- Devlog 102 - 24 August 2026
I've been working diligently these last few weeks on companions (after being sent out in the field again), and I've nearly ready to get a new update out, but it will probably happen later this week (maybe Friday). I've mainly been working on tactics and companion interactions.Different fighting styles!Companions can now fight in the same ways you can, with ranged attacks, thrown attacks, and melee attacks. The drawback is you have to upkeep companions. You want an extra gun in the fight? You have to supply that gun with ammunition, and food and tonics too.Every companion will have their own unique traits, and I'm also working on a new quest system for them (after the next update). Each one will have a certain amount of experience gained with them to unlock the quest, and it will weave into their character's story. The side benefit is that it will also allow me to add another feature I h…
- Devlog 101 - 3 August 2026
I'm back from being in the field this week, and I've been working on a lot recently!First off, I have re-added puzzle doors. So far I have re-added 3 different types. I'll probably eventually make a few more of those, but right now was just getting the proof of concept down once again. A very, very long time ago, they formed the backbone of mad scientist towers, but now, they hide a more simple loot drop. Of course, now they can be sealed forever or kill you if you screw up enough, so much higher stakes than before.There are a couple of tonics behind here.To find a secret room, listen for a hollow sound as you walk through the cave. That's sure to mean a room is close by! The puzzles are difficult but the rewards will be worth it.Finding secret rooms is easy, although they are rare.The old "wordle" door.I've also started the companion system, and it's actually going a lot faster than I…
- 0.3 Update (Virtues and Vices) and Devlog 100 - 13 July 2026
Changes:Added in sins to all quest conversations and encountersAll sins will give you some sort of short term benefitAdded clothing shopsAdded the effects of effectsAdded more encountersTransmogrified all the panels into different art stylesAdded sausagesBugfixes:Added clothing shops, which were intended to exist in the game for a very long timeFixed the double quote not being present in Calligraphy and Modern fontsFixed the up and down arrows in Calligraphy fontDevlogI think I'm finally ready to call it on the 0.3 Virtues and Vices update. I've hit every marker I thought I needed to (yes, a bit slower than I would have liked). I'm up to 30 completed encounters, I added in sin tracking, and penance quests are a go.The goal is at least 50 encounters.As for the technical aspects, the only thing that has really changed since the last devlog was a different way of handling encounter panels.…
- Update 0.3.99a - 25 June 2026
ChangesAdded confessionAdded difficulty scaling as a result of sinAdded penance questsAdded more artwork to encounters and Secret rendering modeAdded some sin tracking to some situationsName change! Rogues of Europa is now Rogues' PurgatoryStore presence is also changed with a new gameplay videoBugfixesFixed bug where traveling would cause duplication of mobs in rare instancesKnown IssuesSin is not complete or in all situations.
- Devlog 99 - 22 June 2026
I went back into the field almost immediately, but I still am making progress here. I decided against an update sooner because I wanted to get a little more content in before I did so. I'm almost ready for the final 0.3 update.The plan looking forward is to fully implement the sin/confession mechanic I had been planning since day one. My strategy thus far is to comb every single conversation and interaction for opportunities to sin, and marking them appropriately so things are tracked. As mentioned before, the difficulty will increase for each sin you commit.Any sin can be confessed and the difficulty reset, but it may be more difficult than you think.At the end, you'll receive a penance quest to perform, which will have a time limit on it.The penance quests will be structured more or less like regular quests.As you'll notice on the above screenshots, some penances will require you to r…
- Devlog 98 - 8 June 2026
After coming back from the field, I have been working on penance quests. Essentially, they're going to very strongly resemble the existing quests, except they won't have a reward. The "reward," granted in advance, will be a reduction in difficulty brought on by sinful shortcuts the player elects to take.Priests will flash purple when you have sins to confess.The point of penance quests and sin-based difficulty increases is to balance the short-term benefits of sinful behavior (stealing, cheating, behaving uncharitably, extortion, lying) which the player is tempted to do with long-term difficult consequences -- either increased difficulty or a new quest to perform as a penance.I came into some unexpected downtime recently when I had a surgery (not to worry, nothing life-threatening), so I decided to take some time to learn Blender, something that I had been meaning to do. My mentor had b…
- Update 0.3.97a - 12 May 2026
ChangesAdded 18 or so encountersChanged many encounters to automatically trigger when moving into the relevant grid.Changed some encounters to be able to be re-triggered.Some encounters give experience points.Added some more functionality in the secret rendering mode. Technically more playable but still very user-unfriendly.Added signpost renderingAdded stalactite/stalagmite renderingAdded generic mob placeholder "copper man".Known IssuesNo mob differentiation in secret rendering mode.No item rendering in secret rendering mode.No building/spire wall rendering in secret rendering mode.
