Wednesday 4 March 2015

HyperRogue 6.2: circles and horocycles

HyperRogue has been updated with two new lands! These new lands are different from the old lands in the fact that they are not bounded by straight walls, but by other shapes. In particular...

Camelot is a puzzle level -- there are enemies here, but the main goal is to solve a puzzle. It consists of two concentric circles, one of radius 28 (the Round Table) and one of radius 38 (the walls of Camelot). There is a single treasure, the Holy Grail, which is in the center of both circles. Since a circle of radius 28 has 31659398 cells inside it (and Camelot of radius 38 has 12505470664), this is not as easy as it might sound! Once you find the Holy Grail, you can find more castles later (which are all named Camelot), but the circles will be larger (radius grows by two, so the number of cells inside grows roughly thrice). You need to find 5 Emeralds (in the Emerald Mine) to find Camelot in the Crossroads.

As a puzzle level, Camelot is optional -- it is not required for neither the main Quest to get the Orb of Yendor (actually it is probably harder than the Yendor Quest), nor for the Hyperstone Quest. I see several approaches here, so let's see what the players will find.

Temples of Cthulhu can be found in R'Lyeh after finding 5 statues. At the first glance, they also consist of concentric circles, each circle closer and closer to Cthulhu himself... there are also many tentacles there who try to block your access to the inner circles, but you can block them by pushing the big statues around. but in fact, these circles are infinite, and there is an infinite number of them in each temple. Difficulty is done differently than in other lands: inner circles are more dangerous, but you need to get there, otherwise you will find the same Grimoires again and they won't count (it is pointless to bring two copies of Necronomicon).

Version 6.2 is already on Steam. HyperRogue Gold for Android is going to be updated soon, and the free version after some time. Have fun! Some other minor improvements:
  • Distance calculated better in the logfile.
  • Stabbing achievements are fixed.
  • Extra messages when finding treasures.
  • The display of the player changed a bit in the cheat mode.
  • Better facing for Golems.
  • Starting location has been fixed for the Vineyard, Land of Power, and Emerald Cave in the Euclidean mode (anyway, these three lands have maps which are strongly based on the hyperbolic geometry, so they don't look that interesting the Euclidean mode).
  • Structure display cheat (ctrl+C). Treasure cheat (shift+T) improved.
For completeness, version 6.1 fixes the following:
  • most monsters now target your friends and hyperbugs (previously they only targetted you (unless invisible) and Thumpers), also fixed a bug with Invisibility
  • running dogs (and other monsters in LoEM) now try to run away (in a roughly straight line) even if they have no target, instead of just falling
  • some halfvine bugs should be fixed (both graphical and logical)
  • changed the ASCII symbols a bit
  • changed the colors a bit (Miner's pick axe and Hedgehog Warrior's body is brighter)
  • you no longer produce chasms when using Orb of Aether in the LoEM
  • ruby achievements should be working again
And patches to 6.0 fixed:
  • a bug with rings.
  • better coloring of Emerald mines.
  • "You can right click any element to get more information about it."
  • Hives renamed to nests.
  • Silver sign.
  • Power is drained when teleporting out of the Land of Power.
  • Bugs related to saving fixed.
There were also numerous typo fixes and other text improvements.
FURTHER UPDATES:
And patches to 6.2 (version 6.2a):
  • Russian translation.
  • Added info about wandering Ghosts to the Ghost description.
  • Worm explosion destroys big statues.
  • Cult leaders appear in R'Lyeh now, to prevent the player from camping in Temples.
  • No GAME OVER if you can still mindblast someone.
  • time recount
  • You can no longer use Knights for the Golem achievements.
  • Fixed the message when Knights are killed by monsters.
  • More cloak colors. Cloak color is saved.
  • Removed the Thorn power when getting the Holy Grail (it was likely to cause you to kill Knights).
  • Fixed a possible crash with Knight outside of Camelot (it seems very hard to make him leave Camelot, but anyway).
  • (6.2b) updated the Turkish translation, language is now also selectable in Steam.


HyperRogue 6.3 brings new Orb types to the new lands (Temple and Camelot). Orb of Dragon allows one to throw fire just like the Cultists, while Orb of Trickery allows the player to place illusions of themselves. Additionally, more monsters now take invisibility/friends/illusions into account. Also, the Russian translation is ready (and French and German translations are coming).

HyperRogue 6.4 changes some things about Golems, and introduces several new interface options.
  • Golems (and Knights) now act after enemies, not before them. This has been changed because previously sometimes a move was judged as invalid (i.e., lead to death) even though actually a Golem would kill the responsible enemy first. Additionally, Golems will follow the player again (they just go straight towards the player without any pathfinding, though).
  • You can now press ESC in the GAME OVER screen to see the circumstances clearly (for example, to take a screenshot of your last epic battle).
  • For items and monsters, there is a 'high contrast' option which adds a bright border to them. Rather ugly, but effective. You can also press ALT during the game to achieve the same effect.
  • Since heptagons often give a tactical advantage, there is also an option to display heptagons darker.
  • Finally, there is an option to require pressing Shift to target the Orbs with ranged powers (Teleport, Trickery, the Mind, and the Dragon).


HyperRogue 6.4a disables the useless "ESC for menu/quest", and fixes the Miner/Slime interaction.