Siralim Ultimate 2.0 Patch Notes

April 22, 2025 - Reading time: 41 minutes

This massive update introduces multilingual support, new game modes, and hundreds of creatures, traits, spell gems, achievements, cosmetics, and more. It also adds new specializations, currencies, quality of life improvements, UI upgrades, performance optimizations, and new ways to customize the game. Lastly, the update includes some balance changes, bug fixes, and general polish.

PLEASE READ BEFORE TESTING:

This patch is the culmination of 2 years of work. An incredible amount has changed, not only with the game, but under the hood as well. Expect to find strange bugs that didn't exist before, as well as plenty of new bugs and crashes. Rest assured, we'll release hotfixes aggressively over the next several days until everything is running smoothly again.

Here's how to download the patch for testing. Keep in mind that this test period is only for Windows. Other platforms will release later on.

1) Make a backup of your save file. This is not optional. You'll find your .sav files in C:\Users\YOUR_USERNAME\AppData\Local\SiralimUltimate\save. Make a copy of this folder and keep it somewhere safe. We cannot restore save files that become corrupted in any way during the testing period.

2) Right-click Siralim Ultimate in your Steam library, then go to Properties, Betas, and enter the code "testingpatch20". The download should begin automatically.

3) Report any bugs you find to the Steam forums or on our newly-added support forum on Discord.

4) Read the patch notes. If nothing else, skim the "New Game Content" and "General Changes" sections to familiarize yourself with what you should expect in this update.

Patch Notes

Localization

• The game has been translated into Japanese, German, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Ukrainian, Italian, Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese, Korean, Russian, Polish, Dutch, and Turkish. You will be asked to choose a language the first time you start the game with this patch. Otherwise, you can change the language through the Options -> Display menu. Please note that these translations were done with machine translation and there are likely to be some errors, but the game should be completely playable regardless. We will continue to improve localization over time.
• Steam achievements and the store page have been translated into all the languages mentioned above.

New Game Options

• Added a new option when starting a New Game: Skip Story Mode. This option allows you to skip the game's story and most of its tutorials.
• Added a new option when starting a New Game: Difficulty. This option allows you to adjust the game's difficulty. "Ruthless" significantly increases the difficulty of enemies and makes it more difficult to acquire resources, experience points, items, and more. Warning: this will turn the game into a massive grind, even more than it already is. "Relaxed" is the exact opposite.
• Added a new option when starting a New Game: Calm Mode. Enabling this option significantly reduces the maximum number of actions that can be taken in battle, such as attacking, casting, resurrecting, and so on. In addition, effects that grant additional actions (such as extra attacks) do so at 33% normal effectiveness, rounded up.
• Added a new option when starting a New Game: Royal Mode. This option allows you to start the game using the Royal specialization. You can obtain Anointments by finding them from sources of random loot, or by defeating story bosses and Nether Bosses. This mode will be expanded in future updates.
• Added a new option when starting a New Game: Creature Randomizer. This option randomizes the creatures found in each realm, even if Realm Instability is set to 0.
• Added a new option when starting a New Game: Random Starting Creature/Spell. This option randomizes your two starting creatures and your starting spell.
• Added a new option when starting a New Game: Ironman Mode. This option makes it so you can only visit each Realm Depth once. In addition, if your party is wiped out, you will never be able to use the Teleportation Shrine again (in other words, it's game over). Enabling this mode automatically enables Skip Story Mode, so make sure you read about that mode before proceeding. This mode will be expanded in future updates.
• Added a new option when starting a New Game: Sandbox Mode. This option allows you to start the game with almost everything unlocked, as well as some cheats enabled. This mode is ideal for testing purposes. Note that enabling this mode will prevent Steam achievements from unlocking on this save file.
• You can view the modes you have enabled in the options menu.

New Game Content

• Added a new specialization: Mermaid, designed by one of our Backer Shop supporters. This specialization utilizes a new debuff called "Mania" which causes affected creatures to take damage based on the amount of healing all creatures have received during battle. This specialization can be unlocked just like any other via a new Project.
• Added a new specialization: Mesmerist, designed by one of our Backer Shop supporters. This specialization revolves around crowd control effects, especially Sleep. This specialization can be unlocked just like any other via a new Project.
• Added a new specialization: Antiquarian, designed by one of our Backer Shop supporters. This specialization manipulates and empowers Relics, and as such, the project to unlock this specialization will only become available after you've unlocked at least 10 Relics.
• Exotic creatures now drop a new currency called Stardust. Stardust can be spent at Nethermancer Ned to purchase any Exotic creature in the game.
• Added a new repeatable mission/project: Nether Synthesis, unlockable after finishing the story. This mission rewards you with a random Nether Stone. Nether Synthesis costs Stardust to start the project. This mission is intended to serve as an alternative use for Stardust once you've collected all the Exotic creatures you care about.
• Added a new currency called Glamour. Glamour can be taken to Everett to purchase decorations, music, costumes, or random treasure. It can be found from all sources of loot. Decorations, music and costumes that were previously found as loot have been moved to this shop.
• Added 184 new creatures, all of which were designed by Backer Shop supporters. Many of these creatures are classified as "Exotic", but there are 13 new races as well. Please note that the in-game creature counter in the Bestiary is inaccurate and assumes too many creatures are in the game (these are placeholders for future content) this will be resolved in a patch later on.
• Added 186 new traits with corresponding crafting materials, all of which were designed by Backer Shop supporters.
• Added 76 new achievements, 4 of which are Steam achievements.
• Added 79 new Spell Gems, all of which were designed by Backer Shop supporters.
• Added 75 new Cards to collect.
• Added 12 new Rodian Creature Masters, complete with their own costume, trait, material, mastery progression, and more.
• Added 86 new castle backgrounds, 1 of which was designed by a Backer Shop supporter. The others are floor tiles that were converted into backgrounds.
• Added 1 new accessory, designed by a Backer Shop supporter.
• Added 7 new decorations, designed by Backer Shop supporters.
• Added 24 new skins, 22 of which were designed by Backer Shop supporters.
• Added 29 wardrobe costumes, all of which were designed by Backer Shop supporters.
• Added new NPCs to the randomized pool, courtesy of our Backer Shop supporters.
• Added 69 music tracks, which are chiptune variants of normal songs found in the game. These can be collected and used in your castle. In addition, all players have immediate access to the chiptune version of the default castle theme song.
• Weather effects have been added to the game. Each realm has different effects that can spawn, chosen randomly. These have no effect on gameplay. If you hate nice things, you can disable weather in the Options -> Display menu. Please let me know if you come across a weather effect that feels like it's just "too much". The idea is for them to be subtle and not too prominent or annoying.
• You can now collect Weather Effects for your castle. There are 58 effects available to purchase from Everett.
• Added Menagerie Duels to the Menagerie. This option allows you to fight against a copy of one of your stable groups. This is useful for testing your party with controlled variables. You can configure the fight in various ways such as scaling your creatures' levels, granting either side infinite health, and more.
• Updated Book of Credits to reflect all new backers' contributions. If your name is missing, please contact me via the e-mail you received for your purchase!

