Hey everyone! Update 8 is live! Yes, we’re simply calling it Update 8 now (mindblowing, right?). All those numbers and dots were too confusing for some of the devs. The next updates will be called Update 9, 10, 11, and so on. Nice and simple.

Let’s go over some of the highlights! Or you can just scroll down for the patch notes of course.

The Spell Brigade welcomes the eleventh Wizard to their ranks! Her name is Maggie, and she uses her bird-like features to spot pickups from far away. She also has her own Spell called Aurora Wings, which casts mystic birds across the battlefield that pick off targets one by one.

As requested by many, we have reworked and rebalanced each Wizard’s stats and effects. You’ll find that every Wizard has some new attributes, making them more unique and fit a specific role within a team. Reginald is lucky, Aldric is a healer (occasionally), Kavin is… very Kavin. I won’t get into specifics here but you can find the specific traits in the Patch Notes. And in the game, obviously.

A third Covenant! Activate Solitary Focus to only play with your Starter Spell and crank it up to the max, turning it into the most legendary Spell ever. Who needs more Spells anyway?

🧙 A new Wizard: Maggie
🐤 A new Spell: Aurora Wings
👕 2 new Outfits: Rogue Maggie & Treasure Hunter Maggie
📜 A new Covenant: Solitary Focus
🔮 Introducing Wizard Traits
🎖️ 4 new Quests

🤝 Each Wizard now has unique Wizard Traits:
Reginald: +2 Luck, +10% chance of finding Health Potions and Magnets
Sun Mage: +7% Dodge, +7% Move Speed on roads and environmental hazards, -25% Hitbox Size
Moon Mage: Gets new Spells and Infusions 1 Level faster, +3% XP Gain
Ludwig: Unaffected by elemental effects, +25% Hitbox Size, +12 Armor, -10% Move Speed
Aldric: +60% Revive Speed, +1 Health Regeneration, +25% Heal Efficiency
Maggie: Knows the location of Objectives faster, knows the location of Health Potions, Magnets and Relics
Kavin: Gains XP when taking Damage
Star Mage: +15% Elemental Damage
Hatti: +6% Damage, -300 Max HP, 15% more vulnerable Elemental Damage
Campanelli: Uses a more powerful Resurrection Beam, +10% Move Speed
Wizard King: +10% Critical Chance
🤝 Each Wizard now has unique Starter Spell buffs:
Reginald: +25% Spell Size, +12% Cooldown
Sun Mage: +33% Spell Size
Moon Mage: +25% Spell Size, +12% Range
Ludwig: +25% Spell Size, +8% Cooldown
Aldric: +8% Damage, +4% Cooldown
Maggie: +12% Cooldown
Kavin: +33% Spell Size, +8% Damage
Star Mage: +12% Cooldown
Hatti: +20% Spell Size, +12% Duration, +8% Cooldown
Campanelli: +25% Spell Size, +12% Cooldown
Wizard King: +20% Duration, +8% Cooldown, +8% Spell Size
✅ Each Wizard now has a Rank (1-10) that shows how much a player has used that Wizard.
✅ Updated the Wizard Menu to make more room for the new Wizard Traits.
✅ Improved the navigation in the Wizard Menu and added a separate Lore tab.
✅ Improved the category navigation in the Quest Menu so it’s consistent with the Wizard Menu.
🤝 Made the menus accessible again during matchmaking.
✅ Added the linked Quest info to locked Wizards and Outfits so players can check their unlock progress more easily.
🤝 Armor now results in a percentual damage reduction instead of a flat value. The soft cap has also been removed.
🤝 Implemented a Reroll button for Infusions and New Spells (unlocks once the player has earned more than 50,000 Gold).

✅ Fixed an issue in the Outfit Menu where locked Outfits would sometimes show the unlocked state for 1 frame.
✅ Improved the detail/resolution on the stained glass designs in the Lobby.
✅ Fixed multiple Wizard portraits that were assigned incorrectly.
✅ Improved the Ready/Not Ready feedback for players in the Lobby.
✅ Fixed a visual issue where the Glacial Acid version of the Chthonic Charge was too bright.
🤝 Fixed a visual issue where some of the terrain would clip through the borders in the Pyrestorm Pit.
🤝 Increased transparency for the Solar Pulse, Necro Whirl, Arcane Broadsword and the Hex Bomb.

✅ As a result of Starter Spells being more powerful, the first two versions of the Flesh Crabs have 10% more HP.
✅ In Endless Mode, Enemy starter Damage has been reduced, but Damage and Max HP scaling have been increased.
🤝 Fixed an issue where adding Split Augmentations to the Magic Missile would reduce the Damage too much.
🤝 Fixed an issue where adding Split or Bounce Augmentations to the Hex Bomb would calculate the Damage incorrectly.

