Hydra Slayer 18.0

Hydra Slayer 18.0 is released on Steam and itch.io!

Hydra Slayer is a roguelike with a unique combat system, based on old matematical puzzles. The highlights of release 18.0 are the following:

• A new player race, the Atlanteans. Most characters in Hydra Slayer would meet vulture hydras, who grow one head for every wound they deal to the player. The Atlanteans have been cursed by the gods, and this will happen for all hydras. Will you be able to turn your curse into an advantage? The curse significantly affects the equipment and strategies to use, especially in the first 12 levels. Thanks for Patashu and Nick for the idea!
• Evolving hydras. They start to appear after level 25. Their resistance to the given weapon material is increased by one after each attack. These are inspired by a (slightly trollish) post by IchigoMait.
• Previously, each level below Level 12 contained just one special hydra (not counting bloody or dragon variants of standard colors) -- since there are 9 types, some of them will appear just a few times. The new version changes this -- some levels will replace one of the standard ones with another special, and some will almost lack normal hydras and include most of the special types instead. Challenge levels now tend to have two special hydras per level too.
• One new exotic weapon -- I will leave that for the players to find :)
• New special graphics for scythes (Atlanteans start with a scythe), hecatoncheires and monkeys. Thanks to tehora for requesting these!
• Removed some exploits. It is no longer possible to enhance the titanic club easily with the Reforging+Ambidexterity combo (thanks to vo3435 for abusing this). A tighter limit is placed on using time-daggers on mushrooms.
• Some features have been added to help with "head draining" attacks (all hydras for Atlanteans, Vultures for all characters). When fighting head-draining hydras, the number of wounds caused by the hydra's next attack is given in the UI. For other hydras, when you select your shield, "+1" is displayed for the hydra whose damage is reduced by your shield. Also, you can now press 'w' in the hydra description, to view the amount of wounds the given hydra would deal for every size. Enchanted Mersenne Twister (when trying to roll a 'good' number of heads) will now take into account that extra heads could be drained.
• In the cheat mode, shift+H can now also summon equipment.
• Minor bugfixes: better display of the in-game achievement screen, capital letters accepted in the scores menu, better handling of the app going out of focus, the generation of Giants' weapons in challenge games, crash bug with Vulture + Ambidexterity + Knowledge/Growth, using Twister even though runes are active, inexact calculation of wounds in the PoK algorithm by head drainers, 'use count' for traps, dragons attacking in a wrong direction on non-orientable levels, number of stunned heads is no longer displayed in the PoK hint for large hydras (the algorithm does not care about them anyway), potion of knowledge correctly counting wounds for shadows, capital letters accepted in the scores menu

Have fun! Small updates will be posted on the Steam forum first.

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!

NotEye+Hydra Slayer update, last year, and further plans

So let's start the 100th on this blog by summarizing year 2015.

2015 started with HyperRogue just accepted for sale on Steam. I put it on Steam Greenlight some years ago while it was still free to do so, because why not? At that time, HyperRogue, although it seemed to be the most popular of my games, was quite small and simple -- I considered Hydra Slayer to be more interesting from the gameplay perspective myself.
Well, the plan was to add typical Steam features such as achievements and leaderboards, and release it for a very low price. But it went much better than that. Quite a lot of people have bought HyperRogue, added positive reviews, and formed a community who discussed strategies and suggested many new ideas for further development. I have decided to add new features -- these features are added to the Steam version first to encourage people to buy, but the free version is also updated later. At the end of the year, HyperRogue on Steam has 38 lands (including some that are very interesting and I am very proud of), contrary to 11 when it was first released on Steam -- as well as many special modes, such as Euclidean, cooperative shmup, Yendor Challenge, or pure tactics mode. The free version of HyperRogue has 32 lands, so whether you have bought HyperRogue on Steam or not, you got a much more interesting game to play :)

In the meantime, I have been also working in Team ADOM. This was mostly working on NotEye, which ADOM is using as a graphical engine. I consider working on innovative game design (as in HyperRogue or Hydra Slayer) much more fun than mostly working on user interface, but still, it is great to work on one of the greatest roguelikes, that I have played a lot many years ago. In November, ADOM has been finally released on Steam too, and despite some nasty bugs in the initial release, it has been very successful there.

So what are the plans for 2016? I don't think it would be practical to add 30 new innovative lands to HyperRogue per year forever, but there are definitely at least some lands to be added -- HyperRogue community still has some great unused ideas. There is also still a lot of work to do in ADOM -- the user interface needs many more improvements.

More interestingly for me, Hydra Slayer has been just accepted for sale on Steam. In some sense, the situation between HyperRogue and Hydra Slayer has been reversed -- Hydra Slayer is the smaller one now :) Although HyperRogue and Hydra Slayer are both roguelikes based on mathematical concepts, there are also very different in some other regards. HyperRogue is designed as an open world roguelike, with a vast hyperbolic world that you can roam freely; to make it interesting at all times, the player character remains roughly equally strong during the whole game -- there are no experience levels nor equipment other than temporary powerups which cannot be carried far away -- otherwise, the players would just grind the hyperbolic plane to become stronger and stronger. 1HP approach makes all battles full of action, and brings new challenges based on monsters and environments -- so I have to be creative instead of copying other roguelikes -- but it has its limitations, too. For example, an unfortunate consequence is that all characters are very similar, the only difference being which lands you have already completed, and which lands not yet. Hydra Slayer, although its math-based combat is what I find innovative and interesting, is more like a typical roguelike here: a single dungeon, hitpoints, several races to choose from for the character, randomly found equipment that the character has to build their strategy around.