General Changes

• Killing Zantai after the 5th time now spawns a merchant who sells very expensive Nether Stones.
• You can now use the Animatus and Herbling creatures even if you aren't using their corresponding specialization.
• Added Animator and Grovetender Anointments to the game.
• Several perks that were previously unavailable as Anointments are now available. The only remaining perks that cannot be Anointments are Inertia, Controlled Anger, Life After Death, Masochistic Tendencies, Hemostasis, Sleight of Hand, Somnus, Superstition, Kill 'Em With Kindness, Derelict Blockade, Last of the Ancients, and Renounce the Light.
• When you reset your castle layout, all unlocked "Utility" decorations now have a default location if you've unlocked them. For example, the Gate of the Gods will now be placed in a specific location when you reset your castle. In addition, once you unlock red, yellow, and blue portals, these will also be added in a similar manner to facilitate faster travel.
• Exotic Portals no longer spawn only at your highest-realm depth.
• Revamped the Wardrobe UI to show all four facing directions at once.
• The quest display HUD is now much cleaner.
• Massively optimized saving and loading times, as well as cloud importing/exporting times.
• Massively optimized decoration saving/loading. It will no longer take a significantly longer time to save/load the game if you have a lot of decorations in your castle.
• Massively optimized realm generation time.
• Massively optimized battles, especially for parties that produced an extreme number of battle log entries. Necromancers were the worst offenders, but all late-game players will notice significant improvements to battle speed.
• Added a new item: Scroll of Renewal. This item destroys a creature's stat scrolls, allowing you to add different ones. This item can be purchased from Nortah at the Menagerie.
• Added a new audio option that allows chiptune music variants to play sometimes, always, or never. Default is never.
• Added an audio option that allows you to disable the spellcasting sound effect.
• New "Screen Effects" have been added to display options. 3 of these effects are meant to assist colorblind players, and there are 8 others added just for fun.
• Floating text in the overworld is now drawn as UI text. This means that it will be readable even if you zoom the game really far out. It also makes the text look much better.
• Added an option to the inventory UI that allows you to "Favorite" items.
• You can now sort your inventory by "Favorite".
• When buying decorative backgrounds from shops, the backgrounds' visuals are now displayed in the shop UI.
• The "Cobblestone" background is now unlocked at the start of the game and is the new default selection.
• Text entry is no longer strict. Previously, the game only supported 63 characters (letters of the English alphabet, numbers, and some symbols) now everything is supported as long as it belongs to your selected language.
• A new color palette is available for fusions. This palette tends to look much more natural than the others, and produces some of the best-looking fusions in the game.
• Enemies now always use the new palette option mentioned above. If you previously had enemy fusion palettes disabled because they were sometimes horribly ugly, give it another chance now.
• When fusing your creatures, you can now choose to maintain the primary parent's appearance (so it has no fusion palette at all).
• Added a Fusion Inspector option to the primary Fusion UI and the Colorizer UI. This allows you to view an enlarged version of a creature's fused palette, as well as their fused overworld sprites.
• You can now start the game with any specialization other than the new Antiquarian specialization. In addition, you can start as a "Random" specialization which includes any specialization in the game other than Pariah, Deprived, and Antiquarian. If you choose "Random" with "Ironman Mode" enabled, you will be given a random specialization each time you restart this model.
• Starting a new game and overwriting a current save file no longer deletes that file's backup. This allows you to manually retrieve the backup if you accidentally overwrite a save file.
• The full "Luckmantria" card set now also applies to riddle dwarves in Nether Realms. Previously, this set only worked in normal realms.
• Configuration settings are now loaded immediately when the game is started instead of at the title menu. This should reduce bugs and performance hiccups, minor as they were.
• The game now harnesses the raw, unbridled power of Nintendo Switch's "Boost Mode" to ensure Siralim Ultimate's photorealistic graphics are drawn at lightning-fast speeds.
• Updated Android API version to ensure compatibility with modern devices.
• Removed the "Events" section from the Codex as it was unused.
• High performance mode has been removed as an option for mobile devices as it didn't actually do anything other than make the game look bad.
• Personality-changing tomes are no longer found as loot, and can now instead be purchased from Nortah at the Menagerie.
• Shortened the names of several items. For example, "Decoration: X" is now simply called "X".
• Improved the readability of text in the creature fusion UI.
• God Favor HUD bar should now be much easier to see.
• Increased the amount of loot granted by the final story boss by 300%.
• Fortune (you know, the bonus you get for completing realm quests but lose entirely when you die that you completely forgot about) now amplifies the absolute total resources earned from battle, making it significantly more rewarding.
• Mythicant creature sprites have been updated.
• Improved the readability of all bars, such as health bars, god favor bars, etc.
• "Hunt" (mission) UI now displays the selected creature's trait details.
• Many music tracks that were previously unlockable via loot are instead unlocked at god shops or Everett's new shop.
• Added a new macro condition: "Health < 100%".
• Increased the maximum number of creatures you can have in the Menagerie from 1500 to 3000.
• Changed the requirements for a secret creature (KD) to appear. Hint: you don't need "them" in your party anymore, you only need to have all of "them" in your bestiary.
