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Scruffy Dog Games (Palace of a Thousand Curses) @scruffydoggames.bsky.social · 16/08/2026

Long overdue update: We stopped work on Palace of a Thousand Curses a little over a year ago. I'm still pretty heartbroken, but so it goes. There's one silver lining, though. I put up our pitch demo on Steam for anyone who wants to check it out. store.steampowered.com/app/4540460/...

store.steampowered.com

Palace of a Thousand Curses Demo on Steam

Parry and thrust your way into a 2.5D action platformer with a unique style-based combat system. As you explore hidden passageways and duel strange creatures, you will need all of your swashbuckling p...

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Scruffy Dog Games (Palace of a Thousand Curses) @scruffydoggames.bsky.social · 26/03/2025

While you're waiting for PoaTC to come out, here's another 2.5D action-platformer where you can swing on ropes to tide you over in the meantime...

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Scruffy Dog Games (Palace of a Thousand Curses) @scruffydoggames.bsky.social · 08/03/2025

Palace of a Thousand Curses is definitely not a game ABOUT physics, but sometimes they do add some fun visual moments. :) #screenshotsaturday #indiegame #steam #gamedev #metroidvania

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Scruffy Dog Games (Palace of a Thousand Curses) @scruffydoggames.bsky.social · 19/02/2025

Hey streamers - anyone interested in getting a sneak peek at the Palace of a Thousand Curses demo before it goes public? (And before you get buried in Next Fest content.) Let me know and I'll send you a key! #indiegame #gamedev #twitch #stream

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Scruffy Dog Games (Palace of a Thousand Curses) @scruffydoggames.bsky.social · 15/02/2025

Palace of a Thousand Curses is more about swordfighting than platforming, but you can't have swashbuckling without at least a BIT of swinging around on ropes. ;) #screenshotsaturday #indiegame #platformer #metroidvania

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Scruffy Dog Games (Palace of a Thousand Curses) @scruffydoggames.bsky.social · 13/02/2025

3/3 3. Walt (2K), the final lead writer, who did the final main script pass. 4. Me, who did the other stuff - barks, scripted combat dialog, loading screen tips, etc. (Of course, lots of other people had a big influence on the story, but that's enough detail for now...)

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Scruffy Dog Games (Palace of a Thousand Curses) @scruffydoggames.bsky.social · 13/02/2025

2/3 1. Original guy who came up with core concept of Heart of Darkness influence + Dubai covered in sand (left fairly early in project) 2. A main Yager writer who came up with the plot we ended up using in the game and wrote the original script.

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Scruffy Dog Games (Palace of a Thousand Curses) @scruffydoggames.bsky.social · 13/02/2025

1/3 So... there were a bunch of writers involved at various times, but only two of us ended up getting text in the game. Not sure if they want names publicized, but roughly I remember it as:

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Scruffy Dog Games (Palace of a Thousand Curses) @scruffydoggames.bsky.social · 13/02/2025

Little known fact: My title on SpecOps: The Line was Senior Game Designer, but I also was one of the two main writers! So here are screenshots of... some text. SO EXCITING!! (More detail / context on the writing team in replies below...) #indiegame #specopstheline #gamewriting #narrativedesign

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Scruffy Dog Games (Palace of a Thousand Curses) @scruffydoggames.bsky.social · 12/02/2025

A whole, unedited fight. For those who want to see how the game ACTUALLY plays and not just fancy trailer cuts. :) youtu.be/TujYnl3MqSw #indiegame #wishlistwednesday #gamedev

youtu.be

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Scruffy Dog Games (Palace of a Thousand Curses) @scruffydoggames.bsky.social · 04/02/2025

The Mouse King thinks his tricks are clever, but personally I find them a bit cheesy. #indiegames #indiegamedev #gamedev

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Scruffy Dog Games (Palace of a Thousand Curses) @scruffydoggames.bsky.social · 25/01/2025

Sometimes we put little details in the background that most people don't notice. I think when you've got a lot of these, it adds a lot of neat texture and fun details for people who are paying attention. #screenshotsaturday #indiegame #indiegamedev #unity3d

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Reposted by Scruffy Dog Games (Palace of a Thousand Curses)

Enrique Colinet 'Baxayaun' @enriquecoli.net · 23/01/2025

Hey! 👋 We're releasing #TheStoneOfmadness in just a few days, but you can already play a 2 hours long prologue (Which is basically the first campaign of the game) ENTIRELY FOR FREE! Just hit the DEMO button on Steam: store.steampowered.com/app/1309710/... And if you like it, WISHLIST! 💗

store.steampowered.com

Save 10% on The Stone of Madness on Steam

The Stone of Madness is a real-time tactical stealth game set in an 18th-century Spanish Monastery. Five prisoners pool their skills and resources to face their phobias, stave off insanity, uncover th...

