Unexplored now in Early Access on Steam (now at The Stealth Update)

[joris]

Unexplored is a very accessible roguelite/roguelike that has many trappings of the classics. It is now available on Steam Early Access:

http://store.steampowered.com/app/506870

The game offers:
- Traditional roguelike mechanics: permadeath, unidentified scrolls and potions. Get to level 20 of the dungeon and get back up again.
- Emergent gameplay: all mechanics interact and can be used in your advantage or to create hazardous situations.
- Original, kick-ass, realtime, physical, dual wielding, melee combat.
- A new type of content generator that generates levels from cycles instead of linear paths.

Check it out.

[getter77]

v0.9.9

The puzzle update is now live. This update is far larger than the previous updates. You will experience three big changes with this update: we’ve added many more puzzle type levels, we’ve rebalanced weapons and armor to make the end game much harder, and we’ve introduced ‘spikier’ encounters. Combined we hope that it will give you reason to stop and think from time to time, instead of rushing everything in sight.

Here is the list of most important changes:

Gameplay
* Adds more puzzle floors.
* Adds grapple with content for it.
* Adds extra story lines.
* Nerfs weapons of Slaying
* Boosts Bows of Poison.
* You can use runic weapons even if they are depleted.
* Rebalances weapons and armors (axes and warhammers are nerfed).
* Unenchanted weapons are automatically identified.
* Strength potions are rarer.
* Adds large lake levels.
* Changes equipment of the Guardian.
* Spikier encounters.
* And you may encounter spikes.

Features
* Controllers can be switched on and off from the main menu.
* Improves aiming assist for controller support.
* Sorting inventory also auto stacks where possible.
* Game is paused when it loses focus.
* Good/bad/unknown items now also have symbol in the inventory.
* Replaces off-the-shelf random function with custom ones for cross platform consistency (but that needs to be tested).

Bug fixes
* A better fix for the red lever bug.
* Fixes the 'Door of Glitching' bug.
* Fixes a couple more crashes.
* Better recovery from incomplete generation.
* Fixes floating equipment bug.

There is still many more things on my to do list. So if your suggestion or reported bug has not been addressed in this update, you can expect it to be addressed in future updates. Speaking of which…

Expect the next major update to be released in about two weeks. It already has a name: The Boss Update. You can probably guess what the focus of that update will be.

Now I will indulge myself in making a couple of extra cursed weapons.

This definitely seems to be ramping up speedily at this junction.   

[joris]

And we've added a whole bunch of monsters now. version 0.9.10 The BOSS Update is live.

Unless we’ve miscounted, Unexplored now has 38 named bosses. Some of them new, some of them improved versions of familiar characters, all of them challenging!

New bosses:
The Alpha Rat, Big Dog, The Goblin Swordmaster, The Golden Beetle, The Great White Wyrm, The Heartless Ogre, The Marine Magus, The Minotaur, The Monstrous Bat, The Monstrous Vine, The Mother of all Worms, The Mighty Mutant, The Orc Gatekeeper, The Troll Matriarch, The Void Knight, and The Werewolf.

Improved bosses:
The Ant Queen, The Colossal Warden, The Conjurer, The Cyclops, The Goblin Butcher, The Gigantic White Rodent, The Goblin Shaman, The Great Deep One, The Kobold Archmage, The Mega Mech Spider, The Necromancer, The Ogre Mage, The Orc King, The Orc Shaman, Rumbleknuckles, The Spider Queen, The Vampire Lord, and all the Dragons.

More features
The upgrade also includes new enemies such as wolves and hell hounds, who have the ability to track you down my smell. Some new rare items including a poisonous sword named Fang, a Staff of White Fire, and Repeater Crossbow. To complement all this are a bunch of extra achievements (some of which we are still adding) to mark special feats and rare events such as turning your hero into a Vampire!

Next big update will focus on gear. Terrain is next. Each major update will take about two weeks.

