- August 2026 Update - 7 September 2026
Lots of updates this month!The Sepulchral KnightThe Sepulchral Knight is a mini-boss in the Blighted Realm. When the player runs past him, he will awaken and begin attacking you. If the player can defeat him, he drops some hefty rewards. Controller SupportNow players can use XBox or Playstation controllers to play No Gods of Men. The game will automatically switch between keyboard+mouse and controller based on whichever was used last. New UpgradesEmber Split: Fireballs split after hitting an enemy and track nearby enemies.Detonation: Generate multiple explosions after an enemy is hit, potentially hitting surrounding enemies.Spectral Sword: Sword(s) float around the player and quickly hit nearby enemies.Burning: Enemies take burn damage over time after being hit with fire-type attacks.Blazing Dash: Dashing through enemies causes them to take fire damage.Piercing Charged Attack: Charged a…
- July 2026 Update - 4 August 2026
Here are the updates for July! AltarsA new room players can add to their citadel. Altars unlock the ability to upgrade your citadel making new floors cheaper, adding enhancements to specific rooms, and making your citadel generally more powerful. The altar will bank “essence” you retrieve in the combat realms. Assign disciples to “consecration” and once essence is consecrated it can then be spent on powerful upgrades for your citadel.Charged fireball attackIf the player holds down the left mouse button, a new more powerful attack is charged.Post-combat Citadel SummaryThe citadel does not rest! When the player goes into combat in The Blighted Realm, the disciples continue their duties back at the citadel. Once the player returns, they are presented with a summary of all that has happened while they were gone. Be careful with what you prioritize while you are away!Drag & Drop Task Priorit…
- June 2026 Update - 7 July 2026
Here are the updates for June!CafeteriasDisciples need to eat! You'll already have gardens to harvest raw produce from but you need a cafeteria to cook this raw food and serve it to your disciples. Meal Time occurs regularly, a bell will toll, and all the disciples will go to their nearest cafeteria to eat. If you do not have enough food to serve, disciples will go hungry and eventually leave or perish.BathroomsDisciples now need to use the bathroom back at your citadel. If you do not build a bathroom for them, they will soil themselves and eventually leave.New UpgradesThe player now has several new upgrade options when they level up in battle. I plan to implement many many more over the coming months.Randomized Map LayoutsNow when the player enters a godly realm, the layout will be random. This will help spice gameplay up and allow for my dynamic enemy and treasure placements. Combat “…
- May 2026 Update - 1 June 2026
Here’s the latest & greatest for May!Intro Screen & Intro CinematicsI was able to devote quite a bit of time this month to art work so I drew the main menu landing page and all of the intro cinematics. I also updated the Steam capsule to reflect this updated intro page.Multi-floor rooms in the CitadelThere are now rooms that require empty slots across multiple floors. This adds a bit more complexity and requires strategy on the player’s part. They may need to wait until they save enough resources to build another level to their Citadel before adding a particular room. They may also need to re-arrange other rooms to fit the shape of the new room.Upgrade ListOn pause when in the realms of gods, a list of all the player's upgrades are displayed. This helps give visibility into the player's current build.Performance enhancementsThis past week I’ve dedicated myself to enhancements that help…
- April 2026 Update - 4 May 2026
April was very productive! See below for all the progress during April: Introduced “Floor Perks”When the player adds a new floor to their citadel a randomized “perk” will generate for that floor. These perks will incentivize different placements for rooms; for instance, if the player places a bedroom next to the elevator, that bedroom does not need to be cleaned. Or if a garden room is placed next to other resource rooms, it produces 10% more food. Added lost disciples in the realms of godsAs the player battles through hordes of enemies in the realms of gods, they will randomly encounter lost disciples. If they survive long enough within a close enough proximity, these lost disciples will come back to your citadel with you.New research system at the citadelThe player can now build a library that allows you to hire a researcher. Researchers will study in your library to accrue “research…
- March 2026 Update - 1 April 2026
Introducing The Lord of the Rotbloom!This is the God of The Blighted Realm, the first level in No Gods of Men. He will be the final boss. In order to reach him, you will need to perform the summoning ritual (implemented last month), consisting of finding the two mystical crystals hidden somewhere in the level. Once you bring them back to the belfry and summon The Lord of the Rotbloom, he will then spawn and the boss fight will commence. This month I designed and implemented his spawn, idle, attacks, and death animations. Refactored code for smooth dashing animationThis is less exciting in the update but was sorely needed. The dashing mechanism was finicky and needed some refactoring. I spent several days ripping out the old code and redoing a whole bunch of it. Refactored saving and loading for performanceEven less exciting than the above update, I am noticing some performance regressio…
- February 2026 Update - 4 March 2026
Spring is almost here! Here are the updates for February: Belfry and Boss SummoningThis was the major feature update for February. Each realm will have a godly boss the player must summon. In order to summon the boss the player must find two “belfry crystals” in the level. These crystals are in random areas each level and once the player finds one, they must wait (survive) near the crystal until it “attaches” to them. Once it is attached, the player must guide the crystal to the belfry so that it can then be placed into its sconce. Once the two crystals are in place inside the belfry, the player can then choose to summon the realm’s god.I wanted to make this summoning process a player decision rather than a passive one that happens automatically after the player completes a certain amount of waves or kills all enemies. I want to give the player the freedom to either immediately rush the…
