KeeperRL Alpha 30 is out! This is a huge gameplay and content update, which took whole six months to produce! Check out the rundown below to get an idea about all the new stuff.

I’d like to thank everyone involved in crash testing this patch, sending bug reports and suggestions. Your help was invaluable!

As always, the update is already available on Steam, Itch.io, and Humble Store. You can also get the free version from here.

Playable Gnomes faction

The gnomes, while not combat worthy creatures themselves, are capable of crafting mechanical contraptions that will let you dominate dungeons and battlefields. Enjoy the brand new automaton crafting mechanic!

Kill titles and kill lists

Minions will feel more unique, and less like expendable cannon fodder. The game will track their kills, and give them titles for killing tribe leaders, along with significant bonuses. The Keeper will also write poems about your minions’ triumphs and failures.

White knight faction additions

Thanks to the generosity of Archdiggle, the author of the Dig Realm mod, who kindly agreed for some of their sprites to be used in vanilla, the White Knight faction receives new minions and structures. The main addition is a group of angelic minions.

Secrets!

I won’t put out too many spoilers, but you will be able to venture deeper into the Earth than you ever imagined. Really! (although it won’t be easy)

Using multiple mods at once

The modding system has been reworked to allow turning on all your favorite mods at the same time. Go crazy!

Multi-weapon combat

Creatures will be able to attack using multiple weapons and body parts in a single turn. This includes multi-wielding weapons if one possesses the appropriate skill and number of limbs, and using extra intrinsic attacks, like poisonous bites, kicks, etc. This feature makes certain creatures, like werewolves and vampires, much more interesting and powerful.

Changelog

Gnomes

• New mechanic involving assembling automaton minions from different body parts.
• 4 types of corpuses: light, normal, heavy, and helicopterum. Made from wood, iron or adamantine.
• Humanoid, fire breathing, acid spitting and archer heads.
• Melee, drill, crafting, and repair arms.
• No single Keeper creature, all gnomes need to be killed in order to lose the game.
• New traps: “destroy walls” and “trap trigger”.

Gameplay

• Some enemies will be retired when they kill the player, and the player’s base will be used as that enemy’s lair in future games.
• The player can choose any of the 5 existing biomes to build their base.
• Creatures get “slayer” titles and stat bonuses for killing tribe leaders.
• Keepers make paintings and write poems inspired by real game events.
• Guard zone designation that minions will take turns guarding.
• Creatures can fight with multiple weapons if they have the “multi-weapon” skill.
• Zombies have a special “Swarmer” trait, which increases their damage and defense for every other zombie nearby.
• Writing a poem or making a painting has a very small chance of summoning a demon.
• Shamans and other creatures with the “shamanism” skill surround themselves by combat-worthy spirits.
• Keepers abuse their minions to make them work faster.
• Hostility between creatures of the same tribe times out after 50 turns.
• Vampires will sometimes regenerate lost or injured body parts after biting an enemy.
• Minions eat at dining tables instead of killing pigs directly.
• Certain creatures and weapons get special attack and defense bonuses based on the enemy’s race, being indoors, only at night, etc.
• Bandits are less aggressive and the minimum gold amount that triggers them is increased.
• Insane minions with the absorption skill are still allowed to absorb.
• Non-prisoner workers can be assigned quarters.
• Ranged damage is taken into account when evaluating how dangerous a creature is.
• Prisoners go back to prison when idle.
• Removed peacefulness and invisibility permanent effects from altar destruction.
• Minions can create moonshine from rats and get drunk.
• Creatures made of fire emit light.
• Added amulets of life saving.
• Brainless creatures don’t have morale.
• Undead get brains.
• Friendly creatures don’t get angry if attacked by an effect that doesn’t hurt them (for example by fire if fire resistant).
• Discovered allies that auto-join don’t use up population slots.
• Traveling to other maps is not prevented if enemies are fleeing from the player.
• The game considers an enemy conquered by the player only if he/she killed at least one creature from that enemy.
• Added “Fire trap” spell used by red dragons and other creatures.
• A spying creature’s identity is uncovered if items are looted.
• An allied tribe will get angry if items are stolen.
• Some villains, like ants and dwarves will only defend their mineral patches instead of attacking the player, if their minerals are breached.
• Dwarves receive an “unstable” status, which can cause them to become insane if they witness the death of an ally.
• Travel to other maps is not possible when carrying unpaid items.

Content

• New “Hell” hidden dungeon of end-game difficulty with new enemies, special items and other surprises.
• “Black market” hidden level with special equipment.
• “Adoxie Vault” special level.
• New minions of the “less evil” Keeper: angels, galeams, cherubs, cleric, artisan, and recruitable Teutonic Knights.
• Blacksmith location with an artisan of legendary crafting skills.
• The Dwarf Baron enemy contains a blacksmith of legendary crafting skills.
• Wizard tower location.
• Ghost ruins are less common.
• Added random corpses with loot on some maps.
• “Animate weapons” spell added to some enemies.
• Scrolls of Audience, which work similarly to sitting on thrones.
• Added stone bridges, wooden bridges now burn if placed on lava.
• Added an “Ice demon” minion.
• Added a “weaker” dwarf creature that replaces the dwarf fighter everywhere except in the Dwarf Baron settlement.
• Added a yellow dragon enemy with an acid attack.
• Added Naga creatures of various colors and abilities.
• Removed insane orc healer immigrant.
• Added flowers to ground levels.
• Added trees to the arctic biome.

