Mysterious Castle 1.11 iOS w Pinch Zoom

v1.11

INTERFACE:

* Added pinch zoom with zoom independent UI, works great on phone and pad now!

* Increased the sensitivity of swipe gestures.

ADDITIONS:

* Winding rivers with fords!

* Alcove decorators add themes and special terrain to alcoves throughout the
world! Currently cemetary, campsite, well, standing stones, and crystal
cave decorators enhance each world differently.

RULES CHANGES:

* Changed the Control spell mushroom recipe to make it easier to prepare.

BUGFIXES:

* Fixed disabled permadeath button in options pane.

* Fixed the wolf’s broken attacks.

Mysterious Castle 1.11 … er, 1.10?

Compounding my merchant problems (I am in my 30’s and have never had any credit, apparently that means that despite my good job and clean criminal record, I’m unable to secure a damn credit card! I blame my parents for their poor credit choices, now my family name is sullied among financiers), my Windows machine has died a horrible death, and now I don’t have one to compile on. Grrr… Well, in the meanwhile I have fixed some awful bugs from 1.10 and finished 1.11, which includes a lot of environmental changes which make the world way cooler.

Rather than wait another eternity, I will just release the Mac version before the Windows version. For iOS users, 1.11 (which I pushed for review today) adds the sorely needed pinch zoom, which along with pixel perfect selection make the game very, very playable on a small device.

Really, really sorry about the delay. If you are on a Mac and you bought v1.9, you can e-mail me at jurksztowicz … @@@ … gmail from the e-mail address you used for the PayPal account which purchased 1.9, with the subject “Mysterious Castle 1.11” and I’ll personally send you a build.

Anonymous asked: So is it possible to buy and play this game on PC?

Yep, the Mac/PC version is one back (almost a year old), but you can try it out by clicking the Mysterious Castle Classic link in the sidebar. The 1.10 update is coming to Mac/PC soon!

Mysterious Castle 1.10 changelog

• GENERAL:
  • * Added permadeath mode! Although not recommended, it’s there for the hadcore. Because this is a party based game, permadeath is implemented a little differently. When permadeath mode is enabled, any character that dies is entered into a persistent store. Any game that is loaded will be scrubbed of the dead character.
  • * New contextual help system! When you select an entity, or an action in a menu, a translucent question mark ‘?’ will appear in the bottom left corner of the screen. Click/tap it to find out about that entity or action.


• ADDITIONS:
  • * Undead spell replaced with a new spell for players (AI’s still use it), Acid, a cone effect damage spell that has a high chance to blind targets.
  • * Vision spell replaced with a new spell, Quicken, which ends the casters turn and grants target an extra out of initiative turn.
  • * Standard world is now 60% larger.
  • * Added lakes with shorelines.
  • * Added blight areas, with different flora and fauna.
  • * Many races now come in ‘factions’. All members of a faction are colored the same, and factions have relationships between one another, sometimes hostile.
  • * A whopping 6 (six!) new player races, including lynx, minotaurs, orcs, kobolds, lizardmen, and wolves.
  • * New tactical action ‘defend’ allows a character to protect another from melee attacks. When a defended character gets attacked, their defender switches place with them and becomes the target of the attack.
  • * New tactical action ‘trip attack’, allows you to knock a character prone.
  • * New tactical action ‘block’ allows a character to trip an enemy that is moving past them. When an enemy enters a square adjacent to a character that is blocking, the character gets an attack of opportunity against that character. If the attack hits, then the enemy is knocked prone. If the tripped character has enough action points, he may get up and continue moving.
  • * Prone characters can be stepped over by members of any party. This allows for very interesting positioning tactics.
  • * New ability, ‘rage’. When a character with rage reaches a low health threshold, they gain a bonus to melee attack and damage, and an equal penalty to armor class.
  • * New ability, ‘stoic’. When a character with stoic-ism reaches a low health threshold, they gain a bonus to their armor class.
  • * Crafting! Well, the first hints of it anyways. You can now collect broken sword pieces, and reforge them into unique weapons them at an anvil.
  • * Some containers in dungeons are locked. The keys are usually nearby, but some locks must be picked.
  • * New NPC races: humans, ogres, cyclopses, and basilisks.
  • * Almost every race enhanced with new members.
  • * Unique NPC characters.
  • * Different weapons now grant specific mods to combat maneuvers. Heavy weapons are better at power attack, pole weapons at trip, etc.
  • * Two handed weapons.
  • * Many new, more specific, books that enhance combat maneuvers.
  • * Elixers of health, that permanently raise a member of your party’s max HP by 2. There are up to 30 of these scattered all throughout the game, so that characters who start with low HP, will be able to withstand the increasing punishment of late game enemies.
  • * New unique items.
  • * New item powers.
  • * Items of regenerate are now cursed, and cannot be removed after equipping.


• INTERFACE:
  • * Overhauled minimap system fixes glitches and adds colors.
  • * New world map overview.
  • * Totally new sneaking interface makes it perfectly clear which characters are sneaking, and how others percieve them.
  • * Entities are highlighted based on your perception of them. Entities which are hostile to you are highlighted red, while entities that are neutral, or have not noticed you are highlighted in yellow, and entities that may be beneficial to you are highlighted in green. This allows sneaking characters to target enemies that have not spotted them.
  • * Added icons indicating the duration of actions.
  • * Combat actions now show their relative bonus in the right menu item margin.
  • * Added labels to menus indicating why an action can’t be done. For example, if you click on an apple in battle, it’ll show ‘no time to eat’.
  • * Interesting corpses (with bonus items) are now highlighted in green.
  • * When exploring a dungeon, characters make spot checks to notice items in containers. Upon a successful spot check, a container is highlighted in green.
  • * Weapons now display their damage bonus in their menu.
  • * During combat in the character panel, the non-active party members are drawn grey, to indicate that they are not selectable.
  • * When creating a new character, default stats are automatically filled based on race recommendations. Stats can still be changed of course.
  • * Slight spellbook alteration replaces description with a party select panel.


