We would like to take this opportunity to thank you for the fun we had together this year and all the support you gave us! Together we hunted down a lot of bugs and came up with a number of new features and improvements. We also wish you even better 2018, with even more cards dropping and Gargoyles too lazy to jump away. After all, it will be the year in which Book of Demons launches. Lots of cool stuff ahead.
Matt likes to tinker with music and video in his free time and recently he has been preparing something special for you. Without a further ado, I present you with the one and only Book of Demons music video!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwxtxdA8QbA
In other news: supporters bundle is now available on Steam
From the very start, on our Book of Demons website, we’ve been offering an option to become an official supporter of the Return 2 Games series. Now we’re bringing it to Steam, and yes, this includes the option to upgrade to Supporter’s Bundle if you already own Book of Demons. That’s what the bundle upgrade is for – it adjusts the price automatically so you only need to pay the difference. Some of you probably noticed that the bundle was available on and off for a week now - it was us testing ways of creating it in a way that would be most convenient and possible in Steam's framework.
So, again without a further ado:
The pack upgrade is for those of you who already own Book of Demons but wish to support the idea further.
If you don't own the game yet but want to make a leap of faith and get it and the Supporter's Pack at the same time, the bundle is for you.
We had to make both bundle and pack because of how Steam works. It was the only way to grant owners access to future products.
But what is the Supporter's Pack anyway?
In short, the R2G Supporter Pack is a way for our biggest fans to support our future development and to receive all forthcoming R2G games once they become available. Because yes, Book of Demons was planned from the start as the first installment in a series of games.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=quURg6X1jdo
Anticipating a flood of questions to follow, Matt wrote an article on our dev blog that goes into more detail, describes our motivation and analyzes some of the perils we might face ahead. If you’re thinking about going above and beyond in supporting us, be sure to read it, so that you know what to expect now and in the future.
As always,
Stay safe in dungeons :paperheart:
Konstanty
The Rogue Update
The time has come, and the Rogue is here! She is charming, she is funny, she is deadly with the bow and wit. Voiced by insanely talented Rachael Messer she is ready to end the Archdemon.
Arrow and dagger
Of course, her core mechanic differs from pushy Warrior's and bookish Mage's playstyles. She uses her trustworthy bow for the main attack and has an impressive range. She can hit anything she sees (and sometimes stuff she doesn't see so careful there unless you don't mind angry goats charging at you from shadows with arrows sticking from their bottoms).
However, as always, there is a fine print here. Her arrows, unlike Mage's bolts, do collide with monsters other than the intended target. This means that picking the remote target in a melee can be tricky. Until she finds a card that makes her arrows pierce enemies and split... But that's a different story.
And since we are on the topic of melee. Bows are useless in close range, which is why Rogue switches to dagger when an enemy gets close and personal. Once it gets to this, things are probably going pretty bad, but she has a few neat tricks just for such an occasion.
Speaking from a strictly gameplay point of view, when at least one enemy gets into melee range the bow becomes unusable and Rogue switches to close range melee attacks. The melee mode is indicated by the red circle around the Rogue. Until it's empty of monsters, the bow is off the table. It's worth mentioning though, that some cards have special effects on monsters in melee range so sometimes it might be worth intentionally getting close and personal with a zombie.
Those of you who helped us in debugging and polishing her on the test branch will be happy to know that there are new spell effects in this update so there is a reason for you to check her out again :-) Most of your feedback that was not yet addressed in recent smaller updates got addressed in this update. Thank you for bravely facing bugs and imbalances, without your help we couldn't have polished her to the current state :paperheart:
What now, eh?
With this addition of the final hero to our party, we can begin our march toward the launch. We will be regularly checking off things from the roadmap and we will be more active in the marketing department reaching out to media and new players with each update. Can't wait :paperdeath: but it has to be done if we want to generate buzz for launch. Anyway, it's time to talk about the roadmap.
The Final shape of the Roadmap
Below are the content updates that we are planning before the launch. At this point we are freezing feature list, meaning that our urge to include new features will have to be kept under control. Without doing so we wouldn't be able to have more or less fixed dates for updates and plan marketing efforts accordingly.
Now for the roadmap itself. There are no dates but all this will happen more or less in that order and we are planning to exit early access in the second half of 2018.
Rogue Live - We are here!
Cursed Sarcophagi + Spatial Sound Update - a special kind of Sarcophagi for those who dare take the risk. And yes, you read that right, spatial stereo sound in the dungeon (currently everything is flat center).
Mac Support + Minimap Update - Due to popular demand we will be adding minimap and the update will come at the same time as Mac support
Quest Mastering + Archdemon Fight - This one will include the ability to use golden keys to fight through quest levels again at higher difficulties for better rewards and an overhaul of the whole Archdemon level and fight (extra duck included).
