Superstar Strategy Demo - Next Fest Update

Hey there! We’re entering the home stretch on development for Superstar Strategy, and to celebrate, here’s a new patch before we go live into Steam Next Fest! Check out the changes below, and remember to play the demo ! This will be the last major demo update before release. Stay tuned for an announcement on when you can expect to play the FULL RELEASE later this year!

New Features

New Villager portraits. Adjusted how villager portraits are displayed to reduce duplicate portraits being shown in the same mission. New animations and polish for various skills. New contextual info when selecting invalid units in-game. Progress indicator for Campaign Progress in the Main Menu.

Balance Changes

Player Units

Rogue

Assassinate command skill now a Free Action.

Vampire

Reduced cost of Shadow Step command skill to 2CP.

Mage

Spikecicles now can be cast at Range \[0,2], no longer castable at melee range \[1].

Sorceress

Contagion

Now can copy negative statuses applied to SELF and ALLIES to enemies, not just from enemy to enemy.

NPCs

Units that lay traps now prioritize placing traps under unexhausted units before placing them on top of entities or random spaces. Archers

No longer cast Poison Arrow. Are now less likely to consistently place traps when they could have attacked an enemy in range.

Poacher

Can now cast Poison Arrow

Witch

Reduced NPC Witch ATK Increases Player Witch HP+AMR

Kobold

Can no longer use Drag. Can now use Aggressive/Defensive stance.

Pugilist

Can now use Meditate to cleanse statuses

Champion

Can now use Fortify

Marauer

Can now use Guillotine

Soldier

Can now use Fortify

Piker

Can now use Fortify Player-controlled unit can now use Venom

Misc

Recruitable Units should always start with Player Statlines and never NPC statlines

Rework + Polish

Adjusted intro screen animation. Adjustments to the HUD to make it less busy. Objectives are now shown as icons next to the Round counter window in the top-left. You can re-enable the expanded view in the Options menu. Rewrite the particle system to a custom implementation to improve performance. Redrew some unit portraits and made adjustments to others. Adjusted display of Rogue Steal and Trade menus to make it more obvious what’s being given/taken. Added new particle effects during Combat to show healing effects (e.g. with Mettle, Drain, Guillotine or Execute). Replaced Lucky Clover item with Lucky Die. This is just an aesthetic change. Adjusted visuals of Loading Screens, System prompts and Start of Round notifications.

Quality of Life Changes

Adjusted how the rotary menu behaves when using a thumbstick to reduce risk of double-moving or counter-moving, causing the menu controls to feel finnicky. Improved performance of just about every system in the game. Allow the ability to pause and exit a mission from the drafting screen. Added hazard notifications when using a Launchpad or Booster to land on a trap tile when opening the action menu.

Bugfixes

Far too many to list out here, but please report any new ones you find!

Misc

Renamed “Context” menu to “Interact” Adjusted font and display of New Round and Victory transition banners.

For updates on game development progress and to join the community, consider following me on BlueSky and joining the Talberon Games Discord Server . Don’t forget to Wishlist the game on Steam if you haven’t already!