One often-requested feature was the ability to set Breeding and Fusion monsters from the box system. This offers better ease-of-use, a simpler UI experience, and combined with the new box interface it makes your breeding goals easier than ever. Also, the box in general has been sped up a little.
This is just a very small tweak but I found a way to adjust screen colors to be a little more retro-authentic and vibrant, it can be hard to notice if you didn't already play in the past day or so (or maybe it is and you just have better color perception than me!) But it's a nice little improvement.
Slumbear has been added to the Woods where you rescued Dad, and Hymeraden is now tameable! If you missed him first go-around, you can now find him in the inner sanctum as well, but his spawn is fairly rare. This monster was a fan design by Zai Wolfgang, he's one of our oldest super fans and I'm so glad he got to contribute to the game... I heard a rumor there's another similar contest on the horizon ;)
I also have begun adjusting some of the weaker sprites in the game. I compiled a full list of sprites I'll be touching up, 28 in total (so don't worry about any major revamps to your favorites) and the first two I finished up this morning. One is just some tweaks to look a bit more complete and interesting, the other is a fairly significant redesign because the old one looked very amateur to me.
There is a lot of WILD stuff in the works, and a lot more cool things in the way that are bigger in scope than these patches :)
1.0.35 ====== +Dragon Cliff Cave to Shagrun fixed +Colors slightly adjusted to be a bit more retro authentic +micro gap occasionally seen in the world/tiles fixed +Brilliants causing both monsters to appear as brilliant in NPC trades fixed +Brute Ambigu, Unstable Pursuit sprite redesign/touchups +Can now set breeding/fusion monsters from the farm box +Slumbear added to Wayward Woods +Hymeraden now tameable and added to the inner sanctum for anyone that missed it +Jack now directs you to the proper town for Leona +Rodask loading screen no longer hitches on loading steps
Update v1.0.33
Hello Tamers,
This update is a substantial one! I've been listening to all the feedback and reviews and studying the look of the game a lot myself and I sat down and got to work last Friday night and have barely stopped since, but it's been super worth it!
Screen Resolution
Probably the first thing you'll notice is the resolution change in game, the width and height of the camera has been increased by a little over two tiles each. While this can seem like a small change it actually makes quite a difference, especially on larger displays. You can see more of the game world and the detail level on large displays is just so much of a better fit. It also means you see more of the pixel art at the "distance" it should be.
UI Overhaul
All over the game you'll notice the new increase in resolution has not gone to waste! But before we get into that, the main menu usability has been worked on quite significantly. When you open the main overworld menu you'll notice it's now a bar over on the left, and it automatically opens the party screen. You'll be able to scroll up and down to select menu options faster, enter and leave the submenus and responsiveness has been increased here.
Shop and Inventory Screens
The Shop and Inventory screens have been revamped to show more items in a more modern looking interface. You'll be able to see all items available in the shop in an instant and my hope is that this will bring more attention to Ultra Rare Berries, a quick super-level-up method that many aren't aware of!
Farm Box
The Farm Box screen has been changed to show your party at all times, as well as showing all stat and move info of your monster as you scroll over them, reducing the need to enter a subscreen to check them out in full detail. This makes it easier to use the box and there's even some more screen real-estate on bottom to spare. This will be used for some sorting or quick use features in the future, to make the box system even easier to use and find your favorite monsters.
Finding Items
From now on when you get items rather than an intrusive box displaying on screen that slows you down, an item queue will appear seamlessly to the left of the screen showing the items you recently found. It's faster, seamless, and still easy to recognize what you just received!
Stat Buff/Debuff Feed
You'll notice that now when a monster receives a buff of debuff it scolls across the bottom of the screen. It's there longer, so you can read it without missing it with the old side-of-monster display, and it doesn't interrupt your flow. In time I imagine we'll get rid of the old display entirely.
These changes, combined with the rebalancing and the gradual day-night cycle makes for a much better gameplay experience than was available on release day. I will continue this work and improvements and soon, I'll be working on additional content as well.
Update v1.0.3
Hey Tamers, happy Wednesday.
after the last update a number of people expressed displeasure at the new stat and orb-use caps. I saw all sorts of messages about this, and about how they felt, even though it won't matter and no one is listening.
I don't want to hear that! If you have an opinion, send it to me, post it here, whatever you want, of COURSE I want to hear your thoughts and positions and wherever possible I will add more options for players to enjoy Monster Crown how THEY choose to.
