Monster Keepers! We're hosting holiday giveaways on [strike]Twitter[/strike]X and Bluesky! Win Plushies, Limited run physical editions of Monster Sanctuary or a Monster Journal! https://x.com/moi_rai_/status/1871172685713252810 https://bsky.app/profile/moiraigames.bsky.social/post/3ldyznxpwxs2i You are allowed to participate in both. 20 total winners will get a prize of their choice!

[ 2024-12-23 23:22:28 CET ] [ Original post ]

To celebrate our last major content update and the journey we had with Monster Sanctuary, before moving our focus to our next game Aethermancer, we organized another plushie campaign with Makeship! Some time ago we asked our community which Monster they'd like to see if we happened to do another Makeship campaign.

...and here it is now: Manticorb!

The elusive Manticorb is the ideal companion for both fighting predators and snuggling at home! Its thick, fluffy coat cannot only absorb errant Mana to be cast from the tip of its tail like a wand, but is also incredibly fluffy and soft.
The plushie campaign is already funded, that means you will definitely get your ordered plushies. But this is a limited campaign and you don't have much time anymore.

Order Manticorb Plushie here:

Makeship With how great Blob and Catzerker have turned out last year, we are very happy to have Manticorb join our Makeship family (also, they really are a great team!)
P.S. Don't forget to feed it Raspberries if you want to up that Crit Damage.

[ 2023-05-22 12:51:09 CET ] [ Original post ]

Monster Keeper! We released the new Relics of Chaos update for Monster Sanctuary on Steam! This is a free update that will be downloaded automatically for anyone owning Monster Sanctuary (including anyone who already owns it as well as anyone who purchases it at any time in the future). It is also the last major content update for Monster Sanctuary and a love letter to you - our community - before we move our focus towards our new game Aethermancer. [previewyoutube=1e9QtIjPf38;full][/previewyoutube] Thank you for playing Monster Sanctuary and enjoy bringing CHAOS to the Sanctuary!

Relics of Chaos Game Mode

The new Relics of Chaos game mode is another optional game mode. You can combine the Relics of Chaos game mode with the other three game modes added with the Forgotten World DLC (Permadeath, Randomizer and Bravery) and with the NG+ mode. As with the other game modes, it is not required to beat the game to use it - you can turn on a setting in the options to use them. Relics of Chaos adds a new type of equipment called "Relics". These 39 relics are extremely powerful equipment with over the top effects. But... they come with a catch!
You will find one random Relic in one random chest in every area in the Sanctuary. The chest that gets replaced with the Relic chest as well as the Relic that it contains gets randomized with every seed, making it a treasure hunt and - especially together with the other game modes - makes Monster Sanctuary even more replayable!

Quality of Life Changes

We also added several quality-of-life features to the game, giving our best to give Monster Sanctuary that final polish and to listen to what you asked for the most:

• You are now able to take back recently assigned skill points!
• Savefile management allows you to finally delete or copy saves!
• You can celebrate your team by being able to rewatch the final cutscene multiple times and with an option to take a team photo!
• An icon shows you which of your monsters are fed and which are still hungry!
• The maps shows how much you have already explored in %!
• ... and more QoL features - see the patch notes below!

Note from the creator of Monster Sanctuary

It has been a long Journey from starting Monster Sanctuary as a hobby project, working on it in my free time, to being able to work on it full time, to having a small team of developers by now. Right from the start before even releasing the first demo, this was always a very community driven project. It was natural that we give back by releasing all the free updates for the game post launch. We are two and a half years past the full release of the game by now, five years since the release of the first demo. Working on this update took a lot of my time, while the majority of the team was working on our new project. I felt like letting the Team down, not being able to focus on the new project at all times. This is going to be the last big update for Monster Sanctuary. I hope you enjoyed the Journey as much as we did!

Patch Notes

New Content and Features

• 1 new game mode: Relics of Chaos
• 39 new equipment items "Relics" exclusive to the game mode
• 5 new skills
• % of explored area in the map
• Option to take back recently assigned skill points (until you exit the game or the monster participates in a fight)
• Added savefile management options (delete and copy)
• Button to use Smoke Bomb directly in the skill selection menu in combat
• Option to remove flashes added
• Possible to inspect own monsters now incl. crit chance and crit damage
• New NPC to the left of the PvP arena after defeating the final boss that allows you to rewatch the final cutscene multiple times and take a team photo together with your monsters
• Increased monster gold gain formula
• Option to name the 3 starting monsters in Bravery mode
• Light and Dark shifts alternate for all monsters in the wild now
• Double explore ability for Goblin Miner: Light + Crush
• Visual indicator if a monster has been fed or not
• Legendary Keeper encounters also grant a small amount of gold now (both on normal and re-fights)
• If an attack is dodged, the text now says "Dodge" instead of "Miss"
• Added a Merchant in the Infinity Arena that will sell Reward box items for coupons attainable through the arena (you earn 1 Arena Coupons every 12 levels, not counting the levels you started on).
• Option added to open all boxes of a selected version
• Game will no longer accept mouse input if another program is in front of it
• Windows only: the icon in the taskbar will blink when a PvP match has been found

New Skills

• Static Strike - First hit never misses. Its base damage is also increased by {50%} of attack/magic if it isn't critical. ({30%} for Mass Attacks)
• Riposte - Counter Attack with 300% Defense and triples the chance to trigger on hit effects
• Shock Support - Non damaging actions apply shock to two random enemies
• Heavy Hitter - Monster gains 1% crit damage for every 20 Defense
• Healing Echo - When using a single target healing action, also heal another ally with the lowest health by 40% that ability's total healing amount

Monster Changes

• Tengu: gains Static Strike
• Promethean: gains Static Strike
• Kame: gains Static Strike
• Sizzle Knight: gains Riposte, Electrify, Kindle, Cascade, 'Heavy Hitter', loses Shield Aura, Mana Plus, Shocking Current, Burning Heat, 'Crit Damage Plus'
• Elderjel: Light shift +1 base mana
• Manticorb: Light shift +1 base mana
• Glowfly: gains Shock Support, Healing Echo
• Qillin: gains Shock Support
• Shockhopper: gains Shock Support
• Raduga: gains 'Critical Mass', loses 'Critical Boon'. Dark shift +1 base magic, +1 base mana, light shift -1 Health
• Crackle Knight: gains Heavy Hitter, loses Mana Plus
• Diavola: gains Heavy Hitter
• Imori: gains Heavy Hitter, loses Crit Damage Plus
• Thanatos: gains First Impact, 'Vicious,' 'Shared Glory', 'Giantsbane', loses Health Plus and 'Duality'. Both shifts gain +1 attack & magic.
• Monk: gains Healing Echo
• Sycophantom: gains Healing Echo
• Molebear: gains Critical Boon, 'Tenacious Barrier'
• Megataur: gains Combo Initiator, 'Crit Chance+', loses Situational Support, 'Protector' and -1 Base Defense. Light shift loses -1 Max Health
• Dracozul: both shifts gain +1 attack, +1 magic & +1 Mana
• Draconoir, Draconov, Dracomer: both shifts gain +1 attack & +1 magic
• Lava Blob: gains 'Death Blow'
• Ice Blob: gains 'Disarming Shielding'
• Rainbow Blob: gains 'Phoenix Affinity', 'Strike Mastery', 'Armor Bypass' +1 Base Mana, loses 'Life Stability', 'Health Plus', 'Crit Damage+'.
• Beetloid: gains 'Chain Reaction'
• Mogwai: Both shifts gain +1 attack & +1 magic
• Nautilid: gains 'Shock Support', 'Miracle', 'Spell Mastery'. Loses 'Psychokinesis'. Light shift changed to Mass Mystify.
• Tanuki: gains 'Auto Restore', 'Buffing Heal', 'Auto Restore', 'Critical Healing', 'Improved Assault', loses 'Shield Aura', 'Meditation', 'Potion Mastery', 'Defense Focus', 'Improved Glory'
• Bard: light shift -1 Health
• Terradrile: gains 'Heavy Hitter', loses 'Tenacious Barrier'
• Frosty: gains 'Jolly Spirit'
• Spectral Toad: gains 'Tenacious Barrier', light shift +1 Max Health, dark shift +1 Max Health, +1 Attack, +1 Magic
• Spectral Lion: gains 'Glorious Spark'
• Glowfly: +Healing Echo (shock support position changed)
• Krakaturtle: gains 'Static Mass'
• Polterofen: Light Shift -1 Base Defense
• Crystal Snail: Light Shift -1 Base Health
• Targoat: Light Shift -1 Base Health
• Goblin Brute: Both shifts gain +1 Base Mana
• Vertraag: gains Sorcerous Boost. Positions of Void Flare and Healing Wave swapped in the skill tree.
• Aurumtail: Both shifts gain +1 Base Mana and +1 Base Health

Skill Changes

• 'Duality' cannot trigger 'shared' buff skills anymore and vise versa
• 'Curse Resistance' is an unique aura now that gives 25% chance to resist debuff/negative stacks application
• 'Tenacious Barrier' now reduces Debuff effects by 10% per stack (instead of resisting them)
• 'Path to Ascension', 'Path to Knowledge' and 'Path to Valhalla' skills are unique now
• 'Wonder Potion' has all its values reduced by 1 (was 4&4 / 2&2 for multi. Now is 3&3 / 1&1)
• 'Burning Desire' reduced to 3% (previously 4%)
• 'Volatile Shield' deals 150% damage now (previously 175%)
• 'Spark' values increased to 45 def, 30 Mana Regen and 60% chance to apply burn (on highest upgrade level)
• 'Mana Donor' increased to 30% (previously 25%)
• 'Mana Focus' increased to 30% (previously 25%)
• 'Occult Control' increased to 3,5% (previously 3%)
• Support Chord the random buff can no longer trigger any additional sharing skills
• Minnesang reduced the heal count by 1 on every level, but increase the attack scaling a bit to 30% (previously 25%)
• Glitter Increased to 6% (previously 5%)
• Worm Troop Increased heal and mana regen value to 20% (previously 10%)
• Mass Mystify Increased chance to 70% (previously 60%) and make it apply a random buff to a random ally
• Icy Fists Increased chance to 50% (previously 25%)
• Spirit Strength Increased to 20% (previously 15%)
• Trickster Increased shielding to 4% (previously 3%)
• 'Smoke Screen' applies to all enemies now
• 'Jolly Spirit' additionally grants a random buff
• 'Channeling Balance' increased to 7.5% (from 6%)
• 'Curse Transfusion' increased to 5% (from 4%)
• 'Backstab' Increased damage to 35% (from 30%) and reduce threshold to 70% (from 75%)
• 'Spectral Cannon' lvl 2: Damage increased to 475%
• 'Snowball Toss' damage increased on all levels (570% on highest level instead of 540%)
• 'Magic Penetration' increased to 20% (from 15%)
• 'Shield Crush' reduced to 20% (from 25%)
• 'Necromancy' increased heal value to 25% (from 20%)
• 'Debuff Variety' increased to 3% (from 2.5%)
• 'Piercing Lightning' reduced Armor Penetration down to 20%, base damage increased to 450% (on highest level)
• 'Frostbite' chance increased to 50% (from 40%)
• 'Blood Magic' chance and bleed damage changed to 40% (from 35%)
• 'Combo Initiator' damage increase and hit changed to 30% (from 25%)
• 'Blood Drive' chance reduced to 70% (from 75%)
• When reviving a monster in PvP, that monster cannot use revive or ultimates for that turn
• Slow Burn now triggers passives as if all charges were consumed

Equipment Changes

• 'Grey Pearl' Attack, Magic & Defense increased to 100 (from 90), Max Health increased to 1000 (from 900)
• 'Abyssal Sword' Increased Attack & Magic values to 250 (from 240) and trigger chance to 100% (from 80%) on max level.
• 'Bandana', 'Needle' and 'Ribbon' have +5 Max Mana (on highest upgrade level)
• 'Brooch' +1% Crit Chance
• 'Sun Pendant' Shielding increased to 175 (previously 150)
• 'Hexing Rod' All tiers now apply only 1 Debuff, but Attack & Magic increased slightly (160 + 245 at +5)

Bug Fixes

• Will(NPC) no longer suggests monsters don't die in permadeath mode
• Maneki, 'Breaking Support', 'Icy Fists Debuffs', Venomous Fangs, Acid Spit and Toxic Support now stacks with themselves itself (when multiple monsters have it)
• Terradrile can't use ancient conjunction regardless of level in the randomizer anymore
• You can't skip Double jump boots if you have "large rock" in the Blue cave anymore
• Updated Skin Colors on the Explorer outfit
• Fixed Catzerker being seen as a "champion monster" at the donation army
• Removed the ability to be able to teleport on top of Goblin fort when jumping in blob form into small spaces of the ceiling
• Healing Shield no longer has a shield preview when previewing a potion
• Sorcerous boost shielding now properly scales with Magic rather than Attack
• Fixed Amberlgna spore ability not disappearing when triggering a cutscene while affected
• You now teleport to Mountain Path instead of Stronghold when using a crystal shard before fighting Steam Golem
• Bex won't call the Skorch replacement monster wrongly in the randomizer anymore when bravery mode is activated
• Zosimos in the Sun temple now has a shifted monster in randomizer again
• Imitate and counterfeit dont bypass protect anymore if you imitate a skill that ko'ed a monster
• You cant get a swimming monster through rewards boxes pre sun palace anymore
• You cant fight the Steam Golem Champion fight from the wrong side anymore
• Infernal roar now works with critical healing
• Removed the ability to move the camera with your mouse when placing markers on the map
• Monster Tamer outfit now specifies 111 monster rather than 101 when its not unlocked
• The room you find Mozzy in can not be clipped inside anymore
• Warhorn no longer heals the highest health monster rather than the lowest health
• Shockhopper can now be donated in NG+ after talking to the Cryomancer
• Cryomancer will no longer ask for unattainable monster eggs
• You can now use Dual Mobility regardless if you were swimming or standing on the ground (improved flight outside of the water after swimming)
• Fixed some seed not able to generate (examples: 72790 and 85512)
• Fixed certain fights softlocking in Randomizer mode
• Extra hits from equipments now show properly in the preview
• Shock now properly interacts with Supercharged
• hourglass and cauldron Now work again
• Combo Initiator Fixed to only work if youre going first
• Using Poison Eater alongside Bolster now grants two buffs to the user rather than allies
• Imitating or Counterfeiting Cataclysm on an Elemental shift monster will no longer mess up its Resistance and Weakness view
• Infinity Arena Monsters no longer use Revive Ultimates
• Fixed the bug that on some seeds you start with different monsters sometimes
• When using a savegame with permadead monsters for NG+, those monsters are revived now
• Trading a monster in Bravery to the Cryomancer no longer lets you still use its follower ability
• Ballistics now preview their miss chance
• After hatching your first monster, the dialogue with the familiar is back
• Fixed a potential out of sync in PvP caused by 'Phoenix Affinity'
• Buff info view no longer stays on screen permanently when open while PvP timer runs out
• Monsters fall down cliffs in randomizer only very rarely now

List of all Relics

• Ancient Clock (accessory, Ancients only)
• Arch Bow (weapon)
• Assisting Bow (weapon)
• Cursed Drum (accessory), Instrument)
• Devonian Medal (accessory, Insects only)
• Dragon Saddle (accessory, Dragons only)
• Droid Sphere (weapon, Constructs only)
• Dwarven Crown (accessory)
• Earth Symbol (accessory)
• Eclipse Sword (weapon)
• Fire Symbol (accessory)
• Fishing Pole (weapon)
• Goblin Garment (accessory, Goblins only)
• Gold Feather (accessory, Birds only)
• Grey Stone (accessory)
• Grim Ripper (weapon)
• Heavy Greaves (accessory)
• Holy Necklace (accessory)
• Infinity Blaze (accessory, Spectral Familiars only)
• Lion Fang (accessory, Beasts only)
• Moon Ring (accessory)
• Nimble Wings (accessory, Aerial only)
• Omni Sword (weapon)
• One Punch Fist (weapon)
• Pandora's Chest (accessory)
• Projectile Sphere (weapon)
• Pure Leaf (accessory, Nature only)
• Reptilian Idol (accessory)
• Sharp Fin (accessory, Aquatic only)
• Slimy Ball (accessory)
• Spirit Blaze (accessory, Spirits only)
• Staff of Doom (weapon, Occult only)
• Static Loop (accessory)
• Sun Ring (accessory)
• Tiny Pin (weapon)
• Toxic Pot (accessory)
• Warlock Hat (accessory, Mages only)
• Water Symbol (accessory)
• Wind Symbol (accessory)

[ 2023-05-09 10:35:09 CET ] [ Original post ]

Finally, we have a date for the last big content update for Monster Sanctuary! Monster Sanctuary Relics of Chaos update is coming May 9th for Steam and May 16th for Consoles. This update will feature a variety of gameplay changes including:

• New Game Mode: Relics of Chaos! Experience the game again, this time with new, powerful items. When enabled, each zone will have a randomly selected treasure chest which possesses a Relic of Chaos hidden inside!
• A plethora of balance changes! We've made tweaks to certain strategies which needed some curtailing, and buffed monsters which could use a little push toward the right direction. Look forward to playing with 5 new passive skills!
• Having trouble finishing that Wanderlust achievement? The updated map will indicate percentage of each zone explored, so you know where to look for those last few hidden areas!
• Always forgetting to feed your monsters? We've implemented an icon in the menu to show who is hungry. Make Old Buran proud!
• Improved functionality on skillpoint allocation, with the ability to change your mind until you either start a battle or exit the game.
• More control over your save files by adding in the capability to copy or delete them in the menu.
• A new merchant at the Infinity Arena who can sell you Reward Box items in exchange for special coupons obtained from playing Arena and PvP!
• Various bugfixes....and More!

We look forward to being able to share all these goodies with you next month, along with more fun which we'll tell you about at the appropriate time... Otherwise, we've been hard at work on our next game, Aethermancer! Check out our first devlog here: https://steamcommunity.com/games/2288470/announcements/detail/5283327145270219869

[ 2023-04-26 16:05:45 CET ] [ Original post ]

Keepers, we have such exciting news today, I can barely type correctly!

Monster Sanctuary Relics of Chaos Update

We are excited to tell you that we are able to work on another free update for Monster Sanctuary. The Relics of Chaos update will bring chaos and mayhem to the Sanctuary with a new optional game mode. Have a sneak-peek here: [previewyoutube=icOkOpeaMH8;full][/previewyoutube] We are listening to your requests, so of course the new update will also include balancing changes and quality of life improvements (taking back recently assigned skill points - yeahi). Stay tuned for the release of the update. We currently aim for Q2 2023.

Become the Aethermancer

Now, finally the day has come to share with you what we have been working on for more than a year besides Monster Sanctuary! [previewyoutube=iuYiigqbP-Q;full][/previewyoutube] Aethermancer will be a monster tamer building on the things that already made Monster Sanctuary great: strategic choices, deep team-synergies and every monster being truly unique and viable! We are mixing this with roguelite elements, a unique rebirth-system and a resource-based combat system. We promise to keep putting all our love into our games and it would mean the world to us if you check out and wishlist Aethermancer: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2288470

[ 2023-03-09 16:52:39 CET ] [ Original post ]

Seasons Greetings Monster fans! You can catch a MONSTROUS discount across the Monster Sanctuary range during the Steam Winter Sale! Full list of discounts: Monster Sanctuary - 66% Monster Sanctuary - Deluxe - 66% Monster Sanctuary - Monster Journal - 33% Monster Sanctuary - Soundtrack - 50% Sale ends 5th of January

[ 2022-12-22 18:01:22 CET ] [ Original post ]

Greetings Monster fans! You can grab a MONSTROUS discount across the Monster Sanctuary range during the Steam Autumn Sale! Full list of discounts: Monster Sanctuary - 66% Monster Sanctuary - Deluxe - 66% Monster Sanctuary - Monster Journal - 33% Monster Sanctuary - Soundtrack - 50% Check out more of our on sale games here! Sale ends November 29th

[ 2022-11-22 18:01:43 CET ] [ Original post ]

Time for a Monster Sanctuary Spooktober Contest!

To get into spooky mood, participate in our fanart contest on Twitter, Instagram, Reddit or Discord within the next two weeks! Check this image on how to participate and what kind of prizes you can win:
Give us your best - uhh... or worst?

[ 2022-10-14 17:11:18 CET ] [ Original post ]

We've been awaitingthe package with all the new Monster Journals so eagerly since weeks and we know - so did you! Finally, here they are: a fresh batch of hardcover Monster Journals.
Our beloved hardcover Monster Journals have been updated to the latest content of Monster Sanctuary, now including all new Monsters from the Forgotten World and with updated skill trees for all Monsters in the book.
This book is for bothgreenhorn Monster Keeper looking for help and guidance on their journey as well as,the most experienced Keepers among you that want to dive deep into the lore of our world.
You can order yours directly on our official website and it will be shipped worldwide with love by us.

[ 2022-10-13 12:38:39 CET ] [ Original post ]

We have a limited edition campaign forMonster Sanctuary plushieshappeningright now! You can get your own Blob and Catzerker, made by Makeship.
The way the campaigns work is like crowdfunding: These plushies will only go into production if a certain number of them gets ordered during the campaign. If the campaign goal doesn't get reached, the plushies don't get produced and you don't have to pay. So there is no risk involved for you! If funded, plushies will be shipped worldwide end of October.
Gelatinous, amorphous, transparent, semi-solid, slimy - and now - plushy! Order Blob here: Blob Plushie
These courageous feline creatures roam the mountains of the Sanctuary for wild beasts to slay and are now ready to protect you in the real world! Order Catzerker here: Catzerker Plushie
Our very first Monster Sanctuary plushies are almost funded, help us reach the goal! There are onlythree days left, so make sure to order yours soon! This is a one-time-only offer.

And, yes...

they are so squishy!

[ 2022-08-03 15:48:49 CET ] [ Original post ]

We are very excited to bring Blob and Catzerker to plushy life today! The two limited edition plushie campaigns start today and will be active for 21 days. If funded, plushies will be shipped worldwide end of October. The basic principle at Makeship is that if a plushie is funded within the duration of the campaign, it gets produced, so "funded by fans". So, help us make these plushies happen and get yourself a new companion! Blob Plushie Catzerker Plushie

[ 2022-07-15 18:37:10 CET ] [ Original post ]

Monster Keeper! We released the new free Forgotten World DLC for Monster Sanctuary! This is a free update that will be downloaded automatically for anyone owning Monster Sanctuary (including anyone who already owns it as well as anyone who purchases it at any time in the future).
We have worked long on this update, and it's meant to be a love letter to our fans - we would not be here without all of your support! This update includes a new major area, ten new Monsters, and a ton of new features.

New area: Forgotten World

Discover the Forgotten World: a gigantic subterranean ecosystem that existed long before the Monster Sanctuary was created. Uncover the secrets of this area and the origins of this world.

• A new area, larger than any other area of Monster Sanctuary. Forgotten World is meant to be explored in the late game - either before you step foot in the Abandoned Tower, or after you finished the main story. You can find the entrance in the lower area of Horizon Beach. You will need a certain late-game exploration ability to enter this area.
• Ten new Monsters. Nine of them can be found in the Forgotten World. One of the ten new Monsters is a new secret Champion in Blue Cave - which might help you enter the Forgotten World earlier.
• New Monster type: Ancient. Many of the new Monsters have this type. There are also some older Monsters that have gained this type.
• Level cap raised to 42 from 40.
• All skill trees in the game have gained some new skill nodes. In some cases, we made extensive changes to older Monsters' skill trees.
• A lot of new weapons and accessories.
• Two new player costumes.
• Some new rooms and treasure chests have been added to older areas of the game as well.
• Some new exploration abilities have been added to the game as well. Some of the exploration abilities of older Monsters have been updated.
• On top of three new Champion fights, there is a new super-secret Champion fight that can only be found by Keeper Masters. It is the most difficult fight in the game.

But wait - there's more!

New Game Modes

We added three new game modes for added replayability.

• Randomizer: All of the Monsters in the game are randomly swapped around. Mad Lords in Mountain Path, Blobs in Magma Chamber. It's pure madness. This includes all enemy Monsters in the game: including Champions and Keeper Monsters.
• Bravery: Play with a limited selection of random Monsters to test your teambuilding skills. You start out with three random Monsters from across the Sanctuary. In each area, you will find a treasure chest (close to one of the entrances) which will have a random egg of one of that area's Monsters. You cannot gain eggs through any other means, except for certain story events.
• Permadeath: Yeah, you read that right. If one of your Monsters ever gets knocked out in combat, it becomes defeated. A defeated Monster cannot be used in combat again - but you can still use its exploration ability. As soon as all of your Monsters become defeated, Permadeath becomes disabled for that save file (which means all of your Monsters can be used again).

You may combine any of these modes with each other, and with the already existing NG+ mode. You're also free to play these modes on any difficulty (Casual, Normal, Master). It is not required to beat the game to use these modes - you can turn on a setting in the options to use them.
We hope to bring a Roguelike feeling to the game with these game modes. Combine all three of them for the ultimate randomized Nuzlocke experience! Doing that on Master difficulty is truly a challenge for only the most experienced Monster Keepers. One tip: Be sure to watch out for those Keeper Duels!

Sprite Reworks

The art style of Monster Sanctuary changed quite a bit during development! We already updated the sprites of NPCs in the past. Now we chose to go back and update the sprites of some of the early Monsters in the game. We have updated 17 Monsters with completely redone sprites and animations. We also updated the sprites and animations for all Alchemist NPCs in the game.

New Legendary Keeper Duels

We added eleven new Legendary Keeper monuments to the game. These are based on the people who helped develop Monster Sanctuary. Each monument features a new fight - which means you may now fight the Monster teams of the developers themselves! Each also features new rewards. As with some of the other statues, you need to have the Keeper Master rank to gain the best possible rewards.

Quality-of-Life enhancements

We also added several quality-of-life features to the game that were commonly requested. This includes map markers, ten additional pages for more save slots, an exploration % display on save files, and more.

