Messages

1

Traditional Roguelikes (Turn Based) / Re: Golden Krone Hotel - Launched out of Early Access

« on: July 23, 2018, 01:47:20 AM »

Been working on a final update to the game for many months. It's done, so the game is done. Details below...

Some roguelikes never cease development. Well, this ain't one of 'em.



When Golden Krone Hotel was released last October, it was absolutely a complete experience, but a handful of things never made the cut. With this last update, the game is as exactly as I envisioned when I first decided to expand it from its humble Seven Day Roguelike origins.

Six new branches have been added bringing the total number of floors on each run to 27! Controller support is finally here as is clouds saves. Nine new achievements were added.

Hawkers are now friendly so you don't have to tip toe around them.

Several new monsters are introduced with this update including the Devourer, a vampire that can teleport to pools of blood. Other vampires now drink blood off the floor just like the player does.



The Underworld has been reworked to make it more varied, interesting, and fun.

Lore is now permanently collectible and a ton of books, conversations, and even a world map has been added.



A hotel map provides the location of hawkers, chests, and bosses.

New spells, new potions, and a new vampire ability are in the mix.

Dozens of other changes listed below....

Have fun

Enjoy the update, let me know if you see any issues, and one last favor: please add a review to the game if you enjoyed it.

The game should be going on sale within 24 hours.

Thanks for all the support, my kronies!

Changelog

• Cloud saves
• Controller support
• Zoom level to help with odd resolutions and playing on a TV
• 2 new guaranteed branches:
• HEDGE MAZE
• HIVE
• 4 new random branches (you'll see 2 of these each run):
• LABORATORY
• RAFTERS
• WATCHTOWER
• WORKSHOP
• Added Fede ring. It gives a spell power bonus and can be found in one of the previous two branches
• Hawkers are now friendly all the time
• Prices in the hotel have doubled
• New vampire to fit in for the Hawker: Devourer. This one is bad ♥♥♥
• Other new monsters: Elder GreenMan, DeathCap Toadstool, Electric Golem, Magma Golem, Artificer, Gargoyle, Naiad (water nymph). Mother♥♥♥♥ing Bees!
• WARP has been removed. I finally admitted to myself that it was useless.
• Two new spells: GLACIATE and QUAKE
• New demon blood ability: QUENCH
• Demon blood abilities are now randomly swapped out periodically when you have a full set
• Demon blood abilities are easier to acquire the fewer of them you have (first one is guaranteed)
• Minimap can be expanded
• A hotel "overworld" map can be access with 'I'.
• Expanded and rewritten lore and some more conversations. 40+ pages to collect, plus an infinite procedural "Song of Blood"
• An actual overworld map is one of the things you can collect, which is totally pointless but cool!
• New potion: BIG. The berserker starsts with it now.
• New potion: Clarity
• Condensed intelligence and mana potion into one way more useful potion, which is now given to the Scholar
• Merchant gets a bonus $100 to start
• Walking on stairs automatically tells you the destination
• Mana increase per level simplified (2mp/level)
• Fixed a crash bug which happened when falling through a pit onto ice
• Enemy vampires will drink blood just like you do. Some vampires will even go out of their way for it. The player now bleeds.
• Strength, which was significantly underpowered compared to dexterity, now gives a percent damage reduction (1.5% per every point above 10) on top of it's previous function.
• All the statuses have been stylized
• Added organs. Examine to play (V/select)!
• Added Time Crystals
• Blast damage reduced per hit
• Examing a sunlit staircase gives the proper description
• Tile animation is slowed down when the game is struggling. I *hope* this helps with performance somewhat
• Items can be picked up on lava/water
• Water + lava = stone
• Fixed a very elusive portal spawn bug
• Windows are brightened even when unbroken and even a bit before sunrise!
• Sunlight on windows has been added to minimap
• Added note to options about Numlock needing to be off for diagonal movement
• Thumb ring nerfed (100% -> 33% crit chance)
• Dummy status when submerged
• New floor sprite on main floors
• More potions made optional per run, so you get more variety
• Confirm default moves is now on by default, but way better
• Wolves are friendly to werewolves
• Hunters buffed slightly
• Burning monsters now give off light
• Invisiblity no longer prevents enemy spell casting when adjacent
• Solomonari now have colorful robes to hint at their chosen spell
• Turn count added to UI
• Morgue auto-upload turned off by default
• Random class selection
• Lots of Underworld changes
• Underworld no longer reenterable except through recall potions
• Armor now spawns in Underworld
• New item: Arcane Hammer. Increases your lowest gear by +1. No limit.
• Power curve in infinite levels retuned
• Blood drops on ice
• Too many balance tweaks to mention
• Each Underworld level has a distinct look and layout and set of monsters rather than all being a generic underworld cave setting
• Sometimes multiple Baron bosses can spawn
• Barons have a wider variety of abilities
• Some more Baron appendages
• Treasure levels that spawn about 10% of the time
• Cancelling Grimoires gives +1 MP
• Tooltips on spells/abilities can be accessed through V + 1-4
• Fixed an issue with remapping 0 or ` keys
• Text fix on 1 gold piece
• Distracting console messages removed after examine/revolver modes are exited
• Casting a spell now ends the turn for any monster. No more one turn deaths from Gorgon Queen
• The encounter with Fane has been altered slightly
• Fixed a light bug with TEMPEST
• Fixed incorrect key hints bug
• Fixed selectable loading screen
• Fixed Gallery crystal display cases that were accessible with 8 way movement
• 8 way vs 4 way movement is locked per run
• Fixed a display issue with vampires sometimes having .5 extra MP
• "Delete save" button has been renamed to "Delete current run" for clarity
• Fixed the remapping of CONFIRM
• Now allowing UP/DOWN/CONFIRM to be used on menu lists even if they are mapped to A-Z. But beware if using this feature! It will preferentially select the enumerated menu list item before your command (e.g. picking instead of DOWN)
• Shift movement no longer brings up Confirm Move warning but instead stops early

