Today we're pulling back the curtain on the last (but not least) fifth hero coming to Krumit's Tale before our 1.0 release - Rose!
The Dual Nature of Light and Shadow
Similar to her incarnation in the original Meteorfall, Rose is a hero that straddles the line between light and shadow. Building that type of mechanic in Krumit's Tale proved difficult. In Krumit's Tale, one of the main ways to help heroes feel unique is with their starting perk. We found that by swapping Rose's starting perk under certain conditions, we could make Rose feel very different. Swapping between her two 'forms' (Rose and Queen of Shadow) is a key part of how Rose plays.
Darkness Corrupts All
One of the new keywords coming in the Rose Update is [Corrupt]. Corrupt, like Burn and Poison can be stacked on enemies. When a corrupted enemy dies, they restore health to the player equal to the number of corruption stacks. Corrupted enemies also leave behind a curse on the board. This becomes important with some of Rose's other tiles, because for Rose - curses are also a resource she can utilize.
Rose isn't above dabbling in the dark arts if it leads to gold and glory!
Curses and Blessings
The Rose Update also introduces a new type of tile as well - blessings. Blessing are similar to curses, in that they have a special effect while they're on the board. Blessing of Might, for instance, increases your attack against enemies that are adjacent to it. Blessing of Healing restores health to you after you defeat an adjacent enemy. After a condition is met (such as defeating an enemy), the blessing is removed.
Rose has a lot of tiles that interact with curses and blessing. Some of her tiles have additional effects while a blessing is on the board. Other tiles allow Rose to convert curses directly into blessings.
Chosen vs Queen
Various tiles swap Roses starting perk between 'Chosen' or 'Queen'
Chosen: Overheal: Convert a curse on the board into a blessing
Queen: Your first attack each battle applies corruption (2)
'Overheal' is a new keyword that triggers an effect whenever you restore health, but have some 'leftover' because you're already at full health. While Rose has the 'Chosen' perk, overhealing will convert a curse on the board into a blessing.
As the Queen of Shadows, Rose's attack applies corruption. If you recall - the new 'corrupt' keyword causes defeated enemies to restore your health, but also causes them to leave behind a curse on the board.
As you can see, as the Queen of Shadow, Rose creates curses; as the Chosen, she converts curses into blessings. You'll need to take advantage of Rose's duality to clear more difficult dungeons.
Pushing Your Luck
Part of playing Rose is about pushing your luck - filling the board with curses and then using her tiles to convert them into beneficial blessings instead.
One of Rose's most fun new items is the Hellfone. When you use it, it destroys all the curses on the board and summons a Cococat minion. The minion is more powerful if you're able to destroy more curses.
Another great item is The Queen's Grail. Once acquired, you can pay health to destroy *all* cards left in the deck, including bosses! The health cost is enough to kill you outright, but its reduced for each enemy you've corrupted. The board will be full of curses at that point, but at least the deck will be empty!
Sharur, Witch Hunter's Copotain, The Queen's Grail, and Hellfone - just a few of the amazing new tiles you'll discover as Rose
That's all folks!
That's it for now! We're super excited about this update, because Rose marks the last major milestone before Krumit's Tale leaves Early Access. From here, we'll continue to balance and polish, as we march towards the official 1.0 release.
In the coming months, as the development on Rose settles, we'll be kicking off a beta test for mobile (iOS and Android) as well. Our first game, Meteorfall: Journeys, was an iOS / Android exclusive, and mobile definitely has a special place in our hearts. As mentioned before, if you end up grabbing the game on mobile, you'll be able to copy over all your progress as well. We've been trying out some tests builds and it's running *very* nicely now. We can't wait to put it in your hands as well!
Keep an eye out for the beta release of Rose soon, and let us know on the Steam forums, or on our Discord / Reddit (/r/KrumitsTale) what you think!