Golden Treasure: The Great Green News

Greetings, o Kin!

One month ago, Golden Treasure: The Great Green was released on Steam. It represented the first fruits of years of labor for our small but dedicated team, and the response we have received from players has been overwhelming. As its creator, I was unsure whether Golden Treasure’s blend of adventure, philosophy, art and dragons would be enjoyed and understood by others. It seems I need not have worried.

We currently hold a “Very Positive” rating on Steam, with positive review averages in the high nineties. 86 players have written reviews about the experience, calling it “a masterpiece”, a “hidden gem” and much more. A few smaller-to-mid-sized sites have acknowledged us with review scores ranging from great to fantastic. Our deepest thanks go out to those who let their feelings about Golden Treasure be known.

Perhaps the most gratifying responses of them all have been private. Quite a few total strangers have e-mailed me to let me know how deeply the game touched them. Some even said that the game’s beauty and message of hope as well as its deeply connected and yet non-human perspective helped them find some measure of personal peace.

To hear such things has been the honor of a lifetime. For an artist, the ultimate blessing is to know that one’s work has been taken in and understood by others. We who carry dragons in our hearts have not always been embraced by the masses, but by the love which I have received in response to Golden Treasure, we are very far from alone in this world. It is for such reasons that I am left with no choice but to call Golden Treasure: The Great Green an Artistic Success.

Despite this, the game is, as of a month after released, not yet a Commercial Success. Perhaps because it differs so greatly from the tendencies and tone of the industry at large, not a single major review or print site has deigned to review Golden Treasure: The Great Green. The world at large remains ignorant of its existence.

We have many plans for the expansion of Golden Treasure’s world and the beginnings of a sequel have in fact already been laid down. After finishing The Great Green (and it is NOT yet finished - the Time of Creation is coming) a sequel is planned for each of the game’s primary endings.

Hopefully, the upcoming weeks and months will see at least one acknowledgement from a major news source, and the interest will bring us the resources we need to keep on making experiences such as The Great Green. In the meantime, we offer our deepest appreciation to all of those who have sung out for us. In response, we will continue to persevere on the path which we have chosen, a path which leads to an undiscovered wilderness filled with beauty, strife and truth, a silver mirror for that which has been forgotten but which shines from every leaf in the forest and every star in the sky.

May you be blessed,

Ludwig

You may have noticed smaller changes being pushed out with out change logs. These are generally text based changes that we can do easily and with out you having to download too much, such as fixing spelling errors.
But we are always working under the hood to craft a better Golden Treasure.
Here is a rundown of the latest changes.

The Gallery

• Added tarot cards to the gallery. You can now view unlocked tarot cards from the gallery.
  
• Added a page selection feature to the gallery. Simply click the page number when viewing the gallery and you can type to jump to a specific page.
  

New Features

• Added a confirmation dialog when retreating in combat.
  
• Added options to give shiny things to the Artist to help it complete its treasure.
  
• Added options to purchase wakeleaves and poultices from the Artist in Part 3.
  
• Added energy loss for breathing fire on the Puzzle Trees in Part 2 and added an option to leave that scene without interacting with the trees.
  
• Added an option to ask for a fox tail if you need one.
  
• Added text about how many treasures can be selected when starting a new Part.
  
• Added extra animation to the No-Tail festival scene.
  
• Added sounds to an encounter in Part 3.
  

Fixes

• Fixed Pedantus' incorrect physics in Part 2.
  
• Fixed text error with Warden in Part 2.
  
• Set the price on the Crystal Fang to 200 shiny things.
  
• Fixed Onesong perk causing more damage instead of less damage.
  
• Increased amount of time given for timed riddles by 10 seconds.
  
• Fixed errors caused by file corruption in user settings.
  
• Temporary status effects (such as from the special herb) no longer persist between Parts.
  
• Updated the steel blade shaft event for increased clarity.
  
• Fixed low energy lair messages not being removed when your energy increases in the lair.
  
• Fixed incorrect death text caused by @#&%$-related death.
  
• Fixed typo in dead dragon scene.
  
• Reduced energy gained from Consume Self from 80% to 50%.
  
• Fixed visual errors in timer for timed riddles.
  
• Fixed a music conflict in the second labyrinth.
  
• Fixed a sudden cutout in music in the opening to Part 2.
  
• Fixed an erroneous sound effect in the opening to Part 3.
  
• Fixed persistence of human sounds in a timed event in Part 3.
  
• Fixed a missing sound effect in the Part 3 Vantage encounter.
  
• Fixed an erroneous sound effect in the Part 3 Tempest encounter.
  
• Fixed an erroneous sound effect at the Moot.
  
• Continual audio level adjustments.
  

• Removed an extra roar from flight scene in Part 3.
  
• Fixed issues that caused missing HUD elements, missing options, and miscalculated outcomes and stat changes.
  
• Removed a null room in Part 3 labyrinth caused by interacting with caterpillar.
  