A note from the developers

We hope you will enjoy this new content, the new features, and all the changes to the game. We decided to release the DLC for free, since it was important to us that all of our playerbase gets access to the new content and also to avoid separating our PvP community into those who have the DLC and those who don't. A topic that came up a couple times during the last months was whether people could support us in any way. For that reason, we've setup a "tip jar" page for those who want to support us working on the DLC: Visit our tip jar

Patch Notes

New Content

• New area: Forgotten World
• 10 new Monsters
• 3 new game modes (Randomizer, Bravery, Permadeath)
• New rooms added to older areas
• 2 new player costumes
• 6 new weapons
• 7 new accessories
• New item: Reward Box X
• New item: Level badge 42 (Level Badge 40 automatically convert into those)
• New super-secret Champion fight, only available after reaching Keeper Master

Minor Feature Updates

• Level cap raised to 42
• Skill trees of all Monsters have been expanded
• Map Markers
• 10 Pages with 9 saveslots each
• Savegames show which mode it is
• Savegames show % of the map completion on that save
• The Champion challenge menu was refactored to have a pager and show two fully expanded columns of Champions per page.
• Added Ring and Instrument tags to certain equipments

Monster Changes

• Spectral Wolf gains Multi Offense
• Spectral Toad gains Multi Bulk, Mana Syphon' and 'Combo Buffing' loses Multi Channel, 'Attack Plus'
• Spectral Eagle gains Multi Hybrid
• Spectral Lion gains Multi Life
• Blob gains Toxic Support, Dominance'
• Magmapillar' gains Fiery Glands, Mana Plus
• Rocky' gains Defense Overload, Health Plus. Gained the 'Ancient tribe'
• Vaero' gains Shared Sidekick, Feather Hurricane, loses Typhoon Cut
• Catzerker' gains Assault Mastery, Critical Defense and Situational Support
• Yowie' gains Icy Fists, Crit Chance Plus, Critical Healing, loses Critical Freeze
• Steam Golem' gains Load Up
• Monk' gains Power Healing, Auto Restore, Combo Buffing and Double Strike
• Grummy' gains Restoring Shield, Combo Shielding, Disarming Shielding, Defense Plus, 'Toxic Support' and Aurora's Shield, loses Restore, Magic Plus, 'Defense Plus' and Full Restore. Light Shift +1 Magic and Health Some actives have swapped positions
• Tengu' gains Mana Funnel, Toxic Slam, loses Fire Shield
• Fungi' gains Spell Mastery, Mana Plus
• Frosty' gains Tenacious Barrier, Static Mass and Static. Gains 'Ancient' type.
• Minitaur' gains Situational Support
• Specter' gains Vicious, Multi Glory and Glorious Spark, loses Improved Glory. Light shift changed to 'Debuff Variety'
• Crackle Knight' gains Critical Base and 2x Crit Chance Plus
• G'rulu' gains Mass Restore, Warlock Healing, Defense Plus, Full Restore, 'Corrosion' and 2x Combo Healing, loses Shield, Aurora's Shield, 'Defense Plus'. Positions of Mass Restore and Acid Tempest swapped. . Light Shift gains +1 Magic and Health
• Mad Eye' gains Occult Control, Defense Plus
• Nightwing' gains Buffing Heal, Attack Plus. Base + 2 Magic
• Toxiquus' gains Toxic Support, Multi Sidekick, Health Plus and Nature type
• Beetloid' gains Electrolytes, Defense Plus
• Druid Oak' gains Static, Magic Plus
• Magmamoth' gains Situational Support, Crit Damage Plus and 'Cleansing Burn'. Dark Shift +1 base mana. 'Deathblow' is now in the 'Arcane Bolt' tree
• Molebear' gains Wonder Potion, Improved Attack and Impale, loses Stone Rain. Both shifts +1 Health
• Glowfly' gains Mana Healing, Anti Cascade and Bolster, loses Combo Healing. Mana Focus and Anti-Cascade positions swapped
• Goblin Brute' gains Stick Focus
• Goblin Hood' gains Anti Cascade
• Goblin Warlock' gains Sidekick Support, Multi Barrier and Teamplay, loses Combocast
• Goblin King' gains Strike Mastery, Health Plus
• Raduga' gains Gorgeous Plumage, 'Maneki'
• Ice Blob' gains Reckless Mending, Severe Cold, 'Severe Infection' loses Improved Sidekick
• Caraglow' gains Anti Cascade, Maneki, Bite and Auto Heal, loses Shred
• Aurumtail' gains Wonder Potion, Augmented Shielding. Gains 'Ancient' type.
• Megataur' gains 'Situational Support', 'Buffing Heal', 'Power', 'Healing Shield' and 'Augmented Shielding' loses 'Sustain', 'Mana Bolster'
• Mogwai' gains Magnitude, Multi Glory, Bounty and Combo Buffing, loses Multi Sidekick, Teamplay
• Crystal Snail' gains Disarming Shielding, Buffing Shield, Outlast, loses Critical Break. Gained the 'Ancient tribe'
• Akhlut' gains Sea Rage, Crit Chance Plus, Cascade, Congeal, Situational Support, Hybrid Shield, Reckless Mending, 'Assault Mastery' and Adaptive Evolution, loses Water Affinity, Observe, Magic Powered Shield, 'Mana Upkeep, 'Ice Bolt' and 2x 'Precision'. Explore ability changed to Sonar Mount
• Blade Widow' gains Mighty Boost, Devour
• Ninki gains Breaking Support, Mana Plus
• Ninki Nanka gains Breaking Support, Mana Plus
• Vasuki' gains Magic Proc
• Kame' Water Surge, Shared Might and Static Glory, loses Tidal Wave
• Sycophantom' gains Smoke Screen, True Darkness
• Imori' gains Anti Cascade, Assault Mastery
• Qilin' gains Auto Heal
• Sizzle Knight' gains Full Defense, Blinding Sparks, Mentor, Burning Heat and Crit Damage Plus, loses Fire Affinity, 'Safecast
• Koi' gains Sea Rage, Glorious Spark, loses Acid Rain. Both shifts get +1 base defense
• Tanuki' gains Renewal, Augmented Shielding, 'Maneki' and 'Smoke Screen' loses 'Double Impact'
• Kanko' gains Mighty Boost, Channeling Sustain
• Dodo' gains Feather Hurricane, Multi Might and Defense Plus, loses Ram Charge
• Kongamato' gains Sensitivity, Thick Skin, Firestorm, Strike Mastery and Typhoon Cut, loses Improved Regeneration, Flame Strike and Arcane Obliteration. Light Shift +1 Defense. Gains 'Ancient' type.
• Ucan' gains Forceful Might, Situational Support
• Brawlish' gains Spawn of Champions, Attack Plus, Defense Plus and Warrior type. Explore ability changed to Tackle
• Thornish' gains Initial Poison and 2x Toxin
• Nautilid' gains Sorcery Boost, Severe Infection
• Silvaero' Feather Hurricane, Strike Mastery, loses Full Aerial Assault
• Elderjel' gains Mana Healing
• Manticorb' gains Crit Damage Plus
• Goblin Miner' gains Improved Regeneration, Lifeline, loses Apprentice
• Salahammer' gains Combo Buffing
• Lava Blob' gains Hot to the Touch, Mana Funnel, 'Severe Upkeep' and Flamestrike, loses Explosion
• Glowdra' gains Void Flare, Static, Mana Plus, Fire Pillar, loses Restore, Healing Shield, Channeled Heal and Aerial. Gains 'Ancient' type.
• Draconov' gains Heroic Party, Defense Plus
• Dracogran' gains Assault Mastery, Mana Plus
• 'Asura' gains Heroic Party
• Skorch' gains Cleansing Burn, Mentor
• Stolby' gains Disease Control
• 'Ornithopter' gains Improved Mana Regen, 2x Gold Sense and 'Buffing Restore'
• Polterofen' gains Hot to the touch
• Oculus' gains Blinding Sparks, Tri-Mage Healing, loses Toxic Reaction
• Mimic' gains Glitter
• Goblin Pilot' gains Critical Base, Situational Support. Skill positions of Shield and Fiery Shots swapped.
• Shockhopper' gains Mana Healing, Health Plus. Explore ability changed to Shock Freeze
• Targoat' gains Neutral Affinity
• Dracozul' gains Sub Zero, Mana Plus
• Troll' gains Mana Symbiosis. Explore ability changed to Corrosive Jabs
• Brutus' gains Buffing Shield, Defense Plus
• Mega Rock' gains Defense Overload. Gains 'Ancient' type.
• Argiope' gains Venomous Fangs, Health Plus, loses Weakening Crush
• Arachlich' gains Critical Hex
• Moccus' gains Center of Mass, Buff Corruption and Mana Plus
• Promethean' gains Wind Allegiance, Mentor and 'Wind Affinity' loses 'Neutral Affinity'
• Draconoir' gains Situational Support, Defense Plus and 'Curse Transfusion'. Both shifts get +1 base attack and +1 base magic
• Spinner' gains Critical Hex. Explore ability changed to Toxic Freeze
• Plague Egg' gains Warlock Healing, Weaken
• Sutsune' gains Backstab, Critical Hybridization
• Darnation' gains Shared Might
• Thanatos' gains First Impact, Crit Chance Plus
• Rainbow Blob' gains Hex, Critical Consistency, 'Mass protector' and 'Mana Plus'
• Changeling' gains Anti Cascade
• King Blob' gains 2x Health Proc
• Worm' gains Shocking Hit, Wonder Potion
• Vodinoy' gains Health Plus, Mana Plus
• Aazerach' gains Smoke Screen
• Diavola' gains Bleed, Predation, loses Crit Chance Plus
• Gryphonix' gains Mass Mana Charging
• Vertraag' gains Brains over Brawn, Void Flare and 'Static' loses Solar Burst 'Static Mass'. Gains 'Ancient' type.
• Mad Lord' gains Occult Control, Defense Plus
• Removed Fish type, Fish aura's are now Aquatic

Skill Changes

• Remunerate now has a 60% chance to trigger (instead of 100%)
• 'Critical Heat', 'Critical Freeze', 'Critical Poison', 'Critical Break' and 'Recuperate' now work with 'Critical Healing'
• 'Lifelink' and 'Assault Shield' now also increase the critical chance by 7%
• 'Earthquake' lvl 3 now has 3 hits, but cost increased to 230 Mana (from 210 Mana)
• 'Master of Time' now also affects 'Ancient' monsters.
• 'Water Surge' both levels now cost 10 Mana more (Prev. 160-210 now, 170-220)
• 'Power Focus' damage buff got reduced to 25% on lvl 5 (from 33%)
• 'Divine Shield' shift skill now also grants 1 Charge stack when receiving a buff, but shielding reduced to 5% of Max Health (from 7.5%)
• 'Life Wave' level 2 now does 2 heals on every monster (instead of one), level 3 has slightly increased health scaling (12% instead of 10%)
• 'Dark Instinct' damage bonus increased to 20% (from 15%)
• 'Bite' now gains an additional hit with each level (4 at max level) and heals once per level (4 heals at max level)
• 'Forge' base shielding amount increased slightly
• 'Emergency Channel' trigger threshold increased to 30% of Max Mana (instead of 25%)
• 'Broken Immunity' chance to apply debuffs reduced to 20% (from 25%)
• 'Curse Resistance' shift now also reduces the effects of negative stacks by 50%.
• 'Rampage' now also increases the critical damage of beasts by 10%.
• Meteorite Shower: Damage increased to 350% (from 310%) and shielding increased 700 + 150% attack (from 600 + 125% attack) and increased mana costs
• 'True Darkness' is unique now.
• 'First Impact' is now split into 40%/25% depending if the attack is single target or mass attack
• 'Backstab' is now triggering for enemies that are above 75% of their Health (instead of full health), damage bonus increased to 30% (from 25%) and crit chance increased to 15% (from 10%)
• 'Shocking Hit' and 'Severe Hit' now trigger when a hit deals 20% of enemies Max health (instead of 25%)
• 'Taunt' now increases the damage the redirecting monster takes on a redirect by 15%.In PVP
• 'Exploit' shield value increased to 10% (from 5%)
• 'Shadow Proc' Every action applies an additional damage hit (75% Attack or Magic), shield (75% Defense), heal (7.5% Max Health) or a random Buff, depending on action type.
• 'Fiery Punches' / 'Freezing Punches' / 'Lightning Punches' lvl 5 now cost 220 mana (instead of 230)
• 'Counter Attack' damage reduced to 200% and 20% crit chance (from 250% + 25% crit chance)
• 'Critical Apex' increases both Critical Chance and Critical Damage now, by 2.5% per hit.
• 'Arcane Barrage' Damage increased to 650% total (from 600%)
• 'Full Aerial Assault' Damage increased to 330% (from 310%)
• 'Ice Breath' Damage increased to 575% (from 550%)
• 'Polar Winds' Damage increased to 300% (from 280%) and healing increased to 700 + 120% magic (from 600 + 100% magic)
• 'Tornado' Damage increased to 300% (from 270%)
• 'Gemstone Barrage' Damage increased to 300% (from 285%)
• 'Magnetize' redirection chance reduced to 15% (from 20%)
• 'Necromancy' heal amount reduced to 20% (from 25%) and is a unique aura now
• 'Revive' heal amount reduced on lower levels, mana cost increased
• Blind miss chance increased to 35% (from 30%)
• 'Extra Channel' chance increased to 15% (from 12%)
• 'Buff Celebration' Charge stack amount increased to 3 (from 2)
• 'Electrolytes' Buff remove chance increased to 75% (from 60%)
• 'Critical Sorcery' critical chance increased to 6% (from 5%)

Item Changes

• Hexing Rod now has a 50% chance to apply 2 Debuffs (otherwise it applies one)
• 'Moon Sword' Attack and Magic values increased (320 on highest level, instead of 300)
• 'Drum' now increases healing and shielding skills by 10% (instead of just healing skills by 15%)
• 'Cauldron' now increases Mana Regeneration instead of Magic
• 'Blood Vessel' now regenerates 4 Mana per Bleed on the highest upgrade level (instead of 5)
• 'Fin' grants slightly less Health now (500 on the highest upgrade level instead of 600)
• 'Grey Pearl' Gives 900 Health and 90 attack/magic/defense at +5 now (instaed of 850 Health and 80 attack/magic/defense)
• 'Ocarina' now has 40 Mana Regeneration

Bugfixes and other changes

• 'Charged rebirth' Now triggers 'Energy Conversion'
• 'Worm Troop' Now correctly works with worms
• 'Magic Barrier' Scales properly now
• Keeper Dragoon now requires 19 Champion (instead of 18)
• Keeper Master now requires 27 Champion (instead of 24)
• When loading a savegame from pre 2.0.0.0, the exp that level 40 monsters collect towards getting level badges disappear temporarily. After they reach level 42, those exp should re-appear

Known bugs

• Maneki works as a Unique aura instead of a passive like intended
• Placing a Map marker does not lock the screen
• Warhorn heals highest HP ally rather than lowest HP
• Monster tamer's outfit still specify 101 monsters rather than 111
• Champion hint 4 from your familiar is incorrect (Guiding to vodinoy instead of spinner)
• Can teleport to the stronghold if you find a crystal shard before steam golem
• Forcing controllor schemes through steam does not work for Map markers
• Sorcerous boost's shielding value scales with Attack rather than Magic
• Poison Eater in combination with Bolster applies buffs to allies, rather than itself
• The Explorer outfit doesn't include skin tone options as intended
• The Encounter Zosimos in the Sun temple doesn't have a shifted monster in the Randomizer game mode
• Sort button at the Blacksmith only appears in English regardless of selected game language
• Center of Mass on 'Druid Oak' Interacts Negatively with the UI if he takes the Force of Nature Ultimate
• Combo Initiater Gives an extra hit regardless if that monster is acting as first
• Frosty in the Stronghold misses its particles after completing the story
• Rampede has a translucent toe in the monster Journal
• Cannot donate bought eggs on a NG+ RNG File
• Bardic Inspiration achievement won't unlock if you give your Bard a nickname. It requires a default-name Bard.

[ 2022-06-30 10:30:04 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey Monster Keepers! We're going to be streaming Monster Sanctuary over on the Team17 Twitch channel on June 30th! Watch as we venture into the lush environments of The Forgotten World! We'll be uncovering secrets, encountering new Monsters and celebrating the release of this (free ) new update! Catch us at 4pm UK | 11 am EDT, June 30th twitch.tv/team17
To stay up to date on Monster Sanctuary follow us on our social pages below! Follow Moi Rai Games on Twitter Like Monster Sanctuary on Facebook Follow Team17 on Twitter Like Team17 on Facebook

[ 2022-06-28 09:05:31 CET ] [ Original post ]

Animal welfare is a matter of heart for us - for you too? Join the Adopt a Monster event from June 10 - June 12 celebrating monster taming games and raising money for the Petfinder Foundation: linktr.ee/adopt_a_monster_2022
Special donation rewards await you including one exclusive "design-a-monster-with-us" voucher for our next game.

[ 2022-06-10 16:01:12 CET ] [ Original post ]

Keepers! Animal welfare is a matter of heart for us, so we have teamed up with Coromon, Creature Keeper and other monster taming teams to raise money for a truly good cause! Mark your calendars and #adoptamonster with us here on Steam.
Event starts June 10 at 9AM PT | 6PM GMT+2

[ 2022-06-07 19:12:18 CET ] [ Original post ]

Save the Date

The Forgotten World DLC for Monster Sanctuary will release on June 30th for all platforms and for free! Check out this teaser: [previewyoutube=AlQ31860uVM;full][/previewyoutube]

[ 2022-06-06 13:02:15 CET ] [ Original post ]

Dear Monster Keepers, It's time for another update on Monster Sanctuary & our team at moi rai games! We have a lot of big news since our last update.

Steam Trading Cards

We released Steam Trading Cards for Monster Sanctuary today! Each one of them features completely new artwork made by Alexa & Isabel from Path of Pixels, who also made the Monster artworks for the Monster Journals. This means you get the following new goodies:

• 8 Trading Cards. You earn Steam Trading Cards by playing Monster Sanctuary on Steam! Or by trading for them.
• 7 Backgrounds (2 Uncommon, 1 Rare). You can get these by collecting badges, which you get from collecting the Trading Cards. Or by trading for them.
• 6 Emojis (2 Uncommon, 1 Rare). You also get these by collecting badges, which you get from collecting the Trading Cards. Or by trading for them.

For more information how all of this work, you may consult the Steam Trading Cards FAQ.

Forgotten World Update

The next important topic is the development of the upcoming free DLC for Monster Sanctuary: Forgotten World! We have been hard at work at this update for the last months. In fact, throughout production, it seemed like we kept adding more and more to the update:

• A new area, the Forgotten World, bigger than any other area in the game.
• 10 new Monsters. 9 of them can be found in the Forgotten World, while one of them serves as a new optional Champion Monster in one of the earlier areas of the game.
• 3 new game modes. All of them can be combined with each other and with New Game+. The existing difficulty modes (Casual, Normal, Master) will also work with these new game modes.
• Level cap raised to 42 from 40.
• Many new skills. All the new Monsters come with new skills of course, but we also added a lot of new skills to older Monsters. In fact, we expanded every single Monster's skill tree with new skill nodes - there's even some skill trees that were reworked quite a bit. We thank our beta testers for making many suggestions how old and beloved Monsters' skill trees could be improved!
• Remade sprites & animations for 17 older Monsters. These were completely remade so that they would better match the art style of the later Monsters.
• And more.

We have been releasing snapshots of the new content on our social media platforms. If you want a closer look, join us on Twitter or Instagram. We also recently did a developer stream with Gym Leader Ed. If you're interested in exploring the new area and the new game modes, give it a watch. [previewyoutube=pQlkY6EPXvI;full][/previewyoutube] We are currently aiming for a release in June for all platforms.

Humble Choice

Another exciting update: Humble Bundle invited us to join April 2022's Humble Choice lineup, along with the other games you can see above! Humble Choice is Humble Bundle's own game subscription model, where you get to keep the games forever. This means if you join Humble Choice this month, you get Monster Sanctuary and keep it forever too - which means you'll also get the free Forgotten World DLC soon as well. In addition to all those games, 5% of your money is also going to a good cause. Perhaps it's something worth recommending to friends who don't have Monster Sanctuary yet. Humble Choice

Our team is growing

We'd also like to mention that we have been expanding our team quite a bit. Monster Sanctuary started out as a free-time project by Denis Sinner. After the successful Kickstarter campaign, I (Anton Sinner) officially joined the company as well. Since then, we have grown by two pixel artists, one additional programmer, one marketing expert, one community manager, one QA tester, and one part-time book-keeper. On top of that, another pixel artist and a technical artist will join us soon as well - which means we'll soon be a company of 11 people. Stay tuned!

[ 2022-04-11 12:53:33 CET ] [ Original post ]

Monster Keepers! Limited Run Games just started the pre-order for PS4/Switch physical release of Monster Sanctuary!
Standard & Collector's Editions are available to for pre-order in the next 4 weeks here: https://limitedrungames.com Here is an image of the contents of the Collector's Edition:
As the pre-order amount will determine how many copies Limited run games will produce, sharing the news in any way is very welcome!

Holiday Fanart Contest

Additionally, to boost your creativity a bit we are hosting a fanart contest on our discord! And the theme is - you probably would have guessed - CHRISTMAS/HOLIDAYS! You can submit anything you like as an image or gif/short video as long as it's holiday-themed until Dec 23rd in the #fanart subchannel. The winner will get a physical Monster Journal as well as a Christmas post card. We will also pick three additional fanarts we liked a lot who will each get a post card. Happy creating!

[ 2021-12-17 15:23:04 CET ] [ Original post ]

Dear Monster Keepers, Today we're launching the third major post-launch update for Monster Sanctuary! We are calling it the "Counter Attack Update". It's releasing today on all platforms - PC and consoles. It brings along a few QoL changes, balancing, bug fixes and the long awaited Brazilian-Portuguese translation, while we keep on working on the DLC coming next year.

Ol Guardies!

We want to thank our fans from Brazil for their patience, dedication and help in making the translation to Brazilian-Portuguese possible! This is a fan translation done by our discord community members 'Uarux', 'Leo_fds' and 'kdz'. While the translation was done voluntarily, we decided to compensate the effort.

Multiple Egg Donating

To make your life as a Keeper a little easier, we added the possibility to donate multiple eggs at once to the Monster Army. It is an additional option in the Monster Army menu and should make the process of donating eggs way faster for you.

Improved L/R switching Monster behavior in menus

This feature makes managing your inactive Monsters easier! When selecting an inactive Monster first, the game will cycle through inactive and active Monsters. If selecting an active Monster first, the game will only cycle through active Monsters like you know it from before. You can also switch Monsters in the feed menu and monster consumables menu now using L/R buttons on gamepad or a/d on keyboard.

New Skills Added: Counter Attack + Sidekick Support

Minitaur got some love in this update with the new skill Counter Attack, enabling a powerful revenge! Vodinoy also gains Counter Attack, see below for detailed balancing changes.
Sidekick Support is a new Aura making full sidekick teams more viable or allowing Monsters that don't attack that often to benefit from Sidekick buffs. Dodo, Changeling and Dracozul gained this new skill. Check the balancing changes below for more details.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed multiple bugs related to saving/loading teams (sometimes, when saving a monsters on multiple teams and switching between those, the skill tree didn't update properly)
• Fixed Issue that Tanuki could not be donated in NG+
• Fixed 'Shield Crush' to properly apply the Aura effect (was only working on the monster itself)

Balancing Changes

Monster skill tree changes:

• 'Changeling' has Debuff Resistance now, gains 'Sidekick Support' and loses one 'Combo Buffing'
• 'Draconoir' both shifts have -1 base attack and magic now
• 'Dracozul' gains 'Sidekick Support', loses 'Combo Buffing'
• 'Goblin Hood' gains 'Multi Sidekick'
• 'Goblin Brute' gains 'Multi Regeneration'
• 'Goblin King' gains 'Multi Might' and 'Multi Sorcery'
• 'Dodo' gains 'Sidekick Support', light shift changed to 'Curse Breaker'
• 'Moccus' gains 'Warlock Healing', 'Power Healing' and 'Life Stability', loses a 'Mana Plus', 'Attack Plus' and a 'Defense Plus' node
• 'Minitaur' gains 'Counter Attack' and 'Bleed', loses 'Shared Might'
• 'Megataur' gains 'Chilling Wind', 'Flurry of Blows', 'Critical Boon', 'Exploit Party', two 'Crit Chance+" nodes, loses 'Heavy Punch', 'Earth Affinity', 'Hybrid Mastery', two 'Crit Damage+' nodes
• 'Megataur' ultimates changed: 'Boulder Toss' and 'Blizzard' replaced by 'Polar Winds' and 'Frost Pierce'
• 'Stolby' gains 'Death Blow', 'Warlock Healing', 'Buffing Heal' and 'Double Strike', loses 'Static', 'Earth Affinity' and 'Mana Plus' node. 'Transfusion' is now available at an earlier level.
• 'Vodinoy' gains 'Counter Attack', 'Critical Break' and 'Weakening Crush', loses 'Reflect', 'Health Plus' and 'Mana Plus'
• 'Spectral Eagle' light shift magic and attack reduced by 1
• 'Akhlut' now also has 'Fish' type
• 'Kanko' now also has 'Beast' type
• 'Koi' now also has 'Aerial' type in addition to the other types, both shifts gain +1 attack and magic
• 'Aazerach' loses one 'Transfusion', gains an additional 'Mana Plus'
• 'Vasuki' gains 'Power Healing', 'Hexing Support' and 'Combo Shielding', loses 'Life Channel'
• 'Mega Rock' gains 'Shared Might'
• 'Targoat' gains 'Double Strike', loses 'Empower'. Light shift loses -1 base Defense, dark shift gains +1 base Defense
• 'Mad Eye' and 'Mad Lord' light shift skill is 'Mass Mystify' now
• 'Magmamoth' drops 'Cocoon' now
• 'Tanuki' gains 'Heroism', dark shift changed to 'Heroic Assault'
• 'Raduga' gains 'Phoenix Affinity' and 'Magic Attack', Light shift gains +1 base Magic, dark shift gains +1 base Health and +1 base Mana

Skill changes:

• 'Critical Sorcery' and 'Magnetize' are Unique Auras now
• 'Punishment' is an Unique Aura now
• 'Magic Barrier' now additionally reduces the damage taken by 1% for every 100 Max Mana.
• 'Devour' is an Aura now
• 'Brawler' and 'Sorcerer' shield values increased to 75% (from 50%)
• 'Exploit Party' shield value increased to 5% (from 3%)
• 'Combo Shielding' now shields by 50% of the monster's Defense (instead of 30%)
• 'Dragon Blood' Health and Mana regeneration increased to 9% (from 7%)
• 'Dragon Mastery' now applies a debuff on all enemies instead of one
• 'Goblin Provisions', 'Goblin Recovery', 'Goblin Offenes' and 'Goblin Defense' now additionally apply a random buff to every goblin at the start of the turn
• 'Occult Power' now shields by 40% of the Monster's Max Health (instead of 33%)
• 'Hexed Touch' debuff trigger chance increased to 50% (from 40%)
• 'Mentor' now applies two random buffs instead of one
• Fixed 'Shield Crush' to properly apply the Aura effect (was only working on the monster itself)
• 'Channeling Balance' damage reduction is now multiplicative with each other when having multiple Channel buffs
• 'Blind' miss chance reduced to 30% (from 40%)
• 'Lord of the Deep' Bleed value increased to 20% (from 15%)
• 'Electrolytes' debuff remove chance reduced to 60% (from 75%)
• 'Trickster Buffing' debuff chance increased to 15% (from 10%)
• 'Charged Hazard', 'Charged Anamoly' and 'Charged Destruction' now require to consume 12 Charge stacks to trigger debuff application (instead of 15)
• 'Sheltered Nature' now also reduced the damage taken by 1% for every 1000 Max Health

Equipment and item changes:

• 'Restoring Wand' defense on highest upgrade level reduced to 25 (from 35)
• 'Abyssal Sword' Apply chance increased to 80% on highest upgrade level (from 60%)
• 'Harp' Magic value increased to 240 on highest upgrade level (form 220)
• 'Pirate Hook' attack increased to 230 and healing increased to 1000 on highest upgrade level (from 210/500)
• 'Scepter' Max Mana increased to 100 on highest upgrade level (from 80)
• 'Hexing Rod' now applies two debuffs on highest upgrade level
• 'Totem' Attack and Magic values increased to 55 on highest upgrade level (from 48)
• 'Apple', 'Pear', 'Mango' and 'Orange' now increase the Max Mana by slightly more
• 'Cookie Mushroom' now additionally increases healing and shielding by 3%

[ 2021-12-13 10:07:18 CET ] [ Original post ]

Thank you.

