I've been locked away, hard at work for the past 3-4 weeks, pulling long days and getting close to the completion of the development of Monster Crown.
Unfortunately that has kept me away from all of you and the excellent folks on discord and kickstarter - thankfully I'll be around much more often going forward.
Sepnal
As you may remember from our last Content Pack update post, Content Pack #8 was our last planned update at the start of our Early Access launch last summer, Content Pack #9 was a logical expansion of areas that didn't contain spoilers (The Deep Woods and east of The Farm) so it made a lot of sense to feature in a content pack and this one rounds the available content up even further with the launch of the Pedigree system and the maiden voyage of the Spenal Ferry, just east of Appenton City, you can find it here:
The Ferry offers passage to the isolated island of Sepnal. As you learned in Appenton, long ago a sage found the legendary monster Amidia and meditated near the statue-esque beast, gaining insight and ethereal insight into the relationship between man and monster, using this divine inspiration from Amidia, he created the first Monster Pact, which are now created en masse by the studious residents of Appenton.
However, later in his life, the sage grew philosophical on his creation and the dynamics between the cooperating beasts and their tamers. He theorized that a part of the monster's soul must be bound to the pact (and implicit agreement) and that if a monster dies while under pact, its soul may not be able to move on after death. In order to learn more and make a decision, he travelled to the melancholy town of Sepnal.
While there he established a tradition, he hoped that tamers would visit Sepnal after the death of their monsters and burn their pacts. As the burning embers floated out to the ocean, the monster's soul would find release and peace. He spent the rest of his life there.
However, while a huge wooden bridge once connected Sepnal to the rest of Crown Island, during the war the residents became deeply afraid of the wicked Philosopher Kings. In an effort to protect themselves they set the bridge ablaze, casting themselves into complete isolation. Recently however, a ferry pulled by a large monster was established that once again allowed travel to and from Sepnal. What happened during those years of isolation is unknown.
Pedigree System
The other addition to the game with this content pack is The Pedigree System. Many of you have created wonderful monsters during your time with Monster Crown and seeing what each of you create, share, or tweet at me thrills me every time, so much imagination is on display, especially those of you who write lore to go with your creations.
With the amount of crossbreeds in Monster Crown (over 1200) even though I personally drew most of them, it's easy for me to forget about certain forms I created sometimes. Seeing all of you create monsters that surprise even me, in color combinations I have literally never seen before is a true joy. I wanted to create a system that allowed for infinite monsters and you all have made that personal dream come to life!
But now it's time to share your monsters. Once you've created a monster you love, open up the party menu and settle on that monster. From there, hit the F10 button, this will generate a complex code and copy it to your clipboard. After pressing F10 you can paste it into a text document or shared with a friend. These codes can be pasted into the code entry screen at the breeding barn, allowing anyone on earth to redeem your unique code and get hands on with your completely unique creation.
I hope you'll give your monsters unique names, and that your creations become popular and sought after within the community. Those more interested in battling than breeding may come to rely on your excellent crossbreeds to create powerful teams, I encourage everyone to find their favorite style as a Monster Tamer and lean on other players and friends to help you get the most out of your play-through, whether you are an exploration expert, a battle master or a skilled breeder I can guarantee you your experiences, knowledge and monsters are a valuable asset to share with other players.
Once you've created your monster code you can post it, a picture of the monster and stats on our gallery:
While it's not necessary, you can write lore for your monster. I'll have a blast browsing and checking out your creations. Because crossbreeding is a real thing on Crown Island there's no reason to not consider your creations canon if they don't clash with lore, I also encourage you to give yourself some freedom on the dimensions of the monster, is that Primigon crossbreed you created the size of a house cat? Or or is it as big as an elephant? That's up to you and whatever you feel fits best. I can't wait to see what you create (and steal all your monster codes :D )
For future content packs it's likely I'll just add some extra monsters as the only other areas we have left to expand into are pivotal to late game plot and filled with spoilers, that being said, I promise to keep delivering new content on a regular basis until we hit 1.0!
Have a great weekend tamers, and don't forget to join the other tamers on discord!: https://discord.gg/WwRvm9B
Content Pack #9 is here!
Hey tamers,
I haven't been able to share much about this content pack ahead of time, as many of you know our last content pack was the final one planned for Early Access before we launched, however, I'm a firm believer in monthly content packs so there will definitely be one this month and next month.
I wanted to share more information early but I've been super tied up with the business and planning side of things now that we're nearing the end of development so allow me to introduce you to today's content pack right now!
