After some feedback with the previous update, we've made some hotfixes.

Also, Astral Throne will be a part of a Steam Daily Deal today (Sunday, Sept 14) starting at 1PM Eastern.

So if you're thinking of buying the game now, wait just a little bit! You won't regret it!

Gameplay Tweaks

• Story is now enabled by default for Custom Games, for those who want to experience storylines with custom game rules

  • However, there is a new warning added to the Custom Games page: Warning: If you deploy too many Heroes, story scenes might not play in the proper sequence.

  • You can still turn the story off whenever you want during Custom Games like before

Bug Fixes

• Fixed issues where the wrong kinds of Encounters will be chosen from the Encounter pool

• Fixed problem where you could be rewarded with two of the same Memory at the same time

Since launch, we’ve received tons of feedback and suggestions from players. We’ve been carefully recording everything and brainstorming improvements. Many of these will take time to fix, but here are the changes we were able to deliver in this update:

In our game, if you dash into an enemy’s attack at the right moment, you can trigger a Perfect Dodge with invincibility frames, giving you a chance to breathe.

This mechanic is actually quite generous — especially against enemies with lingering hitboxes, you can almost trigger it 100% of the time.

As a result, many boss attacks that look “over the top” are, in fact, free opportunities for players to trigger Perfect Dodges. The same goes for certain curses — when used correctly, what seemed like punishing attacks can actually become tools that help the player.

But here’s where we made a huge mistake: we never created a proper tutorial to teach players how to use Perfect Dodge.

This caused many players in the early and mid-game to feel that bosses were overwhelmingly powerful, leaving them defenseless, frustrated, and locked into a “prison-like” experience. That’s on us, and we sincerely regret it.

To address this, we’ve decided to increase the Perfect Dodge window so it’s easier to trigger and avoid enemy moves.

• Perfect Dodge window increased from 10 frames → 15 frames.
  (Previously, Perfect Dodging melee attacks was a bit tough. It should now feel noticeably easier.)

• Added a new Dual-Element Synergy: Blood + Fire.

• Added 4 new Ultimate Equipment and 1 new regular equipment.

• The Compendium now includes entries for Elemental Synergies and Ultimate Equipment. (Finally, you can check them all in one place!)

• Adjusted an invisible-attacking enemy — its damage was too high and has been reduced.

• Improved the Reforge UX: after reforging, the cursor/focus will stay on the “Reforge” button, no need to move it back.

• Reforge mechanic update: reforged Insectoid Cores will no longer generate duplicate elements.
  (If you keep reforging without removing the core, you will eventually get the element you want.)

• Fusion mechanic update: the resulting core will always inherit one of the elements used as material. The more of one element you use, the higher the chance it becomes the final result.

• Added a confirmation prompt when dismantling red-quality Insectoid Cores that are already socketed, to prevent accidents.

We’ve seen your enthusiasm for cosmetic skins. Even though sales are still far from 100k, we’ve decided to release two new skins early as a thank-you gift for your support and patience. Bows deeply!

• Added a new VFX to the “Wind Dash” Insectoid Core trait (the one that enables infinite dashing). It now has clearer visuals when triggered.

• Temporarily hidden certain “air distortion” effects (hit, level-up, portal FX) to avoid screen tearing and excessive visual noise.

• Enemy ground poison pools now have more obvious visuals, making them easier to avoid.

• Improved visuals for hit effects and level-up effects.

• Fixed portal FX causing screen tearing.

• Heavy Attack now shows a “breathing light” effect when it’s ready (based on player feedback about unclear cooldown states).

• Fixed an issue where ground items sometimes flickered on the Steam Deck.

• Fixed an issue where screen shake settings wouldn’t save properly.

• Fixed incorrect display in Insectoid Core description boxes.

• Attempted a fix for lost save files.

• Fixed several equipment-related issues.

Join us (Balla Games) in our Discord server - the Ballaverse - to interact, chat and all that other jazz!

We got ballas, we got games, we got everything in between!

Join now: https://discord.gg/9krdBf9vYr

Minor Patch V0.2.4.2

* *Fixed Doors in Ranger Station locking after save game load.

It’s almost time.

The new Everdark demo unlocks tomorrow.

This slice packs the core fantasy: boomer-shooter speed with survival stakes. Move fast, make hard choices, and earn resources by risking it all.

• Several levels (about 15–25 minutes)

• Agile combat: slides, strafes, clean enemy telegraphs (no cheap shots)

• Risk/reward loop: reload or push? light or darkness?

• Keyboard/mouse + controller support

• Built-in Wishlist at the end of the demo

What’s next

We’ll be part of the upcoming Steam Next Fest with developer live streams on our store page. Times are TBA — hit Follow to get the announcement.

Help us land the launch on October 24

• Add to your Wishlist (this helps a ton)

• Watch for the unlock and download the demo tomorrow.

See our interview with mr. Dry in youtube (in Spanish): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9tiBwOG2rR4Thank you for the support — see you in the dark.

Hello Exorcists! This is a quick update with some pretty cool stuff!

