Embrace elemental powers and take down enemies that move only when you move – Crown Trick is available now on Steam!



Embark on a perilous journey through the procedurally-generated dungeons of the Nightmare Realm as protagonist, Elle. Accompanied by your magical crown you’ll take on a variety of enemies in unique turn-based combat where foes and traps only move when Elle does. Strategic thinking is key to overcoming and escaping the dangerous labyrinthine dungeon of Crown Trick!



Engaging strategic gameplay:
Monsters and traps move only when you move; carefully thought out strategies are key to escaping the labyrinthine dungeon.



Fight how you want:
Create and develop a unique combat style with 40+ active skills, 60+ passive abilities, 30+ usable items, and 170+ special relics, all of which create different ways to cut through enemy encounters.



Learn from enemies:
Gather elite ‘Familiar’ skills by overcoming enemies ready to unleash on others deeper in the dungeon

Different dungeons every time:
The procedurally-generated maze ensures you will have unique experiences every time you enter the Nightmare Realm.



A clear strategy is key to successfully overcoming the Nightmare Realm, whether exploring its many rooms and corridors, or fighting some of the 100 monsters that you may encounter on your deadly run. Crown Trick’s synchronous gameplay means you’ll have the choice to stop and assess the situation at any time, setting the dungeon in motion only when you move.


Crown Trick is priced at £15.99 / $19.99 / €19.99 on Steam.

We’re excited to share a number of discounts available at launch:

20% off for owners of My Time at Portia – Two weeks
20% off for owners of Scroll of Taiwu – Two weeks
20% off for owners of Darkest Dungeon – Two weeks
20% off for owners of Warriors of the Nile – Two weeks
10% off launch discount for everyone – Two weeks

Fancy watching the developers play Crown Trick? We’ll be running a pre-recorded broadcast on the Steam store page throughout launch!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1000010/Crown_Trick/



Want to stay up to date with Crown Trick news?
Crown Trick on Twitter
Crown Trick Discord
Team17 Discord

First, let’s talk about Roguelike genre. There are more and more great games with roguelike elements that have been made recently. They all provide a variety of interesting gaming experience and always have the roguelike mechanics at their core.

After playing many popular roguelike games, we decided to focus on the turn-based aspect of the genre. We wanted to make a turn-based roguelike game for modern players. And that’s when we came up with the idea of making Crown Trick.

Our design team took inspiration from other games in the genre to incorporate some of the more modern game design elements into Crown Trick. For example: lower entry level, fast-paced combat, great graphics and turn-based strategic gameplay. We wanted to make a classic turn-based roguelike game with a modern twist that everyone could play.

After much research, we came up with the first prototype for Crown Trick. At the beginning when we didn’t have any art direction yet, we used paper prototypes to determine some core game elements. At this stage, we wanted to be sure we could create interesting character builds and combinations in a turn-based game. For this reason we designed different Familiars and skills, then tested them on a paper prototype.

After many different design variations and trials, we decided that the player should should be able to assign two Familiars at a time, and by switching these familiars the player could come up with different skill combinations and tricks!

After completing the above experiments, we determined three core game mechanics:
1. Two Familiars with different skills that can be replaced during the game
2. A variety of weapons to change the ordinary attack methods
3. A variety of passive skills (also known as Relics later)
Interestingly, after confirming these core mechanics someone from the team asked, “What if the player comes up with a ridiculously overpowered character build and kills the boss in seconds?”
And our answer always was: “Then this player should feel very proud of themselves in this round!”





Original paper prototype

When we were entering the character design process, the question that bothered us all was that in a game where the character is all alone in a dark dungeon, what kind of character experience does the player want?

The feeling of loneliness is what we think players are most likely to have in a long dungeon adventure. But we also thought that it could be more interesting to have two characters go on an adventure together - because two is better than one, right?

We thought that it would be a good idea to have a companion for the main protagonist. So, we decided to add another character and make the player feel less alone with some interesting interactions between the two characters.

When coming up with the appearance of the second character, we wanted them to be a non-human being. Then we started to come up with the overall look for this mysterious companion. After a series of discussions and voting, we finally decided to put a talking hat on the main protagonist, but to make our protagonist look even better, we just changed the appearance of the talking hat to a golden crown.



Early variations of Elle

Our ultimate goal was to design a rich and interesting maze for players to explore, but first of all we asked ourselves, “What kind of design principles should we apply to the maze?”. This proposition itself made our team to fall into the maze of game design. We researched and designed a variety of different prototypes, but none of met our original expectations.

