We have been tinkering with Xbox One port for some time now, but now thanks to awesome guys at 505 Games porting gained much-needed momentum. Having a publisher for consoles allows us to focus on making future games while remaining confident that Book of Demons will get the best possible console treatment. Because it's not just any publisher, it's the 505 Games! Recently judged to be Metacritic's the best publisher of 2019!
And now, without further ado, the most important part of this news! Book of Demons will be coming to Xbox One, Playstation 4 and last but very far from least, Nintendo Switch! Ports were prepared by Sonka, a small friendly company coincidentally located in the same town as us. These talented geniuses worked closely with us to make the ports perfect. And while both Xbox One and PS4 are powerhouses so it's no wonder game runs great on them, the Switch port deserves a bit of limelight for its optimization. Demons run like butter on it! Ok, that might have sounded much better in my head, but you get my point ːarchduckː
All this should be happening around April 2020, so any moment now!
As always, stay safe in paper dungeons ːpaperheartː Konstanty
March update has been served!
The Cook got uneasy with how some of our achievements looked, so he forced us to brew up a new update to fix a few things here and there! In the latest Book of Demons update, we have a full menu of changes, including a litter of letters rearranged for your literal convenience.
He rises to fix your letters!
As Book of Demons is receiving a new batch of fixes and changes, our team is hard at work on upcoming projects. For Book of Demons: HELLCARD we are designing a new card look. You can see how the cards will be transformed below. Expect a larger blog update regarding that soon!
Changelog - Version 1.03.20383 9th March:
Fixed a very rare bug when Archdemon level would crash
Fixed missing controller support in wishlist window
Fixed GUI displayed incorrectly when 3:2 screen ratio was chosen
Fixed many typos and style inconsistencies in English and Polish language versions of the game
Fixed Identify button lightning up when there were no cards to identify at Sage's
Fixed legendary Shield card killing zombies with their own poison missiles (sorry!)
Fixed Fury of Blows description in the Spanish version of the game
Updated translations
Added new Supporters and Community Translator to credits
Updated Steam API SDK to a current version
WASD auto walk on short taps can now be disabled in custom_settings.txt by adding WASDAutoMove = "0"
There's even more... somewhere else!
If you liked the Hellcard cards sneak peek above, consider joining our discord for more information on Book of Demons, Book of Demons: Hellcard, and Book of Aliens! We will have some very exciting news to share with you soon!
As always, stay safe in the paper dungeons, Artur ːpaperheartː
Get Book of Demons for iPad!
The day has come - Book of Demons finally hit iPads! Today, on February the 13th (sadly not Friday but what can you do!), you can descend into Hell tapping your way through demonic hordes and hellish cooks - all made out of paper! The game is available on Apple Store for just $4.99 (launch week promotion, the regular price will be $9.99 so grab it while it’s hot ːarchduckː).
We introduced a bunch of changes into the Tablet Edition, making elements such as shields a bit easier to hit, and completely reworking control scheme to make it touch-control friendly. It's as responsive as you would expect it to be, and the only thing that might be lacking from the tactile experience is the feeling of crumpled paper you would expect from a pop-up book game ːarchduckː!
Book of Demons: Tablet Edition requires iOS 13 to run and is available on iPad devices. This version is also up-to-date with the current PC build and contains all the content. You can now take your demon-killing everywhere you want, and let's face it: there is no setting unfit for a classic evil-fighting adventure.
Tell your wife, tell your kids and spread the word in general: Book of Demons Tablet Edition is out! And as always, Stay safe in the paper dungeons (and join us on Discord)!
Preorder Book of Demons for iPad!
As you know from previous announcements we have been working on bringing Book of Demons to iPads.
Time for an update on that: we are finishing the beta tests and getting very positive feedback from players. Bugs are ironed out, controls are crafted with iPad in mind and the game runs smoothly. The current build looks so good in fact, that we have already locked the launch date.
Sounds like a lucky enough date to us ːarchduckː Preorders are starting now and since we are doing a steep launch discount you can get the Tablet edition for a mere $4.99, less than a half of the regular planned price. Ask the Rogue, she will tell you it's a steal ːarchduckː
The game will require iOS 13 and will be available only for iPads. Feature-wise it's up to date with current PC builds, although the control scheme is different and crafted for the tablet experience.
Tell your kids, tell your wife! Word of mouth is still the best ally of indie developer so let your iPad-owning-friends know ːpaperheartː
As always, Stay safe in the paper dungeons! Konstanty
Dynamic music update!
They say music makes the world go round, so in today's update, we make it go round and round with way more music! In your feedback you often pointed out the lack of variety in music and that it feels static, not contributing to the excitement of more intense combat. Well, that’s about to change.