On Dec 8 2020 the 5 year long journey of developing Monster Sanctuary came to an end and we couldnt have imagined the success and support we received since then. Thanks to you we were able to improve the game, expand our team, build a caring community and always keep our spirits up. You made us laugh with memes and pet pics, created beautiful fanart, shared the nicest feedback with us and most importantly: played our game! So, we can now easily say: you guys are the best community an indie game could have! And thanks to you, Keepers, our journey through the Sanctuary is not over and continues to the Forgotten World. To celebrate this day, we have a giveaway on Twitter:
For a chance to win your favorite Monster as a plushie, hop on over to our Twitter until Dec 14th: moi rai @Twitter

1.3 Update

The next update for Monster Sanctuary will be released on December 13th! A detailed list of features follows on release.

Physical Release for Switch and PS4

Just in time for our anniversary we have a special announcement! Monster Sanctuary will finally get a physical release by LimitedRunGames for Nintendo Switch & PS4! Unfortunately, the physical editions won't be ready this year as communicated to us and as we initially announced early 2021. Apologies. However, the pre-ordering starts on Dec 17th and we can't wait!

[ 2021-12-08 18:02:01 CET ] [ Original post ]

With Monster designs from the community and the free DLC coming soon, we feel Monster Sanctuary is a true joint labor of love of both the devs and the fans! Thank you for voting for us!

[ 2021-11-29 18:08:28 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello, Monster Keepers! We have the winning Monsters of the final community Monster contest to share with you today. We were very impressed with both the quantity and the quality of the Monster submissions of this contest! The final number of submissions was 177, and it was a real challenge to select the best Monsters from among them. All of us at Moi Rai games (now with a staff of 8 members!) participated in this task, with each of us taking the time to appraise every single submission individually.

The Winners

These are the winners from the contest, which you will be able to encounter and collect in the free Forgotten World DLC! As we were very happy with the Monsters designed by the community, we decided to include the first three Monsters as well as two dev picks! This means that all five of them will be added to the game. The winners are:

• Krakaturtle by FossilFace, the adorable volcano turtle, got the most votes with 234 votes. It's not just a very creative design, but it should also fit perfectly into the new area!
• The second place went to Tar Blob by Gullintanni, with its cool concept on an ancient Blob, with 193 votes. That's right - we're finally adding the highly demanded sixth Blob to the game!
• Terradrile by Y2A_Alkis, the gigantic ancient earthworm, won the third place with 136 votes. A unique combination of lightning and earth!
• Our first developer pick is Amberlgna by its king as a very well-done Monster design based on an unassuming insect. It should make for a good new Insect-type support Monster!
• Our second developer pick is Rampeed by White Dragon for fitting into the existing set of new Monsters very well and being a cool, mountable dinosaur. We already have some exciting new gameplay ideas for this Monster!

We are already in the process of turning those designs into Monsters in the game. We hope you will enjoy playing with the new Monsters and skills that we will be adding to the game! As the Forgotten World DLC will be the final content update for Monster Sanctuary, this was the final community contest for the game. But who knows - we might have similar community contests for our future games!

Update 1.3 - "Counter Attack" Update

We also have some news on the next planned update for the game. It has received an official name: Counter Attack Update. This update will focus mostly on bug fixes and balancing changes, but it will also introduce two new passive skills and a Quality-of-Life change. This will be a smaller update overall, while we are focusing our efforts on the Forgotten World DLC (Update 2.0), which will be the next update for the game! We are planning to bring it to all platforms in Q2 2022.

[ 2021-10-18 16:30:51 CET ] [ Original post ]

Monster Keepers! We released another Hotfix for Monster Sanctuary (1.2.2) on Steam, This update tackles the "out of sync" issues our PvP players were getting recently regarded to certain passive skills. Related skills which were able to cause "out of sync" issues were: - Toxic Reaction - Electrolytes - Energize - Shock Charging - Mentor - Exploit - Exploit Party Usually chances for an out of sync were also increased when playing on higher game speed or having a slow PC. This update comes just in time for our community organized PvP Tournament - interested can check out the announcement on the Monster Sanctuary tournament discord - today is the last chance to sign up!

[ 2021-09-22 09:03:46 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello, Monster Keepers! Today, we have several exciting announcements to share with everyone.

Monster Sanctuary Free DLC coming 2022

We are very happy to announce that a free DLC for Monster Sanctuary is in the works! It will add a new area to the game, as well as new Monsters and more. Be the first Monster Keeper in history to uncover the Forgotten World and its secrets! Catch a variety of ancient Monsters that were long thought to be extinct. The free Forgotten World DLC is coming to all platforms in 2022, between Q2 and Q3.

Public Community Monster Contest

We are starting a new Community Monster Contest today! We were so happy with how the previous Monsters Contests went, that we decided it only made sense to launch a sixth contest for our free DLC (for a list of all previous Community Contest winners, check out this older post on our Kickstarter page: Community Contest Winners). This contest will be open to all of our fans! So anyone can submit their Monster designs as well as vote on them. The contest will be held on our Discord server, just as the previous contests - so you will have to join our server if you'd like to participate.
Once you've joined, please check out the #contest-rules channel! Everything you need to know about the rules of the contest is written there, like how your Monster submission should look like. The submission period is open from today until Monday, October 4th at 9:00am PDT. You are also able to register as a voter during this time, so please don't forget to do that as well. As with the previous contests, there will be three winners. Two of them will be the two Monsters with the most votes. The third winner will be directly selected by us, the developers of the game. The winning Monsters will be part of the free Forgotten World DLC. Depending on the individual designs, they will be either added to the new area, or they will be added to older, existing areas of the game. This means that we encourage you to make your design fitting to the "Forgotten World" area (looking ancient, prehistoric or otherwise fitting for this area) - but it is not a requirement of the contest! We will expect there to be a good mix of both regular designs as well as designs that follow the theme of the new area. This is your chance to create something and make it a part of Monster Sanctuary! We can't wait to see all the amazing Monster designs!

Monster Sanctuary Update 1.3

We'd also like to announce that the next update for Monster Sanctuary (update 1.3) is in the works as well. This will be a smaller update, focussing mainly on bug fixes and balancing changes, while we are working on the Forgotten World DLC. It will also start a new PvP season. Expect this update to come out on all platforms later this year.

PvP Tournament

We'd also like to let you know that the next community-organized PvP tournament is in the sign-up phase right now as well (until September 12th). You can find out more about it and register for it on their Discord server: Monster Sanctuary Tournament Circuit Sersch, the creator of moi rai, will be participating in this tournament as well! Join for a chance to face off against the person who created Monster Sanctuary.

[ 2021-09-07 15:59:30 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey Monster Keepers! We have just gone live with a new hotfix (1.2.1) addressing some of the bugs that you guys have reported! Here are the notes on what we tackled! Patch Notes:

• The game freezes when skipping through the last end credits screen quickly
• The game freezes when a player has the Buff Info menu open in PvP while their opponent disconnects
• Combining Poison Eater skill with Power Healing passive for the spectral toad, makes the skill not selectable in combat
• When switching the active monsters in Combat with L/R while having the confirm popup open if you want to retreat from Combat using a Smoke Bomb would leave the popup open while also setting the Combat Menu active for the switched monster.
• 'Energize' and 'Shock Charging' auras now no longer work if the Monster having the Aura is dead.
• It was possible to stack multiple 'Shock Charging' auras despite it being marked as 'Unique Aura'

If you encounter any more issues and bugs please be sure to report them to us here! Sadly, given the longer update turnover times on consoles, we're not quite able to release this hotfix patch as easily there. We will bundle the bugfixes with the next bigger update (1.3) on those platforms. To stay up to date on Monster Sanctuary follow us on our social pages below! Follow Moi Rai Games on Twitter Like Monster Sanctuary on Facebook Follow Team17 on Twitter Like Team17 on Facebook

[ 2021-09-02 09:00:37 CET ] [ Original post ]

Dear Monster Keepers, Today we're launching the second major post-launch update for Monster Sanctuary! It's releasing today on all platforms - PC and consoles. We're calling this one the "Legendary Keeper Update", but it also includes player costumes, a couple of different speedrun features, and more! Check out the trailer here: [previewyoutube=F8M58RtsBfE;full][/previewyoutube]

Legendary Keeper Challenge

We added a new end-game / post-game challenge to the game! Deep within the Magma Chamber, you will find the hall of Legendary Keepers. Each statue is dedicated to one of our most generous Kickstarter backers, who helped make the production of Monster Sanctuary possible. We asked each of those backers if they could contribute to our Legendary Keeper challenge with a team of Monsters of their own choosing. This resulted in a series of fourteen unique Keeper fights, which are some of the most challenging fights in the game! Each fight will reward you with some high-tier goodies once you've beaten it. Those who manage to beat every single fight will be awarded with a new unique accessory for their Monsters to equip!

Player Costumes

The big, flashy new feature of this update: player customization! You may now find different costumes on your travels through the Sanctuary. Six new costumes have been added to the game with this update, and we will add more with future updates. Also, there are now different color palettes for all of the player costumes, including the default player costume. Some of the costumes can be found in new treasure chests that have been added to different areas of the game, while others are awarded for epic accomplishments in the game - like the "Keeper Master" outfit that is only granted to those who defeat all of the Champion Monsters in the game.
Once you've unlocked a costume, it carries over to NewGame+. You can change your costume in a new room inside the Keepers' Stronghold. There's also the option to change your character's gender and name there.

Speedrun Features

We also added a combination of different features to the game that should add quite some quality of life for those who'd like to speedrun Monster Sanctuary. Many thanks to those in our speedrunning community who helped us with their feedback, like Dixnine, PurpleThiccmin, vstevenv22, Odyssey18, ShneekeyTheLost, and KungFuSandshrew among others!

• We added a timer that can be turned on as you start a new game. The timer keeps running while you're in game menus. The timer pauses during loading screens. The timer stops once you reduce the final boss's health points to 0 (but the timer will still run after the credits, in case you wish to continue your speedrun afterwards).
• We added cutscene skipping to all larger cutscenes and NPC interactions in the game.
• We added a new 3x combat speed option for even faster combat animations.

The current record (pre-update) for any% is held by DixNine at around 2 hours and 6 minutes. We are excited to see everyone's attempts to break the game in record time!

Direct PvP Challenges

With update 1.2, you will also be able to directly challenge your friends to a PvP match. It's very simple to use: One player has to "host" the game, which will give them a four-digit code. The other player joins their match by using this four-digit code. Private matches also allow you to adjust two PvP settings: who goes first and whether duplicate Monsters are allowed or not. Please take note that PvP still only works if both players are playing on the same platform. Also, we unfortunately had to disable the PvP direct challenge feature on Xbox because of technical limitations.

Other changes

The Legendary Keeper Update (also called Update 1.2) also includes several highly requested changes that should increase the game's quality of life:

• You can now automatically sort Monsters and your inventory based on different criteria.
• The buff overview screen in combat is greatly improved, allowing you to see all the different active buff and debuff stacks at once.
• Whether youre new to the game or just need some additional guidance on your journey, when talking to your Spectral Familiar, they can now help you with some useful, general gameplay tips to get accustomed to the games mechanics.
• For those up for more challenging encounters while backtracking old areas, there is now an NPC at the Monster Farm that lets you increase the minimum level for all wild Monsters depending on your Keeper Rank. This setting can be turned on and off.
• The Health Bar now previews shield amounts for shielding actions. Also, we were able to finally fix the bug with the red bar not disappearing properly.
• We start a new season for the PvP Leaderboards (Season 3).
• Even on Casual mode, some of the Keeper battles were still too tough for some of our players. With this update, we specifically decreased the difficulty of Keeper battles on Casual mode by lowering all of the enemy Keeper Monsters' attributes.

Hardcover Monster Journals

As a small sidenote, we wanted to inform you that we printed a new batch of hardcover Monster Journals - which are available on our page: https://monster-sanctuary.com These new Monster Journals are the "second edition" print - meaning that the skill trees inside are based on the current skill trees from the new Legendary Keeper update.

Balancing Changes

Monster skill tree changes:

• Qilin: Gains 'Charged Anomaly', 'Shock Charging', 'Buff Charging', 'Charged Healing', 'Attack Plus', 'Mana Plus' and 'Initial Shock', Loses 'Blessed Strikes', 'Dragon skin' and 'Armor Shred'
• Magmamoth: Gains 'Charged Destruction'. Some passives on its left most skill tree got rearanged.
• Goblin Pilot: Gains 'Charged Hazard', loses 'Armor Shred'
• Glowfly: Gains 'Charged Hazard', 'Multishock' is now available at level 10+
• Glowdra: Loses one instance of 'Mana Proc'
• Skorch: Gains 'Charged Destruction'
• Crackle Knight: Gains 'Multi Shock', Loses 'Wind Affinity'
• Goblin Miner: Gains 'Charged Banner', 'Charge Amplifier', 'Load Up' and an additional 'Mana Plus' node, loses 'Buff Charging'
• Salahammer: Gains 'Charged Banner'
• Koi: Gains 'Critical Healing' and 'Charged Reflexes'
• Vaero: Gains 'Charged Reflexes'
• Sycophantom: Gains 'Charged Chant', 'Load Up' and 'Healing Shield', loses 'Magic Powered Shield' and one 'Magic Plus' node
• Blade Widow: Gains +1 Base Defense, both shifts gain +1 Base Attack
• Beetloid: Light shift got -1 Base Defense
• Targoat: Gains 'Load Up'
• Dracozul: Gains 'Shared Barrier', loses one 'Health Plus' node
• Darnation: Gains 'Antitoxins'
• Aurumtail: 'Glimmer' was moved up in the skill tree
• Kame: Gains +2 Base Attack, 'Multi Might', 'Charged Reflexes', 'Load Up', loses -1 Base Health, 'Meditate', one 'Attack Plus' and one 'Static'

Skill changes:

• Meditation now grants 6 Charge stacks (instead of 5)
• Charging Sphere now grants 3 Charge stacks on highest upgrade level (instead of 2)
• 'Backstab' damage bonus increased to 25% (from 20%)
• All mass shielding actions got their shield amounts increased
• 'Force of Nature', 'Carnage' and 'Polar Winds' heal amount increased
• 'Power Focus' now grants a damage multiplier based on how many monsters acted the turn, meaning to get the most out of it you'll need the monster now to use it last in turn.
• 'Solar Blaze' mana cost increased to 250 (from 240)
• 'Solar Burst' level 3 mana cost increased to 230 (from 220)
• 'Gale' level 3 mana cost increased to 230 (from 220)
• 'Critical Socery' crit chance reduced to 5% (from 6%)
• 'Enlighten' trigger chance got reduced to 55% (from 60%)
• 'Martial Prowess' chance got reduced to 70% (from 75%)
• 'Channeling Balance' damage multipier + damage reduction value reduced to 6% (from 7.5%)
• 'Extra Channel' chance reduced to 12% (from 15%)
• 'Shield Burst' now expends 90% of the whole shield but the damage is lower (200% for Shield Burst level 2)
• 'Healing Wave' level 3 base heal amount reduced to 200 (from 225)
• 'Life Wave' heal amount increased for all levels
• 'Avalanche' crit damage bonus increased for level 2 + 3
• 'Dragon Mastery', 'Steam Punk', 'Tranquility' and 'Phoenix Heritage' applied debuffs now trigger proliferate, Flash Freeze and similar passives
• 'Holy Presence' now also triggers on healing and shielding actions
• 'Intelligent Swarm' now has 100% chance to apply a charge stack again (instead of 75%)
• 'Thorn Tendril' increases critical damage now (instead of critical chance) and the bleed damage is based on critical damage now (500% at highest upgrade level)
• 'Abyssal Sword' Buff/Debuff apply chance increased (60% at highest upgrade level)
• 'Center of Mass' damage increased to 30% (from 25%)
• 'Electric Field', 'Icy Skin', 'Poison Glands' + 'Spiky Defense' now have 50% chance to trigger (instead of 40%)
• 'Spark' now has 50% chance to trigger on highest upgrade level (instead of 40%)

[ 2021-08-19 09:00:38 CET ] [ Original post ]

We want to sincerely thank everyone who participated in our contest! After long discussions and voting sessions, here are the winners. Congratulations!
GhoKoji's entry on Twitter about the story of the first Catzerker
Schiraki and her Manticorb Tiger - submitted on Instagram
Straussdraws atmospheric image of the Spectral Wolf - submitted on Twitter Believe us, it was extremely hard to decide for only three winners since all of them deserved to win! This is why, we decided for a surprise 4th winner ;)
The namelessmonsterkeeper cross-stitched the goodest boy Spectral Wolf and will receive a nice Monster Sanctuary sticker set sponsored by our plushie-genius Chrissi! This concludes our fanart contest! We hope you had as much fun as we did and even if you didn't win you can contact Chrissi for handmade customized plushies here on Twitter, Reddit or Instagram.

[ 2021-07-19 17:53:32 CET ] [ Original post ]

In case you have missed it: we currently run a special fanart contest on Twitter, Instagram and our Discord. The three winners will each get a plushie of one of the fan-chosen Top 3 Monsters: Catzerker, Manticorb and Spectral Wolf. The plushies are made exclusively by wonderful Chrissi. Participate until 16th July 2021. Rules in the images.

[ 2021-07-06 11:59:13 CET ] [ Original post ]

Monster Sanctuary has reached 3000 reviews on Steam and we'd like to thank you from the bottom of our hearts! Enjoy the Steam Summer Sale - Monster Sanctuary is on sale as well!

[ 2021-06-24 18:15:04 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello, Monster Keepers! It's been a while, so we want to give you an update on what's been going on around Monster Sanctuary. Today, we have a variety of news for you:

• Results from the survey!
• New previews of the post-launch update 1.2 that you might have missed!
• Moi Rai is on Instagram now! Get behind-the-scenes info on our team there.
• Monster Journals are sold out - find out how you can let us know to be informed once we do another print.

Top 20 Monsters

Our community survey is closed, and we want to thank you from the bottom of our hearts for taking your time to provide us with your thoughts on the future at Moi Rai Games! Every feedback was appreciated and will be read and considered. Today, we'd like to share with you the top 20 most-favorite Monsters of Monster Sanctuary:

Again, we would like to thank you all for participating! There have been over 3.3 thousand people who filled out our survey. Just a couple interesting tidbits:

• The most popular game genre among our fans is the growing "Creature Collector" genre - they made up around 35% of all favorite games in the survey!
• The most popular series of games among our fans were Pokmon, Monster Hunter, and Final Fantasy.
• Over 63% of our fans are aware of "Nuzlocke" runs of Pokmon games, having either watched or even played them. It was quite surprising to us how commonplace Nuzlocke has become.

Post-Launch Update 1.2

The next free update for Monster Sanctuary is going to be released SOON and is coming with many new features! We don't want to reveal everything right away, but here is a sneak-peak into some update content.
Are you ready to challenge the 14 Legendary Keeper statues to a duel?
Soon you will finally be able to change the appearance of your Keeper! Check out the first three costumes.
Got tired of being a well-known keeper around the stronghold and need some privacy? With the next update you'll be able to change your clothes, appearance, gender and name in the new room in the Keepers' Stronghold!

Follow us on Instagram

You can now follow Monster Sanctuary and Moi Rai Games on Instagram. Get to know the people behind the game, as every Monday we introduce one of our team members to you, our fellow community.
[url=https://www.instagram.com/moi_rai_games_/]Follow Moi Rai Games on Instagram

Monster Journals sold out

Last but not least, a quick update regarding the physical Monster Journals: We are quite surprised to see that the initial run has been sold out! If you like, you can leave your Email address at our official website so that you'll be notified once we do another print of them.
Leave your Email address at our website

[ 2021-06-19 20:13:27 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello Monster Keepers, While we at Moi Rai Games are still working on future content for Monster Sanctuary, we're already deep into brainstorming the specifics of our next game. It will once again be a Creature Collector game, but without being a successor to Monster Sanctuary. You can help us make the best of our next game. For that purpose, we prepared a super-short survey that won't take up more than 3 minutes of your time. Among other things, the survey lets you share with us what your favorite and least favorite parts of Monster Sanctuary are. The survey also lets you vote on your favorite Monster in the game. We will collect the results and create a ranking of the most popular Monsters! We will share this ranking with you soon after the survey is over. We will keep the survey open until June 6. Please be honest with us! Fill out the survey here: Monster Sanctuary Survey

Monster Journals for sale

We're also happy to announce that you can now order the physical hardcover Monster Journals of our game. The contents are identical to the digital Monster Journal that we also have for sale on Steam. Contents:

• A two-page entry for all 101 Monster in the game, including artwork, attributes, lore texts, skill trees, location
• Additional lore texts giving you extra insights into the history of the world
• An introductory mini-strategy-game covering the basics of our game
• A glossary of relevant combat terms used in the game
• A total of 220 pages of content

Order your Hardcover Monster Journal here

[ 2021-05-25 15:22:02 CET ] [ Original post ]

Save up to 50% on Monster Sanctuary in the Team17 Steam Publisher Sale!

Monster Sanctuary - 33% off Monster Sanctuary (Deluxe Edition) - 33% off Monster Journal - 25% off Soundtrack - 50% off Start your journey as a Monster Keeper and explore the latest update! Check out the rest of the Team17 Steam Publisher Sale!

[ 2021-05-14 15:36:46 CET ] [ Original post ]

Dear Monster Keepers, We are happy to bring you the first major post-launch update for Monster Sanctuary! This update is launching today for Steam. For consoles, were still in the submission process and the Release is delayed until April 20th for those Platforms. We are very sorry for that and we hope to be able to deliver future updates on consoles without delay.

New Game Plus

The first of the two big new features coming to Monster Sanctuary: New Game Plus mode! This mode is unlocked once you have completed the main story content of the game at least once. When you choose NewGame+ from the starting menu, you have to select any of your existing save games - this will determine the extra Monsters and items available to you at the start. You can then start your new save file on the same save slot or on any other save slot. Here are the full details of New Game Plus:

• All Monsters and many items from the chosen save file will be transferred to your new save file.
• Monsters are reset to Level 1, but keep their Shift.
• Equipment upgrades are removed.
• Items that are not carried over: Crystal Shards, Craft Materials, Food, Key/Story Items, Level 40 Badges, Craft & Reward Boxes, Battle Items. These items are converted to gold on the new save file.
• Inactive Monsters level up with your active ones until they reach their level from the previous save file.
• Explore abilities can't be used until you encounter Monsters which can use them.
• Similarly, you can only donate Monsters and eggs to the army which you have already encountered.
• Some tutorial texts are skipped.

Casual & Master difficulty modes

We are adding two new difficulty modes to Monster Sanctuary (with the current difficulty of the game taking the role of the "Normal" difficulty that is chosen by default). They are called "Casual" and "Master" mode.
Here are the details of how these two new modes work:

• On Casual, wild Monsters have less health & do less damage. In Keeper Encounters, enemy Monster equipment upgrade level is reduced by 1.
• On Master, wild Monsters have more health, do more damage, and have many additional skills. In Keeper Encounters, enemy Monster equipment upgrade level is increased by 1.
• The difficulty can be changed at any time by going to the options menu. It can be changed mid-game.

The new Casual mode aims to alleviate the difficulty curve of our game. However, it's only a slight decrease in difficulty, which means that players will still need to engage with our skill systems and think about their strategy in order to succeed. The new Master mode was primarily designed with New Game Plus in mind. It is balanced towards providing veteran players, who have loads of additional options available to them thanks to NG+, a new, harder challenge. While it is technically possible to beat the game on Master mode with a regular save file, we highly recommend using this mode in conjunction with New Game Plus (preferably using an optimized team of six Shifted Monsters).

New PVP Matchmaking

This update also comes with a variety of changes aimed towards making the PVP mode more enjoyable! For one, it comes with a new PVP Matchmaking system. Here are the nitty-gritty details of how the new matchmaking works:

• The matchmaking takes the level of your 3 highest Monsters in the party into consideration (to prevent the potential abuse of having a low level backline).
• It also takes into consideration the average equipment upgrade level of those Monsters.
• Outside of a certain level range (based on Monster level + equipment level), players are not able to match.
• The matchmaking also takes your PVP rating into account.
• Initially, the matchmaking will only let players within a certain rating range match against each other. After a certain time in queue, you are put into "extended search", allowing you to match against others who are also in "extended search".
• Players who have a rating of 1300 or above start in "extended search" by default (to prevent higher ranks of the ladder of not finding opponents).
• You're also able to manually configure when your game goes into "extended search" (instantly/30sec/1min/2min/3min/5min/never).

New PVP Season

With this first update patch, well also start a new PVP Season in Monster Sanctuary. This means that all players are starting in Bronze league again, which will allow you to once again get rewards for ascending to the higher PVP leagues.
This update features many balancing changes of Monsters, skill trees, and skills - almost all of which were made explicitly with the PVP meta in mind. We hope that these changes will shake up the current team compositions and open up new competitive options.

Balancing Changes

Monster changes
• Steam Golem: gains Multi Burn + Fire Shield, loses double impact
• Sutsune: Dark Shift gets -1 base Defense
• Spectral Toad: gains 'Attack Plus', loses 'Combo Buffing', Light Shift gets -1 base Health
• Qillin: gains 'Punishment' + 'Multi-shock' + 'Health Plus', loses 'Double Impact'
• Crystal Snail: gains 'Aging' + 'Observe' + 'Volatile Shield' + 'Critical Break' + 'Sabeteur's Shield' + 'Multi Poison' + 'Restoring Shield', loses 'Earth Affinity' + 'Defense Overload' + 'Mass Protector' + 'Channeling Balance' + 'Shieldcast'
• Ninki Nanka: gains 'Assistance' + 'Multi Sidekick' + 'Supply' + 'Healing Shield' +1 base Mana, loses 'Combo Buffing' + 'Mana Focus' + 'Transfusion' + 'Improved Mana Regen'
• Ninki: gains +1 Base Mana
• Vertraag: loses 1 instance of 'Purify'
• Troll: gains +1 base defense and -1 base attack
• Promethean: gains 'Chain Reaction' now
• Changeling: gains 'Hexed Touch' and 'Death Blow', loses 'Mana Plus' and 'Defense Plus'
• Akhlut: Has all 5 tiers of 'Heal' now, gains 'Observe' and his shift stat bonuses got newly reallocated
• Vodinoy: Is a 'Warrior' in addition to its other types now
• Toxiquus: Both shifts get +1 base Mana
• Yowie: gains 'Protector' and 'Purify', loses 'Transfusion'
• Goblin King: gains 'Crit Chance Plus' and two 'Crit Damage Plus'
• Magmamoth: Dark shift gains +1 base attack and +1 base magic, Light shift got +1 base attack
• Elderjel: loses -1 Base Mana, gains +1 Base Mana on Light shift
• Imori: Gains Toxic Slash, loses Blessed Strike Skill & equipment changes
• 'Armory' now increases all stats of accessories of warriors (except secondary effects)
• 'Weaponry' now increases all stats of weapons of warriors (except secondary effects), value increased to 25% (from 15%)
• 'Poison Eater' also counts as a heal action now, but the additional hits only do 20% damage now (instead of 30%)
• 'Magic Attack' damage increased to 6*60% (from 6*50%)
• 'Cookie Mushroom' damage bonus increased to 3% (from 2.5%)
• Decreased 'Scythe' damage and crit chance values slightly (end values: 200 attack, 225 magic, 7% crit chance, 25% crit damage)
• 'Katana' has slightly increased attack and crit chance values now (end values: 200 attack, 15% crit chance, 20% crit damage)
• 'Hook' and 'Harp' now grant full heal / heal bonus when equipped in the off hand (this makes all weapons provide full secondary effect when equipped in the offhand now)
• 'Large Shield' now provides full defense value when equipped in the off hand
• 'Curse Chain' debuff spread chance reduced to 35% (from 40%)
• 'Blood Magic' values reduced slightly to 35%/35% (instead of 40%/40%)
• 'Bleed' damage against wild monsters now increases the execution score (by half the amount normal damage does)
• 'Combat Guard' damage reduction value increased to 7.5% (from 5%)
• 'Magnetize' redirect chance reduced to 25% (from 35%) but the chance increases when the attacker has multiple shocks (by 12.5% for every additional shock)
• 'Electrolytes' buff remove chance increased to 75% (from 50%)
• 'Polluted Water' debuff bonus increased to 10% (from 8%)
• 'Assault Shield' shield value increased to 30% (from 25%)
• 'Shadow Proc' damage increased to 75% (from 60%)
• 'Enlighten' shift passive, 'Shared Sorcery' and other share buff passives now share the buff even when the sharing monster is already capped out on that buff.
• 'Hexed Touch' debuff chance increased to 40% (from 35%)
• 'Optimal Performance' damage reduction and debuff resistance reduced to 10% (from 15%)
• Oculus 'Intelligent Swarm' reverted back to have 75% chance to apply a charge stack (instead of 100%)

[ 2021-04-09 09:00:44 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello Monster Keepers! Here is a small update on the state of things

State of 1.1 update

First and foremost: The 1.1 update is further delayed to April 2021 and were sorry for that. While were done with the content of the update for quite some time, we heavily underestimated how long the whole process of getting the changes ported to consoles, having QA properly test everything on all platforms and having the update pass the submission process of Nintendo/Sony/Microsoft takes. This is mostly based on the lack of experience as this is our first game. Right now we have an unconfirmed target date of April 9th if there are no issues with the submission process. As for the Content of the 1.1 update, we covered it in our last Update post: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/814370/view/4979262525030602590 What have we been up to ourselves meanwhile? Partly were already working on further updates well release in the future for Monster sanctuary. Also we started prototyping our next project, which will be a Monster Taming game again, but with a slightly different direction this time (no Monster Sanctuary 2 for now - but we would not exclude the possibility in the future. A full fledged DLC for MS1 is also a possibility).

