It’s been a whole month since Book of Demons went out of Early Access and the launch dust has settled a bit, so we feel it’s the right moment to talk about the future. Also, it’s the beginning of a new year, so what better time to make new and bold plans? But before we jump to the point, let’s take a step back and look at what we’ve accomplished so far (and why getting here took us so long).
The road so far
When we launched Book of Demons into Early Access in July 2016, we’ve been already developing the game for more than 3 years in a team oscillating between 3 and 6 members. Back then we felt the game was already pretty solid, and we were planning to stay in Early Access for about six months. After all, it shouldn’t take long to balance 2 more classes, add some cards and some sounds, right?
The ever-abundant feedback from the Early Access community steered our development into territories that we never anticipated. Book of Demons was supposed to be a midcore take on a hardcore genre, but soon it became apparent that catering to a diverse and enthusiastic Steam audience would mean much more than doing a few bug and balance fixes. It was something we weren’t really prepared for, but we were keen on fixing the biggest limitations coming from our original design.
This is the main culprit of why it took two and a half years. The game was already a huge undertaking for a small team, but rebuilding and adding major systems on a living game proved to be much more time consuming than we anticipated. Having known it back then, we’d probably try to be better prepared and we’d have scheduled things more cautiously.
A successful launch
Despite it took so long, our hard work seems to have paid off, as the launch of the full game was a success! We launched on December 13th and before 2018 was over, we sold two times more copies than we did during the entire two and a half years of Early Access. Even though most of the copies sold were discounted due to various promotions, it’s still a huge thing for our small team. As of today, Book of Demons development costs have paid off and we can start planning for the new shiny things to come.
The road ahead
Our internal goal is to grow our team and invest so that we can build things faster and do more things simultaneously. This is easier said than done, but we see no other choice – we see the successful launch as an obligation, especially to our R2G supporters. This is a scenario in which so many gamedev companies fail, so we need to be extra careful about the decisions we now make.
The next few months will be the most critical and probably chaotic, as every transition period is. Therefore, the plans outlined below must be treated as a rough sketch and they are subject to change. We’re also not giving any exact timeframes, as there are simply too many unknowns at this point and as usual, we don’t want to overpromise. We’d love to tick off all those things in 2019, but history teaches us this might be... well, challenging.
Book of Demons is coming to more platforms
This shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone. We already announced Book of Demons would be coming to Xbox One, but it would be silly of us not to port it to other platforms as well. Thanks to awesome guys at 505 Games Book of Demons will be coming to Xbox One, Playstation 4 and last but very far from least,
Happy New Year update!
To set a good example for the upcoming 2019 we are rolling out an update with some quality of life improvements and various bug fixes that the community reported over the holidays.
Besides the minor stuff like missing strings and credits not being displayed most notable fixes are:
The Arachgod spiders that wouldn't come out of an ambush will now behave as expected. The ones already on maps won't be fixed but ones in newly generated dungeons will be bolder.
Added option to collect cauldron's prizes with a stick on a controller, now each prize will be highlightable.
We also changed the useless extra magical parameter on legendary Fan card to something much more useful (it will be swapped in already found cards).
Last but not least, we have disabled Razer Chroma support to do some testing. We are in touch with guys at Razer and it will be back as soon as we are sure it's stable.
Full changelog
Version 1.00.17927+ 31st December 2018
Fix problem with Arachgod not always getting out of hiding
Fixed incorrect number of stars in the equipped projectile tooltip
Legendary Fan Card now have more useful magical companion variant
Add prize collection under pad stick
Crows in Town are once again usable with a controller (Left Trigger + Thumbstick)
Fixed a possible crash in upgrade window when displaying a tooltip
Fixed card upgrade window not refreshing after a card was downgraded
Fix to language change restart doesn't save the game
Fix algorithm fixing scroll allocations in the roguelike mode
Fixed confusing avatar research related tooltip
Fixed missing string on Avatar research screen when using the controller
Fixed incorrect upgrade cost in the variant window (was calculated based on equipped variant)
Fixed Fortune Teller's gossip sometimes not unlocking properly
Fixed missing credits
Fixed Healer's missing VO
Supporters added to credits
Happy New Year
Have an awesome 2019 everyone, we wish you many ducks and a calm and satisfying year. And, most importantly, stay safe in paper dungeons :archduck:
Konstanty
IndieDB Editor's Choice: Best Singleplayer of 2018
How awesome is that? Book of Demons was picked by IndieDB staff and named the best singleplayer game of 2018. This wouldn't be possible without our community voting for Book of Demons and bringing it to editor's attention. Not to mention directly supporting the game in the Early Access.
