Hello everyone!
The Steam Tower Defense Fest has started, and will last until August 5th! Destroy The Monoliths is part of the event, with a 30% discount. For this special occasion, I am also releasing a major update adding a new alternative gamemode: Defend the Core. Instead of destroying monoliths, this gamemode consists of defending your Core and surviving for as long as possible to make the best score.
I hope you will enjoy this new way of playing the game, and I wish you all a great festival!
-Radiant Sloth
Hello everyone,
The Steam Tower Defense Fest is about to start, and I'm happy to finally release the v1.3 major update in the main branch of the game! This update adds a new gamemode to enjoy the game in a fresh way. This mode, called Defend the Core, proposes a more classic tower defense experience, so this is a perfect fit for this event!
Instead of monoliths, you are facing indestructible crystals that keep summoning minions forever. Your goal is to defend your Core and ultimately survive for as long as possible to get the highest score. XP comes from minions instead of monoliths.
The score is computed from various statistics like the number of enemies killed, resources collected, time survived, etc. The game also applies a score multiplier that depends on the number of spawning crystals, as well as the potential doomed or blessed relics activated for the run.
This update also adds 13 new Steam achievements, for a total of 57 in total. It's time to get back into the game to get them all!
The Defend the Core mode is a compact experience compared to the default as it consists of a single endless mission. For this reason, the pacing and the difficulty may need some further tweaking. So please do not hesitate to share your feedback (and bug reports) on the Steam forums to help me improve this update!
I hope you will enjoy this alternate gamemode, and Im looking forward to reading your thoughts and suggestions about it!
-Radiant Sloth
Hello everyone!
The Steam Summer Sale is here and will last until July 11!
It is the perfect time to discover new games! So... I'm glad to share that Destroy The Monoliths has a -30% discount, while Skycliffs is at -55%!
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2352000/Destroy_The_Monoliths
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1888200/Skycliffs/
Also, I'm happy to recall that a beta branch is available for Destroy The Monoliths, where you can playtest the upcoming 1.3 update and give the new gamemode a try. Read the announcement here for more details! I'm looking forward to hearing your feedback!
I wish you all a great summer season!
-Radiant Sloth
Hello everyone! I'm happy to announce today that my new project Comet Force now has a Steam page! If you enjoyed Destroy The Monoliths, I'm confident that this new game will appeal to you as well! It shares the same action roguelike vibes! This project still has a long way to go before being ready. But I'm planning to release a Playtest on Steam soon to get your feedback and refine the core mechanics with your suggestions. Until then, I would appreciate if you could wishlist the game! It would help me immensely to build a good visibility momentum right off the bat. https://store.steampowered.com/app/2954690/Comet_Force
How will Comet Force be different from Destroy The Monoliths?
Comet Force and Destroy The Monoliths share a few ideas, but they also head towards different directions regarding some core mechanics. Let's review the main differences:
- Comet Force is solely about surviving and keeping the main character alive. There is no spawn portal to attack, and no base to defend.
- The gameplay is separated in two distinct phases: 1/ Use your resources to build your camp and get upgrades, and 2/ fight the next enemy wave. There is no timer or continuous spawning, you are responsible for triggering the next wave when you feel ready or have no more resources to spend. This gives more time to think, and creates a more balance mix of 1/ strategy and 2/ fast-paced action.
- You can build structures in predetermined spots. Buildings are indestructible, and most of them can be built only once per camp. I have not implemented it yet, but my goal is to make buildings upgradable too.
- There is no mining. Resources are collected directly as loots upon destroying enemies.
- You have your whole troop of units following around and fighting alongside you. Beside fighting by yourself, they are your main way of dealing with enemies. I plan to add turrets, but they will play more of an assist role.
Hello everyone,
I hope you enjoyed discovering the new features of Destroy The Monoliths during the Endless Replayability Steam Fest! Today is time to share about the upcoming 1.3 update. In a nutshell, a beta branch is available, so keep reading the post to learn more!
That's quite a lot of enemies...
This update adds a new gamemode to enjoy the game in a fresh way. This mode, called Defend the Core, proposes a more classic tower defense experience.
Instead of monoliths, you are facing indestructible crystals that keep summoning minions forever. Your goal is to defend your Core and ultimately survive for as long as possible to get the highest score. XP comes from minions instead of monoliths.
The score is computed from various statistics like the number of enemies killed, resources collected, time survived, etc. The game also applies a score multiplier that depends on the number of spawning crystals, as well as the potential doomed or blessed relics activated for the run.
This mode is a compact experience compared to the default as it consists of a single endless mission. For this reason, I need feedback to properly refine the pacing and difficulty. To this end, Im happy to release today the update in a public beta branch! You can opt to this branch in the properties of the application (see screenshot below!) and give the new gamemode a try as of right now. Please share your feedback (and bug reports) on the Steam forums to help me improve this update! It should then hit the main branch of the game in a couple months, along with new related achievements.
How to activate the beta branch in the app properties
Im looking forward to reading your thoughts and suggestions about the new gamemode! Thanks for reading, and see you next time!
-Radiant Sloth
Hello everyone! I'm happy to release today a feature update for Destroy The Monoliths! This update is all about customization and replayability, as it is released with the start of the Endless Replayability Steam Fest. The goal is to offer more end-game possibilities for veteran players to keep enjoying the game the way they want. Let's review together the changes!
Hardcore challenge
There is a new doomed relic to add an extra hardcore experience for those who want even more challenge. This relic makes you start without a core, but only an improved healer building. This means you have only one life! Don't worry, there is however a new building you can get that acts like a temporary respawn point. So you may be able to invest resources into extra lives if you need to (and can afford to!).
Cheat panel
In the same time, I am adding a new blessed relic. This one will need to be unlocked through the meta progression system as it is quite powerful. It gives you access to a special building: the cheat station! Interacting with this building opens a cheat panel where you can give yourself resources, tweak some stats, kill all living enemies, etc. This is meant for players who just want to have fun breaking the game. Please share your suggestion if there are certain things you'd like to see added to this panel!
