Dev Update #36: Build 23 (Next Project + Grand Arena Update)

I hope everyone had a great holiday season. Today I am releasing the largest update ever for Dead Monarchy. Due to the size of this update, it will be rolled out in multiple phases. The first phase is to upload it to the beta build branch.

It is highly recommended to start a completely new playthrough and to enable the quickstart options if you wish to immediately access the new content. An existing playthrough may work (not tested) but certain conditions must be met which are explained below in "First Phase".

Opting In:

• Right click Dead Monarchy.

• Select “Properties”.

• Select “Betas” on the left menu.

• Select “grandarena” from the drop-down list.

Grand Arena Update:

What is it? This update merges two games together. So, it really isn't even an update. It isn't really an expansion either. It's literally two games merged together. And it's completely free.

Arena Monarchy was developed separately after Dead Monarchy was fully released. It greatly expands the combat system adding dozens of new weapon types (which means new abilities/perks) and a huge number of new helmets and armors. A huge number of new enemies and factions are also added.

In total, this is what is available in Dead Monarchy now.

• Master 35 melee weapon types, 5 shield types and 1 ranged weapon type. Gladiators have backgrounds assigned to them which determine what weapon type they will be proficient with. Collect over 250+ visually unique weapons. Just like with the helmets and amors, there are 6 tiers of weapon quality with acquiring rare masterwork weapons as the ultimate goal.

• A combined total of 500 abilities and perks. Each weapon type is entirely unique with its own weapon abilities and upgrades. Specialize your gladiators by focusing on weapon abilities or round out your gladiators with general perks. Once you are familiar with the combat system, go even further and combine weapon abilities and general perks together in the same build and swap between two weapon types to create hybrid fighting styles.

• Over 35 factions to fight against with their own fighting styles and visually unique unit designs.

The base management aspects of Arena Monarchy are also fully merged with Dead Monarchy, so you can manage your own ludus with upgradeable buildings.

• Manage a ludus and personally lead your gladiators in the arena. You are a desperate lanista, every fight could be your last. It is game over if your player character dies in combat.

• 8 upgradable buildings, each with their own unique effects which creates an additional layer of strategy. Balance between investing directly into the infrastructure of your ludus and upgrading your gladiators.

First Phase:

The first phase was just porting and rebuilding all the content from Arena Monarchy into Dead Monarchy. This was the most time consuming and intensive phase considering the limited amount of time I have to work on my games.

Currently, all the new content is isolated and concentrated in one area. I have decided to make it only accessible as endgame content. In other words, you won't see the new weapons, armors and enemies in shops or roaming around in the fields. This was the safest and "fastest" way to merge the two games together.

To access this content, you must not have unlocked the endgame boss fight (Andronicus). So, in other words, you must not have defeated the arena champion (Gregor) in the fifth town (House Kruger territory).

The "Ethereal Entrance" will turn into the entrance for the "Grand Arena" after Andronicus is defeated. So, this is technically the only way you could access the new content in an existing playthrough, although I haven't done many tests yet.

As a refresher, the entrance is located in this map quadrant, at the base of a huge mountain.

Quickstart Access:

if you don't wish to slog through the overarching story, the beta branch version has quickstart options to immediately spawn at the front of the entrance with Andronicus already defeated and with 100k starting crowns. I don't recommend playing through the story fights. They will be partially broken due to the fact that Andronicus is already dead. This option is really just to jump into the Grand Arena content or to grind and do contracts in the overworld map and then alternate it with Grand Arena content.

You must enable both options in order for this to work, enabling only one option will not satisfy all the conditions.

Grand Arena:

Once you gain access and enter, you will be greeted with your ludus. From here, if you have played Arena Monarchy, everything is basically the same however there are a few key differences.

• You do not spawn with companions with exotic backgrounds, it defaults to the Midlander backgrounds.

• There are no restrictions on building upgrades, you can upgrade whatever building you want in whatever order.

• There is no "quest" that guides you through the Grand Arena however the progression is the same with the champions. You do all the "Pit Champions" first, and then you move onto the "Arena Champions". Upgrade the manor to unlock different arenas to fight in.

• Time progressives slightly different in the Grand Arena vs Dead Monarchy. In Dead Monarchy time increments as your character moves across the world map. Fights in the Grand Arena take place at 12h, no earlier, no later. If you enter your ludus and it is not 12h, press the [Next Day] button and it will set the time to 12h the following day. All subsequent fights will progress time forward by 24 hours exactly. So, pay attention to your crowns and provisions.

• When you exit the ludus, time progression will revert back to the default way that Dead Monarchy handles time. When you enter back into your ludus and it is not exactly 12h, you must end the day again to set time back to 12h. Either that or enter exactly at 12h.

[Next Day] button is in the top right corner. [Exit Ludus] button is at the bottom middle.

Engine Upgrade:

I have updated to the latest version of Unity 2020 for Dead Monarchy which means three things:

• The map stutter should be completely removed. The stutter was coming from the old legacy UI system that Dead Monarchy uses. It still uses it, but the overhead has been significantly reduced.

