DarkSpar news & patch notes

First update in a while! One requested feature and a bugfix

• Population growth rate and maximum population is now viewable in-game, from the Game Statistics menu, under the General tab
• Fixed a bug where it was possible to re-build an upgrade you had already built in the castle

First news in a while

Greetings visitors to Darkspar. It's been a while since I've posted an official update.

Patch 1.1 Darkspar Chapter 2 development update

Work continues towards 1.1 however real life stuff has gotten in the way. Darkspar is a one man project done in my spare time and circumstances just didn't quite work out to give me enough time to finish 1.1 in advance of the Summer Sale as I'd originally planned. My revised timeline for 1.1 puts it at late Summer or early Fall. A whole lot of new stuff is going to be added:

• Character class #1: Druid. Focused on Summoning and Lightning/Wind magic. This tree adds three unique summons to the game, making a total of four including squirrel.
• Character class #2: Monk. Focused on unarmed attacks and passive shielding to prevent damage. Can attack many times in a turn to power up finishing moves.
• A new map-based chapter of the game. Instead of build timers driving progression players will complete map objectives.
• Fishing and other secondary skills will be added.
• Five slots for champions instead of three.
• Exploration skills (plains/forest/mountain) and the research / build tree mechanics are specific to chapter 1 and will not be present in chapter 2. Crafting will be expanded to compensate.
• You will have the choice of starting in either chapter 1 or chapter 2 when starting a new game. Each chapter is a self-contained experience (but you have the option of continuing from your chapter 1 characters into chapter 2).

There will be no cost for this or any other added content to Darkspar.

Darkspar price reduced

One piece of advice I have gotten again and again from reviews or people who have contacted me is that the 9.99 price point for Darkspar is a bit too high. The 9.99 figure I chose was pretty random, it was just my conception of a what a low cost game might cost. I've reduced it to 4.99 which is also in my conception of what a low cost game might cost but perhaps more in line with what people are expecting from something idle-adjacent. The free demo containing 30% of the game's content will continue to be developed and updated alongside the full game

If you like Darkspar leave a review

If you enjoyed Darkspar please consider leaving a review to help promote the game.

Darkspar on Sale

Pick up Darkspar at a discounted price during the week of 04/11/22 to 04/18/22! Last week saw the release of the fifth (and most significant) small content update for Darkspar which brought

• Three new gameplay modes
• New achievements
• Streamlined crafting
• A new dungeon available in the challenging New Game Plus mode
• Optional randomization settings

To celebrate we are offering a weeklong discount of 40% The demo version has also been updated with (most of) the 1.05 changes Thanks for one month of Darkspar and welcome to any new players! Full Patch 1.05 release notes here: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1911960/view/3182363591897995540

Couple of bugfixes

• The bug with bow crafting from the initial 1.05 release was accidentally re-introduced in 1.05e, it is fixed now
• The achievement "Zoology" no longer requires the monsters from the Ancient Temple
• Fixed a very rare crash with an error message about a non-integer input into renpy.randint

Couple of bugfixes

• Fixed an issue where dual-wield crafting wasn't working quite correctly in the new crafting screen
• Fixed an issue where during the early game discovering the zones in a certain order would result in the "discover a combat zone" quest being completed more than once

Couple of small tweaks

• Changed how the Ouroboros runestone is awarded to address a potential issue if someone were playing New Game Plus more than once
• Changed the quests in New Game Plus mode to reflect the goals of that mode (defeating Vix, then defeating the boss of the Ancient Temple)

Couple of bugfixes:

Fixed an issue where replacing your bow would bug your quiver and cause it to not be possible to make arrows

Added a fix that may help with a divide by zero error some people are getting on loading older saves

Couple of quick fixes

• The Imbue button in the crafting screen should now work correctly
• Clicking the character portrait in the crafting screen will now take you to the stats screen for that character

Patch 1.05 is here

Patch 1.05 is here, the largest content update to date! Bringing with it several new gameplay modes, new achievements, a new dungeon, and a new runestone, plus many improvements to existing systems

New Gameplay Modes

When starting a new game, you will now be prompted with one of four possible gameplay modes:

Normal Mode : The original Darkspar play mode, a longplay mode that takes about 100-300 hours to complete.

Semi-Turbo Mode: The same as Normal except that much of the build and research trees are skipped. Estimated 30-70 hours to complete.

Turbo Mode : A greatly accelerated gameplay mode where you earn 5x the normal amount of experience and resources, you start deep in the build and research trees, and the time required for build, research, and population growth has been greatly reduced. Estimated 5-20 hours to complete.

New Game Plus : Start a new game using the characters from an old save. Monsters gain 25 levels. Monster level cap is now 145. Runestones and artifacts are more powerful. There is an additional dungeon after you defeat Vix. You must defeat Vix in Normal or Semi-Turbo mode before you can access New Game Plus mode. The Turbo and New Game Plus modes each have new achievements associated with them.

