If you like Golden Krone Hotel, you can thank the Seven Day Roguelike Challenge which spawned it. I've been doing 7DRL for 10 years now.
This year I decided to try something a bit strange: a rhythm game. The official judging process has concluded and somehow my game Conga Dungeon ranked #1. I urge you to check out the games. There are a ton of amazing entries.
Along with Conga Dungeon and three GKH updates over the last year, I've also been working here and there on expanding Leyliner, a cross between a traditional roguelike and a deckbuilder. We just put out v1.4 and the game now has over 90 cards.
So what's next?
I've got two new projects here that I think are awesome, but I can't do everything. Leyliner feels like a long-burn process which might have a many years long Early Access period (what I should have done with GKH really).
Conga Dungeon on the other hand is probably the coolest idea (with the most mainstream appeal) I've ever come up with. I'm thinking about taking a few months to craft a nice trailer, a preview of where the game could go if I stuck with it. If people find it interesting, that'll be the validation I need to keep going on that project. I do want to return to Leyliner in the near future though. And maybe, who knows, I've got enough energy for more GKH after that.
Any thoughts on which of these two projects I should be pursuing? Let me know.
v1.10.1 - Performance and bug fix update
This update fixes several bugs and balance issues introduced in v1.10 as well as fixing the lag when encountering lots of monsters/obstacles (pretty noticeable sometimes on Steam Deck).
One big UI issue was the lack of potion tooltips when playing on controller or Steam Deck. All menus with potions now show the full potion tooltip. So with these two improvements to Steam Deck playability, I can say without reservation it's a damn great experience on that platform.
One other neat feature: you can mark Hawker items to buy later.
Gameplay changes:
New monster: Skeleton Archers
Added the ability to mark Hawker items to buy later. These are highlighted on the Hawker menu and the Hotel Map.
Removed intelligence bonuses from TOUCH and EXECUTE and lowered the thresholds slightly on the latter to: 20/40/60/80
Lowered VORTEX damage, since it was arguably the most efficient spell in the game
Added spike rooms into map generation
The chance of finding swords and revolvers has been increased, since these particular items are so important but armor items are mostly interchangeable.
Now preventing levitation with Big, but allowing it Statue Form.
Slightly lowered the speed of the Spiridus
Reduced the spawn rate of Iron Maidens
Other:
Fixed the performance issues related to too many monsters by caching monster sprites. This can be disabled in Options if it causes any problems, but it should resolve performance problems on Steam Deck.
Fixed a bug where hovering a particular icon showed the real identity of a potion. Yikes!
Fixed an issue with Options on Steam Deck where using the cursor didn't actually change options
Now preventing transmutation to the same potion
Now grouping Primer menu by bundles
Fixed an erroneous log message when using BLAST and hitting no targets
Added some achievements related to SECRETS
Fixed an issue where template rooms that should have items sometimes did not
Fixed a display issue when Officer leveled up and full healed
Fixed a bug related to fighting Fane but leaving to go somewhere else
Apparently seeds were completely broken (such that map generation would diverge immediately after the first room) since the last update. This should be fixed
The streak counter on Despair mode now runs negative. Sorry.
Fixed an issue with allies not fighting mimics
Fixed a bug where you wouldn't stop resting when being attacked by mimics
Fixed a minor issue where the player is less than 1 hp from full and full hp is displayed, but books are not read yet.
Fixed a map generation connector issue (you might have seen areas blocked off strangely)
Fixed some issues with monsters pursuing you due to visibility or noise
Added option to Morgue to toggle sorting between Score and Date and defaulting to the latter so that your newest entries are at the top
Fixed a bug with chairs spawning in walls
Added icon to Floor 10 in Hotel Map showing the GOLDEN KRONE
Unexplored floors are now highlighted differently than explored ones on the Hotel Map
Changing status description for multiple stacks to say "Status+2" instead of "Status-2", which was confusing.
Fixed "NaN" hit chance descriptions when deluded
Removed Vortex Solomonari from the Rafters
Adding current version to Options and Morgue files
Fixed a "double level up" issue which actually turned out to be a missed stat increase from an earlier level up
The Ring Acquired menu now closes on the press of any button
Fixed a bug with diagonal buttons on the Hotel Map closing the menu
Fixed a save/load bug where the levers in the Dungeon no longer appeared
Added that sweet Zyalin art from the v1.7 update screen as a collectible page in the Books & Letters menu
Showing the same green flashing on your character when Heavy Poisoned as just Poisoned
Fixed a bug where Antidote wouldn't remove Heavy Poison if you had no Poison
Styling changes to potion tooltips
v1.10 - The Princess Is in Another Castle!
This update includes full Steam Deck support including achievements, solid controls, and controller rumble. Golden Krone Hotel already played well on controller and it's now a great fit for Steam Deck. The only known issue: there's occasional lag in some areas with a lot of monsters or animated tiles; I hope to address this in the future.
A new branch, 3 new spells, and 5 new monsters have also been added.
Significant changes were made to the game's overall strategy, which now makes it easier to plan out your run but trickier to kill later bosses (which previously felt a bit too easy). Read on for even more...
If you're keeping track, this is the 5th major update since I claimed I wouldn't update the game again. Woops.
Major changes:
Steam deck support
Controller rumble
New branch DUNGEON: Dodge spikes while facing a new human boss. This is a random swap out for Library.
