Apogee’s Zelda-like dungeon designer Quest Master gets new update, release window

Apogee, Julian Creutz, and Skydevilpalm have released the latest Early Access update for their legally distinct Zelda-like dungeon creator, Quest Master. Alongside the update, they’ve given a release window for the 1.0 version. You can expect to see it leave Early Access sometime in Spring 2025.

It’s been a busy year, so while Quest Master first hit Early Access this past May, I haven’t been able to really take a closer look. As mentioned above, it’s a game that lets you create your own dungeons, with a style that looks suspiciously like The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, which, as I’m sure you’re aware, was a very good time for dungeons. There’s actually a story behind the dungeon decorating, as well as a castle town with mini-games, but the real meat is in actually designing your own and playing ones from the community. You can build multiplayer dungeons, as well, and if a player doesn’t have a friend, they can control both characters. Neat!

The new update brings the seventh dungeon theme, this one being ice. It, ugh, it has those block puzzles where the blocks slide across the ice until they hit an obstacle. They’re pretty staple in Zelda games. I’ve never been bad at them, but they’re far from my favorite. It also adds strength gauntlets to allow individual players to move bigger blocks. In the editor, you can also create objects that are pre-frozen, meaning the player won’t be able to interact with them until they melt them.

This joins the existing dungeon themes, and I’ll list them all out for you here:

• Dewdrop Ruins (Forest)
• Emberstone Quarry (Fire)
• Sandswept Ruins (Desert)
• Gustwind Palace (Wind)
• Deepcoral Cove (Water)
• Moonlight Brambles (Hallowe’en)
• Coldfang Grotto (Ice)

Beyond this update, the team is planning a secret update for February, and then it’s the full 1.0 release sometime in Spring. The full release will implement the single-player campaign, though the castle town is already available.

I’ve been dabbling around with game design lately, but right now, it’s a lot of learning an engine by following tutorials. I’ve built stuff in games like Super Mario Maker and Trackmania, but since one of the first projects I want to tackle is a top-down Ai Senshi Nicol sort of game, I think Quest Master would be a good way to practice without, y’know, having to get bogged down in code. So, I’ll be trying this out. Between you, me, and the wall, it will be on sale during the Steam Winter Sale, which is starting soon. That’s not really a secret, it was in the update announcement.

Quest Master is currently available on PC via Early Access. The 1.0 update is set to release in Spring 2025.