• Greatly increased the amount of Piety rewarded for completing additional prophecy lines. The reward increases exponentially with each additional line you complete, and completing all the prophecies on a rune now provides a massive extra bonus as well.
• Increased the amount of Piety rewarded for certain prophecies.
• "Normal Battles" are now referred to as "non-boss battles" in all text.
• "Non-normal Battles" are now referred to as "boss battles" in all text.
• "non-Ethereal" spell gems are now referred to as "permanent" spell gems in all text.
• Spell Gem Crafting Materials (dust) can now only be found in god shops, and their cost has been reduced from 10 Emblems to 1 Emblem. This means that the overall chance for you to acquire these materials (in terms of drop rate for Emblems vs Dust) is the same, but will no longer clog up your loot. Note: you can also still obtain dust from Experiment Missions, but this mission will be changed in a future patch to something much more interesting.
• Keyboard splash screen is no longer shown on Steam Deck. The game will be re-submitted to Valve for full Steam Deck verification, as this was the only thing keeping it from receiving the greenlight before.
• Removed the flashbang from the Thylacine Studios logo splashscreen.
• Updated various dialog, UI components, and codex text to reflect additions and changes mentioned in these patch notes.
• Magnetic spell gem property's description has been clarified/corrected in the Codex it works with both Ethereal and non-Ethereal gems.
• Reduced the delay between leveling up perks in the perks interface when you hold down the confirm button.
• Your character will now be drawn on top of teleportation portals in your castle instead of below them after teleporting.
• Enemies and NPCs with randomly generated names now instead pull from the list of backer NPC names. This was done to simplify localization while also giving backers more chances to see their names in-game.
• In addition to unlocking all specializations, you must now also own at least one Anointment before you can unlock the Royal specialization.
• Doubled the chance for exotic portals to spawn.
• Exotic Crafting Materials are now in their own loot pool. This means they will no longer dilute the normal legendary crafting material pool, and they'll be a bit more common now.
• Resource conversion is now done at a 2:1 ratio instead of 3:1.
• The on-screen keyboard has been removed from Windows, Mac, and Linux versions of the game and you will always use your physical keyboard to type now. On Android, iOS, and Switch, the game now uses platform-specific virtual keyboards.
• "Ultra" turbo mode is now much faster.
• When you find a Project item in the overworld, a message will now be displayed to show its name and the fact that it's used for one of your projects.
• "Blood Mage" specialization now starts the game with a Forsaken Swampdweller instead of a Forsaken Scourgewalker.
• "Inquisitor" specialization now starts the game with a Smoke Devil instead of a Valkyrie Scout.
• "Warden" specialization now starts the game with a Priest Vizier instead of an Imp Hexer.
• All specializations now start the game with a different secondary creature instead of a Unicorn Vivifier.
• All specializations now start the game with a unique spell recipe.
• When choosing your starting specialization, both the primary and secondary starting creatures are now shown.
• The Teleportation Shrine's default selected digit is now the right-most digit rather than the left-most.
• All treasure obtained in your castle is now scaled to your highest visited realm depth.
• The Macro Editor now always allows you to choose from any spell in the game except for ones that can't be cast manually.
• Added an option to the Arena to enable Exotic creatures showing up in the draft pool.
• Added an option to change your game language in Options -> Gameplay.
• Added an option to use a smooth, non-pixelated font in Options -> Display.
• Added another page to the "Additional Tips" section of the Combat codex.
• Added a skin that was previously unable to drop due to a bug.
• Added a decoration that was previously unable to drop due to a bug.
• Added an option to Everett that allows you to disable certain effects, such as Cards and Relic synergies.
• Resetting your castle now also sets your floor, walls, background, music, and weather to default as well.
• The option to change a creature's skin has been moved from the Fusion Lab to the Wardrobe as it makes more sense there.
• You can now find duplicate copies of cards you've already found. Duplicates provide their usual stat bonus, but nothing else. When found from sources of loot (in other words, not dropped by enemy creatures), there is now a separate loot pool for owned and un-owned cards, both of which have the same chance of dropping.
• Fog of War has been revamped. It looks much better, performs better, and has improved vision compared to the old version.
• You can now move equipped spell gems to different slots without needing to un-equip and re-equip them.
• Keyboard hotkeys have been added to open most user interfaces. For example, "C" now opens the Character menu, "J" opens the Projects menu. In battle, "G" now inspects and "H" opens battle history. Pressing them again closes those menus. There are many more hotkeys as well. You can configure these hotkeys through Options -> Controls.
• Most user interfaces can now be closed immediately using the Escape key.
• The Calendar's time-based functionality has been removed and these bonuses have been permanently baked into the game. The Calendar decoration is now classified under "Miscellaneous".
• The game has a brand new text engine. Text looks better, performs better, and no longer has occasional glitches or blemishes.
• Added a new Gameplay option called "Battle Eyecandy". This option always displays attack and spell animations, along with floating battle text, but desynchronizes these effects from the rest of the battle. This ensures that battles progress without delay, while still giving you the visual satisfaction of watching your creatures annihilate foes. This is purely a cosmetic option and does not impact gameplay in any way.
• Previously, battles didn't end if any creature had a pending resurrection event queued up. Now, the game should be much smarter about which resurrection events are relevant and will ignore them as needed which should speed battles up significantly.