Tobii Support + Speedrun to Cook Update - Ever wanted to play Book of Demons with your gaze? With Tobii Eyetracker you will be able to. Plus a new mode and leaderboard are coming in that update - how fast can you get to the first boss?
Challenge Mode Update - Generate custom levels and challenge your friends to beat them in an offline competitive mode!
Sounds + Languages Update - This update will include all remaining sounds in the game. We will also proofread and include community translations into the game at this point.
Launch Day Update - New cards. As always we plan to go with quality over quantity so expect a couple of new cards meshing nicely with pre-existing mechanics.
There are other minor mechanics and additions that we will distribute among the bigger updates but those are the most important things. And, of course, the updates are not going to stop with the release of the game.
Changelog for this build
Version 0.90.14720+ 11th December 2017
Rogue class is now available (this point wraps a million fixes and tweaks from the last two months which won't be pasted below for brevity's sake)
Major balance changes to Catacombs
Achievement Highway to hell footprints number lowered to 200 000 (was 1 000 000)
Added special effects for boss' card block removal
Minor tweaks to Antipope level layout
Fixed frozen flail damage being too high (was 3 instead of 2)
Fixed interruptor achievement to count also effects of spell cards
Visual tweaks to spider's web lobbed attack
Fixed a soft lock when clicking on heart scroll and then choosing health point on level up screen
Fixed level with cursed chest being regenerated if it was saved with the chest open (so no more gold farming, sorry :))
Added Devanagari block in TTF fonts (support for Hindi, Marathi, Sindhi, Nepali, and Sanskrit)
Controller: Consistent handling of B button as back in all windows
Fixed a bug where loading a game saved during a spell effect would end the effect
Fixed one of the snake bosses movement pattern to snake movement (was regular walking)
Fixed text embedded sprites not fading smoothly with the rest of the text
Fixed lava jet timer not stopping when menu was open resulting in ultimate over 9000 eruptions on closing the menu
Epic arrow drop sprite redone for better readability
Rephrased casting tutorials to be more consistent
Rephrased fire/ice weapon tooltips to be more consistent
Boss health/stage bar now will disappear when controller target selector is north of player position to make picking casters easier
Changelog window can now be closed by clicking anywhere outside of it
Healer's vial pickup range increased and auto pickup on controller input added
Controller: Reworked identify and charge windows to be more controller friendly
Controller: pressing left thumb will now toggle loot highlight in dungeons
Controller: charged cards won't be used by accident anymore
Controller: pressing right thumb resets the target selector back to player's position
Controller: unified scrolling functions under left thumb
Controller: target pointer rendering and movement tweaked. Picking targets should be more intuitive now
Steam Controller: controller text input should work in all suitable text fields now
Controller: changed buttons' functions in menus. Should be more consistent now.
Steam Controller: exported new mapping with new actions.
In other news, by popular vote, we are in top100 best indie games of this year and the top one in Hack'n'Slash category. I know you organized in the forums to vote for Book of Demons :paperheart: Thank you for your support, we appreciate it a lot!
Right now we are in the final round of voting, so if you would be so cool to give us the final push now would be the best time! (Book of Demons in under the Hack'n'Slash category).
Stay safe in the dungeons :archduck:
Konstanty
Vote for BoD on IndieDB!
IndieDB, one of the biggest websites helping players in discovering indie games, just announced another edition of Indie of the Year Awards. We decided to participate in it and so... we could use your help!
If you feel that Book of Demons plays like the game of the year please consider voting for us!
There is something in it for you!
Every member of the IndieDB community who votes has a chance to win a game from their #modlove collection! The more you participate, promote the awards or encourage your friends to vote, the better chances you have.
How can I cast a vote?
To vote simply go to our IndieDB page, log into your account (or create one, it's a useful site for indie games discovery) and click "Vote Now" button displayed to the right of the countdown banner.
Nominations run from December 1st to 11th, Top 100 runs from the 11th to 21st and the winners will be announced around Christmas.
Didn't have the opportunity to play the game yet?
And if you didn't play the game yet, we encourage you to try the lengthy Demo version.
Stay safe in the dungeons :archduck:
Konstanty
PS The Rogue is coming in two weeks!
Razer Chroma & more
We have a ton of fixes, tweaks and controller updates that we have bundles into this update. I will break down most important points below.
Razer Chroma
We now officially support Razer Chroma RGB backlights. This is important for two reasons. All of you who have Chroma enabled keyboards, mouse or other peripherals can now enjoy Book of Demons in a cool RGB glory. The second reason is equally important - we are taking part in Razers' marketing events later this month and this might generate additional exposure which is crucial to our marketing outreach efforts.
