📰 News & Updates

An inspiring BARK from the Dog! 

This past week has been very inspiring indeed! A recent Reddit post in /r/incremental_games has brought a lot of new players into the community. So before we dive into the update, I wanted to cover some of the neat stuff that has happened because of this:

• We now have over 100 members on our Discord! If you haven’t yet joined up, please do! It’s a great place to share your thoughts on the state of the game.
• We’ve broken 600 Followers on Twitch!
• We’re very close to unlocking our next Emote slot! (Thank you to all the new Subscribers!)
• We’ve got a couple new moderators in the chat. Datnightcat and Sawode. Both of these folks are long time DKTD players and can answer a lot of questions newer players might have. Nightcat actually runs the DKTD Subreddit, which you should check out if you haven’t!

Okay, onto the update. Here’s what we’ve got lined up:

• Two new Bone Tiers to achieve: Inspiring and Enlightened, which are gated behind Ascension 3 and 4.
• Structures can now gain health the more they are built, but also cost more and require more WORKs.
• A new Structure: the Altar of Dog, which spawns a new item: [Prayer].
• A new buff that can be added to the Dog: Purity, which acts like Armor against Corruption.
• Changes to claiming Sparks & Gold.
• Stability improvements.

Bone Updates

• Two new Bone Tiers have been added: Inspiring and Enlightened.
• These tiers require Ascendancy 3 and 4 respectively.
• At MAX Ascendancy, the Bone will no longer reset on Ascendancy. Instead, the Bone level will continue to increase as well as the points required. The points for Golden Dog, however, will not increase.

Structure Updates

One problem we saw with the new influx of players is that Structures would wear out very quickly. This update adds a little bit of scaling:

• A Structure’s starting Health increases by 1 every time it is built, up to a maximum of 10.
• WORKs per health, and Pledge Gold cost also increase every time a Structure is built, up to a limit.

Additionally, every 10 Works you perform (cumulatively, across any Structures) will award you 1 Gold. Get ta work!

New Structure: Altar of Dog

• Awards [Prayer] and [Holy Pledge] items.
• [Prayer] adds the Purity buff to the Dog. If the Dog has Purity, 1 stack of Purity will be traded for every stack of Corruption added. This does not affect any Corruption currently on the Dog, so it is similar to Armor.

Item Claiming Updates

We’ve gotten a lot of feedback on how the new Item Claiming mechanic works. So the following changes have been made:

• Golden Sparks will now award progression towards the Daily Sparks quest even for attempting to claim them.
• Golden Sparks will now award at least 50% of the Sparks value for attempting to claim them. The winner of the item receives 100%.
• You can now contest multiple Golden Sparks at once. Contesting other items does not remove you as a contestant from these items. All other items you may only contest 1 at a time.
• Claiming Sparks takes a little bit longer now (8 seconds up from 5), but the timer does not refresh whenever a new player tries to contest them.

Similar changes also apply to Gold Nuggets! 

Bug Fixes

• Fixed an issue where stats and points would lag the game.
• Fixed an issue where Steak would not add the correct amount of Friendship on use.
• Fixed an issue where the Leaderboards would break and not return until game restart.
• Fixed an issue where ‘for no reason’ would appear after pledging or working ended.
• Fixed an issue where players would have their Work command interrupted if they happen to activate the Structure.

BARK BARK BARK from the Dog!

Here’s what’s new in this update:

• Structures – A new reward for completing the Pledge activity that behave similar to Dig Sites, but with more focused (and even exclusive) item drops.
• Daily Quests – Complete these to earn Gold, Points, and boosts to the speed of various commands.
• Fugitive Raid Update – Raids now endure for a period of time. Fugitives NPCs can now be sent to Jail and RIOT!
• Balance Update – Updates to Saving Pet and Pledge items. Nerfed Kick Immunity. Buffed MAX Armor. 

Other notable changes:

• World Update – Characters now roam the whole bottom of the screen! Such space. Much room. Very impress. Wow.
• Optimizations – The game should be less laggy. The little ole DKTD laptop needs all the optimization it can get.