Balance Adjustments

• Relics no longer count against a creature's per-turn action limits for the following actions: buffs gained, debuffs gained, minions gained, stats gained, stats lost, number of times damage was taken, and number of times healing was received. This will prevent Relics from using up your creatures' action limits against other creatures.
• The "Timewalk" spell no longer works against Lister or Jotun. To compensate, these fights have been shortened significantly.
• Realm Boosts (and all Blessings of the Gods) now work in all battles, not just "normal" battles.
• "Mental Clarity" (perk) now constantly checks for its activation criteria rather than at the end of each creature's turn. Also removed battle text related to this effect.
• False God Runes are now much stronger.
• All False God Runes that made the False God weaker have been removed from the game.
• The False God Portal now spawns after you find all 5 runes rather than after defeating all enemies.
• Greater Demons (minions) are no longer removed when a creature dies. The Codex has been updated to confirm this change.
• Rebalanced the number of charges found on several Spell Gems. The changes are minor and there are too many to name here, but around 80 spells were changed.
• Updated the list of spells that cannot be cast at random in battle. This is intended to mitigate player frustration and includes spells such as Sudden Death and Blank Slate.
• "Cascading" (spell gem property) now grants 5% potency per missing charge, up from 3%.
• "Singular" (spell gem property) now grants 50% potency per empty spell gem slot, up from 30%.
• "Increased Damage/Healing/Stats" (spell gem properties) now have a baseline 35% potency, up from 25%, and a growth of 5% potency per gem tier, up from 2%.
• "Chaotic Potential" (trait) now has a 25% chance to activate, up from 5%.
• "Rapid Evolution" (trait) has been redesigned: At the start of battle, this creature gains the innate traits of the Imler creatures adjacent to it.
• "Lune" (trait) now only casts spells that have 4 charges or less, down from 7. This should improve the overall spell pool accessed by this trait.
• "Hungering Void" (spell) has been reworked. It now deals large damage to all enemies, plus 30% for each time the caster has cast the spell in the current battle.
• "Luck's Gambit" (spell) no longer works on your creatures if your specialization is Rune Knight.
• "Master of Minotaurs" (trait) damage reduction reduced from 50% to 25%.
• "Master of Brownies" (trait) damage reduction reduced from 50% to 25%.
• "Master of Shadows" (trait) damage increases/reductions decreased from 50% to 30% and has a new effect: Your Shadows are immune to Fear.
• "Solar Flare" (trait) now casts Stellar Flare with +50% damage.
• "Empowered Bone Spear" (trait) now has 50% defense penetration, up from 25%.
• "Empowered Fireball" (trait) now has a 90% chance to continue casting, up from 75%.
• "Empowered Chain Lightning" (trait) now increases damage per chain lightning bounce by 35%, up from 15%.
• "Empowered Death Blossom" (trait) now causes the spell to deal large damage, rather than moderate damage.
• "Mammon" (minion) has been reworked: When your creatures with Mammon take damage, they take 3% less damage for each stack of each Lesser Demon they have, up to 80%.
• Bosses are no longer immune to the "Humility" and "Deep Submersion" spells. To be clear, these were the only spells that bosses were directly immune to.
• "Prism" (trait) now affects all your creatures instead of only the creature who owned this trait.
• "Fanatacism" (trait) now affects the owner of this trait as well.
• "Radiant Eclipse" (trait) now affects the owner of this trait as well.
• "Bearer of Needs" (trait) now affects the owner of this trait as well.
• "Disciple of War" (trait) now affects the owner of this trait as well.
• "Apostle of Water" (trait) now affects the owner of this trait as well.
• "Tender of Earth" (trait) now affects the owner of this trait as well.
• "Preacher of Stone" (trait) now affects the owner of this trait as well.
• "Zealot of the Forest" (trait) now affects the owner of this trait as well.
• "Shepherd of Fire" (trait) now affects the owner of this trait as well.
• "Sacrifice to the Light" (spell) now works in boss battles.
• "Sacrifice to the Light" (spell) can no longer be crafted, and can instead be found as loot.
• "Golden Aura" (trait) has been reworked: After your Exotic creatures are killed, your other creatures gain their trait. This trait does not stack.
• "Insipid" (trait) now grants 10% damage reduction per debuff.
• "Master of Sanctuses" (trait) now grants 3 random traits, up from 1.
• "Master of Sins" (trait) now grants 3 random traits, up from 1.
• "Voodoo" (trait) now grants 15% damage reduction per gem, up from 10%.
• "Ultimate Sacrifice" (trait) now removes the creature's 5 most recent extra traits rather than all extra traits.
• "Boundless Creativity" (trait) now grants 25% stats, up from 15%.
• "Of Grace Unending" (trait) now grants 12% stats, up from 3%.
• All traits, perks, and other effects that provide damage reduction now have a standardized maximum damage reduction of 80% unless otherwise specified in their descriptions. This change has been reflected in the Codex.
• Class Strength artifact properties now have an absolute maximum value of 80%.
• "Stick Soul" (trait) now works on all your Exotic creatures instead of only the creature who owns this trait.
