Thursday 24 March 2016

Hydra Slayer released on Steam!

Hydra Slayer has been just released on Steam!

If you don't know what Hydra Slayer is: is a roguelike with a unique combat system based on the properties of numbers (inspired by some old mathematical puzzles). At first this is simple addition and subtraction, but then divisibility and more complicated properties of numbers come into play. As a general design rule, it is rarely clear which weapon is better: the more potential the weapon has, the harder it is to use (for example, a blade that can cut 12 heads at once is useless against hydras which have less than 12 heads). You will need to combine your weapons into sets which can kill hydras as effectively as possible: hydra attacks cost you health, and it does not regenerate. You can play it as a short 12-level coffebreak roguelike, or continue to the full game, filled with many different special types of multi-headed beings, lots of special artifact weapons, levels with strange topologies, and so on. Hydra Slayer's system is very clear (no more wondering whether +3 Evasion or +1 Dexterity is better, because you don't know the formulae used by the game), but hard to master. Many of the items in Hydra Slayer are also unique -- they would not make sense outside of this combat system, like the Powder of Growth, which makes a hydra grow extra heads -- which is very useful, since a hydra with less heads is not necessarily easier to kill. See the detailed list of features.

The new version (17.0 -- of course, 16.3 is still available for free) has the following features:

  • Typical Steam features, such as online achievements and leaderboards, Steam trading cards, cloud-based saves, automatic updates, and community.
  • Updated interface. Some new animations (watch those heads fly!) and graphics.
  • Slightly updated performance.
  • A random challenge, which is 10 levels long, and much more random than a usual run of Hydra Slayer. Also, a daily challenge, where everyone plays the same random challenge, and can compare their scores.
  • New music, by Brett Cornwall (work in progress).
  • Some minor new gameplay features: traps to lead hydras on, Orbs which provide a powder/potion effect many times at the cost of a weapon slot, and new map generators.
  • Source code (except the Steam features) is included.


You can buy Hydra Slayer on Steam or itch.io. Have fun playing!

8 comments:

  1. Will this be the same deal as with Hyperrogue? I mean that the updated versions are made available for free after some time?

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    1. Yes, I am planning the same model as for HyperRogue.

      In the case of HyperRogue, the free version became 3x larger since HyperRogue became available on Steam (and the paid version 4x larger -- and this only counts lands, not the special modes) -- whether a similar thing will happen with Hydra Slayer will depend on its reception on Steam. :)

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  2. Will Vapors of Insanity be continued?.

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    1. Hard to say :) I have lost most of my motivation in working on Vapors of Insanity -- I feel it is less unique than HyperRogue or Hydra Slayer (which makes it less interesting for me to develop), and also it does not seem to generate much interest, even though the amount of work that went into that was higher. But maybe some day :)

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  3. Will there be a maximum number of heads a hydra can have?

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    1. Hydras collapse under their own weight if they have more than 1000000 heads, IIRC.

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  4. Great game, played a bit, almost perfect! How do you prefer to receive bug reports? Mail? IRC? Steam forum?

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    1. Thanks! I find it most convenient to have all the bug reports in a single thread on the Steam forum ( http://steamcommunity.com/app/432380/discussions/0/392184522707730270/ ), as then I won't forget about it. But mail or Steam chat should work too :)

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