- New World Map, New Balance, New New - 30 August 2017
(If you don't want to wait for your game to update naturally, right-click on the game in your library, go to Properties, go to Local Files, and then click Verify Integrity of Game Files to force the update.) This is a big one--some might even say it's a 'table flip'. Development of Guild Quest has been very game-jam-style, in retrospect. We move really fast getting features in with very quick timelines, which is great, but it also means we never get a chance to think over what we already have and address larger issues. We've known we've had general pacing issues for a while, but kept putting it off because we 'didn't have the time'. We haven't properly dug into our progress analytics for a bit, and when we did it a few weeks ago it called out a very big flaw: people were moving to Ashfield instead of Westacre, and then hitting a wall, and then bouncing off the game forever. And it was a…
- New World Map, New Balance, New New - 30 August 2017
(If you don't want to wait for your game to update naturally, right-click on the game in your library, go to Properties, go to Local Files, and then click Verify Integrity of Game Files to force the update.) This is a big one--some might even say it's a 'table flip'. Development of Guild Quest has been very game-jam-style, in retrospect. We move really fast getting features in with very quick timelines, which is great, but it also means we never get a chance to think over what we already have and address larger issues. We've known we've had general pacing issues for a while, but kept putting it off because we 'didn't have the time'. We haven't properly dug into our progress analytics for a bit, and when we did it a few weeks ago it called out a very big flaw: people were moving to Ashfield instead of Westacre, and then hitting a wall, and then bouncing off the game forever. And it was a…
- Update Delayed! (And see what it is.) - 10 August 2017
UPDATEAugust 24th! Still working on the update, I'm afraid. Apologies, y'all, but this is turning out to be a lot larger than we had originally anticipated! There's turning out to be a lot of knock-on effects that we need to fix before we can release. Basically it started as a "Hey our data is showing that the majority of people are going to the wrong/hard islands first, getting stuck, and leaving the game forever" so we wanted to address the way the map works and your route through the world. And that's basically turned into a reballance of every area, and changing how prestige works. It's dug up a lot of our long-term deeper issues with the game, and we want to actually try and fix them instead of paving over them. Here's a look at the new world map, though! (All the same areas, in a different order, and on different layouts, for the most part.) The bonus islands are...probably not go…
- Update Delayed! (And see what it is.) - 10 August 2017
UPDATEAugust 24th! Still working on the update, I'm afraid. Apologies, y'all, but this is turning out to be a lot larger than we had originally anticipated! There's turning out to be a lot of knock-on effects that we need to fix before we can release. Basically it started as a "Hey our data is showing that the majority of people are going to the wrong/hard islands first, getting stuck, and leaving the game forever" so we wanted to address the way the map works and your route through the world. And that's basically turned into a reballance of every area, and changing how prestige works. It's dug up a lot of our long-term deeper issues with the game, and we want to actually try and fix them instead of paving over them. Here's a look at the new world map, though! (All the same areas, in a different order, and on different layouts, for the most part.) The bonus islands are...probably not go…
- More Card Upgrade Fixes (and a Boost Theatre) - 3 August 2017
Not a huge update this week, but mostly because we've spent a lot of our time fixing issues from last week. Card Fixes (Some of these happened during the week) Fixes for various cards that wouldn't change stats after you ugpraded. Fix for quest 12/13 XP cards that would tell you you didn't own it (even if you did), or didn't even exist in the first place. When switching categories, a sub-category auto-selects so you're not left with the wrong card inventory. So when you click the "Quest Card" tab, you'll be actually in the Quest Card inventory instead of also needing to click an island first. Sort all cards ready for upgrading with a handy new toggle in the sorting menu! Added a delay when upgrading cards to avoid an exploit with swapping to new cards. Added common cards to Open x10 Uncommon chests. Tweaked Epic Chest drop tables to reduce guildian drops and nudge up epic drops (guildia…
- More Card Upgrade Fixes (and a Boost Theatre) - 3 August 2017
Not a huge update this week, but mostly because we've spent a lot of our time fixing issues from last week. Card Fixes (Some of these happened during the week) Fixes for various cards that wouldn't change stats after you ugpraded. Fix for quest 12/13 XP cards that would tell you you didn't own it (even if you did), or didn't even exist in the first place. When switching categories, a sub-category auto-selects so you're not left with the wrong card inventory. So when you click the "Quest Card" tab, you'll be actually in the Quest Card inventory instead of also needing to click an island first. Sort all cards ready for upgrading with a handy new toggle in the sorting menu! Added a delay when upgrading cards to avoid an exploit with swapping to new cards. Added common cards to Open x10 Uncommon chests. Tweaked Epic Chest drop tables to reduce guildian drops and nudge up epic drops (guildia…
- Card Upgrade System - 25 July 2017
Hoooo doggy. This is potentially the biggest update we've worked on since launching. And it turns out this is actually the first idea we had for how we wanted to handle cards, but decided that was going to take too long to build so we didn't do it. (But we sure ended up regretting that decision. Game development!) We've found one of the big issues with our cards is that there's too many of them, and too many of them are useless, which leads to a lot of knock-on issues (a largely useless collection of cards and chests are boring to open since it's just more useless cards). This wasn't an update to a major system so much as a complete rebuild of a major system. First things first Your cards have changed! We've limited the amount of cards there are to collect now. So, for example, instead of having 4 different Common Cleric DMG cards, there's now only 1. Any Common Cleric DMG cards you hav…
