Abstract

Thirsty Heroes is an approachable dungeon crawler and tavern sim with deckbuilding combat for PC, Mobile, and Nintendo Switch, releasing in 2023.

Synopsis

As royal quartermaster, it's your job to hire patrons for dungeon crawling by earning their trust at the tavern bar.

Serve drinks, negotiate pay, and leverage profits to upgrade your heroes and facilities, then crawl dungeons filled with monsters, traps, and chance encounters using your hero's deck built from equipped gear.

Find procedurally-generated loot and valuables to upgrade your squad and face tougher enemies to satisfy the King's demands and reveal new chapters of the lighthearted story.

Tags

Dungeon Crawler Management Deckbuilding Loot Roguelite Story Rich Card Battler Funny RPG Simulation 2D

Features

Find, Research, Fight, Profit
Hire patrons for dungeon crawling by earning their trust at the tavern bar. Serve empowering drinks, negotiate pay rates and leverage profits to upgrade your heroes and facilities.

Deckbuilding Dungeons
Crawl dungeons filled with monsters, traps, and chance encounters using your hero's deck, built from equipped gear. Find procedurally-generated loot and valuables to upgrade your squad and face tougher enemies to satisfy the King's demands.

Wits, Not Reflexes
Enjoy turn-based deckbuilding with a twist: Attacking and defending happen simultaneously instead of on alternating turns, so you must strategize the order in which your enemy's attacks are resolved. Combat moves at your pace, reflexes not required!

Chatty Clientele
Heroes can't fight if they're thirsty! Serve drinks and chat from behind the bar to unlock new skills and storylines, or perhaps negotiate a better rate for their services. Consult personnel records and charts to identify and reward standout performers.

Design Philosophy

Bit By Bit Studios aimed to build a dungeon crawler for those wanting less active combat and more management and strategy, with a lower barrier to entry.

That means classic RPG mechanics in their simplest form so the game is approachable whether you're a seasoned veteran or newcomer to the genre.

All design decisions aim to "cut the fat" — allowing the player to play their way and get to the fun parts quickly.

Approachable Design

• 3 inventory slots instead of 8.
• 3 hero attributes instead of 5.
• Turn-based deckbuilding instead of active combat.
• Deck sizes limited to 12 cards.
• Combat uses simple but unique take on Rock/Paper/Scissors mechanic.
• Dungeons are linear so there's no way to get lost.
• Players control dungeon generation and difficulty.
• Dynamic conversation system and management features elevate gameplay above a simple loot grind.
• No inventory management — enjoy a bottomless bag!
• Cross-platform saving to play the same file on mobile or on PC.
• No Ads. No IAP. No Analytics.

History

• Development has been in progress in a part-time state since November 2014.
• The game was publicly announced in September 2020.
• Kickstarter launched February 9th and ended March 9th 2022, raising just under 200% of its goal ($29,279).
• Release aimed for early 2023.