Quick update to fix a bug where the new Twenty-Eight achievement was not unlocking correctly. It should now be possible to 100% the achievements. Sorry for the inconvenience to anyone who was achievement hunting yesterday or this morning!

It's finally done! I've been working on a major update for They Don't Sleep for the past month since launch, and I'm happy to announce that it should now be available as a patch via Steam's automatic update system.

The main goal of this update is to improve the replayability of the game. I wanted to make it more of a complete package that can support many hours of repeat playthroughs instead of roughly 1-2 hours to beat the base game once. The main way I've done this is to add a Difficulty Modifier system, which I've explained below. I've also made some other less-important changes, such as new items, a new music track that plays when you pick up one of those items, balance tweaks, and more. The game's base price will remain the same, and this update is offered as a free patch for everyone who owns it.

As part of this major update, I've put the game on sale for 20% off today. I also have the game's soundtrack awaiting store approval, and it will be available as DLC for $0.99 as soon as it is approved if anyone wants to add the game's music to their playlists for some chill BGM.

Thanks again to all the players! Here are the patch notes:


Difficulty Modifiers have been added to enhance replayability and add additional goals after you've beaten the game. This system works similar to ones you might have seen in some other roguelike games. You can choose special conditions to make your run more difficult using a menu accessed from the title screen, and the game will calculate a Difficulty Rating based on the modifiers chosen. The game will track your best Difficulty Rating beaten so you can try to beat your own "best score".

I have also added an Easy Mode as one of the difficulty modifiers, since some players found the game too difficult and frustrating while starting out. Using this modifier disables achievements.

The new Difficulty Modifiers are as follows:

• Easy Mode: -4 difficulty when enabled. Reduces the rate of needs loss by approximately 25%. Achievements are disabled while playing on Easy Mode.
  
• +Zombies Per Wave: +2 difficulty per level. Each level adds one additional zombie with each wave.
  
• +Fence Damage: +1 difficulty per level. Each level increases the damage zombies deal to fences by 100% (zombies deal normal damage, 2x damage, or 3x damage based on the level chosen.)
  
• Starting Supplies: +1 difficulty per level. Lowers the amount of starting supplies by 50% or 100% (Kaya starts with normal supplies, half supplies, or no supplies except the ammunition in her gun).
  
• Roguelite Mode: +4 difficulty when disabled (on by default). With Roguelite Mode disabled, Kaya loses all her levels when she dies.

You can now find rare items at the shop, providing permanent passive bonuses for the rest of the run. The Assault Rifle has been moved to this list of items instead of dropping from zombies. Approximately 1 in 4 supply runs will offer a Rare Item.

The rare items are as follows:

• Assault Rifle: Increases fire rate, reducing time between shots by 0.4 seconds.
  
• Dot Sight: Guarantees a hit on the next shot following any miss.
  
• Boombox: Plays motivational music (a brand new music track). Also lowers stress by 50% while inside the house.
  
• Mattress Pad: Lowers the delay before gaining rest when falling asleep on the bed.
  
• Pacifier: Reduces the chance of the baby throwing a tantrum by 50%.
  
• Athletic Shoes: Increases the speed of supply runs by 1 second each way (going out and coming back).
  
• Spice Rack: Adds a small amount of stress relief (15% of food gained) when eating a bowl of soup.

Three new achievements have been added to the game for players to unlock. The new achievements are as follows:

• Twenty-Eight: Survive for 28 days.
  
• Win Harder: Escape with at least 5 difficulty.
  
• All But Impossible: Escape with at least 10 difficulty.

• In order to eliminate some gamebreaking scenarios and encourage players to diversify skills, ranks in each skill are now capped at 12, with a global level cap of 85. If you already have over 12 in a skill on an existing saved game, you should be able to keep your skill as-is, but you will not be able to advance it further and the global level cap still applies.
  
• Needs loss is now slightly faster by default to reflect the addition of Rare Items and Easy Mode.
  
