Tag Archives: Doug Houserman

Temper is set to return to Orcs Must Die! Unchained after a very long break. The Order hero was last seen way back in phase 1 of the closed beta. Fans have long been awaiting his return and returning he is in patch 1.8 due out Tuesday 21st February! As with all returning heroes he has been given a full design re-work. Here is a look at Temper’s new skills:
- Swing! Punch! Smash! (LMB): If used in quick succession, Temper anvil punches, swings his hammer, and delivers an uppercut, building his rage.
- Exploding Hammer (RMB): Temper throws his hammer. On impact, it knocks back and damages enemies over time in its radius.
- Happy Place (Q): Temper soothes himself, converting rage into health and a movement speed boost. Attacking cancels ability.
- Hammer Slam (E): Temper brings both weapons down in front of him, setting the surrounding area on fire.
- Bull Rush (Shift): Temper charges forward, knocking back enemies in his path.
- Rage of the Forge (Passive): Temper gains strength as he builds rage, exploding at max rage and damaging and knocking back enemies.
Rage
Patch 1.8 is also introducing a new type of resource. In addition to mana there is now an additional resource called “rage”. Unlike mana which regenerates over time, rage will re-fill based on damaging enemy minions. Here is what Robot has to say about this interesting new mechanic:
Rage is a new resource in OMD!U. Like mana, it is used to fuel abilities, but unlike mana, it is generated by damaging enemies and decays when heroes are out of combat. For Temper, we feel that rage more accurately fits our portrayal of him as a misunderstood minotaur who is trying to refocus his anger issues into something more positive–defeating the Unchained.
Stinkeye
Since the refocus of OMDU to Survival from Siege, one hero has struggled with his slightly confusing kit. Stinkeye has had alot of feedback that his set up was quite complicated and difficult for players to grasp. As of patch 1.8, Robot has listened to that feedback and things are changing. Here is what Robot have to say:
We’ve received lots of feedback on Stinkeye’s new design and we decided to makes some sweeping changes. The new design is more active than before patch 1.6, but less complicated and overwhelming than he is currently. We believe we have found a happy medium. Below are the skills that have changed or have returned to their prior functionality.
- Arcane Anomaly (RMB): Conjures an orb of arcane energy that charges and then detonates, dealing arcane damage in a radius.
- Zephyr of Oasis (E): Summons a totem that increases the movement speed of allies and slows the movement speed of enemies. May be attacked to destroy the totem and stun nearby enemies for 3 seconds. Note: The size of the totem has been increased significantly.
- Wrath of Oasis (Q): Summons a totem that shoots nearby enemies. When shot with Prestidigitized Projectile, the totem shoots 3 projectiles at nearby enemies. Lasts 20 seconds. Note: The size of the totem has been increased significantly.
- Shaman’s Blessing (Passive): After a totem expires, a mana orb appears at the totem’s previous location.
Stinkeye Weaver changes:
- Reduced Totem Testament’s additional projectiles to +1 (from +2).
- Reworked Booming Benediction. It now replaces mana orbs that drop from totems with Tears of Oasis, which provide the benefit of three drops (Unchained, mana, and health) combined.
- Reduced Arcane Awe’s stun duration to 1s (from 3s).
In addition to Temper and the Stinkeye re-work the new patch brings 2 new maps, Orcatraz and Orcri-la for Survival and some existing maps are now making their way for Endless:
- Baths (1-10)
- Throne Room (11-25)
- Crogon Keep (46-75)
- The Wall (76-100)
Steam achievements are also on the way, for those who enjoy achievement hunting! As always there is a whole lot more in the patch notes. Be sure to check them out. Also catch up on Insider Access below where Doug “ShadeDev” Houserman is on hand to delve through the patch notes!

Last week Robot Enterainment achieved its goal of raising over $2000 as part of the 24hr stream in support of Extra Life. Justin “SixOkay” Korthof and “Danger Mike” among other bots stuck with the community on Twitch throughout the duration. This special stream also featured over three hours of BRAND NEW gameplay footage of the upcoming new update for Orcs Must Die! Unchained.
We get a look at all the brand new maps, brand new prologue and the re-worked heroes for the refreshed survival mode. Not only that but we get to see a first look at some new concepts including unstable rifts where rifts appear suddenly on a map spawning minions if not destroyed in time. Plus the new weekly challenge where each week players get a new unique challenge where Robot sets the map, the loadout, the heroes and a special type of objective. Ideas such as defending wave after waves of Gatebreakers where the only way to gain money for traps is by picking up coin drops. Designer Doug “ShadeDev” Houserman was on-hand to give us some thoughts on the direction for weekly challenges, commenting that they will generally be puzzle based or changing the way people think, such as playing maps without being able to use any traps, or just 1 hp / rift point.

