Greetings Duelists! My name is Dora zsoy, one of the lead Producers on NeoDuel from Rogue Duck Interactive, known for games like Cardboard Town and recently launched Dice & Fold. In case you missed it, we revealed our official launch date, set now for 30th of September 2024, as announced via a fresh new trailer via IGN which you can watch below. The game will be made available for the price of $11.99 with a launch discount of 20% (rounding to roughly $9.50), with lower regional pricing for a handful of markets. Dont forget to help us out by sharing the Launch Reveal trailer on social media, to get the word out to as many potential future Duelists as possible. [previewyoutube=xf1LR2mEvhw;full][/previewyoutube] Were super excited to finally launch the game after months of work, based on a long list of feedback, surveys and playthrough of the demo from our community. While we spoke about the launch content update in the 0.9.0 Patch Notes, were glad to share that pretty much everything planned is going according to plan, including a reworked onboarding for newcomers, technical optimization, the Cosmodex and some new gameplay mechanics including the arrival of fusionable elements starting with Ice (blending Water and Air together). In that sense, were going to keep the demo for a few days, then it will be retired from the Steam store so get your Duels going until then (official date will be shared at a later stage). The remaining days will be needed for the last polishing touch on the game before the release, such as finishing up tweaks on localization of our 11 supported languages (English, Turkish, Japanese, Korean, French, German, Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, Russian, and Simplified & Traditional Chinese), as well as some scheduled quality assurance work. This will provide us plenty of time to concentrate on gameplay refinement, bug repairs, optimization, and interface enhancements as well. For the time being, I figured Ill give you a glimpse of all that is to be expected in the full release of NeoDuel: Backpack Monsters.

CLARITY OF GAMEPLAY AND UI FEATURES:

Game Tutorial

Remember that tutorial you werent really a fan of? Maybe it was too simplistic to help anyone with the game, or lacked details to appeal to new Duelists, so we changed things up. Once you play NeoDuel for the first time, your first run of games will feature on-screen prompts guiding you through the Duel, explaining the basics of the inventory management, monster-tamer and auto-battling aspect of the game. This decision was made after a constant data analysis of the current player base not making use of the dedicated tutorial in the game.

The Cosmodex (name pending)

While we didnt decide on a fancy name for our Cosmion Index feature in NeoDuel, it will have everything you need to educate yourself on the current launch list of over 175 Cosmions and Elemental essences, but also how to acquire those Evolved and Fused Cosmions. Other than that, expect some small, animated guides as well on certain game mechanics, that could also be a refresher for those of you that havent played the demo for a while.

NEW CONTENT FOR THE GAME:

The Ice Update: Rise of the Cosmion Walkers?

As part of our free content roadmap, the full release of NeoDuel will introduce our first gameplay mechanic addition known as Elemental fusion: blend the power of Air and Water to create a new Element Ice to freeze your opponent in the arena. In the process, new Cosmion evolutions and fusions will emerge, harnessing the power of ice, adding more than 13 new critters to the Cosmodex. As with other Elemental types, most Ice Cosmions will have a new keyword associated to them which is Frostbite. It requires Duelists to stack 10 values of that Frostbite, which will trigger a 50 HP damage wave of chilling power. Throughout the coming year, 3 more Elemental fusions will launch with free major updates including Lava, Swamp and Storm.
from left to right, Icatis, Bling Chling and Fubuki. Heres couple of examples to know what to expect from these frosty Cosmions:

• Bling Chling: this Cosmion might be cute, but his rhymes are sharper than icicles. Its trigger effect is to inflict 5 Frostbite, and a 4x Ice link will help the Cosmion gain 2 damage.
• Icatis: The Ice evolution of Abatis is themed like a certain winter celebration. After each Frostbite blast, you gain 20 shield.
• Fubuki: What if Fanfox embraced the power of Okami? A master of the chill winds, Fubuki inflicts one stack of Frostbite for every enemy miss. Upon a 5-level Ice link, it will inflict 1 fog at start.

Theres many more to come, and we cant wait to see what you Duelists might do to harness Ice.

Voice over announcers: Lets get ready to rumble!

We know, thats a bit of a surprise! NeoDuel: Backpack Monsters will now feature voice overs in two languages, mainly Turkish and English, specifically for the Arena announcers to bring these Duels to life. Nick Atlas, known for his roles in Mika and the Witchs Mountain, Dune Spice Wars and Cultic, will be your English announcer, while Zeynep nen will take the same role for the Turkish language. The latter is known for her work in numerous televised animation work in Turkey, including Niloya, Tay and Sagu & Pagu. Thats it for now Duelists! Well be hard at work in the coming weeks to get ready for the launch, and a potential day one update with some balancing updates and a couple of additional surprises. Until then, for the most recent news, join the NeoDuel community by following us on Twitter or hopping into the T4W Discord server. Please contact our support channel on the T4W Discord server if you need assistance with typical technical issues or if you are unable to resolve your problem. Till then, keep on dueling, and good luck!