Soulash news & patch notes

Greetings fellow gods, As many of you may know, I've been able to commit myself fully to game development for the past year, and I've been hard at work on the sequel to Soulash. I've decided to begin a new project to redesign it from the ground up with all the features I had in mind during the failed Kickstarter in 2021, with all the stretch goals we had at the time - procedural world and history simulation, procedural locations, factions, building, and skill-based progression system. I've also included many of the requests I've received from players, adding trading, expanding the crafting system, adding mouse movement, removing durability, expanding the modding capabilities, adding procedural portraits, and more. I might not have left a stone unturned. :) https://i.imgur.com/hV8yM3v.png https://i.imgur.com/wc1Fw2P.png Soulash 2 will be a unique mix of traditional roguelike, roleplaying, sandbox, and strategy genres. The easiest way to describe where I want the game to end up is somewhere between Soulash, DF Adventure, and M&B Bannerlord. I don't want to oversell this idea because the game is developed by me and a single artist on a very low budget and attempting to make a game unlike any available today, but I believe strongly in this vision and that it will result in a unique and fun gaming experience that will fit the theme of world conquest perfectly. The story will continue after the world's destruction in Soulash, but progressing through it will be optional, and there will be more opportunities in the game to pursue your own goals. I've been documenting the entire development process in devlogs every 2 weeks (26 by now) if you would like to know the details about the changes and current state of the game, as well as my plans for where the game is going. New devlogs are announced on Discord every other Friday. And today, I'm happy to announce that we have a Steam page for Soulash 2 to gather wishlists in preparation for the EA launch that will happen sometime this year, with the details about what the sequel will be about and the EA questionnaire about the overall plans for its duration and scope. You can wishlist the game here to get notified on release and follow it for further announcements.

Greetings fellow gods, Small hotfix today to address issues with UTF-8 characters in Windows username causing crash on startup. Fixed - Fixed a crash related to Windows username using non-latin characters. - Fixed a crash related to attacks performed by some not aggressive animals, like deer.

Greetings fellow gods, Quick hotfix today to address the crafting menu crash.

Changed

- Resting and sleeping no longer closes the Crafting Screen.

Fixed

- Fixed crash in Crafting Screen when hovering over Heavy Crossbow. Edit: Hotfix 1.0.12.2 fixes the issue related to rest until healed and sleep not being canceled correctly.

Greetings fellow gods, Today's update addresses some bugs and improvements reported on the official Soulash Discord server, as well as a new unique item - Deck of Entities, a single-use item designed by Sinful, one of our Patrons, that can provide a random benefit or disadvantage. See the full changelog below:

Added

- New unique item Deck of Entities designed by Sinful. - The delete key will now clear the contents of an active input field. - Mouse wheel can now be used to zoom in or out in the Map Editor. - Temporary entities now have information on when they will disappear in their tooltip.

Changed

- Improved navigation in Mod Editors and added hotkeys for New Entity, New Ability, and New Animation buttons. - Items of type Resource like tree trunks that have Armor no longer display resistances in its tooltip. - Recipe learning message during salvage now displays the base item name instead of the name changed by applied affixes. - Increased backpack tabs from 2 to 4. - Increased damage of Heavy Crossbow by 2. - Enemies will now attack the player on different z-level when it blocks the stairs. - The camera no longer changes position when moving between different region maps in Map Editor.

Fixed

- Fixed an issue with abilities not being learned by the player on killing gods by summons. - Fixed the "on impact" and "inner animation" mappings in non-overwriting mods. - Fixed AoE animations in mods sometimes being displaced and centered around the character despite correctly damaging a selected area. - Fixed an issue in Map Editor that caused the last spawn group to not show up if there were more than 12. - Some rings and amulets couldn't be crafted with affixes. - Fixed sidebar scroll in Entity Maker not resetting position when creating a new entity. - Fixed crash in Data Table modding screen. - Fixed rare crashes during the new world generation. - When Golden Lamp durability drops to 0, it's no longer possible to cast Summon Djinni that comes from the item. - Having an ability from an item doesn't prevent it from being learned when leveling up. - Fixed message for tile-based abilities to indicate they need to be cast on an unoccupied tile. - AI with a light source will no longer keep spamming the Light spell on itself. - Immobile enemies will no longer get stuck attempting to chase the player. - Fixed an issue that prevented the display of some particles in Animation Editor on low resolution. - Hidden enemies are no longer marked as valid targets on abilities, which previously allowed to determine where's the target by the color of the border. Enjoy, Artur

​Greetings fellow gods, We have a new update today, with a unique item designed by Sinful, one of our Patrons, a bunch of fixes, and QoL improvements. Changelog below:

Added

- New unique item, Gauntlet of the Lich Lord - designed by Sinful. - Added Unarmed, Improvised, and Natural weapon types to available ability requirements. - Added the possibility to increase or decrease the craft counter in the Crafting screen with plus and minus keys when an item is selected and not currently being crafted. - Added the possibility to change the z-level with plus and minus keys on the Map screen. - Two new properties for Durability in Entity Editor.

Changed

- Look action can now be remapped in Keymap. - Stackable items can no longer have affixes. - Map screen keys used to move the map now correspond to the movement keys selected instead of wasd/arrow keys.

Fixed

- Fixed crash when the item being dragged no longer exists. - Fixed wording on some abilities mentioning targeting enemies when they affect allies as well. - Fixed missing background tiles in one of the regions of Yelling Mountains. - Fixed graphic issue related to Mushman icon. - Fixed Torch having ranged attack animation. - Crafting recipes now properly show negative resistances. - Kobolds now have unique names and no longer use goblin descriptions. - It's now possible to drink when the thirst meter is at 100% while having a dehydration mark. - Fixed victory tweet on Cemetery screen. - Fixed true damage, sometimes removing background tiles. - AI characters no longer use Break ability on the player. - Fixed issue that prevented display of cemetery files when Windows user name had a dash. - Fixed AI sometimes not casting debuff abilities. - Numpad 0 - 9 keys are now considered different keys than numeric when assigning them in Keymap. - Inventory, Map, Abilities screens key no longer work when in the Options screen, causing issues when remapping them. - It's now possible to use Crafting screen key on Inventory screen to swap directly between the screen. Enjoy!