Next OMDU update features a new story prologue
The three hour stream also showed us that the in-game visuals have been improved and the physics has been ramped up a few notches. Heroes move faster and visual effects on traps and abilities are bigger and bolder. Speaking of heroes, be sure to check out the video footage below which shows a number of heroes in action, all with their new re-worked abilities. Wondering how Midnight has been tweaked for survival? Find out below! (Answer: she now has an awesome fast dash forward ability dealing damage).
Seeing is believing
Check out the video below to see all the sweet new OMDU content coming soon next month!
Extra Life donations still open!
If you have not yet donated to Extra Life and you would still like to get ahold of the exclusive Gabriella skin and support children’s hospitals, you still can! Just head over to the link below and donate $10 or more and you’ll receive a code for the skin when the next update lands.

Great news to all closed beta players for OMDU the MEGA PATCH version 2.7 is out now in both EU and NA regions simultaneously. The download is a biggie so you will want to get it going as soon as possible so that you are ready to play. As a reminder there has been an account wipe with this patch so your progress will start again from the beginning. This is as result of the huge changes which almost make patch 2.7 feel like a completely new game.
Highlights
Just a small selection of highlights from this new patch include:
- 3 (yes, three!) brand new PvE exclusive maps!
- A single player campaign mode for survival!
- You can now choose whether you want to play as an defensive or offensive role as a hero of your choice. Heroes no longer have fixed roles. A new role of “roamer” has also been introduced.
- Some heroes still may play better on one particular role than another and this will be indicated in the dashboard.
- Heroes now move faster.
- Account level is now the sum of your hero levels.
- All cards in the store can now be crafted.
- Bots will now attempt to capture neutral objectives.
- And of course some new traps and minions!
These are just scratching the surface. Check out the full patch notes to dig into the full details of all the changes, including designer notes from Doug Houserman. What are you waiting for? Start downloading! Whilst you wait you can also check out this weeks episode of Insider Access which also covered all the big changes in this patch.
Be sure also to tune into Meet Your Match on Friday at 6.30pm US Central time for streaming games with Nananea. It’ll be great to see you there!

Patch 2.6 for Orcs Must Die! Unchained is now Live for both North America and Europe regions. Hop on in and check out the new features such as:
- The brand new survival map “Surrounded” built exclusively for PvE with the OMD2 feel.
- New Potions and Scrolls and Crafting!
- New objectives for Unchained Fortress!
And LOTS more! Check out the full patch notes if you haven’t all ready, or if you prefer video format check out the Insider Access video below with Doug Houserman talking all about patch 2.6. See you in-game!

Over last few weeks there has been some pretty interesting Orcs Must Die! Unchained insider access streams taking place over on the OMDU Twitch channel. These shows have given fans a good insight onto what kind of things we can expect to see in phase 2 of the closed beta.
Show #1 – Tencent announcement
The first insider access was a biggie, it was where we found out that Robot has a new partnership in place with Tencent Games in China to bring OMDU to the eastern audiences. It was also where, much to fans excitement we found out that barricades are returning! Other traps were discussed along with some ideas about changes to the gameplay and in-game economy.
Show #2 – Bosses and levelling
In this Insider Access, Mother (Ian Fischer) took the hot seat to discuss the cool ideas the studio has about implementing bosses. We saw a ton of artwork for potential bosses and we learnt about the plans to introduce daily challenges, specific goals that players can work towards.
Show #3 – Meet Doug Houserman, balance designer
In this show we met Robot’s new balance designer, Doug Houserman who talked to us about some of the plans and ideas he has for game-balance. Not only that but we got to see a whole ton of new trap ideas fresh out of the box from Doug’s mind!
Show #4 – Hero rewards, experience, bosses, XP and rewards.
Shoop (Shovaen Patel) and Shade (Doug Houserman) join Justin for a detailed look at how things like experience, XP and rewards are changing in Phase 2. We learnt that there are plans to track victories for individual heroes, allowing players to level up on a per hero basis. Bosses were discussed again, and we also found out that at the end of each game players can choose a card from a random set to get a random reward.
Reveal #5 – New Map!
Something we have all been waiting eagerly to hear about, a new map, this time with a much darker Orcish map to give contrast to the two current fortress based Order maps.
Catch up show – Tuesday, January 27
With so much that has been covered in the last few weeks, it can be tricky to digest all the new ideas that Robot is working on. Luckily Robot’s community team have this covered with this weeks show going to be a “Reveals Overview” show where Justin “SixOkay” Korthof will be going through the key highlights of each of these five big reveal shows to give us the low down on the key changes that will be going into Phase 2.
Its definitely a show not to be missed so be sure to check out the next Insider Access Tuesday, January 27 at 2PM Central Time on the OMDU Twitch channel. If you have a burning question be sure to come along and ask it in the Twitch chat.
See you there!