Hardcover Monster Journal

The Hardcover Monster Journal was a reward for certain backres who supported our Kickstarter campaign way back. Weve received the hardcover Monster Journals and sent them out by now. Due to the pandemic, the shipping outside Europe may take some extended times in certain cases. We do have tracking IDs for the Monster Journals, so if yours didnt arrive yet - feel free to PM us here and we will provide those.
As this was requested a lot: we did print quite some additional ones (about 150) to put online for sale, were currently in the process of setting everything up - well do a separate announcement once they are available. Also well do a giveaway for a couple ones in the near future on our twitter: https://twitter.com/moi_rai_ Thats it for now, hope you're not too upset and can wait a little more for the 1.1 update

[ 2021-03-26 22:24:14 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello, Monster Keepers! We have a lot of news to share with you since our last update.

Post-Launch Update 1.1.

The release of our first planned post-launch update is sadly delayed until March. We apologize for this delay - but we are still aiming to release this update on all platforms at once. Apart from bug fixes (many of which for both the console versions as well as the PC version) and many balancing changes aimed to bring you a better PVP experience, this update will also include a few new features. On the topic of PVP, this update will also add better matchmaking that will attempt to match you against players of a similar Monster level and PVP rating. You are also able to configure this setting for yourself inside the game.

New Game Plus

The first of the two big new features coming to Monster Sanctuary: New Game Plus mode! This mode is unlocked once you have completed the main story content of the game at least once. When you choose NewGame+ from the starting menu, you have to select any of your existing save games - this will determine the extra Monsters and items available to you at start. You can then start your new save file on the same save slot or on any other save slot. All Monsters and many items from the chosen save file will be transferred to your new save file. The restrictions are as follows: - Monsters are reset to Level 1, but keep their Shift. - Equipment upgrades are removed. - You keep all items except Crystal Shards, Craft Materials, Food, Key/Story Items, Level 40 Badges, Craft & Reward Boxes. - Explore abilities can't be used until you encounter Monsters which can use them. We will unveil the full details of this game mode on the release of the new patch!

Casual & Master difficulty modes

We are adding two new difficulty modes to Monster Sanctuary (with the current difficulty of the game taking the role of the "Normal" difficulty that is chosen by default). For the regular difficulty of the game, we aimed to design the difficulty so that players are required to choose the Monsters on their team and their skills very carefully. Finding good Monster and team builds requires a lot of deliberation, experimentation, and time (most of which is spent on the Monster skill tree menus). We realized that a portion of our player base does not enjoy this type of experience and instead expected something more in line with a traditional Monster catching RPG. The new Casual mode aims to alleviate the difficulty curve of our game. However, it's only a slight decrease in difficulty, which means that players will still need to engage with our skill systems and think about their strategy in order to succeed.
On the other hand, we quickly realized that the game was much too easy when played on New Game+. Having the ability to start with just about any six Monsters, with Shifts unlocked, a large selection of gear ready to optimally equip each Monster to from the beginning - all these factors made especially the early game a walk in the park. So for one, we decided to slightly increase the difficulty level on New Game+ by default - but beyond that, we also decided to add a new Master mode which is meant to provide a new, harder challenge for veteran players. While it is technically possible to beat the game on Master mode with a regular save file, we highly recommend using this mode in conjunction with New Game+ (preferably using an optimized team of six Shifted Monsters from the game).

Hardcover Monster Journal

We have a quick progress update on the status of the hardcover Monster Journals: We are expecting their arrival very soon! As we receive them, we will be shipping them out over time. They should be arriving in your hands by the end of February or early March. Also, for those who missed out on them, we will put up a certain number of the hardcover Journals for sale online.

Physical Switch Version

We are excited to announce that we will be releasing a physical version of the game for the Nintendo Switch! It will be released by Limited Run Games. There will be a regular version and a Collector's Edition, the content of which we will reveal at a later point. These physical versions will be available later this year, but we cannot specify the exact date yet.

[ 2021-02-13 14:29:33 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello, Monster Keepers! The game had quite a successful launch, and we received a lot of positive feedback, which we are really happy about. Of course we also received a lot of suggestions for possible improvements and criticism, which we are aware of. Today we wanted to share with you a very rough roadmap we have planned for Monster Sanctuary (which we are currently looking to confirm with our publisher).

Update 1.1

We had a bit of rest during the holidays, but not too much: We are already working on the next update for the game. Ideally we will be able to release it at some point in February. Difficulty Settings: We plan to add two additional difficulty settings: Casual and Master. You can swap between all three difficulties freely during a playthrough.

• Casual: We received quite a lot of feedback with some players struggling, especially with Keeper Duels or the dreaded Abandoned Tower. We aimed the game to be challenging, but we still want to not completely exclude a certain player base from enjoying the game. The casual mode will slightly reduce the difficulty for wild encounters and Keeper Battles, but will not make those a walk in the park in any way.
• Master: This difficulty is mainly intended for New Game+. It will make the game still quite challenging despite having the tools/advantages of playing on New Game+.

New Game+: Youll be able to start a New Game+ using an existing save game, keeping all your Monsters, equipment, and most of the items. The monsters will be rolled back to level 1, will keep their shifts, but will not be able to use their explore abilities until you meet a Monster in the game that possesses that ability, to prevent sequence breaks. All equipment upgrades will be removed. Matchmaking Improvements: Were happy about the increased popularity of PvP and plan to add improved matchmaking - you will be matched against opponents that are in a certain average Monster level range to yours. Additionally, it will also look for both players to be in a certain ranking range. If it cant find an opponent of similar ranking in a certain time, it will extend that criteria. We also plan to have the ability to challenge your friends from the Steam Friend list, but are not sure if well be able to have it for this update already. Fixing Disconnect -> Loss issue: On consoles, when a player disconnects in multiplayer, both players receive a loss. We are working on a fix for this issue. Fixing Achievements issues: On XBox and Game Pass, some players encounter an issue that some of their achievements did not unlock. We are working on a fix for this issue. Version Parity: We plan to have this update out on all platforms at the same time.

Future Updates

This is a list of features we plan to add in future updates. Player Customization: A feature we promised in the Kickstarter, but could not quite have in the game in time for the full release: The player will be able to choose between a certain amount of different player sprites and different color schemes for each of those. Well add some more secret chests here and there in Monster Sanctuary where youll find those outfits. Legendary Keeper Monuments: Certain Backers of our Kickstarter will receive Legendary Keeper monuments found in the game. Minimap Improvements: Add the ability to put markers on the minimap and also have it display some additional information by itself. Speedrun Options: Add a Timer, add even faster combat animation speed options, add possibility to skip cut scenes (Those will be available for normal gameplay as well). Quality of Life features: We received a lot of suggestions for quality of life improvements and we will look into adding some of those into the game over the course of the next updates. Here is a list of the top priority ones:

• Be able to inspect all Monsters, not just the enemies. Additionally, inspecting will display all buffs/debuffs a Monster currently has.
• Sorting Monsters
• Possibility to take back assigned skill points while still in the skill menu
• Improved Monster donation (warning when donating Champion Monsters, be able to donate multiple Monsters at a time)
• Display the number of items already possessed when buying additional ones
• Option to increase all wild encounter levels

That's all for now

That would be all that's on our radar for the time being. However, we also really wanted to use this opportunity to wish all Monster Keepers happy holidays!

[ 2020-12-30 23:02:55 CET ] [ Original post ]

Monster Keepers and Monster Keepers of the future, the big day is here! Monster Sanctuary has officially launched and is now available on Steam!

As the latest heir in a long line of Monster Keepers, players must explore and traverse a rich variety of environments and stop the growing and mysterious threat to the harmonious peace between monsters and humanity itself. Featuring deep and strategic gameplay including 3 vs 3 turn-based combat, players can battle wild monsters, NPC keepers, and even online opponents in PvP battles, using a variety of elemental attacks and tactics to succeed. During its time in Steam Early Access, moi rai games and Team17 have introduced several updates that expand the engaging world available to players, so that Monster Sanctuary launches with over 100 monsters (including 16 community designed creatures) to discover and tame across 13 areas. New areas, such as The Magma Chamber and Underworld, are just some of the mysterious environments added over the past year, and even include content created by the community. Todays launch introduces further content for players to experience as they embark on their epic Monster Sanctuary adventure, including the Abandoned Tower, and an additional (secret) area. 14 new monsters also join the roster, alongside optional endgame Champions; Ultimate abilities for monsters above level 40; unique equipment; and further balancing changes. One of the new monsters is the Changeling, a versatile monster with the ability to copy moves from allies and enemies alike. Here's everything you need to know about Monster Sanctuary's additional launch content:

Abandoned Tower

Nobody in centuries has set foot in this derelict tower. It houses the most dangerous Monsters of the Sanctuary. There are four new Monsters to collect, many of which Occult-type and capable of dishing out deadly attacks. You will also meet again some of the Champion Monsters that you've fought in the past. This is also where the story of Monster Sanctuary comes to its conclusion. Don't worry - you can still continue your save file after finishing the main story. You'll only be able to enter the Abandoned Tower after finishing every other area's story arc (except for the new secret area).

New Secret Area

There's another new area that was added to the Monster Sanctuary in this update! We don't want to give too much away at this point, since it's a super-secret optional area - meaning you can complete the game without setting foot here (unlike every other area in the game). It does contain four new Monsters, however, which can't be found anywhere else. We'll only give you this hint: go to the bottom left room in the Magma Chamber, which is very close to the entrance to the Stronghold Dungeon.

Post-Game Content

We made sure to have some decent post-game content ready for you as well! This is what awaits you after finishing the story of the game: The quest to become the Keeper Master: To get the highest rank in the order of Monster Keepers, you will have to find and defeat every single Champion Monster in the game! Some of them are only available after finishing the story. After the end credits, there will be a new topic in the Talk-menu to guide you. There are five optional late-game Champion Monsters to fight, some of which can already be encountered before finishing the main story. They are hidden throughout the Monster Sanctuary. They are designed to be much more challenging than other Champion Monsters in the game, always being at the maximum level of 40 and using three actions in a turn instead of two. Once you are Keeper Master, you gain access to Eternity's End: a very special area at the top of the tower in Keepers' Stronghold. A set of four challenging fights await you here, each one giving you a unique reward!

New Rooms to explore

With the last batch of Monsters, a couple of new exploration abilities were also added to the game. So we added new rooms and treasures throughout the game that can only be discovered with these late-game exploration abilities! Some can also be discovered with abilities that you can gain in the Underworld and the Mystical Workshop.

Patch Notes

• Infinity Arena monsters start to appear shifted (one from level 70+ on, two from level 130+ on, all three from level 160+ on)
• Infinity Arena monsters start to use Ultimates from level 100+ onInfinity Arena monsters are less resistant to poison on lower level now, but become more resistant to it as well as burn and congeal with higher levels
• Revived monsters in Infinity Arena now regain the current infinity stack count
• Enemies Health now scale less in Infinity Arena past level 40 (level 200 enemies have about half the Max Health now)
• Potion heal values increased, but they are no longer affected by heal specific passives like 'Heal Mastery' or 'Combo Healing'
• Imitate/Counterfeit now displays what the last action a monster used when selecting the target
• Heal/Shield/damage numbers on monsters no longer overlap when triggered at the same time
• During the monster target selection, if the mouse overlaps two monsters, it now selects the one nearer to the mouse position

Balancing changes

• Rocky got 'Primal Rage' instead of 'Variety' now, a 'Defense Plus' and 'Health Plus' node instead of 'Magic Plus' and 'Mana Plus'. Also it got 'Weaken' now
• Magmapillar got 'Burn Down' now
• Yowie got 'Fatal Upkeep' now
• Catzerker's 'Full Offense' got replaced with 'Heroic Party'
• Tengu got 'Buff Catalyst' now
• Grummy has a new skill 'Age of Purification'
• Frosty got 'Ice Shield' now
• Minitaur's 'Health Focus' got replaced with 'Crit Damage Focus'
• Manticorb got 'Mana Buffer', 'Exploit Party' and two instances of 'Copy Shield', lost 'Mana Shielding' and 'Mana Upkeep'. Also it got +1 base Magic and its light shift got +1 base Health
• Crackle Knight got 'Shocking Slash' instead of 'Thunder Strike' now
• Beetloid got 'Critical Sorcery' now
• Nightwing got now an additional instance of 'Bleed' instead of one 'Critical Damage Plus' nodes
• Magmamoth got 'Death Blow' now
• Druid Oak has 'Multi Weakness', 'Demotivate' and 'Warlock Healing' now
• Goblin Hood's 'Sub Zero' got replaced with 'Multi Chill' - also it got 'Multi Burn' as well.
• Goblin Brute has an additional instance of 'Combo Shielding' and 'Protected Offense' now
• Goblin King both shifts got +1 base attack and +1 base magic
• Ice Blob's 'Shield' got replaced with 'Restoring Shield' and 'Ice Shield'
• Crystal Snail got 'Tackle' again instead of 'Beating'
• Caraglow's dark shift got +1 base attack, +1 base defense and +1 base mana.
• Megataur has 'Shield Crush', 'Mana Bolster' and 'Critical Sorcery' now (instead of 'Crit Chance Plus', 'Improved Mana Regeneration' and 'Mana Plus')
• Blade Widow's Base defense of both shifts got increased by 1
• Kame 'Neutral Affinity' got replaced by 'Attack Mastery'
• Ninki Nanka has 'Fiery Shots' instead of 'Fireball' now
• Vasuki got 'Death Blow' now
• Tanuki has 'Might' and 'Power' buff skills now, bust has one less 'Magic Plus' node. Dark Shift has +1 base attack and base magic.
• Wild Tanukis drop 10 times the gold of normal monsters now
• Ucan has 'Protected Offense' now
• Brawlish got another instance of 'First Impact' and both shifts got +1 base attack
• Nautilid has 'Trickster Buffing' and 'Age of Purification' now
• Kongamato has a new skill 'Prehistoric Screech'
• Elderjel's 'Bleed' got replaced with 'Blood Magic', 'Crit Chance Plus' with 'Critical Defense', 'Critical Exploit' with 'Mana Buffer' and 'Ignite' with 'Fireball'. Also it got 'Bolster' now
• Salahammer's dark shift got +1 base Attack and Magic
• Mimic's dark shift got -1 base mana and light shift +1 base health
• Ornithopter's 'Buffing Restore' got replaced with 'Crit Chance Plus'
• Stolby has the 'Occult' monster type now
• Argiope got Multi-Channel, got 'Warlock Healing' instead of 'Toxin' and 'Extra Channel' instead of 'Emergency Channel'
• Moccus got 'Curse of Weakness' now
• Megarock got 'Primal Rage' instead of 'Variety' now
• Skorch got 'Critical Buffs' now
• Troll has 'Death Blow' now
• Brutus explore ability is 'Summon Big Rock' now
• 'Sheltered Nature' shield value increased to 25% (from 20%)
• 'Nature's wrath' damage value increased to 15% (from 13%)
• 'Aquatic Predator' critical damage value increased to 15% (from 10%)
• 'Insect Charge' charge stacks count increased to 8 (from 6) and the skill got transferred to Glowfly. Blade Widow has 'Charged Start' instead now
• 'Charged Start' charge stacks count increased to 7 (from 6)
• 'Magic Barrier' shield value increased to 150% (from 100%)
• 'Rampage' crit chance value increased to 10% (from 7%)
• 'Potion Mastery' value increased to 25% (from 20%)
• 'Aerial Maneuvers' dodge chance increased to 8% (from 6%)
• 'Carapace' shield/healing value increased to 20% (from 15%)
• 'Fish Scales' chance value increased to 35% (from 30%)
• 'Acid Spit' now also lets Reptile monster stack Poison and Burn an additional time.
• 'Broken Immunity' chance increased to 25% (from 20%)
• 'Corrosion' value increased to 20% (from 15%)
• 'Demotivate' value increased to 20% (from 15%)
• 'Disoriented' value increased to 7.5% (from 5%)
• 'Sensitivity' value increased to 10% (from 7.5%)
• 'Sub Zero' value increased to 10% (from 7.5%)
• 'Fatal Upkeep' damage increased to 20% (from 15%)
• 'Severe Upkeep' trigger chance increased to 50% (from 40%)
• 'Flash Freeze' damage increased to 100% (from 75%)
• 'Exploit' now also shields the monster by 5% of its Max Health when exploiting an enemy's weakness
• 'Exploit Party' now has a 100% chance to apply a buff and shields the monster by 3% of that monster's Max Health when exploiting an enemy's weakness
• 'Brawler' now also shields the monster by 50% of that monsters Attack value when exploiting an enemy's weakness
• 'Sorcerer' now also shields the monster by 50% of that monsters Magic value when exploiting an enemy's weakness
• 'Buffing Restore' debuff remove chance reverted back to 50% (form 75%)
• 'Ring Focus' value increased to 80% (from 75%)
• Purify now removes 4 negative stacks from a single target and 2 for AoE healing (instead of 3/1)
• Deep Wounds value reduced to 40% (from 50%)
• 'Sticky Impact' now has a 15% chance to apply 'Tether' on every hit
• 'Mana Donor' mana value increased to 25% (from 20%)
• 'Auto Restore' now removes two debuffs instead of one
• All mana cost effects are multiplicative with each other now
• Shock damage is now allways of element Wind, damage increased to 50% (from 40%)
• Blind miss Chance reduced to 40% (from 50%)
• Poison, Burn and Congeal damage increased in keeper battles by ~20%
• Shield Burst shield consume amount is now capped at 50%
• 'Shield' Equipment renamed to 'Large Shield' and Defense values increased slightly
• Mass Antidote' item now removes 2 debuffs (instead of 1)
• Shield tier 5 now triggers 3 shields on all allies (shield amount is still similar as before)
• Higher tiers of 'Sticky Web' and 'Sticky Threads' apply more 'Tether' stacks now
• 'Long Slash' level 3 and damage increased slightly
• 'Shred' level 2 + 3 have slightly increased critical damage now
• Damage of Soul Beam/Charge Beam/Heat Shimmer/Snow Veil got increased slightly

That just about covers everything! We hope you have a fantastic time exploring the depths of what Monster Sanctuary has to offer! Stay tuned for more updates, the show goes on! Team17

[ 2020-12-08 14:00:28 CET ] [ Original post ]

To celebrate the launch of Monster Sanctuary, we've invited a bunch of our content creator friends to play the game live right here on Steam!

Tune in throughout the day and join us in chat! https://store.steampowered.com/app/814370

[ 2020-12-07 14:16:44 CET ] [ Original post ]

Monster Keepers! We have a launch time when Monster Sanctuary will leave Early Access and release into full version:
Steam version is going to launch at 9am PST / 12 pm EST / 5pm GMT / 6pm CET on December 8th For our Kickstarter Backers we have some additional information Here.

[ 2020-12-07 00:14:52 CET ] [ Original post ]

Dear Monster Keepers, we're now less than two weeks away from the full release of Monster Sanctuary. As such, this month we worked mostly on polishing the existing content, fixing bugs, and creating the Monster Journal that we will be sending out in digital as well as physical form (more on that below). We hope you're looking forward to enter the Abandoned Tower!

Full Release: Promised vs. Delivered

First, here's an overview of all the content that will be available at full release (compared to what we promised in the Kickstarter campaign):
As you can see, thanks to your continued support, we could add even more content to the game than originally planned. Also, many more people will be able to play Monster Sanctuary since it's releasing on more platforms. We regret to inform you, however, that we were not able to have some of the promised Backer rewards and Stretch goals in time for the full version - we plan to release these missing features with post launch updates:

• New Game+
• Backer Keeper Monuments
• Player Customization
• Speedrun mode

Monster Journal

We've finished the digital version (PDF) of the Monster Journal! The digital version is ready to be sent out to 35+ backers on full release. Come take a look:
As you can see, each Monster has two pages dedicated to it. These pages include their drawn digital artworks, in-game sprite artworks, lore texts (as they may also be found in the game), weaknesses and resistances, types, skill trees (including Ultimate skills and Shifted skills), attributes (including Shifted attributes), and the in-game locations where they may be found. For Champion Monsters, there's also a small "Tips" section included (below their lore texts) on how to beat them. In addition to all the Monster pages, the Monster Journal includes five pages with general gameplay hints and tips, eleven pages with additional lore texts, and a glossary of important combat terms that should make skill descriptions easier to understand. Unfortunately, it will still take some time to print the hardcover Monster Journals and to send them, especially given the current situation with the pandemic. They should arrive some weeks after the full release. Please make sure you filled the survey with your address for us to be able to ship the Monster Journal. If your address changed recently, just write us a private message with the updated one.

Contributions

We would also like to use this opportunity to give credits to all the people that worked with us to get the game to where it is now. Since the original Kickstarter campaign, we had some additional Freelance contributors join to help finish the game in time and exceed some of the initial goals:

• Adam Kling: Worked on all the sprites for Monsters after #50, also updated the Player / NPC sprites.
• Path of Pixels: Drew all the digital Monster artworks that will be seen in the printed/PDF Monster Journal. Also created a lot of Monster designs, like Nautilid and Thornish.
• Daniel Reis: Did the sprite artworks for the in-game Monster Journal (which will also be in the digital and printed Monster Journals).
• Steven Melin: Did a majority of the Soundtrack, with some help of Peter Jones.
• Conan the Librarian: Conan was a very active community member who joined us recently as our official Community Manager.
• Team17: Team17 joined us as a Publisher and helped in a lot of ways, among others: QA, Marketing, exhibiting the game at conventions.
• DO Games: DO Games worked together with Team17 to port the game to all the different platforms.

New Monster Revealed: Changeling

"For a long time, it was believed that Changelings were simply born from the earth itself - but there is evidence that Changelings originated from the stars. All Changelings were once part of a single being, called the Proto-Changeling. It traveled through the empty void like a half-sentient, slumbering comet for many years. Thousands of years ago, it landed on our world, creating a substantial crater. Being a fluid, amorphous mass, it then slowly seeped underground, becoming part of the very lands and oceans of our world. Over the millennia, it absorbed the fallen remains of countless Monsters, gaining access to their traits in the process. Eventually, small parts of the Proto-Changeling gained sentience and dug their way through the earth to the world above, emerging as Changelings. Unconscious parts of the Proto-Changeling can still be found underground in some parts of the world." Changelings are versatile all-rounder Monsters that can focus on many different skills. They have two unique traits: For one, they are always all Monster types at once, meaning that they will benefit from any Monster-type aura. Secondly, they may learn both Imitate and Counterfeit, allowing them to copy any move that was used by an ally or an enemy.

That's all for now

We hope we got you all excited for the release of Monster Sanctuary on December 8th! We are thrilled for the release dates ourselves, as this will be the first game released by moi rai games - hopefully, the first of many! In fact, in our free time we are already brainstorming and collecting ideas for possible games in the future. But for now, enjoy this gif of a fancy Inferno Ultimate.

[ 2020-11-29 15:52:22 CET ] [ Original post ]

October Progress Update! Halloween Monsters!

Dear Monster Keepers, we wish everyone a Happy Halloween! Just in time for the spooky season, we want to share a special progress update with you featuring some of the spooky Monsters you will be able to find on the full release of the game! (Which is happening on December 8th, just in case you missed our last update: Monster Sanctuary is exiting Steam Early Access and will launch on PC Dec 8th) If you have followed our Community Monster contests, you will likely recognize all of these Monsters, as all of them are contest winners!

Plague Egg

"Plague Eggs are usually reclusive and only rarely appear to attempt to cure illnesses and injuries on unattended patients. However, interrupting their 'operations' or attempting to capture them will provoke them to attack with magic, which curses and interrupts the biological functions of living creatures. Their cures sometimes resemble ominous experiments - for instance, they might save a human's life, but at the price of their legs. Conversely, sometimes they add enhancements to their patient's bodies, such as additional limbs or wings, but neglect to treat their illnesses." Plague Eggs are the mad scientists of the Monster Sanctuary, with a very heavy focus on debuff skills, but also a good selection of support skills. They're very rare Monsters, but you might just get one from a certain Alchemist...

Thanatos

"Hundreds of years ago, there lived a king with his royal court in a majestic castle. One by one, the people living in that castle started dying under mysterious circumstances. At first, only servants and knights fell victim to this phenomenon. When it happened to close relatives of the king, panic took hold of the court. Many great warriors were summoned, patrolling the castle at all times. However, each of them lost their lives. After many weeks, an old priest came to the castle, feeble and barely able to walk. Thanks to divine magic, she hunted down the Thanatos that was responsible and banished it from our world, returning all of its victims to life." Thanatoi can be quite deadly damage dealers, but they can also learn several very useful utility skills, including three different Multi-Buff auras. You will find Thanatoi as one of the new Monsters in the final area of the game, the Abandoned Tower.

Aazerach

"According to the Blind Starseer's own writing, she was visited by an Aazerach when she was very young. The demon took her eyesight, but granted her the same supernatural sense that Aazerachs possess. Over time, it allowed her to gain the demonic knowledge that led to the creation of the Ahrimaaya, the tome of demons. According to her later writings, she spent many years trying to escape other Aazerachs that were hunting her. Supposedly, Aazerachs watch over our world and step in whenever humans come too close to finding out about the worlds around us." Aazerachs are dangerous damage dealers as well, but what makes them truly deadly is their ability to quickly apply many stacks of "Blind" on their enemies and some skills to profit off of those stacks. Aazerach will be a special Champion Monster that you will only be able to fight after completing the main story of the game - as such, defeating it will be no easy task.

