Monster Crown
Update 1.0.5 - Invisible Walls fix, More efficient spawns, Higher encounter rate
Man I've been trying to get this update out all week, but my day job has been in crunch, tying me up pretty completely.
There was an oversight last patch, leading to invisible wall issues as well as low encounter spawns. Those are now fixed, with more efficient spawns memory/CPU-wise as well!
Have a good one tamers, apologies for the delay and rest assured - DLC1 is still in the works.
Monster Crown Comic is here!
as promised, it's the 6th and chapter 1 of our comic is officially here!
See the announcement below, and even if you're not big into comics, I think you'll like something below for your code box at the barn ;)
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MONSTER CROWN: THE COMIC is now available for purchase on http://itch.io and Gumroad! It will be available on Amazon in the near future. Both sites offer DRM-free downloads for pdf + cbz!
Itch: https://monstercrown.itch.io/monster-crown-the-comic-issue-1
Gumroad: https://monstercrownthecomic.gumroad.com/l/issue1
Additionally, in the MONSTER CROWN game on PC, you can unlock an exclusive new Dracoyle, modelled after his appearance in the Comic! Get DRACOYLE (Comic Ver.) by putting in the code "DRAGONKING" at the Farm! This new sprite was made by the talented @StarGazaART !
And finally, the character theme for our protagonist, Alex Duke Sawyer, has been finished by our composer @onion_mu!
You can also find it on his Soundcloud at https://soundcloud.com/user-995938499!
Groundwork Update
It seems like it's been quite a while indeed since we last spoke - over the past few months I've had a lot of things in life come and smack me in the face but never was Monster Crown far from my mind. On top of that, there are two others working diligently on awesome new Monster Crown projects which will be revealed later in this post.
This initial update lays the groundwork for our DLC content. The entire world loading code has been rebuilt, leading to far higher performance and less lag as exploring the huge world. This update will shortly make its way to consoles as well, where it will make an even bigger impact. Additionally, we'll no longer have those weird savefiles showing up for Steam Deck users or with cloud saves. This update will remain in the beta branch for 48 hours (right-cllick, properties, select branch, "ea-beta" if you'd like to opt in) just because it's been a while since I pushed out a new patch and I want to make sure nothing unexpected pops up.
I will be devoting all my free time (which I honestly wish wasn't quite as scarce as it is) to continued work on Monster Crown, as I've got big plans for the future and Monster Crown remains as important in my heart as it ever has. More monsters, areas and content are still on the way and I apologize for the delay these past few months, I put a number of things in life on the back burner during that last two years of development, and some of that came crashing down on me this year but all is well now and there's no need to worry.
I'm very excited to announce two very cool partnerships that are going to truly expand Monster Crown for all of you. While I remain focused on the game, these two talented dudes are going to be creating a way to experience Monster Crown in a whole new dimension, expanding on the lore, world and scenarios that you already know and love, while also building things in interesting and alternate new directions.
Allow me to introduce, two very exciting new projects...
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MONSTER CROWN the Comic
WE ARE NOT KINGS. WE WILL BE... MESSIAHS!
Humans and monsters coexist on the island nation of Crown Island. The best and bravest of mankind go out to tame these creatures for all sorts of reasons, from biological study, to hunting and even high-value package delivery. Monster Tamers are the most valuable people in society, and their bravery and deeds earn them renown and respect.
Alex Duke Sawyer is just an average boy who works on his parents farm, until one day he wins a monster of his own in a prize draw. With the gargoyle dragon Dracoyle by his side, Alex sets off to see the country he knows so little about, and become a Monster Tamer himself.
What Alex doesn't know, however, is that dark forces move behind the scenes to revive the dreaded Philosopher Kings, three otherworldly demigods who ruled over Crown Island with an iron fist. Their rule was absolute, until it was overthrown by a rebellion lead by Alex's own father many years ago.
Alex journeys out into the world, but the world is a lot harsher and more violent than he could ever anticipate, and he's flung headfirst into a terrible conflict that will plumb the deepest, darkest secrets of Crown Island and its history.