Structures & Pledge Update

The Pledge activity has been updated to now be a timed activity that requires a certain amount of gold to create a structure. The amount of pledges required is based on the structure being built.

Structures function similar to DIG sites, except they use the new keyword: WORK. 

• When WORK reaches 0, something happens depending on the Structure.
• Structures also have Health. When Health reaches 0, the Structure is Destroyed.
• Structures lose 1 Health every time WORK reaches 0.

This update brings four unique structures:

• Gold Mine
  • Produces a Minecart Full of Gold, which contains [Gold Nugget] items.
• Treat Dispenser
  • Opens a Bag of Treats, which contains [Yummy Treat] and [Hearty Treat] items.
• Police Station
  • Opens a Justice Chest II, which contains more defense items than a normal Justice Chest.
• Tool Shed
  • Opens a Tools Chest, which contains two brand new items: [Steel Shovel] and [Steel Pickaxe]. These increase your power for Digging and Working, respectively.

Daily Quests

• There are 3 types of Daily Quests available: Daily Petting, Daily Digging, and Daily Pledging.
• Each type of Daily Quest also has 3 tiers available. Completing higher tiers gives more rewards.
• Rewards for each tier include Gold, Points, and boosts to Command Speed.
• The Gold and Point reward scales with Prestige Level.
• The Command Speed boost lasts until 12 AM game time. At that point, all Daily Quests will reset and be available to complete again.
• You can use the QUESTS command to check your progress at any time.

Fugitive Raid Update

• Fugitive Raids now last a set period of time, rather than ending when all Fugitive NPCs are defeated.
• Once time expires, the Raid ends and all Fugitive NPCs disappear.
• Fugitive NPCs now actually go to Jail instead of just being ‘defeated’. They also will RIOT and try to break out of Jail!
• Higher level Fugitive Raids last longer.

Balance Updates

General

• Kick Immunity time after the Dog is defended has been reduced to 30 seconds (Down from 300 seconds).
• MAX Armor has been increased to 1,000.
• Imprisoning a Demon increases Jail Health by 100 (Up from 10).

Items

The following items have had their descriptions updated:

A cheerful BARK from the Dog!

This update brings a massive rework to how Fugitives are treated in Don’t Kick the Dog. The rework includes:

• Removing RNG from JAILBREAK (Now called RIOT), and SORRY, and COP (mostly).
• Introducing the ‘Critical Cop‘.
• Bringing Fugitive Health to Players (Previously was only for NPCs), and updating how Fugitive Health works in general.
• Reworks of [Officer’s Badge], [Gavel], [Lock Pick], [Ninja’s Hood], and [Secret Agent].

Probation

Players that KICK the Dog and have a change of heart can continue to use SORRY to atone for their mistake. However, rather than randomly receiving forgiveness, players are immediately forgiven and placed on Probation.

• Players on Probation will be totally unable to KICK the Dog for 5 minutes. 
  • Attempting to KICK during this time will reveal your remaining Probation period in game.
• Using SORRY as a Fugitive or Prisoner immediately places you on Probation.
• Golden Dog no longer provides blanket forgiveness on completion.

Fugitive Health & COP Changes

Both Player Fugitives and Fugitive NPCs now have ‘Fugitive Health’. When this health reaches zero, the Player/NPC is Imprisoned. 

Of course, this would be an enormous buff if COP did not also change, so COP is no longer RNG dependent. Instead, COP always removes 1 Fugitive Health from a random Fugitive. 

• Players begin with 10 Fugitive Health on becoming a Fugitive.
• Fugitive NPC health has changed:
  • NPC: <Fugitive I> now has 4 Health.
  • NPC: <Fugitive II> now has 12 Health.
• COP decreases a random Fugitive’s health by 1.
• COP has a small chance to land as a Critical Cop, which immediately reduces Fugitive Health to zero.
• Fugitive Players cannot critically cop.
• If a Player/NPC reaches zero Fugitive Health, they are Imprisoned.

Riot!

