KeeperRL
KeeperRL Alpha 29 is available for testing
Please post your feedback in this thread or in the comments below.
Please don't opt in if you are new to the game, as this build is very unstable, and the tutorial doesn't work at the moment.
To opt into the build, please go into the game's properties, BETA tab, and choose the "dev" branch.
New content in KeeperRL Alpha 29
New biomes
KeeperRL will receive two new enemies with their own biomes and even dedicated soundtracks! They are: thieves in the desert, and a white dragon in an arctic setting. Both environments come with new mechanics and some juicy surprises! You can't build in different biomes yet, but it's something that will definitely happen at some point.
Totems
Totems are structures that place a certain buff or debuff on all friendly or hostile creatures in a given radius. The player has a healing totem available to build, and some locations feature other totems, like bleeding or blindness. They will mix up the combat mechanics in the game quite a bit. This is a feature that was suggested by player Amaze, if I'm not mistaken. Thanks!
Special item ingredients
Some (mostly major) enemies will drop body parts that can be used as ingredients to craft special items. This is in line with my efforts to give the player more rewards for exploration. Some of these crafted items will be very interesting :). The mechanic is fully moddable, of course.
Freezing mechanics
Along the new arctic biome and the white dragon enemy comes the effect of freezing, which interacts with water and other creatures. The reverse is also true - you can melt snowmen and igloos using fireballs :)
Spying
Originally intended for a new type of demon, this skill allows you to infiltrate the enemy lines. Great for gathering intel or stealing stuff! It's not clear to me yet whether it will be activated by a ring or by some other means, and I have to make sure it can't be used to evade attacking enemies forever as the Keeper.
Shields and the parry mechanic
Shields have been present in the game for a few updates, but they needed an overhaul. Thanks to some helpful input from players, I've added a new combat mechanic that makes them more relevant. If a creature is attacked multiple times within one turn, its defense stat gets a penalty for each attack. This makes it easier to take down very strong enemies if you have a large team of average creatures. Shields counteract this effect, for example an adamantine shield will let you take on four enemies at once before your defense is lowered.
Plague effect
Plague is a similar effect to poison, but it won't kill most creatures (and some are totally immune). It's also highly contagious. Have fun with it :).
Enemy aggression setting
You can now switch between three enemy aggression levels, with the lowest one completely turning off enemy attacks. The medium level will keep the normal aggression, and the extreme level will cause every active enemy to attack within a few thousand turns, provided that their population is high enough.
KeeperRL will feature Steam Workshop integration in the next update!
The game features a very simple interface for downloading mods, but a far better framework made for mod sharing is the Steam Workshop, which supports commenting, ranking, subscribing, searching and all the other things necessary for a great sharing experience. And thus I brought the coding guru Krzysiek onboard again, to integrate it into KeeperRL. Once at it, we also plan to support sharing of retired maps through the Steam Workshop.
I hope to release a testing build integrated with Steam Workshop in late August/early September, so we can work with mod creators and players to make sure the experience of content exchange is as perfect as possible.
For players that don’t use Steam, all content will also be hosted on the keeperrl.com server, as usual, but without the extra functionality that Steam Workshop supports. I feel bad about creating this inequality, but since more than 95% of players play on Steam, it would be a mistake not to make use of the extra free features that it provides.
KeeperRL Alpha 28 hotfix 1 is out
Please note that the first three items take effect only in newly started games.
- Fixed dark elf ally recruitment.
- Removed temples from the home map (priest was too dangerous).
- Fixed ghost spawning in ruins.
- Fixed issue with removing some tree trunks.
- Fixed flickering immigrant button glitch.
- Fixed a crash caused by non-humanoid creatures trying to drop items.
- Fixed a typo in the gloves item plural name and one in the build menu.
- Vanilla mod files were converted to DOS line endings.
KeeperRL Alpha 28 is released!
At this point most of KeeperRL's content has been exported to data files and can be modded. Mods can be shared at keeperrl.com and downloaded directly from the game! A few veteran players have already published a mod with massive amounts of new content.
I'd like to thank everyone involved in crash testing this patch, sending bug reports and suggestions. Your help was invaluable!
Scroll down for a detailed change log.
If you would like to continue your saved game from Alpha 27, you can opt-in into the "Alpha 27 save compatibility" BETA branch under the game's properties in Library. Make sure to opt-out of the branch to go back to Alpha 28 when you're done!
Gameplay
Content
Modding
UI
Fixes
Alpha 28 is available for testing
Please don't opt in if you are new to the game, as this build is very unstable, and the tutorial doesn't work at the moment.
To opt-in into the build, please go into the game's properties, BETA tab, and choose the "dev" branch.
New stuff coming in Alpha 28
KeeperRL Alpha 27 is released!
You can now build your dungeons across multiple Z-levels, and digging downwards gives you access to extra resources, enemies and other surprises. Check below for the full change log.
I'd like to thank everyone involved in crash testing this patch, sending bug reports and suggestions. Your help was invaluable!
If you would like to continue your saved game from Alpha 26, you can opt-in into the "Alpha 26 save compatibility" BETA branch under the game's properties in Library. Make sure to opt-out of the branch to go back to Alpha 27 when you're done!
Gameplay
Mods
Interface
Fixes
Alpha 27 is available for testing!
Please don't opt in if you are new to the game, as this build is very unstable, and the tutorial doesn't work at the moment.
To opt-in into the build, please go into the game's properties, BETA tab, and choose the "dev" branch.
Summary of development in February
Z-level variations
Implementing Z-levels doesn’t end with simply adding a Z-axis, the levels themselves need to have some interesting content. Besides the obvious mineral veins, you’ll find enemies, whole settlements and sometimes even special levels. For example, you may encounter the following situation after digging down:
Temples and ruins
I’ve added new locations that are scattered around the maps randomly. They have some interesting interactions, but I won’t spoil them for you. I realized that this is something that KeeperRL is missing very much, so I’ll be adding many more in the future. Including bigger, multi-level ones.
Crafting upgrades
In one of the recent updates I’ve added the ability to craft magical equipment, but the system was very basic – it was totally random and the types of items were predefined. With this change you’ll be able to craft unique items by combining multiple upgrades. These upgrades can be found in the form of glyphs while exploring the world.
Modding
In Alpha 27 you’ll be able to modify and add new creatures to the game. They can be used for keeper and adventurer characters or as immigrants. For now it’s not possible to add new creatures to world generation (although you can modify existing ones), and you also have to reuse existing sprites. I’ll work on these two things in the next update.
I’ve also made it possible to switch between mods in the game’s settings, and they can be simply placed as subdirectories in data_free\game_config.
I’m planning to release a testing build on Steam some time next week, so stay tuned!