- Alpha 20.06.27 update - 27 June 2020
Developer Comments: I've decided that I do want to balance the game around being able to flawlessly beat each map, but it will require some strategy and planning on the players part. Right now, it's kind of easy to beat maps flawlessly, so I will need to test and improve that more. My goal isn't necessarily to make all skills equally powerful, but I do want to make them all powerful and interesting. I want the player to feel like its worth putting willpower into each of them. Some skills will require changes still. Your feedback would be greatly appreciated. What skills do you never put points into, because you feel like they are too weak/boring? Sorry for taking so long on this update. I had some personal issues come up. I will do my best to stay more regular with the updates. I still want to make this game the best it can be, I hope you will stick with me through that journey. Changel…
- Alpha 20.05.16 weekly update - 17 May 2020
Developer Comments: I wasn't happy with how confusing the game can be to new players and more casual players. So I tried to make the informational popups give a more general description of what the new thing does, with the hopes of giving the player a fundamental understanding rather than a technical understanding. It's easier to understand that the frost tower slows enemies down rather than understanding exactly how it slows them down and under what conditions. With this change average players can understand how to use the tower, while the hardcore players can read the exact descriptions to understand all the details and potential strategies. I'm thinking about balancing the game around being able to beat each map without losing any lives, but you need to use a really good strategy to do so. I would reward players who are able to complete a map flawlessly with a special border or some…
- Alpha 20.05.09 weekly update - 9 May 2020
Developer Comments: Sorry for the small update. It took me a lot longer than I wanted to fix the "not being able to unlock things" bug. The bug was a simple fix by itself, but adding the system that retroactively awards unlockables when updating versions was tough. Changelog: New features: * reworked the bonus exp gained for completing maps Polish: * improved the way the map select screen chooses the default map * renamed the "map default" enemy group and reorganized the enemies in it Balance: * changed the amount of essence gained from enemies spawning (reduced for early waves, increased for later waves) Bug fixes: * updating the game should now properly give awards that should have been given * game speed is saved even when the game is forcibly closed * you no longer start with 5% interest
- Alpha 20.05.05 Hotfix - 5 May 2020
Hotfix: * unlocking new maps and other things now works properly * updating the game awards unlocks that should have been given
- Alpha 20.05.02 weekly update - 3 May 2020
Developer Comments: This new gamemode allows players to see how far they can make it with their current power level. Based on how many waves are survived you are rewarded with permanent exp gain. I'm hoping this will encourage players to really try to optimize their strategies so they can push further waves. There are still a few features missing from the gamemode, such as being able to start at a certain wave within your highscore, and gaining rewards that help you push further waves but only in endless (essence per wave, increased damage, etc.) For now the gamemode is unlocked pretty early on. I will most likely move it to be unlocked somewhere during the Apprentice Vision Quest. Changelog: New features: * added a new gamemode "endless", survive as long as possible against infinite waves gaining permanent rewards the more you do * for now the endless is unlocked by beating vision 11 P…
- Alpha 20.04.25 weekly update - 25 April 2020
Developer Comments: I'm getting ready to make the changes to the gamemodes. So in the meantime, I hope you enjoy more early game balance/polish. I like the water tower much more now, it felt a bit underwhelming, but now with the extra slow it feels so much better. Changelog: General Changes: * if the list of custom enemies is blank, it will pick random enemies from the unlocked enemies * added "random", "random plastic", and "random non-plastic" to the list of possible custom enemies * the random enemies will only pick unlocked enemies Tower/Skill Changes: New Features: * new water tower functionality: if the target has armor deals bonus damage that ignores armor completely * changed the "hard water" skill to work with the new tower functionality Polish: * swapped the first skill unlocked for a different lightning skill * changed many tower effects and skill tooltips to explain values i…
- Alpha 20.04.18 weekly update - 19 April 2020
Developer Comments: I really like the new skills system, it adds a ton more strategic depth. There are still very obvious skills to use for certain scenarios, I'm hoping to fix that after more playtesting. As it stands now the first 30 scenarios are very close to what I want them to be like. So let me know what you think of the new skills system. Moving forward I want to balance and playtest the game one chunk at a time. So this update I focused solely on the first 30 maps (essentially the entire Novice challenge). In the next update I want to focus on the next challenge level. I feel like this method of balance will improve the quality of the game faster. The way I was doing it before, ment that I redid almost everything whenever I changed some aspect of balance. This way I shouldn't have to change as much, but even if I do, you will have a more complete experience in the early-game. S…
