Stories of the Past, Present and Future! Happy New Year!
Hi Guys!
Depending on where you live you might or might not have celebrated the New Year. In any case I wish to you the best for the next year!
This year past was a year of incredible growth for Rogue Empire. As some of you might know this is a solo project of which I try to live from. It was mid 2016... Gosh how much time... that I decided to leave my job and use my savings to bring Rogue Empire to life. Back then I said to myself in 18 months I got it done... nothing further from the truth lol.
But on the bright side the 19th of January 2018 the game was released on Early Access here on steam! This release went fairly well, but made me realize a lot more was needed, not only the end of the story! So this year Rogue Empire had many more new additions! The challenge dungeon, new baddies, new environments, better UI, new spells, new abilities, altars and artifacts, physical damage types, resistance gear, champions, leader boards, the healthiness system, and so much more! Then by the end of the year the game even made it into the Top 100 of the IndieDB Indie of the year contest! ːsteamhappyː
But here I want to do a parenthesis and talk about something else: People.
The experience of making this game is really enriched by you who play and care about the game, other developers who support and teach me, friends and family who bear with me. Solo developing is not easy and sometimes I would silently freak out about a bad bug or a bad review but so many would support me :) You don't have an Idea how much this means to me and to my sanity! To all of you who were there this year: THANK YOU!
Now moving on, Rogue Empire will start 2019 getting out or Early Access! When? Late January. I will post about it soon. But I want to let you know I do not plan to end it there. When I decided to make my living out of this I mean it. So unless the release goes really bad (fingers crossed) I plan to continue to work on the game. I still need to wrap some things up, including some new abilities, a druid mechanics improvement and a few more quests/locations for the Dawn of Shadows campaign.
So many things where added to the game, but also many I had to cut for time constrains :(. Some things I plan to add this year are other languages, new classes, prestige classes, modding, new game modes (I am particularly excited about this but I won’t say much ;)), more mechanics and more.
I think it is also fair to tell you how I plan to do dlc's. My Idea is mainly to add features with each dlc that add to the base game and other features that are dlc tied. This way I feel you all ways get something new even if you won't or cannot buy the dlc.
Anyway, I truly wish you all a great 2019! I hope you chase your goals and even if you don't accomplish them, most times the journey is so much more than the goal itself! At least for me it was this year :D!
Thanks again! Enjoy life, enjoy your friends and family and as always...
Happy Dungeon Crawling!
GW
Version 0.9.8 Hot fix 1 + story mode!
Hi all. Because of some bugs (specially the pickup bug) I am releasing a small update.
I ll also post tomorrow a small year end recap and some upcoming info for next year!
Lets get to the changes now!
New Features
Added story mode: There is no perma-death but you don't earn any soul essence and can not participate from high scores.
Balance Changes
Crit damage base modifier on enemies was reduced for normal and easy difficulty to reduce some spikes in the late game.
Stealth base discovery chance was slightly increased.
Soul essence reward for easy difficulty setting increased to 50% of normal.
Bug Fixes
Fixed detailed pickup bugs.
Fixed text issue on altars.
Hitting enter when setting up your race or class wont default to the randomize button (hotkey now the space key).
Fixed weird bug with toggles inside the settings window. This would prevent some of them to work.
Normalized character sounds.
Help Rogue Empire in the 2018 Indie of the Year contest :D
Hi every one, as you might now Rogue Empire made it to the top 100 in the indieDB " Indie of the Year" contest!
Now only 10 hours remain to know in what position it finally ends! If you didn't please give it a thumbs up :D (if you voted in the last round you have to actually vote again).
Regardless of how it turns I am really appreciative to the reception and love Rogue Empire have had! Just want to let you know that ːsteamhappyː
Before the end of the year I do plan to do a little recap post full of feelings and memories :P
Cheers!
GW
Version 0.9.8 Released!
Ok guys, it is time to merge the beta build to the main/default branch increasing the game version from v0.9.5 to v0.9.8 ːsteamhappyː
But the contest is not over as now the top 100 get voted to see the spot you end at! I would encourage you to vote for Rogue Empire again :D
Again, thanks so much!!!
Now, without further ado, here are the main changes ( I might have missed some) introduced into the game:
New Features
Added more than 30 legendary items/gear! You will find several little Easter Eggs on them!