Get MONSTER CROWN: THE COMIC on Itch.io, Amazon and Gumroad on 6.6.2022!
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MONSTER CROWN the Trading Card Game
Play through an RPG inspired experience where you and your opponent build a world, fill it with monsters, and do your best to topple each other with teams caught along the way, and find out who deserves to wear the Monster Crown!
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As you can see, it's shaping up to be a very exciting 2022 for Monster Crown!
Seeing these versions of the game and world I worked on and obsessed over for five years is a dream come true, and one I absolutely could've never anticipated. A huge shoutout to Ahab, the Manga/Comic's creator and Spudmay, the TCG's skilled sculpter/creator. Each so ridiculously creative, so geared to make the highest quality projects they can, I'm in constant awe over the awesome stuff they share with me on discord each week - sorry guys, I guess only I have the VIP access right now XD
Happy taming tamers, hope you're having a great month and year and expect more details about the content-filled DLC soon!
Patch 1.0.44
Hope you are all enjoying what the new year has in store. As you might've heard this week, we've got confirmation on our release date for the Xbox One and PS4 versions and it's February 22nd! I'm very excited about that. Preparing for those consoles has eaten a bit of my time lately but I wanted to get out a patch to clean up a few things, and here it is, 1.0.44:
1.0.44
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+Wild Tamer level scaling issue fixed
+Potential menu issue with name combining if using monsters with one-letter names as the primary and secondary
+Issue affecting NPCs appearances in certain cutscenes fixed
+Raptor mountain visual update
+A few little flag issues that could affect post-game raptor-flute quest fixed
+Aber scene show girls received updated sprites
+Critical vine animation issue fixed
+Two in-battle lines weren't translated correctly into other languages
+Move learning popup had an off-by-one error preventing you from seeing new moves properly the level they became available
DLC Development
The development of DLC1 is still underway and going well. It will bring a variety of new monsters, a new cliff area that began as a small section to find a new monster, but has grown into basically half of a new province! It comes with brand new monsters, a couple of fun challenges and a new music track as well. Some data-miners have already uncovered the names of some of these monsters (and soon-to-be available domesticated monsters you already know), but thankfully their appearance is still a secret, which is the coolest part :D
There will also be a new shop that offers some hard-to-find items, and the Monster Body Parts will have their role revealed at long last - don't worry if you lost yours, there'll be a way to obtain new ones. Additionally there will be new moves, Chief rematches and a special new machine in Hewston that offers a new spin on monster colors, which of course means you'll have new colors and combinations for all your existing favorites.
So with February being focused on the XB1 and PS4 releases you'll see an announcement for DLC1 for all platforms shortly after, I plan to create a video to showcase some of it and maybe I'll tease a bit of what is planned for DLC2 and 3 later this year as well.
Have a good Wednesday night tamers, and thank you for all your support!
New Year's First Patch - 1.0.43
I've been working on this patch since before the holidays but they have a funny way of derailing plans right? :D
I've been combing our bug-tracker, and tweaking random things people @'d me on twitter about, and it's lead to a lot of small fixes and improvements that really make the game more fun to play without less elements taking you out of the experience.
But there's some cool feature/QoL adjustments/additions that add to the game as well!
Moveset Customization Menu
As you likely already know, there is a move learner/forgetter in Frobec. When I began development I had a goal of minimalism and fast battles - get in and out quick, as I read that was something a lot of people desired in the genre, however, the game's complexity has grown significantly since then and it's not always clear to players that a new move is available as they level up their monsters.
For that reason, whenever a new move is available (through using Ultra-Rare Berries, Scouting, or Battling) you'll be offered the ability to jump into the Move learner/forgetter on the spot and pick the moveset you want going forward. This should make the earlier part of the game before you reach Frobec a bit more clear and simply be much more convenient overall for everyone.