Customizable pack
I am adding a 7th starting tech pack, but this one is a bit special. It is customizable! Once unlocked, you can select it and compose your own set of technologies you'd like to start with. You can pick anything that is present in your journal entries, except a few weapons and buildings removed from the list (such as the repair gun, or the laser machine gun which has no corresponding offensive turret). That's plenty of possibilities to start a new world with!
World map pool
Unlocking the customizable pack also gives access to a new menu: customization of the map pool at the creation of a world. You can select the map for each mission and make sure you play on your favorite grounds!
Completed worlds
Previously, there was no point in keeping a save file once a world was completed. All that was left was to delete it and start a new world. But now, there is! Completing a world gives you access to an extra mission. XP will be disabled and you will not get any new technology, but you can keep playing with your current build as long as you want to if you like it. The extra mission is fully customizable, from the map biome and size to the number of monoliths. You can also tweak some multipliers to increase the enemy health points and attack power. So, if you want to challenge yourself and fight 7 monoliths on a big map and stronger foes, you actually can! This extra mission is replayable endlessly as long as the save file exists.
Customizable Rolling Unit
Finally, you can now customize the appearance of the player ball in the accessibility options. You can choose among several colors and patterns. Tell me in the comments which style is your favorite!
What is next?
Version 1.2 is now out on Steam (full changelog is below). If you encounter any issue or want to share feedback, don't hesitate to post on the Steam forums. I am ready to make potential follow-up patches to fix bugs and tweak things. Also, I am planning to work on a 1.3 update as I would like to add an alternative gamemode to Destroy The Monoliths. It would propose a more classic tower defense experience with endless waves of enemies to fight to keep the Core up as long as possible. I was considering releasing everything together in a single bigger update, but it would not have been ready in time for the Endless Replayability Fest. So I decided to split the update in two and release a first batch of features as they fit very well the theme of the festival. Version 1.3 will be for another time this year, I'll keep you updated once it gets closer to be ready. For the time being, I hope you will enjoy the new set of features! As always, thanks for the support, and I'll see you next time! -Radiant Sloth
Full changelog (v1.2)
Added
- 1 new doomed relic
- 1 new blessed relic
- 3 new buildings
- added the possibility to replay customizable missions once a world is completed
- added a new starting tech pack that can be customized
- added the possibility to customize the map pool when creating a new world
- added options to customize the player ball color and pattern
- If no controller is detected, buttons now release the focus when not hovered by the mouse anymore
Hello everyone!
The Steam Endless Replayability Fest has started, and will last until May 20th! Destroy The Monoliths is part of the event, with a 30% discount. It is also getting an update with new features related to the theme of the event (you will find more details in the update post!). So, now is a good time to either discover the game it you haven't already, or get back into it!
I wish you all a great festival, and I'll see you next time!
-Radiant Sloth
Hello everyone!
I'm happy to announce today a few exciting news!
1/ Destroy The Monoliths will be part of the upcoming Endless Replayability Steam Fest, from May 13rd to May 20th (starting 10 AM PT / 7 PM CEST). The game will have a 30% discount during the event, so this is a good opportunity to give it a try if it has been sitting in your wishlist for a while!
2/ Destroy The Monoliths will be updated to version 1.2 at the start of the event. I am happy to release a feature update related to the theme of the festival: Endless Replayability. It will add a few end-game features that give players various possibilities to play customizable worlds and missions. You will even be able to customize the appearance of the Rolling Unit as you can see on the screenshot below! Thanks to the community for suggesting the latter, and please feel free to continue sharing your feedback on the Steam forums, I keep an eye on them quite often!
This is all coming very soon, and I hope you will enjoy it! See you on Monday for the release and the beginning of the festival!
-Radiant Sloth
Hello everyone!
The Steam Spring Sale has started, and will last until March 21st! Destroy The Monoliths is of course part of the event, with a 25% discount. If you haven't fought any monolith yet, it's time to give the game a shot! In case you didn't know, I'm happy to remind you that the game got a post-launch content update a few weeks ago. So there is plenty of content to discover and play with! As always, feel free to share your feedback and suggestions on the Steam forums.
I wish you all a great spring sale, and I'll see you next time!
-Radiant Sloth
Hello everyone!
It has been some time since the last update of Destroy The Monoliths or the last time I posted anywhere. The reason being that I have been hard at work! With the post-launch content update of DTM out, I was finally able to fully focus on my new project. I am very happy to share today that I am indeed working on a new game!
My prototype is starting to feel right and fit what I envision. So I think this is a good time to talk more about this game. It has no official name for now, so let's refer to it as Project Exodus for the time being!
The Search of a New Game
If you happen to follow the YouTube devlogs of Jonas Tyroller (one of the two developers behind Thronefall) or Lemon (the developer of Patch Quest), you are probably already aware of how a new game comes into being. I really like these devlogs because they capture the reality of how messy and chaotic the early phase is. Working on a prototype really is some kind of search for a new perfect idea. It is highly experimental, with a lot of code and tests that end up in the trash. But that's how you refine your creative vision. Slowly expanding on what sticks and feels interesting, while reworking or discarding what feels tedious and boring. Does this prototyping phase get easier with experience? Yes. But it remains a long and tough process. Experience makes you more aware of what was already made, of which mechanics don't blend well, of what players enjoy or hate, of what the current market trends are. So you test and trash bad ideas quickly and move on with your search faster, slowly finding your way. Also, previous games play a role. You may want to create something similar that your existing audience can enjoy. But make it too similar and people will find it boring (and it will also be boring to develop). My new project went through all of that messiness. Look at the montage below and see how it changed over time.
I experimented with different top-dow and isometric views, with plain 2D or 3D, with a moving character or just cursor-based actions, with wave timers, with auto scrolling, with power management, etc. It took some time to find a set of mechanics that harmonize and convey the fun I had in mind. Now, it has reached a more stable state and I'm starting to see the end of the prototyping phase. So let's talk more about what this game is heading towards!
A Roguelike Space Force Adventure
My starting point for Project Exodus was to make some sort of hybrid between FTL and Dome Keeper. The latter was already a big inspiration for my previous game Destroy The Monoliths. Back then, I pushed it more into the RTS and Tower Defense genres. For Project Exodus, I want to keep this mix of mining and fighting, but tackle it with more of this management and adventure vibe I enjoy so much in FTL. Before I give you the pitch, let's start with a first screenshot!
