Necrofugitive April 2024 News Update + DEAD MAN'S HAND Launch
Hear ye, hear ye! A Necrofugitive news announcement doth come!
Greetings and salutations, dear friends. This is your friends over at Black Garden Studios with additional news and information about Necrofugitive and the latest other projects from our studio!
First and foremost, we thank you for your continued support over the days, weeks and months, and hope you will continue to enjoy playing the Necrofugitive demo and all it has to offer. As we continue to develop the title, it brings us great joy to hear your feedback and see your content online, be it a playthrough or article related to the game.
As for the game itself, today we are excited to share a new character that you will encounter during your exodus from the realm of your oppressors. Before we get too much into the nitty gritty of it all, it is only fair that we give a small spoiler warning. Those who wish to experience Necrofugitive blind without any external knowledge should skip the following section. With that all said…
A New Enemy Unit Draws Near!
Veteran players of the Necrofugitive demo may already be somewhat familiarized with the morale and fear systems that we have in play. The horrors and chaos of the prisoner’s escape does much to strike fear into the hearts of soldiers just as swiftly as dwindling morale will cause them to turn heel and flee for their lives. Joining the kingdom’s forces is a special unit that knows no fear.
Meet the Paladin.
The Paladin is a special unit type that we have heard mentioned and requested by name across the years from our players, and one that we are excited to finally reveal. As implied by the previous passage, the Paladin’s got a few unique qualities that set him apart from his comrades. First and foremost is an unwavering devotion to his cause. While most units can be scared into submission, the Paladin is unflinching. Conviction and fortitude drive his every move, and that translates into a morale boost for his comrades as well.
In his arsenal, the Paladin employs a great shield that can protect himself and others from harm, allowing him and his allies to advance safely. You’ll find his tenacity to be both inspiring and frustrating to contend with. Please look forward to meeting him in Necrofugitive.
We’ll have more information to share about the title at a later time.
Game Release — DEAD MAN’S HAND: Card Roulette Action Available Now!
For those of you keeping up with our latest updates, you may have heard that Black Garden Studios has been working on another title as well.
DEAD MAN’S HAND: Card Roulette Action is a 2-8 player online multiplayer title that combines Russian roulette with the unpredictable nature of card games. Mixing elements of Steampunk, Dystopian-Cyberpunk and robotic gamblers with revolvers and playing cards, we’re confident that this title will give you and your friends something to talk about.
As mentioned in our previous update, we began working on this game so that its release could help generate additional funding to work on Necrofugitive. That means every single sale brings us that much closer to being able to work on game development full-time.
We will be supporting DEAD MAN’S HAND: Card Roulette Action with free content updates over time depending on the overall sales of the game, so be sure to throw your hat in the ring. If you were looking for a way to support the studio, this is your chance. It costs only $5, so don’t be shy about getting a copy for your friends as well.
That's all for this update! Thanks for reading and continuing to support the team over at Black Garden. We'll be checking in again with more news and announcements in the future, so be sure to stay tuned.
Announcing DEAD MAN'S HAND: Card Roulette Action
As we continue working on Necrofugitive, we find ourselves experimenting with various ideas and concepts that turn out pretty fun on their own. Sometimes, those concepts turn into entirely new creations.
With that in mind, our team is proud to announce the existence of a secret project, and we want you, the community that has been on this journey with us, to take part in it. We’ll be conducting a playtest of a brand new title in the near future, and we want members of this community to be some of the first to get their hands on it.
Introducing DEAD MAN'S HAND: Card Roulette Action
As some of you may know, Necrofugitive is an indie-title without a publisher, and if you’ve been paying attention to the news, the videogame industry is crumbling under the weight of layoffs, losses, and general malaise. Full transparency, making videogames is our passion and dream, but without consistent funding it is hard for our team to work full time on Necrofugitive. In 2023 we met several publishers that were interested in funding our game, but ultimately many of them suffered the same problem— they no longer had the kind of money needed to take on new projects like ours. Now that we finally see the truth of the matter in the news, with studios being shut down and major brands posting unprecedented losses, we finally know why.
Rather than let ourselves be held back by the industry’s problems, we have decided to take matters into our own hands.
We have created a brand new game.
Once this new project is released, we are eagerly hoping to see sales help us fund the continued development of Necrofugitive and allow our team to transition to full-time game development. With that being said, we want you, the members of our community, to be the first people to try it out with our first ever play-test.
Players will be able to sign up for the play test period through Steam in the near future, so please stay tuned for our next announcement.
