Unexplored News

To all of you: happy 2018 and thank you for making 2017 such a wonderfully successful year for our game!



In a year with 7,000 new games on Steam, Unexplored somehow ended up with five GOTY-mentions on three major publications! And yes, we're super proud of that!

Here's the proof we weren't hallucinating:

PC Gamer GOTY Personal Pick by Wes Fenlon
http://www.pcgamer.com/unexplored-weaves-personal-roguelike-stories-with-clever-random-generation/

Rock Paper Shotgun GOTY Top 3 by Dominic Tarason
https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2017/12/27/dominic-tarasons-favourite-games-of-2017/

Vice Waypoint GOTY Top 5 by Austin Walker
https://waypoint.vice.com/en_us/article/ne47nd/austin-walkers-top-10-games-of-the-year

Vice Waypoint GOTY Mention
https://waypoint.vice.com/en_us/article/a3nepz/the-best-games-of-2017-day-1-xcom-pubg

PC Gamer GOTY Category Nomination
http://www.pcgamer.com/game-of-the-year-awards-2017/

Some heartfelt congratulations to our friends at Guerrilla Games for winning every single PlayStation Game of the Year-award, to our friend Adriaan de Jongh for his iPad Game of the Year Hidden Folks (which is also on Steam) and to our friends from Twirlbound for their awards over at IndieDB for their upcoming Pine!

That was 2017, what's in store for 2018?


First and foremost we are working on our next project, which we cannot reveal just yet. We hope to be able to announce it soon. But that doesn't mean we've stopped working on Unexplored.


The Mac and Linux versions are in beta, they're up and running and being tested. We may need some more beta-testers, so if you're up for that, drop us a line. We have no definitive ETA, but we're aiming at Q1 2018.

The final (free) DLC will probably have the same time frame, but we're not making any promises. It's already (partly) available in the Unstable Branch (our beta).


Currently the first set of voices is available in the Unstable Branche (our ongoing beta for new features). We want to add a set of more female sounding voices before we release them proper.


We will continue to update the game and fix the bugs you report. Remember, Unexplored is entirely procedural, so it's physically impossible to check all possible combinations of levels, enemies and 'furniture'. We're confident we've squashed all major bugs, but every now and then some turret will block a hallway or a door will lead you into lava. So, keep reporting these instances, we WILL continue to hunt these rare bugs and kill 'em!


And to start the year in style, we've just released another (small) update:

New Features:
- You can assign numpad number keys to items

Game Balance:
- Increased chance of spawning a potion of Deafness

Bug Fixes:
- Classbound items cannot be dropped using a gamepad.
- The first five potions no longer auto-id after restoring a game
- Fish cannot attack you after drinking a levitation potion in shallow water
- Fixes a generator issue with missing bonus items
- Rewards for the Arbiter Grounds are improved
- Journal entries that do not specifically mention the level never show up in a filtered journal
- Fixes crash with enchanting staves inside a chest
- Fixed a number of typos

To all of you: happy 2018 and thank you for making 2017 such a wonderfully successful year for our game!



In a year with 7,000 new games on Steam, Unexplored somehow ended up with five GOTY-mentions on three major publications! And yes, we're super proud of that!

Here's the proof we weren't hallucinating:

PC Gamer GOTY Personal Pick by Wes Fenlon
http://www.pcgamer.com/unexplored-weaves-personal-roguelike-stories-with-clever-random-generation/

Rock Paper Shotgun GOTY Top 3 by Dominic Tarason
https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2017/12/27/dominic-tarasons-favourite-games-of-2017/

Vice Waypoint GOTY Top 5 by Austin Walker
https://waypoint.vice.com/en_us/article/ne47nd/austin-walkers-top-10-games-of-the-year

Vice Waypoint GOTY Mention
https://waypoint.vice.com/en_us/article/a3nepz/the-best-games-of-2017-day-1-xcom-pubg

PC Gamer GOTY Category Nomination
http://www.pcgamer.com/game-of-the-year-awards-2017/

Some heartfelt congratulations to our friends at Guerrilla Games for winning every single PlayStation Game of the Year-award, to our friend Adriaan de Jongh for his iPad Game of the Year Hidden Folks (which is also on Steam) and to our friends from Twirlbound for their awards over at IndieDB for their upcoming Pine!

That was 2017, what's in store for 2018?