Game Randomization

To enhance replay value and provide a unique challenge, there are now a total of five optional randomization settings which can be enabled when creating a new game. The following things can be randomized: Combat zone locations, Monster Locations, Rune locations, Artifact locations, and Monster Stats. If Monster Stat randomization is enabled, each monster has a chance either to have normal stats, up to 25% reduced stats versus normal, or up to 25% increased stats versus normal. The stat randomization is set at the start of the game and is the same for every monster of that same name for the entire playthrough (it is not set per encounter). There is an achievement for completing the game in any mode with all of the randomization settings enabled.

New Category of Achievements: Rare

Added a new category of achievements "Rare". These achievements are "account wide" (across all of your saves). Most are related to the new game modes.

Crafting Revamp

We took a long look at crafting and decided it was more tedious than it needed to be. As a result, all crafting is now instantaneous. Additionally, crafting has all been relocated to one Crafting screen, which can be accessed from the lower-right menu.

Alerts Redone

{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/41975286/d2179d6c6a74e854b4688b3e11eb3f1b2215bbe6.png Alerts have been redone and are now much more informative.

Other Improvements

• Rare crashes related to the unused Gamepad functionality of Renpy should be reduced or eliminated
• Fixed an issue where a rune drop and XP might rarely be awarded more than once after a kill
• The "choose zone" screen now tells you whether there are any artifacts left to be found in each gathering zone
• You can now hover over runestones in the Monsterpedia to see what the runestone does
• The Artifact menu has been relocated to the lower right, to be more consistent with the Runestone menu
• The champion interface has been simplified and the buttons made bigger.
• Character portrait can now be changed under the Crafting menu
• Doubled the effect that Surge has on build timers
• Added an Artifacts and Runestones page to Game Stats in the lower right. These screens will tell you which specific places to go for the remaining artifacts and runestones you are missing. (very useful in Random mode)
• Clicking in slightly the wrong spot in the Artifact menu no longer closes that menu
• Offhand weapons and quivers no longer incorrectly show a item level (these items cannot be upgraded so should not show a level)

A few minor aesthetic changes in this patch

• Resource tooltip position adjusted slightly
• Game statistics screen now has buttons inside the border and not outside (this was the last holdout as far as buttons being outside the border so now they should all be inside the border)
• Removed total build time from game stats as it is incorrect now since build times are no longer static
• Monsterpedia moved back to center of screen (was slightly off-center in 1.04)

Darkspar at two weeks

Darkspar is two weeks old! Thanks to everyone who played the game and a special thank you to those who have managed to get 100% completion. We didn't expect the game to get the level of attention that it did and we are certainly flattered and are doing our best to address the issues some players had with the game at launch

In case you missed it

Since release there have been four content updates which have implemented:

• Removal of the pauses which happened during alerts
• Menus no longer pause the game
• GUI adjusted to make the buttons on the right more easy to find
• More tooltips added to make the UI easier to interpret
• A basic tutorial added to the first few actions in the new game
• Quests to provide optional objectives and clarify how to complete the castle
• Leveling curve of the early game adjusted
• Combat rounds take 5 seconds instead of 10 seconds (adjustable in settings)
• Demo version released containing the first 30 levels of content
• New mechanics added: Settlement Level and Surge, both of which speed up gameplay
• A more traditional Continue option added to the main menu to continue where you left off

We are still seeking feedback

At this point we feel like we have addressed a lot of the things people had cited as issues with the 1.0 release but if you have anything to add please let us know!

What to expect in the future

On the development horizon 1.05 : Another incremental update. The big feature we are looking at here is additional game modes and/or difficulty settings, as well as a randomized mode. This will make Darkspar even more accessible for people who don't want a super grindy game, and also provide for unique challenges for experienced players to pursue on a replay. We are looking at adding maybe one more final dungeon in this update if it seems practical. New achievements will also be added to account for the new game modes (Conqueror of Darkspar wil be unaffected). Timeframe: Within 2 weeks ??? : More incremental updates possible depending on feedback 1.10: Darkspar Chapter 2. The first big content update. What is certain about 1.1 at this point in development is that there will be two new skill trees: Druid and Monk. There will be new Dungeons, Runestones, and Artifacts. The level cap will be raised to 110. The crafting system will be redone and inventory and commerce will appear in the world of Darkspar. The story takes place in one of three new settlements you can choose. The update will feature a campaign based progression system where objectives advance the story instead of build timers. Timeframe: Sometime before summer

We need a few more reviews ...

If you enjoyed Darkspar and would like to support the game please consider leaving a Steam review. We are two short of the crucial 10 review mark which will make the game show up in the algorithm more.

