Another quick update - we are currently working on finetuning the character deployment- and exhaustion-sytem. As mentioned in our last update, there will be a constant stream of recruits and you will need to switch up your party composition during runs to ensure your characters can heal. You can also force deploy exhausted characters, but that will come with hefty debuffs.

We want to use this post to talk about the core ideas that shaped Dverghold's design. Yes, Dverghold is a classic dungeon crawler, but it's also quite a bit more than that. The original pitch for the game was:

"What if we take roster- and camp-management like in Darkest Dungeon but the dungeon delving part is a "Blobber"-crawler like Eye of the Beholder or Dungeon Master?"

Dverghold creates a genuinely new experience from those ingredients, by combining these elements we add depth to the parts that were kept simpler in the games we drew inspiration from:

• DD had proc-gen "disposable" dungeons for quick runs whereas we have one big handcrafted continuous dungeon with an unfolding story, tactical combat, puzzles etc., making that part of the game more like a full-blown traditional CRPG.

• The classic dungeon crawler formula gains a new layer, encounters have deeper consequences beyond moment-to-moment gameplay. A bad fight on level 2 means a veteran benched for three days and having to take a green recruit next time.

(We didn't have time to implement all of this in the free demo & mostly focused on the dungeon crawling part, but the "full package" will be in the Early Access release!)

Marrying those two concepts wasn't always easy and created some game design friction points, since a classic dungeon crawler and games with base building, roster management and procedurally generated missions like Darkest Dungeon or X-Com are structurally different and that forced us to come up with new solutions to certain parts of the formula, but we think we have found solutions for all those design problems by now.

One of those problems and how we solved it: In Darkest Dungeon , you do a run, it's gone, and the consequences land back in camp. That clean cut is a big part of what makes the recovery loop work. But a blobber dungeon is the exact opposite: it's one continuous place you keep coming back to. That opens up an obvious exploit - just step into the dungeon, immediately step back out, and you've passed a "day" and healed your whole party for free.

Our solution is a magically sealed gate. To leave, you have to appease it with an offering in the form of special relics you find while delving. Pay it and you walk out clean. But you can also force your way through without paying: the gate still lets you leave, but a breath of the deep follows you out and settles over the camp, and nobody recovers that night - not even the characters who stayed behind and never set foot in the dungeon.

So instead of an exploit, you get an actual decision: limp out cursed and lose the day, or continue searching for offerings, risking to sacrifice your entire party. That's exactly the kind of choice we want you making at the mouth of the dungeon - and it's a good example of the sort of problem that "marrying two genres" throws at you, and the kind of solution we've been finding for them.

More updates soon - thanks for following Dverghold!

Hello everyone! We've been a bit quiet the last weeks, but not because nothing was happening - quite the opposite. We are extremely busy working on getting the game ready for Early Access. A large part of our roadmap for Early Access has already been implemented by now and we want to give you an update on what we've been up to since the demo has been released.

Where we are at the moment:

• After giving it a lot of thought, we did eventually end up allowing for up to 4 party members. We liked the idea of making the player take trade-offs by limiting the party size to 3 but eventually we found it a bit too limiting after all and went with a more classic 4 character front/back row layout.

• Captain Richard will now provide you with a constant stream of randomly generated characters to recruit. From time to time, certain pre-made "hero characters" will show up that will be familiar to you if you played the demo ... ;) There's also a "battle fatigue" system in place now where characters will have to rest for some time in the camp after taking a certain amount of punishment during a dungeon run, forcing you to switch your party roster from time to time.

• Skills/spells can now be upgraded in a (simple) skill tree-like fashion when a character levels up.

• Added enemy infighting: certain enemy types don't like each other and can start infighting. There is also a new mage spell that can make an enemy attack his own.

• We reworked how mage spells worked - mages still only have 3 skills that represent their spells, but which spells those are exactly will depend on the staff they have equipped. Over time, we'll add more staff types, allowing for a wide variety of spells.

• Added 3 new dungeon levels and will rework the demo level to make it feel fresh even if you played it before and finished their basic layout. Expect plenty of new labyrinthine corridors, new environment designs, epic battles in large rooms with lots of enemies and mysteries to uncover!

• Added 2 new quests in addition to the one that's in the demo along with a lot of new dialogue. Some dialogue contains choices that will affect your reputation you have with certain characters, leading to different outcomes later in the game.

• And yes, your progress in the game gets saved now ;)

What still needs to be done:

• Flesh out and decorate the new dungeon levels

• Implement the camp upgrades: You will be able to build new elements in the camp, allowing for better upgrades and additional options. For instance, father Kai, the camp's priest, only has a simple makeshift shrine in the beginning, which you can upgrade to a proper worshipping place, unlocking new types of blessings for your characters.

• A system for randomly generated character portraits that combinest a set of base faces and adds different beards, hairstyles, jewelry, scars etc. to create a set of unique portraits.

• Adding a bunch of new enemy types

• Balancing and gameplay tweaking/playtesting

• Polishing visuals and UI

• And of course, fixing bugs

We are currently aiming for Early Access in June but will take whatever time is needed to present you with a polished result. Dverghold is very dear to our hearts and the reactions so far have been very positive, we don't intend to tarnish this with a rushed release.

Images speak louder than words, here are some pictures to show you what we've been up to.