We wanted to announce the release date for Underboard with something special, and doing it alongside the last demo update felt like a great fit for us.

It's been 2 years since we released our initial playtest here on Steam, and the release of our demo was almost a year ago, so it feels like the end of an era for us to finally release Underboard on February 6th 2026!

The full version of the game will include more playable zones, with new and unique environments, monsters, map bosses and pinnacle bosses to defeat. You have to win a run to unlock the next zone, and each zone will be harder to beat, but you will also unlock new player characters, items and spells as you beat each one. There will also be more masteries for you to unlock in your runs and build crazy teams!

We mentioned in our previous update about combat FX that bosses and player spells were missing, and we wanted to bring those out before release as well. So now all map bosses and the pinnacle boss now have improved combat FX as well.

We also improved the combat FX for all active player spells, here's a "before and after" showcase!

Plague:

Ice Fort:

Lightning Fang:

We also want to improve the FX for all the reservation spells to a similar standard, but those will come with the full game release.

That's all from us, thanks for all the feedback and support you've given us throughout our updates, and happy end of the year!

We're getting closer to the full game release of Underboard, and we have improved a lot of the look and feel of the game across our updates, but combat FX are a major aspect that has remained mostly the same from all the way back to our earliest playable version. We decided it was time to bring our combat FX quality to a higher standard that better fits all the other improvements we've made along the way.

All player characters and enemies now have improved combat FX, our focus was to make them look cooler in general, but also to increase how noticeable they are, especially for skills since identifying enemies with deadly skills is a big part of the game's learning curve.

We wanted to nail down the new style first and we feel it came along great for this update, but we still have to bring bosses and player spells up to the same level, so those improvements will come in shortly. You can also expect all the other content in the full game release to have the same level of quality.

We released our first pinnacle boss a little while ago and we've been looking at how difficult it was to beat. The intention for pinnacle bosses is that they should be the last and hardest challenge of a run, but the third map boss was usually harder, so we decided to do a balance pass.

The pinnacle boss encounter is now slightly harder at phase 1, and now each phase is balanced to be harder than the previous one.

Die for the Lich is a great game that also shares our Newgrounds roots, and we're now thrilled to have a couple of their characters be in Underboard.

Since we wanted to add a playable character, we decided to make a new "rare" character, similar to how Pico and Cordelia works. We initially thought of the Undertaker obviously, but Dante was also a good fit.

Here's how you'll be able to get them in your team:

• You can now find the Undertaker among other characters in any bonfire.

• He is treated as a "rare" character, meaning that you'll see him less often than other characters, but you can expect him to be a bit stronger from the get go.

• To get Dante you'll have to level up the Undertaker to level 3.

• Since they are a unique character, they have their own skills themed around dice from Die for the Lich.

We hope you'll like making teams with them, and congrats to Die for the Lich for their recent Early Access release!

Make sure to check it out in case you don't know about it:

https://steamhost.cn/app/3415570/Die_For_The_Lich/

As a little extra bonus, Pico is now playable here on Steam too!

• Added the missing localized texts from the update 0.21 to all langueges.

Today is (technically) the 5th anniversary of Dead Estate, including 4 years on Steam, and we're happy to celebrate it with a special guest character that just appeared in the Underboard!

Being another game that started on Newgrounds, and especially now that we also share the same publisher, Dead Estate's success is a great inspiration for us, so we wanted to use this opportunity for something special.

Initially we thought of adding Cordelia (because of 2 BIG reasons) as a skin for an existing character, but we managed to also add Jules in time for the anniversary, so instead of character skins, we decided to make them a unique character.

Here's how you'll be able to get them in your team:

• You can now find Jules among other characters in any bonfire.

• She is treated as a "rare" character, meaning that you'll see her less often than other characters, but you can expect her to be a bit stronger from the get go.

• To get Cordelia, you'll have to level up Jules to level 3.

• Since they are a unique character instead of just skins, they have their own skills themed around guns from Dead Estate.

