessing: a free Revive for dead Players to choose when leveling up.

BALANCING

Increased the Damage interval on Players from 0.4 to 0.8 seconds, so walking through hordes wont kill you instantly. Increased the Pickup Distance for Health, Magnets, Mushrooms and Relics by 10%. Decreased the Health of Statues by 10%.

IMPROVEMENTS

Projectile-based Spells like the Astral Orbs, Rune Burst and Phantom Blade can now destroy each other on hit, reducing collateral friendly fire damage. Improved Enemy position syncing slightly (we are working on a better solution). Improved obstacle layout in the Verdant Meadows to avoid exploits and players avoiding damage. Fixed a visual issue where the Buffer enemy didnt show the freeze effect when applied. Improved the VFX and Animations for the Statues Objective. Added the option to open the Player Stats when choosing an Upgrade. Fixed a visual issue where the level meter on a Spell Card would reset to 0 after reaching level 14 (second infusion). Redesigned the objective icons for the Sacrifice, Golden Crab & Statue Objectives so theyre more accurate. Added Player name tags to downed Players, so you can see who you are reviving. Localized the Logo in the Start Menu. Your choice for enabling/disabling the Fill Up Squad toggle is now remembered. Improved the flow between the Game Over and Lobby sequences. Added a prompt for canceling matchmaking, with a confirm popup for both hosts and clients. Improved the locked icons in the Wizard and Outfit Menus, teasing the content. Updated the icons on the Threat Level Quests so theyre more accurate. Added a Controls section to the Options menu. Added a Reset Save Data button in the Options menu. Improved some button prompts for keyboard input.

STABILITY

Fixed an issue where challenges werent synced properly with in-game Quests. Fixed a visual issue where the Revive effect had a weird/buggy transition. Fixed an issue where exploding ticks would keep dropping XP when being damaged during their death sequence. Fixed an issue where canceling matchmaking as the host would terminate the Lobby. = changes inspired by community feedback We hope youll enjoy this update! Its not a whole lot, but we wanted to offer something new quickly to assure you that were constantly working on this game and want to make it as good as we can! Were still very actively analyzing the feedback weve gathered from our players, and were close to getting a pretty good idea of what it is we want to make and what you guys want to see! So, you can expect an updated version of our roadmap soon. There are still many requests, bug reports and improvement suggestions to go through, so well leave you now and get back to work immediately! BOLT BLASTER OUT

[ 2024-09-25 14:19:17 CET ] [ Original post ]

Did you miss the livestream? We made sure to record it for you!

[ 2024-09-23 17:03:11 CET ] [ Original post ]

VERSION - 0.6.0.1678

BALANCING Rebalanced the Upgrade spawn rates for Armor, Luck, Dodge, XP Gain and Critical Chance. Increased Phantom Blades Lifetime by 6% and reduced Projectile Speed by 6%. Increased Rune Burst Damage and Cooldown by 5% and reduced Lifetime by 5%. Added a maximum limit to the Luck increase through the Delayed Fate Relic. Rebalanced the XP requirements when playing with other Wizards so your team levels faster. STABILITY Fixed an issue where Steam Cloud data didnt sync between PC and Steam Deck. Fixed various music stuttering issues. Fixed various unexpected error when playing co-op. = changes inspired by community feedback

[ 2024-09-20 13:28:21 CET ] [ Original post ]

Weve made sure that from day 1, The Spell Brigade would be playable on the Steam Deck. Games like these work particularly well on handheld devices, and being big Steam Deck appreciators ourselves, this was a big focus for us! While waiting for Steam to review our game and bless us with that green checkmark (they have literally thousands of games to review, so well wait patiently), we figured wed provide some information regarding Steam Deck compatibility. Its pretty simple, actually. Theres a list of requirements your game must meet to be eligible for getting Steam Deck Verified: Has controller support Shows correct controller icons as button prompts Cloud saves sync between PC and Steam Deck Supports the Decks resolution natively Has a playable framerate with the default graphics configuration In-game text is legible No device compatibility warnings No 3rd Party Launchers Both Linux (natively) and Proton are supported Is a great experience on the device As you can see by these cool checkmarks, we should meet all criteria! It should only be a matter of time until the fine folks at Steam will grant us the green check (were hopeful). If you have any additional questions or problems regarding playing the game on your Deck (or any other problems), please let us know, either on Steam or our Discord! We (or our fine community members) would love to help you out! BOLT BLASTER OUT

[ 2024-09-19 09:02:29 CET ] [ Original post ]

BALANCING

Increased the Lifetime for projectile spells by 5% . Increased the impact of Size Upgrades. Increased the Wizard Kings Health buff (starter stat) from 5 to 75. Increased the area size to revive teammates. Increased the revive speed. Increased the Health reward Players get when reviving teammates. Reduced Projectile Speed by 5%. Slightly reduced the Move Speed Upgrade values. Lowered the Statue Objectives difficulty by slightly decreasing the Statues HP and by spawning more than required.

IMPROVEMENTS

Improved the Spell targeting so Players are less likely to get hit. Improved hit detection so Players can dodge other attacks more easily. Improved the background in the Start Menu for Ultra Wide resolutions.

