We went quiet for a while but for a good reason; the Hellcard's closed beta was raging behind the scenes. We had our hands full balancing and adding quality-of-life stuff to the game. At the same time, we were making plans for the launch. Finally, the time is upon us.

Mark your calendars, wishlist, and tell your friends. This train can't be stopped: Hellcard is releasing into Early Access on the 16th of February. Why Early Access, some of you might ask. Those who participated in the Early Access of our previous game, Book of Demons, know that our EA launches are atypical. We launch in Early Access with the game fully playable and somehow polished. For us, Early Access is an opportunity to gather feedback so that we can polish and balance the game where you feel it will make a difference. We will also be adding extra content to make sure the game stays fresh.

I would have forgotten! Here is our new launch trailer, where you get to know the antagonist of Hellcard a bit better.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zssuAFHzGIA

Instead of doing the demo, we are relaunching it as a prologue. This might increase the visibility for the new players since the demo had poor visibility on the store page and people on our Discord were asking where is it.

Until we make sure we can have both demo and the Prologue live at the same time the demo will be unavailable, sorry for the inconvenience. The good news is that:

All your saves and progress from the demo will transfer to the prologue and later on to the full game. You can just install the prologue and continue where you left off in the demo.

You can check out the Prologue in either single or co-op multiplayer here:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2207480/HELLCARD_Prologue/


See you on the 16th and, as always,
Stay safe in the paper dungeons ːArchduckː
Konstanty

Good news everyone! First of all, the game now includes the Czech language! This is thanks to the excellent community translator who took the time to translate the game and worked with us to integrate the translation.

We also, finally, got the official playable verification for Steam Deck! The only thing holding us back from getting that green tick is the text size in the game, which is a tiny bit smaller than required for the Steam Deck. Aside from that everything works and the game runs perfectly. Since the text size probably won't change (as it would require a manual rework of the whole GUI) now is the best time to play the game in your Deck.

Other stuff included in this update are various accumulated fixes and improvements to the rendering and window system backend. Peculiar resolution handling issues on ultrawide displays should be a thing of the past.

As always,
Stay safe in the paper dungeons ːarchduckː
Konstanty

Although we work hard on the next titles in the series, we of course keep maintaining and updating Archdemon's dungeons. Like we could stop ːarchduckː

Without any further ado, the first and the biggest news of this update is the addition of Ukrainian community translations!

We have also found and fixed multiple minor issues with other languages. There were also some controller issues and crash bugs that are no more.

Full changelog:

• Ukrainian language is now available thanks to awesome community translators!
  
• Fixed a seemingly random crash on Massacre difficulty
  
• Various updates and fixes to all translations in the game - also thanks to awesome community translators!
  
• Controller - fixed an issue where the game pedestal would be highlighted on game startup but pressing a button opened the menu instead of launching the game
  
• Fixed avatar sharing to Facebook

As always,
Stay safe in paper dungeons ːarchduckː
Konstanty

Update 18.3.2022: We posted this statement and raised the price in order to draw the attention of Russian players to our statement so they could see what is happening in Ukraine in their name.

It worked. We received a lot of angry and grateful feedback both from Russians supporting and hating this war. Since then we have joined other studios and halted sales of Book of Demons in Russia and Belarus until further notice. Owners of the game will continue to be able to play it. Supporters will still receive all the content. Again, this is not an action aimed at Russian and Belarussian players, although it affects them. Taxes from sales of games on Steam go back to the country where the sale has taken place. This means that every sale of our game in those regions would be helping wage this war.
You can read the original statement below.


Here in Poland we still remember horrors of war from our grandparents' stories. Now we witness them at our doorstep. We support our neighbors from Ukraine in this dark time. Members of our team are privately driving to the border refugee camps every day and transporting mothers and children fleeing the war-ravaged country. It's all not enough. There is a river, an ocean of people crossing the border every minute. Often with nothing more than a child or a cat cradled in their arms. This madness is hurting innocents, mothers, fathers, and gamers like us.

