Time for another patch!

Just so you know, we’re planning on releasing another update tomorrow that will reset rankings, scroll libraries, custom decks, and trials. If you have any killer decks/scroll combos in your library, jot them down before it’s too late. The patch will also enable Shard purchases. We’ll accompany it with another post, so don’t worry too much for now.

Anyway, here’s the changelog for the update that just went live:

Features

• We’ve got a new starter deck selection screen
• You can now click an on-screen button to open the battle menu
• Hitting control now toggles unit stats

Miscellaneous

• You can now click an item image in-store to display its details, just like clicking the question mark
• Resource icons now glow when sacrificing
• We’ve updated the Mac OSX launcher
• We’ve got a new Scrolls icon

Bug fixes

• We’ve fixed a bug where Divine Mark could give players four of the same unit
• Fixed a bug where trading would sometimes fail
• Fixed a bug where selling scrolls that didn’t belong to a deck would fail

Known Issues

• Users running Avast will need to disable it temporarily in order to login. We’re (still) looking into why this happens

Thats it for today. Speak soon!

Owen – @bopogamel

Not the most dramatic of updates this time around but we thought it was worth keeping you in the loop. .87 is mostly concerned with tweaks to existing Scrolls. Some server-side features also getting tested but, unless you live inside the code like Mans, you probably won’t notice.

As mentioned in my last post, Scrolls is rapidly approaching open beta (when you’ll be able to buy it at at discounted price and get future updates for free) but it’s not quite there yet. Watch this space for more info.

Owen – @bopogamel

Features

• The config dialog on launching the game (for setting resolution) has been removed. Now you select your resolution in-game, and your preferred option gets saved

Scrolls

• Blast Strike’s (Energy) art has been updated. You can see it at the top of this post
• Unleash Inner Power (Growth) now sets health to 2 instead of 1
• Faith Blessing (Order) has been changed. New: Cost 2. Sacrifice target unit to deal its Countdown as damage to all units on the same row
• Rigged (Energy) now costs 1
• Vaettr of the Wild (Growth) now costs 1
• Cannon Automaton (Energy) is now 5/2/4 and reduces all combat damage dealt to it by 1
• Metal Heart’s (Energy) description has been updated to better match what it does (thanks Arithmos!)
• Desperation (Energy) no longer lasts too long when cast on an opponent unit
• End of Reason (Energy) has been changed. New: Cost 5. Sacrifice all units you control with a non-zero Countdown. Each unit sacrificed this way deals 2 damage to opponent units on the same row
• Royal Infantryman (Order) and Ducal Infantryman (Order) have had their descriptions updated to better match how they work

Known issues

• Users running Avast will need to disable it temporarily in order to login. We’re looking into why this happens

Another update! The increased regularity of our tweaks can only mean one thing: Scrolls is getting closer and closer to Beta. That means that, soon, anyone who wants to buy Scrolls will be able to. More players, official rankings, all the good stuff. Brace for impact.

But let’s not get carried away just yet: update 0.85 is mostly concerned with server tweaks: we’ve made some major changes to how things work behind the scenes, along with the following changes to the client.

Features

• The splash screen now includes a news area, game statistics, and a developer Twitter feed. The stats are still a work in progress.

Scrolls

• Beast Rat (Growth) is now the subtype Beast.
• Rallying (Growth) now lowers countdown by 2.
• Shrine (Order) rules text has been updated to better match its effect.

Miscellaneous

• The Scrolls logo has been updated.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed a bug where movement tiles would show on your side when clicking on a unit on the opposite side
• Fixed incorrect idol damage in post-game stats
• Fixed a number of timing related bugs (including attacks being interrupted too early)
• Fixed a bug where decks would sometimes not get properly repaired after selling or trading excess scrolls
• Fixed a bug where certain tiles would remain highlighted after a unit has finished attacking
• Fixed incorrect sorting of scrolls in trade and sell lists
• Fixed a rare issue that could make a unit invisible.

Known Issues

• Users running Avast will need to disable it temporarily to login. We’re looking into why this happens. Sorry!

Thats it for now people! Have a good day.

Owen – @bopogamel

It’s update time!

We’ve just patched the Scrolls Alpha to 0.84. Mostly tweaks and optimisations in this patch, but friendly ones designed to maximise your fun level. We’ve also added three new scrolls to the existing library. Lovely.

As always, feedback is appreciated. I’ve created a dedicated thread on scrollsfans for that purpose.

Enjoy!

