The entire team at Quarter Onion Games would like to wish everyone a Happy Holiday Season! Thank you for supporting Emberlight over the years. Grab our game during this 75% off sale for just $2.49!


May your holiday be awesome and We appreciate your support!


-The Quarter Onion Team

Quarter Onion Games is celebrating the second birthday of Emberlight this week.

Emberlight is on sale at an 80% off discount during our anniversary on all digital storefronts for just $1.99. We invite everyone to support our studio and purchase our game on Steam and Xsolla.

Emberlight was the first game we released as a company. We are thankful for our supporters and fans who continue to play this unpredictable game.

Join us on our Discord channel to participate in our community and learn what is coming next in Emberlight.

Emberlight is on sale on Steam and our other outlets for $2.99! That's a 70% off savings for the game.


https://store.steampowered.com/app/1048880/Emberlight


Thank you for your continued community support!

- QuarterOnion Games

Tap into some spooky savings with our Halloween sale on Emberlight. Discounted at 50% off with the final price tag of $4.99. Support local indies today!

Emberlight is on sale this week! Get the game at a 50% off discount! Can you survive the corruption?

Quarter Onion Games is celebrating the first anniversary of Emberlight this week.

Emberlight will be on sale with a 67% off discount (under $5.00) during our anniversary on all digital storefronts. We invite everyone to support our studio and purchase our game on Steam.

Emberlight was the first game we released as a company. We are thankful for our supporters who continue to play the game regularly and we appreciate all the fan input we received this past year. Our studio has given out over a million copies of the game in various fundraisers and giveaways to support charities during these tough times.

Join us on our Discord channel to participate in our community and learn what is coming next in Emberlight.

As we continue with areas that we are actively looking to improve in the future. There will always be places where we can do better, both working together as a studio, and each person that is a part of this experience. We fail as a studio when we can't identify where we failed.

[h3]Ongoing Bugs[/h3]
Nobody likes bugs, least of all the developers of your favorite games. As games get more complex, bugs will express themselves in new and "exciting" ways, and the team is always looking to resolve them. We've had a few rare bugs that continue to elude us, particularly a rare turn bug, and it's been a tough one to crack.

For the non-coder type, most of the code of a game tends to interact in some way with everything else. Making changes that may seem benign will suddenly break another system. While some fixed can be straightforward with some elbow grease and focus, others are a lot more complicated, and we've built a stronger QA and unit testing process for future projects to help us identify and resolve issues early.

[h3]Game Presentation[/h3]
Consistent feedback we received from the community focused on a lack of user feedback within Emberlight. Whether this was confusion within initial menus, or a lack of direction with something as important as navigating the rooms on a level, we needed to do a better job at conveying information to our community. Efforts such as tutorials we're not enough to properly ease players into the game.

As a team, we have a major focus in the current project to ensure the user feedback is properly designed out at the start. We can't assume that a new player will simply get it, and therefore the game needs to provide appropriate direction for a player that needs it. At the same time, we cannot force a player down a lengthy tutorial, so it's a balancing act that we'll refine with the demo we're working on.

[h3]Game Awareness[/h3]
While this isn't directly related to the game development itself, getting awareness for future games is crucial to build our community and push us to continue building quality games for everyone. This was a learning experience for us, and we have new tools in the tool belt for our future projects. Particularly both how to get the game in front of more people, and to ensure that our presentation properly represents the game.

We had many great reviewers, streamers, and YouTubers play our game and provide feedback on it, and it was a humbling experience to hear everyone's views on Emberlight. From the reviews we received, we averaged around a 7 out of 10 which is average to us. Nothing less than a 10 out of 10 is good enough, and we have a blueprint on how to achieve that goal.

If you have purchased the game, please leave a review so the Steam algorithm can index our game properly.

Our final article will focus on our next project. We're super excited to finally unveil our recent work, and where we're going in 2020. Stay tuned!

Read the first article here.

As we walk into a new decade, the experience of creating and launching a game has given us a lot of insight into how to move forward confident in our abilities as a studio. We've grown this past year with Emberlight and our wonderful community with well over a thousand folks that have given us a chance so far but there's always room to improve. We strive for a 10 outta 10 with our future games, and it starts with self-critiques which we'll breakdown in a three-parter leading into our new game in production.

We start our studio self-critique with what went right. These are strong building blocks for future projects, and help to overcome the obstacles we faced. And why not start the new decade on a positive note.

[h3]Emberlight Launched[/h3]
A major difficulty in development is knowing when to be finished. This seems like a trivial point, but game development is equal parts art and engineering. Emberlight taught us that while the design is organic, we need to hold to a core concept and build off of it.

We set the goal of August 13th of 2019 and ensured that we could meet that deadline with a quality game. While there is always room for improvement, we were very happy to see Emberlight evolve into the final result. We were able to turn an idea into something that hundreds enjoyed.

[h3]Bugs Squashed[/h3]
This seems like a "duh" thing, but we quickly found issues that got through our QA processes at launch. There's no such thing as launching a game bug-free, and a launch overall is a risk versus reward scenario. High priority bugs are ideally cleaned up, while some known bugs may push through launch if they don't greatly hinder gameplay.

We worked diligently and squashed most of the largest bugs within that first week after launch. At the same time, we synthesized requests from our community to make the game a better experience. Overall, this experience has given us QA ammunition for future projects to have a more bulletproof launch.

[h3]Content Updated[/h3]
There's nothing inherently special about pushing new content post-launch. Whether it's free content in an update, or paid DLC, these updates enhance the base game. In our case, our October update acted as an intermediary to the eventual DM build and both updated functionality as well as added a new character class.

The updated camera helped with the isometric nature of Emberlight, while the forest and sewers added variety to the runs. Many of the changes were requested by the community as well as allowed us to transition towards new functionality for future updates more seamlessly. This process also gave us insight in both working with the community to refine the game post-launch, and pushing larger updates.

Our next article will focus on our self-critique on how we can improve for the next project. Stay tuned!

The development team has made the following changes to the game in our October Patch Update. This patch is scheduled to go live later today.

Please read the patch notes below:

• Ember Maiden class has been added to the game.
  
• Turns that would hang on certain situations with summoning units that would cause the run to be abandoned has been fixed
  
• The camera position has been moved back to allow us to increase the detail of each map.
  
• All maps have been overhauled or updated due to the new camera settings.
  
• All units have been spaced out to provide more variety in their sizes. Bosses are much larger than a regular character.
  
• New character portraits have been added to the game for selecting quests and characters prior to launching the game.
  
• The loading process for the game has been split up to speed up the game. A loading bar will show the progress when starting the game.
  
• Forest and Sewer themes added to the game.
  
• The first and second levels will randomly select from different themes. The first level uses either forest or ruins, and the second level uses caves or sewers.
  
• You can now suspend a run and continue it at a later date.
  
• An ability button was added to the game where you can move your skills around your characters at any time.
  

Join us on Friday, October 4th at 9 pm EDT, for an Emberlight Developer Stream with BoyAzazel68, on Twitch at https://twitch.tv/boyazazel68. Our Lead Developer, Vaernus, will be offering his commentary as they play the game together on the stream. We plan on giving away game keys to the lucky winners during the stream. We will also be discussing the new and upcoming changes coming to the game, Dungeon Master Mode, Single Player, Co-op, and Multiplayer Mode.