[getter77]

Renewed Graphics, Gear, and More~   

- We gave the hero a different eye, a body, and shoulders. This should make him more humanoid. No longer do you have to wonder what you actually are.
- The hero and other humanoids have a height and parallax effects. We also lowered the focal point of the camera slightly to emphasize this.
- We desaturated the color palettes of the environment, although certain colors associated with the level themes remain saturated.
- Magic and effects like fire and gasses retain their full saturation, making them pop out better.
- Levels are going to darker, but at the same time we'll be making more use of dynamic and colored light sources.

More Magic Items
There is a whole bunch of new magic shields as well as a couple of other magic weapons to fill out a couple of holes in the sigil system. Currently there are rough 120 different magic effects for items. Enough to explore I would sat. This does not fill all holes, and I probably add a couple of more magic items over the next couple of weeks. But I sort of ran out of inspiration at this point. If you have more ideas let us know!

More Key Items
More items are used in level spanning lock and key puzzles. For example you might encounter a floor crawling with undead at the end of one staircase, but also a Mace of Purity or a Blazing Shield to deal with this menace if you explore another staircase first.

Two New Bosses
This upgrades introduces two new bosses: The Wraith Lord and Cir'leh, The Doomed Swordsman. SPOILER: Be careful, they are quite deadly, because they carry very lethal swords. So before you approach them find something to protect yourself first...

Experience points are gone again
Based on the discussions on the forums I have redesigned the character classes. The experience points are gone, but the classes are still there. However, classes are just a different starting gear set and/or a different starting strength.

There is still the opportunity to improve skills, but you will need to improve items that grant skill bonuses. There is a new special item for that: skill stones. These are magic jewels you can use to boost items that boosts a skill.

We are sorry if you enjoyed the XP, but it did not fall inline with the rest of the design philosophy of the game. To make amends the wizard now has a nice pointy hat...

Combat skills have been changed
Swordmanship, Melee, and Archery were very powerful. Especially compared to other skills such as Nimbleness or Vision. That has been changed. Combat skills no longer increase damage, instead they increase the chance you cause critical hits and they improve your weapon speed.

Bug Fixes
- Having a full inventory no longer causes you to lose stuff when changing levels.
- If you buy Last Rites you get Last Rites (and not Identify).
- Fixes weird skeleton behavior.
- Doors opened by globes from which you need to escape via scroll open only once.
- Spiders should have their claws even if the floor is reloaded.
- Turrets don't change their spell if you reload or revisit a floor.
- Burned vegetation cannot burn again after switching floors. I
- Items dropped from a destroyed container are visible.
- Cursed and evil weapons should not be revealed when you pick them up.
- Columns should not be generated in between two walls.

- The menus have a different background.
- An experimental version of the character classes and experience points have been added.
- The generator is now better aware of the new magic item types.
- Slightly more bosses are generated.
- Improves generator consistency (sometimes vaults where generated that had the wrong type of entrance/lock)
- Fixes bugs where bosses would be changed into other creatures if you revisited a level.
- Fixes a couple of inventory UI bugs.

In-game Vendors
By popular request, you occasionally run into a vendor when descending to the next level. I kept the feature very simple for now, and it is menu base (not in-game, in-game). I'd like to see what effect the vendors have before iterating on the feature. So, as always, let me know what you think.

Assign hotkeys to items
Also by popular request, you can now assign hotkeys to inventory items after you right-click them. Any normal key or number key that is not already assigned to something else can be used as a hotkey. I don't think this feature is finished in a sense that you guys probably have all sorts of suggestion on how to make this system better. And I am happy to implement you suggestions.

Sigils and magic gear
This is the real meat of the upgrade. I've redesigned the way sigils can be used to craft magic items. The big change is sigils can be crafted multiple times onto a single item. This creates different tiers of magic items, which improves the power curve in the game. For example: forging a fire sigil to a sword creates a glowing sword, adding another creates an flaming sword. In some (rare) cases different sigils can even be combined, for example forging a Death Sigil and a Water Sigil on bow will create a Bow of Poison.

