It's been two weeks since our Early Access release and before we get into things, we'd really like to thank you all for your constant and crucial feedback , it's been really helping us put things into perspective and analyze the parts that we can improve in the game! We're extremely happy that many of you have found the game very fun to play, and we'd like to tell you that a lot more content is coming to Desert Revenant.
Overview
We have gathered an immense amount of feedback, and have been hard at work addressing it. The most pressing matters that we are going to tackle first during these few weeks are the following:
Improve the performance (Mostly GPU) of the game on lower-end PCs and reduce the overall patching size.
Bug fixing.
Improve the general quality of life of the game by undergoing some balance changes, and maybe giving the players a little bit more leeway to customize the decks and/or reduce the amount of time needed to unlock the new cards and curses.
General UI and UX improvements (In and outside battle). We felt that it might have been a bit complex to keep up with all of the different elements in the game, and improving the UI will generally fix this situation.
Current Content
Desert Revenant offers quite a bit of content at the moment and our goal of course, is to keep adding to it. So far, there are 2 Revenants to choose from, and there are 2 completely different playable areas. Each area has its unique Boss, Mini Boss, special enemies, storylines and encounters. The game greatly changes once hopping from one area to another. Each Revenant has a Deck of 70 cards with 61 cards already unlocked when starting the game for the first time. There are 9 very good cards to unlock for each Revenant. The way to unlock the rest of the cards is by amassing points (Score) during runs, thus eventually, making all cards usable.
Curses are also a very interesting part of the game that some players have started to recently experience. Each curse basically adds a negative modifier to your run (Tied to a save slot) to make it even harder. Adding a curse will also increase the Score that you can get at the end of your run (By adding a multiplier to the Score for each chosen curse.) The curses add a totally different dimension to the game, to the extent that a curse like the Realm Rippers for example, adds an enemy that cannot be unlocked unless the curse is active.
The rest of the content is not gated behind score, and everything is available for players immediately by playing their first ever run. As you may all have noticed, the game relies heavily on decision making by offering multiple rewards paths such as the Wish Jinn, Merchant, Talents, Gold Coins, Dialogues and Reputation.
Building your Deck from the wide array of available cards, coupled with different talents and blessing from Wish Jinn (Powerful buffs that remain on your character for the remainder of the run) and gathering different perks from the Reputation tree is what really create a sense of uniqueness in each run.
The Reputation is unique in a way is that it is a form Meta progression in your run (Per save slot). They are basically trees where you can pick perks that will stick with you even after death and onto your subsequent run!
We will be working on adding even more rewards during the run to add further uniqueness to each run.
Another element that is prominent in Desert Revenant right now is the presence of various affixes which are environmental modifiers that take place during certain battles. They will usually be presented on the map in between 2 nodes and they can usually tip the scales in any fight. They can either affect the player's faction (Allies), or the enemy faction or even both at the same time. Some of these include Infectious Toxins for example where healing will be rendered almost impossible during battle, or inversely, Soothing currents, where all characters in the battlefield which actually heal in the beginning of their turn.
We're already working on increase the variety of affixes present in the game to make for some more interesting player choices when it comes to pathing.
Challenges
The main complexity of Desert Revenant stems from the huge variety of status effects (250+ and counting!) which is quite uncommon in turn based games. This creates for much more dynamic gameplay than the usual turn based or CCG games, because traditionally, the prevalence of buffs and debuffs isn't really highlighted in such games. Introducing this comes with its own set of design challenges because it opens up much more doors to a plethora of different combinations. However, we found that it adds a lot of dynamism that players who invest time in the game tend to enjoy!
Another very important side of the general gameplay in battles is using minions. We're big fans of characters in RPGs having their own minions. Summoner classes are always an intriguing part of many RPGs (Video games and tabletop) but minions are for the most part not given a lot importance in traditional RPGs as they're mostly niche spells with long cooldowns. We decided to take a little bit of a risk there and have them become an integral part of the game, and by doing so, we had to make sure that they synergize properly with each character, and also it has lead us to draw out a more complex approach to enemy AI. All enemies have different and unique ways of thinking, and they choose their spells and targets based on the state of who they are facing at the time. Having multiple minions also lead us to adopt our intent system where we only inform the players about who's being targeted. We preferred to go with a method without showing the exact damage that enemies will deal since there are multiple ways to mitigate damage (Healing, permanent armor, absorption shields, minions for example) and let the players decide for themselves how to counter each enemy depending on the situation they find themselves in (There are multiple factors that come into play).
Our goal is to go even deeper when it comes to combat mechanics, make sure they're not frustrating to play around and of course add more and more variety and interesting mechanics (We're always looking to add more fun minions to play with and fun status effects to play around). To achieve this goal, we're already designing new fun battles to play and of course new cards!
