Hello Thieves! A new hotfix is available, bringing a fix for a nasty bug reported by a player this week. Bugfix:

• The detailed description of skills in the shop are now correctly displayed when using a gamepad/keyboard
• The tooltips are now correctly displayed in the levels selection screen when using a gamepad/keyboard

Don't forget to update your game!

[ 2025-04-02 14:44:26 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello Thieves! This update contains a small fix to loot phase checkpoints.

Fixes

• Using "Restart from last checkpoint" during loot phase restarts from the start of loot phase instead of the start of scout phase. Xec rune state is also correctly kept.

Thank you for reading!

[ 2025-01-14 13:59:39 CET ] [ Original post ]

Welcome back Thieves! We're thrilled to announce that Spirited Thief will be participating in the PixElated Fest from July 29th to August 5th! PixElated is a digital festival celebrating beautiful pixel art games. From retro-style classics to contemporary indie gems, this event will showcase a selection of Adventure and RPG games all in one place! Check out the official line-up and more information about the event here: http://pixelatedfest.com/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/1709870/Spirited_Thief/ Thank you for reading! You can follow the game on Twitter and join the Discord community!

[ 2024-07-22 17:00:10 CET ] [ Original post ]

Welcome back Thieves! We're thrilled to announce that Spirited Thief will be participating in the TurnBasedThursday Fest from April 4-8th. This event is a five-day online festival celebrating turn-based video games.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1709870/Spirited_Thief/ Thank you for reading! You can follow the game on Twitter and join the Discord community!

[ 2024-04-02 15:01:52 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello Thieves! This update focus on abilities, with a new unique abilities for each of your companions! But there's also buffs to existing abilities that were a little undertuned. Unlockable abilities in the shop are not meant to replace the starting ones - and are often more specialized - but they still need to relevant!

Abilities

• One new loyalty ability for Besk, Iwie and Sunyang
• Pet rat: range melee -> 3. Pet rat is about making pickpocket more convenient, so a little more convenience was needed to justify its use.
• Chaos Strike: 1 -> 0 action cost, and is now "quick". Chaos strike has already a lot of restriction to its use (melee, and at high danger only), so it could use some love.
• Decoy: 5 -> 3 turn cooldown.
• Spirit Curse: 2 -> 3 uses.
• Deadly Nightmare Curse: 1 -> 2 uses.
• Fear Curse: 2 -> 3 uses.
• Chaos Glyph: 2 -> 3 uses.
• Fear Glyph: 2 -> 3 uses.
• Hook: 1 -> 0 action cost.
• Disguise: 1 -> 0 action cost, added a 5 turns cooldown. Since using disguise has now some real downside (being close to a guard will reveal it), the action cost was excessive. Instead the cooldown make it a commitment for a couple of turns.
• Caltrops: 1 -> 0 action cost.
• Madboom: 1 -> 0 action cost, and is now "quick".

Changes

• Easy difficulty setting now has reduced guards and simpler puzzle by default (like Story difficulty setting)
• Soul lantern: minor changes to the anti-Besk boulder.
• Spider Burrows: only one enemy is possessed instead of 3.
• Spider Burrows: modified the "suicidal" cutthroat's patrol path so that she doesn't jump into a trap.

Fixes

• Pushed enemies correctly trigger traps.
• Evil spirits can now target tiles with smoke.
• Trin could get blocked while using long range teleport.
• Cave: enemies don't forget their patrol after a rewind.
• Cave: music isn't stopped after a rewind.
• Guards' tower: Trin/Dumdum can't trigger the office cutscene.

Thank you for reading! You can follow the game on Twitter and join the Discord community!

[ 2023-11-22 13:42:13 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello Thieves! A lot of difficulty tweaks are added in this patch, but also quality of life changes and bug fixes! The ritual level has also been entirely redone to give it a little extra oomph.

Difficulty

• Added new difficulty option that reduce the number of guards and simplify puzzles, which is active by default on story mode
• Story mode now has 14 turns between danger level increase (from 12)
• Burrow Spiders: one cutthroat is possessed instead of a sharpshooter
• Guard's tower: made the second-to-last floor easier
• [spoiler]Shop attack[/spoiler]: replaced Xec runes with Nes runes, and made top corridor easier - with more leeway.
• Added bells to level that didn't have them: [spoiler]Shop attack[/spoiler] (2), Burrow spiders (2), Guard's tower (2),

Quality of Life

• Hidden buttons that have been inspected now have a map hint
• Trin's curses and glyphs can now be toggled by reusing them again on the same target.

Changes

• Ritual level redone, it is now more survival than puzzle oriented, and introduce new mechanics more clearly.
• Besk's disguise doesn't slow him anymore, but is lost when walking next to a guard.