I am planning to use the same model for Hydra Slayer as for HyperRogue -- what you get by buying the Steam version (instead of playing the free one) is online achievements (contrary to HyperRogue, Hydra Slayer already has local achievements in the free version), leaderboards, and automatic updates with new features (which are also added to the free version after some time). I have no clear ideas for these new features at the moment, but I hope that the community will help here too, so if you have any ideas already, I am happy to listen :) At first, some work is required to update the graphics, add music (any suggestions here?), create the trading cards and other graphical assets.

For now, I have released a new version of Hydra Slayer+NotEye. The previous release was not tested very well (some of the bugs being the same ones as in the initial Steam release of ADOM). This release fixes them, improves the performance, and includes a new sample for Noteye, written in the D programming language (thanks to Michał 'Ancient' Bieliński, the developer of PRIME). Hopefully all the bugs that were easy to run into have been fixed, so if you want to play the free version of Hydra Slayer before buying it on Steam, it should be much better than the previous release. Furthermore, NotEye now has a repository on GitHub -- this should make it easier to allow both ADOM and Hydra Slayer grow together with NotEye, and potentially to let more developers to use NotEye or to contribute to its development -- previously, NotEye grew continually due to ADOM developments, but this growth was invisible outside.

So, have lots of fun in the New Year!

Changelog for NotEye 8.3:

• fixes in the copymap optimization, fullscreen mode, some crashes, some timing problems on Linux, true console output
• an option to disable autocentering if the player character is still close to the center (a configurable area of no-autocentering region, which can be different while targetting e.g. in ADOM)
• added a capability of improved versioning (previously, the version number of NotEye in ADOM did not change, even though there were differences)
• an ability to easily add user-made interface mods
• NotEye's dev menu allows to evaluate Lua functions
• added a sample in D (thanks to Michał Bieliński)
• an option to "ignore errors and go to NotEye menu" after the script crashes
• configuration is now actually saved for the Third Person Perspective mode

Changelog for Hydra Slayer 16.3:

• added some optimizations to improve NotEye's performance
• fixed some bugs in the interface, some typos and credits
• when you finish the Tutorial, you continue normal game as expected, not go back to the beginning of Tutorial
• Hydra Slayer's save/highscore/log files are now moved to NotEye's userdir

HyperRogue 8.0 on Steam, and HyperRogue 7.4 for free!

HyperRogue 8.0 is released on Steam!

The Overgrown Woods is a new woodland, with its own kind of Ivy, which grows very fast.

The Land of Storms is a land where you have to create a short circuit out of monsters, to kill them and collect treasure.

In the Pure tactics mode, you concentrate on a specific land. Your goal to obtain as high score as possible, without using features of the other lands. You can then compare your score with your friends! There is a leaderboard for it -- currently, only the total score is compared, but land-specific pure scores are going to be added in the future.

There are many possible solutions to the Yendor Quest. In the Yendor Challenge, you will try many of them! Each challenge takes part in a specific land, and you have to use what you have available. You need to obtain an Orb of Yendor in the normal game to activate this challenge, and (ever) collect 10 treasures in one or two lands to activate a specific level. After you complete each challenge, you can try it again, on a harder difficulty level.

The Wild West. Take a revolver, and kill outlaws for bounties. Since this land is anachronistic, it is not available in the normal game (it is available in the Euclidean, Random Pattern, and Pure Tactics modes).

Shop

Also, T-shirts and other items in the CafePress shop have been recently updated with designs based on the new lands. If you like HyperRogue, please consider buying one! :)

More changes

• paper model creator added (as discussed in the last post).
• You can now find Orb of Yendor as a prize orb in the Whirlpool (it is possible to retrieve it), and trapdoors have been slightly tweaked in the Palace while you are on the Yendor quest.
• Fjord Trolls (as well as two new species of Troll) now create different walls than Cave Trolls, with a bit different properties.
• Multi-HP monsters generated in the Crossroads now work correctly.
• A bit more Pirates in the Ocean.
• Added help text to Euclidean and Shmup modes. It is now easier to exit the Euclidean menu.
• Added ranged orb text to more orbs.
• You no longer get three lives by picking up an Orb of Safety in the shump mode.
• Monsters pushed off Rock III with Orb of Air/pushing attack are now killed (except birds and skeletons). You can now also use the Orb of the Frog to jump on high rocks.
• Improvements in the Random Pattern Mode. The Emerald-based random patterns have been improved. Added patterns based on circles. Floor pictures are now randomly assigned (Zebra/Emerald/Tower pattern are used only when the underlying pattern matches). Codes are displayed on the screen, allowing you to recognize the underlying pattern (and potentially share with the developer).
• Coordinates are given when cheat mode is on in Euclidean.
• fixed the scrolling in the quit screen (sometimes the messages were already scrolled when the game ended, which could cause you to miss the final message in Princess Challenge/Hardcore)
• Orb of Storms now kills sharks in adjacent cells