First and foremost we are working on our next project, which we cannot reveal just yet. We hope to be able to announce it soon. But that doesn't mean we've stopped working on Unexplored.


The Mac and Linux versions are in beta, they're up and running and being tested. We may need some more beta-testers, so if you're up for that, drop us a line. We have no definitive ETA, but we're aiming at Q1 2018.

The final (free) DLC will probably have the same time frame, but we're not making any promises. It's already (partly) available in the Unstable Branch (our beta).


Currently the first set of voices is available in the Unstable Branche (our ongoing beta for new features). We want to add a set of more female sounding voices before we release them proper.


We will continue to update the game and fix the bugs you report. Remember, Unexplored is entirely procedural, so it's physically impossible to check all possible combinations of levels, enemies and 'furniture'. We're confident we've squashed all major bugs, but every now and then some turret will block a hallway or a door will lead you into lava. So, keep reporting these instances, we WILL continue to hunt these rare bugs and kill 'em!


And to start the year in style, we've just released another (small) update:

New Features:
- You can assign numpad number keys to items

Game Balance:
- Increased chance of spawning a potion of Deafness

Bug Fixes:
- Classbound items cannot be dropped using a gamepad.
- The first five potions no longer auto-id after restoring a game
- Fish cannot attack you after drinking a levitation potion in shallow water
- Fixes a generator issue with missing bonus items
- Rewards for the Arbiter Grounds are improved
- Journal entries that do not specifically mention the level never show up in a filtered journal
- Fixes crash with enchanting staves inside a chest
- Fixed a number of typos

After PC Gamer yet another major publication names Unexplored as one of the best games of 2017. We're super proud of our place in Vice Waypoint's Pantheon of Games.

The description is almost poetic, but instantly recognisable for everyone who has played Unexplored:

The dungeon beneath the earth is circular and I will tell you what that means. Draw a line and make its ends touch. So, we have begun. We will take the fire mage, and lock him in the small library. Dry paper. Where shall we place the key? Follow the line with your finger. There. In the small chest surrounded by the pressure plates. Perhaps I should hook them up to a teleporter. Too cruel? Fine. Arrows. Now, this is important. Fill out the spaces we’ve missed. They must feel like they could get lost, truly tangled in the spiral. And they could, but… watch. A path they’ll miss the first time. They can always find a way. Let us build this great spiral downward into the earth. It will take us six seconds.

Read the whole article here:
https://waypoint.vice.com/en_us/article/a3nepz/the-best-games-of-2017-day-1-xcom-pubg

After PC Gamer yet another major publication names Unexplored as one of the best games of 2017. We're super proud of our place in Vice Waypoint's Pantheon of Games.

The description is almost poetic, but instantly recognisable for everyone who has played Unexplored:

The dungeon beneath the earth is circular and I will tell you what that means. Draw a line and make its ends touch. So, we have begun. We will take the fire mage, and lock him in the small library. Dry paper. Where shall we place the key? Follow the line with your finger. There. In the small chest surrounded by the pressure plates. Perhaps I should hook them up to a teleporter. Too cruel? Fine. Arrows. Now, this is important. Fill out the spaces we’ve missed. They must feel like they could get lost, truly tangled in the spiral. And they could, but… watch. A path they’ll miss the first time. They can always find a way. Let us build this great spiral downward into the earth. It will take us six seconds.

Read the whole article here:
https://waypoint.vice.com/en_us/article/a3nepz/the-best-games-of-2017-day-1-xcom-pubg

Earlier, PC Gamer nominated Unexplored for Best Strategy Game of the Year, a category ultimately won by Total War: Warhammer II. The praise from the world's biggest PC games publication didn't stop there: to our surprise, Unexplored was one of the 'Personal Picks', described by PC Gamer as follows:

Alongside our team-selected 2017 Game of the Year awards, each member of the PC Gamer team gets to champion one favorite from the year.

Writer Wes Fenlon choose Unexplored as 'his champion'. He writes:

Unexplored doesn't try to do everything classic roguelikes do, but it channels their spirit into clever new ideas and offers much of their depth in an intuitive new interface. It's almost certainly the best game of 2017 you haven't heard of, and if NetHack's 30 year lifespan is any indication, it'll still be great a decade from now.


Thank you, Mr. Fenlon, we're deeply honoured!

Read the whole article here:
http://www.pcgamer.com/unexplored-weaves-personal-roguelike-stories-with-clever-random-generation/