Features

• The deck builder has received a major overhaul. It should now work significantly faster
• The “Match” gold rewards have been increased. “Idols” and “Completion” rewards haven’t been tweaked. Easy wins now gives you 33% more gold, medium wins give you 42% more, and hard wins give 33% more
• Loss rewards have also been increased, particularly for easy and medium matches. Multiplayer win rewards have been increased by approximately 13%, and multiplayer loss rewards have also been increased by a small amount
• Multiplayer challenge games now give full rewards up to five times per day. We’ve limited the full rewards to five matches to prevent players exploiting the system
• Singleplayer challenges have been renamed “Trials” to avoid confusions with multiplayer challenge matches
• The store has been updated to include Shards: a secondary currency
• Preconstructed decks have been updated to fix rarity distributions. We’d appreciate it if players could delete your existing precon decks (to get the new ones) and help us test the relative balance of the updated decks
• We’ve introduced a new “Move” stat. The default values are Move 1 for creatures and Move 0 for structures. It indicates the number of moves that a unit can make per turn
• The chat has a flood filter that temporarily mutes users who flood the chat

New scrolls

• Beast Rat (Growth). Creature. Stats: 1/2/1. Cost 1.
  
  

• Roasted Bean Potion (Order). Spell. Cost 2. Enchanted creature’s Move is increased by 1
  
  

• Charge Coil (Energy). Structure. Cost 3. When Charge Coil attacks, a random opponent unit is dealt 1 damage
  
  
• Honorable General (Order) now has updated artwork
• Scrolls that previously set countdown to 0 now decrease countdown by a certain amount instead. The values are as follows: Speed (Order ) 3, Honorable General (Order) 2, Rally (Growth) 1, God Hand (Growth) 2, Death Cap Berserk (Growth) 2, Overdrive (Energy) 2, Bombard (Energy) 2. This change does not affect Haste.
• Dryadic Power (Growth), Binding Root (Growth) and Horn of Ages (Order) no longer make creatures unable to move. Instead they decrease the Move value by 1. Similarly, New Orders (Order) now increases move by 1
• Brother of the Wolf’s (Growth) countdown is now increased by 2 when summoning a Ragged Wolf instead of 3
  
  

Miscellaneous

• Completed Trials (previously singleplayer challenges) no longer give any rewards
• The buttons for enabling/disabling challenges and trade invites now have mouseover tooltips
• “Gold” texts have been replaced with an icon throughout the client
• You can now see remaining time on “Just for you” offers by bringing up the detailed information of each item. This is currently refreshed when entering the store
• Post-death spawn effects (e.g. Illthorn Seed) now trigger after the full attack has finished
• We’ve improved the visual feedback when units are killed
• d:string in deckbuilder now searches for “string” in abilities as well (e.g. d:relentless)
  
  

Bug Fixes

• Fixed a bug where players would not be able to send challenges after having accepted a challenge from someone else
• Fixed a bug where the game would hang when ending turn too soon after sacrificing for resources
• Damage (units) now works as intended.
• Players now see the same background during battles
  
  

Known Issues

• Users running Avast will need to disable it temporarily in order to login. We’re looking into why this happens

That’s it for now people! Have a lovely day!

Owen
@bopogamel

We’re at the closing stages of our Scrolls Office Tournament. It’s been taking place in the Mojang office over the past week, and now it’s come down to the final: two great Scrolls minds are due to clash in just over an hour’s time.

Those great minds are Leo and Kris. They’re facing off against each other at 16:00 CET. Find out when time that is in your timezone here and tune in to spectate. It’s gonna be epic!

Watch live video from mojang on www.twitch.tv

Hello! It’s been a long time coming, but we’re proud to present… Scrolls 0.82!

It’s a massive update of fun, and the most significant patch since the Scrolls Alpha was released. It’s packed with gameplay tweaks, a new mode, a redesigned UI, new scrolls and more…

In an attempt to keep feedback somewhere we can easily locate and read, I’ve pinned a forum post at Scrollsfans.com. Once you’ve fiddled about with the new build, feel free to discuss/compliment/constructively criticise there.

Hot new features!

• Minimum deck size has been increased to 50 Scrolls!

• We’ve added the first iteration of our Challenge Mode. It’s part of our preparation for Scrolls’ single-player campaign and is still early in development, but it’s here for you to try out! Don’t forget to provide as much feedback as possible on that forum post I mentioned earlier.

• The battle interface has been redesigned. It’s slicker than before and in-keeping with the new menus.

• We’ve revamped the way you interact with your hand. Right clicking is old news. Now you left click a scroll whether you want to play it, or sacrifice for scrolls/resources. This change simplifies players’ actions, and works especially well for touchpads and one-button mice.

• In-line with the above, you now click the magnifying glass icon to magnify a scroll. Makes sense really.

• We’ve included new movement highlights, as suggested by mrvelvet on the forums. Massive props to that guy.

• The post-match screen has been updated. There’s a new layout, your avatar is displayed in all its glory, and changes to your rank are made clear.