The full list of effects now available includes:
Health and Mana indicators on F5-F8 and F9-F12 respectively (also on keypad and mouse). We use fewer keys but rightmost key dims as the parameter value gets lower for fluid visual feedback. Additionally, health is tinted green when the character is poisoned.
Equipped cards highlight keys bound to their slots. Type of card equipped is color coded exactly as they are presented in-game. Additionally, when the 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 brighter. These keys and health/mana bars are rendered on top of other effects as they are utility indicators.
When the card becomes usable or its passive effect is triggered respective key flashes gold
When the card is used by the player a shockwave originating from the key it's bound to is rendered on the keyboard. Of course, it's in the card's color.
These are additively rendered so they make for a nice ripple storm when the player is in the middle of intense combat :paperdeath:
When the character is frozen the keyboard mimics 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 fast "swipe" effect on the keyboard, each in a different color
Mouse midsection and mousepad glow in the color the current dungeon is tinted with. This creates a cool ambient effect at player's desk that compliments the in-game color scheme.
Upon death, the keyboard gets "flooded" with red to mimic the on-screen effect.
When player is stunned headset blinks yellow to mimic the yellow stars on screen
Margaret prepared a demo video highlighting some of the effects on Black Widow keyboard:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Td3UOPGo3eU
Controller support
We are continuously working on better and full support for controllers. Plenty of bugs got fixed and quirks ironed out in this update. There is still a lot to do but controller support with mouse emulation turned off should be a much smoother experience now.
For Steam Controller users we recently added custom actions for cards using that can be mapped to extra buttons or radial menus for which we also added icons.
So what's ahead?
A lot :archduck:
The Rogue looms in the near future. Thanks to our brave trailblazing testers from the test branch with each update we are fixing a lot of bugs and balance issues related to the Rogue. She will go live later this year (I have explained the reasoning behind the wait here) and already tested and polished up to the quality of the Warrior and Mage classes. With her release, we will begin the long march to the launch and we will share a detailed roadmap of events we will do or participate in.
We are also working on adding all the sounds we would like to hear in the game (right now we have less than half of what's planned) and more one-liners for the heroes. We are also tinkering with audio system and might have a surprise for you later on.
Archdemon quest is being reworked. It's a lot of work and will take much time but from what we already did it's obvious that the improvement will be huge. Right now he is just an archdemon. Once we are done he will be The Archdemon with an extra duck on top.
We will have a rigid roadmap with more or less fixed dates for you before the end of the year, probably at the same time as the Rogue official launch.
Until then,
Stay safe in the dungeons :archduck:
Konstanty
Support for community translations
Today we are rolling out community translations update which gives you tools to create your own localization of in-game text.
Why community translations?
Book of Demons is in Early Access and that means that string tables change daily. Translating every change to all languages we would like to eventually support would delay the updates ad infinitum as it would require us to track every change and probably hire translators full-time (or use automatic translation and while it would probably result in some hilarious errors, in the end, no one wants that).
From the beginning of Early Access, many players offered their help and asked us if we could make it possible for them to translate the game. Preparing the backend to facilitate translation to most languages took us a lot of time as we had to create a system for rendering and caching true type fonts on the fly that would be robust, flexible and memory efficient. Now the system is ready and everyone who would like to help is welcome!
Before we exit the early access we will take the best community translations and have professional translators do a proofreading pass on them to assure everything is in order and then they will get included in the final release. Their authors will get immortalized in game's credits (and our hearts, obviously :paperheart:)
How can I help or use the ongoing translations?
If you would like to try translating the game to your language or take an ongoing translation to a test drive and report problems (or praise flawless execution!) head to the dedicated subforum. You will find two pinned threads with detailed instructions there.
Over time, as translations become increasingly complete and more players report them to be playable, we will be including them into official builds so everyone will be able to play native language without the hassle of adding translation files by themselves.
What languages are potentially supported
Some languages are supported natively by our old font system. Languages that use more exotic characters will switch to the new font system which utilizes a mega true type font file. We tried to be as inclusive as possible and so most languages should be covered by that file.
Some examples of languages with supported characters:
Abkhazian
Afrikaans
Belarusian
Bulgarian
English
Chinese (Simplified)
Czech
Danish
Dutch
Esperanto
French
Filipino
Finnish
German
Greek
Hungarian
Indonesian
Italian
Japanese
Klingon (no support for pIqaD script since it's not supported in Unicode, we are as disappointed as you are and we are writing a very ːsteamsaltyː letter to Unicode Consortium about that!)
