Hatch and Slash Sale Week!
To celebrate the launch of Hatch and Slash, the free 1.10 Dungeonmans content update, the game is on sale for the week of 12 July to 19 July. Those of you weeping with regret at 10:05am last Thursday can redeem yourselves and get the best dungeon crawling adventure on Steam for the insane price of Five Ameridollars.
[h2]Battle Poultry[/h2]
Heroes of level 5 or higher will soon find a Mysterious Egg, another item that can be identified and put to good use by the Academy Headmaster. Soon you'll be joined by Professor Hatch, a master of Ovomansy that will teach you the ways of egg magic.
Most Battle Poultry start as a blank slate, you help them grow and train by feeding them delicious monster steaks, steaks that sensibly drop from every type of monster, including skeletons. Guide your pet towards melee or ranged combat, and along the axis of Tough vs Swift. Tough pets will have extra health, and may taunt enemies away from you, or put up powerful shields. Swift pets move quickly around the battlefield, dashing through foes and doing adorable little flips while firing razor sharp quills at doomed foes.
Your pets can also learn powers, just like you. Monster steaks may contain the essence of monster powers -- feed your pet with meat from Pouncebiters, your bird may end up pouncing and biting too. Bandit Assassins? Watch your poultry learn to toss ninja stars around the battlefield. They can do all sorts of cool things, drop battle banners, toss healing potions, pull you out of trouble, and even (if you find the right steaks) bring down starlight power and bend the forces of gravity.
Back at the Academy, you can trade in unhatched eggs you find for items that let you breed new poultry. Each generation is a little bit stronger, and can mix the powers of its parents. Find the right combination of monster steaks and breeding to build your ultimate battle pet and watch them dominate monsters alongside you.
[h2]Thank you for years of adventure[/h2]
Dungeonmans has been live on Steam for just about seven years now. I deeply appreciate the community that has grown around it, the support has been absolutely life changing and the Discord is my favorite place to be.
I try to throw in something new into the game every year, I know I should be focusing on the Next Thing but Dungeonmans is my favorite old toybox and I can't help but play. Hopefully this update will inspire you to play a bit as well.
I aimed for this update to capture the spirit of Dungeonmans and I hope you agree. Heroic adventure with a wink and a smile, a lighthearted game with serious gameplay. If you're new to the game, welcome aboard and I hope you end up swimming in loots. If you're coming back to give pets a try, I hope they entertain you and make you glad to spend your time here.
[h2]Other Changes / Bug Fixes[/h2]
[h3]Save Issues[/h3]
For the longest time, there's been a rare issue with Steam Cloud Saves and the first save slot. Sometimes after an Academy is erased, Steam Cloud tries to keep it around, which causes confusion and sometimes lost saves for players. I've added a check for that and if something goes wrong the player is shown what adventures are in the slot and asked to keep one.
[h3]Real Armor[/h3]
This line of powers has been buffed a little bit. Specifically, Iron Defiance costs a bit less, lasts a smidge longer, and the damage reduction has gone from 20% to 30%. The goal of the class remains endurance and success when surrounded by foes, where getting hit hurts less and increases the damage you give back. It's closer to that ideal now than ever before.
[h3]Monster Changes[/h3]
Very few here. The Triger has increased health, they should be threatening monsters when they arrive and truthfully they just died too easily. They're a little harder to kill.
There's a notorious horse boss in the Dread Spire that ended a lot of adventures with an attack that honestly felt really cheap. Part of the stupid damage that attack dealt was based on bad math, but it was also bordering on unfair with the distance it could travel and the immediate speed of the attack. That rush has been pulled out. In return, the other attacks he makes have been buffed a bit, including his spear toss. The ultimate goal is avoiding cheap ass'd one shots against tough and prepared heroes.
[h3]Experimental Zoom View[/h3]
Some players, especially those with certain disabilities, have asked if they can zoom the game in even further to upsize the UI. I've finally got something that might meet that requirement. The game's tech doesn't lend well to this, and you'll notice a drop in graphical fidelity, but if you want to try it you can select it from the options menu.
[h2]Final Poultry Thoughts[/h2]
One of the most common pieces of feedback I've gotten about Dungeonmans gameplay is that the difficulty really spikes around levels 6-10. That part of the level curve is the steepest, and a lot of heroes end up dead. Battle Poultry are intended to soften that a little bit. It seems to be working! Also, the emergent interactions with an AI pet are surprising and fun, so at this point I'm certain the pets are a really positive influence on the game.
