Hi, Inklings!


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! This is the first in a series of statuettes made by the amazing Leto. Check out their work here.

Nib and Bin are two of my favorite characters in Inkbound and Catlaxy really brought them to life! See the masterpiece here!

Want to see more? Check out the Steam page or check out the server! Although we’re moving all Shiny Shoe games to a more central server, [discord.gg]you can see fanart like this incredible imaginary class by Spark called ‘The Lamplighter’ on the original server![discord.com]

To celebrate our one year anniversary, I asked members of the Shiny Shoe team for a few of their favorite memories, moments, or features that made it (or didn’t make it) into the game. And they did not disappoint. Here are just a few:

When asked which character was his favorite, Art Director Will responded with a resounding ‘Star Captain!’ He continued to explain how the Starship of Terror world would always be closest to his heart.

“I just love Tron,” explained Will and mentioned how he drew from the science fiction movie to come up with the world. The process of worldbuilding, he said, was by far his favorite part of Inkbound’s development.

ModusPwnenz, in true designer fashion, was more focused on the mechanics. His favorite design challenge was the Vestige Sets. In his words, “Designing the Sets happened near the end of the project, I felt like there was a bunch of fun ideas coming together. They are something I'd like to explore again in a future project for sure.”

And, finally but certainly not least, CEO Mark Cooke was nostalgic for the dance parties held in the Atheneum.

“One of my favorite moments on the publishing side was trying to organize a bunch of people in the Atheneum to record some footage for a video - dance party next to the Gatekeeper!” said Mark. “We should really make him break out in dance too if enough people nearby are dancing.”

When I asked Mark what was he most proud of regarding Inkbound, he answered that he was proud of how Shiny Shoe had stepped up to the challenge of developing a game like Inkbound.

“It [Inkbound] was the first title we developed with centrally hosted multiplayer. That was a large technical challenge. On the game design side, our combination of free movement and simultaneous multiplayer actions while in a turn-based structure took a lot of effort to try to get right. Finally, it was also both challenging and fun to self-publish and develop our skills in that area.”

While Inkbound’s development might have come with its own set of challenges, it certainly resulted in unique and memorable fun! To experience the fun for yourself, join me TODAY at 12:00 PM PST for a special first anniversary livestream on Twitch![www.twitch.tv]

I hope to see you in the chat and thank you so much for supporting Inkbound and the Shiny Shoe team!

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.[discord.gg] As always, thank you so much for playing Inkbound and supporting the Shiny Shoe team. And please let me know which song is your favorite!

See you in the Atheneum!
~Cami
Community Manager at Shiny Shoe

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.


This patch will be released at approximately 3:30 pm Pacific (UTC-7) on July 1, 2024.

1. Fixed Sundance's Challenge mutator "Anchored" letting players gain movement through potions.

1. Improved framerate outside of combat when a quest is tracked.

This is a small bug fix patch to the recent release of major update 1.1.


This patch will be released at approximately 10 am Pacific (UTC-7) on June 28, 2024.

1. Fixed Discharge not gaining Kinetic Charge after dying and then reviving in a multiplayer run.
   
2. Fixed Discharge Rare augment Maneuvering Discharge referring to Movement bindings instead of Teleport bindings.
   
3. Fixed Legendary vestige Aspect of Ash-Alun tooltip showing Smite Damage twice.
   
4. Fixed incorrect tooltip in Potent Invocation.
   
5. Fixed Invocation ascension Benediction not granting shield or heal.
   
6. Fixed Invocation Epic augment Divine Invocation not stacking.
   
7. Fixed Mutator "Commoner's Stockpile" showing higher rarity vestiges in 1st book carver shops.
   
8. Fixed Invocation Uncommon augment Swift Invocation not granting movement when hitting with Divine Touch.
   
9. Fixed Stigmatist's challenge letting you change your class after getting a copy of your class bindings.
   
10. Fixed Fabled Victory quest unlocking at Fabled 6 instead of Fabled 5.

1. Fixed a very rare issue where the game could take a long time to start on some PCs.

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!


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 Vault Dust.