- Alpha 20.04.03 weekly update - 3 April 2020
Developer Comments: I think this new skills system will be much more interesting. There are now more skills to choose from and with the skills being linked, it means you will have to choose what skill you want. This will be a hard choice because many skills are extremely strong when used properly. I still need to work on the balance of the skills and the unlock curve. Hopefully I can make great progress on that next update. I want the maps to be interesting and challenging from start to finish. I also want the player to constantly be unlocking new and exciting things. So expect that soon. Changelog: New features: * complete redesign to the skills system * tower skills now have another skill they are linked with, points can only be applied to one or the other * unspent willpower now gives starting money instead of exp gain Balance: * removed lightning tower armor ignore * revealed now st…
- Alpha 20.03.20 weekly update - 20 March 2020
Developer Comments: This update comes with some changes to how the gamemodes work, they are now more distinct and separate. Vision quest is more focused on completing challenging scenarios, while Lucid Dream is focused on letting the player openly choose what kind of scenario they want to have. I plan to make "endless" an entirely separate gamemode where you face off against infinite waves and see how far you can get. You get a "highscore" based on the furthest wave you've reached. The highscore gives you bonus exp gain and you can choose to start from your highscore wave (so you don't have to beat waves you've already beaten again). I don't know when I will implement the new endless gamemode, but it will be sooner rather than later, since it will be part of how the player progresses through the game. The update to the skills system is coming. I've decided to make each skill linked with…
- Weekly update delayed - 13 March 2020
Developer Comments: In the last update I made a few changes to the skills and how they work. After testing I realized that those changes didn't fix the problem. I didn't even realize what the problem was, I just knew in my gut that something was wrong. I realize now that the skills weren't offering any strategic choice to the player. It was either apply skill points towards towers that you will use, or apply skill points towards just increasing all towers damage. Either way it led to the very boring choice of: "should I increase all tower damage by 10% or just this towers damage by 10%?" I have a few ideas for how I can make spending willpower a more strategic choice. The first idea is to tie certain skills together so you can only apply points into one or the other at any given time (example; you can only increase water armor tear or slow effect, not both at the same time). I like this…
- Alpha 20.03.06 weekly update - 7 March 2020
Developer Comments: Skills felt too 1 dimensional. Sometimes you wouldn't have enough useful skills to put all your willpower into, so you would put the rest into extra starting lives which didn't actively help you win the scenario. Now that the damage skill is unlocked from the start you will always be able to use your willpower to actively help you destroy enemies. If you can't put it towards buffing a tower in a unique way, you can always just get 10% extra damage. This change did make all the scenarios easier, so enjoy the reduced difficulty while it lasts. The reason why I added the skill caps was because without it some skills felt far superior to others. Now I can gate the power of skills and allow the player to unlock more potential in those skills as I see fit. I really want to get the scenarios to all be solid, from start to finish, including through all the challenge levels.…
- Alpha 20.2.28 weekly update - 28 February 2020
Developer Comments: I'm trying to find a good balance between challenge and progress. I think that rewarding bonus experience gain from intensity is a good start. It should encourage players to try harder scenarios, without punishing them if they play easier scenarios. I wasn't quite happy with how straight forward the challenge levels were, so I added more unique attributes to make them more difficulty and hopefully more rewarding. Expect a big scenario rebalance next week. I'm going to focus on how each individual scenario feels to play. And hopefully make them all feel very enjoyable. Changelog: New features: * the scenario endscreen now displays if you quit a scenario * the endscreen shows experienced gained during restarts (if any) * reworked swarm modifier (more enemies spawn, faster spawn rate, more move speed) * greatly enhanced the difference in overall difficulty between chall…
- Alpha 20.2.21 weekly update - 22 February 2020
Developer Comments: I was going to balance scenarios this week, but as I was testing the intensity calculation I found multiple towers that didn't feel like they were living up to their full potential, so I decided to add/rework a bunch of functionality there. I want towers to synergize well with each other and I want them all to have a potential use in the late game where raw power becomes more important. It seemed like the "water-lightning-frost" combo was by far the best combo, but I want other tower combos to be really strong too. So hopefully now there are lots more other combos to try and that work really well. Balancing the scenarios is still really important to me. But I think I might need one more week of testing the new towers before I feel comfortable balancing the scenarios. I don't want to spend time balancing the scenarios if I will just need to rebalance them again if I c…
