Friday 24 March 2017

HyperRogue 9.4 is now available freely!

HyperRogue version 9.4c is released freely! You can download the Windows executable with source that compiles on Linux, the OSX package, the source, the Android version, or play the online version.

Compared to the previous free release of HyperRogue (8.3j) it includes the following new features:
  • Adaptative animations, 3D display, sound effects, and other user interface improvements.
  • Ten new lands, including Reptiles where the floor is made of reptiles, Burial Grounds where you have to use the curvature to gather treasures, and the Halloween mini-game where you have to use the limited resources in spherical geometry! See all lands in the HyperRogue gallery.
  • Geometry nerds can now experiment with spherical, elliptic, or quotient hyperbolic geometry, access new 3D models of the hyperbolic world, try cellular automata, or use HyperRogue as a visualization engine.
  • And tons of other minor improvements, such as turn-based multiplayer or changes to Orb frequency -- see the full changelog here.


As you can see, this is the latest version available at the moment; thus, the paid extras are only the social features (achievements, leaderboards) and automatic updates. We are tending towards changing the "previous major version is available for free" system a bit, as it has some disadvantages.
  • Bugfixes and interface improvements should be immediately available in the free version, as bugs or bad interface could drive the players away.
  • Having up-to-date source in the public repo would make it much more convenient to fork HyperRogue, as the improvements could be easily incorporated into the offical version. This would increase the probability of people contributing (so far there were only technical contributions, or ideas without code).
  • HyperRogue is a fun and challenging game, but it is also more than that. We believe it is one of the best ways to learn about hyperbolic geometry, and as possibly the richest hyperbolic geometry system currently in existence, it has other applications (such as data visualization). For such applications, it is beneficial if the free version is up-to-date.
Possibly the free version will be updated more frequently, possibly some more features will be added as paid extras. Please comment if you have any thoughts about this!

We would also like to note that although HyperRogue is currently one of the highest rated turn-based tactics games on Steam, it has almost no reviews on sites such as Metacritic. Please add reviews there!

Most importantly, have fun!

Sunday 5 March 2017

HyperRogue 9.4: bulls everywhere

HyperRogue 9.4 is released on Steam and itch.io! (Android, iOS, and the online version will come later.)

You can find safety in some places in the Prairie, but if you want treasures, they can be found only on the other side of a giant herd of bulls.

Butterflies of Bull Dash don't pursue you -- unless you get next to them, they just spin around the obstacles. They cannot be killed conventionally, but you get treasure when a Raging Bull crashes into a Butterfly.

Crossroads V is yet another layout of Crossroads.

Some other changes:
  • Additional 3D options have been added to HyperRogue. The ball model and hyperboloid model can explain the 3D hyperbolic space used by HyperRogue. The new camera options could be used to obtain FPP or TPP view, although the models used by HyperRogue are not adapted to this.
  • A slight change in the generation of orbs, so that it is no longer optimal to avoid collecting more treasures after the 10 or 25 threshold. Orb spawn rate in the Crossroads is just 70% (relative to the spawn rate before the change) if you have 10 treasures, and rises to 100% when you have 25. Prize Orbs appear if you have 25 treasures, but their spawn rate is 60% if you have exactly 25, 100% if you have 50 (the spawn rate gets higher and higher as you collect more treasures, but the benefits are diminishing).
  • Two new geometries have been added (in the euclidean/elliptic menu). The Zebra pattern is a periodic pattern of 40 cells, in the Zebra quotient geometry, the space is warped so that repetitions which become exactly the same cell -- thus, you play on a torus with two holes. The field quotient geometry is similar, but it is based on the pattern which is used by the Prairie; this pattern has 132440 cells (39732 heptagons).
  • In the mobile versions, a compass has been added in the bottom left corner. It can be used for movement, so that your hand no longer obscures the view.

Prairie is based on wonderfullizardofoz's Amazon River idea, but rethemed to make it stand our more from Whirlpool. Crossroads V is an old idea of Fulgur14. Many people have had idea of a land inspired by the Boulder Dash mechanics (Z, CtrlAltDestroy, simon_clarkstone); Bull Dash has risen from these ideas, although the relationship is quite remote. The field pattern is inspired by the method used by David Madore in his hyperbolic maze.

More improvements and are reported in the changelog, and on the Steam forums. Have fun!