Thank you

Thank you for playing and for making this a great experience

1. Fixed another instance where loading a pre- 1.04 save might sometimes crash the game 2. Fixed an issue that was preventing the Victory rune drop from being written to the game log window

Fixed a bug introduced in 1.04 that would cause the game to cash if you loaded a save that had offline combat progress

Fixed an issue where the 15k Surge cap did not automatically assert itself after hitting Settlement Level 70

A few balance changes to make Surge a little better

• Default surge duration increased from 3 to 5 minutes
• XP required to trigger a surge is now capped at 20k instead of 30k (15k if you have the level 70 milestone)
• Exploration actions now produce 25 settlement XP instead of 20
• Surge now doubles research speed in addition to it's other effects

Content patch 1.04 is here, the most comprehensive update released to date! With it come several changes and new mechanics

New resource: Settlement XP and Settlement Level

Performing actions will now grant Settlement XP, which represents the combined resources of your settlement and it's champions. As you gain Settlement XP, you will raise your Settlement Level, which will in turn provides bonuses, all of which are designed to gradually increase the speed of the game. Gathering, Exploration, Combat, and Building will all speed up as you level your settlement.

New mechanic: Surge

By collecting Settlement XP, your champions will periodically become infused with the energy of Darkspar and go into a frenzied state. During a Surge event, which lasts for a few minutes, the speed of all actions is doubled, and you gain 50% increased combat damage. Build speed also increases during a Surge and if you activate a surge after having built the castle, this resets the castle cooldown, allowing you to build upgrades more quickly.

Speed of the early game

A number of changes have been made to the leveling curve to allow players to get deeper into Darkspar more quickly. The overall amount of XP to hit 99 is about the same as before but the speed of the initial few levels is much faster. Due to this the level cap on the demo will be raised to level 30 (demo to be updated soon)

Other improvements and requested features

• Decreased the HP of common monsters in the two starting zones
• Reduced the amount of XP needed for the first 10 combat levels
• Added a level up animation to make it more obvious when a champion has leveled up a skill
• Added tooltips to the top panel of the screen (including resources)
• Amount of resources required for some early buildings has been reduced
• Changed the borders for most menus to hopefully make the text buttons on the right more easy to find
• The requirement to recruit a second champion is now to reach Settlement Level 5, and to recruit the third champion to reach Settlement Level 10 (both of which will only take a few minutes)

Couple of small fixes: 1. The previous fix in 1.03a for the runestone achievement issue itself had an issue in it which was fixed in 1.03b 2. Continuing to work on the "value too large to convert to short" issue which is affecting some systems. We think we have narrowed it down to the game log so we redid the way the game log is drawn. If you are having this particular error even after 1.03bb please send a save file to [email protected]

Added an additional check for runestone counts to handle rare occasions where an achievement might not be granted

Thanks to everyone for providing great feedback on Darkspar and continuing to help us improve the game This patch adds a few important improvements: Quests have been added to the game. 1. You now have two tabs on the right which you can switch between, Game Log and Quests. Quests will be added to the quests screen automatically as you play through the game and provide a small to somewhat significant amount of resources when completed. 2. There are two kinds of quests. One is a repeating optional quests providing resources for killing certain monsters. The second is a storyline quest that updates as you play through the game, providing hints on what you should be doing and providing rewards for hitting milestones. 3. We hope that the quest feature will help players who are either stuck at the endgame (which has several steps that must be done in order, now spelled out in Quests) or players who felt like the mechanics weren't spelled out clearly enough Other improvements and requested features 1. You can now view the stat screen of your character by clicking their character panel. This can be done at any time. 2. Estimated research times have been added to the research panel, and research production is listed in the research box. Bug fixes 1. Fixed a couple of places Population was misspelled 2. Stopped Achievement pop ups from disappearing too quickly

Fixed an issue related to the Tier III Runestone drop table crashing the game if you had gotten all but one of the Tier III Runestones

Fixed an issue introduced in the previous patch which caused the name/rename fields to not function correctly

Smaller performance tweak relating to alerts

Made a couple of minor changes to the progress report message upon loading the game that might help with users experiencing "value too large to convert to short" error We are having difficulty duplicating the "value too large to convert to short" error in our testing, if you have a save file that can produce this message please send it to [email protected]

We continue to work to improve Darkspar and bring requested features to the game Improvements: 1. The game will now automatically save when you Quit 2. There is now a Continue option at the main menu which will continue from the save when you last Quit 3. Manual saves are still possible and supported, and auto-saves are still generated while playing (these are under "A" in the load menu) Bugfixes: 1. Added an additional fix for infrequent crashes introduced with 1.01 that had an error message "value too long to convert to short" 2. Fixed an issue with the tooltip for the Constitution Runestone

Fixed a bug where Armor Edge was not dealing it's intended damage

Fixed the tooltip for Weight of the Lizard, which was incorrectly showing the tooltip for Weight of the Lion

1. Alerts will now auto-close again based on the timer set under preferences 2. Fixed a couple of crashes that related to the granary or other buildings, or having too many alerts populate at once

Fixed a bug introduced with 1.01 where achievement popups weren't playing nice with the non-pausing of alerts and could cause a crash after a certain amount of time. (Pausing is now reinstated on achievements)