🤝 = changes inspired by community feedback


So lots of stuff we’re excited to release! Hope you enjoy!

BOLT BLASTER OUT

You can now collect the Spell Brigade’s wizards in the form of Steam Trading Cards! Collect them all and you can earn magical new emojis and profile backgrounds, and upgrade your badge from Spell Recruit all the way to Arch Mage!

We know some players like to go hard on these things and one of our artists had a little extra time so enjoy! We might do more things like this in the future, but we can’t say for certain.

BOLT BLASTER OUT

🤝 The Moonerang can now move through obstacles.

✅ Fixed a visual issue where grass would clip through the Soul Sludge.
✅ Fixed a visual issue where the Sacrifice Objective’s progress visual would be obscured by Ice and Lava patches.
🤝 Performance improvements for the Hex Bomb.

🤝 The amount of Spell Cores has been reduced from 6 to 5 in single player, and the extra amount per player has been increased from 2 to 3.
🤝 The Soul Sludge Objective requires less clearing to be completed, and the time limit has been increased by 5 seconds.

✅ Improved network syncing of Sol’phish, the Long One’s staggering.
✅ Fixed an issue where Sol’phish, the Long One’s summoning circle and beam would only deal damage to the host (and no other players).
🤝 Fixed an issue where Sol’phish, the Long One would sometimes keep moving during their death animation.
🤝 Fixed an issue where the Soul Sludge would sometimes spawn with large chunks of Sludge outside of the map borders.
🤝 Fixed an issue where the Statues did not get targeting priority during the Objective.
🤝 Fixed an issue where friends couldn’t join each other’s game.
✅ Fixed an issue where scrolling in the Quest Menu would not work consistently.
✅ Fixed a navigational issue in the Lobby where the Ready button would be selected when moving down from the Settings button.

🤝 = changes inspired by community feedback

We’re starting off 2025 with a spectacular new update! As we’ve mentioned before, this year will be more about spacing out our updates so we can release bigger features and improvements at once. 0.7.2 is the first update that shares this philosophy.

You can find the patch notes below for the details. The big ones for this update are…

Featuring some new visuals for player progression, as well as some UI improvements (the Lobby/Matchmaking UI is tricky to get right, we will be iterating more on this in the future).

Won’t spoil here, be sure to try them out with some teammates!

A first set of improvements, more are being worked on, as well as new bosses.


🧠 A new developer: Luk
🏰 A new Lobby: The Spell Brigade Headquarters
🎯 2 new Objectives, featuring Spell Cores and Soul Sludge

✅ Added an intro and outro sequence to the boss battle with Sol’phish, the Long One.
✅ Updated Sol’phish, the Long One’s attack to be a burst attack.
✅ Sol’phish, the Long One can now become staggered.
✅ Defeating Sol’phish, the Long One in Endless Mode now rewards players with an Augmentation.
🤝 Improved the targeting for the Gnasher.
🤝 Chthonic Charge no longer drops mines when standing still, unless the Healing Augmentation was equipped.
🤝 During the Sacrifice Objective, targeting enemies within the objective’s zone is prioritized.
🤝 When playing with friends only, the game’s auto kicking system is disabled.
🤝 Quests for completing specific Realms and Threat Levels can now also be completed in Endless Mode.
✅ Fixed an issue where the Stats menu would sometimes show incorrect elements for a Spell.
🤝 Made the Matchmaking toggle in the Lobby more accessible so it’s easier to switch between playing online and offline.
✅ A player’s ready state is now easier to cancel (with ESC/B/Circle).
✅ Made category navigation in the Stat menu loopable.

✅ The game’s UI has a visual revamp, meaning more consistent colors and animations.
✅ Improved general button feedback and button prompt readability.
✅ Improved the visual feedback on the Ready button.
✅ Improved the visual feedback for the Covenants button, specifically when 2 Covenants are activated.
🤝 Fixed the pulsing animation of all matchmaking timers in the Lobby.
✅ Improved the visuals and navigation for the Quest menu.
✅ Refined some visuals for the Enchantments menu.
🤝 Fixed a visual issue where, sometimes, some Enchantments would not show yellow, even though they were fully mastered.
✅ Made the menu navigation in the Lobby loopable.
🤝 Reduced the delay between multiple reward popups in the Game Over menu.
✅ Increased the size of the XP bar, HP bar and Spell Slots to improve readability for Steam Deck.
✅ Added a failed state to Objective icons in the progress bar.
🤝 Fixed a visual issue where some stats in the Stat menu would overlap and mess with the spacing.
✅ Added an escape animation when the Golden Crab Objective is failed.
🤝 Fixed a visual where the player’s “Level Up” message was obstructed by the shadows of Sol’phish, the Long One’s attacks, as well as the VFX of some Objectives.
🤝 Reduced the volume of the explosion of Falling Stars.
🤝 Fixed an issue where the Gnasher’s animations would be stuck.

