July Devlog: The Art of Balancing Gameplay

Welcome to the July devlog.

We've spent the past month polishing content and refining game balance, and we're excited to share our latest progress with you.

New Master Adventurer Events

This month, we completed a huge batch of content for the 16 new Master Adventurers planned for the full release. Steam post image

Here's what we've created:

• 90 unique Happening events that occur during their visits

• Additional Dialogue events when adventurer requests are fulfilled

• New illustrations for each ‘Happening’ event card

• Personal gifts that Master Adventurers can give to Sara and her friends

We've also finished creating the game's ending sequence, including the credits!

Rebalancing Happening Events

Our next major task is improving the balance of every Happening event in the game. (Shown below is an example of a Happening event.)

As development progressed, we realised that rewards which felt meaningful early in the game became far less valuable later on. For example, 10 gold is much more impactful at the beginning of your journey than it is near the end.

To keep rewards satisfying throughout the game, we'll be introducing event tiers.

Take the Mountain Guild's cafés as an example. Currently, they are categorized by tier as follows:

1. Ordinary Café (1-3)

2. Roastery Café (1-3)

3. Speciality Café (1-3)

As players upgrade through the tiers, the rewards from their associated Happening events should naturally become more valuable.

However, achieving this isn't as straightforward as simply increasing the numbers. This is because Dungeon Inn uses a relatively small range of values for rewards and inn stats, such as money, reputation, and suspicion. Simply increasing every reward with each upgrade wasn't practical, as there wasn't enough room to keep scaling the numbers.

This is where introducing a tier system for Happening events helped immensely.

We grouped Happening events into different tiers. In addition to increasing the reward values, we also adjusted the likelihood of different events occurring based on both the facility's upgrade level and the Happening event's tier.

As facilities are upgraded, players are more likely to encounter beneficial Happening events, such as those that grant extra money or reduce suspicion, while unfavourable events become less common.

By combining event tiers with adjusted event probabilities, we can make higher-level facilities feel more rewarding without relying solely on larger numbers. We hope this approach keeps progression meaningful while preserving the game's overall balance. ☺️

Replacing Repeated Optional Quests

We're also reviewing the optional quests in each chapter. We'll be replacing frequently repeated quest types with new ones to keep later chapters fresh.

Overall, these changes are aimed at making your choices feel meaningful from the beginning of the game right through to the ending.

Dev Life Update

There isn’t really a Cat Society recipe this month... sorry! 😆

If we had to recommend one thing, though, it would be spreading apricot jam on a chocolate brownie. Pair it with a warm cup of tea, and it's a surprisingly comforting combination.

We hope you're staying healthy, and we'll see you in the next devlog! 🏡

As Always, We’d Love Your Feedback

As usual, if you have any suggestions or bugs, we would be delighted to hear from you through this Google form.

For all the latest updates and news, please also follow us on social media:

Dungeon Inn Twitter

Dungeon Inn Discord

Dungeon Inn TikTok

Dungeon Inn Instagram