Tiny Rogues News

[TLDR is at the bottom.]

Hello fellow Tiny Rogues,
not even a week ago I released the biggest Tiny Rogues update ever, and now I am happy to follow it up with this massive 0.2.1 patch. I didn't expect this to get so big, so quickly, but I'm proud of the changes. So let's get right into it!


[h3]Bonfire Favours[/h3]
From floor 2 onwards you will encounter your good friend the bonfire in the spawn room. At the bonfire you can spend Souls and gain permanent stat boosts. You can also fully recover your hearts and flasks and attune your items at the bonfire.

Originally posted by RubyDev

Developer Thoughts: A big goal in bringing back stat upgrades to your character was to present it in transparent way and to make the system more flexible. The new system is powerful, flexible, brings interesting changes and choices to veteran players and most importantly it is: simple. The 0.2.0 update made the game quite a bit more complex and this patch introduces a bunch of simple but effective changes to make you feel a little bit more at home from the start, even without knowing and utilizing all the new funky mechanics.
It costs 30 Souls to gain a heart container, a point of stamina or a point of mana. As every boss drops 10 Souls this new system basically equals to the old system, just more flexible. You now can get 3 stat upgrades before floor 10 and if are lucky you might even be able to sneak in a 4th one from time to time. Players further in the game might note though that you need some Souls to go beyond floor 11, for that reason the prices of alignment shops have been reduced a bit. So even when you are deep into the game, you still get to gain at least 2 or 3 powerups.

[h3]Over 30 New Items[/h3]
The patch also brings over 30 new items with it. The main focus of these items was to bolster defensive choices, especially for melee characters.

Originally posted by RubyDev

Developer Thoughts: I think it is important that players are regularly offered strong defensive options. Not every item has to be a wall of text with intricate effects. It is fine when some items are just there to bolster survivability or damage.

Originally posted by RubyDev

Developer Thoughts: Having a lot of equip load and equipping some heavy but strong item feels good on a strength character but defensive options for low equip load characters often were lacking. There is a slew of new defensive charms that aid you in your quest to survive on generally squishier builds.

Apart from the new defensive items I also added some support for certain build and effect archetypes that felt quite underwhelming.

[h3]Blacksmith Buffs[/h3]
The weapon damage bonus per upgrade level has been increased to 10% per upgrade level. (Previously a measly 5%.)

Originally posted by RubyDev

Developer Thoughts: Weapon upgrades previously felt very underwhelming. Again, while it is cool and all that the game allows for more funky combinations and interactions to make a strong character, I find it very important, especially for new players, that fallback mechanics exist and that they feel impactful. When lacking damage it makes intuitive sense that a player might think to upgrade their weapon and now you should be able to feel the weapon upgrades.

In addition to this change some of the Blacksmith related meta perks have been heavily buffed to make them more enticing.

[h3]Melee Buffs[/h3]

• All one-handed sword base DMG has been increased by 10% to 30% across the board.
  
• All mace base DMG has been increased by 10% to 20% across the board.
  
• All axe base DMG has been increased by 10% to 20%. Twin Axes, Winged Axes and Berserker Axes have been buffed by up to 30% to account for their odd flight behaviors.
  
• All daggers base DMG has been increased by 10% to 20% across the board.
  
• All polearms and scythes base DMG has been increased by 10% across the board.
  

Additionally some of the new items have melee specific effects.

[h3]Stamina Availability[/h3]

Originally posted by RubyDev

Developer Thoughts: While you can get a stamina point from the bonfire, I also wanted to add new additional ways to gain stamina. The game throws a lot at you and it is important that as a player you feel like you stand a fighting chance.

There is the new camel companion, that grants +1 stamina.


There is the new tavern NPC, the Dryad selling Green Blossoms.

And there even are two new meta perks relating to stamina availability.