What's coming next
We previously mentioned in this update the most pressing issues that we are working on at the moment. However, we've already started for a while working on the new upcoming content for the game. We are happy to introduce the King of Vengeance ! The third Jinn King that is coming to Desert Revenant in December! Without spoiling much, we're going to add a little bit of information about this enemy along the way. Check out the small visual hint of this character in the header of this Dev update!
Adding a new Jinn King means adding an entirely new map, with new enemy encounters and a new Mini Boss fight, new NPCs (With every NPC having their own NPC card), new Storylines, and much more. Some of the new enemies will have their own unique mechanics will which will make the fights also extremely interesting. This will be our first major patch since our Early Access release with tons of new content added for you to enjoy.
We've also been getting some questions about the third playable Revenant and we're happy to tell you that the development of this character has already started. We will not spoil it right now, but we can safely tell you that the playstyle of this Revenant will be massively different from the two existing ones. We're going for some extremely unique mechanics as well that are quite unusual for Deckbuilders!
We hope that you have enjoyed this update, and be sure that we will keep posting more of these regularly to inform you about the state of the game. Also, keep an eye on our Developer streams that are going to do regularly when time permits. (We're also going to upload some excerpts of the Streams on our official Kreationware Youtube channel) Thanks again for your feedback, do not ever hesitate to send us even more, we're happy to address all of it and keep on improving the game to offer you the best possible experience.
Thank you, The Kreationware team
DESERT REVENANT LIVE STREAM
Let's take a deep look at Desert Revenant!
It has already been a week since our Early Access release and we could not be more happy with all the positive feedback that we've been receiving, However, we were asked to showcase more gameplay so that people would get more familiar with the game.
And this is what we will be doing! This is the first Stream that we're going to make, from a series of Live Streams to conquer Elmyr together. We will be playing the game tonight and trying to go over many strategies to show you how much depth there is in Desert Revenant and we really hope that you will keep sending us feedback to make the game better!
We will be here to answer all your questions, so hop in and get ready for some serious strategic gameplay :)
First fixes Early Access Version 1.0.0
Hello everyone! We've been actively working to update the game in general and fixing some issues that you might have encountered!
Please check the patch notes:
- Added the correct Queen Cobra's Royal Egg summon Atlas. - Fallen Star is not targeted anymore as intended, since it is a Creation card. - Fixed Mana Sprout to trigger every 3 turns instead of every 2 turns. - Fixed a bug where Magic Lamp would not use its ability on its turn. - Fixed a bug where Gleaming Gems would not use its ability on its turn. - Allegiance (Wish Jinn buff) is now fixed and usable. - Void Distortion now deals damage to one or more enemies inside the Forbidden Realm as intended. - Added number counters on Emperor's Touch (Wish Jinn buff) to be able to track it properly. - Wish Jinn buffs are now affected by Darkness effects. - Decay will now destroy a target even if it has invulnerable on it. - Leper Talents like Perpertual Anguish and Rot cannot be removed by enemies anymore. - Fixed a bug where Tribulation of Fate buff would be affected by Darkness and reduce the Mana cost of the entire deck by 1 instead of only the next Fate Spell. - Fixed a bug where Abyssal Implosion would completely destroy Memories of Life and Memories of Carnage. - Fixed a bug where Rebirth would respawn enemies with their existing buffs, debuffs and states that they had before dying. - Fixed a bug where the game would crash after picking a certain choice in the dialogues. - Fixed a bug where some particles on enemies or minions would linger on the platform after they died. - Fixed a visual bug where Mind Reach would look as if it was triggered by using any ability. - Fixed a bug where the player couldn't progress in the map anymore after going into a Gold node reward. - Fixed a bug where the Wish Jinn would give the player an empty card when choosing the random upgrade option. - Fixed a bug where Flower of Remembrance would increase the Mana cost of cards if brought back with the Seer's infinite Cycle. - Added the correct characters: Kamar, the Whiteblade and Ashamar, the Fallen Star to the NPC list. - Improved visuals in the beginning of the battle to showcase which affix the characters are affected with. - Improved Ignite Arrow visuals. - Re-introduced the Legend on the map.
Storyline Fix
We were aware that some of the Storylines were bugging, so we made an immediate fix with some other minor changes !
Enjoy!
General Fixes
Engine related fix
Bug Fixes
General bug fixes
Update
<*>Performance enhancement
Beta Patch Notes
New playable area: The Temple of the Moon King is a new area that has its own unique Storylines, music, NPCs, battle compositions, Mini Boss and Boss fights.
New enemies: Added over 10 new enemies to play against.
Main Menu redesign: A better overall experience to the main menu and character select.
New feature: Curses. They can be added to make a run much more challenging!
New feature: Reputation Tree. The player can now unlock perks after completing Storylines. Reputation points persist through death.
