CoolRPG: Volume I 1.0.98 – real death, battle talents and 29 new monsters
CoolRPG: Volume I 1.0.98 is out for playtesters on Google Play, Google TV, Windows and in the browser. This is one of the biggest updates yet. Death now has teeth, Fighters and Thieves fight with talents, the Lore Tome remembers every piece of gear you find, and 29 monsters got brand-new artwork, painted by an AI running on our own server.
29 monsters, redrawn
Until now, a lot of Volume I’s monsters were stand-ins. Bats and hawks shared a crow sprite, ants and beetles were crabs, every giant was the same king, and some art was simply broken: a giant black widow missing legs, kobolds holding sword hilts with no blades. All of that is gone. Ants, beetles, bees, flies, the black widow (all eight legs), kobolds with real swords, the griffon, manticore, giants, pirates, the sea serpent, werebear, owlbear, bugbears, gnolls, werewolves, the wyvern and more now have art of their own.
Made on a homelab AI server, not a paid service
Every one of these monsters was painted by an image AI running on our own hardware. It runs on a server in our homelab with an NVIDIA Tesla P100 graphics card, the open-source ComfyUI and the DreamShaper XL Turbo model. No paid image service, no per-image fees, and nothing leaves the house. For each monster the server paints several candidates. We pick the one that fits Basic Fantasy best, and its exact settings are saved so it can be painted again identically. This pass took about 130 renders, roughly 40 seconds each.
Death is real now
A hero knocked to exactly 0 HP is only knocked out and gets back up after the battle. A hero struck below 0 is slain and stays down until raised, with a Scroll of Raise Dead from the Mystic, a temple priest, or the Cleric’s own Raise Dead spell at level 5. That’s how Basic Fantasy plays it, and it makes every fight count.
Battle talents for Fighters and Thieves
Spellcasters no longer have all the fun. Fighters get Mighty Blow, Second Wind, Shield Wall, Precise Strike and Riposte, and Thieves get Backstab, Vanish and Pilfer. Talents run on stamina, which Fighters draw from Strength and Thieves from Dexterity.
A Lore Tome that remembers your gear
Every weapon, armour and item you pick up gets its own page. Each page shows what it does, its +1 / +2 / +3 smithing path (with the tiers you’ve owned ticked off) and the gems you’ve had set in it. Gems have pages too, and each one’s weapon and armour enchantments stay hidden until a smith sets that gem for you. In the inventory, Details (or Shift / the controller’s X) opens an item’s page.
Smaller things you’ll notice
- Character creation: Back on every step and a Cancel New Game button that never touches your save slots.
- Options → Keyboard Keys / Controller Buttons: remap anything, including the map shortcuts. WASD is supported too.
- The paid game has no ads at all.
- The Player Guide and Walkthrough have been rewritten for this version.
Play it
The Android version is in a closed test on Google Play. Email your Gmail address to [email protected] and we’ll add you, then join at play.google.com/apps/testing/com.coolrpg.crpgv1. Members can also play in the browser from the site. Found a bug? Use Options → Report a Bug in the game. Watch the full trailer.
CoolRPG: Volume I adapts open-licensed Basic Fantasy material (CC BY-SA 4.0). Thank you to Chris Gonnerman and every Basic Fantasy contributor.