[h3]Other Survivability Improvements[/h3]
Heart containers and Phoenix Feathers (Granting +1 Revive.) can now appear shops. The main shop (with the Rat Merchant) now also rolls between 3 and 4 offers, instead of always presenting 3 offers.
The Slot Machine now can give Soul Hearts and Soul Hearts in general are a bit more common.
The Nurse in the tavern now also refills your flasks.


[h3]Mastery EXP Curve Adjustments[/h3]
You level up a lot quicker now, especially the levels 1 to 15 take a lot less experience. It was an oversight to expect new players to turn on cinder modifiers and mastery shouldn't be as crazy of a grind as it was previously. Enjoy!



[h3]General Changes[/h3]

• New bonfire favour feature. (Explained above.)
• Mastery EXP curve has been adjusted so you can level up faster, even without Cinder.
  
• Tally requirements now have a minimum of 1.#
  
• Soul Hearts are slightly more common.
  
• Suppression now comes before your Soul Hearts.
  
• The Arcade can now grant Soul Hearts.
  
• The Arcade now can break a lot quicker but the base chance to win has been increased.
  
• Dice have been added to shops.
  
• Heart Containers have been added to shops.
  
• Phoenix Feathers have been added to shops.
  
• Rat Merchant now presents 3 to 4 offers. Nomad Merchant now presents 4 offers and the Alien Traders now always present 5 offers.
  
• Soul price now don't increase with each floor anymore.
  
• Normal shops don't ever sell Souls anymore.
  
• Soul prices for rare, epic and legendary items have been made cheaper overall.
  
• The Soul Peddler and Charon (Soul Shops) have an inherent discount of 25% now.
  
• Shops that appear in floor 11 now also affect alignment.
  
• Curse has less chance to take effect in the range of 1 to 3 curse.
  
• Fixed how magic find worked for equipment and weapon rewards. Previously it was partially bugged and displaying on the wrong items, that it didn't actually affect. Magic Find is even better now.
  

[h3]Enemy Changes[/h3]

• Death Tyrants in floor 10 now activate their spinning laser attack staggered instead of all at once.
  

[h3]Trait Changes[/h3]

• NEW: Ignition Burst
  
• Double Trouble: Instead of doubling critical hit multiplier of repeated attacks, now makes them deal lethal hits.
  
• One Step Ahead: Additionally to repeating the attack after dash now doubles the critical hit multiplier of repeated attacks.
  
• Swagger: Additionally now triggers your on dash effects on the tally of 5 primary attacks.
  
• Near Death Experience: Should appear more often now.
  

[h3]Weapon Changes[/h3]

• Each weapon upgrade level now grants 10% more damage, up from 5% more.
  
• A lot melee weapons had their base damage buffed. (Explained above.)
• All versions of the Hero Sword have been massively buffed and the quest line to repair it has been fixed and improved.
  

[h3]Equipment Changes[/h3]

• Added a total of 30 new equipment items.
  
  • Some of the 30 items are new defensive charms: Soul Heart Charm, Block Charm, Evasion Charm, Stamina Charm, Flask Charm and Suppression Charm.
    
  • There is a new set for swords, the fencing set: "Touche! Engarde!"
    
  • The new items include support for on combat start, on picking up mana star and on dash effect builds.
• Dragonscale Greaves: Now also grant +1 Suppression and Combat Prowess buff now grants 30% increased melee damage, up from 20%.
  
• Heart Charm and Armor Charm are now rare rarity, previously epic.
  
• Jousting Armor: Now also grants +1 armor.
  
• Wisp Lantern: Now grants 2.% increased primary attack damage per soul you have, up from 0.5%.
  

[h3]Consumable and Companion Changes[/h3]

• NEW: Camel Leash, summons a camel companion that grants +1 Stamina.
  
• Stamina Potion: Is now in the main pool of potions. Previously you would only be able to get this from brewing it in the swamp event.
  
• Shellfish Surge and Ocean's Bounty now last 10/20 rooms (depending on the consumable), up from 1/10 rooms.
  
