Dungeon Alchemist News

Hi everyone!

With winter (almost) behind us, it's time to focus on the future, and as you all know, the future is SCORCHING HOT! And our "Everything Is Lava" update is here to bring that heat to your next roleplaying campaign!

This update comes with two new terrain types (Caves and Skeletal Plains), hundreds of new objects, free vertical movement, pits, a newspaper and much, much more.

Check out the trailer below for an overview:

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]




The biggest feature of this update is the long-awaited addition of caves! For starters, we added a dedicated cave biome, along with multiple elevation settings such as labyrinth, burrow, ridge and tunnel, as well as multiple vegetation settings such as glowing mushrooms and crystals.

But we didn't stop there! We also added cave support to all existing terrain types! You can go to the Cave Tab in the terrain menu and draw a cave area on any terrain. This will raise the terrain to max level and will allow you to carve a cave out of this area. This allows you to make a forest with a small cave on the side, for example.

A cave in the snow terrain type

Finally, as a bonus, we also added a new Skeletal Plains terrain type:

Someone took a wrong turn




Organic rooms are a new AI room type that is used by default in the Caves terrain type, but can also be used in other terrain types.

Organic rooms will not spawn any walls or floors, and will follow the shape of the terrain. They will not flatten the terrain, and will place objects against natural walls such as the walls of the cave or the edge of a ravine.

An organic dissection room in a cave




When we launched our Steam Workshop, we would never have guessed that so many people would start uploading incredible creations. With almost 3k maps uploaded after half a year, it gets increasingly harder for new maps to get noticed.

That's why we launched the Cartomancer Chronicles, a newspaper for Dungeon Alchemist that will put a spotlight on community creations that deserve it. Every week, we'll handpick our favourite new map of the week and let people know about it. We'll also feature the .DAM challenge in the newspaper. Finally, it'll also contain tips & tricks, announcements of any kind and other cool stuff! A new edition will be released every Monday, and you can read it right from within Dungeon Alchemist!

Be sure to press that Like Button below the map of the week to show your support for the incredible efforts of our community!






We added a new room type called pits to Dungeon Alchemist. Pits are rooms that lie below zero and that allow you to add some height differences to your maps until we add full-fledged support for rooms on multiple levels.

A small hamlet with a canal flowing through




As usual, we added several quality-of-life improvements, some eagerly awaited by a lot of our users:

• You can now override the vertical position of any object by turning collisions off in the object menu and then using the vertical arrow to place the object on any height. Ultimate freedom of movement is finally at your fingertips!
  
• You can copy & paste the configured properties of an object (for example, light color or open/closed door) by selecting it and clicking Edit > Copy Object Properties or hitting Ctrl+C. You can then paste these properties in a wide area, which will result in all objects getting the same settings. No more turning off all lights manually!
  
• Bridges, huts and other large objects will now level the terrain and remove objects below them, making them much easier to place. You no longer have to painstakingly match the terrain height on either side of the bridge, as we'll do it automatically for you.
  
• Some objects such as the new rails and pipes will now snap to each other, making it very easy to construct connected rail paths or sewers. Some older objects such as the modular bridge parts will do this as well!
  
• Added functionality to easily hide the grid from the View Menu.
  
• Added functionality to disable all nature animations from the View Menu.
  

We created a Wiki to collect info and know-how about Dungeon Alchemist. Our goal is to make it the go-to place for any info about Dungeon Alchemist, including lesser-known functionality and tips & tricks. Until now, most of this has been shared on our Discord, but not everyone uses Discord and we want to share this knowledge with our wider community.

Wiki's are a community effort, so we will not be building all of it on our own - we're counting on industrious fans to give us a helping hand! If you feel up for it, go ahead and expand the wiki with anything you might know about our app.




This update came much faster than the previous one, and this was because a lot of the effort was already done behind the scenes during the development of the Winter Wonderland update. We're very happy that we can finally say that one of the most-requested features from the start (caves) is now properly supported by our app.

But what's next? We still have a bunch of stretch goals to finish. If you want to be the first to know what's coming up, join our Discord, as we'll be posting teasers there as soon as we're ready.

Until then, enjoy your caves and skeletal plains, and be sure to submit your map for the next .DAM Challenge for a chance to get featured in the Cartomancer Chronicles!

Yours in Cartomancy,
The Dungeon Alchemist Team

Hello everyone!

We've just launched the Winter Wonderland update to all our users. Whether you want to trek across vast ice fields in the north, scale snowy mountaintops or explore that haunted forest that suddenly froze overnight: we've got you covered!

The Winter Wonderland update comes with a new snow terrain type, a snow weather effect that can be applied to all your existing maps, 584 new objects, a video export feature, special effects and tons of other quality-of-life improvements. As a bonus, we overhauled the entire AI to produce much, much better results. We'll walk you through them in this update, but first: the trailer!

[previewyoutube][INSERT TRAILER][/previewyoutube]




You can now pick "snow" as a terrain type when creating your map. But that is not all: you can also add a snow overlay to any map you create. The snow overlay will cover any outside objects in a thick layer of snow, for that ultimate winter look! You can even apply the snow effect to your existing maps!






