Hi, wonderful humans!

Tomorrow at 8pm CEST, I will do a Twitch stream where I will design a new Animon with the community and draw in live. I'll let you vote on its aspect (aka element/type) and we'll brainstorm some ideas together. Additionally, I'll be answering any questions you might have about the project or me! Blind players are absolutely welcome to join, too, of course. I will give visual descriptions of what I'm drawing.

Challenge Fights

The next update will add Challenge Fights that let you start a specifically designed boss fight with a set team and Tricks that you can launch from the menu. The first one will be a battle against ignited Minjaluna and defeating it will reward you with an elusive Minjaluna (aka shiny).

But Zein, how do elusive Animons work in Soulblaze?

Glad you asked! Since it's a roguelite, catching a shiny as you know it from Pokémon doesn't make much sense as you loose everything after the run (except for marbles). In Soulblaze, catching or obtaining any elusive Animon will unlock that look permanently as an option during starter selection for that specific Animon. If you catch an elusive Halazoom, you will then be able to toggle the elusive look on and off on the starter selection screen.

But Zein, Minjaluna is not a starter??

Good observation! Minjaluna indeed is not a starter. If you have played the alpha on Itch.io or the playtest on Steam, you might have noticed the upgrade screen, accessible from the main menu. You can spend your collected marbles there to unlock upgrades. One of them is the Companion Shard, a special Bindshard that lets you capture an Animon during a run and add it as a starter choice. That way you can add Animons you like and pick them for your next runs. You can also release the starter and re-use the shard for another one!

New Dice-Use: Reduce Condition

I'm also working on an additional way to spend your dice, both for you and the enemy. With the recently added Toppings, you can trigger and combine bonuses, that can rack up to a intimidating stack of a status condition. This feels good when it happens but can also lead to frustration because you wouldn't want to spend your two dice with 10 stacks of poison each (which would deal 20 damage) or you cannot do anything with 6 stacks of Tide unless you have Resonance (all dice showing the same value). On the other side, it is very boring to fight an enemy that will not act for 10 turns because you gave them 20 stacks of Tide. Speaking of which, I also added the ability for the enemy to re-roll dice themselves so they can try to get Resonance.

So I added the Animon as a new place to drop a die. Doing this, will reduce all your condition stacks by an amount equal to the die value. Matching aspects will reduce twice as much (e.g. a red Fury die with a 4 will reduce 4 stacks of poison and 8 stacks of burning!)

This will also come with the next update and I look forward to see/hear how it plays for you.

Sneak Peak & Teasers

Here are two more Soulblaze form sketches which are already in the game but not finished.