Hello Forgeborn! I’m back again with another update. We are hard at work on the new client and preparing for our big release later this year. In the meantime, I have some updates for you and some previews of what is to come.

We just released a new small set of cards to finish out the Darkforge Uprising block! You can see some previews for these cards here and here. In addition, we updated the draft card pool to completely shake up the game and give you lots of new content to play with while you patiently (or not so patiently) wait for the big update coming at the end of the year. Jump back into a draft or two and let us know what you think of the new cards and new format!

One of the great things about having a Kickstarted game is that we get feedback from all of you regularly on ways to make the game better. And we have been listening! Recently, we posted an article on solforgegame.com asking for your opinion on how we can improve the timer in Solforge. This has been a hotly debated topic since the beginning of the game, and we wanted to truly get a sense of what you, our players, really wanted.

The result? An overwhelming majority for a turn timer with a reserve bank. Each turn players have a fixed amount of time (we are still testing to find exactly the right amount) to complete their turn. If they use up their turn time, players will have a small reserve (currently planned at 5 minutes) to draw from for those complicated turns that require a bit more thinking (or for when your pesky neighbor stops by and interrupts your game). This system has a nice balance of encouraging quick play but still giving you the time to enjoy the game without feeling rushed on critical turns.

We have many screens that we are completely redesigning to make the game more intuitive, faster, and more attractive than ever before. No screen is more important than the game screen itself. This is still a work in progress, but here is the never-before-seen preview of our new PC game screen:

The card frames are receiving an update (not shown in this image) and the whole UI is now being shifted to match our more techy, sci fi feel. You can now see a more visible representation of the deck and discard making it more obvious what is going on when decks are reshuffled. There is still a lot of work to be done, but this is a good indication of the direction it’s going. We hope you all like what we have so far! Let us know your thoughts in the comments!

Another item many people have asked about is the Solforge Art book promised during the kickstarter. The art book completion is waiting on the new client to ensure that the look and feel matches the final released version of Solforge. Never fear, though! While we don’t yet have a definite delivery date on this item yet, we have been working on it! Here is a sample page from the design in progress:

I hope you are as excited about the road ahead as we are. There are many more updates coming, including more information on our significant R&D work towards rebalancing the game based around what we’ve learned over the past two years of play. Your support and feedback are changing this game every day and we are grateful for the opportunity to bring you the game we all wanted to play when we first started this campaign 3 years ago. Thank you once again from everyone at Stone Blade for the opportunity to take this journey together.

-Justin Gary

CEO Stone Blade Entertainment