From the workshop.

Three new guides

Our guides go deeper, with the numbers taken straight from the games:

• Nightcount monsters and bosses: every creature, the night it first comes and how to beat it, plus the blood moons, the omens, the Hollow King and the Hunger.
• Nightcount embers and keepsakes: what a run earns, what every keepsake costs, and what to buy first.
• TideBound: where to fish: all nine waters, their 63 fish and when they feed, every boss and the rod it answers to, and the Shelf.

Nightcount: a sharper opening and tomorrow's chest

• The opening is all fighting. Run to the broken gate, cut down its pack, save the family in the house, and hold as the ghouls close in, until the Hunger rises. Building now comes on your first day, with the hammer and the house card lit up to show you where to start.
• A beginning, not an ending. The card after the opening used to sit on black for eight seconds, and some players thought the game was over. Now it's shorter and tells you what comes next: you led the few who got away to a new valley, and the Hunger comes back on night seven.
• One story first. Your first game after the opening is only about the Hunger. Beat her, and every run after that opens up the rest of the valley: the Heart of the Blight, its seals, and the Hollow King's court.
• Tomorrow's chest. The end screen and the pause menu show a chest that opens tomorrow, and how many hours are left. The first holds 25 embers, enough for a keepsake, and each day in a row holds more, up to 60.
• Your own keyboard. On a French AZERTY keyboard the game now says Z Q S D instead of W A S D, and every key hint shows the letters printed on your keys.

New to embers and keepsakes? The Camp guide lists what everything costs and what to buy first.

Nightcount: every run leaves something behind

Most first runs of Nightcount end on night one or two, and a lost run used to leave you with nothing. Now every run counts:

• Embers and the Camp. Every run earns embers, for each night you live through, each den you cleanse and each brute you fell. Spend them at the new Camp on keepsakes that stay yours for good, like a warmer cloak, a third villager at the start or a free first watchtower. One night is enough for the first.
• Rise again. Once a run, a loss can go back to the morning of its last day, with your buildings and villagers and half your stores.
• Come back tomorrow. Playing on days in a row pays more embers each day, and every day brings a new valley in Today's world.
• The Ranger sooner. The first new hero now unlocks after three nights instead of five, and the end screen shows how close you are.
• A kinder start. Until you've lasted five nights, your hall holds out longer through the first two, and the pale stags sleep until night three.
• A clock on your first game. After the opening siege, the Hunger comes back on night seven, and a small red chip counts the nights down.

A press kit, a Share button and quicker pages

Writers and video makers can now find everything about our games in one place: the press kit has a factsheet, each game's story, trailers, screenshots, logos and key art to download.

Our game pages have a Share button beside full screen, so sending a game to a friend is one tap. And the site's lettering now comes from this site instead of a font service, so pages show their words sooner.

New trailers for Nightcount and TideBound

Both games have new trailers, cut from footage of the games themselves: Nightcount's first night, its dragons and the wall assaults, and TideBound's waters from ponds to the deep ocean. The reel at the top of our home page is cut from them too.

Nightcount: the Hunger has a new body and a new fight

The last siege now ends in a real boss fight. Every wave comes at once as one big push, and when it starts to thin, the ground cracks outside your walls and the Hunger claws out.

She's a heavy, four-legged blight beast now, with violet light showing between her plates that grows as her fire builds, and a tail that ends in a spiked bud. Watch for her claw rake, the blightfire she breathes from her tail, a stamp that punishes guards crowding her, broods of Firebugs, and blight raining down late in the fight. After her biggest attacks she's spent for a few seconds and takes double damage: that's your moment.

TideBound now plays here

TideBound, our fishing game, has joined Nightcount on this site: play it right here, from a quiet pond to reefs, fjords and the open ocean, with no download and no sign-up.

Guides, a workshop and a campfire

• Game guides. How to play Nightcount, TideBound and Why'd You Say That?, with tips to get you started.
• The workshop. Our home page now shows what we're making next: Lantern Hill, a short walk in the dark once a day, and co-op for Nightcount, which a small group of friends is testing. It isn't open to everyone yet.
• The campfire. Our Discord is where new builds land first. Come and tell us what to make next.

Torchhound opens its doors

Torchhound is Dominic's independent studio, and torchhound.com is its home: free games that play in your browser, with nothing to install and no sign-up. The hound with the torch comes from an old story about Saint Dominic, told on our home page.