Thank you from the whole team :paperheart:
You can see and read more about all awards on IndieDB.
In other news
It has been over a week since the launch and we are still a bit shellshocked by everything that happened. The game is doing very well and the community grows every day.
Most of our time right now is occupied by supporting new players, working on the post-launch roadmap and preparing pierogi for the upcoming holidays. And since we are on this topic: Happy Holidays everyone! Great time to spend time with families and play games :archduck:
You probably noticed we rolled out an update on Friday. Here is the changelog:
Version 1.00.17912+ 21st December 2018
Healing and mana potions now will show tooltip when not chargeable due to Roguelike mode
The game will start in safe mode if the initialization fails in the graphics driver
Fix to HP and Mana scrolls sometimes not dropping properly
Fixed a crash after pressing ESC after disenchanting magical card
"Terrifying" achievement's number of scared monsters lowered to 75
Disgust character sound will now be less frequent
Fixed lob missiles not triggering some card effects (Viper Cloak in particular)
Fixed a crash when backslash was entered in character's name input box
Dungeons & Streamers: fixed duplicated tooltip in options
Added missing new card drop descriptions in translations
Multiple typos fixed in multiple languages
[Mac] Fixed possible small memory leak
With a great number of players comes a great opportunity for gathering feedback, fixing rare bugs and adding new "quality of life" features. The next update is already brewing regardless of the holiday season.
As always,
Stay safe in the paper dungeons
Konstanty :archduck:
Demons are out of Early Access! Woohoo!
There comes a time in the life of most of the games when they have to spread wings and leave the nest. Yes, I'm talking about exiting Early Access and this time is now.
For this occasion we have prepared a launch trailer narrated by the Archdemon himself:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nra-iXBBLrM
Book of Demons launched in Early Access two years ago. Since then we worked on improving and completing the game with unyielding support from many of you. You were amazing and together you created the best community we have seen on Steam.
It was an amazing adventure that doesn't end here. We will need a few weeks to prepare the post-launch roadmap so meanwhile let me tell you about the stuff we are adding in today's launch update.
The good stuff
This update brings 16 new cards, each with magical and legendary variants of course.
Invisibility Potion - All classes Ever stumbled upon a pack of monsters and thought "hey it would be neat to sneak up on them Thief style?". You might like this one. Just make sure to not touch monsters while the potion is active.
Disenchant - All classes Sometimes it's good to take a step back and see the things for what they really are. Disenchant will convert all elemental monsters' hearts to their regular counterparts for a limited time.
Crystal of Speed - All classes Need an extra boost to catch up with a gargoyle or pump more damage per second? Picking up loot after combat takes too long? This card might be of use, bumping your movement and attack speed by up to 30%!
Rabbit's Foot - All classes This one is not exactly new - this card used to be Warrior's helmet but we changed it to a common card for all classes. Now everyone can get much-needed protection from stun effects! Your old Helmet Cards will change into this card automatically.
Poison Nova - The Mage A new spell in Mage's arsenal brings to the table the one element he was lacking: poison. And in a form of a lethal blast, no less. Each projectile seeks the nearest target so positioning and timing are crucial!
Teleport Others - The Mage Ever got frustrated with spellcasters teleporting monsters on you? Pay them with the same coin and teleport everyone away! A new powerful crowd control tool in Mage's arsenal.
Voodoo Doll - The Mage Sometimes the best way to deal with the pain is to share it. Link monsters with this card and all damage with be propagated along the links.
Chaotic Tiara - The Mage Bring some randomness to your adventure. Tiara defends you in most unpredictable ways!
Shocking Trap - The Rogue Rogues love traps and other lethal contraptions. Control the area around you by setting up electrical mines that will shock your opponents!