When will the new project be released? You won’t be waiting long. We’ll be releasing the new game on April 8th, 2024 at high noon during the solar eclipse. Please look forward to it!
What does this mean for Necrofugitive? Worry not, dear friends. Necrofugitive is still in development. In fact, the more success we have with the new title, the faster we’ll be able to get Necrofugitive made. Players will not only get to help us fund Necrofugitive, but they’ll also get a fun new game in the process.
Tracking hounds have been added to the demo. You can find them in the forest searching for you after an alarm has gone off. It is possible to shapeshift into one of the dogs. Try barking at a guard to get him to follow you or open a door for you. Guards may find it suspicious that a dog knows how to open and close doors.
Guards can also now become suspicious of each other and even attack each other if provoked. See if you can start a fight among them about who the real traitor is!
Necrofugitive Demo Update!
Hear ye, hear ye! A new update for the Necrofugitive Demo has arrived!
Over the past month the Necrofugitive team stealth dropped a new build of our vertical slice pre-alpha demo. This update features balance adjustments, new abilities, and a handful of fun and unexpected surprises.
We have been paying close attention to your continued feedback across various platforms and through our feedback tool within the demo build itself. Based on this feedback, adjustments have been made to various attributes of the game in relation to resource management such as health and stamina, hit detection on corners and ledges, enemy placement, and overall game balance.
Another note we would like to share with players is that our enemies do not share a single mind. What that means is, being detected by one does not mean others will know you are there. Only when the alarms are raised will enemies across the map react to your presence. Being detected does not mean you are no longer able to hide, especially if you make the enemies who noticed you disappear before they could spread the word. This intelligent AI is one of our most notable features, so we hope you’ll keep it in mind as you play.
Now that we’ve covered the basics, let’s talk about some specific new features now found in the demo!
=New Abilities= Prisoner Tree - Slide Tackle Knock your foes to the ground and lower your profile to slide by oncoming obstacles and closing gates.
Prisoner Tree - Rift Tendril A powerful trap that sprouts tendrils from the underworld to ambush enemies. The tendril assimilates those who perish near it and converts their flesh into consumable health.
Monster Tree - Leviathan Form An eldritch nightmare given form! Grow tendrils from your back that whip and punish your foes.
=Updated Abilities= Prisoner Tree - Doppelganger Spawn a living copy of yourself to fight by your side and distract your enemies. The copy may now be reintegrated into your flesh by approaching and pressing the assigned button.
Prisoner Tree - Tendril Yank The tendril yank now has grappling hook properties. Sling your way across the map by latching onto environments and ledges to expand your mobility! As always, the ability can also latch onto enemies and give them a yank.
=Saved Progress - Demo Save File=
Players who wish to fight on with their current effort through the three stages of our demo can now select Continue from the main menu when starting their session. This will place you at the start of the stage you last reached and retains the skills you purchased after clearing previous levels.
=General Tips= For those struggling to overcome your playthrough of the demo, we have some additional tips to help you along.
Remember the Goal - ESCAPE! Your main objective will always be displayed at the top of the screen. Unless otherwise indicated, that objective is always one thing: ESCAPE. Standing and fighting is not always the solution. Sometimes, it is best to simply keep moving and flee before you are slain.
Try a New Build As detailed above, there are many combinations of builds you can make with your skill points. If your current build is not cutting it, return to the main menu and restart the demo.
Patience is a Virtue Guards move in various patterns and formations. Wait for the right moment to strike- or not strike- before making your move.
Keep An Eye On Your Meters Disguises break when you’re out of Stamina. Don’t let that happen in front of guards. Armor is the only thing keeping your health from dropping on hit, so keep it active! Remember that your abilities are tied to your Energy and Stamina, don’t be stuck without any when you need it. Keep an eye on your meters!
=Player Expression - Discover Your Build!=
Necrofugitive is all about forging your own path and overcoming the challenges in your own way. There is no single definitive way to clear these challenges, leaving room for player expression and freedom at the forefront of the gameplay experience. If you find that your current build is not up to the task, we suggest a fresh restart of the demo so you can re-assign your skill points into new combinations.
Some powerful examples of some existing builds include:
Hunter-Stalker Focus all of your skill points on the prisoner’s stealth and agility trees to create a fast moving, highly lethal, and most of all, highly evasive prisoner that can weave through enemy formations and take out chosen targets.
Monster Madness Focus your skill points on abilities pertaining to summoning ravagers on the monster form skill tree. As your own army grows, face down your foes man to man and overwhelm them.