Project Exodus is an action mining shooter and crew-management roguelike. In this new game, you will lead a group of characters wandering in space, mining resources, collecting power-ups, fighting waves of enemies, and making hopefully the best decisions to survive as long as possible. Players will control the leader the group. Other members of the force will follow and act on their own, much like companions in automatic mode. During a run, you will recruit new members for your force. Maybe dismiss people, or switch leader. You will also manage a few options to influence how your companions behave. Characters will have various classes, which give them access to different abilities, weapons and power-ups.
Exploring space can help you find ore and resources, but also random structures like crates or trading posts. These structure won't have a fixed output as they will trigger random events and force you to make wise decisions.
What's next?
As always, I will document the whole process on my blog, so expect more devlog posts in the future. It is way too early for this game to have a Steam page, but don't worry Steam players, I've got you covered! Until the game page comes up, I will publish all the devlogs on my Steam developer page. So be sure to follow it to see new posts in your activity feed! My number one priority is to get a playable pre-alpha build. It is important to gather player feedback as early as possible and this project will be no exception to the rule. The current version still needs a lot of work, but I am getting closer each day. I will keep you updated when a playtest happens! That's it for the first devlog of this new project! I hope you are excited about this game as much as I am! Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments. Or even give some feedback based on the few screenshots I posted. I am very interested to see what you understand of the game with just a few static screenshots. This helps me refine the first-glance readability, which is very important to appeal to the right audience. Thanks for reading this far, and I'll see you next time! -Radiant Sloth
Changed
- Unlocking the achievement for winning with N doomed relics will now also unlock all those for winning with less doomed relics (works retroactively)
Fixed
- Improved the preloading to reduce the stutters at the beginning of a mission
- Some optimization on neutronic balls
- Fixed a few typos in the French translation
Fixed
- Fixed relic count in journal completion statistics
- Fixed monolith stump spawning in the void when a titan minion dies in the void (it will now spawn at the base altitude so that the player can access it)
Hello everyone! I released the first post-launch content update of Destroy The Monoliths a few days ago. Today, I'm happy to share that Patch v1.1a is live. It fixes a few bugs and balance issues (full changelog is at the end of the post). But it also adds a new feature to complement the content update, so let's have a look at it together! Blessed relics
With the content update, I reworked a bit the enemy pool. I added some new harder enemies like the Invoker or the Splitter, as well as more shielded variants of existing minions. All of that resulted in a small increase of the base difficulty of the game. The goal of Destroy The Monoliths is to offer challenging fast-paced action and I think the current balance in version 1.1 is quite fine. But I can understand it may not fit to everyone. When creating a new world, you can select Doomed relics to increase even more the difficulty. But until now, there were no option to lower it. This is what changed! I'm introducing Blessed relics that you can pick to make the game easier. Blessed relics are all available right away, no need to unlock them like their doomed counterparts. The only penalty is that using Blessed relics will disable achievements related to winning with Doomed relics. The UI warns you about that if you have both types of modifiers selected. Some relics decrease enemy stats, others have more specific effects like nerfing the Invokers or limiting the spawn rate.
I hope you will enjoy this new feature. I think it is a valuable addition to make the game accessible to a larger player base. Depending on your mood and preferences, you get to decide if you want a more relaxed or challenging experience for your next playthrough. Please tell me in the comments what you think of the Blessed relics! Also, keep sharing your feedback on the Steam forums, that helps me a lot to improve the game further. Thanks for reading, and see you next time!
Full changelog (v1.1a)
Added
- Added 6 blessed relics available at the creation of a new world
- Energy transfusion heals for 50% the amount of points (instead of 100%)
- Power grid effect is now limited to trigger at most once per second
- Relics upgrading Sonic ring add a half-turn instead of a full turn
- Reduced the knockback of Shield-bullets
- Fixed blocks turning white when detection mines explode nearby
- Fixed Shielded yeller name in the journal
Hello everyone, The first free major content update of Destroy The Monoliths is out right now on Steam! There is also a week long deal to celebrate this release, so you can purchase the game with a 20% discount until next Monday! I'm really excited about this update as it brings quite a lot of new content. I enjoyed working on this and I hope you will have a ton of fun playing! You will find the full changelog at the end of this post. Here is an overview of what the update includes:
- 8 new maps
- 4 new weapons
- 17 new buildings
- 16 new enemies
- 32 new relics, including a doomed relic
- Quality of life improvements
- Bug fixes
New maps
With 8 new maps, there is now a total of 24 in the pool. This should make each world more unique. I tried to introduce new interesting mechanics and more special blocks. For instance, in the Botanical garden, we have flower blocks. These repair adjacent buildings when destroyed. So you can take advantage of the existing terrain, but not only. This map also comes with a special building: the flower block generator! So you can create flower blocks in your bases and use them to repair your turrets!
On the Canals map, we can find patches of foundation blocks. Buildings placed on top of these blocks have additional health points. This mechanic is also reused in another map, Ice tunnel, but with a variant. There, you will find Mutated ice blocks that give buildings on top of them more damage power! This encourages you to adapt to the terrain if you want to benefit from these bonuses.
New weapons
I already presented the Detection mines and the Explosive beam in previous posts. Today, let's talk about Orbital bullets! They deal single target damage and orbit the player until they hit something. Similarly to the detection mines, you can maintain a limited amount of orbital bullets at once. The corresponding offensive turrets maintain their own set, so you can create like a minefield of orbital bullets.
New buildings
All the new weapons come with at least one offensive turret that uses them, sometimes two. I also added a few support and effect buildings. For instance, we have the Portal traps I already talked about, which allow to teleport enemies. We also have the Decoy parts which act like a Decoy wall and repair nearby buildings each time it takes damage.
Or the electromagnetic tower that shoots shielded enemies until their shield goes down.
New enemies
I added shielded variants of existing enemies to be part of the later waves of the game. But we also have some completely new enemies. The Splitter uses the sonic boomerang and will split into two smaller minions when it dies. The latter will also split one more time. Splitters won't be easy to get rid off!
