Monster Sanctuary News

Hey Monster Keepers,

Today we’re incredibly excited to announce that Monster Sanctuary is launching on Steam Early Access August 28th!

To celebrate this news, we’ve released a new trailer that you can check out below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VlhSrNaQM6o&feature=youtu.be

To the whole community that has already formed around Monster Sanctuary, we want to say thank you.

Your support has got us to this point and we can’t wait for the world of Monster Sanctuary to open up to everyone later this month.




Pick a Spectral Familiar and build your first team of monsters now with our free demo, available on our Store page:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/814370/Monster_Sanctuary/

Whilst you’re there, feel free to Wishlist us to keep up to speed with all things Monster Sanctuary!




If you’d like to talk all things Monster Sanctuary, from combat tactics, to exploration and your favourite monsters, you’re more than welcome to join our official Discord channel.

Come say hi!

You can also follow us on Twitter to get a sneak peek on upcoming content and more straight from the Developer!

That just leaves one question, which Spectral Familiar will you be picking on Early Access launch?

• Team Wolf
  
• Team Eagle
  
• Team Toad
  
• Team Lion
  

Let us know in the comments!

Dear Project Backers,
as we're getting closer to our Early Access launch (and of course the test version for our backers with tester's access), we have a lot of news to talk about.
Thanks to our publisher, Team17 (you can read more about that in our announcement from March), the game will be available in different languages - starting already with the Early Access version. That's right! In Early Access, you will be able to play Monster Sanctuary in French, Spanish, Italian, German and Russian.
Surprise news for our Monster Designer backers: We will start the third Community Monster Contest tomorrow (1st of August). The submission period will be open until the end of August. Voting will be done in the first week of September (until the 8th of September). As usual, the contest is happening on our Discord channel and all backers who supported us with 50€ or more are allowed to enter (you may join our Discord server here: Join Monster Sanctuary on Discord).
We are excited to see which Monsters our community will vote into our game this time!
So here's what we've added to the game in July:

• New tier 4 attacks for new and old Monsters alike. Most of these new attacks have different extra effects that make them different from lower-tier skills - skills like Spectral Cannon ignore a large percentage of the enemy's Armor value, while skills like Thunder Strike and Poison Eater have special effects when they're used on shocked/poisoned enemies.
  
• New area: Sun Palace. This area is meant to be explored after the other areas we've added to the game so far. It can also be entered earlier if the player knows how to get there and what you need to get inside - but the Monster encounters have a rather high minimum level in this area. The Sun Palace is a large underground area that is illuminated by an artificial miniature sun. There are two distinct parts to the Sun Palace: the sunny "overworld" areas with large open rooms and the dark, watery aqueducts below.
  
• Sun Palace will also be the first area to feature more intricate area-wide mechanics. There is a tower in the center of the Sun Palace which needs to be raised to access the higher rooms of the area. The aqueducts of the Sun Palace are overflowing with water, making it impossible to access the lower rooms at first. Throughout the area, the player will find levers to raise the tower and to lower the water levels of the aqueducts.
  
• New Monsters: Blade Widow and Sycophantom
  
• Sycophantom is one of the winners from our second Community Contest. As the creator (MissingNovice) intended, Sycophantom is very focussed on support skills (heals and buffs), with many skills granting it "Charge" stacks (+damage for next attack) when it uses those skills. Apart from that, it can also apply Chill-Debuff and a new type of stack called "Blind" on enemies.
  
• Blade Widow is a new deadly bug-type Monster. It's a heavy damage dealer with Neutral, Wind and Earth attacks that is also able to apply multiple instances of Might-Buff for physical damage-oriented parties. As the battle rages on, Blade Widow becomes ever stronger and ever deadlier, thanks to Buffs and "Charge" stacks that it gains while attacking enemies.
  
• Finished all Sun Palace rooms and story-content. Now we just need to add more Monsters, implement new mechanics and playtest the new content.
  

That's all for this month's update! If all goes well, expect the test version for Early Access by the end of August or early September.