Elemental Trap - The Rogue The less shocking but very useful trap that will freeze and burn anyone who steps into it. Except for Rogue, of course, she is not clumsy enough to trip her own traps. That would be unprofessional.
Barrage - The Rogue Launch a cloud of arrows that will make everything in a selected area look like a porcupine. Perfect for when you are feeling like fighting in a shade.
Fan - The Rogue A magical gadget that summons a wind that blows away from the hero. Slows approaching monsters down and gives the Rogue time to punch a few holes in them.
Ice Blast - The Warrior Freeze and blow away everything in a chosen direction. Simple, effective, and very satisfying to use.
Relic of Rage- The Warrior An arcane artifact that focuses rage against a certain type of monster. The more you hit the same type of monster in a row the more often special attack triggers.
Whetstone - The Warrior Whoever said that the pen is mightier than the sword obviously didn't have a good whetstone. Use before battle to boost damage output.
Claymore - The Warrior The ultimate path cleaner, an enchanted blade that deals extra damage to monsters standing on the path.
Electric Helmet - The Warrior Every Warrior should know how to protect against the static charge, but only professionalists know how to use it against their enemies.
Collectors Edition
We have also prepared a special edition of the game, including the artbook and soundtrack. It's already included in supporters bundle, of course, but can be bought separately to further support us if you are not up for Supporter's Pack.
Artbook Adam has been working for some time on a digital artbook containing unpublished art, sketches, and prototypes for locations and monsters in Book of Demons. If you would like an insight into how the game visual style came to be what it is now this might be a treat.
Soundtrack If you are into music and would like to enjoy Book of Demons' soundtrack Matt has prepared all our tracks in high quality (both flac and mp3).
Wallpapers Over the years we have created many game related wallpapers for our own use. We bundled them in Collector's Content. 18 wallpapers in 2160p (16:9) and 2400p (16:10) resolutions. All wallpapers are without any logos or overlay text.
Digital poster High-resolution Book of Demons Key-art digital poster with source PSD file.
This is, of course, not the end of the road for the Book of Demons and the series but rather just a beginning. Right now we have to handle the launch but in a few weeks, we will be back with the post-launch roadmap for stuff we want to add to the game.
"Launch, nice! What can I do to help?"
With new games being announced and new storefronts opening (seems like a new thing every day!) keeping ahead of the game is difficult (pun intended). But you are legion and if each one of you, our handsome players, will help we can shoot for the moon!
Tell your friends about the game.
Write a review on Steam
Play the game, check out the new stuff we added over the course of Early Access - playing the game makes it more visible in Steam.
Stay awesome, you rock for even reading this paragraph and considering spreading the word, means a lot to us :paperheart:
Here I would usually post a changelog, but this time I should probably post all the changelogs from the Early Access and they are over 1500 lines long :archduck:
And if you want to ask us stuff consider checking out our "Ask Us Anything" thread we are doing on Reddit right now. There isn't much to do during the launch but sit and stress out so that's how we will keep ourselves distracted :paperdeath:
As always,
Stay safe in the paper dungeons :archduck:
Konstanty and the whole Thing Trunk team
:paperheart:
One week to release: The song trailer!
As you might already know Book of Demons is exiting Early Access on December 13th, exactly a week from now. Game launches need trailers. And what better for a trailer than a celebratory song performed by local townsfolk?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TpuO-PxWATI
Looking ahead
A week, huh? It's hard to believe we are almost there. While we prepare everything on our end (spoiler alert, we will have one more final trailer for the launch) it would be awesome if you guys could support us on your end. You can consider one or more of many ways in which you can help:
As always,
Slay safe in the paper dungeons :archduck:
Konstanty
Dungeons & Streamers free DLC
We are introducing our streaming integration for both Twitch and Mixer, thus answering the age-old question: what is best in life? Apparently to crush your streamers, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of their women!
Or, optionally, helping them overcome hordes of monsters and those who would rather see them fail by spawning drops and picking better cards. After all, in this streaming mode, it's you, the viewer, who decides what will happen next.
You can see the integration in action here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2YZ3JtVvMk
But how does all this magic work?
When streamer of your choice chooses to use our free Dungeons & Streamers DLC viewers will be able to take part in the game via chat commands on Twitch and handy buttons on Mixer.