Korean
Kurdish
Latvian
Lithuanian
Norwegian
Portuguese
Brazilian Portuguese
Romanian
Russian
Slovak
Spanish
Swahili
Swedish
Thai
Turkish
Ukrainian
Vietnamese
Other stuff
Besides that the update, of course, includes most recent fixes and improvements.
Worth mentioning is new improved Angry State visual representation that communicates better how angry the monster is at the moment.
Another important thing is that we have dropped the use of the Steam wrapper. This might help with overzealous antivirus programs quarantining the executable.
Stay safe in the dungeons :paperheart:
Konstanty
September Developer Log
Hello, everyone!
We rolled out an updated yesterday and I would like to bring you all up to speed with new stuff and what we are working on right now.
Angry Monsters
We added a new mechanic to selected monsters. Such monsters when hit 4 times in quick succession become enraged, heal and deal extra damage. You can tell when a monster is on verge of becoming angry because a red exclamation mark will pop-up next to its health. The exclamation mark will go away if the monster is not hit for a few seconds. Auto attacks won't make monster more angry.
It should add a pacing element to fights introduce a bit more strategy and make hard hitting cards more valuable while simultaneously making AoE cards a bit more risky to use.
Columns in dungeons now cast dynamic shadows from player's light
While we won't add dynamic shadows to everything we thought that columns could use a dynamic element. It nicely builds gloomy atmosphere, we hope you will like it!
Improvements to Steam Controller
Valve has updated Steam Controller API and so did we! Not only icons for Steam Controller will be displayed correctly but also when mapping non-steam controllers in Steam you should get your controller specific icons in-game (where possible).
We have also tweaked targeting pointer and stun mini-game pointer speed depending on what type of controller you have mapped in Steam.
This was a part of a larger controller refactoring effort paving the way to possible more input methods in the future.
Other stuff
We also changed web kit from Awesomium to Chromium which is updated more often and had better cross-platform support.
Lots of in game effects were improved and new sounds were added. This kind of changes will be happening with every update now since we are constantly polishing visuals and adding more sounds.
We also added fluff descriptions to legendary cards and improved general card text to better describe mechanics.
Detailed patch notes
Columns in the dungeon will now cast simulated dynamic shadows cast by the player's light
New monster mechanics: Angry. Angry monsters get enraged when hit too often. When monster becomes angry an exclamation mark appears next to its health bar. Once enraged monster heals itself and deals extra attacks over a short period of time
Legendary Divine potion changes. While it no longer has a chance for double duration it causes all attacks to heal player instead of dealing damage
Charge/Teleportation icon will now be displayed under the card as well as in the dungeon for more readability
Improved sounds effects for attacks and selected monsters
Improved various visual effects in dungeon and GUI
Charge/Teleport will now act more reliably near stairs/doors and will ignore collisions with player's missiles
Icicles will now be hit by lobbed projectiles (spears)
Legendary cards now have unique descriptions in tooltips and Identify Window
Backend: Updated Steam Controller to better handle emulated 3rd party controllers (right stick won't be super sensitive anymore on emulated controllers)
Backend: switched web framework from Awesomium to Chromium. Although it doesn't sound as awesome it's updated on more regular basis
Legendary Amulets will now trigger on mana pickup in addition to health pickup
Decreased mage's missile radius, should allow better trick shots
Dungeon generation code was optimized - entering a new level should be a bit faster
Small optimizations in dungeon generation time
Visual improvements to spider mechanic tutorial
Visual improvements to Mana Sphere
More supporters added to credits
Improved descriptions for most cards
Fixed stuttering motion in ghosts, it should happen very rarely now
Fixed a bug where goat would bleat and heal only when a non-legendary Heal spell was in effect
Fixed achievement "Magic Friend"
Fixes to Cathedral tileset
Fixes to Hell tileset
Fixed Ghosts' fear movement
Fixed: Chaotic Ring one-click shield bash should work now
Fixed small hiccup when level Summary Frame was opening
Fixed a crash when Skeleton Belt wearing player was hit with a critical attack
Fixed a crash when displaying upgrade tooltip on potion card
Fixed Full Deck achievement
Fixed Legendary Boots to work with all shockwaves
Fixed mangled tooltip on common variant in Variants frame
Added support for disabling coloring on levels for older Radeon cards that experienced glitches
Last but far from least: Rogue is in testing
Rogue's testing has begun; those who feel like enduring more than the regular dosage of bugs is worth getting an early look at that class can head to the public test branch. Details on how to access it can be found in this thread. (link will work only for game owners since there is no test branch for the demo). Be warned though, Rogue is a bit unstable right now and she will spend some time on the testing branch. Once we are satisfied with stability and her balance we will carefully pick the best date to unveil her and move her to public branch. I detailed our reasoning behind that in this this thread.
