Alpha 6 has been released to our closed list of players today… The highlights of this release include the following:

Spells And Magic Skills

·        The update includes an implementation of the Prayer and Black Magic by providing at least 3 spells for those skills.

o   Prayer – Consecrate Weapon

o   Prayer – Holy Light

o   Prayer – Bless

o   Black Magic – Haste

o   Black Magic – Set Aflame

o   Black Magic – Dark Feedback

o   Black Magic – Fireball

·        Necromancy, White Magic and Druidry also received additional spells.

o   Necromancy – Rot

o   Necromancy – Animate Bones

o   White Magic – Energy Bolt

o   Druidry – Magic Arrow

·        Purchasing for magic spell scrolls can be done at the following locations:

o   Black Magic / Necromancy – Witch in the woods

o   White Maigc – Scribe in Brimstone

o   Druidry – Scribe in Brimstone and Druids at Myststone

o   Prayer – Reverend at the old stone church

o   Note some spells may need to be found from scrolls by monsters but I don’t think there are many of these yet.

Banking System

·        The first bank in the game is available to store items in, head to the Brimstone city center and talk to the banker there. Ask to go to your vault. You will be taken to a secure room where you can access your bank box and store up to 100 items. These items can be transferred across any of your characters in that same world by accessing the bank on them. Using the bank in the future is a good way to keep some of your items safe from loss when you die.

·        To exit your bank vault just open the door, you will be taken back to the bank lobby. Note you should not put any objects on the floor in the bank vault that you want to keep, the next time you go to your vault, you are not necessarily taken back to the same vault room.

·        Bankers can also convert currency from copper ßà silver ßà gold to condense and save inventory space if desired.

Mapping Updates and New Areas

·        City of Brimstone is mostly structurally done. I am still working on getting details and merchants in shops but the Bank, Enchanter and Scribe are present in the city. This area is available to travel to by following the road south till you come to its walls.

·        Mystic Woodland forest just above Brimstone is available to explore, this is where the witch resides and the area is relevant to the side quest that has been added this release. There are numerous creatures including wolves, bears and spiders…but I am still adding a couple more creature types to this area. So you can expect that in a follow up release.

·        Crypt has a new area that spawns skeleton mages on the first floor. I will continue to fill in more of the area and add a small floor next release. More secret passages will be available then.

·        A new spider lair is available through a burnt down house in the mystic woodland. It is part of the moon rose quest but like most areas in the game can be openly explored anytime. Widow Spider, Spiderling and Widow Queen creatures can all be found here.

·        Myststone, a druid sanctuary has been added just north east of the city of Brimstone. A side road can take you there.

·        Unfortunately, I have not updated the mini-maps yet to be inclusive of the new areas. This is mainly because the mini-map system is time consuming to update. They will certainly get an update next release after I add one more area to the mines. Below is raw minimap though for reference of testing in the mean time:

Quest(s)

·       Moon Rose quest was added. This quest can be started after the first blood moon (after the gravedigger’s quest and the blood moon appears that evening) by talking with Lily the Innkeeper in dragonhead village. She will then send you to talk to Morganna the witch in the woods. The quest contains two major parts of collecting Widow Sap from the Widow’s lair in the abandoned house mentioned above, obtaining a rose and then participating in a battle in the cemetery. This is a much more lengthy and difficult quest than the prior quests, its considered a side quest but does give you more insight into the story line. You may need to gain additional levels before being able to complete it. The spider lair can be especially difficult.

Changes Related to Items

·       Magic Rings and Amulets were added. Rings and Amulets will boost stats and skills in various ways (rings tend to boost stats one way while amulets will boost another). The most common place to find these are off of undead currently. A future note: Magic rings and amulets will eventually require attunement points which are not added yet and the intention of these points will be to limit the amount of magic/weapons armor power that you have equipped. An attunement skill will also be added.

·       Auto-piling should work better when dragging items to your inventory. There is still some work to do be done with the Take All Button when your bag is full and it properly checking piles in your inventory.

·       Spear weapons mistakenly used axe fighting as their skill instead of sword fighting (straight blades). This has been fixed.

·       Metal buckler now is named appropriately. Before it was called wooden buckler.

·       Repair costs have been reduced.

·       Many items were moved off the provisioner onto the scribe, witch and enchanter.

Newly added monsters/creatures/npcs

·        Wolf: Low/Mid level melee animal found in mystic woodland. Will eventually drop fur.

·        Bear: Mid level melee animal found in mystic woodland. Will eventually drop fur.

·        Skeleton Mage: Low level black magic caster, can be found in the crypt.

·        Lich: Mid level black magic/necromancy caster can be found in the crypt though its location on level 1 is currently temporary.

·        Ghost: Mid level white magic caster, currently only appears as part of the moon rose quest but will be added to crypts in next release. Note these can only be harmed by magic and magical/consecrated wepaons.

·        Widow Spiderling: Low level, Found in mystic woodland forest and the widow lair. Low poison level.

·        Withering Widow: Mid level, Found in the widow spider lair. Mid poison level.

·        Widow Queen: High level, Found in the widow spider lair. High level poison. Shoots web that can paralyze you for a short time.

·        Horses of different styles were added to the game. When you purchase a horse, the style will be generated randomly.

·        Merchant types of scribe, enchanter and banker were added (These new types can be found in Brimstone)

Graphics

·        The game will automatically scale to the window size of the game now.

·        Rendering performance has been improved for the map contents.

·        Some Terrain now have shadows (Trees/Bushes/Statues/etc… ). Some shadows may still be a little bit off and I will fix them as I find them.

·        Characters now have shadows.

·        A rendering issue where mounts and characters would clip through roofs/ceilings should largely be fixed.

Game Controls/Game Play

You can change any of the hot key bindings in options under hotkey settings.

·        Open/Close Spell Book Hot Key binding added. (Default is ‘B’)

·        Open/Close Stats/Skills Hot Key binding added. (Default is ‘S’)

·        Open/Close Quests Hot Key binding added. (Default is ‘Q’)

·        You can now control NPC companions such as animate bones skeletons or a mount by double clicking on it and clicking on a target. Clicking on a tile will tell the controlled NPC to go to that tile. Clicking on an enemy NPC will instruct it to attack and follow that enemy. Clicking on yourself will instruct it to follow you. Still some more work to be done in this area but this should give you the basics.

·        Mounting and dismounting a horse must now only be done with the Mouse Wheel. Prior to this release you could double click it to mount.

UI

·        Armor defenses are now available when hovering over armor items.

·        Shop item details are now available when hovering over items in the shop. Some items may still need additional specifics added.

·        A bug was fixed that causing a crash when selling items then going to repair another item.

Other Notes

·        Next release (Alpha 7) will be our last closed Alpha release. Following the next release I am planning on doing future alpha/beta releases on Steam as Early Access.

·        Next release (Alpha 7) will add one additional quest and focus on filling content in areas, adding a female playable character, completing combat related skills and adding a few more spells.  We will also try to provide a tutorial at game start.

·        I will no longer be updating the Alpha guide, though I will provide it with this and next release for past information in it is still at least partially relevant. I will work on updating FAQ and a how to guide with information going forward.