HyperRogue 6.6: Steam, Android, and Desura

Some news about HyperRogue:



HyperRogue on Steam has been updated to Version 6.6 -- this fixes some minor bugs, and also includes the source code, so inner workings of the seven new lands are no longer secret. More details at the bottom of this post.

HyperRogue on Google Play has been updated to Version 6.6 too. There were some bugs which caused HyperRogue to crash on exit (I thought that this was caused by the OS deciding to kill HyperRogue in order to clear memory, but it was actually a bug). Additionally, HyperRogue registers itself as a service -- this reminds the user of the game in progress, and should hopefully prevent Android from killing it (we will see if this indeed works).

HyperRogue is also going to be released on Desura in June! If you would like to have access to the newest HyperRogue, but you do not like Steam for some reason, this is for you. The Steam version has global highscores (meaningful in a game of skill such as HyperRogue), achievements which add a bit to the game (I am proud of getting the Master of Cult achievement myself), and a great community -- but you do not lose it, since the Steam key is included in the Desura package too! Source code and HyperRogue Gold for Android are also included. If you like HyperRogue, please give it a good rating on Desura!

Some cool new features are already planned for version 7.0, so at some time the current version (HyperRogue 6.6) will be released for free, and the paid versions will be updated with new lands and features. Have fun!

Detailed changelog for HyperRogue 6.6:

• Some bugs related to Mimics (Mirages and Mirror Images) have been fixed: they are now destroyed when they stray too far away, when you teleport, or when they attack an Ivy. (If they were not destroyed in these situations, it could potentially lead to weird behavior.) Also, they no longer change their direction without a reason in the Alchemist Lab.
• Walls left by killed Vine Beasts are now more visible in the Hive.
• Shift-clicking on a cell now does nothing if it is impossible to cast a spell from a ranged Orb at the given location.
• HyperRogue's log file has been improved a bit. The implementation is much more clean, and it lists achievements gained, and data proving that the scores have been achieved in an official paid version of HyperRogue. This could be potentially used to prevent some forms of cheating by tampering with saved games (although it is possible to cheat anyway, just a bit harder).

HyperRogue 6.5

HyperRogue is still alive! No new lands or other new big features in HyperRogue 6.5, but there were several small improvements:

• Hyperbugs no longer die on attack. Also, they are more likely to target you if you have collected lots of Royal Jellies. This should make it somewhat harder to achieve very high scores there (I think there is no need to remove any scores, but I can remove your score if you want).
• Fire Cultist attack now causes books to burn (not that it matters much...). On the other hand, some orbs are now invulnerable to fire (previously one specific orb did not burn, which was intentional, but it happened in one specific situation, which was misleading).
• Sometimes scores were not submitted to the Steam Leaderboards due to connection problems, hopefully it should be more robust now.
• The local scoreboard (ESC-t) has been improved: more types of scores can be checked, and you can press 't' to ask for a specific score type easily. Additionally, Miner kills and some Orbs are saved now (they were not saved previously).
• Some minor problems with the Euclidean mode have been fixed: Great Walls disappearing when using Orb of Safety on the Crossroads; Orb of Winter graphics; scrolling and rotation (arrows, Page Up, Page Down) are working correctly now.
• Using an Orb of Safety in Camelot/Temple no longer causes a crash (it was possible only in the Cheat mode, anyway).
• One bug in the Polish translation fixed.

HyperRogue 6.5 is currently available on Steam and should be soon available on Google Play. Have fun!

HyperRogue updated for free and Android!

The Android version of HyperRogue, as well as the free version, have been updated (to version 5.5a)!

This brings translations, two new lands with new mechanics (Cocytus and Dry Forest), the Euclidean mode, and several other minor improvements to free and Android players. Additionally, HyperRogue Gold now has access to online achievements and leaderboards, via Google Games Services.

Have fun! And buy the Steam version too! You not only get access to Steam leaderboards and achievements, but also more interest on Steam generates faster development of new versions. Currently five new lands are planned, including: a land where you can witness battles between large armies, a land filled with a regular and dense pattern of ultraparallel lines, a hyperbolic fjord with a regular but complicated pattern and enemies which require different ways for defeating, a randomly generated cave (similar to the Lab and the Forest, but this one is mostly static), and a land where you can find lots of magical orbs, but guarded by very powerful enemies.

