The Dwarves of Glistenveld News

[h3]Halloween Mode[/h3]
Glistenveld is getting spooky once again with Halloween Mode enabled (until Nov. 10th)!
In Halloween Mode, you will experience the following changes to the game:

1. Atmosphere - The atmosphere of the game is more dramatic with fog and a change in colour palette!
   
2. Pumpkins - You will find random pumpkins in each level. You can harvest these to get a tasty pumpkin stew, which dwarves treat as equipable meals!
   
3. Webs - You will find random webs that stick to units and slow them down, or feed the spiders!
   
4. Bats - When you start a new skirmish mode game, you'll find a few more bats roaming the tunnels!
   
5. Bubbling waters - Water has turned greenish and bubbles.
   
6. Green blood - Units and creatures flash green when injured, instead of red.
   

[h2]Patch Notes[/h2]
[h3]The big stuff:[/h3]

1. Boulder Trap - A new type of defence, triggerable either by pressure plate or manually with a dwarf. The released rolling boulder will bowl over anyone in its path (friend or foe), trigger pressure plates and explode into fragments of stone on impact with walls! If the boulder rolls over another Boulder Trap in its path, that trap will open and take the boulder as ammunition. This allows multiple traps to be used to preserve the boulders and create a lethal perpetuating defence!
   
2. New Level 8 Abilities - Until now the Warrior was the only class to have a complete set of level 8 abilities. New Miner abilities include Tunnel King (while mining, motivates nearby dwarves to work faster) and Tunnel Whisperer (hears echos through walls to reveal nearby caves & rooms). New Forager abilities include Trusty Pan (Attacking has a chance to stun their target) and Beard Farm (Periodically grows mushrooms from their beard). New Engineer abilities include Silver-Tongue (Trading with a Trade-Stall gives back gold coins or very rarely an artefact or magic ring) and Tinker Bot (Allows the Engineer to pick up items from a distance, even over obstructions).
   
3. Ability UI Update - Choosing a new ability for your dwarves used to only show your current choice. The new UI shows all future abilities for that class as well, similar to a skill tree. This should allow for more strategic decision making.
   

The small stuff:

1. Personality-specific Dialog - This was already implemented behind the scenes but never explicitly shown. In some dialog, the nearest dwarf to the action might interject with a comment, relevant to their personality trait. This will now be accompanied by their trait in brackets, showing the relevance of their personality to that remark.
   
2. Tech Tree - Viewing techs in the tech tree now provide useful links directly to the relevant Guide entries, for further reading!
   
3. Building bridges - Engineers were always picking up 9 stone regardless of how much stone was actually required to complete the bridge.
   
4. Inspired & motivated - Recently we've been adding rising / falling particles over dwarves to show their buffs / debuffs. Inspired and motivated are the latest buffs to include these new particles.
   
5. Skirmish - Added hidden gem crystals around spawns, some of which are buried (similar to roots).
   
6. Missing descriptions & guide entries - A number of spider-related objects were missing descriptions, and added a bunch more missing entries to the guide.
   
7. Minecart Storage - Fixed some issues with minecarts & storage arrangements, in particular to do with picking up buildings.
   
8. Placement ghost - The 'ghost' that appears when you're about to place a building has been upgraded to have better detail, and should no longer appear so pixelated.
   
9. Draugr - A unique ominous battle music now plays when fighting Draugr in particular.
   
10. Various other fixes including the option to 'Send Home' allies not working as intended, and tutorial refinements.
    

That's all for now, stay safe and Happy Halloween!

Fix for resting spiders causing issues for the pathfinder (most noticeable in the endgame).
Fix for tabbing through buildings ignoring which team the buildings belonged to.

In celebration of the Steam Summer Sale, we are announcing giveaways as well as exciting new updates for The Dwarves of Glistenveld!

We're giving away up to 8 steam keys today!


[h3]via Instagram[/h3]
Follow us on Instagram, then go over to our Livestream announcement and tag 3 friends!