5 new monsters including...
Jester: a new vampire that jumps in a knight's move and attacks with poison knives causing Hysteria
Bishop: a high level vampire that has a large area charged attack
Floating Eye: another monster that can cast GAZE, but only if its eyelid is open
Champion: a new mid level human with a charge attack
Vortex Solomonar: a Solomonar variant that casts VORTEX
New spell TOUCH: a single use spell that deals 50% of a monster's HP and heals your HP/MP for that amount
New spell EXECUTE: kills an enemy below 30/50/70/90% HP (based on spell level)
New spell HONE: grants stacking Clever bonuses
The Hotel Map now shows the ring contained in each floor you've discovered
Hotel bosses now get bonus stats for every ring you've acquired (5% health, 2 strength, 1 intelligence)
Some of the harder bosses have been made easier, initially, to compensate for ring bonus stats
New item: Hotel Map, which populates the location of all floors and rings on your Hotel Map menu
Clarity has been added to monster descriptions, particularly around hit chances. Hit chances are also shown when you miss an attack. Thanks to redxaxder for some calculus wizardry on this!
There's now support for win streak tracking in the Disguise menu (optional), morgue files, and leaderboards
Added some holiday event art and added an option for it (you might have to manually enable it if you're interested)
Other changes:
Added juice to Level Up and ring menus
Some crates now have gold in them. They have a different sprite to indicate this, so while there's now incentive to destroy some obstacles (we know you love to do it) you don't have to waste your time when there's no reward
Overall gold generation has been cut down dramatically.
Gold drops are now based on monster XP level rather than a weird calculation based on floor number
Right click now closes menus
You can now examine tooltips using keyboard/controller
Added Examine controls on disguise menu
Added Examine button to main UI
Abilities are now listed on monster descriptions
Vague threat levels removed from monster descriptions
Monsters now try to avoid damaging tiles when wandering
Player accuracy raised by a single point, making it overall easier to hit things
It's also now very slightly easier to hit things with revolver
Added option to "relock" all unlocks
Full potion menu now accessible from Quick Potions menu by hitting the same key
Out of depth monster generation has been tweaked, hope you brought your adult diapers
You now only read books when at full health
Made imps less dangerous
Added human-only mode accessible in Options (not advised, but there you go)
Discord link added to upgrade menu
Removed some of the warnings around starvation before you're actually starving. No longer necessary because you no longer instantly die of starvation.
Reduced big bomb damage slightly in despair mode
Clever now increases mana regen
ROUNDHOUSE hits all neighbors in 4-way movement
Changed sound volume so it falls off faster with distance
Increased the chance of broken windows on the first floor
Changed chests so they are immune to damage
Styling a few statuses better
Version number added to Options menu
Redrew a few ring sprites to make them more distinct
The Sovereign and Signet ring bonuses have been swapped because the swap better matches the ring art
New floor sprite in the mix
Some animation effects now rotate
Bug fixes:
Fixed Fetter, it was completely broken before
Fixed some major isssues related to monsters moving on a different floor resulting in glitchy monster artifacts (most commonly seen in Great Hall or Rafters)
Better overall error handling to hopefully more often recover from and log some fatal crashes
Fixed several issues with BIG and sounds/screenshake
Fixed a bug where you aren't damaged immediately when pulled into water. The solution involves the player being processed after monster turns, always. This might have minor unforeseen consquences.
No longer playing sounds while waiting, which should avoid some audio weirdness because 50 turns of sounds aren't played in an instant
Fixed a bug where Heavy Poison wasn't removed by Antidote
Now requiring Rusalka to be in their starting pool to entrance you (to avoid a softlock issue)
Fixed a bug where deprecated spells could show up in the weekly
Fixed a bug with psychic attack animations (slashes going in the wrong direction)
Fixed underworld boss display on Hotel Map
Fixed an issue with targeting the same monster repeatedly with revolver
Fixed a bug with book sprite mismatches
Removed the ugly scrolling completely on the disguise menu. If it doesn't fit, you can Zoom out the UI in Options
Fixed an obscure bug in Pharmacopoeia, it's confidential
Fixed some cheesy exploit involving chests and vamp abilities
Fixed (for the 3rd, 4th time?) placing stairs far away from bosses
Fixed a bug where destroying a gate removed a key, possibly even going negative
Fixed a bug with chest mimics + stairs
Fixed key hint display for NUMPAD buttons
Fixed random disguise selection which wasn't random on game load
Fixed Quills Shield status description
Fixed yet another bug with Underworld boss deaths in case you killed boss + throne on the same turn
Fixed a save/load bug where Day Demons went back into stasis unexpectedly
Fixed Fire Mother half health bug
Fixed some bugs with reading books
Fixed broken tooltip control hint on Quick Potions
Thanks to Keriew for the detailed bug reports!
As always, please feel free to share your feedback on Steam or Discord. Enjoy!
Steam Deck Support - testing now on experimental branch
Hello, my Kronies!
Since the release of v1.9, I've actually been pretty busy with work on Leyliner.
A few months ago a player informed me that the controls were completely borked on Steam Deck. I ordered a Steam Deck immediately and just got mine in the mail a few days ago.
Good news: I've been able to push out a quick build on the experimental branch that appears to work surprisingly well on Steam Deck. Controls work flawlessly out of the box. It's a pretty great experience from my limited testing.