New feature revealed: Ultimates

You may have spotted something new in the previous screenshots of those new Monsters' skill trees: a new row of three skills opens up after reaching Level 40! These are unlike any of the other skills a Monster can learn so far. They are Ultimates, special skills that can be used in combat and are quite stronger than other skills. Because of that, you are limited to using only one Ultimate per turn, and each Ultimate has a cooldown of three turns. They can be devastating single-target attacks, powerful multi-target attacks with different effects, strong support skills, or a mix between all of these.
A Monster may choose an Ultimate after reaching Level 40, and it does not require a skill point to be spent. A Monster can also always switch its Ultimate without having to use a Skill Resetter item. That's all for this month's Progress Update! We hope you're looking forward to finding these new Monsters and teaching those Ultimate skills to your Monsters.

[ 2020-10-29 17:20:16 CET ] [ Original post ]

Uncover the encroaching mystery threatening humanity and monsters, and become the true Monster Keeper heir, as Monster Sanctuary escapes into the wild next month!

Monster Sanctuary is exiting Steam Early Access and will launch on PC on 8th December! As the youngest heir of an ancient bloodline of Monster Keepers, players set out to follow in their ancestors footsteps, all the while unpicking a mystery that threatens the long-standing peace between humans and monsters!

Begin your journey as the next great Monster Keeper with this new trailer:

[previewyoutube=2pu0YWcVXdM;full][/previewyoutube] During its year in Early Access, Monster Sanctuary has expanded with a series of significant updates that broaden its fantastical world, such as the introduction of player vs player gameplay, and new areas to explore: the volcanic Magma Chamber, the claustrophobic Underworld, and the mechanical Mystical Workshop. Each have expanded on the menagerie of monsters available for players to track down and tame, and added new gameplay opportunities to explore. The full launch of Monster Sanctuary in December will see further content for players to explore as they epic adventure.

Key Features:

• Overcome and collect beasts: Creatures great and small are available to collect and battle, and can be upgraded via deep skill trees
• Become the best Monster Keeper: A mysterious force threatens the peace between monsters and humans, and players will unravel these secrets through the story
• Battle in strategic 3v3 combat: Player rosters of monsters can fight AI or other players in a turn-based 3v3 system, using elemental attacks and combos to devastating effect
• Discover a deep Metroidvania world: From the depths of the Underworld to the heights of the Snowy Peaks, there is plenty to explore, and hidden areas to uncover using monster skills
• Items and gear aplenty: Players will find a plethora of useful items on their journey, which may even open new avenues of navigation.

Denis Sinner, Managing Director, Moi Rai Games:

The full release of the game will bring an exciting five-year journey to an end. Monster Sanctuary originally started out as a hobby project of mine while having a normal day job, and back then I couldn't imagine that it would be released as a full-fledged game on multiple platforms with a publisher on my side. Ever since we launched the game into Early Access last year, the community feedback weve received has helped to improve the game and make it the best possible experience. Monster Sanctuary will launch digitally on PC on 8th December for 15.99/19.99/$19.99.

[ 2020-10-20 13:00:31 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey Monster Keepers, We are quite busy finishing up the game and recently we started the closed beta for the full release update. This Beta test includes all of the 101 Monsters that you will be able to fight, hatch and train at the full launch of the game. It also includes the last two remaining areas: the Abandoned Tower, the final area of the game, and a secret optional area that houses a couple super-secret Monsters. There are also a couple new features in this Beta test. If you are eligible for Beta testing, you may find instructions on our Discord channel how to access the Beta test. The first step is to join us on Discord. This Beta test will take much longer as usual, as the full release will still need quite some polishing, as well as bug fixes and balancing work. So for now, the release date is still simply "2020 Q4". For this Progress Update, we'd like to share two of the new Monsters with you.
Sutsune: This deadly vixen is fully capable of taking Monster lives as well as healing, buffing and reviving allies. She also has the unique "Blood Magic" aura, which allows any Occult- or Mage-type Monster in the party to apply Bleed stacks. Her explore ability is the new "Secret Vision" ability. We have added even more areas and treasure chests that you can discover using new late-game explore abilities like "Secret Vision"!
Vertraag: This powerful god of time is one of several optional late-game Champions that the player can challenge towards the end of the game. They are hidden all across the Sanctuary. This Champion in particular is intended to be challenged only after completing the story content of the game. All of these late-game Champions are capable of using three actions per turn instead of the usual two like other Champion Monsters! If you have played the Siralim series of Mongames, you probably already recognized Vertraag - he's a special cross-over Monster from Siralim! In turn, you may find a familiar face in the upcoming Siralim Ultimate. Thats it for now - stay tuned, there is a big announcement coming later this month!

[ 2020-10-02 20:59:20 CET ] [ Original post ]

Monster Keepers!

A new update is ready for Monster Sanctuary! This update adds an extension to the Ancient Woods, two new Monsters to collect, as well as a few new features! But first, we'd like to announce that this will be the final update before the full release. The next content update will be the full release of the game. For that, we are already working on the final two areas of the game, as well as many new Monsters and a few more features. This update will be bigger than any other content update we released for the game - so it will also take more time than previous updates. As we've stated before, the only thing we can say as for the full release of the game is: Q4 2020. We might release more balancing & bug fix updates until then.

New Monsters added

Underneath the sunny Ancient Woods, a series of new dark cave rooms are waiting to be explored by you! Two new Beast-type Monsters can be found here: Trolls, ghastly cave dwellers that will eat just about anything that stumbles into their underground lairs. They have the tools to bring down Monsters of any size, having a strong focus on the "Armor Break" and "Poison" Debuffs. Of course, they're also very sturdy at the same time, having multiple ways to regenerate their health. Brutus, a massive gorilla-like beast of a Monster, which acts as a new Champion Monster. Brutus is quite a unique Monster in that it has no Elemental weakness, but can only deal neutral damage himself. Its new "Power Focus" skill allows it to drastically increase the force of its next attack! The new areas are underneath the Goblin-infested area of the Ancient Woods, and there are two entrances. You need to have a Monster with "Improved Flight", as well as a Monster that can light up dark rooms.

Spectral Familiar Overhaul

We have granted a visual overhaul to some of the very first Monsters that we created for the game: the four Spectral Familiars! No matter which one of the four is your favorite, Wolf, Eagle, Lion and Toad now look better than ever before. We have also used this opportunity to add new skills to some of them and to change a few of their skills, refining their roles in the game.

New feature: Talk to your Familiar!

We have added a new feature to the game that we have been working on for a long time: the "Talk" feature! In the menu, you may now select "Talk" to talk to your Familiar. From there, you can ask your Familiar about any of your goals that are currently active. It essentially serves as a Quest menu like in modern RPGs, but we aimed to make it much more immersive and less intrusive! It's completely optional and it's never required to progress in the game. Please note that, if you have already completed all the goals that are available in the current version of the game, you won't have anything to "Talk" to your Familiar about. But who knows, perhaps you missed a thing or two in the game?

Visuals for removing Buffs & Debuffs

To make a few particular actions in combat clearer, there are new, improved visuals when a Monster removes Buffs or Debuffs from themselves or from other Monsters. So next time you attack an enemy with "Cleansing Flames" or heal one of your Monsters with "Restore", you will know exactly which Buffs or which Debuffs were removed!

Added many new Buff-improving passives

We spent a lot of time thinking about what kind of new passive skills were still missing from the game. We realised there was a niche left untapped with passive skills that improve certain Buffs in different ways. These new skills should give Buff teams more of a unique identity and more tools to play with. Previously, the goal of Buff teams usually was simply to amass as many Buffs as possible. We hope that this will make teams more viable that focus on specific types of Buffs, like Sorcery or Glory for instance - kind of like how there are Debuff teams that focus on specific types of Debuffs, like Poison or Chill.

Patch notes

• Removed egg specific hatch level caps - all monsters now hatch at the same level (0-3 levels lower than highest player monster, depending on the progress)
• There are three new Keeper Duel challenges available at the Keeper Duel Trainer NPC in the Keeper's Tower (Knight Challenge, Champion Challenge and Dragoon Challenge)
• Wild monster give ~20% more gold now
• New unique item 'Dumbbell' - available from Brutus (Champion)
• Spectral Toad underwent a bigger rework to give him more identity in his skill set, he is more focused on Healing and Debuffs, but should be still able to do some decent damage.
• Also his Shifts are 'Heal Charging' and 'Mana Potential' now
• Spectral Eagle has 'Charged Start' and new skills 'Impactful Shock' and 'Reborn from Ashes' now Spectral Wolf's Dark Shift has -1 Base Health but +2 Attack & Magic now, also it has 'Shatter' now
• Most Tier 5 attack deal slightly more damage now
• Damage of attacks with low hit count got buffed (3 hits or fewer)
• Reworked Rocky slightly to feature more 'Weakness' debuff synergy in his third skill tree by adding 'Multi Weakness', 'Disoriented' and a new skill 'Tranquility'. His shifted stats got changed slightly in favor of dark shift
• Shielding Leaves shield value and damage increased
• Sizzle Knight got 'Multi Shock' and a new skill 'Impactful Shock' now - shifted stats slightly increased
• Crackle Knight got a new skill 'Electrolytes' (instead of 'Stunned') - shifted stats slightly increased
• Steam Golem got 'Auto Restore', 'Attack Mastery', 'Cleanse' and two new skills 'Observe' and 'Optimal Performance'
• 'Solar Rays' reworked to do more hits (6 hits at highest tier)
• 'Tackle' reworked to do more hits (7 hits at highest tier) and ignore 25% of enemy's Defense now
• 'Poison Eater' reworked do do many hits and deal additional hits for every poison on the target
• 'Deep Freeze' reworked to do additional 40% damage hits for every chill on the target
• 'Mud Cannon' does 6 hits on the highest tier now
• 'Weaponry' value increased to 15% (from 10%)
• 'Channeling Balance' value increased to 7.5% (from 4%) and it is unique aura now
• 'Berserk' gained charge stacks increased to 8 (from 6)
• 'Glitter' damage and damage reduction value increased to 5% (from 3%)
• Qilin has 'Hex Support' now
• 'Shatter' Critical Chance value increased to 10% (from 7%)
• 'Hunt' Critical Chance value increased to 4% (from 3%)
• 'Improved Glory' Critical Damage value increased to 20% (from 10%) and it is an unique aura now.
• -'Improved Sidekick' bonus damage increased to 50% (from 30%) and it is an unique aura now.
• 'Improved Barrier' bonus damage reduction increased to 7.5% (from 5%) and it is an unique aura now.
• 'Improved Regeneration' bonus heal value increased to 7.5% (from 5%) and it is an unique aura now.
• Damage of 'Magic Attack' increased to 300% (from 240%)
• Vaero's 'Cleanse' got replaced with 'Cleansing Sidekick'
• One of Goblin Warlock's 'Hexing Support' nodes got replaced with 'Warlock Healing'
• Grummy got new skills 'Regeneration Shield' and 'Broken Immunity'
• Monk got 'Flurry of Blows' and a new skill 'Combat Guard'
• Druid Oak and Ninki Nanka got a new skill 'Restoration'
• Elderjel and Glowfly got a new skill 'Forceful Sorcery'
• Glowdra' got 'Multi Sorcery' and 'Shared Sorcery' skills
• Megarock got 'Multi Might' and new skills 'Forceful Might' and 'Static Glory', also base attack value increased by 1
• Dracozul's got 'Copy Shield'
• 'Intelligent Swarm' Charge gain chance is now 100% (from 75%)
• 'Mana Charging' required mana value increased to 40 (from 30)
• 'Punishment' trigger chance reduced to 50% (from 80%) but fixed the skill (was not triggered at all previously)
• 'Charging Shield' shielding value reduced to 60 (from 75)
• Oculus got 'Defense Healing' now
• 'Combo Healing', 'Power Healing' and 'Defense Healing' now heal the monster in the party with the lowest percentual health
• Ninki has a new skill 'Regeneration Shield' now, also it has the monster type 'Dragon' now
• Magmapillar got a new skill 'Mana Bolster'
• Tanuki got 'Meditation' now
• Mimic lost his 'Evasion' skill and has two instances of 'Gold Sense' now
• Ornithopter's 'Critical Focus' replaced with 'Crit Chance Plus', 'Energy Conversion' with 'Combo Buffing' and 'Mana Proc' with another 'Combo Buffing'. Both shifts lost 1 Defense.
• Armor Break Debuff now also ignores non defense related damage reduction but the value got reduced to 25% (from 40%) - Debuff description is not updated yet
• Ring Focus value decreased to 75% (from 100%)
• Dark Mimic's Base mana increased by 1
• 'Static' damage value increased to 20% (from 15%)
• 'Combo Initiator' also does an additional hit now when the monster attacks first
• 'Cleanse' remove buff chance reduced to 25% (from 30%)

Please visit our official forums on Steam to provide feedback on the update - and any issues you may run int, our wonderful Devs are always present :) Enjoy the update - happy monster collecting!

[ 2020-09-04 13:00:44 CET ] [ Original post ]

As part of Monster Sanctuary's participation at this years Indie Arena Booth at Gamescom we will run an AMA on our Monster Sanctuary subreddit You'll be able to ask us anything about the game or its now-more-than-four-year-long journey of developing it. Well be happy to answer! Meanwhile you can visit our virtual booth at the Indie Arena at Gamescom:

[ 2020-08-27 20:30:54 CET ] [ Original post ]

Monster Keepers! Monster Sanctuary is participating at this year's online version of the Indie Arena Booth at Gamescom! This year's Indie Arena Booth is completely virtual - you can participate the exhibition online and visit all the great indie games they show off. We will run a couple of special events during the Gamescom. One of those events is a Steam Early Access key giveaway: On the 28th of August, starting at 22:00 CET (16:00 EDT) we will give away 50 Steam Early Access keys. Information to participate will be provided on twitter - the event will be running for 2 days.

[ 2020-08-27 18:28:37 CET ] [ Original post ]

Monster Keepers, Due to popular request we released a small update (0.10.1.3) addressing a couple of balancing issues: - Mimic got -1 base Attack, light shifted version got -1 base Health, 'Buff Catalyst' got replaced with 'Heroism' and one of its resistances got changed from fire to earth. - Shield Burst damage value reduced to 275% (from 350%) and 225% for the base version (from 275%) - also mana cost slightly increased - Volatile Shield value reduced to 175% (from 200%) Enjoy the update and hope to see many of you in the PvP arena!

[ 2020-07-28 13:06:47 CET ] [ Original post ]

Monster Keepers! Another new Monster Sanctuary update has arrived - Mystical Workshop, which includes a new area unlike any other in the game, as well as several new features!

New area unlocked: Mystical Workshop

Enter the Mystical Workshop, the place in the Sanctuary where all the mechanical Monsters roam around! This area is another late-game area, designed to be around the same difficulty level as the Underworld. The new area features: - A new story arc, uncovering the secret of the infamous leader of the Alchemists, Marduk. This story arc can be started at any point in the game, provided you are able to enter the Workshop. Entering the Workshop requires any Monster with the "Improved Flight" ability.

• Six new Monsters to collect, most of which are new Construct-type Monsters. They're great to build around with each other, but also fit into any other Monster teams that utilise Charge stacks, Shield generation or Debuffs!
• A vast array of new equipment to discover - this update adds more equipment to the game than any other update so far! Many of the items are also a great fit for Charge or Debuff-based Monsters.

The Mystical Workshop can be found above the Stronghold Dungeon. A Monster capable of "Improved Flight" is required to enter.

New Monster Journal artworks

The Monster Journal is getting a royal makeover! We hired the talented @DanieruArt to create all-new pixel artworks for all the Monsters in the game; since they are made from scratch, they look much better than the old artworks, which were digital drawings that were converted into pixel art. Many in-game Monster artworks have already been replaced this way, and all will be replaced in this way, eventually!

Hidden 6-star ratings

We've also decided to extend one of the main features of the game: the combat rating system. It will now be possible to score a hidden sixth star on every wild Monster encounter and Champion encounter in the game, which usually isn't visible in the post-combat screen. The sixth star is awarded for scoring 12,000 or more points during an encounter, and awards the player with even more rare loot than usual! This mechanic is in place specifically for our power-gamers, who are seeking an even greater challenge! We hope it will motivate players to find new, even more efficient and stronger PvE strategies. Share your six-star screens and your Monster builds with us on the Steam forums - or on our Discord server! In addition to that, the game now saves and displays the exact high score numbers for your Champion fights.

Quality of Life: Inventory with categories

An often-requested and long-planned feature: Your items are now sorted into different categories in the inventory menu. This makes it much easier to find what you're looking for in your inventory!

New Merchants

We've added new item merchants to the game that let you spend the money you earn from Monster encounters in new ways, giving you new options for item builds throughout the game. These are the new merchants:

• A Crafting Material Merchant appears in the blacksmith's room in the Sanctuary after you have gained the "Keeper Seeker" rank (5 or more Champion Monsters defeated). You can buy crafting materials depending on your Keeper rank.
• One of the NPCs at the Tree of Evolution in the Ancient Woods now sells some new equipment items.
• A new merchant can be found in the Mystical Workshop, which also sells some new equipment items.
• The Alchemist merchant in Magma Chamber also sells a new unique equipment now.

Infinity Arena Update

We overhauled the Infinity Arena slightly:

• You will start at a higher level right away as your Keeper Rank progresses
• Enemys Level increases quicker now
• Available Monster pool depends on the areas you have completed now
• Revive actions are now limited to 5 uses per single combat (similarly like revive items are. Both share the same counter, so a player can use a mix of up to 5 revive items/or revive actions total per combat)

Patch Notes

The new update also features a number of new, smaller features and balance changes to older Monsters. Minor Feature Updates

• Level Cap increased to 38
• All equipment and weapons can be upgraded to +5 now.
• After the appearance of shifted Monsters, you're now also able to get shifted eggs from reward boxes (chance is 50% for an egg to be shifted)
• There are 'Craft Boxes' consumables now which grant you a couple of craft materials when opened based on your Keeper rank.
• Consumables are now allowed in Keeper Battles (except for revive items in online PvP). Consumables used in online PvP are refunded after the battle.

Balancing Changes

• Ucan base defense and base magic increased by 1
• 'Divine Shield' value increased to 7.5% (from 5%)
• 'Charged Up' cap value increased to 15 (from 10)
• Promethean's Light shift reverted back to be Buff Mastery
• Healing Wave tier 3 now does 3*3 heals
• Increased the required Champions defeated to reach Keeper Knight, Keeper Champion and Keeper Dragoon by 1
• Solar Burst 3 now deals 3*3 hits
• Charging Shield value increased to 75 (from 60)
• Restore removes more Debuffs now
• Crit. Chance values on Coat, Bandana, Brooch, Fang, Feather, Fin and Sun Pendant reduced by 1
• Ocarina and Drum healing value reduced, but their bonus stat values increased
• Concealed now gives increased dodge chance on the first turn of the combat of a monster even if the monster is switched in at a later turn
• Blob has 'Multi Armor Break', 'Corrosion' and 'Slime Infestation' skills now. 'Hex Support' moved up to be available at level 10+ and 'Healing Shield' moved up to be available at level 20+.
• Ice Blob has Congeal now
• Lava Blob has 'Critical Heat' now
• Crystal Snail and Mogwai light shift changed to 'Curse Breaker'
• Crystal Snail's 'Tackle' got replaced with 'Beating' and it also got Critical Boon
• 'Goblin Smith' passive skill value increased to 15% (from 10%)
• 'Goblin Provisions' passive skill value increased to 10% (from 7.5%)
• 'Fire Shield 2' now applies two burn to two random enemies and costs 10 mana more
• Moon Sword stats slightly increased
• Reflect value increased to 40% (from 25%) - in Keeper battles it reflects 20% now (before it was 12.5%)
• Kame's 'Empower' got replaced by 'Protector', one of the 'Giant Bane' by 'First Impact' and 'Charge Amplifier' with 'Protected Offense'
• Raduga's 'Fireball' got replaced by 'Spark Shower', 'Sure Strike' got replaced by 'Cascade', 'Ice Hail' got replaced by 'Freeze','Lightning Bolt' with 'Whirlwind', 'Critical Consistency' with 'Combo Buffing' and its Dark Shift is 'Critical Appex' now
• Arachlich's Dark shift is 'Dark Instinct' now and has +1 Base Health
• 'Blood Drive' chance increased to 75% (from 50%)
• 'Bleed' increased to 20% of the critical damage dealt (from 15%)
• 'Mana Conflux' now grants one charge stack for every 75 mana consumed (instead of 100)
• Catzerker has an additional 'First Impact' passive node now
• Kongamatos Base Attack and Base Magic increased by 1
• Yowie has 'Frostbite', 'Autoheal', 'Critical Freeze' and 'Heroic Party' now. Both shifts have +1 Base Health.
• 'Lifelink' value increased to 20% (from 15%)
• Sun Pendant shield value increased
• Buffing Restore chance increased to 75% (from 50%)

We hope you enjoy this huge new Monster Sanctuary update! Thank you for playing, and enjoy, Monster Keepers! :)

[ 2020-07-22 14:03:27 CET ] [ Original post ]

Monster Keepers!

It's time for a new update! We're bringing new visuals for all NPCs to the game, and some new Monsters in the Snowy Peaks area -- NOW LIVE!

New Monsters

This update introduces three new Monsters to the game; all located in the Snowy Peaks area. The first two are Monsters designed by members of our community, who won our Community Monster Contests, while the third is a new evolution Monster we created! Shockhoppers - which use a debilitating combination of ice and lightning. Shockhoppers are an extinct species - you need to talk to the new Cryomancer NPC to reintroduce them to the world of Monster Sanctuary. The Cryomancer can be found close to the Snowy Peaks teleporter crystal. Targoats - sturdy hyper-defenders of the mountains. Targoats can be found in a hidden area close to the Snowy Peaks teleporter crystal. You need the exploration ability of a Goblin Miner or a Salahammer to reach this area. Dracozuls - a ferocious dragon-type Champion Monster. Watch out for its deadly ice and wind attacks! Dracozul is the first in a series of optional end-game Champions we plan to introduce to the game. As such, Dracozul is harder to defeat than other Champion Monsters in the game so far. Dracozuls can be found in the same area as Targoats.

NPC Overhaul

In a much earlier update, we updated the player character's visuals. Many players noticed since, that the player characters differed in style to most other, older characters. Now, we updated the player character visuals again, making the animations even more fluid and detailed, and we applied the same visual overhaul to all other character sprites in the game. The characters of Monster Sanctuary should look more vibrant and life-like now!

New Music

Snowy Peaks now features a new music theme - while the old was already great, we felt this one sounds more in line with the majority of our other tracks and also better transfers the mood we want this area to have. Keepers Stronghold now has new music as well - we felt the quality of the old one was not up there. Also, Keepers Tower now has its own theme, different from the rest of the Keepers Stronghold. Lastly, we added an alternative battle theme which can be enabled in options. This battle theme is now also played in the Infinity Arena.

Patch Notes

- Displaying enemy dodge chance is now an option setting which is disabled by default - There is a new unique Equipment 'Frozen Tear' - Protect shows a buff icon on the protected monster for as long as the target redirect is active - Balancing Changes - Flurry of Blows 4 now does 3 hits - Gale 3 now does 3 hits - Ucan now has 'Critical Break', 'Armor Crush' and 'Defense Healing' passives - 'Water Allegiance' now also make attacks ignores water resistance - Replaced Nightwing's Combo Buffing by Critical Mass - Molebear has an additional 'Critical Defense' passive, Dark shift gets +1 base mana - Akhlut now has the 'Flash Freeze' and 'Cooling' passives - Blade Widow, Spectral Eagle and Promethean now have a new Light shift: 'Charged Up' - Blade Widow Dark Shift has +1 base mana now - Monk now has the 'Meditate' passive, also his healing passives got slightly relocated - Crackle and Sizzle Knight now have the 'Chain Reaction' passive - Moon Sword values slightly increased - Druid Oak both Shifts +1 base attack and base magic - Pirate Hook healing on higher upgrades slightly increased - Rocky now got 'Defense Healing' passive - 'Relentless' value increased to 25% (from 20%) - 'Rampage' value increased to 7% (from 6%) - Lifelink now heals the whole party by 15% of the damage dealt on critical hits - is no longer an Aura - Heroic Party damage value reduced to 1% (from 1.5%) - Reworked Spectral Lions skill tree and shift passives to be revolved more around applying buffs - 'Sheltered Nature' value increased to 20% (from 15%) - Tanuki now got a new action called 'Imitate' and a 'Mana Proc' passive - Catzerker's Heal got replaced with Fireclaws and the according skill tree slightly reworked That's everything for June's small update. Keep en eye out for more updates to come! Happy hunting, Monster Keepers!

[ 2020-06-17 14:11:14 CET ] [ Original post ]

Become a Monster keeper! Collect Monsters, battle and explore a plethora of areas in Monster Sanctuary now 33% off in the Team17 Steam Publisher Sale! Monster taming meets metroidvania. Collect, train and battle monsters in a lovely side-view pixel world. https://store.steampowered.com/app/814370/Monster_Sanctuary/ Learn more about the latest update to Monster Sanctuary - Underworld.

Check out what else is on offer in the Team17 Publisher Sale!

[ 2020-05-28 17:02:54 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello again, Monster Keepers! We hope you have been enjoying the forbidden, callous Underworld! A small hot-fix patch is now live, addressing the following bugs encountered in the Underworld:

Fixes

• Fixed a bug where players were able to soft-lock their Underworld progression by using Crystal shard
• Fixed a bug where players were able to trap themselves in the Underworld between gates

We've also implemented some small balancing changes based on some feedback, which didn't make it into the original Underworld update.

Balancing

• Arachlich's Debuff resistance replaced by Water resistance
• Heroism value is now 2% (instead of 3%)
• Heroic Defense value is now 2% (instead of 3%)
• Heroic Party value is now 1.5% (instead of 2%)

When we initially added the 'Heroic' skills, monsters were not able to generate as many buffs as quickly, also the cap of how many buffs you can apply on a single monster could not be bypassed as easily without skills like Buff Mastery. Even with the new numbers, those passives will still give a lot of value for a single skill point. Thanks for playing - keep your wits about you in the Underworld!

[ 2020-05-21 12:00:34 CET ] [ Original post ]

Monster Keepers! In this new update, the story of Monster Sanctuary continues with a brand new area for you to explore! Enter: the Underworld.
The Underworld is a forbidden area, permeated with callous beasts The Underworld is a forbidden area that hasn't been entered in hundreds of years - featuring a new major story arc, which picks up after the story arcs of all other areas currently in the game. Therefore, to enter the Underworld, you will need to have completed all the area's story arcs beforehand. The story of Monster Sanctuary is nearing its finale! There's a total of seven new Monsters to collect, featuring several new spooky Occult-type Monsters. We hope you're not scared of giant, callous spiders and other arachnid-like Monsters..... There's also some more equipment! Introducing +5 accessories, the new Scythe weapon and the new Totem accessory.
The grappling hook in action To enter the forbidden Underworld, you will need to have obtained all four Sanctuary Tokens (from Snowy Peaks, Sun Palace, Horizon Beach, and Magma Chamber). The door to the Underworld can be found in the lower sections of the Blue Caves, near the teleporter crystal.

Patch Notes

Underworld raises the level cap to 36 - and tier 5 attacks are added to all Monsters. This update also introduces some balance adjustments to Monster Sanctuary -- some older Monsters have received buffs, with some Monsters alternatively gaining new Monster-types, to increase synergies for Monster-type auras.