Monster Riding
Instead of "sitting" on the heads or backs of monsters, your character will now straddle/grip them. This allowed me to add a significant number of monsters to the rideable list, as they no longer need a large sittable part of their body. This has doubled the amount of monsters you can now ride around and smash up over-world random encounters with. Here's the list of new ones:
-Walerus
-Yetowl
-Darwhol
-Rivardien
-Gorgem
-Glossum
-Shagrun
-Griffin
-Vulter
-Tanukrook
-Frigidile
-Gridag
-Stallune
-Aliferz
-Questabock
-Hymeraden
-Migma
-Syleendra
-Panipillr
-Oukochou
-Deuvul
-Putridevil
-Vult
-Tombus
-Glacial
-Alfric
-Salilisk
-Tarasque
-Gyn
-Cangon
-Tigon
Visual Improvements
Several monsters have received overworld sprite touchups to give them a bit more character or clean up lacking ones:
Additionally Windy Province, Mill Town, Crossroads Town, Scarred Province, Humanism and Empathy Kingdom have received tile updates and visual improvements to their color schemes. I think you'll have a lot more fun wandering around and seeing the adjustments.
Next Steps
The first of three free significant DLCs coming this year is being actively worked on and will soon be complete. It offers a slew of new monsters and fun sidequests, some of which are teased in this twitter 2022 message I posted a few days ago.
I've also been hard at work on the Xbox One and PS4 launches, which will have their release dates announced in the very near future.
There will soon be another monster design contest, for a chance to get a monster you designed in Monster Crown as part of a significant QoL addition in an upcoming DLC, expect more details on that soon!
Other fixes
Here's a non-comprehensive list of other fixes, as the total list of small tweaks I made based on people just quickly asking for an adjustment these past two months are a bit much to list:
1.0.43
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+Lost province cave transition adjustment
+Newly cropped up camera issue due to UI resizing during the synergy tutorial and being kidnapped fixed
+Shop menu UI fix that was cutting off some item descriptions
+Wardrobe centering issue
+Found items on-screen display adjusted to be more readable, longer.
+Random encounter frequency increased
+Final quest log entry gets a "check" properly in the post-game to be a bit less confusing
Patch 1.0.42
Happy weekend, it's time for our next Monster Crown patch!
One drawback of the randomizer was that if you encountered a monster that needed a demon pact early, you still had to wait until post-game to be able to tame it. This has been adjusted so now while playing with randomizer on, the demon pact check is ignored.
Those of you that are frequent discord visitors already have heard a few whispers about this, but now that all significant issues have been addressed work has begun on our first DLC, this will be the first of three completely free DLC packs coming in the new year, each one more significant in size and content than the last. Some things to look forward to our in our first pack is:
- Getting your hands on previously inaccessible monsters, including domesticated ones
- Several new items (including those to boost base stats)
- Several new attacks
- Many new surprises - one of which for sure will throw you for a loop.
Here are the full patch notes:
1.0.42
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+Randomizer now bypasses demon pact requirements
+Random encounter rate increased
+Wilds performance improvements
+Post game hospital scene adjustments
+Crowned Monster graphical fixes
+Monster hatch sound effect adjustments
+Various small overworld tile issues fixed
+Staglus forest scene fix
Patch 1.0.4
Just a few fixes today to tune up a couple of things:
1.0.4
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+Renaming party bug fixed
+Monster names now the same across languages
+Menu Tamer card/party display adjustments
+Box > Hatch/Menu bug addressed
+New, better learnsets for Roedra and Serket
Roedra
0 - Fin Slap
5 - Swallow Water
8 - Vile Tail
16 - Haunting Moan
22 - Chisel
30 - Bolt Strike
40 - Dizzy Ray
60 - Swallow Power
Serket
0 - Accelerate
4 - Dark Tooth
9 - Gather Parts
15 - Cross Bite
21 - Absorb
29 - Steel Self
38 - Dragon Tackle
44 - Heavy Stagger
48 - Shock Shield
56 - Equalize
70 - Necessary Cleave
Monster Modding Upgrade! (1.0.392)
Just a quick update today, a few small bugfixes and adjustments are in this update but the main addition is an upgrade to Monster Modding.
