General Update #26: (Interviews, Youtubers, Next Update Info)

So with the full release of Dead Monarchy, I've crossed a significant mental milestone. I'd like to thank everyone who has supported me over the years and to everyone that has bought the game.

I especially want to say thank you to everyone that has left a review. Reviews are naturally hard to come by. I don't respond to every review as sometimes there isn't anything further to say or to clarify however I read every single review.

Reviews are one of the main sources of my motivation, it is good to read what players think about the game, whether it is positive or negative, I value all feedback. So again, thank you to everyone that has left a review!

Interview:

Whilst I have already openly discussed about my future plans, I did an in-depth interview with Tom which details just how far I want to take them. I thoroughly enjoyed the interview, each question was well planned. If you would like to know more about my development journey, gaming history and my thoughts on gaming in general, I recommend checking out the interview.

https://tomsgaming.com/2023/06/03/kevin-zhang-dead-monarchy-studios-dead-monarchy-interview/

Youtubers:

A big shoutout to Splattercat who took the time to feature Dead Monarchy on his channel. Whilst I do have plans to reach out to more Youtubers, I wanted to wait until I had finished more content. I was super surprised when Matt/Splattercat reached out to me. Special thanks goes to erome5578 as well for mentioning Dead Monarchy to him, the exposure the video gave was great.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xePlgKfyLbc&t=1337s&ab_channel=Splattercatgaming

If you want to see longer playthroughs of Dead Monarchy, Special Caesar has continued his previous stream of Dead Monarchy, the improvements based on player feedback has gone a long way and he finds himself enjoying the game a lot more than the previous playthrough. His new playthrough starts at episode 4.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s5-EpeHloYY&list=PLHFJG2B4XV475lQTF7HzW2sJZizNIwDKd&index=4&ab_channel=SpecialCaesar

Lastly, if you want to see a video of someone diving straight into the cheese grater, I highly recommend checking out Nerdgoria. The thumbnail (Steam announcement image) he did alone is worth it and his commentary is hilarious. I have a special place in my heart for players that dive in deep straight away and don't get frustrated but instead plow forward and embrace it all. I hope he continues to chronicle his journey with Dead Monarchy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AdpJ-AJnrAY

Post-release Content:

Things are going well with the roaming mobs, at least for now. It's looking pretty smooth and I haven't hit any major hurdles yet, time will tell if this is viable to backport, just a few more things I need to test. All I can say is that it is something I would love to get in but there are reasons why I didn't launch with roaming mobs included.

Next Update:

As for the next update, it will probably be coming out by the end of this month. It will mainly be focused around balancing and some UI improvements. You can view the current progress in the Steam forums "Development Progress".

Based on the feedback I have received, I may eventually fully shift to doing more UI improvements. Initially I wanted to work on new weapon types/abilities for the next game however it seems I may focus on the UI first and some of those improvements will be backported to Dead Monarchy as well. If I do this then the next game will obviously be delayed. At the very least, I won't know the development timeframe until I can implement the new combat additions as that is where the bulk of the work is.

Cheers, Kevin.