Drop Duchy News

DEVLOG #6 - Boss Teasing & Advanced Game Modes

Hello again, and welcome to the final devlog before Drop Duchy’s release! I hope you’re ready to play this tiny game I started in my bedroom two years ago.

Do you want a final dose of insight into what you can expect from the game? Well, you’re in luck because today I’m revealing (for the first time!) the two other bosses and the challenging modes for the courageous who can complete a run.

[h3]The Wall, The Keep, The Dungeon[/h3]
I didn’t think about adding bosses to Drop Duchy until it was pretty advanced – but as soon as I realized that it could be an awesome addition to the game, I had this intention: each boss should be a scary and challenging mega-structure.

You’ve already discovered and faced The Wall in the demo, a boss whose design evolved throughout development to ensure it was achievable using all sorts of strategies. The Wall is mobile, forcing you to play compactly and place pieces (including additional enemies) in sub-optimal positions.

At the end of Act 2, you’ll face The Keep, which has an entirely different design: strong, sturdy, and impassible. The Keep is already placed on a massive grid and has many units to begin with. The additional challenge here is to avoid boosting its surveillance towers, which is easier said than done since they watch over most of the grid! The wide grid and abundance of terrains make some buildings easier to play, but on the other hand, large buildings are more challenging to place.

But The Keep is relatively simple compared to the game’s final boss, The Dungeon.
First, The Dungeon has "traps" that grant additional units for every piece placed over them (not just the buildings!), and their position changes every time.
Second, it recruits additional Mercenaries every few turns unless you bribe them first: yes, to beat the final boss, collecting resources through exploration & buildings is essential to prevent him from gaining too much power too quickly!

The bosses in Drop Duchy have been tested a lot, and we ensured that all sorts of strategies are viable against them. Yes, they’re hard, but that’s the point of bosses, right?

[h3]Raise the Difficulty[/h3]
When you’ve defeated The Dungeon, you win the run! Does the game end there? "Pack it up, boys, we’re uninstalling it to make some room on the SSD"? Of course not!
First, you can try to complete every quest and challenge to finish the progress tree, and second, you can play again with a greater challenge.

There are two modes in the game: Classic & Trials.

Classic comes in five difficulties, so if you want to challenge your strategic skills, try beating the game with each faction up to Nightmare mode. As difficulty increases, you’ll face more enemy units, receive fewer resources from exploration, and you won't be able to place the enemy pieces in reserve anymore.

Trials, on the other hand, are unlocked after beating the game for the first time, and they’re variants that alter the game’s rules, making you think twice about the correct approach.
Some Trials add fierce advantages to enemies; for instance, in Consolidation mode, placing two enemy buildings next to each other will grant both of them additional troops.
Others, such as Mini Grids, will change which buildings are stronger or weaker (and make it generally more challenging to optimize the positioning).
If you feel confident, you could even take on the Fearless challenge, in which you start the run with a single point of defense and will therefore lose unless you eliminate all the enemies each round.

With such a variety of modes, we’re sure you’ll be able to spend countless hours in the game before getting bored (and I haven’t even talked about optimizing your high score).
One last thing before the conclusion: we’ve added seals to the cards in the Collection menu to let you know the highest difficulty you’ve beaten the game with each card. As in Balatro (the game that inspired this mechanic), you must use the card in the final encounter against The Dungeon to earn the seal. That’d be too easy if we let you gain the seal when you didn't use the card or if you sold it during the run – winning a Nightmare run with a Windmill is about as crazy as it sounds, but it is definitely doable!

[h3]Wrap-Up[/h3]
Thanks for reading this last devlog of Drop Duchy. I hope this series gave you a good sense of what you can expect in the game at its release. I also hope you’ll enjoy discovering and playing with all this content as much as I enjoyed working on it these past few years!

Stay in touch by subscribing to the newsletter and joining the Discord server.

JB Oger - Game Director

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DEVLOG #5 - Faction The Order & Religious Cards

Hello!