Wow I couldn't believe how many talented artists jumped on our monster modding update. These players created real, full monsters with the custom crossbreeding mechanics you already know and gave them a fresh, totally new sprite. They've been adding them to our pedigree gallery as well, so anyone can grab them using a pedigree code (as long as you turn modding on).
Visit Gallery
I had to drop everything and add full crossbreed support for all these excellent artists!
If you're already a modder or would like to dive in yourself, grab this image and edit it in your favorite image editor to a design you like. The Red means the lighter color of the palette goes there, the Blue means the darker
credit to Ahab's Artwork for this sweet alternate Dracoyle sprite, which is available on the gallery as well.
Once you've created the sprite, you can use this site to set a new base monster sprite OR, with today's update, add a whole crossbreed family! One for each type of crossbreed to make your monsters feel more authentic than ever :)
Jump to Sprite Mod Tool Here
MASSIVE thanks to Modulo on discord for sprucing up the tool and helping me to add this functionality. Without him this would've taken much longer, and probably still not have looked as nice :)
Once you've received the code, copy it and go back to Monster Crown, on the party screen hit F11 and you're cooking, just like Sunday's update.
Thank you so much for all of your passion and creativity this week, I'm in awe, but it's something you guys have made a common thing for me.
Regular patch coming this weekend.
Update 1.0.39
This week's update brings some really cool stuff to the game, Randomizers, Mods, and a brand new monster!
Brand new monster - King's Primigon
Have you noticed the King and Merryl have these cool horned Primigon? They're a different color too! The King needed a hardier breed to escort his carriage through the dangerous Scarred and Desperado province and so had this new type of Primigon created that is stronger, faster and tougher. Tamers on Discord have even dubbed it "Primigon 2", and to be honest, stat wise it is better in every way!
Get your hands on a King's Primigon using the code KINGPRIM in the barn. This was a much requested monster for fans, much to my surprise, and while I was tempted to modify Primigon's sprite to add horns I didn't think that was gonna cut it for a sharp-eyed tamer such as yourself, so not only does King's Primigon have a totally new sprite and coloring for your breeding projects, but each of its crossbreeds puts a brand new spin on Primigon's equivalents, totally new polished sprites that build on those designs you already know in a big way!
Oh, I also gave it a brand new move, Cruel Push after many people asked for more moves to punish status conditions, Cruel Push does 3x damage to dizzy foes!
Randomizer Options
You'll now find another menu category - Fun - that contains options for modding and randomization:
Random Starter: This option causes the starter you select to be randomized immediately after you select it from all base monsters, giving you a true surprise to start the game with.
Randomize Types: All monsters will receive a new random typing
Randomize Colors: All monsters will receive a new random palette
Randomizer: All wild monsters, bosses, and tamer monsters will be shuffled randomly, providing new monster options everywhere you look!
Check out my starter and what I found just outside the farm!
All of these random options rely on an RNG "Seed", some of you may be familiar with that from other games, but basically if the randomizer creates orange Rodask in Dew Cave, next time you load your file it'll keep making orange Rodasks in Dew Cave, however, you can "re-roll" the seed by turning Randomizer Off then back On. These values are saved to your file so finding a value you like for each of your different files is fine.
It's in the spirit of randomizers to not mess with this value and just play with your initial seed, but I ain't your mom :D, go nuts! all the tools are here for you to use however is fun for you.
Mods
This update also brings our first modding tool, inject a monster sprite! Start off by opening the Fun menu and turning on Mods. Next up grab the template here:
https://i.imgur.com/QgbtgXZ.png
Open that image in your image editor of choice (I enjoy Paint .net for color replacement/transparency after I design them in MSPaint) and replace it with your new custom monster. Monsters in Monster Crown only have two colors, so where you want the lighter color to go replace with Red, and where you want the darker use this blue. It's important that you sample the colors in this image and don't use some other red or blue.