At the moment you are guaranteed to get at least 1 legendary item from the first boss you kill. After this the loot chance depends on the amount of legendary items already acquired and the source of loot. From higher to lower chance this is:
Bosses.
Golden chests.
Champions.
Zoo rooms.
Regular chests.
Goo protected rooms.
Regular Monsters
For more info on legendary weapons see:
https://steamcommunity.com/games/650940/announcements/detail/1711819722058306753
For more info on legendary armor sets see:
https://steamcommunity.com/games/650940/announcements/detail/1709572995861888210
Added ancient Runes and Altars! For more details see:
https://steamcommunity.com/games/650940/announcements/detail/1717456831970307296
Improved item Compare, pickup and detail display.
Show Items On Floor Key:
Improved Compare:
Detailed pickup:
See https://steamcommunity.com/games/650940/announcements/detail/2693605177456149330 for more info!
Updated trap and goo special rooms so that they will if possible generate a treasure chest instead of an item.
Added 2 new special rooms that can be generated during dungeon creation.
Enemies that not wear armor such as beasts or giant insects now have armor with 95% coverage (think of it as fur) and different armor point depending on the enemy.
Added 1 new possible modifier for non legendary items.
(Temporal) When getting a legendary there is a higher probability it fits the class you are playing.
Weapons now have damage types: Slashing vs Piercing vs Bludgeoning. Enemies have different vulnerabilities or resistance to each type. For example skeletons are very resistant to Piercing damage but vulnerable to Bludgeoning damage. This will add new layer of strategy to weapon choice.
Ammo of the same type is auto-equipped on ammo slot.
Added 2 new environments:
Fungal
Cave
Added Christmas flavor (can be disabled in settings).
Added a new location to the main campaign.
Elves have a new starting racial "Elven Heritage" : +10% perception and +10% intelligence.
Otwoks have a new starting racial "Wooden Body" : +50% deduced damaged from piercing attacks.
Bug Fixes
Fixed issue where on the first time you load a game the weight status would not show properly.
Fixed several smaller issues while I was doing the content update.
Cloud saves should now work cross OS.
Fixed action bar slot bug where it sometimes would get locked.
Fixed bug where rapid cuts would not apply hit bonuses. Consecutively nerfed it a little.
Fixed bug where none physical dots (such as poison) would break prepared and very prepared bonuses.
Fixed bug where offset shield would add to armor coverage && mitigation.
Fixed bug related to none-compressed saves.
Fixed bug related to none-compressed saves.
Obstructions up from tiles in the field of view get now revealed. This avoids enemies not showing their health bar.
Prepared blows now should always wear off after the next move of the entity doing it.
Enemies killed by fire created by player should now properly give XP. This also include propagated fire.
Summoned vines now properly surround the target and no longer count towards the summoner active summons limit.
Improved off screen summoning times to not halt the game.
Fixed bug that prevented the additional champions too spawn in the challenge dungeon.
Fixed bug that made trolls have 30% less hp instead of 30% more hp as a racial.
Fixed bug where very late game speed item modifiers would be insanely high.
Fixed issue on inventory when using an item would select a random item category.
Balance
Reduced a little the spawning rate of high spawning dungeons and fixed its tool-tip.
Reduced the weight of magic rations to 0.1s
First aid heal and cool down slightly nerffed.
2h weapons damage was made more consistent (less deviation) in general. A few weapons got their damage improved, specially the different types of sickle as it had an error in its formula.
Ranged weapons damage was made more consistent (less deviation) in general. Late game ranged weapons have had their damage improved.
First Aid heal reduced slightly. Cool down also increased. Now uses 5000 energy instead of 1000 (making it recommended to not do while in combat).
Earth Elementals are now immune to poison.
Some legendary weapons where nerfed. This does not affect current games.
Buffed armor and armor coverage of all enemies.
Shape shifted druids can no longer be disarmed.
Item bonuses to speed, hp regen and mana regen now stack additively with each other.
Shields have had their armor values greatly increased to buff them as an defensive option.
Shoulder and leg gear has had their body coverage values increased for lower tiers.
Legendary items with abilities now have their cooldowns tied to having the item equipped. This means cooldowns tick down when you have the legendary equipped and tick up when you don't have it equipped (capped).
Halved health of non summoned vines and barricades. Added fire vulnerability.
Deviation on the Initial health rolls for every class has been reduced. Not so initial attribute rolls (depends on race).