Drop Duchy’s release date is approaching, and I know all of you readers of these devlogs are on the edge of your seats, wondering what’s in the game beyond the demo you’ve had time to explore by now.
Well, today, I’m going to tell you all about the third faction of the game, The Order, but in order to understand it, we need to talk about a special family of cards: the religious buildings and the Faith mechanic.

[h3]Omnipotent Church[/h3]
Farming, cities, and artisans were essential to medieval life, and so is religion: leaving this crucial aspect out of the game would be like building a house without a roof!
In our game, most religious cards award you Faith, a bonus stat that resets every round and boosts all the resources collected this round.

Religious buildings are, therefore, highly versatile and can fit every deck; boosting the resources from buildings and exploration can be a great accelerator to your economy. For instance, you can place a Church anywhere in the grid to gain Faith instantly, get the technology card Daily Bread to earn Faith when you explore Fields, or add the fantastic Cathedral to your selection to double all Faith gains in its range!

If you’re really into religious cards, you can specialize in them by including the other type of religious cards: those whose effect is multiplied by the number of Faith points you got in the round. This combo deck requires full commitment, but when you’ve got the right synergy, you’re unbeatable. For instance, the Abbey earns as much as 20 Gold per Faith, the Blessing tech can heal your Defense points, and there are even military buildings, such as the Commandery, which recruits 3 units per Faith!

[h3]Introducing: The Order[/h3]
Now that you know more about Faith and the religious cards, let me introduce the third and final faction of the game, The Order. Since it’s the last you’ll unlock from the progress tree, we decided to step up the complexity, but if you handle it correctly, it’s at least as good, if not better, as the other two.

The Order is a crusade-themed faction that relies on two core synergies: religious and military. Its starting building, Krak des Chevaliers, is inspired by a real-life XII-century fortress built during the crusades. It’s a military building that is particularly tricky to place in the grid, but it can potentially recruit a considerable number of units, even in the first rounds of the run!

What’s the catch, you may ask?

Unlike the other two factions, The Order cannot spend gold to repair their defenses after a battle; they really need to win if they want to go far. On top of that, when the round ends, each remaining unit is turned into a crusader rather than the usual gold, further increasing the challenge of getting a solid economy going. You can send the crusaders in Expeditions in the dedicated menu to loot precious resources, strengthen your defense, or increase your baseline Faith.

With its more straightforward access to Faith, The Order is the ideal faction to build a solid religious combo. After each round, you can use the earned Faith to improve the starting technology Holy Crusade, which influences how many resources you collect from Expeditions. If you need more crusaders, include the other faction-exclusive buildings of The Order, such as the Military Chaplaincy.
Playing with this faction feels easier at first because of its military advantage, but don’t forget about building a solid economy if you want to go far!

[h3]Wrap Up[/h3]
Thanks again for reading this devlog. We’re so excited to see you play with all the content we’ve crafted for you, and we hope you enjoy it like you enjoyed the demo! The next installment in this devlog series will also be the last before the game’s release, so we’ll touch on an all-important topic: what are the other two bosses and the alternative game modes?
If you enjoy our game, please support us by joining the community on Discord and subscribing to the studio newsletter.

Thanks!
JB Oger - Game Director

DROP DUCHY - COMMUNITY CONTEST

Hear ye, hear ye!

We’re excited to announce that Drop Duchy’s demo has now reached 100K+ downloads!!
Seeing such a tremendous response to this demo and the game in general has been absolutely exhilarating!💖
To thank you for the love and support you’ve been sending toward the game, we’re hosting a Community Contest!

[h3]Let’s find out who’s the best ruler of them all![/h3]
From today until April 21, submit your highest Final Score and get a chance to win a Steam key for a game from our The Arcade Crew library!

To take part in this contest all you have to do is:

Play the demo
Achieve your highest Final Score
Take a screenshot
Share it on social media by tagging us @/TheArcadeCrew and adding the #DropDuchyContest hashtag!