First, our discord server is up! If you'd like to chat with us, give us your feedback or stay in the loop of what is being developed, you can join the server by clicking here

We'd love to see you there!

Second, as we work on larger villages (spoilers!) we decided that it is time to add a run keybind. We know some people think the game is too slow, so here it is!

• Walking is the default speed, you can hold SHIFT to run

• Book keybind was changed to F

A couple of fixes also shipping in this version:

• Fix training dialogue sometimes not appearing after selecting a relic

• Fix minigame feedback SFX being cut

That's it for this version, our next update should be e bigger one, so stay tuned!

Until next time, cheers!

The Path to a Demo

Welcome to my first update since publicly announcing No Gods of Men! Now that the trailer is out, I am back to actual game development…yay! The next major milestone for No Gods of Men is a publicly available demo. So here’s my plan and what I’ve been up to.

The Vision

The demo should be a complete, horizontal slice of the game. I like to think of product development in terms of cakes (yum). Ultimately, I want my product to be a big delicious cake with layers of flavor and frosting! But in the beginning…this will not be possible (I am a solo dev after all). As a first release I want to avoid offering a big half-constructed, half-baked version of the final product…lacking frosting and flavor with a soggy bottom (yuck). So instead, the demo should be a well-frosted, well-flavored cupcake! Small enough to be achievable but also simulate the final product in a delicious, bite-sized way.

Fortunately the game is designed in a way that can easily align with this cupcake analogy. The game consists of two gameplay loops that come together in one macro loop.

• Gameplay loop 1: The player builds and manages their towering citadel. Disciples come to live there, the player puts them to work, and ensures they are taken care of.

• Gameplay loop 2: The player dives into action roguelike levels. Each roguelike level is a 2D platformer with waves of enemies the player must defeat, and if successful, will reward them with resources and experience to help them continue building & managing their citadel.

My goal is for the demo to offer each of these loops together in a polished, self-contained way. The game is designed in a way that the player must build their citadel taller to enter subsequent roguelike levels and receive stronger rewards. The demo will offer the first level of the roguelike gameplay, then allow the player to build their citadel up to the second level, but once the player gets to the second level, the demo will end. Simple. Cupcake. Yum!

Progress

As of the announcement a few months ago, both gameplay loops were in a reasonable state of polish. I have not yet done difficulty or economic scaling on the enemies or reward systems, but the infrastructure is already there. The biggest missing piece has been a tutorial & new user experience. I have been working on this for the past month now. The player will enter a dilapidated Citadel, be introduced to their first few disciples, there will be a narrative tee-up, and the player’s hand will be guided to build their first few rooms and manage their first disciples. Afterward, the player will be nudged to enter the roguelike realm to find more resources to continue building their citadel and to attract more disciples.

So far I’ve developed the opening narrative tee-up and am starting to work on the tutorial user interface. Based on my experience, I am assuming this new user experience will undergo a lot of evolution as I get feedback from actual players. These experiences sometimes may be too heavy handed in how much hand-holding they do for the player and in others they may be too light, so finding the balance will be key before full release…but for the demo, I have to start somewhere!

I am targeting the demo release by end of this year. In the meantime, Wishlist and Follow No Gods of Men as I'll be keeping this page up to date with the latest developments!

Until next time!

Bobby @ Long Tooth Llama

Hi all,

It's been a busy weekend of updates for Hydro! This is update v1.16 (confirm the version from the Main Menu of the game).

This mini-patch addresses a few recently-discovered bugs and adds some adjustments and tweaks to the recently-added lightning introduced over the weekend in v1.15.

The details of this update are below:

• Bug fix: previously, if you removed the Accumulator Charge fuse (no. 3) from the fusebox whilst the Accumulator was charging, the Ammeter charge gauge would still read a charge (even though the Accumulator was no longer charging) - this is now resolved (the gauge will read zero as there is no Accumulator charging occurring when the no. 3 fuse is removed)

• In the Difficulty Settings dialog box, renamed the 'Mouse Sensitivity' and 'Invert Mouse' settings to be more generic 'Camera Sensitivity' and 'Invert Camera Pitch', as these settings also affect game controllers and not just the mouse...

• Added an additional 'type' of lightning texture for some variety...although you may not notice as they flash so quickly! ⚡

• Bug fix: previously, when a Township Demand was active and the interior lights were red, switching the 'Rig for Red' light switch to toggle between yellow/red lighting in the power station would fail to change the backlight color of the Grid Frequency Gauge (upgrade component). Also, if the Township Demand succeeded or failed, the backlight for that gauge would remain red and fail to revert back to yellow like all the other gauge lights. This is now fixed.

• In the lightning spawn profiles, reduced the likelihood of lightning striking the power station or near the power station as this was seemingly a bit too aggressive in v1.15!

Thanks again for all the support!

Please feel free to feedback on the lightning spawn and strike likelihoods (if you feel you or the power station are getting 'hit' by lightning too often, or not enough for example).

Until next time, happy generating! ⚡