Minor Feature Updates

• Level cap raised to 36
• Tier 5 attacks added to all Monsters
• You are temporarily able to obtain Tier4 food items as PvP and Infinity Arena rewards
• We reduced the champions required for reaching the Keeper Ranger and Keeper Knight rank - there's also a new Rank 'Keeper Champion', following Keeper Knight.
• There are new items available at the shop when reaching Keeper Knight and Keeper Champion rank.
• With the Underworld update, a new PvP season will commence!

Balancing

• Cleanse removing buffs chance increased to 30% (from 20%)
• Forge shield amount slightly increased (shields for 300 + 80% attack instead of 250 + 75% attack)
• Emergency Channel trigger value increased to 25% mana (instead of 20%)
• Charge Shield value increased to 60 (from 40)
• Potions operational in combat increased in effectiveness
• Grey Pearl's Stats slightly increased
• Slash and Lightning Slash now apply Bleed stacks on critical hits
• Utopia now grants 3 charge stacks per turn (instead of 2)
• Stunned now reduces the crit chance by 7% (instead of 3%)
• Weapon Break now reduces the crit chance by 10% (instead of 8%)
• Phoenix Affinity value reduced to 10% (from 15%)
• Berserk now grants 6 Charge stacks, but can only be triggered once per attack
• Charge Amplifier value reduced to 40% (from 50%)
• Shield Burst damage increased but it can no longer critical hit
• Rocky, Tengu, Mega Rock and Kame now have a new passive 'Static'
• Slightly reworked Kame's skills to not include critical related skills and to utilise 'Static' instead
• Goblin Warlock has Occult Power
• Crystal Snail has Defense Overload
• Asura's Lava Wave got replaced by Flurry of Blows
• Salahammer's Full Utility Tree replaced with Kindle, Mana Burn and Attack Plus
• Glowdra now has Breaking Spells instead of Combo Buffing
• Magmapillar has Sticky Impact now, instead of one Empower node
• Dark shifted Raduga got +1 base magic
• Light shifted Rocky got +1 base attack, dark shifted Rocky got +2 base defense
• Light shifted Koi got -1 base health and -1 base magic
• Goblin Miner's base attack increased by 1
• Akhlut both shifts got +1 base health
• Crackle and Sizzle Knight are now 'Construct' in addition to their other types and got +1 base attack and +1 base magic
• Kame is now 'Warrior' in addition to its other types
• Frosty is now 'Nature' in addition to its other types
• Tengu is now 'Nature' in addition to its other types
• Megataur is now 'Warrior' in addition to its other types

That's all for now! We hope you will enjoy exploring the new off-limits, forbidden area - collecting the new Monsters and finding all of the hidden new items and vast array of equipment! Let us know your feedback on all things introduced with Underworld, here on the Steam forums - or on our official Discord channel. Come say hi and meet fellow monster keepers!

[ 2020-05-18 13:00:05 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey Monster Keepers! An update that will take you to new depths is going to descend onto Monster Sanctuary soon! This is a large content update with a whole new area and lots of new Monsters including this nightmarish fellow...

The Arachlich!

We can't wait for you to hatch one yourselves, try out their host of abilities and learn more about them in the update. We hope you all still sleep well tonight! We'll catch you in the patch notes and update announcement very soon!

[ 2020-05-07 13:52:58 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey Monster Keepers, Were working hard on the next area and more new Monsters! In the mean time, we wanted to release an update with a balancing overhaul. Our main goal here, is to make normal battles and Keeper battles feel more similar. Here's some of the changes weve made to do this:

• Weve roughly doubled the player Monsters' Health.
• Healing and Shielding is no longer halved in Keeper Battles, damage multiplier was also adjusted.
• Wild Monsters' health is no longer as inflated as before compared to player Monsters. Instead, they get more damage reduction.
• Wild Monsters deal more damage.
• All passive effects which were related to max Monster health got halved (except for poison.)

The difficulty of the game should still be very close to how it was before. Healing and shielding your monsters now takes more effort in normal encounters but wild Monsters arent dealing as much damage relative to the doubled player Monsters' health.

Other balancing changes:

• Aquatic Predatory crit chance value increased to 5% (from 3%)
• Stampede damage value increased to 10% (from 7.5%)
• Rampage crit chance value increased to 6% (from 5%)
• Polluted Water debuff effectiveness increased to 8% (from 7%)
• Nature's Wrath damage increased to 13% (from 10%)
• Fish Scales reflect chance increased to 30% (from 20%)
• Insect Charge stack count increased to 6 (form 5)
• Magic Barrier value increased to 100% (from 75%)
• Pecking Order damage reduced to 30% (from 40%)
• Aerial Maneuvers dodge chance reduced to 6% (from 7%)
• Reward Box level 1 + 2 now contain more items and have higher chances to open upgrade materials
• Blessed Strikes damage reduced to 360% (from 380%)
• Glitter Damage increase and reduction value increased to 3% (from 2.5%)
• Elderjel now got another Critical Consistency passive node
• Caraglow now got Mass Protector instead of emergency channel
• Sycophantom now has Multi-Barrier instead of buff charging
• Mana cost and values of active healing and shielding spells slightly increased,support monsters now have to care more about mana
• Vaero and Silvaero got Blessed Strikes replaced by Aerial Strike
• Vaero got Phoenix Affinity replaced by Cleanse and both shifts get 1 less base attack
• Toxic Feedback healing now increases if a monster has multiple stacks of poison (half as much for stacks beyond the first)
• Bubble burst cost less mana and does less damage on lower levels now
• Overheal now converts 50% of the heal amount into shield and is an unique aura now
• Attack Powered Shield, Magic Powered Shield and Hybrid Shield values increased
• Infinity Buff stacks are now granted a turn earlier in PvP (7th turn of the non-starting player)
• Infinity Buff stacks for PvE Keeper Battles are granted from turn 10+ on (starting with the human player)
• Phoenix Affinity heals now for 15% of max health
• Fungi now has Initial Poison instead of one of the Toxin passive nodes
• Monk now has the Concealed and Multi Glory passives
• Asura dark shift now has 1 less defense
• Salahammer light shift now has -1 base health
• Light shift frosty now has -1 base health, dark shift has +1 base health and -1 magic
• Damage reduction provided by defense slightly increased
• Barricade chance increased to 4% (from 3%)
• Goblin Brute now has Mass Protector instead of Barricade
• Ice Blob now has Defensive Presence instead of Barricade
• Imori now has Defense proc instead of barricade and Preemptive shield instead of Copy Shield
• We reverted Blobs skill set to before he got Slime Volley and moved Bubble Burst a tier up. Also he got an additional Magic Proc passive
• Shield Burst is doing 300% damage for both PvE and PvP
• Health plus and Defense plus nodes now grant you slightly more Health/Defense
• In PvP, you now see during the monster choice who will have the first turn

We've also fixed the issue where some players experienced problems when connecting with each other in PvP. Thanks for reading, we hope you all enjoy these QOL features coming to the game. The next content update will bring an entire new area to the game, so keep watch here and on or socials for more information! :)

[ 2020-04-08 10:01:25 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey Monster Keepers! Here's a whole host of fixes and balance changes for the Magma Chamber content update! We are always looking to improve the game, these changes have been possible via your feedback and reports! Thank you! Balancing:

• Salahammer now has Full Utility instead of Full Offense, shifted stats changed and some passive nodes got rearanged slightly
• Full Offense, Full Defense and Full Utility mana cost increased
• Concealed value reduced to 25% (from 30%)
• Damage multiplier in Keeper battles slightly reduced
• Imori's Preemptive Shield got replaced with Copy Shield
• Attacks which cannot be dodged no longer bypass Blind stacks

Bugfixing:

• Insect Charge doesn't trigger twice anymore
• Fixed an exploit for monsters to learn skills which should not be available to them
• Monster Types are now displayed in the Status Screen for Chinese version

We hope you'll have further fun exploring the 'hot' new content and collecting all of the new monsters! If you come across any other issues with the update, be sure to report them in the 'report a problem' section. Let us know if you have any other feedback on the update in the comments below this post! We can't wait until the next content update, but we will have another QOL (quality of life) fix for you all in the meantime soon! See you in the next update post!

[ 2020-03-11 15:07:44 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello Monster Keepers! The world of Monster Sanctuary expands as we add another area to the game with this update. Watch the trailer now: [previewyoutube=RPjuoKw2-RM;full][/previewyoutube]

New area unlocked: Magma Chamber

Enter the hottest, steamiest, most fiery and volatile area of Monster Sanctuary: Magma Chamber. The new area features:

• A new story arc, two new Keeper duels and a Champion fight against a demonic warrior.
• Eight new Monsters to collect, who use a whole host of new fire-themed attacks. There are multiple new dragon-types - two of which belong to the Draco family of Monsters, which well expand on in later content updates. Will you be the one to master their Might & Sorcery-themed skill trees?
• There are two new unique stores to find in Magma Chamber for players to spend their hard-earned gold.
• New equipment including the Grey Pearl: it boosts several stats by a large amount, but can only be equipped by unshifted Monsters.

Find the Magma Chamber east of the Stronghold Dungeon, below Ancient Woods and west of Horizon Beach. It can be entered from the Stronghold Dungeon and from Horizon Beach. The story arc of Magma Chamber can only be started once the player has finished Stronghold Dungeon's story arc!

Level Cap raised, Tier 5 passives unlocked, Monster-types

The Level Cap has been raised to Level 33 (from Level 29). This means that Monsters are now able to access the fifth and final tier of their skill trees. For a couple of the older Monsters, their existing skill trees have been slightly adjusted! For this new Level Cap, we decided to only unlock new passive skills; that means active skills can't be leveled to their maximum level yet. We will add tier 5 active skills in the next area update. There are many new passive skills to learn in this update! As you may have already noticed in the gif above, all of the Monsters in the game now have proper Monster-types. There are new passive auras for almost every Monster-type, which should open up a lot of new options for viable Monster teams. The full list of Monster-types is as follows:

• Beast
• Reptile
• Insect
• Bird
• Fish
• Aerial
• Aquatic
• Spirit
• Occult
• Nature
• Warrior
• Mage
• Dragon
• Goblin
• Slime
• Construct

New PVP Rating system
This update introduces a new PVP rating system. Instead of simply having a numerical "elo" value, there are now different leagues. All players start in "Bronze" league with a single star. Winning a fight always rewards you with another star. After collecting five stars, you ascend to the next league - after Bronze comes Silver, for instance. After you have ascended to Silver league, losing a fight will subtract half of a star from your ranking. However, it's impossible to drop down from one league to another - so if you keep playing, you can only go up. Also, to incentivize PVP participation, you get a special reward for ascending to each league.

• Silver league: Skill Potion
• Gold league: Switch Stone
• Diamond league: Shift Stone
• Master league: Switch Stone & Shift Stone

After you reach Master league, the ranking switches back to a numerical elo value, starting at 1200 (impossible to drop below 1200). So for dedicated PVP players, there's still a traditional elo system in place. We hope this new system will motivate many more players to try out PVP, that it will reduce the initial frustration for newcomers and that it will still keep PVP veterans happy! Let us know your feedback on the system! Also with this update starts a new PVP season. The previous season leaderboards are still accessible in-game.

Patch Notes

Minor feature updates:

• All Equipment is now upgradable to +4
• You can now use the keyboard to type in the player name and Monster names
• Added an option for disabling screen shake
• When a Monster that is part of pre-saved teams learns a new skill, the game automatically updates any saved Monster teams in which the Monster has exactly the current skill tree
• You can now switch Monsters in any type of combat (switching Monsters consumes the turn for that Monster)

Balancing:

• When a Buffing action triggers Enlighten, a shared-Buff passive skill or Duality (new skill) it will also increase the combo counter
• Single Strike value reduced to 25% (from 30%)
• Blob now has Slime Volley instead of Bubble Burst
• Frosty's Light shift skill is now Buff Mastery instead of Holy Presence
• Buff Celebration changed to grant any Monster in the party 2 Charge stacks if the Monster has 4 or more buffs
• Anti Curse value reduced to 20% (from 25%)
• Debuff resistance and Weakness now also affect passive skills which add additional effects to Debuffs (like Shatter, Sensitivity and so on)
• Shield Burst damage reduced to 250% (from 350%). In PvP there is an increase in damage of additional 100% (resulting in 350% like before).

[ 2020-03-06 14:05:08 CET ] [ Original post ]

Monster Keepers, We've just released a hotfix to resolve the issue of shifted abilities being disabled once loading a team. This patch will also correctly add in the Chinese localisation for item type sorting. Thank you everyone for the reports and your patience! Please let us know if you have any more issues in the 'Report a Problem' section on the steam forums or to our support team here: https://www.team17.com/support/ We look forward to the next content update!

[ 2020-01-23 15:54:11 CET ] [ Original post ]

Monster Sanctuary 0.7.3 Update - QoL features Hello Monster Keepers, Were working hard on the next area of the game and a whole host of new Monsters - but for now heres a small update in-between with bug fixes, balancing changes and some of the most requested features from the community. Here's whats included with this QoL (quality of life) update:

Status Menu

Weve added a new handy status menu where you can see all a Monster's relevant stats on a single screen - including learned skills, equipment, attributes, food, and experience points. This should make it easier to manage your Monsters and to share your own builds with the community.

Saving & Loading Teams

The second QoL feature of this update is the ability to save and load your team builds. This should make it easier to experiment with different team setups and Monster builds, allowing you to always go back to your previous team setups. We tried to make it as seamless and intuitive as possible but heres a brief explanation of how it works if you are unsure:

• Team saves save the six current Monsters on your team with their equipment and their learned skills.
• Team saves do not save food or shifts (which means that, if you changed the shift or food of a Monster after saving the team, they won't revert to the old shift or the old food when you reload the team).
• If you have acquired a higher upgrade level of a weapon or equipment after saving the team, the Monster will equip the highest available level of that weapon or equipment when you load the team.
• No skill resetter items are used during this process (even if a Monster's skills are changed by loading a team).
• You may have multiple different team saves and you may reload them an indefinite number of times (unless you delete them).

Equipment Filter

Ever since the first public versions of the game, this feature has been requested by many players: a way to filter and search for specific equipment. We realize that - especially once you get to the later areas of the game - you can easily get lost on the equipment screen with all the different available equipment. This feature will make it much easier to find all the best equipment for your Monsters! The equipment filter feature allows you to filter your equipment for any one attribute. On the Monster equipment screen, theres a button prompt to access the different filters (on a keyboard, it's the "F" key). To remove the filter, you just must press the same button again.

Reorganizing Combat Actions

It is now possible to change the order of actions for every Monster in the combat menu by pressing "M" (or select/back on gamepad) and then selecting the other action you want to swap positions with. Balance Changes

• Assault Shield value increased to 25% (from 20%)
• Lifelink healing value increased to 20% (from 15%)
• Combo shielding value reduced to 30% (from 50%)
• Glory buff now gives +20% critical damage again
• Defense damage reduction scaling decreased (for high amount of defense)
• Medallion now increases defense instead of max. mana
• Health values on equipment increased by 10%
• Health values of Health food increased
• Encapsulate heal amount slightly reduced
• Age Stacks value reduced to 3% (from 4%)
• Aeons healing is now capped to 7 Age stacks
• Shield Burst damage reduced to 350% (from 400%)
• Giants Bane now increases all damage by 5% and by 20% against enemies with a Health rating of 7 or higher
• Cascade and Overcast now also affect Healing and Shielding abilities
• Kongamato attack and magic base values decreased by 1
• Multiple Armor Break debuffs are now calculated multiplicative with each other
• Attack Proc and Magic Proc damage values increased to 35% (from 25%)
• Reworked Critical Hybridization: "The first critical hit of a physical attack triggers an additional hit equal to 60% of Magic value and vice versa."
• Weapon Break is now a Unique Aura
• Infinity Buff Stacks now give 25% damage (instead of 30%) but the damage bonus is calculated multiplicative for each single stack
• In PvP players now start to get Infinity Buff stacks 2 turns earlier. Also monsters coming from the backup will instantly get the amount of infinity buff stacks according to the current turn.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed default Music/BGM values to be again 40% BGM and 75% SFX
• Fixed multiple Glory buffs having no effect
• Fixed Armor break not be affected by Debuff Resistance/Debuff Weakness

Thanks for reading, we hope you all enjoy these QOL features coming to the game. The next content update will bring an entire new area to the game, so keep watch here and on or socials for more information! :)

[ 2020-01-22 11:00:06 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello Monster Keepers, Following our Horizon Beach Update, we're thrilled to bring you our third content update. Thank you for all your continued support! Heres the widely anticipated feature and one of the highest stretch goals on our Kickstarter campaign live now:

Online PVP

Watch the PvP trailer now: [previewyoutube=Wzip_jGNVO4;full][/previewyoutube] The main addition of this update is the new Online Player vs. Player mode. In-game matchmaking will let you test your skills by being matched against other people online to climb the in-game leaderboards. To be able to access PVP, you will need to reach the "Keeper Lancer" rank in the game (which means you need to defeat seven Champion Monsters). Its recommended for your Monster team to be at the current maximum level (29), as you could be matched against enemy teams at that level.
PVP duels function like the Keeper duels in the game: each player uses their full team of six Monsters for the fight. The duel is only over once either one of the players has no more Monsters left to fight with. We have also added in the ability to switch out your active Monsters during the fight, as well as the ability to forfeit a duel. If a PVP battle takes too many rounds, there is a system in place to prevent stalemate matches: each Monster will get "Infinity" stacks (as in the Infinity Arena) that drastically increase damage. For balance wed love to hear your feedback! As you can see in the patch notes below, we have made a large amount of changes this update to make PvP balanced through beta testing. However, there might still be some Monsters or some skills that are overpowered or underpowered. Let us know in the comments, on the steam forums what you all think!

A New Monster: Manticorb!

Weve also added a new Monster to the game, the Manticorb! This spell-casting furball was submitted by "RacieB" for one of our Community Monster contests, which it won by popular vote. We hope that you all will love the Manticorb as well! You can find it hidden in the beginning area of the game. Manticorb is capable of wind, water, fire and neutral magical attacks, as well as Buffs. Apart from its variety of different attacks, one of its main strengths in combat is the ability to create extremely high combo chains!

Balancing Changes:

• Overhaul on all damage values of attacks as well as healing skills
• Elderjel Champion version is now slightly weaker
• All crit chance on equipment reduced by 1% (excep for Crit Ring and Feather)
• Some critical damage values on equipment and skills slightly reduced
• Mana Regeneration values on equipment slightly increased
• Max Mana values on higher upgrades of equipment slightly increased
• Health scaling of player monsters increased
• Caraglow buffing Heal replaced with Improved Glory, Light shifted Caraglow no longer gets +2 magic
• Both tanuki shifts now gain +1 Mana
• Magmamoth has now Critical Edge instead of Recuperate
• Kongamato defense reduced by 1
• Toxiquus now has Armor Shred and Buffing Heal passives
• Sizzle Knight, Goblin Hood, Rocky and Aurumtail now have Purify Skill
• Koi now has Mana Stability, Heroic Defense and an additional Mana Proc skill
• G'Rulu now has Life Overload, Multi Regeneration, Preparation, Kindle and Health Proc skills
• Grummy now has Life Overload, Multi Regeneration, Remunerate, Preemtive Shield, Armor Shred and Health Proc skills
• Druid Oak's Skill tree slightly reworked (no Revive level 3 available anymore), Light shift -1 magic && attack
• Yowie now has an additional Health Proc, Combo Healing and Life Wave instead of Healing Wave
• Imori has Heroic Defense and Defense Proc skills now
• Chill now only removes 10% of enemies mana on application (instead of 20%)
• Agility & Spellshield dodge chance reduced to 20% (from 25%)
• Weakness value reduced to 20% (from 25%) but fixed multiple weaknesses having no additional effect.
• Disorientation miss value reduced to 5% (from 7.5%)
• Evasion dodge value reduced to 20% (from 25%) of the crit chance
• Dodging reduced to 8% (from 10%)
• Splatter only transfers half of the stacks now (rounded up)
• Mystify now has a 50% chance to grant a Buff (instead of 100%)
• Burning Desire, Disoriented, Incinerate, Plague, Severe Upkeep, Shatter, Sub Zero, Sensitivity and Toxic Reaction are now a unique aura (multiples of those don't have additional effect)
• Incinerate, Plague, Severe Upkeep trigger chance is now reduced to 40% (from 50%)
• Disease Control damage reduction lowered to 4% (from 5%)
• Electric Field, Poison Glands, Spiky Defense and Icy Skin chance reduced to 40% (from 50%)
• Hex apply chance reduced to 7.5% (from 10%)
• Burning Desire Shield value reduced to 7.5% (from 10%)
• Burning Heat, Poisoning Soil, Shocking Current and Chilling Cold chance reduced to 15% (from 20%)
• Sensitivity and Sub Zero damage bonus reduced to 7.5% (from 10%)
• Whirlpool now removes two debuffs
• Wound stacks now reduce healing by 40% (instead of 50%)
• Reduced Buffing Heal value to 50% (from 80%)
• Increased the Auto Heal value to 150% (from 100%)
• Arcane Shield 2 now also applies 'Channel' buff
• Shield Burst damage increased to 400% and it can't be dodged. Mana cost increased to 120.
• Most buffing skills were slightly increased in mana cost
• Age buff values decreased to 4% (from 5%)
• Healing Shield value reduced to 20% (from 25%)
• Healing Link chance reduced to 25% (from 30%)
• Additional stacks of Sidekick buff or Shock debuff now have only 50% chance to trigger instead of dealing only 50% damage
• Aqua Blast, Leaf Slash and Whirlwind Burst cannot be dodged now
• Pandora's Box buff is now treated as an additional buff stack for the combat (the monster can receive that buff twice, but the second stack will be only half as strong)
• Heroic Defense reduces damage by 3% for every buff now (instead of 4%)
• Mana Overload and Mana Stability value increased to 15% (instead of 10%)
• Life Overload and Life Stability value decreased to 2.5% (instead of 3%)

That's all for now

The next content update will feature a completely new area to explore to follow up from Horizon Beach. Until then, we hope you'll enjoy fighting each others teams of Monsters and coming up with new strategies and builds! You can share your feedback here on the Steam forums or on our Discord channel. Come say hi! We also wish you a happy holiday season! Thanks for all your support and we'll bring you the next update in the new year.

[ 2019-12-18 16:03:49 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey Monster Keepers! Heres a sneak preview of one of our latest Monsters about to join the roster, the Manticorb.
This fluffy horror is another community creation brought to life from the Kickstarter Monster Design Competition and it was originally submitted by RacieB on Discord! The Manticorb will be coming with the next update, so get your keeper notes ready to be prepared to battle and hatch one of your own soon!

The Manticorb

Dont get caught staring at its eye.
The Manticorb lacks strong teeth and claws to defend itself, it does so entirely by magical means. Its thick, fluffy coat serves to absorb large amounts of errant Mana from the surrounding atmosphere, which it can cast at will from the tip of its tail, much like a wand. It carries so much magical energy inside its small body that its large eye even emits light in dark places. A skilled Manticorb can become quite adept in wielding multiple attack elements, and predators are quick to learn that the warning stripes are no joke. Manticorbs have a natural tendency to gather where Mana is strongly concentrated, and as a result ended up flocking to the Monster Sanctuary. Their curious demeanour and soft fur make them attractive pets at a glance, but they can quickly become unruly if they build up too much unspent Mana. Experienced Keepers can monitor a Manticorb's level of charge by the amount of static in its fur and will have it regularly cast spells to discharge the excess. Here is a sneak peak of its skill tree:
To add a Manticorb to your party plus get the full bio and lore, youll just have to wait for the upcoming update! Thanks for reading keepers, next week we will reveal even more of the content that is coming soon including a Proper Versatile Padding out of the Keeper dueling system!

[ 2019-12-11 15:58:06 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey Monster Keepers, Monster Sanctuary is currently in the Steam Autumn Sale with 25% off, if you enjoyed playing the new shiny demo, have a friend who'd like to play or have been wanting to buy for a while then this could be your chance for a good deal! We have only just updated with the new area Horizon Beach and there is much more content... on the horizon. Thanks for reading, We'll see you for the next update.

[ 2019-11-28 16:49:39 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey Monster Keepers, We have just updated the live version of Monster Sanctuary fixing issues and adding improvements to the Horizon Beach patch. Thanks for all the feedback so far and we hope everyone is having a great time exploring the new beach area!

The Changes

Balancing:

• Elderjel Champion version has had their total mana reduced
• Reduced the required exp for levelling up monsters slightly
• Levels of wild encounters slightly increased throughout the progression (if you clear the whole map, final encounters should be around level 28/29 now instead of 27)

Bugfixes:

• Goblin Provisions now only heals Goblins
• Monster Bells can no longer be used to respawn Champion monsters
• Fixed the possibility to get stuck in a water stream at horizon beach
• Fixed in game menu not displaying newly hatched monsters when the limit of current page of monsters is reached
• Fixed possibility to clip through the bridge from the bottom side in Horizon Beach
• Fixed Aeons not scaling with the amount of Age stacks
• Fixed bugs in Combat Menu when switching monsters and selecting something in the same frame
• You can now leave the map menu by pressing the map button again
• Fixed a visual glitch when using a monster attack at the same time as initiating a battle
• Fixed Issue of wrongly displayed corrupted savegame message for some users
• Fixed Ultra-wide resolutions cutting off part of the gameplay (there are black bars on the sides now instead)

Thanks for reading, that is it for now. Let us know if you have any feedback or come across any further issues. Well see you soon for the next update!

[ 2019-11-22 16:08:00 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey Monster Keepers, Weve just enhanced the Monster Sanctuary demo! This will bring the demo more in line with the current full version and will give more features to play with.
The biggest change is that there are now 7 Languages available in the Demo: English, French, Spanish, German, Russian, Italian and Chinese! We have also added mouse support from the main game to the demo for all of you mouse and keyboard users! You can also choose between the Male and Female playable Monster Keepers.
Here's a list of further changes and bug fixes:

• There are now full option settings
• The combat rating has been revamped
• There is a new Monster (Tanuki) that can randomly appear in any encounter
• New items & equipment are now available
• Monsters have updated and new skills
• In-game menus have been updated
• Many small bugs have been fixed

[ 2019-11-21 11:30:26 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello Monster Keepers, We're excited to bring the second content update for Monster Sanctuary to Early Access! We welcome you to relax on the sandy shores of Horizon Beach!

New area unlocked: Horizon Beach

As shown in our preview, Horizon Beach is an area featuring sandy shores, large underwater mazes and steep cliffs. Here is a breakdown of everything added:

• A new story arc revolving around a treasure hunt, featuring a new Keeper duel and a Champion fight against an ageless guardian of the deep.
• Eight new Monsters to collect, most of which are water themed. However, there's also the new Dodo mount and two new aerial Monsters with the new explore ability "Improved Flight" which allows you to reach higher places. We hope that youll enjoy collecting all these new Monsters!
• Theres also some new items and rare equipment to find in Horizon Beach. They're tough to find this time - make sure to check every corner and wall!
• The level cap of your Monsters has now been increased to 29.

To enter Horizon Beach, you will need to have finished the story arc of Sun Palace (because you need the special Monster that you gain at that point). The entrance to Horizon Beach is east from the Ancient Woods, which means you also need to open the doors that are blocked by the four elemental orbs.

