Ghostlore News & Patch Notes

Minions can now benefit from projectile radius and increased projectiles (mostly guardian spirit buff).
Fixed damage from Geomancer Elemental Mastery passive growing exponentially.
Some item affixes for awakened and orang bunian items were missing as their names were duplicated.
Fixed not being able to equip legendary items with glyphs on controller.
Fixed crash when gold total is more than maximum integer value.
Fix Jayantha Vel giving wrong skill.
Updated Unity version.

Minions can now benefit from projectile radius and increased projectiles (mostly guardian spirit buff).
Fixed damage from Geomancer Elemental Mastery passive growing exponentially.
Some item affixes for awakened and orang bunian items were missing as their names were duplicated.
Fixed not being able to equip legendary items with glyphs on controller.
Fixed crash when gold total is more than maximum integer value.
Fix Jayantha Vel giving wrong skill.
Updated Unity version.

We are one month into 2026, and I just want to share with you what we have been working on.

Tentative plans for Ghostlore

Ghostlore has sold over 50k copies to date. It is the effort of myself(Andrew, artist/founder), and Adam, a programmer/solo indie game developer who joined me after finding out about my game on Reddit. We coincidentally have the same last name, Teo, but we are not brothers or related in any other way.

We've made no secret that our lofty ambition was to create some sort of spiritual successor to Diablo II, a game we both enjoyed in our youth. Based on sales and reception, I believe we have mostly succeeded. However, in my mind there is yet something that keeps Ghostlore from being a true spiritual successor: Online multiplayer.

The main reason why Ghostlore does not have online multiplayer was 1) Multiplayer features are tough to implement and we did not know how well the game would do to justify adding it and 2) The gaming landscape has changed significantly since Diablo II's heyday - 'online' used to mean something special, but now that we are all more online by default, it may not have been that strong of a selling point.

Given that there have been multiple requests for online multiplayer, perhaps in hindsight we should have implemented it. I have discussed with Adam, and It is not impossible to do so now, but it would be trickier, much more so than if it was factored in right at the beginning. It would've been tricky to do even back then anyway. So it has to be worth our time and effort.

Ghostlore has been selling, slowly and steadily. But it would take a pretty strong resurgence of interest, let's say hitting 1000 reviews, to make it so that coming back to implement online multiplayer would be worth our time. It's not completely off the table. But in any case, even if that does not happen, I have still other ideas that I would like to explore in a new Ghostlore game. If Adam and I work on a new Ghostlore game, we will have online multiplayer for sure.

In the meantime, I am proud to introduce two new games that we are working on:

Ruin and Rebirth

Ruin and Rebirth is a fantasy open-world factory building game with creature taming and breeding, a playable creation myth where you harness the power of creation to bring life back to a barren, shattered world where the gods have died. Unlike in Ghostlore, this time Adam is steering this project and leading the game design, while I am taking more of a back seat and focusing on the art and world-building.

Based on comments by members on our Discord, we believe there is a significant overlap between fans of ARPGs like Ghostlore and fans of Factorio-likes like Ruin and Rebirth. Both genres feature deep and complex gameplay with a heavy focus on number-crunching and optimization gameplay.

Creatively, our MO remains the same as that of Ghostlore. Just as how Ghostlore is at heart Diablo-style ARPG but with Southeast-Asian flavour to make things feel fresh, Ruin and Rebirth is at heart a Factorio-style game, but with a bold artistic direction to make it stand out from the crowd.

The setting is primal and surreal. Visual inspirations include the psychedelic landscapes found in prog-rock album covers, as well as famous illustrators whose panoramic, otherworldly vistas have graced the pages of Heavy Metal magazine. These dreamy landscapes help capture the unique feel of this 'post-divine apocalyptic' world.

I encourage all who are interested to wishlist this game, and join the beta playtest here:

Shadow Rush

For the action-RPG purists, here's something that I am working on as a solo side project, that might tide you over before our next Ghostlore game. Shadow Rush is a isometric RPG with roguelite elements that is focused on fast-paced combat, quick runs, build experimentation and re-rolling.

Controls are simple: WASD to move, Left-click to attack, right click to dash. BUT, every time you attack OR dash, you will cycle through 4 'phases': I,II,III and IV. At each phase, spells will automatically trigger depending on your build setup - Spells come in the form of collectable, equipabble 'Shards' that you can swap between your 6 characters to create the ultimate build.

The goal behind this system is to have something more streamlined than an action RPG where you have to juggle multiple hotkeys. However, you still have to manually attack, so it isn't like Vampire Survivors where it is a nearly hands-off experience. I played a ton of games like Vampire Survivors and Hades during the development of Ghostlore, so this was inspired by them. But I want to capture the 'just one more round' feeling of those games without copy-pasting the mechanics of those games wholesale.

As a game developer who is passionate about the craft, I want Shadow Rush to be highly intentional in its game design. My hope is that every game mechanic in Shadow Rush exists because it needs to, and if someone asks "why did you design this game mechanic like that?" I can give an answer.

However, this also means I must set an expectation here: This will be a smaller game than Ghostlore. Instead of multiple systems of customization like Glyphs/Equipment/Skills, there is only one system here, the Shard system. Not just because I am doing it solo this time, but also because Ghostlore's design had a lot of throwing stuff at the wall and seeing what sticks. I deliberately avoided making my new action-RPG a Ghostlore sequel because I wanted a clean slate to express a more focused, coherent, design philosophy. Accordingly, I will eventually price this game cheaper than Ghostlore, tentatively half the price since I only need to support one person (myself). You can try a demo online here and see if it is your thing.

