Posted July 17, 2025 by Schmidt Workshops
#Full Release #CRPG #Lovecraftian #Roguelike #1.0 #Version 1.0 #Dungeon Crawler #Ultima #Questron #Lovecraft
I am super excited about Cyclopean: The Great Abyss, and thrilled that we've been able to bring it to this point with the help of the Early Access players.
There were many other updates since the most recent version.
Version 0.9.942 Last Minute Tweaks
This should prove interesting, and I hope I am not breaking the game here :) Spike traps will now effect enemies as well as the player.
Completely unrelated to the above, the player can also now reset spike traps by clicking "search" when facing them, just as when they search for traps to begin with.
I fixed a few errors in the Roguelike Mode archive panel. Also when you reset the game to it's default settings, it will ask if you want to restart immediately. I also lowered the click volume when hovering over buttons.
Thanks again to everyone who played, provided feedback and showed any kind of support for this project. Enjoy exploring and getting lost in the Great Abyss!
Version 0.9.941 Footsteps Update
Player footsteps will now better represent the surface being walked on.
Players who capture creatures will no longer be able to dialogue with the same kinds of creatures or their allies.
Starting a new game after a failed loading of an old game (due to it being from an older version) was causing some strange issues. For instance, the dungeons of that old game could get loaded into the new game. This has been addressed, and should no longer be a problem.
Version 0.9.940 Some Quality of Life Stuff (kind of)
Several players have requested this over the coarse of this Early Access period, and I finally got around to starting it. There are some important limitations to keep in mind. Right now it does not have any controller button, but you can use the F5 key to perform a quick save, and F8 to do a quick load, once you have loaded the game from a save slot.
I am a little nervous as adding a feature like this may introduce unexpected bugs. So let me know if you encounter any problems.
Also, it does not work with Roguelike Mode, since that only allows you to save the game on exit.
For people using a controller, if you use Steam Input, you can assign a button to the F5 key and another one to F8. If you are using the built in controller interface ... I pity you. It is not very good, and I feel like I may have to cut it before the full release due to weird bugs. I will have a look at it again tomorrow to see if it can be salvaged.
Now you can press ESC to exit a non-hostile encounter or an obstacle (door) menu. No need to navigate through all those nasty buttons. But for hostile encounters you still have to finish them before you can exit the menu.
Now if you are in a dungeon, you have a custom map marker that you can set, and reset by pressing the space bar (only when you are looking at the map, and only 1 marker can exist at a time). I hope this is helpful for you dungeon delvers. Use it wisely!
I added an ambient cave sound to the whole game, since it all takes place in the underworld.
This is some bigger changes than I was really planning on in this last week to be honest, but I think it's good because I realized how poorly designed my controller interface is right now. It would be good to know how many of you are using the built in controller interface, vs. Steam Input. I believe Steam Deck users would use Steam Input by default, but I am not 100% sure.
Version 0.9.939b More Last Minute Tweaks
I have been testing some more and I decided to tweak the darkness mechanic even more. Now you can no longer find secret doors in the dark too. Also, in order to gain a stealth advantage, the game will compare your armor's sneak rating to its protection level. Only if your sneak exceeds the protection will you be able to take advantage of the darkness. In additions to this, you can actually have a negative sneak value. Previously it could not go below zero. So having heavy armor and additional protection like plate gloves and boots, will make it harder for you to sneak.
There are a lot of advantages to using darkness, but I felt they needed to be balanced a bit more. This way each piece of armor you choose will have an effect on how you play. Also, items that can increase your sneak more will become more valuable to players who opt to choose the path of stealth...
Version 0.9.939a Some Necessary Tweaks
I have been playtesting and taking notes. So I am finding little things that may upset the game balance and making little changes to address those things.
For instance, navigating dungeons without a torch is actually very advantageous, as it allows you to sneak past monsters much easier. However, it was kind of easy to abuse this feature, so now you can do it, but you will not be able to successfully search for traps in the darkness.
Also, ghasts appear too readily in low level dungeons. So now I have made their appearance less likely.
Version 0.9.939 Treasure Maps and Charts
Treasure maps have been updated in several ways.
First, they will be called either Treasure Maps for treasure buried in the ground, or Treasure Charts for those that are in the sea.