Multiple sigils have different effects on different items. There is only one particular weapon that will change into X of Forked Lighting if you forge enough magic sigils on it. You can probably work out what weapon that would be.

All in all there are now over 100 magic effects for items in the game, so that will give you something to explore.

Tabbed Inventory
This update makes your inventory tabbed (if you are in the middle of a game and reloaded after the update, you might want to click sort inventory). The tabbed inventory effectively doubles the number of things you can carry, but limits each category to 12 items. The categories are Gear (weapons and other big things), Magic (potions and scrolls), and everything else. The game implements 1, 2, and 3 as keyboard short cuts to the inventory.

Charges of Staffs and Magic Weapons
The way the charges work for staffs and magic weapons has gotten a major overhaul. Now both work the same: The energy left in each item is shown in your inventory. Each time you use the item's magic, some energy is consumed. Energy recharges slowly. Should an item run out completely, it is depleted. Depleted items must recharge fully before their magic is restored.

Less Item Drops from Enemies
Enemies drop weapons and armors less frequently, especially if you already have similar or better items in your inventory.

Auto Pickup from Containers
You now automatically pickup gold and items you can stack in your inventory from containers. However, no new stacks are started. So occasionally you still need to click.

[getter77]

Improved UI

It was time to work on the UI in the game. Adding symbols to the mini map was a long standing promise, and the inventory got an overhaul because the tabbed interface caused more problems than it solved. So we proudly present the UI Update.

Inventory
The new inventory consists of two components. You have 9 slots that are available all the time. You will want to store healing potions, arrows, and daggers here. Because this is were the game is searches when it looks for ammunition or something to auto heal you with!

Below the quick access slots (for a lack of a better name, suggestions are more than welcome), you see 32 slots than make up your main inventory. You'll see which are filled and which are not. Clicking this area will bring up a larger version where you can actually interact with the items in your inventory.

You can also toggle the inventory by pressing the I key. And by popular request pressing Z swaps you primary and secondary weapons. Both keys can be changed in the options screen, off course.

Mini Map
The mini map now includes icons and can be expanded. Either click it or press Tab to expand the mini map, which also reveals a legend for the symbols.

A couple new icons appear on the mini map, you can now see chest, and dropped keys should also appear on the map. Just don't stare at it too long, because the game does not pause when you are inspecting your map...

More UI
There is more, pausing the game no longer reveals buttons. "Save & Quit", "Options", and "Pray for Help" are always available just below the log, and the other buttons appear with the inventory.

In addition, you can click to expand the log, should you think you missed something there. You cannot scroll there, not yet anyway. We wanted to try it out like this first, if you really feel scrolling is necessary, please let us know!

Grabbing and Stealing
Our little hero can now grab stuff. If you have a hand free, you can click the associated mouse button to either grab containers and furniture, or to try and pick pocket enemies.

Grabbing containers and furniture allows you to move them around in the level. No longer will you be defeated by a chest! Stealing is not guaranteed to work (stealing from sleeping enemies or having a bonus to nimbleness will help). And you can never steal an item enemies have equipped.

There will be content to make use of the mechanics in the near future. In fact Elias already came up with a bunch of suggestion in this thread: http://steamcommunity.com/app/506870/discussions/0/282992646966033484/

We invite you all to chip in.

Bug Fixes
What would and update be without bug fixes? Here are the most important ones:

- You can throw stacks of sigils without crashing the game.
- Fixes destructible walls theme.
- Staff of Disarm no longer works on claws.
- Fixes bugs with the tooltips in the option menu.
- Enemies should not heal when you switch levels.
- Fixes typos in tutorial.
- Adds missing end game text.
- Simplifies chances the pick a lock or disarm a chest.
- Fixes some bugs in the discovered items menu.

There were more bugs reported the last week, unfortunately we didn't have time to work on all of them, but rest assured. If your bug is not fixed yet, it still will be on our to do list.