STABILITY

Fixed an issue where matchmaking would match Players with unsuited Lobbies. Fixed an issue where achievements werent synced correctly. Fixed an issue where the Moonerang would trigger many more hits than intended. Fixed an issue where the Aim at Highest HP Augmentation would choose the wrong targets. = changes inspired by community feedback

[ 2024-09-18 15:35:23 CET ] [ Original post ]

Welcome to the other side, Brigadeers!

The Spell Brigade is officially out now. We took a quick power nap and got right back into it, ready for more! Weve already gathered a bunch of suggestions and bug reports from everyone that played it on launch day, so a big thank you to you all for providing us with your constructive feedback The matchmaking had some issues that were quickly pointed out, so weve had a look and fixed some of the biggest problems already to provide you with a quick patch. You can check out the notes below:

BALANCING

Increased Enemy speed when Solphish, the Long One appears. Increased the rate at which Enemy Health and Damage scale over time when Solphish, the Long One is on the battlefield, making it harder to stall the end of the Mission. Reduced the reload speed of Revive Tokens after each Revive. Reduced the number of Statues required to destroy for the Statue Objective. Increased the time limit for completing the Statue objective.

IMPROVEMENTS

Added a "Leave" button so Players can leave the Game Over menu at their own will (this is a temporary fix, we are looking into better solutions for the next update).

STABILITY

Fixed an issue where matchmaking status wasn't displayed correctly for clients. Fixed an issue causing lobbies to merge unintentionally. Fixed an issue where progress for the Amethyst Moon Mage challenge wasn't being tracked. Fixed z-fighting on ice textures in the Frozen Ancients map for Steam Deck. Fixed strange shadows appearing on the game over screen for Steam Deck. Fixed an issue where the "Apply" button in the Options Menu appeared unresponsive when the menu was force-closed. Fixed mismatched key bindings for the Quick Chat options on keyboards. Fixed an issue where using the Quick Chat menu would shift the spectator camera's focus. Fixed an issue where Solphish, the Long One wasn't counted as a completed objective. Fixed an issue where the "Disconnected" icon appeared in the lobby when connected. Fixed an issue where Players would respawn multiple times after dying. Fixed an issue where choosing a Spell Augmentation incorrectly increased that Spells Level. = changes inspired by community feedback Youve probably spotted a cheeky little countdown in the Start Menu. That means that you can expect our first real update next week, featuring some more matchmaking fixes, quality-of-life improvements and maybe even some new stuff already Again, thank you everyone! We had a good launch, and all your kind words have given us enough energy for many more updates! If you havent already, please leave an honest review on our store page, as it helps us out greatly. Stay tuned, enjoy the wizarding and see you soon. Well get back to work now BOLT BLASTER OUT

[ 2024-09-17 16:12:05 CET ] [ Original post ]

Did you miss the livestream? We made sure to record it for you!

[ 2024-09-16 15:40:20 CET ] [ Original post ]

The wait is over! The Spell Brigades Early Access starts now! Its been a crazy few months ever since we started development back in March. This is what the game first looked like:
Weve been working non-stop to get our game in your hands. But this is only the beginning, of course! Were very excited to have you play it and share your thoughts (JOIN OUR DISCORD if you have some great ideas, feedback or bugs to report).
Thank you for your support, have fun, and see you out there on the battlefield, fellow Wizards! BOLT BLASTER OUT

[ 2024-09-16 12:00:11 CET ] [ Original post ]

ATTENTION BRIGADEERS! The Spell Brigade releases in 1 DAY! AAAAAAAAAAAAA As part of our countdown to release, weve released a 5-part FAQ series featuring some much asked about topics regarding the game. You can check out our last 4 posts, where we delved into our co-op matchmaking, meta progression, friendly fire and revive system. For our final one, were going over all the different kinds of SPELL UPGRADES you can find in our game.

STANDARD UPGRADES

While on a mission, you will encounter many different upgrades to choose from and further customize your build. You will get upgrades mostly from leveling up. By collecting orbs you find from killed enemies and completed objectives, you increase your level. This level is shared among the whole team, so whenever that XP bar fills up, everyone in the team gets one. You get to choose between 3 upgrades, which include things like increasing your Move Speed or Max Health, but also Spell-specific upgrades that increase things like their Cooldown or Damage. Each upgrade is either Common, Rare, Epic, or Legendary.

NEW SPELLS

When you reach certain levels, you will get to choose a new Spell to add to your attacks. You can get up to 4 Spells at the same time. We have a limited number of Spells at the moment, but well definitely be expanding on these during Early Access.

RELICS

Throughout your Missions, you will occasionally find a chest that holds something within. Find and break these open so you can collect these Relics and use their unique effects.

INFUSIONS

When leveling up, youll notice that the Spell-specific upgrades have a weird orb meter at the bottom. If you upgrade your Spell enough times, you will reach the big ones on the meter, allowing you to infuse that Spell with an element. You can do this up to 2 times, making all kinds of cool combinations. We have 4 elements at the moment and are planning to add more, so the possibilities will be growing exponentially.

