Hi guys, thank you for all your support, we really appreciate it. Because our 1.0 launch was a success, we're going to continue working on the game non-stop!
Let me explain our priorities. First, we want to fix all the new bugs of course, especially some game breaking ones. These are super rare, but they still happen, so we're trying to figure out what's going on. If you encountered some of those, please let us know about the circumstances, this would help to nail them down. Then, we'll try to improve the gameplay.
So, things we're gonna improve next:
Firstly, Inventory management seems a bit wonky, so we'll try to fix that. We had some suggestions it should be drag&drop, but that wouldn't solve anything for controller players.
Secondly, there's gonna be a huge patch regarding hero Perks - which are upgrades you get on level up. For some reason not all are included right now, and plus we're adding some more. Also, there was a system to bind certain perks to certain characters, this is gonna be removed for now.
Local Coop is a huge consideration, but that's a huge chunk of work. We'll see how things are going.
I'm going to go and review each item to see if there's something standing out - i.e. it is useless, overpowered, or just boring.
Thanks again everyone! Stay Hard! :)
Release 1.0 !
Hi everyone, finally after all these years we are finally satisfied with the state of the game, and ready to release 1.0 version. The release date is tomorrow, July 20th, 2023. We're also releasing on Nintendo Switch if that's what you've been waiting.
There's still a number of possible features missing, but its a fully playable deep games where you can spend 100s of hours unlocking stuff and discovering new items, monsters, guns.
Here's some of the changes since the last update:
Completely reworked how your run progresses in difficulty. You can take much more damage on earlier stages, but reaching to the end can be tricky.
Reworked universes (basic difficulty setting) to be more balanced in terms of difficulty and fun.
Finalized all the artwork on guns at all possible angles (we manually draw 16 angle positions for each enemy)
Hundreds of small tweaks here and there.
Improved localization subsystem, there's still only two languages but we're working right now on adding German, French and Spanish in the next few weeks.
The game's most extraordinary feature is this: nobody actually knows about it. It's a most extreme case of a "Hidden Gem". So if it's in your power to make it "less hidden", i.e. you know some influencer or are one yourself, any help would be highly appreciated.
Good luck you guys, and thanks for all these years in Early Access. We're not stopping the development, however the progress will wholly depend on sales.
Regarding State of the Game
Hello guys, so there's been a lot of discussion (not really, because our community is very small, but I still feel obliged to point out a few things) on the future of the game now that we announced another game in development (It's called Doomsday Fodder and you probably missed due to how Steam organizes announcements), so I will try to clarify a few things here.
Let me begin with the fact that it's been more than 8 years since we have started the game. It's been a long road that cost us a lot of hardship, health issues, relationships, burnouts, depression, and so on. This is ok, that's life and it goes on. There's been a em.. "Conflict" in our country (Russia) which you might have heard of, this didn't help either, and it's going on for a year now. Yeah I know, you don't wanna hear about it.
The game was in Early Access for almost 3 years now. I wish it had gone better, but the harsh reality is that it didn't. There might have been faults on our side communicating all that stuff to you, but the truth is that we tried our best to fix the game so that it would be as perfect as it can be. And well, if we failed then we did fail -- but I personally believe its in a decent state now. We didn't want to publish all the changes right away and leave nothing for actual 1.0 "out of early access release", so it's currently locked in BETA BRANCH, but you can go ahead and look there.
There are major issues with the game which cannot be fixed at this point. Isometry sounds like a cool gimmick that would interest people, but we cannot do anything with the fact that it makes harder to aim, and we didn't want to dumb it down to autoaim like Hades did (which did it fantastically btw). There are many design decisions that feel weak now 8 years later, but back then we didn't know better and there weren't many examples - in fact there were almost zero gun-heavy 2d roguelikes when we started. And now that the game is complete, changing things like that mean months of heavy work. I didn't like how Special Weapons work, so I tried to redesign it several times. Same for Skills. Unlocks. Difficulty balance. Universes. Anomalies. Minigames. Those things literally took years to fix, and while I see change I'm not sure it was worth it.
I still don't know if there's a roguelike shooter on a market as heavily filled with different mechanics and stuff (can be good or bad depending on your perspective). We have literally hundreds of unique monsters (around 200 maybe? IDK). I know games that have 6. Hades literally had around 6 or 7 when it first launched into EA. We have hundreds of guns. Hundreds of items. I think we did a pretty decent job. There's like a gazillion things that can be done to improve it, but the problem is - we don't have enough manpower.
I will eventually try to make a way for you guys to edit stuff - add levels, change variables on guns and items, stuff like that. But are you really invested in trying that?
So, in the end, the game is ready to be launched in 1.0. And will be available on Switch, Xbox and possibly that other console, we're currently in the process of doing some optimization to run a smooth 60 FPS on Switch and it's going great.
