One month ago, Spire of Sorcery entered Early Access.

ːalchemic_potionː Not everything went as we hoped for, and it’s been a rather difficult month for the studio (it even reminded us of the release of Gremlins, Inc. back in 2015, when we were so little sleep that we currently have only a vague recollection of that period).

ːspellcastingː Putting doubts out of our minds, we became laser-focused on producing for you the absolutely best update that we could make happen within the space of three weeks, prioritizing features based on the feedback that we received – and now it’s here! Hurray!

ːmagic_sparklesː We’d like to specifically thank everyone who believed in us, and who left words of encouragement in the comments, in reviews and on Discord. It might feel like a small thing, but it helps hugely!!

WHAT’S IN THIS UPDATE?

Here’s a list of what we ship today, followed by the detailed description of key points:

• Tutorial: fully interactive, standalone chapter. ːfire_tokenː
  
• Mulligan: reworked and updated based on feedback. ːfire_tokenː
  
• Balanced formula for generating initial characters.
  
• Preview of upcoming elements in the deck: small feature, big impact!
  
• Negative mood effects: a new mechanic, based on feedback
  
• Special powers, inspiration: a new mechanic, based on seeing people play.
  
• Concentration stat and Chaos tokens: improving one of the core mechanics
  
• Chaos burst and Chaos burn: a new mechanics, based seeing people play
  
• Digestive system: updated the way that it works
  
• Faster animations in encounter: based on feedback. ːfire_tokenː
  
• Some stories transitioned to events, to simplify flow (including Supplies)
  
• Locations became non-targetable: improving encounter dynamics
  
• New music: travel theme, Chapter 3
  
• New music: encounter theme, Chapter 3
  
• New music: forest camp theme, Tutorial
  
• New visuals: illustrations for states of blindness, paralysis, entanglement
  
• New SFX: SFX for the frost spells
  
• Updated texts of quests, opening/closing for Chapter 1
  
• Glasses: new special item for owners of Supporter DLC
  
• Other balancing changes and improvements across the board
  

STANDALONE TUTORIAL

Requested and delivered! Select it from the main menu, and relieve the story of the escape form the forest camp while learning the basics.

REWORKED MULLIGAN

Requested and delivered! Change visuals or stats, or both. All initial party members are now balanced for good/bad traits, strong/weak stats.

PREVIEW OF UPCOMING ELEMENTS IN THE DECK

For that extra tactical depth, you can now preview the elements that are coming to the hands of your mages. Hover over the “discard” button to preview one sequence…



…or press the “deck” button to display all decks and all sequences.

NEGATIVE MOOD EFFECTS

Bye-bye, three-stage effects. Hello, a new set that is better balanced!

SPECIAL POWERS

This is a new mechanics that replaces positive mood traits. Accumulate inspiration points – and turn on the special power, that provides the effect that is unique for each character!

INSPIRATION

When your mages are in a good mood, they accumulate inspiration faster. And when they’re in a bad mood, they lose it.

CONCENTRATION, CHAOS

Endurance stat is now replaced with the Concentration stat, and Fatigue tokens are replaced with the tokens of Chaos. The mechanic itself (perform extra actions – get extra tokens) remains unchanged.



What’s new is that when you’re about to exceed Concentration, and take a penalty, we now warn you with a separate window.



And the penalty for exceeding this stat is no longer damage tokens, but a Chaos Burst that deals random tokens from Book of Chaos to random participants of the encounter. Additionally, Chaos Burst gives the mage a Chaos Burn, which is an ailment (and, as you may recall, exceeding allowed number of ailments leads to death).

DIGESTIVE SYSTEM

Digestive system now is a stat. It is filled with tokens of toxicity whenever characters consume items. Once it’s exceeded, the character can no longer consume any items. The good news, however: every day, each character loses 1 toxicity token.

BOOKWORM GLASSES

The owners of Support DLC now have one more special item in their party’s inventory at start: glasses that, when equipped, provide 1 token of protection from blindness. Enjoy!

WHAT’S NEXT?

We aim to release the next update by the end of December.

That update will focus on the balancing of the existing chapters and will introduce a new chapter set in the Dismal Marshes.

We will also work on implementing travel magic.

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We hope that you have fun playing with the updated game, and please don’t hesitate to comment or report any issues here on the forums.

Have a great weekend!

/ Team CO /


PS Saved games from the previous version of the game are not compatible with the updated version, if you want to finish your saved games – please switch on Steam to branch "v202" that still contains the previous version.