Slaves of Magic - tactical turn-based RPG inspired by XCOM and Guild Wars

[sipibaki]

So...
What do you think about Orban?

Not a fan, and I don't like the direction our country is going. But I don't want to go too off-topic here so I hope that satisfies your curiosity about the matter.

 

[Sweeper]

so I hope that satisfies your curiosity about the matter.

More than enough tbh.

Not a fan, and I don't like the direction our country is going.

You just lost a sale sir.

 

[Infinitron]

 

[sipibaki]

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1442610/view/4231776500625674331

Devlog #27 Preparation for the final major demo patch

Let's take a look at the upcoming new features and changes to the demo.

Spoiler

Hello everyone!

I wanted to give you a sneak peek at the upcoming last major 1.4 patch for the demo!

New equipments

The tier 2 equipments are coming in this patch, so finally, there will be many things to spend your etherglow on, and to keep your scholars busy! Take a look at a few examples:

In addition, health potions and throwing nets are added as new utility items! Throwing nets are a one-use guarantee way to distract enemies as they need to spend actions to get out of it, helping the player out of tough situations. Alternative usage is locking down kiting enemies!

New combat mission

There will be a new generic combat mission introduced in this new patch as well called steal supply! In this mission, you will need to gather multiple chests that are randomly placed on the battlefield. The chest's location is only revealed after teleporting in, so additional scrying charges are very useful in this mission!

Closing thoughts

So that's it for today's devlog! There will be a lot of other subtler changes that will arrive in the next patch, but these are the major new features. After the patch, we can consider the demo feature complete, and that means we are one step closer to the full release! This will be a great time to try out the demo, and if you have any questions feel free to join our Discord.

 

[sipibaki]

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1442610/view/4231776500625674331

New gameplay trailer and 1.4.0 demo patch note

Hello everyone!

I'm happy to announce that we have released our new gameplay trailer, check it out:

Spoiler

1.4.0 patch notes:

New features:
- Units using two-handed hammers can break through walls for extra movement points. The amount of movement point needed depends on the level of the hammer.

- New standard combat mission where the player will need to steal the supply of the enemy army. There will be 5 of them on the combat map, and their location will be revealed after teleporting in, if not found by scrying. The player can simply teleport them home when they are adjacent to them, but only 1 can be teleported away per turn.

- Added adamantine armor and weapons that are researchable and buyable for the resistance.

- Reworked spider web and added a buyable throwing net to the utility slot for the resistance. Now, the netted unit cannot use most of its actions besides escape using its melee attack. Adjacent friendly units can help as well.

- Added healing potions, plus units can share their potions with adjacent units.
- Added a new universal skill called potion master. It increases the amount of potions the unit can bring with them to 3 (from the default 1).
- Hold ground protector skill has been reworked into shield expert skill.
- Added new passive rewards for completing the chosen resistance goals in the campaign map (different rewards for the different goals). For example, if the resistance completes the 30 smiths goal, the second utility slot will unlock for the troops.
- Reworked sprites for dark elf light armor.

- Reworked sprites for cloth armor.

- Reworked sprites for Redeemed.

- Added a new UI option that doubles the thickness of the character outlines.
- Added option to turn off v-sync and to set an FPS limit.
- Restarting is no longer necessary to correctly apply the language setting.

Balance changes:
- Simplified gaining XP. Previously, it was calculated using the number of units in the party, modified by the individual units level compared to the defeated enemies level. Now every unit will need an increased amount of XP to reach the next level, and enemies all provide a hand-set amount of XP regardless of the level difference between them and the player units.
- The XP simplification gave higher control of the possible XP curve, so I made the first level up easier than the rest.
- The second utility slot for units can be used as well from the start.
- Etherdust research has been added as a prerequisite for Alchemy research (potions) and the time and dust requirement has been adjusted.
- Masterwork weapons reduce the critical threshold by 10 (up from 5).
- Reinforced shields increase the shield health by 10 (up from 5).
- Swapped the dwarf soldier reorganized formation skill with shield expert.
- Spider web attack now has a cooldown of 3 (up from 2).
- The priest's guiding light ability now does 6 damage, still guarantees hit but can be blocked by shields.
- Thanks to the increased power level of the resistance, reverted the change to the army level that does the final mission back to 5 (up from 3).