As always,
Stay safe in the dungeons :paperheart:
Konstanty
The Last Big Update Before the Rogue
Today's update brings a lot of changes in preparation for the Rogue. Before you ask - the Rogue will be the next big update. I will try to explain the biggest changes below. Change log for this update is our longest yet, but few changes stand out.
First of all, the duck :archduck: held by the Archdemon on the cross-section is now squeezable for your and Archdemons' enjoyment.
New Cooldowns
In other news, big changes to cards' cool down system. Positive effect on cooldown concept is no more. From now on, all cooldowns are negative (as in the card cannot be used for the duration of cooldown and offers no special effects). However, fear not. Cards that used to have a positive effect on cooldown now have Timed Effect state after use.
In that state, the card has a golden glow that shows how much time is left until the effect is finished. As the effect timer runs out the glow will gradually turn red to alert the player.
Once the effect is done the regular cooldown will kick in. The minimal cooldown is one second now, meaning that cards that could have been used "back to back" now have a one-second cooldown. This change will make effects over time more readable and should make Skeleton Belt more useful (it won’t extend positive effects anymore but now it shortens cooldown on all cards!). Also, now Boots card can be found in Elephant variant, that will make the protection from flames last up to 30% longer.
Damage subsystem
We have also rewritten attack system, now many attacks will have different visual effects and elements will add tints to those effects. In the process, we also removed a lot of bugs and elemental effects will trigger more often.
Dialogue system
You will also notice that now all spoken text outside of cinematic scenes will be displayed next to a head of the person (or monster) speaking in the upper left corner of the screen. Gone are the days of crude text window obscuring center of the screen.
Sound
The effort to enrich sound aspect of the game is ongoing. A ton of new sounds made it into the game and much more will be added. Also, the Hell tileset now has its own music theme!
A lot of visual improvements
We have also added many visual improvements and tweaks, including some monsters' effects, easier to read font in gossips and so on. It's worth mentioning that now the type of equipped elemental damage card is reflected in how character's weapon (or staff) looks.
The complete change log
The change log for this update was so long we actually found a bug in the change log window itself, it had problems handling long change logs :paperdeath:
Here you can read the detailed list of all changes:
Really important stuff first - Archdemons' duck can now be squeezed on the cross section screen
The game has a new fancy book icon
We also made changes to all tilesets and they might cause levels the player is currently on to be rerolled. This won't affect the characters or anything else
In other news, big changes to cards the cool down system. Positive effect on cooldown is no more. Now all cooldowns are negative (as in card cannot be used for the duration of cooldown and offers no special effects)
All active Timed Effects on cards will end when hero exits the dungeon, this includes Mana Shield card
We have made huge "under the hood" changes to the damage dealing system, practically rewriting it. Visually the most obvious change will be different and better-looking shapes of the strike effects on monsters
Fixed legendary Ice Bolt, it used to never trigger unless Fireball card was also equipped and then it would trigger all the time
When monsters with golden shield are standing in flames and golden shield timer is sped up their shields will have a red tint to better communicate that fact to the player
Bomb cards will now be better at targeting monsters that showed up after the card was activated
Ranged cards like Throw or Cold Nova now will display their range in the dungeon when the player hovers mouse cursor over them
Dialogue system has been rewritten. Now instead of a window over characters head all dialogue will be displayed in the upper left corner of the screen with a neat character's head icon. That way dialogues won't interfere with clicking and we will have more opportunities for one-liners
Fixed line spacing in changelog window
Added lots of missing sounds and made small improvements to a number of pre-existing sounds
Fixed errors in Archdemon scripts that rendered him mute
Added visual effects to Spell and Item cards on use, similar to the effect that was present on Artifact cards on proc
Skeleton warriors now have more varied appearances, there are variants with missing body parts
Level completed summary window now allows distribution level up points right in that window
Tweaked monsters' accuracy modifiers granted by magical variants
Skeleton Belt now works as a separate dodge mechanic, granting an extra 20% chance to dodge damage from skeletons
Added a new type of tutorial - a small window that pops up on important events in a predefined area of the screen and goes away after a few seconds or when clicked. Right now it should appear when a usable card is equipped for the first time.