Bug fix

• Curses could be lost after a rewind
• Glyphs could be kept even after deselecting their ability in the shop
• Sorceresses' spell rotation could get messed up during loot phase
• Thieves could get instant killed by non-enraged guards in various situations
• Guard's tower: the last floor's dialog could trigger too soon after a rewind
• Guard's tower: blue area (access to last floor) wasn't correctly cleared
• [spoiler]Shop attack[/spoiler]: removed a possible cheese with Besk
• Besk can't use TP orbs anymore
• Guard vision cone would not correctly display on barriers, reinforced doors, locked doors, and alarmed doors.
• Twitch integration would not work correctly when connecting using the channel url rather than the channel name

Thank you for reading! You can follow the game on Twitter and join the Discord community!

[ 2023-10-27 12:00:55 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello Thieves! Today, we are extremely happy to announce Spirited Thief is now Verified on Steam Deck! We've got the green check, so you could enjoy your missions from the comfort of your couch, bed or favourite means of transport.
A new update has been also released, take a look at the patch right here: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1709870/view/3705958414155657235 Enjoy Spirited Thief and thank you for reading! You can follow the game on Twitter and join the Discord community!

[ 2023-10-20 13:52:08 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello Thieves! New bug fixes and changes for the 1.0.0.6 update, as well as the verified status for Steam Deck!

Steam Deck

• Default resolution on Steam deck is now 1280x800.
• Button icons in controls in settings have been redrawn/modified to make the font bigger.
• Keyboard/mouse glyphs are only shown on mouse click or keyboard press event.
• Added a virtual keyboard to input text for twitch integration fields.

Changes

• Ruby: fix sentinels would temporarily forget to go check the distraction if they were not alerted.
• [spoiler]Thieves' Guild[/spoiler]: added a trap to stop a possible exploit with Besk
• Malachite: added an obstacle to stop a possible exploit with Besk (it's always Besk)
• Sunyang's shop disappear on any thieves' ability use, to prevent swapping abilities exploits.
• Cave: added a shop
• Icons for locked doors now appear even when not zoomed out

Bug fix

• Sleeping guards' tooltip is correctly displayed in fog of war
• Ravens: shop would disappear during scout phase
• Spikes, exit tiles and sigils could be removed by blood/glyphs.
• [spoiler]Shop attack[/spoiler]: fixed leaking roof
• hunters don't gain vision of the player when bumping into them while walking through another guard's position
• Moving through an ally while standing on a trap would trigger the trap and cancel the movement
• Fix typos

Thank you for reading! You can follow the game on Twitter and join the Discord community!

[ 2023-10-20 13:31:29 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello Heroes and welcome to our world! Today, we are excited to announce the launch of a new bundle with three of our games, allowing all players to get them at a lower price thanks to a 15% discount!

Ishtar Games Bundle:

https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/33141/Ishtar_Games_Bundle/ Enjoy our games! We wish you the best of luck to make the best couples and kill all the monsters you will face. Feel free to share your feedback once you've played them, we are always interested to hear from you! Thank you for reading! Thank you for reading! You can follow the game on Twitter and join the Discord community!

[ 2023-10-17 14:37:10 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello Spirits and Thieves! The 1.0.0.5 update brings bug fixes and a new way to check your looting progress during a level!

Changes

• In-game menu now also shows a summary of all loot in the level, to let you quickly check your progress for both scouting and collecting every available loot.
• Smoother enemies' vision cone when they are moving
• Ravens: Sunyang leaves after the player starts moving into the level (it was possible to swap skills after the level started).
• [spoiler]Shop Attack:[/spoiler] 2 sharpshooters are now asleep to give more time to deal with them.
• Map hints of loot have now more priority than map hints of enemies. For example, a sleeping guard carrying loot will now be displayed as loot in fog of war

Bug fix

• Max loot in in-game gold summary tooltip was too high.
• Thieves won't auto-close locked doors that they wouldn't be able to reopen afterward (when they don't have the key for it)
• Alerted guards who got their key stolen could get stuck on a locked door
• On a few specific levels, music would stop playing or the wrong music would be played after a rewind
• Sharpshooters correctly entrench after being feared
• Possessed sharpshooters correctly enrage when alerted
• Drunk or lazy sharpshooters correctly kill players that stay immobile in their sight
• [spoiler]Evil spirits[/spoiler] would target but not attack characters standing in a doorway
• [spoiler]Evil spirits[/spoiler] created from possessed enemies could spawn on top of furniture
• Throwing Knife description had an incorrect range
• Scouted loot in fog of war correctly have a tooltip when hovered
• Ruby: the sentinels cannot forget the distraction anymore (it could happen if something else happened to them)
• Rarely, alarm would be too high after a rewind

Thank you for reading! You can follow the game on Twitter and join the Discord community!

[ 2023-09-28 11:58:52 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello Thieves, we hope you're liking Spirited Thief! For Steam Deck players, we're very happy to confirm that the game is fully playable on Steam Deck! So, if you haven't tried it already, you can play the game from anywhere you want!