• Added a small audio sting to the Tailless Sacrifice scene in Part 3.
  
• The @#$%& no longer causes permadeath regardless of remaining lives.
  
• Removed unintentional uses of the word "human".
  
• Removed some unused audio files.
  
• Replaced references to "Twenty-One keys" with "Twenty keys".
  
• Fixed issue where buying Wakeleaves or Poultices from the Artist would give the incorrect treasure.
  
• Fixed issue where giving shiny things to the Artist was locked off if you did not have any of the treasures it needs.
  
• Dying in combat to the final fight of the Part 3 labyrinth at the same time as the enemy no longer causes the fight to restart with the enemy at full health.
  

• Soundtrack DLC depot added. This content will be available as soon as Valve finishes verification.
  
• Large changes/additions to later game audio.
  
• Additional sounds added to second and third labyrinths.
  
• Added interaction sounds to the abilities menu.
  
• Volume adjustments throughout.
  
• Fixed several instances where ambience would not fade out correctly.
  
• Added additional answers to Tempest's riddle.
  
• Final credits edits.
  
• Improved graphics for Brightlings in Part 1.
  
• Updated ability descriptions for added clarification for various abilities.
  

”Unquestionably breathtaking” - Gaming Cypher

“Visually, the game is stunning” - thegamer.com

“I love this writing… I’m absolutely enthralled” - English Teacher Plays

The time is now.

Golden Treasure: The Great Green, Dreaming Door Studios’ first interactive hand-painted role-playing experience, is available today on Steam.

Into it, we have poured the best art and writing, years of love, over 15,000 hours of work and a generous portion of dreams and magic. A world of triumph, discovery, and beauty awaits you.

If you are one of those people who has been with us for these long years, who has played the demo or who has given us your support and encouragement, we bow humbly before you and thank you from the heart for everything.

It is now time for you to spread your wings and embrace the wind. Your journey from before beginning to dragon maturity will be an adventure unlike any yet seen, a story unique among all told. We sincerely hope that you will find the journey inspiring, exciting and meaningful.

In the final version:

Over 100 unique painted encounters

50+ unique animals to encounter, learn from, and battle with

1000+ pages of discovery

50 unique artifacts to acquire

20 Tarot cards and achievements to unlock

And 3 massive maps each with hours and hours of adventure

Enjoy your time as a Kin, and May You Be Blessed.

-Ludwig

Version 0.5.0 is a huge update before the game officially releases.
Here is a rundown of the changes.

The Gallery

• Added access from the main menu to the Gallery.
  
• The Gallery checks on which scenes you have ever visited in the game in all lives and lets you see them again with out having to reach them during a new life.
  
• You can revisit these scenes as they were in the game, featuring the gentle parallax and animations normally present, or view the scene as a still piece of art.
  
• Scenes in the gallery include artist credits, credits for scene conception and writing, as well as Director's commentary from Ludwig.
  

True Credits

• While you are able to take a look at who made the game from the main menu at any time, only by beating the game will you find the True Credits.
  
• These credits, once unlocked, will replace the original credits found on the main menu, allowing you to view them any time you'd like.
  

Improvements

• Holding down the continue button allows you to speed through the text until a scene fade or an option appears.
  
• The Grade Up animation has faster individual skips and now has a full skip button.
  
• The New Day transition can now be skipped by clicking.
  
• The player Draak's body shows much more obvious changes based on current elemental mastery.
  
• Shins in Part 2 and Part 3 use new assets. No more collecting small shiny pebbles as a young adult draak.
  
• Audio improvements across the board, including a full set of sounds, music and ambiance for Part 3.
  
• Brace has been improved from 50% physical damage reduction to 75%.
  
• Armor has been increased at base from 1 to 3. Armor II has been decreased from 10 to 7. This means more damage reduction to reduce the difficulty of Part 1, but not so much damage reduction overall in parts 2 and 3.
  

Other fixes include

• Removing a null room from failure against Unforgetting.
  
• Temporarily removed steam achievement unlocks so that we can add them all in at once. Look forward to showing off your tarots as Steam Achievements.
  
• Full screen is set as the default setting. With correct letter and pillar boxing, this works for more screen resolutions.
  
• Removed the ability to keep Shining Eye between part 2 and part 3.
  
• Finishing the game clears out your save file so there is no continue button on the main menu that just takes you right before the end with nothing to do but read the ending lines again.
  
• Reduced the difficulty of Allmother's Compassion Labyrinth.
  
• Removed the ability for Ants to use the powers of treasures.
  
• Various text edits and updates.
  

• Additional audio updates for Part 2, Part 3 and the Compassion Labyrinth
  
• Fixed a bug in which the game would softlock in Part 1 if defeating the No Tails outside of the den and then defeating Twist in battle
  
• Shiny things were not visible due to a scaling error
  
• Changed a font in the game pertaining to a hidden message
  
• Capitalization on the words Body and Mind in pertaining to beings
  
• Updated a flash found in the Fire breathing effect
  
• Various text corrections