Like the zombified dancers in Thriller, Crypt of the Necrodancer’s latest (and largest) update has slid onto Steam. It adds new characters, NPCs, and a whole new boss fight – the Coral Riff.
As if fighting dragons through the power of dance wasn’t enough, Coral Riff is an entire band of enemies, from violins to drums, you need to dispatch.
Brace Yourself Games has you explore an ever-deepening dungeon by moving in time to the game’s soundtrack. You can only hit enemies by moving into them on the beat, otherwise you’ll take damage. I’ve played a little (until my lack of rhythm became impossible to deny) and it’s unlike any dungeon crawler I’ve ever played.
The highlights of the update are the new characters: Melody and Dorian. Each character in Crypt has different starting equipment and stats, some are waiflike in the health department but pack a cracking punch (still, for the rhythmically challenged you might want to go someone a little more forgiving, like the bard).
There’s also three new NPC characters – the shriner, pawnbroker, and conjurer – who you can meet in your journey deeper into the dungeons. Each can provide a different service to aid your descent. The pawnbroker for instance will buy items off you, giving you gold in return which you can use to buy equipment from the shopkeeper.
The final big addition is the new boss: Coral Riff. You can see him in action here:
Do you reckon you could win in a fight against a keytar?
You can read the full patch notes on the next page.
– Added new boss battle: Coral Riff!
– Added two new characters: Melody and Dorian!
– Added three new NPCs: Shriner, Pawnbroker, and Conjurer
– Added three character options: Random, Deathless, and All Characters
– Made holster use LEFT+RIGHT slot, so you can now store weapons in holster for future throwing
– Added new voiceovers for Aria, Melody, and Dorian
– Added an option to enable VSYNC
– Game now automatically pauses when minimized
– Reduced Dagger of Phasing damage to 2
– Made Dagger of Frost do piercing damage
– fixed issue where killing shopkeeper would affect run RNG
– fixed issue where some characters would die when entering DDR mode
– fixed crash when player 2 steps on single player mode stairs in lobby
– fixed crash from using invisible ‘prev page’ option in level editor
– fixed issue where you could stall by pressing both a direction and the alternate binding for that direction
– Made the game default to Bard for debug builds, since he’s much easier/faster to test with
– made distinction between phasing and piercing weapons
– fixed issue with leprechauns moving while doing their disappear animation
– fixed crash bug in input class related to custom key bindings (could be the cause of some of the crashes on startup?)
– made giant armadillos able to destroy all destructible wall types
– made it so enemies killed by traps don’t count towards spell cooldowns
– made barrels/crates not count for ring of courage, blood weapons, spell cooldowns, etc
– fixed bug where bomb traps were disappearing from level editor levels
– took holy water & boots of lunging out or Dove’s item pool
– fixed bug where Aria wouldn’t die from missed beat in training mode
– fixed bug where arena items could disappear if a shrine was used on the same level
– fixed bug where teh urn would not collide in certain situations after having been dropped down a trapdoor
– fixed bug where fear would persist across levels
– fixed bugs where minotaur would sometimes charge incorrectly
– added downloaded_mods folder to try to prevent re-publication of mods
– hide confusion particles if you die when confused
– fixed bug that sometimes allowed 2 chests (one normal, one mimic) in one level in hardcore
– made diamond dealer’s items not refresh until one is bought
– added glass jaw to shrine of glass and scroll of need effects
– made Eli unable to kick bombs that are inside of walls (with ring of phasing)
– made it so thrown weapons and rifle shots can aggro shopkeepers
– made purple scroll drops deterministic
– made armadillos not charge until the beat after they’ve been visible
– made all mimics damageable by bombs even when stealthed
– added Hephaestus art
– fixed bug where urns can get stuck in walls in boss level
– fixed bug where janitor wouldn’t remove an item from the pending spawn item pool
– fixed bug where frost and knockback weapons were also affecting holy water, boots of pain, etc.
– fixed a few erroneous item pool items
– fixed bug where things like golden lute could be generated by scroll of need, transmuting, etc.
– fixed bug where large enemies could open a metal door and then move again on the next beat
– made enemies that move through walls still seek if player is in walls
– fixed bugs with wraiths + earthquake/freeze spells
– fixed issue where wraiths could spawn too close to player after shrine of war
– made wraiths unable to spawn in secret shops
– fixed bugs with Dove getting hit while submitting scores, and not unlocking zones properly
– fixed bug where rook could castle without the king
– Tweaked some character select stair text
– fixed banshee audio bug
– fixed bug that could cause score message to persist and enemies to not move
– Fixed the monkey code so that Render+Update are always called at the same time on Mac+Lin
– Added new travel rune images for the added NPCs
– Added hammering sound for Hephaestus
– added code to pause the game when the window is minimized (should work with mac/linux too I think)
– moved frame capturing for post-death replay into C++, hopefully will reduce GC time
– Fixed crash bug with Ring of Charisma and non-sale shrines
– Made Dorian not leap in the lobby
– Fixed issue where Dorian and Eli were not animating to the beat properly