What's Next?
We originally said that we aimed for the game to be in early access for about 3 months. That is about now. However, even though we are getting close, the game is fairly stable and fully playable, we don't feel we are done just yet. We still want to take some time to work on a couple of features.

The next couple of weeks we'll concentrate on adding more terrain and hazards to the game. That will be very exciting, but we'll also work on bugs. So please if you spot any bugs, or have ideas for extra terrain. Let us know!

[getter77]

Terrain Update Part 1

It's here! The first part of the Terrain Update.

So what do we have in store for you?

Wind and Air
Wind and Air have been added as a theme to some levels. This theme comes with a brand new Staff of Howling Wind, the Ring of Steadiness, gliding stones, wind producing stones that can be dragged around, and windmills that control doors. The new theme is frequently encountered with the new Harpy enemy type, together with their new mistress The Fury.

Myst
There is a new type of blue gas called Myst. It does not burn, but it is unsafe nonetheless. Myst has some very interesting properties that makes it a weapon and a hazard at the same time. You can find it vented into rooms, produced by the new Staff of Myst, or in potion form. Use at your own rysk

Rock Formations
There are 14 new types of rock/crystal formations to found in the Dungeon of Doom. Some are purely decorative, while others have interesting gameplay effects. The new formations include (among others) explosive 'glowing rock', myst producing 'glittering rock', and a mysterious blood red substance that appears to be moving...

Level Names
For your amusement, levels now have names. It's a rough first version of the level name generator for now. You can expect level names and generated content to grow closer together over time. For example the entrance level below was called "The Misty Tombs of Mystery".

Game Balance
We've made the way staves work more consistent. All missile type staves fire only one (burst of ) missile when you release the button, while gas type staves fire while you hold them.

Also, shovels now only can shovel sand. They no longer stack, but you'll never gonna need more than one as they are also no longer consumed.

Bug Fixes
There is never enough time to fix bugs. This update only fixes only a couple:
- You can craft Dragon Scale armor again.
- Special drops of bosses are no longer duplicated.
- Fixes an issue with cursed items (they had disappeared).

More Coming
We plan to work on terrain for one more week. So more new terrain is in the works. And even beyond the next week you can expect changes to the generator as we are still learning to use all these new toys to their best effects!

[getter77]

Terrain Update Part 2

The second (and last part) of the Terrain Update focuses mostly on water. Here is an overview of the most important changes:

New water types
Water can now be, hot, cold, frozen, and murky. Each type creates it's own challenges. For example Murky water might be infested with Bog Worms. Avoid them by watching out for ripples in the water.

Waterfalls and underwater passages
Water can now also hide passages. There are places where you can swim underneath rocks to find hidden caverns. Like wise the new waterfalls can also hide passages. You'll need to explore just a little better.

Water can be frozen
We did mention frozen water, right? With the new staff of cold you can freeze water yourself. The staff is still quite rare, but that is expected to change, as we're still upgrading the generator to accommodate all the new material.

Mines
Certain levels contain ore, which you can mine using a shovel (for now). Be careful though, minerals might not be the only thing you'll find.

Flowers and mosses
A couple of rare species of flowers and mosses have appeared in the Dungeon of Doom. It is said that their seeds can be used to help or harm would-be heroes. One tip: they're still plants. They do burn.

Drain Magic is now a gas
Drain magic now works as a gas. Walking through Drain Magic clouds does drain your magic weapons, but it deals damage to wardens and prevents other creatures from using magic spells. Use wisely.

New creatures
This upgrade adds Earth Elementals, Water Elementals, Flesh Golems, Bog Worms, and it improves Fire Elementals. There is a couple of new bosses as well: The Wolf of Winter, Fyra, and Anden, the Air Elemental.

Development continues...
So this concludes the Terrain Update cycle for now. There is a bunch of loose ends, and a list of bugs to fix. You can expect minor changes and tweaks to follow as part of other upgrades.