Finally, on a personal (and perhaps slightly cringe) note, the 6 characters that you can play as in the game are my OCs that I came up with during my teenage years. The game basically exists as a way for me to give them a place to live after all these years of being with me. If you feel that Shadow Rush looks like the videogame adaptation of an edgy 00s shounen anime that doesn’t exist, it is because said anime DOES exist, just in my head as elaborate fight scenes whenever I listen to Linkin Park...fellow millennial unc nerds will probably get what I mean.

Conclusion

We are very grateful to all our players who have made Ghostlore the success that it is, and we hope that you will join us on our new journeys. My games are not cynical, calculated cash-grabs made only to ride the coattails of popular trends. They are a true expression of what I personally think is cool, and they will live and die based on how many other people also think it's cool.

In that way, it is a risky endeavor, because ultimately, I've got no control over whether or not people think my stuff is cool. Some people think they can somehow make others interested in their stuff by hustling, pandering, blindly following trends, gaming algorithms or other ways of artificially inflating their numbers. But I don't think any of this works. You have to remain true to yourself, because it shows when you don't.

IMO the only thing we really have any control over is our own choices, and this is what we choose to do: to keep on making games.

Fix amethyst/jade having wrong resistance stat.
Fix crash when hell6 level rolls multiple bosses.
Fix True Taming Sari not benefiting from minion defense stats.
Fix Vessel of Brahmari status effect missing infliction tag.
Fix tooltip for counter passive.
Fix for crash when assigning skill to hotbar.
Tried to prevent status effects from recursively triggering "on damage done" effects.
Fix "last mob stat" for avoidance showing enemy avoidance instead of accuracy.
Fix controller bypassing check for two handed weapons.
Tweaks to reduce GPU usage.

The 1.1 update focuses on making the item hunt in Ghostlore even more enticing and exciting. We started out by only wanting to include around 50 or so new Uniques/Mythic Legendary items in the game. But when we decided that these items needed to have unique visuals, we thought we might as well give a new pass to the character visuals as well. In the end, this update is quite substantial and well beyond the scope of just a bunch of new legendries, so here is a quick rundown of all the new features.

Visual Customization

Alright, so let's begin with perhaps the most obvious thing when you start Ghostlore with the 1.1 update: Your character can now change clothes. Gear slots have been increased from 5 to 10. You can now dual wield certain items and are not limited to just a weapon and a shield. Personally as the artist on the game, I am most proud of the visual customization system. You can put together some pretty varied looks, don't you think? {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/41358888/ebfb67b4ef0af8eaac4e29b527cc30e5510eb276.png {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/41358888/eed5d4a6b9c192ee32416abc48747ed9def1f237.png

Unique Mythic Legendries

The Mythic Legendaries are of course included in this update. Here is a sneak preview of some of the new unique Mythic Legendries that I have spent time 3D modelling. What do they do? Well I'd rather not say...it'll spoil the fun of finding out yourself. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/41358888/3d2ff83b4dce8f574851cffa16b0b08a5d5e3ad1.png

New Weapon Types

In addition to the Mythic Legendries there are some interesting new weapon types as well. In particular the Gauntlets and the Staff are the new starting weapon types of the Adept and the Geomancer respectively. They lend both of these classes a real martial artist vibe - something that was always intended, but perhaps never quite fully realized until now.

More Inventory Space and Courier Pets

Inventory space has always been a huge concern for our players. With all the new item types, we were definitely worried that this time there would not be enough space to accommodate them all, so we decided to expand and redesign the inventory. Here you can see the new item slots (and admire a closeup of your character) {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/41358888/8485cf9e14975e4df1e0f00f2468fb7c8f0e24c1.png Also, we added a courier pet that can pick up gold and return to town to sell items on the player's behalf: {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/41358888/ac6f109adc0b6a07046228233a5e908570241a0e.png One of the courier pets, a Kumanthong, can be found for sale at the secret shop: {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/41358888/ba0f50d4fac6cddba0e392cefa050e6ffca3721c.png There are other pets as well, play the game to find out what they could be!

Ghostlore is now on sale

Ghostlore is on sale and we have discounted it to a low price of 40% for this time only. We will not discount it as much again in the forseeable future so get it now while you can! https://store.steampowered.com/app/1783280/Ghostlore/

Fixed skill granted by mythic item staying even when item is removed when skill is part of a combo skill.
Some missing descriptions added.
Fixed mythic item skills sometimes not saving in hotbar.
Chicken pet clucking removed.

Hey folks, we've decided to move the 1.1 update over to the main branch in order to encourage more players to try it out. Thanks to everyone who tested it on the beta branch! You've been a great help. So far, the reception from our beta players have been positive. Personally, I do think this update breathes a lot of new life into the game. To recap, here is what's in the 1.1 Update:

New Unique/Mythic Legendary items.
Various new weapon and clothing types. Dual wielding of certain weapon types are now possible. New Item slots for Chest/Waist/Legs/Feet/Rings. Equipping will reflect visually on your character. You can also now see a close-up of your character in the inventory screen.
Expanded Inventory space from 40 to 64. New Courier Pet system where you can have a Courier Pet sell items on your behalf so you don't have to return to town.