[h3]via Discord[/h3]
Join our Discord and post: 'for Glistenborg!' in #game-chat!

For an additional chance to win:

• Post a dwarvish name (first & last name) worthy of adding to the game in #ideas-suggestions
  
• Post an idea for a cool new building or mechanic to add to the game in #ideas-suggestions
  
• Post your own created artwork of a Dwarf in #art-screenshots
  
• Play the demo and post a screenshot of a fun moment you had in #art-screenshots
  

All entries close tonight at midnight GMT! We will then post the giveaway draws in #announcements and announce the winners!

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nyskogames/

Discord: https://discord.gg/RsYJbBhxRe/

Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/nyskogames/

Fellow dwarves! We've received reports that goblins have started building palisade walls around their bases! To combat this, we'll be sending over new schematics to equip your Warriors with new chainmail armour!

[h3]Livestream Tomorrow:[/h3]
By the way, we're livestreaming tomorrow (Friday 28th June) at 7pm GMT / 3pm EST, to announce steam key giveaways and exciting new updates for The Dwarves of Glistenveld! Hit the follow button over at twitch.tv/NyskoGames, or join our Discord if you don't want to miss it!

[h3]The big stuff:[/h3]

1. Iron Armour - A new technology found alongside Iron Tools, that unlocks iron chainmail for your Warriors, giving them bonus defence! This chainmail can be combined with iron helmets to make 'full chainmail', which provides the benefit of both pieces of armour! We will also be adding more to this tech in a future patch.
   
2. New Combat FX - Battles have been made more satisfying with new sound effects for when a unit scores a crit or simply grazes their target, as well as an explosion of particles on strong impacts! Also added a sheathing sound when battles conclude.
   
3. Idle Unit Notifications - You will now be notified when you have dwarves of a particular class that have nothing to do. These notifications are intended to help you manage your clan, but they can be ignored.
   
4. Goblin Palisade - Goblins expanding their base will now build palisade walls around it, which will need to be destroyed before you can enter! Unlike stone walls which require miners, palisades can be destroyed by any class.
   
5. Enemy AI - AI camps had a habit of throwing all their units at you, even if you weren't near their base! We've been adjusting this behaviour so they only throw some of their units at you, among other AI improvements.
   
6. Doors - Doors (as well as the new palisade walls) now block line of sight, similar to walls. To see through a door, you will need to stand a dwarf by it, or place a lamp-post on the other side!
   
7. Tutorials - We've moved the original tutorials into Extras and polished up the dynamic tutorial, with the intent that new players will be able to learn the game while playing any mode of their choice! We hope this works to make the game more enjoyable to pick up.
   
8. Minecart Mayhem - A new puzzling minigame where you play as a member of clan Kindlewick as he hunts for treasure! The first 4 levels are complete, and the remaining levels will be introduced in a future update.
   

The small stuff:

1. Mineral Textures - Stone, Gold & Coal now have some new sprite variations.
   
2. Old Tracks - Now have a more 'broken' appearance, to better distinguish them from your own tracks.
   
3. New Icons - Updated some outdated or inconsistent icons, including the Engineer's class icon.
   
4. Removing Instructions - Fixed a bug where removing instructions wouldn't always stop units from working on it.
   
5. Skirmish Mode - Updated quick-start to include a food barrel, and updated some icons to be more distinguishable.
   
6. Sound System - Fixed an elusive bug where many sounds would stop playing after some time playing the game.
   
7. Various other bug fixes and improvements including updated difficulty setting descriptions, and not being able to use the Escape key to enter the escape menu while in dialogue.
   

These past few months we've been hard at work on chapter 3 content! We are excited for the next few patches that will introduce a new rolling boulder trap, steam vents, iron weapons and more!

That's all for now, stay safe out there!

Fellow Dwarves! A new exciting technology 'Runestones' as well as manned ballistas, and a myriad of bug-fixes come with this year's Easter patch!

