Solo Mode & Player Count Adjustments
10 months ago
– Fri, Feb 09, 2024 at 09:27:08 AM
Greetings, Santorinians!
In today's update, we want to offer a deep dive into the changes that have been made to Santorini: Riddle of the Sphinx. Let's put on our Greecian goggles and explore the modifications to this unique player experience!
As we mentioned in the previous update, after extensive playtesting, we came to learn that our solo mode was not always playing to the same difficulty balance as our other player counts, especially in certain scenarios. We have made a few small changes to all the player counts, particularly to solo mode, and now we are incredibly happy with the feel of every player count option!
So let us elaborate on some of our modifications!
All Player Counts
Originally, a scenario would be forfeited if there were no workers remaining on the map. This is first problem we fixed. Now, at all player counts, you can only lose 1 worker. If you lose a second worker, you are forced to forfeit the scenario. This simple universal rule fixes a few issues:
- It means there is no way for a player to get eliminated and sit out for any amount of time.
- It means there is no exploit of purposefully destroying a worker color you no longer need. (This exploit cropped up in a few scenarios.)
- It means you cannot rely on the Sphinx's Game to chance your way through a problem by burning through unneeded workers (unless you hold some cards that allow you really control your luck!).
Solo Mode
The Solo mode modification we implemented makes the experience of solo mode feel more similar to other player counts, without the need to play "two-handed." In solo mode, you control 2 white and 2 blue workers. You own all the workers, and any god powers you collect can be used by any of these workers. However, you now have a special solo mode card, which has 4 quadrants on it.
Each turn, you must place the Red Wanderer Mini on one of the 4 quadrants, then carry out the listed action. The simple rule is that you must move the wanderer to a different quadrant with every turn, and the solo mode card makes this really easy for the player to keep track of.
- The main thing this fixes is that you cannot use a single white worker over and over again, which increases planning and strategy.
- Like in all the other player counts, you must alternate workers of different colours, and this is a significant part of the puzzle you must master.
The two above revisions align the difficulty and strategic planning experience of all player counts. We have now played through the whole campaign with these new solo mode and worker defeat rules, and they strike at the perfect balance we were looking for, so we are quite pleased to call these changes final!
As always, thank you for your support, and please let us know if you have any questions about these modifications.
We'll be back again in two weeks with more information on Santorini's journey, and until then...
Keep rollin' sixes!
Team Roxley
Follow us everywhere. Make it weird.
Expansion Development Update + Scenario Sneak Peek!
10 months ago
– Fri, Jan 26, 2024 at 10:17:15 AM
Welcome back!
In today's update, we're sharing the latest development news on Riddle of the Sphinx, along with a sneak peek at one of the campaign maps!
Solving the Development Riddle!
We're pleased to share that a change has been made to the Riddle of the Sphinx solo mode that greatly increases the enjoyment factor throughout the entire campaign. We'll go into more detail in a future update, but for now, we wanted to share that great news!
Last week, we wrapped up our development cycle on ALL the scenarios for Riddle of the Sphinx. Our team of playtesters are verifying all of the content, which will conclude our final development steps and allow us to move forward to wrapping up the production elements of the expansion!
Scenario Peek: Level the Stronghold!
The Adventure Map in Riddle of the Sphinx acts as a menu for selecting which scenario you want to play next.
The map is split between 5 islands (each consisting of 4 scenarios) and then the final challenge: The Sphinx's Lair. Each section of the map has a unique theme, progressing a small story about the Sphinx's meddling in that area of the Greek Isles.
The scenario we are featuring today is called "Level the Stronghold," from the "Isles at War."
The Isles at War uses 4 scenarios to tell the story of the Greeks battling the Romans. In this map, we actually have no building goals at all!
Instead, every player is given Kratos' god power as a default power, allowing anyone to spend a dome you have earned to launch an attack and destroy a neighboring block. To excel at this scenario, you must use Kratos' power again and again to bring down the Roman's stronghold and try to get your workers inside! There are a ton of unique challenges to toil over on this map:
- You want to summit the wall efficiently without wasting too many bricks to climb it. Choosing effective god powers is key to solving this problem!
