https://test-steamproxy.haloskins.io/steamstore/app/2390060/dEscape/

We, The Evergloom Team, are super pleased to show off the new trailer and Store Page for Desktopia's sister game 'dEskape' - Can you escape the deadly and dank planet from which you've crashed into?

From the team that made Desktopia comes 'dEscape': a new world to build, manage, and defend at the bottom of your desktop!

At its core, 'dEscape' is a base-building game which sits across the bottom of your desktop allowing you to work, browse, or watch something else while you play. It's idle when you like and active when you want.

Like any base-builder, you get to make the big decisions while taking control of your own laser shooting, resource-collecting character whose only objective is repairing their broken ship and getting off the dark and dreary rock onto which they've crashed.

THE GAME

• From nothing but the ruins of your ship: construct the infrastructure to escape the planet and build a truly massive base.
  
• Construct a range of facilities (factories, research labs, alien technology, mystical crops) and watch as storage creatures and aliens take up residence around your base.
  
• Wander away from the safety of your base to find resources and crashed resource pods.
  
• Research strange creatures and use them to create new and powerful resources.
  
• Construct droids, level them up, give them new skills, and take them out into the dark to collect resources, and destroy the dangerous blood hives that are attracted to your industry.
  
• Research new weapon types, and wield them against the dark creatures which try to steal your light.

https://test-steamproxy.haloskins.io/steamstore/app/2390060/dEscape/

A simple update to add interesting and varied weather to the game for a more immersive experience.

Don't forget to wishlist our upcoming game 'dEskape' a new Desktopia-style experience!

https://test-steamproxy.haloskins.io/steamstore/app/2390060/dEscape/

To gain access to all the new content, you're going to want to download the free DLC

https://test-steamproxy.haloskins.io/steamstore/app/2280100/DESKTOPIA_End_of_the_Road/

‘End of the Road’ offers a new game mode separate from the existing level-based system. It is designed with a host of new features, and with an absolutely massive map along which you can now grow a truly bustling metropolis.

• A huge, 122,880-pixel road compared to the average 27,000 of the base game.
  
• A corrupted village, with lizard overlords that need to be obliterated.
  
• Twelve strongholds positioned along the road at intervals, each with their own stronghold boss and troops.
  
• All three groves on a single map.
  
• The ability to build up to 195 buildings, compared to the 55 average of base game maps.
  
• New enemies and a new boss to deal with.
  
• New, ruined portions of the road which cannot be built on.

• A new autosave feature that can be toggled on and off.
  
• A system for levelling up your character, and new bonus effects from building to make you stronger.
  
• A new, personal stats menu.
  
• More control over the way your soldiers and heroes act.
  
• New buildings, new troops and a new hero.
  
• Better A.I and smoother gameplay on larger maps.
  
• More use for redundant buildings.

Instead of a direct update? Well, for a few reasons and not least because updating to this DLC will invalidate your current saves. This is because we’ve had to completely rewrite the eventing system to handle such a massive map. On the plus side, this will make the base game more stable once you’ve updated.

We’ve also done some pretty drastic restructuring of the base game, and having this update as a DLC will mean that if you don’t like the changes you can roll back easily by uninstalling the DLC.


Originally we were working on a separate update, ‘Tyranny’, but our artist (part of our very small 3-person team) has had to step down due to a long-term medical condition, so we pivoted to ‘End of the Road,’

Interestingly, when we first sketched out the idea of Desktopia, we envisioned a single, massive road, along which the town would grow to completion. This turned out to be unworkable, due to limitations in our engine… limitations which we have since overcome. Although EotR is not true to that original vision it does offer a glimpse of what might have been.


WARNING: this new version is incompatible with your current saves, but don't worry if you want to try the new version, your saves will be safe, just uninstall the DLC and you can continue from where you left off.

On top of the new ‘End of the Road’ game mode, we’ve overhauled large portions of the basegame to bring you a more fun and streamlined experience. Before we release a full list of changs, I’d like to show you some of the more interesting things that will have a visual impact on how you play the game.


With this update you now have more options in controlling your soldiers. While you could already make them run to you, by spending gratitude and using WarCry, you can now toggle your soldiers between two separate states: advance and surveil.

Advance is their default setting from the original game, and allows them to move down the road at their own pace, while surveil, puts them on patrol at the edge of your village. Like everything to do with villagers in Desktopia, there is a chance that heroes (bored of surveiling) will override your orders locking you out for a short period… although they are less likely to do this if they are happy.

A new character menu not only allows you to view your current statistics on the fly, but also allows you to change your character avatar between six different skins, three male and three female.


The Castle was always a difficult building to justify, taking up two slots and providing warriors that were mostly outdated with the onset of rifles… but not any more. Building the castle now allows you to spend Gratitude to increase your level: increasing your attack and health, and making you more effective when supporting your troops.