Added new Casual Rank feature. Casual Rank makes the game easier than Rank 0 and is a perfect option for players looking to clear story content or quests without too much worry. Casual Rank can be accessed from the Inkwell Dive Rank interactable to the left of the voting platform in the Atheneum. It is accessible from the rank dropdown and is available regardless of player state, including at the start of the game.

Casual Rank specifically starts the player off with more Kwillings and Glyphs, more Movement per Turn, more Max HP, and more Will Reserve. It also reduces enemy Attack and Max HP.


We have added two new draftable Bindings to the game.

• A hybrid offensive/defensive Binding that scales power off of Movement.
  
• Grants “Barrier”, which after reaching a certain number of stacks, grants shield. It functions similarly to “Shattered Will”.

• An offensive support Binding that gives access to Smite.
  
• Grants “Divine Touch” which lets you Smite on hitting.

These Bindings are not unique to any Aspect and will appear in the normal draftable pool. This is to increase the diversity of the early game by providing even more options that can show up for players.


We have added six new draftable Vestiges to the game. These Vestiges are not unique to any Aspect and will appear in the normal draftable pool. This is to increase the diversity of the early game by providing even more options that can show up for players.

1. Added five new draftable common Vestiges: Borrowed Feathers, Ink Catalyst, Ruhnstone Fragment, Scrapped Binding, and Unclaimed Boon
   
2. Added one new draftable uncommon Vestige: Unearthed Treasure.

We have added one new unlockable Trinket to the game: Boon of the Godscourt. This is to provide more gameplay experiences related to the Smite gameplay mechanic. Due to the new Trinket addition, a Trinket Key was added to the Progression Reward track.


We have refreshed the Victory Board in full with brand new quests. The new Victory Board includes six new cosmetic rewards, detailed later below.

The old Victory Board cosmetic rewards have been moved to the Cosmetic Vault. They can be found under the “Ye Olde Victory Board #3” page.


Sopwith Camel. Unlocks at Victory Board Level 18.

Nekomimi Mode. Unlocks at Victory Board Level 36.

Pink Butterfly Wings. Unlocks at Victory Board Level 54.

Mahjong Kwill (Ton). Unlocks at Victory Board Level 72.

One-Wing. Unlocks at Victory Board Level 90.

Immaterial Wings. Unlocks at Victory Board Level 108.

1. Fixed Bonk Uncommon augment Oversized Bonk letting you use Bonk without a target.
   
2. Fixed Ironclap ascension Slam having no SFX when not hitting an enemy.
   
3. Fixed Infusion not being removed when allies hit an enemy with Infusion.
   
4. Increased Telekinesis range from 6 >>> 8.
   
5. Increased Psychic Pulse ascension Aura Surge damage form 75 >>> 90.
   
6. Increased Psychic Pulse ascension Psychic Beam damage from 125 >>> 175.
   
7. Increased Spirit Bomb damage from 100 >>> 125.
   
8. Increased Spirit Bomb ascension Spirit Cannon damage at Full charge from 300 >>> 400.
   
9. Fixed Spirit Bomb Rare augment Shielding Spirit Bomb not stacking.
   
10. Fixed Celestial Spear ascensions Battle Standard and Bloodrain having inconsistent sizes from the base Binding.
    
11. Fixed Whirlwind rare augment Smiting Whirlwind not applying on Crimson Edge and Endless March ascensions.
    
12. Fixed Eruption ascension Spirit Corruption not granting shield with Uncommon augment Benevolent Eruption.
    
13. Fixed damage number highlighting issues with Jinx and its Ascensions.
    
14. Fixed damage number highlighting issues with Dread and its Ascensions.
    
15. Fixed Lightning Bolt rare augment Charged Lightning with ascension Lightning Storm causing you to inflict Shocked to all enemies instead of an additional enemy.
    
16. Fixed Heal Aura preview not updating based on amount healed.
    
17. Fixed Poison Vapor ascension Putrify triggering Poison damage on enemies that aren't already inflicted Poison.
    
18. Fixed vestiges/potions spawning out of bounds when Pilfering from Argolath.
    
19. Fixed Cultivate ascension Crop Harvest shield gain not affected by shield gain modifiers like Contrition of Allyra.
    
20. Fixed Restoration epic augment Nurturing Restoration not granting Max HP on allies.
    

1. Buffed a few Vestige Sets such as Ambusher, Alchemist, Inventor, and Kwilling Hoarder. Nerfed a few that gave too much power for where they were at, such as Poisonblood, Warden, and Inventor.
   