- Once you get on top of the wall, you must consider traffic, and not block each other's movement!
- Domes are hard to come by, and you are going to need a LOT of them to bring down the walls.
- This map has a mountain line in the center, splitting workers across the pages. With no bridges, it is like playing 2 maps simultaneously!
- The ace objective presents an extreme challenge for players who want to brave it. Not only do you have to destroy all the domes and level 3 blocks on the map, you must also complete your final move with all 4 workers inside the stronghold walls! Thematic and super challenging!
As always, thank you for your ongoing patience and support as we navigate the long process of bringing a game to life! We'll be back again in two weeks with another update, and until then...
Keep rollin' sixes!
Team Roxley
Follow us everywhere. Make it weird.
New Year's Update!
10 months ago
– Thu, Jan 11, 2024 at 01:40:43 PM
Happy New Year, Santorinians!
Team Roxley has been back to work on Santorini for over a week after our holiday break, and in today's update we have a handful of developments to share!
- Our team of playtesters is running through the entire Riddle of the Sphinx campaign, as well as testing the campaign's Hardcore mode.
- We have just received the first run of all the plastic molded miniatures. In a future update, we'll share some photos of these samples.
- We are also awaiting the arrival of a number of different samples, and you can expect to get a sneak peek at some of those in future updates.
All things considered, we're pleased with how both the Pantheon Edition and Riddle of the Sphinx are progressing!
We look forward to sharing new maps, samples, and more insights into the development and production process in our next wave of updates. And until then...
Keep rollin' sixes!
Team Roxley
Follow us everywhere. Make it weird.
Happy Holidays from Team Roxley!
11 months ago
– Thu, Dec 21, 2023 at 11:22:35 AM
Greetings, Santorinians!
Our pre-holiday update will be a bit light on news, but we're here and excited to report that production continues to move forward in a smooth and steady fashion.
We have begun tooling all plastic components, including the Santorini turntable, miniatures, and the cliff.
We'll leave you today with a colorful treat - a lovely paint job of one of our early Sphinx miniature prototypes, courtesy of a superfan local to Roxley HQ, James Gillespie!
Regardless of how you celebrate (or not!), the entirety of Team Roxley wishes you a wonderful holiday season, and we'll be back in January with a fresh round of update information!
Until then...
Keep rollin' sixes!
Team Roxley
Follow us everywhere. Make it weird.
Scenario Preview - To Mourn a King
12 months ago
– Thu, Dec 07, 2023 at 07:41:29 AM
Greetings, Santorinians!
We would like to take some time over the next few updates to tell you about some of the great new Riddle of the Sphinx scenarios we have been developing since the campaign closed!
In Riddle of the Sphinx, each Riddle is challenging in different ways. Many of them feature economic puzzles where you have a very limited number of blocks, and you need to be extremely efficient to succeed.
In this Riddle called "To Mourn a King," we add a time limit element to the economy puzzle.
This is the start of a small 4-mission-long storyline about the King's journey through the underworld. In this riddle the king has died, and his funeral procession is coming to lay his body in the royal mausoleum. The problem is it hasn't been built yet! Your workers must operate extremely fast to build up the mausoleum and make it befitting for a king before his procession arrives to notice you.
Each turn, the die is rolled. In 75% of cases, the procession advances 1 space. In 25% of cases, they pause and back up 1 space to grieve for a moment. If the procession ever arrives at an objective coin that has not yet been fulfilled, they see the disgraceful half-finished construction, and the coin is removed; you lose that objective.
The initial challenge here is to fulfill all the coins before the procession arrives. To increase that challenge, you can take on the "Ace" and add the puzzle of moving all 4 of your workers onto the right page before the scenario ends. Take it up a level further with the Hardcore objective, and do it all without taking any objective rewards!
We'll have more Riddle of the Sphinx scenarios to preview in upcoming updates, but in the meantime...
Keep rollin' sixes!
Team Roxley
Follow us everywhere. Make it weird.
