Author Topic: Ziggurat (now at Update: Gauntlet) $  (Read 10293 times)

getter77

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Ziggurat (now at Update: Gauntlet) $
« on: October 24, 2014, 12:59:36 PM »
http://store.steampowered.com/app/308420/  $14.99  Win/Mac/Linux
http://www.milkstonestudios.com/   From the devs that previously made the likes of Infinity Danger

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Dungeon-Crawling First Person Shooting at its finest! Fast-paced combat! Dozens of perks, spells and enemies! Level ups! Random Dungeons! Traps! Badass bosses! Carrots! Ziggurat is the best combination of First Person Shooter and Rogue-LITE you have ever seen.

Become a neophyte sorcerer, and get ready for your rite of passage: Enter the labyrinth and face dangerous challenges to prove your worth and become a powerful wizard!

The game focuses on fast-paced first person shooting, with an old-school vibe, and updated handling and game mechanics. Dungeon crawling and RPG/Roguelike elements are added into the mix, resulting in a fun, challenging and varied game, with lots of content to discover.

Fight almighty bosses, get through rooms filled with traps, and treasures that may help you in your journey... Each game is a whole new experience!

Unlike most Rogue-thingies, on Ziggurat your combat skills will be the most important asset to keep advancing. Leveling up and randomly generated content is there to improve variety and make each game different, not to make the game a roll dice or an unbearable grind.

Most perks are designed to change the way you have to play or the weapons you'll want to use. Do you want more speed in exchange for less health, or maybe is better to have mana regeneration? Increase drop rate, or refill ammo here and now? No number game here, simple and direct choices.

We've also ensured that, as a proper FPS game, the experience is quick and direct. There's no inventory to manage or the need to compare two almost equal item drops, just weapon selection, and mana/health are usually the bargaining chip.

A whole arsenal of magic and alchemic weapons will be at your disposal. Wreak havoc among your enemies, but watch your mana reserves or you might regret it later!

Magic staves, spellbooks, magic wands... dozens of weapons with different attack strategies that help keeping the game fresh!
« Last Edit: June 02, 2016, 03:37:53 PM by getter77 »
Brian Emre Jeffears
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getter77

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Re: Ziggurat (now at v1.0 Update #1) $
« Reply #1 on: October 29, 2014, 07:01:05 PM »
Update #1
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First update for the game, including a new enemy, the Ulmar fish!

-New enemy: Ulmar fish
-Fixed perks not appearing in the upgrade screen when reaching a certain level
-Now you can map mouse buttons over third.
-Now you can map mouse buttons to movement
-Changed the way input mapping is done, now you don't need to map all 4 directions for movement.
-Shrines show the amount of health/mana you need to pay
-Changed and improved room culling performance, the game should be a bit smoother (we're still looking into the stuttering issue some users are having)
-HUD should be shown on the center screen on 3 monitor setups.
Brian Emre Jeffears
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getter77

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Re: Ziggurat (now at v1.0 Update #2) $
« Reply #2 on: November 06, 2014, 05:03:24 PM »
Update #2

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On this update we've focused on adding new perks and rooms, as well as fixing minor issues reported by players.

-Added plenty of new rooms (more than 15). These ones have more verticality than usual.
-Added lots of new perks, making a total of 100 different perks available.
-Changed unlock system to guarantee a new weapon if you unlock at least 3 items, and a new amulet if you unlock 5 items.
-Fixed Mirror of Fate perk breaking saved games.
-"Clear saved data" also clears game stats now.
-Changed shielded skeletons attack pattern, so they aren't as tedious to kill.
-Changed Easy Peasy achievement requirements (now it's easier to get)
-Now Sound effects volume setting doesn't apply to music
-Added a Smooth Mouse option in Control settings.
-Other minor bugfixes and improvements

For next update, if all goes well, we plan to add a new enemy, a new room theme, and the promised Endless mode.
Brian Emre Jeffears
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getter77

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Re: Ziggurat (now at v1.0 Update #3 Big Content) $
« Reply #3 on: November 20, 2014, 07:48:59 PM »
Update #3

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New update, featuring an impressive amount of content! Main additions are the new Endless mode and a new room setting, along with a new enemy, and lots of fixes, upgrades and balancing changes:

New unlockable Endless mode, with gameplay variations to ensure fun, varied and challenging gameplay for hours (if you manage to survive).
New room theme for Floor 2: The Quarry.
New enemy: Rotten stem
Added French and German languages
Balancing changes:
Shielded Skeletons: Fixed attack animations, reduced damage and attack distance.
Poloko: Reduced regeneration when spawning enemies, reduced number of carrots spawned.
Gunkarr: Reduced close quarters attack range
King Blob: Reduced attack damage
Adam: Increased number of small golems spawned, increased grenade speed
Ignus: Reduced number of minions spawned, reduced flame duration
Examiner Cepheus: Increased health
Necromancer: Increased threat value, reduced number of spawned skeletons
Slime: Reduced threat value
Basilisk: Reduced threat value
Carrots: Reduced threat value
Shaman: Reduced shot damage
Green slime: Reduced shot damage
Scarab Beetle Staff: Increased damage
Staff of Atlantis: Increased fire rate
Sphere of Ulthar: Increased damage
Porcupine Bomb: Increased mana usage
Increased poison damage rate, reduced poison state duration (so you can deal more damage with poison weapons as long as you keep poisoning them)
Wraith rings: Reduced vertical spread, increased homing distance
Reduced duration of damage over time when you exit the damage source (In other words, lava deals less damage if you quickly jump outside it).
The game should start at the configured resolution now.
Fixed player perks appearing twice.
Done some improvements that reduced the project size, and probably memory footprint.
Rewards on treasure rooms shouldn't come out flying anymore
Monsters on obelisk rooms no longer drop score goblets (so you can't farm them)
Demon: Fixed some animation issues
Should have fixed Stuttering some people were experiencing.
Fixed water reflections being white from time to time.
Fixed Scaredy cat perk effects stacking
Fixed Mudblood achievement unlocking when loading a game.
Fixed some achievement conditions not unlocking when playing a resumed game.
Prevented some cockatrices with speed boost from jumping too high.
You are shown an unlocked item for new game modes when winning the game.
Should have improved a bit performance and visual quality for Low/Lowest settings.
Fixed bad behavior with Magic Binding perk
And plenty of other minor improvements
Brian Emre Jeffears
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getter77

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Re: Ziggurat (now at v1.0 Update #4) $
« Reply #4 on: November 26, 2014, 03:54:20 PM »
Update #4
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This update features 6 brand new weapons, as well as new room modifiers, and some balancing changes to perks that could lead to overpowered combos.

6 New weapons (2 of each category)
10 New random combat modifiers such as PiƱata, Tea party or Necromancy.
Added optional Auto aim setting (Disabled by default).
Balancing changes:
Perk Husk: Seriously nerfed.
Perk Avarice: Drop rate isn't reduced as much
Perk Bloodlust: Reduced effectiveness by 20%
Perk Thick Skin: Reduced effectiveness by ~40%
Perk Mana Shield: Doubled mana cost
Perk Loan Shark: Nerfed a bit
Perk Turtle: Reduced the effect (both damage received and inflicted)
Perk Revenge: Reduced shockwave radius
Divine gift - Extra protection: Reduced effectiveness by ~25%
Endless mode: Greater enemy damage boost
Fixed some characters not being properly unlocked if you won the game
Fixed Initial character Level 5 perks appearing again when resuming a game.
Fixed FPS drops when using keyboard and gamepad at the same time.
Enemies exiting the room bounds for whatever reason are automatically killed.
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Re: Ziggurat (now at v1.0 Update #7) $
« Reply #5 on: December 29, 2014, 09:40:30 PM »
Update #7-5

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This update features the following changes:

Boss balancing:
King Blob: Decreased speed and damage of the rotating attack.
Gunkarr: Decreased damage of the jump attack.
Audrey: Reduced tentacles health, damage and projectile speed.
Poloko: The shockwave attack is easier to dodge and deals less damage.
Adam: Increased damage and range of the fire column attack.
Percival: Decreased delay before the predictive grenade lob.
Added new room modifiers: Hiccups, Lights Out, Nostalgia, Behemoth, Juggernaut, Wet floor, Sixth sense, Numb.
Released in a previous hotfix: Fallback shaders for some particle effects
Improved a bit CPU usage of audio loops.
Fixed some sounds being heard even when volume is set to 0.
Fixed some attacks being done even when the enemy is frozen.
Updated Unity to latest version, *should* help with random Mac OSX crashes.
Fixed mouse cursor being shown right after killing the final boss.
Fixed minor issue with the wave bar on obelisk rooms.