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Scruffy Dog Games (Palace of a Thousand Curses) @scruffydoggames.bsky.social · 18/01/2025

Both photos taken by the same photographer (and pulled off wikipedia because attribution is easy to find): By Turol Jones, un artista de cojones from Villanueva del Cascajal, República Independiente de Mi Casa

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Scruffy Dog Games (Palace of a Thousand Curses) @scruffydoggames.bsky.social · 18/01/2025

When we make environments (and most of the outfits / weapons), we're careful to base them off of real world references. Sometimes there are small changes to make them more fantastical, but I think the touch of authenticity adds a lot. #screenshotsaturday #indiegames #indiegamedev #gaming

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Scruffy Dog Games (Palace of a Thousand Curses) @scruffydoggames.bsky.social · 17/01/2025

Did a little polish on the rope resizer today. That's kind of our version of the thing in Dark Souls where you kick a ladder down so you can open up a shortcut. #followfriday #indiegames #indiegamedev

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Scruffy Dog Games (Palace of a Thousand Curses) @scruffydoggames.bsky.social · 16/01/2025

By law every indie dev is required to make a "how it started / how it's going" post. This one is ours! #indiegames #indiegamedev #gamedev #gaming

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Scruffy Dog Games (Palace of a Thousand Curses) @scruffydoggames.bsky.social · 11/01/2025

At the companies I've worked at, they tried a lot of different structures and org setups to improve various problems. No one was ever happy with any of them. I wonder if part of the reason for no standardization is just that no one's found anything that works well enough to be worth standardizing.

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Scruffy Dog Games (Palace of a Thousand Curses) @scruffydoggames.bsky.social · 11/01/2025

The character art is placeholder, but I still love our first boss, the Mouse King. As you play through the level, mice keep luring you into traps and generally being a nuisance, so that by the time you get here you're properly ready to fight. :) #indiegames #screenshotsaturday #indiedev

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Scruffy Dog Games (Palace of a Thousand Curses) @scruffydoggames.bsky.social · 10/01/2025

In Palace of a Thousand Curses, the protagonist in the real world enters into a magical storybook. To reflect these two different worlds, we have completely different art styles and rendering setups. Even the subtitles look different! #followfriday #indiegame #neverendingstory

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Scruffy Dog Games (Palace of a Thousand Curses) @scruffydoggames.bsky.social · 09/01/2025

Oh, and since he's not on Bluesky, you can find him here: voiceoverbuddy.com

voiceoverbuddy.com

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Scruffy Dog Games (Palace of a Thousand Curses) @scruffydoggames.bsky.social · 09/01/2025

And no, that is not our final Waq-Waq tree. But at least it does have some proper heads on it. Yeah, I'm calling you out #princeofpersia The Lost Crown!! ;) (Which ok, fine, was a fantastic game. Just a shame about that sanitized "Wakwak"...)

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Scruffy Dog Games (Palace of a Thousand Curses) @scruffydoggames.bsky.social · 09/01/2025

We were very lucky to find Muneer Adhami to do the voice of the Narrator in our game. He's both a fantastic voice actor and a native Arabic speaker, both of which were important to us. And because he's the one telling the story, he does the NPC voices as well... ;) #indiegames #game #voiceacting

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Scruffy Dog Games (Palace of a Thousand Curses) @scruffydoggames.bsky.social · 07/01/2025

Psh. Obviously the true year of the historical fiction game will be... uh, whenever Palace of a Thousand Curses comes out. 😉 (But seriously, I think this is a cool trend. I think grounding games in history can really help give the worldbuilding some proper texture.)

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Scruffy Dog Games (Palace of a Thousand Curses) @scruffydoggames.bsky.social · 06/01/2025

Couple book recommendations for fans of our game... The Adventures of Amina Al-Sirafi by @shannonchakraborty.bsky.social : Thoroughly researched swashbuckling pirate fun set in the Islamic world! The Bird King by @gwillow.me : A fantasy adventure set in Al-Andalus, featuring nefarious inquisitors!

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Scruffy Dog Games (Palace of a Thousand Curses) @scruffydoggames.bsky.social · 06/01/2025

The demo still has some unfinished assets in it, so we're not QUITE ready to go public. But DM me if you're interested in trying the current very early version and I'd be happy to send it over.