Bugfixes:
- It's no longer possible to swap places with units that are unmovable (because of being webbed for example).
- The previous movement path will no longer be shown after a blue move.
- Fixed that it was theoretically possible to research etherglow analysis before finishing the gather 2 etherglow goal.
- Fixed a crash trying to load a save where the resistance goal has not been chosen.
- Fixed a rare crash that could occur when a unit is next to someone with the attack of opportunity skill.
- In the party select screen, it is no longer possible to click on units or go back to the campaign map after pushing the start mission button, but before the map has been loaded. In addition, for users that didn't finish loading while the teleport animation was ongoing, added a loading text to make it clear that it was loading the map.
- Fixed open door action being duplicated when pushed away or rotated away from the door.
- Fixed that certain profile pictures could not be clicked on on the combat map on lower resolutions.

 

[Beastro]

I read the title at first glance as "Slavs of Magic", and given that this is the Codex, found the title not being that more surprising than me seeing it wrong.

 

[Darth Canoli]

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1442610/view/4231776500625674331

New gameplay trailer and 1.4.0 demo patch note

Hello everyone!

I'm happy to announce that we have released our new gameplay trailer, check it out:

Spoiler

1.4.0 patch notes:

New features:
- Units using two-handed hammers can break through walls for extra movement points. The amount of movement point needed depends on the level of the hammer.

- New standard combat mission where the player will need to steal the supply of the enemy army. There will be 5 of them on the combat map, and their location will be revealed after teleporting in, if not found by scrying. The player can simply teleport them home when they are adjacent to them, but only 1 can be teleported away per turn.

- Added adamantine armor and weapons that are researchable and buyable for the resistance.

- Reworked spider web and added a buyable throwing net to the utility slot for the resistance. Now, the netted unit cannot use most of its actions besides escape using its melee attack. Adjacent friendly units can help as well.

- Added healing potions, plus units can share their potions with adjacent units.
- Added a new universal skill called potion master. It increases the amount of potions the unit can bring with them to 3 (from the default 1).
- Hold ground protector skill has been reworked into shield expert skill.
- Added new passive rewards for completing the chosen resistance goals in the campaign map (different rewards for the different goals). For example, if the resistance completes the 30 smiths goal, the second utility slot will unlock for the troops.
- Reworked sprites for dark elf light armor.

- Reworked sprites for cloth armor.

- Reworked sprites for Redeemed.

- Added a new UI option that doubles the thickness of the character outlines.
- Added option to turn off v-sync and to set an FPS limit.
- Restarting is no longer necessary to correctly apply the language setting.

Balance changes:
- Simplified gaining XP. Previously, it was calculated using the number of units in the party, modified by the individual units level compared to the defeated enemies level. Now every unit will need an increased amount of XP to reach the next level, and enemies all provide a hand-set amount of XP regardless of the level difference between them and the player units.
- The XP simplification gave higher control of the possible XP curve, so I made the first level up easier than the rest.
- The second utility slot for units can be used as well from the start.
- Etherdust research has been added as a prerequisite for Alchemy research (potions) and the time and dust requirement has been adjusted.
- Masterwork weapons reduce the critical threshold by 10 (up from 5).
- Reinforced shields increase the shield health by 10 (up from 5).
- Swapped the dwarf soldier reorganized formation skill with shield expert.
- Spider web attack now has a cooldown of 3 (up from 2).
- The priest's guiding light ability now does 6 damage, still guarantees hit but can be blocked by shields.
- Thanks to the increased power level of the resistance, reverted the change to the army level that does the final mission back to 5 (up from 3).

Bugfixes:
- It's no longer possible to swap places with units that are unmovable (because of being webbed for example).
- The previous movement path will no longer be shown after a blue move.
- Fixed that it was theoretically possible to research etherglow analysis before finishing the gather 2 etherglow goal.
- Fixed a crash trying to load a save where the resistance goal has not been chosen.
- Fixed a rare crash that could occur when a unit is next to someone with the attack of opportunity skill.
- In the party select screen, it is no longer possible to click on units or go back to the campaign map after pushing the start mission button, but before the map has been loaded. In addition, for users that didn't finish loading while the teleport animation was ongoing, added a loading text to make it clear that it was loading the map.
- Fixed open door action being duplicated when pushed away or rotated away from the door.
- Fixed that certain profile pictures could not be clicked on on the combat map on lower resolutions.

You've come a long way.
Any release date?
I might give the new demo a spin.

 

[sipibaki]

Yeah, it was definitely an interesting journey, and it has not ended yet, though we might be close to it!

I'm a bit cautious with the release date after all these years. We still have a lot of work to do on the late-game content + balancing. My current estimate is that it will be finished by the end of the year, but we are probably going to release it somewhere at the start of next year to avoid the holiday season.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1442610/view/7100576625992157087

Demo 1.4.10 patch note and release date change
Hello everyone!

