- Inkbound Turns 2! - 9 April 2026
Hi, Inklings! I can’t believe that it’s been two years since the launch of Inkbound! To celebrate, I thought I would dive into the vault of our internal files and unearth some special, behind-the-scenes concept art from the very first stages of development. I hope this small look offers you, our amazing players, a fresh perspective on this game that holds such a special place in my heart as it was the first game I worked on when I started at Shiny Shoe. The Magma Miner I’ll start off at the beginning with a closer look at one of Inkbound’s base classes: the Magma Miner. Final Design for the Magma MinerLike all of the base classes in Inkbound, the Magma Miner went through several design iterations before the Shiny Shoe art team landed on the perfect look that demonstrated the class's brutal strength, warrior-like abilities, and ,maybe, capture the soul of how this class feels to play wit…
- Happy 1 Year Anniversary! - 9 April 2025
Hi, Inklings! HAPPY ONE YEAR ANNIVERSARY! I wanted to share a heartfelt thank you to all of you for supporting the Shiny Shoe team and for the past year! Inkbound has such a special place in my and the other team members’ hearts. Although we aren’t able to continue forward with Inkbound as we would have liked, we’re very proud of what we accomplished and how we were able to finish the game. To celebrate Inkbound’s first anniversary, I’ve asked a few of the designers for their favorite mechanics, characters, and/or moments from back in Inkbound developments. Fan Art from the Vault: A weekly highlight for myself and the rest of the Shiny Shoe team are ‘Fan Art Fridays.’ This is pretty much what it sounds like. On Fridays, I share community news along with any fan art players made. Here are a few of my favorites! As a dev, you don't often see fan art figurines and Leto did not disappoint!…
- Inkbound Soundtrack Now Available! - 9 August 2024
Hi, Inklings! You’ve asked and we’ve delivered! The Inkbound soundtrack is officially available! Check out the latest (and, may I say, best) songs by the mind behind both Monster Train and Inkbound’s music, the amazing Jordan Chin! If you don’t know Jordan yet, check out his dev post about his work here. In his blog, Jordan goes in depth about his creative process. For all those interested in a deep dive into how the team works, his post is a great read. Inkbound’s soundtrack is available for $5.99 (standard regional pricing elsewhere) and is also available as part of the supporter pack bundle. To celebrate the soundtrack’s release, today is also the first day of Inkbound’s sale! From August 9th through to the 16th at 10:00 AM PST, Inkbound will be 40% off! If you have any questions, please leave a comment here or head over to our Discord. As always, thank you so much for playing Inkbou…
- Inkbound Patch 1.1.2 - 1 July 2024
Letter from the Team This is another small bug fix patch to the recent release of major update 1.1. We're rolling this out so soon after the last patch because we want to get a high impact performance improvement into players hands as soon as possible. Release Timing This patch will be released at approximately 3:30 pm Pacific (UTC-7) on July 1, 2024. Full Patch Notes Gameplay Bug Fixes Fixed Sundance's Challenge mutator "Anchored" letting players gain movement through potions. Other Changes and Fixes Improved framerate outside of combat when a quest is tracked.