The winning prize will be awarded to the three highest scores obtained!

You have three weeks to give it your best shot - time to show off your tactical skills!

Note on the entry limit: Participants may submit multiple entries, but only one entry per participant will be considered for the final selection.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2525310/Drop_Duchy/

To keep up with all the latest updates and get exclusive behind-the-scenes sneak peeks of Drop Duchy, don’t forget to join the official Discord server, and follow us on social media:

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DEVLOG #4 - Rivers & Mountains

Hello again!

I’m back with another entry in the devlog series!
Are you excited to learn more about Drop Duchy? Well, you should be!

Since the last issue, we’ve launched the updated demo that included the faction Republic and a sneak peek at the meta progression. With this demo, we entered the Steam Next Fest, a special event dedicated to showcasing upcoming games, and the response was fantastic.
Thanks (and welcome) to everybody who discovered the game during the festival!

On the menu today, I’ll tell you more about a terrain you can unlock in the demo -the River- but also answer the burning questions: how long are the runs, and what are the other terrains available in the game?

[h3]Risking it all for the River[/h3]
When you start your journey, you’ll only see Plains & Forests, the two basic terrains of Drop Duchy. Once you’re comfortable with the ropes of the game, you’ll be ready to start playing in the big league and unlock the River terrain from the Progress Tree.

As you can expect, the river is at its best when it’s all connected rather than being a bunch of isolated ponds, and that’s the reason why most river-related buildings have a mechanic called "Minimum Flow," which requires a large enough continuous river to activate their effect. Those effects are typically better than their forests/plains counterparts, but they’re harder to trigger if you don’t plan your grid strategically.

To help you assemble the longest connected river, you can rely on the "Canal" technology card (which forces the river piece to come early in the round) or use the "Bridge," which counts as a building and a chunk of river terrain!
Going all in on the river and placing all your buildings correctly next to it is one of the most potent strategies in the game, albeit risky.

[h3]Mighty Mountains[/h3]
If you’ve played the demo, you’ve probably noticed that some buildings require stone to be upgraded to their maximum level, yet you couldn’t find any way to get some. It’s not a bug, but a feature: stone is only introduced in the game’s second act, with the addition of Mountains.

Mountains differ from the previous terrains because all their effects take into account the whole piece rather than individual squares, and unlike the others, there is no way to transform the mountains. As you can imagine, mountains earn you the precious stone resource when explored, but they also come with a flurry of buildings that synergize with them: the "Stone Cutter" is ideal if you want to increase the stone yield, while the "Fortress" is a fantastic military building that recruits troops for each aligned mountain piece.

Tweaking your deck to include a mountain synergy can be challenging, but remember that you can sell any card (and get the upgrade resources refunded), making pivoting strategy much easier.
Mountain-related buildings tend to be better than the others, but since you can only start adding them to your deck in Act 2, you have fewer chances to grab them, and therefore, you must be an excellent strategist.
Speaking of which, there’s one crucial choice you’ll have to make as you progress: which terrains do you specialize in?

[h3]How Terrain Specialization Works?[/h3]
As you may have noticed in the demo, there are fewer pieces of each when there are more terrains on a grid (simple maths, really). That’s the normal intended way to play the game (trust me, there is little challenge in grids with a single terrain type), but it raises the question: how do we introduce more terrains without breaking the game’s balance? Our solution was to let the player choose which terrain to keep or eliminate at the end of each act.

When you beat the first boss, The Wall, you must select which terrain you’ll eliminate for good from the upcoming locations to make room for the Mountains. The same happens after beating the second boss (which we’ll cover in a future devlog) in order to make room for Wasteland.

Before eliminating a terrain, look at your deck synergies and think about how you gather each resource. If you don’t have any wood-producing cards, don’t forget that eliminating forests will cause you to lose all the wood you’d get from exploration.
Each option has pros and cons, and that’s part of what makes each run of Drop Duchy unique.