Monster Farm

Immediately at the entrance to Horizon Beach, you will find the Monster Farm - a place where you can safely let your Monsters stay and show them off in the open. Unlike the Monster army, you can pick up your Monsters again at any point you like by revisiting the Monster Farm. This will make the Monster menus much more manageable, plus who doesnt want to be able to show off their Monsters?

Infinity Arena Changes

We've made some slight adjustments to the Infinity Arena mode:

• There is now a limit in the Infinity Arena how often you can use Phoenix Tear per battle (5 times).
• You get all your consumables you used back after the run.
• The rewards have been changed.
• The pool of random Monsters now depends on the highest Monster level the player possesses.

Patch Notes

There are also many smaller changes, which we have divided into "Minor feature updates", "Balancing changes" and "Bugfixes". Minor feature updates:

• Sycophantom and Kanko have a new explore ability: "Ghostform".
• Magmamoth has the new "Sonic Assault" attack now.
• Sizzle Knight has a new passive skill: "Blinding Sunlight".
• There is only one kind of Level Badge now; it can be used on any Monster which is at least 2 levels below your highest Monster. All previous Level Badges got replaced with the new one.
• Unique equipment items now have a yellow outline.

Balancing:

• First Impact damage reduced to 30% (from 40%)
• All dodge chances are now calculated multiplicative with each other (two times 10% dodge chance now results in a 19% dodge chance)
• Blacksmithing value increased to 15% (from 10%)
• Eternal Heart values increased to 12% (from 10%)
• Mana Conflux required Mana reduced to 100 (from 120)
• Shadow Proc damage value increased to 60% (from 50%)
• Combo Potion now heals for 6x100 (instead of 5x100)
• Fatal Upkeep now increases the damage of Poison, Burn and Congeal by 15% (from 20% damage boost for Poison and Burn only).

Bugfixes:

• We have implemented a system that creates backup save files - for the rare cases when a save file becomes corrupted.

That's all for now

We hope youll enjoy exploring the new area, collecting the new Monsters and finding all the new hidden items and equipment. Oh, and finally having a home for your monsters and the ability to show them off to the world! We are eager to hear your feedback on everything thats been introduced with the new area, here on the Steam forums or on our Discord channel: Come say hi!

[ 2019-11-13 15:02:04 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello Monster Keepers, Today we bring you a special preview for an upcoming content update for Monster Sanctuary!

Welcome to Horizon Beach

Welcome to Horizon Beach! The next update will add an entire new area to the game, featuring eight new Monsters, a new story arc, a new Keeper duel, and more! One of these upcoming Monsters is the Dodo - a flightless tropical bird, which is another mountable Monster. They're also great support Monsters with "Multi Sidekick" and many other heal and buff-oriented skills.

Go diving

As you would guess, Horizon Beach will feature many large underwater rooms and mazes. You will face off against many new water-based enemies, introducing new water elemental attacks and many new skills. Some of these new skills utilize and improve the "Might" and "Sorcery" buffs.

Go climbing

Horizon Beach offers more than sandy shores and underwater caves - there are also steep cliffs to climb and explore. On these cliffs, you can find two new aerial Monsters that are capable of "Improved Flight", lifting you much higher than other flying Monsters do. You will need to get one of these new aerial Monsters to reach all the new areas.

That's all for now

The update is just on the horizon - watch steam and our socials for the release announcement! We hope you're excited to explore the sunny sands, deep waters and steep cliffs of Horizon Beach!

[ 2019-11-06 16:31:48 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey Monster Keepers! Happy Halloween! In the festive spirit we will be spotlighting a scary looking monster that you will be able to find in-game very soon. So, get your keeper notes ready to be prepared to battle and hatch one of your own!

The Nautilid

Dont get caught in its icy gaze. Nautilids are blue-blooded, have multiple hearts and may shoot clouds of ink to blind their foes. They have also developed a set of other defence mechanisms that aid them against all types of predators. Its unnerving "face" is more like a mask: a thick, bony plate which protects its actual face. When it wants to eat, it must lift its mask. Originally the Nautalids were bio-engineered to be foot soldiers in a bid for world domination however, these monsters are no longer thralls of their masters and can now be found in the wild. The Nautilid is a versatile monster the has many active skills including: Acid Rain, Whirlpool, Slime Shot, Shadow Grasp, Voltage, Charge Power, Sorcery, Psychokinesis and Arcane Shield. Here is a sneak peak of its skill tree:
To add a Nautilid to your party plus get the full bio and lore, youll just have to wait for the upcoming update! Thanks for reading keepers, next week we will be revealing even more of the content that is coming soon!

[ 2019-10-31 17:43:06 CET ] [ Original post ]

Our Steam publisher sale is now live, offering up to 80% on various games, DLC and even soundtracks!

Click here to check out what's on offer! Included in this sale are the recently released Blasphemous and Overcooked! 2 'Carnival of Chaos' DLC, early access titles Hell Let Loose and Monster Sanctuary AND some of our older classic titles too! Happy gaming!

[ 2019-10-16 14:22:17 CET ] [ Original post ]

Attention Keepers save 25% on Monster Sanctuary in the Team17Ltd Steam Publisher Sale! Collect the saving until October 21st!

[ 2019-10-16 12:12:16 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello Monster Keepers, as promised in our Early Access Roadmap, we have released our first content update for Monster Sanctuary today. This content update primarily brings a couple new features to the game, some of which have been highly requested.

Female Character choice

Probably the #1 feature that has consistently been requested the most for a long time, we've added a female character choice to the game. When you start a new game, you now choose between the male and the female character sprites. If you load an older save file, you will also be allowed to choose if you want to swap to the female character sprites (as well as change the name of your character, if you wish). Please note that this is a one-time choice. Along with female character sprites, we've also updated the male character sprites. Enjoy!

Mouse support

We're also addressing one of the major criticisms that we've received since the EA launch: The game now also supports mouse controls (for people who want to play the game using keyboard & mouse). For example, you are now able to navigate the menus using the mouse. It's a first implementation and we're looking for feedback on it.

Combat Rating changes

We've given the Combat Rating system a small overhaul. The "Overkill" category has been replaced by two new categories: "Buffs / Debuffs" and "Execution". "Buff / Debuffs" add points based on how many Buffs / Debuffs the player applied throughout combat and how many DOT (damage over time) effects enemies received. This was already present before, but it was added to the "Overkill" category, so it wasn't clearly communicated to the player before. "Execution" does multiple things: first, it grants points for the first two acting Monsters based on their combo counter - so for every hit / heal / Buff that your first two Monsters land, your "Execution" rating goes higher. Secondly, "Execution" rewards the last acting Monster based on how much damage it deals relative to the enemies' health. Lastly, "Execution" grants additional points whenever any of your Monsters exploit an enemy's weakness. The other categories of the Combat Rating system are now slightly less important for getting good ratings. We hope it should be clearer now how to get better ratings, and these changes should also give the player more freedom when it comes to assembling your Monster teams.

Mountable Monsters

You can now mount Aurumtail and Qilin to get faster across the Monster Sanctuary. You just need to collect either one of them, select them as your following Monster and then press the "exploration skill" button. There's also a new treasure in Sun Palace that can only be reached by using one of these two Monsters. In the future, there will be more mountable Monsters and also new areas that can only be accessed with these Monsters.

Two new Monsters

We have added two new Monsters to the game: Kanko and Tanuki. Kanko is a hidden optional Champion in Sun Palace. Tanuki is a rare Monster that can appear all across the Monster Sanctuary (starting after you have completed Old Buran's training and become a proper Monster Keeper). Tanuki looks like any other Monster in the game - it only reveals its real form after you've initiated combat with it. With each encounter in the game, there's a 3% chance that one of the Monsters is actually a Tanuki. Tanukis prefer the Sun Palace though, so the chances of a Tanuki encounter are increased to 15% while you are there.

Chinese Localisation has been added

The game is also available in simplified Chinese now.

Steam Cloud Saves

Support for Steam cloud saves has been added.

Patch Notes

There are also many smaller changes of course, which we divide into "Minor feature updates", "Balancing changes" and "Bugfixes". Minor feature updates

• Added a fourth Keeper Duel challenge to the Keeper Duel trainer; the reward is another shift stone
• There are two new puzzles in the Sun Palace, one requires a mountable monster and another requires Koi
• There are two new accessories: "Coat" and "Ornate Pipe"
• There are new items available in the shops once you reach the Keeper Ranger rank (+3 Katar, +4 Ribbon, +4 Cape, Mango, Almond)
• You can now buy Crystal shards in the shop once you reach Keeper Lancer rank
• Paging functionality when the player has too many monsters

Balancing changes

• Heroic Defense damage reduction increased to 4% (from 3%) per buff
• Protector damage reduction increased to 7,5% (form 5%)
• Age-stacks now increase damage and damage reduction by 5% (instead of 3%)
• Precision crit chance bonus reduced to 20% (from 25%)
• Reduced the gold the player gains from wild monsters & Champions (especially on higher levels)
• Disease control damage reduction calculation changed (for multiple Debuffs the damage reduction values will multiply with each other and result in slightly less damage reduction)
• Toxic Reaction trigger chance reduced to 40% (from 50%)
• Infinity Arena buff stacks no longer reduce poison damage, instead poison damage is now reduced by 60% by default in Infinity Arena (going for multiple multi-poison monsters was currently far stronger in infinity arena then other setups. The goal is to have multiple viable team setups that can reach similar high levels. We need to observe if this nerf is enough, too much or too weak. Of course things will shake up more in the future with new monsters and Tier5+ skills)
• All skill that have effects that count buffs/debuff (like Heroism) now count additional Buff/Debuff stacks of the same type beyond the first only as half.
• Goblin warlock now has only one "Disease control" skill node
• Regeneration effects on wild monsters are now only half as strong
• additional buffs & Debuffs applied by Buff Mastery & Debuff Mastery now take up their own slots. Other monsters may still apply one normal stack of those buffs/debuffs afterwards.
• Sidekick (Buff) and Shock (Debuff) damage reduced to 40% (from 50%). Both are very effective in the new combat rating by providing points to both the 'Buff / Debuff' rating and the 'Execution' rating.
• Breakable ice platforms stay now a little longer before they break.
• Damage multiplier in keeper battles reduced to 30% for both sides (from 50%)
• First keeper battle (against Will) is now slightly easier
• Medallion's Mana Regeneration slightly increased

Bugfixes

• Mystify & Exploit now trigger abilities that should be triggered when applying a buff (like Buffing Shield)
• Double Impact now also works for both weaknesses for monsters that have two weaknesses
• 'Holy Presence' no longer applies the extra buff to enemies for attacks that deal damage and apply a buff to the caster.
• Fixed multiple stacks of Shock not triggering additional damage
• Multiple stacks of Agility, Spellshield or Channel now work properly (additional stacks had no effect prior)
• Fixed issue where the game was not able to create savegames for some players
• Fixed several localisation errors

That's all for now

Hope you'll enjoy the new features we've added to the game. The next content update will add a new area to the game with several new Monsters and a new story arc. We are eager to hear your feedback on the new features and balance changes, here on the Steam forums or on our Discord channel: Come say hi!

[ 2019-10-14 14:08:03 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello Monster Keepers, as promised in our Early Access Roadmap, we have released our first content update for Monster Sanctuary today. This content update primarily brings a couple new features to the game, some of which have been highly requested.

Female Character choice

Probably the #1 feature that has consistently been requested the most for a long time, we've added a female character choice to the game. When you start a new game, you now choose between the male and the female character sprites. If you load an older save file, you will also be allowed to choose if you want to swap to the female character sprites (as well as change the name of your character, if you wish). Please note that this is a one-time choice. Along with female character sprites, we've also updated the male character sprites. Enjoy!

Mouse support

We're also addressing one of the major criticisms that we've received since the EA launch: The game now also supports mouse controls (for people who want to play the game using keyboard & mouse). For example, you are now able to navigate the menus using the mouse. It's a first implementation and we're looking for feedback on it.

Combat Rating changes

We've given the Combat Rating system a small overhaul. The "Overkill" category has been replaced by two new categories: "Buffs / Debuffs" and "Execution". "Buff / Debuffs" add points based on how many Buffs / Debuffs the player applied throughout combat and how many DOT (damage over time) effects enemies received. This was already present before, but it was added to the "Overkill" category, so it wasn't clearly communicated to the player before. "Execution" does multiple things: first, it grants points for the first two acting Monsters based on their combo counter - so for every hit / heal / Buff that your first two Monsters land, your "Execution" rating goes higher. Secondly, "Execution" rewards the last acting Monster based on how much damage it deals relative to the enemies' health. Lastly, "Execution" grants additional points whenever any of your Monsters exploit an enemy's weakness. The other categories of the Combat Rating system are now slightly less important for getting good ratings. We hope it should be clearer now how to get better ratings, and these changes should also give the player more freedom when it comes to assembling your Monster teams.

Mountable Monsters

You can now mount Aurumtail and Qilin to get faster across the Monster Sanctuary. You just need to collect either one of them, select them as your following Monster and then press the "exploration skill" button. There's also a new treasure in Sun Palace that can only be reached by using one of these two Monsters. In the future, there will be more mountable Monsters and also new areas that can only be accessed with these Monsters.

Two new Monsters

We have added two new Monsters to the game: Kanko and Tanuki. Kanko is a hidden optional Champion in Sun Palace. Tanuki is a rare Monster that can appear all across the Monster Sanctuary (starting after you have completed Old Buran's training and become a proper Monster Keeper). Tanuki looks like any other Monster in the game - it only reveals its real form after you've initiated combat with it. With each encounter in the game, there's a 3% chance that one of the Monsters is actually a Tanuki. Tanukis prefer the Sun Palace though, so the chances of a Tanuki encounter are increased to 15% while you are there.

Chinese Localisation has been added

The game is also available in simplified Chinese now.

Steam Cloud Saves

Support for Steam cloud saves has been added.

Patch Notes

There are also many smaller changes of course, which we divide into "Minor feature updates", "Balancing changes" and "Bugfixes". Minor feature updates

• Added a fourth Keeper Duel challenge to the Keeper Duel trainer; the reward is another shift stone
• There are two new puzzles in the Sun Palace, one requires a mountable monster and another requires Koi
• There are two new accessories: "Coat" and "Ornate Pipe"
• There are new items available in the shops once you reach the Keeper Ranger rank (+3 Katar, +4 Ribbon, +4 Cape, Mango, Almond)
• You can now buy Crystal shards in the shop once you reach Keeper Lancer rank
• Paging functionality when the player has too many monsters

Balancing changes

• Heroic Defense damage reduction increased to 4% (from 3%) per buff
• Protector damage reduction increased to 7,5% (form 5%)
• Age-stacks now increase damage and damage reduction by 5% (instead of 3%)
• Precision crit chance bonus reduced to 20% (from 25%)
• Reduced the gold the player gains from wild monsters & Champions (especially on higher levels)
• Disease control damage reduction calculation changed (for multiple Debuffs the damage reduction values will multiply with each other and result in slightly less damage reduction)
• Toxic Reaction trigger chance reduced to 40% (from 50%)
• Infinity Arena buff stacks no longer reduce poison damage, instead poison damage is now reduced by 60% by default in Infinity Arena (going for multiple multi-poison monsters was currently far stronger in infinity arena then other setups. The goal is to have multiple viable team setups that can reach similar high levels. We need to observe if this nerf is enough, too much or too weak. Of course things will shake up more in the future with new monsters and Tier5+ skills)
• All skill that have effects that count buffs/debuff (like Heroism) now count additional Buff/Debuff stacks of the same type beyond the first only as half.
• Goblin warlock now has only one "Disease control" skill node
• Regeneration effects on wild monsters are now only half as strong
• additional buffs & Debuffs applied by Buff Mastery & Debuff Mastery now take up their own slots. Other monsters may still apply one normal stack of those buffs/debuffs afterwards.
• Sidekick (Buff) and Shock (Debuff) damage reduced to 40% (from 50%). Both are very effective in the new combat rating by providing points to both the 'Buff / Debuff' rating and the 'Execution' rating.
• Breakable ice platforms stay now a little longer before they break.
• Damage multiplier in keeper battles reduced to 30% for both sides (from 50%)
• First keeper battle (against Will) is now slightly easier
• Medallion's Mana Regeneration slightly increased

Bugfixes

• Mystify & Exploit now trigger abilities that should be triggered when applying a buff (like Buffing Shield)
• Double Impact now also works for both weaknesses for monsters that have two weaknesses
• 'Holy Presence' no longer applies the extra buff to enemies for attacks that deal damage and apply a buff to the caster.
• Fixed multiple stacks of Shock not triggering additional damage
• Multiple stacks of Agility, Spellshield or Channel now work properly (additional stacks had no effect prior)
• Fixed issue where the game was not able to create savegames for some players
• Fixed several localisation errors

That's all for now

Hope you'll enjoy the new features we've added to the game. The next content update will add a new area to the game with several new Monsters and a new story arc. We are eager to hear your feedback on the new features and balance changes, here on the Steam forums or on our Discord channel: Come say hi!

[ 2019-09-25 14:29:09 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello Monster Keepers, Today, we're pleased to be able to share an early access roadmap with you!
While this is not an exhaustive list of what is to come, we wanted to give you an idea of the things we're looking to work on to make your Monster Sanctuary experience even better! We're also incredibly excited to tell you that the first update will be coming later this month! This update will be available on September 25th and will include:

• Chinese localisation
• An updated playable character
• Mount exploration ability (you'll be able to choose some monsters to be your trusty mount!)
• Mouse support
• Two new monsters
• Some balancing changes

After that, we will focus working on the next content update which will add a new area with even more new Monsters. We will release it later this year, so look out for future announcements!

[ 2019-09-12 16:09:36 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey Monster Keepers, We just released a small Patch to address a couple of Issues: - Linux version should no longer crash on start - People with Chinese Operating System should see text now (no localization yet, this will come soon) - Starting popup message is now localized into all available languages - Fixed the issue that some sound effects were not affected by the SFX volume setting We are going to post a road map for the upcoming bigger updates soon. Hope you're enjoying Monster Sanctuary so far!

[ 2019-08-30 13:53:19 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey Monster Keepers, Welcome to Monster Sanctuary, a pixel art monster collecting and battling game set in a Metroidvania world! Everyone at Moi Rai and Team17 are excited to be launching into Early Access today and would like to welcome you to the Monster Sanctuary community with open arms. You can check out the launch trailer below to see what your journey as a Monster Keeper will be like: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LlNbLNhlOQM&feature=youtu.be

The Early Access Adventure Begins!

As you pick your Spectral Familiar and take your first steps out into the Sanctuary, youll find a world teeming with monsters, friendly faces and lands to explore. Throughout Early Access well be further expanding on the game with new features including, but not exclusive to:

• Story continuation
• New themed areas to explore
• More monsters
• More skills & abilities
• Keeper customisation

One big boon of Early Access is that Monster Sanctuary can grow with community feedback at the heart of it. We look forward to hearing from you on things such as gameplay, balance and monsters! Oh and if you find any bugs, do let us know so we can squish them.

Key features

Explore a Metroidvania world as you seek to solve a mystery that threatens the peace between humans and monsters! Battle in 3vs3 turn-based combat as you use your team of monsters to fight rival Keepers, wild Monsters and boss creatures! Hatch and grow your monster companions from monster eggs that can drop after battle. Each monster has an individual skill tree with active and passive abilities. How they specialise is down to you: damage dealer, tank, healer, support, debuff, glass canon, status or any hybrid combination the choice is yours! Collect and discover treasure, items and equipment for your monsters! These can be secured from successful battles or by exploring the world and solving puzzles. Using your monsters unique abilities in the open world will lead to new areas opening up for you to explore

Launch Stream See Monster Sanctuary in action!

Weve got five Monster Keeper Streamers playing Monster Sanctuary right now for the next seven hours! To watch, ask questions and say hi, just click your way to our Steam Store page here.

Join the Keeper Community!

Weve got a friendly Discord group where you can meet your fellow Monster Keepers, talk all things Monster Sanctuary and get hints and tips on building the perfect team for your playstyle! Everyone is welcome, so come by and introduce yourself on the official Monster Sanctuary Discord. For even more monstery goodness you can follow us on Twitter and like our Facebook page. That wraps up our introductory post! Now go forth and become the ultimate Monster Keeper!

Launch Week Discount!

For the first week of Early Access launch you can get Monster Sanctuary at a 10% discount! https://store.steampowered.com/app/814370/Monster_Sanctuary/

[ 2019-08-28 17:05:42 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey Monster Keepers, Today were incredibly excited to announce that Monster Sanctuary is launching on Steam Early Access August 28th! To celebrate this news, weve released a new trailer that you can check out below: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VlhSrNaQM6o&feature=youtu.be To the whole community that has already formed around Monster Sanctuary, we want to say thank you. Your support has got us to this point and we cant wait for the world of Monster Sanctuary to open up to everyone later this month.

Prepare to become the ultimate Monster Keeper

Pick a Spectral Familiar and build your first team of monsters now with our free demo, available on our Store page: https://store.steampowered.com/app/814370/Monster_Sanctuary/ Whilst youre there, feel free to Wishlist us to keep up to speed with all things Monster Sanctuary!

Meet your fellow Monster Keepers

If youd like to talk all things Monster Sanctuary, from combat tactics, to exploration and your favourite monsters, youre more than welcome to join our official Discord channel. Come say hi! You can also follow us on Twitter to get a sneak peek on upcoming content and more straight from the Developer! That just leaves one question, which Spectral Familiar will you be picking on Early Access launch?

• Team Wolf
• Team Eagle
• Team Toad
• Team Lion

Let us know in the comments!

[ 2019-08-08 13:02:53 CET ] [ Original post ]

Dear Project Backers, as we're getting closer to our Early Access launch (and of course the test version for our backers with tester's access), we have a lot of news to talk about.

Translations

Thanks to our publisher, Team17 (you can read more about that in our announcement from March), the game will be available in different languages - starting already with the Early Access version. That's right! In Early Access, you will be able to play Monster Sanctuary in French, Spanish, Italian, German and Russian.

Third Community Monster Contest

Surprise news for our Monster Designer backers: We will start the third Community Monster Contest tomorrow (1st of August). The submission period will be open until the end of August. Voting will be done in the first week of September (until the 8th of September). As usual, the contest is happening on our Discord channel and all backers who supported us with 50 or more are allowed to enter (you may join our Discord server here: Join Monster Sanctuary on Discord). We are excited to see which Monsters our community will vote into our game this time!

July Progress Update

So here's what we've added to the game in July:

• New tier 4 attacks for new and old Monsters alike. Most of these new attacks have different extra effects that make them different from lower-tier skills - skills like Spectral Cannon ignore a large percentage of the enemy's Armor value, while skills like Thunder Strike and Poison Eater have special effects when they're used on shocked/poisoned enemies.
  
• New area: Sun Palace. This area is meant to be explored after the other areas we've added to the game so far. It can also be entered earlier if the player knows how to get there and what you need to get inside - but the Monster encounters have a rather high minimum level in this area. The Sun Palace is a large underground area that is illuminated by an artificial miniature sun. There are two distinct parts to the Sun Palace: the sunny "overworld" areas with large open rooms and the dark, watery aqueducts below.
  
• Sun Palace will also be the first area to feature more intricate area-wide mechanics. There is a tower in the center of the Sun Palace which needs to be raised to access the higher rooms of the area. The aqueducts of the Sun Palace are overflowing with water, making it impossible to access the lower rooms at first. Throughout the area, the player will find levers to raise the tower and to lower the water levels of the aqueducts.
  
• New Monsters: Blade Widow and Sycophantom
  
• Sycophantom is one of the winners from our second Community Contest. As the creator (MissingNovice) intended, Sycophantom is very focussed on support skills (heals and buffs), with many skills granting it "Charge" stacks (+damage for next attack) when it uses those skills. Apart from that, it can also apply Chill-Debuff and a new type of stack called "Blind" on enemies.
• Blade Widow is a new deadly bug-type Monster. It's a heavy damage dealer with Neutral, Wind and Earth attacks that is also able to apply multiple instances of Might-Buff for physical damage-oriented parties. As the battle rages on, Blade Widow becomes ever stronger and ever deadlier, thanks to Buffs and "Charge" stacks that it gains while attacking enemies.
• Finished all Sun Palace rooms and story-content. Now we just need to add more Monsters, implement new mechanics and playtest the new content.

That's all for this month's update! If all goes well, expect the test version for Early Access by the end of August or early September.

[ 2019-07-31 14:54:42 CET ] [ Original post ]

On your quest to defeat Capital B, youll discover secrets and solve puzzles in the overworld to unlock alternate level states! Spark some change by hooking up electricity, flood chapters with running water or literally flip them upside down for radically altered challenges! Check out the brand new trailer below https://youtu.be/Yfk72Js6rTE

Team17 x PlayTonic Games Livestream

Join us at 3pm BST / 7am PDT on Thursday 25th July for a Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair livestream! Well be showing off some of the alternate level states and have some of the dev team with us to answer your questions! Tune in on Mixer, Twitch, YouTube, Facebook or here on the Steam store page!
You better bee ready for Capital B's most dastardly challenge yet! Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair is coming to Steam later this year! https://store.steampowered.com/app/846870/YookaLaylee_and_the_Impossible_Lair/ Wishlist the game on Steam or check out the links below to stay in the know! Keep up to date with the latest Yooka-Laylee news: Sign-up to the Team17 newsletter Team17 on Twitter Team17 on Facebook Playtonic Games on Twitter Playtonic Games on Facebook Team17 Discord

[ 2019-07-24 08:31:57 CET ] [ Original post ]

Dear Steam Monster Keepers, it's been one of the hottest months for Europe ever, but of course we've continued working on the next areas and features of Monster Sanctuary. Here's the monthly progress update for June.

Last Chance for Late Backers

First off, we have another announcement to make. We are closing the Late Backer Shop on June 30th. If you want to become a late backer for the game (to get backer rewards like beta access, the Monster Journal, being able to contribute to the Community Monster Contests), this is your very last chance. You can make your last-minute pledge here on our Paypal Shop: http://monster-sanctuary.com/PaypalBacking.html If you're reading this after June 30th, don't worry. The game will soon enough go public: We plan to release the game on Steam Early Access in late August or September.

June Progress Update

So this is what we can show for June:

• New Monsters: Mogwai, Crystal Snail, Megataur
  
• Mogwai is an all-rounder Monster which you may build in a variety of ways. He has access to Snowball Toss (physical damage) and Ice bolt (magical damage), which are both new single-hit water-element skills. He can be a powerful hybrid combo-finisher, or he can be a great support Monster.
  
• Crystal Snail is an extremely tanky Monster with a unique set of Resistances and Weaknesses. Only magical water- and wind-element attacks are super effective against it. He can protect his allies and take hits for them, gravely punishing enemies whose attacks land on it.
• Megataur is the evolved form of the Blue Caves Champion, Minitaur. It loses a bit in Attack and Mana, but makes up for it with much greater tankiness. Also, Megataur focuses more on ice-attacks, can dish out some magical damage and gains Life Wave as a heal.
  
• Finished Snowy Peaks rooms and story-content. So we've also been busy play-testing Snowy Peaks and fixing any bugs we've found so far. To finish the story-content of Snowy Peaks, you will have to defeat a new Champion Monster which we will reveal at a later time.
• Again, we've been especially busy with adding new Tier 4 skills to both the new and the older Monsters. That's why we'd like to give you a sneak peak into some of the new skills your Monsters will be able to learn. Keep in mind that any skill may still change during testing if it's found to be too weak or too strong.