Emberlight has been nominated for the Fan Favourite Game of the Week at the Game Development World Championships. We need everyone in our community to vote for us. Just click on the Vote button under the game graphic to cast your vote for Emberlight on the GDWC 2019 webpage.

We appreciate everyone in our amazing community that continues to support Emberlight as we work towards the next big update with the inclusion of the story mode, co-op mode, multiplayer mode, and most importantly dungeon master mode. Systems are still being designed and implemented. Look for a post with a preview in the near future.

The development team has made more improvements to the game. Read the updated changes in the patch notes for changeset 1.0831 below.

• Resolved issue where "Share A Pint" achievement wasn't being fired off due to a corner case not handled.


• Additional safety checks added when getting all party members or enemies, and getting a random party member or enemy, to hopefully resolve Blaze Knight getting stuck. This also removes two while loops that could potentially stall the game.


• Summoned units with "shared drain" now properly give the drain heal to the party instead of enemies.


• Shared drain now in ability tooltips. Applies to Necromantic Heal and Necromantic Aura where the drain heal is applied to allies.


• Ability bar now shows a "full cooldown" on any arcane and psionic abilities when the unit is silenced.


• While previously the buttons would do nothing if clicked when an ability was not ready, buttons are now non-interactable when the ability is not ready. This includes Fury abilities.


• Resolved issue where "Jump to me" button in daily challenge did not work properly.


• Resolved issues with moving left/right in leaderboard with the recent back-end changes.


• Adjusted gambling chances to win to 40%/35%/30% based on amount waged. Will continue to adjust from recent feedback.


• Props now have a range for chance to fire off versus one set value. This was in response to feedback where graves would spawn a skeleton every click. All props now roll a chance value based on the prop template's min and max, and then test against it per use.


• Updated all ability and trait icons.

Rounding out two weeks since launch, weve made a lot of progress. This last update added Steam Achievements. Players can join the Knights of the Ember Order and collect all 49 milestones ranging in various difficulties. Other additions over the past two weeks include:

• Cloud saving for persistent corruption across all supported platforms


• Daily and lifetime leaderboards for the Daily Challenge mode


• Purity mode which allows players to access good endings per run


• Revamped quest system to better showcase the run being selected


• And a wide range of fixes and tweaks based on feedback from the Emberlight community

The development team has made the following changes and updates to the game in the latest Changeset 826 update. Steam Achievements are now live! Earn 49 new badges for your steam profile with these new achievements.

• Updated the ground on surface and caves to help with feedback where the characters blend too much due to similar color scheme


• Adjusted the quest screen tutorial to help with some confusion on quest selection


• Added a tutorial in-game for purity mode explaining what it does when active


• Added cloud saving of corruption points, corruption levels, and all corrupted bosses. This is paired to whichever platform you're currently logged into (Steam has highest priority, and Discord is secondary). Bonus points if you have the same display/username between Steam and Discord as it will use the same backend. This is also the same system that determines name on top left of main menu.


• Updated leaderboard system to now show "today's leaderboard" which clears when challenge resets, and "lifetime leaderboard" which shows highest score. This also uses new backend with cloud saving which unfortunately wiped out all lifetime scores to date.


• Updated trap room effect due to graphical artifacts and performance issues


• Removed light around treasure in treasure room


• Resolved issue where, with the game log turned off, it'd flash on and off in rooms as messages were passed to it


• Resolved issue where, with purity mode, if you exhausted all corrupted bosses in pool, you could still select a corruption quest and crash in boss room


• Gambling chance now 50/50 (originally 70% chance to lose). 10% chance for jackpot stays the same


• Added wolf/werewolf hurt and die sounds


• Updated sounds for critters (especially rats which made everyone's ears bleed)


• All units now have variance in their stats and health instead of just the level's base balancing amounts


• Voice now has its own sound category in options


• Achievements added to the game. Currently only in Steam. Eventually will show in the encyclopedia.


• Rooms with doors now properly highlight both the frame and door when hovered

The development team has made the following changes and updates to the game in the latest Changeset 825 update.

• Resolved issue where diminishing returns/hard cap on crowd control was not working properly. It now properly recognizes dimishing returns (there is a test per attempt to use) along with a hard cap (after 10 full uses in a room, CC will not work). This should help with a few encounters that overloaded CC (wolves and werewolf encounters, critter encounter with 3 rats, and Ratman miniboss) as well as corruption fight with CC-heavy party members.


• Raised floaty text above the status effects area. It will also raise higher with many status effects.


• Resolved issue where the Blaze Knight, when having multiple turns in succession, didn't rotate back to starting rotation in between turns. This was fixed before launch, but accidentally commented out in a recent update.


• Leaderboard numbers now start at 1 position as opposed to 0.


• Added roadmap image as a clickable button to bottom left of main menu. This opens browser to the State of the Game article for details on the future of Emberlight.

We just made updates, changes, and some fixes in the latest build for Emberlight in Changeset 821. Please read about the new purity mode for those wishing for a "good ending" in options as well as the other updates to the game.

• Rebuilt quest screen to help resolve confusion in determining which quest was selected and how long the quest will last


• Fixed a few grammar and spelling errors


• Resolved issue where the persistent corruption bars did not properly update the bar portion


• Resolved issue where the windowed option was flipped


• Unit portraits (in abilities window, town portal, and above units on screen) now show stats window when hovering over


• Traits have all been shifted as status effects to make them more apparent. We'll see how this plays out in later levels where many more status effects are applied and whether we'll need to present the traits differently.


• Various tweaks to the tutorial messages to align to recent changes


• Pushed the updated options window


• Quest window now defaults to highest accessible quest. It can still be cycled.


• Updated method for hovering over unit portraits as it was occasionally flipping the toggle


• Resolved issue where somehow clicking through tutorial windows in quest and party screens allowed the back button to be hit leaving the tutorial window up indefinitely.


• With traits now in status effects, reduced size of each icon to be 6 wide to handle traits, drinks, and any active status effects.

• When defeating the final boss, if none of the party members received any corruption (relying solely on town portal abilities), the corruption fight is skipped and a different ending is earned. No corrupted boss is created. This was in response to feedback requesting a "good" ending.


• Is Purity Run added to options menu. When set, if any party members have 0 corruption but a corruption fight must happen due to another member having corruption, the system will pick a 0 corrupted party member in the fight. This was in response to feedback requesting a "good" ending.


• If at least one corruption fight occurs, but the survivors are not corrupted, the second ending is earned. No corrupted boss is created. This was in response to feedback requesting a "good" ending.

Our Reddit AMA is now live on /Games. Come chat with the developers of Emberlight and ask your burning questions, discuss our roadmap, or share feedback. We will be here until 11 PM EDT (-5 GMT)



- Quarter Onion Games

Have you watched the launch trailer, or better yet tried the game on Steam/Discord or Itch.io , and wondered what was going through our heads when we created Emberlight? Why am I killing off my own party? I have to kill my old corrupted Pyromancer with his Brutal Charge, Meteor Strike, and Nova?!

