Infra Arcana - Lovecraftian Roguelike

[Lich]

I died one dlvl before the final boss with the exorcist. I think the exorcist is the most challenging background, but it has barely enough tools to deal with everything. Sanctuary is a great spell.

In the latest develop branch, unique levels have more dangerous enemies. Sound travels farther in cavernous areas after the level with the gleaming pool:

[Lich]

I just died at around dlvl 26 with the exorcist. This is about the fifteenth time I died at dlvls 26-30 with the exorcist. The recent change that made sound travel farther seems to make dlvls above 21 much too influenced by luck. Shooting a single enemy causes enemies from up to halfway across the screen to come attack you. You can't reliably evade enough enemies to avoid this situation. These enemies are faster than you and many of them remember you for a long time; if they become aware of your location, you are often forced to waste large amounts of resources to try to kill them.

I feel that tactical considerations are near-irrelevant for the outcome of late-game combat encounters. Too many enemies are too fast and have too many immunities to status effects. What can the exorcist do when he is simultaneously facing an arch wizard, an elder void traveler, a few water beasts and a couple of khagas that doesn't waste most of his offensive resources? There's almost no opportunity for meaningful positioning, luring out enemies, using enemy weaknesses and minimizing resource wastage. Most significant late-game encounters require that you hemorrhage your best items regardless of specific circumstances.

[Lich]

I won as the exorcist. I played a develop branch built on December 31, 2024. Significant recent changes to this branch not in the last official release (v22.1.0, released September 24, 2023) are:

• Sound travels further in the caves

• New Rods

• Make some unique levels tougher

• Add Medical Bag action quick patch-up

These were my traits. The exorcist can't use manuscripts, altars, monoliths and temple gongs, but gains bonus traits at character levels 2, 4 and 6. I took two spell traits, Bless I and Sanctuary I, so I had one bonus trait to strengthen my statistics and non-spell abilities.

[Lich]

New commit: Add more potions

potion_skill
"The consumer becomes more skillful (+10% to hit chance, evasion, stealth, and searching)."

potion_carapace
"Causes a tough carapace to grow over the consumer's skin providing protection against physical attacks (+3 armor points), as well as some resistance against burning (+25% chance to resist burning)."

potion_blinking
"Causes the consumer to rapidly fade away from existence, and reappear again at a nearby position of their choosing."

potion_burrowing
"Infused with the alchemically treated blood of Chthonians, it grants the consumer the ability to burrow through earth and rock (can burrow through walls and rubble)."

I don't like some of the new additions to the game.

The effects of the new potions are too narrow and don't feel appropriate as potions. Maybe adding a new class of items for these effects would be better.

The quick patch-up ability is too strong and feels unrealistic. You start with 12-20 health and the patch-up ability restores 10 hit points in 4 turns for 2 supplies. That's way too strong.

[OGchan]

Version 23.0.0 has been released:

============================================================
= v23.0.0 (May 18, 2025)
============================================================
##############################
# Gameplay
##############################
# Terrain objects
- Some terrain objects are now "inscribed" and can be studied by bumping them. This gives XP, can recall forgotten spells, and gives a "feeling" regarding carried items (e.g. if a potion is benign or malign). Item "feelings" no longer happen passively over time.
- Hazy Mirrors no longer recall forgotten spells, instead they identify all carried items. They are also much rarer than before.
- If the player has a cursed item, gongs have a high chance of giving the "bless" bonus (which also removes one curse).
- Magic traps ("strange shape") starts hidden again just like mechanical traps, however traps are no longer spawned in corridors.
- The type of monsters that can appear from tombs is now limited based on the current dungeon level (previously mid/late game monsters could spawn from tombs early in the game).

# Backgrounds (classes)
- Exorcists can no longer store spirit points above max level indefinitely, instead they gain fervor points for destroying manuscripts, altars, etc. Fervor can be used for casting spells, and is used automatically when there is not enough spirit points to cast from. The "Prolonged Life" trait also uses fervor instead of spirit.
- Due to the above change, the Flagellant trait "Fervor" has been renamed to "Enthusiasm".

# Traits
- Added trait "Sage" - This is an upgrade of the "Meditative" trait, spells are also cast at a higher skill level when "Focused", and the duration to regain the focused state is reduced.
- Added trait "Elusive" - A unique trait for Rogues, that makes creatures only remember you for half the normal duration.
- Rapid Recoverer regenerates 1 hit point every third turn instead of every second turn.
- The Marksman traits also increase minimum damage (but cannot increase maximum damage).