• "Kirisute Gomen" (trait) has been partially redesigned. Instead of killing both the owner of this trait and the target, it only kills itself if it fails to kill the target with this effect.
• "Autonomous Attack" (trait) now grants 30% Attack, up from 10%, and an additional amount equal to 20% of the amount received in the battle, up from 10%.
• "Autonomous Intelligence" (trait) now grants 30% Intelligence, up from 10%, and an additional amount equal to 20% of the amount received in the battle, up from 10%.
• "Autonomous Defense" (trait) now grants 30% Defense, up from 10%, and an additional amount equal to 20% of the amount received in the battle, up from 10%.
• "Autonomous Speed" (trait) now grants 30% Speed, up from 10%, and an additional amount equal to 20% of the amount received in the battle, up from 10%.
• "Autonomous Health" (trait) now grants 30% Health, up from 10%, and an additional amount equal to 20% of the amount received in the battle, up from 10%.
• "Autonomous Network" (trait) now grants 20% stats, up from 10%.
• "Perfect Imperfection" (trait) now has a maximum of 90% damage reduction.
• The following traits now activate at >= 90% health instead of > 90% health: Chastity, Cloud Connected, Damage Control, Eye of the Storm, Master of Storms, Powershift, Sailor's Warning, Storm to Pass, Through the Gloom, Wasted Age. Their descriptions remain the same.
• "Seeing Red" (trait) now activates at 80% health, up from 75%. This trait received a similar health change to the one mentioned above.
• "Grovel and Beg" (trait) now activates at 80% health, up from 75%. This trait received a similar health change to the one mentioned above.
• "Seeing Red" (trait) now activates at 40% health, up from 35%. This trait received a similar health change to the one mentioned above.
• "Emerald Blessing" (trait) granted less healing than intended.
• "Zantai's Cunning" (trait) now grants 50% defense penetration, up from 15%.
• "Zantai's Reign" (trait) now grants 15% stats, up from 5%.
• "Trove" (trait) description has been updated to include that it doesn't stack. The function of this trait is unchanged.
• "Earthen Attunement" (trait) description has been updated to include that it doesn't stack. The function of this trait is unchanged.
• "Wrath of Krorena" (trait) has been redesigned because it was an inferior version of "Smoking Kills": Your creatures have a 100% critical chance against enemies that belong to their own class. This trait does not stack.
• "Piercing Speed" (trait) defense penetration increased to 40%, up from 30%.
• "Evocation" (trait) now grants 50% intelligence, up from 35%.
• "Jailbreak" (trait) now grants 50% defense, up from 40%.
• "Arachnophobia" (trait) damage increased from 65% to 100% and has an additional effect: When enemies break out of their snare, they take damage equal to 5 turns of their poison debuff.
• "Tempest" (trait) now has a 35% chance to activate, up from 20%.
• "Unending boon" (perk) chance increased from 30% to 50% and now also triggers that creature's on-buff effects.
• "Infinite Blades" (spell) now deals large damage instead of moderate damage.
• "Channeling" (trait) now grants stats at the start of battle instead of during battle. This change also improves consistency with its health effect.
• "Fan of Knives" (trait) now deals damage equal to 65% of the creature's speed, up from 20%.
• "Spook" (trait) only affected spell damage, while it should have affected all damage.
• "Mechanical Illusion" (trait) now also grants a significant amount of stats to the creature when it is resurrected.
• "Counter Slash" (trait) now works with Speed instead of Attack, and the value has increased from 65% to 75%.
• "Parasite Eve" (spell) now deals damage based on the amount of stats enemies have gained rather than the amount they've healed.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed a long-standing bug (which has existed since Siralim 1) that could very rarely cause Realms to generate that are too small.
• Fixed a bug that caused the transition between the title menu credits back to the main menu to take a ridiculously long time.
• Fixed a bug that caused Perdition's Rank 90 relic perk to work on the attacker's total incoming attacks rather than that of the defender.
• Fixed a bug that caused pagination text to appear at the bottom of the screen while the "Guild Reputation" menu selection was highlighted.
• Fixed a bug that could sometimes cause battle events to be "thrown out" if there were too many things happening at once.
• Fixed a bug that could prevent some specializations' loadouts from correctly saving at the Wardrobe.
• Fixed a bug that prevented enemies from benefiting from +Health effects from their artifacts.
• Fixed a bug that caused "Short Fuse" (spell) to deal indirect damage instead of spell damage.
• Fixed a bug that caused "Shield Slam" (spell) to only have a 12% chance to send a creature to the bottom of the action queue instead of 35%, as intended.
• Fixed a bug that prevented creatures' stat changes from being fully reset on death.
• Fixed a bug that caused "Dire Wolves" (minion) to only activate for creatures that belong to the Hound race.
• Fixed a bug that probably caused "Watch of the Buried" (trait) to do all kinds of incorrect things. I have no idea how it wasn't crashing the game.
• Fixed a bug that could sometimes cause stronger barriers to not overwrite weaker ones.
• Fixed a bug that could rarely cause False God runes to be drawn below certain realm debris.
• Fixed a bug with certain devices (especially some Android phones) that prevented fusion palette swaps from working.
