Based on community feedback I've implemented a prototype for on-foot 3D zones in the capital city. This is a first step in a potential path for adding more on-foot exploration throughout the game. Your feedback is important, so please let me know what you think so far! =)

Soul Saga v20.03.07.01 is now live!

There has been several technical updates based on community feedback. Some of the changes include:

• Added options for inverting X and Y axis in controller mode for airship exploration.
  
• Clicking the mouse button at the title screen will now automatically switch the input mode to "mouse and keyboard". This is a safety mechanism in case "controller mode" was accidentally chosen or if the controller was unplugged since the last play session.
  
• Pressing a button on a controller will automatically switch to controller mode while in the title screen.
  
• Default resolution after installing the game is now the current Desktop resolution (and fullscreen).
  
• Implemented a new resolution confirmation screen that will allow the player to revert to previous settings if the resolution is wrong.
  
• Added resolution options for:
  2560x1440
  3440x1440
  4096x2160
  
• Various combat stat balance adjustments.
  
• Various bug fixes.

Soul Saga runs on the Unity Game Engine, which officially supports recent versions of Ubuntu. Other versions of Linux may work, but Unity does not seem to officially support them. If you try another Linux version, please post the results here so others can know which versions work!

Note
You may need to make sure the x86_64 files are allowed to be run as executable. On Ubuntu you can find a checkbox for that in the file properties dialog.

Reporting
Please report any Linux issues in the Bug Reporting forum.

It contains various bug fixes and also implements an advanced difficulty menu that allows control over many aspects of Soul Saga, so you can customize your own experience.

The different difficulty settings options currently include:

• Toggling the death penalty on/off.
  
• Airship Crash Damage
  
• Airship Drifting
  
• Cloudking Aggression
  
• Enemy HP
  
• Enemy Strength
  
• Invasion Damage
  
• EXP Gain Rate
  
• Shop Prices

Thank you to everyone who has been giving feedback! It's been great to hear all of the responses.

Initial feedback has been generally positive, but Soul Saga has evolved a lot so many fans are very surprised by the change in gameplay direction and have been downvoting the game because of their expectations from years ago. This is unfortunate as newer players knowing what to expect from the actual game are happy with Soul Saga so far, so I think we should be very clear about what Soul Saga has evolved into...

Soul Saga has evolved over the years as I created a unique game I sincerely enjoyed playing myself. I believe I succeeded in that goal, but it did stray from its original vision of a generic JRPG.

It's now a sophisticated blend of various genres that include JRPG and rogue-lite elements.

I chose this design route because I really enjoy games that are open-ended and offer "experiences" that surprises the player and allows them customize and forge their own stories and paths.

I love these types of game experiences, so I will continue developing Soul Saga in this way!

Soul Saga is my passion project, and I plan to enhance and add new features to it for a long time. Nothing has been or ever will be able to change that. I'm excited to share Soul Saga's progress with you as it continues to grow!

The biggest feedback moving forward I'd like to address is difficulty. Soul Saga has a very unique physics-based airship control system that challenges the player to think differently than almost any game they've ever played. Once you get the hang of it, it's like riding a bike, but the challenge and danger will always be there.

I'd like to make the airship system more "beginner friendly". Here's a few upcoming changes that may help accomplish that:

• Ways to heal your airship while in the field
  
• Giving the airship it's own HP pool (so the party isn't hurt when crashing)
  
• Making early level airship steering easier
  
• Exposing more variables for custom difficulty settings.

I'll let you know when I get this update out. Thanks again for all your feedback and for playing my humble game... oh, and sorry it's been kicking your butts! ;)

Sincerely,
Mike (Disastercake) <3

You're looking snazzy today! How have you been?! I just wanted to let you know Unity got around to fixing the bugs that were blocking my development and I've made some great progress! You can read all about it here:


Soul Saga - Scope Analysis, Combat Enhancements[www.patreon.com]

[www.patreon.com]From now on, any updates before I release Soul Saga to Steam will be posted on my Patreon page[patreon.com]. Once I'm ready for Steam I will resume updates here again. =)

I missed you! How've you been? Today is one of those "yummy news" / "yucky news" type of days. I'll keep this as succinct as possible so we can both get back to being productive!


