About This Game Gemstone Keeper is a twin stick shooter where avid explorers go down into the Cistershire Caverns, a large, dangerous and mysterious set of caves and caverns that are filled with vast amounts of rare and valuable gemstones. This game combines the quick and reactionary feel of a shooter with the exploration and decision making of classic roguelikes. Using an ASCII art aesthetic in its purest form, all visual assets are produced from a single text font file, software rendering and visual effects. The weapon and bullet system is fully interchangeable, over 150 gemstones to collect, several creatures and bosses, different game modes and a soundtrack that echoes through the open spaces in-between the rocky walls. Gemstone Keeper is the shooter that is both fun and eerie. 1075eedd30 Title: Gemstone KeeperGenre: Action, Adventure, IndieDeveloper:GamepopperPublisher:GamepopperRelease Date: 31 Mar, 2017 Gemstone Keeper Free Download [License] finders keepers gemstone panning. gemstone keeper First of all, I really loved how this game pretty much only uses ASCII symbols for its graphical design. Very retro-y, while still visually pleasing for a modern game. It was nice seeing variety in level designs and mechanics, and I think the enemy mobs are cute.The movements are smooth, and the weapon aiming is very responsive. I also really liked the variety of weapons and how you can combine all of them with different types of ammo.So overall it's a pretty good game and I'm happy with my purchase.I almost don't have anything negative to say, but one issue is that it seems to freeze and crash at random. This unfortunately removes all the progress I made while in the caverns, but whenever I return to the surface it seems my things are saved for good. It doesn't happen too often, and it's mostly easy to catch up, so it's just a minor issue.One other thing is that the levels with the swirly mist effect make me kinda dizzy and uncomfortable, but when I get those I just rush to the other level and all is fine again, haha.What I personally hope to see in this game in the future is difficulty settings. I felt it got really easy at some point, and I got through the game (minus collecting all the gems) in less than an hour. It didn't take away much of the fun, but still, it would be nice to test our skills on a higher difficulty. One thing I found out is that once you get further, you can practically collect infinite money and buy infinite health kits to stack your health up so high that a horde of mobs isn't really a threat anymore. There could be more feeling of progression. Collecting gems and saving up for items is still nice, but it ends up feeling like you keep doing the same thing just to collect all the things. Maybe you can make some kind of levelling system so people can slowly earn their stats instead of buying temporary increases, among other things, like unlocking weapons or something.And otherwise it would just be nice to see more content in general. Maybe also a story around it, for more immersion and to build up interest.(I hope this doesn't sound negative, cause I really liked it and wish you the best!). I really liked the base gameplay mechanics and interesting enemy variety, the music is wonderful too, really gets me into the mood to delve deeper.Collecting all the various gems is tough though, since it's rather random. I also had trouble with a lack of progression, There's nothing to spend money on since I couldn't figure out if it's possible to upgrade anything, though it seems like the mechanic is in the game.The bosses are very cool however and the various level types are unique feeling, would love to see more environmental differences. Overall I think the base game is good but it needs fleshing out a bunch.. I might write another review when I play more, but for now here is what I think after reaching the first boss. (I won't be talking about the sound since my laptop was muted)I had played Gemstone at Insomnia awhile ago and enjoyed it. I brought it yesterday since it was on sale and sat down to play it today. I really did enjoy it and like how simple the controls are and how simple the game is so far. I do expect it to become harder.However, there are two things I need to make aware. The first is the bright purple light when you enter a portal and the bright red light when you beat a boss. Although I do not suffer from epilepsy, I found it too bright, harsh and sudden.The second problem that could have been my own fault is that the first boss can trap you in the corner and chip away at your health. I was able to escape but it still something that I feel should be brought up. But again it might have been my own fault.I'm sure if the first issue is dealt with soon, the game would be much better. So I give this a recommend.. While I've only got a couple hours on the clock with Gemstone Keeper, first impressions are really quite good. The game plays precisely as sold, there's an interesting variety of enemy types, the moving & shooting is super smooth, the weapon combinations make for a fun arsenal, the gem collecting aspect is rewarding enough and the overall look & feel of the game, to me, has huge appeal.The somber, suped-up ASCII art style is awesome and shows from the dev a particular reverence for the roguelikes that started it all. Enemies are all easily distinguished and the shifting environment palettes from floor to floor help change things up during a run, although the everpresent hashtag walls are an inescapable visual sameness. There's a variety of trippy screen effects (identified in-game as "mists") that distort & obfuscate the play area, from watery ripples to a rapidly pulsing screen blur to just straight up fog-of-war-ing the edges of the viewport. These add flavour and interest to the floors where they occur but I must admit the pulsing effect makes me a little queasy; I understand their gameplay-altering intent but some control over the intensity of these effects would be most welcome for sensitive players.Sound design is excellent - atmospheric and polished with cold, ambient electronic music, glassy shatters, satisfying crumbles and squeaking monsters comprising the majority of the soundscape. I'd dig some additional audio feedback sprinkled throughout, such as when bullets