We will focus on bugs for a little while now. The next main update cycle will focus on mysteries. In this cycle you can expect the dungeon rooms (as opposed to the caverns) to get more definition and more mysteries to unravel.

[getter77]

Mysteries Update Part 2

The second part of the Mysteries Update is now live!

Apart from the new carpets (don't get too many blood stains on them, please). There is a whole bunch of new and improved content.

More Puzzles
There were some problems with the generation of puzzles. This should have improved a lot. You can expect more major and minor puzzles to pop up, and they should be generate better (fewer missing hints and such).

More Divine Interactions

An altar to Lord Grievous

The gods have become more active. Scattered throughout the dungeon you can now find altars and temples dedicated to Lady Sophie, Density and Lord Grievous. You can make offers there to gain their favors. But be careful what you ask for, and what you take from the gods, they can now also place curses on you (and a remove curse scroll won't be god enough to rid yourself of such a curse). Needless to say this new system interacts with the par for help options, which did get expanded as well. How all this works is for you to find out.


This is new type of cursed chest. Make sure you understand the price before taking anything out of these...


Extra Undead
There are two new undead type of creatures: Liches and Screaming Skulls.

Bug fixes
A couple bugs with the generator have been fixed. The triple pressure plate door works again, and certain plants should pop up more often. Among other minor fixes.

Looking Ahead
For now this is the final major content update. The holiday season is coming up, and there will be vacations as well. The development focus will shift to bugs, polish and features around the game such as mac builds, better menus and better controller support. We'll be tying up some loose ends as well, but in general we are now working towards a release build.

For the release we are planning an update with new material, but that will take some time. We hope the game as it is right now has enough to keep you exploring until then.

Rebuild of the Dungeon Planner
The reason it took a little longer is because rebuilding the generator that creates the dungeon plan needed updating. It was designed with some but not all of the content in mind that got added recently, and will be added in the future. With the new structure, level themes, enemy types, boss placement, magic rewards, and puzzle elements should make a little more sense.

Hub Levels
The new planner builds far less linear dungeons. There still are twenty levels, but every dungeon will have a couple of hub levels from which you can explore in different directions. Be careful, though! You might stumble into an area that is actually more difficult than you expected, or what you can handle. So if the going gets tough, you might want to explore another direction first.



You can see the structure of the Dungeon if you expand the mini-map (by pressing tab). Or at least you get to see what you know at that point.

Mini-Map Hovering
The mini-map has changed a little. Instead of a legend, you can now hover symbols to learn what they mean. That way you might also learn what stair leads to which level and so on. In the near future, expect additional information such as teleporter connection and so on to appear as well.

Additional Puzzles
A whole new class of generated puzzles has been added to the Dungeon of Doom. Every run is likely to contain at least one instance. We are still experimenting with this feature. You probably find that hints to solutions sometimes are too obvious and sometimes too obscure. Right now we are trying to find the right balance for this, so please tell us about your experience with the new update. Or any other feedback you might have, of course!

Disclaimer: with the new content and new dungeon structure, the game also needs to be re-balanced at one point. We are well aware of this, but that shouldn't stop you from giving us lots of feedback...

[getter77]

Extra Excitement

We made some progress with controller support, which should be a lot better in the menus now. But the main focus has been changing the balance and trying to work towards the right level of excitement for the game.

New content
The most striking new feature are pentagrams. Pentagrams can set off spells. But you probably do not want to be near when they do.

There are also new types of puzzles. Most use familiar items, but do so in different ways. Won't spoil to much, because that just wouldn't be fun.

Also expect, trap rooms to be more common. You really want to be more careful exploring the Dungeon of Doom.

Game balance
There is more stuff going on in the earlier levels. Chances are you find a tough creature sleeping or wandering about. In general the early game has become much spikier. So, tread carefully.

The latter levels have been toned down a little. This is a first attempt to harness the 'horde levels'. But expect them to become more 'spikier' soon as well.

Making offers
The gods now only accept offers they like, and overall should be more generous with their blessings in return.