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Improved russian font title and fixed the intro texts
Fixed Lady Audrey tentacles not spawning in valid places
Novice can now be unlocked by using all wands, not just the Apprentice's one.
Fixed frostbow icon not showing when out of mana
Added a setting to disable enemy highlights
Fixed a rare bug with obelisk rooms getting to an unwinnable state.
Lady Audrey balancing: Reduced damage and fire rate of tentacles.

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This update adds a new boss on Floor 2, as well as new languages and other improvements and balancing changes.

New Floor 2 boss: Audrey.
The last 3 enemies of a wave are highlighted when behind walls and far away.
Weapon balancing:
Nikola's Surge: Damage +40%. Mana usage +25%
Bloodthirst Needles: Damage -10%
Butterflies: Mana usage +20%, Damage -10%, Butterfly fly time + 50%
Crossbow: Increased freeze chance
Freeze bombs: 100% freeze chance. Decreased damage on impact. Increased spike time.
Shaman wand: Mana usage -10%
Alchemist wand: Damage -33% Mana usage -50%
Changed savegame deletion policy. Saved games are only deleted when you resume, or when you use Save & Quit again. This way you can for example pause an Endless play, and still play standard games without having to resume or lose progress.
Changed default gamepad mappings: Upgrade is set to X button, and Y button is set to "Last weapon". This should better match usual FPS gamepad controls.
Auto aim behavior disabled/modified for certain weapons. For example, Serpent staff projectiles won't hit where you are actually aiming, so auto aim is disabled for it.
Changed the image for the bad ending.
Game mode is shown in the map screen.
Fixed wave not ending at the proper time when the Carrot Rain / Necromancy modifiers were active
Fixed crash when resuming a game with the Magic binding perk applied
Fixed crossbow projectile not being rendered
Shrine effects are now checked, so effects such as "Lose Amulet" or "Amulet recharged" don't appear if they wouldn't have any effect.
Fixed some minor typos
Added Russian and Italian languages
The default language is automatically detected (instead of always defaulting to English)
Brian Emre Jeffears
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Re: Ziggurat (now at Update #12) $
« Reply #6 on: July 30, 2015, 12:53:12 PM »
Update #12-8

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New content:
Daily challenge: On this mode, you'll face a new challenge each day, with the same starting conditions and dungeons for everyone. You'll only get a single attempt each day, so be careful!
New boss: Brunilda, Carrot Princess, is a new boss that can appear on Floor 4.
New enemies: Yellow Chili and Green Pepper.
New playable characters: Carina (female Apprentice), Loki (Vagabond), Glyndor (Battlemage), Agnes (Witch), Leto (Cleric)
10 New perks
New combat modifiers and divine rewards.
New room layouts
New room goal: On Scavenge rooms you need to pick up magic crystals while avoiding incoming fire.
Added Brazilian Portuguese language

Improvements and fixes:
You can switch weapons when they reach half their cooldown time.
Fixed minor exploit with the sprint function
Fixed default FOV being too low
Fixed a minor weapon switch bug
Fixed damage source direction being wrong
Balancing: Nerfed Bone Summoners a bit.
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This small update adds new room layouts, increasing the total room variety by around 10%.

New features
Now you can Save & Quit inside a level (except during a battle)
The bestiary shows a stats screen for each enemy

Balancing
Reduced difficulty and number of Imps a bit more. Also improved performance when several imps are on screen.

Changes
We've changed again some bits of the save system to make it compatible with the recent console release. Some settings will revert to defaults because of this. Saved progress shouldn't be affected at all.

Balancing for Imps: Lower fire rate, wider shots (easier to slip through), less damage.
Added 8 new room layouts
New "Retry" button on the game over screen.
Changed "Next-Gen" filter to be less painful to watch.

New content:
New Room Modifier: Next Gen (Tuned a bit to be more subtle than on beta)
3 New weapons: Archon staff, Acheron's Cube and The Lidless Eye.
New enemy: Imp
New features / Improvements:
Changed fullscreen mode on OSX, now resolution selector should work properly, and performance may vary (still on the look for feedback on this)
Added a "Press Enter/A to start" button before the main menu. This is used to discard unused gamepad inputs (should fix most gamepad related issues). Mouse / Keyboard will always be available even if you press A with a gamepad, but not the other way around.
Game content is preloaded. Should improve load times on larger floors, but the game uses more RAM now. Depending on user feedback, we may add an option to disable this. This change has increased build size so now the game takes more space than before.
Input mapping: Now input for gamepads can be cancelled by holding B in addition to pressing Escape.
Pathfinding isn't updated as frequently. Should help with stuttering on complex rooms full of enemies.
Added experimental native Steam Controller support.

