What’s up with Mysterious Castle?

Nothing.

Well, recently anyways. I’ve just got a job programming apps for iOS, so the last several days have been pretty hectic. I’m happy to finally have settled into Canadian life again, and a stable well paying job has taken a huge worry off of my mind. That being said, here’s what the future holds for Myster…astle.

1) The job does not have an anti-compete requirement that will interfere with progress on Mysterious Castle! Yay! I’ve got an explicit go-ahead from my boss to continue working on my projects as I see fit.

2) I’ve recently had a lot less time to work on Mysterious Castle. I’m in a massive life transition now and have barely had enough time to sleep, nevermind anything else.

3) I’m committed to Mysterious Castle. I will keep working on it, and not just here and there as I find time, but as a serious pursuit. The delay between 1.9 and the next version will be longer than I’d have liked, but there are no compromises on the development goals. I can now see clearly that the next update will be the biggest yet, filled with some surprising additions.

Big hearty thanks for all your patience, news will trickle out slowly over the next few weeks, but it’s also a result of keeping some of my cards really close to my chest. When the next version finally does arrive, I think many of you will be pleasantly surprised!

33 years of stuff.

Just had an emotional few days of moving my parents out of their home of 33 years. I grew up there and the whole process was very emotionally charged. It’s sad to know that I no longer have a childhood home. *sad face*

I’ve only had a few hours to work on Mysterious Castle in the last few days, but I’ve been dreaming up ideas constantly. Once the move is completed I’ll be diving in full force on a slew of changes and additions. I’m pretty sure that the next update will be the biggest one yet. I’m also working on a video tutorial series to help explain how to best play the game. The first few videos are pretty long winded, but there’s a lot to explain and I’d like to avoid some of the negative reviews that arise from not understanding how to play. There are only two reviews on indievania now, and while once is generous, the other paints the game as a piece of shit… with good music.

If you’ve enjoyed playing the game, then please head on over to Indievania and let people know what you think of the game. I’m always open to criticism, and there’s plenty to be raised against Mysterious Castle, but reading about the game from someone who gets it would add some perspective.

Here’s the first video; how to make a balanced party. Cya!

Great suggestions from fans!

Hey! I’d like to thank all of you for some awesome suggestions that you’ve thrown my way! Many of them are really great, but because some are much more difficult to implement than others, I can’t get around to putting them in as soon as I’d like. It’s a little weird when people seem to read my unwritten plans for the future of Mysterious Castle and echo back suggestions that I always meant to add… when I can find the time!

Today I was inspired by a suggestion by Mike, and realized that implementing it would be quick and easy. So about 12 minutes later I added two new creature abilities.

The first one is rage, which activates when a creature drops below an HP threshold. When a creature is raging they get a fixed bonus to attack and damage, and also apply an equal penalty to armor. So the orc character for instance, at less than 35% HP gets +2 to attack and damage, and -2 to armor. Keep in mind that this ability also applies to NPC orcs…

The second, and natural corollary to rage is the awkwardly named stoic, I’m at a loss for a better word right now. It works like rage, in that after a certain HP threshold is hit, it kicks in. In this case your senses sharpen and you gain a bonus to armor class… with no penalties. So now dwarves gain a whopping +4 to armor once they fall below 25% HP.

Now I’m not one to throw around random things. I try to strip out unnecessary things, or at least things that I haven’t consciously tried to balance, from Mysterious Castle, hence the lack of gold, potions, and temporary status changers like ‘slow’ or ‘bless’. (BTW, this doesn’t mean that these things aren’t coming, I just need to mull them over a bit more). Especially in the case of temp modifiers, I’m hesitant because of the resource management aspects they bring in. Right now the only resources to worry about are HP, mushrooms, and actions (and wands to a lesser degree). Adding another resource, namely how many more rounds an effect takes place, adds complexity that I’m not sure about how to balance yet. I personally hate the ritual common to so many D&D type games, where you cast mage armor, and protection against evil (or whatever) at the beginning of your journey, and then cast another set of temp modifiers at the beginning of an encounter. After a battle you take into account what modifiers are still affecting you and then do it all again. I’ve tried to strip Mysterious Castle of such things. If there is something that is so beneficial to do that you’re likely to do it all the time, the game should do it for you!