The Invoker will stay at distance and summon Kamikaze minions. It takes damage each time it does, so it can only spawn a limited number of enemies before dying. Still, it is better to deal with it quickly before your buildings get flooded with suicide bombers!
New doomed relic and assist minions
There are a bunch of new relics. They enhance the new content or sometimes the old content to add more depth to the game and give more use to some weaker technologies. There is also a new doomed relic you can unlock to increase the difficulty of your worlds. I'm very excited about this one because it adds a feature I had in mind for a while but haven't implemented on time for the initial release. This doomed relic introduces a new type of enemies that may be spawned alongside the others: the assist minions!
Assist minions are quite weak and have no offensive capabilities. They only exist to buff their peers. For instance, they can give regeneration effects, or boost the attack power. Assist minions can only target one peer at once, and only standard or elite minions. A few new buildings and relics will help you fight the threat they represent! I think these assist minions are a great addition to the bestiary, and I hope you will have fun dealing with them!
Quality of life improvements
I also added a few improvements to the game. Let's review some of them:
- The algorithm selecting upgrades to propose is now a bit smarter. For instance, it will not show any enemy-shield related technologies until the first shielded minion appears. Or it won't show the Support recycler building if no upcoming mission contains docks or bridges.
- Most enemies no longer one-shots all blocks. They now have a mining power statistics and may need to hit a block multiple times to go through. I think this will be fairer and was an important change considering some of the new special blocks.
- The world generation is now skewed to favor maps never seen before. As the pool of maps gets bigger, it will be easier for players to explore the new content and complete their journal without being at the mercy of the random generator.
- The relics, buildings and enemies entries in the journal are now grouped by categories to make it clearer and easier to browse.
What is next?
I did my best to play-test the new content, but there might be some remaining bugs or balance issues. So I'm looking forward to hearing your feedback and releasing further patches if necessary. Please don't hesitate to post on the Steam forums! Fixing issues will be my top priority for the upcoming weeks. Beyond that, I will also focus my effort on promoting this new content update. I think the game already had a decent amount of content at its initial release. With this major content update, I feel Destroy The Monoliths is now in a good state to appeal to a wider audience. The reviews are very good and encouraging so far, so I can't wait for more players to learn about its existence and give it a try. As always, thank you very much for your support. Developing Destroy The Monoliths has been a challenging but satisfying 16 months journey, and I'm really proud how far we have come. Seeing players engage with the game and have fun means a lot to me and motivates me to keep working and doing my best. I hope you will enjoy the new content, and I'll see you next time! -Radiant Sloth
Full changelog (v1.1)
Added
- 8 new maps
- 4 new weapons
- 17 new buildings
- 16 new enemies (including a new type: assist minions)
- 32 new relics (including a doomed relic)
- Smarter random upgrade selection to ban some technologies when they are currently not relevant
- Most enemies now longer one-shots blocks and may need multiple hits to go through
- Skewed world generation to favor maps never seen yet
- Relics, buildings and enemies entries are now grouped by categories in the journal
- Reworked the enemy wave composition rules to fit in the different new enemies
- Renamed 'Mines' to 'Instant mines'
- Renamed 'Beam cannon' to 'Beam turret', as there is now a new building named 'Beam cannon'
- Renamed many enemies in the journal
- Buffed biobombs (more damage, more poison damage and longer poison duration)
- Buffed the shield cooldown improvements in all the stats relics containing this effect
- Nerfed the Retaliation relic to not work on buildings targeting monoliths
- Fixed text width of some biome entries in the journal that could exceed the screen size
- Fixed the reload of repair traps not working properly
- Fixed repair buildings not targeting properly trap buildings
- Fixed top mesh of Kamikaze minions not flashing properly when taking damage
- Fixed some trap effects triggering in building mode when not placed yet
- Fixed structure in sight panel remaining sometimes stuck on the screen when getting the Treasures expertise relic
- Fixed trapped chests already opened reappearing when getting the Treasures expertise relic
- Fixed sound effect playing multiple times when docks auto-place below a building
- Added a safety check at game load to spawn the player back inside the map if out of bounds (will avoid soft locks in case anyone ever manages to do that)
Hello everyone! Last week, I shared a first look at the upcoming free content update of Destroy The Monoliths. Today, I'm very happy to announce that this update will release on Steam on January 29th at 7 PM CET / 1 PM EST! This is very soon! I'm really excited about this update, I think it adds a lot of fun and novelty to the game. I can't wait to see players give it a try! Also, there will be a week long deal at the time of the release! So from January 29th to February 5th, you will be able to purchase the game with a 20% discount!
Another look at the new content
For the New Year, I released the screenshot below to tease some of the new content. Today, let's break it down!
This new map is called Dump and has a grid shape. You probably recognize scrap blocks already present in Scrap Valley that may spawn minions. Dump has no ore blocks, but contains instead Recycled blocks that give random resources. The mining in this map will be a bit more chaotic as you will never be really sure of what you will get. Unless you have the Market building of course, because you can then exchange resources to get want you want. The new weapon (see the icon in top left) is the Explosive beam. It works quite similarly to the laser beam but has area damage. With a couple relic upgrades, it has the potential to be quite powerful! The new building on the left is the corresponding offensive turret that shoots Explosive beams.
Previously, we could mess with enemies movement by attracting or repulsing them. The update will add another option! The new building on the right is indeed a support building that can teleport enemies to the nearest anchor. You can thus redirect all the enemies from different parts of the maps to the same heavily guarded fortress!
See you soon for the update!
I'll see you next Monday for the release. I will also give you more details about the extent of the update in the release post. I hope you enjoyed what I have teased so far and are excited to play the new content! Thanks for reading, and see you soon! -Radiant Sloth
Hello everyone! I'm glad to announce that I've made good progress working on the upcoming v1.1 content update for Destroy The Monoliths! Today, I want to share a bit more details about this update and show some of the new features it will bring. So let's dive right in!
What kind of new content to expect?
I'm really excited for this update. It extends some existing features while still bringing some new fresh ideas. I think it will add a lot of depth to the game. In particular, it will allow for more diverse play styles and will increase the overall replayability. I will tell you later about the exact amount of new content, but here is a quick list of what you can expect for now:
- More maps
- More weapons
- More buildings
- More relics (including a new doomed relic!)
