So... Been a bit, huh?
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Despite the hiatus, we haven't stopped working on the game.
In fact, now that we aren't beholden to any deadlines, we've taken the chance to explore some earlier ideas in more depth.
Some of them were good. Really good (At least WE think so).
The Three Lane system was one of the first things decided about the game -- It is heavily rooted in the game's lore. But lore doesn't make a game, not by itself.
To this end, we've tried a few iterations of the [FUSE TAG] system.
It was ultimately a band-aid, not a proper solution. More importantly, it wasn't particularly fun.
Because of this, the [FUSE TAG] system has been scrapped completely.
In its place, we've gone back and changed how the lanes themselves work on a fundamental level. To quote the new rule book...
The MIND, FRAME, and HEART Measures are the ‘Measure’ Zones.
These Zones are where you’ll play your Records!
Each Measure can hold a maximum of THREE Records, and ONE active Concept.
Be careful though! If one of these Zones accumulates 20 Strain, they CRASH!
Each of these Measures has a special effect:
- The first Record loaded into the MIND Measure per turn gains [CACHE], meaning they don’t suffer from the Buffering State!
- Records loaded into the FRAME Measure gain [+1] to their Rating!
- Records loaded into the HEART Measure cost 1 less NOTE to load!
As you can see, some of the terms have been updated further to better fit the game's theme. In addition, the CAPACITY mechanic has also been scrapped.
But, let's get back to the obvious.
Each Zone now has a special property that changes how your Records interact with the field! Need something to strike quick? Load it into the Mind Zone! Need something just a bit stronger? Load it into the Frame Zone! Low on Notes? Load it into the Heart Zone!
You can't be too reliant on a single Zone... If you fill it too quickly, you won't be able to add more until it opens up! Of course, there's still the threat of Crashes as well.
We've been going through the card catalog and tweaking things to better work with these changes. This is another reason we couldn't explore this idea earlier -- changes like this affect things across the board, and that takes time.
We're currently working on getting these new changes implemented into TTS, though we don't have any dates for you just yet.
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There's something else I'd like to touch on. As some of our earliest fans are well aware of, [SYNSOULS] was originally envisioned as a TCG. That is, primarily sold through randomized booster packs.
Due to a number of variables, the biggest of which being cost, this was changed to an ECG (Expandable Card Game) model.
In our 2024 New Year's Update post, we mentioned our plans on how to handle this. There was quite a lot of info in that post, so I'd like to
go over it once more.
We plan to distribute the game via 'Deck Catalogs'. Each Deck Catalog focuses on a different archetype, and includes 65 cards to make up a 30 card deck.
Think of this as grabbing up all of an archetype's support, and building a deck based on your preferences.
If things go well, we'd also like to release 'Encore Packs' in the future, which would include even more support for existing Deck Catalogs.
This change too has ripples on the rest of development. This shakes up the order of release for quite a number of cards, which in turn means
a lot more artwork needs to be completed prior to launch.
It's no secret that funding has been an ongoing struggle for the team, and unfortunately that hasn't changed much. Development on that end is going to be slower than we'd like, which is another reason we aren't officially ending the Hiatus yet.
You may have seen that we recently started streaming music games on twitch. One of the big reasons for this was to help funding through donations, while having something for the audience to participate in. We know this isn't for everyone, and no one is expected to watch or donate.
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There are a few other minor updates as well, but I think we'll leave things here for now. We'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments, or over on our discord. As always, our fans are the thing keeping us going.
Signing off for now!
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