Greeting Adventurers. May the Doot doot be with you.
”And also with you”
Thanks, Joe Player. We’ve got a lot to cover this update, but we’ll start with the most exciting thing. We’re happy to announce yet another new Adventure! In fact, it’s a full on new game mode inspired by this festive spooky season.
It’s Gold Rush! A new multiplayer only Uncooperative Mode!
”What does ‘Uncooperative Mode’ mean, JayNic?”
Well I’m glad you asked, Joe Player. In Gold Rush, you play against other players and are tasked by everyone's favourite scourge Fergus the Mad to be the first to deliver 100 gold coins to his hidden vault. You’re in the (brand new) realm of The Midnight Woods. A land of perpetual darkness, and spoopy night time enemies.
The winner is granted a random one of three brand new cosmetic Lore Unlocks.
- Midnight Helmet
- Midnight Backpack
- Midnight Clothes
”So does this mean you’re attacking each other?”
No, Joe Player. At its heart, it’s still a Cooperative game. But given the mechanics already in place in FTK: you use the abilities and knowledge of the game to help or hinder each other. Sometimes whether you want to or not…
There are a number of strategies you can use to be more uncooperative than normal campaigns. We’ve been having a blast playtesting this mode, and have a few we’ll share.
- Pulling your team in to unwinnable fights, then running away
- Strategically dragging your party in to a dungeon when they’re across the map
- Buying items out from under another player
- Passing your turn in combat to assure you get the killing blow, and thus the first grab at Gold Coins
We’re sure you’ll come up with many interesting strategies, and we’d love to hear about them in discussions, or discord.
Other parts of this adventure mention:
- It’s very compact, and dense. The whole game can take anywhere from 30-60 minutes
- The world is landlocked, and small
- Unlimited lives. Death is just a temporary setback
- Sale, sale, sale! The realm is desperate for customers. Towns, Merchants, and Dungeon Shops are all cheap.
- XP boost. There is a minor XP boost to make things go even quicker
- Loot, loot, loot. There’s… more loot to scoop up.
- The amount of gold to collect is available as a House Rules slider, so you can adjust your game length as you like.
- There are no side-quests
”So all this time that you guys have spent building and refining systems, and mechanics has allowed you to make a dramatic, and unplanned departure from the original concept of the game in the form of this totally new game mode and adventure?”
Wow, Joe Player... I uhh… Could not have said it better myself. And it doesn’t stop there! We’ve got other new features that are across all game modes.
Weapon Switching in Combat
Yes. Now if you have another weapon in your inventory, you can manually select it in place of your combat action. This includes when your weapon breaks.
Safety Stone
The safety stone is a totally new mechanic design to help you out of tough spots… for a price...
Simply put, the safety stone is an item that all characters have, and will permit instant teleportation to any previously visited town. However, it will incrementally penalize your stats each time you use it. It’s starts at a measly -1% to all stats. Then 2%, 4%, 8%, and so on… (It should be mentioned that for obvious reasons: we kept the safety stone out of Gold Rush)
See it in action HERE
Boat Changes
We’ve added new boats at different strengths, speeds, and costs. In addition: we’ve added the hit points displayed on the boats in the overworld, and a Boat Repair Kit item that can be used to repair the boat in the overworld, or during the dreaded Kraken battle.
On top of that, we’ve changed the way boats, and boat repairs are conducted in cities/ports. Instead of only being able to get boats in Ports, now in any coastal city: you can purchase a Boat deed in their regular Market inventory. In the Services Menu: you can repair your boats adjacent to the town or port.
Cosmetic Items Override Display on Characters
You can now choose to hide any armour you put on, and instead show your cosmetic items. Of course this doesn't actually affect your stats - just the way you look!
”TL;DR; List me!”
New Features / Changes
- New Uncooperative game mode: Gold Rush. Includes:
- A new realm: the Midnight Woods
- A new Achievement for winning Gold Rush
- Weapon switching in combat
- Safety Stone: teleport to safety at an increasing cost of penalty to stats
- Cosmetic Items Override Display - Choose to display your cosmetic item, or your in game one
- Two more boats: Raft, and Fishing Boat (the original boat is now called “Merchant Boat”
- Boat repair kit - useable in the overworld, and Kraken combat
- Boats, and boat repairs purchasable in coastal cities, and ports
- Treasure chests drop more loot
- Sea caves have been reskinned with unique art
- Camera shake has been reduced in combat
- New Kraken animations
- New ocean tiles with smaller islands to break up the look of the sea
- Added more items to the Magic Merchant
Fixes / tweaks
- Fixed an issue where enemies would spawn too densely
- Fixed an exploit where using “more info” on a hidden hex would take the player to the encyclopedia for what was hidden there
- Fixed a bug where you could upgrade the Dragon Pipe without needing it
- When receiving a main quest with a hidden location: the camera will pan to the middle of the destinations realm, instead of on top of the hidden location
- Encyclopedia Menu tweaked, possibly in preparation for something in the future...
- Fixed a bug where the Walloper sold for too little
- Fixed an issue where “+1 focus” appeared twice from some encounter results
- Fixed a bug where a chaos attack that was supposed to drain focus, would not drain focus
- Using “Pickup Party” in a boat will now pickup members in other boats
- Fixed an issue that would result in incorrect roll slot percentages communicated between clients online
- Fixed a bug where players could not use belt items at the end of a dungeon floor
- Fixed a bug where some water encounters could spawn on land when walking off a boat
- Various controller fixes
The last few months have been full of hard work. Not only on what you’re seeing here in this list, but also new features in the future. An even newerer and biggerer story adventure is well on it’s way!
We’re so happy to have such a great community like you guys who continue to bring us feedback, stories, and criticisms. We hope the game will continue to bring you endless entertainment.
Happy Spooktober,
IronOak Games