Have you ever thought to yourself, “man, those paper dungeons are bleak and dull?” Well... good, because that's how dungeons are supposed to look like ːarchduckː But if you really want to add some color, you can now make good use of your SteelSeries peripherals and light the room with all shades of red, green, blue, and more!
We've partnered with SteelSeries to implement GameSense support in Book of Demons. What's GameSense and how does it work? To put it simply, it allows the game to lit up your SteelSeries RGB enabled mice, keyboards, and headsets and react to events in Book of Demons in real-time. That's coding magic for ya!
The full list of effects now available includes:
Health and Mana indicators on F5-F8 and F9-F12 respectively. We use fewer keys but the rightmost key dims as the parameter value gets lower for fluid visual feedback. Additionally, health gets tinted green when the character is poisoned.
Equipped cards highlight keys bound to their slots. The type of card equipped is color-coded exactly as they are presented in-game. Additionally, when a card is not usable at the moment, it's dimmed. And when it's on cooldown, it's also indicated by gradually making the key lighter. These keys and health/mana bars are rendered on top of other effects as they are utility indicators.
When a card becomes usable or its passive effect is triggered, it flashes gold
When the character is frozen, the keyboard mimics the on-screen effect and "freezes" in blue color on the edge rows and columns.
When the character is poisoned again, the keyboard mimics the on-screen effect, and "bubbles" of green spawn at the lowest key row and make their way upwards.
Level up, level clear, and card identified/discovered notifications now have a fast "swipe" effect on the keyboard.
Mouse glows in the color the current dungeon is tinted with. This creates a cool ambient effect at the player's desk that compliments the in-game color scheme.
On death, the keyboard gets "flooded" with red to mimic the on-screen effect ːpaperdeathː
When the player is stunned, the headset blinks yellow to mimic the yellow stars on the screen
As always, stay safe in the colorful dungeons!
Mathyou ːpaperheartː
Launcher rework!
Hello everyone!
As a part of the general backend modernization effort, we have reworked the launcher. Most of the changes are under the hood and affect the way games in the series will talk to each other, unlock avatars and show up in each other's launchers.
Avatar system changes
So there is more than meets the eye here, but what meets the eye is how the avatar system changed. As you might remember avatars were placed on a graph and unlocked with a meta score. This idea was cool but difficult to work with and, to be honest, a tad clunky visually.
Which is why we have reworked that system. Now each game can unlock an avatar according to its own rules and will inform other games that it did so. All avatars are now browsable in a neat list with descriptions visible all the time and not only in tooltips:
Looks much better, doesn't it?
There will also be an option to copy avatar in .png format to a folder, so it could be used online with ease. This option will be available on selected platforms that allow it (Steam does ).
Aside from that check out Hellcard and Book of Aliens if you somehow missed them ːarchduckː
As always, stay safe in the paper dungeons ːarchduckː Konstanty
Book of Demons' Special Halloween Special is here!
Defeat the Archdemon and his army of spooky skeletons, ghosts, and fiends in Book of Demons - a modern Hack & Slash game reimagined. Are you ready to enter the dungeon and save the Paperverse from the forces of evil? Grab your swords and shields, bows, and magic staffs, because it’s adventure time!
Halloween under the Cathedral
Colourful fallen leaves, warm sweaters, and the pumpkin spice latte - ain’t autumn great? And if you want some fun, October got you covered too. There is this one day a year when all ghouls, ghosts, vampires, zombies and other monsters leave their comfy dungeons to visit their definitely-not-terrified human friends. Yes, you’ve guessed it - it’s HALLOWEEN time!
This year will be different, however. This year, you will pay all the spooks a visit first instead. The dungeons are already decorated. The treats are already prepared. The monsters are already waiting for you to come and play with them (and steal all their candy). So what are you waiting for? Challenge the Archdemon in a Special Halloween Special ːpaperdeathː
Limited Edition Spooky Challenges
We celebrate Halloween with Limited Edition Spooky Challenges and Halloween decorations in all the dungeons (made by the Archdemon himself). Introducing:
ːarchduckː All you need is Blood - each second you lose 1 HP point. Each broken enemy heart gives you +1 HP point. Hearts become a resource you have to manage in order to survive.
