Hello everyone in the Monster Crown Early Access, it is time for weekly challenge #3!

Thank you all for entering in the Online Battling Challenge #1 in our Discord server! Last week's winner is... HUEnd#3184!



Congratulations! Please check your DMs on Discord! Now on to this week's challenge ;)

Breeding Challenge #2
Breed the most unique and awesome GREEN monster! Post a screenshot in the #monster-crown channel of the SOEDESCO Discord server (https://discord.gg/soedesco) and use #BreedingChallenge2 by Monday August 31st 3PM CEST and win the Monster Crown player of the week title + this special Monster Crown care package of in-game items!

- 3000 Gold
- 15 Normal Pacts
- 10 Aloe Leafs
- 10 Gualchops
- 15 Campfire Logs
- 3 Move Orbs (Enrich)
- 3 Move Orbs (Inferno)

Entries are limited to 1 per user, please only post 1 screenshot. Winners will be picked in consultation between @devotedtoneurosis and SOEDESCO. Good luck everyone! If you have any questions, feel free to ask :D

-Marten

Hey guys!

Another week another update, with this, our last update reaches the stable branch and a new series of updates reaches EA-BETA.



I've been hard at work preparing the Net Egg functionality, the trading, the move learner/relearner as well as some other fun surprises for our content pack. This weekend my focus will be on putting a little more polish on these features to get them ready for showtime, making things tidy and clear so it's ready for all of you and painless to use. These features are quite stable and I'm really happy with how they've turned out!

One extra surprise I'd like to include is an alternate chromosome to help tide you over until our full gene lab becomes available. Please let me know what alternate chromosome features you're most eager to get your hands on. I think one top requested feature is the ability to inherit type separately from physical body. Is that what you're most looking forward to? Or are there other things you'd prefer to shake up the inheritance of? Please let me know below, on discord or twitter (links below) what you're most eager to get access to!

One issue that has been bugging some Mac players is monster sprites not appearing on the party screen. This is due to a weird bug with Unity itself's draw functions not behaving properly on some versions (or processors) with Mac OS. If you experience this issue, please opt into the newest EA-BETA branch (you can use the same savefile!) and try it out. Everyone should now be able to see those icons, but the colors may appear in red and blue. If you could not previously see these images and now can (or cannot!) I definitely want to hear from you. I only have access to one Mac which makes it difficult to anticipate how it operates on every device, which is definitely why I appreciate hearing from all of you!

And if you're one of the players that experienced an issue with Eggs taking longer and longer to hatch I also want to hear from you. I've had a few of you send me your files and whenever I load them up eggs start hatching which means it's something setup-specific. The same in-game clock records playtime, controls the day-night cycle and allows eggs to hatch. I've added an in-game exact playtime counter to the settings menu so if you are someone with this issue, please open the settings and see the playtime clock. It should increase at a rate of one per minute, so if it's not ticking forward or ticking forward very slowly I definitely want to hear more about your system, OS, etc. You can send that info my way via the steam forums or discord/twitter as well. Just keep in mind that the numbers after the decimal aren't seconds, they are hundreths of a minute, so yeah they tick up faster than second do.

One piece of feedback I've received is that breeding becomes available too late in-game. Personally I'm really happy with having to play a bit, learn the basics and earn this unlock, however, it is an interesting idea to let people dabble with it a little early. I've been working on an NPC just after Mill Town that will let you breed one of your monsters with his as a first-try at the feature and a fun sneak-peak for new players. Presently I've given her a Bileat, but if you think you know another monster that would be better for her to have, I'd love to hear your idea :)

Thanks for playing and I hope you have a wonderful weekend.

EA v1.458
----------------------
+Fixed an ocean tile issue in east desperado
+HP health number depletes slowly like the bar does rather than jumping to the end calculation number
+Orb usage message a more reliable/usable
+Fixed a situation where the scout reticle could remain post-scouting
+Fixed an issue where a monster could appear to be cloned in the farm box
+Can now interact with Merryl again after leaving the menu using Exit (not just cancel)
+Corrected breeding monster box shadow positioning
+Fixed a bug where NPC shadows could be missing
+Added ???
+Added ???
+Added alternate ??? functionality

Hello everyone in the Monster Crown Early Access, it is time for weekly challenge #2!

Last week's Breeding Challenge #1 was a HUGE success, so thank you all for all the entries in our Discord server. It was pretty hard to choose a winner, but this one made me chuckle, so the winner is user 'hakuna marijuana, my dudes' with their monster: 'Funkyman'


https://discordapp.com/channels/477125612562284566/681492758556704773/743068310974890055

Congratulations! Please check your DMs on Discord! Now on to this week's challenge ;)

Online Battling Challenge #1
Win a match of online battling in Monster Crown! Post a screenshot of your win in the #monster-crown channel of the SOEDESCO Discord server (https://discord.gg/soedesco) and use #OnlineChallenge1 by Monday August 24th 3PM CEST and win the Monster Crown player of the week title + this special Monster Crown care package of in-game items!