We hope you'll like making teams with them, and congrats to Dead Estate for reaching this awesome milestone!

Make sure to check it out in case you don't know about it:

https://steamhost.cn/app/1484720/Dead_Estate/

To close this out with news from Newgrounds, you can check the Underboard art contest winners here[chazmuco.newgrounds.com]. We recently hosted it together with our publisher and we received awesome submissions, thanks to everyone who participated!

We decided some months ago to participate in this October 2025 Next Fest, and we wanted to prepare a special monthly update for the event, so this ended up being among our most packed updates yet.

We managed to include the very first pinnacle boss, new player character designs, a heavy UI rework, and a few more improvements. All of this better represents how the final game will look and feel. We even added new music for the first time in a monthly update, shoutout to our partner Mudeth for that!

Previously runs consisted of 3 maps, each with increasing difficulty and a boss at the end, but we wanted something after all of that to serve as the real end of your runs. We also have narrative elements that we want to mix with the gameplay, and there will be multiple zones in the final game, each with unique locations, enemies and narratives.

We added the first pinnacle boss to the game, this continues the narrative of the Shadow Woods, but also serves as the real final challenge at the end of your runs there. Now you'll be able to completely clear the 3rd map in a run (which includes getting a third Potential from its boss), before continuing to a small 4th map where you'll face the pinnacle boss of the zone.

Each pinnacle boss is meant to have a static power level, meaning they don't gain random items or have a random team of minions with them. That doesn't mean their fights always go the same way though, our goal is that they are a single big scary enemy that can challenge your whole team with their own tricks, which includes multiple phases.

Beating pinnacle bosses is how you'll unlock the next playable zones in the final game, and each one will also have its unique pinnacle boss to challenge!

Part of our goal with releasing this content in our demo is to gather feedback about the power level these bosses should have. Our intention is that they become the hardest challenge in a run, but we also want to have multiple teams be able to beat them if built and played properly. So any feedback here is appreciated.

For a long time we used to have characters color swap to distinguish themselves from other characters using the same design. We decided to work on making every character design unique instead.

We updated the player character designs so that everyone has their own unique look instead of a simple recolor. This stands in line with a previous monthly update where we made all enemy designs be unique instead of also using color swaps. This approach of having unique designs is what we're going forwards with for the full game release.

• Reworked most of the UI inside runs to better communicate its information and look more flavorful.

• Added new music layers for when you're out of combat and fighting against bosses.

• The grid highlights were reworked to be more visible, especially on locations where the floor was of their same color.

• Added a spell targeting arrow to show better communicate which spell your using and how you're aiming it. This is similar to the character target arrows when you hover them while in combat.

• Added a spell drag snap to prevent you from dragging spells outside the spell bar. An area highlight also appears when dragging spell to display the limits,

• Characters with more than 1000 Maximum Health now calculate their health bar display differently to show less blocks, allowing you to better see their health bars.

• The energy bar of characters now flashes in white when they take energy burn.

• Added new unique corpses for every character and enemy. We also improved their blood splatters to be more dynamic.

• Fixed bosses not starting with the same skill again after a lost round.

Check out these other roguelikes from 2 Left Thumbs!

They’re also part of this Steam Next Fest and both have awesome demos. If you enjoyed Underboard, don’t miss these amazing games. they're launching soon too!

https://steamhost.cn/app/3415570/Die_For_The_Lich/https://steamhost.cn/app/3497720/Dice_A_Million_Demo/

After the initial release of Underboard: Omen[www.newgrounds.com] back in April 2023, this indie roguelike autobattler has received regular updates alongside the wonderful feedback coming from the Newgrounds community. This led to eventual playtesting on Steam, and a secondary Underboard Demo[www.newgrounds.com] both here and over on Newgrounds, 2 years after the original!

https://steamhost.cn/app/2376610/Underboard/After years of support, Underboard is now set to have a full Steam release in Q4 2025!

