DemonCrawl News

Hi folks,

We want to know how you feel about the state of DemonCrawl Mastery balance - what changes should we prioritize? Which Masteries should be left as they are? Let us know!

Survey here: https://forms.gle/Vrc3Cgjjrup4ryQB9

Feel free to skip any Masteries you do not have experience with.

We will publish the results of the survey in 2-3 weeks.

Thank you for helping us make DemonCrawl a better game!

Hi folks,

A new update is now available for DemonCrawl! This one includes our Summer Sunset event, the Auramancer mastery, 7 new items, an optional minimap setting, and doggo-themed cosmetics for our Patreon supporters.



At the moment, this update is only available on Windows - we intend to deploy it to the remaining platforms very soon, assuming GameMaker build tool shenanigans have been resolved in the few months since DemonCrawl's previous update.

Full patch notes are available below. Enjoy!

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[h2]Summer Sunset Event[/h2]

• Expanded holiday questline - 10 missions in total
  
• New substage: Getaway - "This hot spot is full of summer activities, but it's REALLY HOT! You're bound to get burned unless you come prepared."
• Lightning bugs are out and about
  
• New summer game: Bugcatching Tournament - "Complete the quest with the best collection of bugs!"
• New summer affliction (omen): Mosquito - "Lose 1 life every 40 turns. Reset this status counter when you leave a stage."
• New summer affliction (omen): Ripped Pants - "Whenever you make a mistake, all visible strangers and familiars flee."
• 5 new summer avatars available in Prizeboxes
  
• New holiday paint: Sundown

[h2]New Features[/h2]

• New patreon rewards: Pugchamp
• New mastery: Auramancer - "Become a master of the elements and bend the earthly realm to your will."
• New magic item: Bank Roll - "[200 Mana] Automatically discharges when you spend coins. Gain the amount of coins spent."
• New passive item: Caliper - "You can see information about locked stages."
• New passive item: Parting Gift - "Whenever a stranger would die, activate his or her effect first."
• New passive item: Auramancer Doll - "Apply random auras to a number of cells equal to triple your mastery charge cost when your mastery ability is activated."
• New consumable item: Pipe Bomb - "Explode target cell. Increase the radius of this item by the number of special stages you have completed."
• Added optional minimap: A new HUD element that displays your position on the game board along with on-screen arrow controls. Particularly useful for mobile players who don't like the standard panning controls. Disabled on desktop by default.
  
• New setting: Allow Standard Panning - "Determines whether you can move the stage using middle mouse button on desktop or touch-and-drag on mobile."
• Mobile: updated a number of extensions related to Google Services and refactored code accordingly

[h2]Quality of Life[/h2]

• Mobile: Updated cloud loading message for clarity

[h2]Bug Fixes[/h2]

• Removed old code that may have caused issues with auras in some cases
  
• Fixed Detective III requiring 101 visible monsters to unlock instead of 100

Hi folks,

Who's ready for an almost-out-of-season Summer event???

That's right - from now until October 1st, you can unlock a bunch of new holiday content in DemonCrawl! More details below:



And don't forget that last year's Summer rewards are back too!

Hi folks,

We are currently looking into issues affecting DemonCrawl on a few platforms - most notably, there appears to be a bug in the latest version of the Steamworks extension for GameMaker that prevents our game from launching on Ubuntu.

We filed a bug report with GameMaker on Monday but have not yet received a response.

While Linux represents a small fraction of DemonCrawl's playerbase, we are nonetheless troubled by the serious nature of this issue. Having depended on GameMaker for many years, we have learned *not* to update our runtimes and extensions right away. We have seen serious bugs crop up even on GameMaker's stable branch. In this case, however, we had an obligation to update our pipeline in order to satisfy new requirements from Apple.

Given that we compile DemonCrawl to 5 different platforms using the same codebase, this puts us between a rock and a hard place. We don't have a simple way to make use of different GameMaker runtimes per OS. Therefore, we have decided the best course of action is to rollback DemonCrawl on Linux to a build from April 14th - this is something we haven't had to do before, but it is working correctly in our test environment. One upshot is that Linux players will get to enjoy/suffer an extended Easter event... 🐰

On a better note, the latest version of GameMaker appears to have fixed launch issues on macOS. We are now able to run the game through Steam on Monterey v12.3.1. If DemonCrawl is still giving you trouble on Mac, please make sure your operating system is up to date and leave a reply here with your system specs so we can investigate further.

One last thing: GameMaker has also replaced a number of important Android features with new extensions (namely AdMob, Google Play Cloud and Achievements). We are in the process of updating our code in accordance with GameMaker's documentation, but we have already identified an issue related to AdMob on iOS that will require GameMaker's attention.

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I realize this was kind of a bummer post, but game dev ain't always sunshine and rainbows, folks. It's important to be transparent about these kinds of problems.

If you want to follow the situation as it unfolds, consider joining us on Discord where we'll post updates as we have them.

We apologize for the inconvenience. Thank you for your continued patience and support. ❤️

- Eric from Therefore Games

Hi folks,

We have just released our annual Easter update for DemonCrawl!

This update includes new holiday missions, over 20 new avatars, a rework for the Lumberjack mastery, and even some content created by talented members of our community. (Consider joining us on Discord if you want to get your own art/ideas into DemonCrawl!)



The full patch notes are available below. Hope you're having a great holiday!

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[h2]Easter Event[/h2]

• Expanded holiday questline - 10 missions in total
  
• 20 new holiday avatars and a new inventory skin to collect
  
• Every quest now has a Chicken Coop substage
  
• New rare egg with a unique set of rewards: Rainbow Egg
  
• Rabbit stranger rework: the rabbit will move whenever you interact with it, and then flee shortly thereafter. Keep interacting with it in rapid succession to prevent it from getting away!
  
• New passive item: Tablet of Yunnub - "Gain an Egg at the end of each stage, and open 10 Eggs at the end of the quest."
• Added alternate Easter stage: Wester
  
• New mythic emblem: Wester Side Story
  
• New seasonal holograph: Eggfall
  
• New holiday music for the Main Menu, Item Shop, Easter stage and Egghead boss

[h2]New Features[/h2]

• New legendary item: Book of Mastery - "Collect hearts at full life to gain a mastery charge." (Suggested by community member ElectroTerra)
  
• New passive item: Spatula - "Whenever you gain a consumable item, you will lose it in 30 turns and gain a more valuable consumable item."
• Added blueprints for around a dozen items
  
• New community avatar: The Glizzy Gangster by ut2004frk
  
• New community avatar: Parakeet by ut2004frk
  
• New community avatar: Demonic Eye by Mrrp
  
• New community avatar: Rat? by Mrrp
  
• New community avatar: Cat With Fish by Polybius1201
  
• New community avatar: Idle Goose by Cubear
  
• New community paint: Pocket Crawl by Cubear
  
• New community paint: NegaBlue by Matthias720

[h2]Balance Changes[/h2]

• Lumberjack II buff: "You can damage your Sawblades at will. Whenever a Sawblade explodes, gain Broken Sawblade."
• Lumberjack III rework: "Spawn a Sawblade, then fully repair your Broken Sawblades."
• Sawblade phasing is now managed with right-click
  
• Rabbit strangers are twice as common as they were last year
  
• Strangers can now drop their respective Medals
  
• Adjusted several item blueprints to make use of the Wire artifact

[h2]Bug Fixes[/h2]

• Fixed a crash related to Mind Gut and Burnt Marshmallow
  
• Speculative fix for a rare crash related to Philosopher's Stone