First of all, for the next seven days we commit to donating all income from the sales of our game on PC to NGOs that take care of refugees.

Furthermore, as a company, we would like to try and reach our Russian players and let them know what is really happening in Ukraine. We are raising the price of Book of Demons over 10x to 6666 Rubles for the Russian region. This price change is a temporary measure to bring attention to this statement. Eventually, the price will return to normal levels.

This is a drastic measure, as we are aware that some of our greatest fans are from Russia, the country where love for the ARPG and the original Diablo is strong. Most of them probably are aghast with war crimes their government is committing on innocent Ukrainians. We know this might feel like punishment to some of them. Yet if this makes new players check our post for an explanation and thus allows us to be heard and reach those who are not aware of what the Russian government is really doing, then it will be worth it. We don't blame regular Russians, we are all brothers and sisters. It is their government that is to blame. The price will remain increased until further notice.

To our Ukrainian friends considering escaping the horrors of war: if you can risk getting to our border there are thousands of people from all over Poland waiting there to get you to safety. We have food, toys for kids, medical and legal aid. You will get driven to your friends or families all over Europe. If you have no one we will take care of you and build a new life for you. Thousands of families are offering their homes to refugees. You don't need a passport to cross the border, take your pets with you. Everyone is welcome. More info in Ukrainian here (official government site)[www.gov.pl].

As always, stay safe.
Thing Trunk team

It's October so the Town is also celebrating. You would think they had enough scary stuff going on with the Archdemon and the whole undead invading the land but apparently, there is always room for more!

Pumpkins, last year sweets, spider nets, and paper skeletons are dragged out of cellars and dusted off. Coincidentally, this all is also done by paper skeletons!

This also means that “Limited Edition Spooky Challenges” are back starting from 10/26 until 11/2. Here is a rundown:

• 7th sense: killed enemies respawn and can be killed again for more gold. They don't give you more points, but think of all the gold! Grab as many coins as your pockets can hold and run before the monsters surround you! Begins on 10/25.
  
• Spooky Spores!: We heard you like spores, so we put spores in your spores. Did we mention you now also spawn spores that spawn other spores and all spores poison you? That's how it is Run or kill enemies around you to gain more points: the choice is yours. Begins on 10/27.
  
• For The Horde!: the enemies are blindingly fast and can sense you from far, far, very far away. Kill them quickly or push them back in order to finish the run as fast as possible! Begins on 10/29.
  
• All you need is Blood: each second you lose 1ːpaperheartː Every time you deal destroy enemy heart you gain 1ːpaperheartː Perfectly balanced as all things should be, manage your hearts and survive. Begins on 11/1.

As always,
Stay safe in the pumpkin dungeons ːarchduckː
Konstanty ːpaperheartː

It's been a while since we have released an update. Rest assured, though: we are committed to the long-term support of the Book of Demons. We are simply bundling fixes in larger batches.

Without further ado, This Update's Highlights!

There have been issues with saves being corrupted due to power outages. Each time we tried to recover the saves by hand and sometimes we succeeded. Now we are adding a two-tier automatic backup system that should keep your heroes safe.

There was a bug preventing Razer keyboards from going full RGB on you. They will now. And it will look glorious, give it a try!

This title goes to slowed, frozen, and stunned states not being recognized by the game. This resulted in stun locks on the hero and some general weirdness. It won't be as easy to get frozen to death now and goats won't be so frustrating! The funny thing is, we actually fixed this bug two years ago but it came back. Fingers crossed it stays squashed for good this time!

Ver. 1.05.211020 - 21 October 2021

• Changed the save manager system to keep two-tiered backups of characters in case of a power failure
  
• Fixed Razer keyboards not using RGB backlights correctly when enabled in the "Extras" section in options - the return of RGB glory!
  
• Revamped the whole credits backend system - supporters can now be updated more often, regardless of the game updates
  
• Now, if you are a supporter, your name will be highlighted in the credits when you view them! How cool is that?
  