Well fear not, because we dont know what was going through our heads. But we have the next best thing to answering these and other questions you may have! We will be hosting a Reddit AMA on /Games at 8pm EDT (GMT-5) on Sunday (August 18th). We will post the full Reddit link prior to the chat on Discord, Facebook, Twitter, as well as update this post.

While you wait, you can listen in on the interview we had with Fragments of Silicon on July 3rd.

• The Quarter Onion Games team

Thank you everyone for supporting Emberlight. Here is a list of things we added, fixed, or changed based on the community's suggestions.

Here are the highlights

• How to play removed from encyclopedia due to tutorial system ingame. Defaults to locations tab.
  
• Resolved the abilities and town portal windows still having the rare case of an icon being stuck on the screen
  
• For effects with absorb and mirror image which stay active until used up, duration now goes down to 0 versus negative before
  
• Adjustments made to better support multi-monitor setups
  
• Added Windowed mode back into options. Seems stable, but we'll need more testing to be 100% (Need to check the box then uncheck it to enable. Will be fixed in next update)
  
• Finally, maybe, hopefully resolved the rare wander creature bug
  
• Tweaks to order of operations when handling death to see if this resolves the rare bug where sometimes an enemy is at 0hp and yet doesn't die with the turn system getting stuck
  
• Potions now function the way they worked before where multiple can be used in a cleared room
  
• Tooltips for potions button are now always active to show potion amount regardless of situation or if there's 0
  
• Game log can now be disabled in the options menu if you find it intrusive
  

Have you watched the launch trailer, or better yet tried the game, and wondered what was going through our heads when we created Emberlight? Why am I killing off my own party? I have to kill my old corrupted Pyromancer with his Brutal Charge, Meteor Strike, and Nova?!

Well fear not, because we dont know what was going through our heads. But we have the next best thing to answering these and other questions you may have! We will be hosting a Twitter AMA at 8:15 pm EDT (GMT-5) today (August 14th). Simply use the #Emberlight hashtag to chat with us or ask a question.

While you wait, you can listen in on the interview we had with Fragments of Silicon on July 3rd.

• The Quarter Onion Games team

So we have finally reached the finish line (of sorts) for Emberlight. What does that mean for Emberlight over the next few months? And more importantly, what is up the sleeves of our team over the next year or two? Read on, dear reader, and well go down the path of Trinity.



We had posted the Emberlight Roadmap a few months ago due to questions about what was happening after August 13th. And while this roadmap details a lot of the cool content and features we have planned over the next year, it doesnt really go into detail about how we will continue to build up the core functionality we have in Emberlight now. So where are we going with Emberlight?

First off, we know theres still plenty to tweak. We took in valuable feedback during our pre-launch period from the many streamers and YouTubers that helped iron out flaws we were overlooking. Theres still some glitches, including a few were having a helluva time to recreate (resurrection instantly killing the resurrect party member which might be a feature, the Blaze Knight moonwalking which is most definitely not a feature, and those pesky snakes not going away properly when ending a run), but these will be cleaned up.

As many will attest during the pre-launch period, we will work rapidly to get these fixed. Weve done what we could to alleviate the vast majority of issues. These last few mainly stem from an inability to recreate on the development side making it very difficult to resolve them without potentially breaking the game for those without the issues. We will continue to tweak areas to see if it resolves itself, but it's one of those areas where we may just need new eyes looking at the code base as we start rounding out the team for this and future endeavors.

Of particular note is additional platforms we plan to support. We aim to be on iOS and Android by the end of October with the Co-op mode update. We then, publisher permitting, aim to be on the Switch by the end of December with the Dungeon Master mode update. At the moment, those are the only platforms were aiming for long term but we are open to suggestions from our community (please come talk to us on Discord, we dont bite).

Project 2 (It really needs a name)
So weve briefly discussed what is after Emberlight, which will get touched on in more detail below, but the current goal is for project 2 to be a tactical RPG. Keeping with the tradition of Emberlight pulling from our nostalgia of Final Fantasy X and XI while attempting to modernize it with a few twists, Project 2 will pull specifically from our nostalgia of Ogre Battle. This project will fall within the same timeline as Emberlight, and this becomes important with Trinity.

What is Trinity?
Trinity is basically a framework that will connect Emberlight, Project 2, and a third concept (a side scrolling city simulator) into one persistent shard. The point of Trinity is continuing the charm of single player games (you do not directly connect to any players within the shard you are playing on), but the actions of each playthrough have lasting consequences on the shard. Emberlight players completing quests will see those regions have a smaller evil footprint. Project 2 players will secure the borders as countries vie for power and territory. And the city sim players are the engine that fuels the other two games, providing quests and resources respectively.

Is this ambitious? Most definitely. And this is why we want to focus on each game as its own project. We want to build these to the highest quality possible. Trinity basically forces us to. Even as we shift gears into the 2nd and 3rd projects, we are still having to work on the previous games to ensure they all pair up properly.

Just as Dungeon Master mode in Emberlight comes from our yearning for that tabletop experience in the games that we just feel hasnt quite been achieved yet, Trinity builds off of our desire for a most interactive experience for players in all genres. That ability to play a game that is underappreciated in the industry and yet have it interact with those that are.

Can we pull all of this off? We sure can!

- The Quarter Onion Games team

From a simple concept in 2017, to humble development beginnings in October of 2018, Quarter Onion Games is excited to announce that we have made it to the finish line with Emberlight!

https://www.youtube.com/embed/4nYQ10qwK30

Emberlight features the esteemed voice actress, Lani Minella, as the Grandmaster, as well as voice casting talent from No Studio In Particular produced by Reece Bridger.

What is Emberlight?

Emberlight is a true roguelike dungeon crawler, set in a world where the Gods have given you a great gift - and a great curse.

Explore procedurally generated dungeons as a Knight of the Ember Order. Conquer the quests set out before your party, and uncover the lore of the land. Grow your strength by absorbing the abilities of your slain enemies and collecting the powerful traits of dungeon bosses.

Become strong, become quick, become immortal - but be warned - as you fight using unstable Ember powers, they will begin to corrupt and twist your very soul. Every gift of power has its sacrifice; every ability has its cost.

As the Gods fight for control of their creations, you must decide what is good, and what is evil. To protect your people against the dangers of Ember power, you must use its power to your advantage. Will you conquer the dark, or will you lose yourself to corruption?

https://www.youtube.com/embed/RR4LziMyP34

Whats next?

You can check out the Emberlight Roadmap which goes into detail about whats in store over the next year. We will have a State Of The Game post tomorrow that will expand upon the roadmap including future platforms, future games, and more!

For now, the Ember Order awaits you! And let us know all about your adventures on our Discord server!

• The Quarter Onion Games team

Emberlight is now ready to release on both Steam and Discord on August 13th. We made the following tweaks to the game in the latest patch build .818.

• Tweaked quest selection tutorial due to recent feedback to be more explicit in how the window works.


• Tweaked the entrance room tutorial that pops up to have a quick tip on navigation as folks have gotten stuck on this in multiple streams/videos. The tutorial for navigation still gets added as well.


• Locked quests on the quest window now are grayed out but still allow tooltips (to show corruption level to unlock) and cycling through them.


