Sunderfolk News

SunderBlog: Guide to Remote Play

[h2]Entering The Sunderlands… Together[/h2]

While Sunderfolk has been crafted as a couch co-op experience, we all have friends that live in different parts of the world, and we’re looking to close that gap… digitally, at least.

If you have a group ready to go but are unable to traverse time and space to play together, never fear! Playing Sunderfolk is only a few steps away!

This could be us but you’re playing… from very far away.

[h2]Steam Remote Play[/h2]

To Host Sunderfolk with up to 3 friends via Steam Remote Play:

Add your party members as Steam friends (if you don’t have them already) through the Steam client or through here!
Launch Sunderfolk through Steam
Shift-tab to bring up the Steam overlay
Open your friends list and right-click on your party member’s name
Select “Remote Play Together”, then invite them to your game
Your players will be able to join after accepting the invite on Steam!

Now, all your friends can watch your stream while playing along from their phones. The best part is, they don't need to own the game or even download it to play cooperatively! All they’ll need to do is download the app on iOS or Android and accept your invite, and scan the QR code to join the party!

[h2]Playing on Discord[/h2]

If you want to spam all of your Discord Nitro emojis while playing, you can also play Sunderfolk remotely with friends through Discord!

To stream Sunderfolk on Discord:

Start up “Sunderfolk” on Steam
Create / Join a Voice Channel (or a private DM call)
When in the voice channel, select “Screen Share” from the options on the bottom-left
On the “Applications” tab, select “Sunderfolk”. Make sure application noises are toggled on so your players can hear the in-game sounds.
Hit “Go Live” and stream the game to your friends!

Hot Tip: If you join our Discord server, you’ll be able to join a “looking for group” channel to meet new friends and form a new adventuring party!

We’ll see you in the Sunderlands on April 23, 2025!

The Sunderfolk Team

Sunderfolk gave me the DnD multiplayer experience Baldur's Gate 3 couldn't

I wanted to love Baldur's Gate 3's multiplayer. In theory, there's nothing better than cozying up with your partner after a week at work, creating yet another wood elf, and diving back into Larian's sprawling interpretation of Faerûn. But, at times, BG3 can be anything but relaxing - fights can last up to an hour, and a single misstep may spell disaster. While I love and laud its complexity, sometimes you want a simpler fantasy romp that still scratches that DnD itch. Dreamhaven's upcoming RPG, Sunderfolk, does just that.

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Sunderfolk - From Closed Beta to Launch

Hey Guardians!

Our Closed Beta officially ended on February 4th, 2025, after a month and a half of testing!

During that time, we’ve received over 1200 feedback submissions, and had 1700+ members join us in our closed beta Discord server!

Now, we’ve used that information to make Sunderfolk even better and ready for release! Check out some of the upcoming changes in store for launch day, and join us in counting down the big day!

Some Implemented Changes:

[h3]Pacing[/h3]

Many small changes that add up to a major impact on the speed of play. These changes help to streamline the pacing of gameplay:

Pulsing animation on the tile of Heroes that haven’t played yet this turn. Hurry up and take your turn!
Movement and attack animations speed up when multiple monsters of the same type take their turns sequentially. This resets when a new monster type takes its turn.
Increased the move and attack animation speed of most characters.
Improvements to missions and Monsters to increase pacing:

Tower Defense: Stun Bug now only attacks 1 target, not 3.
Minecart Mayhem: reduced number of webs.
Lost in Swamp: re-arranged starting Oozes, increase NPC health.
Oozes’ Fate Cards no longer spawn additional Oozlings.
The Fungal Vale: changed Oozes to Redcaps.
Shadowshard: moved barrels closer to teleporters.

[h3]Settings[/h3]

Added more settings to allow you to remove UI and Narrative friction:

Setting to let you Auto-Skip Narrative, Tutorials, and/or Cinematics.
Setting to let you Auto-End your turn instead of needing to press the End Turn button.
Added more configuration options for the “Hold to Skip” feature, allowing you to skip your actions without looking down at your phone.
Added Exit to Hero Select to make it easier to add new Heroes to existing campaigns.

[h3]Difficulty[/h3]

Improving the Difficulty curve to be more consistent across missions, while pushing to distinguish Brightstone and Challenging as more distinct difficulty modes.

Easier Brightstone Difficulty mode.
Invincible NPCs.
Harder Challenging Difficulty mode.
All Monsters have Frenzy and become more powerful when they are:
Attacked by a Hero.
Unable to attack for the round.
Stronger Monsters.
More Elite Monsters Spawns.
Shadowstone Difficulty Unlocked Automatically.

[h3]Heroes[/h3]
After analyzing data and going through your feedback, we've made some balance changes to some Heroes!

Arcanist

Arcanist is in a good spot; they've received balance tweaks to some spells.

Bard

Bard has some room for some extra power, so they received some damage and movement increases.

Berserker

Berserker's in a good spot; touching up some under-loved spells.