I know I promised no new features to the demo, but I had a few ideas that I really wanted to implement that affect the early game in a meaningful way. This, of course, doesn't mean to stop sharing your feedback with us, it will still help us shape the full game, and will still fix game-breaking bugs if found in the demo.

Considering our plans for the future, we are aiming to have a feature-complete game by the end of the year, but we want to avoid releasing it during the Christmas season. So we delay our release until the start of next year, sometime after participating in the February Steam Next Fest. Now onto the patch note itself!

1.4.10 patch note
Visual changes:

• Bloodrage condition (and it's level) is now visually represented on the character if active.
  
  
  
  
• Stunned condition is now visually represented on the unit while active.
  
  
  
  
• Units will actually visually raise shield when affected by the raised shield condition.
  
  
  
  
• Ranged attacks firing animation has been modified to improve clarity.
  
  
  
  

Gameplay changes:

• New Inquisitor enemies:
  • Inquisitor recruit, which replaces the shielded redeemed. This unit provides a more smoother transition for the player toward the more armored Inquisitor variants.
  • Inquisitor archer and arbarest, which replaces the two-handed sword using soldier, and the two-handed hammer using soldier. This adds a bit more variance to the Inqusitor enemies, as the last Inqusitor can be either a ranged threat or an armored two-handed axe-wielding soldier, forcing the player to adapt.
• Reworked Assassinate mission. The 2 leaders will be more vulnerable with fewer bodyguards, and they will be stationary till they see a player unit. Their location will be revealed after the combat phase if the player has not found them in the planning phase. The other pods will patrol as usual. This should help to make this mission more distinct from a simple kill of every enemy with guaranteed 2 leaders that was previously.
• Teleport sickness mechanics added. This means every unit after a combat mission will receive the teleport sickness debuff for a few days. This doesn't prevent them from going to further missions, but the penalty for not letting them rest will mean they will get some injuries after the mission (even if they did not suffer any damage). Two new traits have been added as well, Teleport phobia which increases the teleport sickness time, and teleport resistance which completely eliminates it. One of the reasons for including this feature is to make sure the player needs to manage at least 2 teams worth of soldiers improving the importance of training and recruiting soldiers as a result. The other is to better balance the XP spread between ranged and melee troops, as ranged combatants generally take fewer wounds, meaning they could go on more missions.
• Stunned condition has received a mini-rework. Now, it will cancel the target's raised shield, the affected unit has no threat range nor can use any reaction (like attack of opportunity). It will be removed at the start of the unit's next activation. Won't stack.
• Removed the cooldown from the one-handed hammer's stunning strike skill as it is no longer necessary as the stun no longer stacks.
• Increased the minimum damage by 1 and the maximum damage by 2 for ork weapons.

UI changes:

• In the combat layer planning phase, when a unit is selected, the unit's basic commands will be seeable instead of the scrying command.
  
  
  
  
• When hovering over enemy units while a friendly unit movement command is active will now show the enemy movement range.
  
  

Bugfixes:

• Fixed that the scrying command was not being selected when pressing the 1 key.

 

[sipibaki]

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1442610/view/4490746800993470887

Hello everyone!

I know that we have been a bit quiet in the past few months, but fear not, the reason was that we were climbing the content mountain that we want to be included in the full game! And I'm happy to say that we started to see the top of the mountain, so we are generally on track for a release in the first half of next year! Check out a few of the new enemy types that will be included in the full game:

At the start of the next year, we plan to enter the next Steam Next Fest, with an updated demo. Some of the bigger changes that are coming for it:

• Placeholder leader enemies have been replaced by their spellcasting variant.
• Added a new Marksman school, dedicated to skills that improve the ranged capabilities of the unit.
• Reworked headquarter chooser screen. Now regional equipment only affects the starting equipment of the units.
• Completely rebalanced progression, generally speeding up the player's progress.
• Reworked escort missions to give higher emphasis on scrying before starting the mission. Now there will be 2 valid escape tiles for the VIP and the player will need to decide which one he/she will use.

Taking into account our preparation for the Steam Next Fest, I have modified our planned release date to Q2 2025. This will give us some time to integrate the feedback we receive from it into the full game.

So that's it for today's devlog! The next year is going to be a very exciting one for sure! If you have any questions, feel free to join our Discord channel here.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1442610/view/524207770906394887

Demo 1.5.0 patch note, preparation for Steam Next Fest
Hello everyone!

I'm happy to announce a very big update for the demo, in preparation for Steam Next Fest! This is a preliminary version, to iron out the bugs and to listen to your feedback about it before the fest begins.