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Scruffy Dog Games (Palace of a Thousand Curses) @scruffydoggames.bsky.social · 06/01/2025

Thanks for the kind words! I'll follow you back so you can DM me. And yeah, I think 99% of screenshot Saturday materials are videos. They're really just better most of the time. But I think screenshots every now and then are nice, because then you can really take a closer look at things.

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Scruffy Dog Games (Palace of a Thousand Curses) @scruffydoggames.bsky.social · 04/01/2025

Going old school and posting ACTUAL SCREENSHOTS for #screenshotsaturday! Sometimes the old ways are best? Wishlist it! DO IT! store.steampowered.com/app/3330540?... #indiegames #platformer not quite a #metroidvania but tagging it that way anyway

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Scruffy Dog Games (Palace of a Thousand Curses) @scruffydoggames.bsky.social · 03/01/2025

Hey, it's Shawn! You don't check your email much, do you? ;)

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Scruffy Dog Games (Palace of a Thousand Curses) @scruffydoggames.bsky.social · 03/01/2025

Well, I can't say no to THAT. We're working on Palace of a Thousand Curses, which is a swashbuckling Andalusian fairy tale. Lots of fencing on top of tables, swinging on chandeliers, that kind of thing. Big inspirations are the Princess Bride, Prince of Persia, and Labyrinth. #indiegames

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Scruffy Dog Games (Palace of a Thousand Curses) @scruffydoggames.bsky.social · 01/01/2025

As you wish... Do you enjoy back-and-forth fencing on a table? Swinging on a rope to kick your enemies into pits? Tricking enemies into attacking each other? Wishlist Palace of a Thousand Curses today! store.steampowered.com/app/3330540/... #wishlistwednesday #indiegames #zorro

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Scruffy Dog Games (Palace of a Thousand Curses) @scruffydoggames.bsky.social · 31/12/2024

Did you know? There's an actual (not very) scruffy dog behind the Scruffy Dog logo! She does not like fireworks. :( (Marketing trick: hide screenshots behind pictures of cute dogs.) #indiegames #silvester #wheatenterrier #cutedogs

The cutest dog in the world hides under a couch.

A very cute fluffy dog gently places her paw on a human's hand.

The secret of life hidden in a set of complex math questions. (Not really, it's just a dog happy to be in the snow.)

Who cares what this picture is? It's just a screenshot of the game. Go back to the dog pictures.

Okay, fine. Just in case someone actually wants functional alt text:
A screenshot of a swashbuckling hero sliding under some rubble. Text on the image says:
"GUTEN RUTSCH! (That's how we say "happy new year" here in Germany when the new year is still coming up. It means 'good slide', like uh sliding into the new year? Who knows?)"

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Scruffy Dog Games (Palace of a Thousand Curses) @scruffydoggames.bsky.social · 28/12/2024

Is it a coincidence that the initials PoaTC are ALMOST PotC...?? (Yes. Yes, it is.) But look! Captain Sparrow seems to be a fan of the little Style Challenge side mode we made... (Sadly we'll have to remove all these copyrighted names when we launch, but it's fun for now.)

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Scruffy Dog Games (Palace of a Thousand Curses) @scruffydoggames.bsky.social · 28/12/2024

If you want to check out a very early prototype demo, DM me and I'll be happy to hook you up with a build. ;)

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Scruffy Dog Games (Palace of a Thousand Curses) @scruffydoggames.bsky.social · 28/12/2024

One of our inspirations was the style systems in games like Devil May Cry or Bayonetta. In PoaTC we've extended this idea so that playing for Style is used for powerful abilities. So it's not just fun, but is also the most effective way to play! #screenshotsaturday #devilmaycry #bayonetta

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Scruffy Dog Games (Palace of a Thousand Curses) @scruffydoggames.bsky.social · 27/12/2024

Swashbucklers are lazy folk. Sometimes they just can't be bothered to deliver the final blow themselves. Wishlist Palace of a Thousand Curses at good ol' Steam: store.steampowered.com/app/3330540/... #indiegame #princessbride #platformer #fencing #andalusia

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Scruffy Dog Games (Palace of a Thousand Curses) @scruffydoggames.bsky.social · 21/12/2024

Thanks for the kind comments! The biggest influence was 19th century Victorian fairy tale illustrations. If you're looking for a name to start googling, Arthur Rackham is a good place to start. But there are a bunch who worked in a kind of similar dreamy ink & watercolor style.

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Scruffy Dog Games (Palace of a Thousand Curses) @scruffydoggames.bsky.social · 21/12/2024

Introducing Palace of a Thousand Curses! It's a bit like a mix of The Princess Bride and the OG Prince of Persia (1989). Who can resist such a royal pedigree! store.steampowered.com/app/3330540/... #screenshotsaturday #indiedev #indiegame

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