- 3000 Gold
- 15 Normal Pacts
- 10 Aloe Leafs
- 10 Gualchops
- 15 Campfire Logs
- 3 Move Orbs (Enrich)
- 3 Move Orbs (Inferno)

Entries are limited to 1 per user, please only post 1 screenshot. Winners will be picked at random. Good luck everyone! If you have any questions, feel free to ask :D

-Marten

Hey guys!

The next patch is here for EA-BETA branch, check the notes below to opt-in if you haven't already.

We had some issues with our service provider the past 2-3 days, this prevented online play from working properly. Thankfully we've finally managed to get their support to remedy the issue. The server is back online with a new version of server-side software as well, to prepare for the upcoming trading, net-egg, etc. functionality.

Currently all the high ranked issues on our mantis server are resolved (I have to get on there and actually close them, but definitely headed in the right direction!). So when I sit down to do some more fixing tomorrow I'll start combing our forums and discord to catch issues that aren't already on my radar.

To establish a good update cadence going forward, I'll be submitting my latest build to our publisher (thanks Soedesco!) each week and pushing it to the stable branch each Friday, most play happens on the weekend so it'll be great to always have the latest out then. I'll keep updating the EA-beta as necessary to address newly found issues or if I want some help testing a feature.

Establishing this routine now means you guys can have a lot of confidence in me going forward and rely on weekly regular updates that makes the game smoother and adds new features. Expect an announcement very soon regarding our first content pack which has some much requested features and functionality that I can't wait to share!

Thanks and have a good weekend!

discord: https://discord.gg/WwRvm9B

EA v1.45
----------------------
+Behind the scenes work on Trading and Network functionality
+Behind the scenes work on difficulty and randomizer funcionality
+Behind the scenes work on a means for qualified breeders to produce more of their signature monsters on demand for distribution
+Very very specific egg hatching clock issue. Due to a limitation of the floating point number datatype, for users with fast PCs, AND a lot of playtime, eggs can beging to take forever to hatch. This has been remedied by flooring the playtime variable at the top of each minute.
+Black Magic changed from Unstable to Malicious, as before it was basically the same as Inferno
+Settings menu complete revamp, now accessible from file load
+File select screen redesign
+House in Mill town with walkable walls fixed
+Ability to move before closing the save confirm dialogue box was causing some issues, fixed
+Eggs now show brilliant palettes properly on generation and hatching
+Experience properly spills over to the next level and levels you up (levelling from lv2 to lv6 in one battle works properly)
+Net menu visual improvements
+fixed a bug where you could end up free after a choice selection even though dialogue wasn't done
+starter select dialogue now more responsive
+more responsive and reliable flight map select
+brilliant odds for eggs fixed

#Please note that we want to keep the primary EA build stable so new builds will be uploaded to the EA-BETA branch for 24 hours before being moved to the main stream. Anyone can access this branch, just right-click Monster Crown in Steam, go to properties and select the EA-BETA branch to have the up to the minute, bleeding edge updates.

Hello everyone in the Monster Crown Early Access, it is time for weekly challenges!

Every week (hopefully), we'll be hosting a weekly challenge to find out who is the Monster Crown player of the week! It's simple, complete this week's challenge in the best or most unique way, and win a bunch of valuable in-game items! Let's start off with a very straight forward one:

Breeding Challenge #1
Breed the most unique and awesome RED monster! Post a screenshot in the #monster-crown channel of the SOEDESCO Discord server (https://discord.gg/soedesco) and use #BreedingChallenge1 by Monday August 17th 3PM CEST and win the Monster Crown player of the week title + this special Monster Crown care package of in-game items!

- 3000 Gold
- 15 Normal Pacts
- 10 Aloe Leafs
- 10 Gualchops
- 15 Campfire Logs
- 3 Move Orbs (Enrich)
- 3 Move Orbs (Inferno)

Entries are not limited, you can enter as much screenshots as you like. Winners will be picked in consultation between @devotedtoneurosis and SOEDESCO. Good luck everyone! If you have any questions, feel free to ask :D

-Marten

Hello Everyone!

Today marks one week since the launch of Monster Crown into Early Access. It has been an incredibly busy but also incredibly exciting time. It has been such a thrill to see you all get hands on and share your creations, thoughts and kind words. The launch has been a huge success and I'm honestly humbled by the reception!