• Added Steamworks fully to launch build. Will eventually support achievements and cloud saves. For now, it will grab the display name to show in top left (previously either randomized a name or grabbed the Discord display name).


• Debug mode has been disabled for launch build.


• Adjustments to game UI to ensure that no input can happen during either an enemy's turn, or with a party member that is charmed, confused, or stunned. Still working to fix the character getting stuck that occasionally happens.


• Adjusted damage shield tooltip text to say that it reflects damage back onto attacker.


• Adjusted reflect tooltip text to say it reflects all abilities back onto attacker.

The development team has made the following changes and updates to the game in the latest changeset 814 update. This build is the launch candidate for release.

• Combat log pop in/pop out effect was not ideal. Now just appears/disappears


• Targeting should now definitely be probably fixed, maybe - Tab to cycle targets is working again


• Encounter wasn't working like AoE for mirror image negation and is fixed


• Looks like subclasses were hooked to the wrong characters on party select for 0 and 1 slots and is now fixed


• If all party members die in corruption fight, the game should now properly end with no corrupted boss


• Investigated characters instantly dying when resurrected and added some safety checks


• Investigated confused characters getting stuck and added some safety checks to ensure input cannot happen


• Settings now saved on EndOfRun and PartyDead screens to save out corruption


• Investigated how options menu works as it still has issues. Checked through save/load routines as we were only applying the volume at load but ignoring the mutes if they were saved. Also potentially resolved issues in the resolution setup as we're showing resolutions not even supported by the game (should only be 16:9 and 16:10)


• Tooltips only showed properly on 1920 x 1080. They now stay within the screen space for all supported resolutions


• Fixed debug scores in daily challenge (I do not have 90000 points anymore, and the two debug test players are removed)


• Added text next to the corruption bars on EndOfRun and PartyDead to show amount for what was earned in that run


• Targeting in tooltips now explains what it does as a first pass to explaining special cases


• Switched back to centered combat log text


• Colorized chat log messages similar to floaty text


• Adjusted unit bar to support 3 wide status effects, and 2 rows above. This resolves some issues where too many effects flowed over the turn bar, but can present an issue where many effects go under the learned abilities bar in some encounters


• Continued investigation of icons used in ability and town portal windows, and added some more safety checks


• As a first pass on crowd control having a diminishing return, rooms now have a defined cap for amount of crowd control used (either side) before all units become immune. This will eventually expand to be more diminishing returns, but the value is high enough to still make it useful per encounter


• Exiting a run brings the player to the party death screen and applies the usual score corruption gain. This also provides an out if a player is stuck in a never ending corruption fight


• Reintroduced credits page in main menu


• Removed lore temporarily from game


• Add voices for gambling hall, tavern, and town portal when entering and purchasing something


• Updated a handful of shop-based texts for grammar issues


• Fixed positioning of earned corruption at bottom of end of run and party dead as it was too close to edge


• Disabled party dead sound in when closing the party dead screen so it doesn't continue playing on main menu


• Theme ambience was never disabled when going to main menu and now shuts off properly


• Removed extra line at the bottom of challenge modifiers and difficulty tooltips

The development team has made the following changes and updates to the game in the latest changeset 813 update.

• Persistent corruption now has a base amount earned per run on top of the amount of corruption each character has. It is 1% of the final score. This also applies on party death (but does not add corruption from characters)


• Party dead screen now also contains the corruption bar


• Resurrect cost now locked at 1000 gold


• Corruption fight code has been rebuilt from the ground up to hopefully resolve the issues some folks have been running into (fingers crossed)


• Added tutorial for using abilities outside combat and that turns aren't used up until combat begins


• Potentially resolved difficulty tooltip and the daily challenge tooltips having issues showing up


• IsUndead should work the same as ConstantDrain now where it will drain even on normal damaging abilities


• Targeting code has been rebuilt from the ground to hopefully resolve the issues with targeting (more fingers crossed)


• Town portal/town screens updated to be same size as quest/party select screens


• Updated visuals on tavern and gambling hall


• Added tutorial showing that difficulty is tooltip at top. Separate tutorial for daily challenge.


• Added tutorial for persistent corruption earned at corruption fight


• Added tutorial for targeting methods


• Added tutorial for duplicate abilities


• Added tutorial for stats and what they do


• Added tutorial for how to learn abilities including general chance per enemy use


• Added tutorial for summons, how they work, and how you can learn their abilities like an enemy


• Added tutorial for stats added by abilities and function as stats


• Added tutorial for trait mastery


• Added tutorial about stats window in abilities and town portal windows


• Added more details to any multiplier effects to show the amount gained


• UnitSkillState should lock position like die state (resolves issue with Slime and a few others who moved during skill usage)


• Corruption amount now shown as an entry in log


• Changed abilities header to learned abilities


• Updated tutorials at beginning to show new button names


• All tutorial had their descriptions updated as required


• Disabled temple in town


• Town and town portal now show amount of potions in shop


• Shops have new inventory and new tutorials are lines shown in top center of screen which fade away to provide more emphasis to these events


• Turn bar is sent to top of UI so that status effects go behind it (temporary fix until status effects adjusted)


• Learned ability window is sent to top of UI so that status effects go behind it (temporary fix until status effects adjusted)


• Combat log fades away after 10 seconds from receiving message


• Darkened the combat log background


• Left aligned the text messages in combat log and shifted it over to the left more to add more space without some lines requiring two lines.


• Captured all icons created/added when dragging abilities in abilities and town portal and made sure they are cleaned up in rare cases where they don't hook to a slot when the screen disappears (temporary fix until the rare case is identified and resolved)


• Shifted headers for modal windows to top left like main menu for consistency


• Added latest Steamwork.net to begin setting up cloud saving

The development team has made the following changes and updates to the game in the latest Changeset 812 update.

• Updated text for levels, quests, rooms, and units. See the encyclopedia for details as well as map ingame.


• Added descriptions for the 6 subclasses.


• Updated text for corruption fight, corrupted boss, and end of run text.


• Renamed Beholder to Watcher


• Renamed Mage Ghost to Spectre


• Renamed Mouse Man to Ratman


• Renamed Orc Commander to Patriarch


• Resolved issue where applying damage via debug keys or daily challenge modifiers like Deadline could be circumvented via current effects. They now apply immediately before any calculations.


• Deadline now only applies up to quest complete (defeating final boss). It will not apply during corruption fight or any exploration after.


• Difficulty now shows as an icon underneath score at top. You can highlight the tooltip showing current difficulty's effects.


• Difficulty is added as a fourth icon during daily challenges as the difficulty is also locked in during a challenge run (cannot be changed in options)


• Combat log shifted to bottom left and taller to provide more log messages


• Tutorial shifted to top left and setup same as learned abilities (top right) to stand out


• Various tutorials are updated and include proper icons


• Added tutorials also notify in the combat log


• Room icons have been updated


• Hotkeys shown in tooltips for buttons on bottom except abilities (which have hotkey on the icon itself)


• Current build shown at bottom right on game interface (will help with last bit of testing)


• Descriptions expanded on various status effects to give more details as to what they do (such as Charm and Confuse)


• Resolved issue where drinks were not shifting the cost to the next line


• Persistent corruption bar added to party select and end of run windows.