- Devlog 97 - 11 May 2026
I have been very diligently working on encounters the past two weeks, but I also have to be studying for an examination this Tuesday, so that was cramping my style a bit. However, I'm already at 25 encounters, so already halfway to the goal of about 50. I'll probably drop an update tomorrow but I just ran out of time this week.Many of the encounters have new functionality that come along with them, so my workflow was Write Encounter -> Develop the Functionality -> Test the Functionality. However, as I've progressed, things have gotten easier so that it's now mainly just Write Encounter.The cave flooded! Who knows what could be lurking in that water...And there will be some subtle changes to the encounters. Some will be unavoidable, meaning whenever you get close enough to the encounter, it will automatically activate. The flooded cave shown above is an example of this, but several of th…
- Update 0.3.96a / Devlog 96 - 27 April 2026
ChangesAdded 9 new cave encounters, which spawn in caves exclusivelyAdded some new encounter artworkFixesFixed Spires not being renamed on signs.Known IssuesNot all encounters have artwork. The pink square missingno texture will be a placeholderWork has been progressing enough that I thought it merited an update today. So far there are 9 of the planned encounters that are added, and I'm happy with what's been happening.I still have to tweak the encounter rate, or maybe tweak the spawning algorithm because I think they're not appearing quite the way I want, but for now it's passable. As for the encounters themselves, I'm happy with what I've been able to come up with.The structure is random so there will be good replayability with each kind of encounter. For some choices, the random result will be dependent on your player stats. Generally speaking there are high risk and low risk options…
- Devlog 95 - 13 April 2026
It's Sunday, and I feel like I accomplished everything I wanted to this week.I did a lot of bugfixes earlier in the week, with many thanks to those who submitted reports. I should have been better with some of the QC things, but it was what it was, and things should be a bit more fixed. There are a few outstanding bugs but they are low priority in my book.This week I converted the encounter system to be fully token driven. This means little to the player, but it means a lot to me because it means I can start adding things a bit more rapidly. The previous system involved a bunch of reused code and some sloppy if-elseif statements that went on for pages. Now it's a simplified system, actually a direct copy of the conversation system. This allows for rapid writing on my part as well as additional complexity. Rather than being a choice with a random consequence, now there can be branching c…
- Update 0.3.94b - 10 April 2026
ChangesUnder-the-hood changes to encounters, and some slight rebalancingSpires now have more dignified namesFetch quests will now indicate the closest Spire to the target location, if availableBugfixesFixed a bug where NPCs would get stuck or jump to locations instantlyFixed some bugs related to conversationsFixed a keyboard control bug in the quest logFixed a few bugs related to dropping itemsSpecial thanks to Auxias for his detailed bug reports
- Update 0.3.94a / Devlog 94 - 6 April 2026
ChangesFinished the last of the conversations.Minor grammatical fixes.DevlogEaster blessings to all! Surrexit vere, alleluia! I did actually manage to meet the goal and timeline I set for myself here, to get all the conversations done, and hopefully everything is working the way I intended. I didn't play around with the back-end too much, but on the other hand I admit to not QCing as I should.The quest conversations are in a satisfactory state right now. There are now 172 KB of conversations, which is probably about a third of the size of The Hobbit. I have everything at what I consider a minimum level for use, but not the eventual level on release, which will include a lot more spintax. The spintax will (ideally) make the conversations a bit more unique and replayable.Plans for the future: redesign the encounter interface for better flexibility, increase the amount of encounters in the…
- Update 0.3.93a / Devlog 93 - 23 March 2026
ChangesAdded more conversations (now at least 8 different conversations per quest type)Conversations now reset at the end of the day. Quests no longer permanently lock when refused.Most locations now have descriptions (rather than ???). Many buildings also have descriptions.Added "secret" art style - more information below on this experimental featureRenamed "Lairs" to "Spires"BugfixesLanguage, grammar, etc. edits.A few minor crash fixesKnown IssuesTown NPCs and children are still bugged"Secret" art style - more information belowLoading screen is in upper corner of fullscreenDevlogIt's been a few weeks and I've been hard at work. I've been slightly more productive the past week, and managed to get a lot of conversations done, leaving just 12 regular conversations and 12 mini conversations left to finish in 2 weeks.I admit this conversation went a little bigger than I intended, at 42 rea…
- Devlog 92 - 9 March 2026
Another quick one this week. My wife and I were entertaining some guests and that crimped my time a bit. I now have 24 regular and 24 mini conversations to write, and 27 days of Lent left to write them. Maybe I should temper my expectations a little bit but I will maintain some optimism about the conversations at the very least. 0.3 by Easter is looking pretty pessimistic due to the current workload but I will endeavor to give it my all.Remember to email any questions, comments, and prayer requests you have to [email protected], or just leave them in the comments below.