Greetings fellow gods, Today as we start the Going Rogue Festival on Steam with a 20% discount on Soulash, we have some very special treats for you in our latest v1.0.10 update. This new patch brings 2 major additions - Difficulty Settings before starting a new game, and data tables for modding. We have 4 tweaks that you can customize for both Easy and Hard difficulty modes. https://i.imgur.com/UeMYGen.png For easy difficulty, you can reduce enemy stats and health to make them easier or speed up combat encounters if you feel they are too drawn out. You can start with a couple of Phoenix Feathers if you're not a big fan of permadeath, each feather will heal you to full just when you're about to die. And last but not least, you can bump the durability of items if you don't feel like replacing your gear too often. All of the easy difficulty tweaks will reduce your final score, but all achievements can be unlocked. The normal difficulty remains as it was, and the hard difficulty offers 4 more tweaks that cannot be combined with easy difficulty tweaks. https://i.imgur.com/MRraodc.png The increased number of spawn groups will make the world denser in a couple of places, especially in the early game where there's a lot more variety in types of enemies in different regions. Additional abilities can be added to every enemy, which will make the opponents that are known to be easy, a bit more unpredictable. Trust me, Brown Bears are really not that scary on Normal, but Brown Bears casting Winds of Decay and Dragon's Breath are. The abilities will match the enemy level when possible. The next setting, item quality, will make it so enemies will have better gear on themselves, which is a double-edged sword since that will make them stronger, but also means you will acquire better gear quicker as you go on your murderous rampage. This setting will reduce the benefit of crafting, which also means it won't be as easy to gain that extra advantage over your enemies by creating extra items. And the final setting is for those of you who prefer a more impactful survival mechanics - an increase of consumption systems like hunger, thirst, bloodthirst, golem resource consumption, etc. The second major addition is mainly for modding, but also for people who feel the need to play with a wiki with all the answers. We've added Data tables with a lot of information regarding mods data files - listing all enemies, items, resources, and abilities, with a lot of information about how to acquire them, or which crafting recipes use them. To access modding editors you'll need to start your own mod by following the instructions provided with the game inside the Soulash/data/docs/index.html file. As you're there, take a stab at making a mod, it doesn't require any coding, you can create your own maps, items, enemies, and abilities by simply duplicating and tweaking what already exists. Below is the full changelog.

Added

• New difficulty selection screen when starting a new game with customizable difficulty settings for additional easy and hard modes. Tweaking these options will affect the final score.
  • Easy: The durability selection screen (100% - 500%) will increase the base durability of items in the game.
  • Easy: Pick starting Phoenix Feathers (0 - 3) to prevent death.
  • Easy: Change enemy health (100% - 50%). If you would like to speed up the fights, be aware, however, that his option affects summons as well.
  • Easy: Change enemy stats (100% - 60%). If you find enemies too difficult to progress in the game, this option will reduce their base stats resulting in lower damage and resistances. This option affects summons as well.
  • Hard: Spawn groups per region (1 - 3). More enemies will spawn when more than one alternative spawn group is available in the region. This will result in a more dense world with more enemies in some areas.
  • Hard: Enemy random abilities (0 - 2), every enemy created during world generation receives additional abilities. This affects regular enemies and minibosses but does not affect summons or gods.
  • Hard: Enemy gear level (0 - 10). The quality of items used by enemies depends on their level. This attribute will bump that quality by up to 10 levels, giving them a higher chance to wield magic and artifact items.
  • Hard: Extra consumption (100% - 350%). This setting affects how quickly hunger, thirst, bloodthirst, and other consumption-related mechanics will be reduced.
• Data Table option is now available in Mod Editors, providing a lot of information about entities and abilities in the mod. Beware, this screen contains massive spoilers! You can access Entity Editor from these lists by selecting a specific entity.
  • List all AI actors with the ability to filter them by level. The list includes their health, stats, speed, and worn items.
  • Abilities list is split by profession and level, as well as universal level 0 abilities available only on items.
  • List of all weapons in the game with additional filter by type, including all weapons statistics and information about who wields them.
  • List of all armors in the game with additional filter by type, including all statistics of armors and information about who wears them.
  • List of all resources in the game with information about the value, weight, and their usage in crafting.
• Added Spawn Group editor documentation in Soulash/data/docs/index.html modding documentation with instructions on using modding tools to create new enemy groups.
• Added Affixes documentation in Soulash/data/docs/index.html modding documentation with instructions on adding your own prefixes, suffixes, and artifacts.

Changed

• Changed the Stone Stairs graphic to be more visible in the Forgotten Temple location.
• Candles and Lanterns now have durability.
• Draw All Glyphs is now selected by default in the mod creation screen so that Core GFX works correctly by default. It should be disabled for ASCII mods.

Fixed

• AI no longer constantly attempts to summon a zombie on top of an existing zombie.
• Giant Spider no longer leaves a humanoid corpse.

I hope the patch will make the game more enjoyable for you guys, and keep providing us with that valuable feedback! Please let everyone know about the game and about the Going Rogue discount if you do enjoy it! Artur

Greetings fellow gods, Soulash v1.0.9 is now live and it features Mushman, a new playable race designed by one of our Patrons - Thorvall, a Lizardman race buff, crafting improvements, auto pickup of shot arrows, and other fixes and improvements. https://i.imgur.com/mShumyM.png Full changelog below:

Added

- New playable race - Mushman, designed by Thorvall! - Added Clean Up action icon on the equipment screen when a liquid container is selected. - Player character will pick up shot arrows automatically when walking in range. - Added the "Max count" button to the crafting screen to fill in the count input considering the available resources. - Added filter buttons to the crafting screen to easily filter craftables by item types.

