Monster Crawl News

Heroes have gone through a redesign! In place of a few hero characters with a choice of abilities, I've moved to more heroes, but each with a set of 4 fixed abilities.

This has a number of advantages:

• Removes the possibility of picking a combination of abilities that don't work well together..
  
• ..and means when designing a hero I can work with a fixed set, allowing synergies to be designed
  
• Each hero can be themed around a certain playstyle or mechanic
  
• Easier to add more heroes - rather than 7 new abilities per hero, I now only need 3-4 (some share the LIGHT ability)
  

Along with this change, the HEAVY ability is now available at the start of the Crawl, and SPECIAL abilities are now unlocked as dungeons 1+2 are cleared. Couple of reasons for this - help new players by avoiding everything at once, and the difficulty ramps up with every dungeon in the Crawl, so the player isn't super overpowered. I plan to add Unlocks opening up the SPECIAL abilities earlier for more advanced play.

Heroes planned for 1.0 launch are:

• Warrior
  
• Ranger
  
• Grenadier
  
• Wizard
  
• Blademaster
  
• Eggsterminator
  

To celebrate Steam Remote Play Together the Range will be included in the Demo and Monster Crawl:Warrior! Limited time only, so give her a try and let me know what you think on my Discord.


Lots of progress recently, highlights are:

• Challenges improved with tweaked maps, new additions, UI clean up and new Relic rewards.
  
• Crawl screen overhauled as I finalise the design and launch content
  
• Player lobby updated for the new, fixed ability heroes
  
• New art, abilities and animations following hero update
  
• Trees have a small chance to spawn as apple trees
  
• Ranger Recall Arrows reworked, now Awaken Arrows, and much more satisfying!
  
• Tutorial reworked to replace first dungeon of first Crawl
  
• Many bugs fixes, with special thanks to Aris for bugs and suggestions
  

Summon a giant steel, spiked ball, hop in, and roll over those monsters. While inside you are immune to floor based traps, but watch out for monster attacks..

A new 'time remaining' display has been added, replacing the DODGE cooldown display.

Modify your ride for a longer duration, or increase its speed. A 3rd option will be added when I think of something interesting!

Couple of minor changes:

• The damage dealt by fire, bleed and poison effects has been increased for monsters
  
• FIX switch icons remaining on map after use
  
• FIX 4th option sometimes hidden on level up choices
  
• FIX Lowered lighting when DEATH attacks would sometimes persist
  

Look out for new white portals within the dungeons - these lead to Challenge Rooms!



Enter to face a variety of different challenges (which all involve smashing stuff) without dying. All your ability cooldowns are reset upon entering, so you can get right to it. Die, and you fail - no reward but you can leave the room to pick up where you left off.

Destroy all targets and a shiny reward star is all yours! Once collected, a choice of rewards will be waiting when you activate 'level up'. Included in these rewards are a new set of stat buffs, adding an extra level beyond the normal buffs.



This is just the first pass - this system will be further expanded over time with new rooms and mechanics.

YouTube preview


Ability Mods are now rewards, so if you want to fully tailor your build you'll need to complete challenges. This is the start of an exciting overhaul of the heroes!

Monster Crawl DEMO is back with a shiny new look!

This update includes new Relics, a new dungeon trap type, more dungeon rooms and improvements to the Warrior including a new 'critical hit builder' mod. Multiplayer has also received polish, with different colour characters to help readability.


Replaced the old 2D, orthographic camera with a 3d perspective view, which really brings the dungeon alive! Corridors now feel claustrophobic, and I can add proper lighting for more mood and visual effects. Have already started on this work, but a lot more polish and effects to come!
YouTube 3D gameplay
Previously the player characters didn't animation when attacking, showing an overlaid sprite. I've had a number of comments this should be improved - and now it has! Really adds to the impact of the combat, so really pleased with this. Here's the Warrior:

I'll be updating the demo and Monster Crawl: Warrior in January once a few more kinks are worked out and the polish pass is completed.

Continuing to work on many areas including map generation, performance, player abilities and modifications.

Replaced the old 2D, orthographic camera with a 3d perspective view, which really brings the dungeon alive! Corridors now feel claustrophobic, and I can add proper lighting for more mood and visual effects. Have already started on this work, but a lot more polish and effects to come!
YouTube 3D gameplay
Previously the player characters didn't animation when attacking, showing an overlaid sprite. I've had a number of comments this should be improved - and now it has! Really adds to the impact of the combat, so really pleased with this. Here's the Warrior:

I'll be updating the demo and Monster Crawl: Warrior in January once a few more kinks are worked out and the polish pass is completed.

Continuing to work on many areas including map generation, performance, player abilities and modifications.

Received some YouTube coverage recently and the response was very positive! Have made a few improvements based on these videos, so thank you awesome content creators!

• JustDaZack
• Matt From The Awesome Duo
• Cryptid Varis