[ 2023-09-27 15:02:43 CET ] [ Original post ]

Greetings Guild members! As you may be already exploring Spirited Thief's multiple levels and stealing all the treasures alongside Trin, we would love to hear about your experience with the game! If you're among the players enjoying Spirited Thief so far, please consider taking a moment to write a review, it is truly valuable for Koi Snowman Games who solo-developed this game.
Thank you for reading! You can follow the game on Twitter and join the Discord community!

[ 2023-09-21 14:03:26 CET ] [ Original post ]

Greetings Guild members! Is your gear ready? Your skills are set? Scouting and sneaking all mapped out in your mind? Because Trin and Elaj are both eager to start their new missions together since...

Spirited Thief is officially OUT!

[previewyoutube=VN2Yg75GcSw;full][LINK YOUTUBE][/previewyoutube] Explore multiple levels, steal all the treasures you can take, make a mistake, rewind, fail, try again, find new ways to succeed, change your skillset or adjust the game difficulty at any time! Spirited Thief offers you many possibilities to experience its story. Wait, did you hear about the Mages?! There's definitely something you'll need to investigate... https://store.steampowered.com/app/1709870/Spirited_Thief/ We've been working on Spirited Thief for close to three years and we cannot wait to see you all play the game! Enjoy Spirited Thief, fail, succeed and share your thoughts! Thank you for reading! You can follow the game on Twitter and join the Discord community!

[ 2023-09-19 13:59:17 CET ] [ Original post ]

Greetings Guild members! Spirited Thief is a game mixing up tactic and stealth, where you have two objectives: remain undetected by the guards and steal the protected treasures. To do so, you can count on Trin and Elaj: one is a spirit capable of scouting the place and teleport on a short range, the other is a thief with a particular set of skills, perfect to steal keys and navigate between the guards.
But that's not all! As you progress in the game, you will unlock 3 new characters ready to join your crew of thieves, each with their own skills! At the start of each mission, you'll be able to choose which duo you want to have with Elaj, and which skills you want both of them to have. If their current skills does not meet your needs, take a look at Sunyang's shop and buy fresh new skills, or change their current set with the skills you previously bought!
With each character having different skills, you are free to choose how you want to approach the missions: is killing guards the best way to do it? Maybe Besk's teleport can be useful? Or would you rather protect your escape and interrupt the guards chasing after you?
Of course, Trin the spirit also has his own set of skills! The scouting phase may reserve you some surprises, and you better be ready and adapt to each mission.
Which character will you prefer? Which skill will be your new favourite? You'll get to tell us all that at the release of Spirited Thief on September 19! If you are curious about the creation of Spirited Thief and what you can expect from the game, take a look at this blogpost! https://store.steampowered.com/app/1709870/Spirited_Thief/ Thank you for reading! You can wishlist Spirited Thief, follow the game on Twitter and join the Discord community!

[ 2023-08-28 14:15:35 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello Thieves! We're very excited to finally announce the release date for Spirited Thief! After more than 2 years of development, our little game is ready! Spirited Thief will be released on September 19th, so just a month left to wait to follow the adventures of Elaj and Trin. For the occasion, we made a brand new trailer! https://youtu.be/8_e391Dmp0k And if you haven't already, don't forget to wishlist the game on Steam to be notified of its release! It's been quite the journey making this (not so) little game, but we're very proud of the final result, and we can't wait for you to experience it on September 19th! :) Don't forget to join our Discord server!

[ 2023-08-16 14:01:18 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello everyone, We are pleased to announce Spirited Thief is featured in the Tiny Teams' festival! [url=https://store.steampowered.com/sale/tinyteamsfestival2023]
Visit the page of the festival: https://store.steampowered.com/sale/tinyteamsfestival2023 Spirited Thief's demo is also playable on Steam Deck. Thank you for reading! You can wishlist Spirited Thief, follow the game on Twitter and join the Discord community! https://store.steampowered.com/app/1709870/Spirited_Thief/

[ 2023-08-04 07:07:53 CET ] [ Original post ]

A small but very annoying bug sneaked in the last update. Thank you for your reports!

Bug fix

• Fixed: some pop-ups would not close

[ 2023-07-25 09:01:39 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello everyone, The 0.44 update brings French & German localization to Spirited Thief AND full gamepad support! Spirited Thief will now try to use your system's language by default. Of course, you can change your preferred language at any time in the options menu. We did a lot of under-the-hood changes to provide proper support to gamepad. Some of the new features will also benefits mouse and keyboard users. For example, the UI can now be fully used with a keyboard or a gamepad.
A new ability wheel allows quick access to every trick of your thieves.
We also reworked the shop UI for better navigation and clarity. That's all for today. Thank you for reading!