2. Updated Alchemist Set: 2, 4, 6 >>> 2, 3, 6.
   
3. Updated Ambusher Set: 4, 6, 9 >>> 3, 5, 10.
   
4. Updated Inventor Set: 2, 3, 5 >>> 2, 4, 6.
   
5. Updated Kwilling Hoarder Set 2: +20% Kwillings >>> +25% Kwillings.
   
6. Updated Kwilling Hoarder Set 3: 100 Kwillings >>> 75 Kwillings.
   
7. Updated Poisonblood Set: 2, 4 >>> 3, 5.
   
8. Updated Treasure Hunter Set: 2, 5, 8 >>> 2, 4, 7.
   
9. Updated Warden Set: 2, 4, 7 >>> 2, 4, 8.
   
10. Fixed Rare vestige Weathered Tracks not granting immunity to Ensnared.
    
11. Fixed Rare vestige Death's Scythe not triggering Ashes of the Fallen on the 2nd proc.
    
12. Fixed Passkey of the Future not granting cooldown reduction at 7 stacks.
    
13. Updated Dun's Remains to use Omni Power Enhancement instead of a hidden status effect that granted omni damage.
    
14. Fixed Rare vestige Chalice of Champions not gaining Omni Damage when picking up vestige during combat.
    
15. Fixed Shatter and Hex damage text not updating with Embellisher vestige set.

1. Fixed Emblem of Enterprise granting 1 glyph instead of 2 when defeating a Guardian.
   
2. Fixed Heart of Hero trinket not granting sets after defeating Guardian of the Unbound.
   

1. Updated Book 1 Captor challenge buff Sapping Shackles: +500 HP >>> +750 HP.
   
2. Updated Book 1 Captor challenge buff Captor's Minion Retrieval: +500 HP >>> +1200 HP.
   
3. Updated Book 2 Janus challenge buff Janus's Focus: +2000 HP >>> +3500 HP.
   
4. Updated Book 1 Lusk challenge buff Leaking Blightbag: +500 HP >>> +1200 HP.
   
5. Updated Book 2 Lusk challenge buff Lusk Explosion: +350 HP >>> +1500 HP.
   
6. Updated Book 1 and Book 2 Nim the Lost challenge buff Nim's Penance. Book 1: +500 HP >>> +2000 HP. Book 2: +2000 HP >>> +5000 HP.
   
7. Updated Book 2 Nim the Lost challenge buff Nim's Temper: "Nim deals +50% damage but takes +50% damage" >>> "Nim deals +50% damage but takes +35% damage.
   
8. Updated Book 1 Rhinferno challenge buff Molten Core: +400 HP >>> +1000 HP.
   
9. Updated Guardian generic challenge buff Slimpe Egg Assist: 3 slimpe eggs >>> 4 slimpe eggs.
   
10. Updated Guardian generic challenge buff Blastback: "On being hit, launch a bomb towards the player. Up to 2 times per turn" (+1 per additional player in party) >>> "...Up to 3 times per turn" (+1 per additional player in party).
    
11. Fixed Blotters and Shadowkwill challenge buffs sometimes not spawning units during the Argolath fight.
    
12. Slightly reduced number of enemies in fights before the Villain.
    
13. Increased Nim the Lost HP: Book 1 8000 >>> 8750, Book 2 33000 >>> 36000.
    
14. Adjusted balance on some difficult combats that were killing players above desired expectation.
    
15. Slightly increased Blotter hitboxes.
    
16. Updated Daily Challenge mutator Reaper's Touch: -35 HP >>> -25 HP.
    
17. Fixed Daily Challenge mutator Toxic Friendship enemies not spawning on Argolath stage.
    
18. Prevented mutators "Taste the Rainbow" and "Store of Legend" from appearing together in Daily Challenges since their effects on Vault/Shop rarities cancel out.
    
