Hi everyone,
Thanks so much for playing and enjoying Isle of Swaps so far. The reception has been great to hear.
Before all the feedback, I want to ask if you noticed the new images around Steam for Isle of Swaps? These have been drawn by Juan Zambrano who has illustrated a load of cards for the game. Noticeably one of Dina's starters: Aguatto. (Did you pick Aguatto as your starter btw?) I love Juan's art style and with his work on the cards it was an easy choice to ask him to draw the cover art too. Even after the cards and cover art, he's still up for more cards!
So now for the main bulk of this update: I've listened to feedback and watched people play the demo and I've been working on some changes to make the game even better!
It really boils down into 2 main categories, the first is:
{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/43570059/9bf783a45ae564f208219480824694d440c41ef8.png
What were the problems with deckbuilding?
- Critters added 3 skills to the battle deck which meant less room for the player to customise the deck
- Players only used the 3 skills that came with the Critters and didn't add other cards or only added stickers
- The above lent itself to the strategy of having a small deck to repeatedly use the same cards
- Players wanted to use rare critters but found their available deck shrinking limited that
- Cards you wanted to use were hard to come across and required you to give up a lot to swap for them
Those are some serious issues for a deckbuilder game, huh?
Here's what I've changed and you can play with right now
- Critters no longer add skills to your deck
- For every Critter added to your battle team, at least 6 Skill Cards need to be added too
- Skill Cards and Sticker Cards have separate slots
- You start with 10 Sticker slots but the rarity of, and how many, Critters you use reduces that
- Trainers you swap with will always have at least 1 Skill Card of every type
- The value of cards has decreased so you give up less to swap
- Trainers will now ask for a specific type of card (fire critters/water skills) and your swap will be more valuable if you offer those cards
- The starter deck now has extra copies of basic Energy and Attack cards for more swap fodder
- There's a second booster pack that's cheaper and filled with basic Energy and Attack cards
So basically, all 18 slots can be used for skills, with 10 separate slots for stickers. Stickers are still reduced based on how rare your Critters are as they're more powerful. And with the changes to swapping, it should be way easier to find cards you can use and then feel less punishing to get them.
But that's not all! There have also been some changes to:
{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/43570059/f298146c8d52858b9be45bbd53227656913b83cd.png
This is really just 1 big change and that is that
Defence now benefits Status Effects. This stemmed from defensive Critters not needing any Skill Cards to do well. They essentially worked as punching bags and due to (usually) low Power, they didnt need to attack. And conversely, every Critter could use Status Effects equally well, so a high Power Critter is good at damage and Status Effects.
Exactly how attack cards use Critters Power + a damage value on the card,
Skill Cards that inflict status effects now add the Critters Defence to that. Defence now boosts Heals and stacks of Burn, Soak, Shock and Poison. If you look at the header, Prinleaf has 5 Defence (and 2 Power), and the Healing Petals card now Heals , so a Prinleaf using this heals 8 damage to her team!
Now
high Defence Critters are usable as Status Effect appliers which I hope adds more variety to team building.
Another impactful update is how Power and Defence are changed throughout the battle. Before Power and Defence either went up by 2 or down by 2 and that buff lasted X amount of turns. But
now it's a sliding scale between -3 and +3 for 3 turns. This means if you gain +1 Power from a card it'll last for 3 turns. Use the card again and you'll have +2 Power with the effect refreshing back to 3 turn duration.
Hungry for more changes?
- Dina's ability is different: Any card she offers for a swap has increased value. Swapmaster!
- When one of your Critters is defeated all cards of its element are removed from your deck (if you dont have another Critter of the same type). No more dud hands.
- Losing battles only takes 1 Critter off you, instead of your whole team
- Skill Cards now replace the / etc on the card with the correct number when you hover the card over a Critter
- Spot Effects now stack if the card is played again
- The Battle Deck can be edited in the Shop and during Swaps
- The Battle Deck orders your cards by type
- Each type is weak to 2 other types. It's now easier to know what the enemy is potentially weak to
- Status Effect tooltips show up wherever the cards do
- All the buttons have text on them to help playing
It's a huge list and there's still more! If you want to see all the changes that have gone into the demo then you can see the patch notes here
Give it a try and tell me what you think of this update!
Play the demo today and wishlist for Isle of Swaps.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2294160/Isle_of_Swaps