• Various QoL tweaks of all windows


• Tutorial windows for the initial screens is now shifted to left side of quest, party, and town to allow interaction while its up.


• Power level upgrading in town portal is now cheaper


• Unit idle animation is now at normal speed to resolve feedback about units dancing. All other speeds stay the same.


• Resolved issues with the various volume sliders and mute buttons that were not functioning properly.


• Stats window can be opened while in abilities and town portal


• Resolved issues where a bold setting for text was causing it to be blurry in lower resolutions


• Added icons back in within encyclopedia for most categories


• Encyclopedia presentation improved (still a WIP for the complete visual shift)

The development team has made the following changes and updates to the game in the latest update.

• While somehow the corruption fight did allow the game to not crash if all party members died in rare cases (such as damage shield or encounter wide attacks), an additional condition has been added to allow the system to pull from dead party members to add as a corrupted boss.


• Resolved issue where death penalty in score was applied during corruption fight.


• Resolved issue where the highest corrupted party member was not always selected due to a minor issue in code checks.


• Constrained health to 0 or some positive number.


• Constrained max health to 0 or some positive number.


• Resolved issue where changing max health was either using the proper function or directly affecting the stat. Now all uses function and should have same results every usage.


• Traits will now show when earned/removed in the top left log.


• Resolved issue where "proportional to fury" abilities did not show full tooltip.


• Summons are now affected by power level. They use the same formulas for individual stat increases and max health as normal effects do to empower the summoned unit.


• Added ambient sound to each level (WIP).


• Resolved issue where the entrances/exits in later levels would be hard to click due to their positioning behind the interface. Switched all exits to the same as surface, and entrances as the same as caves.


• Blinded sight modifier now has a 50% chance to spawn Ember Shards per room versus previous 25%.


• On first load of Emberlight, difficulty now defaults to Normal instead of Easy.


• Resolved issue where certain effects had attached SFX that would not shut off as they weren't hooked into Emberlight's audio controller.


• Resolved issue where floating text above units during attacks would get massively delayed in larger attacks. The text was shifted over to each unit to manage its own text versus the game UI doing everything. There may still be small delays until the optimal amount of text slots are found, but nothing as bad as before


• Shrines now only offer positive effects.


• Temples now offer random effects but have a much higher chance of providing an ability.


• Ember shard chance for a miniboss ability slightly increased.


• Graves no longer have a small chance to provide a negative effect as the Skeleton spawn is negative enough. Spawn chance increased to 100%.


• Disabled animation on chests in trap and treasure rooms.


• Map now once again properly opens with current room focused. Additional updates to back-end map generation to be more efficient with the isometric change. Current room identifier also a bit more prominent.


• When all props in a room have been interacted with, non combat rooms now show the cleared icon. The only exceptions are the town portal, gambling hall, and tavern.


• Resolved issue where humanoid "props" like the dealers and innkeepers would not properly highlight with mouse over.


• Resolved issue where some text lines would fade away and others would not. Text stays on at all times. Will potentially have the log fade out in future when not receiving new text but it'd be too few and far between to really bother.


• Due to a multitude of issues with how much space moveable doors take, doors do not open or close anymore. This also resolves an issue with doors blocking props and units when open causing issues with interaction.


• Resolved issue where certain units had animations that moved them which could cause issues like clipping with terrain, or with necromancers where each cast of an ability would eventually move them outside the room.


• Potentially resolved the targeting issues with smaller units. Its still somewhat messy at times without a complete rewrite of targeting to not use base Unity events.

Emberlight has now entered the beta phase territory. This latest build is the beta release candidate. Read below for the following changes and updates to the game in the latest update.

• Resolved issue where due to the way traits setup tooltips, it was causing an error with the recent random power level system


• Damage shields now reflect a percentage of incoming damage back at attacker making them more useful. Unlike reflect, damage still gets through though. It functions as a poor man's reflect for damage only whereas reflect is 100% any effect.


• Added button to allow exiting the map. M key still also works to toggle.


• Increased size of font on unit bars as the font change made the text too small to read.


• Added "Learned Abilities" text below the bar shown inside an encounter that updates when abilities are learned.


• Added slot in top right of quest window showing the currently selected quest as there was confusion as to which quest was going to be set for the run.


• Resolved a spelling error in the town/town portal.


• Locked quests still show their icons plus tooltip along with the corruption level required to unlock. They cannot be clicked until unlocked.


• Visual revamp of the target and turn markers to contrast better on all themes.


• Melee target restrictions removed.


• Added welcome pop up window that explains the status of build, directs to "How to play" in encyclopedia for new players, and explains the tutorial system.


• Added tutorial screens for selecting quest, party, and what can be done in town at the start.


• Added panel that will hold all ingame tutorial notifications (WIP).


• Resolved potential crash issue when loading quest and a loop got stuck figuring out the current corruption level. Made some adjustments to persistent corruption to compensate. Leveling is now locked at 300 per level versus an increasing scale. Effectively a lvl 3 run or any daily challenge with full corruption should get you a level each time you complete them.


• Mire room now has translucent slimy water to be able to see the target and turn markers.


• Power level nerfs are applied to max health and absorb after initial testing. They will both require 10x more the amount of power level for the same effect. In terms of max health, you can still eventually turn it into a one shot kill but it takes a lot more effort. For absorb, it can become a shield greater than your total health with effort.


• Resolved issue where checking the trait tab in encyclopedia would cause an error. - Ability tier colors are updated to final.


• Resolved melee restrictions when clicking a target. It was fixed when using tab to cycle targets, but it didn't apply the changes to clicking.


• Shifted ability tooltips a little bit to have cost at top and gave it a slight gold color to stand out.


• Using props in rooms will now show a log entry for whatever happened if they are tripped. This applies to shrine, temple, trap, fountain, cistern, campfire, and any that spawn enemies.


• First batch of tutorials are in. If anyone has any other areas they need more information on, please let us know in the server and we'll add them in.

Tonight at 9:30 PM EDT(6:30 PDT) Quarter Onion Games will be interviewed by the Fragments of Silicon Team for Emberlight. Tune into the podcast on Twitch.tv at https://www.twitch.tv/fragmentsofsilicon.

Quarter Onion Games will be represented by Will Phelps (Vaernus) and Michael Hahn (mbhahn) We hope everyone watches/listens to the podcast tonight. We may make an important announcement. Who knows?

Fragments of Silicon
Twitch - https://www.twitch.tv/fragmentsofsilicon
Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/user/ShardShinjuku


Visit the Emberlight website at https://www.emberlightgame.com
Join our Discord Server at https://www.discord.gg/quarteronion

The development team has made the following changes and updates to the game in the latest update.

• Traits which add a long running change to a character now show on status effects above that character. This now includes status protect, constant drain, regeneration, trait absorb, and undead. All other traits will still be in the stats window.


• Fixed issue with "Blinded Sight" daily modifier where even the Ember Shards would not provide an ability as per the modifier's description. Options menu now contains all current hotkeys.


• Extended the welcome message at top left of main menu for longer names to fit without a new line.


• Added transparent gray background to all menu windows.
  
• Testing a new replacement font. Will require interface adjustments to realign.