• Fixed slowed, frozen, and stunned states not being recognized properly by the game mechanic
  
• Updated supporters list in credits
  
• Updated translations with small fixes

As Always,
Stay safe in the paper dungeons!
Konstanty ːpaperheartː


PS.: Looks like there was a nasty bug that slipped past our tests and affected players with non-latin characters in the same path. A hot patch just went live that fixed that issue. If you have been affected you might get a "save corrupted" message on startup but your saves should be fine.
Sorry for the commotion!

PPS Update 10/27/2021: we are releasing a small fix, some fixes from the previous update required fixing and now should be fixed ːarchduckː

Hello!

It's been a while since the last progress update and we are sorry it took us so long to write them. Matt opens a new era of regular updates with a lenghty blogpost on why making games takes so long and what is our current status. As I said it's lenghty but there are also concepts and renders from new projects sprinkled in there, so hopefully it will be a worthy click and read!

You can find the full post here, on our blog.[thingtrunk.com]

And here is a taste of these new images and concepts ːarchduckː
As I mentioned this post ushers a new era - an era of montly dev updates from us. So see you soon!


As always,
Stay safe in paper dungeons!
Konstanty

Our last roadmap began with the words ‘2019 was a particularly chaotic time for all of us here.’ Oh boy, were we in for a big surprise, because we all know how 2020 turned out. But was it really all that bad? Let’s find out!

In the roadmap for 2020[thingtrunk.com], we announced not one but two new projects: Hellcard and Book of Aliens. Internally, we had big (not to say brazen) plans: to find and onboard five new team members and finish moving into the new office.

What we didn’t exactly plan for was abandoning our new office pretty much the day it was finished! Thankfully, we were ready for the transition to home office model since our philosophy was always to be flexible and if someone on the team needed to work from home it wasn’t an issue. What we never tried was everyone doing so at the same time. The pandemic helped us improve our work organization and lower heating and electricity bills at the same time (hello, remote work!). Unfortunately, it also tossed a wrench into our recruitment efforts. Still, we were lucky enough to welcome aboard two new team members: Wacław – a new graphic designer, and Mateusz – a new community manager (that would be yours truly, actually!). We are still recruiting and even though the process is moving slower than we have hoped, we are on track to hit our 2020 target of 5 new team members in 2021.


https://store.steampowered.com/app/449960/Book_of_Demons/

Despite having moved onto new projects, we have been keeping Book of Demons up-to-date and alive. Not only that, but it also made it to new platforms! iPad users can now play Book of Demons: Tablet Edition. With the great help of 505 Games and Sonka, we released Book of Demons on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch as well. Last but not least, Book of Demons was included in Humble Choice in February, helping us spread the word about our games and Return 2 Games vision.

As you can see, 2020 wasn’t all that bad for our team. But now, let’s move onto some exciting stuff you’re all waiting for!


https://store.steampowered.com/app/1201540/HELLCARD/

As you might remember from our previous announcements, Hellcard started as an idea for a Book of Demons’ mode, not unlike Superhot mode. It quickly became clear that in order to execute it properly and with multiplayer, we will have to write it almost from scratch and so it evolved into a standalone spin-off title. Hellcard will feature its own Archenemy, a slew of new cool features, game mechanics, and we really can’t wait to show it all to you!

Since most events and shows moved to digital form due to the pandemic, we took that opportunity to show you our internal tech demo during Steam Spring Festival, Tokyo Game Show, PAX/EGX, Taipei Game Show, and Gamescom (we even had an awesome virtual Booth at IndieArena!). In November we also participated in The Escapist Games Showcase – Fall Edition, where Konstanty answered a couple of questions about Hellcard.

We gathered a lot of useful insights and feedback from you but the work is far from over. As you know, what you have played was barely a prototype. Since then it was scrapped and rewritten as was always the plan. The actual game will be… more polished ːarchduckː The development process is especially challenging for us due to the multiplayer mode – it is the first time ever we’re making a multiplayer game. We’re also exploring the possibility to implement modding to Hellcard (nothing 100% confirmed, though!), which further complicates the matter. But how cool would that be? Very cool, we think, which is why we are trying to squeeze it into the production plan.