• Female avatars are now present! Get your girlfriends /sisters/mums to play!

• We’ve tweaked the avatar designer so it’s clear what’s going on.

• Lobby chat has been improved! Chats are now colour coded, scrolling behavior has been improved, and personal notifications now flash in-game.

• We’ve added audio notifications for chat messages, personal messages, match invites, found matches, and completed trades. You can toggle these on or off via the settings menu if you’re an anti-noise kind-of person.

• The store has been revamped. You’ll find new purchase options, including a limited amount of face-up cards, booster packs, and random scrolls of specific resources. Shopping is now significantly more fun.
  
  
• The Deck Builder has been improved with some advanced search options. Use t: word to search in type/subtype, and d: word to search through the descriptions. For example, t: spell d:countdown finds all spell scrolls that can modify countdowns. Simple(ish)!

• Token units now have “Token” in their description to help you identify them.

New scrolls!

• Vaettr of the Wild (Growth)

Stats: 1/2/1. Cost: 2.
When Vaettr of the Wild comes into play, increase growth by 1. When Vaettr of the Wild leaves play, decrease growth by 1.

• Wildling (Growth).

Stats: 0/1/4. Cost: 4.
When a creature is summoned adjacent to Wildling, Wildling is dealt 1 damage and its attack is increased by 1.

• Mangonel (Order).

Stats: 3/3/2. Cost: 3. Lobber.
When Mangonel comes into play, all Mangonels have their countdown set to that of the lowest countdown of any Mangonel you control.

• Imperial Resources (Order).

Cost: 6.
Draw 2 scrolls. Your idols are healed by 1. All your units are healed by 1. Increase order by 1.

• Divine Mark (Order).

Cost: 2.
When enchanted creature is destroyed, it is returned to owners hand. If it was killed by damage from another unit, that unit is returned to its owner’s hand.

• Tool Initiate (Energy).

Stats: 2/2/3. Cost: 2.
When Tool Initiate’s countdown is 0, you may increase its countdown by 1 to increase target structure’s attack by 1.

• Clock Library (Energy).

Stats: 0/4/5. Cost: 4. Structure.
When countdown is 0, sacrifice clock library to draw 3 scrolls.

• Machination Mindset (Energy).

Cost: 4.
Enchanted creature is relentless.

• Concentrate Fire (Energy).

Cost: 4.
Target unit with Ranged or Lobber will make an extra attack after its next attack.

• Metal Heart (Energy).

Cost: 2.
Target creature gains attack equal to the number of structures you control until end of turn.

• Bombard (Energy).

Cost: 3.
All units with Ranged or Lobber attack get their countdown set to 0.

Tweaks to existing scrolls

• Frostbeard has been changed from rarity 1 to rarity 0.

• Mangy Wolf has been changed from rarity 1 to rarity 0.

• Essence Feast For each unit you control, heal your idol on the same row by 1. Beast creatures deal double damage to idols this turn.

Miscellaneous

• Finer lines/detail on male avatar heads

• Improved desert, castle battle background images

• Improvements have been made to card list performance. The trade and sell views should run significantly smoother

• Multiplied all gold rewards and store prices by ten

• The resource icons for Growth, Order and Energy have been updated

• New animation for visual feedback on spell casting

Bug Fixes

• The task bar no longer flashes orange when tabbed out and using Windows

• Changed have been made to how the framerate is limited.

• The sound system has been rewritten, fixing a number of sound-related bugs.

• Blessing of Haste now works on opponent units.

Don’t forget to give us feedback people! The team is looking forward to hearing your views.

Owen – @bopogamel

Sorry about the recent radio silence. It’s not down to laziness, or that we don’t care about you. The team are busier than ever, working their socks off to make Scrolls as good as it can be.

The store is high on the agenda right now: Jakob and co. are redesigning the interface, working out what’s going to be on sale, and designing a bunch of new Scrolls. You can see four of those badboys down there.

We’ll have more news soon. Don’t forget that you can follow the team on Twitter, and discuss Scrolls on Facebook, if you’re more into that kind of thing.

Speak soon! Have a nice day.

Owen – @bopogamel

Update ahoy! It’s a technical one, featuring a new ranking system, tweaked gold awards, and more advanced matchmaking. We’ve also snuck in a splash screen featuring Poi Poi‘s artwork, mountains, and paralax Scrollsing (sic).

Sorry about the Scrollsing joke. Let’s hit the log!

Features

• We’ve changed the way we rate your progress. Your existing ELO value is still used for matchmaking, but each player has a separate rating which is displayed in-game. The new rating starts at 0 and builds up to your ELO value as you play ranked games. We haven’t reset anyone’s existing ELO value. It sounds confusing, but you don’t need to worry about it – that’s Jakob’s job. =).
• To compliment the ranking system, we’ve improved the way we search for opponents. Ranked and Quick matches will now try to match you with a similarly skilled opponent before expanding the search range over time.
• Gold rewards have been revamped. The bonus pool has been eliminated, rewards have been tweaked, and you get extra gold for destroying idols.
• We’ve added a new splash screen! Rejoice!