After a series of painful struggles, we finally determined the method of using a single room as an experience unit. Then we hand-crafted some contents for it and randomized the maze structure. We believed that by using this method we could control the rhythm of player experience in a randomly generated roguelike maze.


Early maze variations

Once the core gameplay, main characters and maze design were sorted, it seemed that the game was perfectly ready to go into production. But the main problem was still yet to come…

In the early versions of the game we conducted a couple of small-scale playtest sessions and found out that the game had a most essential but deadly problem – it was not fun to play!

In the following days after the playtest session, our development team restructured some of the basic mechanics and reanalyzed the reasons for the lack of “fun” in the game. We found that the lack of emotional experience during the playtest was one of the biggest problems. Emotions such as surprise, panic, happiness, regret, expectation and fear were scarce in the game at that moment.

So, we made three major changes to adjust the game experience drastically.
1. Elemental Interaction
2. Blinking Ability
3. Break System

We have almost completely changed the game combat system through the implementation of these three features. Players can use different elements and terrain tiles to cleverly kill monsters, then use blink ability to control their positioning within the room and use the break system to continuously deal more damage, thus killing more monsters and getting better rewards. After the introduction of these three game design elements, the combat in the game suddenly became richer and more fun to play. And we finally were able to push forward with production.


Early concept of the elemental interactions

We may have completed development on Crown Trick, but we plan to share more information on this with you in the future.

We hope that you’ll enjoy this dungeon adventure together with our main characters and have an unforgettable and joyful experience!

Thanks for reading and don’t forget to Wishlist!
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1000010/Crown_Trick/

Keep up to date with the latest Crown Trick news:
Sign up to the Team17 newsletter
Follow Crown Trick on Twitter
Follow Team17 on Twitter
Like Team17 on Facebook
Join the Crown Trick Discord
Join the Team17 Discord

The Steam Game Festival: Autumn Edition is now live!

Tune in to the Crown Trick Steam page today and watch our developers take on the procedurally-generated labyrinth in the Nightmare Realm!

PLUS, you can try the free demo too!

Don't forget to add Crown Trick to your wishlist ːsteamhappyː

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1000010

The Steam Game Festival: Autumn Edition is now live!

Tune in to the Crown Trick Steam page today and watch our developers take on the procedurally-generated labyrinth in the Nightmare Realm!

PLUS, you can try the free demo too!

Don't forget to add Crown Trick to your wishlist ːsteamhappyː

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1000010

Crown Trick is a turn-based roguelike in which you play as Elle. Armed with only your magical talking crown to guide you, you’ll develop your own combat style; choosing between active and passive abilities and utilising relics to aid you along the way.



Mastering the elements will also be a key pillar to your survival, and upon vanquishing the high-level familiars found lurking in the labyrinth, you will be able to steal their skills and wield them as your own in your journey to escape the Nightmare Realm!

Key Features:

• Engaging strategic gameplay: Monsters and traps move only when the player moves; carefully thought out strategies are key to escaping the labyrinthine dungeon
  
• Fight how you want: Create and develop a unique combat style with dozens of active and passive skills and abilities, items, and relics help create different ways to cut through enemy encounters
  
• Learn from enemies: Gather elite ‘Familiar’ skills by overcoming enemies ready to unleash on others deeper in the dungeon
  
• Different dungeons every time: The procedurally generated maze ensures players have unique experiences every time they enter the Nightmare Realm

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1000010/Crown_Trick/


Keep up to date with the latest Crown Trick news:
Sign up to the Team17 newsletter
Follow Crown Trick on Twitter
Follow Team17 on Twitter
Like Team17 on Facebook
Join the Crown Trick Discord
Join the Team17 Discord

Crown Trick is set in the daunting Nightmare Realm, a labyrinthine, underground world filled with monsters and traps. You will have to master the elements and combine dozens of skills, while planning the best strategy, to overcome deadly enemies that stand still until their plan of attack is executed.



As the quest continues, you will have the opportunity to gain access to high-level skills – Familiars – secured from the elite monsters that roam the dungeon, increasing the chances of both success and survival.



Engaging strategic gameplay: Monsters and traps move only when the player moves; carefully thought out strategies are key to escaping the labyrinthine dungeon

Fight how you want: Create and develop a unique combat style with dozens of active and passive skills and abilities, items, and relics help create different ways to cut through enemy encounters

Learn from enemies: Gather elite ‘Familiar’ skills by overcoming enemies ready to unleash on others deeper in the dungeon

Different dungeons every time: The procedurally generated maze ensures players have unique experiences every time they enter the Nightmare Realm



Add Crown Trick to your Steam wishlist!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1000010/Crown_Trick/

Crown Trick demo is available during The Steam Game Festival until June 22. Visit our steam page to download the demo!