ːarchduckː Spooky Spores! - we heard you like spores, so we put spores in your spores, so that you can get spores while strolling around the dungeon. Now your own body will spawn spores which then spawn even more spores. And that’s how you become constantly poisoned. Do you run or kill enemies around you? The choice is yours.
ːarchduckː For The Horde! - the enemies are super fast and can sense you from a long range
ːarchduckː 7th sense - enemies spawn once killed and drop gold (killing them doesn't give you more points) - grab as much money as your pockets can hold and run before the monsters surround you!
The more the merrier!
If you want to meet like-minded people or get in touch with us, click here in order to join our Discord channel! Among other stuff that's where we are running sneak peek channel with early betas and previews of Hellcard. Hellcard is going to be a sequel spinoff to Book of Demons and a true single and multiplayer co-op deckbuilder! If that sounds cool, wishlish and follow the game to get updates on public tests and launch.
Stay safe in the Haunted Dungeons, Mathyou ːpaperheartː
Wingspan discount for Book of Demons owners
Our good friends over at Monster Couch have released their digital edition of Wingspan today, and we've teamed up with them to offer a special 10% discount for Book of Demons owners on top of their launch discount (so it's an extra 10% off the discounted price).
Wingspan is a relaxing strategy card game about birds designed for 1 to 5 players. Each bird that you add to your preserve makes you better at laying eggs, drawing cards, or gathering food. Many of the 170 unique birds have powers that echo real life: your hawks will hunt, your pelicans will fish, and your geese will form a flock. So if you are into birds or board games it might be worth checking out ːarchduckː
As always, Stay safe in paper dungeons ːpaperheartː Konstanty
Hellcard's public pre-alpha test summary!
The Steam Games Festival was a blast, to say the least! We scrambled to get the demo up and running and tested for it but it was well worth it. We got a ton of valuable feedback from all of you. What's more, we also tested the network backend. You are all amazing, thank you ːpaperheartː
As you might already know from the past updates we are now scrapping the demo and writing the net code and the game from scratch. We will use all of that knowledge gathered to power-up the production of Hellcard. With more content, less Infernal Network Errors... aaaand without small cards sticking to a mouse cursor from time to time ːarchduckː
Demo in numbers
Curious how the playtests went? Here are some data we can share!
It was quite crowded - over 3000 players tested the demo ːpaperheartː
DemoN, the community boss, was slain over 100 times! We expected him to die maybe twice, nice ːpaperdeathː
You did a great job spreading the news - 1 out of 7 players told about the game to their friends, almost half of the players played with a friend!
You were real brothers-in-arms - almost 9 out of 10 players stayed with their initial party for good and for bad
I streamed the game for 16 hours using my homemade jury-rigged setup (green curtain bought for 10 bucks and my phone). Streaming the game is something we will be doing more often in the future (maybe we will even get a real camera not to use my mobile phone!).
At one point there were over 7000 viewers on the stream and Hellcard was #1 stream on the whole Steam - that’s INSANE!
I also ate 4 candy bars, 2 dinners, and showed my cats twice three times while streaming
But most importantly, we got tons of feedback messages and surveys filled! We were flooded and floored by the amount of feedback we got ːarchduckː It was very positive too, which is a good sign since the demo had only a sliver of the final content of the game!
Oh, and to celebrate the 100th death of the Community Boss, we are working on a special wallpaper. Here is a sneak peek of the early speed paint concept:
So, what will the final game look like, then?
Some of you also mentioned it wasn't clear for them what differs the demo from the full version of Hellcard. As we’ve mentioned before, the demo was supposed to test the core mechanics and multiplayer with the new code only.
This demo prototype sported 28 cards, the final game will have well over 100 cards. There were only a few monsters and two bosses in the demo. The final game will have a lot more, it will be impossible to see all of them in a single run or to play a similar run twice.
In the demo, you got to pick one card or heal between fights. This was obviously a placeholder. In the final game, there will be story events between fights. I don't want to spoil too much as I plan to focus on this in another post.
