Hey guys, been a while since I posted (like 10 years). During most of that time, we were working on the Book of Demons on PC and Mac. Since the successful PC launch, we were working on the iPad port - it took a while since we were a team of seven people but finally, it's here and we are looking for testers! But... What *is* Book of Demons? Great question! It's our way of paying tribute to our beloved genre and attempt at recapturing the experience of playing hack&slash dungeon crawling games back when the genre was fresh and everything was new and magical. It's set in a paper pop-up book world and features modern streamlined mechanics that do away with needless details and detractors and focuses on fun. And it's packed with light humor and tongue-in-the-cheek genre commentary. Flexiscope system The most unique feature is that you can pick how much time you have right now and the game will generate dungeon that you should be able to finish in that timeframe. Knowing how much time you have the game will also try to design the level for optimal flow by distributing bosses, treasures and such in the best way. And it's balanced and fair regardless of time chunks you play in. Cards Items, skills, and passive abilities are represented as cards for a more streamlined experience with less time managing junk in inventory. Cards have (of course) interesting synergies and can be picked into clever builds. Facts Procedurally Generated Dungeons Roguelike Mode for fans of extreme challenge 70+ different types of monsters, with different traits and custom mechanics 5-8 hours long campaign and unlimited freeplay after that Three classes with unique cards and combat mechanics 80 base cards each with up to 7000 variants Ok, I'm still reading so you have me hooked! Good, very good because we need testers. We are planning on releasing the game soon but before we do that we would love for a larger group of players to test it. It has been battle-tested on PCs and we tested this iPad build as much as we can but we are only a handful of devs. You can get it here: https://testflight.apple.com/join/sRNmAy51 If you are using Discord then we have a Sneak Peek channel on our server where you can share your thoughts on this build: https://discordapp.com/invite/XTXcYzN You can also subscribe to our bot there to get notifications about this and upcoming games. Did I mention this is the first game in the series? It is! The project is called Return 2 Games and we are planning seven games in total, each a tribute to a different genre we played and loved back in the '90.
I had a chance to try the game for a brief moment (like an hour or so) and I have to admit I’m quite impressed! This might be due to the fact I’m fairly new to this particular genre, but mostly because this game just rocks! I mean, from the very first moment it just oozes professionalism and top-notch production value. The voice acting is fantastic - background music fits the events on-screen and complements them perfectly. I love visuals. Paper-like design and overall art is beautiful. As I said - very impressive indeed! Controls are very responsive. No issues on that front whatsoever. Everything’s snappy and smooth. I didn’t experience any hiccups or slowdowns. Fonts are sufficiently large to read even for us old timers in our mid 40s whom require reading glasses on certain rare occasions. Gameplay-wise, as I stated previously, I’m new to the genre so it’s hard to compare it to anything I’ve played before. I’m familiar with rouge-like mechanics of course, but the combination of CCG, deck building, hack ‘n slash, tap to move and whatnot is quite unique for my taste. I’m playing campaign on Normal difficulty and enjoying it a lot even though there are moments I’m not entirely familiar with as of yet. But I’m not even through the whole tutorial yet, so there’s a learning curve for everything. I get it. Actually, I’m like halfway through the tutorial, if it unveils continuously by the new events I’m part of at the moment. (Judging by the fact I went into tutorial menu and around 17-18 page out of 35 I realized that’s something I didn’t come across yet, so I rather stopped reading). Still, I have a question about the HUD, especially the small glowing XP in the lower right corner. I didn’t figure out what’s that for. I also assume the roman number I (respectively II after tapping on it) is the one of two different deck layouts I can build, right? Well, I’m gonna keep playing... I mean, testing.. Uhm, so I can uncover potential bugs and issues and whatnot. Right, right. I have no further comments or criticism. So much from me then.
The glowing XP means that you are getting bonus experience from kills - the green bar on the XP bar shows how much bonus XP you will get before the bonus ends. We will check if the related tutorial shows correctly, thank you for the feedback! The roman I and II button is for switching presets, as you suspected. You can have another preset saved (for example healing one or one designed against a particular type of enemy) and switch to it on the go. I'm glad you enjoy the game! We don't know, we don't have iPad Air 2 - maybe you could test it? The only bottleneck is the RAM, once it starts it should be fine.
I am about 2 hours in and my warrior is level 12. I am blown away with how great this game is. I am on the first IPad Pro and the game is playing very well. I plan to try playing the game using my Apple Pencil tomorrow. I am hoping it helps the UI feel more precise. Overall great job. I am having a very enjoyable time playing this game.