2

Other Announcements / Re: Roguelike Radio podcast

« on: May 15, 2018, 02:13:47 PM »

"I'm here to shit my pants and make a 3D roguelike and I'm all out of 3D."

3

Other Announcements / Re: Roguelike Radio podcast

« on: May 13, 2018, 03:55:36 PM »

I agree, it sucks to not have your game covered. I wish every game could be mentioned because we know every dev goes through a hell of a lot of effort. I've never heard of your game until now and it looks very interesting! I wish I had played it.

The reality is even with 4 guests, there's no way we could have judged or covered all of the games among us. There's 113 successful entries not to mention unsuccessful ones, so about 30 games per participant and that's assuming none of our judging overlapped, which of course it did.

more graphical entries

A weird phrasing, I think. Most of the games were "graphical", some of them exceedingly beautiful as I made sure to point out.

I would have thought there would have been some minor discussion about the use of 3d.

To be perfectly honest, 3D in and of itself is not especially noteworthy in this challenge. With engines like Unity freely available, we usually see 3D entries every single year. There were a couple 3D games that I had judged that I didn't mention on the podcast simply because they weren't especially good.

I looked up some reviews of your game and found this line:

"There is a firmly established tradition in 7DRL of every year having a game with beautiful 3D graphics which took the full 7 days and left absolutely no time for anything even remotely approaching gameplay."

I would wager this might be overly harsh feedback so take it with a grain of salt, but still sums up the issue. 3D is a lot of work! For this reason, the 3D games we see in the challenge tend to be the less mechanically interesting ones.

I should also mention some thoughts about the judging criteria (something I've thought about a lot) because Darren went out of his way to highlight the highest rated games even if he hadn't played them. Having superb graphics is only a drop in the bucket. There are 6 categories and having 3D graphics is only going to definitively affect Aesthetics. And even there you can get crushed by having a poor UI or bad controls. As opposed to other challenges, this is one where the rules are guiding people towards making roguelikes and mechanically deep ones at at that.

