Tuesday 25 August 2015

HyperRogue 7.3: save the princess, and save the map!

HyperRogue 7.3 is released on Steam!
A mouse squeaks at you. It seems that it wants you to go somewhere. That's interesting, what could you find here?

Of course, some of the gates on your way will be closed, and you will have to go around them! From my testing, it appears that this quest should be always possible with the normal distribution of monsters and pressure plates, but since this is rather an early game quest, I have made it easier: the number of monsters does not depend on the number of Hypersian Rugs you have collected, and there are more opening plates. But if you want the challenge, select the Princess Challenge from the special game modes menu.

You can find a Mouse after killing a Vizier. To make it a bit easier, a Vizier usually appears right after you collect 13 Hypersian Rugs, and a Mouse appears right after you kill a Vizier.

The Map Editor has already been present in the late patches to 7.2, but it is better now. Activate it from the "special game modes" menu (or by Shift+A in the cheat mode). There, you can place walls, items and monsters, copy parts of the map, save high quality screenshots (to BMP), and even save/load the map to a file!

More changes follow:
  • Refactored monster movement. This means that Rock Snakes and mimics activate plates now (they did not previously), and monsters' special movement effects (for example, Pikeman attack and trails) are now activated by the Orb of Air.
  • Messages are now different based on whether the monster is living or not (you no longer "kill" Skeletons).
  • Rock Snakes are now generated correctly. Also fixed a small bug with worm/gate interaction.
  • Activating the Cheat mode while already in Cheat mode now disables it instead (simply restarting the game sometimes does not work, so this should make it easier)
  • Activating the Gameboard mode no longer clears the map automatically, so you can use it to view the patterns in alternate ways (triangular/heptagonal boards, Emerald/Fifty codes). Press F5 if you want to clear the board.
  • Help in the map editor, ability to set rotation by clicking on a specific point of the cell. Mines shown. Some crashes caused by illegal combinations are removed.
Version 7.3a:
  • fixed the Princess Challenge achievement
  • fixed the Gameboard mode
  • the Princess Challenge unlocking should now honor Steam achievements, so it should be available even if you unlocked it on a different computer
  • fixed minor grammar errors, added some missing lines ("cannot jump on" and "b=boundary"), added the Czech translation
Version 7.3b:
  • The 'second joystick' no longer does panning by default, as it causes problems with some gamepads.
  • the Russian translation has been updated.
  • the Prince/Princess setting (in "customize character") is saved. Also, selecting "customize character" no longer automatically randomizes everything.
  • the message 'You are entering the minefield' should no longer appear when you are actually leaving it.
Version 7.3c:
  • The Princess is now able to use boats. (Although probably it is safer to try one from Fjord, not one from a coast...)
  • Princess now keeps her HP after using Orb of Safety.
  • You can now jump over a Mouse. Jumping/teleporting into mirrors/cabinets/etc. activates their effects.
  • Gates now also crush items when closing, and are completely destroyed with Flash even if only one half is in the area. Also, they should no longer be generated if the other half would be in a different land.
  • Map Editor: added an undo feature, and a possibility to flip while copying large areas. It is also no longer possible to rotate regions so that hexagons/heptagons do not match.
  • Skeletons are now marked as non-living (they sink, not drown).
  • Fixed some text/translation errors.
Version 7.3d:
  • Golems, Mice, and Knights are moving again.
  • Eagles no longer make extra moves after moving next to PC.
  • Ghosts are no longer allowed to move next to each other, so being attacked by two of them at once is no longer almost surely fatal.
  • Gameboard cells are no longer black if no gameboard mode is enabled.
  • Bonfires are now lighted by nearby fires.
  • Save/load map no longer crashes when a file is missing (or another error).
  • (Android) Loading a game should no longer cause new items/monsters not to appear.
Version 7.3e: In 7.3e:
  • stunning a monster on the Palace trapdoor no longer gives you the Death Runner achievement.
  • Princess Challenge should now be available immediately after unlocking.
  • High quality screenshots should now work on Windows.
  • Fixed some errors in translations. (Also finally added the translated achievement names)
  • Albatross kills are counted now.
  • (Android) The rare Android crash should be fixed now.
Version 7.3f fixed the Euclidean mode. Version 7.3g fixes some things in the shmup mode:
  • Leaders/Pirates/Vikings did not move.
  • Save shmup config works correctly now (well, it did work correctly before, but it did not load).
  • Boats are now stranded instead of disappearing in Fjord/Ocean coast.
  • You now lose life immediately if your terrain becomes dangerous (tide comes, a gate is dropped on you, etc.).
  • Tide, ghost spawn, and heat transfer in Cocytus are somewhat slower now.
  • Orb of Air works nicely now.
  • Clicking to use orb powers should no longer crash the game.
  • Visited lands are recorded, so you can play them in the Euclidean mode later.
  • Female cheaters now have a different "goat" head design. (To make her more different in the coop shmup)

Tuesday 11 August 2015

HyperRogue 7.2: pressure plates, multi-HP enemies, and local coop

HyperRogue 7.2 is released on Steam and itch.io!