19. Fixed Janus the Malformed challenge buff Sentry Mode only removing dormant from direct hits rather than from all damage.
    
20. Prevented Guardian of the Unbound Key from gaining Bounty from Bounty of Sentient Beings.
    
21. Prevented Prey from being inflicted on Guardians and the Guardian of the Unbound Key.
    
22. Adjusted certain Daily Challenges that give Vestiges such that players cannot drop these Vestiges

1. Increased player level cap from 999 to 9999.
   
2. Increased rate of Cosmetic Vault appearance after Guardian combat.
   
3. Updated Godkeeper quest to not require 30 physical to pull out spear due to issue when gaining physical power after entering book.
   
4. Fixed Combo, Starwalker, Witt's Book of Magic, Paradigm Shift, and Counselor's Ledger not reducing Will cost or Cooldown of Discharge and Invocation.
   
5. Fixed Tether not inflicting Threaded in a multiplayer scenario with another player that also has Tether.
   
6. Fixed Hex and Shatter incoming damage preview changing based on player stats.
   
7. Fixed Crush Damage being shown incorrectly when previewing from your Passive or your Bindings if you have Damage Resist.
   
8. Updated Celestial Spear to grant Velocity to allies that use the spear.
   
9. Fixed Blight gunk VFX mismatch on higher ranks.
   
10. Adjusted rate of middle option in Glyphs for Vestige Copy Sea Breach from 3 to 2.
    
11. Updated Phasing to remove on the enemy taking damage, such as from Smite.
    
12. Fixed Cost Discount of random Bindings sometimes reducing the Will cost of Bindings already at 0 Will.
    
13. Fixed Unbound Key of Binders shop interactable charging Glyphs from everyone in the party instead of just the player who interacted with it.
    
14. Fixed Steam achievements Solo Challenger, Solo Champion, Group Challenger, and Group Champion from being able to be triggered by an edge case while completing a run at a lower rank.

1. Added Smite Damage to the in-game stat details screen.
   
2. Adjusted Collection screen in Logbook to allow searching for Ascensions by name.
   
3. Updated art on the Main Menu.
   
4. Adjusted sort order of Cosmetic Vault to be more logical.
   
5. Added class filters to the Cosmetic Vault.
   
6. Added toggle to hide fully owned pages in the Cosmetic Vault.
   
7. Added first and last page buttons to the Cosmetic Vault.
   
8. Allowed right-stick to control radial menus as well as left-stick on gamepad.
   
9. Removed small thumbnail of Villains from Villain tooltip.
   
10. Added display of rank and challenge to End Run Screen.
    
11. Added Cosmetic DLC information to the Main Menu screen if you do not have the DLC.
    
12. Added notification to game on DLC install when game is active and when you are not in the Atheneum.
    
13. Updated text in Sturdy Restoration description: “Upgrades” >>> “Ascensions”.
    
14. Updated text in Faded Mandela description: “less” >>> “fewer”.
    
15. Updated description of Sugar Rush for clarity.
    
16. Removed double-period from Cleansing Shroom description.
    
17. Clarified text on Ranked Run mutator for Guardian +Attack% gain post-phase change.
    
18. Added period to Teenage Lapi description.
    
19. Highlighted damage number in Stimulate ascension from Chillazer due to damage type changing from Magical to Physical.
    
20. Updated description on Nim's Penance for clarity.
    
21. Adjusted font size on Return Home button in Logbook to fit German label better.
    
22. Fixed issue with message that comes up when you try to grind a Millstone.
    
23. Updated description on Efu's Guise to clarify it doesn't stack.
    
24. Added Vestige Mastery filter to the Logbook.
    
25. Added ‘No Aspect’ option to Aspect filter in the Logbook.
    
26. Fixed end of run Logbook animation timing when going from mastered vestige to leaderboard tab in Daily Challenge post-run flow
    
27. Prevented player from ending turn and consuming potions and fish when targeting.
    
28. Added popup dialog and preference option for End Turn Remaining Will.
    
29. Fixed Throw damage text showing double damage while having Epic augment Spinning Throw.
    
30. Improved positioning of Party Button in Party Details context with respect to non-16:9 resolutions.
    
31. Adjusted Name Change and Code Redeem screens such that hitting Enter when the input field is empty closes them.
    
32. Added indicator for navigating radial gamepad menus so player can track where their control stick points.
    
33. Fixed visual issue where stat numbers in HUD could go off-screen.
    
34. Added Gamepad South as valid means to skip cutscenes, including Gamepad East.
    
35. Fixed issue where Delete Player Data button would not be enabled from the Main Menu context if you returned to it from the game.
    