[h3]🐰 Easter Mode 🐰[/h3]
In Easter Mode, you will experience the following changes to the game:

1. Atmosphere - The environment has a different look and feel.
   
2. Mobbits - Mobbits are larger than normal, and provide more meat!
   
3. Easter Eggs - You will find easter eggs sprawled about everywhere, even hidden in the walls! You can harvest easter eggs using the gather instruction, and they can be stored on tables similar to meals. How many can you find? (Find out at the bottom of the Stats window)
   

[h3]The big stuff:[/h3]

1. Runestones - Runestones are a new unlockable building that, when placed, can be marked with one of four effects: Forging, Growth, Resistance and Warding. Forging speeds up forges and can reduce the amount of ore required for smelting. Growth creates moisture which speeds up mushroom & sapling growth, and can also trigger the power-slider combat ability. Resistance reduces incoming damage dealt to your dwarves and buildings. Warding prevents undead creatures like Draugr from reawakening. As Runestones are used they will charge up energy which will eventually release and spawn an elemental!
   
2. Elementals - In this patch elementals only appear in caverns mode or as a result of Runestones charging, but they will feature more in future patches. Each runestone triggers the respective elemental: Fire, Water, Rock & Wind. Each elemental has its own special ability unlocked when it reaches level 2.
   
3. Manned Ballistas - This one is a game-changer in our opinion! Now when you select an engineer or warrior to interact with a ballista, they will 'man' it and remain in position. Then whenever enemies come close, your unit will automatically rotate the ballista around and fire at them! Your dwarves are smart enough not to fire at allies in the way, but sometimes their shots might not meet their mark. Their accuracy is determined by combat level, so if you use a high level warrior, fewer shots will miss.
   
4. Spiders - Rebalanced and redesigned some behaviours. Level 1 spiders can no longer lay eggs. Spiders will now only flee if their hitpoints are very low, which means harder-hitting dwarves have greater chance of defeating them without having to chase. Higher level spiders will flee sooner. When a spider mother is attacked, it calls for help. If it then dies, all nearby spiders will flee from battle for a while.
   
5. AI Territory - Allies in caverns mode will now avoid building, mining or gathering resources near your buildings, based on a new territory system. This system is hidden but essentially each building is given a weight based on its type and distance, and nearby buildings are counted up to determine whose territory a particular hex belongs to.
   
6. Draugr Heads - Draugr can be a thorn in the side, especially in caverns mode. Well, now you can roll their heads around and move them out of your way! No, you can't play footie with them, but you can hide them in the closet!
   

The small stuff:

1. Schematics & Barrels - You can now obtain these resources using the gather instruction, rather than having to select a dwarf and interact with them manually.
   
2. Call for reinforcements - This button used to be hidden away in the escape menu, since it only applied in the campaign and would only be used rarely. Now the dwarf button in the instruction panel on the bottom left opens up a sub-menu which provides the dwarf-list, by-laws (if it is unlocked) and call for reinforcements. To maintain previous UX click patterns, you can double click the dwarf button to open up the dwarf-list without having to move your mouse into the new menu.
   
3. Build Wall - If items are in the way of a wall instruction, a pickup instruction will now be automatically assigned and executed before the wall is built.
   
4. Engineers - Fixed some behaviour where they refused to build a building that they clearly had access to without putting it back in storage first or trying to build a new one. This may still occur under certain circumstances, further testing is necessary to confirm this.
   
5. Repair - Increased engineer's priority of repair instructions.
   
6. Guide - Updated with a new look & feel. More entries have been added and some have been rewritten for clarity.
   
7. Various other fixes including ambient SFX panning, some voice lines not triggering, removing random dwarf complaints from the dialog history.
   

We've also been hard at work on Chapter 3 assets and content, some of which we cannot reveal yet, but we will continue to trickle in updates regarding Chapter 3 in future patches & blog posts!
That's all for now, stay safe out there, and Happy Easter!