4

7DRLs / [7DRL 2018][Success] - DEAD FACE

« on: March 11, 2018, 11:18:48 PM »

https://jere.itch.io/dead-face

I started the very first day sick, so that sucked. Otherwise things went pretty smoothly.

The game consists of 5 levels of battling multi-tile mechs and a hacking mini-game. You can only take over the mechs by successfully hacking them. I tried to incorporate, in a very loose way, some real world stuff related to hacking.

Hacking

The hacking is based around hex numbers. In fact, the title is all hex and intended to be a fictional magic debug value. You see a memory dump on the left in hex and even the corresponding ASCII data (I really wanted a post-hack cutscene where you see passwords and stuff scroll by as you scan memory). Your goal, like most puzzle games, is to clear (e.g. zero out) the memory.



On the right, you have 5 "progs". I realized that hex numbers almost line up perfectly with playing cards (1-9, face cards vs 0-9, A-F), so the progs are really just a playing card metaphor. 0-9 can be used to replace all instances of the same number. A-F each can be used to delete rows that have a pair of that number plus they each have unique abilities. I had a good idea of what the cards should do going into the challenge and most of that got thrown away because it was too hard to use. I leaned towards abilities that could be used often and felt good. A playtester suggested a penalty for typing a command that would have no effect to prevent you from mindlessly typing everything and that really helped.

Mechs

I had made Dumuzid in 2015, one of the first multi-tile 7DRLs. Mechs seemed like a good fit for another multi-tile game. In DEAD FACE, you can control each tile separately, which can be batteries, shields, or weapons. There's a power mechanic sort of like FTL so you can only power about half of what's on your mech and even less if your batteries get destroyed.

Surprisingly, the game turned into somewhat of a bullet-hell. It's very easy to accidentally turn the ALERT level up high and when that happens everything in the levels starts unloading on you. You move as fast as projectiles (when on foot at least), so you're able to weave in and out of sprays of bullets. I reviewed some of the past entries that did well on Fun. Dodging was a pretty common theme...

Things I didn't get in: an overheating mechanic, glowing/glitch/CRT effects, a city overworld with rain and badass cybperpunk advertisements. I couldn't think of a way to make the city mechanically interesting anyway. On the plus side, my failed attempting at writing a glow effect turned into a creepy backdrop for the corporation names:

5

Early Dev / Re: Golden Krone Hotel

« on: February 14, 2018, 12:36:37 PM »

Running a 3 day competition for Valentine's day.

Details: http://steamcommunity.com/games/497800/announcements/detail/1658883402140670961

Leaderboards: http://www.goldenkronehotel.com/valentines.php

In other news, the game hit the "Very Positive" threshold!

6

Traditional Roguelikes (Turn Based) / Re: Golden Krone Hotel [COME JOIN OUR RELEASE PARTY]

« on: October 26, 2017, 11:27:10 PM »

I'm not sure who reported it, but yea I fixed an issue where achievements were crashing the game when playing outside of Steam. That was several months ago.

7

Traditional Roguelikes (Turn Based) / Re: Golden Krone Hotel now with Mac/Linux support, diagonal movement, and ASCII mode

« on: October 26, 2017, 09:57:20 PM »

Golden Krone Hotel has launched out of Early Access! It's currently running at a 20% off launch discount.

ALSO

Right now (October 26) we're running a release party including a giveaway and competition! Please join us.



http://www.goldenkronehotel.com/releaseparty/

8

Early Dev / Re: Golden Krone Hotel

« on: October 21, 2017, 07:11:09 PM »

Crunch time. I'm wrapping up the final update to the game this weekend. We release out of EA on October 26.

I planned a little "release party" that night:



http://www.goldenkronehotel.com/releaseparty/

9

Early Dev / Re: Golden Krone Hotel

« on: October 01, 2017, 09:55:16 PM »

Oh I could see that. I hate having to use multiple keys (even on a d-pad) because if you don't time it right you end up hitting the wrong one. But if up/down are not used, it seems sensible.

seeing as how my original core idea was "gay cowboys on drug induced spirit quests dual wielding sawed off shotguns"

you're doing god's work.