- Inkbound Patch 1.1.1 - 28 June 2024
Letter from the Team This is a small bug fix patch to the recent release of major update 1.1. Release Timing This patch will be released at approximately 10 am Pacific (UTC-7) on June 28, 2024. Full Patch Notes Gameplay Bug Fixes Fixed Discharge not gaining Kinetic Charge after dying and then reviving in a multiplayer run. Fixed Discharge Rare augment Maneuvering Discharge referring to Movement bindings instead of Teleport bindings. Fixed Legendary vestige Aspect of Ash-Alun tooltip showing Smite Damage twice. Fixed incorrect tooltip in Potent Invocation. Fixed Invocation ascension Benediction not granting shield or heal. Fixed Invocation Epic augment Divine Invocation not stacking. Fixed Mutator "Commoner's Stockpile" showing higher rarity vestiges in 1st book carver shops. Fixed Invocation Uncommon augment Swift Invocation not granting movement when hitting with Divine Touch. Fixed St…
- Inkbound 1.1 Now Available! - 25 June 2024
Welcome to Inkbound 1,1! This update includes two new run features, new Bindings along with Ascensions and Augments, new Vestiges, new Trinket, UI/UX updates, and gameplay changes. If you're interested in learning about all the details, read on! Authored Challenges Feature Added new Authored Challenges feature. Authored Challenges can be accessed from the Inkwell Dive Rank interactable to the left of the voting platform in the Atheneum. A new button labeled “Authored Challenges” will appear beneath the Max Rank UI once you have achieved Rank 1 or higher in the game. Players can select 10 different challenge runs to try. Each challenge comes with a set of mutators that augment the nature of the run, most of which are new. Most of these new mutators also can show up in the pool of mutators selected for Daily Challenges. Each challenge run upon completion will reward the player with 300 Va…
- Inkbound 1.1 Coming June 25th! - 22 June 2024
Inkbound 1.1 Coming June 25th! Inkbound1.1 is officially coming to Steam on June 25th! In just a few days, players will get to enjoy all the cool new content and features the team has been working on! Here are a few things you can look forward to in Inkbound 1.1! New Authored Challenge Feature with ten new dives Casual Rank Feature New Bindings New Trinkets A shiny new Vestige New Victory Board Added Cosmetics And that’s just the beginning! If you’re interested in seeing some of these new features in action, Shiny Shoe team members Marimo and Albert show them off in this Youtube video: “Mahjong, Cosplay, and A Special Challenge Run.” If you have any questions, please leave a comment or ask the team on Discord. You can also subscribe to the Inkbound newsletter for new content deep dives and closer looks at new features. We hope you’re just as excited as we are for Inkbound 1.1’s launch a…
- New Features Sneak Peek! - 4 June 2024
Last Friday, team members Marimo and ShinyAlbert unveiled information about the next Inkbound update on stream. You can watch the vod on our YouTube channel. Today, we’re excited to share a sneak peek of what's to come in Inkbound 1.1! Authored Challenges WIP screenshot. Contents subject to change. The biggest new addition to Inkbound will be the Authored Challenges feature. Each Challenge provided to the player originates from some character or concept that you have encountered during your game. There will be a number of challenges available that you can engage with, all of which will have unique modifiers to make your runs new and interesting. You’ll have to use your knowledge of the game to navigate through each one! Challenges can be done solo or in co-op. Completion of a challenge will grant you 150 Vault Dust, which you can use in the Cosmetic Vault. We hope you try this out and h…
- The Story Behind the Music - 21 May 2024
*frantic guitar noises* Oh hey there, Needless! Didn’t see you there. I’m Jordan Chin, audio guy for Inkbound. Let’s talk about the music, sound, and voiceover in our game. Sonic Landscape Very early in development, I worked closely with our writer, Brendan (Redbeard), to understand his high-level vision for the world. We spent some time sharing references and coming up with a few core pillars – rules about what should and shouldn’t be a part of Inkbound’s audio aesthetic. I usually find that by defining these creative boundaries from the start, it becomes a lot easier to write freely without straying too far from the mark. After that, you just throw ink at the well and see what sticks. Here are those pillars: Sound effects should read less “literal” and more “magical,” often venturing into “musical.” I’ve always loved the concept of blurring the line between a game's soundtrack and its…
- Top VFX in Inkbound 1.0 - 14 May 2024