First off, there's a new area, the Deep Woods - remember when you fought Collure there was a passage to the north, bringing you deeper into the woods? Be sure to revisit that area to enter a new part of the woods with a slew of new monsters, be careful though - there's a monster breeding ground that is sure to give you a huge challenge if you're not prepared!
Along with these new monsters, two new "Legendary" monsters are now available. I won't spoil much but one is on a coast near the farm (if you're lucky!) and the other is kinda in flowering province (and kinda in Frost province!). They're a little tucked away in distant corners of the island but I know with how determined all of you are, they'll be found in no time at all :D
To go with the new monsters and areas there's a brand new forest music track (shout out to the incredible musician gameonion!) and a lot of work has gone into optimizing exploration out in the wild, especially when many monsters are around and chasing you.
In the near future we'll be launching our "Pedigree" program, a special way to share your finest monster creations with other players as well as sharing some teasers for Content Pack #10, which contains a new Town that was the final addition to the game and only possible due to the support (both financial and spiritual) shown by all of you, our Early Access players and supporters.
Thanks so much everyone, I hope you have a fun weekend and enjoy these new content additions!
Other fixes: =========== +Two new expanded areas +2 new "Legendary" monsters +3 new standard monsters +3 new monsters that some had but were extremely rare (Jungro, Perygrinn, Collure) +Nio Kio windows graphical compression issue fixed +No more bloom inside buildings and caves +New Forest theme (gameonion is a masta) +Significant collision detection optimizations, moving around out in the wilds is much smoother
Patch v0.1.733
Hello!
Hope you all had a good week, just some fixes this time, but some good ones, and of course the welcome addition of some introductions to the online battling and trading features, definitely a great time to grab a friend and duke it out or swap monsters!
+Realigned/positioned all attack animations +Enemy Tamers now properly display the items they use when healing their monsters. +Enemy Tamers no long swap their monster to a type advantage the same moment you swap to one, they have to wait a turn like a real human bean +Frobec Cavern bridge and icy spot fix +Appenton Puzzle glitch fixed +Online battle/trading menu resize +Online battle/trading tutorial added.
For those of you wondering about out next content pack we've actually reached the end of the content packs that were planned when we launched into Early Access last year! That doesn't mean they'll stop though, I've thought up what this month's and next's will contain. They will primarily be expansions of the world and available monster pool, looking forward to sharing more soon as one of these expanded areas was not planned before EA launch and was directly inspired by all of you and made possible by everyone that supported us during EA so far!
Have a great weekend!
Content Pack #8 is HERE!
Hello Monster fans, Content Pack 8 is here!
The very first thing I want to do is to thank each of you for the huge show of support I received last week. Many of you know I lost my grandmother last week and the past week has been really something - spending time with family of course and everything that comes with the loss of a loved family member. The countless messages of support I received on here is something else. Thank you so much for your kindness and understanding.
With that being said, you might be wondering what's in store for Content Pack #8? Well, a lot of great stuff, first and foremost, the next expansion to the main storyline.
Head to Appenton Academy to get started on what comes next! Be prepared because you're headed deep into the underbelly of the city...
Additionally, a while back I showcased some additional scouting powers, namely, the ability for your monsters to shoot a swirling fireball to take down enemy monsters on the overworld.
This ability is super powerful and can be used to mow through wild encounters and quickly level up your team. The previous scouting ability favored monsters with a high physical attack power, but this one is geared for magical attackers, so be sure to pick the scouting option that suits your party leader best.
As well, the monster riding option has been added to the monster power menu making it easier to ride your monsters, however, you still must have your monster "sit" first, which is something I'm working on making automatic in the future as it's a bit cumbersome as-is.
Once you've obtained all three powers a small traveling monster show can be found in Crossroads province. It has a chance of spawning each in-game morning and can appear on various roads surrounding crossroad town - if you see a crowd, that's the spot!
If you figure out how to win a huge payout, you might find yourself with an additional monster treasure, a monster with my personal favorite egg design :)
For those of you just tuning in since last content pack I've also added several new powerful healing items - let's be honest, you've outgrown Aloe Leaves haven't you? - that can be purchased from any store beyond Mill Town and a very special Ultra Rare Berry, which makes levelling up newly hatched monsters a breeze. If you've got the cash a newly hatched monster can be caught up to the rest of your team in less than a minute.
That's it for today tamers, there are some additional bug fixes as well here and there, some cutscene timing modifications to make things a bit smoother, etc.
Hope you have a great weekend.
