Maybe you've seen some of the newer branches (Grotto->River->Maelstrom) and wondered where they were leading to? Well here's the answer.
This update introduces the UNDERWORLD, an infinite series of levels filled with ice, lava, demons, procedural monsters, the craziest boss fight in the game, and pain. Lots of pain.
The central set piece of the Underworld is a fight involving Fire Mother, Ice Father, and 7 Demon minibosses (one for each day of the week). I don't want to spoil anything, but I'm super excited about this encounter.
And that's not counting six new demon monsters. Highlights include the Demon Ghoul which only attacks when you're injured and the Demon Viper which can poison/confuse/delude you all at once. Unsurprisingly, demons drop "demon blood", which can grant demonic abilities and heal you, even above max HP.
Lastly, the coolest part of the Underworld is that it goes on forever. In each level after the first you'll find a Baron, a randomly generated boss. These guys have random attack types, resistances, spells, and even sprites!
Party time
To give you an extra leg up, each collectible ring now has powerful effects. Collecting them will be crucial to surviving the horrors of the Underworld.
A new class has been added. In a departure from the typical design, the Light Mage has a permanent effect: your character always glows. Stealth is nearly impossible, but several areas of the hotel become easier to navigate. This class also starts with a Celestial Essence (probably the most powerful potion) and a brand new spell, FOCUS.
Other changes include more satisfying enemy deaths, new sound effects, some tweaks to the Fane encounter, and several bug fixes.
Changelog:
Let me know what you think! I'm very curious how people think the Underworld is balanced.
One last reminder that the price increase to $10 is coming in a few days.
Steam Trading Cards and Price Increase
Boom goes the dynamite. :kroneboom:
Golden Krone Hotel now has Steam Trading Cards. There's 5 cards, a badge, 3 backgrounds, and 10 emoticons :kroneprincess: :kronetoad: :kronecultist: to collect. Apparently, I forgot you also have to check a box to tell Valve your game has trading cards and achievements (even though it clearly already knows that). So... I've checked those boxes. Now you can see the features are present on the store page. Woot!
Some of you may have already been awarded cards for your playtime. This is really good, as I was initially concerned that recent changes to Trading Cards might prevent the cards from dropping completely for games like this one. Fortunately that's not the case.
One more thing
I'm putting the game on sale soon, though I can't say exactly when. When that happens, Golden Krone Hotel will be the cheapest it's ever been (and cheaper than it will be for several months).
Shortly after the sale ends, I'm planning on raising the price from $5 to somewhere around $10. This is a really tough decision to make, but I think after adding a tutorial, save system, unlockable classes, morgue files, achievements, trading cards, a bunch of new branches and monsters, and all around polish the game is worth more than it was at launch.
If you have feedback on pricing, I'd be glad to hear it.
May Update (v0.10): Rounded Edges
Here we go with a pretty huge update!
The newest branch is THE MAELSTROM, an everchanging dimension that spawns portals to random locations throughout the Hotel. Frankly, this branch is heavily inspired by DCSS's Abyss. There's several ways to get to the Maelstrom and not all of them are voluntary...
The Merchant was added, a new disguise that starts with 4 unidentified potions.
Five monsters have been created including Goblin Anarchists, Prismatic Masses, and three kinds of Toadstools (wandering mushrooms that shoot various types of poison).
And there were plenty of small changes. This month, I reviewed dozens of old (and new) Let's Plays with a more critical eye. Polish has been added with the goal of making mechanics easier to learn, easier to understand, and simply more fun.
Changelog:
The tutorial has been improved with some handholding removed and "blended" right into the game itself.
A Hints system has been implemented to help explain several crucial mechanics.
Blue, Yellow, and Red Toadstools added. Green Men turn into "Husks" when dying, which can transform into Toadstools at night.
Prismatic Masses added. They do all 10 kinds of damage and can only be found in the Maelstrom.
Goblin Anarchists added
Merchant disguise and achievement added.
THE MAELSTROM is the new branch, reachable from the River. It uses a kludgy cellular automata to reorganize itself.
Monster generation has been corrected. With the introduction of wolves last patch, waaaayy too many monsters were getting spawned. Woops!
Bats, toads, and baby spiders have all been made a bit less annoying.