36. Adjusted display of paginated elements to handle situations where there are no items to display due to filters.
    
37. Fixed bug where sometimes Logbook Collection filters would not be respected when changing tabs.
    
38. Fixed visual display for Authored and Daily Challenges that adjust Will Reserve when not in combat.
    
39. Added boss challenges to top-right Villain HUD tooltip after Villain vote.
    
40. Added a “No Aspect” dropdown filter to the Logbook Collection.
    
41. Adjusted gamepad swap highlighting to default to first available vestige or consumable, based on context.
    
42. Disabled the reroll button in drafts if the draft has no available remaining options.
    
43. Fixed positioning of reroll buttons in non-shop drafts.
    
44. Fixed typo in Frozen Flamethrower Vestige description.
    
45. Fixed numerals in text for Lucky Horseshoe Crab.
    
46. Fixed typo in Inky Might.
    
47. Adjusted difficulty adjustment of Track Star, Green Tunic, and Champion Alchemist daily challenge mutators, so that more beneficial mutators show up alongside them.
    
48. Fixed some story lines where VO lines did not exactly match English text.
    
49. Removed erroneous Inkdrain tooltip from Quad-Handed tooltip.

We are very excited to be releasing this major update and look forward to hearing your feedback! As always, thank you for playing Inkbound and for supporting the Shiny Shoe team!

See you in the Atheneum!

**Edit: Changed 'Updated Ambusher Set: 4, 6, 9 >>> 3, 5, 9' to 'Updated Ambusher Set: 4, 6, 9 >>> 3, 5, 10.'

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.[discord.gg] You can also subscribe to the Inkbound newsletter[inkboundgame.com] 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 and we’ll see you on June 25th! As always, thank you so much for supporting Inkbound and the Shiny Shoe team.

See you in the Atheneum!
Cami
Community Manager for Shiny Shoe

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!


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 have fun with it!

Do you have an idea for a cool challenge to add to the game? Let us know what you’d like to see in the comments and we will consider it for future updates!


We have heard your feedback on wanting more variety in draft choices at the start of runs. To accomplish this goal, we are adding two new draftable Bindings to the game. As with all Bindings, each Binding will have three Ascensions and nine Augments. These Bindings are not specific to any Aspect and can be used across all of them.

Additionally, we are adding in a few more Vestiges to the starting pool. We are adding five new common Vestiges and one new uncommon Vestige to the game. These new vestiges should add some early-run variety and give some more access to certain sets or mechanics that are a bit underrepresented in the current pool, such as Fabled and Executioner. As with the Bindings, these Vestiges are not designed specific to any Aspect.


Smite is a mechanic in game that is quite cool, but it has not gotten the same level of visibility as some of the other status effects available in the game. We’re focusing on more content for Smite in specific. As part of this, we are adding a Smite-focused Trinket to the game. Additionally, Smite damage as a stat will be visualized better within in-game menus.


For this update, we are not going to reset your player level. Instead, we are increasing the player level cap from 999 to 9,999. Additionally, we are refreshing the Victory Board with entirely new quests for you to complete. This includes new Cosmetics to unlock, more on that later.


WIP screenshot. Contents subject to change.

As is tradition, the Cosmetics found in the previous Victory Board will be found in a new page in the Cosmetic Vault. To make navigating the Cosmetic Vault easier, we are adding filters, rearranging pages, and providing additional navigation options.

We are also adding new Cosmetics to the game. These Cosmetics will be available as rewards for the Victory Board, as well as a new page in the Cosmetic Vault. We will also increase the spawn rate of Stylish Treasure. Between these changes, and the Vault Dust reward for completing Authored Challenges, we hope that all players will be able to unlock all Cosmetics by playing the game.