Jailbreak has been changed to RIOT. Similar to how Players have Fugitive Health, the Jail now has Jail Health. Once that health reaches zero, a Prison Riot occurs and all Prisoners are turned into Fugitives.

• Jail Health is increased by 10 for every Prisoner added.
• RIOT is a new command that decreases Jail Health by 1. This command occurs automatically over time, like COP / PET. 

Item Balance

The following items have changed due to the rework:

[Gavel] I, II, III, IV

Misc Balance

• Fugitive NPCs have a much lower chance to drop Items.
• Kicks from Fugitive NPCs no longer drain Kick Immunity.
• Fugitives that use the COP command will no longer automatically continue to cast the COP command.
• Players no longer automatically gain Gold over time. 

Bug Fixes

• Fixed an issue where [Corrupted Pledge] was consuming charges for its passive effect.
• Fixed an issue where the Dog Leaving notification would not play audio or display a chat message.

A sing-songy BARK from the Dog!

This update rebalances item drops / chests, and brings a new activity: The Dog Wants Pledges! A few items got updated, one got deprecated (Spoiler: [Repair]), and the UI has been updated to better handle a lot of on screen items.  

The Dog Wants Pledges

The Dog will occasionally desire Gold in the form of Pledges. Each Pledge costs 1 Gold and grants 1 Friendship.

As a reward for clearing all Pledge stacks, a new chest drops: [Brave Chest]. This chest contains 3 random boost items  ([Digging Frenzy], [Friendship Gem], [Bone Piece] etc).

Donation Goal

The Donation Goal has been changed.

• Pledging enough Gold to the Dog will grant you 100,000 Bonus Points.
• This goal can be achieved many times per day, but the Pledge requirement increases by 10 every completion (up to 200 Pledges required)
• You can view your current Goal with the gold command.

Command Changes

pledge

• Clears Pledges at the cost of 1 Gold per Pledge. Each stack cleared grants the Dog 1 Friendship.
• Triggers until you perform another action, run out of Gold, or all Pledges are cleared.

cancel

• Stops the current action. Has no effect on item passives.

sell (previously dismantle)

• Sells the held item for Gold. The amount of Gold received is equal to the items tier.

Activity Balance

• The number of staring Bonus Pets has been increased to 10 per online player. (Previously 5)
• Activities start more frequently.

Digging Balance

Overall

• Chests will not spawn if there are 8 or more items available to claim.
• Dig sites now spawn less frequently.

Chests

• [Small Chest]
  • Health decreased to 10 (Previously 15)
• [Good Chest]
  • Drops 3 items (Previously 4)
• [Great Chest]
  • Drops 6 items (Previously 8)
• [Epic Chest]
  • Drops 8 items (Previously 10)
  • Health reduced to 80 (Previously 120)
• [Frenzy Chest]
  • Now drops 2 [Digging Frenzy] items. (Previously 1)
  • Health reduced to 20 (Previously 30)
• [Justice Chest]
  • Health increased to 20 (Previously 15)
• [Sinister Chest]
  • Health increased to 20 (Previously 15)

Items / Item Balance

The way items are presented has been changed:

• Up to 8 items can be visible at any time. After that, all newly spawned items will appear as ‘Shadows’. 
• If the maximum number of visible items is exceeded, visible items will begin to expire. 

Item drops have been rebalanced:

• Friendship Gems are more likely to drop out of Chests.
• Equipment is less likely to drop out of Chests.

• The following items have been deprecated and will no longer spawn:

  • [Repair]

These item descriptions have been updated:

[Corrupted Pledge] I, II, III, IV

Misc Balance

• Golden Dog now stops spawning Golden Sparks if 3 or more are available (Previously 5).

A jaunty BARK from the Dog! 

As we work towards Version 1.0, we are taking a harder look at all of our existing features to make them more engaging. We believe DKTD is more fun with more players, but the game could be doing more to sustain a larger audience.

In this update, we’ve reworked Digging, re-balanced Items drops, tweaked Golden Sparks, re-added scaling to Bonus Pets and Kicks, deleted [Sinister Plan], and added more visual feedback.