The full changelog from 4.4 to 5.5a below:

• The new land, the Dry Forest, has been added. This land includes Hedgehog Warriors who cannot be attacked directly and need to be 'stabbed' instead, and Fire Fairies who set the forest on fire.
• Cocytus was previously available only for cheaters (and extremely good players), now it has been improved and released officially. It includes floors which melt when you are around for too long, and monsters which manipulate heat.
• Euclidean mode. In this mode, the mechanics of HyperRogue are exactly the same, but the game is played on a usual hex board. This mode allows you to check why the hyperbolic geometry matters.
• Translation engine. HyperRogue currently has a Czech, Polish, and Turkish translation. It has a powerful translation engine, so grammar is used correctly (it even uses the female forms correctly when playing a female character). Also some typos have been fixed. Please contact me if you would like to provide an additional translation.
• AI improvement. Monsters will try not to block each other. This does not help them much in the hyperbolic world (but it does in the Euclidean mode).
• Gameboard mode. This can be used for designing your own hyperbolic games and art.
• The player character can be customized (colors, male or female).
• The game now tracks the realtime passed while playing the game.
• The configuration screen has been split into three pages. This allows it to include more options, like configuring the joystick not through editing the config files.
• If you don't press any keys, the last messages will stay on the screen. Also the time of message flashing is now configurable.
• Collecting Hyperstones was too easy, this has been rebalanced. If you have started collecting Hyperstones, enemies appear on the Crossroads.
• Slime can now be spilled into other lands, and it can even be used to build bridges.
• Dead trolls and bonfires no longer stabilize the Land of Eternal Motion.
• Blocked tentacles of Cthulhu no longer disappear immediately. Instead, they withdraw one cell at a time, until the whole tentacle is gone.
• If you are travelling through land A and see land B, and you have much more treasure in Land B than in Land A, you will find less treasures in B, or even you won't find any. This is done to prevent strategies where you get lots of treasures in some land by sticking to another, safe land.
• Wandering seeps and ghosts will come when you stay in one place for too long. When you get stuck in the Living Cave, just wait until they come and kill you.
• Orb of Winter now provides resistance to fire, which is useful in R'Lyeh and the Dry Forest.
• Some minor problems with mimics (mirror images and mirages) have been fixed.
• Golems are now saved by Orbs of Safety.
• The "X" now displays the remaining distance to the Key.
• Better info about the Hyperstone Quest in the quest screen.
• Fixed some bugs in the hyperbolic graphics editor, so it should be more usable now.

Happy New Year!

Hello!

I am working on roguelikes until the last day of the year! :) I have just fixed the bug which caused HyperRogue not to run on the newest versions of the Android OS (it was already fixed in the basic version, but now I have updated the Gold and Lite versions too).

I have not been working much on my own roguelikes this year. In my opinion, there were not many new roguelikes in general -- I mean classic, big roguelikes, there were several great 7DRLs and games evolved from them, such as Golden Krone Hotel or TraumaRL, I have also had lots of fun playing Hoplite from 2013, and there were lots of games with roguelike elements. Some old roguelikes have been updated -- I have been working on ADOM, which was great too. Hopefully, ADOM should be available on Steam soon! Maybe I will add some achievements and scoreboards, and publish HyperRogue on Steam too?

Whether you are a game developer or just a player, I wish everyone lots of new great interesting games (whether you like 7DRLs, classic roguelikes, games with roguelike elements, or games which have nothing to do with roguelikes), and updates to old great games, in the New Year!

-Z

HyperRogue 4.4

HyperRogue 4.4 is released!

The changes are most visible on Android. Music is included (so the apk is 8MB -- if you liked the small apk without music, there is also HyperRogue Lite). You can now save the game by collecting an Orb of Safety -- basically, if you leave the game after picking up such an orb (while its power is still active), the game will continue when you restart HyperRogue. (Orb of Lightning's animation has been moved to Orb of Safety; Orbs of Lightning use a new sparkling animation.)

There is also a new paid version of HyperRogue for Android, named HyperRogue Gold -- buy this if you want to support HyperRogue :) To make it include something which is not included in the free version, HyperRogue Gold also includes some cheats.

Of course, saving (after taking an Orb of Safety) has been added to the desktop version, too :) You can download HyperRogue 4.4 with music (44 MB), with low-quality music (NEW! - 8 MB, graphics are not affected), and without music (1 MB).

Go to the HyperRogue website

Happy slashing!

try Hydra Slayer online

Hey,

AppSurfer is a nice website which allows to play Android apps on the Web. I have added Hydra Slayer:

Hydra Slayer on AppSurfer

Works a bit slow, but if for some reason you want to try Hydra Slayer without downloading, or see how the Android version works, now you can :) You can play by clicking the screen (as you probably would on Android), or with the keyboard (see this page for the list of keys).