SLIGHT GEM REWORK

The new item slots necessitated a slight rework of the gem system. The gems have been renamed and provide new properties when socketed into different item types. Under the new system: Fire Gem -> Ruby Weapon: +Additional Fire Damage Neck/Head: +HP Shield: +Fire Resistance Chest/Legs: +Minion Damage Feet/Waist: +Accuracy Ice Gem -> Opal Weapon: +Additional Ice Damage Neck/Head: +MP Shield: +Ice Resistance Chest/Legs: +Absorb Feet/Waist: +Increased Minion HP Thunder Gem -> Amethyst Weapon: +Additional Lightning Damage Neck/Head: +Skill Charges Shield: +Lightning Resistance Chest/Legs: +Minion Avoidance Multiplier Feet/Waist: +Avoidance Poison Gem -> Jade Weapon: +Additional Poison Damage Neck/Head: +HP Regen Shield: +Poison Resistance Chest/Legs: +Damage Reflected Feet/Waist: +Additional Minions Multiplier There are still some bugs lurking about that we are doing our best to fix. If you encounter any errors or crashes, please use the handy Upload Save feature that Adam has created. Doing so will email Adam a copy of your save file, where he can perform a thorough analysis and hopefully fix the issue. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/41358888/fa92568c25296a077299a33663cf4a4c91b1af0d.png Well, back to work. I hope to explain these features in greater detail soon! Best, Andrew

Hey all, so sorry for the radio silence. In my previous post I promised to share progress updates along the way, but it turned out that the new features were much more ambitious than we'd thought. So we had to devote all our time to development and couldn't really share. For now, here is what you can expect on the Ghostlore beta branch:

New Unique/Mythic Legendary items. Drop rates for these items have been temporarily increased for testing purposes.
Various new weapon and clothing types. Dual wielding of certain weapon types are now possible. New Item slots for Chest/Waist/Legs/Feet/Rings. Equipping will reflect visually on your character. You can also now see a close-up of your character in the inventory screen.
WORK IN PROGRESS Expanded Inventory space from 40 to 64. New Courier Pet system where you can have a Courier Pet sell items on your behalf so you don't have to return to town.

I hope to discuss all this in further detail sometime soon, But for now our priorities would be further bug fixes and balancing. Big thanks to anyone who can play this on the beta branch and report any bugs to us! Here's to having a wonderful Friday and weekend ahead! Please do check out the new update on the Ghostlore beta branch if you can make the time. Best, Andrew

Dear players, we are currently laying the groundwork for many new features in Ghostlore. This is going to be the first of several progress updates detailing our plans to expand the game.

