Here we go, another update, nothing flashy this time, but highly useful nonethelss - name tags!
In Local games nametags match the names of the characters being play, in Online games they match the player's name.
Hit animations
Characters now flinch when they receive damage, providing an extra layer of feedback for both the attacker and the receiver.
Bug Fixes
Fixed an issue where Bhaar-Boot would not roll when moving Fixed a rare issue where Bhaar-Boot would cause the game to crash
Join our Friday Stream
We're hosting a stream today at 20:45 EET, we'll be showing off the latest batch of Vikings! Be there!
Update: Rage Away!
Bossgard came a long way and as the game gets more and more complex, we often find ourselves looking back at some early design decisions we've made, sometimes realizing that some parts of the game could be streamlined.
So we decided to drop the progression requirement for our Rage abilities, they will now be available off the bat. If you're wondering why we've locked them behind the God gates in the first place, it's because our early player feedback indicated that sometimes players would get lost when choosing between the various Rage powers or they would get frustrated, as some Rages are a bit harder to use than others.
But after giving it a lot of thought and reading some recent player feedback, the best course of action seemed to be letting players experiment more freely.
That being said, go, be free, pick any Rage you like AND keep the Gold? We say it's a jolly good deal
Have fun!
Friday: Play with the devs
You know the drill. We start bashing each other in Bossgard and you're invited to join, all streamed for your convenience.
Tonight's stream will be a bit special because we'll be showing off our latest achievements.
Like, uhm our...
Tune in right here at 20:00 EET!
Friday: Play with the Devs!
We're celebrating the end of our first studio week of 2020 with a game of Bossgard (as we usually do on Fridays).
We're going live right now and we invite all Bossgarders to join our game! Beware, we might even be raiding your own games should we find you online.
So what are you waiting for? Fire up Bossgard and let loose the dogs of war! Or the plungers of war. Whichever suits you better.
Bossgard awaits!
Ew! Bugs!
Hail you Vikings, hail you Bosses!
Here we are, sharpening our blades and cleaning our wounds after a mighty battle with 2019. As yesteryear’s songs quiet down, we look full of anticipation towards the 20th year of the 2nd millennium and since it’s customary for humans to utter the phrase “new year, new me” during this time of year, we shall begin with a bit of renewing of our own…
...by smashing some nasty bugs from 2019!
Several of the issues covered in the update have been previously pointed out by some of our users, hopefully their game experience and yours will be much better as of yesterday.
Fixed Issues:
Keyboard Mapping
Users reported that sometimes they would be unable to remap certain actions in the game, especially those tied to Movement. Mapping should work correctly now. Steam Invites
A high number of players reported that they were unable to invite their friends to their lobby via the Steam Friend Invite system, especially in cross-region play. You should now be able to invite like a Boss. Figure of speech, it works for Vikings as well…
“OMG NERF BHAAR-BOOT”
Bhaar-Boot has been under heavy fire from our users for being overpowered and although our game stats indicate that Bhaar-Boot’s win/lose ratio isn’t worrisome, we have been testing what people say and yes, there are a few ways you can cheese your enemies using Bhaar-Boot. To that extent we have nerfed Bhaar-Boot, we have reduced his rage gain per hit, so fights against him should feel a lot more balanced.
For those of you interested in numbers, here’s a breakdown:
Melee Rage gain has been dropped from 10 to 5 units (-50%)
His Upgraded Melee Rage gain has been dropped from 25 to 15 (-60%)
Tongue Rage gain has been dropped from 20 to 10 (-50%)
Stage 2 Tongue Rage gain has been increased from 10 to 15 (+33.33%)
Projectile (Stage 2 Shockwave Trails) Rage gain has been dropped from 10 to 8 (-20%)
As reference, Bhaar-Boot’s full Rage bar holds 1400 Rage points. Bhaar-Boot’s Rage costs 1000 Rage points.
Well this has been it, thank you for all the feedback, keep on reporting, killing bugs. Your weapons have been fixed, get back into the fray!
-The Sand Sailors
REMEMBER! If you'd like to stay in touch or have something you'd like ourselves or others to hear ASAP, head over to our DISCORD server!
Friday: Play with the devs!
Right, so it's time we lay down our keyboards, drawing tablets and whiteboard markers, and get down to what really matters...