Bad news: there are definitely a small handful of issues and I don't have time to fix them for at least a few days:
I had to break achievement support on Steam Deck to get controls working (long, boring story) but hope to add it back in later
The default zoom level might need a little work, I would recommend zooming out (top of GKH options) slightly to avoid scrollbars on certain menus
Performance was a little bit laggy after several minutes.
Morgue files are also broken
I have ideas for how to solve all these but need more time.
In the meantime, it would be great if anyone with a steam deck could try out the experimental branch build and let me know what you think.
People have been clamoring for a switch release (sorry not going to happen) and I gotta say having GKH on Steam Deck is a great fit, a dream come true.
v1.9 - Goblins Attack! - now live
Thanks to all who joined the v1.9 beta. It's now fully live.
v1.9 introduces an explosive new branch plus many new spells and abilities. A huge number of small tweaks and improvements have been included.
v1.9 summary:
New branch GREAT HALL: tons of goblins and explosions
Three new spells: VORTEX, FETTER, and QUILLS
Six new abilities: AURA, SHRED, WRING, GUZZLE, ASSASSINATE, and FRENZY
Abilities now take 0 turns and can be chosen out of 3 options
Changes to Officer, Apothecary, Assassin, Commander, and Challenger disguises
UMBRA has been properly nerfed
Improvements to BLINK, TEMPEST, WARD, LEVITATE, and BLAST
Options menu reworked. Custom input delay option added to fix numerous control issues.
Tons of bug fixes, gameplay tweaks, and UI improvements
Noise system revisited and now shown on UI
Secrets?!?
Full changelog:
New Content
New branch GREAT HALL: tons of goblins and explosions
New monster Goblin Hurler: throws bomb
New monster Balaur Hatchling: an early game version of the Balaur but this one is completely blind.
New spell VORTEX: pulls monsters in and around you and damages flying/floating monsters
New spell FETTER: binds a monster in magical chains that cause levitation and prevent movement
New spell QUILLS: gives you a magical shield based on your missing health that reflects melee attack damage
Vampire abilities now take 0 turns and can be chosen out of 3 options just like spells
New ability AURA: a rapidly shrinking aura of immunity that can be used to shield yourself or allies
New ability SHRED: damages monsters near you and adds Bleeding
New ability WRING: causes non-bleeders to become bleeders
New ability GUZZLE: collects all nearby blood
New ability ASSASSINATE: teleport next to the closest enemy and give them stunned and vulnerable statuses for 1 turn
New ability FRENZY: sets your HP to 1 and gives you a quills shield equal to your missing health
New Legendary Grimoire that gives more spell options or more mana
New MALLEABLE MODE. All spells, abilities, stat upgrades, etc. are chosen for you.
Added 4 new entrances to the hotel
New item Hunter's Lens: improves your critical hit chances
Graphics changes
The explosion animation has been redrawn to look a lot better
Chests now explode their items onto the surrounding tiles instead of just being a menu
One turn illumination from spells now draws instantly
Bats added to the title screen
Added fadeouts to a few spell animations like FIRESTORM
Primers have been colored blue to more clearly distinguish them from grimoires
Now drawing blood behind torches... it looked really weird before
New chair obstacle with 4 direction sprites
Camera zooms in when talking to friendlies
Gameplay & UI
Noise is now displayed on the main UI. Many actions that were missing noise now have them and the system has been rebalanced.
Commander now starts with AURA, Assassin with FADE, and Alchemist with WRING
Apothecary given another extra poison resist level
Officer now gets a full HP/MP heal on level up
Challenger now starts with an ability when starting as vampire
Significantly buffed weekly challenge archenemies (they were real pushovers before)
Raised the chance for Challenger to start as vampire to 50:50
UMBRA has been nerfed. It should still be a great spell but not so good it trivializes the game.
UMBRA minions are sped up but weaker, so you don't have to wait on them so much.
No more UMBRA healing on Revenant
Hotel stairs can now collapse. Collapsed stairs require an extra turn to climb.
Allied vampires no longer steal your blood unless they need it and you don't
Stun and frozen moment now reduce evasion to 0
Fixed a bug with Vulnerable inadvertently reducing Defense. With this change, Vulnerable should cause slightly less extra damage.