Long time lurker here and this announcement made me have to sign up! I am so excited for this! I’ve been a fan of the PC version for a long time. This will be a great game for mobile and hope lots of people give it a look. I’m currently downloading the beta and will definitely put some serious time in on it!
Sweet, thanks for taking the time to test it guys. So far, bug wise, we learned that on iPads mini 2/3 and iPad Air 1 the GPU doesn't support the texture compression we use and there is not enough RAM. The game starts but looks... well, funky. We are trying some stuff but we will probably have to require OS ver 13 at release.
Hello guys, A short message to say I downloaded the beta, this game rocks ! Any chance to see this gem come to iPhone in the future ? I guess it should be difficult to adapt the UI and keep everything readable and enjoyable, but who knows ? Congratulations for your work devs !
Hello! Thank you! I will pass congratulations to the team. We tried to fit the UI into iPhone but it's not very comfortable on smaller screens. They say never say never but at this point, I would say it's unlikely (but we will keep looking for a way to do it in the future)
Thanks Uriel ! So we'll see Meanwhile, if I spot a bug, I'll post a new message but so far so good (sooooooo good)
# Beat the first boss (took me 2h and 30ish min) # ipad pro 10.5 # Bug? Found none. Just make the character more responsive especially during boss fight cos now it is a bit laggy to move character during that. # Graphics, poem, voice acting and art styles are unique and fantastic # Gameplay? Addicting but repetitive at some times. Maybe you can add more spices to the game (jokes, songs ... idk) # happy with the tutorials. I dont feel lost In my ideal way (just my personal taste) - add distinctive personality to each character and boss (serious, witty, sarcastic etc). - maybe let them sing more The Sound of Silence? Lol Bottom line The game is very well-made and polished. The team should also focus on marketing the game. Dont let this good game go unnoticed.
Thank you for taking the time to write down detailed feedback! We will look into the boss fight (it's possible that some stuff/enemies blocked the path). As for the content - there are still jokes ahead of you Heroes have quite distinctive personalities - it comes through their one-liners mostly (such are the rules of the genre!) but it's there! Same for the Towns Folk. Marketing-wise we will do what we can but nowadays pretty much everyone does all they can. Best marketing is word of mouth, so let your friends know ;-)
@Makara Nou What first boss? And where do you see the time spent in game? @Uriel is there a way to attack Gargoyles before they wake up? I encountered 4 out of 5 gargoyles species but I didn’t figure it out yet nor is it specified in their description. Progress-wise I made it to Quest I so far. I got one key in case I want to replay the quest. I’m Warrior level 11 and I didn’t find the gameplay repetitive. On the contrary. There’s still something new to learn, someone new to encounter, something new to discover. I upgraded some cards, found my first epic. I really like this game! Difficulty is fine so far. Playing on Normal, didn’t die yet. Taking it slow though. Approaching enemies carefully and keeping my distance. I didn’t notice any slowdowns during the boss fights when there’s a lot of enemies onscreen. The game’s buttery smooth. And I’m playing on iPad 6th gen 2018, so really entry level device. Hence, great optimization on the developer’s side.
Quest I is the first boss Thank you for the feedback! The gargoyles can't be attacked before they way. They observe a specific spot on the path and wake when you step on it (watch the direction they are facing). By walking step by step you can control how many wake up. Unless something forces your hand of course.
I have the Steam version and really enjoyed it. I have just installed the game on my big iPad Pro 3rd Gen. A couple of questions; *Will the game be premium with no iaps? *Will I be able to transfer saves from the iOS version to the pc version and vice-versa? *Will your character in this beta trial be kept when the game is fully released. *Can you please make the white home bar at the bottom of the screen for the latest iPads either transparent or even better, invisible like other developers do? This helps alleviate accidentally opening up other apps by a single swipe up. The other modes require two swipes. It is so great that this will be available on iPad.... it is a fantastic game! EDIT; Actually I gave misinformation above about the home bar. The ideal setting for the home bar on the latest iPad Pro’s is to have it greyed out. At this setting the bar remains grey when tapping and requires the user to swipe up twice to close the game. Having the home bar set to disappear (like it is now) means every tap on the screen makes it appear bright white (which is distracting) and only requires one upward swipe to close the game. (accidental closing occurs). Sorry about the confusion.
I guess there are three bosses (each one at the end of each kinda world). And i use ‘screen time’ to track my playtime.