• The final ending cutscene's visuals have been improved (for new game+).
  
• The Assault Rifle now gives a slightly lower bonus to make it more balanced with other rare items.
  
• When holding baby on the sofa, he now gets comfort
  
• You can now get off the sofa, out of the bed, or out of the bathtub by simply moving away from them (after a short delay)
  
• The game now properly pauses when the player alt+tabs or the game window loses focus
  
• Changed caption on "take bowl" / "put back bowl" to "take soup" / "put back soup" for clarity and consistency
  
• Pressing E on the keyboard no longer selects menu options. You can use the keyboard to navigate menus by using the Enter key.
  
• Fixed a bug where putting back a bowl of soup wasn't turning off the red highlights marking unusable objects.
  
• Fixed a bug where putting too many levels into Gun Handling while having the Assault Rifle would break fire rate and revert it to default.
  
• The journal now opens faster when starting a new game.
  
• The assault rifle no longer drops from zombies and can instead by found as a rare item on supply runs.
  
• The Character Sheet has been changed to reflect the addition of Difficulty Modifiers and Difficulty Rating.

Update 3 is a minor patch bringing us to version 1.01. This patch consists primarily of bug fixes and minor user experience improvements. It also lays the groundwork for the first major gameplay update, which will introduce a couple of significant feature changes intended to add more replay value to give players additional challenge and variety after they beat the game.

Those features are not enabled yet in this patch, but they are still on track to come out in October, so stay tuned!

• Added UI element to show when the player has the Assault Rifle (part of the groundwork for the upcoming major update)
  
• Kaya now automatically gets out of the bathtub or bed when her stress or rest are full
  
• +XP pop-ups now properly appear on all actions which reward them
  
• Made a number of minor improvements to collisions and object placements to make the game easier to control
  
• Fixed a bug where Kaya could still move after death/while respawning
  
• Made the red glow around the screen less obtrusive when low on needs
  
• Slightly lowered the volume of Kaya's breathing when low on needs
  
• Fixed a bug where truck/boat parts were being displayed as x/9 instead of x/5 or x/7 as appropriate
  
• Fixed a bug where death teleport shader would sometimes appear in ending scenes
  
• Fixed a bug where journal was displaying days played/zombies killed incorrectly upon death
  
• Corrected a color matching issue on the Quiet Night text

Hi everyone! This is Christian from Missing Middle Games. I'm the developer behind They Don't Sleep. After yesterday's launch, I've finally had a chance this morning to sit down and take a deep breath and think about what I want to do next. I'm going to quickly go over what I've planned for the future of the game, but first, I want to thank everyone who bought it yesterday and today during the game's launch. I appreciate everyone's interest in the game and I hope you're enjoying it! If you have any issues or feedback, feel free to reach out. Now, onto the roadmap.


I will be making any minor updates that are needed, mainly to fix bugs and other issues, but also to tweak balance and difficulty based on user feedback. There will almost certainly be some small patches during this time. If you run into any bugs or problems, please let me know. These updates will not include any new features or major changes to the gameplay.


I'm excited to announce that I'm already hard at work on a larger update for the game to be released sometime in October. This will be a free update focused on improving the user experience and adding a little more replay value to the game. It will most likely not include new levels, but I do plan to include a difficulty modifier system to extend the life of the game after you've beaten New Game+. Other features such as more items or different zombie types are a possibility, but I can't make any definitive promises as of yet. Aside from that, I'd like to address a few usability/quality of life issues that I didn't quite get to before launch, to make the game look and feel nicer and make it smoother to play.

So if anyone has any specific requests, please let me know!


...is unknown. I will definitely continue to patch the game as needed, and further large updates are a possibility, but I'm also eager to move onto my next game project, and since I'm doing this all by myself, there are only so many hours in the day I can devote to development. It's possible I could take a break during my next project and do another big update. We'll see!

Thanks again to everyone who bought the game!