Nandrew
Be prepared!
Guess you should have signed up for that suspicious-looking insurance policy after all.
In addition to gold being used for Kingdom upgrades (as well as a more limited form of spending within dungeons themselves), smaller amounts of money can be spent on carefully controlled dungeon preparations.
The previously-discussed adventuring locker is one such preparation, allowing players to carry a saved item into fresh dungeon runs for a fixed fee. But there’s many more to be discovered as players upgrade their kingdoms and learn about new buildings. Like other aspects of the game, preparations are designed to range from beginner-friendly helpers to subtle (yet powerful) boosters that more advanced players will find useful.
For the most part, these preparations help patch up some of the problems found in the freeware. The local blacksmith, for example, can sell items that help players boost their way past the first character level or so — decreasing the chance of getting stuck early on. The thief den sells insurance to make sure that your equipment survives a dungeon run — even if you don’t. The wizard’s tower and church offer instant glyph summoning and god worship perks respectively, reducing the need to scum dungeons for desirable item layouts.
As a matter of fact, the price of entering any dungeon with the full range of possible equipment tends to discourage repetitive in/out situations: the cost of fully kitting up means that players need to explicitly commit their resources to a particular dungeon run, otherwise the gold is wasted.
If you’re worried about this making the game too easy, never fear! Many of the more advanced challenges will be designed with dungeon preparations specifically in mind, and those that aren’t will generally force players to complete their quests without using any preparations at all.
We hope that preparations will ultimately provide an opportunity to reduce frustration and grinding in the full version of DD without making the game too easy for those who want a genuine challenge. At the very least, they’ll certainly bring more personality to the dungeoneering experience.
April 28th, 2011 at 5:45 pm
Oh, looks good! I’d like some extra crunchy grues on the side, please. Thieving imps, there’s almost a Royal Society of Whatever cultural heritage stamp on them little buggers these days, right?
April 28th, 2011 at 8:34 pm
This sounds pretty good. I hope it’s not too much preparing for a dungeon run though. I like how it is in the original Desktop Dungeons when you can just pick a class and race and go.
But I’m really looking forward for this game.
April 28th, 2011 at 9:07 pm
Quests eh, like:
“If you want to use the thief guild’s advanced services you will need to prove yourself by collecting every item within the dungeon, while taking nothing with you. That includes the amulet of awesomeness the boss has, which happens to be magically bound, and cannot be removed until he/she/it’s spirit departs the body.”
April 28th, 2011 at 9:23 pm
You can totally just pick a dungeon and go. In fact we’ll probably have a “random adventure” button if you really don’t feel like picking a race and class and would rather just get down to business. Preparations are strictly optional.
April 30th, 2011 at 7:49 am
I hope there will be lots of quests like the one Artemus mentioned.
May 2nd, 2011 at 4:09 pm
This keeps looking better and better…and my head is going to explode if there are too many more of these tantalizing updates before the game is relased! It took me over a year but I’ve finally beat all the challenges in the freeware version. Now I crave FRESH MEAT!
May 6th, 2011 at 11:45 pm
Sorry for a bit off-topic, but I seem to have missed the information, will this (bloody awesome) game be released on android phones ?
And also the most asked question in the world, do you have any idea of a possible release date ?
May 6th, 2011 at 11:57 pm
Yup, Unity has Android support, so we’ll be releasing for Android and iOS as soon as we can after the PC/Mac build is done 🙂
As for release dates, we’re not 100% sure yet, still trying to figure out how to pay for everything we need to do.
May 7th, 2011 at 5:12 pm
You guys could use the “Minecraft model”
Have the game at a reduced sale as you work on, then increase it to normal cost as its released. Thats how Notch paid for stuff when he was working on minecraft.
May 9th, 2011 at 4:43 pm
“still trying to figure out how to pay for everything we need to do”
Stop eating
Quit paying the rent – code in the coffee shop!
Rob a bank
…seriously though good luck with everything 😉 your loyal fans eagerly await the commercial release of DD
May 9th, 2011 at 6:35 pm
Or maybe you can put in a kind of pre-order system ?
May 10th, 2011 at 1:38 pm
Pre-order much wanted, for the love of Goats!
May 12th, 2011 at 5:34 pm
Sorry, looked around and couldnt find an answer for this but, when do you think the commerical verson of Desktop Dungeons will be released?
May 15th, 2011 at 12:17 am
haha, just look 4 comments above yours
May 15th, 2011 at 10:43 pm
I’m 100% in for a pre-order if the QCF Design team wants to pursue that. I haven’t preordered a game in over 10 years but I would do so without hesitation for DD, *especially* if it would help the developers make DD everything they want it to be on release day (whenever that may be).
May 17th, 2011 at 1:36 pm
Please make preorder available.
I’m pretty sure you will not have to worry about the money 🙂
May 22nd, 2011 at 11:20 pm
The best game I played in ages, apart from Minecraft. Guys, do like Notch did and offer a pre-order/pre-buy system and haul in the money. I’m already madly in love with the 0.15 version and would gladly shell out $10-$15 if it means more playable stuff sooner than later.
May 23rd, 2011 at 12:35 am
That’s really good to hear! Totally working on pre-orders 🙂
May 23rd, 2011 at 1:10 pm
I really love DD. Since i know there will be a better version with an kingdom upgrade system, i stopped playing the freeware. Please please please release it on PC and not only on Smartphones, at 10$ i’ll buy it at once.