7.4 for free

Also, HyperRogue 7.4 is released for free! Compared to the last free version (6.x), you can now enjoy the 13 new lands including the sealands, the Ivory Tower, and the Princess Quest, cooperative Shoot'em up mode, and map/graphics editor. Have fun! In patches 8.0a-8.0m:

• (8.0a) Added missing text to translations.
• Added the Czech translation.
• Added non-dry description for the trees.
• Stunned Pikemen and Flail Guards can be attacked normally now (but stunned Flail Guards don't hit themselves).
• Mutant Ivies interact with Vines (just like normal Ivies).
• balanced the Great Walls in the Land of Storms (generated horocycles made great walls less likely to appear).
• fixed the Camelot bug mentioned by tricosahedron above
• (8.0c) fixed the pause screen clicking
• updated the Russian translation
• Orbs and Hyperstones incorrectly appeared in the pure tactics mode in Ivory Tower/Ocean, this is fixed
• (8.0d) Orb of Aether is again affected by Orb of Time; also, previously Orb of Time drained at full speed while you had an Orb of Shield (which is not protected from draining)
• Pure tactic and Yendor Challenge now have separate scoreboards in case if you enable shmup, coop shmup, and/or Euclidean mode (local only)
• Attacks of mimics which cause stunning now work correctly
• Fixed the whirlpool and Camelot glitches mentioned by Vipul
• Key in the Ocean appears on a small island again (I like the idea of having to fish for it... but I think it is better with an island after all)
• (8.0e) Yendor Challenges and Pure Tactics Mode now actually work in Euclidean. Also, the Euclidean Yendor Challenge is less stupid than before (the path is no longer in one of the cardinal directions)
• also, separate local scoreboards are added for hardcore Yendor/PTM
• Yendor challenge scores included only wins from the current version, this is fixed
• the second Whirlpool bug shown by Vipul above should be fixed
• the Minefield Yendor Challenge now finishes in the Icy Land (so that it is no longer impossible that the Key is unreachable)
• The Living Fjord has been added to the Yendor Challenge (monster generation rules on the path are tweaked)
• Runs with score 0 are no longer counted for the Pure Tactics Mode (this change works retroactively)
• Orb of Aether and Shield are now always marked as used in the Land of Storms (not a proper fix, but it should be good enough for now)
• Subtle color changes have been added to the Ocean coast
• the troll from the Living Caves is now named consistently
• (8.0f) Global high scores are now displayed in the pure tactics menu.
• 'pure tactics mode' title
• Orb of Discord now works in the shmup mode.
• Pirates/vikings now can carry items on their boats (invisible to the player, though).
• Turn-based elements worked incorrectly in coop shmup while carrying an Orb of Speed, this is fixed (they worked in turns where OoS had an even number of charges, but in coop, OoS drops by two charges per turn, causing weird effects).
• Save fixes: the number of saves is now recorded correctly, also fixed the possibly buggy reading of saves from an old version, and enabled the save tampering protection.
• Leaderboard entries updated to contain the data related to the newer lands.
• fixed Tirear's bug with incorrectly named treasures.
• Fixed the Orb of Space multiplying powerstones. Also, the Orb of Space is now drained when it is used on a glass cabinet.
• mines outside of the Minefield now blink.
• if you collect a huge amount of Ambers, Albatrosses are generated on the open sea (all scores in the pure tactics mode for Ocean have been removed).
• In some cases, monster generation was not affected by Orbs of Yendor collected, potentially allowing collecting many OoY easily -- this should be fixed (sharks in Cocytus, sharks/parrots in the Caribbean, pirates/sharks in the open Ocean, seeps everywhere, vikings/water elementals in the Living Fjord, Albatross on the coast, Tower and RRV monsters).
• danger is now affected not only by collected Orbs of Yendor, but also by paths you have walked without collecting the Orb of Yendor -- this is to prevent strategies such as bringing many OoY together, and then unlocking all of them together. (This kicks in after walking more than two paths, and is nullified by taking an Orb of Safety.)
• (8.0g) Scores for Yendor/PTM got missing in the last update, this should be fixed.
• Scores for the PTM removed due to the balance change update when you play in PTM (not only when you raise your score, as in 8.0f).
• Fixed a bug with Yendor hardness (an uninitialized variable sometimes caused an extreme spike of difficulty after touching an Orb of Yendor).
• (8.0h) Magic Mirror now appears as the Mirror Land reward in the World Overview
• after 8.0g PTM scores disappeared in Linux, this is fixed
• higher level victories in the Ocean Yendor Challenge are nullified (if obtained in version < 8.0f)
• Mutant Saplings generated while the land was still easy should now disappear when it becomes tougher (just like bomberbird eggs, but without hatching)
• made the Overgrown Woods a bit easier (it seems it was too hard) -
• by halving the effect of collected Saplings on tree density
• obsolete scores by other players no longer appear in the in-game PTM highscore
• (8.0i) Two new achievements.
• You can now attack Viziers in the extra turn given to you by the Orb of Speed.
• Flail Guards now kill themselves if they try to attack an Illusion.
• Shmup fixes: Metal Beasts are no longer killed by your attacks, Thumpers can no longer be pushed into monsters.
• Individual scores are now displayed in Yendor Challenge (as well as in PTM).
• Your scores in Yendor/PTM are downloaded from Steam, so you can finish some lands/challenges on one computer, and some on another. (In case of PTM, this is just the sum for each land, not the whole history.)
• Added some texts to translations.
• (8.0j) One possible cause of Storms-related crashes fixed.
• In the Ivory Tower challenge, Great Walls are no longer generated inside the Ivory Tower.
• No more missing Great Walls on the barriers separating Elemental planes.
• Whirpool now gets harder with more Orbs of Yendor collected.
• Magic Boat direction fixed.
• Added some texts to translations. Added some translated achievement names.
• The Android version should be also updated soon.
• (8.0k) The problems with the leaderboards should be fixed.
• You no longer count as conductor outside of Land of Storms (this bug nearly caused a gameover in Sprite Guard's video).
• Winter Witches were not placed correctly as guards for the Land of Power -- Evil Golems were created, causing weird messages about burning and sometimes a possibility to enter without any orbs
• Setting a frozen lake in Icy Land on fire turned it to fire, instead of hot water -- this is fixed.
• Using some ranged Orbs now disables your invisibility for one or more turns.
• (8.0l) Fixed the cheats: Shift+C, Ctrl+A.
• Friends no longer keep attacking stunned metal beasts.
• Added "You construct some Elemental Gems!" to translations.
• Activating Map Editor (via menu or Shift+A) resets the ghost timer.
• Reflected lightnings no longer destroy the boat you are on.
• Orb of Aether was not considered "used" while you were standing inside a wall.
• Greater Demons now can be killed with fireballs in the shmup mode.
• In the coop shmup mode, both players can detect mines now.
• Hyperstone Quest information in the ESC screen is not displayed correctly.
• (8.0m) Thanks to TheGons, The German translation has been updated to 8.0!
• For consistency with other Trolls, Dark Trolls now create "rubble" when killed (this should not affect pure Dead Caves, but it has some interactions)
• For some people, Whirlpool Yendor challenge appeared as completed incorrectly -- this should be fixed
• Camelot is now allowed to appear in Crossroads III
• The unlocked status for Orb of Trickery/Love is now displayed correctly in the World Overview
• Demon sharks and Aether/Winter Witches sometimes generated the confused message (or killed the player in Hardcore mode) incorrectly, this is fixed
• Keys no longer appear on unstable floors in the Zebra ("gargoyle floor" is used to stabilize the Key)
• You no longer can kill a Hedgehog Warrior if this allows a Pikeman to kill you
• Wandering monsters should no longer start stunned in some situations (such as after killing Mutant Ivy in the same location)
• In the Wild West, if you try to move in the given direction and cannot because of an Outlaw, you shoot him automatically (useful for keyboard players)
• Chasm cells now count as isolators
• You can no longer continue standing on a Trapdoor/LoEM after your Orb of Aether expires