On your quest to defeat Capital B, you’ll discover secrets and solve puzzles in the overworld to unlock alternate level states!

Spark some change by hooking up electricity, flood chapters with running water or literally flip them upside down for radically altered challenges!

Check out the brand new trailer below…

https://youtu.be/Yfk72Js6rTE


Join us at 3pm BST / 7am PDT on Thursday 25th July for a Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair livestream! We’ll be showing off some of the alternate level states and have some of the dev team with us to answer your questions!

Tune in on Mixer, Twitch, YouTube, Facebook or here on the Steam store page!



You better bee ready for Capital B's most dastardly challenge yet! Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair is coming to Steam later this year!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/846870/YookaLaylee_and_the_Impossible_Lair/

Wishlist the game on Steam or check out the links below to stay in the know!

Keep up to date with the latest Yooka-Laylee news: Sign-up to the Team17 newsletter Team17 on Twitter Team17 on Facebook Playtonic Games on Twitter Playtonic Games on Facebook Team17 Discord

Dear Steam Monster Keepers,

it's been one of the hottest months for Europe ever, but of course we've continued working on the next areas and features of Monster Sanctuary. Here's the monthly progress update for June.


First off, we have another announcement to make. We are closing the Late Backer Shop on June 30th. If you want to become a late backer for the game (to get backer rewards like beta access, the Monster Journal, being able to contribute to the Community Monster Contests), this is your very last chance. You can make your last-minute pledge here on our Paypal Shop: http://monster-sanctuary.com/PaypalBacking.html
If you're reading this after June 30th, don't worry. The game will soon enough go public: We plan to release the game on Steam Early Access in late August or September.


So this is what we can show for June:

• New Monsters: Mogwai, Crystal Snail, Megataur
  
• Mogwai is an all-rounder Monster which you may build in a variety of ways. He has access to Snowball Toss (physical damage) and Ice bolt (magical damage), which are both new single-hit water-element skills. He can be a powerful hybrid combo-finisher, or he can be a great support Monster.
  
• Crystal Snail is an extremely tanky Monster with a unique set of Resistances and Weaknesses. Only magical water- and wind-element attacks are super effective against it. He can protect his allies and take hits for them, gravely punishing enemies whose attacks land on it.
  
• Megataur is the evolved form of the Blue Caves Champion, Minitaur. It loses a bit in Attack and Mana, but makes up for it with much greater tankiness. Also, Megataur focuses more on ice-attacks, can dish out some magical damage and gains Life Wave as a heal.
  
• Finished Snowy Peaks rooms and story-content. So we've also been busy play-testing Snowy Peaks and fixing any bugs we've found so far. To finish the story-content of Snowy Peaks, you will have to defeat a new Champion Monster which we will reveal at a later time.
  
• Again, we've been especially busy with adding new Tier 4 skills to both the new and the older Monsters. That's why we'd like to give you a sneak peak into some of the new skills your Monsters will be able to learn. Keep in mind that any skill may still change during testing if it's found to be too weak or too strong.
  

A new active Tier 4 heal. Monsters with this skill: Caraglow, Mogwai (maybe more)


A new passive that allows for "Critical Heals" which trigger Critical-passives like Critical Mass. Monsters with this skill: Caraglow, Monk (maybe more)


Charge stacks increase damage of the next attack by 3%. Monsters with this skill: Spectral Toad, Magmapillar, Magmamoth, Rocky (and more)


A new passive to slay tanky enemies with a high Health rating. Monsters with this skill: Vaero, Nightwing, Goblin Hood (and maybe more)


Gives your Monster's attacks quite a bonus against enemies with high Defense. Monsters with this skill: Specter, Nightwing (and maybe more)


A new type of stack which can stack indefinitely and doesn't vanish. Monsters with this skill: Grummy, G'rulu, Goblin Warlock, Rocky (and more)


Each Age stack grants the Monster these bonuses.