The transition between human/vampire and vice versa has been clarified visually. Previously, it was especially confusing because of unread books.
A less annoying door sound has been introduced. The old one can still be heard occasionally.
Fixed a game locking bug that happened when the user clicked on Menu while in another menu. Thanks Mitchfynde!
Difficulty is now on the character sheet
Added descriptions to each difficulty mode
Balaurs have been removed from the Pharmacopoeia
Fixed Stupefy mouse range indicator
Pools of blood stick around slightly longer.
Fixed an issue where music wasn't switched out when teleported, only when taking stairs
Tooltips show up for identified potion icons on the Potion menu
Blood potion gives a small HP boost when humans drink it
Right before turning vampire, regeneration goes up 4x. This should prevent a lot of bad experiences when going vamp
Vampire disguises get to start at night now.
The Shapeshifter starts during a full moon and Lycanthropy lasts much longer.
Reworked disguise menu to use relative rather than absolute stats.
Animated the key icon on disguise menu to make it clearer when unlocks are available.
Hawkers weren't actually resistant to sunlight, but that's been fixed.
Instability effects (resulting from repeated teleport magic) have been softened.
A nifty teleport animation has been added.
Moroi have been made much weaker, but now give the Vulnerable status.... which is really scary!
Examining a sunlight/moonlight tile now says something about the light there.
Miasma has been buffed a lot, but has a chance to poison now instead of confuse.
Combustion and particularly Volatile Poison have been made MUCH more useful. Hint hint.
Added a Confusion icon
Monsters are now generated away from staircases to discourage a reliance on stairdancing.
Put in a decent message in case save file loading fails.
Fixed a common problem where players would fire their revolver in the wrong direction because they moved their mouse when intending to just click.
Apparently several monsters that shouldn't have been regening health were in fact doing so. That's fixed.
Lore books are now collected in the Books & Letters menu. The opening letter will no longer be shown by default.
Drop caps (the super cool huge letters that begin chapters in old books) have been added.
Some file writes have been made asynchronous, which should prevent some hiccups.
Stritiba renamed to Cragsbellow to help with pronunciation.
Death tips font made much bigger.
Cancel option added when trying to forget a spell.
Plate and leggings auto-equip wording clearer.
Beds give a hint about how to rest.
Input delay added to certain menus to prevent accidental selections.
A couple last housekeeping notes:
The plan is to release by Halloween. so we've gotten well past the halfway point of Early Access. If you have any feedback or ideas for the game, the time when that can make a meaningful impact is quickly running out.
Also, don't forget about the recently added achievements and the Morgue sharing system. Feel free to share your runs in the forums or on the official subreddit.
Enjoy!
v0.9 - Achievements!
Golden Krone Hotel now has 14 achievements. There's an achievement for beating the game with each disguise and an achievement for killing each boss. I might add a few more over time.
A little explanation on this update: I was planning on releasing it as part of a larger update. However, as soon as I configured achievements in Steamworks I realized they were publicly visible. Uh oh! In other words, people could see the achievements, attempt to get them, and be hugely disappointed because the code wasn't setup to activate them yet. I rushed this one out to prevent any letdowns like that.
Now I'm off to work on that next update.
Enjoy!
April Update (v0.8): Bouncy Castle
Due to popular demand, Golden Krone Hotel now has morgue files and an online leaderboard. This update also brings 3 new monsters, a new class and branch as usual, and... bounciness?!?
While testing some jumping behavior for the Toad, I realized the animation looks a lot more lively by having all characters bounce around like they're all on pogo sticks. I've made the "bounciness factor" an option, but by default I'm going to add in at least a little bounce. It'll be interesting to see how people like it!
A new branch: The River, which sits below the Grotto.
A new disguise: Alchemist. Start as a vampire holding several unread books.
Three new monsters: Wolves hunt in packs, Toads jump around and attack from range, and Goblins are a plain old monster.
Monsters have been reshuffled to make the first floor much easier and less annoying! The standard monsters on Floor 1 are now Grunts (weak vampire), Rats, Bats, and Goblins. Baby Spiders should be less common.
Bounciness. All characters bounce around. This can be increased or turned off completely in the Options menu.