Changed

- Lizardman now has his bonus movement speed while under Wet effect instead of only when walking on the water tiles. - Repentance now scales off enemy intelligence and 300% of its base weapon damage instead of scaling from caster intelligence. Cooldown increased from 4 turns to 10. - Potions are not of item type Usable instead of Resource. - Slightly increased chance for Elven Villagers and Human Peasants to have Scissors. - Destroying Bookcases can now provide Paper.

Fixed

- Fixed missing background tiles under the fence on one of the regions. - Fixed drunk liquid counter on the death screen. - Fixed frames drop on AI archer getting stuck on attempting to attack the player. - Gigantic Dwarf achievement correctly works when playing as a dwarf only. - Fixed some dialogue typos. - Fixed crash that happened when dragged corpse got butchered. - Fixed a rare crash related to AI attempting to stash loot without a proper place in the area. - Fixed a rare crash during the liquid changing tile (for example, blood tile changing to when exceeding a certain limit). - It's no longer possible to drop the stack of items while splitting it, causing a crash. - Fixed Cheat Console crash when attempting to spawn without providing an entity id. - Fixed issue that sometimes caused teleportation to unload parts of the region nearby and caused a crash when attempting to teleport into that region. Enjoy!

Greetings fellow gods, It took me a while, but I finally got to implement the font selection and sizes in the options, including support for adding additional fonts through mods. There are a couple of other important changes in this patch, like leveling multiple times at once now provides an ability for each level. Thank you all for sticking around and I hope you're enjoying the game!

Added

- Added Fonts section in Options, allowing to modify the font and size used in different parts of the game. - New fonts can now be added through the assets.json "fonts" property in mods (see the core mod, for example).

Changed

- Angelic Wings now allow teleportation without durability. - Base recipes available to all starting characters are no longer spawning in the world. - The targeting line no longer stops on a valid target outside of the visible range, which previously helped determine the enemy's position. - Abilities that add extra damage on hit no longer cause split damage scaling (Int + Str or Dex) on physical abilities. - Leveling up is now processed one after another in case of gaining enough experience to level up multiple times at once.

Fixed

- Fixed crash related to the message log. - Fixed Deadly Grasp animation position when performed by AI entities. - Fixed message when using the action "Rest until healed" with full health. - Fixed map name mistake in one of the late game areas. - The experience bar doesn't go out of bounds anymore. - Fixed bounds of character statistics and resistances on higher resolutions, so they fit the inventory window. - Fixed position of event messages on higher resolution. - Fixed crash in the Ability Editor when core required mod is not chosen. - Fixed issues related to message log slider jumping out of drag position.

Greetings fellow gods, A couple of QoL improvements, buff to Bear Trap & Flame Pillar, and a bunch of fixes in today's patch.

Added

- Added Dialogues tab in the message log to filter out other messages than dialogues. - Added Cheat Console key to Keymap in Options, requires a printable character. - Added ability bar second tab, togglable with left ctrl key (available in Keymap settings).

Changed

- Bear Trap base damage reduced to 20 - 25 from 30 - 35, and added scaling of half of the caster dexterity. - Flame Pillar base damage reduced to 5 - 10 from 20 - 25, and added scaling of half of the caster intelligence. - In Equipment -> Combat tooltips, added information about the unarmed attack when applicable.

Fixed

- Fixed an issue that prevented walking over a bridge when there was a Blood Pool on it. - Fixed an issue that caused the crafting list to not refresh when learning a new recipe. - Pond of Blood now correctly contains blood instead of water and can be frozen. - Fixed Gigantic Dwarf achievement. - Fixed successful corruption message to indicate who gets corrupted by whom correctly. - Fixed Arrow Shrapnels ability targeting and damage. - Same abilities coming from different sources now share a cooldown. Unequipping an item no longer resets the cooldown of ability that it provides. - Fixed exp gain message and death animation when an enemy dies by a static entity like Bear Trap or Flame Pillar and when it kills itself. - Improvements in AI processing in enemy heavy areas. - Blocked extra unarmed attacks when wielding a two-handed weapon. Edit: v1.0.7.1 fixes a rare crash related to dialogues.

The next update brings 2 new artifacts, new actions allowing to sleep through the day/night, buff to staves, and lots of fixes. As usual, some of the changes will not apply to already generated worlds.

Added

- New Artifact: Hood of a Thousand Eyes - designed by one of our Patrons - OccultOnion! - New Artifact: Smid's Hammer - New actions "Sleep until small hours" and "Sleep until evening". - Added Dead Oak Tree, and Opal entities. - Moon Amulet and Opal Ring are now craftable.

Changed

- It's no longer possible to summon on an empty spot where there's not at least a background tile available. - Updated Net Throw ability description to mention opposite immobilize effect check. - Having no weapons equipped will make two unarmed attacks instead of one. Having only one-handed weapon equipped without a shield will make an additional unarmed attack. - Some previously disabled artifacts can now be crafted after items become indestructible. - Increased damage of staves.

Fixed

- Iluvia can no longer be killed twice. - Updated Flame Pillar description to be more precise. - Fixed displayed drunk units of water / blood in the Cemetery entry. - Improved performance of Crafting screen with many recipes. - Fixed Angel of Vengeance achievement. - It's no longer possible to fly to the endgame areas. - Invisible tiles in the endgame area are no longer walkable. - No more male amazons. - Fixed Alchemic Fire area of effect. - It's no longer possible for the ability caster to immobilize self. - Underground River turns into blood after killing one of the gods. - Spruces now die after killing one of the gods. - Fixed some typos and grammatical errors in dialogues. - Stone formation now correctly breaks into Stone. - Fixed Armor Breaker durability reduction effect. - Fixed issue with dialogues not triggering after attacking a character that doesn't see the player. - Fixed crash on corrupted tutorial file. - Fixed crash on using a single-use ability from an item, then dropping it without canceling targetting. - Fixed crash in Cemetery on corrupted file. - Fixed rotating tile tooltips with mouse wheel or tab key.

