HyperRogue 9.0: swords, trolls, and krakens

HyperRogue 9.0 is released on Steam and itch.io!

And, since this is a major version, HyperRogue 8.3j can now be downloaded freely from the website! In comparison with the last free version (7.4), HyperRogue 8.3 includes new special modes (heptagonal mode and Chaos mode), some new ways of presenting the hyperbolic world of HyperRogue, and more than 10 new lands based on various themes, unique mechanics, and properties of hyperbolic plane.

Android and iOS versions of HyperRogue 9.0 should be available soon -- and with some new features too (shmup mode, leaderboards and achievements via Google Games in the iOS version, local scores in the Android version). Stay tuned!

And now, the new features of HyperRogue 9.0...

A long time ago, the Kraken Depths were a trade route. But then, Krakens have risen out of the depths. Many trading ships sank here, together with the treasure their carried. Legend says that you can uncover the secret of a magical weapon spell somewhere in the depths... Kraken Depths are remotely based on the idea of phenomist in the ideas thread.

Completing the Kraken Depths yields Orb of the Sword -- which creates a magical energy sword on a cell adjacent to you. This energy sword moves with you, but you cannot rotate it -- it simply remains at the same angle, slashing all the monsters it passes through. In the Burial Grounds, mastering Orb of the Sword is crucial for excavating the treasures and defeating monsters there. Although the strangeness of angles is probably the most well known property of the world of HyperRogue -- for example, the sum of angles of a triangle is less than 180 degrees -- the Burial Grounds are probably the first Land where understanding this well is important.

Trollheim is unlocked by killing a member of each of 6 subspecies of Troll available in the game. In this kingdom of Trolls, you fight large groups of them, and then find your way back to their treasure caches -- bodies of slain Trolls will be helpful, but you can easily get confused!

HyperRogue 9.0 also introduces turn-based multiplayer. Players take their turns simultaneously -- first all players make their choices (by using separate sets of configurable keys), then the move is performed unless it leads to death of any of characters. Sooner or later, probably a bad situation will happen -- one of the character would die no matter what they do, the characters separate and are unable to rejoin, or one of the players simply wants to leave for some time. In this case, a character can leave the game world, until one of the suitable Orbs is used to restore them. This plays slower than the normal single-player turn-based HyperRogue, and for this reason we think that the shoot'em up mode works better in multiplayer -- but turn-based multiplayer is still fun :) Additionally, the game now supports up to 7 players (not sure whether it is still fun, but why not support this?), and specific stats (kills/treasure/deaths) are counted for each player.

There were also many improvements to the user interface -- many of these were inspired by Alan Malloy's videos:

• In previous versions, keyboard movement was somewhat risky -- sometimes it was hard to tell which key moves where. As shown on the screenshot above, HyperRogue can now display arrows -- these correspond to movement keys.
• Cleaning the kill list: first monsters, then parts, then friends. As for monster parts, the number of Dragon/Kraken parts destroyed is now counted, and Mutant Ivy kill count now counts only ones killed directly (for consistency with normal Ivies -- the counts were not right in the Clearing anyway, where the actual counts would reach billions easily)
• some mechanics were not appropriately explained in their descriptions: auto-triggering Orbs (Flash/Lightning), targettable Orbs (it was not made clear that they cannot be targetted at too close or too far ranges), auto-explore radius for the Minefield
• More information about lands. For land with unlock requirements, the progress of unlocking is shown. Also it is clear which lands are not available in special modes, and which quests are optional for Hyperstone Quest.
• The option to show heptagons did not work in some lands, and was confusing in some other lands -- now, it marks heptagons with dots (as it previously worked in the Red Rock Valley)
• version number now always shown in the bottom left corner (useful when you watch recordings of HyperRogue)
• A slight change to the Minefield: you can now mark mines by hovering over a cell and pressing 'm'. This also happens automatically if you know all mines adjacent to some cell. Marking mines prevents your allies from going there, and gives you a warning when you try to step on a marked cell. Cells where a monster moved, or cells with items, are marked safe (and mines set on items explode immediately now, so you can always be sure that cells with items are safe).
• Warnings. The checkmate rule works well to protect you from most stupid mistakes, but there are some mistakes where it does not help because the actual death would happen on the next turn -- like stepping on a known mine, or moving under attack of a Kraken, in a boat (this does not kill you immediately, it just destroys your boat). Such moves could be fatal or not, and it is hard to check what is the case -- for example, if you step on a mine while escaping from an adjacent Water Elemental, the Water Elemental will catch up and extinguish the fires immediately -- so only a very basic check is made, and you can ignore the warning by repeating the action.

Fixed bugs in gameplay:

• Crystal Sages, Dragons, and Fire Cultists can attack all targets now (not only the player)
• fish could not go through sunken items
• fixed the bug with Orb of the Fish not letting one to stay in place in Cocytus
• Orb of Time did not work with Orbs of Aether and Thorns
• Shadows now actually attack (previously they only affected the checkmate rule)
• no more burning/sinking/falling messages for the Shadow
• The log file now mentions if the game was played in pure hardcore mode
• mouse can now step on mines (without triggering them)
• the Orb of Lightning did not reflect off walls correctly
• improved pathfinding for monsters -- it seems they no longer act strangely in tight corridors
• Crossroads IV no longer appear in incomplete Rlyeh
• allies were not killed by Rosebushes
• Bomberbirds did not explode when killed by Rosebushes
• in the Shmup mode, monsters are now less likely to get stuck
• Ghosts no longer fall off cliffs and die
• Yendorian trees are now burned by lightning (also Orb of Storms is now marked as dangerous there)
• Rich Metal Beasts killed by Orb of Storms now also produces Fulgurite in shmup
• movement to Orb of the Shell is now possible even if under attack
• some monsters with non-standard movement abilities moved unpredictably (i.e., based on the internal representation) -- now they move randomly
• fixed a bug with Ocean generation in the pure heptagonal mode
• Water Elementals now destroy manned boats in the shmup mode
• Sharks (except Demon Sharks) now suffocate when stranded on land
• monsters at unstable locations in the Ivory Tower can now falling into dangerous terrain, or into other monsters attacking them
• adjusted temperature and livecave value of some monsters
• Friendly Ghosts no longer ride boats; they are generated from Dragon and Pikeman kills

Other fixes and minor features:

• a new icon!
• added a leaderboard for the heptagonal mode
• replaced Servant (from the Ivory Tower) with Familiar, and added Familiar as the seventh choice for the player character (no gameplay changes), also changed the music in the Ivory Tower
• new graphics for Eggs, sadly they are not triangular anymore
• pressing Shift now cycles in the reverse direction in more contexts (shift+N to reduce the number of players, shift+M to go back in conformal models)
• display colors in char config; also the movement star color can be configured now
• bugcounts and minecounts are no longer displayed when you are in a menu
• the menu for selecting the score to display works better now: some Orbs which were there are removed; pressing keys no longer does weird things, but rather allows you to search for a specific entry (just like in the Map Editor)
• two new models added to the conformal menu (the models are not conformal, but they fit there)
• translation fixes: conformal models' names, Dragon description, Polish translation
• not crash on very long pathnames
• improved wall display in Hive/Dragon
• draw multiple Flash effects
• quit from menu sends achievements
• graphical effect for the Orb of Beauty
• Unlocking rules were not shown for Crossroads II
• 'chop down' used for trees

As usual, there will be probably patches -- changelogs are first reported on the Steam forums. Have fun!