You can now export a 30s looped video of your map! This will greatly increase immersion as your players will be able to travel across flowing rivers, water wheels and forests full of gently swaying trees. Check out the video below for an example of a video export.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]


Special Effects
A long-requested feature is the ability to add special effects to the maps. And now you can! Add fire, smoke, fireflies, necrotic fog or other exotic effects and really personalize your world. And of course, use video export afterwards to show them to your players in fully animated glory!






Previously, only standard water was available in Dungeon Alchemist. No longer! We added frozen water, muddy water, lava and more! You can even combine them on the same map.






We added a set of fully customisable abstract shapes, that allow you to add any texture to them. This is an easy way to create a wall that is not available yet, or that specific floor tile you really wanted. If you get creative, you could build entire rooms out of your own customised objects!






We've been aware for a while that the AI was lacking in certain parts and could be greatly improved. So we spent a lot of time looking at its shortcomings and trying to remedy them. The AI is not perfect yet, but we do think it's improved greatly.

We rewrote almost every aspect of the AI-system, but these are some things you will immediately notice when generating a new room:

• Doors are placed more logically. They are centered when it makes sense, and doors will be larger for larger rooms. We also added logic to discern "front doors" and doors between interior rooms.
  
• Windows are much less random and more symmetric. The type of window is also matched to the wall it spawns in for a more consistent look.
  
• Walls of adjacent rooms try to match each other. The outside wall of a building remains the same, even when the interior one changes. See-through walls such as dungeon cell walls now only spawn where they logically would, even when you place a dungeon cell inside of or next to an existing room.
  
• Columns now only spawn for larger rooms and always spawn in a logical way relative to the room layout.
  
• Structured rooms such as chapels and throne rooms now generate in a much more appropriate way, resulting in far more structured, sensible room placements.
  
• Objects that should spawn logically in the center of the room will now do so. Same for objects that should spawn logically on the opposite side of the door, such as thrones.
  
• Objects that usually exist in a specific layout (for example, church benches) will now always spawn that way.
  
• Lots of subtle less noticeable improvements to the way objects spawn in relation to each other.
  

There are quite a few other improvements in this update. You can always find all of them in the Help > News screen in Dungeon Alchemist, but we'll summarize the most important ones here:

• A tooltip now appears when you draw a room to indicate how large the room is. You can also see the map size when hovering over the corners of the map.
  
• Added AI settings to the refresh button in the Select Room menu, allowing you to refresh only the objects, for example.
  
• Improved the search to show more relevant search results on top.
  
• We added a freely placeable version of every wall (previously, there was only one type).
  
• Improved the looks of the trees and added subtle animations to them. Especially the broadleaf trees received a considerable quality upgrade.
  

This update was postponed a few times because we underestimated the time it would take to overhaul the AI. We understand that this can be frustrating to people, but we've always tried to keep a high standard with regards to our updates. We only want to release a stable, fully featured update when it's completely finished. That's why we'd rather postpone an update than release a half-finished part of it.
We'll try to be more careful about announcing features too early for the next update, so that we won't have to postpone another update in the future.

When we're ready, we'll be announcing more info and sharing updates about our progress on our Discord, Reddit and Twitter account. Follow us there for weekly teasers, videos and awesome content!

Yours in cartomancy,
The Dungeon Alchemist Team

If your next campaign takes place in the desolate wastelands of the desert, the harsh beauty of the badlands or in a bustling oasis outpost, you're in luck, because we just released 2 new terrain types, 423 new objects and 10 AI categories that will suit your setting perfectly!

But that's not all. As usual, we have also added a bunch of new features and quality-of-life improvements to Dungeon Alchemist. Let's go over them now!

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]




We added support for Steam Workshop to the app. Share your lovingly crafted maps with the whole world, and download the best work of other people to use in your campaigns! We have integrated the workshop completely in Dungeon Alchemist, allowing you to browse, publish and rate maps from within the app.

Pulling together a campaign or quickly finding an awesome map when your party wanders off *again* has never been easier!






We have added a Token Menu! You can now place tokens on your map and move them around. You get 15 free tokens courtesy of Hero Forge, and 5 more if you create a free Hero Forge account and link it with Dungeon Alchemist. Once you link your account to Dungeon Alchemist, you can also import your Hero Forge 3D digital miniatures straight into Dungeon Alchemist! It only takes a few seconds to set up, and you're good to go!






We have added two new ways to explore your maps and share them with the world.

The first one is Cinematic Mode - just click the camera icon in the top right to activate it! Cinematic Mode allows you to fly around the map freely and take screenshots or record videos. This is a great and convenient way to make close-up images of your maps to show to your players during play, to give them a better idea of their environment.

Additionally, you can dive into any token's point of view by clicking on the eye icon when you select it. This allows you to walk around the map as if you're in a first person shooter! Interact with objects such as doors and lights by clicking on them, and experience the art of Dungeon Alchemist as you've never seen it before!






Good ol' regular colours a bit too plain for you? Recolour hundreds of objects to create the look you want.






