The support from the players during the jam and even after has been incredible. We have been tracking the player stats and it's amazing to see players logging so many hours and returning back for multiple long sessions. We have topped the charts for the last week... so thank you for playing! (750+ hours logged... 1800+ unique players... and over 4000+ sessions!)

There are plenty of bugs! We are aware of a lot of them and plan to focus on fixing them very soon. We built this game within a month and with such complicated systems interacting with each other it isn't surprising to see the systems fall apart.

Initially, the combat system was meant to revolve around getting the best stats and hitting as fast as possible. This had the side effect of the combat feeling weightless, you could have a giant warhammer and swing it faster than Gordon's crowbar with enough dexterity.

Our first big update for Death Card will be reworking how the combat works, both in terms of experience and gameplay.

1. Dexterity will still affect attack speed, but not to the extent that it does now, you will never be able to swing a massive mace faster than a small dagger. Some weapons have a weight modifier, others have a dexterity one, we'll unify these into a single stat that represents how fast you can swing them.

2. Enemies will spawn naturally around the dungeon rather than from a spawner. Our enemies are smart, but the moment there's two or more the combat boils down to who can outdamage the other, there's no dodging or blocking involved. With this change, every enemy will feel like its own encounter and the dungeon will feel more alive.

3. Charging attacks will stagger enemies and you can charge while holding your shield. This will make charging and shielding more feasible, you clearly won't be able to stagger a boss with a dagger but we'll make sure you know when that's not an option.

4. You can switch from attacking and shielding instantly. This will make combat more responsive.

5. Clear distinction between magic staffs and guns. Right now guns are better than magic staffs, they're instant and they deal more damage. We'll make magic projectiles faster and have it so they can hit multiple enemies at once, plus they'll explode!

6. Guns will headshot and we'll add bows. We had bows already but couldn't figure out when to add them until I eventually forgot.

7. Cards will level up with you, faster cast time and stronger damage/heal, this will let us remove duplicates such as Minor/Medium/Strong heal etc... and make classes stand out more during gameplay.

8. Dungeons will have their own set of enemies to spawn. Rather than getting only Rank F on the first floor, Rank E on the second etc... they will all be mixed, with a bias on the current floor difficulty. It makes more sense for a Giant Spider to spawn in the prison rather than the lava pools, it's up to the player if they want to fight it. This will require a lot of tweaking, but if you outlevel and outsmart a high ranked monster you should be able to defeat it most times.

And a lot more!

Arena mode is a new feature separate from the main game. It is essentially a sandbox mode that allows you to spawn enemies and items freely. You can even change their factions and see them battle against each other.

Here is a pretty good example of what to expect from Arena mode. Here is a video during the development period that showcases one of our mini-bosses going against one of our bosses.

I am in the preliminary planning stages of adding my own level. It will be a pirate cove featuring pirate enemies, crabs, and an interesting final boss. We obviously also plan to rework the current dungeons that we shipped with during the jam. Here is an initial concept for what I imagine the pirate cove to look like.

The team is still recovering from the game jam but expect bug fixes and new features within the coming weeks. We are currently fixing up My Summer Cottage to be error free first and then plan to turn our attention fully to Death Card.

There’s a lot more to mention, but we’ll keep this brief—we’d rather be developing than writing blogs! Expect a much longer blog on our website in the future, diving into the nitty-gritty details.

If you are interested in keeping up to date about our progress... please join our discord!