• The recent Unity security issue has now also been addressed.

• Ultra settings now have much higher textures for models. If you were previously playing on Ultra and find it to be too much of a performance hit, change to High settings. As the new High settings basically mirror the old Ultra settings prior to this update.

Second Phase:

I have no idea when this will begin and I'm not rushing to it either. Dead Monarchy has been in development for over a decade now and this "merge" basically marks the beginning of the end for Dead Monarchy. I've pushed Dead Monarchy to its limits, especially with the current UI system and engine I'm using. Making even small changes is very tedious and mundane.

The second phase will most likely see some of the content being spread out beyond the "Grand Arena", so perhaps in shops and some roaming patrols.

Again, I have no idea when this will be implemented nor am I rushing towards it. I will be leaving all subsequent updates on the beta branch exclusively until it finally transitions to the live build. This entire process will most likely take years.

Next Project:

This is the reason why the "Grand Arena" content has no definitive finish date. Unfortunately, Arena Monarchy didn't do well at all, so my time is becoming more limited, and I've decided to pivot and heavily focus my time on the next project. Going in, I always knew Arena Monarchy was going to be an experiment, but it is basically finished now and I'm happy with where it is, especially for the price of $5.

Overall, this is a great thing though because the next project will be the final game in this series, aka "the big one". This next game will be the culmination of everything I've learnt in my solo game developer journey. I've decided it is finally the right time to make the move and fully focus on creating the final game in this series. Final is a good thing too because I have no definitive "end date" for development on this next project either. There is nothing else coming for this series after this next game, I will most likely be working on this for decades and I'm happy with that because I feel like I finally have the tools I needed, years ago.

New year, new game to develop, however from time to time, I will switch back to Dead Monarchy as I am trying to align the updates for Dead Monarchy with a playable release of my next game.

I don't know when it will be playable yet, however I've made some great strides this year, most of that being in heavily improving the UI (uses an entirely new UI system). Everything is being amped up to x10? Or is it x100? The first playable release of the next project will probably just focus on combat. I have set a very tentative date for the end of this year, and it will probably just be a combat demo.

Progress Shots:

So, time to finally show some WIP progress shots. Please keep in mind that everything is WIP and subject to change. The font, the graphic icons, the UI boxes etc.

One of the biggest objectives with the next game is to modernize the UI. One of the jankiest things about Dead Monarchy is the lack of a proper options menu. For example, music/sound settings are saved per save file. The settings are now saved globally so they are consistent across all save files. There are also now finally settings to change resolution and other graphics settings directly in game. Another highly requested feature will be implemented in the next game too, "keybinds".

There are also various improvements to other menus, such as the inventory. There is finally a dedicated [X] button, item icons are smaller so you can fit more on the screen at any given time. Item sorting is also much clearer now, allowing you to sort items from low to high tier or low to high price etc. Characters also have a dedicated "second name", aka a title which you can also use to give specific roles to each character without having to rename them, IE "Baldur the Frontline Tank". Baldur would be the name, "the Frontline Tank" would be the title.

There are also various lighting and renderer improvements which are still in the process of being refined. Improvements to the combat UI as well. There are now floating "Health Bars" which wasn't a thing in Dead Monarchy, they can also be toggled off.

UI scaling has been greatly improved too. In Dead Monarchy the legacy UI would literally stretch all the menus when going beyond 1080p resolution.

Hovering over any unit in combat will also immediately display information about the unit at the unit's position, rather than being docked to a corner of the screen. The extended unit information that is accessed by clicking [RMB] on a unit has also been improved. Status effects are no longer just tossed into a single box. They are separated now into passive/positive/negative. Extra "polish" elements have also been added like being able to see the character's equipment and model when inspecting.

Lastly, I'm really doubling down on the combat animations (strikes/blocks/reactions) and cinematic cameras. This is something that I've always felt that Dead Monarchy did well, but now I'm just further improving it. A lot more animations were created and now I'm chaining the individual strikes together to create even more variety. Traditionally most people will view turn-based combat as a dull affair however I aim to make it more cinematic. Of course, all of this can be disabled too. You can disable the cinematic cameras, and you can reduce the lengthier combat animations to single strikes.

That more or less wraps up what's been going on in 2025. I've been working on Dead Monarchy for a decade now and I feel it is time to move on. I'll reiterate that I am still working on Dead Monarchy, but it is no longer my focus. It is time for me to shift my focus and work on the next iteration in this series and I think that's a great thing. It's not like the next game is a completely different game. No, it is the natural evolution of Dead Monarchy.

Thanks again to everyone that has supported me throughout all these years. I'm still making games, still hanging in there. I haven't achieved my dream of being able to work full-time on games and to not have to worry about finances, but I'm still slogging away.

I do however feel very refreshed to finally be able to turn my focus to a new project and work on something new. After an entire decade of working with extremely limited technology, it is a breath of fresh air.

Cheers,

Kevin.