- Alpha 20.2.14 weekly update - 15 February 2020
Developer Comment Now players will actually be able to challenge themselves as soon as Lucid Dream is unlocked. There is still a lot more testing and tweaking that needs to be done to the intensity calculation. I want players to be able to push their limits, the intensity calculation will help them know where those limits are. I want to focus on getting more of the Vision Quest scenarios balanced. It is a very long and tedious process, so I'm going to spread it out between the next few updates (hopefully balancing 5-9 scenarios each week). I've been considering adding an "enraged" system. The basic idea is that enemies will dynamically become stronger if the player is overpowered. I want to allow the player to feel overpowered, so this would most likely be an "opt in" system. Where the player can choose to enrage the enemies, increasing stats and experience gained. Let me know if you ha…
- Alpha 20.2.7 weekly update - 7 February 2020
Developer Comment I am preparing for some major changes with how the Lucid Dream gamemode works. I want it to be a sort of "create your own challenges" mode. Currently it is very basic. These are a few of the changes I had in mind: Changes to how the scenario "intensity" is calculated. I want it to be an accurate representation of how much willpower is needed to beat the scenario. More customization available early on in Lucid Dream mode. I want this gamemode to enable creativity and to let players try new things to help them learn how to better beat Vision Quest scenarios. More control over enemy stats (spawn delay, spawn count, move speed, etc.). But I think this might be too much control. I still want the Lucid Dream scenarios to be challenging. If I give too much control, the player could make the scenario too easy. Changelog New features: * reworked experience gained from victory a…
- Alpha 20.1.31 weekly update - 1 February 2020
New features: * added a new wind tower skill (increases base attack speed) * added a "can be frozen" target priority to the frost tower Polish: * dropdown menus will now consume mouse scroll wheel input * reworded some tooltips * reworded the wind hit count skill * changed "most essence" to "has essence" (picks enemies if they have essence) * optimized the tower attack code (should be a small performance improvement) * added another buildable location to vision 3 Balance: * reworked how much relative power each skill gives per point applied (mostly increased) * slight changes to almost all towers (not all listed here) * changed the default target priorities for most towers (absorber most noticable) * reduced water tower range to 2.5 (was 3) * max wet stacks is now 100 (was 40) * slow per stack of wet is 0.5% up to a max of 20% slow * water tower bonus damage per stack of wet is now 0.01…
- Alpha 20.1.23 weekly update - 23 January 2020
New features: * added the ability to set the default target priority (unlocked after vision 3) * added a "refocus" button for when you lose, it restarts the scenario but with slightly reduced stats (this replaces auto difficulty) * refocusing will reduce the enemy stats by 5% each time, winning the scenario will increase stats by 4% (min stats: 70%, max stats: 100%) Polish: * removed auto difficulty from the settings menu (it is now part of the "refocus" system) * target priority is now unlocked much earlier (vision 1) * reduced the duration of the "victory" and "defeat" pop-ups * added tooltips and changed the wording on a few buttons * rearranged some buttons on the scenario selection and in-scenario exit menus * removed the "map select" button from the skills menu * renamed "fall asleep" to "begin" (I just wasn't happy with how it felt. I will add better flavor text for all the butto…
- Alpha 20.1.17 weekly update - 17 January 2020
-Overview-The biggest change with this update is the tower target priority system. This system allows the player to customize how each target chooses what enemies to attack. The system is very robust, you can add as many priorities as you like, the tower will filter each enemy through all the priorities until it finds the best enemy to attack. For the most part you won't really need to change the targeting priorities of towers, but the option is there if you want to use advanced strategies or just have some fun. There is a lot that you can do with this system, so let your imagination go wild! The ability to change the default target priority for newly created towers is coming in the next update (I didn't quite have time to fully implement it). An example of how the target priority system works:The priority is: 1. least health 2. fastest 3. closest to tower There are 5 enemies in range,…
- Alpha 20.1.10 - 11 January 2020
The first update brings many changes. Here is a rundown of the key differences. New features: * added a tutorial to the first map * added a visual effect to indicate how soon the next wave will be * added visual effects to indicate how many enemies have already spawned in a wave * added a visual effect to indicate how soon the next enemy will spawn * added change log button on the main menu screen Polish: * auto difficulty adjustment only displays if a value change actually occurred * reworded auto difficulty tooltips to better explain what it does * new enemy/tower/functionality pop ups only appear once per play session, until you win the scenario * lowest difficulty in settings menu is now 80% (was 50%) * play/pause tooltip says "start first wave" if no waves have been started yet * removed "are you sure you want to quit" text in top right corner when leaving/reloading a map * skills…
