DemonCrawl News

Hi folks,

We are working hard on the next content patch for DemonCrawl and have decided to extend the Christmas event until the update is ready - it should be done in about a week, on January 9th or so. Can't wait to share it with you!

In the meantime, please enjoy the continued winter festivities. ☃️

Best,
Eric at Therefore Games

Hi folks,

Over the last week, we have patched a number of bugs related to our recent engine optimizations and the GameMaker runtime update. You can read more about these bug fixes below.

v1.82b is available on Windows and will make its way to other platforms over the next 24 hours. Thank you all for your support!

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[h2]Bug Fixes[/h2]

• Fixed an issue related to Hero Trial scoring
  
• Possible fix for a startup crash that occurred when device_id.dat was loaded from another computer
  
• Fixed an issue with game logs accumulating in file size (you may want to delete your old logs manually - they are found at %localappdata%\demoncrawl\logs)
  
• Reduced startup load time related to heavy game logs
  
• Fixed an issue with the "No More Elves" holiday mission
  
• Fixed an issue with the "Milk and Cookies" holiday mission
  
• Fixed a softlock related to the Igloo and disabling the freezeframe effect
  
• Fixed a couple minor typos in the credits
  
• Fixed an issue with Spawner activation not saving to disk properly
  
• Fixed an issue related to music playback when right-clicking the quest difficulty button
  
• Fixed a crash related to the new runtime and cell_position script
  
• Fixed a missing string related to Detective and Mrs. Claus
  
• Fixed a crash related to Igloo and Endless Multiverse
  
• Fixed a couple issues related to Enchanting Rune and targetable consumable items
  
• Fixed Bad Santa sprite
  
• Fixed a number of stage mod issues related to our recent optimization pass
  
• Fixed a minor visual issue related to the restart quest button
  
• Fixed an issue related to Dreamborne and end-of-stage damage effects
  
• Fixed a rare crash related to the "Burn" sigil
  
• Fixed a crash related to popping a boss from a bubble
  
• Fixed "Zone" Hero Trial effect
  
• Igloo can no longer spawn in the Metagate
  
• Text input fields will no longer become deselected by the flag keybind
  
• Speculative fix for a rare crash related to the Psychotic stage mod
  
• Speculative fix for an issue related to the "Mini" Hero Trial effect
  
• Linux: fixed an issue related to an unnecessary dependency

Hi folks,

We just deployed a major update for DemonCrawl!

This patch contains a number of exciting changes, including:

1. Proper gamepad support. Enable "Controller Mode" in the settings and you will be able to navigate through the game and various menus using directional keys. Even if you don't have a gamepad, it's pretty fun to try out "Controller Mode" on a keyboard - though maybe not as practical as a mouse! We have plans to continue improving this feature over time.
   
   
2. Extra keybindings, better keybinding support. Players who rely on their keyboard to open/flag cells no longer have to swap to the mouse to perform inputs in other menus.
   
   
3. Massive performance improvements. We have overhauled many parts of the DemonCrawl engine to great effect. These improvements will be most noticeable in large stages, or on old computers. Depending on your GPU, you might see up to 3-4x increase in FPS while idling in a large stage. Hopefully, we didn't break too many things in the process. 😊
   
   
4. New holiday content. There are 15 Christmas missions this year, a new secret stage called Igloo, and more! Check out our companion post for all the details.
   
   
5. Spawner rework. Sealing an inventory slot to spawn a stranger never felt very fun. Now, you can spawn the stranger for free. However, if you use a spawner too much, it will eventually break, killing all visible strangers of its type.
   

Full patch notes for v1.82 are available below. Enjoy!