Fire shockwaves no longer kill Fire Imps (this will prevent mass Imp suicide events)
Re-enabled Antipope's visual fight sequences when changing states, 20x more awesome now
Balance: Charge Card cost increased
Balance: Teleport Card cost and cooldown increased
Balance: Legendary Teleport effect trigger chance decreased from 100% to 50%
The Cook and Antipope now have custom casting effects
The Cook and Antipope now have custom casting effects
Arcane bolts deflected with legendary shield will now deal damage to enemies
All missiles deflected by legendary shield won't trigger card effects now since they are technically not player's missiles
Fixed true damage being damped to 1 instead of destroying elemental hearts as it should
Added poison death indicator. Now when monsters has enough poison to stacked to kill it a green skull icon will be displayed to the left of his health bar
Poison now affects spiders when they stalk player on ceiling, spiders killed by poison when stalking fall to the ground and die
Changed poison tutorial to reflect new poison mechanics
Cards tutorial now mentions keyboard shortcuts
Timed state tutorial rephrased to be more clear
Rebalanced chances for card drops
Polished Golem card effects
Mage's missiles that fly too far and die will now fade out their light in a smoother manner
Improved landing effects after monsters jump
Added extra particle effects to casting monsters' staffs
Tweaked NPC's nodding animations
Current flexiscope depth is now indicated on the depth slider, so the players can see how much they will progress
Fixed player not being slowed by monsters (only visual effects were applied)
Increased font size in gossips for better readability
Small visual fixes to quest bosses' intro scenes
Font was changed in gossips, new one is not italic in order to increase readability
Balance changes to various cards' cooldowns and costs
Remedy card now protects from poison, stun and cold from level 1
Equipped cards will now be marked as such in upgrade pane
Added tooltip to the golden key, explaining that that mechanic is not yet implemented
Newly found cards will now be properly marked as "unseen" with purple glows and as seen if equipped
Item Cards' variants other than the equipped one will now show zero charges
Equipped cards will now be marked with a green tick in upgrade pane
Changes in Demonic Ring, among others fire now damages non-magical shields and shields are destroyed on fire monsters too
Added tooltips to selected GUI controls
Fixed progress bar in the Summary Window
Cold attacks now will trigger ice visual effect on hit, same effect will be displayed on every click on an icicle
Arrows now have nice fade on appear to make them stop "popping" into existence in middle of skeletons' heads
Hell tileset now has its own music theme
Cards "loosened" by charging goats won't get unequipped anymore when inventory was open and player clicked the card to fix it
Unified use conditions for potion cards
Slot buyout tooltips and confirmation windows now have more neatly formatted prices
Adjusted visuals of monsters landing on the ground.
Visual tweaks of magical monsters staffs
Charge won't be stopped by enemy missiles
Improved confirmation dialog text when switching Item Card's variant
Avatar unlock progress bar cannot be moved with controller anymore (glitch was only visual)
Fixed a crash when upgrade card was clicked in upgrade pane with cauldron open
Fixed a glitch that caused points needed for the next rang to be incorrectly calculated in Summary WIndow after finishing a flexiscope
Fixed minor issues with Teleport Card's shockwave
Fixed an issue where Mage would change targets when trying to right click and attack target
Fixed appear and disappear visuals of Skeleton Whopper
Fixed an issue where some body parts on larger monsters would disappear abruptly when monster's death animation started
Fixed ghost movement bug that caused ghost to warp in and out of map under some circumstances
When avatar is changed in Summary Window the new one will be displayed (old one used to stuck around until the window was closed)
Dungeon unfolding effect will no longer play at the same time as cutscene in order to avoid "sliding" effect
Legendary Lightning and Staff of Lightning names swapped
Visual fixes to some arrow types (added shadows and such)
As always, stay safe in the dungeons! :archduck:
Konstanty
A Year in Early Access
When we launched Book of Demons through Steam Early Access a year ago we had a pretty fixed plan for the future. We knew that the first month or so we would be focusing on bug fixing and stability issues. The game was already tested in-house and by our gamedev friends but that proved to be only a drop in the ocean. Next, we planned to release 2 additional character classes (Mage and Rogue), implement quest mastering (for players who want to test their skills with quest bosses on higher difficulty settings), polish second and third tileset (we believed that the maze tileset is pretty solid already) and add more sounds and voiceovers.
The first phase (testing and bug fixing) passed pretty much as planned. We have fixed a lot of bugs, resolution issues and exploits (my personal favorite was a possibility to completely skip the final boss fight just by clicking on the stairs down which one surprised player discovered unintentionally).
But what came next was a little unexpected for us. We have invited players to take part in the development of the game not only by testing it but also to shape the game’s final form. And, in spite of our fears, we got plenty of really great and reasonable ideas.