The alchemist, hospital, and geneticist all now improve your healing rate, along with your soldiers so that you can stay in battle longer with your new increased health, and alongside this, there’s now a numeric health indicator on the main screen, so you can get a more accurate overview of your current health.

In the base game, you also level up, each time you finish a village. And in EotR, you level up each time you defeat a mini-boss and stronghold.


As requested: a toggleable autosave feature that can be turned on from the main menu.


Are safe, but incompatible with the new version. In order to make all the changes we have, we’ve had to rewrite huge portions of the base code, and make fundamental changes that make old saves incompatible. This is one of the reasons we are releasing this as a DLC. That way you can try the new version but can easily roll back by uninstalling it. Save files from different versions are stored separately in your installation so won’t be overwritten.
We’re sorry that old saves are not compatible, it sucks, but hopefully releasing the update as a DLC is a reasonable compromise.

Thanks, as always for the support. I passed on all the well wishes to Angels, and she was most thankful.

Speak soon,

Mike

Thanks for watching/playing. If you've enjoyed Desktopia, consider voting for us in the 'Game Dev World Championships' by liking our page![thegdwc.com]

With the New Year upon us, I thought it was time to update you on what was going on with Desktopia, and some of the plans we have for the future.

Firstly, some sad news: our artist, Angela, has had to take a permanent break from game development. She's been in and out of hospital throughout the design process but is no longer able to continue, despite how much she wanted to. She has poured a lot of love into this game, and we love her for it, but her health must always come first!
Her continued ill health has been upsetting, to say the least. She has insisted that we try to move on with updates without her, and so we plan to do this in the best way possible: by using her beautiful assets to bring a free, large update to Desktopia.

The 'End of the Road Update' is planned for an early February release, and will include the following.

- A new game mode (The End of the Road) with a map three times longer than any you've seen so far, with new ruins, multiple strongholds, mini-bosses, objectives, building requirements and other surprises.

Thank you to all those who've sent well wishes to Angela, and to all those who've bought and played Desktopia.

Firstly, upon request, we've added trading badges, emoticons, and backgrounds for you collectors out there. Enjoy ːthebakerː

It's been a crazy few weeks here with us. ːbeholdthisː If you've read any of our posts you may know that our lead artist has been in hospital undergoing long term treatment, and on top of that the remaining two of us have been suffering with a nasty Covid variant over the last few weeks which left me in bed unable to move for some of it.

This has put us behind on our development of Tyranny!, but we're still here and plugging away and are still hoping for a November release (barring any other acts of fate!) ːTheTRexː

One thing I have been working on, is the new character stats menu. Once Tyranny! releases, you will be able to upgrade your character using either Gratitude points or Tyranny points, making them far more useful on later levels.

Anyway, thanks for playing, and for being patient as we recover. ːitsallbusinessː

Firstly, thank you to everyone who's offered feedback, left reviews, and supported Desktopia so far. As you probably know, there are only three of us working on Desktopia so we're sorry if updates and responses take a little time. We always want to make sure we're doing our best and taking the game in the right direction. We're here for the long haul and we have plenty of ideas on how we can add content, and a bunch of updates already planned. With that, I'd like to talk a little about 'Tyranny!' , and show you some of the new -(still under construction)- assets!

These are just a few of the new buildings which will be included in the Tyranny! update. Alongside these, many of the existing building's uses will be overhauled or given new functions (the woodcutter for example will improve your character's axe haft, making it more deadly).

The green portals you see are the base requirement for playing as a tyrannical overlord. Choose to build them instead of a barracks and outposts, and the Piglizards will pour through. Rather than helping you defeat the boss, like soldiers do, these Piglizards will go around collecting taxes and creating the new resource 'Tyranny!', which, with the construct of new buildings, you can spend on upgrading your character so you can play a major role in taking on the bosses yourself. Imagine yourself with the laser of Red the Plastic Trooper, with spells to summon ferocious monsters or rain down fire, and placeable turrets to help defend your town from attacks!


- New ways to spend gratitude, for those who still want to play as a god guy: new prayers, festivals, and player upgrades.
- Villagers who can turn unfriendly and attack their guards or you!
- A new character screen where you can see your stats and buy upgrades using resources.
- 3 new levels, including a new 80+ building level.
- A range of new enemies.
- Giant monsters attracted to Tyranny who will challenge you for your towns.
- Disasters and new building's to mitigate them.
- New ways to control your troops.
- Menu overhauls to reflect the new stats and resources, and to tidy things up!


Thanks again for all the support, and (as always) let us know what you like and dislike. We take feedback very seriously, and have already added a host of suggestions from the community.

The Evergloom Team

ACHIEVEMENT UPDATE:

- Added twelve level-complete achievements to the game.
- Added 2 secret achievements!

- Achievements should work with existing saves, just wait for the following, in-game, day!

FIXED:

- A small error that miscalculated chance to hit of lasers.
- A small chance that the player would get stuck in the dog and be unable to move.