INTRODUCING: MYTHIC LEGENDARIES

As mentioned previously, we are planning to add what in common ARPG parlance is known as ‘Legendary’ items in the game. As legendary items are already a tier of items in Ghostlore, officially these items will be known as ‘Mythic Legendary’ items in order to differentiate them. Here is a tentative list of Mythic Legendaries: Vajra Grants Thunderstorm at a random spot on the skill grid. Causes sparks of lightining to emanate from enemies when hitting them with a basic attack. Trishula Grants Radiant Spear at a random spot on the skill grid. Chance to summon 3 rays of light that deal attack damage when using a skill. Sudasharna Chakra Grants Chakram at a random spot on the skill grid. Greatly increases area and damage of Chakram. Kharga Grants Blood Magic at a random spot on the skill grid. Primordial Blade Asi Chance to cast any available skill on basic attack. Damaru Chance to cast any available skill on block. Jayantha Vel Grants Warp at a random spot on the skill grid. Warp automatically triggers when taking fatal damage. Adds 3 chances. Greatly reduced HP. Four Seasons Grants special Glyphs that greatly increases elemental damage. Teen Baan Grants Pressure Point at a random spot on the skill grid. Automatically activates Pressure Point every 3 attacks. Arrows have homing property. Greatly increases accuracy. Badang's Stonesplitter Grants Geomancy at a random spot on the skill grid. Greatly increases damage of Geomancy, Stampede and Seismic Roar. Badang's Earthshakers Grants Stampede at a random spot on the skill grid. Greatly increases damage of Geomancy, Stampede and Seismic Roar. Badang's Heavyweight Belt Causes an earthquake which does basic attack damage on block. Greatly increases damage of Geomancy, Stampede and Seismic Roar. Indrastra Chance to cause a rain of arrows that deal attack damage when using a skill. Pushpa Dhanu Chance for enemies to become temporarily smitten and not attack you. They would still attack any minions or allies. Does not work on elites or bosses. Ashwathama's Gem When receiving fatal damage, casts every available skill at no cost. Ruyi Jingu Bang Changes the attack animation into one where you can attack while moving. Wukong's Binding Circlet Grants a special Glyph that increase damage taken but greatly increase Crisis Damage and Crisis Absorb. Nimbus Immune to movement impairing effects. Nandaka Greatly increases cooldown. Agni’s Philosophy Grants Immolate at a random spot on the skill grid. Increased HP Regen. Way of No Way Gain a Combo meter that increases damage the more it is filled. The meter is increases upon skill usage, but decreases upon consecutive usage of that same skill. Vijaya Greatly increases Knockback and Pierce. Causes fear. Ekasha Gada Greatly increases Knockback and Armour Break. Increased melee attack radius. Thousand Cuts Grants special Glyphs that greatly increase attack speed. Sharanga Grants special Glyphs that greatly increase projectile count. Chandrahasa Grants Shroud of Darkness at a random spot on the skill grid. Shroud of Darkness' Eviscerate damages enemies around the target as well. Mundamala Minions explode and do damage upon death. Decreases minion HP and increases their movement speed. Phurba Grants Excorcise at a random spot on the skill grid. Excorcise autocasts linked skills every 5 seconds. Legionhide 30% of damage taken is transferred and averaged out among your minions Parushu Grants special Glyphs that adds attack damage to skill damage when using skills. Han Feizhi’s Unstoppable Force Greatly increases MP. Cannot be used with Han Feizhi’s Immovable Object. Han Feizhi’s Immovable Object Greatly increases HP. Cannot be used with Han Feizhi’s Unstoppable Force. True Taming Sari Grants Taming Sari at a random spot on the skill grid. Taming Sari gains damage from your attack damage instead of your minion damage. Windfire Grants Dashing Strike at a random spot on the skill grid. Greatly increases dashing strike charges. Dashing Strike leaves behind a trail of fire. Armilliary Sash Creates Whirlwinds at regular intervals that deal basic attack damage. Universal Ring On basic attack, releases a swarm of ricochetting rings that deal attack damage. Yin Blade Greatly increases HP Steal. Yang Blade Greatly increases MP Steal. Bhaumastra Increased gem effect. Khatvanga Grants Ice Trap at a random spot on the skill grid. Launches 3 icicle spears when attacking. Phoenix's Blessing Turns crows into Phoenixes. Phoenixes have the abilities of both Sunbirds and Doves. Dragon's Blessing Grants Guardian Spirit at a random spot on the skill grid. Limit guarduan spirit to one, subsequent casts adds more heads to the Guardian Spirit. Aruval Increases critical hit chance by 1% for every second you do not land a critical hit. This effect is reset after landing a critical hit. Jaivardhan Grants Mind Over Matter at a random spot on the skill grid. Causes an explosion at the end of Mind Over Matter's duration that causes basic attack damage. Lord Shiva's Tiger Skin Grants Weretiger at a random spot on the skill grid. Allows skill usage as the Weretiger or White Tiger. Vessel of Brahmari Your minions are surrounded by a swarm of bees which drains their life, but damages enemies around them. Brahmastra All projectiles gain the homing property Duyi's Grasp Creates a trail of grasping undead hands the block enemy movement BUT allows the player to pass through. Allows players to create enclosures around enemies. Kumaras’ Curse Greatly increases reflect damage and missile reflect. Karna Kavacha Greatly increases absorb and avoidance. Rudraksha Mala Grants Mandala at a random spot on the skill grid. Mandala follows the player. Nagapasha Grants Poison Vial at a random spot on the skill grid. Enemies in the area of Poison Vial are slowed Yamapasha Gain the affixes of the last elite killed for 20 seconds. One of the things we've been unhappy with about the skill system is that a build only had a very limited set of combo skills to choose from. Since each combo skill requires 2 classes to access, 3 classes only allows access to around 5 combo skills. Another thing which we wanted to avoid was to find items which did cool things to skills but were useless to you unless you played that specific class. Many of the new mythic legendaries come with affixes which grant a skill (and sometimes change the way the skill works completely). These will affix a node on the skill grid with that skill as long as the item is equipped. These skill nodes can be used to access combo skills. You might’ve also noticed that a good number of these come from Hindu mythology. In Hindu mythology, supernatural weapons are not just one-off artefacts. Instead, they are metaphysical ‘astras’ that can be invoked or bestowed. In one epic known as the Mahabharata, the legendary figure Ashwatthama managed to summon a weapon of the god Brahma from just a blade of grass. Lore-wise, this means we have an in-universe explanation as to why duplicates of Mythical Legendary Items can exist. If you read the Classified Reports, you will know that Ghostlore also goes through some length to justify in-universe why random loot drops happen, and why people fight with swords and bows when post-industrial revolution technology exists.

SLAY DEMONS IN STYLE

In addition, to make Mythic Legendary items feel more special, many of them will have unique graphics. Because of all this, it was necessary for us to re-visit the player character’s 3D model to make these new graphics and animations. While we're at it, we thought it'd be good to give the players a bit more customisation options too. Here is a sneak peek: {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/41358888/89fc805db7e8bb69d517fc45c425566f78e41ac8.png Yes, Ghostlore’s graphics are actually 3D models pre-rendered into spritesheets at a very low resolution. But that's another story for another time. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/41358888/43a61b7558a37bf2bbd630a5654775c2e88a3356.png {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/41358888/292b5c11111947d61e13491d22577bb547b03b59.png We also plan to change the UI to be able to showcase a turnaround of your character: {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/41358888/ec22a9bbbd47984410869861d3614e74f7e70fac.png Please bear in mind that all this is still work-in-progress. Things might change, be expanded upon, or even left on the cutting room floor if we cannot manage it (hopefully we can). We set ourselves a deadline to get all new features out by August. We have other exciting features planned, but this update has gone on for long enough. Please look forward to what we have to share next time! Andrew

Work on Legendary Items

One of the most requested features for Ghostlore are 'Legendary' items in the usual ARPG sense, where they have fixed affixes that may be designed around a certain theme, or intended to support a certain build. I am currently trying to brainstorm ideas for these new legendaries for the update. I would like to ask if anyone has any memorable experiences with specific legendary items in other ARPGs, such as Path of Exile, Diablo Series, Grim Dawn, Torchlight and Last Epoch. It would be super super helpful if you can any ideas either here or in our Discord. I hope to be inspired by hearing what the community wants and try to adapt it into Ghostlore. THANK YOU 🙏 Andrew

Update 1.014

Fixed issue with minions and shadow clones not being affected by map buffs/debuffs.
Fixed bug causing items to overlap in inventory when max stack is reached.
Fixed crash when modding powers and status effects.

