Hello everyone! 👋
The year 2022 is now a melody of the past.
We would like to thank all of you guys for supporting us since day one! 🙏
Without further ado - let’s check out what happened in our camp during the second half of ‘22. Let’s go! 🏃♂️
⚒️ First Dwarf (...and some gaming events here and there! 🎮)
In case you missed it - First Dwarf is our upcoming Action RPG set in the world of Driftland. That’s why you can read about it on Driftland: The Magic Revival Steam card.
You’ll be able to pet a good boi in the game. Mhm. That’s right! 🐕
Now, let’s talk about the asymmetrical co-op 🐉 that we’re implementing in First Dwarf.
🧑🤝🧑 In co-op, players will be able to take control over the mech or one of its pilots: Tru or Ragna. Each of them has its own, separate skills to develop and upgrade. All characters have their strengths and weaknesses so it’s important to choose the characters wisely when preparing to complete certain tasks.
🧑 In a single-player game, the player can switch between characters, completing tasks with the one with better skills in a given field. Tru, Ragna, and the Mech will have different skill trees. Tru will be a better Mecha pilot, Ragna can e.g. fly, and the Mech can be treated as a kind of armored vehicle, so without a pilot it will not work.
It’s important to say that implementing the asymmetrical co-op would not be possible without the Game Prototype Design Competition 2022 in which we were awarded! 🏆
The competition mentioned above helped us create some new mechanics for First Dwarf. Those mechanics evolved into a full-fledged, asymmetrical co-op mode of the game, which we implemented in its build! Once again, thank you to the co-organizers of the competition: Ministry of Culture and National Heritage of Poland, Centrum GovTech Poland, and CRPK, as well as Copernicus Game Jam 2022 - during which the diplomas 📜 were handed over and everyone who supported us along the way.
We showed our upcoming action RPG at many gaming 🎮 events, both digital and held in “real” places. Just to name a few:
- PAX West;
- Poznań Games Arena (PGA);
- Indie Cade;
- DreamHack Beyond Indie Showcase;
- MIX Next 2022;
- Dev.Play;
- #PitchYaGame.
It’s time to focus on 3️⃣ of them.
🚏 First stop - PAX West.
Lots of you came to our booth to check out an early build of our game. Thank you for that! See you next year! 🤜🤛
Your reactions surpassed our expectations, and the feedback provided will certainly influence the further development of the game, already at this stage. It was 4 days full of interesting conversations, laughter and a unique atmosphere created by countless players, cosplayers, journalists, or industry representatives.🤝
🚏 Second stop - Poznań Games Arena (PGA).
In Poznań, we were showing First Dwarf, Scorchlands, Brewpub Simulator, and Lumencraft. PGA was such a blast! We felt your enjoyment brought to your faces by our upcoming games. Just look at Kuba, one of the members of our team - his smile does not lie 😊
🚏 The last stop - Dev.Play.
It’s a yearly celebration of indie games and their developers. Game creators from all over the world come to Bucharest to present their titles and experiences. The event ended with an award gala. First Dwarf received 3 awards: Best Game of the Show, Best Visuals, and Most Popular Game. 🏆 Thank y’all! 🙏
To wrap up the First Dwarf chapter of this recap we want to write about the key role of our IGN - Exclusive Announcement Trailer posted on IGN’s YouTube channel was viewed more than 285k times. There are also more than 5.4k thumbs up 👍 under the video! 📺
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1714900/First_Dwarf/
🐦 Scorchlands
Who won’t fall in love with birdlike Giwis, running around through the hexes? The game’s a wholesome and adorable city builder.
Play the demo version - is available for free here, on Steam!
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1090100/Scorchlands/
At this point, we can say that developers from Ringlab ⚗️ are aiming for publishing more Steam News about in-game mechanics. When we’re writing these words, three of them are available as we speak: How the protagonist Giwi hatched, How to build your colony, and Gameplay Insight #1: Summoning the Nexus.
Stay tuned ! More of them will be published during January and February of 2023.
Also, the game received a warm welcome during #TurnBasedFest 2022! 😎
🕷️ Lumencraft
The full release of this unique mix of a top-down shooter with base building and roguelike mechanisms is just around the corner! Nonetheless, we’re not spoiling the release date at the moment. That’s not the only great news - something big is coming to the game. We bet you weren’t expecting this. Jump on the hype train, but stay calm. For now, let’s go down. Together. ⏬
The developers from 2Dynamic Games are constantly tweaking and upgrading the game’s build. You can help them by completing the survey they made - we’ll be very grateful for the feedback! It’s called Discord 🎧 survey, because the game’s community was the first one to answer the questions mentioned in it.
👉 Link to Lumencraft survey: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSckMJ-2HMumj5rPd_i2Up0bxT3CRyQvZzWpmKmvBQTfKDTLNg/viewform
One of the most important moments during the Early Access of Lumencraft was taking a different approach to the game's build. The experimental update published a few months ago left the beta stage. It's now living its new life - the developers called it Giga Update.
Lumencraft is reshaping every once in a while - two bigger updates and one smaller update were released since the release of Giga Update. There’s a lot of fresh content in the game - you should play it now, especially if you spent some time with Lumencraft a few months ago. It truly is worth revisiting! 🔁
🍻 Brewpub Simulator
There was a first, official playtest of the game - we’re glad how many of you decided to check out what it’s like to run a virtual pub and brew some virtual ale! A playable build of the game was presented to European audiences for the first time during PGA 2022. Thanks for playing it, we know what works and what needs some tweaking here and there! 🍺
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1755180/Brewpub_Simulator/
🏢 Danger Scavenger
Our skyscraper roguelite shooter is out now on Epic Games Store! 🎉
Just a reminder - Danger Scavenger is available on PC, PS4, XONE, Nintendo Switch, Atari VCS, and XSX. It’s also a Steam Deck verified game - give it a try on one of the handhelds, and you’ll fall in love with this fast-paced gunslinger action!
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1169740/Danger_Scavenger/
This is not the last word we said speaking about publishing our games’ catalog on Epic Games Store - more titles will follow soon. At this point, you can wishlist First Dwarf ⚒️ and Scorchlands 🐦 on this platform!
That’s all for today.
Great things are here, but also great things are yet to come.
2023 will be ours!
Don’t forget to support IndieDev! 🕹️
Much love,
Star Drifters 🚀