There will be different version of this skill for Defense, Mana, etc. Monsters with Health Focus: Blob (2 instances of it), Druid Oak, Spectral Wolf, Megataur (and more)


That's all for this month's update. Of course, there are even more new skills we've already implemented and that we're planning to implement still - this is just a small selection of them.

We hope we'll be able to show you our next area for Monster Sanctuary soon!

Dear Project Backers,
as summer slowly settles in, it's time to show you what we've been working on in May with another monthly progress update.


During the first weeks of May, the Monster Designer Backers were once again able to vote for the community Monsters that shall be featured in our game. Here are the winners of the 2nd round of our Community Monster Contest:
● 1st place: Kanko, the pipe fox Monster, by Zuty!
● 2nd place: Sycophantom, the phantasmal elephant Monster, by Missing Novice!
● And our Developers' Pick: Thanatos, the clown-masked reaper Monster, by The0neFreeMan! A close candidate that almost won the first two contests by vote and that already caught our eyes from the first contest. We like Thanatos' design, it reminds us of some of the enemies/villains of Snes RPGs, and it seems like a fitting enemy for the later areas that we've got planned for the game. 

Again, we'd like to remind everyone that there are still three more contests left! A lot of Monsters this time just barely missed second place by votes, but there were also a lot of Monsters overall that we could have imagined to have in our game. Both times so far, it was a very difficult choice for us to make our Developers' Pick among so many creative Monster designs. Monster Designers can try again in our next contest that we will start some time around the Early Access release of the game (~late summer).
Together with the winners from the first Community Contest, that makes 7 community Monsters so far that will be featured in our game. If you would like to see the winners of the second round, you can view them in our Discord channel, which is open for all: Join our Discord


With our Backer Beta testing phase officially concluded, we were able to fully focus on new content again:
● New area: Snowy Peaks. This area is linked to the beginning area, Mountain Path. The player will be able to enter Snowy Peaks as soon as they have gotten the Double Jump boots from Blue Caves and a Monster with the flying exploration skill (Vaero, Frosty, etc.) - meaning it's not required to explore Ancient Woods or Stronghold Dungeon first. This area will feature two large mountains that the player will be able to scale, as well as many crystalline caverns within the mountains, and an icy lake that is surrounded by myths and rumors. There will be many vertical rooms with lots of challenging jumps.

● Almost all of the rooms of Snowy Peaks have already been finished. The next test version of the game (Early Access test version) will feature two new areas: Snowy Peaks and another area that we will reveal in the future.

● New Monsters: Ice Blob, Caraglow, Aurumtail

● You may recognize Caraglow and Aurumtail from our first Community Monster contest: Caraglow was one of the winners by popularity vote, while Aurumtail was our Developers' pick. They are the first Community Monsters to be implemented into the game as new collectable Monsters. They will both be found in Snowy Peaks. Caraglow is a unique support Monster that can heal like no other Monster in the game, whereas Aurumtail will require you to build around its Mana-heavy skill kit to fully utilize him. Caraglow will be another Monster able to light up dark areas in the game, and Aurumtail will be the first Monster in the game that the player can mount to travel faster from one place to another.

● Ice Blob will be one of the common frost-themed Monsters of Snowy Peaks. It is somewhat similar to its green cousin from Mountain Path, but it has adapted to the icy climates of Snowy Peaks: It has wind- and water-element attacks, with several Chill (Debuff) synergies, and it is a very tanky Shielder as well.

● The minimap has been reworked. It now features icons for several important NPCs and places in the game (a highly requested feature), and it can now be scrolled - because the world just became too big to fit on the screen without scrolling.
● Adding new skills. Since we will be adding Tier 4 skills (Level 20+ required), we will need a lot of new Monster skills. Skill trees will also be bigger at Tier 4, meaning there will be more skills to choose from at Level 20.

That's it for May's progress update! What do you think of the residents of Snowy Peaks (that have been revealed so far)? Are you excited to explore the upcoming areas of Monster Sanctuary? Let us know in the comments!