NEW UPDATE (10)

After redesigning the character sheet so many times, I've finally had the chance to dedicate time to drafting a version that looks more like what I want the final version to end up looking like (itch.io image quality kinda sucks so it appears a bit blurry). This is a rough draft that will need a lot of fine tuning, spacing, and formatting changes, but I'm happy to finally get the game to a stage where I feel comfortable designing a more artistic version of the character sheet.

As I've been slowly redesigning a lot of the game components (world map, character sheet, dwellings book, the rulebook, etc.), I can really feel the game coming together into a more finished state. I still have a lot more playtest sessions I will need to get in to fine tune everything, but I'm happy to see that the game is very much headed in the right direction. 

Early Versions

The character sheet has been something I've always looked back to to see how far the game has come, so I wanted to share a few of the older versions as well. Again, itch.io image quality sucks so they're kind of blurry and hard to read, but you can at least get a feel for all the changes that have been made since the first prototype. One version I believe had 20 different skills; much different from the current 5 skill system. 

NEW UPDATE (11)

Continuing off of the last update, this update brings in a visual overhaul of the Dungeon Maps sheet. I am hoping to dive into the covers of the spellbooks and the Cities and Villages sheet next. Once those are done, everything will have received a visual first draft of what they should look like in the final version. 

This new version is quite different from the previous versions as, for one, the individual maps have been greatly expanded to accomodate larger dungeons and larger drawings. This should also leave plenty of space for any notes about lingering traps or wandering monsters. This new version has currently space for the drawings, the name of the dungeon, the total number of rooms in the dungeon, and a tracker for how many rooms in the dungeon have been delved. What it's still missing is a space for the hex location of the dungeon and the type of dungeon (cave, temple, or fortress). I'm not quite yet sure how I'm going to add on these extra details, but I'm hoping to playtest with this version and get some ideas as I go. Below you can see the older version. While functional, it's definitely not all that interesting to look at. 

NEWS UPDATE

Since it's been a while since my last update post, I wanted to jump in to state where things are at right now with the development of the game. In the time since the last update, I've gone through several life altering events that I've had to mainly devote my time toward. Recently, however, I've found things to settle down in some ways and I've been able to work on the game again bit by bit. So, I can't guarantee when the next update post will be, but I can guarantee that I'm still working on things when I can find the time. 

To give some insight as to what I've been working on at the moment, I've made a list of things that I've been focussing on. 

• Cities & Villages Sheet: Making several small revisions to the diferent services offered and working on a first draft of the graphic re-design
• Travel Cards: Establishing a visual way to differentiate Legendary encounters from normal encounters 
• Dwellings Book: Revising the entire book for clarity, rule consistency, and balance
• Spell Name Changes: Tons of spells need new names to be more thematic, useful, and true to the sphere of magic they come from. Most importantly, however, I want spells to be fun and inspire people to use them in creative ways. 
• Rulebook: The rulebook needs a ton of additions for clarity 
• Character Cards: These cards need some minor formatting changes
• Spellbooks: Design the front covers to look more consistent with the designs of the other books (Rulebook, Advanced Rulebook, etc.)

NEW UPDATE (12)

UPDATE SUMMARY

• This update primarily focuses on revising the Dwellings Book for clarity, balance, and consistency with the most current rules
• The Cities & Villages sheet has finally received a total visual overhaul. A lot of the text has also been revised. 
• Now that the rules for solo play have been fully established, the way that multiplayer functions has been more explicitly mentioned in some sections of the rule book.This is something that needs to be expanded on more, but I’ve made notes where I need to clarify about multiplayer, so hopefully I can do it in the next update.

DETAILED UPDATE

Dwellings Book

• Made a long list of minor (and a few major) changes to this book for formatting, balance, consistency, clarity, and to be more thematic.

Cities & Villages Sheet

• Completely overhauled the graphic design of the sheet (see the before and after pics below). Some text alignment still needs to be done, but I'll get to that in the next update since the software I'm using doesn't allow text indentation.
• Some typos have been corrected.
• Reworded some sections for conciseness and clarity.
• The 'Rumors' section has been moved to the Advanced Rulebook for GMs to use if they want. This made it also possible to increase the fonts on the pages (i.e.: readability of the sheet), as well as made space for some decorative images. 
• The description of the greataxe has been changed so it's more clear
• Combat strength of the peasant has been changed from d8 to d6

OLD VERSION

NEW VERSION

RANDOM THOUGHTS

Sharing some random thoughts I've been getting as I think about developing the game. 

Challenge Encounters

I recently got the idea to make a new encounter deck that will count as 'Challenge Encounters'. This will be encounters for the sky during travel by air and for encounters in the ashlands (AKA the lands surrounding the volcano of Malfeasance). Since I already have the sky enconters written up, and the ashlands encounters I have some ideas about, I would just need to spend some time designing the card template. The only thing I would be concerned about is that having only 2 types of encounters on a single card will leave a lot of empty space... I might have to consider what else could go on the card. Originally I considered water encounters but the map doesn't have water and I don't think I want to add that to it... I also want to keep the number of card decks down to an absolute bare minimum to respect table space, so it could also be possible I keep the sky encounters in the advanced rulebook for those that want to use them.... 