[ 2023-07-24 15:26:39 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello everyone, My name is Simon Nowak and I am the solo developer on Spirited Thief, a game I have been working on for about two years and a half. It's been quite an adventure and I got to learn lots of new things along the way! First, allow me to introduce you to Spirited Thief, a tactical stealth game where you need to steal treasures by playing a Spirit and a Thief (thus the name!).
The first phase with the spirit (Trin) lets you explore the place. When the infiltration begins with the thief (Elaj), use the information you gathered with Trin to avoid the guards and steal everything you need in order to complete your mission. Each level is a mission, with its own objective(s) and motivations.

Making a stealth game

The stealth genre is truly something I love and whenever I can, I always play stealthy characters in games that allow it. However, I can get frustrated when stealth gameplay often translates to "never get seen or you lose". I feel like there is more to it than restarting or reloading every single time something unexpected happens. To me, stealth games is about information. You need to know as much as possible about your enemy if you want to avoid direct confrontation: where they are, what they do, what they may do... while preventing them from doing the same about you!
But this is also true on a strategic level: where do I have to go, which places should I avoid, what should I do, where is my target, what are the biggest obstacles... I feel that this is not often the spotlight in stealth games. Yet, crafting your plans to pull off a heist despite dauting security measures is one of the most satisfying things to do!
Unsurprisingly, this is one of the main focuses in Spirited Thief. Because Trin's a spirit, you can explore the map entirely at your pace before starting your infiltration but there's a catch: you better make good use of this headstart, because you're gonna need it when you run out of time!

What to expect from Spirited Thief?

A lot of challenges! The story of Elaj and Trin is divided into three Acts and will explore their strength, shortcomings, friendships and how they play the cards they are dealt with. You will face multiple enemies, boss fights, puzzles, and strange security devices... that you may be able to turn to your advantage!
One important thing to me is to encourage players to experiment things, because this is how you learn to play Spirited Thief. Of course, things will go wrong and this is totally fine! Small mishaps can be dealt with and you can even salvage big fiascos (to a certain extent of course). Play with your limits! One of the core values of Spirited Thief is to allow the player to tailor the game's difficulty to their need: the sweetspot where it's rewarding and not too punishing.

In addition to that, at any moment you can adapt the difficulty of the game to your needs: either by choosing a preset or by changing a few specific things.
Thank you for reading! You can wishlist Spirited Thief, follow the game on Twitter and join the Discord community! https://store.steampowered.com/app/1709870/Spirited_Thief/

[ 2023-05-10 14:45:02 CET ] [ Original post ]

Greetings Guild members! The development of Spirited Thief is going very well, and several things have changed now. Allow us to describe what's new in the game, we are going to detail them just below!

Portraits update

First, we'll talk about the visual rework of Trin and Elaj. They are both the main characters of the game (one being a Spirit and the other a Thief) and since we wanted them to truly stand out from the crowd, they both received a very nice upgrade! Their reworks have been applied to their portraits and their character models.

By doing this rework, we found out other characters would also need a slightly improved visual and thats what we did! With these changes, the following portraits now follow the same size, style and level of detail applied to Trin & Elaj:

• Besk
• Guards
• Countess Frieda
• Sorceress
• Temly
• Two colleagues of Elaj (Prologue)
• Dumdum (portrait + character rework)

Skills rework

In addition to the portraits update, we decided to improve and diversify the different skills youll get to use in Spirited Thief. Some of them were only useful during specific circumstances, and others were just way less efficient in all respects. So, we reworked these skills and added new ones that could be useful during your missions. We want to give players the ability to create the build theyd love and grant enough room for you to adapt to every situation. Here are a few examples:

Elaj

• Knock Knock Pet Rat (Rework): Drop a trained rodent on the ground that will steal everything from the next guard walking by (yes, even Keys).
• Stun Spirit Shadow Decoy (Rework): Create an illusion that will keep guards busy until they quickly shoot it down, alerting them.

Trin

• Lazy Tracking Curse (New Skill): Mark (visible in fog of war) a Sleeping target. The mark stays active even after the target wakes up. Can affect at most 5 target(s).

Besk

• Guard Disguise (New Skill): Equip or unequip cumbersome guards disguise which allows to move undetected, albeit slowly and with low vision. The disguise is lost on using any ability, or by doing a suspicious activity in a guards sight. The disguise wont fool enemies that shoot on sight.