Not every piece of feedback can be actioned, I'm one dude, and sometimes suggestions involve a lot more work than they might seem to at first thought - but none of that changes the fact that this community is for you, and I am always interested in hearing how you feel or what suggestions you have.
On another topic, Syleendra will no longer stalk you to the ends of the earth, it was only meant to do this if you held a lit lamp! I saw it stalking a few new players - sorry about that!
Monsters Thallox and Mathen (right) are now available in the wild. A glitch had prevented both from appearing but they're now fully available. I explain where you can find Thallox below, but I'll leave Mathen a mystery for now, feel free to read its lore for a hint!
One last thing, after I saw someone suggest it I changed the day-night cycle to a more gradual one. I'll make it even smoother in the future once I'm certain there's no performance impact - there's a colorset for morning, day, evening and night, and this new solution blends them as you move through the day, it's a little more resource intensive but shouldn't be a big deal, just want to give it a little time.
This version will be heading to Nintendo Switch next!
1.0.3 ====== +Skill uncap option added (Check your settings) +No longer enter a weird state when Raptor-flying while surfing +Syleendra bug fixed +Can no longer use Monster Moniker early, added UI indicator for it and it's now easy to remove using the wardrobe +Thallox added to Greed's castle +Mathen now available, the way she was always meant to be! +More gradual day/night cycle, might become even more gradual and slow if no one has any performance issues with it +Party scrolling now loops around (good suggestion I received on Reddit!)
Have a great night tamers!
Update 1.0.28
Hi Tamers,
Work has continued on Monster Crown all through the weekend, where I worked cooperatively with discord users to analyze and improve the balancing of the game. Balancing is something we'll always be fine-tuning but you're really gonna enjoy these changes, which I think are really instrumental to the fun-level of Monster Crown!
Rebalancing
To start with, move attack power levels have been rebalanced, this seriously reduces the OHKO/Sweeper effect and the power of simply focusing on your attack power. You'll definitely feel the need to make use of more varied teams, status effects, and strategies to take down foes. The stat on each individual move has not changed, however, the damage calculation has.
Enemies in Desperado, Scarred Province, Wetland Province, Flowering Province and Frost Province now scale with your tamer level, so increasing your tamer level now raises the challenge, and chiefs are stronger as well. Additionally, chiefs now appear on the map with a shield icon, so you can easily see these important foes
Stat orbs are now capped, only allowing you to boost your Monster's stat by 30% above the natural growth rate. This remains a viable strategy for those who dislike breeding, without letting you make totally unfair creatures using these eventually-common items.
Upon breeding, fusion, etc. a new base stat total limiter is applied. The limit is calculated as follows: 3.0 base in every stat (HP,Atk,Def,Mag,Res,GR). So therefore the most well rounded, evenly distributed monster would have a stat total of: 18.0. Your newly created monsters can only overcome the 3.0 limit by SPECIALIZATION! Keep in mind that the highest growth rate is like 1.4, so that frees up more points for other stats.
If your monster exceeds the 18.0 limit, it will be scaled down. Internally this is done by reverse-isotope therapy but you don't really need to know this because it's all done in code in an instant but I thought you monster scientists would value that info. You may exceed the 3.0 stat limit of course by say, decreasing speed, freeing up more points for Attack power, etc. You get the idea.
All of these rebalancing changes have personally made the game a LOT more fun for me in a way that I can't really put into words, and couldn't feel I was missing before. Somehow everything is just more fun and with the scaling, the monsters available to you immediately after Dew Cave just multiplied! I ran straight to Wetland province and grabbed myself a Boarnox, shortly after breeding it with a Bileat to make this tough guy before I ever visited Dania. It's a blast taking on the new, tougher wild encounters and wild tamers as well!
Performance Improvements
Recently I've optimized the world-loading code for Switch, and in doing so benefits come to steam as well, the game takes up much less storage space on your hard drive now and RAM usage is at approximately half.