These two new passive abilities are attractive to me because they are easy to manage, they are hands off, they just kick in by themselves and you gain a nice and interesting benefit without juggling yet another limited resource. I think passive abilities like this enhance the tactical depth, they add another element to the decision making process, but without the cognitive overload of juggling more resource dependant variables. It also helps me avoid the mistake of having suboptimal outlets for limited resources. In the wonderful game Knights of the Chalice, a great implementation of SRD 3.5 rules, casting the ‘bless’ spell rapidly becomes the least useful way to use a turn and spell slot. I hope that in Mysterious Castle, there are no such useless actions. In that vein, I’m going to be seriously rebalancing some of the nerfed races, spells, and skills in upcoming versions. (Can someone suggest a way to make halflings useful?).

This next version is full of changes and surprises. I’m thrilled with some of the new tactical possibilities that these changes present. I’m also very happy with some of the much needed improvements to the interface that I’ve added. I’m not going to give everything away right now, but I’ll confirm the following:

* More dangerous AI.
* Parties can now have 4 characters.
* 6 new races.
* 2 new combat actions (they’re cool!).
* Contextual help for actions (finally!).
* A totally revised and kick-ass sneaking ability.
* The new rage and stoic passive abilities.
* Other awesome changes and additions!

I’ve still got quite a bit of testing and tweaking to do, but I hope to have a 1.10 beta out in the near future. I’m labelling this a beta, not because of program stability (I’ve fixed a few bugs that have helpfully been reported by some of you), but rather because I don’t fully understand the changes in gameplay balance that will result from all of the exciting changed happening in Mysterious Castle.

Oh yeah, thanks for the ideas, and keep them coming!

Mysterious Castle is too hard…

I’ve just tweaked the enemy AI some more, now the game is too damn hard. I could not get past the first battle 3 out of 4 times… and this was on easy mode! Waah!

So what to do? I’m not going to dumb down the AI, I really like the new enemy tactics. Well, I’m going to add a fourth character to the party, and some new tactical maneuvers that will help you not die so damn quickly.

The battles I fought were against Kobolds, what happens when I face new improved vampires, demons, and angels? *craps pants*

Mysterious Castle News

It’s been a while! I’m slowly planting roots back in Toronto, after so many years abroad I came down with an acute case of reverse culture shock. Still, loving the peace and quiet, and the weather has been phenomenal.

Mysterious Castle progress is slow, but not halted, I’ve finally added a permadeath mode to make it more of a real roguelike. Now my challenge is to beat it on nightmare mode with permadeath. Actually, I don’t think that’s possible. I have a few other incremental improvements in the pipeline, notably improved sneaking interface, and possibly a fourth party member, to compensate for improved AI.

I also have a new site up, you might recognize the graphics. It’s more of a repository for personal and professional info. I might turn the main page into a Mysterious Castle beat-em up like the old double dragon games.

1.9 out for iOS

1.9 has just hit the app store!

Some final notes on the 64 bit compatibility. First the bug seems to only happen under DirectX. Second if you really want to run under DirectX, turning off the minimap will eliminate the crashes. I hope to resolve the issue soon.

Oh yeah, 14 hour trans-oceanic flights seated next to crying babies: not cool. And when did the seats become so cramped that you can’t use your laptop? Seriously, I don’t remember that part. The last few flights I took seemed roomier. But I’m back in Toronto, Canada, my home and native land!

64 bit stupid minimap, cheap workaround.

Huge, huge thanks to Alextended aka Al3xand3r (right?), who basically single handedly found that the source of crashes on 64 bit systems is the minimap. I guess there’s a problem with streaming textures on some systems. I’ve had 2 (two!) confirmations that by turning off the minimap, the game no longer crashes. The minimap is pretty darn important, it’s not ideal to simply turn it off, so I’ll be hacking away at the code while on the plane in an attempt to have something testable soon.

Anyways, I’m leaving in less than an hour and I’m worried that I forgot something important under my bed or behind the toilet bowl. Talk soon.