"A delayed game is eventually good, but a rushed game is forever bad"
over 2 years ago – Tue, Oct 12, 2021 at 12:57:41 AM

Greetings, traveler!

Tom and Khang here, and as you might have already guessed from the title... we have some news to share with you today:

After some busy months, lots of discussions within our team as well as a consultation with our community mods we have decided with a heavy heart, to officially delay the launch of Dungeon Full Dive as well as its beta. 

This decision was not taken easily by us and we have thought about it for a long time. However, we truly believe that this is the best decision not only for our employees -who have done an unbelievable job in the last months- but also the best decision for the game. 

When we started with this project, it was just Tom and me, and our developer friends who wanted to help us realize our dream project. We simply wanted to create a game that we always have dreamt of as GM's ourselves. But when we launched this Kickstarter campaign, we received SOO MUCH positive feedback, that we were allowed to dream bigger and to develop a game for thousands of tabletop fans around the world. But this also meant that we needed more people... and more time to realize this bigger, shared dream of us all. 

So we did all we could: we expanded the team and we worked day and night to create the best possible version of DFD.  However, during the last couple of weeks, it has become clear to us, that we sadly will not be able to follow the original schedule if we want to deliver a polished game, that we -as part of the community- can be proud of. 

For now, the release date of Dungeon Full Dive and the beta will be pushed back by quite some time.  We will update you as soon as possible on the new release date of DFD. But we want to wait with the announcement until we are certain that we can meet the new deadline, to prevent further confusion within the community. 

We sincerely apologize for this delay and we will do our best to uphold the new deadline and to develop Dungeon Full Dive into the game that you are all longing for. 

We can't stress enough how thankful we are for the amazing support that you guys have given us.  So nevertheless we will keep our promise of the gameplay session of DFD! We are planning a  live event, that will be taking place on the 30th of October 2021. There, you will be able to watch unedited gameplay together with us, as well as interact with the game developers via chat.  We will also start to collect your questions and feedback prior to the event, so that everyone has the chance to raise their voice. If you want to chime in with feedback or questions of your own, feel free to do so here.

So thank you all again for your support and understanding. We look forward to talking to you on October 30th and show some exciting gameplay to you. 

And as always,

We are truly looking forward to seeing you inside DFD!

~Tom and Khang

Community Update #4: TxK Gaming: Meet the Team!
over 2 years ago – Fri, Sep 24, 2021 at 09:29:34 AM

Hello everybody!

Today, we are back with another community update and today

... we are finally introducing our team: The TxK Gaming Family! 

Starting off with…

The Developers

Khang and Tom are the founders of TxK Gaming and the ones with the original idea for Dungeon Full Dive. They are both certified software engineers in their early 20s, who have gained real work experience leading and coordinating projects prior to the Kickstarter project.

They are both avid gamers, pen and paper nerds and VR connoisseurs. 

Developing the game alongside Khang and Tom is Jonas, who has been programming for over a decade now, developing real-time strategy and action indie games for about half that time. Although Jonas doesn't play as many games as he used to anymore, the ones he does find the time to play he is very passionate about. He fully commits himself to mastering them – difficulty is no compromise. In terms of Tabletop games, he has been an active dungeon master in a homebrew universe for 2 years. Outside of gaming, he likes to compose, record, and produce music. Occasionally, he'll posts them on his soundcloud.

The Artists

The art team, consisting of Tim, Lina, and Sofia, are the ones making Dungeon Full Dive look as good as it does, creating immersive sceneries, such as the tavern and pirate ship. With the right program, creativity and just a liiiittle touch of magic, they are the ones bringing your fantastic worlds, monsters, and characters to life.

So, who are the they?

 Tim is the Swiss guy of the bunch. He used to be in graphic design but chose to get a degree in Game Art & Animation because - let's be real - that's just way more fun. After an internship back in Switzerland he now started his new adventure in Cologne.

Lina holds a degree in 3D Animation & Visual Effects, loves to dive into fantastic worlds and is a passionate Pen and Paper player. 

Sofia is currently studying Media Design and is just about to graduate from Hanover University of Applied Sciences and Arts. She is a horror, music, video game lover and 80s fanatic who likes to game with friends, play guitar and roam the night to explore the local alternative scene.

And last but not least…

That one marketing intern

 Benjamin is the newest addition to our team and is probably the one talking to you all, as he is involved in all things media, community, and press. He loves competitive video games and most importantly, he is way better at video games than Khang. [Edit: "This is not true" ~Khang].

Partners and Co-Developers

Of course, we also shan’t forget about our trusted partners and co-developers, who are working alongside us, aiding and advising us on our way to creating Dungeon Full Dive, the two german game studios: Spellfusion and Alpha Blend Interactive. So feel free to check them out, as well!

Anyway, that wraps up our community update for this month and if you want to read more about our team, about TxK Gaming in general, or Dungeon Full Dive, check out our website, including our new team page here!