• Resolved issue where armor increasing abilities did not show the proper value in UI.


• Resolved issue where max health increases did not apply health increase as well.


• Resolved issue where negative stat effects could never be applied to any unit due to the way the checks were made when modifying the stat.


• Power level is now randomized on learned and purchasable abilities. The randomization is determined via the ability's tier. Power level directly affects most effect output and shows on tooltips. Currently power level does not affect pure status effects and summons. System is very WIP.


• Resolved issue where due to the way traits setup tool-tips, it was causing an error with the recent random power level system.


• Damage shields now reflect a percentage of incoming damage back at attacker making them more useful. Unlike reflect, damage still gets through though. It functions as a poor man's reflect for damage only whereas reflect is 100% any effect.


• Added button to allow exiting the map. M key still also works to toggle.


• Increased size of font on unit bars as the font change made the text too small to read.


• Added "Learned Abilities" text below the bar shown inside an encounter that updates when abilities are learned.


• Added slot in top right of quest window showing the currently selected quest as there was confusion as to which quest was going to be set for the run.


• Resolved a spelling error in the town/town portal.


• Locked quests still show their icons plus tooltip along with the corruption level required to unlock. They cannot be clicked until unlocked.


• Visual revamp of the target and turn markers to contrast better on all themes.


• Melee target restrictions removed.


• Added welcome pop up window that explains the status of build, directs to "How to play" in encyclopedia for new players, and explains the tutorial system.


• Added tutorial screens for selecting quest, party, and what can be done in town at the start.


• Added panel that will hold all in-game tutorial notifications (WIP).

The development team has made the following changes and updates to the game in the latest update.

• Updated encyclopedia to show if a particular level, room, or unit has been unlocked. Otherwise it'll show corruption level to unlock.


• Fixed last few projectile issues causing lockups.


• Resolved issue where daily challenge was crashing on load due to changes to quest system interfering.


• Switched the news feed to Quarter Onion website.


• Resolved issue where potions weren't working outside combat due to a unit being confused, charmed, or stunned leaving an encounter, and that unit was currently active.


• Resolved issue where resurrecting a unit in town portal and then attempting to add abilities to that character caused errors.


• Resolved issue where heroic challenge modifier in daily challenges would lock up due to there only being 9 normal heroic abilities currently and it requires 10. Heroic challenge now pulls from normal and uncommon to have a larger variety.


• Miniboss rooms (non special versions) cannot spawn in the first 3 rooms adjacent to the entrance. This should allow players to get a few other encounters knocked out first to build up some abilities.


• First pass on isometric map from requests. Still needs some work.


• Town/town portal now properly respects gold amount. Buttons will disable and not allow drag if the player does not have enough.


• Increased the size of box colliders to fix the issue with clicking small enemies


• Resolved issue in daily challenge mode where modifiers were overwriting the changes from other modifiers.


• Updated the shops update text


• IsFurious modifier in daily challenge now only affects the party. Previously it would allow all enemies to have constant fury which would be way overpowered.


• The 3 challenge modifiers are now shown at the top middle of the game along with tooltips to remind players what is affecting that run.


• Learned abilities during an encounter now show as a row on the top right along with tooltips to easily determine what abilities have been observed so far.


• Text system from before has been revamped to support up to 3 messages at the same time, with the latest message at the bottom. Each message fades out after a delay. More notifications are now pushed to this system per turn.


• Resolved issue where max corruption did not show an icon under the party member's portrait as there is technically not trait at max but instead is a fury ability. The system now shows the highest trait level icon + tooltip to allow players to see what type of corruption occurred.


• Added duration to the ability along with the tooltip already showing cooldown amount. This also does not show anymore on trait tooltips.


• Resolved issue where the max corruption daily modifier was being applied to all units, not just the party. Also resolved issue where the system was only adding corruption but not actually applying the traits and fury ability.


• Updated all final props in various rooms to allow mouse over and clicks to activate prop. Rooms affected are: Arcanium, Boss, Cistern, Entrance, Laboratory, Mausoleum, Observatory, Outpost, Shrine, Summoning Room, and Temple.


• Quality of life updates to the overall game UI, including shifting the score to top middle, the timer to bottom middle (back to old UI layout) and the additional elements detailed above.


• Finally resolved issue where tooltips could go off screen. They will finally stay put.

The development team has made the following changes and updates to the game in the latest update.

• Corruption earned in a run (max 300 if all 3 characters hit 100%) is saved between runs. This will result in earning corruption levels which will begin to unlock new content over time such as subclasses, new classes, rooms, etc.
  
• Quest system now "complete" with all unlocks in place. Can select any quest on the quest screen in a more visual interface. Base game is surface and caves. First few quicker corruption levels unlock remainder of levels.
  
• Once levels are unlocked, specialty rooms outside a certain subset now unlock per corruption level. These will be utilized by procedural map generation as they are available.
  
• Once rooms are unlocked, subclasses will now unlock and are now accessible via the new party selection.
  
• Party selection now follows quest selection. It starts with the usual setup. You can now have any combination of heroes (3 of same, 2 + 1, whatever). Subclasses can now be selected at bottom of each character slot when unlocked, and future classes can be easily added post launch.
  
• After party selection, you can now use a starting amount of gold (testing 1000) to spend in town. Same interface as town portal. Can get potions, or specialize the abilities as you see fit or save the gold.
  
• Resolved issue where tooltips would be too large. Has helped a lot with tooltips going off screen but not completely fixed until beta.
  
• Resolved issue with occasional crashes accessing town portal with new timed shop system. It was expecting a full 10 abilities every time you entered, and therefore crashed if you bought something and re-entered it.
  
• In ability loot window and town portal, reordered the characters at bottom to align with their positions in each room. This was required as you can now have 3 of the same character and wouldn't be able to easily tell which one you were adding abilities too.
  
• Resolved issues with a handful of abilities with bad visual effects causing errors/crashes.
  
• Final pass on rooms (some still being tweaked in beta period).
  
• Additional safety checks if an empty ability button is clicked. Normally impossible as the buttons are disabled, but checking to see if this resolves the rare null reference error I'm seeing on button press in logs.
  
• Shifted the persistent corruption bar into the quest window where its more pertinent.
  
• Added Discord button to main menu.
  
• Resolved potential bug during corruption fight where due to order of operations, if the initial character was killed before killing the enemy party members, they could attempt to take a turn before the encounter reorganized everything.
  

The development team has made the following changes and updates to the game in the latest update.

• To potentially resolve issues with targeting, the previous target is saved at the end of every player turn (with the exception of a player that is currently confused or charmed). After AI takes their turns, the targeted unit will revert back to whichever target the player had selected before if they are still alive. This way if you are focusing on a unit, you will not need to reselect a target until they're dead.
  
• Updated encyclopedia to have entries for all sections. Some areas are still WIP until final lines are in.
  
• Removed speed run in options. This is now the default speed of play to help speed up game flow. Will revisit in the future.
  
• Added more final assets to fill out remaining rooms.
  
• Raised the ladder on the path down from the surface boss fight to make that prop more apparent to enter next level.
  
• Updated effect around ladder.
  
• Updated base attack effect prefabs.
  
