Keeper's Toll News

Hi Everyone, we have a big update for you all. We're excited to announce we've added some new abilities for the Necromancer and Ranger classes. We've also added some new merchant items and tons of QoL, fixes and various small features. Full Patch notes below:

[h2]Patch Notes (0.9.4)[/h2]

- Necromancer: Raise the Dead now scales from 5 skeletons to 10 skeletons (Would love to see if you like this or prefer the original count of 5. We thought a larger army would be more fun to control, but we're open to feedback)
- Necromancer: Raise the Dead - Increased skeleton enemy detection range by 50% and wander radius by 25%
- Necromancer: Removed Ability: Miasma
- Necromancer: New Ability: Summon Golem (replaces Miasma) - Build a larger army with this new summon! He will taunt and smash your enemies to pieces.



- Necromancer: Effigy will now explode when it's destroyed, inflicting explosive AOE damage to nearby enemies
- Necromancer: Grave Grip - In addition to slow, the ability now has a 5% chance to proc poison per rank
- Necromancer: Grave Grip - reduced base cooldown from 14 to 10 seconds
- Necromancer: Restless Bones - removed the requirement to have max skeletons alive in order to summon an exploding corpse bomb
- Ranger: Removed Ability: Nature's Snare
- Ranger: New Ability: Poisonbloom Sentry (replaces Nature's Snare) - Deploy a turret that shoots toxic projectiles at enemies
- Ranger: Deadly Toxins Talent has been boosted. Poison Proc chance increased by 30-80% per rank
- Pyromancer: Cauterize Wounds has been boosted and now provides much better healing
- Blood Maiden: Improved spawn logic of rain blood and Rot
- Blood Maiden: Added more prominent SFX to crimson fury attacks
- Blood Maiden: Ultimate Activation text is now localized
- Blood Maiden: modified the description for Shades of Agony
- NEW Common Merchant Item: Ring of Dominion - Necromancer Summons do 25% more damage but spells do 10% less damage. Only on offer when Necro is active character
- NEW Uncommon Merchant Item: Sunflare Spellbook - Summon the power of the sun to inflict damage upon your enemies
- Merchant Item: Mystique Vial, will now check what's currently on offer from the merchant, and it will not reward the player with anything on offer
- Blood Sacrifice Altar, Challenge Events and Cursed Altars now require manual activation just like the Merchants. You will no longer enter a trigger zone and have the menus automatically pop up.
- Modified the spawn logic of all altars and events
- Curse: Bilee's Revenge - Modified the color of the curse when playing as the Blood Maiden. It will now appear green, like poison, as opposed to red, to differentiate from the Maiden's spell FX colors
- Curse: Open Wound - will no longer tick damage on the player when the player near death. Damage is now capped to a low threshold
- Curse: Avarice Arrows: Added a 5 second cooldown to prevent spam spawning of arrows on multiple gold collections
- Curse: Flammable Goods - reduced the hitbox timer duration by 75% for explosions, making it easier for the player to navigate near exploding obstacles
- Curse: Catapult - boosted intensity of shadow color by 25% to improve visibility
- Curse: Grainloch's Minions - Added an extra 1 second delay to shoot a projectile when a stump is activated
- Curse: Deathcaps - Boosted brightness/contrast and added a shader effect to the mini spores, improving visibility
- Powerups: Soul Magnet powerups now have an additional chance to drop every 2-3 minutes in addition to the normal powerup drop rate
- Increased the XP gain of curses survived during endless mode by roughly 100%
- Boss: Ebon King - Now performs a warning before executing the Boomerang projectile attack
- Boss: Sporelord Rotwood - modified shader so the boss is now properly affected by lighting
- Castle Usvit: Likhoradka Elite - added an audio cue when she begins to cast a spell to signal a warning to the player
- Improved Merchant Spawning logic in Usvit Castle. Should no longer have possibility to spawn far from the player
- UI: Active Perk icon/info is now displayed in the Pause Screen and Level Up Screen before the active Merchant Items
- UI: Updated Key Bindings menu
- UI: Adjusted descriptions of character select menu to improve visibility and differentiation
- UI: Edited sprite swaps with proper sprites during button presses for buttons within the Options menu and Key Bindings menus
- UI: Added a notification icon next to the Knowledge button on the main menu to signify when a knowledge point is available to spend
- Audio: Reduced firebomb sound effect volume by 40%
- Options: Added a checkbox to disable ability fx lights
- Options: Added an accessible font option for English. If you want more font clarity and easier readability, you can toggle this on in the Options Menu.
- Credits: New menu and updated list
- Bug Fix: fixed an issue related to screen resolutions not being saved properly
- Bug Fix: Ranger Marked Targets will now appear in Usvit Castle
- Bug Fix: Ranger's Homing Shot now faces the correct direction when it fails to find a target
- Bug Fix: Mouse input now works for selecting a perk while in the perks menu
- Bug Fix: Applied proper shader to all gold collectibles
- Bug Fix: Necromancer: adjusted skeleton movement code to fix rare issue of skeletons not facing the proper move direction
- Bug fix: Tiles now shift properly if Hitch is active in Usvit Depths

