Desktop Dungeons Is All Growed Up

One of the best games of last year, the 10-minute puzzle-RPG Desktop Dungeons, is getting ready to dress up in daddy's clothes. It began life as a freeware indie gem, but now devs QCF quite understandably want to make some money from their creation (unfortunately, someone else already did). They're taking preorders for the new, improved, embiggened, super-flash 'full' version. Why would you want to pay for something that's already free? Let's read!

Or, in my case, "let's copy and paste from their website":

No more getting stuck. That’s right. Changes to the random generation code mean that you’re far less likely to be hemmed in by high level monsters right off the bat. Yes, you might still play your way into a dead end, but the game’s a lot fairer now. At first.
Re-balanced glyphs. No more instant conversions of WEYTWUT or IMAWAL… Wait till you see what we’ve done with PISORF, you’ll love it.

Gods are, well, still gods. Some of the gods needed attention, although probably not in many of the ways you’d all expect. We’ve re-balanced god boons and are working to make them more fun to mess with. They’re still just as fickle though.

Unlock via the Kingdom, use via the Inventory! You get to grow your Kingdom the way you want to: Really enjoy the Fighter classes? Upgrade your Adventurers Guild, buy Really Big Swords™ from the Blacksmith, convert them when they’re old and worn out! Oh right, the Inventory lets you convert items now. It’s the only way to get enough space to… Wait. That would be telling.

SO. MUCH. CONTENT. Sub-dungeons filled with mystery and dangerous scripted sequences! Quests that send you to far off lands! New dungeon types to explore! New monsters to get killed by! There isn’t nearly enough emphasis on how much new stuff there is… MORE EMPHASIS ON NEW STUFF!

Oh. And the game looks better, sounds better and is generally just more awesome. Of course, you already knew that part, right?

So you can preorder now - $10 for the standard edition, $20 for a special edition with an extra class, quests and buildings.

You may not wish to do this entirely on spec, so with that in mind the devs will be launching a limited demo this week - but it'll only be available for the duration of E3. So check the site tomorrow and download feverishly.

In the meantime, QCF have also updated the freeware game, with various tweaks, a new dungeon type and most importantly a new class. You should definitely, definitely play it, because it's ace.