The general thought process behind the changes is to accelerate the player's progress toward fun things and to provide more interesting decisions for the player. Some fundamental systems have been changed as well, so sadly saves from the older demo's will not be fully compatible with the version.

Major changes:

• Official support for 2k resolutions. While the game was made aimed at a maximum 1080p resolution, over time more and more people have transitioned to 2k and 4k monitors, since the inception of this project. We don't have access to a 2k monitor so would love to hear some feedback if everything is working correctly or not. For 4k monitors, the 1080p is perfect for upscaling to 4k, so the game defaults to that resolution instead.
• Expanded magic system with new enemies. All 3 enemy race got their spellcasters.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Reworked initiative system. In the new system, every turn the player will receive 6 command points, that can be spent to activate units. The unit's initiative is the cost of its activation. In layman's terms, the player can activate more faster units or fewer slower ones. This system is a lot more intuitive for players coming from games like X-COM, while still retaining the importance of the speed of the units.
• Added a new marksman school, dedicated to improving ranged attacks.
• Reworked escort missions to give higher emphasis on scrying before starting the mission. Now there will be 2 valid escape tiles for the VIP and the player will need to decide which one he/she will use.
• Expanded the lighting system to add dynamic lights to various skill effects like teleport.
  
  
  
  
• Weapons are no longer locked to regions, the starting region only defines the starting equipment. This has enabled me to rebalance the weapons to be more unique, as they will always be available for the player to buy.
• Injury times have been rebalanced. Melee units without a shield were overly penalized with a long recovery timer for small injuries. Now, only if a unit takes more than half of its health in damage will it have longer recovery times than the default teleport sickness.
• Every unit will get a starter school in their first level up, and the player can only choose a new skill from that school. Further level-ups are not affected. This makes it easier for newer players to learn about the available schools in smaller increments. Plus makes players try out skills they would otherwise not have.
• The final mission arrives a month earlier than previously, in correspondence that we have made progress faster in general.

Of course, a lot of bug fixes have happened as well, and I'm planning to do another pass on the AI of the enemies till the start of the festival.

So that's it for today! As always, looking forward to hearing your feedback, which you can share in the forums or our Discord here!

 

[Fargus]

Nice sexy dark elven sorceresses. When in doubt go with classics i say.

 

[Fargus]

Tried the demo and it was fun for a while. I'm not sure how long lasting Slaves of Magic will be in comparison with other similar tactical games i've played but i'm going to keep an eye out for it's release this (hopefully) year.

X-com games don't grow on trees, especially fantasy ones.

 

[sipibaki]

Tried the demo and it was fun for a while. I'm not sure how long lasting Slaves of Magic will be in comparison with other similar tactical games i've played but i'm going to keep an eye out for it's release this (hopefully) year.

X-com games don't grow on trees, especially fantasy ones.

Thanks for trying it out, I'm glad to hear you had fun! If you have a specific concern or some feedback feel free to share and I see what can I do. While I can't promise adding big new features, as then the game would never be released, but there is still a lot of polishing work going on like the progression speed, balance, AI, etc.

 

[oscar]

This is really awesome! I like how you've creatively tied the fantasy setting to the mechanics as well.

The art style is very evocative too. A great dark old-school fantasy style.

Will be watching this with great interest. Only complaint is I keep getting a crash on the second month doing a supply stealing mission just as I take the fifth chest.

 

[sipibaki]

This is really awesome! I like how you've creatively tied the fantasy setting to the mechanics as well.

The art style is very evocative too. A great dark old-school fantasy style.

Will be watching this with great interest. Only complaint is I keep getting a crash on the second month doing a supply stealing mission just as I take the fifth chest.

Sorry about the crash! I noticed some inconsistent crashing randomly at a mission end as well in yesterday's testing but I have a bit of trouble in consistently reproducing it. But as soon as I figure it out I will put out a hotfix for it.

 

[oscar]

Started a new game and getting them early again too on the priest assassination mission. Might have just been lucky on my first run to not get the crashes until fairly late.

 

[sipibaki]

The new 1.5.1 hotfix is out, and I think it fixes the crash problem, hopefully yours was caused by this issue as well. It was hard to reproduce because it was actually a bug related to loading a save file, that later caused an issue when the player won a mission.

 

[oscar]

Got to the end having succeeded in almost all of the missions. Random thoughts:

- Smiths really are essential but I was a bit unclear that you need them to actually increase your equipment (and effectively, your squad size). Second run went a lot better building the smithy first. I guess the training centre is the next best so you can start hiring knights, mercenaries, retired soldiers and squires instead of the random bums. You really do need a large roster due to the amount of time that teleport sickness and injuries keep your guys out of action.