Scrolls

• Blind Rage (Energy) has been added. Target creature deals damage equal to its countdown to adjacent units. Its countdown is then increased by 1. It costs 4 Energy..
• God Hand (Growth) now gives +2 attack instead of +3.
• Quake (Growth) now deals 3 damage to structures and 2 damage to creatures. Cost has been reduced to 6.
• Eternal Statue’s (Growth) health has been reduced to 4.
• Kinfolk Veteran’s (Growth) health has been reduced to 4.
• Proximity charge now summons a copy of itself on a random adjacent tile when it comes into play. It now costs 4.
• Inferno Blast (Energy) has been changed from rarity 1 to rarity 0 (common).

That’s it for now, people. Merry Christmas from the Scrolls gang!

Thanks to everyone who responded to our request for screenshots. We had a great response, and have updated the media section of the site accordingly.

Congratulations Ryan Combes (Shasharala), Matthew Elmes (Melmes), Tyler (Tinfox), Louis LeBon, Ed Kearny (eddebaby), Victor Vasilev (Viktor), and Matthew North (Blinky) – you all made the cut.

We’re planning on updating the media page to allow us to accommodate more shots soon, so keep the submissions coming. Send any queries to community@scrolls.com.

Have a good day people! And say hello to Poi-Poi if you’re a twitter kind-of person. She’s helping out the team via the medium of art, and is very friendly

Jakob’s hair is more fluffy than slick. The dev team are jabbering incoherently. Our artists are covered in virtual ink. It can only mean one thing…

It’s UPDATE TIME people! And it’s a hefty one.

Features

• The menu UI has been given a major facelift. We’ve reworked the whole damn thing!
• The chat now covers the bottom of the screen when in the Arena. It’s automatically minimised in other screens but can be accessed manually.
• Chat messages are now colour-coded and timestamped.
• Invites to games and trades now show a small notification that can be answered when convenient.
• The trade menu has been tweaked. Now you can see both player’s inventories and offers at all times. Scrolls can be clicked for more information.
• The cost of your Scrolls are greyed out if you can’t afford to play them.
• Your hand is greyed out when it’s not your turn.
• Sound settings can be accessed from the lobby as well as in matches.
• We’ve added new end-turn sound effects.

Scrolls

• Eight new Energy Scrolls added!

Incendiaries
Cost: 3 Energy
Opponent’s Structures takes 3 damage.

Desperation
Cost: 2 Energy
Target creature gets +2 attack until end of turn for each opponent unit on the same row. It is then dealt 1 damage.

Blast Strike
Cost: 2 Energy
When enchanted creature attacks, deal 1 damage to all units adjacent to target.

Plating
Cost: 3 Energy
Enchanted unit disregards next damage taken. Plating is removed afterwards.

Overdrive
Cost: 2 Energy

When Overdrive comes into play, and at the beginning of its following turns, enchanted structure’s countdown is set to 0. At the end of these turns, it is dealt 2 damage.

Iron Whip
Cost: 1 Energy
Target unit takes 1 damage. Its Attack is increased by 1 until end of turn and Countdown decreased by 1.

Rigged

Cost: 3 Energy
Whenever enchanted structure is destroyed in combat, its attacker takes 4 damage.

Redesign
Cost: 2 Energy
Target unit’s Attack and Health switch values.

Other Scrolls tweaks

• Memorials now have the type ‘Memorial’.
• Fertile Soil now costs 4 (up from 3) and can only be cast on creatures.
• Heritage now costs 3 (up from 1).
• Burn now lets you draw a scroll if you kill a unit with the spell.
• Spark now costs 2 (down from 3).
• Mangy Wolf now costs 4 (up from 3). Flavour text added.
• Obelisk now costs 2 (down from 3).
• Ancestral Totem’s description has been adjusted.
• Shrine’s  description has been adjusted.
• Resonant Helm rules text changed from “increase” to “heal”.

Known issues

• It’s not possible to login when Avast (anti-virus software) is running with the current version. Sorry Avast users! To get around this problem you can add Scrolls to Avast’s excluded processes list. Here’s how to do it: open the Avast interface, click Real-Time Shields, then click Web Shield. Open Expert Settings followed by Exclusions. Under Processes to Exclude, click Add, then find your Scrolls.exe. Select it and click OK.

That’s it for now! We hope you enjoy the tweaks. Oh, don’t forget that we’re still accepting your screenshot submissions, so keep them coming.