- More enemies
- Quality of life improvements
- Bug fixes
First look at detection mines
Now let's have a first look at a new weapon that will be part of v1.1: the detection mines! This idea was actually suggested by members of the community on the Steam forums, so I'm really happy to have implemented it in the game. There is already a weapon called 'Mines' but it will be renamed to 'Instant mines'. These explode a few seconds after touching the ground. Detection mines will be different. They remain on the ground for a very long time and trigger only when enemies step on them. So they act more like a trap. You can have a limited number of detection mines at once, so shooting a new one will replace the old past a certain threshold (some relics can increase this threshold!).
This weapon also comes with a new corresponding offensive turret. This turret will maintain its own set of detection mines placed around at random. So you can place a brunch of them and create a true minefield! Enemies will probably have a hard time getting to your Core.
That's not all! There is another new building using detection mines: trapped walls! These maintain a mine at their top at all times. So if you block the path to force enemies to go along your walls, they will surely be blasted away!
I hope you will enjoy this new weapon! Tell me in the comments if you're excited to give it a try!
More news for the upcoming update soon
Detection mines are not the only new weapon of the upcoming update. But that's all I will show for today! Do not worry however, I will be back soon with more news and reveals about the update! So be sure to follow the game on Steam to not miss any post. Thanks for reading, and see you next time! -Radiant Sloth
Hello everyone!
I'm happy to wish you all a very happy new year! I hope 2024 will bring you tons of good memories, discovering and playing awesome games!
To celebrate, I want to let you know I've been working on new content for Destroy The Monoliths! So the game will get a free major update in Q1 2024. I will tell you more about the upcoming v1.1 in future posts, but here is a little teasing screenshot for now. Can you guess what the new buildings, weapon and map are about? Tell me in the comments!
Also, don't hesitate to share your suggestions and ideas on the Steam forums. Maybe they can be a part of the upcoming update!
As always, thank you very much for your support, and I wish you the best for 2024!
See you soon for more news!
-Radiant Sloth
Hello everyone!
The Steam Winter Sale is here, until January 4th! Destroy The Monoliths is part of it with a 20% discount, so don't hesitate to give the game a shot! As always, feel free to share your feedback and suggestions on the Steam forums, it's always great to exchange with the player community.
I wish you all a happy holiday season, and I'll see you next year!
-Radiant Sloth
Fixed
- Fixed issue with input icons sometimes not switching properly when plugging or unplugging a controller
- Experimenting a different fix for mining issues with laser arrows
Hello everyone!
I'm glad to share that Destroy The Monoliths is part of the Dreamhack Beyond Game Awards festival! It is live on Steam right now, until December 21st! Click on the banner below to access the Sales page!
Happy festival!
Fixed
- Tweaked (again) the physics shape of laser arrows
- Fixed an engine setting for HiDPI monitors
Hello everyone! I'm glad to announce that the first weeklong deal of Destroy The Monoliths is live now! You can purchase the game with a 20% discount until next Monday. It's time to uncover and destroy as many monoliths you can!
Steam Deck Verified
As you may have noticed on the store page, the game has received a compatibility review from Valve for the Steam Deck. And it has the highest score, Verified! This means the game is fully functional and works great. So if you want to grab your Steam Deck and play the game anywhere, you can totally do that!
What's next?
It has been a little more than a month since the game came out, and I'm happy with how it went. I'm very grateful to all players who took interest in my work and I'm glad you're having fun playing! Thank you also for your insightful feedback on the Steam forums, I was able to release a few patches to fix some issues and polish further some aspects of the game. Please don't hesitate to keep posting, I'm very interested in your suggestions for more improvements or new content. I developed Destroy The Monoliths in 13 months, which is actually quite an intense pace considering this is all solo work and I have a full time job on the side. So, with the holiday season close by, it's now time for me to take a bit of rest and get my mind off Destroy The Monoliths for a little while. I'll see you next year to share about the future of the game and a new project I've been prototyping! Thanks again for the support, and see you next time! -Radiant Sloth
Fixed
- Fixed 2 relics never appearing in the upgrade choices
- Tweaked laser arrows physics shape (again) to make them less likely to glitch through blocks
Fixed
- Fixed status effect turrets targeting enemies immune to status effects
- Tweaked the shape of laser arrows (should hopefully reduce mining issues)
- Fixed some issues with enemies dying with several status effects on
- Fixed issue with player glitching into the Colossus: the boss spawn position is now shifted a bit if necessary
Hello everyone! Destroy The Monoliths was released last week, and, first of all, a huge thanks for your support and interest! Things actually went a bit better than what I was expecting, so that's great! I'm really enjoying seeing players engage with the game and have fun. You also shared a lot of useful feedback to help me improve things further, and I'm really grateful for that! I already released a couple of patches to fix some annoying bugs and better balance the game. Today, I am releasing a new one that also reworks a few buildings I was not entirely happy with (and player feedback confirmed changes were needed!). So let's dive into the details!
Automated mining rework
I reworked a few buildings related to automated mining. It was quite tedious to use the drill, and it was sometimes missing shots. I reduced the size of the building (now 1x1) and also its range so that it will only hit the 8 adjacent blocks. It is now completely reliable and can thus be used with blocks generators to mine resources.
Also, I tweaked the tech tree to make the drill a child of the matter generator (it was previously the other way around). Th reason is that using a drill without generators would not make sense because it is quite expensive and would serve only once. That's why I added a variation as a new building with no tech dependencies. I'm glad to present the One-use drill! It is very cheap and will destroy blocks around before killing itself. It can actually be a fast way to mine the terrain. It saves time, but costs a bit of resources.
The Cryogenic freezer had the same issue as the drill so I reworked it as well. It no longer shoots shells and will simply freeze its 8 adjacent blocks (again, it is now a 1x1 building).
I believe these changes make these buildings a lot more reliable and efficient, and thus satisfying to use. I can't wait to see what you will come up with! Also, a few tweaks might be necessary for the sake of balance, so please don't hesitate to share your feedback on this.
What is next?