Death in the Family - Content Pack slight delay
Hey guys,
About 24 hours ago I got a call from my parents that my grandmother passed away from cancer. They live in a different town so I had to travel to visit them and for the funeral for the next couple of days.
Unfortunately this will introduce a delay for this week's content pack, which includes the last of the three powers you seek in the latest updates.
The content pack was for all intents and purposes complete and I just wanted to test it a bit more, so it will launch next Friday instead, no big delay is needed.
Apologies for any inconvenience, especially after seeing all the buzz around the upcoming Content Pack, I promise it will be available very soon.
Thank you
Patch 0.1.72 + New Items!
Hey guys, hope you're having a great weekend!
Next week is the new content pack which will bring about the third power to add to your collection, so for this week we've got some fixes and some new items and improvements to make your playthroughs more fun than ever!
I pushed a new fix last weekend to ea-beta and pushed it to everyone a few days ago that came with some improved loading speeds and a big improvement to the reliability of the monster storage system. Your monsters won't get lost anymore and when you open your box, it'll rescue anything you've lost in previous months. I didn't make a post about it then as I was also working on some online fixes that weren't quite ready yet but I felt it was a good time to mention it!
Online battling is now much more reliable and you should be able to have some good fun with it facing off against other tamers, a great place to find a battle is on our discord of course!:
I can promise you there are tamers on there that will send you reeling from the power of their monsters. Some of them have embedded ridiculous power into cute little defense-less Apo packages, absolute sickos! :D
One thing that's come to my attention as well is that even with scouting, it can be very slow to level up new hatchlings and add them to your team, leading people to not get the most out of breeding and avoiding changing their team up. To remedy this, "Ultra Rare Berries" have been added to all the shops beyond Mill Town (didn't want them available too early!).
How do Ultra Rare Berries work? Well they will quarter the difference between your monster's level and your tamer ceritfication cap. For example, if you could level up to level 100, using multiple berries would work like this:
Monster's level after 0 berries: 1 Monster's level after 1 berries: 25 Monster's level after 2 berries: 43 Monster's level after 3 berries: 57 Monster's level after 4 berries: 67 Monster's level after 5 berries: 75 Monster's level after 6 berries: 81 and so on...
so as you can see if you had a tamer ceritifcation level of 100, and had enough cash, you could level a monst from 1 to 81 in two minutes! These berries are incredibly useful but fittingly pricey, $1500 per berry!
I hope that this will bring you a lot more fun of a Monster Crown experience, making breeding new hatchlings and adding them to your team a breeze.
The other new items added: Kroodle Tenders, Shoreyu Sushi and Big Meat, offer signifcant healing power as it can be discouraging to have to heal your very high hp monsters super slowly with Aloe Leaves. Adding these items to your pack makes long, risky journeys more fun to prepare for and without a PP system, a careful planner can survive without returning to civilization for quite some time!
Hope the rest of your weekend goes well, be back on Friday with your next content pack!
0.1.72 ====== +Online battling improvements (much more reliable) +Sunbloom seed fixed +Party number on the monster info/party screen was innacurate +Inventory screen alignment adjustments +New items available in shops (Ultra Rare Berry, Kroodle Tenders, Shoreyu Sushi, Big Meat) +Optimizations +Improved box system operations + monster rescue on open. +Cave Traumata wind gust still happening after being defeated fixed +Ferrorizer spawning again
Patch 0.1.69
Hey guys,
this update comes with a general nerf to the super strong chiefs. On average, their teams will be 4-7 levels lower than before and it definitely feels like a more fair (but still challenging) battle. in my play-throughs over the past week.
Additionally, servers went down for some maintenance earlier this week and it ended up needing an update on the game side to fully restore connectivity, so this patch includes that as well.
Oh an of course some of you have sent me your files over the past few months for testing and those of you with hundreds and hundreds (let's be honest, closer to thousands) have loading times that are a bit longer than I expected! Instead of staring at a black screen waiting for that cornucopia of monsters to load up you'll now get a Gyn loading screen while you wait!
Have a good weekend tamers!
#this build will remain on the beta branch until Sunday, you can opt-in by right-clicking on Monster Crown in steam, choosing properties, and opting into beta "ea-beta".
Ferrorizer/Frostbite Challenge!
Hey everyone!
Last week, Content Update #7 dropped and it contains a new chapter in the Monster Crown story, but also new transformative items: Frostbite and Ferrorizer! Learn all about this Content Update here: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/830370/view/3026955794077436638 This brings us to today's challenge!