• RULES CHANGES:
  • * Books now affect every member of your party. When you study a manual of dexterity, for example, every member of your party gains +1 to their dex.
  • * Individual attack actions (attack, flurry, shoot, rapid shots, etc…) have their own bonuses. For example some races get a bonus to flurry, but a penalty to power strike.
  • * Enemies will now make tactical decisions when selecting terrain, trying to take higher ground, cover, and flanking positions when possible.
  • * Enemy AI now singles out the party member which deal the most damage, this makes spell casting very, very dangerous!
  • * Enemy AI’s can now open doors and move between rooms in dungeons.
  • * Enemy archers can make spot checks to determine the most vulnerable party member and target fire them.
  • * You can now sneak and stop sneaking during combat.
  • * All races rebalanced and differentiated with new bonuses and penalties.
  • * Columns, candle stands and torch stands now grant cover.
  • * All entities have about 25% less HP, making battle even more furious.


• TECHNICAL/BUGFIXES:
  • * Optimized saving and loading. It will be about as fast as before, but with a world of more than double the previous size.
  • * Fixed the reset stats button in character creation.
  • * Countless minor and not so minor bug fixes.

Mysterious Castle Classic

Well, I missed every single deadline I set for releasing this game, ever. Every. Deadline. Missed. I really thought this one was going to go more smoothly, but alas, here I am again.

I spent about 10 days working on a feature that needs another 40 to get right, so I rolled back, slapped myself in the face, and went back to boring bugfixes and interface enhancements. I’m the most incorrigible programmer I know, I can’t seem to stop adding things! Well, I’ve cut out all the tasty fat I’ve been adding this year, and am back to the core. I just hope that I can stop myself from getting inspired anymore this month. The backlog of TODO’s is a long and silly (and awfully exciting!) document.

One more time. SORRY! Sorry I’m so flakey! I hope the wait is worth it for you all!

I have ceased selling Mysterious Castle 1.9 on Indievania, it is now a free download. I will probably move to a different merchant system for the next version, but fret not! All those who have payed for 1.9 will be eligible to receive 1.10 (2.0?) for free. My paypal records are pretty comprehensive. Some of you may remember that I made a promise to keep MC freely available, I have not rescinded that promise, but it has gotten a little more complex.

Most merchant systems want to make money. Supposedly, offering people the choice of not paying at all is a bad way to make money. So pretty much every merchant system I have been researching has obligations in place that prevent me from undercutting them with a $0 dollar price tag. Sad, but true. With that in mind, I will be moving to a merchant system that does NOT support pay what you want (unless someone can suggest a magical fairy service that doesn’t want to claw your eyes out for money?), and I will be distributing the ‘I chose not to pay just yet’ versions via bittorrent.

The bittorrent version will be identical to the salesportal version, I don’t believe that DRM helps anyone out in the long run, and I’d still rather you play the game and never pay me, than pay me and never play the game (although when my rent is due I might waver on this point).

Enough promises, now is time to deliver, and I’m very, very proud of this version of Mysterious Castle. It’s simply better than the old version in every way. I really love how vicious and surprising the AI can be. I think the UI improvements make the game easier to play and easier to enjoy. I’m super stoked! I appreciate the patience that those waiting for this version have shown, and I hope that you are as satisfied and pleased with the final result as I am.

Happy new year!

Hey everyone, happy 2013!

Mysterious Castle 1.10 is in the final pre-beta stages. I have had to cut some of the planed additions short, as the complexity was becoming a burden. I realized late last week that I had all the ingredients of a good game, but the mixture wasn’t right. I have since reverted a few things which will need to be placed into the game with care, and spent the rest of my holiday on balancing and treasure distribution.

A lot of awesome things have made it into this next version, but a few were dropped. I don’t like the balance (or lack thereof) of combos, the new spellbook needs more work before it can replace the current one, and the quests are too bland to add anything to the game right now.

What 1.10 will have is a much deadlier and more interesting AI, a pair of new spells will replace some of the nerfed ones from 1.9, an insane amount of new treasure, including reforgable swords, staves, and two handed weapons, and a plethora of new enemies with new abilities. Also introduced is levelling battle maneuvers with books and weapon bonuses, an entirely new and very useful sneak system, and a multitude of interface tweaks and enhancements.

Finally one of the more subtle changes will not interest some of you, but has been an exciting development for me. When I designed Mysterious Castle, I was targeting the iPhone. I have since realized that my little girl hands are not the average and the system is too cramped on a phone. However the game now plays gorgeously in VGA mode on an iPad. I don’t feel like playing the desktop version anymore (used to be my preferred mode), as the game is just so perfect on an iPad. This version coming out will be universal, but I will phase out Phone support at some point in the next year, so I can focus on building an interface for 640x480 VGA mode. I will release a classic phone version so that customers that payed for a phone version will not be left out in the cold, but will I focus future development on the new aspect ratio.

Happy new year all! All the best to you and your loved ones, and good luck on reaching your goals in the coming year!