[h3]Wrap-up[/h3]
Thanks for reading this new devlog!
Once again, if you have questions or comments, feel free to join the active community on Discord and come chat with us!

We hope you're ready and as excited as us for Drop Duchy's full release on May 5th! Meanwhile, the demo will remain available if you’d like to play some more runs until then!

In the two remaining devlogs, we'll dive into the third and last Faction called "The Order", but also into the game’s advanced mechanics, modes and content - so subscribe to the newsletter to stay informed!

See you!

JB Oger - Game Director

DEVLOG #3 - Faction Republic & Meta Progression

Hey, everyone!

Welcome to this new devlog!

Since the release of the first demo, lots of you have shared your feedback on the game (thanks!), and some have even started to speculate about the content beyond: How do the other factions play? How can you progress in the game?

Lucky you, I’m here to answer your questions!
In this article, we’ll discuss the second faction of the game, The Republic, and how the meta-progression allows you to unlock new powerful strategies.

And if you want to see these in action, you can try out the new demo right now!

[h3]Playing with the The Republic[/h3]
As already discussed in the first devlog, the default faction of the game is The Duchy.
It’s a simple and well-rounded faction, ideal for beginners who seek to experiment with varied strategies and exploit field-based synergies.

The second unlockable faction in the game has several exclusive mechanics that completely renew your strategic options.
First, there is an exclusive terrain called Neighborhood, which can only be created by cards exclusive to The Republic faction, such as the Downtown. Neighborhoods, when explored, earn you a new type of resource: citizens.

When you control this urban faction, your main goal is to create the largest connected neighborhood area (also known as “the city”) to unleash powerful combos. The Belfry is the key building of the faction: you’ll likely use it every round since it has a fantastic potential to generate lots of resources and units when placed adjacent to the city.

The Belfry is also a one-of-a-kind building in the game because you can upgrade it up to level 10, and you get to choose which upgrades to add; would you rather get more military options or increased gold production? Gather bonus units through rivers, fields, or forests?
With each run, you’ll be able to spend your citizens to upgrade the Belfry differently – discovering all the visual variants and possible combos is a ton of fun!

I must admit that the Republic has been my favorite faction for a while now! It may have to do with its visual style which was inspired by medieval cities such as Troyes and the Republic of Venice. Who knows…

[h3]Unlocks & upgrades[/h3]
Like any good roguelite, Drop Duchy has a lot of content to ensure each procedurally-generated run provides enough variety. However, we also learned through playtesting that having access to everything could be overwhelming at first. So, we designed two systems to teach players and add depth over time: faction quests and challenges.

Faction quests are exclusive to each faction, and they unlock permanent upgrades for all your future runs such as better starting cards & stats. The first quests give you an overview of the key mechanics of the faction, while the later ones will genuinely put your skills to the test. Of course, if you want to prove your perfect mastery of a faction, you’ll have to beat the final boss with it.

On the other hand, challenges can be completed with any faction in any mode (except tutorial). Objectives range from building a particular deck, using a certain card well, to reaching a specific milestone.
There’s a challenge for every playstyle, so, make sure to take a look at the list before starting a run; it may give you strategic ideas!

Each challenge awards you with “crowns”, a special currency you keep between runs and can spend in the Progress tree.
In this menu, you make your way up to unlock new factions, but also new map locations, mechanics, and card types. If you like a particular playstyle, you can also unlock more cards in the side branches of the tree to broaden your options.

[h3]Conclusion[/h3]
That’s it for today!

We’re really excited to see you experience these new features in this second demo.
The Republic faction adds a fresh tactical layer to Drop Duchy’s gameplay, while the meta-progression system ensures that every session feels rewarding and meaningful. We’re looking forward to hearing your thoughts on these latest additions!

Stay tuned for our next devlog in which we’ll be revealing more exciting features.
If you’d like to discuss your experience with the rest of the community, come join us on our official Discord (we’re already over one hundred there!!): https://discord.com/invite/Ekrchk7fHb