Critical chance is shown on the character sheet
Werewolves have been reworked: They now have a huge crit chance and heal/satiate on crit
SWAP has been folded into BLINK (if a monster is in that direction, you swap)
TEMPEST is now a lot more consistent
BLINK has been made more accurate with further guaranteed distance
WARD cost reduced
BLAST can now destroy walls starting at level 2
QUAKE damage now requires line of sight
LEVITATE speed up increased by 1
Big sludge XP cut in half (because you also get XP for the spawned sludges)
Ice House monsters are now immune to cold so they won't die in the icy water
Spiridus has been made flying
Demon Blood potions are again guaranteed in every run
Bleeding now does 1 damage in Easy, 3 in Despair
Monsters will now stay in the same relative position when climbing stairs with you if possible
Reduced Magma Golem chance per turn to create magma
Bounty Potion payout is now purely based on turn count which should be way more consistent
Tooltips added to small disguise buttons
Message added if user tries and fails to use diagonal movement for various reasons
Moroi and Samca are now vulnerable to moonlight
Hunter gets QUILLS now instead of ENRAGE, which wasn't really something you could play around
Added the times when you changed form to the morgue
Goblin Anarchist now only combusts with a 1 tile radius regardless of if they blow up before or after death
Options & Controls
The option menu has been reworked: options are now grouped by subheaders
All options now have detailed descriptions
Added visible values to slider options
Added a custom input repeat option that fixes a slew of horrible control issues for some people (this includes accidentally flying across the map if you hold down a movement key or shooting the revolver 10 times in a split second and ruining the tutorial)
Added the ability to bind some arbitrary keys that were not supported before (e.g. Alt)
Option added to disable xp sound
Added a button to open the minimap
Added a button to open the hotel map
The "center" controller button is now mappable
Added playstation controller icons
Ability direction selection has been improved
Right click now works for examine in keyboard examine mode
The player can no longer "shoot themselves" which previously did nothing but wasted a bullet
UI
Spell and ability names are greyed out when unusable
Broken windows are highlighted on the minimap
Hunger status is now shown for non-human forms like bat form
Low level human spell casters now show all possible spells on description so you don't have to examine each one
Resistance tooltips now have precise detail
Shadow Form description now shows total values instead of per level values
Added success rate chance to CHARM failure messages
Next Page indicator on books
Added a death tip about examine
Added a death tip if you die with Vulnerable
Death tips now have red highlighting on important words
Added a note on fountain descriptions to say they might identify the associated potion
Bug fixes & Tweaks
Fixed several display issues with the player or monsters falling in pits
FINALLY fixed the generation of ugly doors, I think
Fixed some display issues with the health bar
Fixed a bug with Samca and frozen moment
Fixed a weird display message involving Holy Water
Fixed some dash bugs
Fixed river portal sprite
Fixed several ASCII display issues
Fixed a display issue with commander and firefly
Fixed a bug with pushing Samcas through sunlight while vulnerable
Fixed some bugs with shadow minions dying to sunlight
Fixed an issue with Goblin Anarchist allies hurting you, which was annoying
Fixed some staircases not spawning far enough from boss
Fixed a double death message from Goblin Anarchist
Fixed a bug with talking to bats, which you can now properly do
Fixed a bug with allies refusing to swap with you if near water
Clarity reworded, for clarity
Fixed a bug with tooltips overlapping hotel map and other menus
Fixed some issues with low screenshake values overriding higher ones
More clarity on staying in the SHADOWS in the tutorial
v1.9.1 on experimental - fixed some major issues
This is a followup to the last announcement that v1.9 is live on the experimental branch.
Here are a few fixes and tweaks to that:
Major
Fixed a locking issue when selecting demon blood abilities after a save/load
Chests now explode their items onto the surrounding tiles instead of just being a menu
Greatly improved QUILLS damage
Removed the slow moving camera system completely due to performance concerns
Made several early game monsters have slightly less dexterity (easier to hit and dodge)
Minor
Fixed odd staircases descriptions (e.g. "staircase to floor 17")
Fixed a misleading UMBRA description
Added chairs to kitchen entry
Fixed a bug with map gen connectors that was messing up Sewers
Fixed a small sprite bug with larva
Removed move confirm on bomb traps
Tweaked WRING a bit to make it less overpowered
Fixed a longstanding issue where the resistances could get scrambled on the character sheet or morgue file
Improving title screen rendering for fast refresh rates (already noted a bug with this though)
Fixed an issue where Harpies would run away from you even if they couldn't see you
Thanks for all the feedback so far and please keep it coming.
v1.9 - Goblins Attack! - now on the experimental branch
tldr: You are invited to come beta test the v1.9 release which you can access in Steam through Golden Krone Hotel -> Properties -> Betas -> experimental.
v1.9 summary:
New branch GREAT HALL: tons of goblins and explosions
Three new spells: VORTEX, FETTER, and QUILLS
Six new abilities: AURA, SHRED, WRING, GUZZLE, ASSASSINATE, and FRENZY
Abilities now take 0 turns and can be chosen out of 3 options
Changes to Officer, Apothecary, Assassin, Commander, and Challenger disguises
UMBRA has been properly nerfed
Improvements to BLINK, TEMPEST, WARD, LEVITATE, and BLAST
Options menu reworked. Custom input delay option added to fix numerous control issues.
Tons of bug fixes, gameplay tweaks, and UI improvements
Secrets?!?
I'm usually pretty quiet about beta testing, but here's the problem. For a variety of life reasons, I've gotten in a habit of releasing only about once per year. And I only get a flood of feedback after I declare the testing done and publicly announce the release. This results in things like UMBRA being wildy broken for months which is a real shame. I've made a lot of spell and ability changes, so I'm hoping to really kick the tires this time around.
Also I want to take a moment to say I'M SUPER PROUD OF THIS RELEASE. The new branch is totally wild and is one of the more interesting branches introduced so far. Some of the new art is among the best the game has ever seen including a new bomb animation. The new vampire abilities are so ridiculous that I can't believe I added them. You'll be shocked the first time you eat a... well, I don't want to spoil it all. And now we have spooky bats on the title screen (shoutout to acro for providing the bat art). :)
I've also fixed an issue that went on steathily for 5+ years and which neither the players that experienced it nor I fully understood, but which totally sucked. Some players would perform an action (like moving or firing the revolver) 10 times a second and they assumed the game was intentionally designed this way (???) so I didn't hear about it for a long time.