10

Early Dev / Re: Golden Krone Hotel

« on: October 01, 2017, 08:46:47 AM »

Ah thanks! Dumuzid definitely seems to be a crowd favorite.

Something recently had me thinking of the C64 action game Usagi Yojimbo, where the two most important commands were "greet politely" and "draw sword".

Wow, that is pretty badass. Your idea about collecting bounties and returning them to a judge also sounds interesting. That's my next discussion topic: theme and how it's usually super boring/tired.

As another aside: six-directional movement actually works surprisingly well with the four arrow keys.

Really? What, with two pressed at once?

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Early Dev / Re: Golden Krone Hotel

« on: September 30, 2017, 12:50:21 PM »

I posted my third entry in the recent series: Things I Hate About Roguelikes Part 3: Terrible Controls

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Early Dev / Re: Golden Krone Hotel

« on: September 24, 2017, 10:35:03 AM »

OST

Golden Krone Hotel now has an original soundtrack by Christopher Loza! You might know Christopher from the KeeperRL soundtrack, but he also made our delightful chiptune title track and trailer music. We've been working on redoing all the game's music for a few months and it's finally done.

If, however, you want to switch things up or just get nostalgic for the old music (which has a more ambient horror focus), you can toggle back and forth between both soundtracks in the Options menu.

Despair mode
Even if you're not quite ready for the game to get harder, I know you will be eventually. Despair is a new unlockable, unfair, and unforgiving difficulty mode. It comes with its own redone title screen featuring a gnarly remix, blood moon, and custom font. I have to be honest: this is easily the most badass thing in the game.



Visual tweaks

Stained glass has been toned down and looks less like "unicorn puke." Menus have been visually reworked and made Fancy!

There's also a good number of bug fixes. Thanks to everyone who reported them!

• The game now features an original soundtrack by Christopher Loza. The old soundtrack can be switched in as well.
• New difficulty: DESPAIR MODE
• The credits menu has been totally reworked into a "crawl" and now displays after a win (also available from Options)
• Reworked menus
• Stained glass no longer looks like "unicorn puke"
• Difficulty can now be selected with keyboard (left/right)
• Drawing ASCII windows differently depending on their orientation
• Debug menu has been made more difficult to accidentally access (now requires '~' + 'debug').
• Accessing the debug menu (or running console commands) prevents a run from having a morgue file saved. This should prevent at least one category of "cheat" morgue files from popping up on the leaderboards.
• Fixed an issue with sliding on ice diagonally
• Fixed a morgue display issue when dying of starvation
• Fixed a major bug where reading a book the same turn one dies turns you immortal.
• Any unbound commands (which had their keys stolen from another remap) are randomly assigned keys, which should prevent a bug where the game wouldn't start with unbound keys.
• Fixed an issue with potion deduction. You should be able to deduce identities more often.
• Fixed a game locking bug with Examine mode in the tutorial. Also now easier to escape from menus in the tutorial.
• Fixed an issue with MIASMA that wasn't hurting enemies unless they were directly hit.
• Fixed an ugly display issue with spell icons on Grimoire menu

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Traditional Roguelikes (Turn Based) / Re: Golden Krone Hotel now on Steam Early Access

« on: September 12, 2017, 01:58:21 AM »

v0.12 brings Mac/Linux support, an ASCII mode, 8-directional movement, bump animation, and a new class.

Changelog:

• Mac and Linux now supported. Please let me know if you have any problems.
• Optional diagonal movement added
• ASCII mode added
• Bump animation added
• You can now Examine with keyboard (press V) and hovering over tiles also displays their name
• Added a "Confirm dangerous moves" option. If you die to sunlight a lot, this might help
• Berserker class added
• Shapeshifter now turns into a wolf whenever in moonlight
• Spiridus and Moroi toned down a bit. Moroi range reduced
• Options menu reorganized and several new options added
• Sound play when selecting options
• Added highlighted text to tutorial to make it easier to understand
• Fixed a very weird bug with ice/stairs that created ghost enemies that could be killed infinitely
• Fixed a crash when playing the game outside of the Steam client
• Fixed an issue with the revolver cancellation not clearing selected tiles
• Fixed an issue with certain attack types being displayed
• Fixed an issue with rebinding ESCAPE/ENTER
• Fixed the display of 1HP in morgue files
• Fixed an issue with ring display in morgue files
• Fixed an issue with resting while poisoned/burning

By the way, Avagart, I fied that resizing issue some time ago.