Modding

- Abilities are no longer required for artifacts. - New Sight property: Ignore infra penalty, ignoring the daytime penalty of infravision. - Affixes and artifacts can now provide tool type properties to items.

Greetings fellow gods, A very important hotfix today, addressing some of the major issues!

Added

- Added more inks and papers to some enemies. - Added Thorvall to available dwarf NPC names. - Added a list of unique physical features for mutant NPCs.

Changed

- Increased default tile dimensions on higher resolutions. - Iron Bars no longer leave iron ingots upon destruction. - Fishmen no longer Intimidate.

Fixed

- Fixed lag caused by stuck archer enemy occasionally. - Holding rest action no longer queues it multiple times, instead of stopping when the key is no longer pressed. - Continue screen no longer crashes when one of the save files gets corrupted. - Fixed crash on disarming enemy artifact weapon. - Improved performance with many summons during fights. - Fixed spawns of artifact shields and belts. - Removed invalid roof near the Cinder Keep. - Death of the Swamp God correctly replaces swamp grass tiles. - Fixed Human and Troll hunger passive. - Fixed "Unlimited power!!!" achievement. - Fixed crash when using Golden Lamp with a mod that removes its durability. - When loading invalid global config, the game now attempts to rollback to default settings and logs an error in logs/errors.log file. - Digging through piles of sand now correctly provides sand. - Updated Armor Breaker tooltip to mention extra damage when hitting a body part that's not covered. - Fixed Chain Lightning tooltip to indicate the jumps can happen on "beings" instead of only "enemies". - Fixed issues that could cause save desynchronization or corruption when changing the world region and abruptly exiting the game. - Fixed crash that could occur when having teleportation targetting selected on the World Map and removing the Angelic Wings. Edit: And hotfix v1.0.5 to fix the previous hotfix... :) - Improved performance with lots of summons in tight locations and after using command allies. - Fixed vision blocking in some tent walls. Thank you all for your amazing support, it's been truly heartwarming to see so many of you having so much fun with Soulash, figuring out stuff, helping each other in the Steam Community and Discord, and enjoying the discovery of what the game is about, and why different systems work the way they do. If you're wondering where things will go next, the current plan is to continue fleshing out the issues and adding quality of life features until the end of the month before I'll take a week of rest and figure out what to focus on next, to deliver as much more fun to you all as I can with the resources available. I'll announce when I know more. Stay tuned, Artur

Added - Support for numpad keys in crafting screen input. - Added information about tool quality on crafting recipes. Changed - Changed tiles for Cave Ascent, Cave Descend, Dirt Wall to help identify them easier. - Wheat flour and bread recipes are now available from the start. - Abilities and items with neutralize effect, like Cleanse or Antidote can now be used when under fear effect. - Changed the crafting speed formula, so that the quality of the tool affects the intelligence bonus. - More potential shovel drops. Fixed - Fixed descriptions of Bone Bow, Succubus, Incubus, Torch. - Fixed Dryad group question marker color, to avoid confusion. - Fixed missing background tiles on some maps. - Fixed some errors in profession, race, and strength descriptions. - Updated tutorials "Welcome to Soulash" and "World map" with more information. - Crafting indestructible items effect correctly preserves in a save. - Fixed keyboard locking issue after filter input in Crafting screen didn't get deactivated properly. - World-wide teleportation no longer remains after starting a new game if it was unlocked previously. - Fixed description of the victory entry in the Cemetery. - When having two tools of the same type in backpack and one being destroyed, it will reduce durability from the second one on crafting. - Shooting trees no longer damages self. - Going back to the first page is no longer locked when number of abilities drop below 2 pages. - Fixed issue that prevented production actions to be performed after the specified delay, for example sheep skinning or milking cows.

Changed - Improved durability of some early game melee weapons. (applies only to new games) - Necromancer starts with a Command allies ability on action bar. - Crafting count limited to 1 - 100 on Crafting screen. Fixed - Reduced time to craft Linen. (applies only to new games) - Changed the old "Only death would await you there!" message to a more accurate message. - Clicking drag action button when already dragging something will let go of the item. - Lich no longer regains life essence by drinking water. - Vampires no longer see drink blood button when near water. - Fixed world map position moving when the Map screen hidden. - Fixed a rare crash related to light source in equipment. - Fixed crash related to Modding editor. - Fixed Jump Pierce ability description of minimum jump distance. - Fixed some dialogue typos. - Staff of the Dead now properly requires some bones to craft, instead of duplicate Silver Bar requirement. - Fixed Tutorial screen scroll. - Fixed issue that could cause keyboard locking by not deselecting count input when closing the Crafting screen. - Fixed achievements "Where did the blood go?", "Lion's Sin", "Now you see me, now you don't!" - Updated tutorial about repairing options. Things are pretty wild right now and I can no longer keep reading through Steam Community and Discord, so if you're experiencing a critical error, the fastest way to get help is through the #bugs channel on Discord. I also got confirmation from Steam that everyone who owns the full game should have access to Workshop in the community - if you don't see it and you do own the game, please contact me so I can pass it along. I would like to thank you all for your feedback, positive and negative, it may take me a moment to see the light as I like to think about how changes affect the whole game, but I'll do my best to improve the game so it's an enjoyable, but still challenging experience as it was meant to be. Artur