- Card Upgrade System - 25 July 2017
Hoooo doggy. This is potentially the biggest update we've worked on since launching. And it turns out this is actually the first idea we had for how we wanted to handle cards, but decided that was going to take too long to build so we didn't do it. (But we sure ended up regretting that decision. Game development!) We've found one of the big issues with our cards is that there's too many of them, and too many of them are useless, which leads to a lot of knock-on issues (a largely useless collection of cards and chests are boring to open since it's just more useless cards). This wasn't an update to a major system so much as a complete rebuild of a major system. First things first Your cards have changed! We've limited the amount of cards there are to collect now. So, for example, instead of having 4 different Common Cleric DMG cards, there's now only 1. Any Common Cleric DMG cards you hav…
- Event Island Down, Prepping for New Card Upgrades System - 20 July 2017
Finally! A week without an event island. We're still largely heads-down working on the big Card Upgrades system, so there's not much in this update, but we're setting up the roll-out for the Card Upgrades next week. Some balance changes on early islands The first four islands got some tweaks to hopefully smooth out the early game. More money generating in Bunny Island, Emerald Island, Westacre, and Ashfield. Some minor UI art tweaks Changing some of the art used in a few different screens like in the Skill Points screen and the store and a few other places. Bards back in the store! Bards and Thieves are in, Explorers are out. The New Card Upgrade system is coming There are some big changes coming! Here's what we know right now (BUT THIS CAN ALL CHANGE): We're consolidating the amount of cards we have. Right now we give you a range of cards within the same tier. For example, a Cleric can…
- Event Island Down, Prepping for New Card Upgrades System - 20 July 2017
Finally! A week without an event island. We're still largely heads-down working on the big Card Upgrades system, so there's not much in this update, but we're setting up the roll-out for the Card Upgrades next week. Some balance changes on early islands The first four islands got some tweaks to hopefully smooth out the early game. More money generating in Bunny Island, Emerald Island, Westacre, and Ashfield. Some minor UI art tweaks Changing some of the art used in a few different screens like in the Skill Points screen and the store and a few other places. Bards back in the store! Bards and Thieves are in, Explorers are out. The New Card Upgrade system is coming There are some big changes coming! Here's what we know right now (BUT THIS CAN ALL CHANGE): We're consolidating the amount of cards we have. Right now we give you a range of cards within the same tier. For example, a Cleric can…
- Hey Hey Guildians From the Map and a Challenge Island - 13 July 2017
Back-to-back-to-back Challenge Islands aren't quite what we wanted, but the timing kind of worked out that way. But we would feel bad if we came back after a week off and didn't put up a new island. New Challenge Island Now featuring a boss with recharging health (if no guilidans are on the quest). The shared quests also feature recharging health. And there's a quest or two in there that will cancel out all guildian special effects. And there's also another fancy chest to earn if you can complete the island on Supreme difficulty. Check your guildians from the map! Now you can browse where you have guildians equipped from the map! Just click on the new button at the top-right of the zone info panel from the map and it'll show you everyone you have equipped by order of cities. Click on one of them to unequip them from that city and add them back to your inventory to use elsewhere. Still w…
- Hey Hey Guildians From the Map and a Challenge Island - 13 July 2017
Back-to-back-to-back Challenge Islands aren't quite what we wanted, but the timing kind of worked out that way. But we would feel bad if we came back after a week off and didn't put up a new island. New Challenge Island Now featuring a boss with recharging health (if no guilidans are on the quest). The shared quests also feature recharging health. And there's a quest or two in there that will cancel out all guildian special effects. And there's also another fancy chest to earn if you can complete the island on Supreme difficulty. Check your guildians from the map! Now you can browse where you have guildians equipped from the map! Just click on the new button at the top-right of the zone info panel from the map and it'll show you everyone you have equipped by order of cities. Click on one of them to unequip them from that city and add them back to your inventory to use elsewhere. Still w…
- Vacation Next Week! (But New Challenge Island and New Quest Abilities Now) - 29 June 2017
We're all taking next week off (it's been a while for us!). And that arrived at an awkward time with our one week up one week down for Challenge Islands, and we didn't want to have NOTHING happening in the game for two weeks. So I know you just had an island, but here's another one, and this'll last 2 weeks just in case. New Challenge It's the longest island ever at 34 quests! 2 cities with 4 guildhalls each. Finishing the island on Supreme difficulty your first time will earn you a fancy new Challenge Chest filled with goodies. Quest Abilities! Quests can now have special powers for different challenges. There are a few exploration quests that will damage with poison, as well as block clerics from healing. More abilities coming in the future. New UI With abilities we realized we need to list them in the quest info, which meant we had to re-arrange the layouts so there's some new art fo…
- Vacation Next Week! (But New Challenge Island and New Quest Abilities Now) - 29 June 2017