# Items
- When using the Medical Bag, a menu is now shown where you can select the treatment to perform. Also added an option to automatically choose treatment like before.
- Added an additional Medical Bag action called "quick patch-up", which restores some hit points.
- The Exorcist Holy Symbol can now raise spirit above max limit (instead of just restoring spirit).
- Added a "Heavy Coat" armor, with 2 armor points and -5% stealth/dodging (actually this existed a long time ago, but was a very different item).
- Removed some Rod types and added new ones. Also the Deafening Device is now a Rod instead.
- Merged "Potion of Fire Resistance" and "Insulation" into "Potion of Resistance", that also gives poison resistance and prevent paralysis. The "Resistance" spell has been removed.
- Added more potions.
- The Asbestos Suite now protects against some more attacks where it makes sense (e.g. mold spores).
- Various weapon rebalancing, especially to make medium/heavy weapons more relevant compared to daggers.

# Spells
- Increased duration of the See Invisible spell.
- The rats summoned by the Pestilence spell appear scattered throughout an area (instead of grouped around the caster), and the spell only last for a limited time.
- Added blindness as a spell available to some monsters (this also existed in the game a very long time ago).
- Removed the Resistance spell (this is now a potion instead, see above).

# Status effects
- Poison now stacks, i.e. the duration of the new poison effect is added to the old (normally the duration is set to the longest duration of the old or new effect).
- Poison can only damage creatures down to 50% hit points, but it also reduces melee damage by 25%, and melee and dodge skill by 10%.
- The damage from poison happens less frequently, but in larger bursts.
- While being entangled or stuck, it is now possible to melee attack adjacent monsters with the move direction keys (this is consistent with the nailed status, where it was already possible).

# Monsters
- Some creatures are now "flammable" (e.g. mold, worm masses). If ignited, these burn permanently and will also ignite any other adjacent flammable creatures.
- Mold do zero direct damage (only poison).
- Hallucinogenic Mold always start together with regular mold.
- Mold now appear in a more scattered pattern when they "breed".
- Leng Spider web bolas now also entangle for a few turns.
- Void Travelers intercepting player teleportation now also ends invisibility and cloaking.
- More monsters now take reduced damage from piercing attacks (e.g. Ooze, Mummies).
- Limited the number of different monster types that a single Shapeshifter can change into.
- Misc monster balancing (a lot of balancing of stats, group sizes, properties, etc)
- Added more monsters.

# Map generation
- The ruins in the late game caves can contain chests, tombs, or altars.
- Crypt rooms (tomb rooms) and ritual rooms (rooms with altars) can also spawn in the late game caves.
- Made some improvements to where terrain objects can spawn in rooms, for example previously some terrain like chests or cabinets could never spawn in the corner of a room.
- Some rooms can now spread terrain outside of themselves (e.g. spider rooms can create webs in nearby areas outside of the room).
- Misc improvements to corridor generation (limited max corridor length, corridors occasionally connect to other corridors, and corridors are randomly made wider in the late game for a more cavernous look).
- Changed some room templates that were annoying to explore, or created dead-end corridors that looked like they led to a secret door.

# Special maps
- Added intro message popups for some special levels.
- Made several of the special levels tougher.

# Other gameplay changes
- In the late game cave levels, sound travels 50% further.
- Monsters spawning over time happens a certain duration after entering a new level, instead of at fixed global intervals - this prevents manipulating the counter for example by waiting at the stairs.
- Completely removed "acid" as a damage type and concept from the game. Bloated Corpse and Corpse Mound spit now do zero damage and apply infection instead, Strange Colors do pure damage.
- Reworked and unified how dodging penalties are calculated for melee and ranged attacks. This should not have much effect on how the game plays, but hit chances may be affected in some cases (for example being stuck now also gives a dodging penalty against ranged attacks, and confusion no longer gives a dodging penalty at all).

##############################
# User interface
##############################
# Design
- Added a flashing animation when bashing stuff (doors, corpses, ...).
- Messages fade out instead of immediately being cleared.
- Removed many cases where the game "paused" (i.e. "[space]" is shown), for example revealing hidden doors no longer pause the game.
- The screen fades to red when the player dies.
- Braziers have a subtle flicker effect, similar to the player when using the Electric Lantern.
- When viewing monster descriptions, current health percentage is shown. Added an option to disable health bars.

# Convenience / quality of life features
- Tab now also disarms adjacent traps (melee attacking is prioritized).
- Added a legend for the minimap screen that explains what the different colors represent.
- More types of things are now marked on the minimap (e.g. Tombs, Braziers, ...).
- Numpad 0 can also be used for opening and closing the minimap.
- In the "apply" menu, "a" is always reserved for the Electric Lantern and 'b' for the Medical Bag (and 's' for the Holy Symbol if Exorcist). On the first screen of the "apply" menu, these items will always appear on top and their keys will never be used for any other item.
- Added "b" as a shortcut command for using the Medical Bag directly from the normal game mode.
- In most of the menus and screens, the mousewheel can be used for scrolling up and down.
- Double clicking anywhere toggles fullscreen. Also added an option to enable/disable this feature.
- A bunch of screens now also support pgup/pgdown/home/end for scrolling.