Greetings fellow gods, v1.0.1, a quick hotfix has just been deployed targetting mainly some of the issues with graphics mod setup, more to come. - Fixed rare crash on god death. - Fixed core gfx mod not loading by default in some cases when only the demo was played before. And added additional checks to make sure core gfx is loaded after core. - Fixed Army of death achievement to unlock with 30 zombies. - Fixed "replace meat" action showing for races other than Abomination. Thank you all for trying out Soulash! I've been reading as much as I could on your feedback since yesterday and I've been taking notes. It's pretty wild as you can probably see on Steam community and our Discord right now. It may take me a while to address everything, but rest assured improvements and fixes are coming. Artur

Greetings fellow gods, The time has come to conquer the world! Soulash v1.0 is now available on Steam and Itch, with the long-awaited graphics mod, Steam Workshop, Leaderboards, and Achievements! Below is the full changelog for the 1.0 release:

Added

• Core gfx mod with pixelart tileset. Both core and core_gfx should be enabled unless someone would like to continue to play ASCII.
• Steam Workshop integration:
  • Publishing mods to Steam Workshop.
  • Loading subscribed mods.
• Steam Leaderboards integration:
  • Scoring per profession
  • Number of items crafted
  • Number of souls consumed
  • Quickest win (in turns count)
  • Placement will display in a notification when the player dies or wins.
• Steam Achievements integration
  • Added 69 achievements
• 5 new enemies.
• 30 new alternative region maps
• New tutorial entry about going back to Dreamworld.
• Added "thumbnail icon" input in the mod edit form, that allows changing the Workshop thumbnail. The path to the image is relative to the mod folder.
• Added notifications on publishing to Steam Workshop with the result.
• Added mouse wheel scrolling on the Tutorial screen.

Changed

• Javelin is considered a throwing weapon instead of a spear (being strength-based instead of dex).
• Improved some entity animations.
• Smite now scales with 20% weapon damage.

Fixed

• True damage is no longer reduced by endurance.
• Fixed rare crash when disarming weapon that provides access to an ability.
• Fixed crash when attempting to shoot Lightning Arrow without arrows equipped.
• Fixed issue causing Steam Workshop id to reset, publishing the mod twice.
• Fixed copy-paste in modding between different region maps.
• UI no longer stays hidden after winning the game and immediately starting a new one.

Some of you followed Soulash's development for years, and we're glad to finally leave the alpha and beta stages into the stable version. We're very grateful to everyone who tried the game, left feedback, and helped us get to this place. It's been a bumpy 5-year long journey. What comes next is yet to be determined, but what options we'll have is now up to you, our players. Please spread the word about the game, leave a review, tell your friends why you enjoy it, share it in communities you participate in, mod the game, join us on Discord or follow on Twitter, help other players with guides, share your creativity on Workshop and continue to provide us with your feedback! We hope Soulash will bring you many hours of joy, Artur & Xiclu

Greetings fellow gods, This is the last planned minor patch before the 1.0 release scheduled for the 4th of March, introducing a new playable race designed by DeltaBoss, one of our Patrons! The patch focuses on quality of life updates, and overall polishing. If you've missed the new trailer, you can watch it below Just 3 more weeks to go! Below are patch notes that are relevant for the demo: Added - Playable race: Gnoll - Added 4K resolution option. - Added Animation speed option, allowing to speed up ability animations up to x4. - Added 64x64, 80x80, 96x96 tile dimension selections in options. - 1 new alternative map. Changed - Instead of using a weapon with the highest average damage for ability calculation, the weapon in the main hand is chosen (the one with the sword icon, not the shield). - Spear weapon type physical damage now scales with dexterity instead of strength. - Chain Slash can be used with a Spear. - Summons attack the closest enemy of the caster immediately upon creation. - Production actions (butchering, woodcutting, etc.) targeting can be canceled with the right mouse button. - The Light spell can also be cast on objects instead of only on living beings. - Weapon damage buffs like Bless Weapon apply to ability damage. - Broken Sword weight reduced to 0.5 from 1.0. - Goblins start with Humanoid Leg and Broken Sword. - Bless Weapon duration increased from 10 to 20 turns. Fixed - Fixed some Blood tiles spawning above the characters. - Added missing Rest until Healed circle action icon. - Fixed overlapping tooltips when looking at the very bottom of the screen. - Hidden entities don't show up when they move. - Fixed ranged enemies sometimes get stuck when not having a clear line of sight. - Zombies are no longer afraid to go through the bloodied tiles. - Fixed AI behavior when feared while having nowhere to escape. - Debug is no longer enabled by default. - Tile dimensions selection applies the change immediately instead of after exiting options. - Damage buffs now correctly display damage scaling in the Equipment Screen Combat section if half of the damage is magical. - Fixed world map issues when changing z-level. - Ability damage applies bonuses from Demon and Bone Wraith passives. - Added back missing map for the second level of Inn in Mensfield village. If you're interested in the changelog for the full version it can be found here