AUGMENTATIONS

Complete objectives and you will be rewarded with a special type of upgrade. Augmentations are very specific upgrades for your Spells that give them a unique effect that really changes up the way they work. We wont spoil them here, but trust us when we say that completing your objectives and getting these upgrades is definitely worth it. Keep in mind that both the amount and kinds of upgrades are something that we plan to expand on during Early Access, so there will be many more upgrades in the future.
Thats it! Now that you have read all 5 parts, you have all the knowledge needed to become part of the Spell Brigade! And just in time, too! Tune in tomorrow as well be live streaming the game to celebrate the launch. In the meantime, if you havent already, you can: 1. Join our discord for DAILY dev posts and intellectual wizard-related discussions. 2. Wishlist the game so you can get it as soon as its out! 3. Tell your friends so you can join the Spell Brigade TOGETHER. BOLT BLASTER OUT

[ 2024-09-15 15:00:10 CET ] [ Original post ]

ATTENTION BRIGADEERS! The Spell Brigade releases in 2 DAYS! As part of our countdown to release, were releasing a 5-part FAQ series, featuring some much asked about topics regarding the game. You can check out our last 3 posts which tackled our co-op matchmaking, meta progression and friendly fire. Now, lets break down our REVIVE SYSTEM.
As we like to mention, dying and coming back is a big part of our game, more so than your regular roguelite even! Because aside from the usual die, unlock upgrades, try again shtick, our game features a revive system inspired by some of our favorite co-op games.

MEMENTO MORI

So, what happens when we die? Who can say, really? As for our wizards here though, when they take a hit too many, they explode, leaving nothing behind but a bright crystal. It is up to another member of the Spell Brigade to charge up this crystal so their fallen teammate can beam back into action.
Performing this sacred ritual is no easy feat, and can only be done with the use of a Revive Token. Each wizard starts with 2. By upgrading one of your Enchantments, you can start with more. In a team though, these Revive Tokens are shared. So a team of 4 wizards would start out with 8 Revive Tokens, which can be spent on whoever needs them.

BACK WITH A BANG

When a wizard is successfully revived, they can slightly adjust their position before beaming back into the battlefield, dealing an enormous amount of damage to anything within range. Many wizards find strategic value in this move, and sometimes die on purpose so they can use this powerful ability to their advantage.
When the team is out of Revive Tokens, a new one is always slowly generated. This takes time however, so only count on this as a last resort. Because when there are no more Revive Tokens, and the last wizard standing dies, the mission has failed, and the wizards are forced to return to their base, fleeing to fight another day. Tune in tomorrow for a final FAQ, where we go over the different types of Spell upgrades. We hope you found these posts interesting and are stoked to try out the game! Dont forget to: 1. Join our discord for DAILY dev posts and intellectual wizard-related discussions. 2. Wishlist the game so you can get it as soon as its out! 3. Tell your friends so you can join the Spell Brigade TOGETHER. BOLT BLASTER OUT

[ 2024-09-14 15:01:02 CET ] [ Original post ]

ATTENTION BRIGADEERS! The Spell Brigade releases in 3 DAYS! As part of our countdown to release, were releasing a 5-part FAQ series, featuring some much asked about topics regarding the game. So far weve tackled our co-op and meta progression. Today, lets talk FRIENDLY FIRE
From the start, the idea behind The Spell Brigade was to combine the popular survivors-like mechanics from games like Vampire Survivors, Death Must Die, Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor, and so on, with our love for chaotic co-op gameplay. We took inspiration from games like Magicka and the recent Helldivers 2 to create something that can challenge even the closest of friendships.
Of course, the main difference between those games and ours, is that the auto-fire and uncontrollable aim crank the insanity up to eleven when trying to survive as a team. Not only are you constantly dodging enemies, but also your friends! Its a special type of risk-reward that were constantly having to iterate on, making this the perfect mechanic to perfect during Early Access.
Every wizard is susceptible to damage from any source. Wizards take gradually less damage from other wizards than from enemies (perhaps they have learned to shield themselves somewhat from magical abilities?), but taking your friends Astral Orb to the face still has consequences! However, were introducing some Augmentations that convert this friendly fire into healing. Combined with our team-based objectives, players can find benefit in sticking together. Aside from the comradery and silly accidents, of course.
And after all, dying isnt that permanent in our game. Coming back with a blast is a big part of the fun. But more on that tomorrow! Our 4th post will be all about our Revive system, so stay tuned. For now, you can: 1. Join our discord for DAILY dev posts and intellectual wizard-related discussions. 2. Wishlist the game so you can get it as soon as its out! 3. Tell your friends so you can join the Spell Brigade TOGETHER. BOLT BLASTER OUT

[ 2024-09-13 16:00:48 CET ] [ Original post ]

Play The Spell Brigade together with the developers, ask questions, and more!

[ 2024-09-13 15:31:51 CET ] [ Original post ]

Watch our Stream in anticipation of our Early Access release on Monday!

[ 2024-09-13 15:21:11 CET ] [ Original post ]

ATTENTION BRIGADEERS! The Spell Brigade releases in 4 DAYS! As part of our countdown to release, were releasing a 5-part FAQ series, featuring some much asked about topics regarding the game. Yesterday we shared some info on the workings of our co-op matchmaking system. Today is all about our Player Progression. We took inspiration from other survivors like Vampire Survivors and Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor to create a simple but effective progression system. Everything is unlocked the same way, by completing Quests.

