Meet The Locker

on Aug 30 in Blog tagged by Keith Burgun

Psst.  Hey you.  Yeah you, with the bucket-shaped helmet.  And you, vampire lady with the wings.  You guys got anything good on ya?

I don’t mean to pry or nothin’.  It’s just… well… what are you doin’ down here, exactly?  Wait – don’t tell me… you’ve been given a quest to go kill an evil wizard, the evil emperor, or the devil, or…  Ah, it was the devil, wasn’t it.  From the looks of ye, that probably sounded like a pretty good deal, eh?  You two weren’t exactly popular, I’m guessing.  Taking down the lord of darkness himself oughta make you a star, right?

So, here you are, adventurin’ down deeper and deeper.  I can see the eager looks on your faces;  you want that Satan-head so bad! You’ve amassed quite a little collection of items on the way… let’s see…  two Health Potions, poison darts, leather armor… not bad.  Well, I guess you – hey wait… what’s that I see glimmering on your finger, there?  Is that a… Ring of Strength +5?  Wow!

You might want to let me hold onto that.

It… it’s a bit hard to explain why.  Hmm… how do I say this?  Okay, imagine you’re a… a pumpkin.  And, so, Satan… he’s like… he’s the pumpkin-harvesting mechanized farmer-robot.  And he’s – sure, you can call him “Farm-Tron 5000″.  Anyway, let’s say you’re the pumpkin, and you’re trying to get away from the pumpkin patch, and escape to freedom.  So, you’re wiggling free of your roots, and trying to get by all the other pumpkins, and – and you’re feeling pretty good about it, right?  Like, you guys right now – I can see that you’re excited, and, you know, you have hope and all of that.  Well, but then, this pumpkin – which represents you – it can’t really outrun the high-tech tractor treads of this mechanized monster, the Farm-Tron 5000.  I mean, he’s got laser cannons, a bazaooka, a gravitron pulse beam, all SORTS of dangerous jazz, and you’re just a damn pumpkin.  I know it’s not a great analogy, but… do you get where I’m going?  You don’t, do you…

Alright.   Well, look – I know you might not understand now, but… I really think you should let me hold onto that ring.  I can hold onto it, and a few other items too if you want!  I mean… you guys look tough and everything, but you know, if somethin’ were to happen to yas, that ring would definitely be safe with me…

What’s that?  You don’t need advice from a stupid locker, you can take care of yourself?

*Sigh*… so I’ve been told.  Many, many times.

Contest Winner, 1.06, and HELL

on Aug 18 in Blog tagged by Keith Burgun

• The Jani-Taur (Jay Geldhof) (49%, 68 Votes)
• The First Rogue (Fraggle Rogue) (36%, 50 Votes)
• The Fisher King (Fraggle Rogue) (14%, 19 Votes)

Looks like we have a winner! Jay Geldhof’s “The Jani-Taur” will be added to our game as soon as we can get to it and figure out where he belongs!  Fraggle Rogue (The French Rogue) also got a substantial amount of votes, with 36%!  Nice work, all who submitted!  We sort of want to make a game out of nothing but the submissions from this contest.

So we’ve been churning along as usual, but 1.06 is a particularly special update.  Besides the stuff you’re used to – new content such as monsters and items, we’ve actually added in a major game feature – The Item Shop.  The Item Shop in 100 Rogues is run by a strange fellow named Quabbus.  He’s only found here and there, but he has an assortment of interesting items.  There are some items you can only get from Quabbus!  It’s sure to be a game-changer, and one thing I know everyone will appreciate is that while his assortment of items is random, he always has one food-type item in his inventory.  This will make it so that you have a bit more wiggle room for food.

For the past month or so, our lead artist Blake Reynolds has been tied to his computer, hand-crafting the next generation of monsters, pixel by pixel.  We’re planning on slowly unveiling some of these monsters, and today I’d like to share one with you.  This Satan’s a pretty important guy;  at least, he gets that impression, what with all you hundreds of rogues coming to kill him every day.  For this reason, he has hired his own personal protection.  I give you…  Satan’s Bodyguard!

As you can see, he carries a slick semi-automatic pistol.  Scary thing is, he sometimes fires twice, and sometimes three times, so you won’t always know what kind of damage you’ll be hit with next.