Digging Update

• Individual items are no longer buried. Instead, Chests are buried.
• Chests contain an assortment of related items (See further below: Item Economy)
• It is no longer random when a Dig is successful, there is now a set amount of DIGs that need to happen depending on the Chest that is buried. This number is shown on stream as long as the Chest is buried.
• Dig Sites no longer expire. Once a Chest is buried, it must be dug up before another can spawn.
• If no Dig Site is active, a new Chest spawns after 10 seconds.
• [Digging Frenzy] no longer activates all dig sites. Instead, a new site will be instantly activated once the current Chest is dug up.

Game Balance

General Balance

• The expiration time for dropped items has been changed to 60 seconds (Down from 120 seconds) to help reduce screen clutter.
• Bonus Pets no longer grant Kick Immunity time. 
• The number of required Bonus Pet stacks is now uncapped.
• The number of Kicked stacks is now uncapped.
• The number of Bonus Pets stacks when the Dog wants pets now scales with the number of online players.
• The starting number of Kicked stacks when the Dog starts to leave now scales with the number of online players.

Item Economy

• Chests drop an assortment of related items. For example, the [Sinister Chest] drops items like [Lock Pick] and [Mercenary Contract]. 

Chest Types

• Basic Chests:
  • Drop an assortment of items that help progress the Dog, or your account.
  • [Small Chest], [Good Chest], [Great Chest], [Epic Chest]
• Battle Chests:
  • Drop an assortment of items that help defend or attack the Dog, or other Players.
  • [Justice Chest], [Sinister Chest]
• Bonus Chests:
  • Drop an assortment of items that provide boosts or bonuses to the community.
  • [Frenzy Chest]

Chest Spawning

• If no Chest is active, a new Chest will spawn after 10 seconds.
  • Basic and Bonus Chests spawn while the Dog is not leaving.
  • Battle Chests can spawn at any time, though are most common while the Dog is leaving.

Golden Sparks

• Sparks now spawn more frequently over the course of a Golden Dog.
• Sparks now Expire after 30 seconds.
• No longer disappear when the Golden Dog ends.
• Now grant points to all players (Except Fugitives and Prisoners) on pick up.

Items

[Steak] I, II, III, IV

Bug Fixes

• Fixed an issue where the Dog Level would be off by 1 when output from the DOG command.
• Fixed an issue where [Gavel] would not indicate the player that used the item to imprison multiple Fugitives.

A heart-filled BARK from the Dog! This update introduces Corruption, a new Realm Modifier that fuels Fugitive Raids. Yummy Treat, Hearty Treat, and Steak have been changed. There are also a handful of new items, all of which require Gold to operate.

Corruption

Corruption is a buff that is added for performing any evil actions. For example, a single kick will add a stack of Corruption. A successful Jailbreak adds Corruption.

Fugitive Raids need Corruption

Fugitive Raid events will not start counting down unless a certain amount of Corruption is present. Additionally, Raids will consume Corruption stacks once they start. A Raid that is already counting down can also upgrade or downgrade depending on the current number of Corruption stacks.

Demons & Corruption

A successful Jailbreak from a Demon will reduce the start time of the next Fugitive Raid by 10 seconds. 

New Items

Changed Items

The following items have had their descriptions updated to reflect their new effects.

[Yummy Treat] I, II, III, IV

Game Balance

• The MAX Dog leave time is no longer affected by Ascendancy, Bone Tier, or Dog Level. The Dog now once again always leaves in 60 seconds. Having this time be variable just seems to be frustrating to everyone- it’s either too high or too low. 
• Armor is now maxed at 100 stacks.
• Completing all Bonus Pets no longer awards Kick Immunity.
• Bonus Pets now each add 5 Seconds of Kick Immunity in addition to Friendship.
• Bonus Pets now have a chance to drop an item.

