Greetings fellow gods,

I'm thrilled to show you the progress we've made within the last couple of months with Xiclu. You can now try the new graphics demo by going to the main page https://wizardsofthecode.itch.io/soulash and selecting soulash-windows-demo-gfx.zip for download! I'm pretty sure that even ASCII lovers will find something appealing in the old-school pixel-art tileset and frame-by-frame animations. I certainly did. But of course, ASCII will always stay as an option.

As the game progresses toward 1.0 and Steam release scheduled in 2022, we can use your help to get additional resources to flesh out the game and build some of the bigger features many of you requested during the last couple of years. I know that I can make Soulash even bigger and more feature-complete than it is today. Full graphics mode, new areas, servants to do your crafting and gathering, building your own temple or palace, new ability system, or even sandbox mode with the procedural world - the implementation of all these features and mechanics would be possible sooner rather than later with additional funds.

Would you help make this a reality?

If you do, I'm sure you will be excited to hear that we’ll launch a Kickstarter campaign in just a couple of days, starting at 04.05.2021 and lasting until 25.05.2021. You will find our pre-launch page here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/asmiarowski/soulash-classic-fantasy-roguelike

It would help us very much if you could give this campaign its initial punch. How much you donate isn’t as important as the difference you’ll make to our campaign by helping us reach that key 20% goal within the first 72 hours.

Of course, supporting the campaign comes with unique rewards. Let me show you the goods:

€1 - Our thanks! We're grateful for any help.

€7 - Your name in the game

Name of your choice to be randomly assigned to spawned NPCs.

€15 (€10 for the first 100 EARLY BIRDS) - Digital copy of Soulash

Steam and Itch.io keys: key on itch right after Kickstarter and key on steam at 1.0 release.

€20 - Tombstone

Randomly spawns a tombstone with your description in the graveyard area. It can be anything as long as it fits a fantasy theme, has to fit the tooltip (up to 200 characters).

€40 - Closed beta access

You will gain access to the closed beta as soon as it hits Steam after an endgame is added in v0.7 and the first draft of the graphic mode is completed (before the last patch that fleshes out the game). The closed beta is where we will polish all the existing mechanics and gameplay before the official 1.0 release, based on your feedback.

€50 - Design custom item

Design a new item. No new mechanics included. Has to fit a fantasy theme. Pick any or all of sprite, name, description, which items should be used to craft it, which existing ability it should give access to.

€75 - Design custom enemy

Design a new enemy. You can pick any or all of: sprite, name, description, location of the spawn, dialogue with the player character. No new mechanics or abilities included.

€100 - Design custom race

Design a new race with unique passives. Confirm your idea with us before going for this tier. Needs to fit the theme of the game and the passive power has to be comparable to existing races.

€200 - Design custom miniboss

We will implement a miniboss of your design. You can pick any or all of: sprite, name, description, location of the spawn, dialogue with the player character. Pick 1 - 3 existing abilities.

€400 - Design custom ability

We will implement ability and its animation based on your design. You can pick any or all of: name, description, power level (beginning, middle, or endgame). Please consult the feasibility of your idea before choosing this tier, new mechanics are possible but in a limited scope.

€1,000 - Design custom location

Design a single region of 64x64 tiles with up to 2 unique enemies and a single miniboss. Can be a new location that fits an existing world or an alternative region to what already exists.

€1,000 - Design custom god

We will implement a god based on your design. You can pick any or all of: sprite, name, description, dialogue with the player character, impact on the world after the god is dead. Please consult the feasibility of your idea for impact on the world before choosing this tier, as it may be game-breaking.

€2,500 - Design custom profession

Design a new profession with 13 new abilities and animations, or, if we reach the stretch goal with the new ability system, design a starting profession and a new ability group with 10 unique abilities.

€5,000 - Design whole area with minibosses

We will implement a whole area of up to 15 regions of 64x64 tiles based on your description, with up to 10 unique enemies and up to 3 minibosses. The area has to fit the theme of the game. It can be anything from a palace, a 15 levels high tower, or a 15 levels deep route straight to hell to some underwater kingdom or floating city in the sky.

Many of the rewards allow you to design game-changing mechanics or enhance gameplay in different ways. This can be an amazing opportunity to give Soulash a bit of your own... soul.

Be sure to go here https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/asmiarowski/soulash-classic-fantasy-rogueli... and click "Remind me" to become one of the first campaign donors. Today we’ve also increased the price of Soulash to the target price for the final release, but if you missed the chance to support the game up until now, you can still benefit from being an early bird on Kickstarter and get the digital copy cheaper - if you or your friends don't have one already, now would be the best time to fix that.

It would mean the world to us if you’d spread the word by sharing the campaign link on your Twitter, Facebook, Discord, or any other social media. This would give this campaign an incredible boost.

Also - today our Kickstarter trailer will premiere on YouTube, so don’t miss it!

We’ve been working hard to make this a success and your participation will get us closer to our shared goal - to have an amazing roguelike to enjoy.

Thank you once again for your support and hope to see you soon. 

 P.S. Soulash has a new, official account on Twitter [https://twitter.com/SoulashGame] - follow us for the latest previews and announcements, and don't forget to share your screenshots. You can also join your fellow gods on Discord [discord.gg/Y2dwG4c] and talk about your attempts at world domination - we also plan to do some dev polls in the future there.