QUESTS

Quests are challenges that are tracked over multiple runs. These include tasks like Equip X Spells, Level Up X times, Revive X teammates, but also more specific ones, like infusing a specific Element to a specific Spell or performing a particular action with one of the Wizards. Each completed Quest grants you a reward. These are new Wizards, new Enchantments, new Realms, and more. If you complete a Quest mid-run, that content can already become available in that run.

ENCHANTMENTS

As the missions get tougher, your Wizards can grow stronger! Enchantments are permanent stat increases that you can purchase with Gold you earn on missions. There are 3 Tiers, each containing 5 Enchantments that can be upgraded multiple times (each Tier is unlocked through completing a Quest).
You can upgrade your Enchantments in whatever order you like, and you can also refund them. This resets all your Enchantments back to 0 and returns all the Gold spent to you.

WIZARDS

You start the game with good old Reginald as the only available Wizard. By completing Quests, you unlock new ones. Each Wizard has a different starting Spell, as well as some stat buffs. There are 8 playable Wizards in total (for now), and a selection of unlockable Outfits for each one as well.

MISSIONS

For your Mission (run), you can select which Realm (world) and Threat Level (difficulty) to survive in. There are 3 of each, which are also unlocked by completing Quests. Each Realm has some unique environmental hazards. The Threat Levels range from Moderate to Severe to Hardcore.
Thats a quick rundown of everything our Player Progression has to offer on Early Access release. Of course, this is only the beginning. We plan to add and improve, partly by the feedback and suggestions from you! Tomorrow, we tackle one of our most talked-about mechanics: Friendly Fire! Well go over the inner workings and the design choices we made during development. 1. Join our discord for DAILY dev posts and intellectual wizard-related discussions. 2. Wishlist the game so you can get it as soon as its out! 3. Tell your friends so you can join the Spell Brigade TOGETHER. BOLT BLASTER OUT

[ 2024-09-12 15:26:53 CET ] [ Original post ]

ATTENTION BRIGADEERS! The Spell Brigade releases in 5 DAYS! As part of our countdown to release, were releasing a 5-part FAQ series, featuring some much asked about topics regarding the game, starting today!
So, you know by now that The Spell Brigade is very much designed to be a co-op experience. That means that you will have the most fun with a full squad of 4 wizards. While we plan to expand our matchmaking functionalities somewhere along our Early Access time frame, for now your options are fairly simple: You can invite your Steam friends to your party using the on-screen button prompts.
You can use the FILL UP SQUAD toggle to, well, fill up your Squad. Once you and your friends are ready, the game will try to find other wizards to fill your team slots. If you wish to only play with friends or by yourself, you can easily disable this toggle.
So, if you wish to play by yourself, with friends, or with some random peeps, its all entirely up to you! Being chaotic co-op appreciators ourselves, we will always encourage playing with others to ensure your run is as crazy and unexpected as possible. But we know its not everyones preferred playstyle. So no worries, we got you covered either way! Most of the content will be accessible in both single and multiplayer, but some items and upgrades are specifically designed to create meaningful co-op moments. Since those would not do much for a single player, weve excluded them from the pool when playing alone. We hope you found this somewhat interesting! Tune in tomorrow for a rundown of our games META PROGRESSION, where we go over all the different things you can unlock. 1. Join our discord for DAILY dev posts and intellectual wizard-related discussions. 2. Wishlist the game so you can get it as soon as its out! 3. Tell your friends so you can join the Spell Brigade TOGETHER. BOLT BLASTER OUT

[ 2024-09-11 15:31:03 CET ] [ Original post ]

Reload your spell books and sharpen your wands (is that how that works?) because we have something special to announce! The Spell Brigade is coming out for Early Access on SEPTEMBER 16th! [previewyoutube=aWuqQ25JsAU;full][/previewyoutube] Thats right. In just 11 days, you and your fellow wizards will be able to create some insane spells and rid the realms of those pesky bugs. But this is just the start, of course! Starting next week, we will be going over the games content as we count down to release.
As youre reading this, were probably working very hard to polish the game. So if you havent already, join our Discord! If you wanna share your thoughts on the demo, have a bug to report or have some suggestions for Early Access, wed love to hear it! And be sure to add The Spell Brigade to your Wishlist so youll be notified as soon as its available. Thats it for now. See you all next week! BOLT BLASTER OUT

[ 2024-09-05 09:00:06 CET ] [ Original post ]

FULL STEAM AHEAD! This dev train is not slowing down! We have another dev log for you with some cool new things to share.

WORLD 3

Well get right to the good stuff. Our third world is almost done! Its called the Scorched Abyss (for now), and it has some new environmental hazards that youll have to watch out for.
Firstly, there are some nasty lava pits all over the map that slowly change their shape. Walking over them will damage you (duh), so beware.
This world also introduces tornadoes! They move all over the map, damaging any player or enemy that gets too close. As the run progresses, more tornadoes will start to appear, so better hold onto your hats!

OUTFITS

Weve also been putting a lot of work into our UI and meta progression, so were excited to share some of that stuff as well! As you know, this is a co-op game. And what good co-op game doesnt have cool skins to show off to your teammates? Each wizard will have 2 additional skins on release, which you can unlock by completing Quests.