Misc Changes

• COP command will now continue to attempt to Imprison a Fugitive, as long as Fugitives are present, over time.
• Dog’s total XP is now shown via the dog command.
• New SFX for when a Fugitive Raid starts.
• “The Dog is leaving in 60 seconds”. Added back in.
• Item codes have been added to chat messages that indicate an item is available.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed an issue where Fugitive Raid IV was not spawning the intended fugitives.
• Fixed an issue where Saving Pet’s passive effect would persist even after the item was destroyed.
• Fixed an issue where Secret Agent’s passive effect would persist even after the item was destroyed.

A cheerful BARK from the Dog! This update changes how Loose Fugitives work (Now called Fugitive NPCs), adds a larger,  more powerful Fugitive NPC, adds Emoji to Chat Bot messages, and other smaller changes.

Feature: Fugitive NPCs

Removed: Fugitive NPCs will no longer spawn randomly

Added NPC: Fugitive I

• Health: 1
  • (When Health goes to 0, the Fugitive will be defeated)
• Power: Kick 1
  • (This is the number of armor removed / kick stacks added per Kick)
• This NPC’s kicks also reduce Kick Immunity duration by 1 second.
• Has a chance to drop an item on defeat.

Added NPC: Fugitive II

• Health: 3
• Power: Kick 3
• This NPC’s kicks also reduce Kick Immunity duration by 1 second.
• Has a chance to drop an item on defeat.

Feature: Fugitive Raids

Fugitive NPCs spawn naturally in new events called Fugitive Raids.

• Fugitive Raids unlock once Great Bone V has been achieved.
• Fugitive Raids occur on a timer that can range from 5 to 15 minutes.
  • The timer is visible at all times.
• As soon as a Fugitive Raid starts, the next event begins counting down. 

Items

• The chance of finding higher Tier items has been reduced significantly.
• [Secret Agent] I, II, III, IV
  • Description Updated
  • Passive: The next Player or NPC to KICK the Dog becomes imprisoned and this item loses 1 charge. This effect cannot be triggered more than once within [900, 750, 600, 450] seconds. If this item is not at full charge, it is destroyed on drop.

• [Repair] II
  • Now gives more Gold if you pick it up at full charge.
• [Repair] III
  • Now gives more Gold if you pick it up at full charge.
• [Friendship Gem] III
  • Now gives 25 Friendship (up from 20) on pickup.
• [Friendship Gem IV]
  • On Pick Up: Immediately adds 50 Friendship to the Dog.
• [Steak] I, II, III, IV
  • All tiers updated. No longer removes Armor. 
  • On Use: Reduce Kick Immunity time by [25, 50, 75, 99]%.

Quality of Life

• Command text has been updated to be more readable with emojis.
• New command: stats
  • Outputs some lifetime statistics for your account.
• New command: level
  • Shows your Hero Level, Title, and Leaderboard Rank.
  • Shows the Points required to achieve the next Hero Level.
  • Shows the Friendship Bonuses added by Hero Level.
• Changed command: points
  • Is now a synonym for the level command.
  • This command was becoming too crowded, so it has now been fully split up between stats, level, and item.
• New command: dog
  • Outputs information about the dog.
  • Level
  • XP to Next Level
  • Bone
  • Friendship / Armor / Kick Immunity
  • Ascendancy (And its effects)
• Digging Frenzy now shows up as a timed buff (Suggested by Qwerty)
• Digging Frenzy, and Lockdown buffs have been moved into a new part of the screen that will show up as ‘Realm Modifiers’.
  • Any modifiers that do not directly impact the Dog will be shown here.
• Lifetime Gold is now a tracked statistic for all players, and will display in the stats command.

Game Balance

• The minimum dog leave time has been increased to 30 seconds, from 10 seconds.
  • In the world of stream delays, 10 seconds was essentially instant. 

Bug Fixes

• Fixed an issue where the item command would trigger if ‘item’ was in any part of your sentence. 
• Item code font should display properly now (It was being cut off before)
• Fixed an issue where the feedback for dug up items would change facing with the character it was attached to.
• Fixed an issue where the incorrect number of Friendship added could be displayed in game after a pet.