Crimson Keep News: LOOT!! New trailer, and PAX West

Hey everyone, Ian here, artist and game designer of Crimson Keep. The big news is that we've got items dropping from monsters, and it's fookin awesome! It feels like the last major pillar of the game is completed, a lot of what we do from here will be building on these systems that are now in place.

As you can imagine, items, equipment, and potions have already started to bring a whole new level to the game. I have about a thousand items to make and balance, it's a little daunting, but it's also a lot of fun. Creating and balancing items and loot tables for my own, unique game is something I've been looking forward to literally since I was about 10 years old. As for random item generation we'll have most of the roguelike fixings, that is, random potion and scroll colors, forcing the player to take risks using unidentified consumables in emergencies, or the more methodical approach of learning what everything does as soon as it's found. I plan on adding a couple hints for figuring out which potion and scroll does what however, like different stack sizes for different types. We'll also be using an affix system for randomly generating weapons and equipment similar to Diablo, where we differ is with the creation of cursed affixes which usually have some sort of negative effect along with the issue of it being cursed (can't be unequipped until uncursed). But there will be several shrines and consumable types to deal with each of these problems. Another interesting idea I had was a potion that if you test it (quaff it) it hurts you, but learning what it is reveals its usefulness. Like a poison vial that you drink to identify, and then can be applied to a weapon or perhaps thrown. The game is going to be getting much more complex and interesting very soon, and I'm loving every minute of it!!!

As of writing this PAX West starts in about an hour and I'll be there peddling business cards, networking, maybe looking for a publisher? Who knows, but it should be fun. In preparation for handing out cards and maybe some more people getting to see the game/website, we're updating it with some new text, art, and a brand new trailer. The trailer didn't come out super professional looking but it's a damn sight better than the last trailer from April-ish. With the trailer and new website text we're getting a little more into the lore of the game, and although the game really isn't story focused, it's good for setting the mood and piquing people's interest. Like Diablo and Dark Souls, and even Hexen we want to appeal to a pretty broad range of RPG enthusiasts, so having some lore the player can optionally dig into is part of that.

Above are some screenshots demonstrating the inventory and equipment stuff I was talking about. Picture 1 is a look at the first armor set in the game (cloth). Picture 2 is what a creature's loot table looks like (it can point to other loot tables). The ghoul here has a 33% chance to drop a consumable, and a 20% chance to drop a piece of equipment (these are separate so that a ghoul can drop a potion and piece of armor at the same time). Picture 3 shows the in-progress UI and also a couple other changes. We've remapped 1-4 to be the hotbar at the bottom there (place consumables or spellbooks there to use them). And we've cut down the number of class abilities from 5 to 3, bound to Q, E, and R. We still have the same total number of abilities, making the decisions for the player on which abilities to use, a little more important and meaningful. Going from 5 to 3 abilities might sound like a downgrade, but that doesn't include your mobility ability (dodge/sprint) weapon ability (ability unique to weapons on right click) and spellbooks you can find that grant an ability when placed on your hotbar. So trust me, there's no shortage of abilities.

Anyways, that's about it for now, thanks for reading, and if you're going to PAX have fun, and maybe I'll see you there?

-Ian