Full changelog:
New Content
New branch GREAT HALL: tons of goblins and explosions
New monster Goblin Hurler: throws bomb
New spell VORTEX: pulls monsters in and around you and damages flying/floating monsters
New spell FETTER: binds a monster in magical chains that cause levitation and prevent movement
New spell QUILLS: gives you a magical shield based on your missing health that reflects melee attack damage
Vampire abilities now take 0 turns and can be chosen out of 3 options just like spells
New ability AURA: a rapidly shrinking aura of immunity that can be used to shield yourself or allies
New ability SHRED: damages monsters near you and adds Bleeding
New ability WRING: causes non-bleeders to become bleeders
New ability GUZZLE: collects all nearby blood
New ability ASSASSINATE: teleport next to the closest enemy and give them stunned and vulnerable statuses for 1 turn
New ability FRENZY: sets your hp to 1 and gives you a quills shield equal to your missing health
New Legendary Grimoire that gives more spell options or more mana
New MALLEABLE MODE. All spells, abilities, stat upgrades, etc. are chosen for you.
Added 4 new entrances to the hotel
New item Hunter's Lens: improves your critical hit chances
Graphics changes
The explosion animation has been redrawn to look a lot better
One turn illumination from spells now draws instantly
Bats added to the title screen
Added fadeouts to a few spell animations like FIRESTORM
Primers have been colored blue to more clearly distinguish them from grimoires
Now drawing blood behind torches... it looked really weird before
New chair obstacle with 4 direction sprites
Reworked camera system that slowly follows player
Camera pans during dramatic moments and zooms in when talking to friendlies
Gameplay & UI
Commander now starts with AURA, Assassin with FADE, and Alchemist with WRING
Apothecary given another extra poison resist level
Officer now gets a full HP/MP heal on level up
Challenger now starts with an ability when starting as vampire
Significantly buffed weekly challenge archenemies (they were real pushovers before)
Raised the chance for Challenger to start as vampire to 50:50
UMBRA has been nerfed. It should still be a great spell but not so good it trivializes the game.
UMBRA minions are sped up but weaker, so you don't have to wait on them so much.
No more UMBRA healing on Revenant
Hotel stairs can now collapse. Collapsed stairs require an extra turn to climb.
Allied vampires no longer steal your blood unless they need it and you don't
Stun and frozen moment now reduce evasion to 0
Fixed a bug with Vulnerable inadvertently reducing Defense. With this change, Vulnerable should cause slightly less extra damage.
Critical chance is shown on the character sheet
Werewolves have been reworked: They now have a huge crit chance and heal/satiate on crit
SWAP has been folded into BLINK (if a monster is in that direction, you swap)
TEMPEST is now a lot more consistent
BLINK has been made more accurate with further guaranteed distance
WARD cost reduced
BLAST can now destroy walls starting at level 2
QUAKE damage now requires line of sight
LEVITATE speed up increased by 1
Big sludge XP cut in half (because you also get XP for the spawned sludges)
Ice Houses are now immune to cold so they won't die in the icy water
Spiridus has been made flying
Demon Blood potions are again guaranteed in every run
Bleeding now does 1 damage in Easy, 3 in Despair
Monsters will now stay in the same relative position when climbing stairs with you if possible
Reduced Magma Golem chance per turn to create magma
Bounty Potion payout is now purely based on turn count which should be way more consistent
Tooltips added to small disguise buttons
Message added if user tries and fails to use diagonal movement for various reasons
Moroi and Samca are now vulnerable to moonlight
Hunter gets QUILLS now instead of ENRAGE, which wasn't really something you could play around
Added the times when you changed form to the morgue
Goblin Anarchist now only combusts with a 1 tile radius regardless of if they blow up before or after death
Options & Controls
The option menu has been reworked: options are now grouped by subheaders
All options now have detailed descriptions
Added visible values to slider options
Added a custom input repeat option that fixes a slew of horrible control issues for some people (this includes accidentally flying across the map if you hold down a movement key or shooting the revolver 10 times in a split second and ruining the tutorial)
Added the ability to bind some arbitrary keys that were not supported before (e.g. Alt)
Option added to disable xp sound
Added a button to open the minimap
Added a button to open the hotel map
The "center" controller button is now mappable
Added playstation controller icons
Ability direction selection has been improved
Right click now works for examine in keyboard examine mode
The player can no longer "shoot themselves" which previously did nothing but wasted a bullet
UI
Spell and ability names are greyed out when unusable
Broken windows are highlighted on the minimap
Hunger status is now shown for non-human forms like bat form
Low level human spell casters now show all possible spells on description so you don't have to examine each one
Resistance tooltips now have precise detail
Shadow Form description now shows total values instead of per level values
Added success rate chance to CHARM failure messages
Next Page indicator on books
Added a death tip about examine
Added a death tip if you die with Vulnerable
Death tips now have red highlighting on important words
Added a note on fountain descriptions to say they might identify the associated potion
Bug fixes & Tweaks
FINALLY fixed the generation of ugly doors, I think
Fixed some display issues with the health bar
Fixed a bug with Samca and frozen moment
Fixed a weird display message involving Holy Water
Fixed some dash bugs
Fixed river portal sprite
Fixed several ASCII display issues
Fixed a display issue with commander and firefly
Fixed a bug with pushing Samcas through sunlight while vulnerable
Fixed some bugs with shadow minions dying to sunlight
Fixed an issue with Goblin Anarchist allies hurting you, which was annoying
Fixed some staircases not spawning far enough from boss
Fixed a double death message from Goblin Anarchist
Fixed a bug with talking to bats, which you can now properly do
Fixed a bug with allies refusing to swap with you if near water
Clarity reworded, for clarity
Fixed a bug with tooltips overlapping hotel map and other menus
Fixed some issues with low screenshake values overriding higher ones
More clarity on staying in the SHADOWS in the tutorial
Enjoy, but please expect bugs! Please share any feedback on our discord or the steam forums.
