Happy New Year!
2025 is well under way and we're excited to be back working on Let's Build a Dungeon after a short break for the holidays. We're heading into the new year feeling great about what's to come and with some big plans on the horizon.
Our demo is available to download now, so make sure to check it out if you want to experience a taste of what's to come. It's been a lot of fun seeing everyone designing their own RPG worlds, so please keep sharing your creations!
https://store.steampowered.com/app/3340480/Lets_Build_a_Dungeon_Demo/
Since the demo launched we've had thousands of responses to our feedback form, so thank you to everyone that took part so far. (It's linked in the demo but also available here.) Every submission helps us massively!
We had a dig through the feedback data and found some fun stats:
- Played in 10 languages, the top 3 being English, German and French
- 40% of responding players chose the Explorer hero class, whilst only 24% chose Mage
- 60% hadn't played our previous game Let's Build a Zoo (exciting to have so many new people joining our community)
- 94% of players that responded completed the demo to the end
The demo now has over 200 positive reviews (!!) and it's been great to see such an encouraging response. We've had quite a few questions about design inspiration, so without giving too much away for anyone that hasn't played it yet... we want to share some insight.
Demo Design Insights
We're big MMORPG fans and Ultima is of course one of the most iconic titles in the genre, so finding a way to pay tribute was on our list to tackle at some point down the line. Our goal for Let's Build a Dungeon is to encompass everything that makes (and has made) the games industry what it is today - and that covers a whole crazy list of historic moments that shaped the games we play today.
One of those moments is the 'assassination of Lord British' in Ultima Online. As an in-game rebellion that went on to influence so many instalments of the series, it marked a real shift in dynamics between creators and players. These kind of moments don't happen often, and when they do they deserve to be remembered! Justin Olivetti at Massively Overpowered wrote a great article about the importance of what happened in the early days of Ultima Online and how things went down, so one to check out here if you want more details.
As we worked to finalise the end of the demo, we realised that this was the perfect opportunity to have some fun with the player/developer relationship in Let's Build a Dungeon. We're really happy with how it turned out, and hope you enjoy it too.
What's Next?
We recently went to Taipei Game Show in Taiwan and had a great time showcasing the game there for the first time. We took part in IGN's livestream from the showfloor and got to meet so many amazing people. If you stopped by to say hi during the show, thank you! It's always fun to hang out in person.
Later in the year we'll be attending more events (it's a little early to confirm just now) and in the very near future, we'll be holding a livestream hosted by our Game Director James. We plan to play through some work-in-progress stuff that we probably shouldn't show yet... but it's fun to get feedback and hear what you think! Once we confirm the date and time, we'll post an update, or you can also stay in touch with us more frequently by joining our Discord server.
We also have a newsletter/beta mailing list that receives 1 email per month with a behind the scenes update, and is always the first place to hear about beta opportunities. Click the banner below to register.
Lastly, an update on game progress. It would take way too long to list everything we've been up to over the past few weeks, but here's a list of some things we've been focusing on:
- Building an early version of creative mode for beta testers (hopefully coming soon)
- Writing story arcs for the simulation campaign
- Many, MANY new art assets
- Online infrastructure and initial set-up
- Controller support testing and improvements (not available in the current demo)
- Removal of placeholder art
- Trading card implementation (we're currently tagged as 'profile features limited' but this will be removed once set up is complete, hooray!)
- Workaround for playing the demo on Steam Deck (read our guide to playing on Steam Deck)
We've got a lot of exciting plans and will be back with livestream updates and more soon. Thanks as always for your support!
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