• Kelp: Now grants 1 stamina permanently, similar to the Starfish consumable that grants +1 mana.
  

[h3]Tavern Changes[/h3]

• NEW: Dryad NPC that sells Green Blossom and makes you good. Like the Cleric, she also has a preference for good and will give you a discount if you are good.
  
• The Nurse now also refills your flasks.
  
• Farmer and Santa are 5G cheaper.
  
• Tax Collector now trades you 30G for 10 Souls.
  

[h3]Class Changes[/h3]

• Necromancer passive ability now grants 2% increased damage per Soul, up from 1.5%. (To compensate a bit for the new Soul sinks.)
• Necromancer now finds more soul rewards than other classes.
  

[h3]Meta Perk Changes[/h3]

• NEW: Evergreen, makes Stamina Surge (from Green Blossoms) last 10 rooms instead of 1.
  
• NEW: Heart Seeker, makes items that grant hearts 25% more common.
  
• NEW: Stamina Scout, makes items that grant stamina 25% more common.
  
• Soul Thief → now named: Thief In the Shadows: If you defeat the boss without getting hit, you gain 25% magic find for the reward selection it presents.
  
• Inflation and Deflation: Now only work for Gold prices.
  
• Ethereal Roulette: Now grants 2 bonus ethereal dice, up from only 1.
  
• Loss Leader: Makes blacksmith prices be 10/15/20/25,... instead of 10/20/30/40,... (Previously was too much of a downside.)
  
• Worth of a Soul: Now makes weapon upgrades at blacksmiths cost 10 Souls, previously 20. (With the new Soul economy this might need even more changes in the future.)
  
• Loyalty: The upgrade to level 4 now doesn't increase the price. (But you have to pick either Loss Leader or Worth of a Soul before, so the 4th upgrade by default costs 25 gold or 10 souls.)
  

[h3]Cinder Changes[/h3]

• Unjust Incentive: Now specifies in the description that the spiked doors can be bombed.
  

[h3]Bug Fixes[/h3]

• As mentioned above, magic find has been generally buggy.
  
• Fixed that the calculation of advancing your periodical effects was completely wrong and triggered way too much. (Mainly affects the trait: Dynamo.)

I am thrilled to announce that Tiny Rogues has been a phenomenal hit during the holiday season, maintaining an incredible 2000 concurrent players! Your enthusiasm and support have been nothing short of amazing. And there is even more exciting stuff on the horizon!

First off, I will be fine-tuning the game's polish. You've experienced the depth of the new update, and now it's time to make it even more accessible. I want to refine descriptions to be crisper and easier to understand. The goal is to streamline your experience, making it intuitive and even more enjoyable.

I will also be working an in-game guide/wiki in which you can read up on every mechanic in detail. But don't worry – I want to keep the reading light. After all, I want you to spend more time exploring and fighting and less time studying and doing homework on the game.

Your feedback is the magic behind the game's growth. Join the journey on the community discord and share your thoughts. Screenshots, suggestions, or ideas are all welcome!

Finally, I want to better the game's visual clarity. Get ready for options that clear up screen clutter, like fading out your own projectiles, companions and more.

Thank you for playing and thank you for all the support, hope you had happy holidays!

Cheers,
RubyDev

TLDR:

• Heart-, Stamina- and Mana power ups are back.
  
• Lots of new defensive items, especially for melee characters but also for low equip load characters. (E.g.: new defensive charms)
• Upgrading weapons has been massively buffed.
  
• Base DMG of a lot of melee weapons has been buffed.
  
• Stamina is more widespread available in the game.
  

HOTFIX V1: Just did a hotfix which fixes a soft-lock that happened when interacting with blacksmiths that cost Souls and you interacted with them while not having Souls.

• Fixed a bug where projectiles from your own companions could hit you (for a lot of damage), if the companion despawned while their projectiles were mid-air. (Sometimes experienced on Hydra Wand, Ninja, ...)