- January 2026 Update - 2 February 2026
Happy February! See below for details on what was accomplished in January. Post-battle run summariesAfter the player completes a run (whether they’ve been vanquished or they have defeated the god of the realm) they will be presented with a summary of their performance. I am planning to add a post-run reward system to this as well – if the player accomplishes certain things (enough kills, achieves a certain level, survives for a specific time) they will have a chance of winning a permanent reward…but that is still a work in progress! Room metadata flyoutsI’ve added more UI to the Citadel. The player can now click on any room in their citadel and the flyout will display important information about that room or category of rooms. For instance, it may display how many gardens are currently in the citadel and how many disciples are working in those gardens alongside the vacant slots.Deleting…
- December 2025 Update - 3 January 2026
Happy New Year!Lots of progress has been made even despite the holidays this month! Omni-directional attacksAt first I'd designed player attacks to fire in the direction they were facing. The player would not have been able to aim with the mouse, but instead, needed to be strategic with how they moved the player and could only shoot forward. My goal was to make attacking challenging enough to incentivize upgrading to more sophisticated weapons and abilities, making those abilities all the more fun...but ultimately, this wasn't fun. So I decided to scrap that model and make it so that the player can point and shoot in any direction they want, no matter the direction they are facing. They can run & gun to their heart's content...and this is way more fun! Each direction is fully-animated: backward, forward, up, down, diagonals, et al. Disciples abandon youIf your devotion score drops low e…
- November 2025 Update - 2 December 2025
Happy Turkey Month! It’s been a jam-packed November so let’s get into it! TWO new level-up abilities!There are now two new abilities a player can receive when they level up: Acolyte Skulls and Arc Orbs. Arc Orbs will orbit around the player and electrocute any enemy they come into contact with.Acolyte Skulls float above the player’s shoulders as they spew flames at the closest enemies. Tutorials in the roguelite levelsThe first time a player enters the levels, they will be presented with tutorials on the basics for movement, attacking, and dashing. Resource dropsResources such as wood and stone will be randomly dropped around the roguelite levels for players to find and bring back to build even more rooms in their citadel. Performance updatesThe game struggled running on older laptops but after a fairly sizable update to how I render the backgrounds and various larger hand-drawn images,…
- October 2025 Update - 3 November 2025
After last month’s health issues I was able to catch up on what I didn’t quite finish. I ended up accomplishing a whole heck of a lot more than I anticipated in October! Here are the updates: Steam Store Page Translated¡Hola! The descriptive content on the Steam store page is officially in Spanish (Latin & European), French, and German.Old Crone NPCI’ve added a new NPC to the gang! She actually is already in the game – she blesses you with upgrades when you level up in battle – but now she has a permanent home at the beginning of the realms of the gods. She will greet you, explain a bit about the realm, and bless you with a randomly generated upgrade to kick off your battle. She’s blind and has a floating skull and somehow has the ability to grant you super powerful blessings…there must be more to her than she’s letting on… BIGGER Levels!Initially I designed this first level to be quite…
- September 2025 Update - 2 October 2025
Unfortunately I had to take the first few weeks off due to medical issues but I was able to make up for lost time in the last two weeks! My focus for September was finishing up the new player experience. Here are the updates: TutorialAfter the intro sequence, tutorial tooltips will appear. These tooltips are contextual and will nudge the player to perform actions that will eventually teach them the basics. At the moment, the first actions I want the player to take are: Build a garden -> Assign disciples to the garden -> Make sure more food is produced than consumed. These three items will teach the player the basics of “how and why” for building rooms in their citadel.The ChamberlainThis is a new NPC in the game. The Chamberlain has been the steward of The Citadel since the beginning of its time. As The Citadel fell into disrepair, his spirit also slowly vanquished. Now that you, the pl…
- The Path to a Demo - 14 September 2025
The Path to a DemoWelcome to my first update since publicly announcing No Gods of Men! Now that the trailer is out, I am back to actual game development…yay! The next major milestone for No Gods of Men is a publicly available demo. So here’s my plan and what I’ve been up to.The VisionThe demo should be a complete, horizontal slice of the game. I like to think of product development in terms of cakes (yum). Ultimately, I want my product to be a big delicious cake with layers of flavor and frosting! But in the beginning…this will not be possible (I am a solo dev after all). As a first release I want to avoid offering a big half-constructed, half-baked version of the final product…lacking frosting and flavor with a soggy bottom (yuck). So instead, the demo should be a well-frosted, well-flavored cupcake! Small enough to be achievable but also simulate the final product in a delicious, bite…
- No Gods of Men is now on Steam! Add to your Wishlist! - 31 May 2025
No Gods of Men is now available for Steam Wishlist! After a year of full-time solo dev and hand-drawing every frame, the citadel finally opens its gates! Wishlist today to grow your bustling colony of disciples and conquer the realms of the old gods! Rebuild the towering citadel—room by room Nurture a colony of disciples with minds of their own Wield fantastically colorful, god-slaying combat powers Thanks for your early support—see you in the realms of the old gods! — Bobby