• Fixed a bug that caused Materium's (relic) rank 90 perk to only cast Ethereal spells instead of only non-Ethereal spells.
• Fixed a bug that caused Void Essence's (relic) rank 40 perk to grant Maximum Health based on the creature afflicted with Stone, rather than the afflictor.
• Fixed a bug that caused creatures to deal 15% more damage to enemies you had rank C knowledge with for no reason.
• Fixed a bug that caused the "Character" menu to be selected when backing out of the "Creatures" menu while in a realm.
• Fixed a rare crash that could occur when playing Keno.
• Fixed a bug that allowed players to use the confirm key on the "Gamepad Support" menu option to bind a fictitious key.
• Fixed a bug that allowed players to deposit their creatures at the Menagerie at the start of the game, resulting in crashes later on in the tutorial.
• Fixed a crash that could sometimes occur if you tried to enter the arena with fewer than 6 creatures in your party.
• Fixed a bug that prevented multiple cards from dropping at once. Yes, I know. I hate myself too.
• Fixed a bug that caused some entries in the "Realm Properties" Codex to be shown even though they were removed from the game.
• "Renounce the Light" (perk) worked in the arena.
• "Somnus" (perk) worked in the arena.
• "Overrun" (perk) acted as if it had maxed ranks even if it didn't.
• "Impending Victory" (perk) didn't work.
• "Killing Machine" (perk) didn't work.
• "Soul Shield" (perk) increased incoming damage rather than decreasing it.
• "Transit" (perk) didn't work.
• "Reprimand" (perk) didn't work.
• "Born Again" (perk) didn't always function at the correct time.
• "Transfusion" (perk) granted Maximum Health to the wrong creature(s).
• "Rough Recovery" (trait) prevented healing completely instead of limiting it to once per turn.
• "The Two Made One" (trait) didn't work.
• "Master of Cherubs" (trait) didn't work.
• "Divinity" (spell) healed for 100% of missing health, rather than maximum health.
• "Synthesis" (trait) was incorrectly referred to as "Synergy" in floating battle text.
• "Master of Hounds" (trait) affected creatures of any race instead of only Hounds, as intended.
• "Brim Fiends" (minion) didn't work.
• "Fire Imps" (minion) didn't work.
• "Photosynthesis" (perk) didn't grant bonus stats.
• "Internal Combustion" (spell) dealt more damage than intended. The spell description has also been updated for clarity.
• "Hypertrophy" (spell) couldn't be cast manually and was able to target dead creatures when cast automatically.
• "Aggravate" (spell) didn't work.
• "Fae Dust" (trait) gave a far lower damage bonus than intended.
• "Dead of Winter" (trait) activated at the incorrect time. Also clarified the trait description.
• "Snuff" (trait) dealt more damage than intended.
• "Master of Lepers" (trait) didn't always activate.
• "Mouthbreathe" (spell) damaged the caster instead of enemies.
• "Pustule" (spell) dealt less damage than intended.
• "Spell Leak" (spell) was incorrectly classified as a stat-reducing spell.
• "Grovel and Beg" (trait) only avoided damage at 50% or less health, while it should have been 75%.
• "Chroma's Stability" (trait) incorrectly applied to your entire party.
• "Center of the Universe" (trait) only checked the first 5 spell gems rather than correctly limiting the shared gems to 5.
• "Syndicate" (trait) could crash the game under some rare circumstances.
• "Despair" (trait) afflicted a debuff from the creature that caused this trait to activate, rather than the owner of the trait.
• "Watch of the Buried" (trait) didn't respect other effects that could increase the maximum minion count, such as the Bloodthirst, Undead Legion, or Unleash the Horde traits.
• "Vengeful Rebound" (trait) had a typo in its description.
• "Quantum Flux" (trait) only affected the creature with this trait rather than the entire team.
• "Nine Meteors" (spell) dealt less damage than intended, and its potency was incorrectly based on Attack.
• "Helix" (trait) counted Ethereal spells.
• "Master of Carvers" (trait) was always active even if no creature had this trait.
• "Master of Centaurs" (trait) was always active even if no creature had this trait.
• "Rend and Tear" (trait) worked on allies.
• "Fragmenting Arrow" (spell) overkill damage could loop into additional overkill damage.
• "Reform" (trait) worked on the owner of this trait.
• "Living Cloak" (spell) description now correctly states that the potency of the spell is based on Defense instead of Intelligence. The function of this trait is unchanged.
• "Living Gauntlet" (spell) description now correctly states that the potency of the spell is based on Defense instead of Intelligence. The function of this trait is unchanged.
• "Living Heavy Shield" (spell) description now correctly states that the potency of the spell is based on Defense instead of Intelligence. The function of this trait is unchanged.
• Hopefully fixed a bug that caused some objects to spawn in a way that could block treasure chests from being accessible. Probably not, though.
• "Corpse Explosion" (spell) description has been updated for clarity. The function of this spell is unchanged.
• Added a retroactive save file fix for Android users affected by a bug that caused multiple copies of spells to be listed as gem recipes or macro commands.
• Fixed several instances where the game could run out of memory and crash, most noticeably on Switch and Steam Deck.
• Audio should no longer turn off for the duration of your game session if you switch audio devices during runtime.

