May 2026 Dev Progress Report

Steam post image Seeking answers on how to protect your tribe from the Witch - in a tomb of a long lost holy people.

Hi everyone, this is Ky here, your devoted ozzie Dev smashing together an amazing dinosaur game in just a few years!

First up, Scourge is right now in the ANZ Indie Fest event.

https://store.steampowered.com/sale/anzindiefest26

Fraser from Microprose and myself recorded a hilarious talk-show play-through for the event and you can watch it stream on the Scourge page or linked into the ANZ Indie Fest event. It's worth watching just to see my mad skills at my own game :) Slaughtered the tutorial fight "Raptors" in 5 rounds flat. I look forward to recording with Fraser again, he is top fun.

The main news of the month since the Microprose publisher announcement - which came with a brand new trailer and page refresh - is that I just finished my second run through the first half of the campaign. These are QA runs, finding and stamping out bugs - tweaking narratives and zone triggers - altering the UI for Quality of Life. In the first run I took 600+ notes! In the second, just 150. Now thats what I call progress! In fact its good enough now that I am moving on to the second half of the campaign.

In my second run, I decided to play it differently in order to test other things. For example I played the main character "Neutral" instead of "Good". That involves selecting dialogue options at key points in the NPC chats and skill-roll events that portray your personality as Greedy, Cowardly, or Paranoid! I call this the Path of Egotism. There are 9 endings in the game based on 3 paths with 3 personality traits each. The Paranoid option is particularly dark - you travel down a road of creeping madness.

I also used different Companions this run. I dropped Mandla the Prowler and took Kamaria the Hunter, addressing some concerns that "Archers are too weak". But I found with the right skill purchases the Hunter makes a fine sniper AND scout (detecting/disarming Traps, Clues, Secrets, Tracking, Climbing/Swimming/Squeezing in solo mode). With a focus on Vitals shots, shooting wounded foes, and Agility trait, the Bow compares well with melee weapons (remembering that the unit is quite safe at distance, so you can double magic buff your warrior instead). For extreme Archer fun, try the Double Time spell, giving 2 Action points to the Archer so they fire a shot every round!

Later on I swapped out Bayo the Healing Priest for Shanti the Hunt Priest, and tried out her animal spells - there are lots of animal enemies to Charm/Pacify so thats a cool option. I also swapped out Neela for Maaza the Sorceror, and in both cases kept them focused on Necromancy and Buffs, then properly tested Illusions. Turns out Illusions are quite a cool way to play too - distracting enemies away for crowd control and to flank them.

In the Forest, I met the elves, and hired Taye, making him a Druid/Sniper mix. He is absolutely wicked with the Bow, and was soon Knocking out massive beasts with shots to the vitals using Druid spells that improve his Aim bonus. I was amazed to see the druid power of summoning animal be so useful - I started out with a Boar, slamming foes off their feet often, and ended up with a huge Snake which you can take indoors.

For my main character I dropped Warrior and went with a Mounted mage - with a focus on AOE spells. She was also a lot of fun to play, with so many spells I didn't use on first run, like Slowing Mud, Circle of Tallow, Fire, Wind, all with interesting effects, that work well indoors so the enemy can't exit or go around the AOE!

Deep into the game I switched Shanti from Hunt God to Earth God, and tested out even more spells in action. Raise Rock is a favourite. And Divine Boon (Strength) is just killer for a front line Priest!

By trying out the other Companions I was able to test all the Companion Quests and special dialogue nodes for them. But more importantly I validated they are all useful in combat and in exploration. Taye made a fine Scout, with his Boar Ally improving his senses and his natural elven senses, so I picked up some Abilities to improve his Lockpicking and Traps and made him into the Prowler too. Thus proving that either a Hunter or an Elf Druid can be your Prowler.

Well that's it for this month - not too long to go now!