A lot more skills have been reworked or added to the characters, but we are not going to disclose them all today! Some things are being kept secret for now

Balancing the difficulty

One thing important to us is to let every player enjoy their own difficulty level. Those playing for the Story have the opportunity to do so, but those who are looking to be chased by a thousand guards and escape at the last turn possible can do that too. Through the Menu, the difficulty of the game can be changed at any time and you can even make specific adjustments to have a customized experience.
A feature has also been expanded to other levels: the Bells. Bells are available in specific levels allowing you to decrease the Alarm Level of the guards. Reaching a Bell might be a complicated task sometimes, so you will have to weigh the pros and cons on going on this adventure! we are giving you the choice to use them or not. Again, the difficulty is yours!
That is all for todays blogpost, thank you for reading and do not hesitate to wishlist Spirited Thief! We have a lot more things planned for the game that we will share with you in the coming months, up until the release in Summer 2023. https://store.steampowered.com/app/1709870/Spirited_Thief/ Twitter Discord

[ 2023-03-29 14:50:49 CET ] [ Original post ]

Greetings Guild members, Spirited Thief will participate in the upcoming Steam Next Fest (starting February 6th), and we will also be playing the game live on February 8th at 17:00 CET: make sure to tune in! [url=https://www.twitch.tv/ishtargames]
The live will be on Ishtar Games Twitch channel, and you can already give a follow to the studio! Twitter Discord

[ 2023-02-03 15:59:59 CET ] [ Original post ]

Members of the Guild, we've got two big news for you! First, we have an Announcement Trailer for Spirited Thief: it's shiny, beautiful and filled with traps for Trin & Elaj to avoid. [previewyoutube=VBEc29ML7Qo;full][/previewyoutube] Spirited Thief will be featured in the Steam Next Fest starting February 6th! This is a giant opportunity for the game to be seen and played by a lot of new players. We will see you there! Twitter Discord

[ 2023-02-01 14:11:08 CET ] [ Original post ]

Koi Snowman Games is joining forces with Ishtar Games Publishing to release Spirited Thief in Summer 2023! Ishtar Games is known for working on the games Dead in Vinland, The Last Spell and Lakeburg Legacies. They launched their indie publishing label earlier this year. Ishtar Games Publishing will help me improve the games quality and support the funding, distribution & marketing of Spirited Thief. Spirited Thief is among three games to be released by Ishtar Games Publishing in 2023: [previewyoutube=7OpVbH7Rq-o;full]https://youtu.be/7OpVbH7Rq-o[/previewyoutube] Today at 19:00 CET, I will be live with Ishtar Games on their Twitch channel to introduce you to Spirited Thief: come and join us! You can watch the replay here: [previewyoutube=BX75T3qBPo0;full][/previewyoutube] You can also join the Discord server, in which you can get an exclusive role for a limited time only!

To mark the occasion, the demo is updated today with the latest changes!

Changes:

• Elaj and his old colleagues got a relooking... then Trin got jealous and got one too! This affects both their in-game appearance and their portrait.
• New points of interest have been added that can be inspected by Trin or Elaj. They trigger reworked or new brand dialogs - and are a new not intrusive way of gathering information.
• New cut scenes have been added between levels!
• Guards now react differently when finding a trespasser: they will shoot on sight until their next turn. Previously, they would instantaneously calm down as soon as the culprit would get out of sight.

Quality of life:

• Abilities used by Trin (curses and glyphs) are saved in a level. They are kept even after restarting the level. Hovering an ability icon highlights its current target(s) on the map.
• Guards that shoot on sight have a different field of view to better highlight the danger.
• New option to entirely reset a level's progression. It also removes the collected loot from the player's funds. This option can be used through the "restart level" button.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1709870/Spirited_Thief/ Thank you for reading, and see you soon for new updates about Spirited Thief! Twitter

[ 2022-12-07 16:53:42 CET ] [ Original post ]

Miscellaneous

• "Knock knock!" and "Weighted Punch" are now Tier 1 abilities and are thus available in the demo
• Emerald: intro dialog is shorter.
• Dream: added/tweaked dialogs.
• Topaz: add new dialog for a specific way of finishing the mission.

Fixes

• Player's keyring was not supporting rewind (and thus kept the same after a rewind/restart)
• Dream: fix critical bug that would prevent from finishing the level after using rewind at a certain point.
• Dream: typo fix (thx -Ali-!)
• Emerald: fix vault cutscene would trigger at the start of loot phase instead of when Elaj enter the vault
• Using "Next Unit" hotkey (Tab) correctly suppress the hint to use it.

[ 2022-06-21 20:05:15 CET ] [ Original post ]

Zoomed out view

• Adjustment to the fully zoomed out view so that's it's easier to see the important info.
• Walls are slightly highlighted to have a better sight of the rooms' layout.
• Fog of war hints (items, sleeping guards, obstacles) are displayed in the player field of view to better highlight these critical information.
• Bubbles/floating items are hidden as they are too small when fully zoomed out.

Fixes

• Shijang correctly disappear after the alarm is rung
• Npc don't leave a permanent weird mark after a rewind is used
• Dream: Elaj spells are correctly locked for this level
• Dream: Minor changes to dialog and level design

[ 2022-06-16 14:02:54 CET ] [ Original post ]

New Victory UI

• Some objectives now award gold
• Added a summary of all loot, objectives, and interactions with guards
• Party members/NPCs will sometime comment on the success of the heist

New level: ???