The Juggernaut High AP and armor regeneration skill nodes are the key to this build. With constant resource generation on hit along with the Mass Assimilation ability, turn your monster form into an unkillable tyrant.
Tendril Base Builder Lure unsuspecting foes into a fortified nightmare as you lay down several Tendril Rifts and guide them to their doom. The tendrils serve as both ramparts and murder mills as they passively provide health pickups. Compound this with abilities such as Tendril Lash and Tendril Yank to whip and pull your foes to their end.
Me, Myself and I Rely on your Doppelganger as an extension of your main assault arsenal and always keep a friend nearby. Deadly positioning will leave your enemies at your mercy, while shapeshifting allows you to escape as your copy takes their focus.
= A Dog Eat Dog World =
Thank you to everyone for your continued support of Necrofugitive. Our team remains hard at work every week to bring the game closer to our shared vision, and
As a final treat for the season, we’re excited to share one final update. We are pleased to announce that we are finally letting the dogs out— the Hound enemy type is almost ready to bare its fangs! Keep an eye out for it in the next few days; it will certainly be keeping its eyes out for you.
That’s all for now! Stay tuned for further updates in the coming months, and as always, keep on running!
—Team Necro
Necrofugitive Developer Livestream - Steam Next Fest
This Saturday and Sunday we will be live streaming gameplay for Steam Next Fest to talk, answer questions, and hang out all while playing Necrofugitive! Come join the fun!
If you'd like to keep up to date with development, you can join our Discord!
Necrofugitive Developer Broadcast - Steam Next Fest
This Saturday and Sunday we will be live streaming gameplay for Steam Next Fest to talk, answer questions, and hang out all while playing Necrofugitive! Come join the fun!
If you'd like to keep up to date with development, you can join our Discord!
2022 Necrofugitive Demo Now Live!
Hello everyone!
I have some exciting news to share! A little over a year ago, we released a combat and stealth demo in order to gather feedback about how we should proceed. I'm happy to share that once again that we have finished a vastly new and improved demo, which you can download from our store page. This demo features a full 3-stage campaign, a customizable skill tree, improved AI and bug fixing, voice acting, a new soundtrack, a slew of combat and stealth improvements, and more!
This is our last demo we will release before releasing the full game on Steam and other platforms. This demo will always be available, primarily because feedback is valuable! If you played the demo and want to send us your thoughts, we've set up a survey for your convenience.
Additionally, Necrofugitive is currently being featured in Steam Next Fest until October 10th. This means we will be broadcasting gameplay and commentary over the week so we can explain more about Necrofugitive and how development is going! See you all soon!
Team Black Garden
Necrofugitive Stealth Demo is Now Available!
We've finished a brand new stealth demo, loaded with a slew of new gameplay mechanics and a new stage featuring a prison fortress swarming with armed patrols. New abilities have been added, most notably the ability to assimilate and shapeshift into enemy soldiers! Can you outwit your enemies, escape Havenhold Prison, and secure your freedom?
A full list of included features:
Assimilate and Shapeshift: absorb enemy corpses and disguise yourself as one of them!
Execute: a new heavy attack that can instantly kill enemies knocked down!
New Seek and Destroy AI: AI soldiers have been reworked to hunt you down based on sound cues, line of sight, illumination, guard voices, and alarms.
Stealth Kills: the prisoner can now instantly kill unaware guards with a deadly backstab
Wardens: A new enemy type, Wardens are imposing and dangerous enemy type that carry lanterns and crossbows, fully capable of taking you on in a one-on-one fight. Be extremely cautious around them!
Havenhold Prison: an expansive new stage featuring a ruined fortress converted into a prison
Don't forget to join us on Twitter and Discord to keep up to date with more development news!
We've just released an update for our combat demo that addresses the mountain of feedback we received during round one. This includes improved combat mechanics and a new 10 wave survival gamemode (along with a secret ending for those that manage to complete it!)
You can check out the update log on the itch.io devlog or our discord channel. We hope you enjoy our new and improved version of Necrofugitive! Don't forget to provide feeback!
Necrofugitive Combat Demo is Live!
We have finished our first demo for Necrofugitive, which you can play here: https://blackgardenstudios.itch.io/necrofugitive-demo
This demo is a combat demo which focuses on showcasing combat mechanics. This demo features two stages to play on. Your job is to simply survive the onslaught of enemies as long as possible! We hope you enjoy our first prototype of Necrofugitive, and don't forget that we want your feedback!
Join our Discord if you wanna chat about feedback directly!