Wish Jinn redesign: The Wish Jinn has been redesigned to now offer Permanent buffs or a card that has a chance to be upgraded.
Card rewards drop rate: The Algorithm for the card drops has been redesigned.
Tutorial redesign: The tutorial has been redesigned to offer a more comprehensive approach to the game, but still kept relatively quick to avoid hand holding.
Enemy inspect: The player can now inspect enemies by clicking on them to obtain some information about their abilities.
Card text edits: The text inside the cards has been trimmed down a little bit more to avoid having very long texts on some cards.
Talent redesign: Added new talents to both the Seer and the Leper and redesigned talents that were a bit underwhelming.
Fast mode implementation: Fast mode has been implemented for players that are looking for a faster paced experience in battles.
Seer Channel mechanic: The Channel mechanic has been improved to allow the Seer to keep Channeling for a longer duration.
General bug fixes.
Make sure to let us know what you think! There's a bugs and feedback reporter added also in game, and we really appreciate all your feedback since a lot of features added are community driven!
DESERT REVENANT DEV DIARY #1 - Introduction
DESERT REVENANT How it all started, and where it’s all going.
Welcome Revenant,
We’re excited to announce that our game Desert Revenant is currently being prepared for full release. In this blog, we will be sharing with you updates about the game, the progress we’ve made so far, and an inside look behind the scenes. So blow the dust off your cards and join us as we make our way across the sands of Elmyr.
Small Beginnings What started as a small game with the code name Project Eremus developed into a much bigger, more ambitious project. We initially aimed for a dungeon crawler, with a very short story and high replayability. However with time, we’ve come to that having a rich story would enhance the experience, and we love a good story. The game went through a lot of changes but the core essence remains: An exciting and challenging adventure in an ancient Arabian world.
The first poster we hung at our studio. Good(?) times.
The Story The story we’ve been building was always set somewhere in an ancient Arabian world, this later became known as Elmyr. We’ve been interested in diving deeply into Arabian folklore, so you’ll notice that most of what you’ll see in our world is heavily inspired by it. Jinns are also a big inspiration for us, the Jinn Kings play a huge role in the story as you’ll find out.
The Art Direction There’s a certain charm to hand-drawn and painted art that we knew from the beginning would be how we wanted our game to feel. We’ve been inspired by many 2D games and ancient paintings and we believe that this art direction we took can last for ages. We set off with mood boards that reflect what we wanted our world to be like and the characters we created were a mix of ancient myths and legends.
The area of the Sun King: The Temple Of The Sun
Early sketches of the Leper
Timelapse of the environment being created for a level in the Temple of the Sun area
The Gameplay We love a good challenge, to think and strategize before making a move leads to a much more satisfying win. We also wanted a fun deck builder, the cards we created needed to have good synergy so that combining them to defeat the enemies was as fun as possible. By later adding rogue-like elements and a story that fits this playstyle, we made replayability.
Summons are your best friends. Don’t get too attached though…
Closed Alpha We created a closed alpha for players to test the game with only the Leper as a playable character. We’ve gathered a lot of feedback concerning the gameplay that we worked on improving for a better Early Access. Our community grew our Discord server, the game was well-received. From the statistics we gathered, only a few percent of players were able to win the run against the Sun King. In a way, we feel that this is good because the game is difficult enough to challenge the players, but on the other hand, we’re hoping to make the game more user-friendly so that it’s easier for players to understand. We believe the UI needs to be improved to help new players get the hang of the game faster.
Trailer/First Announcement
Demo Update
New Character (The Seer)
New Dialogues
New cards
War Stories
Bug fixes
Quality of life improvements
You can now play as The Seer
New war story sketches
New dialogue scenes
New characters
New animations
Early Access We’re aiming on releasing an additional map to play on for the Early Access at the end of July 2022. The new map will include new characters as well as new levels and a new boss fight.
New battle room in Area 2
Full Release For the full release, we’re aiming on having 6 maps total. Each map will have new levels and environments that are completely different. We’ll also have new non-player characters and enemies as well as new Revenants for the player to choose from. There will be a more expansive playthrough by giving the player the ability to start from any map in any order. Each playthrough will be different and each death will be connected to the previous run.
Thanks for your support and we hope you enjoy our game,
The Kreationware team.
Kreationware Website: https://kreationware.com
instagram.com/kreationware
Desert Revenant First Dev Broadcast!
Desert Revenant's Demo is finally live, you will be able to play any of the two characters:
The Leper
Born from Chaos, the Leper has complete control over the Shadows and the Plague. With a wide array of Dark spells and dangerous minions, the Leper heeds the voice of the Shade.
The Seer
The Master of Illumination and bringer of wisdom. The Seer harnesses the power of the light, arcane and the void with utmost perfection. With the ability to travel between realms, the Seer goes far beyond the norms of any other Human.