Just like our Kickstarter, it inspires me further to ensure Monster Crown reaches the content and quality that you all absolutely deserve. We've fixed so many bugs and improved the gameplay flow over the past week and I appreciate the faith you've all shown by joining us so early in EA. There is no risk of this project becoming abandoned or no longer a priority, Monster Crown is the only game I have any interest in working on.

Yesterday's build was well received and offered a lot of great functionality in the beta branch so that will now be pushed out to everyone. When you play this weekend I think you'll notice the difference, especially with the box system and online! Of course I remain committed to squashing all bugs so keep sending them my way on our bug reports steam forum, twitter or our bug reporting tool and if you end up in any sort of "stuck" situation my DMs are always open, and I can fix your saves. You are never an inconvenience to me.

I also wanted to share all the code monsters that have been released so far. Many of these monsters are very rare or cannot be accessed until later parts of the game, however, they are ready for showtime, so you can use these codes to access them.

78MJNEYTYF the Terrible Croc! Frigidile!
UMC3N7KDND the Tunneling Jaw! Molkuran!
DGJDF8PNK5 the Crushing Cold! Ix!
IFSPIQIKNB the Body-Bag Cobra! Taupsy!
PPGO34NJNN the little Sadist! Hooclaw!
PPKO34NJNN the slicing shadow! Crawkadaga!

I had a question about move inheritance so I wanted to set the record straight on that. Child monsters receive a level up learnset that is a merge of both parents. If there is a conflict (say Primary Monster learns Swallow Water at 7 and Secondary Monster learns Swipe) it'll inherit that of the primary parent. Yes, this means that eventually after enough generations your monster could learn a new move from level 1 to 100!

Right now the parent's current moves fill the offspring's moveset so until you can forget them, you can't really make a lot of use of that level up learnset. For that reason I want to share that the move learner/relearner will be in our first content pack and you'll get access to all of your monster's genetic potential movepool, this is retroactive so don't feel like you should hold off on breeding until then.

Hope you all have a great weekend and just an FYI, the latest build is v1.448.

Hey Guys,

I've been accused of being over-zealous in the past (I was asked to update less often during the Kickstarter!) so I promise to reduce my posting frequency after tomorrow (which will be the one week mark of EA!) but these fixes were just too good and too effective not to get out there right away.

They're for very key parts of Monster Crown and I wanted you all to have the best!

Here they are:


Closed Beta v1.447
----------------------

+Major rework of the programming behind the box system, try it out, it's a huge difference and MUCH more reliable. The first time you open the box your party might get shuffled up, this is to align with the new ordering and will only happen once.

+Number of farm boxes increased from 10 to 50, I know I announced we'd go to 20 but screw it, more monsters = more better! But seriously, I want to go to 100 boxes (which is 1600 monsters) but I want to keep a close eye on save file sizes. Monster Crown has incredibly unique monsters, each new creation literally has its own full new species data. The downside to this is each monster takes up more space than in other Monster Taming games. The biggest file I've seen yet is 60kb but it's worth keeping an eye on so I can always give you guys the best possible performance.

+Party size check was off by one on setting primary/secondary parent so you could empty your party, now fixed.

+Major fixes to online battling and prize setting/giving, you'll find online play a LOT more reliable and a LOT more fun now. Big thanks to HaZe for doing countless battles with me earlier today and helping me refine the process. It's a difference of night and day!

#Please note that we want to keep the primary EA build stable so new builds will be uploaded to the EA-BETA branch for 24 hours before being moved to the main stream. Anyone can access this branch, just right-click Monster Crown in Steam, go to properties and select the EA-BETA branch to have the up to the minute, bleeding edge updates.

We've had some reports of graphical oddities for some users (not all) on Mac. For some the new graphics/performance dialogue helped but I apologize to those still affected for not getting back to you sooner with fixes, that will be my next focus.

Thanks Tamers! Hope you have a great night :D

Hey guys!

What a crazy week (it actually hasn't been a week yet!)

I'm very proud to say that in under 72 hours of Early Access we surpassed the success of our entire Kickstarter campaign, which blows me away and is ENTIRELY thanks to all of you.

https://www.gameshedge.com/monster-crown-beat-kickstarter-72-hours-release/

I'm truly humbled by all the appreciative words, the enthusiastic monster creations you're kind enough to share with me and of course the excellent bug reports. Together we're going to take Monster Crown to the next level!

I always joke that I just made this game because I love retro monsters and wanted an infinite feed of them sent to me, well, you're certainly making that a reality! :D

So let's get into today's patch.