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[h2]Christmas Event[/h2]

• Santa's back! Don't get on his bad side
  
• Every quest now has a special Igloo - home to Mrs. Claus
  
• Complete new holiday missions to earn 4 new avatars and a new inventory skin
  
• Expanded holiday questline, 15 in total: you can now complete missions from previous years to earn the original rewards, or tokens if you completed them before
  
• Some of the older holiday missions have been tweaked and rearranged for better flow
  
• Added 3 new avatars to Christmas Prizeboxes
  

[h2]New Features[/h2]

• Added gamepad support
  
• Menus now support the "Open Cell" keybind in place of left click
  
• Menus now support the "Flag Cell" keybind in place of right click
  
• Added setting: Camera Speed - "The speed at which the camera moves from certain effects. Default: 10"
• Added setting: Gamepad Camera Boundary - "The distance in cells from your gamepad cursor to the edge of the screen before the camera follows."
• Added setting: Gamepad Rapidfire Delay - "The amount of time in steps you must hold a direction on your gamepad before the input will auto-repeat. Default: 30"
• Added setting: Gamepad Rapidfire Rate - "The interval in steps between the input auto-repeat. Default: 10"
• Added setting: Gamepad Menu Toggle - "Swaps the gamepad cursor between the stage board and HUD elements."
• Added setting: Zoom In Keybind
  
• Added setting: Zoom Out Keybind
  
• Added alternative keybinds for panning controls
  
• Added setting: Escape Menu Keybind
  
• New consumable item: Milk - "Gain 1 defense. For the next 300 turns, you can powerchord Sanctified cells."

[h2]Quality of Life[/h2]

• Effects that pan the board, e.g. Novice III, will do so in a smoother fashion
  
• Added active state for "play quest" button as requested by the speedrun community
  
• Added blue version of the selector sprite to indicate that it's piloted by the AI (for the Arena or Tutorial)
  
• Optimized script that checks if an object is outside of view - it now applies to nearly all kinds of board objects
  
• Improved cell performance
  
• Improved performance of UI group engine
  
• Improved monster count UI performances
  
• Minor optimizations for UI scrollbar elements
  
• Improved performance of player HUD
  
• Optimized stage creation script
  
• Improved panning performance
  
• Improved cell performance
  
• Improved orb performance
  
• Minor improvements to numeric abbreviation script
  
• Minor optimizations for the script that handles holographic effects
  
• Added error sound effect to certain notifications
  
• Added simple gamepad button images in the Options screen
  
• Updated credits
  
• Minor adjustment to the appearance of text input elements
  
• Updated GameMaker runtime to the latest version

[h2]Balance Changes[/h2]

• Spawner rework: "Spawn [stranger type]. Has a chance to break instead, killing all visible strangers of this type."
• Bubble Solution buff: "Trap all visible objects on numbered cells in bubbles, then restore 1 life for each object trapped this way."
• Pufferfish buff: reduced mana cost from 200 to 160
  
• Binoculars buff: increased the rate of spawning Minions by 25%
  
• Regift nerf: increased the price from 10 to 12 coins

[h2]Bug Fixes[/h2]

• Fixed a rare crash related to dying in a Misty stage
  
• Fixed an issue with hybrid stage skins that was causing the empty cell sprite to load on a much larger surface than necessary
  
• Fixed an issue related to a change in "is_real" behavior in new GameMaker runtime

Hi folks,

Winter is upon us again, and that means Santa is doing Santa things in DemonCrawl!

Turns out a lot of people made it onto his Naughty List in 2021. He's real pissed. Don't ask us why, we're just game developers.

That said, if you donate presents to strangers or slay some monsters, you can keep your morality in good standing - and Santa is definitely into that sort of thing.

Check out all the new DemonCrawl features you can enjoy from now until January 2nd:



In case you're new to DemonCrawl, we should also mention that there's a bunch of Holiday content from 2019 and 2020 that you can experience this year. Check out those posts for more details. It's all there.

Happy Holidays!

Hi folks,

DemonCrawl turned two years old this month!

We are giving everyone a belated birthday avatar to celebrate the occasion:



Simply launch the game to receive your reward. (Note: The cake avatar will become available within a few hours of publishing this post.)

We have also created a new set of birthday-themed cosmetics for our backers on Patreon:



As always, thank you for your support and have an awesome day!