Necklace of the Eye 8.2

Hereby,version 8.2 of NotEye, and version 16.2 of Hydra Slayer, is released!

NotEye was silent during the last year, but in fact, while I have spent most of my time on HyperRogue, I have been also working on NotEye as a part of ADOM -- so ADOM always had the most recent version, but the official NotEye was not updated. Now it is high time for release, and hopefully, the long-awaited release of ADOM on Steam will come soon too!

The update to Hydra Slayer is mostly caused by the update to NotEye -- other than that, just one bug with mouse is fixed. Anyway, if you like Hydra Slayer, or want it to be updated, please vote for it on Steam Greenlight! After HyperRogue was accepted for Steam, both its free and paid versions were hugely improved, and hopefully a similar thing will happen for Hydra Slayer. So whether you are willing to buy the Steam version of Hydra Slayer or you are just a fun, Hydra Slayer's presence on Steam will be great for you! :)

Also, the websites for NotEye and Hydra Slayer have been improved.

Download the new version of NotEye from its download page -- you can download either NotEye+Hydra Slayer, or a Windows bundle with several games preconfigured to work with NotEye -- or just download ADOM, that's definitely recommended too. Have fun! :)

The changelog follows.

• It is now possible to use True Type fonts for the NotEye interface, which allows it to look more modern. NotEye defaults to use the True Type version of DejaVu Sans now, but old fonts are still available :)
• Improved handling of crashes -- if the NotEye script crashes, there is a bigger chance of getting an useful message, with options which sometimes allow you to fix the problem.
• Improved the configuration files.
• Even when using diagonal combos, it is possible to repeat keys by holding them.
• NotEye starts much more cleanly now -- the window is opened just once now (previously it has been opened and changed several times while the configuration was read).
• (Hydra Slayer) Fixed the mouse handling in the race selection screen.
• More efficient reading data of subprocesses in Linux (DoomRL did not work correctly in Linux)
• Window position is remembered
• Fixed a bug in some game configurations which prevented starting another game later
• Fixed the config for the 'hide the mouse pointer' feature.