Last thing, here's some seeds that guarantee the new branch:
goblin1
goblin3
goblin5
v1.8 - Scrub-a-Dub-Sludge
Back again with a sizable update right before Halloween.
New sounds and music including 9 new songs by Christopher Loza
Starvation rework with no more instant deaths
New branches: Baths and Sewers
New monsters: Harpy, Sludge, Samca
New spell: UMBRA
Hotel entrance rework
Magical drinking fountains added
YOU CAN PET THE DOG
And lots more!
Sound
Nine new songs by Christopher Loza
"Classic" soundtrack removed (this was an alternative free music soundtrack, not good)
Music selection is matched to intensity of current situation
Music won't change if repeatedly and quickly switching floors
New sounds like splashing, footsteps, and entering a portal
Sounds now play in stereo (e.g. sounds far to the left only play on left speaker)
Electric melee attacks now have a unique noise
Starvation rework
Starvation has been reworked. No more instant deaths. You instead take continuous damage and no longer regen mana once completely starving.
Lower starting satiation to offset the starvation rework
New content
New branch: Baths. A random swap out for Greenhouse. Fight lightning fast Harpies and the entrancing Rusalki.
New branch: Sewers. A random swap out for Grotto. This branch has an optional miniboss, the Rat King, and a new monster, Sludge.
Sludges split into two when attacked and leave behind toxic sludge piles that spew poison gas when stepped on.
New enemy: Samca. A weaker version of Moroi that is not easily struck.
New status effect: Bleeding. When struck by repeated physical attacks from the same enemy in a single turn, some of the immediate damage is converted into slow bleeding.
New spell: UMBRA. Become permanently more powerful with each cast, but at great cost.
Gameplay
Drinking fountains that act like time limited, one use potions
Commander disguise can convert potential allies that are equal to their level (as opposed to only greater than their level)
BOMB allows you to choose a potion instead of selecting randomly
Primer now transmutes a potion if you have no unidentified potions
Brutemaster's pet wolf get stronger when they level up
And you can pet the wolf!
The Abberation status (provided by Flux potion) gives you double attacks in addition to random damage types.
Fire Mother has been made flying
Player speed can no longer drop below 4
Antidotes are now a guaranteed potion and made slightly stronger
Added a neutral Firefly monster
Time crystals made slightly rarer
Stained glass windows are visible during the day even if otherwise complete darkness
Made a few good statuses last longer.
Map gen
Reworked the hotel entrance with 11 new rooms that can appear on any side of the hotel. Each new entrance gives a significant and immediate boon.
More level generation templates
Templates are randomly rotated offering more level variety
Branch stairs should now be guaranteed to spawn far away from bosses.
Graphics
Reworked stained glass windows to look taller/better
Humans/vamps hit by electric attacks have a cartoony skeleton animation
Skeletons slightly redrawn and cuter
Redrew stairs going down
Monsters that spawn additional monsters (e.g. Wolf Spider) are more convincingly animated when producing those monsters
Gallery and Baths now have columns instead of single wall tiles
UI and game feels
Stairs and items are are shown at full brightness even in darkness. This turns out to not look particularly weird but is a huge accessibility win.
XP displays as a percentage towards the next level instead of... whatever that was
Revolver aiming now remembers your last target
Status effects indicator appears directly above character when first granted status
Special now appears on the character sheet
Made critical hits feel meatier
Hawkers display as green on the mini-map
Autoresting now stops when mana is recovered and health is full
Removed move confirmation when blind
Moved note about numpad to diagonal section for clarity
Changed unstable description to be more clear
Fixed spacing on title screen menu for better hovering
Changed "quenched" to "doused" in Burning description to avoid confusion with Quench ability
Added tip to game over screen about magic/resting making hunger worse
Status badges now fade in and initially glow
Added note about full potion menu to quick potions
Three new achievements related to Sewers, Baths, and UMBRA.
Clarified Vulnerable status description
Bug fixes and tweaks
MIASMA bug fixes including fixing a bug where diagonal casts sometimes missed their target completely
Fixed a major freezing issue that occurred when ISPs blocked vulgat.com
Fixed an issue where some animations were too fast
Fixed an issue with branch names not abbreviating on the hotel map
Fixed an Alchemist bug with potion icons
Fixed a bug with husks getting permanently "stunned"
No longer displaying character shadows over pits
v1.7 Update - Yetis and Tigers and Bears, Oh My!
