Hello dear adventurers! Today we're excited to share more news about the state of the game with y'all, starting with... a potential release date! The game has been in a state of closed beta for quite a while now, thanks to the amazing new Playtest feature from Steam, and we're starting to see the finish line. There's still a lot of work left to do, but we want to set ourselves the objective to release by... ... mid-September! I know I know, it's not a real precise release date, but better than nothing right We also want to take this opportunity to tell you more about the economic model of the game, and how we envision things for the future. Tomb Rumble is a massively multiplayer game in real-time, therefore, its gameplay loop necessitates quite a high number of concurrent players to be interesting and challenging. In order to reach this number, we could not gatekeep the game behind a price tag, meaning we had to make it free. Nonetheless, we are real humans, with real human needs (and pet needs too! I have a kitty!), so we needed to find an ethical way to monetize the game. We have past experience with cosmetic microtransactions, but for Tomb Rumble we want to try a new approach, in the form of Steam DLCs. As you probably already know, you can choose between different Maledictions before starting a round of adventure, that triggers when you die during a map.
We want to give access to a large base set of Maledictions by default in the game, and let you choose to buy additional Maledictions through DLCs. By purchasing a Malediction, you will unlock the ability to play the Malediction itself, as well as a range of different cosmetic items related to this Malediction (clothes, titles, furniture) The first two Malediction DLCs will be the Sorcerer and the Vampire! They are not more powerful than the other Maledictions, but will give you a different twist in playing.
We will also put more housing options in a special DLC: by default, you are able to customize a small flat that displays in the Museum map, but with the Housing DLC, you will be able to purchase a whole house that will display next to the Museum!
Last but not least, we want to address a recurring question: YES, the current stats that you gathered during Playtests WILL be deleted upon launch. But! We will be awarding each participant to the Playtests a unique Playtester title to display in your profile! We hope you will enjoy all the last new additions we're working on, and we will see you soon for the launch! Meanwhile, see you tonight for the usual Playtest!