Post-post-jam changelog

Thanks to everyone who's played The Case of the Dungeon Descent! I've been really happy to hear about people's experiences with it.

Changes

Here's a quick changelog of the tweaks we've made over the past month since the big post-jam update.

• Added "How to Play" in the Settings menu for extra clarity.

• Added a note to the first Dungeon Entrance scene reminding you to use Record Fates to complete the tutorial section.
• Fixed unlockable keyword count not including the Revenant.
• Updated saving and lock-in logic in the fate tester to hopefully squish some bugs. 🤞
• Clarified a certain death scene and added more valid options to the fate tester.
• Fixed scry targets disappearing if you click on multiple while they're transitioning.

Dev note: The game is built in HTML/Javascript. In the jam version, we ended up relying a lot on the DOM state (classes, data attributes) for things like which targets are selected. This was expedient at the time but led to some bugs, so while making fixes I refactored the game state out of the DOM so it can be manipulated and checked in a clearer way.

Known issues

• Sometimes the tooltip version of a scry target token can hang around after the target is collected.
  • It doesn't block anything, and clicking any other token will remove it.
  • I can't consistently repro this to figure out where to make the fix - if you have a consistent repro for when it happens, please share!

Some extra design thoughts on the tester

As I mentioned in my post-jam update, I was inspired to add a fill-in-the-blanks tester mechanic by games like Riley and Rochelle. Part of the magic of these games is that the reward of getting it right keeps me engaged and excited to solve more. However, on further reflection, Dungeon Descent's fate tester doesn't completely fill that role of pulling you along, because you're most likely to be able to fill it in at the end of the game, not as you go.

Also, copying inspiration like The Return of the Obra Dinn, we require the player to enter the heroes' names. But finding a scene that mentions someone's name isn't much of a deduction, so filling in names is not the most interesting things to ask players to do.

I hope the fate tester adds something to the game - a prompt to dig in if you missed the details of anyone's story and a sense of satisfaction on getting everything right - but next time, I'd like to think about weaving into the flow of the game rather than have it as one big test at the end.

That's all for now! Please let us know if you spot any other bugs or if you have other feedback. 💜