Greetings, Godville gods!

It’s time to shake up one of the oldest part of the game – the Arena. A refresh of the arena duel experience was long overdue and finally the time has come to make it more interesting… in the unique Godville Random way.

The fundamental idea of an arena duel remains the same – a god sends his champion to fight some other hero. The winner gets a golden brick, accumulator charge, all of the opponent’s gold and a win record for the pantheon/achievement. However, there are important changes:

1. Each fight can have slightly different rules – a fight can be twice as fast, or have an extra reward for the winner (or even the loser), or each turn will restore some godpower, or there will be a certain limit on the total number of accumulator charges that can be used, etc. Pay attention to the introductory messages at the beginning to know what kind of extra rule this fight has.
2. To make pairing easier the level of the opponents won’t matter in new arena duels. From now on a match between level 15 hero and level 45 hero is possible and quite normal, as both opponents will be made equal. Nobody has advantage due to a level, hp, equipment, strike power, etc.
3. After teleporting to the arena the hero will wait for the opponent for 10 minutes. If he doesn’t find an opponent a godpower refund or a golden brick is guaranteed.
4. In addition to the old “attack/heal/pray” duel voices now there is a new one – “defend”. This will order the hero to take a defensive stance, which will decrease all upcoming damage during the turn, and should add a refreshing twist to dueling tactics. Btw, this command will work in boss fights too.
5. There will be a new pantheon for arena duels, which will be more tolerant of duel loses and will only rank heroes who’ve been active in the arena within the last few weeks. The new pantheon will appear when there have been enough fights held under the new rules.
6. Finally, heroes have became more civilized and won’t fight each other outside of the designated area. So your champion will no longer get into a duel while you’re asleep or something. Bye-bye skirmishes!

There have been many internal changes, so some bumps here and there are quite possible over the next few days. Any feedback on the new arena duels is highly appreciated.

UPD: There are some matching restrictions worth mentioning: a new player won’t get matched against a seasoned player; a hero with a temple can only match against another hero with a temple. Oh, and special artifacts teleporting to the arena are no longer require godpower. Oh, and now we have special arena teleporting artifacts that don’t require godpower!

Today’s news is short, yet important. Four years ago the first Godville heroes came to life. Every day since that moment they were learning new words, fighting new monsters, building things, traveling places above and beyond the ground and just doing their epic hero stuff. All under the restless watch of their dear gods. We couldn’t be happier for them and their masters.

Let’s celebrate this special cause with big fireworks, rainbows and other miraculous things made with the divine remote controls, freshly-replenished with festive godpower charges. Big thanks to everyone, especially those who helped Godville to become what it is.

Happy birthday to us!

Dear Godville Gods,

Let’s join our divine hands in Godville-wide congratulation of Kingdada for completing the First Ark! It’s time to reveal its perks. Firstly, an owner gets a shiny new medal. Secondly, heroes can now use the ark in accordance with its widely known application – store multiple pets. Following a god’s command a hero can place his current pet in the ark and head on for taming a new one. Thirdly, an ark-owning god is finally powerful enough to give a name to any pet of his hero. Other uses for arks are also likely when there will be quite a lot more of them. Btw, arked heroes will keep scavenging for gopher wood – who knows, it may come in handy for upgrades.

Speaking of pets, a bunch of new monsters have became tameable. Some of them even have an all new dungeon-ability and are fully capable of accompanying their masters in spelunking. For now these breeds are Grounded Hog, Inner Demon, Gummy Wyrm, and Vengeful Mole (feel free to suggest more in comments). Also, a report from the mad scientists claims that a fast healing of the pet (within 10 hours after the knock out) will boost up its development – the pet will gain a new level faster or even level up right on the spot. Btw, did you know that heroes with a pet medal change their pet’s personality three times more often?

The most groundbreaking update comes to dungeons. Recent developments unearthed half a dozen new types of dungeons, a new kind of harmless trap (that forces the team to skip a turn) and a mindbreaking “Hot and Cold” treasure clues. But here’s the real kicker – dungeon side quests! Sometimes heroes can get a minor side job like visit a certain room or avoid all bosses. These side quests are entirely optional (except for that one case when it’s not), but most of the time the reward should be totally worth it. Happy spelunking!

