Hello everyone,
First off, thank you so much for the incredible reception on our 1.0 Release. We are just two guys, and it is easy to feel overwhelmed in the industry at times. Your support and kind words have helped us more than you can guess, so I just wanted to start like that.
There are a lot of new people in the game! Welcome, and it's great to see people enjoying our work. We've been reading all of your comments, talking to you in the Discord and reading reviews non stop since the release (when we're not fixing/making new bugs). First off, your feedback is incredibly helpful, not only in correcting areas of the game that we might be blind to, but also in deciding what the right course for the future is.
One thing has come up the most - and it's something that we agree with. Replayability. Dice is pretty fun we think, but unless you are interested in grinding out insane combos to compete in Eternity Mode - there might not be enough variance to keep coming back after you've conquered the current challenges.
We started out making a weird game and want to keep it weird - we have discussed the idea of doing a "map" system or traditional roguelike routes in the past, but they're not the right fit for the game. We want to stay focused on sitting down and playing against an Opponent.
So you're going to play against each other, sort of.
Echoes Mode
We're going to introduce a new mode called Echoes. Why is it called that? Because it sounds good. Also because you will be playing against the Echoes of the other souls who have competed against Death...
Guess whose grave that is on the character selection? Get in.
Echoes will be an Asynchronous PvP mode - that sees you face off against the builds other players bested the game - and each other - with. We're still experimenting and working on the fine details - we'd love your input and ideas that you'd like to see in Echoes, but we wanted to give you the brief outline.
When you choose to face an Echo - you will face off in a 7 Round Run against them. They will gain the Relics they gained in the respective Rounds. Will you face off against someone playing the Lucky Bullet meme dream, or someone about to cave your head in with 5 Spears? Well, you'll have to react to their build through your own choices as the run progresses.
To commemorate your prowess against Echoes, we'll be putting in a Ranking system - similar to the Eternity Leaderboards, it will give you a way of checking where you stand amongst those also procrastinating moving on in the afterlife. Don't worry if sweat mode isn't your thing - there'll be a toggle to play Unranked just for fun too.
To be clear, we're still deep in the mines of working on Echoes. It will be here "soon", but not as soon as you might think. The reason we're sharing this now is both because we think it's cool and are excited, and also because as has been the case the entire games life - your feedback is crucial to making the mode as good as it can be. Got thoughts? Something you want to see in the mode? Let us know in the comments or Discussion Forum and we'll be in there reading and replying!