On the Friday stream, we showcased two of the new Cosmetic items. They are seen below.


Nekomimi Mode is a pair of cat ears you can put on your player. However, it does not belong to the Head Slot. Instead, it is a Head Effect. This allows you to pair it with existing helmets and the like. Some of the combinations, such as the way we showcased on our Friday stream, are quite fun!


The Immaterial Wings are a new, uniquely animated item for the Back Slot that have a fiery, ethereal presence to them. These wings are the reward for completing the new Victory Board. Do your best to earn them!


Finally, as always, we will deploy a number of improvements to the game. The most notable one is that we will disable the End Turn button when targeting. This should help prevent accidental run-ending misclicks from happening. Thank you to everybody who diligently reported this problem.


We will announce the release date of the Inkbound 1.1 update at a later date. We have more content to showcase as well, from Authored Challenges to new Cosmetics, which we also will do at a later date. Having said all of that, you can expect 1.1 to launch sooner than later!

Thank you to all of you who have played and enjoyed Inkbound up until this point. We hope you enjoy this exciting new update to Inkbound!

*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.


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 sound design. Inkbound had a lot of great opportunities to put this concept into practice. Your Kwill chirps synthesized melodies. Picking up Kwillings plays random notes along a major 7 chord. The “singing of the sea” is something that is often referenced by NPCs in the game, and even the Uhn pillars that augment your bindings emit sounds made from guitar harmonics. We wanted players to feel like there was some magic to the world itself, but enforce the idea that this magic felt normal to everyone living within it.
  
  
• Any “non-book music” should be aesthetically tied. There are two types of music in Inkbound - the tracks that play within the books, and the tracks that play outside of them. This pillar is about the latter. The environments contained within the books themselves are quite varied, so I knew that cohesion was going to be a challenge. It seemed important to try and ground the world outside of the books with common instrumentation. You may notice that each of these tracks – The Atheneum, the Sea of Ink, and the Bottom of the Sea – have a similar vibe and prominently feature synths, woodwinds, keys, and vibraphones.
  
  
• Each piece of “book music” should sound unique. In contrast to the above pillar, we thought that the individual books should be as distinct from each other as possible. After all, they represent worlds created by very different Binders. Fortunately, the structure of a typical Inkbound run allows this to work. Players return to the Sea of Ink between books, and back to the Atheneum between dives. So even our more eclectic tracks, like the Derelict Starship or the Radiant Market, will always be sandwiched between something more familiar sounding. In fact, I think their stark contrast to the main “Inkbound sound” is what allows the Atheneum and and the Sea of Ink to feel like a home base.

From working on Monster Train, I knew that our players would latch onto a recurring musical motif. I got this very nerdy idea to create “bookend” motifs for Inkbound – a catchy melody or phrase that would be both the first and the last thing players heard – and plant them throughout the game loop. So for example, the central melody you hear in the menu reprises in the villain theme, the final boss fight, and the credits track. (I actually tried to Inception™ it into your minds as early as our announcement trailer). The “bookend” structure lends itself particularly well to roguelikes, where players might squeeze multiple runs into each session. Ideally, the setup and payoff of those musical motifs should happen multiple times each time you sit down to play. There are more motifs to be found, and even a nod to an older project of ours called Death’s Door, but I’ll let you discover those for yourselves.


This was a tremendous opportunity that I feel fortunate to have been a part of. Each member of our cast brought something new and exciting to their characters, and I can’t speak highly enough about them. Check out the credits sequence for a full cast list. But before arriving at the decision to fully voice the game, there were two interesting (failed) iterations of our dialogue system that I think should be discussed:

• First, we tried voicing a conlang (constructed language), a process during which I somehow managed to rip off Hollow Knight and every Zelda game at once. The main problem here, aside from my acting, was that there wasn’t enough variety, nor could we make a strong connection between the voiceover and writing. You’ll notice that the voice of the player’s Kwill is a made-up, melodic performance. Even with the Kwillspeak text obscured, it was challenging to find enough variety. Multiply that problem by the number of characters in Inkbound, and you can imagine how difficult it was to connect with them using this method.
  
