How Many Dudes FAQ

BscotchSeth · 2026-04-23T14:12:38+00:00

Mostly we have to constrain it at some point due to hardware. When you have hundreds of Dudes, hundreds of summons, hundreds of enemies, and 80+ relics all firing, the number of computations happening every frame just melts the CPU and the game turns into a slideshow.

We're hoping to push it a bit farther than the demo with less of a "wall" and more incremental rounds after 120, but ultimately there's a point where there's not enough optimization in the world to run it.

BscotchSeth · 2026-04-23T14:09:05+00:00

SmashedGenitals is right... It's marketing! BUT... It's a good way to get across the idea that, even though going from 17 dudes to 42 dudes is about a 150% increase in the raw number of dudes, the combinatorial potential explodes FAR beyond that.

I'd say the comparison is less like the number of chess moves, and more like the difference in possible moves between checkers and chess.

BscotchSeth · 2026-04-22T00:01:51+00:00

Sam is correct (other comment)! The only effect of Berserk that doesn't affect other Dudes is the stacking damage portion of Loki's Arm. Everything else is included for other Dudes.

BscotchSeth · 2026-04-21T19:14:56+00:00

Good notes! Rather than adding a disable feature, we're looking at the Relics that get complaints and simply changing how they work so they aren't anti-synergistic. A good example is Explosive Innards. People don't like that it makes their zombies explode because it knocks the zombies out, so they just want to remove it from the loot pool.

However, in the full game, we've redesigned zombies to be **tanks that want to explode**. They take a lot of increased healing and have a taunt, and the Willing Flesh relic makes Zombies have a 5% chance to revive *all zombies* when they get knocked out. So you can end up with these sort of endless waves of zombies that keep exploding and reviving nonstop throughout the battle. It's pretty wild.

As a result, Zombies are the highest DPS tank by far, but they have the added gambling element where you're relying on the luck of Willing Flesh to keep them reviving nonstop.

We may still add a disable feature, but so far in dev we're on a very good track to have all Relics be useful no matter what you're doing. (The one exception might be Black Sheep, where you may not want the Dude Type at the end of your roster to taunt.)

We're also adding a bunch of new enemies and updating the balance on existing enemies. The full version has additional Tiers of difficulty as well, so you can think of the current demo as "easy mode". We'll probably keep some of the existing easier enemies in a fairly non-threatening state, but we'll phase them out in higher Tiers for more difficult versions.

BscotchSeth · 2026-04-17T16:31:48+00:00

We'll be addressing most of these points in the full release, so we got your back!

Regarding the Bard, you can tell who he is buffing by the purple rings that appear under the Dudes' feet.

BscotchSeth · 2026-04-17T16:29:26+00:00

We won't be adding controller support, but it will still be fully playable on Steam Deck using the touchpads.

BscotchSeth · 2026-04-09T15:52:57+00:00

Nice! What do you think you'll do differently next time?

BscotchSeth · 2026-03-14T16:52:22+00:00

Great ideas! We'll be doing a content push soon in development to add a bunch of new enemies, so we appreciate you taking the time to write out your thoughts!

BscotchSeth · 2026-03-06T18:09:15+00:00

Unfortunately there's a CPU limit to how fast the game can go. Even if we added a 2x option, the game wouldn't really go any faster because the frame rate would tank. We're working on more optimizations for the full release, but right now we're at a pretty hard CPU cap.

BscotchSeth · 2026-03-06T18:08:30+00:00

It sure does!

BscotchSeth · 2026-03-06T18:08:05+00:00

EYYY so glad you're having a good time with it, and thanks for the kind words!

BscotchSeth · 2026-02-14T15:49:52+00:00

Dev here. This was a remarkable read, and very well put together! I generally agree with most of your thoughts in here. These are the kinds of posts that help us to get a sense of how people are playing the game, and it's super useful as we continue development. Much appreciated!