QUESTS

That brings us to the next menu! Quests are challenges that you can complete throughout your runs to unlock additional content. We have about 40 of them at the moment, unlocking new Realms, Wizards, Outfits, Enchantments, and more!

ENCHANTMENTS

Talking about Enchantments, these are permanent upgrades that you can unlock by spending the Gold you earn on your runs. These upgrades count for all your Wizards (and yes, weve already made a respec button, no worries).

RELICS

Lastly, weve added a new type of upgrade as well. Theyre called Relics. Players can look for chests throughout the map and destroy them to reveal a scroll. When picked up, every player will be able to choose a passive effect.
We hope you liked what you saw! If you have any questions about the demo or some cool ideas to share, join our discord! We still post dev stuff daily and are starting to gather quite a community of people who will help you out, so dont be shy! https://discord.gg/8qZ2zd22t6 Thats it! BOLT BLASTER OUT

[ 2024-08-30 15:18:43 CET ] [ Original post ]

In between all the chaos of managing a Closed Beta, updating a Demo and attending Tiny Teams, we noticed that its been some time since we did another dev update, so lets go! A ton has happened, so well go over the highlights:

WORLD 1

With all the cool additions weve done to the Frozen Ancients, we figured the Verdant Meadows were also due for an update.
We have reworked the level design, and added some new features. Like this road for instance, which you can use to move a bit faster (no more pesky grasslands to slow you down). Visuals are still in progress, so stay tuned!

WIZARDS

Weve also made the final 2 Wizards for release (more will follow), who shall yet remain unnamed. Heres a teaser, featuring the other 2 Wizards we recently revealed:

NEW ENEMY

New heroes means new enemies, so weve made another one that might really change up the battlefield. This little guy runs around and heals other enemies, so prioritizing them might be a smart plan. They mostly stay in the back of a horde though, so youll have to strategize with your fellow wizards to take em down! Oh, and we dont have a good name yet, so please share if you know one.

OBJECTIVES

We recently added some new Objectives to the demo, so you might have seen them all already. Nevertheless, well go over them here. Were still very much balancing these and improving the feedback, but their core concepts should stay the same. The Rift and Sacrificial Ritual were already in the demo from the start. The new ones include a fleeing Golden Crab, which you must chase down and kill.
Another one is the Bewitched Fungi objective. To successfully complete this one, all players must find a specific amount of mushrooms before the timer runs out.

SPELL AUGMENTATIONS

And lastly, weve added a new type of Spell Upgrade to the game. You get these by completing the Objectives. They are called Augmentations, and they are more unique, more impactful upgrades, unique to your Spells. Some examples are making your projectiles split, fire in bursts, heal teammates or fire additional projectiles.

Some more specific examples are increasing the Rocky Roads size over time, adding bounces to the Hex Bomb or making the Magic Missile explode at the end of its lifetime.
Weve added a small amount to the demo for you to try out, but we plan to make many more! For the release, you can expect each Spell to have about 3 of these. They are all combinable, and some of them can even be applied multiple times.
Ok, that was a big one! If youre still here, we want to thank you for following this project! We hope these dev posts keep you excited for our game, as we get closer to the release! Our discord community has been growing quite a bit recently, so if you want to be part of the fun, come say hi! We even post development updates DAILY (holy moly)! https://discord.gg/8qZ2zd22t6 I think thats it for now. Enjoy the summer, but not too much! BOLT BLASTER OUT

[ 2024-08-16 15:25:27 CET ] [ Original post ]

It's Tiny Teams time! We're super excited to be part of this awesome event with all these great indie devs! Our demo has been freshly updated (please check our patch notes), so if you want to see what The Spell Brigade is all about, play it now!

[ 2024-08-08 09:16:16 CET ] [ Original post ]

NEW:

Introduced Spell Augmentations! The ones included in the demo are:

• For Necro Whirl, Solar Pulse and Phantom Blades: Hits on teammates or yourself heal instead.
• For Phantom Blades: Cast an additional projectile.
• For Arcane Broadsword: Swords rotate more slowly but greatly increase in size.
• For Necro Whirl: Cast an additional Whirl.
• For Astral Orb and Moonerang: Aims at the Enemy with the most Health.
• For Astral Orb: Projectiles split in two.
• For Astral Orb and Phantom Blades: Cast in bursts.

Balancing:

Changed a Spells Infusion levels from 6 and 12 to 8 and 16, to better balance out a Spells progression with the new Augmentations.

Improvements:

Improved target prioritization for the Astral Orb and Necro Whirl for certain Objectives. Improved the visualization of Spell progression on the Upgrade cards in the Level Up Menu. Changed Enchantment interaction from hold to click for improved useability. Iterated on the gameplay UI, specifically the Objective progression, XP bar and Revive slots. Added new sounds for Solphish, the Long One and Health Potions. Removed looping sound for the Arcane Broadsword. Improved Upgrade selection feedback in the Level Up Menu.