Modding

• Loading multiple mods at the same time is now possible.
• All graphics in the game can be reloaded by pressing F8 while playing.
• The size of the campaign map and enemy limits can be increased in mods.
• Creature inventories are moved to creatures.txt.
• Allowed defining custom biomes.
• Allowed defining custom workshops.
• Allowed defining custom resources.
• Enemy dungeons may have branches.
• Mods are moved to the “mods” folder.
• Existing mod or vanilla game elements can be modified or appended to.
• New Effects: TakeItems, RemoveFurniture, ChainUntilFail, AddMinionTrait, ChooseRandom, FirstSuccessful, IncreaseSkill, IncreaseWorkshopSkill, Psychiatry, AIBelowHealth, Name, Description, FixedDamage, ColorVariant, Audience, GrantAbility, TriggerTrap.
• DestroyWalls effect can work with Area and directional spells.
• Filter Effect for applying effects conditionally: depending on creatures’s health, enemy/allied status, body material, being hidden, being a prisoner/civilian, being an automaton, being indoors/outdoors, at night/day, creature’s race, holding a special item, checking for global game flags, and more.
• Stairs can have custom effects, including Filter, which lets you require certain things before a creature can pass through.
• Custom Effect triggered when chatting with a creature.
• Custom Effect for creature’s death.
• Custom Effect for furniture “entry”.
• Custom Effect for furniture “tick”.
• Custom Effect for furniture usage.
• Summon and SummonEnemy effects have a tweak-able timer for creature to disappear.
• World generation can be tested by running “keeper.exe –worldgen_test” in command line.
• Overriding endless enemies or specifying custom enemies per keeper is possible.
• Can define separate orders for digging and cutting trees.
• Immigrant special traits can include timed LastingEffects.
• Added “gold” body material.
• Enemy dungeons can have custom level names.

UI

• Activities can be disabled for an entire minion group.
• A list of kills can be inspected for every minion.
• When a sprite file is not found, the game will render a random sprite, instead of crashing.
• Poison gas gets a nice particle effect animation.
• When dragging creatures, their shortest path to the target is displayed.
• Whole creature groups can be dragged from the menu to workshops and other furniture.
• Constructions and workshop items that can’t be afforded are colored red.
• New Keeperopedia UI with bestiary, items and spells.
• New “keeper in danger” warning UI with options to disable or turn off auto-pause.
• The “keeper in danger” pop-up only warns about recent wounds.
• New glyph sprites.
• New trap sprites.
• Potion sprites have different colors depending on the potion’s effect.
• Company logo splash screen while the game is starting.
• Game initialization takes place during the loading screen to avoid lag when game begins.
• Added commas to spell school list in minion menu.
• Forbidden zone is rendered on top of objects if it otherwise wouldn’t have been visible beneath.
• Moved the [new team] button to above the team list.
• Time interval between autosaves can be changed.
• Added a mini-menu for scrolling directly to chosen z-level.
• Current z-level depth is shown in control mode.
• Removed “visible enemies” and some mostly unused settings from the minions tab.
• Minion menu shows body description and intrinsic attacks.
• Mod descriptions can be scrolled in mod menu.
• The game asks if you want to start with a tutorial the first time you play.
• Added “cancel” buttons to mod and dungeon downloading progress bars.

Fixes

• Massive reduction in RAM usage.
• Optimized particle effects animations.
• Building bridges on z-levels is now possible without having first to descend manually.
• Fixed bug involving inability to place structures in some visible areas.
• Fixed mixing messages from different games in message boards.
• Fixed music playback restarting on some computers.
• Fixed wrong cursor position glitch in full screen.
• Ranged attacks don’t abuse the “parry” ability.
• Illusions are ignored when AI forms formations.
• Fixed endless enemies saving issue which led to attacks being cancelled after saving and loading.
• Reduced VRAM usage by sprites loaded in mods.
• Wishing for Suicide, stunned, summoned, invulnerable and “turned off” effects is disabled.
• Increased cool down of “ice cone” to avoid infinite freezing loop.
• Removed sprite limit per mod.
• Fixed a rare crash when the wish spell is granted by a piece of equipment.
• Traveling by bumping into the level border is only allowed on the ground level.
• Fixed UI crash when alt-tabbing out of full screen.
• Fixed a rare crash in graphics likely caused by changed system clock.
• Fixed issue with rebuilding triggered traps.
• Fixed crash in direction choice UI.
• Made it impossible to place a trap on up stairs after claiming the tile.
• Items that are already in storage can’t be pillaged.
• The “Zoom in UI” is available only if resolution is 1600×1200 or higher.
• Fixed crash when trying to teleport outside of map bounds.