We're all taking next week off (it's been a while for us!). And that arrived at an awkward time with our one week up one week down for Challenge Islands, and we didn't want to have NOTHING happening in the game for two weeks. So I know you just had an island, but here's another one, and this'll last 2 weeks just in case. New Challenge It's the longest island ever at 34 quests! 2 cities with 4 guildhalls each. Finishing the island on Supreme difficulty your first time will earn you a fancy new Challenge Chest filled with goodies. Quest Abilities! Quests can now have special powers for different challenges. There are a few exploration quests that will damage with poison, as well as block clerics from healing. More abilities coming in the future. New UI With abilities we realized we need to list them in the quest info, which meant we had to re-arrange the layouts so there's some new art fo…
- New Challenge Island, UI Tweaks, and a Higher IceVale - 22 June 2017
New Challenge Island There's a new Challenge Island for the week! There are new card restrictions and new quest lines to tackle. That also means there's another batch of Star Points to earn. UI Tweaks We're a really fast team which means things can DRASTICALLY change very suddenly, and there's been a lot of back and forth with UI this last month that's probably given some whiplash. As much as I'm sorry we've upset so many people with the last UI pass, I'm glad that there were some people who gave us some good feedback on features we totally missed. We're trying to address some of those this week. More UI during the Map! People were asking for access to the vault and being able to see their gold/gems too. So we added those to the map. Gold and Gems on the bottom of the screen now (since most of the screens needed them on the bottom it turned out). Shrunk the size of the gold/gems/xp bars…
- New Challenge Island, UI Tweaks, and a Higher IceVale - 22 June 2017
New Challenge Island There's a new Challenge Island for the week! There are new card restrictions and new quest lines to tackle. That also means there's another batch of Star Points to earn. UI Tweaks We're a really fast team which means things can DRASTICALLY change very suddenly, and there's been a lot of back and forth with UI this last month that's probably given some whiplash. As much as I'm sorry we've upset so many people with the last UI pass, I'm glad that there were some people who gave us some good feedback on features we totally missed. We're trying to address some of those this week. More UI during the Map! People were asking for access to the vault and being able to see their gold/gems too. So we added those to the map. Gold and Gems on the bottom of the screen now (since most of the screens needed them on the bottom it turned out). Shrunk the size of the gold/gems/xp bars…
- The First Impressions Update! - 15 June 2017
First up: Challenge Island Down I think this one turned out a little more successful than the last, and even sprung up a lot of discussion, which is awesome! I especially love that people were able to find a few different strategies to pull off the final difficulties. We actually tried turning on Dark Knights to test last week and it turned out...they didn't work. So that's kind of funny. New Challenge Island coming up next week! First Impressions Update! There's a lot of stuff that went into this update, and a lot of it you might never see again as an existing player. Why are we working on first impressions? Well we're trying to gear up for other platforms. Games are a business and all that fun stuff no one wants to hear, and if we're going to keep working on the game we need to keep earning money. We've had recommendations to double prices and pinch harder on the existing audience, bu…
- The First Impressions Update! - 15 June 2017
First up: Challenge Island Down I think this one turned out a little more successful than the last, and even sprung up a lot of discussion, which is awesome! I especially love that people were able to find a few different strategies to pull off the final difficulties. We actually tried turning on Dark Knights to test last week and it turned out...they didn't work. So that's kind of funny. New Challenge Island coming up next week! First Impressions Update! There's a lot of stuff that went into this update, and a lot of it you might never see again as an existing player. Why are we working on first impressions? Well we're trying to gear up for other platforms. Games are a business and all that fun stuff no one wants to hear, and if we're going to keep working on the game we need to keep earning money. We've had recommendations to double prices and pinch harder on the existing audience, bu…
- A New Challenge Island Appears - 8 June 2017
+ Level 600 cap + Some super-tiny guildian stat tweaks that probably no one will notice. New Challenge Island Taking into account that it's actually pretty tricky to make an idle game HARD, and without the scope to drastically change how combat and stats work, here's another Challenge Island for everyone. The hope with these is that early-ish players can play the first prestige or two, middle players can play the middle four or five, and only the highest level players can actually finish the final prestige level. Not too sure how enforceable that is but that was the goal with the balance. We were able to tweak the rules and start banning specific guildians from guildhalls. So that means there are no Dark Knights allowed on this new island. We'll see how that goes! The island will last about 6-ish days from now. You'll be able to earn a new batch of Star Points, but gilding resets when t…
- A New Challenge Island Appears - 8 June 2017
+ Level 600 cap + Some super-tiny guildian stat tweaks that probably no one will notice. New Challenge Island Taking into account that it's actually pretty tricky to make an idle game HARD, and without the scope to drastically change how combat and stats work, here's another Challenge Island for everyone. The hope with these is that early-ish players can play the first prestige or two, middle players can play the middle four or five, and only the highest level players can actually finish the final prestige level. Not too sure how enforceable that is but that was the goal with the balance. We were able to tweak the rules and start banning specific guildians from guildhalls. So that means there are no Dark Knights allowed on this new island. We'll see how that goes! The island will last about 6-ish days from now. You'll be able to earn a new batch of Star Points, but gilding resets when t…