- The priests are really annoying. With their nearly unmissable attack (I think I blocked one once in both games) it's nearly a certainty you'll take at least a casualty tackling one. And killing both in ten turns? Yeah right! The attack on leaving ZOC ability is essential to taking them down or else they'll hit and run you down badly. I resorted to savescumming with the scry until I could teleport on top of them and surround them. And even then I never managed to come close to killing both in 10 turns.

- The difficulty definitely leaps in the second month. Orc shamans are like the priests on steroids, with their ability to throw fireballs that melt through cover.

- In general backstabbing is an absolutely essential mechanic to winning. This is an interesting mechanic as it works against you two. You really need to cover your own flanks with terrain or friendlies (or get the ZOC control ability).

- Shields and plate armour seem pretty essential. They effectively double (at least) your health with the amount of blocks you can now tank. Another reason it's so important to get the smithy running quickly or else you'll run out of recruits and have everyone out-of-action with injuries. Armour and shield damage doesn't cost you anything to repair while health damage ruins your roster.

- Barely managed to kill even two enemies (orcs are a huge step up from the human inquisition soldiers) in the final base invasion mission with how spread out your guys start. I guess that's on purpose though and you're meant to be doomed

 

[sipibaki]

Got to the end having succeeded in almost all of the missions. Random thoughts:

- Smiths really are essential but I was a bit unclear that you need them to actually increase your equipment (and effectively, your squad size). Second run went a lot better building the smithy first. I guess the training centre is the next best so you can start hiring knights, mercenaries, retired soldiers and squires instead of the random bums. You really do need a large roster due to the amount of time that teleport sickness and injuries keep your guys out of action.

- The priests are really annoying. With their nearly unmissable attack (I think I blocked one once in both games) it's nearly a certainty you'll take at least a casualty tackling one. And killing both in ten turns? Yeah right! The attack on leaving ZOC ability is essential to taking them down or else they'll hit and run you down badly. I resorted to savescumming with the scry until I could teleport on top of them and surround them. And even then I never managed to come close to killing both in 10 turns.

- The difficulty definitely leaps in the second month. Orc shamans are like the priests on steroids, with their ability to throw fireballs that melt through cover.

- In general backstabbing is an absolutely essential mechanic to winning. This is an interesting mechanic as it works against you two. You really need to cover your own flanks with terrain or friendlies (or get the ZOC control ability).

- Shields and plate armour seem pretty essential. They effectively double (at least) your health with the amount of blocks you can now tank. Another reason it's so important to get the smithy running quickly or else you'll run out of recruits and have everyone out-of-action with injuries. Armour and shield damage doesn't cost you anything to repair while health damage ruins your roster.

- Barely managed to kill even two enemies (orcs are a huge step up from the human inquisition soldiers) in the final base invasion mission with how spread out your guys start. I guess that's on purpose though and you're meant to be doomed

Good job and thank you for sharing your thoughts!

- Yep I think it is a valid way of looking at things, but I wouldn't sleep on the laboratory either. Having faster access to better skills/equipment can be very impactful as well, though admittedly it is a bit slower to get online, which is a bit at odds with the demo length.

- Yeah, magic attacks guarantee to hit if the target does not have a shield. But higher-level armors will provide magic resistance making them more bearable. Those priests are meant to be early game "bosses", there are only 0-1 units of those on a normal map. The Assasinate missions are a bit hard to balance, as 2 can be hard in the beginning but 1 can be a bit too easy depending on how lucky the player is with scrying. I will think about it, how can it be made a bit more consistent difficulty-wise.

- Yep, generally speaking, you need to be smart about the missions you engage in. You don't have to do all of the missions, especially in the beginning. The idea is that the new enemies only appear on the hardest armies, giving time for the player to adapt to them. I want the player to feel the pressure, to make it more satisfying when they finally be able to consistently do the 4-5 armies and turn the tide over the course of the full game.

- Yes backstabbing is very beneficial if you can pull it off. The second best thing is cornering (attacking a unit in such a way that they can't move away from the attack, like for example because they have a wall behind them).

- While generally shields and armor are definitely good, there is one problem with them, they increase unit initiative (and reduce stamina). In practice that means you can activate fewer units per turn, making alpha striking harder. There is a high-risk high-reward strategy of not using a lot of armor to make it easier to kill enemies before they can attack.

- Yeah, probably I will make it so that a lower-level army should do the invasion of the base, but in general yes, I wanted to give something harder for the player for the closing mission of the demo.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]