Last but not least - the singleplayer mode. Obviously, in the final game, there will be a single-player mode. It won't be simply playing with bots either, but a more complex system of companions. Again, it's something I will focus more in a separate post.
A huge THANK YOU
This is also the time to thank all the Supporters and Discord beta testers who answered the call and tested the game before it hit Steam Games Festival. Without you, this demo wouldn't be anywhere near the quality it was.
Also, a separate BIG thank you goes to all our friends on Discord who helped us answer the questions during the AmA on Stream. The Discord community even wrote a standalone debug tool and save manager! You are amazing! ːpaperheartː For anyone who would like to be a part of that fantastic community here is the link to our Discord.
If you tried the demo and liked what you saw, please consider spreading the word and wishlisting the game - it's the only way Hellcard can reach new players as Steam shows wishlisted games to more people. This means a bigger player base and thus more people to play with! Not to mention you will get notified once it's released ːarchduckː
As Always, Stay safe in the paper dungeons! Konstanty ːarchduckː
Hellcard pre-alpha demo test!
Since Hellcard is going to be a multiplayer game, it's crucial to get the netcode right. We want to squeeze as much as we can from the available solutions and that calls for a lot of testing ːarchduckː
Testing, testing, and then some testing on top of it
That's why a few weeks ago we have started tests with the players over at our Discord Sneak Peek channel. Testing raw net code is no fun, which is why we are doing that on a pre-alpha Hellcard prototype. It has only a few enemies and some early cards but is playable and a challenge. It also gives us a "two birds one stone" type opportunity. Not only we can test the netcode but also core mechanics. By the way, if you would like to be part of similar closed tests in the future consider joining our server:
We have already learned a lot, switched the network topology as a result and we know how we will rework netcode and architecture for the final game. We have almost all the data we need to scrap the prototype and get back to work.
One missing piece is a large scale stress test. We already invited our supporters for closed tests but now it is time to hold an open pre-alpha demo test. And what better time to do that than during Steam Summer Game Festival.
Disclaimer
Please keep in mind, that what we are testing here is a pre-alpha prototype build. It will actually be scrapped after the public test and we will use what we learned to improve the actual game. The demo focuses on battles, contains only a fraction of final gameplay and content. Still, it shows what we are going after, can be played and can be won. It features our feedback widget so if at any point you spot bugs or have an idea for improvement write to us! And expect to see a lot of our Work in Progress Skeleton Crew, who came to symbolize the pre-alpha state of the build:
As always,
Stay safe in paper dungeons ːarchduckː
Konstanty
Book of Demons is now on Switch, PS4 and Xbox One!
The hour is upon us! The Book of Demons made it to Switch, PS4, and Xbox One.
The console version is pretty much the same as the PC version when it comes to features, achievements, and stuff. What changed were under the hood optimizations and a lot of UI tweaks to make it more readable and more couch gaming compatible. The same goes for controller support - in console version the card selection was redesigned to make for more snappy combat.
Meanwhile, once the launch dust is still settling, we are hard at work on the upcoming HELLCARD and Book of Aliens. If all goes well I will have cool news to share soon.
PS Some of you might have seen this post earlier today - yeah it was totally me fumbling and posting too early by accident ːpaperdeathː
As always, Stay safe in crawled from the comfort of the couch paper dungeons ːarchduckː Konstanty
Book of Demons hits consoles on 30th April
The date is set!
In our previous post, I mentioned that guys at 505 Games are helping us with console publishing and are aiming for release in April. We just found out that everything is on track and only one week from today Book of Demons will hit Xbox One, Playstation 4, and last but very far from least, Nintendo Switch! Also, preorders on Switch are live now and come with a 10% preorder discount.
Coincidentally, today is World Book Day. Life works in mysterious ways ːarchduckː
As always,
Stay safe in paper dungeons ːpaperheartː
Konstanty
Developer update
I thought it would be cool to share what we are doing, hence this update. First of all, although the Town might seem deserted, the work continues behind the shutters!