Many of them were quality of life improvements (like loot highlighting, last item blinking or remappable keyboard controls) which we could implement right away. Others were either ideas for features proposed by the community (like borderless window or daredevil mode) or issues reported by players that we felt we had to address. Those needed much more work but still ended up in Book of Demons. Most noticeable were legendary and magical cards, multiple character slots, higher difficulty modes, new mechanics like imposed cards, cursed cards, gold and card loss.
Those features had a great impact on how the game looks and feels today. Of course, we still added some of the components we had originally planned (Mage class, a lot of balance changes, more variety in dungeons) but with all the previously listed features, it took much more time than we thought it would.
We are a small indie studio, with 7 devs working days and (more frequently than we should acknowledge) nights on the game we love. But every new feature that we add, every new mode that we didn’t plan or didn’t think about, influences our roadmap and postpones the game’s final release. We can see that the game is now much better both in terms of stability (crash rate is over 2.5 times smaller than it was a year ago) and nd players' reception (Book of Demons has an Overwhelmingly Positive user reviews at the time of writing this post) but it all comes at the cost of deteriorated development speed. Please keep that in mind when reading our roadmap or while waiting for the Rogue class :) All of those features and, from what we have learned from the last 12 months, many more will come to Book of Demons. It will just take some more time.
Below, you will find some figures we gathered that illustrate Book of Demons’ Year of Early Access in numbers. Enjoy :)
Ranging from minor fixes to major new features and big system overhauls. That’s about 1 update each week.
This one is keeping us going even when the temperature in our studio exceeds 30⁰C (86⁰F) which happens a lot thanks to broken AC
Judging from some of the feedback we get and the fact that we did a couple of sales already, a lot of those additions are from players who are waiting for the game’s full release.
We try to address all of the issues sent to us either by email, Steam discussion forum or in-game feedback widget. This often takes a couple of hours a day.
The mode where you can only die once became more popular than anticipated.
In October, we launched a free demo of Book of Demons as we strongly feel that players should be able to check out the game before deciding to buy it.
To be totally honest that’s not only demons but also skeletons, gargoyles, zombies, ghosts, goats, and spiders ;) both in the main story and in Freeplay mode.
About a quarter of characters who entered the dungeons below the Cathedral managed to kill the Archdemon. The rest of them were either abandoned by players in favor of another class, were Daredevil characters who died in the process or are still making this journey.
But those who won the final fight on average died:
Additionally, based on the partial data we have from those of you who agreed to share statistics with us we can say that:
We would like to thank our Supporters! 205 of you decided to buy Return 2 Games Supporter’s Bundle showing that you believe in our vision… and hopefully making a great future investment ;) as with each new game release, the bundle price will go up.
Book of Demons got a lot of fixes, updates, and improvements over the last 12 months. Our goal is to implement even more features, both the ones from our roadmap and any other that we (or you) will come up with in the future.
And for all of you that are waiting for the Rogue. Give her some time, she is getting ready.
Today's update brings a lot of under-the-hood changes in preparation for the Rogue class along with optimizations, balance changes, and bug fixes. You can check the list of changes at the end of this post and in the forums. Changes related only to Rogue class are not listed if they don't change current mechanics. We wouldn't want to spoil the surprise :paperdeath:
Roadmap
We are also ready to share the new updated roadmap, for now without dates (more on that in a moment).
Confirmed features
Features we are committed to adding before the launch, work on many of them has already started.
Full gamepad support (with the current mouse emulation mode optional for enthusiasts ;-))
More sounds and voiceovers
Stars mechanics
Challenge mode where players can generate their own random dungeon with some degree of control over it and compete with friends and enemies alike trying to complete it in an optimal way
Quest mastering on higher difficulty levels (golden keys mechanic)
Weekly speedrun to cook leaderboards
Special sarcophagi mechanics (like cursed chests)
Additional achievements
More languages (including Russian, Chinese and Korean) with support for community translations
A surprise reward for ending the game :archduck:
Automap!
Redesigned and polished Archdemon quest
Improvements to poison and fire mechanics
Irritable monster mechanics
Support Razer Chroma with full spectrum of glorious custom RGB effects
Lots of polishing, balancing, and bugfixes
Features in consideration
Things we would like to add but they might not make it into the game before launch. Again some of them are already prototyped but we may not have time to polish them and fully implement. Or they might prove utterly uncool in tests and we won't do them after all:
More cards
Twitch social play - enabling viewers to make streamer lives hell :paperdeath:
Online competitive play mode - not exactly multiplayer but as close as we can get without rewriting the game
Full touch controls
Level editor/modding/steam workshop support
Mac port
Eye tracking support
Experimental hands-free control scheme :archduck:
Collector’s edition content
Timeline and launch
As you probably know, parallel to regular development we are working on the production plan and preparing the grand strategy for launch. The launch is the most important moment in the game's lifetime and we have only one shot at doing it right, which is further complicated by the fact that we never launched a game on Steam before.
