I got feedback about the game not rendering well on large screens. I don\'t think anyone tried it prior to launch, but anyway - it is now fixed

Today is a huge milestone for me. Ti give you an idea, my first commit for this game was on April 21st, 2022. 6,360 commits later and we\'re today

The game did not receive a massive amount of wishlists (I need to keep my day job noooo) but I\'m hella\' proud I released a game before we enter the age when creating a game consists solely in writing a prompt.

Thanks to everyone involved in this amazing journey

Benot Ko

I noticed an issue occurring during the first battle of some games, caused by the first-battle instructions. The issue triggered the error-recovery panel. This is a minor issue, as players can simply recover from there - but crashing on the first battle does not send the right signal

I couldn\'t reproduce the issue on my computer, so I couldn\'t fix the root cause. Instead, I made sure that it no longer crashes the game, but simply hides the instructions temporarily

If you encountered the issue, please reach out! I would love to fix the root cause here, and apparently, it only happened to 2 players

Hello everybody!

I have just pushed a new release for Wisps of the Elements. I did not add any new content, but instead decided to focus on improving the current interface

• Enable checking the enemy spells descriptions from within the battle. I feel that this was largely missing so far, but I struggled to find an acceptable approach without making the enemy description card too crowded

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• Update the instructions given on the very first battle, to help the new players further

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• Fixed performance issues on linux

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• Update the interface so it fits better on small screen. UI elements used to get in the way of the battle board, that is now fixed

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• Added custom cursor, which are now pixel art and more explicit

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• Updated the panel after the breach creation, which was too slow to appear

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Next Fest starts tomorrow

Wisps of the Elements is subscribed to Steam\'s October Next Fest, which starts tomorrow! I am super excited for it to happen

Release date is on Oct. 24th, roughly one week after Next Fest ends - which makes me even more excited

Remember to whishlist the game if that isn\'t done yet!

Hello everyone!

Im excited to share that Wisps of the Elements is officially subscribed to Steam Next Fest (October) \nThe full release will follow on October 24th, and the demo will remain available after launch.

Whats new in todays update?

• Fixed: crystal golem instructions overlapping the battle board, which blocked progress.

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• Fixed: spell descriptions overflowing the screen in the Pick a Spell panel.

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• Improved performance (hard to reproduce since only one player reported major slowdownsif youre affected, please reach out on Discord ).

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• Improved UI on small screens.

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Roadmap to release

• Addressing reported issues (the list is small, so Ive got time for new feedback ).

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• Marketing: this is my first game, and Im working on better ways to reach my target audience.

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After release

• Possible Hard Mode, if the game feels too easy (though surprisingly few players have beaten the final boss so far).

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• New spells and enemy updates to keep things fresh.

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• Add a Wizards Challenge to explain enemy AI, for players seeking to optimize their expeditions the best they can.

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• Accessibility improvements to reach more players.

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• Various design and QoL updates.

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Hello all!

New version of Wisps of the Elements, I hope you\'ll appreciate it!

What\'s new?

• Improved the performance when exploring the forest or the city

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• Lowered the life points of the enemies in the first map (the forest). I noticed too many players never reach the forest\'s boss

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• Finally added the Fire trap spell to the Fire worm

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• Added a visual feedback when hovering a NPC or an enemy

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• Modals can now be closed on a backdrop-click

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• The restrained AI warning now includes a link directly to the restrained AI toggle in the settings

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• Some more QoL updates

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Who dared give you a negative review?

Actually, no one. I even have recommendations already

That being said, one of the curators that reviewed my game, , left a review \"informational\" (other options are \"recommended\" or \"not recommended\"). Given that 90% of \'s reviews are \"recommended\", and 0% are \"Not recommended\", I deduce that 1) is polite and 2) did not like my game.

That\'s perfectly fine, as that\'s specifically the kind of feedback I need right now. explained briefly the encountered issues, and that helped me prioritize my tasks and give credit to some issues raised by play-testers (thanks @Jonathan!). That\'s also why today\'s release features mostly performance improvements and QoL updates

The point is, your positive reviews are more than welcome but do not hesitate to raise any frustrations you faced. I still have enough time to tackle them before the release, and I get far too little of these

[img src=\"https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/45096675/3f7184a18fd42999d910f48d81831c23c5078c41.png\"][/img]

Hello there!

Today I have published Wisps of the Elements free demo. Unlike the playtest, the free demo will remain available after the game\'s release.