Also a few hours ago there was a V5 Hotfix, fixing meta progression conversion from old save states:
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/2088570/view/3883856311467630661

• Fixed a massive oversight. Previously only your unspent Souls have been correctly converted into Mastery EXP. Now also your spent Souls contribute to that value. This means if you unlocked and spent Souls in the previous version you now already levelled up in mastery level. Please note that your playtime will not match because before the save state rework mid 2023 the game didn't track the times of your runs.
• Fixed that some class unlocks might have disappeared (Wizard, Mystic, ...) because their unlock conditions changed. The game now checks if you have ever done a run on these classes before, and if yes, they will be unlocked for you.
  
• Cinder modifiers are now only active when they actually have been unlocked. Previously some players would be stuck on a certain cinder level due to the unlock requirements for cinder modifiers changing.
  
• Additionally, the unlock requirements for cinder have been changed from defeating Death at Cinder 4/8/12 to 3/6/9.
  
• Fixed that a few descriptions in the game gave the same value instead of multiple different values. E.g.: Puncture said "5 to 5 damage" and Rainbow Staff listed the same damage number 4 times.
• Fixed that the "copy save slot" functionality on the beta branch of the game was broken.
  

Sorry for the inconvenience, hope you are enjoying the update.
- RubyDev

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Available now.

Tiny Rogues: Between Heaven and Hell is the first major early access expansion. The update finally opens the gates after Death allowing you to face new challenges in realms beyond the mortal world.

[h3]New Challenges[/h3]
Venture into the Shadow Planes, ascend the High Heavens, and delve deep into the Burning Hells, where you'll confront five brand new final bosses and a more formidable incarnation of Mega Death, now known as Primal Death.



[h3]More Variety[/h3]
The update adds 9 alternate floors with 2 boss variations each amping up the variety each run.



[h3]New Character Classes[/h3]
You can unlock 17 new alternate classes by conquering the new floors with the current classes. Some of the new classes offer really unique abilities, going beyond anything available in the game before this update. Additionally, many of the existing classes have been significantly reworked.



[h3]New Items[/h3]
Get ready for over 500 new equipment items, including the newly introduced set items.



Many items now have effects that synergize with your traits, your class, and your weapons, helping you create the perfect build.



To enhance your chances of getting equipment items that are meaningful for your build, bosses now present a selection of items, allowing you to choose one.



[h3]New Weapons[/h3]
There are 150 new weapons, including several new powerful and unique legendary ones.



In total, the game now boasts 400 total weapons for you to discover and use.



[h3]New Traits[/h3]
There are now over 100 traits. Many old traits have been updated, and there are a lot of new ones that focus on creating fun and powerful combinations. Some of the old community favorites, of course, still exist.



[h3]Companions[/h3]
Companions are a new feature. Whether it's the Necromancer commanding undead minions or the Druid summoning spirit animal companions to aid them in battle, companions are versatile buddies that not only deal damage but also grant stat bonuses to support you.



[h3]New Meta Progression[/h3]
Instead of souls, you now earn Mastery EXP, and with each Mastery Level, you can allocate one new perk on the meta perk tree. The perks range from game-changing effects to adjusting your personal preferences or gaining small but powerful stats. But don't worry, your accumulated Souls have been converted to Mastery EXP, so you've been fairly compensated and haven't lost any progress.



[h3]And Much, Much, More![/h3]
There's even more to discover like mini-games, new event rooms, updates to the tavern, a black market, new weapon enchantments, new rewards and much, much, more.



[h3]Announcing 3 More Expansions[/h3]
With the completion of Between Heaven and Hell, I've already planned the names for the next three early access expansions. Following this expansion, you'll delve into the sealed abyss and fight even more dangerous endgame bosses. The Beyond the Matrix update will mark Tiny Rogues' transition to version 1.0 and its exit from early access.