One of the things we must consider is the launch schedule of large AAA titles. Launching at the wrong time can topple title into obscurity if it can't compete with marketing budgets of titles launched at the same time (something like that happened to Vampire: Masquerade for example).
That's why we are considering rolling out the Rogue update a bit later even though she should be ready in two to three weeks. The Rogue Update (I think I just found the perfect post title for the occasion!) should mark the beginning of our "last straight" marketing effort period ending in the launch. However, considering how many features we want to add before the launch and that we are still in the process of preparing marketing plan we might need a bit more time.
But don't worry, as you have seen we have added more features to the roadmap so we won't idle in the extra time if it comes to that :-)
And now it's finally time for...
Changelog for version 0.85.12641+ - 11 May 2017
Numerous backend changes in preparation for Rogue class
Archdemon's timed states now spawn monsters as intended
Poison now ticks 2x faster on monsters
Monster will no longer attack through doors (they can still jump over them) - this may cause regeneration of some dungeon setups.
Lowered all projectiles attitude by 30%, now it will be easier to visually estimate missile trajectory and dodge
Fixed a rare issue with Mage unlocking when game was started with a very old save file (pre 0.8 version)
Gargoyles will now wait for a short period of time after waking up and before jumping at the hero
Spiders will now hide less frequently when near the player
Heal visual effects will now be disabled when card gets disabled during the effect
Refactored and fixed the way Skeleton Belt affects cooldowns
Fixed "card can now be used" to work correctly with card variants
Added casting sound also for bosses
Difficulty spikes on Hell tileset leveled
Fixed many typos in cards' descriptions
Using special missile card now selects corresponding missile type
Changed how attack cursor behaves when shift is held down
Added a mechanism that automatically detects changes to card variants configurations in this and subsequent updates and tries to compensate for them (takes away now defunct variant but grants new one of the same level and value when possible)
Card variants that decrease mana cost will now be working correctly. Mana cost of a spell cannot be lowered below 1 mana.
Small visual improvement to dispel effect
Save backup system now will detect if saves got corrupted in an unlikely event of power failure and will attempt to recover previously saved game
Bottled Zap & Zeus Fork switched names
Fixed kangaroos getting disoriented below 20FPS
Fixed doors on Cook's quest level sometimes being rendered as fire or ice sprites
Fixed an issue when Undead Kangaroos and skittering monsters could appear undecided under low framerate conditions
Fixed a crash when Bomb card tried to toss a bomb when player exited the level
Fixed a crash when player was hit with an ice orb
Fixed a crash when player played as a warrior
Fixed spider spit skill not triggering when hero was close
Finding a magical variant won't trigger "new card" glow on common variant
Quest boss corpses will no longer remain highlightable with gamepad
Optimized low-level particle rendering code
Improved the way remaining effect time is presented in card tooltips in case of Hourglass and Golem
Fixed Hourglass of Elephant/Time incorrectly calculating effect time
Fixed issue when sometimes common cards could be equipable from notification window due to level being too low
Fixed rare bug in the Cook quest, where the key wouldn't spawn.
Multiple other small balance changes
Fixed potential crash in Game of Crows achievement
Shortened num_# key labels under the cards, they should fit better now
Fixed a rare crash when skipping loader intro
Stay safe in the dungeons! :paperheart:
Konstanty
PS There were issues with running the game on windows 7 after this update but we released a super quick ninja update to update that should have fixed it :-)
The Archdemon fights for awards!
We have some good news to share! This month we are going to fight for awards at two events!
Digital Dragons
Book of Demons got nominated not only for Indie Award at Digital Dragons 2017 but also for the main award in the Best Polish Game Art and Best Polish Game Design categories alongside such games as Shadow Warrior 2 or SuperHot. If you find yourself visiting Digital Dragons this year you can meet us in the indie showcase area.
MomoCon
We also got nominated for the main award at MomoCon 2017! We will be honored to be judged by people whose gaming related content we read on weekly basis. Sadly we won't be able to attend in person (flying over ocean tends to be expensive and we can't sail on a raft until spring storms pass). Still, there will be a raffle with Book of Demons keys so it's worth keeping an eye out for the awards ceremony if you are attending.
Meanwhile
We are finalizing all the plans from now to the launch and work on the Rogue. You can expect an update preparing the ground for the Rogue in the next few days. It will contain multiple bugfixes, balance changes, and improvements. If all goes well it will be accompanied by a longer post about roadmap and timeline changes.