Note: the treasure maps and charts do not refer to treasure chests in dungeons like the one depicted here. They only refer to treasures hidden in the overworld.
Second, the number of maps is no longer limited. Previously, once all treasure maps were found, you would no longer find any more. However, due to the way this worked, certain quests would no longer be possible to finish. I use a new system that removes any maps that were generated but not taken by the player, and also recycles (at a slower pace) any maps the player already found.
NPCs have also been updated to help new players understand how treasure maps and charts work.
Version 0.9.938 Roguelike Archives
Introducing the Archives. The Archives are only available in Roguelike Mode. They keep track of all your attempts, and tell a little story about your character's sojourn in the Great Abyss.
I also fixed a bunch of bugs here and there.
Version 0.9.937 Roguelike Update
Now the game will prompt you whether you want Roguelike Mode, the next time you start it. It will remember your choice from there on. If you want to reset, so you can switch, you have to go to the options menu and click "Restore Default Settings"
The "Restore Default Settings" checkbox will allow you to switch from Roguelike Mode back to normal, and vice verse.
There were some weird conflicts with Roguelike Mode in the last version. First it was using Slot 1 of your saved games so it may have overwritten a game. Now I have added a new slot (#16) that you can only access in Roguelike Mode, so it will not conflict with other saved games.
There was also a problem if you failed to load a game, then tried starting a new game. I believe this is resolved. If it gives you trouble, try just restarting the game again.
Some players experienced trouble with 4K monitors. I believe this is due to a conflict with screen scaling. I was able to apply a change to the game's manifest that should allow it to ignore screen scaling settings. Let me know if this is working or not. It is an extra step I have to do every time I publish the game, but it only takes a few moments. If the issue comes back in the future, it's probably because I forgot to take that extra step.
Version 0.9.934 Spiderwebs
Spiderwebs spiderwebs spiderwebs spiderwebs spiderwebs spiderwebs spiderwebs spiderwebs spiderwebs spiderwebs spiderwebs spiderwebs spiderwebs spiderwebs spiderwebs spiderwebs spiderwebs spiderwebs spiderwebs spiderwebs spiderwebs.
Spiderwebs spiderwebs spiderwebs spiderwebs spiderwebs spiderwebs spiderwebs spiderwebs spiderwebs spiderwebs spiderwebs spiderwebs spiderwebs spiderwebs spiderwebs spiderwebs spiderwebs spiderwebs spiderwebs spiderwebs spiderwebs.
Spiderwebs.
Update 0.9.933 Welcome to the Maelstrom!
Introducing Cyclopean's latest feature, the Maelstrom! The Great Abyss has just gotten more dangerous. No longer can you simply sail peacefully between underworld ports...
After introducing venom as a game mechanic, I did not realize it caused the player to die when they tried to level up. This escaped testing because it only happened if the player started a new game, then gained enough experience and tried leveling up without ever saving and loading the game. I will try to be more thorough in my testing!
The trader would start the game with no items in his inventory until after the player entered a dungeon, or loaded a saved game. Now, the trader should start off with a few items in his inventory as it should be.
Previous versions only allowed you to access one dead enemy's corpse if there were more than one on the same tile. Now you can cycle through any number of dead enemies, each time you search it should show a different one, until all have been accessed, then it starts back at the first.
See the animation above, as the player cycles through two different corpses, in this case a Cat and a Stygian Aberration. This also works outside of the dungeons.
Version 0.9.931New Stuff and a few Bug Fixes
I had to radically alter the way in which treasure maps were generated. There are a limited number of possible map locations, so once it generated all the possible maps, no new treasure maps would appear. So, for instance, every time you left a dungeon, there were any number of treasure maps generated by the overworld creatures/NPCs. If you went back into the dungeon, and did not get those maps, they would be gone and the game would not generate them again. Very bad design!
In this latest build, it only generates a map once you open a treasure chest, or interact with a creature. This way, it will make sure you will have access to every possible map in the game (though you may choose not to take it, I guess).
Since one quest now depends on using a treasure map, it was possible for that quest to be unwinnable. However, this would only happen if you started the game yesterday after the update, and played enough to exhaust all the maps.
The little messages scrawled on the walls of dungeons now provide a small XP boost the first time you encounter them.