impact, but everything that's here sounds lovely. The soundtrack sets the perfect mood and I'd totally listen to the main dungeon theme outside the game. One special detail worth noting is the tempo of the music shifts in response to a floor's current mist, turning slow and heavy when submerged or going double time when meth'd (for lack of a better term).On the configuration side, I very much appreciate the flexible graphics settings offered as the ability to disable filters & bloom gets on my laptop's good side. It's worth noting that graphic \/ audio options are only accessible from the escape menu, never from the main menu. Windowed resolution presets to switch between would be welcome, as opposed to the free resizing the game exclusively offers now, but there's an adequate level of configurability here, and while controls don't appear to be rebindable, the default is perfectly sensible for QWERTY users (WASD + mouse). The game detected (and plays quite nicely with) an Xbox 360 gamepad, but it would seem controller support is limited to xinput devices as a Logitech Dual Action wasn't seen at all. Tiny side note, the boot-up sequence is supremely charming and an early sign of the attention to detail & quirky personality present throughout Gemstone Keeper.I've run into some bugs during my relatively brief time with the game which have required the session be killed, such as getting stuck on a purely white or glitched-out screen. Here's a link to a thread on the community forums with more detail on the technical issues encountered: http:\/\/steamcommunity.com\/app\/522080\/discussions\/0\/135512931365353024\/All in all, recommended based on my experience thus far. Gemstone Keeper is just begging to be played by more people, fingers crossed it finds an appreciable audience here on Steam :). Amazing!!!!. Amazing!!!!. I might write another review when I play more, but for now here is what I think after reaching the first boss. (I won't be talking about the sound since my laptop was muted)I had played Gemstone at Insomnia awhile ago and enjoyed it. I brought it yesterday since it was on sale and sat down to play it today. I really did enjoy it and like how simple the controls are and how simple the game is so far. I do expect it to become harder.However, there are two things I need to make aware. The first is the bright purple light when you enter a portal and the bright red light when you beat a boss. Although I do not suffer from epilepsy, I found it too bright, harsh and sudden.The second problem that could have been my own fault is that the first boss can trap you in the corner and chip away at your health. I was able to escape but it still something that I feel should be brought up. But again it might have been my own fault.I'm sure if the first issue is dealt with soon, the game would be much better. So I give this a recommend.. While I've only got a couple hours on the clock with Gemstone Keeper, first impressions are really quite good. The game plays precisely as sold, there's an interesting variety of enemy types, the moving & shooting is super smooth, the weapon combinations make for a fun arsenal, the gem collecting aspect is rewarding enough and the overall look & feel of the game, to me, has huge appeal.The somber, suped-up ASCII art style is awesome and shows from the dev a particular reverence for the roguelikes that started it all. Enemies are all easily distinguished and the shifting environment palettes from floor to floor help change things up during a run, although the everpresent hashtag walls are an inescapable visual sameness. There's a variety of trippy screen effects (identified in-game as "mists") that distort & obfuscate the play area, from watery ripples to a rapidly pulsing screen blur to just straight up fog-of-war-ing the edges of the viewport. These add flavour and interest to the floors where they occur but I must admit the pulsing effect makes me a little queasy; I understand their gameplay-altering intent but some control over the intensity of these effects would be most welcome for sensitive players.Sound design is excellent - atmospheric and polished with cold, ambient electronic music, glassy shatters, satisfying crumbles and squeaking monsters comprising the majority of the soundscape. I'd dig some additional audio feedback sprinkled throughout, such as when bullets impact, but everything that's here sounds lovely. The soundtrack sets the perfect mood and I'd totally listen to the main dungeon theme outside the game. One special detail worth noting is the tempo of the music shifts in response to a floor's current mist, turning slow and heavy when submerged or going double time when meth'd (for lack of a better term).On the configuration side, I very much appreciate the flexible graphics settings offered as the ability to disable filters & bloom gets on my laptop's good side. It's worth noting that graphic \/ audio options are only accessible from the escape menu, never from the main menu. Windowed resolution presets to switch between would be welcome, as opposed to the free resizing the game exclusively offers now, but there's an adequate level of configurability here, and while controls don't appear to be rebindable, the default is perfectly sensible for QWERTY users (WASD + mouse). The game detected (and plays quite nicely with) an Xbox 360 gamepad, but it would seem controller support is limited to xinput devices as a Logitech Dual Action wasn't seen at all. Tiny side note, the boot-up sequence is supremely charming and an early sign of the attention to detail & quirky personality present throughout Gemstone Keeper.I've run into some bugs during my relatively brief time with the game which have required the session be killed, such as getting stuck on a purely white or glitched-out screen. Here's a link to a thread on the community forums with more detail on the technical issues encountered: http:\/\/steamcommunity.com\/app\/522080\/discussions\/0\/135512931365353024\/All in all, recommended based on my experience thus far. Gemstone Keeper is just begging to be played by more people, fingers crossed it finds an appreciable audience here on Steam :). First of all, I really loved how this game pretty much only uses ASCII symbols for its graphical design. Very