We have switched to a home office model early during the pandemic. As a team, our origin story is that of working from our bedrooms and we always encouraged working from home when someone was feeling under the weather, so the transition was smooth. We are now scattered all over the country and kept alive thanks to brave pizza delivery people (seriously, everyone who keeps the infrastructure going in these grim times is a hero, kudos to you!).
Meanwhile, we keep working on both Book of Demons: HELLCARD and Book of Aliens. For those of you who are not on our Discord, I will do a quick recap. And encourage you to join the server, of course. It's where we post sneak peeks and where we will organize alpha and beta tests: Discord.gg/bookofdemons
So, without further ado...
Book of Demons: HELLCARD
We finished card rendering subsystems. Sounds straightforward but it was a lot of work actually, we want cards to be super readable, smooth, and clear regardless of scaling and we are using a custom engine. We will probably write a separate post about that later on.
I will also have a better quality gif, Steam size requirements are atrocious ːarchduckː
The card art was a subject of hot debate both internally and with the community on our Discord. We have written a blog post on how the art style evolved and what motivated our decisions.
We are also in the process of reforging the prototype into a production-ready engine. Yet another topic for an upcoming post! The work is progressing smoothly, all things considered.
In the case of Book of Aliens, we are still tinkering with low-level mechanics, so a lot can (and will) change before release (planned for 2021). We are preserving our playable prototypes, so if all goes according to the plan we would love to show you what the game could have been.
While we tinker, our more artistically inclined part of the team is coming up with coolest ways to render scenes, shaders and, effects. But it all always begins with early concept sketches. Here is a sneak peek of the very earliest paper aliens concepts
If you don't want to miss sneak peeks like that and have an opportunity to discuss them with us, consider joining our Discord and the Sneak Peek channel there: Discord.gg/bookofdemons
Aside from that, if you would like to support us further simply wishlist the game you are interested in (or both, if that's the case!). Steam offers more visibility to often wishlisted games and that's the best an indie studio without big marketing bucks can count on!
As always,
Stay safe in the paper dungeons ːpaperheartː
Konstanty
Developer update
I thought it would be cool to share what we are doing, hence this update. First of all, although the Town might seem deserted, the work continues behind the shutters!
We have switched to a home office model early during the pandemic. As a team, our origin story is that of working from our bedrooms and we always encouraged working from home when someone was feeling under the weather, so the transition was smooth. We are now scattered all over the country and kept alive thanks to brave pizza delivery people (seriously, everyone who keeps the infrastructure going in these grim times is a hero, kudos to you!).
Meanwhile, we keep working on both Book of Demons: HELLCARD and Book of Aliens. For those of you who are not on our Discord, I will do a quick recap. And encourage you to join the server, of course. It's where we post sneak peeks and where we will organize alpha and beta tests: Discord.gg/bookofdemons
So, without further ado...
Book of Demons: HELLCARD
We finished card rendering subsystems. Sounds straightforward but it was a lot of work actually, we want cards to be super readable, smooth, and clear regardless of scaling and we are using a custom engine. We will probably write a separate post about that later on.
I will also have a better quality gif, Steam size requirements are atrocious ːarchduckː
The card art was a subject of hot debate both internally and with the community on our Discord. We have written a blog post on how the art style evolved and what motivated our decisions.
We are also in the process of reforging the prototype into a production-ready engine. Yet another topic for an upcoming post! The work is progressing smoothly, all things considered.
In the case of Book of Aliens, we are still tinkering with low-level mechanics, so a lot can (and will) change before release (planned for 2021). We are preserving our playable prototypes, so if all goes according to the plan we would love to show you what the game could have been.
While we tinker, our more artistically inclined part of the team is coming up with coolest ways to render scenes, shaders and, effects. But it all always begins with early concept sketches. Here is a sneak peek of the very earliest paper aliens concepts
If you don't want to miss sneak peeks like that and have an opportunity to discuss them with us, consider joining our Discord and the Sneak Peek channel there: Discord.gg/bookofdemons
Aside from that, if you would like to support us further simply wishlist the game you are interested in (or both, if that's the case!). Steam offers more visibility to often wishlisted games and that's the best an indie studio without big marketing bucks can count on!
As always, Stay safe in the paper dungeons ːpaperheartː Konstanty