Here's the full patch notes:
1.0.28 ====== +Random Tamers now fade out after defeat +Crossroad cutscene tweaks/polish +Rodney (Frobec Chief) no longer re-fightable +Additional sound effects added to various menus for a more responsive feeling +RAM usage reduced to about half (a little less than half) +Open world level rebalancing +Random encounters have a slightly lower chance of being ones that chase you +Charity Chief given a new team +Chiefs now have identifiable shields above them on the overworld for easy identification +Monster ability icons now show descriptions for greater clarity +Improved Net Egg functionality (easier to grab a new egg) +Issue with wild eggs fixed +Random encounters can now be having a snack of berry or meat +BULLDOZER MODE (you can now decimate enemies like scouting while riding your monster, it's kinda too much fun tbh) +Attack animations sizing adjusted +Issue affecting box operations in the fusion menu fixed +Can now ride Epheal FB
Whew I used up so much space on the rebalancing info that I don't want to make this too long, if I can say one last thing try out Bulldozer mode while riding your monsters now it's too much fun!
Patch 1.0.26
Hey Tamers, happy Monday (I know, you can't make a Monday sound like a good thing right?)
Got another patch, two very good things to know:
Moveset Merging during breeding has been greatly improved
Ultra Rare Berries are now much more effective for those past the first credits
Here's the full patch list:
1.0.26 ======= +Post game monster level scaling now depends on the highest level monster in your party, not the average, making ultra rare berries more useful in the post-game +Coral Crab bugged move fixed +Coral Crab riding issue fixed +Improved Moveset merging during breeding +Stat gain after level cap issue fixed +Adjustments made to Appenton Crypt to be more properly solvable with Thunder Stomp if you decide to do Nio Kio Underground first +Steam achievement popup added +Ruby beam move description fixed +Additional healing Kirys added
Tomorrow I'll be playing the game and testing various menus and adding sound effects for a bit more audio feedback like you guys have been requesting. I have a few more days before I have to head back to my day job and I plan to make use of them :)
Just something I gotta say...
Over the past week I have seen SO MANY (and increasingly) expert tamers helping out newcomers that are trying to learn how to find obscure legendaries, or really min-max the breeding system, grind for brilliants, etc.
Seeing all of that is truly heartwarming and I want to thank all of you for being such incredible people and helping each other out. Know that I'll be looking for every opportunity to add to and improve Monster Crown to make it the best game possible for the amazing players I've been so lucky to have join our community.
You make it all worth it.
Patch 1.0.25 : NET EGG
Hello tamers!
Let's start out with the patchlist!
1.0.25 ====== +Enigma mirror boss spawn position adjusted +Random wild eggs and lost tamer packs might be from other real-world players! (they are tinted green if so) +Can no longer take on Worship before beating Torture +Can no longer leave NioKio Dungeon with a battery +Improved Monster Box functionality (10 box jumping) +Performance improvements +Improved button responsiveness +Can no longer use monster actions while a story NPC is following along behind your monster +Item duplication exploit fixed +Can no longer tame David's monsters in the postgame
I worked very hard yesterday and fixed a significant amount of little things players have found since launch. For the full fix list, take a look at the "Resolved" items here: http://bulletcpu.com/mantis/view_all_bug_page.php
If you'd like to log anything yourself, you can login with anon/anon, no need to signup.
Net Egg
Using the Monster Action Select button (2) on the breeding screen will now pull a net egg - that is the genes of a monster form another player! It'll also upload one of yours. Each time you press it it refreshes the currently set gene, so you can get an absolute world of new surprising combinations made by other tamers just like you!
Two fun extras
Just for fun, if you find a wild egg or wild tamer pack, it may be tinted green! What does this mean? Well it means it came from another real life player that lost their items in battle, or did some breeding. This will spice up exploration a bit and I bet you're about to find some truly cool monsters out there :)
Next Steps
Overall I'm going to be adding additional explanations to the game in the form of Mimika, little mimicking birds that you'll be able to find on routes that offer supplementary knowledge to your playthrough. I'm a player that greatly enjoys experimenting to learn new things, but this offers a great way to provide more info to those who want it, while also being easily ignored by experimental or pro tamers without any mandatory cutscenes to disrupt your flow.
There'll also be a message added to the Brutus battle for next update to encourage new players to try out strategies, rather than being scared off by Brutus's level, and think they need to grind to beat it. It's unfortunately something that puts off a lot of new players but this battle serves to teach you that a solid strategy means more than level!
I will continue to polish, fix and add more content to Monster Crown over the coming weeks, thank you all for supporting the game!