Stability:

Fixed the formatting of some numbers in the Game Over Menu, so bigger numbers can be displayed. Fixed the Team Damage statistic not being filled in correctly after a Mission. Fixed an issue where Critical Damage was not working Fixed an issue where the Realm and Threat Level would not be displayed correctly in the Game Over Menu. Fixed an issue where the Lightning element wasnt unlockable in the demo. = changes inspired by community feedback

[ 2024-08-07 14:02:26 CET ] [ Original post ]

As you may know we've started the Closed Beta for The Spell Brigade, from which we're already gathering a TON of great feedback. In between standard development and implementing said feedback, we've bundled a bunch of our recent improvements and additions together to also improve the demo! You can find the patch notes below:

Balancing:

Decreased Solar Pulse Damage Rate by 25% and increased Damage. Decreased Astral Orb Damage and Fire Rate by 15%. Decreased Arcane Broadsword Damage by 15%. Increased Moonerang Damage by 15%. Decreased XP Gain and Luck upgrade percentages. Decreased Crabladon XP drop from 63 to 32. Increase sacrifice goal to 60. Reduce Astral Orb damage and fire rate by 10%. Increase minimum amount of enemies between waves 4 and 12 by 10%. Increased the base Speed of all Enemies. Iterated on initial Wizard Starter Stat values. Rebalanced the values for each Rarity of Upgrades.

NEW:

Introduced new Flesh Crab variants. Introduced a new Enemy: The Spitter. Introduced new Objective: Retrieve the Bewitched Fungi. Introduced new Objective: Prevent the Elder Crablodon's escape. Introduced new Objective: Hunt down the Golden Flesh Crab. Introduced Challenges. Introduced Health Potions. Introduced Wizard team stats. Introduced Enchantments (permanent upgrades).

Improvements:

Improved wave flow with new Enemy spawn patterns. Improved run flow. Improved visuals for Objective: Complete the Sacrifice. Improved the UI for Objective Progression. Updated Damage pop-up styling. Improved walk animation speed to match Player movement speed. Improved explosion readability for the Explosive Tick. Reduced the cast time on the Necro Whirl and Arcane Broadsword so they fire faster when equipped. Improved the feedback on selected upgrades in the Level Up menu. Refined hitboxes for Sol'phish, the Long One. Sol'phish, the Long One now slows down when attacking. Updated Game Over menu with new Player Stats and Team Awards. Improved Lobby Player seating. Added a ready button in the Lobby so Players can ready up. Added a short description for every Wizard in the Character Menu. Updated Options Menu styling. Added Screen Shake toggle in the Options Menu. Enabled Steam Cloud saves.

Stability:

Fixed issue in the Character Menu where the selected Wizard wasn't displayed. Fixed issue where Spell Elements werent accurately shown in the UI. Fixed issue where the Spectator UI remained visible during Level Up. Fixed issue where Sol'phish, the Long One, would move out of level bounds. Fixed issue where the Player could move out of level bounds while respawning. Fixed issue where players couldn't take damage from Enemies when near obstacles. Fixed an issue with wrong placement of armor and critical chance upgrades.

Localization:

Added Dutch localization [Beta]. Added French localization [Beta]. Added Italian localization [Beta]. Added German localization [Beta]. Added Spanish (Spain) localization [Beta]. Added Spanish (Latin American) localization [Beta]. Added Polish localization [Beta]. Added Portuguese (Portugal) localization [Beta]. Added Portuguese (Brazil) localization [Beta]. Added Russian localization [Beta]. Added Traditional Chinese localization [Beta]. Added Thai localization [Beta]. = changes inspired by community feedback

[ 2024-07-30 11:43:31 CET ] [ Original post ]

IT'S TIME. The first round is starting soon! Want to join? Fill out THIS FORM for a chance to be part of our very first closed playtesting session.
Stay tuned for more news very soon. Hope to see you there!

[ 2024-07-22 14:34:32 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey all! Weve been hard at work (as usual), specifically on the second world of the game. This one introduces some new mechanics like zones that slow down everyones movement speed, and some very dangerous sulfur geysers!
To keep things nice and cool this summer, weve been working on a matching fourth element: ICE. Infuse your spells with this element to freeze enemies (or teammates), slowing them down. And, of course, you can combine this element with the others, creating awesome combos like Frost, Cold Fire, White Lightning and Glacial Acid.
This, of course, means making many, many more effects and icons, at the small cost of our artists sanity (just kidding theyre fine).
But yeah, this development train is not slowing down any time soon. We might share some more info soon about the very cool, very exclusive BETA PLAYTESTS, so stay tuned. Once were in the thick of that, we will also update the demo to improve on some of the mechanics (no new wizards though, those are for the release - sorry!) Avoid the sun, stay cool and catch you later! BOLT BLASTER OUT

[ 2024-07-11 14:39:15 CET ] [ Original post ]

For the past week, weve been recovering from a very fruitful Next Fest and have fully shifted back into production for The Spell Brigade! First off, we want to once again thank everyone for checking out the demo and the stream, and leaving your thoughts. It helps us in better understanding our audience and what we will be focusing on between the early access release and our 1.0. So thank you!
Last Dev Log we did a deep dive into our elemental system, so were happy to say weve been expanding on those! Were currently implementing ACID, and all the crazy combinations that come with it. ICE is also being worked on, but it might still be too early to share anything yet.

NEW SPELLS!

MAGIC MISSILE: launch a long-range piercing projectile
RUNE BURST: fire a bunch of runes in 4 directions
ROCKY ROAD: leave behind a trail that damages enemies
HEX BOMB: throw an explosive projectile behind you

NEW ENEMY!