Well, it took some time, but it’s finally here – new Godville app redesigned for iOS7. The app was “flattened out” to make it look better on the latest mobile OS from Apple and it has some new cool things too. On iPhones is has two secondary screens that can be revealed with handy swipe gestures: swipe left to reveal Friends/Guild Council and swipe right to bring up the Game’s Menu. Remote Control moved closer to the Diary, but here is the cool thing – most of the time you can avoid opening it, as now there is a brand new Mini-Remote! Press and hold the Remote button and then drag to send an influence of your choice. That’s how you show your divine reaction while still reading a diary.

Mobile web pages got their share of facelifting and some new perks too:

• much easier voting – dupe/offensive options were moved under the long press gesture (or swipe left when on Windows Phone).
• voting progress is now displayed on your personal ingenious pieces page while idea is still being voted.

Finally, a fresh batch of awesome phrases has arrived into the heroes’ diaries. In the mean time, the Spring Content Cleaning is underway. If you have that one phrase that you wish weren’t in the game, it’s a good moment to mention them in this forum topic.

New species has been discovered in the living world of Godville. Do you remember holiday monsters walking around with free accumulator charges? It turned out that they were only a first wave and there are other special beasts too: Wealthy (walk around with pockets full of gold coins), Bricked (like to carry bricks, sometimes even gold ones), Enlightened (restore some godpower when defeated), Glowing (can infect hero with an aura) and even more. Winning over the special monster usually gives some perks, meanwhile losing to it sometimes results in an equally unique penalty. So pay attention to the adjectives in the monsters’ names and don’t miss your lucky beast.

In the meantime, annoyed by the adventurers underground goblins finally had it enough and screwed up some of the treasury hints by making them double-sided. So don’t be surprised if you see a knotty arrow on the map and pay attention to the exploration log because one of the directions is still correct. Btw, there are two new dungeon types:

1. Dungeon of Uncertainty – all hints to the treasury are double-minded.
2. Dungeon of High Stakes – winners take extra gold from the treasury while knocked out get nothing.

There are also two new auras to help the heroes find peculiar monsters:

1. Aura of Hunting – increases chances to dig up a boss or just stumble upon a boss while traveling.
2. Aura of Baiting – helps find the newly discovered “special monsters” and the monsters wanted by the Godville Times.

Finally, an announcement from our players: Are you smiting for smooches? Hurting for hugs? Is your idea of a good Valentine’s Day telling your hero to beat someone up? Sign up to Tournament of Champions: Valentine’s Day Massacre! Sign ups are open until Midnight, CST February 10, 2014.

It’s that time of the year when the feeling of coolness is accompanied with the joy of unpacking presents.
As usual, the hordes of Santa Clawses and alike swarm into Godville for whatever reason. They carry so many presents, so they literally just litter them around, making heroes happier and wealthier. Important note: for the first and only time during the holidays these special monsters can be tamed!

This year nature also rewarded us with a new invention – a special breed of holiday monsters that gift an accumulator charge once defeated. Pay attention to whom your hero is fighting and don’t miss your chance.

Finally, for this very special occasion, a pop-up settlement of fair tents was opened right next to the capital. Laplandville welcomes all visitors with bargain sales, generous traders, and extra-effective chapels.

Happy holidays!

Greetings, Godville gods! Are you ready for some good news?

Let’s start with spelunking. To make tedious underground explorations more exсiting heroes can now end up in special named dungeons, ones that have certain aura-like effects. This effect can do something nice, not very nice or just strange and fun. Pay attention to the introduction phrase at the beginning of expedition to know what the effect does.

In the effort of streamlining the Remote Control, the “Send to Arena” action now requires only 50% of godpower, just like the other options in close proximity. In the meantime, not finding a duel opponent still guarantees a consolation prize. One more note about the “Challenge a Friend” option: from now on, winners of imaginary sparring fights will be rewarded with 1% of real experience (only once in 24 hours), which is infinitely better than it was before.

Some other nice news:

1. The long overdue update of the earthly news finally brought us more than five hundred of new entries. Yay!
2. Lightning (or any other punishment) are now more likely to melt gold coins into a brick. After all, high temperatures are obviously better for this than sweet encourages or sending flowers.
3. Godville Windows Phone app has been updated with support of new color themes, making it as fancy as Godville apps on other mobile platforms. Make sure to install the update and enjoy all colors of the rainbow!