And as always,

We are looking forward to seeing you inside DFD!

- Your TxK Gaming Team

P.S. If you haven’t already, feel free to fill out your Backerkit reward survey to claim your Discord role! If you are unable to find your reward survey & want to request a new reward e-mail or if you want to preorder DFD you can do so here: https://dfd.backerkit.com/

From cozy Taverns to the frosty Sea
over 2 years ago – Wed, Sep 01, 2021 at 02:43:41 PM

Welcome back, traveler!

 Another month has passed and we are back again with a new development update.

This month we have been working on a myriad of things, and there is still a ton of stuff going on behind the scenes, which unfortunately also means, that this month’s development update will be a bit shorter than usual. In turn, we will host a full, uncut gameplay session next month, where you will be able to see Dungeon Full Dive uncut and unedited for the first time, so stay tuned for that!

So what exactly have we been working on?

First and foremost, we are happy to announce that we finally have a new website. There you will be able to find all future updates and new content regarding Dungeon Full Dive, as well as a ton of information on TxK Gaming Studios as a company. Check it out now, at txkgaming.com!

Our entire team has been working around the clock in order to create a game that we, as a part of this community, can be proud of.

The art team is working hard to create a multitude of sceneries, all with a different flow and feel to them. For instance, there have been some additions to the small, cozy tavern, that you all know already:

There also is a pirate ship, sailing through the furious, frothy waves of a stormy sea:

Meanwhile, our development team has been also working on a lot of things, including: the multiplayer, voice chat, the dice, music, the inventory system, character sheets, notebooks and a bunch of other stuff! It's a whole lot to unpack but we will make sure to go into detail about these topics in our gameplay session next month!

As mentioned at the beginning, there is a lot of stuff going on behind the scenes right now, so we have to keep this development update a bit shorter than usual. But stay tuned for future updates, feel free check out our website, subscribe to our newsletter, and make sure that you are following us on social media, so you will never miss a thing!

And as always,

We are looking forward to seeing you inside DFD soon!

- Your TxK Gaming Team

P.S. If you haven’t already, feel free to fill out your Backerkit reward survey to claim your Discord role! If you are unable to find your reward survey & want to request a new reward e-mail or if you want to preorder DFD you can do so here: https://dfd.backerkit.com/

Monthly Development Update #2: Artists vs. Developers
almost 3 years ago – Thu, Jul 29, 2021 at 05:25:12 AM

Welcome back, traveler! 

It is time for our monthly developer blog update. So let's dig into it straight away:

This month's development insight will be about... art?!

Artists vs Developers

While our monthly insight posts are called "Development Update", the team behind Dungeon Full Dive consists not only of us the developers... but also of our awesome artists. Needless to say, our artists are fundamental to the development of Dungeon Full Dive: 

Everything you see and everything you interact with in DFD, you can be sure that our artists had their fair share of work to make it look & feel just right. So to not take away any of their credit, this blog post will be an insight into the art of DFD!

Stylized vs. Realistic

When we dive into our tabletop adventures, there is never just one mood or one atmosphere that we want to portray. Our adventures can range from cozy taverns to frightening dungeons and mystical forests. The general mood of the party can easily change from one environment to the other. Some environments are dark and scary others should be bright and colorful. So while conceptioning the visuals for DFD we are trying our best to adapt this flexibility into our art style. 

At the core, DFD is a stylized fantasy game as a stylized art style enables us to achieve high performance without sacrificing too many visual details. However, by bringing in some realistic elements like reflective metal, rough leather, or shiny glass (so-called "physics-based rendering"), we are able to give the game a touch of realism and bring the visuals to the next level. While we are still tweaking things here and there, we are slowly getting a more and more precise picture of DFD's final visual art style. 

So how does this look like in action? Let's take a sneak peek at one of our environments, that is in progress: The tavern of adventurers!

Concept

To start out we collected all the requirements that we had for this tavern: How should the tavern look like? How many rooms do we want to have? What objects should be part of the tavern? Which objects can be interacted with? 

Using this as a guideline we drafted the first concept model for the tavern: 

 Modeling, Level design & Iterating 

Based on this first concept model we did various testing, redesigning, and iteratively added to the model until we were happy with the overall architecture of the tavern. Some (design) elements we created at the beginning didn't feel right when playing or even felt confusing. Other elements were surprisingly fun to explore and we expanded on them.   

Interior design

After the tavern architecture was set, it was time to fill the tavern with life! For the interior design, we started with some basic props and interactables to make the tavern come alive. 

Texturize & next steps

Finally, one of the last steps on the to-do list was to texturize all the assets and to adjust the environment lighting. 

Now we are working on tweaking the last bits and we plan to add some awesome magic items, to give the environment the last magical touch (stay tuned for this!). Once that is finished, the tavern is good to go for the first real playtesting... exciting!