Were currently balancing out the game flow and iterating on the enemies, but we still made some time to introduce a new one! This one spits at you, so be careful!

NEW WIZARDS!

And last but not least Meet the two newest additions to the Spell Brigade!
Ludwig The Spellblade and Campanelli All Uovo
Ludwig has the Arcane Broadsword, a powerful energy sword that slashes anything within reach.
Campanelli is famous for using the Phantom Blades, a spread of mystical daggers In the coming weeks, we will start work on another world, as well as Spell Alterations (stay tuned). Most of the stuff mentioned here is shared much earlier on our DISCORD (DAILY!!!), so if you want to see what were up to, come say hi! Were on a very strict timeline towards release, but weve already improved some of the things from the demo as well, so you can expect another update soon (but you didnt hear that from me ). See you soon! BOLT BLASTER OUT

[ 2024-06-28 14:55:27 CET ] [ Original post ]

Wow, what a magical Steam Next Fest! We just wanted to send out a huge thank you to everyone who played our demo, made content about it, watched our live streams, provided feedback, and joined our Discord. We had an absolute blast hanging out with you all! And guess what? We're keeping the demo live until further notice, so feel free to dive back in any time! This is just the beginning! We've got closed playtests on the horizon (more info on Discord & here, soon!), and we cant wait to share more about the early access release later this year. Thanks again for being such a fantastic community. See you next week for our regular biweekly update! BOLT BLASTER OUT

[ 2024-06-17 17:30:26 CET ] [ Original post ]

Do you want to play our game with us? Or ask us questions about the game? This is your time! We'll be live-streaming during Steam Next Fest! Come and join us

[ 2024-06-11 10:39:42 CET ] [ Original post ]

For the last two weeks, we have been working hard to get the demo ready. Weve already had lots of feedback, both here on Steam and on our DISCORD (join already, what are you doin?). Weve released some patches to stabilize the build and improve on the gameplay with some balancing and new features. There are also some (very) work-in-progress settings and localization for Japanese and Chinese. More on that can be found in our patch notes. There might be some more patches underway still, so be sure to let us know what you think! We will also be doing some livestreams next week so come hang out and barrage us with questions as some of the devs will be playing the game (more info on that soon). To provide you with a better visualization of what we will be doing in the coming months, we have made a roadmap:
Weve also created a new trailer and updated all the assets to make our Steam page extra fancy. Thats actually all for now! Be sure to play the demo and give us your precious feedback. After next week you can expect our usual Dev Logs as we reshift gears into full content production. Have a great Steam Next Fest! BOLT BLASTER OUT

[ 2024-06-07 16:00:58 CET ] [ Original post ]

We've done some more tweaks to improve the demo. Thanks to all our testers and Discord members that gave some great feedback! You can find the notes below: = changes inspired by community feedback

Balancing

Decreased the speed of the Shield Crab by 28%. Decreased the speed of Sol'phish, the Long One by 39%. Decreased the base range of Necro Whirl by 30%. Decreased the base size of Necro Whirl by 30% Increased the health of the Shield Crab by 60%. Increased the player damage taken interval from 0.2 to 0.4 seconds.

Improvements

Added a new objective where players have to kill enemies inside a certain zone. Adjusted the hit collider of the Teethy Worm. Increased the size of the Shield Crab and Crablodon. Added a small delay when starting spectator mode. Adjusted environment colliders for more detailed collisions. Added gamepad navigation for the new settings menu. Added a new attack animation for Sol'phish, the Long One. Added a unique visual and sound effect for when a player gets hit. Adjusted some upgrade descriptions. Adjusted screen shake to account for player distance. Added feedback when players take damage. Added optional sharing of analytics data, including error reports.

Stability

Fixed an issue where the lobby music wouldnt play when returning from gameplay. Fixed an issue where the exploding tick wouldnt start exploding when close to players. Fixed an issue where walk animations and effects didnt play correctly for all players. Fixed an issue where Necro Whirl wouldnt be positioned correctly for all players.

Localization

Fixed some spacing issues in the party panel in the main menu for Japanese and Chinese. Fixed some spacing issues in the upgrade cards for Japanese and Chinese (spell name and element). Made the descriptions for upgrade cards more readable in Japanese and Chinese. Fixed some spacing issues in the Game Over stats, where the spell names clipped through. Resized the usernames in the game over menu as they were overlapping. We will probably ship one more patch before Next Fest, and improve on the demo afterwards as well. If you have any bugs to report, feedback or suggestions, or just want to check in on the dev team, you can do all that and more on our awesome DISCORD!