Frostbite/Ferrorizer Challenge Get your hands on a Frostbite or a Ferrorizer, use it to transform a Monster, take a screenshot of it on the stats screen and drop it in the #monster-crown channel of the SOEDESCO Discord server (https://discord.gg/soedesco) with #FrostbiteChallenge or #FerrorizerChallenge
-OR-
Post it to Twitter with #MonsterCrown and #FrostbiteChallenge/#FerrorizerChallenge (so we can find it)
The person with the coolest, most unique monster wins! Complete one of (or just both) the options above by Tuesday April 6th 3PM CEST to become the Monster Crown Content Pack #7 champion + this special Monster Crown care package of in-game items including a BRILLIANT CRYDIA :O! If you know, you know, but this is a big deal ;)
Brilliant CRYDIA
10 booster packs
Frostbite
Ferrorizer
3000 Gold
15 Normal Pacts
10 Aloe Leafs
10 Gualchops
15 Campfire Logs
3 Move Orbs (Enrich)
3 Move Orbs (Inferno)
Entries are limited to 1 per user, please only post 1 screenshot. Winner is the person with the highest amount on their screenshot. Good luck everyone! If you have any questions, feel free to ask :D
-Marten
Content Pack 7 is here!
Happy Friday tamers!
Content Pack 7 is HERE!!!!!
The other half of the monsters from the Frostbite vs. Ferrorizer competition are now in, in total, the following monsters can transform:
Frostbite Hani Frostbite Domigon Epheal
Ferrorizer Ambigu Chuk Igrawn Ix Madis
As well of course as the next chapter in the Monster Crown story! If you're all caught up in the current story you're looking for three legendary beasts, and the second is now here! (the first was available in Nio Kio as of last Content Pack). Start your search in Frobec and try not to end up bitten in half!
This content pack is particularly nostalgic for me, as you'll be returning to an area familiar to fans following us since the early days, the Frobec Mountains were featured in a very early alpha demo, I hope those of you that remember those days feel just as surreal returning to those stomping grounds!
Next month's content pack will expand to the third power, tucked away deep in Appenton :)
Other Notes
This update also brings:
Brilliant monsters now bless the team with a temporarily boosted growth rate by 10% when leveling up in battle or using scouting.
Ton of new attack animations
You'll be prompted to confirm when you decide to save, a much requested change.
Plenty of polishing and bug-fixing.
Manga?!
A while back Ahab's Artwork approached me about the idea of a fan manga for Monster Crown. I was really flattered by the idea. I've poured a lot of work into building Monster Crown's world and lore, and who wouldn't want to have the opportunity to see their world expressed in manga format?
I decided to commission Ahab's Artwork to produce an **official pilot manga** for Monster Crown. This 6-page manga pilot follows a courier and his Monster Companions during a day on the job in the dangerous Desperado Province. You can grab it here:
The manga is currently pay what you want and you can decide on $0 and grab it for free if you wish,
right now we're using the reception of this manga to gauge the viability of producing a more normal length manga series in the future, following a tamer and their monster companions on a full length journey. While my focus will remain entirely on core development of the game for the forseeable future I'd definitely be involved with establishing the storyline and ensuring the world aligns with my vision for Monster Crown's world during pre-production.
Patch 0.166 ----- +Day/Night effects are no longer active when accessing the monster box +Gigadrile's Boss Indicator no longer shows On Overworld +The phone in Milldew dosn't have new dialog. +Party menu opening itself after battles +Frobec Snow Factory Run Untoggle +Casino deducting dollars properly now +Duchess Garden encounters not appearing fixed +Situation where when you add a monster to your team by swapping using the box system with a team at size 8 could fail fixed +Some Desperado fences could be walked through +Appenton city disembodied lamps removed +Kiry tamer has Yes/No and no longer has an additional cancel option. +Typo fixes +Item inventory is updating numbers properly now after tossing items +Chief tamer text updated to remove references to specific levels of certification now that they can be approached in any order. +King Tenna no longer doesn't appear until after you defat Nautlus as this became a sticking point for some players. +Scrave no longer initiates a chief battle +Hani Honey bug fixed
FROSTBITE TRANSFORMATIONS ARE HERE! + Patch 0.1643 + Content Appetizer
Tamers! I've been very hard at work on Monster Crown and while next week's update is the next Content Pack, I think this week's update serves as a great appetizer.
Transformations - Frostbite!