Hello everyone! ShinyBrandon here, and I’m the sparkle/explosion/magic maker here at Shiny Shoe. I cooked up many new VFX with Inkbound 1.0 and I wanted to share some of my favorite additions to the game. New Passive VFX! We are always looking for ways to communicate game mechanics visually. Passives will only be noticed if there is a visual connection with the characters, so we wanted to step these up. Here are a few of my favorites! Weaver It was always hard to tell when Controlled Weaving was active, so I was thrilled to make it stand out more. Clairvoyant This one feels great! Visually telling when the spirit bomb was ready to BLOW for maximum damage was a big upgrade. Magma Miner My all-time favorite right here! Heat has changed a lot mechanically but almost every iteration was built around gaining 10 stacks or so. It was always important to keep an eye on, but now you KNOW when yo…
- Programming the UI for Inkbound - 7 May 2024
Hey Inkbound fans, I’m Muhammad Abdul-Rahim, better known to the community as Marimo. You may have seen me on a few of the weekly streams, filling in when either Cami or Andrew are unavailable. Well, today, I’m here to give you an inside peek into what it’s like to program the UI in this game. I’ll try not to get super technical with these details, but it might lean a bit in that direction! Let’s start by dissecting a simple screen: the StatHudScreen! In game, this screen shows up in the bottom-right corner of the HUD. It displays a small subset of important game stats that you can quickly reference without having to open the more detailed Stats screen. So, first things first, let’s look at the layout of the screen: The cubes represent objects in the hierarchy for this screen. Blue cubes represent prefabs, shared components that I can copy and paste as needed. Changes made internally to…
- Inkbound Patch 1.0.4 - 3 May 2024
Letter from the Team Today's update is a small incremental update with bug fixes in a variety of areas of the game. Release Timing This patch will be released at approximately 12 pm Pacific (UTC-7) on May 3, 2024. Full Patch Notes Magma Miner Fixed Rare Magma Miner vestige Miner's Gloves not stacking. Chainbreaker Fixed Infused Fist ascension Equalizing Fist sometimes not inflicting Infusion on colliding Enemy when at the edge of the target. UI Adjusted gamepad vestige set highlights; the vestige you are navigated over will highlight its sets, including in drafts. Adjusted size of gamepad interaction prompts to avoid overlap issue in Chinese and Japanese. Other Changes and Fixes Fixed some quest text bugs referring to the wrong NPCs near the end of the main questline. Fixed a variety of Chinese and Japanese translation errors. Fixed a bug that could lead to loss of cosmetics in offline…
- Lore Dev Post #4: The Origins of Inkbound's World - 30 April 2024
It’s me, Redbeard/Brendan, writer of Inkbound, back with another Lore Post! There have been some great questions on the Inkbound Discord (shameless plug to join if you haven’t!) about the origin of Inkbound’s world and, with the full release of the game, there’s no better time to dive into the details! The Concept I can’t really pinpoint when the idea of “Books as Worlds” came about — it was something I’d been interested in for a while — but it definitely pre-dated even Monster Train. But, since nothing is made in a vacuum, and especially since this thing has been made and released, it’s a lot easier to retroactively find inspirations and make it look like I knew what I was doing all along! Whether conscious or not, there were 2 main inspirations for the world of Inkbound: The Pagemaster and The Nightmare Before Christmas. For anyone who’s seen The Pagemaster, the Macauley Culkin classi…
- Inkbound Patch 1.0.3 - 24 April 2024
Letter from the Team This patch fixes a number of bugs and updates balance in a variety of places. We added one new feature to the UI for multiplayer - a way for the party leader to kick players out of the party. This was requested by players a number of times to deal with situations where a player goes AFK for a long period of time. We also fixed a number of bugs, including fixing a rare issue where a player could lose progress when playing in offline mode. Last week's buffs to Chainbreaker were good, but haven't moved the needle enough, so we're pushing some more power to his base kit. Clairvoyant and Godkeeper are also getting some light buffs. Some book mutators aren't giving enough Kwillings/Glyphs for how punishing they can be, and a few are a bit too punishing. Several book mutator rewards are increasing, with a slight decrease for Stinging Wounds. Book 1 Guardians are pretty com…
- Concept Art for Ruhnstone - 23 April 2024