14

Early Dev / Re: Golden Krone Hotel

« on: September 12, 2017, 12:37:05 AM »

HOLY CATS, WE'RE LEAVING EARLY ACCESS NEXT MONTH.

This month it's all about playing the way you want to play. That means Mac and Linux support, tools to prevent stupid deaths, keyboard examine, ASCII mode, and optional 8-way movement.



The final class has been added as well: Berserker. With the highest starting strength of all the disguises and an ENRAGE spell, you'll surely wreak havoc on the hotel. That brings us to 12 classes and 19 achievements to collect!

Diagonal movement

Four way movement has always been helpful for players without numpad. But sometimes it just doesn't feel like a roguelike without diagonals.

Adding optional 8-way movement to Golden Krone Hotel affects A LOT. Expect the game to feel different, but hopefully still balanced. It's now easier to dance around lone enemies and it's possible to dodge light beams. But remember it's also easier to get surrounded and magic becomes 8-directional too.

ASCII Mode
ASCII can look cool as hell. It's often easier to understand what's going on too. So here it is.



There's a Muted Palette option that almost turns the game greyscale (the main exception being hints of red). This an excellent option if you want to crank up the horror aesthetic.

Grognard Mode

If you really want to go old school, there's GROGNARD Mode. This flips a bunch of options simultaneously to make the game look and feel more like a classic roguelike. You'll get ASCII, diagonal movement, and a bunch of display effects turned off (like animation, damage numbers, bounciness, etc.).

But feel free to play with those on if you prefer! It's quite fun playing a little bouncy @.



Changelog:

• Mac and Linux now supported. Please let me know if you have any problems.
• Optional diagonal movement added
• ASCII mode added
• Bump animation added
• You can now Examine with keyboard (press V) and hovering over tiles also displays their name
• Added a "Confirm dangerous moves" option. If you die to sunlight a lot, this might help
• Berserker class added
• Shapeshifter now turns into a wolf whenever in moonlight
• Spiridus and Moroi toned down a bit. Moroi range reduced
• Options menu reorganized and several new options added
• Sound play when selecting options
• Added highlighted text to tutorial to make it easier to understand
• Fixed a very weird bug with ice/stairs that created ghost enemies that could be killed infinitely
• Fixed a crash when playing the game outside of the Steam client
• Fixed an issue with the revolver cancellation not clearing selected tiles
• Fixed an issue with certain attack types being displayed
• Fixed an issue with rebinding ESCAPE/ENTER
• Fixed the display of 1HP in morgue files
• Fixed an issue with ring display in morgue files
• Fixed an issue with resting while poisoned/burning

Since the game is wrapping up, please let me know of any last minute ideas on balance/polish. Big changes are probably not making it in, but there's still a month to fine tune things.

And I'm super serious about the price increase this time (I wanted one last opportunity for Mac/Linux players to buy at $5).

15

Early Dev / Re: Golden Krone Hotel

« on: August 31, 2017, 03:15:58 AM »

Nearing the end of EA and tackling some big remaining items:

• Mac & linux support: testing seems to be going fine except I've given up hope on getting the steam overlay working
• Optional diagonal movement: so this can be a proper roguelike
• ASCII Mode: for the grognards in the audience

entire spritesheet converted


the underworld and a baron (constructed out of several characters)


thinking about keeping an absurd tiles+ASCII mode


in a happy coincidence, the character for vampire eyes (") matches up pixel perfectly with the big vampire character (V) and that's with no tweaking of the font I'm using (code page 437)


I think ASCII mode is looking OK, but I keep wondering if I shouldn't ensure every single monster has a distinct character representation and then redo the whole thing in only black/white/red.