Spellbook: essence columns, tiers and the Quickbar

About this game

Developer: Lavapotion · Publisher: Coffee Stain Publishing · Platform: PC (Steam) · Art style: Pixel art · Screen type: Focus / Tech Trees

More Songs of Conquest screens in the Gallery

What to study

The spellbook is a single parchment sheet, and its layout is the game's whole magic system at a glance. Spells are filed in five columns by essence, the coloured orbs at the top count how much of each essence the Wielder commands, and each column is tiered, so a column's height is a build: pour levels into one essence and its Tier 3 spells light up at the top while the neglected columns stay grey. Nothing is hidden behind a lock icon; unlearned spells sit in the same grid as silhouettes with the level that will wake them (8, 12, 14), turning the book into a plan you can read forwards. The narrow Quickbar column at the far left does the other half of the design work, learning a spell and loading it for battle are separate decisions, and the book keeps them in separate columns of the same sheet. Frame at 0:30.3 in the 1.0 Launch Trailer (Steam).

Patterns

How the screen is arranged.

panel-grid perk-tree

Components

Parts on screen.

Tabs Grid Pips Slots

Screen inventory

• a parchment scroll panel laid over the live battlefield, the hex field and a skeletal troop stay visible around its rolled edges, so the book never fully leaves the fight
• far left, a QUICKBAR column: eight empty square slots stacked vertically, the spells the Wielder carries into battle separated from the book they were learned from
• five essence columns fill the left two-thirds, each headed by a coloured essence orb with its total (5, 3, 14, 3, 10) and a tier label (Tier 1, Tier 1, Tier 3, Tier 1, Tier 3); learned spells are full-colour medallions with a small essence-cost pip, unlearned ones fall away below as grey silhouettes numbered 8, 12, 14, locked by level, not hidden
• the right third is a second grid of larger spell medallions, each carrying paired cost numbers in coloured pips (3/3, 4/4, 5/5, 6/6 up to 9/9), its learned rows bright and its later rows greyed
• a single X in the panel's top-right corner closes the book; there are no tabs, pages or search boxes, the whole spell economy fits one screen

Top 3 colors

#b18c64 22%#332921 21%#1d1b18 21%

Top three palette colors by share. The remaining colors make up the rest.

Source and credit

© Lavapotion / Coffee Stain Publishing, Songs of Conquest screenshot: Feature Overview + 1.0 Launch Trailer (Steam), Lavapotion / Coffee Stain Publishing, shown for design study and commentary. PlayCraft is an unofficial fan project, not affiliated with or endorsed by Coffee Stain Publishing.

Source tier 2 (publisher-released) · screenshot: Steam store page · Steam page

Source details

Fetched 2026-10-24. verified 2026-10-24: pipeline scene frame v1_0008.png @ 30.28s in the 1.0 Launch Trailer, from the verified-clean curl-shim download (full decode exit 0, zero NAL/missing-picture errors), inspected visually at full resolution; the QUICKBAR column, the five essence column headers with totals and tier labels, learned and greyed spell medallions with cost/level pips, and the close X all legible; no trailer caption, watermark or logo overlays the frame

no published policy found (checked 2026-10-24); fair-use study use, takedown honored within 48h

Rights holders: see Copyright & takedown.