Once you're happy with the sprite, you can visit the script I created here:
http://bulletcpu.com/crowns/PNGto5bit.html
And upload the image. It'll convert it into a code. you'll notice this code is mostly 0s but there are numbers 1-4 in there as well. If you get a code with only 0s just upload it again with the browse button and it'll make the code properly. Copy this code!
Back on your party screen, hover over the monster with the sprite you'd like to replace and hit F11! It'll inject the monster sprite into the game, that's it! All done! And best of all? If your friend also has mods turned on you can even trade and battle, the game will communicate the sprite data without the need for a mutual mod file or anything, between you and other modders these can be used like any other monster.
Here's a Chuk with a custom sprite I created, I called it Yuto! I guess it's our first quasi-canon monster.
Want to get yourself one? Well there's a playground rumor that if you trade and enter a tamer id of 999999 (six nines) you'll trade with a phantom tamer and receive your very own Yuto-chuk.
One thing to keep in mind is that if you breed these monsters, they produce Tardigen. If this feature is well loved maybe we'll add the ability to insert a whole crossbreed family in the future.
Due to the new monster mods, our pedigree gallery (which has had so many awesome entries and is definitely worth checking out) will be changed from free-for-all to needing approval when entries are submitted. There's no high bar for this, I just want to be sure no copyrighted material is submitted for other players to download. I'll be approving all new entries every day or two.
http://crownsgame.me/?q=pedigree-gallery
Patch Notes
1.0.39
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+Additional Menu Tweaks
+Saliskipper new designs + palette
+Number of encounters allowed to be generated at a time increased by 3
+Some additional attack animations have been added
+Randomizer Options now available
+Monster modding now available
+King's Primigon now available
+New attack added to the game, Cruel Push
+Brand new Saliskipper sprites
Have a great rest of your weekend Tamers!
Patch 1.0.37
After the recent total UI overhaul a few things had to be cleaned up/tweaked, thank you so much to all of you that helped me identify these. Switch users are also now able to use the new UI as well.
Embryo sprites that were missing are now back. Additionally the box system had a few tweaks for greater reliability, and now when you exit it in the fusion or breeding menu you'll be back at fusion/breeding, not booted back to the room.
The big functional change this update is I've gone through and reviewed all the flags and triggers of every chief and tweaked a few things, I've also tested this thoroughly and now all chiefs can be completed in whatever order you wish, they all give their prize monsters and all increase your certification level. If there's just one or two chiefs you haven't beaten you can try to take them on now, however, if you had bigger chief issues in the past you can do the following to reset all your chief flags and let you take them all on:
1. Open the settings menu
2. Press all four directional buttons (Up, Left, Right, Down)
3. This will set all chiefs to undefeated
I'm also considering returning to each Chief and giving them a super buffed up post-game team, is that something you'd have fun taking on?
For those of you that haven't yet pinned down the Enigma Beast out on the ocean, one of the monsters it can give you in an egg can now be obtained at the Wetland Province tamer camp. You'll meet a troubled young boy there that has a story to tell
Also, here are some more sprite touchups:
What's next?
While work on more content is going well, it will take some time because I want it to be a ton of fun, a lot of great content and I want it to be smooth and stable. I will make sure of that before I launch anything on that front.
That being said one type of content that can always be added without introducing bugs is new monsters, and to a similar degree new moves.
But even sooner than that we'll be launching our first of the modding tools in the next two weeks, the ability to mod in custom monsters you've drawn yourself! And if the other player has modding turned on they'll be able to see your custom monsters in battle too and even trade them. These modding tools will be PC only.
Here are the full patch notes, have a great week!
1.0.37
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+Jack now directs you to the proper town for Leona
+Can no longer use transfomative items on embryos (caused issues)
+Issue preventing embryo sprites from appearing fixed
+Camera issues in two houses in Hewston fixed
+Tamer card graphic positioning fixed
+Box improvements, including backing out of it just bringing you back to the breeding/fusion menu
+Chief flag overhaul