Better… stronger… faster!
Once again we decided to lay the burden of composing the music on the shoulders of Paweł Błaszczak. Paweł, who also created the original Book of Demons soundtrack, is a renowned music composer. You probably heard some of his tracks while playing Witcher, Dying Light, Call of Juarez or EVE Online. So we knew the sound is in good hands.
But new tracks are only a part of this update - the machinery underneath also changed. Let me introduce you to our new dynamic music system! The music will change to more dynamic as you approach tougher fights with clutches of enemies or trigger bosses and cursed chests. This should build more tension and introduce a lot more variety during your runs.
Book of Aliens and Book of Demons: Hellcard
In case you missed the 2020 Roadmap post from December, we have a surprise for you! In short, we have not one but *two* new games in the oven right now:
Book of Demons: Hellcard - a cooperative roguelike deckbuilder supporting both single and multiplayer modes and which has more in common with games such as Slay the Spire than with action RPG’s.
Book of Aliens - the next installment in the Return 2 Games series and our take on the turn-based tactical game with overreaching global strategy. And it’s a tribute to MicroProse’ UFO: Enemy Unknown.
If the above games sound like something you might enjoy, be sure to wishlist. Wishlisting makes the game more visible on Steam so it’s not only a great way of keeping up to date with the game but also a huge help for the game itself.
And if you are not hooked yet - we will be posting dev updates along the way. In fact, you can expect some more detailed information on the progress quite soon.
Final notes
As usual, I encourage you to join our Discord server on which we plan to unveil all the magic of early development. All that in the form of brand new dedicated Sneak Peek channels where we will be posting news about the games and development process. You can set notifications for both channels (read more on notifications on #About-SP Discord channel). If you wish to follow the games' development more closely, Sneak Peek channels are the way to go!
Fixed a possible crash at the beginning of a challenge
Fixed double click occassionally moving character when Click to move option was disabled
Decreased a chance for triggering SFX while using Charge card
Updated translations
Added new supporters to credits
Stay safe in the world of Paperverse! Margaret ːpaperheartː
2020 Roadmap: Hellcard and Book of Aliens Announced
2019 was a particularly chaotic time for all of us here at Thing Trunk! A whole year has passed since Book of Demons went out of Early Access, so it’s high time we share with you what we’ve been up to for the last 12 months.
In the spirit of the annual roadmap update, I’ll try to briefly sum up what we managed to do, what’s coming up in the near and not so near future, and - as usual - why everything is always going slower than we’d like to. But most important of all, today we’re announcing not one, but two new games that we are working on in the Return 2 Games series!
Book of Demons: HELLCARD
Hellcard is a cooperative roguelike deckbuilder supporting both single and multiplayer modes. It takes place in the same universe as Book of Demons, but takes the story further and into unexpected places!
Book of Demons used cards for many of its mechanics and we have toyed with the idea of making a truly deckbuilding mode on top of it, but within the original game it could never be developed to its full potential.
Hellcard, on the other hand (pun intended), is a true turn-based card game and in this sense, it has more in common with games such as Slay the Spire than with action RPG’s.
What makes HELLCARD unique is that the battles take place in the dungeons and monster placement actually matters.
Another feature we’re extremely excited to share is that with Book of Demons: HELLCARD we’re planning to support co-op battles with up to three heroes facing Archdemon’s hordes. You’ll be able to descend into the dungeons solo, recruit computer-controlled companions, join your friends or strangers in their battles against the armies of darkness.
Hellcard internally started as an idea for a new game mode inside Book of Demons, but we soon realized that it’s a much bigger design and that it should be executed as a separate stand-alone spin-off game. While not a separate “book”, Hellcard will be a part of the Return 2 Games series and will be free for our R2G Supporters. Book of Demons owners can expect *very* heavy discounts on launch.
If the above features get you excited, be sure to wishlist the game! Otherwise consider wishlisting anyway - who knows, maybe we will get you excited along the way! - CLICK!
Book of Aliens
As many of you speculated, Book of Aliens is the next big book in the Return 2 Games series and it’s a tribute to MicroProse’ UFO: Enemy Unknown. A game of global strategy and battlefield tactics.
Unfortunately, we can’t reveal much about the game mechanics at this point. The screens you see above and below are an indication where we want to be in terms of visuals, but they are just mockups based on one of the older prototypes. After testing lots of ideas, we had to scrap most of them because none of them fulfilled our R2G vision. Currently, we’re experimenting with several new gameplay mechanics that are much more original and promising.