Balancing changes:
Sprint state is not lost when jumping (In other words, you can now jump while sprinting).
Removed the perk limit during a single play, now it always works as Endless mode did.
Removed minor speed nerf for Simon, it should help survivability a bit.
Increased threat value (reduces number of simultaneous enemies) of: Kobolds, Golems, Orcs, Shamans, Yellow Mini slimes, Ulmar Fish
Necromancers: Decreased health a bit.
Improved effects of some unpopular perks.
Boss - Poloko: Spawns one Kobold less and one Carrot more. Reduced shockwave attack damage.
Boss - Percival: Increased attack damage
Boss - King Blob: Reduced rotating attack damage.

Other changes:
Changed a bit the way saved data is processed. Shouldn't have any noticeable difference.
Auto Aim: Increased auto aim strength for nearby targets.
"Infinite mana until hit" divine gift is not awarded if the player already has that effect.
Alternate fire while sprinting now works the same way primary fire did.
Gamepad vibration is not triggered when playing with a mouse / keyboard
Master of the Arts: This perk can now be only selected once.
Amulets, Room modifiers and Shrine effects will not repeat on the same game if not necessary.

Fixes:
Fixed Skeleton attacks dealing damage twice.
Items dropped from treasure boxes in challenge rooms are properly pushed so they don't end up mixed together.
Fixed round breakable column pieces still hurting the player when they stopped moving.
Fixed "Mudblood" achievement triggering if the player used only alchemical weapons.
Fixed small bug related with character selection screen and using mouse/keyboard at the same time.
The currently selected button is always shown in the menu.
"Lights Out" modifier should now restore once you clear the room.
Brian Emre Jeffears
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akeley

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Re: Ziggurat (now at Update #12) $
« Reply #7 on: July 30, 2015, 08:12:58 PM »
Just released on GOG.com and discounted to about 5$.

getter77

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Re: Ziggurat (now at Update #13) $
« Reply #8 on: October 07, 2015, 12:20:47 PM »
Update #13

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Hello, fellow wizards, it's been a while!

This new update features some balancing changes and a few minor bugfixes.

Some enemies such as Orcs or the new corrosive carrots were performing better than they should, so we have increased their threat value to compensate for that.

Wands of the new characters count towards unlocking Kraz, the Novice
Balancing:
Golem: Slightly increased threat value
Orcs: Slightly increased threat value
Green pepper: Increased threat value by 50% (!)
Red chili: Slightly increased threat value
Bone Shieldman: Slightly increased threat value. Reduced damage and health.
Bone Summoner: Increased threat value, increased spawn time.
Shaman: Reduced number of spawned carrots by 1 (3 carrots instead of 4)
Green slime: Increased threat value
Scavenge rooms: Increased number of items spawned by 1 on medium and big rooms (it should help in finding them on complex rooms).
Fixed main menu buttons sound.

For the console users out there, an update featuring all the new content and fixes should be available soon. Thank you for your patience :)
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getter77

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Re: Ziggurat (now at Update: Gauntlet) $
« Reply #9 on: June 02, 2016, 03:38:29 PM »
Gauntlet

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Welcome back, fans of fast-paced wizardry!

Today we are releasing a new update for Ziggurat (it's been 8 months since the last one, wow!).

The Gauntlet


This update's main highlight is the new Gauntlet game mode. This mode puts you in a single room with no chance of escape and throws monsters at you until you are finally dead.

Moreover, it's a race against the clock, since enemies will keep spawning over time. Even bosses will want to take a piece of you!

Of course, you keep leveling up while picking up knowledge gems, and weapons and amulets will appear from time to time.

This mode is intended for shorter runs (10-20 minutes at most), and we may do some balancing changes after getting some feedback on it.

Agnes 2.0

We've also improved the skillset of Agnes the Witch based on player feedback and suggestions, so it's more interesting to play.

And a plethora of minor fixes

On top of that, this update features many performance improvements and bugfixes that were found during the port for the console versions, so it should perform better on lower end computers.

That's all, folks!

This is probably the last content update for Ziggurat. It may not be the last , a bugfix/balance update could be released at some point. It's almost 2 years since the game was released in Early Access in August 2014, and it's been a hell of a ride!

A big thank you to all of you for your support. Stay tuned for further updates on our developments (by the way, have you checked our latest game Pharaonic[ http]?), and feel free to keep sharing your impressions on the game forums, we'll always be there to answer your questions or give a hand :)
Brian Emre Jeffears
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In Training