1.0.24 ====== +Party screen move reordering added +Mirror Challenge floor count added, and challenge reduced to 50 floors +Wild Troves now use Boss tame style, HP is more significant than level when they consider pacts +Demon pact-only monsters now tameable in Card Dungeons +Lost temple exit warp adjustment +ZebraCoati added to Lost Province +Online trading monster-select issue fixed
On the party menu screen (even in battle) you'll now be able to highlight one of the monster's moves with Z/Accept and it'll turn green, select another move to swap the order of these moves. This was a much requested feature and I hope it makes your play easier and more fun :)
Additionally, Permadeath has now been divorced from Hard Mode, these settings are now entirely separate and any difficulty can now add or remove permadeath for your nuzlocke-esque adventures.
The Mirror Challenge now has a floor counter and the difficulty level has been reduced from 100 floors to 50 floors (the awesome reward of course remains the same!)
To answer some other questions we've had, see the following pic:
To expain each stat:
A = Attack B = Speed C = Magical Resistance ("Special Defense") D = Magical Attack ("Special Attack") E = Defense F = Growth Rate (how much this monster grows per level, higher = higher total stats by level 100)
These symbols in the gene lab mean the same thing. Originally these symbols in the gene lab were meant to be a bit of a mystery for players to experiment and discover, however, at one point we simplified the party screen after some requests and used these symbols instead, I agree that we should find somewhere in-game to explain this to new players.
Borderless visual settings are also on the way after many requests, they should be in this weekend!
Happy Friday tamers!
Patch 1.0.23
Hey guys,
Just wanted to push out another update with some additional small fixes and polish!
1.0.23 ====== +Boosted party exp payout by 25% +Aber's monster text fixed +If you die and lose items, those items can be picked off where you died! The exception are storyline scenes where the dropped bags could cause issues +Inventory UI made snappier and more responsive +Aber's monster interaction text fixed +Hermes BurningSky transformation added +Gorriol now tameable
Of course one of them isn't real small, it's the dropped tamer pack! Yep, now when you drop a tamer pack (if you have a difficulty selected with item loss) you'll drop a pack right where you stand that you can go back and collect :), be sure to pick it up before you stop playing, these aren't saved to your file.
Gorriol is now tameable as well, as well as Hermes having a full suite of crossbreeds for its new Burning Sky transformation, be sure to give it a whirl - beware of Gorriol though, it's over level 100 and is relegated to the post-game. It has a 1 in 10 chance of appearing in a nightmare when you sleep in your bed at home - if you lose.... it might eat your soul.
Here's the additions I plan to work on for tomorrow's patch: +permadeath separate toggle +Enigma mirror floor number +anything major posted to our bug tracker: http://bulletcpu.com/mantis/my_view_page.php
If you'd like to report a bug or suggestion, that's a great place to do it (the steam forums are of course fine as well). No need to register, just use anon/anon
Happy Thursday tamers, and I do hear your requests for your own Bants and Kroodle doos - stay tuned ;)
Patch 1.0.22 - Various fixes
Hey guys,
yesterday we hit one snag with a map menu issue, I pushed out a hotfix for that within 30 minutes of learning about it, but other than that, this is our first post-launch patch!
Patch 1.0.22 ============= +Easy Mode (free healing, no item loss, no lost monsters to chiefs) turned on as default for new savefiles +Wetland province Red dock trigger fixed +Tiles missing grass in the upper-right portion of Desperado province fixed +Some grass tiles over the water that weren't correct removed north of Raptor Mt, Wetland province-side +Frobec legend being able to be seen out on the ocean fixed +Trade tamers having an unnecessary "cancel" option fixed +VSync setting now saved properly +Inventory categories now loop around +Shop items scrolling now loops around +Elder Raptor can no longer be seen when out at sea +Now asks if you're sure when quitting the game +King Tenna's prized beasts collision issue fixed
Work will continue on fixing and polishing and regular updates will continue, making Monster Crown better than ever :). I will be pushing a daily patch for the next 3-4 days to address any concerns.
New monsters and modding tools are also in the works and on the way soon, so stay tuned! :)
This patch should start hitting your systems in about 20 minutes.
Full Release is HERE!!!!
With today comes the full release of Monster Crown at long last. If you've been on the beta or review branch now's a great time to switch back to main.
All content is now wide open and you can explore and reap everything Monster Crown has to offer! We've reached 1.0.
Check out our trailer here:
[previewyoutube="kK5QcFK-4pE;full"]
This could not have happened without the support and help of all of you that joined us during Early Access. Thank you so much for joining me on that journey.
I look forward to hearing from you after you've seen it all :D