Goo armor slightly reduced. Goo now returns a little damage back.
Ancient book of learning now ticks with spell learning even if not successful.
Warriors demoralizing shout uses no energy now.
Hunter weapon affinity talents where improved around 30%.
Other
Improved spell items space usage of its description in the UI.
Updated the underlying unity (game engine) version.
As always feel free to pop up at discord and discuss with me about whatever you want!
Cheers and happy crawling!
GW
New Beta Branch Update 0.9.8-d: New environments & Christmas flavor
IMPORTANT: How to try the beta branch?
Steps to try out the beta branch of the game:
In your game library right click on "Rogue Empire -> Properties"
In properties select the "Betas" tab
On the drop down select the version: beta - Beta testing for next release
New Features
Ammo of the same type is auto-equipped on ammo slot.
Added 2 new environments:
Fungal
Cave
Added Christmas flavor (can be disabled in settings).
Added a new location to the main campaign.
Balance Changes
Improved off screen summoning times to not halt the game.
Fixed bug that prevented the additional champions too spawn in the challenge dungeon.
Other
Updated the underlying unity (game engine) version.
A small request for anyone who can, please upvote Rogue Empire in indieDB ;) https://www.indiedb.com/games/rogue-empire
After this update I plan to merge it into the main build during this week.
Cheers and happy crawling!
GW
New Beta Branch Update 0.9.8-c: Ancient Runes, Altars and last batch of Legendary Items!
IMPORTANT: How to try the beta branch?
Steps to try out the beta branch of the game:
In your game library right click on "Rogue Empire -> Properties"
In properties select the "Betas" tab
On the drop down select the version: beta - Beta testing for next release
New Features
<*> Added ancient Runes and Altars! For more details see:
https://steamcommunity.com/games/650940/announcements/detail/1717456831970307296
<*> Updated trap and goo special rooms so that they will if possible generate a treasure chest instead of an item.
<*> Added 2 new special rooms that can be generated during dungeon creation.
Balance Changes
Legendary items with abilities now have their cooldowns tied to having the item equipped. This means cooldowns tick down when you have the legendary equipped and tick up when you don't have it equipped (capped).
Halved health of non summoned vines and barricades. Added fire vulnerability.
Deviation on the Initial health rolls for every class has been reduced. Not so initial attribute rolls (depends on race).
Goo armor slightly reduced. Goo now returns a little damage back.
Bug Fixes
Fixed bug related to none-compressed saves.
Obstructions up from tiles in the field of view get now revealed. This avoids enemies not showing their health bar.
Prepared blows now should always wear off after the next move of the entity doing it.
Enemies killed by fire created by player should now properly give XP. This also include propagated fire.
Summoned vines now properly surround the target and no longer count towards the summoner active summons limit.
A small request for anyone who can, please upvote Rogue Empire in indieDB ;) https://www.indiedb.com/games/rogue-empire
After this update I plan to merge it into the main build during this week.
Cheers and happy crawling!
GW
Upcoming Legendary Item Drop Changes / Structure: Runes & Altars
Hi everyone!
I wanted to show you a small preview of whats coming along side other stuff in the next beta build update.
First of, lets tell how the system for legendary item drops works so far. Legendary items drops are random but weighted somewhat toward the class you are playing. This has a few consequences I personally don't like:
The weighting feels "gamey" (is that a word?:P) to some extend.
If for some reason you want an item not tailored for your class you will have a hard time acquiring it. Maybe you want to play some kind of battle mage for example.
It forces me to balance between awesome feeling of getting a legendary and its rareness. If they are to common they loose appeal, if they are too rare when you get one it might be very off the one you really wanted.
So after thinking for some time I came up with an interesting system/concept: Ancient runes & Altars.
Now when you adventure you will be able to get Legendaries the regular way but totally random and with a little smaller drop chance. At the same time you will be able to get Ancient Runes at a higher drop rate:
Then, when you collect 3 Ancient Runes you need to find an Ancient Altar of Power! These altars can spawn randomly in any dungeon and come in three flavors:
AncientAltarOfTheArcane(Color will change to blue):
AncientAltarOfTheWarrior:
AncientAltarOfTheNimble(Color will change to yellow):
As you might have guessed each type of altar will correspond to a set of Legendaries.