That's the main changes for this patch. You can read the full changelog below. My top priority for the next few weeks remains to fix bugs and improve the game balance. But also to keep spreading the word about Destroy The Monoliths. I hope many more new players will join the community in the near future! And I will probably also need to take some rest at some point, it has been a very busy year :) Thanks for reading, and see you next time! -Radiant Sloth
Changelog - v1.0c
Added
- Added a new hidden achievement
- Added a new building (One-use drill)
- Nerfed the Twin explosived relic (now reduces shells damage by 10%)
- Nerfed the Parallel targeting relic (now reduces shells damage by 15%)
- Nerfed the Bouncing shells relic (shells now loose 50% attack power after a bounce)
- Changed arrows description to mention their lack of accuracy
- The Colossus will attack more often
- Buffed the health scaling of elites, titans and Colossus enemies
- Reworked how the Drill works (smaller range but more reliable) (+ is now unlocked by the matter generator in the tech tree)
- Reworked the Cryogenic freezer (smaller range but more reliable)
- Reworked the Bouncing drill relic into Armed drill
- Nerfed Sonic boomerang against the Colossus (the piercing will hit less times)
- Fixed the aim ray not showing a second marker on the ground when using shells with the Twin explosives relic
Added
- Added an option in the controls tab to either let the game auto-detect which input icons to display (default behavior) or force a specific set of icons
- Added a tiny square on the ground to the aim ray for weapons with a parabolic trajectory. It should help to better aim with these weapons.
- Improved the collector description to make it clearer
- Replaced the healing orbs timeout with a fixed limit. There can now only be 50 healing orbs at a given time on the floor (new orbs will replace the old ones).
- Fixed issue with the neutronic transformers erasing player weapons when placed next to each other
Changed
- Decreased the reload speed of the neutronic tower, but increased attack damage. Overall DPS is slightly better
- Decreased the reload speed of the neutronic transformer
- Healing orbs now disappear after 60 seconds if not collected. This prevents from accumulating a ton of them on the ground, which can cause lags
- Fixed XP collector giving infinite XP with a certain relic
Hello everyone, Destroy The Monoliths is out right now on Steam! After one year or working on this project, I am very happy to share version 1.0 with you. There is 15% discount on launch week so you can get it now for $6 USD! In terms of content, the full game offers:
- 16 different types of maps
- 16 different weapons
- 20+ enemies
- 70+ buildings
- 130+ relics, including the doomed relics that increases the difficulty of worlds
- 40+ achievements to collect
Bundles
With v1.0, I am releasing the full soundtrack of the game too. There are 15 tracks total and you can purchase it with the game thanks to a discounted bundle. This is a great way of supporting further my work if you want to. https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/35227 If you already own my previous game Skycliffs (thank you so much for being here since the beginning of my gamedev journey!), there is also a bundle you can use to get Destroy The Monoliths with a discount. https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/35242
Final words
I am also releasing today a demo update. I am including the changelog below for those of you who are interested in seeing the recent changes I made. Again, thanks everyone for sharing this journey with me. I am really grateful to have people interested in my work! I am proud of releasing this next project and I hope you will have a ton of fun playing! See you soon! -Radiant Sloth
Changelog (v0.7h > v1.0)
Changed
- Increased the frequency of the orange ore in the map generation
- All status effect turrets now shoot over obstacles with a parabolic trajectory instead of needing a direct line of sight
- Modified the aim ray to have a circle shape when in building mode
- Upgraded to Godot Engine 3.5.3
- Fixed grenades launch angle causing them to sometime bounce and miss their target
- Fixed mine turret shooting not far enough and not hitting enemies at the very edge of their range
- Fixed current building in sight panel not updating the repair button when picking up resources
- Fixed player sometimes getting thrown in the air when hit
- Fixed cursor texture being off by a few pixels
- Fixed magma trap kill counter not working properly for the achievement
- Fixed weapons magically unlocking when reading journal entries in game
Hello everyone! You guessed it with the title: it's time to reveal the release date of Destroy The Monoliths! I'm very excited to announce that the game will be out on Steam on the 2nd of November! This is very soon! Here is a quick FAQ to answer questions you might have about the release. When and where? November 2nd on Steam. Be sure to wishlist the game to receive a notification and not miss the release! Price tag? The game will cost $6.99 USD, with a 15% discount on the launch week. How much content does the full game have? The full game has 16 different maps available, 16 different weapons, 20+ enemies, 70+ buildings and 130+ relics. In particular, it includes doomed relics that increase the difficulty of worlds and offer a more challenging experience to veteran players! There are also 40+ achievements to get so, completionists, be ready for the hunt! Do I lose my progress on the demo? No! All your progress on the demo will be transferred to the full game. All the achievements you already got in game will unlock in Steam at the first launch. Your profile stats and meta progression unlocks will be kept, and all your save files will remain accessible. So you can keep playing the demo without worries until the launch ;) Soundtrack? The soundtrack will be out at the same time, and there will be a bundle to get it discounted with the game. If you have any other question, feel free to ask in the comments or on the Steam forums, I'll be happy to answer! Thanks for reading, and see you soon for the release! -Radiant Sloth [previewyoutube=Ac9RQMFf4sQ;full][/previewyoutube]
Hello everyone!
The Steam Next has just started and Destroy The Monoliths is a part of it! I'm looking forward to seeing players discover the game and give the demo a try! Please don't hesitate to share your feedback on the Steam forums, and please do share the info with your friends, family or YouTube/Twitch/.. community if you are excited about it!
For my part, I will be livestreaming the demo on Saturday at 6 PM CEST, so see you in a few days! Until then, I wish you a great festival, with many awesome games discoveries!
-Radiant Sloth
Hello everyone! The Steam Next Fest is almost there and it's time for another demo update! It consists mostly of bug fixes and balancing changes. But also a few more important changes.
Learn the technology tree!
First, let's talk about the technology tree. The game offers random choices to the player so you may not realize it but there is actually an internal tree with dependencies between techs. When you pick something, it makes new choices available in the future. Until now, all of this was quite invisible. I receveid a great suggestion to make it visible in game and so here it is! Journal entries now display the requirements and potential successors of all buildings, relics and weapons. So, if you really like a technology, you can now learn more easily which choices can lead to it. Technologies never picked yet are shown as "???" in successors, so it also helps your search if you are a completionist who wants to unlock every possible journal entry!