For developers:

• Improved support for TrueType fonts: markup, which allows to change styles or insert images in text
• Streaming data to a string -- this also allows the screen to be restored after NotEye crashes in NotEye-integrated games
• fixed Shift+D in samples, arrows in Lua sample
• added the Hydra Slayer trailer (disabled without editing sources, though)
• deleted object IDs are reassigned
• displaying messageboxes, getting the HWND of the NotEye window in MS Windows

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

HyperRogue 7.1: mines and whirlpools

HyperRogue 7.1 is released on Steam!

In this version, after collecting 30 $$$ you can go to the beach and, if you can survive the attacks from Albatrosses and escape from the tides, collect some Ambers. The Ocean is the first land in HyperRogue which features equidistant curves prominently.

You can also take one of the boats, and go into the Ocean. From there, you can reach other coasts, access Caribbean, the land of Pirates (Caribbean was already there in 7.0, but now, it is only accessible via the Ocean), or the infinite Whirlpool, where your boat is only allowed to go with the current, and you have to defend from Sharks and Pirates, and capture treasures from other boats caught into the whirlpool.

Another place where you can go after collecting 30 $$$ is the Minefield, based on a well known game. Stepping on a mine is usually game over, but you know the number of mines next to you, so hopefully you will know where not to step!

The ideas for these lands were not mine -- Ocean and Whirlpool are wonderfullizardofoz's ideas, and the Minefield is Piotr Migdał's idea. Please send me ideas for new lands, and they might be added to HyperRogue at some point! (Although I already have some ideas...)

Version 7.1 also has some other features. Press 'v' or click the 'menu' button to see the new main menu, which conveniently lists all the features of HyperRogue. Also, a FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) written by Fulgur14 is now available on the website. These two features should make it easier to fully enjoy HyperRogue. Also, the shmup mode correctly says that the number of knifes is counted (not the number of turns), fires are burning off and heat dissipates even offscreen (previously, many of the speed runs abused the fact that heat did not dissipate offscreen), Fire Cultists can attack more terrain types, another message is used for Sandworm explosions when you see no spice created, and a bug which caused the Icy Land to become too hot in the shmup mode has been fixed.

Also, the German translation should be available soon. Have fun!

By the way, I have recently recorded a new trailer for Hydra Slayer. Please vote for Hydra Slayer on Greenlight, if you have not done this yet! Versions 7.1a/b fixed: - "(v) menu" instead of "(v) config" - blow into water/fire/mines - the PC could just stand in place during high tide and not drown - fixed the "escaped Whirlpool" achievement - fixed the Restart key - in the very unlikely scenario when the Key is generated in the Whirlpool, it is protected by a Pirate party with Orbs of Water, so it hopefully does not run away and you can escape the Whirlpool Version 7.1c fixes: - you can no longer use Orb of Air against sharks, seeps, and other restricted monsters. - but you can use Orb of Air to blow monsters into chasms. - made the Ocean less bright in the plain mode (still brighter than LoEM), and the Minefield slightly brighter (to make it more different from the Land of Mirrors). Also, made the fire graphically calmer in the Land of Power. - Orb of Aether now protects you from mine explosions, but also makes you unable to detect mines. - for thematic reasons, R'Lyeh is now more likely to be adjacent to Ocean (and less likely elsewhere). - Fixed the Hyperstone Quest message to include new lands. - Two new achievements added ("Black Mark" and "Nasty Pet") - Fixed a bug with Space/Safety (the game was trying to calculate the cost after Safety acted -- this is fixed, hopefully this fixes the crash too) - Fixed a bug with Crossroads II/Ocean border - mine marks now appear above the PC/monsters. Version 7.1d fixes: - bug with Crossroads II generation which also caused the game to stop generating lands fixes. - saving the new treasures/kills. - Euclidean mode supports the new land, as well as the gameboard modes (pick the gameboard mode you want, and then pick Euclidean mode, to activate an Euclidean gameboard). Version 7.1e fixes: - collecting OoY works. Version 7.1f fixes: - Tame Bomberbirds now fly over chasms. - Forgetting old kills during saving, this is fixed.

HyperRogue: pirates, rocks and knives

HyperRogue 7.0 is released on Steam!

This version has the following major new features:

Ever wanted to know how a game with smooth space and time would work in the hyperbolic plane? Well, I did. But why create a new game when I could just port HyperRogue instead? The Shoot'em Up mode tries to follow the normal turn-based HyperRogue, but it is not longer turn based, and not longer grid based. Not all features are ported (it would be rather hard to do non-turn-grid-based Living Caves...), and not all of them work exactly the same way (for example, Orbs of Life give you an extra life instead of a friend). Anyway, this is almost a new game :) This is still a bit experimental, so not everything is balanced yet. Caribbean is the new land, unlocked when you collect 60$$$. The sea is filled with sharks, and islands inhabited by pirates. They take their boats and pursue you... Islands are horocycles (infinite circles). Great treasures are buried somewhere far from the coast. Luckily, compasses point you towards the center. Red Rock Valley is another new land, unlocked when you have 60$$$, 10 of which must be Spice. It is a more advanced version of the Desert. Snakes move as fast as you, but they can only move on hexes, not on heptagonal cells. It is possible to kill them with their own tails, which allows you to climb their rocky bodies to get to the treasures. Crossroads II is an alternate layout of the Crossroads. It is denser and more regular.