THE CONTEST[www.newgrounds.com] (link to official Newgrounds post where the contest is being hosted)

• Create an Underboard themed piece of artwork (any style/medium is fine)

• Submit your work to the Newgrounds Art Portal with the tag underboard[www.newgrounds.com] by the end of Sunday October 12th, 2025

• (Optional) Tweet your artwork out with #underboard for a chance to be retweeted by the game devs

Other rules:

• Multiple entries are allowed, but you'll only be able to win once

• No NSFW art

• No AI made/assisted entries

• Submissions after the deadline will NOT be counted

• Cash prizes will be paid through PayPal (no exceptions)

PRIZES:

Myself and the game's creators, Headless (@chazmuco[chazmuco.newgrounds.com] and @Braveado[braveado.newgrounds.com]), will handle the final judging.

• 5th Place: Steam key for Underboard

• 4th Place: $50 USD + Steam key

• 3rd Place: $100 USD + Steam key

• 2nd Place: $100 USD + Steam key + 1 Year Subscription[www.newgrounds.com] to Newgrounds

• 1st Place: $150 USD + Steam key + 1 year NG Sub

Useful info:

• You can play (and review!) the standalone demo on Steam for inspiration on designs + themes

• We will announce the winners through the BBS, as well as on Twitter and Bluesky[bsky.app]

• Copies of the game will be distributed to the winners as Steam keys upon release.

Links:

Official Contest thread[www.newgrounds.com] on Newgrounds

Wishlist Underboard on Steam

Follow Headless on Twitter[x.com]

Join the Headless Discord[discord.gg]

• Added the localized text missing from the update 0.19 to German.

• Added the localized text missing from the update 0.20 to all languages.

• The Blind debuff now correctly sets the Maximum Attack Range to 1.

In this monthly update we wanted to update the enemy set in the Shadow Woods to better reflect what you can expect for all the other playable zones in the full game release. We also did some balance changes for some spells, items and the forge.

It's worth to note that we'll be in the upcoming Next Fest event on October, and the next monthly update will be a big one we'll drop before the event starts to have the demo in the best shape possible. So feel free to drop us feedback on anything related to balance and polish!

The enemy set for the Shadow Woods has been completely updated to set a new standard. We wanted to have more visual and thematic variety within a set so that you can encounter more interesting enemy encounters, both in look and gameplay feel. This meant adding completely new enemies and reworking some of the old ones to fit better.

We also moved a few from the previous lineup to other playable zones that aren't available in the demo, so you'll get to see them again in the full game release.

In terms of balance, we aimed for a similar difficulty curve than before, but you can expect a slightly harder challenge, specially in higher maps and boss fights.

• Both forge options now have the same starting Fire cost to perform, which is 1, but each time you forge an item the cost increases by 1 in that forge.

• Lowered the forge enhancements and item mods that grant Damage with Melee Hits, Damage with Ranged Hits, Attack Damage while Flanking, and Skill Power while Focused by -10%.

• The Close Encounter spell no longer applies Shock to enemies.

• The Decay debuff now applies +3% Damage Over Time received per stack (instead of +5%).

• The Consecrate spell now applies 2 Devout stacks at base (instead of 4). The Devout buff now applies +10% Energy Cost Efficiency per stack (instead of +8%), and now grants Shield equal to 50% of Energy Cost per stack (instead of 40%).

• The Heavy Weight spell now deals 150% Maximum Life as Deadly Attack Damage (instead of 100%), and now deals 50 Poise Damage at base (instead of 40).

• The Harden buff now has 15 Maximum Stacks (instead of 13).

• Fixed a bug where clicking the currently selected forge option removed items placed in forge slots.

• Fixed the instances where the Attack Range stat in character tooltips was not being highlighted in blue when being modified.

• Fixed skills with multiple hits counting each hit as a skill use in the combat summary details.

• Fixed the instance where the reservation spell tooltips that show trait modifiers didn't showed the modifiers in the collection.

Added the localized text missing from the update 0.19 to the following languages:

• Korean