We're celebrating the end of a banner year here at Thunder Lotus! We welcomed over two million new TLG game owners to the family in 2017, and wanted to thank each and every one of you for your overwhelming support of Jotun and Sundered ! Happy Holidays from all of us here at Thunder Lotus Games to the best damn fans in gaming!
Below, I'm sharing a look back on our last twelve months, but I'd be remiss if I didn't first direct your attention to the Thunder Lotus Collection!
We're happy to report that both Jotun and Sundered are on sale for the Steam Winter Sale, with Sundered enjoying its deepest discount yet at -50%! If you were still on the fence about Sundered, it's a great time to pick it up (and spread the word)!
Do note as well that The Thunder Lotus Collection adds an extra -10% discount on top of that if you purchase our titles together (or are looking to complete your collection!). It's a crazy good deal, yo - worth a share, dontcha think?
This concludes our yuletide PSA. And now...
Our Year In Pictures
We wanted to take a moment to look back on a wonderful (and wonderfully busy) year for our team!
We hit the ground running in January this year, putting the finishing touches on a then-secret Kickstarter project that you should all be quite familiar with by now! Here, Will goofs off with Sam from Compulsion Games during the filming of a Kickstarter promo video:
It was a stellar month: thanks to our awesome fans, we quickly powered through funding milestones throughout the first hours and days of the campaign, and meanwhile, we were declared co-winners of the Ubisoft Indie Series!
Oh, and we caught the eye of one of our heroes.
January also kicked off a series of cross-country trips which brought us first to PAX South in San Antonio.
With our backers' tremendous support, we closed Sundered's Kickstarter campaign in February 800% funded, due in no small part to the surprise announcement of our partnership with the lovely and talented folks at Limited Run Games. (LRG's Doug pictured here with our Art Director at MIX!)
In March, our travels brought us down to the IGN offices, where we were invited to sign their wall of fame, humbled by names of gaming royalty that had come before us.
Later that month, we brought a small Thunder Lotus army down to Boston to greet enthusiastic fans and media at PAX East.
Spring found us bearing down in earnest through the rounds of Sundered’s Alpha and Beta periods, while our resident hand-drawn animation genius’ prodigious output continued unabated.
Our appearance at the sunshiny E3 gigantocon heralded the coming of summer and the last straightaway leading to Sundered’s July release!
By summer, production was rolling a mile a minute, a blur of incessant testing, tweaking, testing, re-tooling, and testing while gorgeous fan art multiplied on the walls of our office.
In July, a Jotun free weekend added two million people (of exquisite taste) to the Thunder Lotus family overnight, and before we could say R'lehshyshtag',Sundered was unleashed upon the world, happily catching the eye of the likes of Rock, Paper, Shotgun (among many others)!
Upon our return from much needed vacation time in the fall, we kept a low profile, working in hushed secrecy on Sundered DLC...
While bringing a new creative director onto the team to head up our “Top Secret!, OMG! That’s so awesome!” third project. (Gonna be a while before we can tell you more - sorry/not sorry for the tease!) ːsteammockingː
Meet Nicolas Guérin, who has that fresh "new creative director" smell!
Much love from all of us here!
That’s all she wrote, folks! Stick a fork in 2017, it’s fully done!
From all of us here, thanks again for helping to make this the best year yet for Thunder Lotus! Stay happy and healthy this holiday season, and we’ll see you in the new year!
Cheers, and much love!
- Rodrigue and the Thunder Lotus Team
08/17/2017 Patch Notes
Fix multiple UI issues
Memory management optimization
New content : Temporary buffs and Backer Rooms
New feature : It's now possible to lower difficulty in-game
New feature : the smash attack now can be rebinded on a different button with a joystick
Various bug fixes and optimizations.
Week 1: Done!
A word of thanks from Sundered's Creative Director.
Wow.
Launch week is over.
As always, it was crazy. There’s nothing like the feeling of jumping off a cliff without a parachute.
And we made it.
We’re thankful for all of you who believed in us and supported us and the game. Thank you all for giving Sundered a chance.
We are extremely proud of the game we created, produced and shipped. I feel the game is unique and challenging and, once you get the hang of it, really fun. I hope Sundered is a game you will remember for a long time.
At launch, we had some hiccups. Some of them due to excessive difficulty. We fixed that almost immediately. We’re experiencing technical difficulties on PS4. We’re fixing them. The game’s first loading is too long. We’re fixing it. Exploration doesn’t have enough variety. We’re fixing that too.