A new active Tier 4 heal. Monsters with this skill: Caraglow, Mogwai (maybe more)
A new passive that allows for "Critical Heals" which trigger Critical-passives like Critical Mass. Monsters with this skill: Caraglow, Monk (maybe more)
Charge stacks increase damage of the next attack by 3%. Monsters with this skill: Spectral Toad, Magmapillar, Magmamoth, Rocky (and more)
A new passive to slay tanky enemies with a high Health rating. Monsters with this skill: Vaero, Nightwing, Goblin Hood (and maybe more)
Gives your Monster's attacks quite a bonus against enemies with high Defense. Monsters with this skill: Specter, Nightwing (and maybe more)
A new type of stack which can stack indefinitely and doesn't vanish. Monsters with this skill: Grummy, G'rulu, Goblin Warlock, Rocky (and more)
Each Age stack grants the Monster these bonuses.
There will be different version of this skill for Defense, Mana, etc. Monsters with Health Focus: Blob (2 instances of it), Druid Oak, Spectral Wolf, Megataur (and more) That's all for this month's update. Of course, there are even more new skills we've already implemented and that we're planning to implement still - this is just a small selection of them. We hope we'll be able to show you our next area for Monster Sanctuary soon!

[ 2019-06-29 11:09:28 CET ] [ Original post ]

Dear Project Backers, as summer slowly settles in, it's time to show you what we've been working on in May with another monthly progress update.

2nd Round of Community Contest Winners

During the first weeks of May, the Monster Designer Backers were once again able to vote for the community Monsters that shall be featured in our game. Here are the winners of the 2nd round of our Community Monster Contest: 1st place: Kanko, the pipe fox Monster, by Zuty! 2nd place: Sycophantom, the phantasmal elephant Monster, by Missing Novice! And our Developers' Pick: Thanatos, the clown-masked reaper Monster, by The0neFreeMan! A close candidate that almost won the first two contests by vote and that already caught our eyes from the first contest. We like Thanatos' design, it reminds us of some of the enemies/villains of Snes RPGs, and it seems like a fitting enemy for the later areas that we've got planned for the game. Again, we'd like to remind everyone that there are still three more contests left! A lot of Monsters this time just barely missed second place by votes, but there were also a lot of Monsters overall that we could have imagined to have in our game. Both times so far, it was a very difficult choice for us to make our Developers' Pick among so many creative Monster designs. Monster Designers can try again in our next contest that we will start some time around the Early Access release of the game (~late summer). Together with the winners from the first Community Contest, that makes 7 community Monsters so far that will be featured in our game. If you would like to see the winners of the second round, you can view them in our Discord channel, which is open for all: Join our Discord

May Progress Update

With our Backer Beta testing phase officially concluded, we were able to fully focus on new content again: New area: Snowy Peaks. This area is linked to the beginning area, Mountain Path. The player will be able to enter Snowy Peaks as soon as they have gotten the Double Jump boots from Blue Caves and a Monster with the flying exploration skill (Vaero, Frosty, etc.) - meaning it's not required to explore Ancient Woods or Stronghold Dungeon first. This area will feature two large mountains that the player will be able to scale, as well as many crystalline caverns within the mountains, and an icy lake that is surrounded by myths and rumors. There will be many vertical rooms with lots of challenging jumps.
Almost all of the rooms of Snowy Peaks have already been finished. The next test version of the game (Early Access test version) will feature two new areas: Snowy Peaks and another area that we will reveal in the future.
New Monsters: Ice Blob, Caraglow, Aurumtail
You may recognize Caraglow and Aurumtail from our first Community Monster contest: Caraglow was one of the winners by popularity vote, while Aurumtail was our Developers' pick. They are the first Community Monsters to be implemented into the game as new collectable Monsters. They will both be found in Snowy Peaks. Caraglow is a unique support Monster that can heal like no other Monster in the game, whereas Aurumtail will require you to build around its Mana-heavy skill kit to fully utilize him. Caraglow will be another Monster able to light up dark areas in the game, and Aurumtail will be the first Monster in the game that the player can mount to travel faster from one place to another.
Ice Blob will be one of the common frost-themed Monsters of Snowy Peaks. It is somewhat similar to its green cousin from Mountain Path, but it has adapted to the icy climates of Snowy Peaks: It has wind- and water-element attacks, with several Chill (Debuff) synergies, and it is a very tanky Shielder as well.
The minimap has been reworked. It now features icons for several important NPCs and places in the game (a highly requested feature), and it can now be scrolled - because the world just became too big to fit on the screen without scrolling. Adding new skills. Since we will be adding Tier 4 skills (Level 20+ required), we will need a lot of new Monster skills. Skill trees will also be bigger at Tier 4, meaning there will be more skills to choose from at Level 20. That's it for May's progress update! What do you think of the residents of Snowy Peaks (that have been revealed so far)? Are you excited to explore the upcoming areas of Monster Sanctuary? Let us know in the comments!

[ 2019-06-01 19:39:58 CET ] [ Original post ]

With E3 approaching and Hell Let Loose releasing on the 6th of June, its fair to say that Team17 has a very busy week ahead! In fact, next week well be unveiling not just one but TWO BRAND NEW GAME ANNOUNCEMENTS! Youre not going to want to miss these announcements, and we really cant wait to share the trailers with you. To ensure that youre the first to hear about these new games right here on Steam, make sure to follow the Team17 Publisher Page. In the meantime, you can find a couple of cryptic clues in the image above, and if you hop over to the Team17 Twitter account, make your predictions, follow and re-tweet then youll be entered into a prize draw to win a copy of these two games, and Hell Let Loose, upon release! Thanks for reading, and well see you next week!

[ 2019-05-31 08:06:41 CET ] [ Original post ]

Dear Steam Monster Keepers, here's our monthly Progress Update for April! Here's what's been happening with Monster Sanctuary in April.

Voting for the second Community Monster Contest has begun

As of writing, the submission period for the second Community Monster Contest has ended. Once again, an astonishing amount of amazing Monsters have been entered to the contest! We are excited to see which Monsters will win the voting process this time. As last time, we as the developers of the game will also pick one Monster as our Dev Pick Monster to feature in the game. From todayuntil the 8th of May, "Monster Designer" backers (50+) will be able to vote on which Monster they want to see in the game. We will reveal the winners shortly after. All of this is happening on our Discord server, which you may join by clicking on this link:Join us on Discord

April Progress Update

A lot of dev time this month went towards fixing the bugs and issues our Beta Testers found in the beta release. We released two Beta Patches with many bug fixes, some new content and some rebalancing - the patch notes can be found here: Beta Patch 0.3.1 and Beta Patch 0.3.2. These will probably be the last patches to the Beta for a long while - look forward to the next test version when we get closer to the Early Access release of the game in late summer. Here's a list of the things we've added to the game and the things we've changed:

• Added two new Monsters to the Beta: Raduga, a new Champion found in Ancient Woods, and Toxiquus, a new regular Monster in Stronghold Dungeon. As a Beta Backer, you may fight and conquer them now as well! Steam updates your Monster Sanctuary Beta automatically when you log on to Steam.
  
• Added a much-needed feature to the Beta: An options menu! Among other things, it includes volume settings, key bindings and a highly-requested feature: a combat speed option! You may set the speed of combat animations to 1.0x, 1.25x, 1.5x and even 2.0x. This feature will be highly useful for all future testing of the game and it has already quite accelerated our own test runs of the game.
  
• Enemy leveling system has been revamped (changes also live on Beta now):
• Previously, enemy Monsters levels were based on the number of Champions the player had already defeated. This meant that wild Monster levels suddenly rose after beating a certain number of Champions, which penalized players who went directly for Champions, but also made the game quite easy if players skipped optional Champions. Especially since we're planning to make the exploration of the game more open, it seemed unnatural to bind enemy Monster levels to Champions. For instance, players could potentially explore 90% of Ancient Woods without fighting the Goblin King, then go back to Stronghold Dungeon and fight against severely under-leveled enemies.
• Instead, enemy leveling is based on exploration now. Whenever the player enters a room with a new Monster encounter in it, the enemy level is slightly raised. At certain thresholds, the enemy Monster levels rises one by one. A particular change with this new system is that wild Monsters will now stay at the level that they were originally encountered at (for instance, it'll be easy to farm Mountain Path Monsters for eggs now). Certain enemy encounters and areas will still have a minimum level.
  
• Lots of balance changes and bug fixes. You may find a complete list of them in the patch notes linked above (and found here on the Steam boards).

[ 2019-05-01 19:37:18 CET ] [ Original post ]

Dear Monster Keepers, this is the second patch for the beta and includes a bit more changes this time.
Two new Monsters added - Raduga, new Champion east most of Ancient Woods (a new room was added for him) - Toxiquus, encountered in southern parts of Stronghold Dungeon Also, monster distribution in Stronghold Dungeon and Ancient Woods was adjusted a bit
Options Menu added to the game Includes Combat Animations Speed, Volume settings, Key Bindings for keyboard and Resolution settings. The game launcher dialogue got removed now. Enemy encounter levels changed Enemy levels are no longer raised when the Keeper rank increases, instead, after the first area (Mountain Path) the enemy encounter level increases based on how many rooms with monster encounters were discovered. This gives a smoother progress instead of the previous difficulty spikes, independent of which areas the player explores first. Also this way the player isn't incentivized to avoid Champion encounters. If loading an old savegame, the enemy levels will automatically adjust in the order the areas were explored in that savegame. Combat ranking adjustments The "Overkill Damage" rating in combat was renamed to "Overkill" and is now also increased by 1% for every buff one of the player monsters have at the end of combat, by 1% for every debuff an enemy had when killed and by 3% for every poison or burn dot damage that was triggered on them. This should make compositions that rely on dot damage be a bit more competitive now in regard to getting a good score. Keeper Lancer rank It is possible to reach the 'Keeper Lancer' rank now, which enables to buy a couple of +3 Equipment at the shop (Helmet/Wizard Hat/Impact Ring) New Equipment Added a new equipment 'Sun Pendant' (dropped by Raduga) that applies a shield to the wielder whenever receiving a buff Balancing Changes

• 'Lifesteal' reduced to 15% from 20%
• 'Bite' lifesteal part reduced to (100 + 50% attack) from (100 + 100% attack)
• 'Mad Eye' base mana stat reduced to 4 from 6
• Druid Oak's 'Shielding Leaves' replaced with 'Soul Beam'
• 'Crit Damage Plus' skill node now increases critical damage by 20% instead of 15%
• 'Berry' and 'Grapes' now increase critical damage by 5%/7% instead of 4%/5%
• 'Flashfreeze' damage reduced to 75% from 100%
• 'Antipode' damage reduced to 125% from 150%
• 'Katana' critical damage part increased to 15%(+2% per upgrade) from 10%(+1% per upgrade)

Bugfixes

• Fixed an issue that sometimes you weren't able to navigate between the teleporters in the map menu
• When evolving a monster that is following the player, it no longer stays in that form following the player
• Player can no longer become stuck in the goblin structure that leads to the northern parts with the Goblin King
• You can no longer place rocky/mushroom obstacles inside enemies to trap them
• Fixed Glowfly not being able to increase mana base stat above 10 (savegames that gained skillpoints this way will have the skills of glowfly resetted)

This is the last patch planned for the beta and we will focus on the new content for the planned Early Access launch in august. People still wanting to get onto the beta train can do so in our Paypal shop.

[ 2019-04-24 16:30:43 CET ] [ Original post ]

Balancing changes: - Wild enemy monster's health scaling lowered a bit, especially the difficulty jump at level 10 shouldn't be as drastic now - Enemy levels of the western part of blue caves reduced to 9 from 10. Specter's level reduced to 10 from 11. - Frosty grant more 'Difficulty' score points now when fighting against them - Fixed wild frosty being able to cast Ice storm even when below level 10 - Slightly increased the exp gained from enemies Bugfixes: - Fixed Monster Journal not being available when loading a demo save that completed the blue caves - Fixed Camera being misplaced rarely in combat - Fixed possibility to repeatedly evolve the same monster - Fixed visual glitches occurring when casting Shield - Fixed player able to land inside or on top of walls when using a vertical room transition - Fixed bug when switching between actions while having buff info view open - Fixed not being able to do the second jump while using monster flying ability - Fixed not receiving exp rewards for all 6 enemies in keeper battles (you only got those for the last 3) - Multi Barrier description fixed - It is no longer possible to summon rock obstacle on spikes (and skip to Keeper's Stronghold early in the game with Crystal Shards) - Fixed following monster possible to get stuck inside the ground in the magic barrier puzzle room in Ancient Woods - Fixed Level 20 Badge icon - Fixed possibility to display lore of hidden Monster Journal entries when changing page - Fixed inability to load a savegame when the first three save slots are empty - Fixed possibility to place the rock or mushroom inside enemies to prevent them from moving - Fixed Restore lvl 3 not removing two debuffs - Some text/typo fixes We are eager to get your feedback, especially on the current difficulty of the game. After some first feedback, the enemy health scaling was slightly reduced. Also western Blue Caves are now more accessible at around lvl 9. Its best to post it to our discord into the #feedback subchannel. There is another bigger patch planned to be released in 2-3 weeks that will include a new Monster, a new Champion, probably the options menu and some more smaller changes/bugfixes.

[ 2019-04-04 19:06:44 CET ] [ Original post ]

Dear Monster Keepers, the Backer Beta for Monster Sanctuary is now live. If you're a 25+ backer, you will be sent an Email with a Steam Beta key to the Email address associated with your Kickstarter/Paypal account very soon. Please check your spam folder if the Email doesn't arrive soon. If you wish to participate in the Beta, you can still become a late Backer on our Paypal shop. The new areas added in the Beta are balanced for Lvl 10-12 Monsters. You may continue your save files from previous demo versions of the game, but if your Monsters are higher than Lvl 12, the new content will be very easy for you. We recommend starting a new save file to experience the modified starting areas.

New Content

We added following new content to the Beta:

• New story content that takes you through the Stronghold Dungeon & the Ancient Woods to uncover a terrible plot that threatens the Monster Sanctuary. The story content features three Keeper Battles and two new Champion Monsters. The new areas are larger than previous areas and offer a lot of optional rooms to discover + you may complete the new areas in any order you wish. The new areas are east of the Keepers' Stronghold.
• Thirteen new Monsters
• New area: Stronghold Dungeon
  
• New area: Ancient Woods
  
• New feature: Keeper Battles
• New feature: Monster Journal
• New feature: Monster Evolution (2 evolutions have been added to the game)
  
• New feature: Monster Renaming
• Monster explore abilities have been reworked
  
• Old areas have been modified with some new rooms

Patch Notes

• Fungi mana base stat increased to 7 (from 5)
• Multi Poison additional stacks only have half effect
• Grummy mana base stat increased to 7 (from 6)
• Grummy now has "Purify" passive instead of Defense+
• Blob now has "Magic Proc" passive instead of Magic+
• Steam Golem now has "Tackle" attack instead of "Heavy Punch"
• "Improved Regeneration" now gives +10% healing to Regeneration buff (from +5% increased)
• All shielding actions now have a base value but reduced defense scaling
• All healing actions now have a base value but reduced magic scaling
• Health scaling for monsters modified (difference between low base health stats and high base health stats decreased)
• The amount by which mana is increased per level was raised slightly
• Defense - damage reduction scaling formula reduced
• Defense values of many accessories slightly reduced
• Critical Chance and Critical Damage values of equipment increased
• Some of the other equipment values and some skill values were modified
• Infinity Arena is available at 'Keeper Seeker' rank now and enemy monsters start at lvl 15
• Infinity Arena stacks damage boost increased to 30%.
• Infinity Arena rewards changed
• Reward Box Lvl1 contents changed, reduced amount of possible common equipment/egg drops
• Player jump physics are now a bit faster / less floaty
• Drop chances for rare rewards slightly increased and there is now a 33% chance to receive two rare rewards instead of one.
• Resurrected Monsters no longer get to act within the turn they were revived

[ 2019-03-29 15:38:26 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey Monster Keepers, Were Team17 and were very excited to announce our partnership with Moi Rai Games on Monster Sanctuary. To celebrate the new partnership weve released a trailer that you can watch below: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JRopvZW6Cr4

A couple of things!

Firstly wed like to say that we think Monster Sanctuary is awesome, its great to see such a passionate community already forming around the game. Secondly, wed like to reassure you that were not here to take over the development of the game or anything like that. Team17 is here to work alongside Moi Rai Games and the community to further enhance the Monster Sanctuary experience. That pretty much wraps up todays news! Were incredibly excited to be here and look forward to chatting with you all as we join in on Monster Sanctuarys epic adventure. Now, we must dash, theres a debate raging in the office about which spectral familiar is the best and why

[ 2019-03-26 14:08:25 CET ] [ Original post ]

Dear Steam Monster Keepers, here's our monthly Progress Update for February. Apart from our game development progress, we also have two special announcements to make.

110k Stretch Goal Reached!

We've been pleased to see that beyond our Kickstarter campaign, there has been a steady flow of late backers pledging through our Paypal Store! That means that the game will feature the choice between a female and a male main character as well as character customization. We will present the exact details of those features in a future update.

1st Round of Community Monster Winners

The Monster Designer backers have voted and the first Community Monster Contest has concluded.

• 1st place: Skorch by Pixelbit!
• 2nd/3rd place: A two-way tie for Caraglow by Azaliate and Aazerach by Aurora - meaning that both of them will make it into the game!
• And our Developers' Pick: For design and an outstanding amount of effort, Aurumtail by Penumbra! We like some of the new skill ideas, and we have decided to include mountable Monsters in the game. This means Aurumtail will be one of several Monsters that you will be able to ride to move faster from one area to another - so Aurumtail fit into our overall design for the game as well.

To all other Monster Designers, we hope that you don't feel discouraged! Keep in mind that this is the first of five contests, so if your design hasn't made it in yet, we encourage you to keep trying. And the next contest is just on the horizon: We plan to start the second submission period shortly after our beta launch! Remember that this is only the first of five contests with 3 winners each.

February Progress Update

Onto the regular part of our Progress Update:

• New area: Stronghold Dungeon. This area can be entered through the Keeper's Stronghold once the player has reached the Keeper Novice rank and has progressed the story far enough. It's connected to the Ancient Woods and there's a path leading back to the Blue Caves. The entirety of the Stronghold Dungeon will feature a dynamic lighting effect with some darker areas.

• New Monsters: Glowfly, Crackle Knight, Mad Eye, Nightwing

• We have reconsidered our original stance on traditional evolution and we have decided to feature an evolution mechanic in the game. In the beta, two of the Monsters from the demo version will be able to evolve into a different form - one of them being Magmapillar. However, the evolved form of a Monster isn't supposed to be strictly better than their first form. The evolved form usually features very different skill trees and higher stats overall, but it might have some of its stats decreased on evolution.

• Most of the mapping has been concluded for the two new areas for beta (Ancient Woods and Stronghold Dungeon).

• Many of the exploration skills in the game have been revamped or changed and new types of obstacles have been added. Some of the older areas have been changed. Blue Caves have received some new rooms.

• The new areas and rooms also feature dark rooms, which have to be illuminated by using certain Monsters.

That's it for this month's Progress Update! As we're closing in on our planned release schedule for the backer beta (late March), we hope that our backers will be enjoying all the new content we have in store for them. Also, we've got another big announcement coming end of march, stay tuned! If you would like to back our project, you can still do so (even though the Kickstarter is over). Back with Paypal here: Paypal Shop. Please note that the upcoming beta for Monster Sanctuary will only be available to people who have backed the game at the 25 tier or higher. The first "public" version will be the Early Access version which is planned to be released in late summer. Also, feel free to join our Discord server if you haven't done that already. That's where we share all of our updates first usually, and you can give us feedback and suggestions there.

[ 2019-02-28 21:46:30 CET ] [ Original post ]

Dear Steam Monster Keepers, sorry for neglecting to post our Kickstarter updates to the Steam channel. From now on we will post all relevant updates on Steam as well. And that's why we decided to retroactively post our December & January Progress Updates here.

December Progress Update

These are the things we've been working on in December:

• New Monsters with new skills: Goblin Brute, Goblin Archer, Goblin Warlock & more

• New Area: Ancient Woods

• Modified jump physics (faster jumps, less floaty) for better jump challenges

• Monster Journal texts (all texts for the 18 Demo Monsters + Goblins have been written)

• Changed the Keeper's Tower part of the Keeper's Stronghold visually

January Progress Update

This is what we've been working on for January:

• Keeper Duels against NPCs. As you progress through the Monster Sanctuary, you will encounter many enemy Monster Keepers to challenge - most of these will be optional challenges, but there will be a number of Keeper Duels you have to win to progress in the story of the game. The rules of these Keeper Duels will be similar to the official PVP battle rules which will be implemented later: Both Monster Keepers use their whole team of six Monsters to fight. After one of their active three Monsters gets knocked out, they may switch in one of their other Monsters.

• New Monsters: Magmamoth, Druid Oak, Molebear

• Added ingame Monster Journal with Monster texts, where you will be able to view all the Monsters that you encounter in the game.

• Updated the Ancient Woods area visually (as well as added many new rooms to it).

Backer Beta draws closer

Also, we'd like to give you an overall update on the status of the upcoming Backer Beta for 25+ backers. We plan to include two new areas for this beta: Ancients Woods and Stronghold Dungeon. A large portion of Ancient Woods (as well as new game features) has been finished so far; still, it will take until the second half of March for us to finish work on both areas. Expect to see the Backer Beta released during that time. We look forward to being able to give you our next big game update then! If you would like to back our project, you can still do so (even though the Kickstarter is over). Back with Paypal here: Paypal Shop The next big version after Backer Beta will be the Early Access version on Steam, which is planned to cost 15 (same as on full game release). Early Access is planned to release in August this year. For more updates on the game, follow our Twitter account: @moi_rai_

[ 2019-02-08 07:35:35 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey all, Now that the Kickstarter is over, I'm happy to focus on the game again. I've fixed quite some bugs that were reported in the current demo version and released a 0.2.8 version of the demo: - Fixed message that the area east of Keeper's Stronghold isn't available not showing up once you reached the second keeper rank - Fixed player being able to fall through the bridge - Fixed player able to get to blue cave early with vaero on low framerate - Fixed being able to re-trigger part of the intro / make first blob encounter reappear by pressing escape - In Infinity Arena enemy regeneration effects are reduced now - Fixed graphical bugs with shield skill - Fixed double impact not working on physica/magical weakness - Fixed possibility to trigger an empty combat when going into a different scren and trigger a combat on the same frame - Fixed mana bar going into negative when attacking a monster with snow skin - Fixed player able to fall through ground in the Minitaur champion room - Fixed player able to lift in sky indefinitely after switch away a flying monster - When shielding for 0, the number is displayed as 0 instead of 'miss' - Fixed the possiblity to not be able to sell some items when low on money - When donating a monster to the monster army, the player will keep the monsters equipment - Removed Kickstarter link from the main menu - Improved monster army visuals and added page functionality, so the UI doesn't break when the player donates too many monsters
Also this is the first demo version that is also available for Mac OS! This will be most likely the last update on the demo since I'll focus on the beta content for now. Beta will be available to our Kickstarter backers in febraruy/march next year. We are still accepting late backers till then through paypal

[ 2018-11-27 17:23:25 CET ] [ Original post ]

We reached the 100.000 on Kickstarter - the game will have multiplayer PvP batlles and still 10 hours to go! We added another stretch goal for something that got requested A LOT - Character customization! Kickstarter

[ 2018-11-22 12:45:44 CET ] [ Original post ]

Small update with a couple of bugfixes: - Fixed "Hunt" skill making critical hits not to happen any more - Reduced the intensity of screen flashes for lightning attacks - Fixed a couple of tilemap bugs - Flash Freeze description doesn't wrongly state its an Aura any more - When an attack hit misses, it doesn't trigger any effects any more - Submenu to select a attack action's level now displays the element icons properly - A couple of typos/text fixes Also, after repeated request, this is the first demo version that is also available for Linux!

[ 2018-10-29 19:14:24 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey all, Just released the v2 demo version of the game!
- You can select one of the 4 start monsters now - Monster can use abilities while exploring to acces new areas - There are a couple of new monsters you can enounter - Blue cave area was extended and contains another Champion monster now - There is quite some +2 equipment available now - Some of the existing monster's Skill Trees were adjusted - Health bar now shows additional information - Shield is now capped to the monsters max health - Every monster has a resistance now - Start combat screen now focuses on monster weaknesses/resistances - Heal skill now preview the amount that would be healed - Enemy heal and shielding skills are now stronger - Experience and gold gained from enemies was balanced down a little - Merchant in Keeper's Stronghold sells better equipment - High jump boots were changed to Double jump boots - More small changes

Kickstarter Launch

Alongside the release of the v2 demo version, I also launch the Kickstarter for the game. For the last three years I've been developing the game in my free time and I recently made the frightening step to quit my current job and start developing he game full time! I'm happy for any Support: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1286599243/monster-sanctuary-monster-taming-metroidvania Besides directly supporting me on Kickstarter you can greatly help me making this project a reality by spreading the word. Contact reviewers/youtubers/streamers or friends/communities you think might be interested in this kind of game and let them know about the Kickstarter and the new demo version! Thanks for your help!

[ 2018-10-23 11:40:58 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey all, I've worked hard in the last months on bringing a second improved demo version. Currently it is being tested on our discord channel and I'm fixing the last bugs. While all of it is getting polished, I wanted to post a preview of the changes for the upcoming version.

Selecting your starter monster

It will be possible to select any of the four spectral familiars as your starting monster. Spectral Wolf, Spectral Eagle, Spectral Toad, Spectral Lion

Monster Abilities

You will be able to switch which monster is following you. Also you will be able to use different monster abilities to get rid of obstacles or help you explore.

New Monsters

Besides the three other familiars, there were a couple of other new monsters added to the game.

Extended Blue Cave Area

The Blue Cave area was extended and includes one additional Champion monster

Minor Changes

- There is quite some +2 equipment available now - Some of the existing monster's Skill Trees were adjusted - Health bar now shows additional information - Shield is now capped to the monsters max health - Every monster has a resistance now - Start combat screen now focuses on monster weaknesses/resistances - Heal skill now preview the amount that would be healed - Enemy heal and shielding skills are now stronger - Experience and gold gained from enemies was balanced down a little - Merchant in Keeper's Stronghold sells better equipment - High jump boots were changed to Double jump boots - More small changes

Participate in testing

If you don't want to wait for the official release of the second demo version on steam you can participate in testing on our discord channel

Upcoming Kickstarter

While finishing up the second demo version, I'm also preparing the Kickstarter page that is supposed to go live later this month. Stay tuned!

[ 2018-09-12 20:40:04 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello Community, first and foremost, I want to thank all of you for the positive feedback and the many suggestions I've received since releasing this first demo version! Today i uploaded 0.1.1 version of the demo that fixes some bugs: - Fixed game staying black for some players - Fixed game screen shaking on certain resolutions - Fixed issue where you could get stuck inside ground - Fixed issues with rope bridge (fall through when spending skill points or save/load) - Fixed a bug where map exploration state remained between switching savegames - Fixed dead monsters receiving shield - Fixed poison stack count not being displayed properly against Champions - Fixed skill tree connections flickering sometimes - Jump height doesn't decrease any more on low frame rate - Fixed some typos - Enter and Backspace keys can be used now on keyboard instead of Space and Escape. Thank you and enjoy!

[ 2018-06-09 19:26:47 CET ] [ Original post ]