At the beginning of this year I went from a sort of "floating homelessness" to moving into my parent's basement. Since then I have not left this house for nearly 8 months so that I could focus entirely on delivering Soul Saga to you.

Thousands of Soul Saga's fans have let me know they've been eagerly awaiting the world I've spent half a decade creating for you. Unfortunately, it's with a heavy heart that I must temporarily suspend development of Soul Saga due to a critical Unity 3D native engine bug that is crashing many common areas of gameplay. You can see a small sample of the bug in the picture below.


This bug is what is known as a "native" crash, which means that there is something wrong inside of Unity's core source code. Because Unity is "closed source", I am unable to look at the code myself or even recruit help to fix the bug because I cannot gain access to the source code unless I pay a (very) large amount of money.

For a while now I've been exchanging e-mail's with Unity's QA representative. The representative has been sympathetic and courteous regarding the situation, but unfortunately no tangible progress has been made to resolve this bug.

Some key points of the correspondence have been:

• I have sent a bug report and project with the reproducible bug to Unity.
  
• The Unity team has acknowledged and reproduced the bug on their end.
  
• The bug has also been reported by other developers, but appears to be rare.
  
• Neither I nor Unity have been able to find a temporary "work-around".
  
• Unity has said there's nothing more I can do to resolve the bug.
  
• There is no timeline on fixing the bug.
  
• I can only wait until Unity's core development team has time to fix the bug.

This native engine crash is affecting both the compiled game build (the files you receive) and the engine's editor (which I create the game in). The breadth and consistency of the crashing is now blocking productive development, preventing me from both releasing early access to you and even continuing to create the game.


The thought of losing the world I have literally sacrificed my life to create puts me into an emotionally numbing shock. There is nothing for me outside of this project, and for it to not release would mean that my entire life was wasted. If you've followed my updates over the past half decade then you know that I am no stranger to bad luck and life-altering circumstances, but I have always pushed forward with a singular dream of delivering Soul Saga to you. So I hope you understand when I promise I will, somehow, get my world to you, that you understand the weight that promise holds.

For now I will utilize this "downtime" to mainly focus on two major goals:

• Research alternatives for delivering Soul Saga's world
  
• Focus on delivering other Kickstarter rewards

Which finally brings us to some good news...


[www.humblebundle.com]Soul Saga's Soundtrack is released! Over 70 tracks and nearly 4 hours of JRPG "ear candy" are now available. If you pledged for the soundtrack during the Kickstarter, you should be able to access it from Humble Bundle (following these instructions). If you'd like to support development further you can pick up a digital copy from either Humble Bundle[www.humblebundle.com] or Bandcamp[disastercake.bandcamp.com].

[www.humblebundle.com]
Remember that you can join myself and the community in our Discord chat. I'm active every day there and try my best to answer any questions you may have.

Click here to join Disastercake's Discord channel.[discord.gg]

5 years ago. from this exact day, I came to Kickstarter as a young developer with a dream: to make a fun game inspired by the classics I loved from my childhood.  At first I just planned to find a way to fund Soul Saga's development, but through Kickstarter I found much more.  I found support, I found friends, and most importantly: I found a reason to live.  Without you, I wouldn't have had the motivation to continue.

In a previous post I covered some of what I've had to sacrifice to keep working on Soul Saga.  Since then, I left my entire life behind to return to the exact place I started Soul Saga: my parent's basement.  I haven't left the farm since I got here half a year ago, because every waking moment has been dedicated to working on Soul Saga.  It's been a long journey with a lot of pain and heartbreak... and if I had the chance to start over, I'd do it all again.

I set out to make a love letter to JRPG classics and ended up making a love letter to you, my friends.  From the first moment I wake up, to the last moment I fall asleep, my only goal is to one day see you proud of the game you and I have created together.  This is why I've been gathering your feedback and applying it to Soul Saga.  I'm making this game for you, and it's you that has pushed Soul Saga to be the best game it can be.

