Hello, Duelists!
We hope you're all still enjoying Duels of Fortune, especially after the massive balance & polish update that was released a little over a month ago! We think the game's been feeling a lot better since then!
Recently, we've realized we may have a bit of an unintentional communication problem. While we do speak very actively with the community on our official Discord server, both about DoF and about other random topics, we failed to realize just how many of our fans lie outside of that Discord community! As such, we're going to make an effort from now on to keep all of you much more updated on DoF's development with these Steam news posts, perhaps using them as monthly devlogs of sorts. We want to make sure no one is left out of the loop for too long!
That being said, let's not waste any more time, and get into the topics we want to focus on today. Starting with the most important question...
Where's Azutron?
As many of you may know, our next character, Azutron S-Type, is currently in development. However, he was originally scheduled for release in late February, and it's April now, so... what gives?
We won't beat around the bush here -- development has been a lot slower than we'd like. Not only do we now both have jobs outside of game development (whereas previously only one of the two of us did), but the aforementioned balance patch took also a lot longer than we expected, which pushed back Azutron's development significantly.
That being said, he's relatively close to being done now! Currently, we're predicting Azutron to release before the end of April, but of course any number of unexpected factors could still delay it further. We'll do everything in our power to stick to this window, though!
It's also worth mentioning that Azutron hasn't been the only thing taking up our dev time lately, as the scope of the 0.7.0 update has increased a decent bit beyond just adding him. But hey, at least that gives us some exciting new things to show off in this post! Let's start with one you may have already heard about...
He's Got a Gun?!
For our April Fools announcement this year, we unveiled a "brand-new character" in Callowman With a Gun!
While this altered version of Callowman isn't actually being added to the roster proper, he'll still be featured in the game as a special Mission Mode opponent. After beating him, however, you WILL actually unlock the ability to play as him, as long as you have Boss Mode enabled! Just hold Start while selecting Callowman, and you'll get to wield all that ungodly power for yourself!
New Stage: Sylvan's Office!
Every narcissistic, larger-than-life billionaire needs an equally larger-than-life work suite, and the new Sylvan's Office stage shows just how luxuriously the sleazy gambling tycoon likes to spend his "working" hours.
As you can see by all the gold trimming and tacky art pieces, Sylvan really spares no expense... on himself, anyway. Keen-eyed players may even be able to spot some hidden details among the display shelves in the back!
New Boss Battle: Azutron T-Type!
As the powerful, interdimensional militaristic force they are, the Azu-Corps naturally must have some heavy artillery, and the Azutron T-Type, A.K.A. "Gigatron", is exactly that!
Players who dare to face this gargantuan foe will have to contend with an onslaught of hard-hitting attacks, trapping projectiles, and a shielding system that prevents Gigatron from being flinched or launched until you deal enough damage! As the "T-" in his designation implies, he's an absolute tank, and you'll need to use both heavy offense and extreme caution if you want to take him down!
The Gigatron fight will take the form of a new Boss Mission in Mission Mode! Good luck to all challengers!
And Finally... A Character Popularity Poll!!
With Duels of Fortune having been available on Steam for a good few months (and well over a YEAR on smaller storefronts!), it feels long overdue for us to hold our first-ever character popularity poll!
Who do you like playing the most? Have a soft spot for a particular character's personality or lore? Maybe you even have a favourite background character! Well now's your chance to finally tell us all of that and more! This character poll is all-encompassing, including categories about way more than just the playable cast! While any question about non-playable characters is optional, we'd highly encourage you to try to answer them all anyway, as we're very curious about who the most beloved in each category will be!
Link to the full form: Click here!
With Story Mode not being out yet, we're very interested to see people's opinions based on just the brief lore and interactions that are currently in the game! Voting will only be open until April 14, 2024, so don't miss your chance!
Wrapping Up
And that covers everything we wanted to talk about in this post! As mentioned before, we'll be making an effort to release posts like this on a more regular basis now. Even if we don't have much to talk about in a given month, we'll still do our best to keep you all updated on our current activities!
With that, we wish you a great day, and we hope you're looking forward to all the exciting new content coming in the Azutron update! See you around!
- Ben and Kaleb