Hey everyone!
WE DID IT!!
We are now OFFICIALLY FUNDED on Kickstarter.
101% of our goal with 5 days left! And you all know what that means???
STRETCH GOALS!!
Thank you all SO SO much - we literally could not have done it without you - we are so looking forward to filling all of our backer rewards , both digital and physical (look at the end of the update for a secret picture)
The poll is in and we are talking about dungeons today! Oh my AXOLOTL, this is seriously one of my favorite parts of this game and I'm so looking forward to pulling the curtain back a little to tell you all about the dungeons part of Dungeons and Dining Tables 🥳
I closed this vote off early because I wanted to make this post but I imagine it will be the winner (So don't make me a liar!)
I am such a big fan of dungeon crawlers, my cousin and I would grind Diablo 3 together on the PlayStation when we were kids - in fact I may call him up today and see if he's keen to run some of the new season content! I loved the idea of always getting new and interesting loot, I love the idea of finding new cosmetics like fire wings, or pets from a special treasure goblin, special armor or a special potion that improved stats when it healed you (all of which are inspirations we've used to help us build our game) so from a very young age I have been OBSESSED with making dungeons, especially random dungeons with random encounters and ambushes... 👀
So, let's talk about dungeon design
In the early days, when I was first figuring our how we would create our random dungeon generation, I started on paper! There's lots of great ways to make dungeons, but something I thought would be easiest to test and give us a lot of freedom to create was this sort-of chunk method. Basically, We would create hand-crafted chunks and stick them together in a different order each time the level was generated. I took some inspiration from some of my favorite games at the time: Diablo 3 (obvs) but also The Binding of Isaac, Cult of the Lamb and a game I actually could not put down, Returnal! Each one of these games had a similar, yet different method of room generation for their dungeons and I wanted to lean into the hand-crafted, semi-puzzle driven aspects of their world design.
This is a diagram that's pretty close to the what we've ended up with in the demo. It's not exact, (we have to keep some secrets!!) but we did want to highlight the generation, the locked rooms and the enemy encounters so this sort of method of different types of rooms made it really simple for us to make.
Another aspect of the games I've loved exploring is their vastly different and unique dungeon themes, don't you just love getting deep into a dungeon and suddenly you enter a new biome, or a new theme or unlock a completely different looking area! I know I do! Dungeons and Dining tables is no different! For our planned release we have 4 major dungeon themes to explore:
Lampshade Grove is a forest filled with big stone furniture. This is the current dungeon you can play in the demo - available now on Steam for free!
A dusty wasteland of forgotten instruments, grumpy sounds and sandstorms. This is our second dungeon theme and will be part of the early access release!!
Hangers litter the ceiling of the cabinet caves, this is exactly the place where the missing sock that fell behind the bed ends up.
While we dont have any concept art for this yet, the idea centres around a standard snowy ice themed dungeon. However, instead of snow and ice, we will use blankets, sheets, and pillow forts throughout the environment!
I really hope you love all of these ideas as much as I do, and now that we have hit our target, the reality of bringing these things to life becomes more and more certain! Thank you once again for your continued support!
Our sample for our Axolotl plushie arrived!! Its super cute - we need to make some minor tweaks, but as soon as we do we will be set to order the physical merch ready to ship!
If you would like one of these cutiesss, remember to back us on Kickstarter as there is only a limited number and once they are gone, they are gone!
Get your plushie on Kickstarter!!
Unfortunately no, I dont come with the plushie! 💚
SKULD is a third-person Action Tower Defense inspired by Norse mythology. You play as Skuld, the last Valkyrie, and must fend off waves of enemies by combining legendary turrets with fast-paced melee combat and unique abilities.
You can find their Kickstarter here :
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1412346420/skuld-a-norse-mythology-action-tower-defense