June 2013: Dungeonmans Playable Preview Build!

That’s right! This June, a playable preview of Dungeonmans will be available for download right here, for you. Here’s the general idea:

– A fully playable adventure representing about 25% of the full game
– The Dungeonmans Academy which grows as your heroes recover improvements
– Freeform Class Creation– choose skills from over 15 masteries to suit your playstyle
– One secret unloackable class with its own unique masteries
– Dungeons to explore, villages and towns to visit, and tons of awesome loot
– Reach level 12 with as many Dungeonmens as you like
– Beautiful sprite work from a collection of excellent artists led by Bobby Frye.
– Sweeping, heroic music from Andrew Aversa.

There’s much more planned for Dungeonmans. Here are some of the things that aren’t in the preview build that will be added over time:

– More gear slots (like hats)
– More classes containing their own masteries
– Desert and swamp environments
– Other playable races! Honest!
– Greater variety in towns and villages
– More art, more sound!
– More monsters to crush, and more treasures to loot
– Ironmans challenges and alternate endings

Before you read any further, get this playing in the background. This is the theme for the Dungeonmans Academy, the starting area for all new characters and one of the bright lights of civilization in a wild and untamed lands. I love this track.

Field Testing

I’ve been working on Dungeonmans, on and off, for a long time now. It wasn’t until fall of 2012 that I decided to make this my full time job and work toward making Dungeonmans a viable commercial release. Like any good dev, I’ve got a head full of crazy ideas and I’ve put plenty of money, sweat and time into it, but Dungeonmans won’t be near its best until it gets into the hands of players.

I need players to kick the tires, crush some monsters, see what works and what doesn’t. What’s fun, what isn’t, and everything in between. I want Dungeonmans to grow along with a community of players who love the genre as much as I do and want to see it expand.

It’s not an alpha, or a beta, or any one of those silly greek letters. Everyone will call it a beta and that’s fine, but there’s a difference. The game is far from being either content or feature complete; there are entire systems that won’t be in play for the preview. It’s a sample of the core gameplay: go adventure in the wild, build up the academy, try out new combinations of powers, crush monsters and get loots. I still have months of work planned for the game, but those months will be better and more productive with the feedback from players like you.

I’ve been working like mad to get to the point where I feel confident enough to say anything. June is the month! While I’m not ready to give an exact date, you can imagine it will be after E3, probably because I’ll spend plenty of that time just watching E3 streams like a little kid again.

Back To Work!

Hopefully this explains why recent Dev Updates have had less flash and screenshots than usual. I’ll continue to update the site weekly with development wrap ups, but I’ll also be posting on Facebook more frequently with little bits and pieces of update information. As always post here or on FB if you have any questions or thoughts; I genuinely enjoy the conversation.