That said, some players might find that pets make the game a little easier than they'd like. That's ok! They're entirely optional. In the future, I might add an item that allows a player to intentionally nerf their own pet, if they feel like pets are too strong but still want to have fun with them. If you have thoughts on this (especially once you've played for a bit), please come by the discord and let me know! discord.gg/stremf
[h2]Battle Poultry[/h2]
Heroes of level 5 or higher will soon find a Mysterious Egg, another item that can be identified and put to good use by the Academy Headmaster. Soon you'll be joined by Professor Hatch, a master of Ovomansy that will teach you the ways of egg magic.
Most Battle Poultry start as a blank slate, you help them grow and train by feeding them delicious monster steaks, steaks that sensibly drop from every type of monster, including skeletons. Guide your pet towards melee or ranged combat, and along the axis of Tough vs Swift. Tough pets will have extra health, and may taunt enemies away from you, or put up powerful shields. Swift pets move quickly around the battlefield, dashing through foes and doing adorable little flips while firing razor sharp quills at doomed foes.
Your pets can also learn powers, just like you. Monster steaks may contain the essence of monster powers -- feed your pet with meat from Pouncebiters, your bird may end up pouncing and biting too. Bandit Assassins? Watch your poultry learn to toss ninja stars around the battlefield. They can do all sorts of cool things, drop battle banners, toss healing potions, pull you out of trouble, and even (if you find the right steaks) bring down starlight power and bend the forces of gravity.
Back at the Academy, you can trade in unhatched eggs you find for items that let you breed new poultry. Each generation is a little bit stronger, and can mix the powers of its parents. Find the right combination of monster steaks and breeding to build your ultimate battle pet and watch them dominate monsters alongside you.
[h2]Thank you for years of adventure[/h2]
Dungeonmans has been live on Steam for just about seven years now. I deeply appreciate the community that has grown around it, the support has been absolutely life changing and the Discord is my favorite place to be.
I try to throw in something new into the game every year, I know I should be focusing on the Next Thing but Dungeonmans is my favorite old toybox and I can't help but play. Hopefully this update will inspire you to play a bit as well.
I aimed for this update to capture the spirit of Dungeonmans and I hope you agree. Heroic adventure with a wink and a smile, a lighthearted game with serious gameplay. If you're new to the game, welcome aboard and I hope you end up swimming in loots. If you're coming back to give pets a try, I hope they entertain you and make you glad to spend your time here.
[h2]Other Changes / Bug Fixes[/h2]
[h3]Save Issues[/h3]
For the longest time, there's been a rare issue with Steam Cloud Saves and the first save slot. Sometimes after an Academy is erased, Steam Cloud tries to keep it around, which causes confusion and sometimes lost saves for players. I've added a check for that and if something goes wrong the player is shown what adventures are in the slot and asked to keep one.
[h3]Real Armor[/h3]
This line of powers has been buffed a little bit. Specifically, Iron Defiance costs a bit less, lasts a smidge longer, and the damage reduction has gone from 20% to 30%. The goal of the class remains endurance and success when surrounded by foes, where getting hit hurts less and increases the damage you give back. It's closer to that ideal now than ever before.
[h3]Monster Changes[/h3]
Very few here. The Triger has increased health, they should be threatening monsters when they arrive and truthfully they just died too easily. They're a little harder to kill.
There's a notorious horse boss in the Dread Spire that ended a lot of adventures with an attack that honestly felt really cheap. Part of the stupid damage that attack dealt was based on bad math, but it was also bordering on unfair with the distance it could travel and the immediate speed of the attack. That rush has been pulled out. In return, the other attacks he makes have been buffed a bit, including his spear toss. The ultimate goal is avoiding cheap ass'd one shots against tough and prepared heroes.
[h3]Experimental Zoom View[/h3]
Some players, especially those with certain disabilities, have asked if they can zoom the game in even further to upsize the UI. I've finally got something that might meet that requirement. The game's tech doesn't lend well to this, and you'll notice a drop in graphical fidelity, but if you want to try it you can select it from the options menu.
[h2]Final Poultry Thoughts[/h2]
One of the most common pieces of feedback I've gotten about Dungeonmans gameplay is that the difficulty really spikes around levels 6-10. That part of the level curve is the steepest, and a lot of heroes end up dead. Battle Poultry are intended to soften that a little bit. It seems to be working! Also, the emergent interactions with an AI pet are surprising and fun, so at this point I'm certain the pets are a really positive influence on the game.
That said, some players might find that pets make the game a little easier than they'd like. That's ok! They're entirely optional. In the future, I might add an item that allows a player to intentionally nerf their own pet, if they feel like pets are too strong but still want to have fun with them. If you have thoughts on this (especially once you've played for a bit), please come by the discord and let me know! discord.gg/stremf