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Turnbound News

Check out the demo for Turnbound, a clever haunted boardgame inventory battler

Turnbound looks like it could be a really good one, a PvP inventory management auto-battler that does things quite differently to others in the genre.

Read the full article here: https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2025/10/check-out-the-demo-for-turnbound-a-clever-haunted-boardgame-inventory-battler/

Patch Notes for 0.31.0 + Maintenance Notice ( 1 hour)

[p]Hello everyone!

Just a small patch this week where we address some of the more urgent issues with the demo while the team is focusing hard on the Early Access launch. In one hour, the servers will be going down for the update for roughly 15-30 minutes.

Patch Notes 0.31.0:[/p]
  • [p]Fixed a bug where taunted weapons would be prioritised over other taunted items depending on their placement on the board.[/p]
  • [p]Frienzied Bottled Spirit: Health bonus decreased on level 2 and 3 (now 1/1/2)[/p]
  • [p]Pilgrim’s Plume Cap: Health bonus decreased to 2/4/6[/p]
[p]—[/p][p]Thank you again for following us on this journey so far! Be sure to follow and join our social channels for more info:[/p][p]
[/p][p]Stay spooky and safe.

[/p][p]~ The 1TK Team.[/p]

Early Access Release Date!

[p]You heard that right, spirits! We just announced that we will be coming to Early Access during the Galaxies Showcase![/p][previewyoutube][/previewyoutube][p]We do want to forewarn you that this means that the demo will be coming down after Early Access is released so that we can focus on providing our players with the best experience in the main game. Until then, we will continue to gather feedback and provide regular updates. [/p][p]So be sure to play the demo while you still can![/p][p]
We can also confirm that any progress you made in the demo will follow you to the Early Access game. (Provided you are using the same Steam Account)[/p][p][/p][p]So, why Early Access?[/p][p]Well, simply put, because we know that games like Turnbound turn out best if they are community-driven. We have already been able to make significant improvements to balancing since we launched the demo. Being Early Access allows us to keep our players involved. And we also know that the real fun lies in breaking the meta which has been so fun to watch you do! Ultimately, we plan to treat this game like a living project with frequent updates that transform and elevate gameplay.[/p][p][/p][p]But what is coming to the game before and during Early Access?[/p][p]We will have the third hero, Robin Hood, available to play, which, combined with the two other heroes, means you will have over 140 items and abilities to play around with![/p][p]It doesn't stop there; we also have a roadmap for the Early Access period, which will include all of the following (and more):[/p][p][/p][p]The “and more” part is that we will be actively working on bug fixes, balancing and community requested features. (Keep your eyes peeled for community Feature Requests (coming soon™️))[/p][p]We don't want to promise exact details as to when these updates will arrive, because we will be balancing adding new features and content with community feedback and requests. We plan on keeping the roadmap (which will live here) as up to date as possible and will continue to have small updates every week on top of these larger content updates.[/p][p]Our main goal is to ensure you have a quality Early Access game as well as to new features that keep your experience fresh and exciting.[/p][p][/p][p]How long will we be in Early Access?[/p][p]While we are reluctant to set a final date for when we will exit Early Access, our current timeline is 4-6 months. Ultimately, our goal is to ship when we feel there is enough content to keep players entertained for hundreds of hours.[/p][p][/p][p]As soon as we have final dates or details, you, our community, will be the first to know. [/p][p]
— [/p][p]Be sure to follow us on our social channels to keep up to date on all things Turnbound:[/p][p]Stay spooky and safe. [/p][p]~ The 1TK Team.[/p][p][/p]

Patch Notes 0.30.0 & New Feature: Rematch!

[p]Hello everyone! [/p][p]
If you see this as this goes live, the servers will be down for 15-30 minutes while we update the demo.

Thank you to everyone who sends over their feedback, bug reports and suggestions, we do listen and take on board, and try to respond to as much as we can as it comes in, so be sure to keep on doing so in the community hub or our Discord!

