The Crystal Wizard is a new 3rd level boss. He starts showing up randomly in the castle after you have defeated the Executioner. He's similar to regular small enemies (i.e. you can stun him, freeze him, etc.) but he has a magic staff which he can use to shoot at you, the same way the playable magic characters shoot. He has +2 orbs and a mana canteen with practically unlimited mana, which allows him to use the staff's special ability at will.
His weapon is a Teleport Staff, which can be used to teleport to the opposite side of the screen. You can pick it up and use it yourself. Teleporting to the opposite side costs 2 mana, and you can also press the regular attack button to return to the position from which you teleported. This other action is free, but can only be done once. After that you would need to spend mana to teleport again. Some levels have hard to reach locations like walled off areas or parts across the chasm. These levels have a special preset teleport location, which is revealed if one of the players picks up the teleport staff at any point of the game. You can use the teleport staff to reach those places and return. That also includes the areas behind the shops in the forest, so now you can go there and break the barrel without needing two pets (bear+dog) to get the items. The teleport return point remains active even if you leave the room, but you have to be inside the room to teleport back to it.
The teleport staff can also be found in gold chests, shops and pedestals in the locked treasure rooms or blocked challenge rooms.
Beside the new boss and the new staff, there are other changes:
- added a couple (I hope funny) different texts for the signs in the forest shops
- bugfix: the guards wouldn't attack you if you petrified the king
- bugfix: sometimes the level generator would create a shop adjacent to the king's room, allowing you to skip the boss fight in the castle
The new version number is 1.9.9.