🤝 Increased the scaling of Enemy spawning and density in Endless Mode (after Cycle I).
✨ Improved some of the Moonerang’s Augmentations:
🤝 Deals Critical Damage at its furthest point: now also deals +15% Critical Damage
🤝 Lingers at its furthest point: increased size and duration by 10%
🤝 Aims at the Enemy with the most Health: changed bonus from +22% Range to +15% Damage

🤝 Adjusted behavior of the Hex Bomb to reduce impact on performance (more performance improvements will follow).
🤝 Fixed an issue where Spells moved wrong when targeting a Gnasher enemy.
🤝 Fixed an issue where pickups could spawn in the air and could not be reached by players.
🤝 Fixed an issue where Spell icons in the Stat menu weren’t shown sometimes.
✅ Fixed an issue where sometimes inaccurate button prompts would show when returning to the Lobby.
🤝 Fixed an issue where the Lobby’s music would not play when returning them from quitting a run.
✅ Players can no longer switch between menus in the Lobby when Matchmaking has started.
✅ Fixed an issue where keyboard/controller navigation in the Lobby would sometimes break when selecting a different menu using the mouse.
✅ Fixed an issue where controller/keyboard navigation in menus would lose focus after a mouse click.
🤝 Fixed an issue where the “Invite Friend” prompt would not work on controller after using it on keyboard.
🤝 Fixed an issue where the Start and Options menus would overlap in ultrawide and super ultrawide ratios.

🤝 Improved French translations.
🤝 Improved German translations.
🤝 Improved Italian translations.
🤝 Improved Korean translations.
🤝 Improved Polish translations.
🤝 Improved Russian translations.
🤝 Improved Simplified Chinese translations.
🤝 Improved Traditional Chinese translations.

🤝 = changes inspired by community feedback


Hope you’ll enjoy this update. See you soon!

BOLT BLASTER OUT

Hi there!

First and foremost, a happy new year from us to you! We’ve (mostly) kept quiet here on Steam since the holidays. That’s because we’ve been busy with some new stuff for the new update, which is due next week!

In the past, we’ve tested with a dedicated group on our Discord. To include players who joined in the last few months and are interested in testing, we’re clearing that group and adding new members!

The first test will be conducted this Wednesday (15:00 & 23:00 CET). If you are free and want to test the upcoming update, please JOIN OUR DISCORD[discord.gg] and react to the recent post in #announcements. We’ll select a fixed number of players that will be allowed to join these tests.

Missed out? No worries! As our community grows, we’ll continue to refresh this group more regularly. Keep an eye on our Discord to see when new opportunities arise.

Thanks in advance!

Curious about the next update? Head to the #development channel on Discord for a sneak peek!

BOLT BLASTER OUT

With 0.7.1 released and being played by you all we want to reflect on this amazing year a final time. We are very grateful to work on a game that is being played and loved by many. That’s why we have decided to once again sell The Spell Brigade at a 20% discount, as part of the Winter Sales.

Most of the team will take some planned time off for the festivities, so we get a fresh start next year. That doesn’t mean we won’t be available. On the contrary, our Discord is busier than ever! We’re doing all kinds of cool stuff over there for the remainder of 2024, like daily challenges, tournaments and giveaways. We’re also close to hitting 10k members so it’s a perfect time for you to JOIN THE BRIGADE.

But for real, we’re simply astounded by the amount of passion and engagement from our players. We started working on The Spell Brigade in March of this year, and everything has been going at full speed ever since. We can’t wait to see what the new year holds. From the bottom of our hearts, thank you all!

BOLT BLASTER OUT

STABILITY

🤝 Fixed an issue where players would get stuck in the Lobby when playing offline.

🤝 = changes inspired by community feedback

The year is almost over but we have one final update for you! It’s not as vast as the last one, because we’ve also been working on some bigger things for future updates. There’s still some fun stuff to check out though, like the Gnasher, a new enemy exclusive to the Verdant Meadows. There are also some new challenges that reward you with new Wizard Outfits. You can hop on down to the patch notes for the details.

For those counting, 0.7.1 makes the 6th update we’ve released since our Early Access launch. It has been crazy fun so far, but also crazy busy. We're looking forward to keeping the development train going in 2025, but there are also some well-deserved breaks in place for our hardworking team.

