V1.33: One Year Anniversary Update - New mission system, story and content!

First off, thank all of you wonderful players that have been haunting with us since day 1, and of course all those that are opening up their haunted domains for the first time.

We've got something special lined up for Deck of Haunts' one year anniversary: A free update containing a brand new mission system that brings more meta progression into the game and contains a boatload of content including a long awaited backstory!

The mission system is something we think will greatly add to the meta-progression feel, while also giving players specific targets to achieve apart from surviving/growing.

Rewards for missions will not be linked to your current XP-level, so any unlocks you get through missions, you'll be able to immediately play with.

We'll have two different systems:

1. Curated missions: These will be very specific missions that are paired with permanent unlocks. For instance, the mission could be "Kill a Master Stonemason in the Heart room.", and the reward for that would be a positive gameplay totem “Witness”, which reduces Health and Sanity of any human witnessing your Heart to 1. Unlocks for the curated missions could be cards, rooms, story, totems and more.

2. Generic missions: These will be less specific and will activate when you've completed all the curated missions (and will deactivate again if there would be an update of the game containing more curated missions.). They are paired with in-run rewards. For instance, the mission could be "Raise Tension to max for 5 humans in 1 night.", and the reward for that would be "Next night all humans spawning skip their first turn.".

Missions that are not completed will carry to new nights/runs. There currently is a batch of 22 curated missions, with more to come later this month!

Story

Going through reviews and feedback, this seemed like an area that a lot of players found they needed more, so now, there is more!

Story unlocks will be linked to the Curated mission system, for instance the first time you drive a human insane in the same room as the Witch, you'll get her backstory as a reward.

(FULL CHANGELIST BELOW!)

As this is the games' anniversary, we've also compiled some thoughts from the team at Mantis Games about the one year that has passed since release:

What are your thoughts and feelings about Deck of Haunts as a project to work on and as a game, one year after launch?

• Philippe - Producer & VFX Artist I think not only did the game grow after launch, but our team became more tightly knit as it was our first -own- project together, and I am very grateful for both! I think we can be proud of Deck of Haunts both as a game and a project, and think back on it someday in the far far future with positive nostalgia.

• Tim - Senior Programmer I am very happy to see how far Deck of Haunts has come in the year since launch. At the time of release, we felt like there were so many things we still wanted to do. By now, pretty much all these things have been added and then some. I didn’t expect we could keep adding so much content.

• Willem - 3D Artist & SFX I am proud of what we have achieved with Deck of Haunts as a team. It was our first IP with this team, and the game itself was challenging to create. We all loved the game, but also for our own specific reasons which I think made the design process much more effective. Those early meetings were a great foundation for Deck of Haunts.

• San - Senior 3D Artist I think it’s amazing to see what has been achieved in such a short timespan. A lot of design issues were solved very practically and we had a great workflow with such a small team. Everyone had their specific roles in the project but it was also nice to meet together and talk about every aspect and how we could improve it together. Also seeing our game being played by so many people and streamers on a global scale was amazing to witness.

What is something you would have done differently and something you think worked out well?

• Philippe - Producer & VFX Artist It is always easy with hindsight, but I would have definitely released in Early Access first, especially knowing that we have grown the game to probably become 2-3x larger/more complex than it was at 1.0 release. It would have probably cut us some slack with reviews 👀. The combination of growing/building the house and crafting your deck/haunting the humans has worked out rather well, as players that do not like deckbuilding games did like deck of haunts, which is awesome.

• Tim - Senior Programmer The building system went through so many changes, both big and small. By now it has become a huge cluster of old and new things and it would be nicer to just remake the parts we truly need. The card system on the other hand has proven to be very robust and flexible when it comes to adding new functionality.

• Willem - 3D Artist & SFX With hindsight a more solid foundation and system from the start for our characters and their interaction with the world would have been nice. We are not specialised in this area which meant we had to learn on the go or work with the little experience we had with it. It was something that needed a lot of adjustment and changes, but with a limited foundation this was a challenge. “You are the evil haunted house” This idea has worked out very well. I think it is what has drawn a lot of our players to the game, it’s a fun twist that worked well with our game.

• San - Senior 3D Artist Adding statistics tracking and in-game bug reports. Right now we look at feedback and forum posts but sometimes it’s hard to know if the silent majority agrees with that.

What is your favorite review you’ve gotten from a player?

• Philippe - Producer & VFX Artist “A terrific turn based haunted house game. Best in class.” - Coming from a player that had 410 hours of playtime when they wrote the review a month ago, and has a whopping 545.9 hours in total now 👀💖.

• Tim - Senior Programmer Seeing any review from a player with more than 50 hours in the game always blows my mind.

• Willem - 3D Artist & SFX “I have never been a house before, but I think I like it.” Seeing players enjoy the twist that Deck of Haunts brings is always a pleasure.

• San - Senior 3D Artist I love the extreme short ones “good”, “+1”, like a waiter asking if you’re enjoying your meal but your mouth is still full.

What is something you would like to tell all past, current and future players?

• Philippe - Producer & VFX Artist You’ve been amazing for all of your Steam Discussion and Discord posts, where you have actively thought about Deck of Haunts’ design and actually helped to shape the direction of the game since launch, it has been very motivating to read! And of course, reading all those positive reviews, especially from players that spent tens or even hundreds of hours in the game, was a salve for the soul. (Well, a haunted soul.)

• Tim - Senior Programmer Thank you for your feedback and bug reports. This has allowed us to make Deck of Haunts into the best version it could possibly be, not just for us, but also for the people actually playing our game.

• Willem - 3D Artist & SFX Thank you for giving Deck of Haunts a go and for forming the game with us. Your input and feedback is important and is a huge form of motivation for us as a team.

• San - Senior 3D Artist I’d like to thank everyone for their passion, playing the game, providing feedback. It’s amazing to see something you made being enjoyed by so many.

As a team, we're also interested in your thoughts about Deck of Haunts, on how it currently plays and how you've seen it evolve since its release. So, feel free to comment on this post, we'll be reading!

Changes

• Added new cards

  • Moment of Calm

  • Before the Veil

• Added new Rooms

  • Inverted Room

  • Trapdoor Room

• Added Positive Totem:

  • Bad Vibes

• Added Human Trait:

  • Blessed - Reduces AP by one while alive, but double essence when killed. (Only one per night max)

• Added a mission system:

  • 22 sequential missions.

  • 11 randomized mission that appear after all sequential missions are completed.

  • A tab in the collection where you can view the missions and their rewards.

  • Story rewards that provide extra lore about the House and it’s Creatures.

  • Card back cosmetic rewards.

  • Permanent (across runs) Room upgrade rewards.

• Made the “End Turn” keybinding (’E’ by default) compatible with the continue buttons during gameplay. For example on the night overview screen with the calendar.

• Secret custom portraits will show up in the intro newspaper for a boss night when the name of the unit marked as “boss unit” is on the list of secret names.

Fixed Bugs

• Fixed a crash that could happen when loading a custom layout from the scenario builder that contains an upgraded room adjacent to the entrance room.

• Fixed Cubic Stone totem not applied when starting a custom scenario with a custom house layout.

• Fixed a navigation issue with props blocking doors in the Laboratory.

• Fixed subscribed scenarios not updating in game after an update on the workshop.

A big thank you for playing, all your feedback and reviews ❤️

May your domains be forever haunted 👻