Some of you don’t like the hordes. We’re not changing them. Several of you came in with expectations of a classic Metroidvania. We are sorry for the confusion, but we won’t be changing fundamental game systems. Sundered is what is it is and that’s why we love it and are proud of it.
Looking to the future, you can expect continued support. Be it additional content, bug fixes or quality-of-life improvements. Sundered has tons of potential. Seeing some of you put in over 50 hours into the game within a single week is extremely satisfying and humbling. We know the game isn’t perfect, but we’re fiercely proud of the step up we took from Jotun. And we can’t wait to show you what we’re doing next.
We wish you all the best, and, from everyone here at Thunder Lotus:
Resist or Embrace.
- Will Dubé, President & CEO, Thunder Lotus Games
08/04/2017 Patch Notes
The new patch is live! If you experienced any game breaking issue, I have made the previous patch available through the Steam beta tab. To access it, open the game steam properties, select the beta tab and select previouspatch from the dropdown list. Please let us know if you encounter anything major so that we can fix it ASAP!
08/04/2017 Patch Notes
Fixed T3 perks not dropping from the Cathedral corrupted chests.
Fixed some corrupted chests challenges in the Cathedral.
All monsters will now die when you trigger a miniboss or a story room crystal.
Tweaked spikes color in the first region to be more visible.
Corrupted chests now appear on the map when you have scavenger.
Harvester perk changed. Now reduced armor instead of life.
Shield Absorb values changed from 15/25/35 to 10/15/20.
Various bug fixes and optimizations (sorry loading has not improved yet).
07/31/2017 Patch Notes
Build now 64-bit by default. 32-bit version available through steam beta tab.
Fix issue causing frequent frame drops in the first region.
Fix gamepad binding not being saved properly.
Made endless hordes areas more obvious.
Reduced the duration of Hordes in the first region when running away.
Added anticipation to mage walls.
Rank 2 perks can no longer drop from R1 arena. Rank 3 perks can no longer drop from R2 arenas.
Fix smash attack not working properly when rebinding attack on a gamepad.
Perks are now affected by the magnet after 5 seconds.
Various bug fixes and optimizations.
07/31/2017 Patch Notes
Added pseudo invulnerability time when getting hit by monsters (cap the amount of damage you can take in a time frame after getting hit).
True story! The lovely folks at Gamepedia set up Official Wiki for us! It's pretty bare-bones for the moment, but, with your help, it will grow into a thriving resource for you and your fellow fans! Remember: the wiki belongs to the community - you have the power to edit and moderate it... We leave it in your capable hands - make us proud, folks!
We just wanted to let you know that we're into the last straightaway of Sundered's production, which means we've mapped out all the key dates leading up to the launch date of the game, which we've officially set for [just kidding!].
(Sorry folks - no spoilers! You're going to have to wait just a little while longer before we reveal our launch date!)
For today, we just wanted to thank all our Beta testers once again for participating in Sundered's Closed Beta! We invite you all to keep on fighting through the Beta caverns to your hearts' content, and keep being so generous with your feedback on the Steam forums . But keep in mind that all good things must end, and that access to the Closed Beta will officially end on July 12th.
In other words, all active pre-release Sundered Steam codes (Alpha or Beta) will no longer be functional after that date, in preparation for the launch code rollout.
Feel free to reach out to us if you have any questions!
#ResistOrEmbrace
- Rodrigue and the Thunder Lotus Team
PSA: The Sundered Alpha has evolved into the all-new Beta!
Hey everyone,
Just a quick reminder to all esteemed players of the Sundered Pre-alpha/Alpha, ICYMI: your demo has been automatically updated to the all-new Beta! You'll find that the gameplay has now been transported into the never-before-seen first region of the game, which means brand new underground caverns to explore, and fresh new hordes of eldritch horrors to fight!
We hope you'll give it a look, if you haven't already! And as always, we're seeking your feedback on the new demo, as this marks the crucial phase of development before we bear down for the last push towards our July 2017 release! Let us know what you think in the Steam Forums, please: http://steamcommunity.com/app/535480/discussions/2/
Cheers,
- Rodrigue and the Thunder Lotus Team
The Sundered Closed Beta is LIVE!
Hey everyone,
We're happy to announce that Sundered has officially entered the all-important Beta phase!
Sony graciously unveiled our new Resist trailer on Monday:
While the inimitable Jesse Cox posted an exclusive playthrough:
So if you want in on the Closed Beta party, be sure to sign up to our mailing list here for a chance to win Beta access!