Bug fixes
There have been some including (but not limited to):
- Levels with electric jellies and spike root flowers don't explode into a big jelly soup.
- Items that are fused to pedestrals cannot be removed.
- The living heart is spawned again for the Heartless Ogre.

Menu redesign
This is a first step towards making them more controller friendly and less text based. The biggest changes have been made to the menus where you can by equipment (before and during the game). The controllers support hasn't been actually improved, yet.

The new design also has some room for planned changes, such as an bestiary, additional game modes, and (likely) three save slots.

Minimap teleporter connections
When you hover a teleporter on the minimap, and you already discovered where it leads, the connection will be shown. There is more minimap improvements to follow.

Sigil of Ice
You can now find sigils of ice in the game. You can use it to craft new magical gear such as Frost Blades, Shields of Cold, and Cold Warding rings. These might come in handy as ice/cold based damage is more effective against fire based creatures.

There is a chance you will find a sigil of air, but that one is not supposed to be there, yet. In any case the content for that sigil is mostly lacking.

Bug fixes
- Resolves issue that spawned many sleeping rats.
- Resolves issues with empty cursed chests.
- Living Statues save their state after being awakened, so they should not respawn.
- Fixes an issue with the escalating costs for praying.
- Fixes a couple of text errors.
- Two more generator bugs that caused the generator to fail three times in a row, have been fixed (thanks for sending in those saves).
- Column rendering issues.

[getter77]

The Stealth Update

Our hero just learned how to sneak...

So here we go. The final update while we are still in Early Access. A lot has been done the past week:

Stealth mechanics
The major changes are to the stealth mechanics. Hiding works more or less the same. The big difference is that you need to wear a cloak to be able to hide. But you'll find that when you are hiding opponents are less likely to spot you, you can sneak around (as long as you stay close to a wall and out of the light), and you can perform surprise attacks for extra damage.

Thieving has never been as much fun
In addition, there is more feedback on your chances of success when using lock picks or tools. And you can now can use tools to disable turrets! This will come in very handy when dealing with a new type of 'Watcher' turrets that have a nasty tendency to trigger spells or other nearby turrets.

Treasure
There is now also treasure to be found. These items don't do anything in the game (most of them anyway). But if you carry them around they will add to your score and add to the gold you have available for new runs.

New bosses, new enemies
There are three new bosses: The Balrog, The Hive Mind, and Terros the Earth Elemental, bring the total number of bosses to over 50. To accompany them there is a new enemy type called Creeps. Don't worry they're only to be encountered deep down.

Encounter vendors inside the levels
Always wondered how the elves that run the shops in the dungeon look like? Now you can actually find them inside the levels. No more fly-by shopping though...

Choice your poison
Do you like the puzzles in the game? Or do you prefer to fight your way past many bosses? With two extra setting available when starting a game, you can now choose how you like your dungeon served: with plenty of puzzles, many bosses, neither or both!

Game balance
There have been some changes to the starting characters: The thief starts with additional cloak of stealth +1. The Barbarian starts with ring of Melee +2. The Priest starts with an idol of Sophie. And the Archer starts with better bow and more arrows.

We've also tried to bring the dreaded 'horde floors' sometimes found in later levels under control.

Bug fixes
And there have been bug fixes. Among them:
- Fixes an issue with the Werewolf.
- When buying items mouse clicks no longer register twice.
- Sigils spawn again on normal difficulty.
- One corrupted save game does not crash the entire game.
- Fixes crash if you try to swap activated staves.
- Fixes possible crashes when dealing damage or drinking potions.
- Fixes issues with duplicated bosses and dragons.

Final update you say?
Release is approach fast (expect an announcement real, real soon). So, yes this is the final update in Early Access. This doesn't mean the game is done. It simply means we think the game is ready to introduce to a wider audience. Depending on how the release goes, more features and additional content is coming.

Most importantly, we still like to hear your feedback and your comments! That will never change.