Teaser: yes, there will be a long-range bomber in the full game!
Neutronic balls decay over time
Another major chance concern neutronic balls. I got feedback that they felt too easy because they can attack monoliths from any range. However, this is the second main offensive technology and I wanted it to be a bit more difficult than the first one (i.e. the neutronic bombers). It was not so I had to make a change. I decided to make the damage power of neutronic balls decay over time until a minimum cap. The summoners remain usable from any range, but they are a lot more efficient if you place them close to monoliths. Also, it incentivizes to keep their path clear, because enemies blocking the balls will waste travel time and thus damage power. Please give the demo a shot and tell me if you enjoy these changes! Also, I fixed the pathfinding of the balls that was still a bit akward at times. In particular, balls will now try to change their path if you suddenly place a building on their way. They won't get stuck anymore. The piece of code to allow that has actually been there the whole time... but one line was missing to activate it, oops. At least it was really quick to fix once I realized it! I guess any programmer can relate to that
What is next?
The Steam Next Fest, of course! It starts on Monday and will be a great event. Right now, I'm focused on promotion and reaching out to content creators to make sure the game gets as much visibility as possible during the festival. I hope many new players will give the demo a shot and share their feedback on the Steam forums. Also, I will be livestreaming the game on Steam on Saturday and Sunday. See you very soon! -Radiant Sloth
Full changelog (Demo v0.7h)
Added
- Journal entries for buildings, relics and weapons now show their requirements and successors in the internal technology tree
- Neutronic balls (from Neutronic summoners) now lose some damage power over time, until a minimum cap. They remain usable from any distance but will be a lot less efficient when far from monoltihs
- Increased probability of technologies never seen yet (i.e. locked in the journal) to appear in the choices
- Replaced a building choice by a relic choice in the level-ups
- Changed stats of some relics (energy tanks, reinforced walls, etc) to be (hopefully) more balanced
- Reduced sightly the damage and health scaling of enemies
- Tweaked Lush Archipelago map generation to have more ore
- Increased the distance at which monoliths get discovered and showed on the minimap
- Fixed building sight panel not updating the health immediately when repairing
- Fixed journal entries of many turrets showing the wrong target ("Monoliths" instead of "Minions")
- Fixed force field effect being always active instead of being triggered by a relic
- Fixed neutronic bomber not showing a warning message when no more monolith in range
- Fixed tech reroll button having no uses left when it should have
- Fixed neutronic balls pathfinding
Hello everyone!
Next week, the Destroy The Monoliths demo will be part of Steam Next Fest! For this special occasion, there will be a second livestream on October, Sunday 15th, 5 PM CEST.
I will play some missions in the demo, and also be present in the chat. I will be glad to answer questions about the game!
Hello everyone!
Next week, the Destroy The Monoliths demo will be part of Steam Next Fest! For this special occasion, there will be a first livestream on October, Saturday 14th, 6 PM CEST.
I will play some missions in the demo, and also be present in the chat. I will be glad to answer questions about the game!
Hello everyone,
I'm very happy to announce that Destroy The Monoliths will be part of the upcoming Steam Next Fest, from October 9th to 16th. This is a great opportunity to play the demo and I'm excited for new players to discover the game and join the community! There will also be 2 livestreams where I will be playing the demo and be present in chat to answer any questions you might have. I will announce the exact schedule soon, so stay tuned for more news (be sure to wishlist and follow the Steam page to not miss anything!). Here is below the new trailer I edited for this special occasion!
[previewyoutube=g012qb0GL38;full][/previewyoutube]
Before the start of the event, I'm planning to release a small patch to share some recent balancing changes and bug fixes I was able to make since the last demo update. So keep your eyes peeled for it!
See you soon!
-Radiant Sloth
Hello everyone, I'm glad to share with you that the Store page for the Destroy The Monoliths Soundtrack is now visible! https://store.steampowered.com/app/2519780 The album will contain 15 tracks and will be released at the same time as the game (still planned for Q4 2023!). If you enjoy the music, buying the soundtrack on top of the game is a great way to support my work and make sure I can keep making more games in the future (there will be a bundle with a nice discount if you purchase both of course!). Feel free to wishlist the store page to get notified when the album gets available. For now, I want to share a little gift to help you wait for the release. Please discover below March Of Purity, a brand new track exclusive to the full game content! I hope you will enjoy listening, and see you soon for more news! -Radiant Sloth [previewyoutube=0sdraxAUOtw;leftthumb][/previewyoutube]
Hello everyone! The Dreamhack Beyond Indie Showcase and Steam Strategy Fest ended a few weeks ago, and I have been hard at work since. Today, it's time for an update! I'm glad to release v0.7g of the Destroy The Monoliths demo! It brings a bit of new content, as well as balance changes, quality of life improvements and bug fixes. Let's review the main changes together!
New content and QoL features
This update adds a new building: the sonic trap! It shoots a sonic push to enemies stepping on it. This can be very efficient if you combine it with attractive or repulsive stations to force enemies to go over it... I hope you will enjoy the possibilities! The full game will contain more buildings of the 'floor trap' type.
The new Sonic trap! Next, this patch adds 8 new relics! Most of them are improvements to a specific weapon or building. For instance, 'Stock discrepancy' makes it so that the collector gives you a bit more more resources than it actually collects. Sounds cool, right? But my personal favorite is probably 'Piercing laser bullets'. Not a very original effect, but it's always super satisfying to hit all enemies with a single shot so why do without? The great news is that is also affects your laser turrets so that's a significant power upgrade! This is a design choice important to me in the game. Almost all relics that upgrade a weapon affect all the offensive turrets that rely on this weapon. Let's now talk about some quality of life improvements. First, there is now a new input shortcut to cancel building, and by default this is the right click. I've seen many people intuitively trying to use right click to cancel the building mode and requesting this. So I think it was much needed! You can now cancel either with this new shortcut and the usual menu key. As for all inputs, you can remap it to your liking in the settings.
Cancel building with right click! Finally, I added an accessibility option to use the shield in toggle mode. I understand holding the key for long can be annoying for some people so I hope the toggle will make it more enjoyable.