As a part of the event, we are also going to have a Q&A session about the game development on our Discord server. So come in and ask us anything about the game or just chat with us on the server!
https://discord.gg/FbaXFNm


Also, we are going to have another streaming session on our steam broadcast page on June 19, 9:00 AM UTC. Go to our steam page to tune in for the live stream with devs.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1000010/Crown_Trick/

We are happy to announce our developer live stream time for The Steam Game Festival!
The live stream will take place on June 16th, 7:00 PM PDT.


Come and join our live stream on the Crown Trick steam page and chat with us as we discuss and play the game. You can leave your questions about the development in advance on our Discord server here: https://discord.gg/b6ayf3V

We will be giving away a couple of full game keys to the best questions during the stream! So make sure to leave your questions about the game on our Discord server.

See you on the stream!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1000010/Crown_Trick/

We are a team behind Crown Trick and just a bunch of old-school roguelike fans who have spent thousands of hours playing games in this classic genre. And we are really excited to showcase our first roguelike game to the new players during the Steam Game Festival!

First of all, it's a roguelike dungeon crawler game where you can combine different elemental abilities and experiment with the tile-based terrain. The game has procedurally generated dungeons and strategic gameplay. Mix fire with lava for more explosive damage or cast poison on water tiles to make it spread like a plague. Then stack your combo meter with each attack for even more damage and the perfect run is almost guaranteed.



In this short game demo, you will be able to experience the core gameplay and get a glimpse of the main story behind Crown Trick. Alright, that's enough talking. Just watch the recent beta gameplay trailer and check the gameplay for yourself!



Want to know more details about the development? Then check out some of our recent dev blogs below.

• Hall of Reincarnation and NPCs
  
• 
  Break and Combo Mechanics
  
• Slot Machine and Weapon Gashapon

Come to our Discord server to talk to us directly. We are also hosting a Q&A live stream during the game festival event! https://discord.gg/FbaXFNm



https://store.steampowered.com/app/1000010/Crown_Trick/

Thank you all for participating in the closed beta test of Crown Trick and providing valuable feedback to us! As you probably noticed we have already revoked the beta keys from steam to conclude this session of playtesting.

If you didn't get a chance to play the beta, then not to worry! We will be preparing a free demo for the Steam Game Festival in June. Stay tuned for further announcements from us and don't forget to wishlist the game on steam! https://store.steampowered.com/app/1000010/Crown_Trick/


We all know that the Nightmare Realm is like a roller coaster of instant ups and downs. The difficulty of this beta challenged many new players who played the game for the first time. And only a handful amount of players were able to finish the run and defeat The Three Witches. It's definitely an achievement if you beat the final boss in this beta!




We received a tremendous amount of feedback and bug reports during the beta. And we quickly realized that the slot machine was probably the most OP game mechanic. So we are definitely going to nerf this first :D And then optimize some issues like lengthy loading screens and overall game performance. We are also keeping track of some of the major bugs (especially the one when the witch disappears in the final boss battle). Sorry if it ruined your most successful run <3


#profit

For the first time, we ran a community event for creating some fan-art on our Discord server. And to our surprise, we received a lot of great fan-art submissions from our talented players. It really inspired us and gave us more power to work all night long on fixing the bugs!


Congrats to the winners!

1st Place - leo#3149 (https://www.artstation.com/twotimesthedime)
2nd Place - Doth_bot#4249 (https://www.instagram.com/doth_bot/)
3rd Place - KuroKairin#2507 (https://twitter.com/KuroKairin)

So we've been already pretty busy with fixing some bugs and tweaking balance-related mechanics that were mentioned during the beta test. We also plan to improve the English localization and add more languages like French, Portuguese, German, Spanish, Russian, Japanese.

Here is the list of game content that we plan to have by the full release:
- 40+ active skills, 60+ passive abilities, 30+ usable items, and 170+ special relics;
- 100+ different monsters;
- 9 unique types of weapons or up to 120+ individual weapons in total;
- more than 10+ powerful bosses;
- 60+ mysterious challenges and puzzles;

And last but not least, many more Familiars to come!

Gotta catch them all!


Thanks for reading. Talk to you all soonːsteamhappyː