Dome Keeper News

We have news from the Guild Council for you, Keepers! It is our pleasure to announce that the 2.5 Re-Assessor Update is coming to Dome Keeper in the first week of May! So get ready to re-assess the Assessor.

This update focuses first and foremost on improving gameplay for the Assessor. While the Assessor is a powerful keeper on paper, gameplay wise there has been a lot of room for improvement. We’ve overhauled it completely, making it stronger and much more fluent and fun to play, while staying true to the original idea and what was interesting about it. More on that in an upcoming dev blog purely focused on this topic!

This update will also feature a new Prestige Mode variant for those of you who enjoy the challenge: Prestige Pro Mode. Once you’ve gotten the High Score Achievement, Prestige Pro Mode gets unlocked.

Prestige Pro Mode is not its own mode, but provides more options to your prestige runs. You can choose a preset order of gadgets that you'll encounter and caves, so you never have to restart your runs because you didn’t meet the caves or gadgets you wanted.

No more hoping for the seed cave, decide your own future!

The best of you also had the luxury problem of having the mine completely dug out and then waiting for monsters for 20 cycles. To eliminate this idle time, you also get access to an additional upgrade that lowers the cycle length in steps, down to a few seconds. This should make the waiting time in between waves disappear, if you like. Oh, and speaking of Prestige Mode, with this patch we’re also starting season 4!

Making the monsters angry.

In addition to the Assessor rework and Prestige Mode Pro, we are of course also including various other fixes and tweaks like for example having the Leaderboards accessible right from the title screen and the skies being different in the landing intro depending on which world you are in. We are also adding a way to revisit all past tutorial popups, something that was requested a lot. A full list of patch notes will as usual be available once the update is rolled out.

We are also releasing a purchasable Booster Pack alongside this update. The Assessor Gear Pack contains a new suit for the Assessor as well as a brand new pet(!) and 2 new Assessor songs. Purchasing this pack helps support Dome Keeper development, and adds no new gameplay features. The pack will cost 2.99€, and you can wishlist it here. In addition to the pack, there will also be a new Assessor suit and pet for everyone, for free!

Until then, come on in to the Bippinbits Dome Keeper Discord Server, it’s the best place to discuss Dome Keeper and a pretty nice place to hang out while we wait for the update to drop.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
Greetings from the Dome, Keepers! Today we have a very special treat for you: Drillbert mode!
In this brand new game mode, you will start equipped with one Drillbert and blast mining, with the possibility of getting more Drillberts as you go.

You unlock this game mode by…. Um, sorry but I can’t seem to find in my notes how to unlock it. 🤔 Oh well, you’re a clever bunch. I’m sure you’ll figure it out. Maybe ask Drillberts mom? Her name's Madrillda, by the way... You’d better hurry up though, word has it that Drillbert Mode can only be unlocked in April. 😁

More about Drillbert mode:

• You start with one Drillbert and the possibility to get plenty more
  
• You will not be able to upgrade any mining abilities
  
• You start with Blast Mining to help set up the right structures for your Drillbert friends to do their work

That's it. Now, go out there and unlock that Drillbert mode! 🧡


[h3]Edited on April 2nd to add:[/h3]
Good news! Now that the dreaded day of April 1st has passed it is safe for us to let you all know that Drillbert mode is indeed real, and can be unlocked at any point during the month of April. (Or if your computer believes it is April 2023, for all you people from the future reading this.)

AND: when it's unlocked it's yours to keep forever!

[h2]Greetings, Keepers! [/h2]
We have a very small patch for you today, containing some adjustments made on how the run modifiers are unlocked as well as a few other small fixes that should make the game more enjoyable. Full list below!

[h3] Changelog V2.4.3[/h3]

Run modifiers for Relic Hunt will now unlock one by one. Each time you win Relic Hunt and have two or less other new things unlocked, a run modifier will unlock too
Double Iron Mode now gives a bit more iron and also more water
Fixed countdown variant in prestige not always being unlocked by default
• Flames in the Blast Mining station now show up in an exponential time, which gives better feedback as to when the next bomb is ready
  
• Relic bomb will now again kill monsters that are not actually hittable
  
• Fixed prestige showing nan when the score is negative
  
• Mouse is now fully functional for choosing a gadget

Throwing in a big screenshot this time :D
Not actually coop, despite two keepers being there. Screenshots were stitched together.