The Palace features trapdoors (similar to the Land of Eternal Motion, but taking just one cell), gates which can be closed or opened by standing on pressure plates, and several kinds of guards which require several hits (or trickery) to destroy. Killing a Vizier is an alternative way to the Emerald Mine and further to the Camelot. By the way, the quest should be a bit clearer now -- the ESC screen now displays the steps required to reach Camelot (after reaching the Graveyard), and the Knights will try to give you hints about how to reach lands which you have missed (and also they will say how big their Round Table is). The Palace is based on a new periodic pattern based on circles of radius 3, by Fulgur14; new pattern exploration modes are also added for this pattern. More lands based on it will probably come later.

The Living Fjord is a coastal area, which can border both Ocean and the inland worlds. This land is generated similar to the Living Cave, but with water cells instead of walls. However, the process won't be affected by you or other monsters (so you will sometimes have to escape from the water), or by items (so they will sink and wait until you find some way to resurface them). The monsters act quite different from ones the the Living Cave, and you can find boats, too!

Moreover, it is possible to play with two players (cooperatively) in the shmup mode now! This is currently local only. Playing with two players is not as easy as it sounds -- it is a bit hard to see the hyperbolic straight lines along which your knives are flying, and you could even hit your friend; also, knives recharge slower and orbs drain faster in the coop mode.

Also, the shmup mode has received some more improvements. Coop required keys to be configurable, so you can redefine your keys and joysticks now (only in the shmup mode, but not only when playing with two players). Moreover, you no longer move slower when going backwards, and you can choose to use either the forward-backward-turn left-turn right, or the up-down-left-right cotntrol with the keyboard.

Translations are not ready at the moment yet. Have fun!

Version 7.2 also has the following minor improvements:

  • You no longer break mirrors or cut trees while using an Orb of Aether
  • LoEM now appears as a basic land. Red Rock Valley and Cocytus are more likely to appear next to similar lands. The special border generation rules for R'Lyeh are disabled once you have found enough treasure thren, so you can escape more easily.
  • Tame Bomberbirds should be saved now with Orb of Safety. Orb of Friendship now works as a bonus life in the shmup mode.
  • Water and red rock are now displayed correctly in the Hive.
  • Red Trolls now work correctly in the Minefield.
  • Pikemen did not kill the PC by moving next to them in the hardcore mode.
  • Bonfires on the coast are now extinguished during the tide.
  • Fixed a bug which sometimes made it impossible to light bonfires in the Icy Land.
  • Fixed a bug with Orb of Aether still draining power while using Orb of Time.
  • Fire Cultists (and Orb of Dragon in general) can now destroy stranded boats
  • Flavor messages for killing monsters were shown only when killing directly.
Thanks to tehora for ideas and testing! Version 7.2a fixes:
  • skipping a turn with the mouse
  • nerfed the frequency/duration of the Orb of the Fish
  • fixed the reference in the pushing description (Thumper/Guard/Skeleton)
  • added a comment that Skeletons are stunned for a longer time outside of the Palace
Version 7.2b fixes:
  • you no longer activate pressure plates while using an Orb of Aether
  • Fire Cultists will just wait if they cannot fire at your current location (e.g., a Palace gate)
  • fixed the weird facing direction
  • updated the Czech and Russian translations, also fixed some minor text problems
Version 7.2c fixes:
  • The Orb of Thorns now stuns and damages the stunnable monsters.
Version 7.2d fixes:
  • I have added a map editor. It is activated with Shift+A from the cheat mode, and allows you to place arbitrary monsters, walls, items and lands. It is somewhat ugly for now, and it is probably possible to crash the game by creating illegal configurations, but it should be useful for testing, and better for drawing new ideas for maps than the game board mode. (Maybe some save map feature for next versions?)
  • a typo in the Land of Power
  • Fjord-related things in the shmup mode: Water Elemental did not move at all, Vikings use boats correctly now, land monsters no longer run into the water to catch you when you are on the boat
  • worms now prevent gates from closing