Hey friend, how have you been?

The last month for Roundguard has been a lot of balancing tweaks, tutorial rework, and bug bug bug fixing. Not the most exciting stuff to talk about, but it's so nice to feel it all coming together. On the art side, I finished a pass on every last monster and fixed up a bunch of UI. But enough words, let's see some pictures!

Here's a sneak peek of the ettin. I'm going to be animating him on my Twitch channel today -- like, probably right now! Come by and ask me for my ettin impression.



After a year of ignoring it, we finally did a rework of the opening UI flow. Major thanks to Aeos for the great feedback / therapy session while I worked out the character select screen on stream. UI, man, it takes a village.



Flagon's healing skill got a rebrand to Gold Lust...



And for those of you who were worried, the "round" books are gone. No more do you have to wonder if they're actually clam shells or toilet seats. What was a misguided attempt at world-building has been corrected. They're square books now. Just books.



Oh, is it May already? Guess what? We've got some events this month! Come by for a high five!

iFest -- Seattle -- May 4
PG Connects -- Seattle -- May 13-14
🍑Momocon🍑 -- Atlanta -- May 23-26

And one more at the very end of the month that we can't talk about yet... 😬 They said the announcement will probably go out next week, so I'll be sure to share it first on the Roundguard Discord.

Talk again soon!

<3
Andrea

How did this month go by so fast? I swear I was just crowing about our new bosses, and then it's just a blur of goblins and handshakes and my daughter puking everywhere and... Look, I survived March. Stronger, wiser (?), and ready to put some more spring into springtime. (You know, 'cause the heroes bounce? Eh, eh? Get it?)

Okay, what did we get done? We've added ten new peg types, including a two-headed tantrum-prone toddler ettin, an illusionist dark elf, a plane-hopping phase spider, way too many goblins, and a cabal of cultist skeletons determined to open a portal to the netherworld. Yeah, World 3 is gonna be wild.



That wraps up the basic logic for all of World 3, so now I've just got to do a bunch of art and balancing work! (If you want to see more of how that comes together, swing by my Twitch channel and shout at me to stream again. It's been too loooooooong and I miss hanging out with all yous.)

We're also hard at work at getting online leaderboards fully up and running and all that boring backend stuff that's needed to run a beta. We're close! I keep saying the beta will be "soon" and you all know how good game developers are at estimating timelines, but we're definitely in SOON™ territory now.



Oof, deadlines.

Besides all that, we had a great time at SXSW and GDC. I met so so many new friends and personal heroes -- I even got the thumbs up on Roundguard from several of the original Peggle developers! (And learned a few of their secrets...) I got mounds of helpful feedback and I'm overwhelmed and exhausted but excited to get back to work! Let's do this!

I hope everyone is having fun at PAX East without us! Pop into the Roundguard Discord and tell us if you see any cool games we should check out. And while we're not at PAX East, we will be out on the east coast in a couple of months... I'll let you know the details as soon as its announced. :D
Talk again soon!

<3
Andrea

It's been busy over here at Roundguard HQ. We just completed a full pass of World 2, adding in lots of new monsters and traps including petrifying trolls, armored skeletons, mysterious rune stones, and orcs with steam blasters blowing everything around. (Rogues, beware. They can blast your arrows and smoke bombs too.) That brings our unique peg type total up to more than 40 and we've still got World 3 to go! But our biggest new addition is *dun dun dun* BOSS FIGHTS.

We wanted the world breaks to end with a bang, so we created a boss fight unique to each one. At the end of World 1 you'll face the alchemist with her collection of ever-changing unstable potions, and at the end of World 2 you'll take on this big guy...



While the bosses at the end of each world stay the same -- so you have something to strategize toward as you develop your build -- they each have procedural elements that change every run to keep you on your toes. New potions are brewed, eyeballs are shuffled, and topnotch threatening laughs are manufactured. (BWA + HA + HEE-HEE?) Okay, I made that last one up.



The next month will be jam-packed as we cram to get in the rest of World 3 and tidy things up for the beta. Plus we've got events! Roundguard was nominated for the Indie Pitch Competition at SXSW so Kurt and Bob will be down in Austin for that, and then I'm on my way to SF 'cause I got picked to join the Pixelles at GDC. If you're gonna be at SXSW or GDC, give us a shout! And of course, no matter where we are on the planet, you can always find us swapping bad puns and bug GIFs in the Roundguard Discord.

Talk again soon!

<3
Andrea

Hello everyone! We've got news!

First off, we've finally setup our Discord server. Come join us!

Secondly, we're getting close to starting up our super special CLOSED BETA in the next few months! If you're interested in getting an early peek at Roundguard and providing us with some valuable feedback, join us on Discord and say hi!

That's it for now, check back later for more updates!