However, I don't have any release dates yet. In the period immediately after this update, my focus will be rolling out smaller updates. This includes adding uber versions of the new bosses, a potential boss rush mode, Cinder 20, and a Secret Secrets update, which, as the name suggests, will be packed with secrets.

Originally posted by RubyDev

A personal message to the community:
I've dedicated almost the entire year to this update. Pretty much every day the first thought after waking up was: Tiny Rogues. I have never worked as hard on anything as I have on this update. Over the past two months, I've invested 70 to 80 hours each week into the project and while my TODO lists are still plentiful, I must say that I am absolutely in love with the current state of the game I've created. I cannot thank the Tiny Rogues community enough for helping me balance and polish the game during the beta that has been running all throughout December. These three weeks really dialed in a new era for the game. While the beta launched in a rough state on December 1st, by now I truly enjoy every second playing the game. A lot has changed since version 1.9 and I hope you will find as much joy in trying out all the new features, discovering exciting new synergies, and facing all the new enemies and bosses as I do. I wish you happy holidays and thank you so much for your ongoing support. Thank you for playing and enjoying Tiny Rogues. (And I really mean it. I'm a solo dev. This ain't some post written by a PR department. Actually... now that I think about it, I am the PR department. Oh noes! )

[Scroll to bottom for a TLDR]



As stated in the early access information, with each big update the game will become more expensive, and as the content and scope of the game is more than doubling on December 22nd with the release of the Tiny Rogues: Between Heaven and Hell expansion it's finally time for the first price increase.



Around the end of this week the price of Tiny Rogues will increase from 5.99 USD to 9.99 USD. (Pricing changes in may vary depending on your region and currency.)

Unfortunately I wasn't aware of Steam's internal 30 day cooldown for discounts after increasing the price, which means that there will be no holiday, winter or launch sale for this update.



At the end of this week on Friday December 1st 2023 at 20:00 CET the final trailer for the expansion will release. The trailer showcases the full scope of the update, but no worries it won't spoil anything too important.
The actual update then comes (as promised in the last post) timely on December 22nd 2023.

Of course the expansion update is a free update, so if you already own Tiny Rogues you are done, set and ready for the update. Thank you for your support!

The trailer will be uploaded to the Tiny Rogues YouTube channel, there will be a Steam announcement post and if you follow me on X (the platform previously known as twitter ) you are sure to not miss it.



Additionally 1 hour after the trailer launched the public beta will go live.
Everybody that owns Tiny Rogues can participate for free by selecting the correct game version in the games properties.
The beta is highly untested as I am working to the last minute to squeeze in as many features, content and QoL as possible. Only join initially if you are ready for a disaster, otherwise I suggest waiting another week.
The best way to contribute feedback such as bug reports, error messages, crash reports or balance suggestions is on the Community Discord.



I wholeheartedly invite all content creators to share with, stream for or react to the trailer together with their community. I've worked super hard on the expansion and at this point it is basically a full rework of the game with, adding tons of new content, quality of life and also improving fundamentals of the game.

I ask content creators to NOT extensively showcase the beta as content is still missing, not polished or prone to errors. The beta is EXTREMELY untested and the entire point of releasing it 3 weeks early is to ensure an as stable and fun release as possible.
Don't worry though, I will contact you at least 5 days before the release on the 22nd with access to a pre-release branch that allows you to play, record and prepare for the update launch yourself. If you are worried that you are not in my list of content creators, feel free to contact me on twitter, discord or at [email protected]

Thanks for reading. I am looking forward to seeing everybody's reaction to the trailer on Friday. I hope you are as hyped for the update as me!

best wishes,
RubyDev

Originally posted by RubyDev

TLDR;

• Price is increasing from 6.99 to 9.99 USD. (varies between currencies)
• Trailer and Beta are coming on Friday.
  
• Beta will be untested, only jump in if you want to help.
  
• Content creators please share the hype/the trailer but I ask you to not showcase the beta.