Greetings fellow gods, The time of reckoning is upon us! The long-awaited Soulash v1.0 will be released on Itch and Steam on the 4th of March 2022, including the graphics known from the Steam demo, Steam Workshop integration, Leaderboards, and Achievements. The price will be set at 14.99$. It's been a long road to get here, and the date is very special to me personally, as almost exactly five years ago, on the 5th of March 2017, my son was born, and I've decided to start working on a game engine that would become the fundaments underneath Soulash. It's truly a miracle that after countless prototypes I've attempted over the last decade, I figured out how to keep working on the same project for over 7000 hours and deliver a complete game with 20 - 30 hours of single run gameplay and additional replayability through alternative world regions, professions, enemies, multiple paths to victory and in-game modding editors. As for the extra Steam features - the upcoming Steam Workshop integration will allow us to share our mods quickly, by publishing, and updating them from within the game. We hope this will give you, our community, additional opportunities to expand the world of Soulash, to create custom worlds or game modes, or easily disable supplementary mechanics that you don't enjoy, be it durability or hunger. https://i.imgur.com/q4JlQ8J.png The Steam Leaderboards will allow us to have a little competitive fun. Leaderboards are set up to rank our runs by in-game scores, separate per profession, number of turns for a speedrunning competition, total items crafted, and souls consumed. If it's better than our previous attempt, the game will show our position at the end of the run (death or victory). https://i.imgur.com/hea1glT.gif And finally, the Achievements will allow us to try something new and strive for different goals during a playthrough, maybe explore some less obvious places, hunt down specific gods, or look for hidden secrets. https://i.imgur.com/hbdbC89.png Both Leaderboards and Achievements will count only for runs with core mods (core and core gfx) and will be disabled on debugging mode or after using the Cheat Console. Thank you all who joined us on this journey, supporting us with early purchases of the alpha, providing us feedback, spreading the word about the game, wishlisting the game, supporting us on Patreon and Kickstarter, and feeding us with fantastic ideas along the way. The game would not be as good without you. We hope you'll enjoy Soulash as much as we've been enjoying making it! Less than five weeks to go! Wishlist now and don't miss the launch!

Greetings fellow gods, A long overdue update to the demo has just been released, bumping the October v0.6.0.7 version to v0.7.2.1, matching the latest alpha released today. Below are some of the more significant changes that happened along the way: Added - Two new playable races Djinn and Abomination https://i.imgur.com/mRozz7B.gif - Crop goblins are lurking in the wheat fields. - Added switch for "Directional" movement based on Numpad keys in Keymap settings, with automatic rotation before the move. Movement without rotation can be performed while holding the left ctrl key. - Marked item tooltips with a known recipe to quickly indicate if the item is already learned. - Vastly improved 2560x1600 resolution, and added 64x64 tile dimensions in settings. - Animations for static entities like rivers, campfires, torches, and more. https://i.imgur.com/WUhh2h4.gif - It's now possible to rest in the equipment screen by pressing `r` as long as a repairable item is not selected. - Drag & drop functionality for ability placement on the action bar. - Alternative region maps - New indicator for hearing sounds in tiles outside vision. - Option in settings to disable camera shakes. - Damage number animations on hit and damage over time. - New ability "Command allies", encouraging your allies to move or attack entities in the selected area, available to everyone since the start of the game. Changed - Poacher ability Sense Life now shows glyphs of the actual enemies discovered instead of generic hearing markers. Sense Life cast time is now 0.5 turns (from 0.0). https://i.imgur.com/AUJH73x.gif - Equipping a stackable item (for example, arrows) when there's already a stackable item equipped will combine the stacks instead of replacing it. - Rest until healed and sleep actions now provide a progressive bonus to health regeneration that equals 1 HP / 10 turns passed, until reaching a limit of 1/10th of endurance. - Animations of attacks and abilities performed outside the field of view will be visible. - Humans gained new passive - reduced required souls to level up by 10%. We've also finished our first basic integration with Steam Workshop and Steam Leaderboards which I'll explain a little more in detail soon. We're currently running limited Closed Beta in preparation for the Steam release, and we plan to announce a release date around the end of this month, so stay tuned! PS: Trying to improve the frequency and stability of demo updates I've created some automated scripts, this may mean some minor instabilities in the current version, but after resolving these hiccups it will be much easier to keep the demo up to date with the full version. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Greetings fellow gods, Today I have for you a little preview of our world in Soulash that you will get to conquer when the game releases on Steam in early 2022. The video contains minor spoilers, as it reveals two major areas in the game. Our overall progress remains on track and we'll be announcing a modding contest very soon, for access to Steam Closed Beta. We hope to get a couple of people interested in modding to help us test Steam Workshop integration. We plan to start the beta in the first days of January to flesh out everything and integrate Soulash with Steam. During the beta and feedback from the players, we'll decide when to release the game and announce the date. Make sure to join us on Discord or follow us on Twitter to keep an eye on the latest news. The next Steam demo update will likely come in January or February, probably before the Steam Next Fest. There are already some new exciting races available in the alpha and some interesting improvements. We'll keep you posted.

Greetings fellow gods, This patch updates the demo version with the latest alpha version fixes introduced in v0.5.4 and v0.6.0, including the Golem playable race designed by one of our Patrons. The patch also fixes some stability issues in the demo related to missing entities, which we were able to catch thanks to your crash and bug reports. You can find the patch notes here: - v0.5.4 changelog - v0.6.0 changelog As we've managed to accomplish our important milestone in v0.6.0, by introducing enemy gods and world-changing effects into the game, we're looking forward to the final piece missing to "complete" the game - endgame and victory conditions. We already have a vision for how we want the story to end, but we'll keep it spoiler-free. We hope to get v0.7.0 ready in December this year. Soon after that, we plan to run at least a 3-month long closed beta on Steam to polish the game, integrate Steam Workshop and Achievements, and prepare for the launch. Sometime in November, we're going to announce a couple of contests with beta keys, so make sure you're around on our Discord or following us on Twitter, to not miss your chance to participate. Until then, enjoy the Golem! https://i.imgur.com/ZNM3Nkq.png

Greetings fellow gods, As some of you might be interested to know more about me, my plans for the game, or how Soulash came to be, there's a very nice interview I had with Blind. If you don't know Blind, he's an amazing content creator on YouTube. He has plenty of long-form interviews with many great developers, he has a lot of news about the upcoming Dwarf Fortress Steam version you will probably not find anywhere else, and he's a very entertaining streamer on Twitch. You should definitely check him out! If you're waiting for some more news about the game, I'll drop a demo patch in the next 2 weeks with a new player-designed Golem race, with some new unique mechanics to play around with. I'm also wrapping up the 0.6 patch that will introduce gods into the alpha version, so we're making a big leap toward the Steam release. We're getting close to having the base graphic tiles and animations for all existing content, including the new content in 0.6. When we get close to 0.7 update with endgame content we should have some exciting news about where we go from there. Expect it close to the end of this year. If you would like to follow along with the most recent developments, probably the best place for that is our official Discord channel. Thank you all for taking an interest in the game and stay tuned for news of the upcoming updates.