It’s known that certain astrological alignments of stars cause defeated monsters to rise as the undead. Strong rumors have it that this Halloween will see undead summonings like never before. On a positive note, hallo-zombies sometimes carry very nice loot with them, so consider meeting them as a sign of good luck. Zombocalypsis will last for the next three days – forewarned is forearmed!

In other news, there are bunch of sweet features in dungeons. Their interiors have just been updated with new rooms, monsters and other goodies. Moreover, the heroes have finally learned to put treasure direction hints right on the map (which, btw, is now displayed on the fight’s log page, once exploration is over). These nice additions will surely make spelunking more pleasant.

While the heroes were spelunking and collecting gopher wood, great Godville artisans have just finished the construction of a new pantheon for tracking Ark building progress. Please give a warm welcome to the Pantheon of Arkeology! Btw, if you go to dungeons using one of Godville mobile apps, update to the latest version to make sure you’ll see a bigger map.

Meanwhile, the Ideabox has got a brand new section for dungeons submissions, which also includes ER. You’re surely remember that you can get a nice godpower bonus for voting in the Ideabox, right? Well, starting from today, ERers will get the same bonus too.

Finally, a small bunch of duel-related news:

• to add a bit more action, the duels between heroes have been sped up a little;
• a recent spark in heroic intelligence can now leave them confused if a duel god voice has multiple orders (e.g., heal and attack at the same time). Make sure to make up your mind before broadcasting your wish;
• if a hero couldn’t find a worthy arena opponent (which, as you know, happens), he’ll now be guaranteed to get a golden brick as a consolation prize (yep, without a fight!) or get the godpower back. Pretty sweet, right?

The time has come to bring more meaning to the life of templed heroes. Sure they are already busy by saving gold for their bright future, but what if something bad happens before that? Something like global warming or heavy rain that will cause a giant flood… So let them build something big and buoyant, like an Ark. Just in case.

But there is a small problem here. As it was foretold in the ancient manuscripts, proper arks have to be built with a special kind of wood. It doesn’t just grow in the nearby forest, so heroes will have to search for it.

Luckily, there are as many as three separate ways of obtaining this wood:

1. Sometimes pilgrims could put a log to the donation box in the temple (don’t worry, it doesn’t affect charges generation, as those are generated from gold).
2. A hero can be rewarded with a whole pile of logs upon completing an epic quest.
3. A piece of wood can also be found in the recently uncovered dungeons.

Yep, now we have dungeons! No one knew for sure what’s in there, but there were rumors of big rooms, long passages, hidden traps, strong bosses never seen before and rich treasuries. Heroes are too scared to enter dungeons by themselves, but sure enough, a god with a temple can make a compelling conviction, using a recently discovered new button on the Remote Control.

The main goal of a dungeon campaign is to find the treasury, which contains lots of gold, loot and yes, this rare gopher wood. Heroes are capable of finding the treasure completely on their own, by choosing directions at their will. However, wise gods can read the map and chronicles and guide the heroes with god voices, greatly increasing the overall chances of the party.

Notes on dungeons:

• heroes must form a party of at least three to enter a dungeon. While underground, there must be at least two conscious adventures, otherwise the whole group will be evacuated to the surface (with minor penalties for unconscious heroes);
• avoid sending your hero to dungeon on low health;
• keep an eye on direction hints hidden in some rooms! Also, stronger bosses tend to live closer to the treasure;
• bosses can be spotted from the distance just be reading the chronicle carefully and often could be avoided.
• looting two wood logs from the treasuries within 24 hours is guaranteed. Getting more is still possible, but it’s up to The Great Random. Pay attention to send to dungeon confirmation popup for details (for the mobile apps it will be available with the next app update).

There could be various strategies and goals of dungeon exploration and it’s up to gods how much (or little) godpower to use, as most of the boss encounters could be avoided. But be prepared for the fact that the first few explorations won’t look easy and may take a bit more time. Not finding the treasure is not a big deal, as heroes won’t lose anything irreplaceable.

Final note: dungeons are for fun and you don’t have to explore them if you don’t want to. The hero is able to collect all of the required ark wood from temple and epic quests. Hail ZPG!

In other news, ones longing for new content submissions are kindly welcomed to check out a few dungeons first and then proceed with submitting their gems using the newly added category in the Ideabox. Grammar corrections for existing entries are welcomed too, as usual.

If you’re into dueling, make sure to check out new community-organized championship ‘Rest in Pieces’ with really awesome prizes!