We are planning to add another large update in July with some new events, tomes of knowledge, features, QoL etc. We are working hard on the end game content, and we are very pleased with how it's coming together, but we will continue to push out updates as we make our way to the finish line. More to come!

Stingbot Games

This Hot Fix addresses a rare bug which caused the game to "freeze" while activating the level up or pause menus if you obtained more than 16 merchant items in a run.

We're currently working on a very large build that should be live in the next week or two. Some things to expect: New abilities for the Necromancer and Ranger classes, new merchant items, tons of QoL, bug fixes and improvements. Stay posted, it's gonna be a big one!

Stingbot Games

After spending a year in Early Access, we're very excited to transition to version 0.9 of Keeper's Toll. This major update brings the final character class to the game: the Blood Maiden.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

We've spent a tremendous amount of time designing and building her and we can't wait for you all dive in and play. Here's a few things that makes her unique:

1. Animated Ultimate Attacks. We gave her some slick animations, such as Crimson Fury, the attack shown above. These ultimates are the final two talents in her talent tree, and thus must be unlocked. They have a cooldown timer and you must manually activate them during gameplay by holding the action button for 2 seconds (a prompt will be shown on screen when the ultimate is ready).



2. Build Variety: The Blood Maiden has the most build variety out of any class in the game. We spent a lot of time designing unique ways to build her with various synergies across talents, actives and passives. For instance, you could go with a straight poleblade build and utilize passives to strengthen poleblade attacks. Or you can choose a blood based build and choose passives to support that build type. Or, perhaps, you want to get deeper and choose the corruption passive, which places a small but permanent penalty on you, but strengthens your power. You could then gain additional passives to boost benefits of becoming corrupted. This is just the tip of the iceberg, for as we continue in version 0.9 of KT, we have more plans for the Blood Maiden. Some cool surprises and additions will be coming, just like we created the Black Flame for the Pyromancer.







Along with the new character class comes a new Perks System. Class XP now serves a greater purpose beyond just upgrading talents. As long as you have enough XP to buy a perk, the new perks merchant will arrive at the beginning of a round.



You can choose to purchase one of 3 available perks for a variable amount of XP, providing yet another way to boost your character during a run.

[h2]Build Notes (0.9.0)[/h2]
- New Character Class: The Blood Maiden
- New Perks System: When beginning a run, you can talk to the Perks Merchant to buy a perk. The merchant will only show up if you have enough XP to purchase a perk. 3 unique perks will be on offer and they will only be applied for the current round.
- New Tome of Knowledge: Spend more than 1,000 XP in the Perks Menu
- New Tome of Knowledge: Reach level 50 in a single run
- New Achievement: Max All talents for the Blood Maiden
- Merchant Indicator icon will remain active when player runs out of range. Will now only disable when the merchant is disabled. This way the player can return to the merchant and not struggle to find him if they so desire
- Adjusted specific enemy spawn rates
- Sacrifice Altar: added a glowing red light to illuminate the altar
- Dozens of Bug Fixes
- Lots of code refactoring
- Game Engine updated to latest version

[h2]Coming Soon[/h2]

As we continue development through version 0.9 of Keeper's Toll, we will be adding the following:
- Revisions/Improvements to all character classes
- New Events
- Tomes of Knowledge
- Additional language support. Over the coming months we will be adding support for German, Japanese, Turkish and Hungarian. We're currently looking for a translator to assist with French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian and Russian. If anyone is interested in assisting with this (paid work) or knows someone that might be interested, please don't hesitate to reach out to us. We'd love to chat.
- Various other improvements/fixes/additions to the game based on player feedback

[h2]The Future of Keeper's Toll[/h2]

There will likely be less build updates moving forward, as we are pushing hard towards our 1.0 release, and with the full version of the game there will be a lot of new content. We will be releasing 1.0 of KT on both Steam and Nintendo Switch, and we plan to port to other platforms in the future. We will be maintaining multiple versions of the game moving forward and it will be a bit more challenging having to maintain 3 versions of the game while simultaneously porting and testing on Nintendo Switch, so this is why updates will likely be less frequent than they have been, but rest assured we will keep you updated on progress as we move towards the finish line. Things can, of course, change as time goes on and we'll continue to keep everyone in the loop on any developments as often as possible.