  
• Next, some members of our team recorded one-liner “emotes” – things like “Hmm…” to indicate contemplation, or grumbling to indicate frustration – and we applied them broadly throughout the game to approximate the emotion behind each line. It quickly became repetitive and didn’t convey the nuance of the writing well enough.

Once we decided to fully voice the game, Brendan and I took the opportunity to expand on a principle that we first enforced during Monster Train: our voice actors are our collaborators. Aside from providing some artwork and character details, we gave them complete freedom to interpret their characters. We began every session by encouraging them to bring their own creativity to the table. Some of them would improvise radically different voices on the fly. Others would suggest line edits mid-session (all of which we took). Ultimately, the cast connected deeply with their respective characters, and helped to bring out something that we never would have achieved alone.

And that’s just about it! Inkbound is a game about the importance of stories. It ponders the threatening possibility of losing them, and it pushes players to think about their own. While my aim with the audio was to convey the weight of this very existential topic, I hope that it also leaves you with a little bit of the magic, wonder, and inspiration that I felt while making it.

Thanks for hanging out, and I’ll see you around the Atheneum!

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.


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!


It was always hard to tell when Controlled Weaving was active, so I was thrilled to make it stand out more.


This one feels great! Visually telling when the spirit bomb was ready to BLOW for maximum damage was a big upgrade.


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 you’ve got a big hit ready to go

Please note that the following section contains spoilers regarding the ultimate final boss in Inkbound.

The Unbound

Our big bad final boss HAD to have some cool FX.

The environment FX were a lot of fun. We had to really sell that the land bits were falling through this unraveling dimension.

The head flames and glowing mask took a while to hammer out and get just right. It also had to work as a player cosmetic! Overall I’m happy with the results.

That’s all from me today! I hope you all have a wonderful day and I’ll catch you next time for more sparkles and explosions.

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 a prefab are reflected on all instances of the prefab, which is useful for visual components that are reused throughout the game. Let’s now take a look at an individual StatEntryUI component:

It’s actually quite simple: just an icon and a text label. The icon seen above is just a placeholder visual for the actual icon: the icon of the stat itself. This is where things get a bit complicated, as two invisible forces work to populate this simple UI component:

• The numeric label is localized, such that it will display properly across all supported locales
  
• The icon sprite is loaded via the addressable asset system, such that the image for the stat is not put into memory until it is needed, so as to reduce memory consumption and boot time of the overall title

Luckily, the numeric label is just that: numeric. As such, we can configure it to not support font switching between locales, as our other text labels support. This ensures the numeric display will be identical for this component across all locales. That is useful because the amount of screen space we have on the HUD is limited, so we’d like things to be the same across locales, if possible. We only hit that checkbox for purely numeric labels, and only sometimes, as the need arises.

Looking at the high level of the visual script, we see our references to the 12 UI components that comprise the StatHudScreen, but we also see a different reference above it, one to something called StatCategoryVisualData. Let’s look at what’s going on in there…

Wow, it’s kind of complicated! This visual data object contains a lot of information on all the stats we want to visualize throughout the game, the categories they belong to, rules on when they can show, if they can only show in the HUD or if they can also show in the more detailed view, and beyond. This piece of data is referenced in multiple places in the game!

Scrolling to the bottom of the object, we see our references to the stats we want to display in the HUD. It is this list that the UI visual screen uses to determine which stats to showcase. Any designer can go in and specify the data with the tools provided in the game engine editor. This allows anybody to make changes to the visual HUD display, both here and in the detailed stats view, without having to adjust code further.

This gets to the crux of why we put the effort in to expose functionality in the editor and outside code: we want the game to be easy for designers to maintain, and we don’t want to force the designers to learn how to code just to do something as simple as reordering stats in the HUD. The core of my work is not so much making the game directly, but rather, making the tools that make the game. In other words, creating a wrapper atop the engine, a framework, with which Inkbound can be crafted.

If you made it this far without getting bored, congrats! Thanks for reading this, and thank you for playing Inkbound. I look forward to crafting more and more content for you to enjoy!