Update highlights
This update is one of the largest to ever hit GKH. It includes:
Graphical improvements: individual potion icons, wall shadows, rounded corners on water/lava, several new sprites, hovering animations for flying monsters, and more
A complete disguise rework that gives each disguise a Special property
3 new disguises: Bombardier, Ice Mage, and Commander
New branches: MENAGERIE and ICE HOUSE
A new Weekly challenge mode
Speedrun and seed support
AI pathfinding improvements - Charm is much more usable
More sounds, bug fixes, and secrets...
Competition
To commemorate the introduction of the new Weekly challenge mode, I'm also a running a competition. Here are the rules:
The competition runs one week: Monday, August 31st - Sunday, September 6th.
Play the new Weekly mode and upload your morgue file
The prize? Get your own tombstone in the Graveyard with your chosen name and an "epitaph" (a short phrase chosen by you). Alternatively, choose the epitaph for my tombstone.
This comp is a one shot event. If you find a way to submit a second score, it won't count.
Full changelog
Compare the previous version to v1.7:
Graphical Improvements
Rounded corners on water/lava and a much nicer water animation
Flying/levitating monsters are now animated!
There is now a shadow near the bottom of walls making them appear less "floaty"
Individual icons for each potion bundle, which makes your collection easier to understand at a glance
Redrew the awful looking stone walls
New floor tile in the mix
You can now see 2 tiles deep through cave walls, making them look chunkier and eliminating ugly gaps.
You may have noticed some odd behavior with obstacles like tables, particularly that if they were forcibly moved they didn't seem to cleanly animate. It wasn't your imagination and it's been fixed.
Pits have gotten a makeover. Dust particles float out of pits to make them more distinct from dark areas. The edge of pits matches the surrounding tiles better now.
Improvements to the visual effects of CHARM, GLACIATE, and QUAKE
Effects for some monster spells that summon monsters
Added a nice fade in effect to pages in the book menu.
Fixed some weirdness that occurs the split second after taking a portal.
Clearing outdated sunlight/moonlight from previously seen tiles which tended to look rather jarring and confusing as well.
Disguise Rework
The disguise menu has been refactored from scratch. No more sensory overload with all the gory details of 15+ options staring at you.
Almost every disguise has been tweaked
Each disguise except the Officer now has a unique Special, something that no other disguise can get.
New disguise: Bombardier. Starts with the BOMB spell and is particularly proficient at using it.
New disguise: Ice Mage. Can only learn ice spells. Ice resistance and fire vulnerability. Starts with ENCASE.
New disguise: Commander. Addresses a very common complaint: why do your fellow humans and vampires never pitch in to help you?
Changes to existing disguises
Officer gets improved leggings in addition to the other improved gear
Vagabond has reduced metabolism
Scholar will find improved grimoires
Assassin now gets Invisibility Potion instead of Blood and a bonus to dexterity when Hidden/Invisible.
Cultist has reduced cooldowns on demon blood abilities.
Shapeshifter no longer starts as a werewolf (it seemed to be a major letdown when people realized it was only temporary), but can easily become one on Floor 1. The timing of Lycanthropy triggered by moonlight has been extended.
Sharpshooter's bullets pierce through enemies, potentially hitting multiple targets in a line.
Alchemist knows the identity of all potions. Primers, which usually identify potions, instead reroll a chosen potion to something else. Also Flux has been swapped for Lizard Leg.
Merchant will heal when picking up gold piles.
Apothecary's horrible stats have been made slightly better.
Berserker has a 25% chance to knockback enemies when landing hits.
New Spells
ENCASE. Creates a wall of ice blocks around you. The ice can be pushed around.
BOMB. Creates deadly explosions that can destroy walls, but a potion is required to fuel each cast.
New Branches
The MENAGERIE/ICEHOUSE branches have a 50% chance of showing up in each run in place of MAZE/HIVE. The maze seemed to be one of the most boring areas in the game, so hopefully having both possibilities offers more variety.
MENAGERIE: a collection of all new exotic enemies. Some enemies are confined to cages; others will find their way out regardless.
ICEHOUSE: a dangerous ice themed branch, which still fills the role of a food cache.
Weekly Challenges
A new mode: Weekly. One chance per week to beat the game. Everyone gets the same map and same disguise.
Half the time, a random disguise is selected.
The other half, you get a new disguise which is unique to the weekly challenge: Challenger, which rolls random attributes, spells, and potions every time.
You are prevented from descending beyond Underworld 2 during the weekly challenge. Competing on score will be more about getting as many of the 9 rings as you can in as few turns as possible rather than an endless slog through Underworld.
Website updates
New weekly challenge leaderboards
Added more filtering options to the leaderboards
Seeds
The seed of each run is recorded on morgue files
You can choose a seed on the disguise menu (make sure to pick the same disguise for this to be effective)
Speedrun support
Run time is recorded and preserved across saves
An optional run timer can be displayed on screen
Time added to morgue files
Best time for each class/difficulty added to disguise menu
More Sounds
Sounds for opening chests
Sounds for picking up potions, bullets, books, armor, guns, swords, etc.
New Monsters
A new mid level vampire type "Knight" that is strongly resistant to damage types other than sunlight. I'm hoping this adds more incentive to interact with the sunlight mechanics.
Lava Croc. Imagine a crocodile pulling you into water. Now imagine a crocodile pulling you into lava.