First off we've got the heavily voted for Frostbite transformations available in this pack! The following monsters can be transformed using it:
Walerus Hani Domigon Epheal
These monsters will get signifcant power ups and their new forms come with a slew of new crossbreeds for you to discover. Each one will have the move Cold Flurry added to their learnset. This move is learned at the start (level 0) so newborn monsters bred from these will have it right away but for your adult monsters you will have to visit the Frobec Move Learner to have it added to their current moveset.
Additional Content
First off, all monsters have received their own custom eggs and proper encyclopedia entries, as well as overworld sprites. We've also added two new chiefs for you to take on to earn exclusive new monsters and up your certification level! You can locate them in Nio Kio and Empathy Kingdom but you must have completed the quest in each respective city for them to appear.
Four new small sidequests have been added (two are less a sidequest and more a way to get a one-off Legendary monster that most of you have already visited but not yet obtained :D).
Card Collection
Card Dungeons have been given a power-up! Monsters will appear faster, with a higher total cap on screen at once, and all move at twice their natural speed. This makes turning cards holographic more thrilling and risky - beware!
If you've completed all the current story content (that is, you've completed Nio Kio City's mission), you'll be able to meet a Card Creator in Nio Kio back alley. This character has an impressive handheld printer from Hewston City, the hi-tech capital of Crown Island. With it, they'll be able to make monster cards for you.
In order to commission them you'll have to show them a base monster that she can recognize as a species (For example, you could show them Gyn but not Gyn's crossbreeds). It can really add up in cost but we've had such a great reception to our card collection feature that I just had to get some more content out for you with all the love you've shown. I'd love to see pics of your collections after you've commissioned your favorite mons and turn them holographic!
Wild Monster Movement
You may have noticed there are apparent spots on the overworld that your scouting icon and wild monsters cannot traverse. This is because the world of monster crown is streamed seamlessly in an open world fashion (you can reach anywhere from anywhere without loading screens) and the collision system is fairly unique within this genre. There were some decisions made during development that sped up my ability to create the entire large world as a single artist and designer early on as well as offering huge RAM benefits within Unity regarding scene management/loading.
These alterations helped in those capacities but without careful designing, could cause gameplay issues and unusually high CPU usage while calculating moment to moment world collisions, especially with 8-12 wild monsters chasing you that all have to respect these things as well and may cross into loading zones that the player is not currently within. I'll make a youtube video showcasing the system one day soon because I think a lot of you would find it interesting, but basically I didn't let scouting or wild monsters go across world loading lines.
Now that the game has been out there for a while and optimized in a lot of ways, I thought it was finally time to remove those limitation. I monitored the game closely this week while working on it and built some additional caching systems and I'm very happy to say monsters will pursue you like never before :) and even player movement will be a little lighter on the CPU.
I know this caused some confusion sometimes as the reason for this wasn't clear and I apologize for that. I know that it will all pay off when you're zipping around Monster Crown's world at top speeds in the post game ;)
Miscellaneous
If you transform a monster and the monster to be transformed into has a canon name, it'll be used as long as you have not renamed your monster. I avoided this for a long time because I care about the individual names you set and don't wanna make your loved Laz "Steve" change his name on transformation, so the logic works like this:
If Laz's name is his species name "Laz" he will be renamed to "Apo" after transforming, unless you named your Laz "Steve" in which case it will keep Steve. It uses the same logic as monster palettes basically.
One often requested Quality of Life adjustment is that after you use them once, the storklift and healer will skip their animation and heal/transport you instantly.
Overall there are 8 new monsters available in this update. Happy exploration guys, hope you look forward to much more content next week too!
Bugfixes
+Sometimes chiefs could challenge you without a choice +Storklift animation only plays the first time from now on. +Improved world collision loading/checking +Proper transformation name updating +Many more small fixes +Using z to finish text early makes any asosiated picture to dissapear before the text. +Certain invisible spots that stop monsters +Overworld monster sprite "sliding" +Closing the "save completed" dialog or using the button to close the menu will also talk to the NPC in front. +Monster Scout Softlock +Item Seller's stock photos are off center +LIMIT text on victory screen overlaps level text +Wrong Item menu "use" issue. +Offer always chooses last used contract. +Using a pact in a card dungeon does not show how many pacts you have left +Jasper battle infection glitch +multiple item discriptions missing. +Traumata Cave Sidequest Movement During Dialog +Milltown NPC no dialog after story scene +Stray pixel in Vryn icon +River Of Gold & Kintsugi No Text +Trying to use box can make monsters disappear. +Undergrowth Pass Invisible Sprites +Relentless Crawkadaga not showing up