FUNgeon Crawlers - Humble Bundle

May 3, 2024 - Reading time: ~1 minute

Siralim Ultimate is part of the "FUNgeon Crawlers" Humble Bundle, featuring 7 great RPGs!

https://www.humblebundle.com/games/fungeon-crawlers

Siralim Ultimate Backer Shop

May 1, 2024 - Reading time: ~1 minute

As mentioned in my previous post, the Siralim Ultimate backer shop is now open for business! Ever wanted to add your own ideas to the game? Now is your chance!

Siralim Ultimate - Survey Results

April 24, 2024 - Reading time: 5 minutes

Thanks to everyone who participated in our survey! With over 500 responses, your insights will pave the way toward a new future for Siralim Ultimate, as well as our other games. Many of the responses took me by surprise, but let's jump to the part you probably care about the most: more content for Siralim Ultimate!

Backer Shop

Over one-third of respondents (far, far more than expected) expressed interest in the return of the backer shop. So, we're bringing it back, improved and streamlined based on past experiences.

Here's what to expect:

• We'll open a new page on our website where supporters can choose what kind of content they want us to create, payable via PayPal (no account required). The shop will open on May 1, 2024.
• After choosing your content, we'll reach out to you via email to ask for some more details.
• Once approved, your request will be added to our queue.
• Your new content will be added to the game in an upcoming patch. It is important to remember that we will likely receive a lot of orders, and it is very difficult to provide an ETA on when your content will be ready. I'll do my best to keep everyone updated with our progress and plan to keep a public spreadsheet available so you can track this progress in real time.

To be clear, this content will be made available for all players, so even if you don't want to pay for anything, you can still look forward to a huge new batch of creatures, spells, decorations, and much more - absolutely free of charge.

New Game Content

Unsurprisingly, most respondents were interested in new content - particularly, extra game modes (chosen when you start a new save file).

Here are a few examples of some new game modes, but please remember these are all in the "ideas phase" and are subject to change, or might not even make it into the final game at all:

• Sandbox Mode. Gives you instant access to all creatures, spells, decorations, cards, and more. This is great for testing purposes.
• Ruthless Mode. This mode features fewer item drops, faster-scaling difficulty, and other tweaks to slow the game down a bit while making everything feel more rewarding. The name of this mode was borrowed from the same one in Path of Exile, so if you've played that, you should have some idea about what to expect here.
• Story Skip Mode. You'll still start at level 1, but all story quests will be finished, and certain features will be unlocked immediately.
• Randomizer Mode. You'll be able to randomize all kinds of different things, such as the creatures that spawn in each realm, the contents of shops, and much more.
• Calm Mode. This mode aims to make battles feel less hectic by reducing the maximum number of actions that can be taken, such as the number of attacks/casts that can be done in one turn. Several traits and other effects will be modified to make it more difficult to reach these new limits as well.
• I have some ideas that are really creative and experimental as well, but I'd rather not reveal them until I'm sure I can make them work.

These modes can be mixed and matched for a personalized gaming experience. We're also planning to unlock some new content through "stretch goals" in our backer shop, akin to Kickstarter campaigns.

Patch Timeline

The difficult part about updating Siralim Ultimate is that so many players (roughly 60%, judging by the survey results) use our cloud storage feature to access their save files on multiple platforms. Unfortunately, this means that if I add content to one platform, you won't be able to play that save file on another platform until that platform receives the new content as well. For that reason, I will keep this patch on our Steam beta branch for a pretty long time.

The patch will include the promised localizations, bug fixes, suggestions, backer content, and much more. It will be an enormous patch that will take months of testing on the beta branch, but this will ensure that 1) your cloud storage service isn't interrupted and 2) backers can see their new content added to the game as soon as possible.

The Next Game

I want to be very clear that everything I mentioned in this post will have minimal impact on the development of our next game. I have a lot of help behind the scenes these days, and I am confident that I have the time and resources available to devote to both games and give them both the attention they deserve. I enjoy game development so much that working on one game feels like a nice break from working on the other.

This year is going to be a massive one for us, and I can't wait to share more information very soon! Stay tuned for more updates and reveals.

Happy New Year! Here's a quick look at 2024 and beyond!

December 23, 2023 - Reading time: 6 minutes

I hope everyone had a great 2023! While it has been quiet on my end for some time, a lot has been happening behind the scenes. In this post, I want to discuss what you can expect from Thylacine Studios in 2024 and beyond.

Siralim Ultimate Patch

Over two years after its full launch, Siralim Ultimate is more popular than ever. This is highly unusual for a video game, and it's all thanks to our amazing playerbase spreading the word about Siralim. A huge thanks to everyone for spreading the word!

I'm working on a big Siralim Ultimate patch. It doesn't add any new content to the game, but it fixes almost all known bugs and includes some small quality of life improvements that have been requested by the community.

In addition, this patch will enable the game to be translated into different languages. This is a massive undertaking, but I'm making good progress on it so far. Community members will be able to translate the game themselves, but I am also hoping to work with some publishers to add official translations for some languages as well (prioritizing Japanese and Chinese to start). Please note that the translation files are very far off from being ready, so I can't provide them to you just yet.

There's still a lot of work to be done on this patch, so I have no ETA for when it will be ready. It will also probably spend at least a few months on our Steam beta branch before it is fully released and available on other platforms because there are so many changes behind the scenes.

I know many of you have been waiting a long time for a patch like this, and I apologize for the delay, but I've needed to put the bulk of my focus on other things while I work on this patch on the side.

I am also aware that there are still a few outstanding issues on Android as a result of the most recent update. I have a new patch ready to go to solve these issues, but unfortunately, I am waiting on the Gamemaker developers (what a surprise...) to fix some things on their end that is causing the game to run at an abnormal frame rate on some devices. There are a lot of frustrated developers pushing them to fix this because it affects *all* Android games made with Gamemaker, so hopefully, they'll have a fix ready soon.

The Next Game

I wanted to reveal the new game I'm working on in this post, but it's not quite ready to show off yet and I don't want to spoil anything prematurely. I'm planning to announce it in the first quarter of 2024, and I hope to make regular blog posts after that to reveal all the game's mechanics. Here's what I can say about the game for now:

- It's a massive, turn-based RPG, and will probably release with more content than Siralim Ultimate. The budget is roughly 4x all the Siralim games combined, and it shows.