Once in the altar you can offer 3 runes in exchange for a legendary of the Altar's type:
Once you have the 3 runes and do the offer, you will be able to obtain 1 legendary out of 3 choices:
As a bonus at any altar you can sacrifice 1 legendary for 1 rune. This enables you to at least get something back if you had a legendary you didn't like drop the usual way.
This will be released in the beta build during the week (the UI for it is taking more time than what I anticipated).
I hope you like what you see, and please let me know your thoughts!
Cheers and happy crawling!
GW
Stop the Hunger Clock Charity Event
Hi everyone!
I ll soon post some news about the next beta patch, but...
I want to talk you about something different today: Stop the Hunger Clock event.
This event comes every year and is organized by the developer of Dungeonmans (a great roguelike by the way if you didn't tried it).
It works very simple, you basically donate actual food to someone in need for 10 USD and in exchange you get an awesome roguelike of your choice. Keys are donated by devs like me. So its basically a win win for you and the person that gets the food!
You can see all the details and games available here: http://dungeonmans.com/hungerclock/
Before leaving I just want to say if you do this do it honestly. It saddens me deeply that people tried to take advantage for this indiedev and community driven event :(
In any case, more game related info is coming soon, so don't despair ;)
Cheers and happy thanksgiving next Thursday for those who have it as a holiday!
GW
New Beta Branch Update 0.9.8-b: More Legendary gear (including armor sets) and weapon damage types!
IMPORTANT: How to try the beta branch?
Steps to try out the beta branch of the game:
In your game library right click on "Rogue Empire -> Properties"
In properties select the "Betas" tab
On the drop down select the version: beta - Beta testing for next release
New Features
Added more legendary weapons.
Added legendary armor sets: See https://steamcommunity.com/games/650940/announcements/detail/1709572995861888210 for details.
Enemies that not wear armor such as beasts or giant insects now have armor with 95% coverage (think of it as fur) and different armor point depending on the enemy.
Added 1 new possible modifier for non legendary items.
(Temporal) When getting a legendary there is a higher probability it fits the class you are playing.
Weapons now have damage types: Slashing vs Piercing vs Bludgeoning. Enemies have different vulnerabilities or resistance to each type. For example skeletons are very resistant to Piercing damage but vulnerable to Bludgeoning damage. This will add new layer of strategy to weapon choice.
Cloud saves should now work cross OS.
Bug Fixes
Fixed action bar slot bug where it sometimes would get locked.
Fixed bug where rapid cuts would not apply hit bonuses. Consecutively nerfed it a little.
Fixed bug where none physical dots (such as poison) would break prepared and very prepared bonuses.
Fixed bug where offset shield would add to armor coverage && mitigation.
Fixed bug related to none-compressed saves.
Balance Changes
<*> 2h weapons damage was made more consistent (less deviation) in general. A few weapons got their damage improved, specially the different types of sickle as it had an error in its formula.
<*> Ranged weapons damage was made more consistent (less deviation) in general. Late game ranged weapons have had their damage improved.
<*> First Aid heal reduced slightly. Cool down also increased. Now uses 5000 energy instead of 1000 (making it recommended to not do while in combat).
<*> Earth Elementals are now immune to poison.
<*> Some legendary weapons where nerfed. This does not affect current games.
<*> Buffed armor and armor coverage of all enemies.
<*> Shape shifted druids can no longer be disarmed.
<*> Item bonuses to speed, hp regen and mana regen now stack additively with each other.
<*> Shields have had their armor values greatly increased to buff them as an defensive option.
<*> Shoulder and leg gear has had their body coverage values increased for lower tiers.
Other
Improved spell items space usage of its description in the UI.
As always feel free to pop up at discord and discuss with me about whatever you want!
Cheers and happy crawling!
GW
Upcoming Item Sets Preview
Hi everyone! I wanted to let you know what will be coming soon to the beta build for everyone to check out: Item Sets!
As you might know in the previews beta build Legendary weapons where introduced to the game. This time it's the moment for armor to shine!
In contrast to their weapon counterpart, legendary armor pieces will not grant an intimidate cool ability, but will be part of a item set.
Each set is built to have its own advantages, you will get more bonuses the more pieces of the set you gather. The more powerful bonus will demand you to have the whole set.
At the same time I have added the missing legendary weapon types. Here is a little preview too (Spoiler hidden):
The Reaper's Old Sickle:
I hope you like what you see! ːsteamhappyː
I have also some other surprises soon to be revealed!