Still, with so much stuff going on with Hellcard, instead of pushing for an Early Access release at all cost, we’re instead aiming for a Closed Beta launch at some point in 2021 and Early Access after that. This will allow us to do further testing and tweak the game along with your feedback, while at the same time giving our community exclusive access to the game.


https://store.steampowered.com/app/1196230/Book_of_Aliens/

The second installment in the Return 2 Games series, Book of Aliens, will pay homage to UFO: Enemy Unknown. While it will share card-based mechanics and the paper art style of the whole series, ultimately, it will represent a completely different genre – a turn-based tactical strategy. We made a lot of progress in the design department and finalized how the tactical part of the game will work.

Because our plans to grow the team were thwarted, we made progress slower than we have hoped for. This means that Book of Aliens won’t come out in 2021 as we initially planned. There is good news too. We brought about a revolution in the visuals department. The game will look different from what you might expect from the first screenshots. Later this year, expect a solid post on the art style of Book of Aliens, similar to our post on the same topic regarding Book of Demons[thingtrunk.com]. But that's not all, we are also planning a bigger surprise reveal about Book of Aliens later this year.

As an exclusive sneak peek below you can see one of the rejected art prototypes from the process and see how far it came since the first screenshots we shared. And now we are even further.


There are some things that are inevitable. One such thing is happening later this year after brewing in secret for some time now. Sometimes you finish a book, close the cover but the thing just won’t stay closed. Let’s see if you can guess what it is before we are ready for a full reveal.

Being unable to assemble the full-strength team for Book of Aliens left part of the team, paradoxically, with more time on their hands. We were able to keep working on a secret project of sorts. We are not ready to reveal what it is just yet, but it will be ready soon.

Here's a small teaser for our secret project. Can you guess what it might be?

We are super excited and can’t wait for you to check it out.


I think we can all agree that 2020 was disruptive and not the best year on the record, to state it mildly. Despite all the setbacks, challenges, and other minor issues, we stay optimistic. This year shapes to be the busiest year Thing Trunk ever had when it comes to reveals and mystery projects.

Thank you for your continued support - we are lucky to have such a great community. Remember to join our Discord channel to hang out with us and other Book of Demons’ fans, and make sure to follow us on Twitter and like our Fanpage[www.facebook.com]!

And if you are intrigued by the mystery project or would like to get your hands on early builds of Book of Aliens or Hellcard, consider subscribing to our Newsletter[thingtrunk.com] and joining our Discord server.[discordapp.com] Discord and our newsletter are where all the super early previews and tests will happen so it’s the place to be. Not to mention it’s a great community.

Take care and feel free to share your thoughts in the comments below!

Liven up your Steam profile with brand new animated frames and backgrounds to stand out among other players!

The Steam Points Shop allows you to spend your hard earned points on emoticons, profile backgrounds, and avatar frames related to various games, including Book of Demons. While we already had some items in the past, such as the lovely archduck emote ːarchduckː or paper skull ːpaperdeathː, they were static and didn't do much (apart from looking good, of course). This time we've added something more lively that will bring your Steam profile to life!

The new items are:

• an animated profile frame that shows around your avatar
  
• 4 animated mini-profile backgrounds with our heroes (visible whenever someone hovers the mouse over your avatar)
  
• 3 animated profile backgrounds with our heroes (visible on your Steam profile page)

You can access the Steam Points Shop for Book of Demons and get all animated items for 2000 points ːgoldpileː right here.

If you want to get in touch with us or hang out with other Book of Demons' fans, click here[discord.com] to join our Discord channel! That's where you can chat and discuss and play together. And that's where we are running sneak peek channels with early betas and previews of Hellcard - a sequel spinoff to Book of Demons and a true single and multiplayer co-op deckbuilder! If you think that's right up your alley, wishlist and follow the game to get updates on public tests and launch!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1201540/HELLCARD/

As always,
stay safe in the animated dungeons!

Mathyou ːpaperheartː