In terms of story, Book of Aliens’ action takes place during a global crisis. Earth (or… PapEarth?) is threatened by an alien invasion originating from below the planet’s surface. Your mission is to lead a supranational agency of scientists and military agents in a desperate but valiant fight to understand the alien agenda and thwart it.
If you want to stay updated and be notified when the game is released, be sure to wishlist Book of Aliens! - CLICK!
New games timeline
We have an ambitious plan to launch Book of Demons: HELLCARD into early access before the end of next year. This should be doable given that Hellcard will be using much of the Book of Demons tech. We plan to showcase more details from the game, including gameplay clips, throughout the year and generally be as open with the development as possible.
Book of Aliens, on the other hand, does not have a release target yet, as we are still experimenting with new gameplay mechanics to find the perfect one. We don’t want to rush things and accelerate deadlines as this would mean compromising on quality.
Another reason why Book of Aliens might take more time to develop is that we decided to switch to a new game engine for this title. Book of Demons was created using a custom in-house C++ engine that was developed almost a decade ago. While it’s still on top of current technology, keeping up with all the latest advancements in graphics tech is not realistic for such a small team as ours. We’d rather invest time into migrating to a new technology stack rather than keep reinventing the wheel.
Just like with Hellcard, we plan to give more regular updates on Book of Aliens and show how the game is progressing. And if you are excited about Hellcard and Book of Aliens and want to be the first one to test our future games be sure to join our Sneak-Peek Discord channel to follow their development. That's where we will post about updates, public tests and ask your opinion.
Like I mentioned in the beginning, the whole year after the Book of Demons launch was insanely hectic and it wasn't until recently that things started to settle a bit. Looking back at it I’m wondering how we even managed to squeeze in any new game development at all.
After we launched Book of Demons, the amount of work we had to do with the game didn’t drop, it actually increased! On one hand, we still had to keep developing the game to bring all the features that we promised in the post-release roadmap (last one of those should be coming in less than a month), and on the other, we had to start bringing the game to more shops and markets. In some countries, we launched a physical version of the game in retail stores. Thanks to our efforts, Book of Demons was one of the few launch titles for Xbox Game Pass on PC.
Apart from this, we were (and still are) working on an iPad port of Book of Demons and this is coming along nicely and is almost complete. As you know from our previous announcements, we were working on an Xbox One version of the game. Luckily, in the middle of the year, we were approached by a publisher who offered to port the game and bring it to even more platforms. Expect an announcement about it soon.
A considerable amount of time was dedicated to a thorough review of our technology stack and planning of future features. This was when we came to the conclusion that Hellcard would be the last title made in our current technology and that we need to make the switch to a mainstream modern engine with Book of Aliens. Learning a new technology can be a big endeavor on its own, but it’s an investment that should allow us to make better games faster in the future.
We also dedicated a significant amount of time to expanding the team. But thanks to the new people on board (two graphic artists and a designer) we were able to kick off a simultaneous development of Hellcard and Book of Aliens. Our team is now 10 people and we are still looking for a community manager.
By far, the biggest amount of time in 2019 sunk into moving to our new office. We found a very nice place in a good location and capable of accommodating our bigger team. Sadly, it was a mess and needed full remodeling. We moved a little over a month ago and it’s still not complete, but at least everyone’s got a place to sit and work.
Stay tuned for more!
The good news is that new games are coming along nicely and we can finally focus on them, as the biggest hurdles are behind us. If you are excited about Hellcard and Book of Aliens, and want to follow their development, be sure to join our Sneek-Peek discord channel. If you want to be notified when the games are released, wishlist the games on Steam or simply subscribe to our newsletter.
Take care, and let us know in the comments if you have any questions :)
Stay safe in the world of Paperverse! Thing Trunk team ːpaperheartː
Vote for Book of Demons
Autumn Sale is finally here and so do the Steam Awards of 2019!
While taking this opportunity to expand your libraries consider taking a moment to vote for your favorite games as well. And if it is Book of Demons that holds a special place in your heart, let us propose the category so we can all focus our efforts (and votes).
Outstanding Visual Style
How awesome sounds that? Pretty awesome. We spent a lot of time designing and searching for Book of Demons' paper art style to create something unique but readable and, well, nice looking. Let me tell you a bit about that journey so you can decide for yourself if the game is worth your vote!
Developing the paper art style for R2G took us almost two years, but why we needed a unique art-style at all? Why didn’t we just make “normal” realistic graphics? Why it took us so long?
We wanted R2G to have an iconic look, and be adaptable to various themes. We considered taking a safe route and adopting a 2D or a 3D cartoon style. For a while, we thought about making everything of macaroni, voxels, or mono-color pixel art but all of these ideas were quickly scrapped.