Update 1.015

Moved critical hit chance bonus from llo to Alasa.
Slightly reduced critical hit multiplier rolls across the board.
Greatly reduced avoidance increase per level for all monsters and minions and increased based avoidance.
Buffed damage reflection rolls.
Reduced exorcise resistance reduction strength.
Changed exorcise absorb reduction to be flat -15 instead of multiplicative. This is to fix a bug where exorcise causing absorb to go negative would stack with another skill which also caused absorb to go negative, leading to the target gaining absorb instead.
Fixed maximum sound instances not set for some sound effects. This shoud fix performance issues with Monsoon and poison vial.
Fixed missing localization for MP steal multiplicative.

It's spooky season once again, and Ghostlore is 25% off to get you into the festive mood! As mentioned previously, Ghostlore has some pretty respectable numbers for a small indie game done by two people. But what we are most grateful for are the players who have played the game for literally hundreds of hours. (seriously how do you guys do that) As game developers, we believe that our job and our value is to entertain people and bring joy to their lives. Nothing makes us happier than seeing that we have been able to do this. So, this update is focused on new endgame content that allows hardcore players to test their mettle against a variety of self-imposed challenges.

CHAOS PORTALS

{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/41358888/110cd7ed9a0ad9e51e0e961dd81230ded1e489dd.png While traversing the depths of Hell, you might sometimes find these corrupted, purple portals. These portals will lead to the Chaos Arena, where you must fend off waves of enemies. Completing the challenge gives you a chance to enter the Orang Bunian's Realm, and/or a chance to skip to the next floor of Hell. Oh, and of course, loot. Bear in mind that the death penalty for Hell Levels is still in effect, so it is up to you if you want to risk it or not.

A MYSTERIOUS OLD LADY

In certain places (or non-places), you might meet a mysterious old lady with a backpack full of Keropok, crispy crackers made from prawns that is popular here in South-East Asia. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/41358888/9e96f7cd6c346bdeb37e9f48fb8cbeb578725a30.png 👀👀👀seems kinda sus👀👀👀 She asks if you would like to have something to eat, and insists on serving you some food with her special Keropok... {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/41358888/5e803f96f750fe6792ad40ee230763684a9a8bca.pngVERY VERY SUS ...Do you accept? Like many things in Ghostlore, this is based on an actual ghost story found here in Singapore. But this time around, I'm not going to tell you how this is all supposed to work. If you know, you know. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/41358888/487c331b0343fddf083648c7b3470531b1589b5a.png One more thing, you might occasionally find this enigmatic figure travelling the open road as well. Catching up with her allows you to claim the contents of her backpack as your spoils. But you better be quick about it though, she runs pretty fast for an old lady (Like your Encik's fabled grandmother).

IN CLOSING

We still have a couple of updates planned for Ghostlore and we are looking for feedback on our Discord. But for now, this one goes out to all our loyal players out there. Thank you, and happy hunting this Halloween!

Ghostlore is a made-in-Singapore game with a setting inspired by Singaporean and Southeast-Asian culture, so in order to commemorate Singapore's Independence Day on the 9th of August, Ghostlore will be on a 25% discount this weekend! Shoutout to our sister countries, Malaysia and Indonesia, who will also be celebrating their Independence Days later this month too!

Ghostlore has succeeded far beyond our wildest dreams, with 30k+ downloads on Steam, 100k+ downloads across all platforms and a peak of 1000+ concurrent players. Most of the work since launch has been to fix bugs found by players. We have also tried to address some of the common criticisms found in reviews. Here is a quick recap of the improvements since launch.

QOL improvements

We have greatly increased the size of the personal stash.
Improvements and new options for the item filter.
Improved character stat tooltips to correctly include all modifiers.
Show items on ground toggle is now saved between sessions.
Added option to bind a third key to actions.
At crafters, you can now craft equipment and gems to the max level by holding the shift key.

{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/41358888/7d7e30379177c7ec49c05d95774d93f89222c82d.png

Post-game map improvements

We've worked on addressing the issues people have had with the end-game content. The hell gate maps should now be a lot more challenging but also more rewarding and feel less tedious. After killing a certain amount of monsters on an Institute or Hell Gate Map, keep a lookout for a red portal that will appear in the vicinity. The portal will transport you directly to the boss. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/41358888/4f58d221fb46cc798af56fec1db6fbbd69720c6d.png All Institute and Hell Gate maps will now only require you to kill 1 boss in order to proceed to the next map. We have removed the requirement for multiple bosses. We realized that the unique affixes which only came from the shrine of balance led to the shrine being the only source of "perfect" items. We've added a new rare Tranquil Turmoil crafting material which adds this affix to any item. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/41358888/a4f1bd675ebacd3854c39519e555d076b3db9a98.png Finally, Hell ingots now have a chance to drop from elites as well as bosses. The chance of hell ingots dropping also increases as you go deeper.

Balance and build variety

We've made some small changes here but are mostly still waiting for more feedback on which skills or combinations are too strong or weak. A big part of Ghostlore is being able to create absurdly powerful characters, so we don't want to nerf skills too much. At the same time there's definitely still a lot of work to be done to make some options viable and others less of an obvious choice. With the complexity of the skill system this is hard to do without feedback from players.