Pyromancer

Pyro has a lot of power, so shifting some of that power around.

Ranger

Ranger has some room for some more power; they received some upgrades.

Rogue

Rogue is in a good spot; made some changes to reduce player confusion.

[h3]Town[/h3]

Re-organized building upgrade rewards to more closely match the building theme.
Added a new Market Shop that exchanges Favors for certain Trinkets to create an outlet for excess Favor items.
Rewrote and added extra text to better describe certain building upgrade rewards.
Level-Up celebration now happens soon as you arrive at Level-Up.
Tavern Meals are now weighted, making it more likely newer unlocked / better meals are more likely to appear.

[h3]UI/UX[/h3]

Added a skip remainder of turn button in combat when taking your turn
Implemented corner cutting on movement & targeting to help improve the ease of drawing your path
Improved tablet UI support
Better telegraphing for unique mission mechanics and rules (story spoilers below!):

Show which card is Feared in Shadow of Doubt mission.
Visual status effect for Ritual Healing Water Carrier and Fungal Friends Fungi alignment.

[h3]Other [/h3]

Improvements to disconnect handling and flow
Removed the QR code which blocked too much of the screen when players disconnected
More places where the game saves in Town
Added in slide animations when stepping on Slime
Lots of improved VFX, animation, and audio!

[h2]Just The Sunder-Start[/h2]

Now, these are just some of the changes we’ve made for launch, and this is just the beginning! If you don’t see your feedback implemented here, we are planning post-launch patches that will include changes that we couldn’t add for our launch day.

Thank you all again for your feedback, bug reports, and for joining us on this first step into Sunderfolk’s journey! We can’t wait to show you everything!

The Sunderfolk Team

Sunder-Dev Diary #1 - The Inspiration Behind Sunderfolk

Hi, I’m Erin Marek, Game Director on Sunderfolk. Since kicking off our closed beta back in December, we’ve been blown away by all the great feedback and questions in Discord.

These discussions inspired the team and me to share some insight into our approach to the game. Over the coming weeks, we’ll share some unique perspectives on our different disciplines, backgrounds, and how it all comes together to make Sunderfolk into a game we hope you, your friends, and your family will love.

To kick off these developer diaries, I’d like to dive into the early development of the game and some of the things we hope to accomplish through Sunderfolk.

Let’s rewind a bit to some of the earliest conversations around the game.

[h3]Kindling connection with familiarity [/h3]
When the team first started forming the initial concept of the game, one thing kept resurfacing again and again– how much we love the feeling of being together and playing tabletop board games with our friends and family. We set out to build something that inspired those same feelings through a video game experience.

Early concept art for Sunderfolk

At the time of those early brainstorms, Covid had made many of us feel isolated and alone, so there was a really strong desire to find a way to reconnect with those earlier days of just having fun together around the table or in couch co-op. The team started jamming on how we might create similar experiences through video games to make it a little easier for folks who aren’t as familiar with the genre.

Early pen & paper concept for Sunderfolk combat. See anything familiar?

[h3]Brightstone versus Shadowstone[/h3]
With the goal of bringing folks together, it was super important for us to make the world around Sunderfolk approachable and inviting for a wide audience. We aimed to strike balance between creating a lighthearted, whimsical world while still allowing for moments of depth and seriousness.

Our world is shaped by its underground setting, which heavily influenced the game’s themes and design. You’ll see plenty of bugs, mushrooms, stones, gems—elements that bring the environment to life. The overall story itself is another way we think about inviting players in, both novice and veteran.

A lot of fantasy stories revolve around a classic good-versus-evil dynamic, which is something we really liked because it’s instantly familiar and easy to grasp. This backdrop naturally influenced our take on the good-versus-evil theme, leading us to the central conflict of Brightstone versus Shadowstone.

Early concept art for the town of Arden

What we’d really love for folks to take away after they play Sunderfolk is excitement to play more board games and D&D and tabletop games, especially new folks who maybe haven’t played those kinds of games before.

For groups who have struggled to find the right game to play because it can be exhausting to set up a board game or for a GM to get content ready, we’re hoping that Sunderfolk can help reinvigorate their passion for revisiting those games.

I appreciate you all for taking the time to read this first developer diary! The next focus will be on how Sunderfolk was designed around collaboration and teamwork.

Erin Marek, Game Director

Inspired by classic DnD, turn-based RPG Sunderfolk just got a release date

I am very much in my Dungeons and Dragons era (insert sparkle emojis on either side). I'm still on my first real playthrough of Baldur's Gate 3, I've got an IRL campaign running, and I lull myself to sleep to the absolute chaos of Brian Murphy's Not Another DnD Podcast. When I first caught wind of Sunderfolk, a new turn-based fantasy RPG from ex-Blizzard CEO Mike Morhaime's Dreamhaven, I knew for a fact that it was an absolute must-play. I've been keeping track of it ever since, and during this evening's Dreamhaven showcase, it's finally got a release date - and we won't be waiting long.

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