Alright, that is enough text for this update. We hope that you enjoyed this developer insight post and that you now know more about DFD and what it takes our artists,  to make DFD look just as magical as the fantasy worlds, that we want to play in. We are eager to check back with you next month, to share more insight and progress with you. So stay tuned!

Also, if you want to exchange with your fellow DFD fans, feel free to join the Discord here or check out our other social media (Twitter, Instagram). We plan to post some sneak peeks on them starting mid of August ;)

And as always

We are looking forward to seeing you inside DFD soon!

~Tom and Khang

P.S. If you haven't already, feel free to fill out your Backerkit reward survey! If you are unable to find your reward survey & want to request a new reward e-mail or if you want to preorder DFD you can do so here: https://dfd.backerkit.com/ 

Monthly Development Update #1: Multiplayer & Miniature Control
almost 3 years ago – Tue, Jun 29, 2021 at 04:20:19 AM

Hello everyone!

It has been 4 weeks since the end of our awesome Kickstarter campaign and we are so happy today to share the first Dev Blog Insight with you ! So without further ado: Let's get into it!

How to create a Foundation for awesome Content

When we started the Kickstarter, we had a playable single-player Alpha with most of the basic core functionalities already in place. Of course, some functionalities were not implemented yet (for example the graphical user interface) or just roughly implemented.

But now, that we have received such amazing support from you - our community - we can develop DFD to its fullest potential! That's why we are designing DFD to be something that can be built upon and extended with a TON of awesome content, even after release! So we want to make extra sure, that the foundation of everything and the core mechanics are perfect.

That means that we are redesigning and rewriting some of our old code, to make sure that DFDs foundation meets our high standards and requirements. Be assured, we are working hard to finish this up as fast as possible, but please be patient if we might need some extra time in the beginning. Having said that, we are sooo excited to share now with you some insight into our Multiplayer progress, as well as the miniature controls!

Multiplayer

One of the most fun parts about playing tabletop is the ability to play together with our friends. So it is only natural that this was one of the first things we wanted to tackle! 

Having said that, there are many different approaches to multiplayer, that we all had to consider when designing DFD. Apart from decisions on software, servers, and tools to use, there are also conceptual questions, like do we support only Peer-to-Peer or maybe add a dedicated server architecture?

We are still debating some of those points and of course, we are also eagerly awaiting your feedback during the Beta (planned for this fall, so you still have to be patient ;)). 

Luckily, we have are also very proud to announce that we are receiving some support from the already experienced, also german developer team @ Alpha Blend Interactive. They are the creators of ChilloutVR, a social VR & Desktop solution with a ton of amazing features. These guys are awesome, so feel free to check out their game here!

Together with them we have already made great progress since the Kickstarter and are happy to share it here with you.

So how does one just "make" Multiplayer? 

Just like game development itself, it's not a simple task. The trick is to start with small steps and build up from there. So we think that starting and experimenting with a simple prototype is the best way to go. 

This prototype can be as simple as the following game scene: 

Based on this first Prototype you can test different variations and implement more features until you get the complete character movements implemented:

From there it was a lot of improving, fixing, and optimizing to get the feeling just right. After that was completed we went to stage 3: Trying out our multiplayer inside an actual game environment: 

 As you can see we already had tons of fun goofing around inside DFD with the Multiplayer basics in place. Of course, we are still tweaking stuff here and there before we can say that we are completely satisfied but it's definitely a good foundation for even more fun interactions in the future. 

Miniature Control

One of the most unique features in DFD is the ability to swap into your miniature, but how exactly does this work?

One general topic was the overall scaling of the miniatures: How tall is a miniature in real life? How tall does it need to be inside DFD? We tried different sizes back then and found gameplay the most enjoyable with the current 1:20 ratio. 

As for the actual controls, the swap is triggered by pressing a button. This feature was already implemented for our game (as you could saw in the Kickstarter Alpha Gameplay). But now, after we exchanged with you - the community- a lot of you asked about the ability to swap not only into one miniature but also for the GM to be able to swap into multiple, different miniatures.  Therefore we put some thought into this and we came up with a cool solution, that we implemented right away. So that you can now not only control one mini but swap in between multiple of them. 

Phew, if you are still with us after this wall of text ;)

We are happy if you enjoyed reading our DEV blog. And thank you all again for making this possible, thanks to YOU we are able to create DFD. Creating such an awesome game would simply not be possible without you! Your support is what makes DFD better every day.

So as there is not much space left for us to finish this blog post, we will wrap it up for now:

Stay tuned for the DEV blog next month, so that we can share all the other awesome features with you, that we are currently silently working on in the background.

And as always

We are looking forward to seeing you inside DFD soon!

~Tom and Khang

P.S. If you haven't already, feel free to fill out your Backerkit reward survey to claim your Discord role! If you are unable to find your reward survey & want to request a new reward e-mail or if you want to preorder DFD you can do so here: https://dfd.backerkit.com/