Also, HyperRogue 6.6 is released for free!

So you are now able to bring life to the Dead Caves, witness the network of parallel lines in the Vineyard, lead the Hyperbug armies against each other in the Hive, fight enemies using various kinds of special attacks in the Emerald Mine, infinite descending sequences of circles in the Temple of Cthulhu, look for the Holy Grail hidden in the center of the Round Table in Camelot, fight with magic in the Land of Power, for free! The Android versions will be updated later.

Also, if you like my games, please vote for Hydra Slayer on Steam Greenlight!

Have fun!

A more detailed changelog on HyperRogue 7.0:

• Hardcore mode, which disables the checkmate rule. No achievements yet.
• Fixed the temperatures: melting points for Sages and Frozen Lakes are as expected now. Also, Wolves no longer leave Icy Lands/Cocytus, and heat is transferred correctly between Icy Lands and Cocytus (just a small effect, though).
• Refactored monster movement a bit, for the purpose of Shmup mode. Hopefully this does break anything (though that I see that Vine Spirits no longer camp near to Wines).
• Jungle and the Land of Mirrors will no longer appear next to the Land of Eternal Motion, to prevent Eagles from attacking you there by surprise.
• Demon Daisy generation rate is fixed.
• More monster types in the Crossroads.
• Pheromones restricted.
• You can no longer go over the cap with orb powers received from the Orb of Yendor/Holy Grail (otherwise Orb of Space could allow some exploits by bringing lots of Orb of Yendor together and unlocking them all at once).
• Talking to knights outside of Camelot no longer crashes the game.
• A message is now given when trying to attack an escaping Tentacle (just like for other cases of Tentacles).
• You can no longer drop Dead Orbs while moving through a wall.
• Headers should now be always shown in the local scoreboard.
• Local highscores are now available for other game modes (Euclidean, hardcore only, and Shmup).
• (technical) Stats for translations, some comments (just a few) added to the source.
• big statues are no longer so cold
• (7.0a) fixed Orb of Safety in the shmup mode
• (7.0a) fixed euclidean Camelot
• (7.0a) monsters now can drown in the sea
• (7.0a) Winter Witches and fire-resistant orbs should no longer burn in certain situations
• (7.0a) top text brighter in Red Rock Valley
• (7.0b) removed spam for snakes on water, they can no longer go over LoEM
• (7.0b) fixed the music file
• (7.0b) added the missing line "You are killed by..." to the translation
• (7.0c) Added some markers for heptagons
• (7.0c) Made Compasses not appear in there is another one in radius 2
• (7.0c) Fixed buggy Camelots appearing next to Caribbean.
• (7.0c) Fixed Orbs of Space not triggering the Game Over after you execute your only move which was moving a treasure.
• (7.0c) Fixed Orbs of Yendor not moved correctly with OoS/boats.
• (7.0d) Fixed the starting land.
• (7.0d) Fixed the mimics' target markers.
• (7.0d) Fixed the Hyperstone Quest message ordering.
• (7.0d) RRV was too dark in non-Escher modes; also brightened the Vineyard and Dead Caves, and made Fire in RRV look better.
• (7.0f) Running Dog are generated on chasms again (and thus their trails look correctly)
• (7.0f) Red/dark trolls no longer do almost exactly the same.
• (7.0f) Eagle attack has been fixed (do not kill the player on their second move in the Hardcore mode, and no "confused" message in non-hardcore)
• (7.0f) Rock Snakes now attack Golems, Hyperbugs, and Illusions
• (7.0f) Fixed some bugs with the Shmup mode: Orb of Yendor could be collected without the Key; Orb power is drained quickly when you have an Orb of Speed (just as in the normal HR); picking up items while using an Orb of Invisibility turned you visible just for a single frame; Orb of Shielding were not consumed if you also had Orb of Time
• (7.0f) added the achievements for collecting the Orb of Yendor in the new modes (hardcore, shmup)
• (7.0f) added the leaderboards for the shmup mode. Total treasure is counted, and for winners, time and the number of knife throws are recorded (I think it is feasible to win with the perfect score of 0 knife throws)
• (7.0f) added a new emoticon "pirate" and some backgrounds, for Steam
• (7.0g) Burning tentacle spam removed.
• (7.0g) The shmup welcome message is translated.
• (7.0g) The "evil stars" (in hellish lakes) no longer can cover a passable spot, and the frequency of lakes has been reduced slightly, to make the Yendor quest easier.
• (7.0h) Fixed a bug which could have caused the game to start in the purple land and cheat mode.
• (7.0i) Fixed moving the Key with the Orb of Space.
• (7.0i) You can now target with mouse and use joystick in the shmup mode. You can now rotate instantly with mouse/joystick, while it was impossible before, but I think it is better that way.

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 6.2: circles and horocycles

HyperRogue has been updated with two new lands! These new lands are different from the old lands in the fact that they are not bounded by straight walls, but by other shapes. In particular...