Here's some important things to look forward to once we exit early access:

- Final level and boss fights. Some big surprises await unlike anything you've seen before in the game. We want the final content and gameplay to evolve and elevate the experience.
- Level tiers: Do you find the game too easy? Has it gotten easier throughout Early Access? Do you want more of a challenge? Do you want more meta/progression? If you answer yes to any of these questions then rest assured, because a secondary level tier for each world will be unlockable, which will increase the challenge, offer new threats and twists on the worlds, and elevate the game to a new level. More on this to come the closer we get to 1.0.

[h2]Conclusion[/h2]

We can't wait to see what you all think of the new content and we look forward to delivering more in the future. As always, if anyone has any feedback, bug reports, suggestions etc, please do not hesitate to reach out. We read everything and will do our best to respond as soon as possible.

Thank you,

Stingbot Games

Version 0.8.7 of Keeper's Toll is your gateway to discover the Black Flame! Begin your quest at Castle Usvit. Guide the Pyromancer through its labyrinthine halls, braving battles to unveil the secrets that lie beyond. Unlock ancient mysteries, unveil fresh opportunities, and gain access to a new tome of knowledge and skill point to use in the knowledge system.





[h3]SPOILER [/h3]
To begin the quest to discover the black flame you must be playing as the Pyromancer and defeat the Ebon King in Castle Usvit. Locate and read the Tome of Black Flame once the boss is defeated.

Version 0.8.7 also brings in a handful of requests from our player feedback list, some QoL updates and some bug fixes. Full patch notes below.

[h2]Patch Notes 0.8.7[/h2]

- New Quest: Discover the Black Flame > discover ancient secrets and new powers

- Idol of Banishment now has a small chance to drop in any chest. After the first boss is defeated, if no idol has been found, the drop rate is increased significantly

- Added the option to Hide Ability FX to reduce screen clutter. Toggle has been added to the Options Menu

- Hit Detection: Added controller vibration when the player is hit. This can be toggled off in the Options Menu

- Hit Detection: When player HP is low (under 30%) the character sprite will begin to slowly flash red. The flash will increase in speed as HP goes lower

- Refactored Player Controls script, improving ambiguous references and cleanup

- Pyromancer: Cataclysm Volcanos and Emberwake Fire Patches will now check if ground exists below a spawn position to prevent spawning outside bounds/within walls etc

- Added an ailment icon above the enemy's head when they are affected by Burn

- Sacrifice Altar - Blood animation is now time scale independent, nullifying the possibility of a delayed animation

- Necromancer: A skeleton counter has been added to the game HUD, displaying how many skeletons are currently active

- Necromancer: Skeletons now have a shader outline applied to them to boost visibility. Can be toggled off via the Character Outlines toggle in the Options Menu

- Armored snail will no longer deactivate when traveling too far from the player

- Bilee's Quest text is now localized

- Bug Fix: Abilities can no longer double spawn if activated from the Fortune Knowledge Skill on round start

- Bug Fix: Ranger's Burst Shot attack will no longer auto explode when entering the trigger area of the Challenge Event Platform

- Bug Fix: Fixed a collision check issue that prevented torches and candles from animating in Usvit Depths

[h2]Coming Soon[/h2]

We are getting close to finishing version 0.9 of Keeper's Toll, and with this major update brings the next and final character class of the game: the Blood Maiden. We're going to keep details about her a surprise for now, as we are doing some interesting things with her and we feel it will be more impactful if you don't know what's coming :) We're excited to launch her and we hope to have her in the game by the middle of next month. We will update our plans for the remainder of Early Access once we transition to version 0.9.

If anyone has any feedback, bugs reports, requests etc. please don't hesitate to reach out. We read everything and will do our best to respond as soon as possible.

Thank you,

Stingbot Games

- Updated the Steamworks SDK
- Updated a couple settings in the Save Management System

A larger update is coming before the end of month. Stay posted!

Stingbot