One day someone said, why don’t we make each game in the series a book with the action taking place inside a paper pop-out world. Everyone on the team was sold on the idea. Paper is a very flexible material, so we could really do whatever we wanted with it!
And that's how we ended up with tons of pop-up books on our shelves and whole games taking place in one of those. If you enjoyed this short version of the art style search story you might enjoy this longer version on our blog.
And don't forget to vote ːarchduckː
As always, Stay safe in the paper dungeons Konstanty
Korean & Bulgarian language update!
Здравейте, everyone!
And now you know how to greet a fellow Bulgarian playerːpaperheartː. From now on, thanks to the titanic work of community translator Peace, you can play the game in Bulgarian! ːsteamhappyː
But there is more!
Today's update also brings an awaited Korean translation. Many players asked about it and finally, thanks to Coco Love fantastic and much-appreciated work, it finally arrived!
It's over 6000 lines consisting of 20.000+ words and they completed the translations not even in weeks but in mere days! It's insane! Let's have a big round of applause for our heroes!ːpaperheartː
As always, if you’re a native speaker and have any suggestions about the translation (or to any previously added), get in touch with us at our official discord server or via email: support@thingtrunk.com! You can also talk directly to the community translators in the forums.
Version 1.03.19733 21st November 2019
We are using this opportunity to sneak in some fixes as well. Here is the Changelog:
Added Bulgarian and Korean languages
Slightly changed the way credits are presented
Added a counter of cards left to collect in Antipope's quest
Fixed selecting pedestals with a gamepad in nonstandard aspect ratios
The order of gossips in the gossips window now match the order of discovering them in the game
Fixed a bug allowing players to enable Superhot mode in all challenges
Fixed a bug with teleport allowing players to cross the Archdemon's gate without finding shards
Fixed the position of dispelling progress bar when a monster casts two spells simultaneously
Fixed congratulations window showing sometimes after mastering a quest
Fixed the damage of legendary Ice Blast
Fixed the damage of Barrage not scaling with levels
Fixed a crash occurring when 'R' key was bound to swapping a card's deck
Updated translations
Added new ːpaperheartːSupportersːpaperheartː to credits
Discord
And if you would like to know more we are on Discord and we are running Ask Us Anything channel for the curious ːarchduckː
Check it out! -> Discord.gg/bookofdemons
As always, Stay safe in the dungeons ːpaperheartː Gosia
Accidentally discounted Supporter Pack
Some of you might have noticed that Supporter Pack was discounted for a few hours during the Halloween Sale. This was a mistake on our part, clicked one button too many when setting up the sale. Supporter Pack is not something we are going to discount, ever. It's a way to support our vision of the Return 2 Games series. And I think we can all agree that support for an idea cannot be discounted.
While it gives supporters all the games and content we will publish in the series, it's more of an adventure than a product bundle. It comes with risks since developing six more games will take time and these are turbulent times for game development companies.
This mistake is now corrected and the old price of the Pack is back ːarchduckː Of course, those lucky few who bought it at discounted price are welcome to the fold! We hope you will enjoy the journey with us.
As always, Stay safe in the paper dungeons ːarchduckː Konstanty
Book of Demons' Special Halloween Special is here!
In case you're new to Book of Demons, in a few words, Book of Demons is a Hack & slash game distilled to its purest form. Slay the armies of darkness in the dungeons below the Old Cathedral and save the terror-stricken Paperverse from the clutches of the Archdemon himself!
Halloween under the Cathedral
It's been months. Months of planning and preparation - gathering all the candy you can get your hands on, contacting your local ghosts, inviting the most famous vampires, booking the zombie pumpkin show. Finally, Spooktober takes its peak - everyone, put your pumpkin hats on, grab your vampire teeth and wail to the moon - it's HALLOWEEN!
We know Book of Demons is already pretty scary with all kinds of monsters roaming around trying to kill you and get your cards (and candy). We know. But we decided to make it even sp00kier. We consulted with all the famous spooks, monsters, ghost and ghouls to prepare a Special Halloween Special, just for you 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 loose 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 Spooky S..pores! - seems like you caught a bug...spores come from your own body and....spawn even more spores poisoning you in the process. 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!
Full Changelog
Version 1.03.19561 25th October
Added Halloween event including spooky pumpkins and a Halloween-themed challenges
Due to popular demand Superhot mode stays in the game for good
Added a Superhot option to the character creation window
Updated Mac version of the game to the newest match MacOS 10.15 requirements
Fixed minor issues with Superhot color theme
Updated German and Belarusian translations
Updated Translators in the credits
Added new Supporters to credits
Happy Halloween everyone! May the Spooks be with you!