With that being said, we have a New feature:[/p][p][/p][h3]Rematch! [/h3][p]Do you believe you should have won a fight you lost due to RNG? Well, put your tokens where your mouth is. Redo the fight with new RNG. If you win, you regain the echo you lost.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]Onto the patch notes…[/p][p]Matchmaking:[/p]
  • [p]Chamber 3 no longer shares a matchmaking bucket with chambers 4 and 5. As we get more users, we will also split 4 and 5.[/p]
  • [p]Reduce the number of bots you encounter later in the tournament.[/p]
[p]Connectivity:[/p]
  • [p]Fixed an issue where the connection between the client and the server could get corrupted, causing repeated connection loss popups.[/p]
  • [p]Fixed an issue where Chinese users could not connect to the servers (this was a server-side hotfix that's already deployed)[/p]
  • [p]Improved our alerting system to detect issues with the Chinese servers earlier.[/p]
  • [p]Fixed a bug where the game state could get corrupted in case of connection errors.[/p]
  • [p]Replaced the Relogin button from the connection error popup with a Quit button because relogin did not always work cleanly.[/p]
[p]Balance:[/p]
  • [p]Red Silk Sash will no longer apply Stun. Health Increased from 5, 10, 15 to 8, 16, 32. Power reduction on Attacking Tile increased from 5, 10, 15 to 10, 15, 25[/p]
  • [p]Buffs from Frenzied Bottled Spirit are now applied in parallel[/p]
  • [p]The Soul Trade trinket can only appear in shop if you have at least 3 echos remaining (from 2).[/p]
  • [p]Ironclad Trinket gives health to taunt items now, even if they gain taunt later.[/p]
  • [p]On-Hit effects from attacks are now applied before Damage-Taken effects of the items being hit. This has implications especially when Sleep is involved. An attacker can now prevent damage-taken effects of the target by putting it to sleep. An attacker with "When damaging a Tile, gain a Charge" will now gain the charge even when hitting a tile with "The first time this Tile is hit, it applies Sleep to the attacking Tile."[/p]
  • [p]Battles are now limited to 30 turns. If you do not defeat your opponent in 30 turns, you lose the battle. You should not hit this limit in normal play. This is there to ensure that battles between two very defensive builds will not continue forever.[/p]
[p]UI / UX:[/p]
  • [p]Spillover is now shown in Tile Tooltips.[/p]
  • [p]Item catalogue items are not loaded again everytime the popup opens.[/p]
  • [p]Improved visuals for the Devastator challenge pop-up[/p]
[p]Bug Fixes:[/p]
  • [p]Fixed a bug where the win streak animation would play even when win streaks were still locked by the tutorial.[/p]
[p]Other Changes:[/p]
  • [p]Bug reports will now submit all log files rather than just the session in which the report was sent. This will help us track down bugs that prevented you from reporting (e.g. freezes, crashes).[/p][p][/p]
[p]Thank you again for following us on this journey so far! Be sure to follow and join our social channels for more info:[/p][p]Stay spooky and safe.
[/p][p]~ The 1TK Team.[/p]

Dev Log #1: Introducing Sun Wukong

[p]Welcome, spirits, new and old, to the first of our dev logs. In this series, we’ll be lifting the game-box lid on exclusive behind the scenes topics. If you’re intrigued about the heroes, the lore of the game and more, be sure to read on![/p][p][/p][h3]Prefer to watch?[/h3][p]We have a video where you can Join Anisa and Matthew from the team as they talk about Monkey King and his character design. [/p][p][dynamiclink][/dynamiclink][/p][h3]What goes in to choosing a hero[/h3][p]For our first two heroes we asked ourselves: What do we want to convey with the heroes? Who do we want to represent the game? [/p][p]We quickly realised that we wanted them to feel like a matching set - but for both to be heroes, we couldn’t default to “character versus their in-world opponent”.[/p][p][/p][p]Eventually, we landed on a face-off between Alice and Monkey King. They’re natural opposites in many different ways but with a few parallels: [/p]
  • [p]They both are coming-of-age stories, but… Alice’s story is about the innocence of childhood curiosities and the learnings gained through growing up. Monkey King Sun Wukong is… well, chaotic, brash and very straight forward. If Alice is nice, MK is the troublemaker. [/p]
  • [p]Aesthetically they’re each strongly aligned with their culture, but… Alice represents western lore and fiction, with her beloved pale blue Victorian dress. Monkey King is an iconic part of eastern legends, represented in bright red tones and historical-inspired armour. These differences let us visually design them as opposites! [/p]
[p]As timelessly popular characters they have plenty of source material to draw from, but… because of the vast array of existing depictions, we have room to grow and build our own versions that are unique to Turnbound.[/p][p][/p][h3]But why Monkey King?[/h3][p]We chose Sun Wukong, the Monkey King, as a legend that has been repeated from generation to generation with worldwide popularity. The character has existed for hundreds of years, but you may know of him more recently from Dragon Ball Z or Black Myth Wukong![/p][p]One of the earliest printed depictions of Sun Wukong, from all the way back in 1592! (source)[/p][p]As a powerful fighter, he has plenty of existing lore we can extract item ideas from. We also find his brash, cheeky personality delightful! If you follow any of the myths or stories around him, you’ll see exactly why.[/p][p][/p][h3]Making an icon our own[/h3][p]When people have an existing mental image of a character, it’s a challenge to ensure your version stands out. We worked with Agnieszka Szajewska, an amazing artist based in Poland, to make this happen. With her help, we were able to explore a range of styles to help us bring our vision for Monkey King: Turnbound-style to life.[/p][p][/p][p]It was quite fun to try and find a contemporary style for him! Through our research into how he was already represented, we landed on the idea he should look playful and tricksy. A K-Pop star-esque pretty boy with a cheeky side to him - but with some of the famous monkey characteristics that people would expect him to have.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]Finding that middle ground of anthropomorphism was its own creative challenge! We asked ourselves: how animalistic do we want him to be? Do we want him to have monkey feet, or human feet? Should he have his iconic monkey tail? How sexy is too sexy for an idol-looking animal man with visible skin and body hair? 🤭[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]Continuing the theme of ‘different interpretations of iconic characters’, we worked with another artist, Sergi Brosa, to create an alternative skin. Sergi made a much more experienced looking Monkey King, which we thought was super cool to see! Where Agnieszka’s version looks like he’s just started his journey, Sergi’s version looks like he might now have completed it. It’s remarkable how different you can have two versions of the same character come out![/p][p][/p][p][/p][h2]That’s all for now[/h2][p]Thank you again for following us on this journey so far! Be sure to follow and join our social channels for more info:[/p][p]Stay spooky and safe.
[/p][p]~ The 1TK Team.[/p]