But don't forget that the real desktop version looks better, is more user friendly, and you can save game safely :)

HyperRogue is available too, but unfortunately it seems too slow yet.

7DRL reviews and HyperRogue version 3.3

We have finally finished reviewing all the entries in the 7DRL challenge 2012. You can see the results on RogueTemple, and also another version with screenshots, made by Todd Page.

We have one winner (rated 2.72 on average), I rule, you rule, we all rule old-school Hyrule, five tied for second place (2.67), and 7 more with average at least 2.5. I think that these differences are very small: it was often hard to me to decide whether to give a score of 2 or 3 in my review, and also much depends on who reviewed the particular entry. The ones I have tried (as a reviewer or personally) are of a very high quality, and I think every game in the top of the list deserves to be tried. Congratulations to all of them!

HyperRogue II was among the games tied for the second place. It got a perfect score for Aesthetics, Innovation and Roguelikeness, but lower scores for Fun (unfortunately) and Scope (I understand that it is a bit hard to judge scope since a part has been written before the challenge).

Anyway, HyperRogue III raises Aesthetics, Roguelikeness and Fun even higher (and Scope in some sense, although this should be judged for 7DRLs only). And this post announces Version 3.3!

This update is rather minor. Some descriptions are improved; they are now more accurate and detailed. Made it clear that there are actually many Orbs of Yendor. Cultists in the Icy Lands produce more heat now. HyperRogue should now work correctly in a resolutions with height greater than width (not only on Android).

The Android version gets a "share" function, which allows you to share a short description of your character (together with a screenshot). Your characters are be no longer destined to be lost without any trace.

Have fun!

HyperRogue III (version 3.1)

HyperRogue version 3.1 is released!

This version contains many optimizations, which make the animations much smoother. Mostly due to using compiler's optimizations, but also game mechanics and shape drawing routines are optimized.

These optimizations also make an Android port possible.

There are also some bugfixes and minor features ("dead ivy" shows correctly, necromancy bugfix, restarting after finding the Orb of Yendor no longer crashes the game, help fits better on the screen, you can right click the framerate for hints about improving it.

Here are some screenshots from the Android version. As always, have fun!

Hydra Slayer Social for Android 13.0b: more social features

Hi, a minor update about Hydra Slayer for Android: it becomes even more social by integrating with HeyZap. Also, there has been an bugfix with one of the achievements, and a new leaderboard added (the simplest one, which counts the wounds until winning). Have fun!

The desktop version of Hydra Slayer is still the same. I think I have a nice idea for a new weapon: a blade which reverses time. The basic idea is as follows: a flaming dagger is not very useful against most opponents in the later levels, as it usually removes one head and gives, say, 7 new ones. But what will a time-reverse flaming dagger do? Well, it will take 7 heads and grow one. I think it could be quite interesting to have it in the first part of the game, which would probably mean a new race which starts with it (like Elves start with the Bow). What about the later game? Well, the dagger described above it is too unreliable to be very useful in the later game, but using the Scroll of Big Stick could give more time-reversal powers, like being healed on an attack, or making the Hydras flee from you instead of going to you. Needs some balancing, but could be fun.

Hydra Slayer for Android 13.0a: bug fixes and social features

A new version of Hydra Slayer for Android is released on the Android Market!

On one hand, this fixes some bugs. You can now show the soft keyboard ("show keyboard" in the menu), and the game should now detect corrupted savefiles, and offer to remove them (instead of silently crashing again and again). It also should no longer create empty savegames (which resulted in a slayer in an empty level). There are some other minor improvements.

I am also experimenting with Swarm, which is a SDK for enhancing Android games with social features such as achievements, leaderboards, and friend lists. So, you will now be able to compare your scores against your friends, and fight for achievements. Since some people might not want it (due to Internet permissions or a slighly larger size) you need to download another version of Hydra Slayer, named Hydra Slayer Swarm.

Since these features are only for Android, there is no new version for desktop.

Good luck Hydra slaying!

Hydra Slayer for Android update (12.6)

OK, I have finally decided to look for the bug which caused Hydra Slayer for Android to freeze and close sometimes (quite often, actually). Apparently the bug was caused because of my misunderstanding of JNI (I didn't know I have to call DeleteLocalRef).

Also the game runs faster now due to an optimization in transferring the screen data from JNI to Android.

For non-Android users, there is just one small bug fixed (auto-explore mode sometimes worked incorrectly).

Download Hydra Slayer for Android from the Android Market, or the PC version here.