That’s all for now. As always, have fun and please let us know if you experience any issues though the official Discord: bippinbits - Dome Keeper.

[h2]Hello Keepers[/h2]
again thank you for all the reports in the forums and on Discord! Thanks to that we can deliver a patch today, fixing a few issues.

We'll wait a bit longer for your feedback regarding the balancing. One thing that made us very happy to see was how well mixed the prestige scores were. In endless, we are seeing both domes and all primary gadgets in the top score, yay! :)

[h3]Changelog v2.4.2[/h3]

fixed repellent delay achievement not triggering
fixed crash when assessor shoots bundle into resource teleporting teleporter
fixed drillbert sometimes staying scared after wave was over

• implemented limit on number of times a repeatable upgrade can be bought. This is set now for the Spire upgrade that would eventually become a negative.
  
• not showing lock icon for upgrades that have multiple predecessors, but only need one to unlock. A bit cleaner this way.
  
• fixed autoheal crashing the game when playing fixed cobalt
  
• added sound to auto heal and impact recuperation
  
• not spawning punisher monsters in automation mode anymore
  

I like to throw in something fun from time to time, and here i want to show you how Anne sketched Drillbert initially.

Drillbert i actually thought of as "Drillbot", a robot that can drill. But Anne loves animals and had the great idea to make it into something much more likeable. So she sketched some animals - one like a dinosaur, one mole and an octopus. We both liked the Drillosaur best, who'd later be named Drillbert of course. In the code it is still called Drillbot by the way.
This also worked so well with the "station" that Drillbot needed. Instead of fuel you'd bring treats to it, which again feels much nicer in a way.
On the top left you can see some experiments as to how it would look like when carried. Can you spot the sketch that was picked and worked into what is ingame now?

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As always Should you encounter any bugs/issues while playing, please visit our support desk where someone can assist you https://rawfury.atlassian.net/servicedesk/customer/portal/1
We are of course also active on the forums and our Discord.

[h2]Have fun :)[/h2]

[h2]Hello Keepers[/h2]
thank you so much for your feedback and first bug reports! We've been busy listening yesterday, and already fixed what we could.

One big fix is for the time between waves. This one has been around for long but went unnoticed by us. The original goal was for the easier difficulties to have more time between waves, and YAFI be the same as brutal, which is our baseline for everything. But actually the easier difficulties had the same time as brutal, and YAFI 36s instead of 60s initially. So it was the other way round. The 24s less for YAFI also were constant, and didn't depend on the cycle length.

With this version, the timing is affected by the difficulty like this:

• normal 20% more time between waves
  
• hard 10% more time between waves
  
• brutal remains the same, 60s initially
  
• yafi 20% less time between waves
  

[h3]Changelog Hotfix v2.4.1[/h3]

• fixed cheat detection marking runs on fixed cobalt cheated if they lasted above 20 cycles
  
• fixed time between waves not being correctly influenced by difficulty
  
• fixed diver not dying when hit with repellent's toxic fumes
  
• fixed maze and long cycles not working together
  
• added back strong repair for fixed cobalt mode, was missing by accident (50% heal instead of 15%)
  
• implemented workaround to fix invisible relic switch chambers (long standing rare bug) that prevented finished a relic hunt run
  
• spire burst now has 6s recharge time instead of 8s
  

We do expect that we'll have a balancing patch next week, depending on your feedback. So if you have feedback on the battle abilities or the new gadgets especially, please let us know :)

As always Should you encounter any bugs/issues while playing, please visit our support desk where someone can assist you https://rawfury.atlassian.net/servicedesk/customer/portal/1
We are of course also active on the forums and our Discord.

[h2]Have fun :)[/h2]