If Satan’s Bodyguard assess the situation as a bit too dangerous, he could call for backup.  This can get ugly as each bodyguard can summon one other bodyguard onto the scene.  If you’re not quick about dispatching them, you could find yourself the focus of a firing squad.  Bad news.

Hell is in the works right now, and version 1.06 should be in your hands in a matter of days.  We’ll keep you posted on other developments.  Meanwhile, come let us know what you think of Satan’s Bodyguard on our forums!

100 Rogues Design-A-Monster Contest: You Decide!

on Aug 02 in Blog tagged by Keith Burgun

Hello all!  Since we started the contest nearly two months ago, the response has been really great.  We’ve gotten entries from some young kids, all the way up to some industry professionals all sending in their wacky, fun ideas.  What’s really great is how a lot of you seem to have really picked up on the “voice” of 100 Rogues and have run with it.  So now it’s time for you to vote!  Which of these lovely creations gets to be immortalized in 100 Rogues?

You can vote for up to 3 entries.  Many of these have descriptions inside the actual graphic, for those you have to click on them (twice, due to a strangeness of our image uploader here) to really read them.  Voting is at the bottom of the page.  Enjoy!

“Here is my first idea: A Dog!  It’s not the most unusual monster, but sometimes when you’re going on adventures you’ll have to deal with A Dog.
A Dog is always sleeping when you enter the room. If you or any monster come within four tiles of it, it will wake up and start attacking the nearest target. It will continue to attack the closest target it sees, either in the room or in the corridor.  If A Dog doesn’t see any targets, it will go back to sleep.
A Dog can be tamed by throwing food at it. If tame, it will continue to attack the nearest enemy, but it will not attack you; instead of going back to sleep it will follow you around.“

“This is Spearbill, a large, flightless bird.  Spearbills travel alone or in small flocks of three to five. Adults reach a height of four to six feet.
It moves at double speed.  Because of its speed, it is difficult to hit at long range.  However, the Spearbill has a delicate build, and is easily felled with melee weapons.
When killed, it may drop a Spearbill Beak, which can be thrown to damage enemies.”

“Clockwork/Chronos/Chronus (Whichever is best).  Has the ability to either skip the player’s turn, or skip the monsters’ turn (random). Increase your aging – a temporary effect that causes you to starve faster.  Stays a safe distance from player (a support monster).  A backstab causes time to freeze for three turns.”

“In terms of game play, these Enchanted Dynamite sticks walk up to the player’s rogue and self detonate, causing magic damage in all 4 adjacent squares like a Holy Fires spell.  Killing this monster with a ranged weapon would have the same effect, though if not next to the rogue, wouldn’t damage him/her.  This dynamite monster would be beneficial for the game because it shakes up the target priority for 100 Rogues players. Not only does it benefit the player to kill the monster from afar to avoid personal damage, but also to inflict damage on other monster that may be in the area.”

For some reason I can’t get The Mummy of Death or Ted the Undead Red Head to upload here, so please click on these external links.

The Mummy of Death (John P Ruf)

Ted the Undead Red Head (Chad Bagaason)

That’s the last of them!  Thanks everyone for submitting!  Now, VOTE!  And tell your friends!

Design Notes on 1.05

on Jun 24 in Blog tagged by Keith Burgun

The big additions to 1.05 are the “attack” button (so that you never mis-click with a ranged weapon again!), and the iPad version, which has a great new user interface.  But I’d like to talk for a minute about some other changes for 1.05.

I think the most significant one is a dramatic shift in the way items are generated.  Firstly, there are now only three levels of rarity, down from five, so you will end up getting more of a variety in general.  To counter balance this, there are slightly less items overall.  Also, to fix the food issue that we were having, we’ve added a smaller food item, called “Drumstick“, which is a very common drop.   Furthermore, we’ve made some items more common in the Bandit Hole and some items more common in the Dungeon.  For instance, Platemail may be nearly impossible to find in the Bandit Hole yet common in the Dungeon, and some other items may be the opposite.  Still working out the details on this, as we speak.

Anyway, this will be a really dramatic change for the better in how 100 Rogues plays, and I hope you’re excited for it.  I believe we’re sending 1.05 in to Apple on Monday, so you should get it hopefully sometime next week.