Earlier this year I had hoped to have Soul Saga finished by July.  Since then I have done nearly nothing but work on Soul Saga. While I haven't been able to completely finish it yet, I've gotten a lot done.  However, after a lifetime of combating mental health diseases and the past 5 years pushing me beyond limits, it's become very obvious that toiling away alone will not be a feasible way to handle the remainder of Soul Saga's development.  It's time that we try something new.

Lately I've been looking back on the past 5 years of Soul Saga's development cycle and analyzing my own personal strengths and weaknesses to plan a realistic route to Soul Saga's completion.  What I've found is that the most valuable strength I have isn't from within myself... it's you.  Soul Saga could never have been as polished as it is today without your feedback and support.  And the only way I can complete Soul Saga is if you can help me figure out the best way to utilize what its world has to offer.  And we'll do that through early access.

In July I will be releasing Soul Saga in an early access state.  At the moment it's not nearly the game it can be or the game that you truly deserve, but with you and I working together, one day it will be.

[www.disastercake.com]Above you'll find Soul Saga's world map, illustrated by the talented Gracie Cole[www.gracieillustration.com].

You might recall that Soul Saga's world is split into three layers:

• Medonia
• the Tempest Reef
• the surface world of Oterra

The explorable areas of the first Soul Saga game focuses on Mithos and his friends in their younger years and their adventures among the floating sky islands of Medonia.  The world map above illustrates the broad layout of Medonia, which includes:

• Dunhaven, the capital city of Medonia and seat of the Guild Senate.
• Tanglewood, a deadly forest grown out of the roots of the mysterious Dragontree.
• Rustbelt, the abandoned junkyard of ancient, forbidden technology.

The explorable area of Medonia is an open world design.  If you see it, you can fly there!  The world is split up into a 7x6 grid, identified similar to a spreadsheet with a combination of letters and numbers.  If you look close enough during your adventures, you'll find that each area has something of interest in it: forgotten wonders, epic flying bosses, treasure, and even hidden dungeons.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3g9pfPMadw

In Soul Saga, your airship is like a part of your team. To give it a bit more personality, I've added a mouth and eyes. The mouth also serves another purpose: it spits bullets! I really like this design because it follows the cute aesthetic and strong personality that all of Soul Saga's characters have in this beautiful world.

 
I often use Twitter as an easy way to get out bite sized information and connect with fans.  Here's a summary of important Twitter updates I've lately.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDOh8plGw-E
I've created a (mostly) spoiler-free public roadmap on Trello[trello.com] so that you can follow along with Soul Saga's development, understand the priority ranking of different tasks, and have a stronger understanding of exactly what's left.  With a complex game like Soul Saga, pieces are always moving and changing, so a live kanban styled roadmap is a great way to deliver that information to you.

[trello.com]Many backers have asked to change their key to Steam, Humble Bundle[www.disastercake.com], or GOG[www.gog.com] so they can get in on Soul Saga's early access and help me further with development.  If you pledged for a console key, and would like to change it to a Desktop version, please send me a private message on Kickstarter, or shoot me an e-mail (mike at disastercake.com) if you pledged through Paypal.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hp7tNAH9Ox0

If you're a fan of Recettear or if the idea of running your own item shop tingles yours toes, you have to check out Moonlighter[moonlighterthegame.com].  Moonlighter has some of the most beautiful pixel art, music, and fun gameplay I've seen in a long time.  If you're lucky, Mithos might actually visit your shop in Moonlighter!  And if you look hard enough in Soul Saga, you might find something of Moonlighter that's crossed over...

[www.disastercake.com]I love you, and your opinion matters to me more than anything else.  I've always promoted a transparent and open communication between us, but now more than ever with this last stretch of Soul Saga's development I need to know what's on your mind.  Please feel free to join myself and other fans in the Disastercake Discord channel and have a chat!

Click here to join Disastercake's Discord channel.[discord.gg]

Today I have some horrible news: my dog ate the only backup I had of Soul Saga.

5 years down the drain... ːsteamsaltyː

But don't worry, I'll get back to work right away. I just have to start from the beginning...

Unrelated: anyone want some Shiba flavored hot dogs?

https://twitter.com/disastercake/status/980582626984710146