NEW UPDATE (13)

UPDATE SUMMARY

• This update primarily focusses on clarifying rules in the rulebook (especially as it applies to multiplayer games). 
• The covers of the spellbooks have been redesigned.

DETAILED UPDATE

Rulebook - Game Setup

• The different methods of play have been explained much better. 

Rulebook - Encounters

• Made a big section outlining rules for multiplayer such as: how to form and split a party, how to handle encounters, and how to take a turn in a party with multiple players.

Rulebook - Skill Tests & Followers

• Parties with multiple players has been addressed

Rulebook - Magic

• Enchantment types as they apply to weapons vs clothing has been explicitly defined under the Enchantments section. 
• The Poison potion has been changed to an Antidote potion for curing the poison trait T
• he way potions function has been changed to be more explicit. Examples are also provided to help guide players on how they can use potions.

Rulebook - Combat

• Rules for Player vs Player combat have been added
• The way resting works with parties that have multiple player characters has been clarified

Rulebook - Travel

• Slightly expanded the section titled Interacting with Dwellings
• A small section mentioning dead ends in dungeons has been added The section on Dungeon Rooms has been formatted and explained better 
•  Updated the mount section so it’s up to date with the way mounts on the travel cards are phrased 
• The way traps and disarming them works has been expanded and clarified better. 
• The way movement works with parties that have multiple player characters has been clarified

Spellbooks

• Redesigned the front covers of all of the spellbooks to be more in line with the front covers of the other books (see example of the arcane spellbook below). I have a feeling I may return to redesigning these, but I think my vision for the spellbooks is going in the right direction.

Old Spellbook Design

New Spellbook Design

2 YEAR ANNIVERSARY!

I just realized that today marks 2 years since I created the first playable copy of what has now become Spellswords! Even though the development and ideas were coming together in primitive forms back in 2021, it wasn't until 2024 that I managed to piece together a fully playable version. 

To celebrate the occassion, I wanted to take a look back at some key dates to see how far the game has come. 

• May 23, 2024
  • First playable copy of ‘The Terror of Drakthyr’ was created. This version had a 120+ page event book to flip through that was very similar to Barbarian Prince.
• July 7, 2024 
  • The game was overhauled to be more like the version it is today (without the event book) and renamed to ‘The Terror of Drakar’
• March 16, 2025 
  • The first public playtest of the game was released under the game’s now current title of ‘Spellswords’ (this version was on Google Drive for a long time, but the download stats were never visible)
• April 12, 2025 
  • Completely redesigned the world map
• September 2, 2025
  • The Spellswords itch.io page was created, published, and a completely overhauled version of the game was released for the public to playtest
• September 11, 2025 
  • Reached 200 downloads on itch.io
• October 27, 2025 
  • Reached 400 downloads on itch.io
• January 8, 2026 
  • Reached 500 downloads on itch.io and Introduced a massive graphic redesign of the cards to bring it closer to a professional standard
• February 5, 2026
  • Overhauled the look of the Dwellings book
• February 16, 2026 
  • The playtest documents were removed as maintaining them took away from development time. 
• March 8, 2026
  • Overhauled the look of the character sheet
• March 11, 2026
  • Overhauled the look of the dungeon maps sheet
• May 14, 2026
• Overhauled the look of the Cities & Villages sheet
• May 15, 2026
  • Overhauled the look of the spellbook covers
• May 20, 2026 
  • Reached 70 followers on itch.io

The Future of Spellswords

Of course, there was a whole lot more things that happened in those 2 years, but these are just a few things that came to my mind as I looked back. And, as the game has come so far, in the next update I will be taking the game out of its 'Alpha' phase and into its 'Beta' phase where I will be focussing my efforts more and more on playtesting and getting the balance and fun feeling as good as it can. 

As we're approaching this new phase in game development, the future of the game is looking very bright and I’m very optimistic about a very late 2026 or sometime-in-2027 release date. My goal is to give the game a max of 1 year in the beta stage, but life sometimes gets in the way and development is sometimes put on the back burner for a bit. 

What Else Needs to Be Done?

• Lots and lots of playtesting. This is the main thing that needs to be done as it dictates what else needs to be done. I’m particularly focussing now on the balance of encounters to see what is too easy or too difficult. 
• Create the Oracle cards
• Write the following sections in the Rulebook: The Game Master, The Oracle, a huge example of play that starts at character creation and ends after finishing up a cave dungeon, and make sure multiplayer rules are clear throughout the rulebook.
• Continuously make formatting adjustments to all components so they look as professional and thematic as possible
• Compile a list of all of the artists I use for the art I’ve purchased and the art I use that’s royalty free (will be a long list for sure)
• Consider redesigning everything in Affinity according to the printing standards of whatever company I choose to use to print the game (considering either DriveThruRPG or the Game Crafter).
• Create a video showcasing the newest version of the game (the first video I made is extremely outdated and no longer appropriately represents the game in its current state)

Quick update! 

A lot of to-dos that have been sitting on the list for many months are getting knocked out. Started a new job so that has made things more difficult to work on. I'm just doing a little bit every week and trying to make progress towards establishing a solid beta. Once that beta is done, I will need to re-print everything out again and run some playtests to see how it all works again.  Very happy with the progress I'm making so far and looking forward to giving more details when the update is finished.