What can be done? By timing your commands right you can
Steal drops like gold, card charges or even cards!
Spawn new cards and charges
Spawn an extra monster or even mini-boss and the new monster will be named after you for everyone to see
Attack monsters alongside the streamer
Surround the streamer's hero with ice, poison him or give his mouse cursor little nudge in a critical moment
Trigger Death Rage, grant invincibility or heal the streamer
Lure nearby monster to gang up on the unsuspecting hero
When a legendary card is identified in this mode, two possible outcomes are presented and channel-wide voting takes place. The streamer will receive the top voted legendary card. Make sure it's Town Portal if you want to make their day!
In general, all actions will be displayed in the game so both other viewers and the streamer will know who was that guy who just stole his gold.
We also had a few secret commands during testing, some of them crashing streamers PC but these got disabled in the final build. Or were they? No, they totally got disabled.
We made this into an optional DLC to avoid cluttering GUI for non-streaming players by default and also that way we were able to test this mode ahead of launch.
You can see the full list of commands and features on the DLC's page:
Ideally on your favorite streamer's channel - ask them to play the game which will help to spread the word of the game. Which is the point :archduck:
In other news
We are on the last stretch before the launch, which is why we are releasing the streaming integration now. Getting more people to know about the game and Early Access exit is more important now than ever.
Testing of new cards is progressing nicely, we already fixed a ton of bugs. Some bugs in the old cards also came to light thanks to dedicated testers (cheers!).
Changelog
Version 0.99.17769+ 28th November 2018
Dungeons & Streamers free DLC available, adding Twitch and Mixer integration to the game
Fixed Eeny Meeny Miny Moe achievement and made it a little easier (gold pickups don't break it and both clicking and killing zombies works)
Gargoyle obelisk tile in Hell fixed
Multiple improvement and fixes to Twitch and Mixer integration after the beta run
[Mac] Fixes to resolution handling on high resolution screens
As always,
Stream safe in the paper dungeons :archduck:
Konstanty
Release date is set to 13th Dec!
We have been in Early Access for over two years. It's been a wild ride. Wild but awesome, thanks to you guys. We initially planned of being in Early Access for only six months but the community took the game in directions we never anticipated. We now have an end game, Roguelike and Casual modes, randomized card variants, and much more. Not to mention a gargantuan number of bugs reported and fixed.
The game has reached the point at which we can say it has almost all the stuff we envisioned and so we can safely set the release date. We hinted at it before but now it's time to make it official: Book of Demons will exit early access on 13th of December. And yes, this year :archduck:
The run-up and the launch itself
As I type this post the release candidate build of the game is being finalized and deployed to the test branch. Those of you wishing to test the new cards and legendaries can check this thread for instructions on how to switch to the test branch.
The changes include sixteen new cards, each with magical and unique legendary variants, and a special thank you song performed by townsfolk after the Archdemons is defeated :archduck:
We will continue polishing and finalizing balance on the test branch until a few weeks before the launch date. Until launch, no new stuff is going to be added except bug fixes.
Meanwhile, on the public branch, we have some fun stuff planned to make the wait time fly but I will talk about that in another post :archduck:
What can you do?
As it turns out a lot. First of all, you can keep an eye out for 13th and play the game to see the new stuff. This in itself will mean a world to us.
Besides that, it would be awesome if you could spread the word. December is rather busy month when it comes to new releases and we will be in direct competition for players' and media attention with heavy hitter AAA titles. Although we will do all the standard stuff indie games do on launch and a bunch of non-standard things word of mouth is still king. So on 13th December tell your neighbor, tell your kids that Book of Demons is out!
Last but not least, if you haven't yet please consider writing a review on Steam. Reviews are the lifeblood for small indies and greatly help your friends discover games you consider worthy.
A slight post-launch price increase
This topic popped up in the community forums a few times with players urging us to increase the price of the game. We considered it and decided not to do it at least until we exit Early Access.
That time has come and we will increase the price by 5 dollars. The price of the game will change after this sale, on 9th November. We wanted to celebrate Polish Developer Sale but this sale is also the last such significant discount for a long time.