A bunch of unique monsters added to the MENAGERIE/ICEHOUSE: Monkey, Tiger, Poison Toad, Shark, Elephant, Yeti, Polar Bear
Balance
The Queen Bee and Varcolac have each had their XP halved. Varcolac was actually giving out more XP than later, harder bosses. Queen Bee was propelling people to late game power way too easily.
Sand Vipers removed from the Greenhouse. These were both way deadlier than new players expected and too exploitable for experienced players.
Greenmen are now healed by water
Miscellaneous
Charm changes: Better ally pathfinding, Cap on succesful charms per spell level, Higher failure chance, Pet wolf is slightly stronger
HEAL now heals allies too when you're full health
Increased QUAKE damage by 50%
5 new achievements: new disguises, weekly, and under 20 minutes
Monsters will now prioritize non-pits when following up stairs. They can still fall down the pits by accident, but only if the area is too crowded.
Improved swapping behavior. Neutrals move out of the way of enemies and allies. Allies that are the same kind as an enemy will move out of their way too.
Preventing death from poison and a few other things while resting. You will still die, but the game won't allow you to do it in one button press.
New option for changing the number of on screen log messages
A few spells can no longer be cast if doing so would be pointless (e.g. no potions for BOMB)
True damage numbers now shown in log instead of maxing out at remaining HP
Removed screenshake when attacks are happening off screen
The character sheet can now be open AND closed with the same button: C
Goblin Anarchists behave similarly to the BOMB spell including destroying walls.
New soaking "Wet" status. Increases resistance to fire, removes the Burning status, and slightly damages vampires after exiting water.
Levitation now lets you move while in Statue Form.
Most ice monsters no longer slide on ice. This prevents the Ice Father from killing himself repeatedly, which was pretty confusing.
The chance to sometimes avoid sliding on ice has been doubled from 5% to 10%.
Status effect reporting is a little cleaner without the unnecessary duration when removed.
Slightly improved the look of buttons in the Morgue.
Reworked the tutorial section on sunlight. Players were given 99 bullets to play with, but only a single bullet is required. Many players literally thought the game required you to shoot the enemies dozens of times. This area may now be more deadly for people not paying attention, but hopefully the point is driven home.
The tutorial can now be skipped at any time from Options.
Added an "unlock everything" option to Options.
The message displayed when attempting to climb the final staircase without the required rings has been made more clear. I watched too many people guess at what to do.
Reduced the game executable size by 500MB
Secrets
Some easter eggs for my Patrons.
??
?????
Bug fixes
Fixed a rare bug that could happen if an enemy was trying to slide into a tile while it was getting replaced with something else (e.g. TEMPEST).
Keyboard revolver aiming has been fixed to have parity with the mouse
Fixed some huge bugs with pits
In general, a whole class of movement related issues should now be prevented
Fixed a bug on morgue files where vampire turns + human turns did not quite equal total turns.
Tons of typo fixes.
Huge thanks to Athros, Acro, Tone, and Tom Loughlin for their help in testing this update!
If you find any issues, please reach out! Instructions for doing so are in the forums.
Enjoy!
The Ally Update
I know I said last July that I would no longer update the game. That's generally true as far as big content updates go, but I've wanted to tackle a few quality of life issues.
Quality of life stuff
These things have been requested for quite a while.
I thought the game had ample warning about starvation, but it turns out tunnel vision is forcing a lot of players to miss the standard warning. So I'm adding a modal warning whenever you're near starving.
Also, all levels are mapped on the Hotel Map as soon as you see stairs leading to them. You also get a little log message which might help you spot staircases more easily.
Ally system
The game engine was totally not built around having allies, so I had to rewrite huge sections of it. But now there's a new spell CHARM, which lets you convert wild beasts to your side. Yes, I'm talking rats, bats, balaurs, even crocodiles.
Only being able to tame beasts might seem limited but there are a few surprises if you look hard enough...
Along with that, there's a new class, Brutemaster, which starts out with CHARM plus a pet wolf.
Revenant
How about something completely different? The new Revenant class bypasses most of the normal game mechanics. There is no healing from blood, no regen (HP or MP), and no hunger whatsoever. Instead this class heals every time you drink a potion, so drink up!
Apothecary upgrade
The last class I added before this was the Apothecary. Though very powerful late game, they're a bear to play early on and it's easy to shoot yourself in the face with your own MIASMA spell. I've added one pip of poison resist for this disguise.
Performance
What really drove me to do this update is I realized I could possibly fix a long running performance issue with the game. It turns out that Pixi, the rendering library I was using, was slowly growing a texture cache and never releasing it. The result was that the game ate up about 50MB extra memory on each new run. Within 20 runs, that's a gigabyte of extra memory. Several runs could cause the game to bog down severely. Woops!
I believe this has been fixed.
Controller lag
I believe I have fixed the cause of controller lag reported by several players. Things should be much smoother!
New achievements
Four of 'em!
Lots of bug fixes and typo fixes
One in particular that you might notice is a fix regarding map generation with doors. Sometimes extra doors were generated not surrounded by any walls. That's been corrected.
I also fixed a somewhat rare bug that only occurred if the Ice Throne and Ice Father were killed on the same round about 50% of the time.
And I fixed a bug where vampires didn't take damage when standing in sunlight if they came into your field of view for the first time.
And lastly, I have improved the way some errors are logged so I should be able to track more issues if they arise.