Also, we’ve nerfed Satan big-time.  I figure, if you get that far, you should be probably be able to beat him.

Design-A-Monster Contest Launches Today

on Jun 11 in Blog tagged by Keith Burgun

The 100 Rogues Design-A-Monster Contest launched today.  This gives you guys, our awesome fans, a chance to show your creativity, have fun, and get your name in a published video game.  I know you all have really great ideas, and what’s nice about the 100 Rogues universe is that it’s tremendously flexible.  A cardboard box, a businessman, an alien – whatever you have in mind, we could make it work.

You can get details on how to participate HERE.  I look forward to seeing your submissions!

June 2 Update

on Jun 02 in Blog tagged by Keith Burgun

We’ve been chugging along, adding more content and smoothing out the rough edges, every day.  I just thought I’d fill you in a little bit on what’s in store for you in the coming weeks:

• A new monster will be the very next patch.  He’s called “Gingerbread”, and he’ll attempt to run away from you.  If you catch and kill him, he’ll drop tasty food.  This should help a little with food concerns.

• Several new items are being added.  The mighty “War Hammer” is a two-handed weapon that requires Heavy Armaments like the Axe.  It deals less damage than the Axe, but has a  chance to knock enemies backward when it hits.  Another item is the Rejuvenation Potion which fills both HP and EP.   Yet another is a rare, unique magical weapon called the Quad-Bone, which has some very neat magical effects.  This is just the tip of the iceberg, though;  there are many, many new crazy items on the way, and soon.

• Blake has been working on some new monsters.  One is for the Dungeon, called “Flour”.  Flour heals nearby enemies by throwing his magic, sparkling flour on them.  He looks great, wait till you see him!

• New challenges are in the works, too.  Perhaps there will be another prize at the end of this series of challenges, although expect these to be dastardly.

• Some noticeable balance changes are incoming for 1.04 – Magic Crystals will get a significant nerf, and Healing’s over-healing ability also is less effective, among other things.

Anyway, in short, we’ve been working really hard, and we hope you’re all having a good time with 100 Rogues.  Please keep in touch with us and let us know if we can help you with anything!

An Exciting End to the Week

on May 14 in Blog tagged by GeorgeMorgan

We are extremely pleased to be able to announce that Apple has added 100 Rogues by to the App Store’s “New & Noteworthy” area. It is very rewarding to be recognized in this way.
In other developments, we’ve again been busy trying to sort out and fix significant, frustrating bugs that remain in the game. We pushed a 1.02 revision to Apple which will probably be available shortly. We admit that certain issues are not even close to being resolved. We’ll be back over our grindstone on it next week.

Updates

on May 06 in Blog tagged by Keith Burgun

The game has been released to lots of praise!  TouchArcade wrote possibly the best review we’ve ever read for any game, ever. Comments on various forums have been overwhelmingly positive. Many of you seem to understand that we have a vision for this game, and that we really care about player experience.  We intend to support and develop this game for the long haul, and we expect you’ll be pleasantly surprised by future updates.

On the downside, the game’s initial version had a crashing problem that sneaked into the final build.  Apologies for that, but version 1.01 is now live (within 3 days of initial release!) and should improve game stability vastly.

Finally, there is a 100 Rogues Remix Contest going on over at OCRemix.  If you’re a musician, give it a shot!

See you on the boards!

The Pixel Art of Blake Reynolds

on Apr 29 in Blog tagged by Keith Burgun

Our lead artist, Blake Reynolds, has bestowed upon this game not only some of its great music (like the Dungeon theme, the intro & ending cutscene music, and a few others), but he has changed our game from looking like an independent developer’s pet project into looking like a AAA 2D title. 

Check out his post at Pixel Junkie to see some of the amazing work he has done.

Also, we’re submitting to Apple today!  You could be Going and Killing Satan within 24 hours!
Thanks to all who helped us out on this incredible 18 month journey.

100 Rogues Soundtrack released & reviewed

on Apr 04 in Blog tagged by Keith Burgun

The 100 Rogues Official Soundtrack has been released for free!  Download it here!
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And our first review is in!
“The 100 Rogues soundtrack is not only a great free collection of music, its a great walk down memory lane and a must have for any synth composed music fan.”

Full review here.