- Devlog 91 - 2 March 2026
Just a quick one this week. I've been working relatively hard on conversations, and managed to fill out a bunch of them. In terms of progress, I have 24 large conversations and 30 mini ones left, which could be done in as early as three weeks from now, but more realistically will be done by Easter.I've also been working on a few quality of life things. It seems the NPC movement is broken once again. Hopefully I can fix it for good. I'm relatively optimistic because it broke when adding the abbey behavior, but I liked how the abbey NPC behavior turned out, so it's just a matter of refactoring to the more modern code.There also is some new conversation behavior. Previously, exiting (using escape) allowed you to resume the conversation at a later date. Now it refuses the quest. In addition refusing the quest (by any means) permanently disabled the quest. Now, the quest is reenabled each da…
- 0.2 Update & Devlog 90 - 23 February 2026
ChangesAdded abbeys and their inhabitantsAbbeys contain a church, cells, fields, and a kitchen.Monks, nuns, abbots, and abbesses work, pray, and sleepAdded the fetch questAdded additional conversations for the "clear" questsChanged some verbiage in the HUDBugfixesFixed a relatively rare crash caused by old codeThis week, I wrapped up the "fetch" quest, and added a few conversations. More conversations will be on the way as I gradually flesh them out, probably at a rate of 4-6 complete conversations per week. But the main focus will still be on playable content, like quests.The new quest book entry for fetch questsMuch like with the "recover" quest, "fetch" quests also have the "live" pointer to the location of the item, except unlike the "recover" quest, the "fetch" quest can span different levels of the cave, now called strata (singular stratum), being the only quest that does so. This…
- Devlog 89 - 19 February 2026
Lent has begun, and with it I feel it necessary to write a devlog which I have neglected, even as I look at the neglect in my spiritual life. But what's more important in this area is that the practices which I will perform this Lent will serve to improve my work here.I can finish up the fetch quest this week and will begin work on the 0.3 update, Vices and Virtues. This will be the second-most important update in the game and will involve a lot more morality, choices, and consequences, but also greater spiritual and cultural depth.Conversations will get a bit more complex and less focused around quests. That said I have a backlog of quest conversations to create so I will be doing that over the course of Lent, and hopefully finish by Easter. These will come piecemeal in regular content updates.As always, remember to email any questions, comments, and prayer requests you have to rogueso…
- Devlog 88 - 26 January 2026
I was in the field this week, but I was able to get some stuff done on the fetch quests, which I hope to finish soon.The heart of the fetch quest is the abbey, a new terrain feature. Abbeys appear in little alcoves in the caverns, and a maximum of one will generate per level, and a maximum of four will generate on the whole map.I used the patron saint system from a very long time ago to name the abbeys!The idea is that they will be relatively out of the way so it will require a lot of exploration to make it to one, making a simple fetch quest a bit more interesting, likely with several detours, pit stops, and so on. In addition, the only way to get down a level is to go through a lair or fall down a chasm, and the only way to go up a level is to go through a lair, at least until omnivator travel is unlocked between towns.An early render of an abbey, cut short by an attack by dog-men. I…
- Update 0.2.87a / Devlog 87 - 12 January 2026
Update 0.2.87aChangesAdded "recover" quests.Added "clear" quests.Added new panel artwork for different art styles.Added new display font "calligraphy". Font can now be changed on-the-fly in the pause/options menu.Added peddler NPC, who sells tinkering items. The peddler can show up in cave features, like petras, woods, lakes, cauldrons, and domes.Changed the formula for how monsters spawn. Harder monsters will now spawn earlier, and monsters that are too easy will spawn in "superpacks" of 4-7.Game now starts on current date, 1880. Added seasonal display.Reworked tinker items slightly to do more damage over a greater area.Reworked item drops and pickups.Added loading screen.BugfixesFixed signpost generation, signposts are now guaranteed to generate in all locations they are supposed to generate.Patched behavior where you could wait a short time and eat food quicker.Fixed crash when using…
- Devlog 86 - 29 December 2025
Christmas greetings to everyone! I've had plenty of time to work on things these past weeks and I have made some good progress. An update will likely be ready this week, though with a few caveats.First things first, I finished up the recover quest, and ironed out (probably) all of the kinks. I very slightly changed how the recover quests work and changed them from retrieving a sent package to retrieving a package that should have been received.As always, locations relevant to the quest can be learned about through questioning or by looking at signposts and using your brain.So far I only have one quest conversation lined up for this one but it should be functional. I will of course add another 11 in the future but I thought it best to just get out this minimum so that the quest can be stress tested a bit.It took a whole bunch of work in the back end to get him to say one and three quarte…