# Other user interface changes
- Added a brightness setting.
- The game now hides the mouse cursor.

##############################
# Fixes
##############################
- Fixed a bug that caused Expert Marksman go give a double upgrade, and Master Marksman to give no upgrade at all (this bug has existed since v20.0).
- The Talisman of Resurrection first restored all hit points and then healed all wounds, which could leave the player with lower than full health - fixed by reversing the order.
- Exorcists picking a stack of Manuscripts destroyed the whole stack, but only gave bonuses for one Manuscript.
- For Exorcist spell traits, available spirit info is no longer printed in the character info screen, only when picking a trait (also the character info screen could show wrong numbers).
- Being stuck in mud had a limited time duration - it now has indefinite duration (the player/creature has to actively pull themselves free).
- "Throwing a Stick of Dynamite" is no longer added to the message history.
- Fixed a timing issue when the player controls teleportation (e.g. when casting teleport, game time would pass between casting the spell and getting to control the teleport location). Now the control happens instantly.
- And more bug fixes...

##############################
# Modability, game data
##############################
- Available font images are no longer hard coded in the game, instead the gfx/fonts/ directory is searched for any .png file that starts with <width>x<height> (e.g. "7x13_uushi.png"). So new .png fonts can be added just by dropping them in the fonts directory.
- The required dungeon level for monster group sizes in monsters.xml can now also be specified relative to the minimum dungeon level of the monster (with format "+N" levels). For example if a monster has min_dungeon_level "4", then a group_size entry with required_dungeon_level="+2" will cause the monster to start spawning with that group size on dungeon level 6.

##############################
# Other
##############################
- Added an option to build and link SDL statically into the game binary (the source code is included in the Git repo), with this method there is no need to install SDL dependencies to play the game (or when building the game). By the default the installed system version of SDL is found and used on Linux, and the prebuilt SDL version is used on Windows. Building and linking SDL statically is enabled via the CMake option "IA_BUILD_STATIC_SDL" (use -DIA_BUILD_STATIC_SDL=ON when running cmake to configure this mode). "Official" releases of the game are built with a statically linked SDL, so there is no need to install SDL dependencies to play these versions.
- The released version of the game is now built on Debian Bullseye with gcc 10.2.1 - glibc 2.31 or newer is required to play the game on Linux.
- The user config/options is now handled as an ini file (instead of just lines in a text file written and read in a specific order).
- A user_data.ini file is placed inside the game directory, where it is possible to specify the directory where user data (highscores, options, etc) shall be stored. If left blank, the default locations will be used.
- On startup, the game tests if several locations are writable (the user_data.ini location, calling SDL_GetPrefPath, and inside the game directory itself), to find a place where it is possible to write user data.

Download v23.0.0 for Linux x64
Download v23.0.0 for Windows x64

[Lich]

I posted these elsewhere. They might be useful.

Item-related tips:

• Cast Sanctuary, activate dynamite, wait until it's about to explode, then throw it to make it explode immediately at the target.

• Wear gas mask, activate smoke grenade, then carry it to emit smoke around your location without blinding yourself; this hides you from enemies that need line of sight to attack (like wizards and khagas).

• Morphic Blaster can target outside the sight range without damage penalty.

• Throw objects at a square to draw nearby enemies to that square.

On using Fluctuating Material to replace Exorcist's Bane of the Undead trait with Bless II, Sanctuary II or another spell:

That trait is narrow so replacing it could be helpful depending on what you need. When I experimented with second-level spells, most of them felt superfluous for my builds at higher dlvls.

Much of the extra duration from Bless II will be wasted since fights at higher dlvls tend to end quickly, either with you dying or killing everything that needs to die; I'm not certain but I felt that sound traveling farther at higher dlvls (a new feature of the last release) caused more enemies to be drawn to my location once fights started than in older releases, worsening this tendency. The extra duration from Sanctuary II can be helpful, but most actions you'd want to take around casting Sanctuary can be taken as effectively with Sanctuary I, positioning and resource management.

If you take Healer with Sanctuary I, you can restore hit points using the medical bag and have at least one more free turn in one cast of Sanctuary. Healer allows you to take Rapid Recoverer, which helps you sustain health against threats and life loss from Mi-Go guns. The passive health regeneration and faster patch-up ability can make the Healing spell unnecessary; you can save spirit and fervor—which can be scarce at higher dlvls—for other spells.

Light or See Invisible can be necessary if you don't take Electrically Inclined early. I take Electrically Inclined and forgo Light and See Invisible if I find lantern charges, rods or strange devices early. Light II can be a little more dangerous than Light I as light exposes you to creatures and the spell can't be turned off. Light I should be enough with the electric lantern and flares unless you get unlucky with these items.

Cleansing Fire and Bless both raise hit chance. I would take one or the other. Cleansing Fire deals damage but is less consistent than Bless. Cleansing Fire II affects all visible hostile creatures so it's much stronger than Cleansing Fire I. If you want to take three spell traits, taking Cleansing Fire II instead of Bless might be most impactful.