The Great Abyss is the name for the whole underworld, but also for the subterranean sea which fills much of it. Now that sea provides the appropriate ambient sounds when you are near the shore or in the boat.
Update 0.9.930 The Very Big Update (The VBU)
Several big changes have been made in this Very Big Update (henceforth called the VBU).
Unfortunately, to access the new features of the VBU, you will have to start a new game. If you want to continue with your existing game, you can go to "Cyclopean > Properties > Betas" and activate "old_version_09928" so you can finish your current game. You may have to restart Steam in order to see this version in the betas tab.
The VBU fixes a number of outstanding bugs.
There were a few minor visual bugs, like the boat overlapping things in a bizarre way and walls that failed to stop the player from passing through them. There was also a strange effect that messed up the look of the screen during combat (not the wits event, which is intentional).
Some creatures in the overworld were not aligned to the grid properly, so you could not access the corpse after defeating them. Also, if you loaded a saved game in the overworld, corpses would appear, but were no longer accessible. Now you should be able to access corpses, even after loading a saved game. Note once you enter a dungeon, and emerge, the monsters in the overworld are randomized and corpses are removed.
Two books would not load properly in the Crag of the Ghouls. They should appear correctly now.
A strange bug allowed hostile creatures to attack your allies outside of an actual encounter.
If there was an active trap right behind a secret door, it became impossible to actually detect the secret door.
The VBU has a number of new features will will dramatically effect the gameplay in Cyclopean. I will try to summarize them here without giving away spoilers. I don't know exactly how all these changes will interact with each other, and with player's expectations, so I imagine I will be tweaking things in the next few days.
More special creature effects have been added. I want these to be a surprise, but to give an example, Ghasts are now venomous (as they are described in the text) so you will want to find some anti-venom (named atterlothe in the game ... an archaic name I feel Lovecraft would have approved of) when you intend to go into the Vaults of Zin. Other creatures have new unique effects, I will leave the rest for you to discover for yourself. I plan to add more, maybe not for every single creature, but at least two or three more.
Having allies was always an important part of the game, and since the beginning, each type of ally would give the player certain bonuses to things like stats.
Now this system has been greatly expanded upon. Each kind of ally will have an additional, stacking effect, depending on the other allies in your party. For instance, having cats and ghouls together will give you a limited night-vision in dungeons, which lets you take advantage of the darkness bonus, while still being able to see (though not as well as with a torch).
These relationships are described in more detail in the inquiries panel, so make sure you ask your allies about the other creatures in the underworld. Note: not every creature is aware of these effects, so you will usually only learn of an effect from one of the two parties involved.
Also, some allies who are hostile to others will no longer join your party if their enemies are present. Also, if you do have alliances with two or more hostile groups (which is still possible) they won't like if you leave them together at camp, and will begin fighting.
You can keep hostile allies in your party as long as you keep them separated, i.e. cats in the tent, and zoogs in your party, so you can switch them out as needed. Good luck!
A lot of new items have been added, most notably clothing and armor pieces. Helmets, gloves, boots and more can be equipped, which will improve your protection or sneak stats. Also, the aforementioned "atterlothe" which is a type of anti-venom, will be available.
To dig deeper into the ally features, there are now unique artifacts that provide even further bonuses, but they are rare and there is no guarantee of finding them. The idea is that you may find an item that will provide a bonus from a particular ally type. If you find that item, it may encourage you to seek out that creature as an ally, to get access to the bonus.
Once you interact with a door, it will "remember" your interaction. So, if you try to bash a door, and fail, it will tell you the minimum strength required to break it. The next time you meet that door, you don't have to try to bash it again, it will remind you what the minimum strength was when you interact with it again. This is the same for the skill+mind requirement for lock-picking as well as key type.
Clicking on an item in your inventory will now describe very briefly what that thing does. Armor and weapons still shows the strength or skill requirement as before.
Creature corpses will now display the type of creature whose corpse it is you are searching through.
The creature conflict feature has been expanded further. You will now hear them fighting when you are close, but the sound effects will fade out with distance.
Other things are included in the VBU, but you will find them as you play. One of the possible "main quests" has been given an additional requirement, a new trader was added, and many things were tweaked in the process of making this update. I hope the game feels more interactive and emergent. Have fun!