Camelot is a puzzle level -- there are enemies here, but the main goal is to solve a puzzle. It consists of two concentric circles, one of radius 28 (the Round Table) and one of radius 38 (the walls of Camelot). There is a single treasure, the Holy Grail, which is in the center of both circles. Since a circle of radius 28 has 31659398 cells inside it (and Camelot of radius 38 has 12505470664), this is not as easy as it might sound! Once you find the Holy Grail, you can find more castles later (which are all named Camelot), but the circles will be larger (radius grows by two, so the number of cells inside grows roughly thrice). You need to find 5 Emeralds (in the Emerald Mine) to find Camelot in the Crossroads.

As a puzzle level, Camelot is optional -- it is not required for neither the main Quest to get the Orb of Yendor (actually it is probably harder than the Yendor Quest), nor for the Hyperstone Quest. I see several approaches here, so let's see what the players will find.

Temples of Cthulhu can be found in R'Lyeh after finding 5 statues. At the first glance, they also consist of concentric circles, each circle closer and closer to Cthulhu himself... there are also many tentacles there who try to block your access to the inner circles, but you can block them by pushing the big statues around. but in fact, these circles are infinite, and there is an infinite number of them in each temple. Difficulty is done differently than in other lands: inner circles are more dangerous, but you need to get there, otherwise you will find the same Grimoires again and they won't count (it is pointless to bring two copies of Necronomicon).

Version 6.2 is already on Steam. HyperRogue Gold for Android is going to be updated soon, and the free version after some time. Have fun! Some other minor improvements:

• Distance calculated better in the logfile.
• Stabbing achievements are fixed.
• Extra messages when finding treasures.
• The display of the player changed a bit in the cheat mode.
• Better facing for Golems.
• Starting location has been fixed for the Vineyard, Land of Power, and Emerald Cave in the Euclidean mode (anyway, these three lands have maps which are strongly based on the hyperbolic geometry, so they don't look that interesting the Euclidean mode).
• Structure display cheat (ctrl+C). Treasure cheat (shift+T) improved.

For completeness, version 6.1 fixes the following:

• most monsters now target your friends and hyperbugs (previously they only targetted you (unless invisible) and Thumpers), also fixed a bug with Invisibility
• running dogs (and other monsters in LoEM) now try to run away (in a roughly straight line) even if they have no target, instead of just falling
• some halfvine bugs should be fixed (both graphical and logical)
• changed the ASCII symbols a bit
• changed the colors a bit (Miner's pick axe and Hedgehog Warrior's body is brighter)
• you no longer produce chasms when using Orb of Aether in the LoEM
• ruby achievements should be working again

And patches to 6.0 fixed:

• a bug with rings.
• better coloring of Emerald mines.
• "You can right click any element to get more information about it."
• Hives renamed to nests.
• Silver sign.
• Power is drained when teleporting out of the Land of Power.
• Bugs related to saving fixed.

There were also numerous typo fixes and other text improvements.
FURTHER UPDATES:
And patches to 6.2 (version 6.2a):

• Russian translation.
• Added info about wandering Ghosts to the Ghost description.
• Worm explosion destroys big statues.
• Cult leaders appear in R'Lyeh now, to prevent the player from camping in Temples.
• No GAME OVER if you can still mindblast someone.
• time recount
• You can no longer use Knights for the Golem achievements.
• Fixed the message when Knights are killed by monsters.
• More cloak colors. Cloak color is saved.
• Removed the Thorn power when getting the Holy Grail (it was likely to cause you to kill Knights).
• Fixed a possible crash with Knight outside of Camelot (it seems very hard to make him leave Camelot, but anyway).
• (6.2b) updated the Turkish translation, language is now also selectable in Steam.

HyperRogue 6.3 brings new Orb types to the new lands (Temple and Camelot). Orb of Dragon allows one to throw fire just like the Cultists, while Orb of Trickery allows the player to place illusions of themselves. Additionally, more monsters now take invisibility/friends/illusions into account. Also, the Russian translation is ready (and French and German translations are coming).

HyperRogue 6.4 changes some things about Golems, and introduces several new interface options.

• Golems (and Knights) now act after enemies, not before them. This has been changed because previously sometimes a move was judged as invalid (i.e., lead to death) even though actually a Golem would kill the responsible enemy first. Additionally, Golems will follow the player again (they just go straight towards the player without any pathfinding, though).
• You can now press ESC in the GAME OVER screen to see the circumstances clearly (for example, to take a screenshot of your last epic battle).
• For items and monsters, there is a 'high contrast' option which adds a bright border to them. Rather ugly, but effective. You can also press ALT during the game to achieve the same effect.
• Since heptagons often give a tactical advantage, there is also an option to display heptagons darker.
• Finally, there is an option to require pressing Shift to target the Orbs with ranged powers (Teleport, Trickery, the Mind, and the Dragon).

HyperRogue 6.4a disables the useless "ESC for menu/quest", and fixes the Miner/Slime interaction.

HyperRogue 6.0: five new lands!

HyperRogue has been updated, and five new lands are coming! The Vineyard is a land filled with a very dense and regular pattern of ultraparallel lines. Vine Beasts move normally, and Vine Spirits move in the vines.

The Dead Cave is a random maze level, Live Cave without a spark of life. There were maze levels previously (Dry Forest, Alchemist Lab), but it was easy to cut down trees, or to change the color of slime. Dead Cave is mostly static, though. There are Orbs of Earth and Earth Elementals, which can change the layout of walls, but they are comparatively rare.