Greetings fellow gods, This patch updates the demo version with the latest alpha version fixes, including 3 new playable races designed by our Patrons: Demons, Bone Wraiths, and Lizardmen. This patch includes fixes from the following patches: - v0.5.1 changelog - v0.5.2 changelog - v0.5.3 changelog - also v0.5.3.1 and v0.5.3.2 hotfixes. I would like to thank everyone who tried the demo and submitted crash reports, everyone who provided us with feedback on Steam community boards, as well as everyone who joined us on discord, Patreon, and ASCII alpha version and help us improve the game. We will continue to work very hard to make this game the best experience you all deserve. Soulash is now in over 8.5k wishlists on Steam and it keeps growing every day. The demo has been played by over 6000 players. Because of your incredible support, we're continuing to push on with our roadmap despite the failed Kickstarter - it's all thanks to all of you! I've seen some of you were worried about the future of Soulash and I wanted to assure you we're still on schedule. There are still 3 big updates we target for this year - gods, endgame, and full graphics mod. When we have all of them ready, we'll decide how we would like to approach Steam release plans as we get closer to the end of the year. We're considering going early access for a couple of months or run a closed beta to polish and add quality of life updates before the 1.0 release. If you would like to follow along with the development more closely, discord is probably the best place, as it's pretty active and you can find me lurking there often. Until next time, Artur

Greetings fellow gods, Path notes for the demo v0.6.0.3 update can be found below:

Added

- Added info about looking at tiles on cursor position that will display at the start of every game until the look action is performed at least once. - Added back the use key in the backpack for items that give access to abilities. It will assign the ability to action bar either in the first empty slot or override the last one and then try to immediately select it for use.

Fixed

- Fixed negative experience bar at level 3. - Using a recipe that's already known will consume the item correctly. - Blood doesn't make the tile walkable anymore. - Fixed not being able to click the repair button twice. - Fixed tooltips to be displayed in screen bounds for items in the equipment screen and entities on the map. - Fixed message log window requiring to click twice to move sometimes. Also, a friendly reminder that our Kickstarter is ending in just 38 hours, so if you found the game worthwhile, consider supporting it https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/asmiarowski/soulash-classic-fantasy-roguelike Hope you're enjoying the demo, and please leave some feedback so we can keep improving the game.

Greeting fellow gods, We have reached the final 3 days of our Kickstarter campaign, and we're still missing ~34% of our funding goal to create the graphics mod for the full game of Soulash. Finishing this graphics mod will be a necessity to release the game on Steam, and we could use your help. If you've been enjoying the demo, consider contributing to the campaign, maybe pick up one of the unique rewards that we won't offer again, like getting closed beta access, designing your own item, race, profession, location, or even a god in the game that will be the cause of many players tears as it sends their characters to the cemetery. Your pledges can bring many goods to Soulash before 1.0 release next year already: 2 gods with unique abilities, 10 races (including Rage demon, Lizardmen, Wishborn, and Shadow folk), 1 miniboss, 2 new enemies, 10 items, 52 tombstones, and of course the new graphics overhaul as an alternative to the existing ASCII version in Soulash. If we won't hit our funding goal within the next 72 hours, we won't be able to include this in the game, and we'll need to struggle to find alternative ways to fund the graphics mod. Kickstarters are all or nothing! We're only missing 1/3rd of our funding goal - we can still do this! Please consider contributing, especially if you've been enjoying the demo and would like it to be developed further. Is there a reward you'd like to receive, but we didn't include it anywhere? Interested in an addon that we haven't thought about? Let us know - we may add some special last-minute tiers or add-ons based on your requests. Spread the word to your friends and any community you know of that enjoys playing indie games or roguelikes specifically. Even 1 EUR contribution can come a long way if we get picked up by the Kickstarter algorithm. If you're on the fence, wondering if Soulash is a good choice to support at this stage, we're happy to answer any questions you may have, so feel free to ask them here, or through Kickstarter or Discord. We're very happy that so many of you decided to try out the demo and for the support you've shown us. We will always do our best to give you one of the best games out there, with the resources we will have at our disposal. So right now, let's work together to make this final push through the finish line, and turn this story into a great success! Artur & Xiclu

Greetings fellow gods, As there's a lot of questions about where the game is and what needs to happen before we get to the 1.0 release, I've prepared a draft of a roadmap to clarify what's before us.

Where is Soulash now

So starting from where we are. Soulash has been developed over the past 4 years and it's in an alpha state for the past 2. It's available in ASCII only version right now, and we're attempting to gather funds through Kickstarter that would help us finalize the Soulash graphic mod that can be seen in the trailer. The graphics demo was created in 3 months, so there is still a lot of work before us to cover all of the entities, abilities and hopefully, a new GUI that would fit the new style better. For me, Soulash was and always will be a project of passion, as I've already invested over 6000 hours into making this game while working full time, so I didn't expect to trade my time for money with this project. That being said, even though I have the skills to develop any mechanics for the game, I really can't do art at all and I'm not a musician. That's why I reinvested back all of the income from the game, to make it better, by getting us some assets like music or graphic. See for yourself, the early versions of Soulash that I made all by my lonesome. https://i.imgur.com/9BoW1Zr.png Very early game version https://i.imgur.com/xaJ0wxz.png Early GUI The game came a long way since then, which can be seen in the latest trailer. If we reach our Kickstarter goal, that means we can ensure the new graphics mod will be finished independently of random situations, like me losing my job. Times are unfortunately still uncertain, but let's look into the future.