retro-y, while still visually pleasing for a modern game. It was nice seeing variety in level designs and mechanics, and I think the enemy mobs are cute.The movements are smooth, and the weapon aiming is very responsive. I also really liked the variety of weapons and how you can combine all of them with different types of ammo.So overall it's a pretty good game and I'm happy with my purchase.I almost don't have anything negative to say, but one issue is that it seems to freeze and crash at random. This unfortunately removes all the progress I made while in the caverns, but whenever I return to the surface it seems my things are saved for good. It doesn't happen too often, and it's mostly easy to catch up, so it's just a minor issue.One other thing is that the levels with the swirly mist effect make me kinda dizzy and uncomfortable, but when I get those I just rush to the other level and all is fine again, haha.What I personally hope to see in this game in the future is difficulty settings. I felt it got really easy at some point, and I got through the game (minus collecting all the gems) in less than an hour. It didn't take away much of the fun, but still, it would be nice to test our skills on a higher difficulty. One thing I found out is that once you get further, you can practically collect infinite money and buy infinite health kits to stack your health up so high that a horde of mobs isn't really a threat anymore. There could be more feeling of progression. Collecting gems and saving up for items is still nice, but it ends up feeling like you keep doing the same thing just to collect all the things. Maybe you can make some kind of levelling system so people can slowly earn their stats instead of buying temporary increases, among other things, like unlocking weapons or something.And otherwise it would just be nice to see more content in general. Maybe also a story around it, for more immersion and to build up interest.(I hope this doesn't sound negative, cause I really liked it and wish you the best!). I really liked the base gameplay mechanics and interesting enemy variety, the music is wonderful too, really gets me into the mood to delve deeper.Collecting all the various gems is tough though, since it's rather random. I also had trouble with a lack of progression, There's nothing to spend money on since I couldn't figure out if it's possible to upgrade anything, though it seems like the mechanic is in the game.The bosses are very cool however and the various level types are unique feeling, would love to see more environmental differences. Overall I think the base game is good but it needs fleshing out a bunch. Build 1.0.4 for Winter: Hope everyone has a happy holiday this winter, maybe some of you will pick up some really cool games or play ones currently in your library! (hint hint :P)Gemstone Keeper has been updated to Version 1.0.4, the changes made are as follows: VFrame Engine Update: The underlying engine of Gemstone Keeper had been updated during the development of a new project. Some changes are optimisations but there have been more additional functionality for graphics and tilemaps. Weapons and Bullets Added: Specifically, a gun that will shoot in all directions, big bullets and shrinking bullets. The count of both gun and bullet types is now seven, meaning there are now a total of 49 weapon types! Transitions Between Levels: This was a fun addition since I want more excuse to work on visual effects.If you wish to continue playing Gemstone Keeper as the previous version (1.0.3), you can set the game go to Properties -> Betas and opt into Legacy.. Fixes following Winter Sale: First of all, I'd like to say thank you to those who have supported the game up to this point, including those who have either provided feedback or let me know directly about any bugs or issues you have found with the game. It can be difficult for myself to find all of them, but people's descriptions of such events help a lot in finding solutions.The Steam Winter Sale especially proved troubling as being away for the holidays meant I couldn't provide immediate solutions, so I appreciate the patience some of you had.The main issues which have been resolved in the patch released today included runtime errors at the start of boss battles late into the game as well as crashes in the Linux build which were caused by the random number generator.Hope you enjoy the improved build of 1.0.4 and hope for the best of 2018!. Gemstone Keeper 1.0.5: Major Graphical Overhaul in this update!As well as numerous underlying updates, a lot of work has been put in re-doing most of the rendering. So while the game may not look much different, it should perform much better and be much more stable than before.. 1.0.6 Update: As a result of it being the two year anniversary of this game's release, I made a bunch of fixes and made a fairly big announcement. To make sure none of you on Steam are left out, most of these anniversary updates have been pushed onto the Windows and Linux builds.The main one is another update engine, this time to use improved 3D models and visual effects, as well as to prevent any technical issues in the event Steamworks is not found.Thank you to all of you over the last two years to have a look and try out Gemstone Keeper. This was a long and massive project for me and I look forward to sharing more if its future, and hopefully newer projects as well.. Build 1.0.3: It's been a while, but a new build is here with some significant improvements! Two new creatures found in the caverns, Scorpions and Crabs. Mouse Input additions and improvements, particularly in menus. Laser bullets had issues which made them overpowered, this has been fixed to avoid easy kills, particularly with bosses. Additional text in transitions and the base hub. The Terminal Guide will now appear with controls during gameplay and the base hub menus (including the gallery and shop) at the press of a button. Bring it up with the H key on keyboards or the X Button on gamepads. Low Level engine updates to improve performance and memory usage.Hope you like the changes, I've also had to update the save format to make adding new weapons and items possible so more new things can come which will be completely free to those who own it on Steam.
- mentmucorchefuc