Many people seem to be wondering how a war would look in the world of HyperRogue (see this thread on the Steam community discussion for example), and the Hive is an attempt to answer that. You will encounters huge armies of Hyperbugs there, luckily these armies will be more happy to fight each other than you.

I have been trying too hard to show many monsters on this screenshot;) The Emerald Mine is a living cave with a regular stable pattern, reminding of the art of Escher a bit. It contains Hedgehog Warriors from the Jungle, Miners who break down walls when they die, as well as new monsters which require non-standard methods of attacking.

The Land of Power is a land filled with orbs. Monsters are numerous and powerful -- Witches are using Flash, Speed, Winter, as well as the new Fire and Aether Orbs against you.

The regular patterns of the Vineyard, Emerald Mines, and Land of Power all come from the same underlying pattern, which has 40 tiles and fills the whole world of HyperRogue. You can have some fun with this pattern in the Periodic Editor.

HyperRogue is updated to 6.0 on Steam. HyperRogue Gold for Android should be updated soon, free versions will follow after some time (1-2 months?). Have fun!

Minor changes:

• One new achievement (not included ones related to the new lands).
• The Lightning spell now react a bit differently to some types of obstacles.
• Fixed anomalous Great Walls.
• Fixed slime spilling through monsters.
• Changed how Orb of Digging works, and renamed Orb of Earth.
• Worms explode on death, as they were supposed to.
• You no longer generate that much heat when entering a cold land.
• No more plus signs when slime spills into the Graveyard.
• The graphics editor supports 't', 'y' keys for moving and rotating shapes (not documented).
• Internal changes in the grammar/translation system.

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.

Euclidean Rogue

Is the hyperbolic geometry in HyperRogue just an irrelevant gimmick, or does it indeed affect the gameplay? Well, things like that should be checked experimentally! I have implemented the Euclidean mode in HyperRogue, where you play with (almost) exactly the same mechanics, but the grid is the usual, hexagonal one.

So, here are the most significant results:

Crossroads and Great Walls: Infinite straight lines which never cross... Well, this effect cannot be achieved in Euclidean geometry. Unless all great walls are parallel, but this is boring.

General Tactics: In most roguelikes, when two monsters are attacking you, a good strategy is to enter a corridor, so that they have to attack you in a queue. In HyperRogue, this can be done practically everywhere, by using the properties of the hyperbolic geometry. And this does not work on the Euclidean hex board, so if two monsters are attacking you at the same time, you have to run until you either find a third monster (which is usually game over), or you are saved by a terrain obstacle.

Land of Mirrors: Those annoying Mirages, who were never able to stay close to you in HyperRogue... As expected, Mirages work much better in the Euclidean world. You can easily amass a big army of them.

Alchemist's Lab: As anybody who knows the game Hex knows, there is either a blue path from north to south, or a red path from west to east. This means that the Alchemist's Lab is hard to explore, you will find yourself blocked by a path of the wrong color. Luckily, slime explosions will fix this for you. (The fact from Hex works in HyperRogue too, but, in some sense, there are many more directions.)

Living Caves:Land generation is slightly biased towards wall tiles here. In hyperbolic geometry, you could still go wherever you wanted, but in Euclidean, you will soon find out that walls are blocking all your paths.

Dry Forest: As above, walls block your movement more efficiently than on the hyperbolic plane, and thus, it seems harder to escape fires... (This is the new land in the Steam version.)

Land of Eternal Motion: On the hyperbolic plane, if you escaped by running on a straight line, Running Dogs would not catch you, because they would be forced to go on an equidistant curve, and these are longer than straight lines. On the hex board, it is impossible to escape even from a single Running Dog.

Orb of Yendor: The quest for Orb of Yendor is obviously much easier in the Euclidean world :)

The Euclidean mode is available in the Steam version of HyperRogue (5.3), on the third page of the config menu. It is not yet available in the free version, nor for other platforms, but it will be added later. Have fun!

HyperRogue development on Steam

HyperRogue is already on Steam for 99 cents, and it is quite successful! Mostly positive reviews, some discussion, and many high scores in the Leaderboard.

Also, it has received some updates! Two new lands have been included, Cocytus and Dry Forest, and they are based on new, interesting mechanics which did not appear in previous versions. A system has been set up for localization, and Polish and Turkish translations are ready (contact me if you want to help translating into more languages). And there have been many other improvements to the user interface, game balance, and gameplay.

These are available in the Steam version now -- the free version, and the mobile versions, will be updated later. Also the complete changelog will be posted on the blog then.

Whether you are playing HyperRogue on Steam, or waiting for the free or mobile version, don't let yourself drown in Cocytus or burn in the Dry Forest, and have fun!

HyperRogue coming soon to Steam!

HyperRogue is coming soon to Steam!
The gameplay is exactly the same as in the free version (and it will stay so), but you get access to achievements, online leaderboards, and the convenience of Steam.

Last but not least, you also support the development of HyperRogue :)

All for a very low price (under 1 USD).

At first, HyperRogue on Steam is going to be available for Windows and Linux—I am planning to work on the OSX version later.

Have fun!

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