Hello again!

A massive update is live now…

For the past several months, we have been working on a Mobile port of Word Dungeons. Translating the game to have a smoother feel on a handheld device has proven to be a massive undertaking. As a byproduct of this, several design changes have been made to the core game and especially the UI. It would be unfair for us to push these changes only to Mobile users, so we’ve re-worked the PC version as well. While the Mobile version of Word Dungeons is being wrapped up, we figured this would be a good time to push all the exciting changes to the PC version as well.

The changes are quite substantial, so get ready…

Another Word Bank / Hardcore rework.

• The “Expert word bank” has been completely removed because, quite frankly, it served no purpose.
• Hardcore mode has been made more Hardcore:
  • Every level now contains 1 ‘Deathword.' If you don’t solve the Deathword, it’s game over!
  • You now get 1 extra gold per word found to rack up those high scores – high risk, high reward!
  • Since there is no Expert word bank, Hardcore mode will use the standard word bank.

Massive UI overhaul:

• Home Menu:
  • Everything is labeled now.
  • You can now participate in global Leaderboards (along with the Steam ones). Once the mobile version of Word Dungeons releases, all players across all platforms will compete.
    • Side note: your existing high scores will be uploaded to the global Leaderboards when you launch the game.

  • You can now choose to load your Dungeon map even if you haven’t completed a run yet.
    
  • The progress screen now shows your current gold as well as your current time.
    
  • Added a help button to highlight the differences in difficulties.
    
  • There is a Loading Screen now…
    

• The Main Game:
  • Your lives, coins, keys and gold are now displayed in the top left corner and no longer clutter your desk.
  • Your extra loot items (Escape Keys for example) are now in their own menu and also off of your desk.
  • The tutorial menu is far more in-depth and is now just a UI element instead of a physical object on the desk.
  • You can now click on the words you found in the “Found Words” menu to look up their definition.
  • There is a “Zoom” feature now, so you can see the words a bit better, especially on levels with many words.
  • Curses now have their own UI elements.
  • Tapping on most UI elements will now explain their function.

• The Dungeon Map:
  • Re-arranged some of the UI elements.
  • You can scroll to zoom in and out now.

Gameplay Changes:

• Removed the “Anti-Save Scumming” feature. Save scum away!
• Changed the "Fraud" Achievement: Click on a coin as it is flying into the well.
• Keys will drop less frequently if you already have 2 (this includes keys found in the Well event).
• Gold poofing away is no longer framerate dependent.
• Getting the “Lantern Buff” (The golden tablet with a lantern on it) now delays the first occurrence of a “Haunted word” by half of the level duration.
• Hitboxes for many of the loot items have been made larger.
• Re-balanced how long you have to complete a level to be a bit more forgiving.
• Words that become haunted will now show up as purple in your 'found words' menu.
• You can no longer get the "High Stakes" curse on Hardcore (lose 2 lives instead of one).
• On hard difficulty, cursed words can spawn right from the beginning.
• The escape door now spawns whether or not you have the 3 keys.
• Escape door spawns are much more consistent and predictable now. You cannot have 2 Escape door spawns back to back, and there will never be more than 5 events in between two Escape doors.
• Changed the ‘Sapphire Gem’ requirement to “Skip an Escape door while carrying all 3 Escape Keys.” (It used to be that any Escape Door after the first was a ‘Sapphire Escape Door’)
• Sacrificing 5 of the same rune once all Skill Coins and Golden Tablets have been acquired returns 6 runes instead of 5.
• The shop keeper does a better job of making sure he doesn’t sell an Escape Key if you already have one…

Visual Changes:

• Well turns red when you don't have any coins and try to toss one in anyways.
• Words now have a more apparent border, making them easier to see on darker screens.
• ‘Enhanced borders’ such as those on Cursed or Deathwords are now less visually noisy and easier to read.
• The Lantern and Scale’s progress are now easier to read.
• Many of the Visual FX have been toned down quite a bit.

Bug Fixes:

• Fixed a bug where the Reduce Difficulty arrow would just not show up when it was supposed to.
• Fixed a bug where the signs that informed you of the next event were just lying to your face.
• Fixed a bug where Golden Tablets would spawn at the shop before you even had enough coins.
• Fixed a bug where you could get a loot item multiple times if you clicked really really fast.
• Fixed a bug where you could still buy items even if you were full of runes.
• You can no longer get Golden Tablets from chests if you already have them all (unless you open two chests simultaneously).
• Fixed a bug where starting a hardcore file, quitting, then starting a non-hardcore file would start you off with 1 life instead of 3.
• Probably a bunch of other small bugs...

Future Updates:

With the Mobile version of the game well on its way, any future updates will be centered around fixing any major bugs and removing/adding words as needed. We’ll also be working on putting out new media to reflect the new changes.