• Replaces topaz part 1
• New setting and dedicated music theme
• Still a tutorial level for multiple thieves' control
• No spoilers ;)
• Topaz part 2 is modified to be a standalone level

Misc

• "Stun stars" blink when the stun is about to wear off
• New icons for danger on the path (seen by guard/killed by guard/killed by a trap)
• New sprites and names for gold pouches
• New icon for sleeping guards

Fixes

• Fixed: NPC would sometime lose their name after a rewind
• Fixed: guards would get stuck on each other when randomly patrolling.
• Trin correctly respawn when "killed" by traps

[ 2022-06-09 01:28:35 CET ] [ Original post ]

Shop Rework

• Shop now have ability tiers that unlock as campaign progresses (only tier 1 is available in the demo)
• New abilities
• Unlockable shop tab for Besk
• New music theme
• Reworked ability cost so they are more consistent and give more choices
• Removed "Entangle" ability: it is replaced by "Dirk" which serves a similar purpose (get rid of a guard but leave evidence).

Guards

• New "sentinel" guards: never roam - even at high danger level, but they enrage as soon as they are alerted.
• New appearance for "Investigator" guard
• New: hover a sleeping guard to preview their patrol path.
• Players can move over sleeping guards (same as stunned guards)
• Guards leaves footprint when waking up, as stationary guards do
• Guards change path instantly when they get blocked (rather than wasting a turn trying to use blocked path).

Level changes

• Emerald: main entrance guards are now sentinels.
• Emerald: added statues to main hall to reduce bottleneck effect when leaving the vault
• Topaz (part2): exterior is a bit more forgiving at high danger level, middle path is slightly easier to open more possible strategies.
• Levels now have different their own color themes.
• Added unique statues to some levels
• Beds are now bunk beds

Difficulty settings

• Added more danger difficulty options
• New difficulty level icons
• Advanced difficulty settings auto-expand when selecting 'Custom' difficulty setting
• Fix sliders not correctly updating for "novice" difficulty setting

Misc

• Added scroll by touching screen border
• Camera is bound to the level limits.
• "Next unit" centers on current unit if there's no other unit available.
• Improved fog of war visual
• Improved "ability target" fx
• Performance improvements

Fixes

• Fix inconsistent sleeping guards when resuming a save
• Fix scroll speed was fps-dependent (resulting in very fast scroll speed in some cases)
• Fix "pickpocket" action was displayed when hovering not visible guards
• "New objective" UI doesn't appear during dialogs.
• Guards are correctly alerted when failing to open a locked door because the player stole the key they carried.

[ 2022-04-27 17:16:26 CET ] [ Original post ]

I (Koi Snowman) will be live-streaming a play-through of the Spirited Thief demo for the Steam Next Fest! Watch me fail miserably with all difficulty options set to the max!

[ 2022-02-23 22:00:29 CET ] [ Original post ]

Bruns will be live-streaming the Spirited Thief demo. Watch him infiltrate heavily guarded vaults and steal all the loot!

[ 2022-02-19 22:29:27 CET ] [ Original post ]

Misc

• Improved Elaj's portrait
• Added pop-up for Trin's first respawn, and for all danger level events.
• Player log is now hidden during dialogs
• Added "Start loot phase" objective during the scouting phase when all other objectives are complete.
• "Scout phase" -> "Scouting phase"
• Emerald music theme: Added a 3rd level of intensity (triggered when seen by a guard).
• Maximum danger level is now 5 (as all negative effects are applied at this level)
• Alarm level wall indicator (on walls) have now a different appearance for each danger level
• The music theme played when spotted by a guard is now also played when all guard are enraged (difficulty level 5 with the relevant difficulty option) to match the gravity of the situation.
• Magical barriers' tooltips change when opened
• Added tooltips for magical runes explaining their use.
• Spirit Curse buff: Drunk guards never become alerted/enraged because of high danger level.
• Drowsy Curse prince: 200 -> 50

Fixes

• Prologue/Onyx: Fixed excessive tutorial hint for ability use (most notably Stun and Rewind)
• Prologue/Onyx: Minor improvements to level design.
• Onyx: Added a "tutorial" dialog explaining that Trin can bypass locked doors.
• Onyx: Fix weird camera pan during intro.
• Onyx: Fix no camera focus on alarm door when Trin discovers it.
• Prologue: Fix thieves' sprites weren't consistent with their portraits
• Prologue: Fix thieves' sprites were glitched after a rewind
• Prologue: Fix fade to black was reset on victory screen
• Rewind: Fix incorrect guard direction after a rewind
• Rewind: Fix (de)buffs are lost after a rewind
• Rewind: Fix woken up guard incorrectly sleeping again after a rewind
• Rewind: Fix glitch sprites briefly appearing when using a rewind
• Saves: Level progression save is now correctly updated after rewinding instead of keeping the old save.
• Emerald is not named "part 3" anymore
• Emerald: Removed some "tutorial" that have already been covered in previous levels (mainly about keys)
• Emerald: Guards can't enter the vault anymore
• Emerald: Iwie is now correctly visible before entering the vault as Elaj
• Topaz (part 2): The exterior section is a bit more forgiving, with more loops and places to hide.
• Topaz (part 2): The enemy guarding the middle path is slightly easier to pass to add more strategic choices.
• When playing a level again, removed excessive sounds (objective validating, door opening/closing, secret found).