New option to use the shield in toggle mode
Technology tree changes
When you collect enough experience and level up, you get to choose between different technologies, either weapons, building or relics. All these technologies are arranged internally into a tech tree structure with unlock dependencies. Each time you pick a technology, it makes some new choices available in the random pool of future level-ups. Here is what the tree looks like in my editor:
Internal technology tree As you can see, there are a lot of technologies. More than 200 in the whole tree currently. So the pool of possible picks can get quite big, which is a problem. Because options are given randomly, you could end up with completely unrelated technologies and this would not feel very satisfying. I use two ways to solve this issue:
- The random selection is skewed to favor the successors of recent picks. Let's imagine you just picked relic A, and relic A makes relic B available in the dependency tree. Then it means that at the next level-up relic B is a lot more likely to appear than any other option. This update accentuates this likelihood even more. I put dependencies between technologies that are similar or direct upgrades of one another. So it makes sense to think you may be particularly interested by the successors of your previous picks. This allows to be offered a more coherent set of options.
- The tree is arranged to have interesting branches and not have too many nodes available right from the start. Besides, the technologies that constitute the roots of the branches are often the technologies available in the different starting packs. This means that when you start with another pack, you are more likely to explore another part of the tree and thus to have different playthroughs. This update brings many changes to the dependency tree to make it a lot more interesting. I hope it also harmonizes with the meta progress to improve the overall variety and replayability of the game.
What is next?
I almost finished adding all the content I had planned for v1.0. This means we are getting close to the end and everything should hopefully be ready in time for the release date I am targeting within Q4. On one side, I am now focusing a lot on debugging and improving the game balance, making sure everything works as expected and is enjoyable. On the other side, I am spending much time on marketing, reaching out to content creators, finalizing the configurations within Steamworks (the store page of the soundtrack is almost ready!), preparing a new trailer, etc. That's one aspect that makes it so hard to make and finish games, even more as a solo developer. Even though 99% of the work is done, the final stage for that last 1% seems never-ending and the todo list seems to never empty. But we will get to the release and I am really enjoying this journey! I am very grateful for everyone who tags along with me in this crazy adventure. Seeing people play and enjoy a game I created with so much passion always feels very rewarding and makes all this hard work way worth it. Videos games are a powerful artistic medium, and in the end I want nothing more than to deliver a unique piece of art that will hopefully entertain and inspire people, connect with their cleverness and creative sensibility. As always, thank you for reading this post! The full changelog is available below. Please give the update a try and share your feedback on the Steam forums. And stay tuned for the upcoming announcements! See you soon! -Radiant Sloth
Here is a teaser of a map called Shiny swamp!
Full changelog (Demo v0.7g)
Added
- Added sonic trap building
- Added 8 new relics
- New input shortcut available to cancel building mode, defaults to right click
- Added accessibility option to use the shield in toggle mode instead of hold
- Re-organized the whole tech tree and thus modified a lot of unlock dependencies
- Technologies made available in the tech tree by a recent pick are now even more likely to appear
- A checkbox indicator now shows if the key for building multiple times is hold or not
- Neutronic balls now move over liquids
- Changed 'Explosive extremes' relic into 'Twin explosives', now shoots two shells at normal + higher range instead of short + high
- Fixed mission info popup sometimes appearing over the status panel in the world map
- Fixed monoliths spawning sometimes too close to the Core on certain maps
- Fixed popup from the building mode sometimes not disappearing and remaining stuck on the screen
Hello everyone!
The Steam Strategy Fest has just started! I'm very happy to have Destroy The Monoliths be featured in this event! Participating in this festival was very important to be because I strive to create a unique and fun mix of action and strategy, two genres I appreciate a lot. Fast-paced execution is important in Destroy The Monoliths, but so is thinking deeply about your buildings placements and technologies picks. Should I mine for more resources or assist my turrets in fighting? Should I attack on all fronts or focus on one monolith at a time? How can I synergize the buildings at my disposal to devise unexpected death traps for enemies? These are the kind of strategic questions Destroy The Monoliths will make you ponder!
So get your best plans ready, and let's play the Destroy The Monoliths demo and plenty of other strategy games! Click on the banner below to head to the sales page and discover the event!
Have a nice festival!
-Radiant Sloth
Destroy The Monoliths
Radiant Sloth
Radiant Sloth
2023-11-02
Action Indie Strategy Casual RPG Adventure Simulation F2P Sports MMO Racing Singleplayer Multiplayer Coop EA
Game News Posts 38
🎹🖱️Keyboard + Mouse
🕹️ Partial Controller Support
🎮 Full Controller Support
Positive
(13 reviews)
https://radiantsloth.com
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2352000
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EXPLORE
Discover procedurally generated maps with unique biomes (arid, volcanic, frost, ...) and shapes (dense, archipelago, river, ...). Enjoy a beautiful 3D pixel art style with dynamic lighting. Find useful structures like treasures or shrines.
MINE
Destroy blocks to collect tons of resources. Use different weapons to mine faster and more efficiently, or rely on automated buildings to get the job done for you.
BUILD
Place buildings to protect your base and attack enemy monoliths. Combine and synergize buildings from four different categories: offensive, status effects, support and biome specials.
FIGHT
Attack monoliths with your main offensive buildings. Protect your base from the enemy minions summoned with your other turrets. Use your weapons, shield and dash to fight alongside your turrets. Collect XP from damaged monoliths to get upgrades.
UPGRADES
Get new weapons and new building blueprints. Get relics that enhance your stats and offer unique effects. Upgrades are acquired for a whole world so they carry over to the following missions. Leverage your new powers to face the increased dangers as you cleanse more sectors of the world.
WORLDS
Play procedurally generated worlds. Unlock various packs of starting technologies to explore different playthroughs. Activate doomed relics to increase the difficulty and challenge yourself. Get achievements. Discover all the entries of your journal.
- OS: Ubuntu 16.04 LTS
- Processor: 2.0 GHzMemory: 2 GB RAM
- Memory: 2 GB RAM
- Graphics: OpenGL ES 3.0+ Compatible Card
- Storage: 500 MB available space
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