Upon working on the demo, I realized I have a flaw in my design. All enemies in the second map and further have unique spells, but more than half the enemies in the first map had nothing special. Since the demo only features the first map, players may find it too basic. That\'s why I added new abilities:

• All golems (stone, fire, and ice) now regenerate one life point at the start of their turn

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• The Oculothorax now steals one life point when it attacks a wisp

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• I also wanted to add the Fire Trap spell to the Fire worm but I forgot to give it mana to cast it Since it takes a few days to re-train the enemy AI, that will come in a further update

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All those are rather basic skills, as they should be, since this is for first-map enemies

October Next Fest

I subscribed for the Steam Next Fest on October, and will officially release the game afterwards. The game is already close to its release state, so I will mostly focus on marketing until then - I am very late on marketing. Any help is welcome - a simple thumbs up on this article or a review if you tried the demo means a lot

Other changes in brief

• I fixed the previous issue - Minotaurs not being able to jump

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• Added support for Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, and German. Unlike French and English, those languages are translated by AI. Chinese, Korean, and Japanese are also planned

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• The Stone Prison spell now pushes pawns inward, not outward. This makes the Stone Guardian more likely to use it effectively

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• Plus some minor QoL updates

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Hello there!

I\'ve published a minor update to Wisps of the Elements. Here are some of the changes:

• The blue witch no longer casts the freezing spell. The AI is designed to prefer short battles, and the freezing spell was not working this way. Instead, the blue witch now casts the Protective bubble

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• The water priestess now casts the Swap spell

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• Improved explanations to the tide cycle as well as to the different battle phases. I find it particularly difficult to explain to new players that you\'re supposed to move, then take action - I guess most players are used to BG3, where either can be done in any order

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• Death Angel can now teleport. You\'d think that a boss that one-shoots you is strong enough, but it turns out to be quite easy to counter. This should add just a little bit of extra complexity

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• Updated the Elder dragon. I hated how simple it was - just a aggregate of elemental attacks with no originality.Now it has its own special pattern

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• Updated the electric attack. It now deals +1 damage each time it propagates, ensuring the players cannot simply ignore the Storm mage as a lesser opponent

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• Added new illusion cards, for those among you who got this far!

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I also improved the machine-learning based training of the enemy AI, and guess what - it made some issues more obvious! For instance, when training the AI properly, the Minotaur actually never uses its jump capacity! This is in fact \"normal\" when you consider how the AI is configured, but it is not acceptable in regards with the players expectations. I know how I\'ll fix this issue, but it will have to wait the next release. Sincethe Minotaur is a lesser enemy I decided not to hold the update for it

I hope you\'ll enjoy this new contentand am looking forward for your feedback!

Benot

Hello to the few players I currently have!

It has been a long time since I last updated Wisps of the Elements. Some of you may wonder if I'm still working on it. The answer is yes - and the update is now live!

What's new?

Well, many things. The main change is the complete rework of the AI. In the previous version, I used to programmatically assign a score to all possible actions, and pick the best one. Now, the AI is based on machine learning. The bot learned by playing against itself. There is room for improvement, but I want to see you beat it before I make it smarter!

That makes creating new spells easier. Adding a spell to swap positions with an ally would have been practically impossible with the previous approach. Now, it took me a few hours to implement. Thanks to this, I added new enemies, each with their own special abilities

There are now 2 complete maps, with 4 groups of enemies and one boss each. There's an extra map with Well, you'll see

More updates in brief: New NPCs, I updated the story, integrated new music tracks and sound effects, simplified the interface, as well as various quality-of-life improvements

Why the long wait?

I know that publishing regularly is important to keep players engaged, but That's not important to me. Wisps of the Elements is a side project, and I want to keep it fun to develop. Improving the AI is the hardest technical challenge I have accomplished so far, and that means more to me than being profitable.

That doesn't mean I don't care about your appreciation - and your feedback! If you're into tactical roguelites, then you're my target audience - and I'd love to hear from you

Oh, one last thing. Will I publish more frequently from now on? Well I just had a son so I'll decide as I go!

Hello everybody!

My name is Benot, I am a software developer, and I've been working on my own game 'Wisps of the Elements' for the past two years already!
Even though I still have a long list of tasks to complete before the game is ready, I think that it is long due for me to start interacting with the community and gathering feedback from players. Which is why you can now subscribe to the Wisps of the Elements Playtest!
I plan on accepting the first batch of playtesters somewhere between mid- and end of July. I'll then release incremental updates of the game, based on your feedback, and accept more playtesters as the game evolves - so don't worry if you are not part of the first batch.

Future roadmap