[ 2022-02-19 17:11:51 CET ] [ Original post ]

New demo of the game! The open alpha will be closed temporarily (and replaced with the alpha demo) in preparation for the Steam Next Fest.

Improved ability bar

• Added a visual indicator for abilities with a limited number of uses per mission.
• Added a visual indicator for abilities with a maximum amount of targets (i.e. Trin's curses).
• "End scout phase" becomes "Start loot phase" and is now part of the ability bar.
• Improved icon and visuals

New tutorial levels

• Added a new prologue level with its own graphical & music theme. This is also the tutorial for Elaj the thief and replaces the level "Emerald Theft (part 1)"
• Added a new tutorial level, "Onyx," that teaches the core gameplay (scout, loot & get out!). This new level replaces "Emerald Theft (part 2)"
• Emerald theft (part 3) is adjusted to be a standalone level
• Improved tutorial hints, especially for ability use.
• These changes aim to improve the pace of the story, as well as introduce the core gameplay of the game earlier (at level 2 instead of level 3)

Misc

• The game now saves the progression automatically during a level, which can be resumed even after quitting the game.
• Using an ability zooms on the target.
• Guards leave doors opened when they are alerted
• Added fade to black / fade from black when loading a level or a rewind
• Removed cheat spells toggle
• No more Christmas hats! :(

Fixes

• Guards won't kill other guards when enraged.
• The main menu music stops playing when (re)starting the campaign.

[ 2022-02-09 22:49:43 CET ] [ Original post ]

New unlockable abilities!

• "Knock knock!" (Elaj) uses doors to create distractions
• "Cursed Door" (Trin) guards get stunned every time they open a cursed door.
• "Action Glyph" (Trin) creates a glyph that refills all actions.
• Minor changes to levels to add more gameplay oportunities with doors.

Improved "kill-cam"

• Trin respawns when seen by a guard instead of dying.
• Added short dialogs that trigger when Trin respawns.
• When Trin respawns, scouting progress is lost in the room (no change)
• Rewind can still be used when Trin is caught and will be replenished at the end of the scout phase (no change)
• When a thief is seen by a guard, the guard briefly blink
• When a guard kills a thief, a short animation is played.

Misc

• Add a new options menu for audio settings and scroll speed.
• The camera is now lazier and will only follow a controlled character when they reach the screen's border.
• Improved danger wheel visuals and added a tooltip describing danger level increase effects
• Improved feedback for impossible actions (i.e., Trin trying to loot or use a lever, or any thief trying to use a lever or pickpocket while seen by a guard).
• Improved exterior visuals
• Added sprite variants for chests
• Added a different background color on tooltips for contextual actions (pickpocket, activate, loot...)
• Improved sliders and toggles visuals in all menus.
• Added a "+" icon when several fog-of-war hints are at the same position.

Fixes

• Fix several difficulty settings that were not correctly saved and always at the minimum value after a restart. Concerns "danger increase on alert," "all guards are alerted at danger level 4", and "all guards are enraged at danger level 5".
• Fix tooltips would merge (i.e., a guard standing on an opened gate)
• Topaz theft (part 2) wasn't validating the scout phase objectives correctly after a restart.
• Guards can't walk on exit tiles anymore
• Escape!: Rewinds are correctly refunded on reaching a checkpoint

[ 2021-12-21 16:52:46 CET ] [ Original post ]

New prototype level: Escape!

• A brand new level with an intense pace and spikes.
• A lot of spikes.
• Implements a new checkpoint system.
• Really hoping you love spikes.
• To help focus on one prototype level at a time, "Sapphire Theft" is not in the game anymore.

UI improvements

• Added confirmation for Rewind and Restart level buttons.
• In-game menu and game over menu have more explicit restart options: "restart level" and "load last checkpoint" (which is usually the beginning of the phase).
• General style improvements
• Some UIs still have the old style (level select, shop) as they need to be reworked.

