I’ve released a new version of Dungeon Mercenary: http://www.schplaf.org/hgames/ . As usual you can either play it in your browser or on desktop (Windows, Linux, Mac): either go to my website, itch.io, or gamejolt.

In short, the main changes are:

• Added spells (there are 16 of them), that plays very differently from melee builds. There are various mages builds: offensive mages (fire/lightning, dragon breath spells), allies-based mages (Necromancer and friends), sneak mages (Conjuror of Cheap Tricks).

• Added rings, to spice up the melee builds (can specialize on damage dealers, special attacks specialists, etc.)

• Added classes (there are 18 of them). A class is just a set of starting equipment. This should help you try out different builds more easily.

• Polished the UI: added animations (health potion, life potion, etc.) and highlights (1 and 2) to help newcomers and help others to understand what’s going on.

And now the long description of the novelties (and an even longer description, including changes and bugfixes):

• Added spells. There are 16 spells:

  • Dragon Breath: An area of effect spell in the shape of a dragon’s breath

  • Dragon Slaying: A projectile that affects only dragons, but which is particularly deadly for them

  • Firebolt: A magic missile

  • Force: A spell that pushes back an opponent, an item, a barrel, etc.

  • Health: A spell to heal yourself or another living foe

  • Lightning: A beam spell that hits every enemy on its path

  • Paralysis: A beam spell that paralyses its target

  • Poison: A beam spell that poisons its target

  • Protection: A spell that surrounds its target with a protective haze, to absorb future damage

  • Orc’n gobs’n troll Slaying: A projectile that affects only goblins, orcs, and trolls; but which is particularly deadly for them

  • Quietus: A beam spell that instantly kills its target

  • Raise Skeleton: A spell that reanimates a fallen foe (turning it into a skeleton), so that it will fight on your side

  • Slowness: A spell that slows down its target

  • Undead Slaying: A projectile that affects only undeads, but which is particularly deadly for them

  • Teleportation: A spell to teleport anything: a monster, you, an item, a all, etc.

  • Vampirism: A beam spell that transfers some of the target’s life to you

• Added rings. There are 5 kind of rings:

  • Awareness: This ring allows you to feel enemies beyond your usual field of vision.

  • Dexterity: This ring increases your chances of performing special attacks (daggers, swords, falchions, small axes).

  • Toughness: This ring decreases the damage you suffer.

  • Sight: This ring increases your sight distance. This distance is used to draw your surrounding but also caps your throwing distance and your casting distance.

  • Strength :This ring increases the damage you deal.

• Added classes. A class is simply a set of starting equipment (see the equipment of each class). Classes ease trying the different flavors of mercenaries that you can throw down the dungeon:

  • Assassin: Assassins are specialists at instantly killing their enemies, thanks to their deadly enchanted dagger, the daggers’ special attacks (Alt + move), and their increased dexterity.

  • Barbarian: Barbarians excel at pulverizing and massacring every race and species.

  • Conjuror of Cheap Tricks: Conjurors of Cheap Tricks try to avoid combat by all means. They excel at staying alive no matter what’s thrown at them.

  • Dragonist: Dragonists walk the dangerous path of taming dragons. They usually accidentally fry a girlfriend or two before being banned from society.

  • Optimist: Optimists don’t worry, they are confident they’ll find loot early in the dungeon.

  • Elements Conjuror: Elements Conjurors are versed in two elements: fire and lighting. Their strategy is straightforward: burn everything down.

  • Filth Assassin: Filth Assassins are specialists at making their enemies suffer a slow but irreversible death. If they stay alive long enough to master their technique, they become immensily powerful.

  • Filth Mage: Filth Mages are specialists at making their enemies suffer a slow but irreversible death, without even taking the risk of melee combat! Legendary filth mages caused plagues in the past.

  • Knight: Knights are well protected melee fighters. They use their sword’s special attack (Alt + move) to kill enemies from a distance.

  • Mage Wannabe: Mage Wannabes started mage school, but ultimately dropped out to discover the outside world on their own. They only know their basics, but took a little something from the school’s storage areas on the way out…

  • Undead Commander: Undead Commanders excel at raising a large undead army at their service.

  • Necromancer: Necromancers are both good undead commanders and viable damage dealers.

  • Paladin: Paladins are very well protected melee fighters. They use their sword’s special attack (Alt + move) to kill enemies from a distance and use their shield to paralyze enemies.

  • Priest: Priests master the art of healing themselves and others.

  • Slayer: Slayers excel at hunting down monsters.

  • Southern Knight: Southern Knights are well protected melee fighters. They use their falchion’s special attack (Alt + move) to force enemies to back up.

  • Tourist: Tourists are badly equipped for surviving in a dungeon. They just bring the most basic equipment.

  • Vampire: Vampires are good melee fighters and like being accompanied by an army of disposable minions.

• Added an explore mode (toggled with ‘x’) in which you can see the description of items under the cursor. Descriptions are also displayed when hovering with the mouse. As of now, only items and some wall elements are described. It was required to do items, because this is required in choice treasure rooms (see below), so that you know what the items are. In the future monsters will be documented too.

• Added special rooms:

  • Choice treasure rooms where you have to choose one item among many items (à la brogue).

  • Closing rooms. Will you find the various means to escape ?

  • A dangerous corridor…

  • A malevolent area…

• Armors now decrease damage instead of reducing hit probability, to a minimum of 1 (à la Sil). Non-leather armors now increase the probability of being hit by enemies: chain mail increases probability by 10%, banded mail and split mail by 20%, and plate armor by 30%. Shields, on the other hand, have been unchanged: they still decrease the probability of being hit by enemies.