• Resolved issue where projectiles attached to skills were getting stuck or resetting with final assets.
  
• Updated some more unfinished Rooms, still a WiP
  
• Did some adjustments to Templates but needs another pass due to some bad data causing crashes.
  
• Added a potential fix for the delay to projectiles going off that should speed things up.
  
• Quick pass on the rooms recently finished by Xyla to ensure they were aligned with Templates.
  
• Finished all the final VFX.
  
• Fixed errors in Templates. Running fine now.
  

The development team has made the following changes and updates to the game in the latest update.

• Updated challenge mode to show icons for each daily modifier in menu. Will be adding icons with tooltip to game UI tomorrow.
  
• Added assets for the Town portal and updated the room
  
• Rehooked TownPortal prop template to allow access to shops.
  
• Added first pass final turn and target effects.
  
• Updated challenge UI.
  
• Ability tooltips will show values for each modifier (base amounts) when added to a character. When an ability is on the observed bar, shows the base multipliers where applicable.
  
• Health potions increased to 100hp and drop rate reduced. Does not guarantee a drop per room.
  
• Ability window only shows up if an ability was learned.
  - Starting stats on surface will ensure neither side misses attacks outside debuffs reduce accuracy or buffs increase dodge. This does not guarantee past surface as players can bring up stats to be inline via their ability stats.
  
• Pyromancer dodge reduced to resolve endless combat
  
• Cooldown identifier on each ability is darker to make it more apparent when an ability is on cooldown
  
• Shops (tavern and town portal) now update every 5 minutes with a defined inventory. At least 1 Ember ability is always available in town portal.
  
• Encyclopedia (WIP) now accessible in main and pause menus. Shifting mostly text found in tutorials to this as well as expanding on lore. Tutorial will shift to being more simplistic and visual driven versus overloading with text.
  
• Party now starts in each entrance opposite a doorway, or at a random doorway if the entrance has 4 exits.
  
• Target stays active after an action is used. This allows the player to focus on the same target. Target will reset when the target unit dies, or when leaving a room.
  
• Updated the target and turn effects for each unit type to better fit the unit mesh.
  
• Resolved issue with incorrect props in some of the placeholder rooms.
  
• Resolved issue with ability window coming up when there are no new abilities.
  
• Updated some unfinished Rooms, still a WiP
  
• Altered the effect in the Ember shard room to be less overpowering.
  
• Tutorial has been temporarily disabled until a new visual approach is added.
  
• All tutorial text has been consolidated into a new encyclopedia which can be access on main and pause menus. This allows someone to read the details at their leisure versus constant pop ups ingame.
  
• Encyclopedia has tabs for all other information about the game such as units, abilities, and lore. They're all WIP with dummy data for the moment.
  

Watch the Emberlight dungeon run, as the Youtuber, Off Beat Reheat plays the first level and tutorial quest for the game. He did a fantastic job demonstrating the game. He took his time allowing the viewer to become part of the experience by allowing them to see what is happening at all times.

Click on the video below to watch the run. Don't forget to subscribe and like this video.
https://youtu.be/TZl09KI6I3A

The development team has made the following changes and updates to the game in the latest update.

• Added final menu/theme music to the game.
  
• Removed placeholder music for menu and credits.
  
• Updated main menu UI elements.
  
• Updated textures on ground for each theme to final assets.
  
• Updated the final terrain/wall texture assets.
  
• Solved issue with motion blending with post processing.
  
• Updated final textures for all Themes.
  
• Updated post processing.
  
• Added new VFX files.
  
• Resolved issue where null props were being accessed when being enabled/disabled.
  
• Updated main menu.
  
• Updated gambling room and tavern floors.
  
• Updated town portal.
  
• Updated Templates prefab to properly replace the new room placeholders
  

Launch (August 13)
With the recent announcement of Emberlight reaching alpha, we are fast approaching launch. We wanted to breakdown our plans both at launch and the time afterwards. The team has some great concepts for where to take the game, but the sky's the limit if the community finds new directions to take it. The launch is set for August 13th of this year. We look to have a full experience with both single player modes and the initial themes available.

• Standard Mode: The standard mode is the bread and butter of Emberlight. You select a quest from a randomized list which details the location you're heading to, the conditions to complete the quest, your party, and the starting resources. When a quest is completed successfully, a new corrupted boss is added to the pool and can be linked to corrupted quests. This mode is recommended for new players to get a feel of the game, especially when choosing the easier quests that end on the surface.


• Daily Challenge Mode: The daily challenge mode defines a daily set of modifiers to the game (such as all enemies being stronger, or potions dealing damage) and pits the entire community against one another to top the leaderboards. The game flow is generally the same as Standard mode, with the modifiers adding a curveball into the mix.


• Surface Ruins: The standard theme for level 1 and include grassy areas, ancient ruins, and a mix of animals and elven enemies to fight. Every run will lead through the ruins and is an easy area to get acquainted with the features of Emberlight. It holds a few secrets that can either make a run substantially easier or wipe it early.


• Caves: The standard theme for level 2 and include underground caverns and a mix of animals, golems, slimes, and some more insidious creatures. Difficulty begins to ramp up, being on par with the player's party at this point. Stronger enemies from the final levels have taken residence in rarely traveled portions of the caves which can propose a dangerous threat.


• Dungeon: One of two standard themes for level 3 and include the living areas of the orcish hordes with a mix of goblins, orcs, ogres, and more. These areas are very dangerous, with units focused on dealing heavy damage rapidly at the cost of defensive capabilities. Typically this leads into the final boss fight, and the subsequent corruption battle to end a run.


• Catacombs: The second of two standard themes for level 3 and include the decrepit ruins of an ancient tomb with a mix of necromancers, skeletons, zombies, and more. Equally as dangerous as dungeon, the catacombs units focus on defense and numbers with a necromancer quickly overwhelming the party. The player needs to focus on controlling adds to successfully complete each encounter.

• Co-op Mode: The host chooses the quest, controls traversal through the level, controls interaction with props, and controls loot distribution. We're still in discussion on other systems (possibly free for all on loot), but most likely it will stay this way when it goes live. It is meant to have a sort of pen and paper feel where you've all jumped into an adventure and are talking out progression that benefits all of you. However, the end corruption fight still takes place and there can only be one true winner per quest...


• Spectator Mode: Along with co-op will be spectator mode. This will allow others to watch a run play out in co-op and future modes. We felt this will also be a good way for a new player to see a run in action and get some pointers on how to overcome the many challenges each run can present, as well as the overall entertainment value of watching a run quickly devolve due to backstabbing.

• Dungeon Master Mode: In Dungeon Master mode, the host is able to customize their own quest. This includes putting together each of the levels, defining the encounters, setting the rewards, and more. The host has all the tools to setup their scenario as they see fit. Long term, we'd like to be able to submit these scenarios to a central database that would allow DMs to download new experiences and share their own with others.


• When a scenario has been loaded, up to three players can join in. Like a pen and paper game, the DM has full control over the progression of the run. They handle navigation after its been discussed, handle interaction with props in rooms, handle loot distribution, and overall drive the story forward. Combat is still controlled via the players like normal, with the added perk that the DM can jump into combat and control the enemy side at will.