Modding

Adam and I both got our start in game development by modding, so personally we are happy to see that there have already been some mods for Ghostlore. Adam is happy to answer any modding questions or even help implement features modders want in our Discord. As modders, we strongly encourage players to go crazy and mod whatever they would like to see in the game. So in addition to the official mods, we would like to highlight some community mods that have caught our attention: QoL changes by Godog Russian Translation by Blueberry InfiniPin by BlackNemo Dual wield by Bonizin Fair warning, this last one might not be good in all circumstances, but it did spark some discussion of where we want to go in future updates, as outlined below.

Future plans

Our plans revolve around changes to itemization to make them more varied. Possibilities include:

More gear slots for shirts, pants, boots etc.
Visual customization and more visual variety
Proper dual wielding
Legendary items with unique affixes and designed around a theme
Affixes that add or modify skills to a character
Cosmetic pets that can pick up gold or items

This is going to be a major update, akin to what we did for the skills overhaul and post-game overhaul. We will continue to release smaller updates and fixes, but the major item update will likely be only done next year. In the meantime, Ghostlore is 25% off for the Steam Summer Sale, please enjoy the game and keep the feedback coming!

Update 1.010

Fix for status effect chance defense calculation for player. Player HP used in calculation was being capped like a normal mob.

Update 1.009

Adjusted crows to be less tanky and leopards to be less damaging.
Reduced strength of elemental mastery buff.
Effects which scale based on damage done divided by target health (like cast on critical) should now be more useful against bosses.
Adjusted max item crafting level to match new higher hell gate monster levels.
Fixed coop not being able to select start button with controller with 3 or more players.
Fixed "hide" command for item filters, added "continue" command to item filters.
Shrine of balance and spirits should now be more likely to roll items from players with 0 score.

The boss in hell and institute levels will now open a portal to summon you to it once a proportion of monsters on the level have been killed.
Cemetery and quarry now only have one boss in institute and hell levels.
When crafting at the jeweller or blacksmith you can now hold shift to combine gems/level items 1000 times .
When combining gems, the last gem now gets sent to inventory if left over.
Fixed a bug which was causing monster spawn numbers to always roll towards the bottom of the range.
Added "Hide" command to item filters.
Adding a number to the "HasAffix" command of item filters will now cause it to have to match that number of affixes. For example HasAffix 2 "Health" "HP Multiplier" "MP Regen will cause it to only pass for items which match 2 out of the 3 affixes.
Fixes to controller UI for coop mode.
Added option to hide rain effects.
Show items on ground toggle is now saved between sessions.
Fixed not being able to rebind alternate slot 1-4 keys to mouse and keyboard
Added option for another alternate key binding.
Fixed coins on ground not being handled correctly, staying between maps and hanging around in general.
Fixed localization loading from mods.

Character stash has been tripled in size.
New Tranquil Turmoil crafting item. Very rare spawn from elites and bosses in institute missions only (affected by crafting material map modifier). Gives/replaces shrine of balance modifier to equipment.
Hell ingots now also have a chance of dropping from elites in hell gate levels. Boss drop rate reduced to compensate.
Specific item drop multiplier stats now affect drop chance instead of stack size.
Fixed coin drop multiplier stat not working.

Fixed a major bug with the extra affix magic simple glyphs get. When spawned they rolled for the correct value (half the value of normal affixes). However when the game is saved and loaded back the game wrongly clamps the value using the full affix range, sometimes causing the value to be higher than it is even possible to roll for. The range tooltip was also using the wrong (full) range.
UI Scaling setting will now be ignored if set high enough to cause the UI to overlap.
Fixed sneaky vendors stealing coins but not giving you the item if item is dragged over a quest item.
Fixed players being able to buy gem pouches into the commodity cube, breaking it. Gem pouch can now be dragged out of the cube.
Fixed multiple trigger modifiers of the same type being checked one after another instead of using the combined chance shown in the tooltip.
Fixed tooltip showing minion avoidance twice instead of minion movement speed.
Improved character stat tooltips to show all stat multipliers.
Tooltip for damage and absorb now correctly includes modifier from Crisis absorb and damage.

Balance Changes

Hellgate level size now grows much less slowly.
Hellgate monster level increases by 5 instead of 4.
Added chance for hell levels to roll some affixes from institute pool.
Lower base ingot drop chance, Boost in ingot drop rate from hell level depth.
Increased chance for map data to spawn rare.
Slightly increased monster level scaling for base story.
Completing the lead ghosthunter new class quest now gives player a free skill respec book.
Increase to potion cooldown time.
Reduced fury, trigger on critical hit chance.
Trigger on movement skill now grants cast speed increase on trigger.
Slightly reduced aphotic lurker, stone guardian damage.

Bug Fixes

Fixed hell map generation for large hell maps having a misaligned pathing grid.
Fixed crash when too many poison vial instances.
Fixed player being trapped in sewer if they kill go back to normal sewers after end of game and kill all the waves.
Fixed Kenchanaraya Ruins sometimes not generating correctly.
Fixed elemental mastery scaling incorrectly, causing exponential damage growth.
Fix for csv mods and item filters when game is played from places where comma for decimals is used (game will always expect periods for decimal points).
Fix re-awakening item only removing part of the affix.
CSV mods can now create new items.
New steam leaderboard for maximum hell depth reached.
Fixed map data locked icon not clearing until game is restarted.

Nerfs to summons damage scaling.
Reduced weretiger family attack speed buff.
Fixed assigning RB and LB to skills on controller.
Added credits for Toki Pona.

Update 1.003

Fix for csv mods.