- To best summarize the game's mechanics, I'd say it's a cross between Siralim, Path of Exile, and something very new and unique altogether.

- It's meant to be an infinite game like Siralim, but also highly replayable like an ARPG (Diablo 2, Path of Exile, Grim Dawn, etc). Both the long-term playability and the replayability work together for a complete experience. It is not a roguelite or anything like that.

- The art is 2D, but instead of using pixel art, it uses skeletal animations. This means that the art will be much more animated and less static than Siralim.

- JC Malapit (who worked on parts of all the Siralim games) will handle all the art. He's not shackled by low-resolution pixel art anymore, and I'm constantly amazed at how great everything looks. You're going to be pleasantly surprised. I can't wait to show off some screenshots soon.

- Joshua Queen (who worked on Siralim 3 and Siralim Ultimate) will once again handle all the music and sound effects for the game. The music is already finished, and it's unbelievably good.

- -

I'm excited to reveal more details in the coming months!

My Communication

Currently, my communication is spread across several social media platforms, including Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, Discord, YouTube, and the Steam forums. Moving forward, I've decided to primarily focus on Discord, supplemented by Twitter and the Steam forums. As part of this shift, I will no longer post updates on Facebook.

Additionally, I'm considering transferring administrative rights for our subreddit (r/siralim) to community members in the near future. If you're an active member of the r/siralim community, please reach out to me on reddit (https://www.reddit.com/user/thylacinestudios) and let me know your interest. Please don't be offended if I don't respond to you - I anticipate a lot of interest in this position, so it may be difficult to reply to everyone.

Moving forward, Discord will be our primary channel for updates and interactions. I'm excited about enhancing our Discord experience and exploring new ways to [optionally] integrate it into our upcoming games.

I realize I've been very quiet over the last year, and that is a personal choice I've decided to make for a number of reasons I won't bore you with here. In the future, I am going to work on increasing communication at a macro level (blog posts, Discord announcements, etc). I have big plans for improving communication at a micro level (forum responses, casual Discord chatting, etc), and you'll learn the details about that soon enough.

________________

That's all for now. I want to thank everyone for their continued support, and I look forward to revealing more about our next game in early 2024! I wish everyone Happy Holidays and a Happy New Year!

Zack

Siralim Ultimate - Nintendo Switch Discount for week of April 3

April 3, 2023 - Reading time: ~1 minute

Siralim Ultimate is on sale at 25% off for Nintendo Switch this week! This is the first time the game has ever been discounted on Switch.

And remember, you can transfer your save file between the mobile, Steam, and Switch versions of the game at any time!

Siralim Ultimate - Mobile Discount for week of March 27

March 27, 2023 - Reading time: ~1 minute

Siralim Ultimate is on sale at 40% off for Android and iOS this week! This is the first time the game has ever been discounted on these platforms.

And remember, you can transfer your save file between the mobile, Steam, and Switch versions of the game at any time!

Siralim Ultimate - PS4 and Xbox Ports Cancelled

December 20, 2022 - Reading time: 3 minutes

For almost all of 2022, I've been working on the Switch, Playstation, and Xbox ports for Siralim Ultimate. As you know, the Switch port was released earlier this month. While I've been chipping away at all three consoles simultaneously, Switch took up most of my time since this console had the highest demand by our backers. Once Switch development started to wrap up, I shifted my full focus to the Playstation port. Initially, the game ran very smoothly on Playstation and didn't have any major issues. At some point in the last couple of months, however, Sony updated their technical requirements for games to be submitted to their store. This forced me to upgrade Gamemaker (the engine used to create the game) to a new version. That's when some severe issues started to happen.

I've been in a constant battle over the last few months finding major issues with the game, fixing them, then finding new ones over and over again. Until the last couple of weeks, I was very confident I'd be able to fix everything and release the PS4 version soon. Gamemaker has continued to receive new updates to fix some of the issues I've been finding, but each new update also brings a whole new set of issues. Recently, I've reached a point where I can say this port is simply not in a state I'd ever dare to release it in. It takes up to 10 minutes to load a save file, several minutes to save a file, and the performance of the game is all over the place - sometimes it's relatively smooth, and other times it slows to a crawl. I've done some serious digging to figure out what might be causing it, and I genuinely think the game is too big for its own good, and Gamemaker can't handle it when it comes to the Playstation side of things. To be clear, there is nothing to blame on the PS4 hardware itself - this is a problem with Gamemaker.

I was hoping to dig deeper into the Xbox port after Playstation was finished, but that has its share of issues as well. After Xbox accepted Thylacine Studios (and Siralim Ultimate) to their store, I signed the necessary documents to gain access to development kits and the software required to build the game. I was told I'd hear back from someone to finalize details about mailing the dev kits to me, as well as information on how to access the software. For some unknown reason, this hasn't happened yet, and my attempts to contact someone at Microsoft have been unsuccessful so far. So, there's absolutely no way for me to know how long this process will take, and I find it unacceptable to make our backers wait any longer.

While the issues with both of these consoles may someday be resolved, there is no way for me to know how long it will take, and I think our backers have waited long enough now. In short, I have no choice but to cancel the Playstation and Xbox ports of Siralim Ultimate. I cannot apologize enough to the people who've been waiting patiently for their Playstation and Xbox keys. Canceling these ports is the last thing I ever wanted to do, so please know that I've tried everything I can to make it happen, and if there was some other way to make things work out, I'd do it.

As compensation to our backers, I'm going to send out e-mails to everyone who chose a Playstation or Xbox key on their backer surveys. You will receive a free Steam key as an apology for the long wait and the disappointing news. In addition, you have the option to choose an additional key for another platform or to simply receive a refund.