And if that goes well, the game will be developed further. I will try to fix all the issues, add new stuff, make balance better and we might do some DLCs even. Of course that's heavily dependent of game's success. I STILL HAVE NO IDEA HOW TO MAKE MEDIA INTERESTED, but wish us luck. Or don't. Have a nice day.
Announcing Doomsday Fodder - a new game in Doomsday Hunter universe!
We are now happy to announce the development of another game, this time a SQUAD-BASED roguelike survival with huge emphasis on autochess-style upgrades, synergies and cool combos! This time we'll be making 30 heroes and each one of them will have his own personal upgrade tree, so you could experiment endlessly with different builds and items and guns and spells.
You can try the demo right now and give us feedback on how to improve it: we're very passionate about this one, it's really addicting, I promise!
And of course we're not forgetting the Doomsday Hunters. it's currently feature complete and is overgoing final testings for PC and Switch, so get ready for 1.0! You can switch to Beta Branch to see what we've been cooking, there's a lot of big changes here and there. Unfortunately, we weren't able to implement some of the features we wanted, so that will continue after the initial release.
Hi everyone, here's a next update. So, you asked for it and so we listened: you can once again obtain classes before the fight - look on the first island. We also hopefully fixed a number of nasty bugs. But most importantly, we have finished adding all the guns we planned for this game with all the graphics including all 16-sided rotations (huge work!). Peace!
Update 14
Hey guys, here's finally an update we postponed due to sad events in Ukraine. We feel quite depressed about this whole situation so I won't be trying to express my happiness which I have none. Still, the work is going on albeit slowly.
This update has two major new things: another playable character and some meta progression tree.
Update 13: Getting Close!
Hey folks, buckle up: new update is finally here! There's no extra content this time, but we put a lot of work into making everything more polished and perfected.
So, full list of changes:
Completely new "Extra" panel with many more extra options to spice up your run.
You can now re-equip weapons directly from your inventory.
All starting weapons are now weaker. Replace them sooner!
DPS calculations were completely wrong and didn't account for modifiers, this should be fixed now. It still is not perfect, so you should not rely on this number alone. Try before you scrap!
Classes have been moved to your first ship after completing world 1.
Underground and Hell areas will now contain unlocks for items, weapons, alientechs and skills. They also cost some ancient coins to unlock, but you will not die if you fail. Also, these fights should now be significantly harder. Basically, you will no longer be purchasing these unlocks from the hub area, instead you need to fight for them.
Fixed many bugs that happened on your first run.
Slayer Achievement should now work as intended.
Special weapons should be more consistent (rebalanced a bit).
Fixed even more bugs.
Let's go!
Meet Doomsday Hunters and new new stuff!
Hello guys, it's been a while since we posted some news, sorry about that! This changes now, since we have a lot to talk about. We have decided to make a big shift and rename I, Dracula: Genesis. As you have probably got used to an older name, we believe that change is for the best since it much better characterizes what the game is about. Also, we finally decided to make our big mega update available on a main branch. The changes are HUGE since we never stopped working on it, only updating the beta branch.
Let me try to reveal some of the bigger ones:
New heroes with some cool new abilities.
Universes completely rebuilt from grounds up, making difficulty much less of a concern on lower stages, but still providing a plenty of challenge to experienced players. There's now 6 universes overall.
Removed many hazards on early stages and reworked many individual islands.
Reworked most skills.
Reworked many weapons, added missing artwork.
Reworked how Special Weapon work: You only get one charge at most, but the charge fades with time. However it will not fade below one full charge once you obtain it.
Reworked how metal boxes open: you need keys now.
Unlock system have also been reworked, but it's not finished yet.
Reworked how upgrades and weapon slots work: you can no longer install more that one but this can be upgraded between levels.
Inventory: Store up to 6 items/weapons for future use.
Adapted game palette to be little better on your eyes.
So much more we don't even remember about - test and discover it yourself. Basically it's a new game with old graphics if you never tried Beta.
We are aiming for full release in the beginning of Year 2022.
I, Dracula Genesis: Update 11 Story On!
Hey guys, it's been a little while since the last update, but that doesn't mean we rested - it just means we needed some time to work on internal systems - primarily, a localization. We have now added Russian language, but it will probably take a little before we start adding more, because we're planning some big changes and that would require rewriting all texts in all languages.
So, full list of changes:
Story intro!
Changed how screenshake effect works (you might want to tune down screenshake in options)
Added option to disable gamepad vibration
Reworked many Curses and added new ones
All weapon drops now come with full ammo. Changed how Preloaded trait works
Reworked how Skills work (experimental): There's no longer "free" skills, they all cost mana, but your mana is replenished whenever fight ends
Most Skills are now unlocked by default
Arman's Jump improved
No more bad gun modifiers (Heavy, Antique, Damaged, Inaccurate, etc)
Aim assist settings, can also be turned on for mouse ("easy mode")