[ 2024-06-06 15:49:23 CET ] [ Original post ]

Do you want to play our game with us? Or ask us questions about the game? This is your time! We'll be live-streaming during Steam Next Fest! Come and join us

[ 2024-06-06 12:05:15 CET ] [ Original post ]

Time for another update on development! Weve been hard at work on the demo, and with Next Fest right around the corner, we figured now is a great time to show you some of our games Spells and how they combine with Elements!
REGINALD SHADOWCLOAK Reginald Shadowcloak has the Astral Orbs spell. This launches floating orbs in the direction of enemies.
MOON MAGE Moon Mage has a very appropriately named spell called Moonerang, which is, well, a boomerang that travels through enemies and always returns to you.
SUN MAGE Sun Mage possesses Solar Pulse, which generates a constant damage zone around you that hurts all nearby enemies.
KEVIN THE KURSED Kevin the Kursed has Necro Whirl. It also generates damage zones, but in random places on the battlefield.
There will, of course, be many, many spells in the future. Each spell can be upgraded to increase things like damage, fire rate, reload speed, and more. Upgrading a spell enough times will allow you to infuse it with an element.
This is where the fun begins. You can infuse a spell with an element up to 2 times, meaning you can have a spell that is half fire, half lightning, or maybe double lightning. So far, we have only 2 elements, but you can see the potential for so many cool combinations already. Imagine what we can create with 3, 4 or 5 elements!
DEMO FEEDBACK Some people have already played the early version of the demo thats live now and have given some great feedback. Were very grateful, as this allows us to improve the demo for Next Fest. You can expect some patch notes this week, as we are fully focused on balancing, stabilizing, and optimizing the demo. Some other things weve done:

• UI polish for the upgrade menu
• Localization for Chinese and Japanese (beta)
• Enemy effects like XP orbs and death explosions
• Lots of bug-fixing and balancing (more still on the way this week)

Be sure to WISHLIST and join our DISCORD where we post development updates DAILY (what?!). Thats about it. Till next week! BOLT BLASTER OUT

[ 2024-06-03 16:01:00 CET ] [ Original post ]

BALANCING: Increased base movement speed of players by 20%. Increased movement speed of enemies by 10%. Increased unlock levels for new spells to 5, 15, and 25. Implement anticipation window for Necro Whirl. Decreased Moonerang range by 20%. Decreased spawn rates for non-basic enemies. Decreased explosion damage on players from explosive tick enemy by 30%. IMPROVEMENTS: Rescaled damage and health values for better balance. Added store upgrades for Moonerang range. Ensured explosive tick instantly explodes when killed. Added a visual indicator for the explosion radius of an explosive tick. Added a reward for completing a capture objective. Added a resume button to the pause menu. Added a sound effect when collecting XP drops. Added a spectator camera for when a player is down. STABILITY: Fixed an issue where boss health wasnt scaled correctly with the number of players. Fixed an issue where explosive tick would block players. = community feedback

[ 2024-06-03 15:02:48 CET ] [ Original post ]

Another 2 weeks of development down! Steam Next Fest is growing closer and were making good time. Be sure to stay tuned on our Steam page and our Discord, so you can play the demo as soon as it drops! MORE WIZARDS The first 4 Wizards have been fully implemented, and they look like this:
Each one has a signature spell that you start the game with. The next Dev Log will probably be about those, so stay tuned! MORE ENEMIES Weve also got 5 enemies now, including a very epic boss!
The first 2 are pretty basic grunts. The jiggly one is a giant exploding tick that tries to blow up in your face! The one to the right is a weird mutated snail with arms that has a weak spot in the back. Work together with your teammates to try and hit it in the back. As for the (first) boss, it looks like this:
Were still adding some cool effects to this one, but we cant decide on a good name. If you have any cool suggestions, either drop 'em below or let us know on our Discord! LOTS OF MENUS AND BUTTONS Weve also done some work in the UI department, as you can see below:
There are tons of other things to share of course, but we wont spoil everything! Next time well go over some of the spells and elements, and share any more news regarding the Steam Next Fest demo. Were so close! In the meantime you can WISHLIST OUR GAME, as well as JOIN OUR DISCORD where we post development updates DAILY. https://discord.gg/8qZ2zd22t6
Thats all. See you soon! BOLT BLASTER OUT

[ 2024-05-17 18:20:56 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hi there! This is the first time we're doing this so bare with us. We're very excited to show you what we've been working on! We're working our butts off to give you guys an awesome demo soon. In the last two weeks we've made lots of new Spells, as well as some new Enemies & Wizards!

You can expect to find news about the game's development about once a week as we're making steady progress. This is a first for us but we're very excited to keep these dev logs going! We should have some cool announcements soon... If you want to partake in our playtests (that are happening very soon!!!), be sure to join our Discord. And if you haven't wishlisted already, WHAT ARE YOU DOING?! https://discord.gg/8qZ2zd22t6 See you guys soon! Bolt Blaster out

[ 2024-05-03 15:05:40 CET ] [ Original post ]

Attention Spell Brigadiers! We dont have anything catchier to call you at the moment. But thats the beautiful thing about Early Access, baby. Everything will only get better and better. Anyway, thank you for joining us on this journey. It means the world to us! Upcoming So what now? We are very hard at work to get a demo in your hands. We will try to post our development progress right here at least once a week, so stay tuned for lots of cool stuff like content highlights, concept art and funny gifs. Like this very very very early prototype footage, for instance:
Discord Something we learned from our first game is how much we value player feedback! Thats why this time around, we aim to have a demo available much earlier and start the engagement with our community in the early stages of this project. The perfect place for this is our personally moderated Discord server. If you have any questions, feedback or want to say hi, feel free to do so. If theres anything cool to share, you will find it first there. https://discord.gg/8qZ2zd22t6 Cheers! Bolt Blaster Games

[ 2024-04-23 18:07:00 CET ] [ Original post ]