Misc

• "Infiltration phase" is renamed "Loot phase" to better represent the goal of this phase.
• Camera can be moved with arrows or WASD keys.
• Alarms are replaced by Alarm Doors. They have the same role, but they are more intuitive to understand (Trin can't trigger the alarm, and Invisibility won't prevent the alarm from triggering either).
• Emerald Theft (part 2): Triangle key is now in a chest to better show that it can't be looted by Trin
• Amethyst Theft: Level entrance is now in exterior

Fixes

• Fix "End scout phase" not appearing after restarting a level when all objectives are complete.

[ 2021-12-01 17:43:41 CET ] [ Original post ]

Misc

• New exterior rooms have been added to various levels.
• "wake up at danger level #" isn't mentioned anymore in the tooltip for sleeping guards in levels with no alarm.
• Emerald theft (part 2): exit is modified to avoid accidentally finishing the level
• Hidden buttons are more noticeable
• Items on the ground now have a shadow to more easily distinguish them from items carried by a character.
• Tooltip rendering is improved (quicker and more robust)
• Dialog UI size is more consistent with the screen resolution

Fixes

• UI scales less aggressively, which should fix most issues with too big UIs.
• Fix "all guards are alerted/enraged at danger level #" difficulty settings were always considered on.
• Emerald theft (part 1): the exit was opening after only one of the two required main levers was used
• Fix "fog" effect and hints appearing during dialogs in newly scouted areas.
• Fix ability bar was sometimes visible during dialogs
• Fix typo in the drowsy curse

[ 2021-11-24 10:03:55 CET ] [ Original post ]

Squad UI

• Added a portrait of all squad members next to the selected character portrait (for levels with several thieves)
• Clicking on any portrait selects and centers the view on the character.
• The name of the selected character is displayed

New difficulty options

• These new options allow making the game harder, especially at higher danger levels.
• The new options are automatically applied if you use one of the default difficulty settings. Check out the difficulty menu to change them.
• New option: All guards are alerted on danger level 4. On by default on veteran and expert.
• New option: All guards are enraged (kill on sight) on danger level 5. On by default on expert.
• New setting: danger level increase when caught by a guard. Default values are 0 on Novice, 1 on Veteran, and 2 on Expert.
• Enraged guards now correctly kill on sight.
• Allow "0 rewinds" as a custom difficulty setting.

Misc

• Added a "nope" hover icon for impossible actions (i.e. Trin with loot or levers) for more clarity
• More variety for tables and crates. Improved bed with sleeping guard animation and they remove their shoes before going to sleep.
• It is now possible to walk over stunned guards.
• Auto-save is less frequent and is now asynchronous to avoid slow downs when using the shop.
• Added some spacing between ability buttons and added a background to the hotkeys.

Fixes

• Repaired missing wall corners
• Keys on the keyring got their color back
• Fix "Invisibility lost!" appearing for any guard bump
• Highlighted footsteps correctly show the current position and direction of the guard
• Fix scouting progress lost when quitting a level.
• Tentative fix for tooltip going out of the screen on dual-screen setup

[ 2021-11-17 09:58:29 CET ] [ Original post ]

New abilities, reworked Trin abilities and a cheat to refund all abilities!

Abilities update

• New abilities: Deadly Nightmare for Trin, Punch for Besk and Dazzleboom for Iwie
• Reworked Trin abilities to focus more on preparing the infiltration phase.
• Trin abilities are now either curse or glyph.
• Curse affect enemies. Only one curse by enemy. Each curse as a maximum number of target instead of a maximum number of use / mission (going over the maximum number of target dispel the effect on earlier targets).
• When deselecting one of Trin ability in the shop, all its effect currently active are dispelled. This fix using the shop to bypass the maximum number of ability slot.
• Tooltips now show the remaining duration of buffs & debuffs (invisibility, stun, etc.)
• Shop UI is now bigger
• [Cheat] Added a refund all abilities button to shop UI

Misc

• Emerald Theft (part 3): added more doors with round lock to make one pile of gold harder to loot. Added an optional gimmick exit to the level.
• Topaz Theft (part 2): reworked a bit the last part of the level to make it slightly more forgiving, especially at higher danger level.
• Amethyst Theft: minor changes on the vault room so that locked door position make more sense, and added one more sleeping guard
• When Trin dies, the scouting in the room is lost to reduce the efficiency of brute force scouting methods.
• Guards dispel invisibility when they bump into an invisible thief
• Alerted/Investigator guards chose another random patrol path when they are interrupted/blocked.
• Improved danger wheel animation on danger level increase
• Drowsy curse (makes guard sleep) now give a sleeping hat with a different color
• The player log message warning of guards waking up now gives the exact number of guards.
• Added level name on the victory screen.
• Longer click duration (mouse button must be pressed longer to not be considered as a click)
• Sorcerers Lair music updated

Fixes

• Guards don't get stuck on other guards anymore (get a room)
• Can't lose a turn by trying to cast unavailable abilities with hotkeys
• Guards don't lose their sleep hat after a rewind

[ 2021-11-10 16:09:31 CET ] [ Original post ]