With all we've learned from working on the game these last few months, we've gained a solid understanding of what we and our players want to see added in the future. This means we can start working on bigger blocks of content next year and really plan our updates towards a great 1.0 for The Spell Brigade.

Does this change anything? Not really. We will keep working on the game, but we will space out our updates a bit more, so we can add more awesome stuff each update. If you want to know what kind of awesome stuff, our ROADMAP gives a pretty good idea. And you can always join our DISCORD[discord.gg], where either a fellow player or Bolt Blaster Dev will help you out.

💀 New Enemy: Gnasher
👕 4 new Outfits: Gingerbread Sun Mage, Hattree, Nutcracker King, The North Star

✅ Added progression for Covenants, making the Harmony Pact and Eternal Bond Covenants unlockable by completing Quests.
✅ Improved consistency of applying Ice through different Spells.
🤝 Made the Stats Menu accessible at any time, without having to access the Pause Menu.
🤝 Added a system that kicks inactive non-host players (after the second inactive Level Up).
✅ Random matchmaking is now biased towards unlocked content.

✅ Improved the visual for the tornadoes in the Pyrestorm Pit by removing the seam.
🤝 Made a custom cursor icon.
🤝 The cursor is now hidden after not using it for a short period.
🤝 Improved feedback and readability of the location indicators for teammates and objectives.
✅ Improved readability of the “Sol’phish Vanquished” message.
✅ Fixed a visual/animation issue where the background of the Boss Objective message was misplaced.
🤝 Improved the UI for dead teammates so it’s easier to see if any teammates are dead.
✅ Visually improved the feedback of the timer in the Level Up Menu so it’s more prominent to players.
✅ Fixed some spacing issues where certain texts were overlapping in the Level Up Menu (especially for Russian translations).
✅ Updated the layout in the Outfit Menu so it can display more Outfits.

🤝 Improved Endless Mode by increasing the difficulty and making the scaling non-linear.
🤝 Improved Damage splitting for the following Spells:
✨Astral Orb: reduced division factor from 2.5 to 1.8, increasing the Damage per projectile.
✨Magic Missile: reduced division factor from 1.9 to 1.8, increasing the Damage per projectile.
✨Hex Bomb: fixed a division bug and increased Damage by 25%.
🤝 Improved the rounding of Damage numbers so they round up, fixing the Damage numbers being often displayed as 0.

⚙️ Fixed an issue where players would sometimes get stuck in the Level Up Menu.
🤝 Fixed an issue where “Invite Friend” and “Ready” were bound to the same control.
⚙️ Fixed an issue where after joining a Lobby with more unlocked content, some players could still access said content when on their own.
⚙️ Fixed an issue where multiple buttons in the Realm and Threat Level Menus could be highlighted/selected at the same time.
⚙️ Fixed an issue where the progress bar’s shown progress was inaccurate at the start of a Mission.
🤝 Fixed an issue where the Exploding Tick would drop XP before actually exploding.
🤝 Fixed an issue where the Falling Stars Spell would wrongfully indicate benefitting from Size upgrades.
🤝 Fixed an issue where the Falling Stars’ Augmentation did not actually target the enemy with the highest HP.
🤝 Fixed an issue where the Moonerang’s Range upgrades did not work as intended.
🤝 Removed the maximum offer limit for Move Speed upgrades, which was originally added unintentionally.
🤝 Fixed an issue where the Quest for unlocking Star Mage didn’t track correctly.
🤝 Fixed an issue where after a Mission players would be awarded a title that wasn’t applicable.
🤝 Fixed an issue where the game wasn’t saved when quitting the game.
🤝 Further improved stability of the game’s matchmaking.

🤝 = changes inspired by community feedback


Happy holidays, and see you all in 2025!

BOLT BLASTER OUT

Somehow the end of the year is already here, and Glenn is taking full control of the Discord channel! As a thank you to our awesome community, we want to extend our Christmas spirit to all of you with the 10 DAYS OF BRIGADE BLESSINGS.

Starting today (December 17th), our Discord activity will be all about you, the player! That means contests, tournaments and yes, giveaways! So, if you’re not yet part of our community of Brigadiers, come say hi and be part of the festivities!

CLICK HERE TO JOIN OUR DISCORD[discord.gg]

The remainder of 2024 will look something like this:

• Dec 17: Start of the 10 Days of Brigade Blessings
  
• Dec 18: Update 0.7.1
  
• Dec 19: Winter Sales - Get a 20% Discount!
  
• Dec 25: End of the 10 Days of Brigade Blessings

Some devs would take those final days of December off, but not us! Just kidding, there are some well-deserved breaks planned. But that does not mean that we cannot go out with a bang!

BOLT BLASTER OUT