• This concept is still very rough, and we're looking for feedback from the pen and paper community on how to refine this. We've discussed both hands on (the concept above) and hands off (functions identically to co-op mode but the DM is watching the party's progression and can change on the fly). We've also discussed the potential for actual dice rolls. But the mode is an open book and we're looking for any critiques to refine.

• Arena Mode: With Arena Mode, this provides a quick play mode that works as either single player or multiplayer. When entering Arena Mode, the player is able to set their party and define the 10 abilities they want from the full list. In single player, they fight a defined amount of encounters (or infinite) and see how long they can survive against an ever increasing wave of enemies. In multiplayer, Arena pits parties against one another through matchmaking. We have discussed in game tournaments on the multiplayer side.


• Asymmetric Competitive Mode: This mode (which will get a better name shortly) pits 8 parties against one another in a larger Standard mode setup. The run still functions the same, but the game begins with 4 surface ruins, 2 caves, and 1 larger final area. Each surface ruins has two entrances for each party, and outside of the standard gameplay, parties can engage one another. Upon reaching the final area, there can only be one party before the final boss is accessible to complete a run.


• Symmetric Competitive Mode: This mode (also needs a new name) functions largely the same as Asymmetric Competitive Mode, but the generation of the surface and caves areas are identical for everyone. This was brought up to provide an even playing field for everyone. Otherwise, it plays out the same way with only one party surviving to final boss and winning the run.

• New Abilities: We'll be constantly adding new abilities to the game. While abilities are driven primarily by enemy units, we will be expanding out the abilities that are accessible via town portal to give more usage for gold. Right now, while there is a good selection of utility abilities and some real gems to be found in the town portal, it is really for filling out the characters versus a true way to find stronger and useful abilities.


• New Party Members: We'll be adding new party members to the mix, and setting up a process to select the party members you want to use in your party at quest selection. While the Ember Knights are largely clean slates, driven by the abilities you decide to add to them through a run, their starting stats drive a lot of what is most useful on each. We've also discussed subclasses for the current party members that can be unlocked via certain achievements. These subclasses would allow you to start with different abilities and stats (i.e. the Blaze Knight could become a Hell Knight which starts with three Hell-based Ember abilities instead of the usual ones).


• New Quests: We've discussed quests other than simply killing a boss. Concepts include destroying portals (keep a sorceror alive while he closes a portal which constantly spawns enemies), escort (keep an NPC alive in party to end), and side quest driven events that would include a journal in the future. These are still very much in early design and we're open to feedback to refine these.


• New Theme (Hell): A theme for level 3 and is a burned out and hellish landscape that combines demon and devil enemies. It will focus heavily on arcane and psionic abilities (which are lacking in the current themes due to the enemy types).


• New Theme (Lair): A theme for level 3 and is the home of dragon-kind in the peaks of faraway mountains, combining a mix of draconian humanoid warriors, dragons, and flying creatures. It will be a balanced area. Depths is a theme for level 3 and is the area of nightmares, mixing Lovecraftian creatures with other swamp-based abominations. It will focus heavily on psionic abilities.


• New Theme (Depths): A theme for level 3 and is the area of nightmares, mixing Lovecraftian creatures with other swamp-based abominations. It will focus heavily on psionic abilities.


• New Units: While the bulk of the new units will come from the theme additions, we will be identifying new units that can be added to the current themes without unbalancing the game. Our initial focus will be new miniboss and bosses primarily, with additional units added where it incorporates new abilities that can benefit the player as they progress.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0TW8tMLQ6UY&t=28s

Evil, darkness, corruption. These were the words that gave Emberlight's theme it's shape. And after extensive conversation on the game's lore with Will (William Phelps, Creative Director of Emberlight) it became clear to me that the music needed to tell a story that captured both the thematic material of Emberlight, and its inherent emotional weight, as well as the endless nature of the in-lore cycle of the Ember Order and Emberlight's re-playability as a roguelike game.

Whenever I approach writing a theme, I like to have as much information on the world and its lore as possible. I like to immerse myself in the game's world. That way, the music comes from the game world as much as the characters or stories do. In this way, Emberlight's theme could as much from Emberlight's world as Ember itself. That was my thinking going in.

In all the discussions on Emberlight's lore, one of those words just kept coming back to me as what underpinned the emotional weight of the game. Corruption. It was important to get darkness and evil across in the music too but it was this idea of corruption that hooked me into the music. And once I got started writing, the music took on a character of its own.

Whenever I'm composing and I get a keyword like this, the first question has to be, "what does this sound like?" It's always a challenge to condense something so abstract into musical terms. Sometimes a feeling can be portrayed in a single chord, or a set of them. Other times in a handful of notes.

It was with a handful of notes that I started on Emberlight. The motif needed to stick in your head. Like corruption, it needed to stay with you. And it needed to be instantly recognizable as Emberlight's theme. But it needed to be more than that. It had to tell a story. To that end, it was 'call and answer' that brought this corruption to life. And as the motif developed into a fully formed passage, Emberlight's theme was born.



When the theme begins, you hear this soprano vocal. Three notes. The question, a beckoning. And then, in amongst the rising layers of the music, you hear the answer. A cello. Gentle, alluring, it gives its reply. And it's this interplay between the vocal and the cello throughout the piece that would tell the story. A tale of need, of change and of loss.

That first question and answer is one half of the Emberlight theme. A theme which is built out of several passages but is ultimately defined by what it begins with and returns to. This interplay between vocal and cello. The pure losing itself to corruption only to be overcome by a new force of purity which in turn will lose itself to corruption.

Something that was really important for me, when approaching corruption from a musical standpoint was that the melody needed to contort at times, to veer off in some unexpected direction and give a sense of warping and deterioration of spirit somewhat. For Emberlight, it felt right to portray that with atonality, so, here, the notes and chords fall out of a strict scale and begin to subvert expectation as they take a darker turn.

Often you'll hear the vocal melody attempt to maintain tonality and adhere to the direction you might expect the music to move in only to have the cello take the music somewhere else. And each time the vocal attempts to rectify it, the cello wins out and drags it, usually downwards, into darkness and into chaotic. That's something I really loved about composing for Emberlight. It's a permadeath, roguelike dungeon crawler. A game about heroism against the odds, in the face of certain doom. That gave me the opportunity as a composer to really go there with the darkness. It allowed for a foray into the darkest things music has to offer.

Later in the piece, you'll hear that the vocal and the cello begin to entrain with one another. As if, where once the two were separate, now they are becoming one. What the vocal was when it was heard alone is gone now and is becoming something new. But where you hear this unison, it's fleeting. After that, the next time you hear the theme from the beginning, it's different. The parts have swapped. The cello is calling now and the vocal is answering. A harrowing musical message about insidious corruption. Then, the entire piece builds, exponentially dilapidated tonally and rhythmically as chaos ensues. All before an abrupt halt is called. In waiting for the bell to toll, silence falls for a moment.

The final moments of the piece bring the vocal back for a longer, drawn out rendition of the initial motif. This time, for the first time, the cello and vocal fold together in resolution. The musical tension built through the piece is resolved. The transformation is complete. Corruption has won. The cycle has ended. And so it begins again.

By Andey Fellowes

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