We've added a lot of other stuff as well:

• Tons of object brushes that allow you to quickly paint pillows, candles, ruins, ...
  
• A hexagonal grid setting
  
• A strength slider for terrain brushes, so you can raise/lower/paint terrain faster
  
• A favourites system that allows you to record your favourite objects for reference later
  
• AI configuration options - you can now choose which parts of the room you want to have the AI generate
  
• A "Hide all UI"-button in the View menu, for when you want to have a fully immersive experience
  
• Get the name of an object by clicking on it and hovering over the Copy icon
  

Phew, that was a lot! But of course, we're not done yet. Check out the News menu in the app (accessible from the top menu Help > News) to read all the other changes and bugfixes.

As for our next update - we'll be giving the AI a long-overdue overhaul, and of course we'll be adding more objects and themes. If you want to be kept up to date on what's coming, join our Discord for weekly updates!

Yours in cartomancy,
The Dungeon Alchemist Team

Hey everyone!

It's been 2 months since release, and we just launched our first free update! This update contains 462 new objects and a buttload of new features, as well as a jungle theme! You can find a full list of the changes in the News page in the app after updating, but in this post we'll highlight some of the coolest new things.

For starters, here's a trailer video:

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]



We already had forest and grasslands, but now we have added a third theme: jungle. Explore an ancient temple deep in the jungle, or discover an abandoned, overgrown town on the outskirts of civilization. Time to bring out your inner Indiana Jones!






A much requested feature, you can now paint families of objects on the terrain, allowing you to place down a forest in a matter of seconds. Alternatively, you could place down hundreds of pots and confuse the hell out of your players.






We added a bunch of stackable objects that allow you to get creative and build vertical structures. You can stack them, add lights to them, put stuff on them and they even export to your VTT with correct line-of-sight!








You can now turn off collisions for objects, so you can place them freely wherever you want: in the walls, in trees, even in each other! And you can highlight your Frankenstein creation with haunting, weirdly colored lights. Time to get freaky!






When you create a new map, you can now choose at which height you want your rooms to spawn, so you can now create an abandoned hovel on top of a mountain range. And if you're unhappy with the surroundings, just go to the terrain menu and generate another terrain on the fly! You can even expand the map now by dragging the corners of the map.








We try to listen to the community as much as possible to gauge what your needs are and what things you are most looking forward to. To organize and structure community suggestions, we released an Upvoty board where people can vote for their most needed features and themes. We also moved our roadmap to Upvoty, so you can see what we're working on and what's coming up next.
Feel free to post your ideas for Dungeon Alchemist. We'll definitely be reading them!


We'll continue working on the remaining stretch goals promised during our crowdfunding over the coming months. You can expect tons of new content and features soon! And just like this update, they'll be released for free to owners of Dungeon Alchemist.

In the meantime: if you like what we're doing, please tell your friends about Dungeon Alchemist and share your maps on Steam, Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, … We love to see your creations!

Hi everyone! Welcome to all new users of Dungeon Alchemist, and welcome back to our beta testers. It's been a month since release, so time for an update on the state of Dungeon Alchemist!


Our release went great! We are currently rated "Very Positive" on Steam and we are seeing a ton of user-created content pop up on Twitter, YouTube and other channels. We even hit the top 5 of best selling apps on Steam for a few hours. It's so great to see people enjoying the thing we worked on so hard for over a year!

For the last couple of weeks, we prioritized answering support questions from our users and fixing a number of issues (mostly with Mac and Linux versions). With these out of the way, we're now back full-force on feature and content development.

"Abandoned Ruins" is the next big content update to look forward to, and we have a lot of other cool stuff in the pipeline as well. In the meantime, you can really help us by leaving a review if you like the app.


With our Kickstarter and Gamefound campaigns finished and the app released as Early Access on Steam, we are entering a new phase of development. We will no longer be communicating through Kickstarter and Gamefound, since we won't be reaching all of our users that way. Instead, the in-app news page will be the main source of communication with the community. We will also be posting these updates on our Steam Page, website and Discord server.


Some people contacted us regarding performance issues on Mac. This patch will greatly improve performance on your system, but if you are still struggling with running Dungeon Alchemist on your Mac, please follow these instructions:

• Lower the resolution to about 2/3 of the maximum using the File > Settings menu.
  
• Set the Graphics Quality to Medium in the same menu.
  

These changes, combined with the improved performance in this patch, should make Dungeon Alchemist run smoothly on most Macs from 2017 or newer.

• Improve performance on all devices by 20% or more.
  
• Improve performance on Macs even further.
  
• Fixed saving/exporting on Linux systems: the files are now saved with the correct extension.
  
• If you have a very low resolution and your UI scale is high, you could get stuck because the Settings window and File buttons are not clickable anymore. This is fixed now, and you should be able to always change the resolution again.
  
• Changed this news page to work on smaller resolutions.
  
• Fixed issue with people getting stuck halfway the tutorial.
  

We're looking forward to sharing new content with you soon. If you're curious what's coming up next, you should join our Discord server and check out the #official-content channel. We regularly post sneak previews of new content and features there.

In the meantime, enjoy Dungeon Alchemist!