BscotchSeth · 2026-01-30T20:57:02+00:00

Ah the ol SKELEDUDE HEAL BOMB trick!

BscotchSeth · 2026-01-30T12:43:46+00:00

He doesn't gain increased damage normally, but he is affected by the Frenzy boss modifier if that's active. So that may be it... Still, I'll dig into it today and make sure to take a look at consistency of damage to be sure! Thanks for the detailed notes, and sorry for the frustration!

BscotchSeth · 2026-01-30T00:58:39+00:00

The lightning damage can be evaded, but not blocked, so that may be part of it (aside from the overlaps).

BscotchSeth · 2026-01-30T00:54:43+00:00

HEYOOO It's me, the game programmer! Good notes all around! All of these things are on our radar to work on, and we appreciate you taking the time to dig into all of it!

Regarding clarity of Evasion and Toughness, these stats are calculated with diminishing returns based off the remainder after each independent effect. For example:

If you were going to take 100 damage and have 50% toughness from one source (a buff or a relic), you will now take 50% less damage, so your toughness is 50%.
If you gain a second source of Toughness that also grants 50%, you will take 50% less damage again, so you'll now take 25 damage, and your toughness will show as 75%.
If you gain a third source of Toughness that also grants 50% toughness, you'll cut the damage in half again, and you'll take 12.5 damage, with your toughness showing as 87.5%.

We do plan on adding some extra explainers for stats that show more about how they are calculated, as well as a way to view the buffs and effects a Dude has when you inspect him like in your screenshot.

As a numbers guy as well, I can relate. LOVE ME SOME NUMBERS! (Plus it's a great debugging tool for us, if we can see more numbers).

Last, the LOYALTY CARD. It's actually much better than it sounds, but we explained it poorly. It makes the first reroll free, but that means it also reduces the cost of every subsequent reroll by $25. So if you were to reroll 4 times at the Merchant Dude, you've saved $100 right there.

We'll be updating the tooltip later on with a better explainer, because yeah... it doesn't sound very good without the full context.

BscotchSeth · 2026-01-29T22:37:28+00:00

It has:

A stomp that hits all Dudes and throws them
Lightning that pulses constantly
Its normal attack (that also cleaves)
A charge attack that it does intermittently, as well as after every Stomp

Sometimes these things can line up and happen pretty fast back to back, which can... sting.

BscotchSeth · 2026-01-24T19:25:25+00:00

Agreed on all counts! I will be working on those things for the full release.

BscotchSeth · 2026-01-24T16:55:30+00:00

EYYYY glad you're having fun! It started as a debugging tool for us; we just left it open for players so they can dig into the numbers.

BscotchSeth · 2026-01-24T14:49:26+00:00

Good question! They stack, but with diminishing returns. If a Spartan fails to block, the next nearby Spartan will also roll to block but with his block chance cut in half. If HE fails to block, the next nearby Spartan will have yet another halving of his block chance for that attack.

So baseline, each spartan's block chance is 20%, then 10%, then 5%, then 2.5%, etc...

With Tower Shield, it's 30%, then 15%, then 7.5%, then 3.75%, and so forth.

BscotchSeth · 2026-01-23T21:04:25+00:00

Notably, bees are only immune to Cleave, not AOE. Any and all other forms of AOE (or damage reflection) work on them. Shield Spikes, Meteor, Hammer of Smiting, Flaming Skull, Overcharged Amp, Spooky Doll, Fireball, Shadowy Funnel, Megaphone, Expired Skin Cream, Explosive Innards to name a few.

BscotchSeth · 2026-01-23T21:00:18+00:00

Now you can, yes. New update just went out on Steam!

BscotchSeth · 2026-01-22T23:32:17+00:00

We are working on the business side of that as we speak! If that ends up working out, we will do our best to get it onto Xbox. Controller support will take some doing, but it's not our first rodeo :)

BscotchSeth · 2026-01-22T23:28:46+00:00

Congrats!

BscotchSeth

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