Why the price change now and not at launch? The reason is due to law to which Steam must adhere: there can be no sales for 30 days after the price change. We would like to have a sale for launch, of course, so we have decided to raise the price in advance so the "no discount" period would end in time for 13th December.
Post-launch roadmap
Of course, the launch is not the end of the road but rather the beginning. We have a slew of features we want to add to the game and stuff we have already done and while it didn't exactly make the final product we still deem worth sharing with you. Like our attempts at competitive multiplayer modes (with extra stress on "attempts", as it's not exactly multiplayer in a classical sense of the word). This, however, will come after the launch.
There is also the matter of Book of Demons being the first installment in a series of games. Some tentative work has already started on the next game and this will gain momentum after the launch. We have many cool ideas and depending on how the launch goes we will decide which get to be implemented and when.
As always,
Stay safe in the paper dungeons :archduck:
Konstanty
The last such sale!
We are participating in the "100 years of Polish independence" sale with our biggest discount to date. It will also be our last such discount for some time, for more details please check out the "Release date is set" post :archduck:
As always,
Stay safe in dungeons!
Konstanty
Destructible columns update
Destructible columns
We heard reports of columns being used by monsters as cover. No more, though. Now with mere three hits of arrows or shockwaves, you can bring down any column and reach monsters cowering behind it.
Lightsync support
I hinted at it before and here it is. We got our hands on some RGB hardware thanks to awesome people at Logitech G, I tinkered with it in my free time, and now Book of Demons should set RGB enabled Logitech hardware alight. Assuming you are running Windows.
Full changelog
Besides that, this update contains various fixes and tweaks as listed below.
Version 0.98.17603+ 29th October 2018
Columns are now destructible
Fixed a bug that prevented the player from getting frozen by most ice shockwaves
Fixed a visual glitch in level up notification
Fixed ice sprites sometimes blinking into existence for one frame
Improved ice disappear effect, now looks more like ice melting
Fixed issue with sound being looped under the certain circumstances in summary frame
Fixed a potential crash bug when a common variant of a previously lost card was found
Fixed current card variant being reset to common when another variant was disenchanted
The Cook will now have an idle animation during the intro cutscene
[Win] Logitech Lightsync support added
[Mac] Fixed broken serialization, skills effects will now save correctly
[Mac] Fixed Archdemon quest sarcophagi not spawning bosses after loading level
[Mac] Quality of Life: scroll will no longer open minimap
As always
Stay safe in paper dungeons :archduck:
Konstanty
Mac version is live! Along with bugfixes and stuff.
The Mac native port is ready and went live on Steam moments before this post was published. The game fully supports Steam Cloud on both Windows and Mac, so you can now enjoy it on the system you prefer whenever you feel like switching.
Other notable changes in this update
The Mage has a new voice. Due to some unforeseen circumstances, we had to recast the Mage. We took that opportunity to find a great actor and we hope you will enjoy his work as much as we do.
Looking ahead
We are now testing and tuning new cards and streamer support features. Over the next month, we will continue to add remaining content and next month we expect to have the final build candidate ready on the test branch.
In my free time, I have been also tinkered with support for Logitech RGB hardware (as you probably figured out adding RGB support is a hobby of mine). You can expect Book of Demons to light your Logitech devices soon.
We are also working on Linux native port, but we his some last minute snags. However, the game works well in Steam Play so if you are on Linux and can't wait for the native port check it out. Also, consider wishlisting with store set to Linux. That way Steam might whitelist it for Proton and save you some hassle.
Full changelog
Version 0.98.17491+ 11th October 2018
Mac native version available
Improved visual effects for Archdemon gate opening sequence
Removed duplicate character voice over during Archdemon fight
The mage has now a new voice
Fixed: obsolete card variant combinations were not always replaced by new ones
Added random cameo skeleton encounter in Hell
Fixed: score counting sound would sometimes play during avatar unlock sequence
Bosses will now have jingles
Normalized card range tooltips (from numbers to descriptive terms)
Added more sounds for spiders
Added support for clicking in-town crows on a controller
Crows will now reset after the achievement is unlocked
Prepared backend for new cards
Improved exploration and movement tutorials
Fixed multiple typos
Added new supporters' names to credits
As always,
Stay safe in paper dungeons :archduck:
Konstanty