Closed Beta v1.446
----------------------
+Shortened a couple of attack descriptions that were too long for the description box
+Adjusted Scarred/Desperado transition for more accurate wild encounters
+If you fight mom and get KO'd you can end up with a party with all 0 HP which can lead to a situation where you enter a battle and are unable to send out any monster, and are locked. This has been fixed (mom is kind enough to heal you now :D )
+Big improvements to item bank UI and functionality
+RNG Tamer Trades were only bringing up blue monsters of the relentless persuasion, now fixed, so have fun with more creature diversity :)
+Trading tamers can no longer create duplicate party pointers
+Must now double press to flee, some people accidentally ran from Brilliants! Can't have that!

#Please note that we want to keep the primary EA build stable so new builds will be uploaded to the EA-BETA branch for 24 hours before being moved to the main stream. Anyone can access this branch, just right-click Monster Crown in Steam, go to properties and select the EA-BETA branch to have the up to the minute, bleeding edge updates.

-----------------------

While bug fixes are always the top priority I definitely wanted to get in that much requested double-press to flee feature. I know some of you missed out on Brilliants (1 in a thousand rainbow monsters) and that's just no good with how rare they are! Definitely a great suggestion guys.



Oh, also we had two people try to launch Monster Crown and it couldn't get passed the loading screen. After much investigation we discovered it was their antivirus stopping the game from loading, so if you encounter that, please ensure the application is fully allowed.

After another patch or two my attention will go toward our first content pack with more monsters and several much requested new features. It's not too far off at all :)

Hi all!

It's Marten here, sharing an amazing milestone with you all because in less than 72 hours, Monster Crown has sold more copies in Early Access on Steam than during the entire Kickstarter campaign!

We're extremely grateful and thankful to everyone who's bought, played and reviewed Monster Crown in Early Access on Steam, because we couldn't have done it without you!



As you could've seen, there's already been 4 updates since the game released 5 days ago, so there's a LOT more coming up! Please keep an eye on the Steam page for updates ;)

For now, have fun playing Monster Crown and let us know what you think if you haven't already!

-Marten

Hey Tamers!

We've got another slew of great fixes. Earlier tonight all our prior fixes moved out to the main branch so all players will be able to enjoy those, bleeding edge EA-BETA players get these fixes as of... right now!

I spent a lot of time on online battling this morning and the menu has quite a few improvements to the flow and function of it, however, I had some trouble reproducing some issues I've received reports of for online battling. I think I may know why - our servers are hosted in the state of New York (I'm in canada) and I do a lot of testing on weekend mornings when I have plenty of free time. Those hours also happen to be low traffic times in america as I'm 1.5 hours ahead of the eastern timezone.

I wrote the client and server side code and kept things very lightweight and fast but perhaps some evening latency is leading to issues. I'll continue working on this but in the meantime "Forfeit" is now available in online battles if you're trying to send a pal a monster. As you may know you can set prize monsters for online battles so some people are using it to trade before we launch that feature officially, so if you want to send a friend a monster, set it as prize, enter the battle, then forfeit. Keep in mind that online play is something that I'm still hard at work on so save before and after sending any monsters to reduce the chance that they may be lost.

Also low RAM PC friends and Mac users with a specific odd issue will find some additional graphical options in this build that i think will be of great help to them, read below for more details!

Just for fun, here's a pic of an upcoming special Epheal transformation :)




Closed Beta v1.445
----------------------
+Can view base monster stats on the info screen now
+Improved and more clear menu flow in the online battling menu
+Can now forfeit in online battles, useful if you want to just give someone a monster!
+Fixed a specific situation where you could feed your monster, or check it if you entered a battle while touching it, which could lead to getting free while in battle.
+Glitch discovered if you have a fruit in hand, enter and exit barn you can end up stuck until you drop the fruit, remedied by removing any fruit you carry during a screen transition
+Hermit's house no longer has a dual-toned roof
+Alieel does not become invisible when flashing you with light
+Maze can now be cancelled anytime with X/cancel
+Turned on graphics option dialogue on startup to help debug a PC user with a RAM issue and two Mac users that are missing sprites on their screens. PC Users with low RAM please try low quality and Mac users with missing sprites try High quality! Some odd unity bugs at play here.
+Water ripple-less areas on the overworld no longer have this issue
+HP Orb use no longer KOs monster
+Several tile issues in the desert fixed


#Please note that we want to keep the primary EA build stable so new builds will be uploaded to the EA-BETA branch for 24 hours before being moved to the main stream. Anyone can access this branch, just right-click Monster Crown in Steam, go to properties and select the EA-BETA branch to have the up to the minute, bleeding edge updates.


Thanks everyone for all your support! I'm overwhelmed with messages from people loving Monster Crown! I appreciate each and every one of you!