If there is one thing I love more than seeing a passionate developer release an awesome game, it is seeing a developer passionate enough about their game to support it past release. While I understand that game production is a business, it is also a medium of art, so when developers quickly drop a game to move on to the next one, it can be pretty disappointing. On the other hand, when a developer sticks around to truly support their game past release, it shows me that they care, both about their product and about the community interacting with that product. I have been seeing a growing trend of this lately, especially in the Nindie space, and I love it!

A great example of this is the recently-released update to Battle Chef Brigade called Battle Chef Brigade Deluxe, which is what prompted me to write this article. It was refreshing to see such a great game get a DLC-worthy update for free. This isn’t just a case of a developer releasing a patch to address some technical issues as an attempt to fix a game. Battle Chef Brigade was great on release; there was no need for the update other than to make a great game even better. In a world where many of the AAA games are focused on generating the largest profits, I wanted to find other games and development teams that were pushing back against this trend. I was happy to find that there are others employing this awesome strategy as well. I’ll give a quick rundown of some of my favorites below.

Battle Chef Brigade Deluxe

Battle Chef Brigade was a game I would recommend to people even before the Deluxe release. It is a charming, genre-blending game that serves up a Michelin star-worthy dish of fun. Trinket Studios have decided to take an already awesome game, make it even better, and release the update for free. Whether you’ve never played it or you’ve already beaten it, now is a great time to jump in and cook up some fresh dishes of monster meat.

The Deluxe patch made some quality-of-life improvements, as well as balance and bug fixes which are common inclusions for any patch or update. However, Trinket went above and beyond here. They added local co-op, a new character, and two new modes: Survival and Free Play. They even added a Gallery to view all of the beautiful artwork in the game. For the full rundown on all the new modes and features, see Trinket’s Steam post with the patch notes.

Enter the Gungeon: Advanced Gungeons and Draguns

Enter the Gungeon is a killer rogue-like with a heavy dose of humor. The amount of guns you can get is crazy and each one has its own flavor. There are guns paying homage to famous video games and movies as well as unique ideas, like a lower-case “r” that shoots a burst of bullets that spell out “bullet”. Add in items that can “synergize” with the guns to create powerful combos, bullet-hell madness, table-flipping, punishing bosses, and procedurally-generated levels, and you’ll get the infinitely replayable masterpiece that is Enter the Gungeon. And that is before the massive Gungeons and Draguns update was released.

Like Trinket, Dodge Roll went all-out on this update. There are a ton of bug fixes, gameplay improvements, and new features. My favorite is that there is now increased movement speed when there are no enemies around. They’ve also added more warp portals, which makes backtracking 1000% more manageable. On top of these QoL improvements, they included even more of what makes this game great – insane guns and items, hilarious enemies and NPCs, and inventive rooms and secrets. There is even an entirely new boss. This is a fully-fledged add-on that provides so much more to an already outstanding game, and for free. For the full patch notes on the Advanced Gungeons and Draguns update, see here.

Hand of Fate 2

Hand of Fate 2 is an interesting mix of genres. Combining a table-top card game with an action brawler sounds like it shouldn’t work, but it does – surprisingly well. This is another game that was great upon release and would have been recognized as a must-buy for ARPG fans on the Switch without any changes. However, Defiant Development wasn’t satisfied with just letting it sit.

The Switch version had a fairly significant bug on release that had the potential to affect game progress. Defiant listened to the community and put out a fix almost immediately to address the issue. Going even further, they’re now releasing an update to the combat mechanics, arguably the weakest aspect of the game. The fighting is getting a full overhaul with new balances and abilities. While this isn’t out on the Switch yet, it will be coming for free soon.

Nine Parchments

Unfortunately, I have not played Nine Parchments yet (it is on my ever-growing backlog of games), so I can’t speak to the base game. However, it too received a free content update this summer, which is referred to as the Astral Challenges update. The highlights include six additional arena levels targeted at high-level characters, as well as a new playable character complete with their own equipment. This is on top of the myriad of other updates and improvements, all of which can be found here. Even though I haven’t played Nine Parchments yet, Frozenbyte deserves a shout-out for this great content update!

Support the Devs That Support Their Games!

Developers, take note! This is how you win fans over and show your attention and inclusion with the gaming community. I get pumped when I see developers truly loving their creation and wanting to nurture and improve it. Trinket Studios, Dodge Roll, and Defiant Development (among other development studios) will forever be on my list of “game creators to watch” for this reason.

Gamers, this is not a trend to go unnoticed. Support what these devs are doing! With so much understandable backlash against the industry giants recently for little to no post-release support and locking content behind microtransactions, we should focus on those that are doing it right. Do what you can to back these teams and spread the word!

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