Shadow of Ruhnstone Hello again! I am Genevieve, a concept artist and modeler on Inkbound. I previously covered the concept for the Gardener NPC. Today I will be going through my concept process for the Shadow of Ruhnstone boss. The Shadow’s Lore A shared element for each of the 3 bosses in Inkbound is that they were once kwills that became separated from their binders due to different reasons. After being separated, each morphed into a chaotic entity that reflects conditions of how they lost their binder and the book they reside in. For the Shadow of Ruhnstone, its separation was due to an unbinding attempt gone wrong in the ruins of Ruhnstone. This resulted in an explosion, causing destruction and death. Afterwards, the separated kwill was abandoned and now looms over the silent, ancient city of Ruhnstone like a poltergeist. It has taken rubble to form a vessel to protect itself from…
- Inkbound Patch 1.0.2 - 17 April 2024
Letter from the Team This patch is focused on fixing more reported problems and tweaking balance on a variety of elements of the game. Notably, both Godkeeper and Chainbreaker were buffed in various ways. The full details are below. Release Timing This patch will be released at approximately 12 pm Pacific (UTC-7) on April 17, 2024. Full Patch Notes Gameplay Bug Fixes Fixed Celestial Spear ascension God of Lightning spear not smiting enemies on the last turn it's on the ground. Fixed Infused Fist ascension Finishing Fist not increasing damage based on Combo stacks. Fixed Shadow of Ruhnstone able to gain Woozy stacks while downed. Fixed Guardian Challenge buffs Blightlord assist and Slimpe Egg assist sometimes not spawning their units if there is no space. Fixed the Unbound quest line being erroneously locked for certain players who played during Early Access. Gameplay Balance Changes Upd…
- All About Tuning & Balance - 15 April 2024
I’m Albert A. from the design crew. Today I’m here to talk about balancing Inkbound! This post will encompass how we tune enemies, vestiges, bindings, and our decision making process to when something needs to be tweaked. Great Talks on Topic A Course About Game Balance Slay the Spire: Metrics Driven Design and Balance Board Game Design Day: Balancing Mechanics for your Card Game’s Unique Power Curve Perfect Imbalance - Why Unbalanced Design Creates Balanced Play Goals for Balance There is a misconception inherent in the word we use, ‘balance’. It suggests that the ideal way to tune a game is that all classes are played the same amount, and all choices should be equally strong and are taken at an equal rate. If you take that framework and run with it, you’ll quickly find that you’ll “balance the fun” out of a game. That’s because balancing stats and metrics is a means to an end, not the…
- Inkbound review - 12 April 2024
Oh, Inkbound. I so desperately want to love you. You’re from the studio that mashed together deckbuilders and tower defence to make Monster Train , one of my favourite games ever. This time though Shiny Shoe has mixed a Hades-style isometric roguelike with turn-based tactics and made a bit of an inky mess all over the floor. An interesting mess, with one excellent idea, but I’m still about to use up a lot of virtual ink complaining about its flaws... Read more.
- Inkbound Patch 1.0.1 - 12 April 2024
Letter from the Team We are happy to see so many people enjoying the game! Thank you for playing. This first patch after launching 1.0 is focused primarily on bug fixes with a few balance changes. We will continue to fix as many bugs as we can. We expect to patch again next week. Release Timing This patch will be released at approximately 12 pm Pacific (UTC-7) on April 12, 2024. Full Patch Notes Gameplay Bug Fixes Fixed Tuhning Guardians using a discontinued mechanic that grants +25% damage buff whenever a player uses a binding every other turn. Increased base attack from 7 >>> 9. Fixed Unbound tentacles able to spawn multiple in the same spot. Fixed tentacles re-gaining inkshield every 3 turns. Fixed Hemmorhage having 3 max stacks. Fixed Striker 4 Victory board quest having incorrect unlock condition (Venomous 4). Fixed Eruption ascension Tethering Surge not being able to grant Combo w…
- Co-op roguelike finally comes to Steam 1.0 after removing all MTXs - 10 April 2024
After a rocky launch thanks to sentiment around monetization and an always-online requirement, Monster Train developer Shiny Shoe has finally launched Inkbound in 1.0 on Steam. The turn-based co-op roguelike has come a long way, with Shiny Shoe reversing many of its decisions and continually building out the game. Read the rest of the story... RELATED LINKS: Co-op roguelike Inkbound gets an upgrade as it reveals new 1.0 roadmap Steam indie hit goes against industry trends, removes all monetization