All characters also have shadows. This can also be turned off if desired.
Pharmacopoeia and Mausoleum have each been extended to 2 floors.
Some late game bosses and monsters have increased in difficulty to match the extra XP now available.
The Varcolac is now always in werewolf form at night.
Moroi were way too weak. They now have a ranged attack, which can't be dodged. It can't reduce you below 50% health though.
Wooden wall sprites have been redrawn and darkened to enhance contrast and readability.
Potion tooltips added to unidentified potions in Primer and Hawker menus.
Book sprites have been made clearer to distinguish.
Options menu now remembers your previous spot.
Pressing escape during the logo/title screen jumps straight to the Start menu.
Fixed a bug that allowed you to save after death and then walk around like an invisible ghost spraying blood everywhere.
Credits and Help moved to Options menu to reduce title screen clutter
Fixed a scrolling issue with some screens like the Disguise menu.
Seven Day Roguelike Challenge
The 2017 Seven Day Roguelike Challenge ran from March 4-12. I owe a lot to 7DRL and wouldn't be on Steam without it, so I try to participate every year. This time around I made a wacky zombie survival game called Zurvivors.
Anyway, the review process wrapped up today. You can view all the results here.
I'm back into Golden Krone Hotel development and am currently working on morgue files. I plan to have an update out by the end of the month.
0.7.2 - save fixes
Changelog:
Fixed a save/load freezing issue that was consistently affecting some users (thanks Eoin Butler)
Reduced save times by 60%
Fixed a bug with Hawkers being generated after loading a save
You can no longer swap places with a friendly while in statue form
Improved error logging a bit
0.7.1 - Bug fixes and map clarity
There were a few bugs lurking in 0.7, so I've fixed those. Changelog:
Items were not showing up on minimap at all. Fixed.
Made highlight colors brighter on the minimap and the walls darker. Should be easier to see stairs now.
Unlit torches weren't being generated, making everything way too bright. Fixed.
Recalls now go to the Grotto, which should generally be safer than the Mausoleum. Eventually, they'll all go to the MAELSTROM...
Warping potions no longer have a risk of instability affects, only magic does.
Small chance for Gorgons to spawn on high level floors
Bones have been made tougher
Tweaked item generation in chests to be less ridiculous. Previously, top tier equipment could be found on Floor 3.
Fixed an issue with the quasi-status "Hidden" seeming to get removed by Cleanse/Panacea
Fixed a game breaking bug with Panacea
Please let me know if you find anything else. It's easy for bugs to fall through the cracks with only one pair of eyes on it.
January Update (v0.7): Don't get stoned!
Version 0.7 is here! There's a tutorial, a new branch (the Gallery), new monsters, a new boss, and level generation has been rewritten completely.
Changelog
A tutorial has been added.
New branch: The Gallery.
Gorgons have been added. Their combination of GAZE and BLAST is quite deadly....
A new boss, the Gorgon Queen. There's now 5 rings to collect, meaning one is optional.
New class: warp mage
The level generation system has support for "prefabs" (hand drawn templates that are combined procedurally) - each branch now feels a lot more unique and the regular floors are more interesting too. Hopefully fewer pointless loops and wacky dead ends.
Pits. They can be a great escape, but be careful not to fall into them accidentally
Since spells were still quite overpowered (and too safe), spell failure has been added. Failing to cast a spell can cost both HP and MP
Double doors that open simultaneously
Monsters refuse to swap places with you if doing so would hurt them
The summoning ability of the Strigoi has been reworked to use mana, so that he can't endlessly summon enemies
Fixed a bug with eels climbing stairs (thanks bozar!)
Water is brighter on the mini map, chests now show up as green
Minimap rendering has been optimized
Jack 'o lanterns have been turned off for now. In several Let's Plays, it seemed that people had confusedly started with them on even though they were intended to be off by default.
Soul elixir wording clarified
Compressed saves were removed as there was a major bug with them and they were quite slow anyway
Some more music for different branches
Fixed a game ruining bug that could happen if a boss died in water
Enjoy and please let me know how you like the update.
December Update (v0.6): save system, new branch, new monsters, new class
The first big update for Golden Krone Hotel has been released! Version 0.6 includes several content additions, control enhancements, and a save system.