Kickstarter ends, what now?

Let's stay positive and assume Soulash gets funded. The first thing that's going to happen is for everyone who picked up a digital copy of the game, I will send an itch key to the alpha version that is in ASCII only. I will then contact everyone to gather information about names they want to be included, items, races, professions, gods, locations, and all of the other content that you chose to design for the core game. If Soulash is not funded by the 25th of May, nobody is going to be charged and every tier is going to be canceled, unfortunately, Kickstarter is all or nothing. There are still 9 days left. If Kickstarter fails, and the graphics mod is a deal-breaker for you to enjoy Soulash, it will probably be safer to wait for the Steam release, as the game will not come to Steam until the graphics mod is finalized.

First major update v0.6 Gods and Miracles

The next major update titled Gods and Miracles is currently in progress. It's planned for July/August 2021 and it will finally bring gods of the new pantheon to hunt you down. Killing a god will have a major impact on the whole world of Soulash, as you can see below, the death of Sangre, the God of Blood turning every river in the world into blood and causing a rain of blood to fall down from the sky. The rivers will run red And one more sneak peek - Winter is coming The miracles are something you will also gain by consuming the soul of a god. It will be very powerful effects that will enable you to cause rainfall, teleport to any known location in the world, and a couple of other unique and powerful effects. Obviously moddable as well. Any god tier rewards from the Kickstarter campaign will be included in this update and it will come to Itch alpha version, still in ASCII. If you want to be featured as a god in Soulash and destroy players dreams about world domination, the Kickstarter is your only chance! We will also include all of the NPC names and tombstones that we will receive from Kickstarter backers in this patch.

Second major update v0.7 Endgame

The last major feature update before stabilizing for the 1.0 release will bring the endgame content and will also be deployed on Itch. I will not go much into details to avoid spoilers, but the goal of this patch is to introduce a win condition into the game, with multiple paths to the end as we have an open world and at least two ways to end the story. The endgame will not be forced and you can get there at your own pace, as I know some of you just want to chill on your skull thrones while farming cabbages and carrots. The update is planned for the end of 2021 (Nov/Dec most likely).

Closed beta access on Steam

Very soon after v0.7 (1 - 2 weeks), we plan to start a closed beta on Steam with graphics mod and all of the content so far, where we will focus on polishing and stabilizing the game, adding support for Steam Workshop, filling in the story gaps, adding achievements, attempting Linux build, and adding any other improvements that we will receive from players with access. At this stage, we will implement all items, races, professions, and locations that players chose to design during the Kickstarter campaign. The reason we'll be doing this here and not sooner is to confirm the end result with everyone involved during the closed beta and have time to iterate if needed. The closed beta will be available to all of the backers who chose to support us with the appropriate tier on Kickstarter and selected modders that will be willing to help us with polishing the editors and prepare some unofficial goodies together for launch. This stage will last 3 - 6 months, as we don't want to rush it.

Stable version 1.0 launch

Soulash will launch in version 1.0 on Steam and Itch at the same time, between March and June of 2022 with graphics mod and everything else. The exact date will be decided during the closed beta. Everyone who picked up a digital key tier on Kickstarter will receive Steam access on the launch day.

What after the stable release?

We have 2 Kickstarter stretch goals picked by our fellow gods on discord. If we reach them, we will deliver factions 6 months after the 1.0 release and the building system in additional 3 months. You can read more about them in the Kickstarter stretch goals section. It's a long time before we get there, so we're not going to make plans further just yet. But other things like procedural world generator in a sandbox game mode, servants, or different ability system are possible depending on the success of the game. We might also begin working on a sequel, as we have a cool idea about how the story may continue. As with all plans, this one might change as well, depending on the outcome of our Kickstarter campaign, or some unpredicted events along the way. But the goals are clear, the timeframe is reasonable, and backed by experience with previous patches of similar size, so I'm confident we will get there. Hope it clarifies where the project is heading, but if you have any more questions, I'm lurking on our discord and would be happy to answer! Artur

Greetings fellow gods, As this is the first announcement related to the game, let me explain what is Soulash about. In this game, you'll be playing as a long-forgotten god who came back to the mortal world to destroy it. At the beginning of your game, you'll be relatively weak. You just took over a host body of a mortal (or kind of a mortal, when we look at a vampire or lich) to sustain your presence in this realm. While you traverse the open world, you'll come across different mortal beings, and you'll devour their souls to regain your strength. You will leave only a trail of blood and ash on your path. Soulash is a traditional, turn-based fantasy roguelike with permadeath. It's been in active development for 4 years, and it has been available in the alpha early access for the past 2 years. For the most part, I've been the sole developer of this game, working on it in my spare time. I've recently partnered with a talented graphic designer who's making a beautiful tileset as an alternative to our ASCII mode. You can see our latest trailer below. We've recently launched a Kickstarter campaign to gather funds to secure our graphics mod for the game and extend the game with a couple of significant features that players asked for over recent years like procedural world generator, factions, servants, building, and more. We would also love for everyone to have the opportunity to contribute to the game directly as we move toward our first stable release. We've set up a couple of exciting tiers for everyone who likes to play as some specific race or profession currently missing in the game. We're already getting an evolving Demon race, designed by one of the contributors, and we have two more already picked up if we get funded! Soulash will release on Steam as a stable 1.0 version in 2022. Still, we plan to run a closed beta starting close to the end of 2021, where we will polish the game and implement important quality of life improvements, including Steam Workshop, Achievements, and other goodies. If you would like to join us during this time, we have a contribution tier on Kickstarter that guarantees such access. If you would like to contribute and be immortalized in the game either on a gravestone, as an NPC, or even a god, support us on Kickstarter here https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/asmiarowski/soulash-classic-fantasy-roguelike In case of any questions, you can catch me or other fans of Soulash on our discord https://discord.gg/Y2dwG4c