Ghostlore has come a long way since it's Early Access launch around this time last year. We launched with only half of the total planned locations in our game. Our only initial promise was to finish up all the locations in the main story and do some minor bugfixing and polishing. We worked hard to release a new map every month and by September, the game was story complete. We didn't just stop there, however. Based on player feedback, we decided to spend the remaining months to go beyond the initial scope of the project, and implement major overhaul and expansion of the skill system and end-game systems. Here's a quick look back in case you missed it: https://steamcommunity.com/games/1783280/announcements/detail/3430079961712346390 https://steamcommunity.com/games/1783280/announcements/detail/3654144191653657037 Although the development of Ghostlore in this current state started in 2020 when the COVID lockdowns enabled work-from-home, I spent the year before that working solo, spending my nights and weekends to create a prototype, and before that, learning the basics of how to create a game. But even going as far back as my teenage years - even though the final vision was never a hundred percent clear to me - I had always dreamed of creating an action RPG. It was the reason why I went to university to study digital art and animation. So Ghostlore is the fulfilment of a lifelong dream. It has been a long journey. Longer than I can express. I am grateful to Adam, who I would say is half of what this current incarnation of Ghostlore is, using his programming skills to bring the world of Ghostlore to life in a much more fully realised form than I would have been able to do alone. I am grateful to Sarah who signal-boosted Ghostlore and grew the community on various platforms, and provided me with networking opportunities as well as help navigating business contracts. I am grateful to everyone else who contributed in the early days, before the game was even called Ghostlore, and to my family, who provided me with the lucky circumstances that enabled me to work on the game without having to worry about debt or illness. And most of all, I am grateful for all the players who have bought, played, and even streamed the game during its Early Access period. Ghostlore is not going to be a game for everyone, but for those of you who get it, get it, and are able to sink hundreds of hours into the game. Each and every one of you is important to us, and we have done our very best to fix the bugs you reported and implement the features you requested, to make Ghostlore the best action-RPG experience we could provide. ... …Well, what more can I say? Ghostlore is on a 25% launch discount, so get it while you can! You don’t just have to listen to me though, you can check out what Splattercat and Tenkiei have to say about Ghostlore:

POST LAUNCH PLANS

Adam and I still have some cool ideas we would like to explore, especially when it comes to itemization. There are plans for more varied visual customization as well. We are aware of various balance issues, especially with the end game. We would also like to flesh out basic attacks more. We will continue to fix any bugs that are found. In addition, we are aware that online co-op is a highly requested feature, but it is a lot of effort and not something we can afford to do unless the game does well. Currently however, I am tired and I am sure Adam is too. We would like to take a break from active development. In the meantime, we hope players will be able to enjoy all Ghostlore 1.0 has to offer. Thank you and see you in Seaport! Best, Andrew

New optional boss spawns in Hospital and Batu Sinaran.
Buffs and targeting improvements for lightning flash skill.
Buffs to fireball and geomancer skill cooldowns.
Reduced maximum affix rolls for additional minions stat and item quantity stat.
Slightly increased maximum affix rolls for skill and attack damage stats.
Fixed holding shift/RT to use alkahest on multiple items.
Some buffs to some of the less useful compound glyph synergy bonuses.

Update 0.762

Tweaks and improvements to bosses (especially the 4 newer bosses).
Fix for mission UI with controller.
Cleaned up item/glyph tooltips.
Added keybind to toggle map details tooltip.
Moved target dummies out of the way in some maps.
Hellforge reroll affix option no longer has chance of rolling same affix.
Fixed newer bosses using wrong loot table.
Improvements to minion idle behaviour.

Update 0.763

Fixed rare cases where tree would spawn on top of the starting position, making an invalid map and kicking the player back to town.
Fixed issues with dormant items and creatures.
Fixed map generation sometimes allowing access to inaccessible areas.

Can click on item to move it around (can still drag normally).
Added shift click (LT for controller) to split item stacks.
Shift + ctrl click while buying/selling buys/sells the whole stack.
Buffed analyze weakness passive.
Fixed bug with damage over time (potentially mixing up damage timers for different status effects).
Fixed lack of creature spawners on hell "optical illusion" chunks.
Buff to dashing strike and stampede collision checking (can pass through more things).
Fixed "additional bosses" map modifier.
Fixed Sixth sense class passive not working correctly.
Added movement speed buff to Ignore pain and Fear class passives to help with classes lack of movement skill.
Orang Bunian now more polite when blessing items.

Update 0.760

Fixed bug in map gen for hell 3 map.
Stampede, lightning flash tagged as movement skills.
Fixed item tooltip flashing when item comparison opened.
Items from item shrine can no longer have duplicate shrine affixes.

Minimap pins for bosses should now show up from much further away.
Improvements to item and glyphs tooltip comparisons. Glyph tooltips now show comparison with glyph in current position when you are equipping glyphs.
Quest completion now gives a small amount of EXP.
Reduced hellgate "first time" cost.
Buffs to short ranged/melee skills.
Poison Knives can now "shotgun" single targets.
Poison vial now has a much bigger AOE.
Increased alkahest drop rate.
Small buffs to "on hit" status effects.
Small nerfs to minion damage scaling from base player level.
Reduced map size gain for some maps.
Hantu Raya should be less cowardly now.
Shrine of balance no longer stacks multiple shrine affixes on items.
Fixed bug with quick moving of items (using ctrl + click).

Hell short portals should now show up on minimap.
Pressure point no longer stacks with each hit. Multiple stacks still have a chance to trigger multiple times, but the chance goes down with each stack.
Fixed the no potion and monster aggression modifiers for missions.
Slight reduction in MP cost of hashashin starting skills.
Improved display of ground item tooltips.

