Frozen Depths 1.05 released

[glowie at gmail.com]

Hello fellow roguelikers!

It's been four long years since the last release of Frozen Depths. It's also been 10 years since the beginning of the Frozen Depths project. Seems like an appropriate time for a new release! Dress warmly for version 1.05 is here!

This time the main theme for development was playability improvements. The game teaches itself a lot better now, has an in-game tutorial, makes previously obscure and opaque information transparent, has various UI improvements and is generally easier to get into.

The biggest change, however, is the floor cut: previously there were 50 floors in the dungeon. Now there are only 35. Less grinding, more fun! I'm very happy with this structural change as it makes the game play faster, the player gets rewarded more quickly with level ups and new equipment and there's always something to look forward to, although it's usually dangerous. No actual content was deleted, only 3 meaningless regular floors from each dungeon section have been removed.

There's also new content in nearly every corner of the game. Only the handcrafted special floor pool stayed the same, but there's 50 of them, which should be plenty of replayability for even the hardcore ice delvers. The game balance is very good and I can finally say that an experienced player can beat the game consistently without needing absurd amounts of luck. Multiple bugs were fixed and many smaller changes were made, like the addition of descriptions for all the monsters. You can check the complete list of changes here: http://frozendepths.net/VersionInfo.txt

My vision for Frozen Depths has been fulfilled with this version, and it's possibly the last major version release the game will see, at least in a long time. But I'm not abandoning the game, I plan to fix any bugs that come up and implement interesting feature requests. That's why I'd love to hear your feedback, bug reports and requests, whether you like the game or hate it. This version has been tested for multiple weeks, but as is the nature of these randomization heavy games, there's probably something for you to find as well.

Without further advertising head to http://frozendepths.net if you're interested in the cold flavour of fantasy that I offer. You can find a version for Windows, Linux and Mac OS X on the downloads page, or you can read the latest news post which says the above message with a little more detail. After playing, do check the contact page to easily drop me a line with your thoughts. :)

Good luck in the Depths, and don't freeze your fingers!

--Glowie