New food panel next to lore, shows all available food recipes you have seen before. (Last patch, forgot to add to patch notes).
Slight buffs to skills with low damage multipliers, they also now have a slightly higher chance of triggering status effects for the same total damage.
Small buffs to help the pacing of the very early game, starting damage increases and first boss fight now has a chest which drops a bunch of simple glyphs.
Fixed thunder secondary hits not having collision, buff to thunder skill.
Fixed skill tooltips wrongly showing only bottom of damage range.
Controller aiming tweaks.
Animation tweak for skills which allow movement before they're done (visual only change).
Added name of game to popup for delete game to make sure right game is deleted.
Fixed coop bug causing items to be duplicated.
Fixed jenglot healing triggering instantly when reaching HP threshold.
Fixed tooltip for attack speed showing wrong final value.

Update 0.753

Shadow clones now all are affected by the same debuff as the "main" player clone. The way the buff strength stat affects this debuff is now additive and caps out at no debuff (250% buff strength).
Fixed quest reward for end game quests.
Changed institute return from mission position.
Auto pickup item radius increased.

Slightly reduced monster damage scaling and slightly increased health scaling.
Fixed recently introduced bug causing the quest to not trigger in Sewers if a portal is open.
Fixed bug causing autopickup items on floor to be in an invalid state if player dies near them.
Controller UI fixes and improvements.
Can now sell to shop buyback tab directly.
Fixed long hair option not working.

Update 0.750

Significantly reduced rate of map size gain.
Fixed map generation issue causing the first stage of hell to generate invalid maps.
Fixed controller stylist UI.

Improvements to controller movement.
Fixed bug causing melee weapons (especially Kris and Kukris) not targeting the right direction.
Fixed bug causing chickens and otters to spawn wrongly.
Fixed not being able to pick up items when controller aim assist is turned completely off.
Fixed bug causing Orang Bunians to respawn.
Added item quantity buff to coop to match HP buff. Coop effects can now be seen in the map modifiers tooltip.
Various fixes for coop UI.
Fixed controller being unassigned after going to options menu.

Update 0.745

Fixed bug with jeweller "Destroy item but keep gem" option making invalid gems.
Fixed bug introduced in 0.73 patch causing gems to stack on already socketed gems. Any gems lost this way can be recovered with the "Destroy item but keep gem" option at the jeweller.
Various performance improvements, especially with shadow clones.
Improvements to leopards blocking players.
Slight buffs to leopard, slight nerf to ravens.

Significant performance improvements, especially for big maps.
Fixed bug causing old portals not to close correctly, leading to old inaccessible maps not being disposed of.
Food recipes now all each have one fixed affix in addition to current affixes (rarity roll slightly decreased to compensate).
Tweaks to food ingredient drop rate and some recipe requirements.
Fixed bug causing hell gate to deduct coins instead of hell notes.
Improved WASD and controller movement for high speed characters.
Slightly reduced minion amount skill modifier for Exorcist, increased avoidance gain to compensate.
Shadow clones no longer cause hitstop (was causing game to freeze slightly).
Fixed extra basic attack damage as elemental mods not working.
Holding down alt now displays minimum and maximum item modifier rolls.
More new BGMs for alternate lighting maps.

Update 0.724

Bufff for leopards and shadow cats.
Added absorb multiplier buff for weretigers and variants.
Guardian tiger fixed to correctly use basic attack damage instead of skill damage.

Update 0.733

Fixed crash on death.
New map effects for hellgate maps.
Improved skill combo tooltips.

Update 0.735

Fixed issue with socketed gems in coop and shared stash.
Localization fixes, localization should now default to device locale.

Localization beta: Ghostlore is now available in multiple languages, please report any issues with the translations.
New end of hell court boss fight.
Fixed bug with glyphs wrongly being equipable with the controller in some UI panels.
Performance improvements for seaport.
Awakened item modifiers now show in different color.
Various fixes for controller.
Fixed hell forge reforge sometimes not replacing the affix.

We are adding the finishing touches to Ghostlore! With the recent major update of the post-game behind us, our priorities are now on polish, bug-fixing and localization. If you haven't already seen it, check out our update to post game content here: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1783280/view/3654144191653657036 NOTABLE CHANGES Since then, we have made several quality-of-life changes to gameplay based on feedback from players on our Discord. Of note:

All round reduction of prices of crafting and respec
On death, players now respawn next to portal in town if you have one active for the map. Please do bear in mind however that death in Ghostlore is already pretty lenient; you do not lose items or experience on death and without the 'walk of shame' there would essentially be no penalty. Players can also use the Ointment item to increase their movement speed.

IN PROGRESS We are still currently working on better controller/WASD support. So far there have been some improvements, however, certain issues still stand out to us:

Selecting a quest reward with the D-pad causes you to use up your consumables with the default button mapping
When transferring an item from an equip slot to a crafter using the controller, if your inventory is full, you will be unable to transfer the item back with the controller.
Several menus not yet working with controller

LOCALIZATION Localization to these languages is currently underway:

English
French
Italian
German
Spanish
Traditional Chinese
Simplified Chinese
Japanese
Korean
Malay
Indonesian
Thai
Vietnamese
Tagalog

CONCLUSION With all these minor issues remaining, we are fairly confident that we will be able to get the game ready for full release in May. In the meantime, the game will be 20% off for a limited time only. Hurry! There is no better time to get Ghostlore!

Ghostlore news & patch notes