...BASHING A GIANT SLICE OF TOAST WITH SWORDS, DUHH
but since our game is better with friends, we'd love to have you over on our server. So if you've got time to kill and feel like firing arrows at a giant plunger, jump in!
We'll be playing both PvP and Co-op and pvpcoop, so don't be shy. Also, play healer, please, we always need more healers.
So there you have it, join us for a game! We're up in 5 minutes!
Bossgard awaits!
-The Sand Sailors
The one you've been asking for - unlocked characters!
Before we go into details about our update we invite you…
...to check out our new trailer for the Survival Mode!
[previewyoutube="Sj9Fjepi1Wg;full"]
We thought we’d begin the week with an update we wanted to do for a while, an update that addresses a popular demand - that we unlock the playable characters and reduce the grind.
Without further ado, Magnus, Innes, Miko, Asha, Olaf of Bread, Jackhammer, Plunge D. and Bhaar-Boot will be playable as soon as you boot up the game.
That's right, we're making these guys available from the get-go so you people can start hosting local multiplayer parties without the need to grind. Your feedback was valid, why delay the fun after all?
Customization items are still locked and you'll have to earn Gold before you start pimping your Vikings
So that’s what we’re going to do, we’re going to make more characters available off the bat, with a total of 4 Vikings and 4 Bosses unlocked from the start. We’ll expand the available roster of unlocked characters further once we add the other 5 Vikings currently in development.
You will now be able to play with Olaf, Plunge D., Bhaar-Boot and Jackhammer without having the need to unlock them. Fortress remains an unlockable character as it's one of the more difficult Bosses.
We're finishing up work on the 5 remaining Vikings. For those of you who've been with us for a while longer, you know that at one point these characters were part of the game, but that was when combat was a lot more superficial and characters were pretty much reskins of a melee and a ranged class, with abilities to set them apart.
These 5 returning characters come with the various moves that you would expect from present-day Bossgard: various attack types per character, different ways of attacking (like Miko's charged 5-way shot, Innes' aimed piercing shot etc) and themed abilities.
We'll go over these characters in a future announcement, for now it's safe to assume that we'll have them ready by Christmas, if not sooner!
This is a pretty big one but we can't tell you more yet, other than "Holy cow we're getting a new boss!" While it's still top secret, what we can say is that it's going to be big, bad and fun to play as.
Stay tuned for this!
We've also kept working on the Survival Mode, we invite you to give it a shot if you haven't already and make sure you bombard us with feedback!
Update: Survival 1.0
The Steam Awards are right around the corner and we'd super appreciate it if you'd consider nominating us! Personally, we'd go for the "Better with Friends" award but who are we to judge? That's a job for you people!
Back to Bossgard
Tree planting, scorekeeping, extensive balancing and a bit of storytelling, these are the main things covered in our latest update. Just like our last few updates, this one’s about the singleplayer Adventure mode.
Making the world prettier
Our first drafts of the Adventure map were made quite a while ago and we pretty much got used to the gloomy, freezing and unfriendly environment, but we’ve recently had a change of heart and felt that a bit of eye-candy here and there wouldn’t do much harm.
Trees. Rock.
Upon entering Bossgard (Adventure Mode) you’ll be properly greeted by a tiny forest! Geology has also enjoyed a bit of attention as well - rocks are now red-ish and blue crystal outcroppings have popped up across the world.
Stats!
We’ve added a stat screen to the Customization Menu for both Vikings and Bosses. Check stuff like the number of played matches, number of wins and numbers of puny Vikings crushed. Also, bragging is free.
A session summary was added at the end of the Adventure mode, it’ll pop up when you win. Or lose. Mostly when you lose. There you can see how much Gold you’ve earned, how much Fire Essence you’ve spent and even the total number of deployables you’ve used.
Welcome to the End Times
A short cutscene has been added at the beginning of the Adventure mode with some fancy-pansy artwork. Spoiler: the world has ended before its time and Bossgard is a harsh place.
Balancing and Feedback
Balancing the Adventure mode is a tough job because we want to hit that difficulty curve just right. We play A LOT of Bossgard daily and constantly tweak Elites, stats, Minions and a lot of other boring number stuff we won’t go through. We invite you to tackle the Adventure Mode yourself and tell us what you think. Also, if you find ways to cheese through the game, let us know!
Let us know when you get to the final Boss!
Good luck!
Friday Play with the Devs
We'll do a quick recap on what's new, a couple of versus matches and a survival challenge.
The highlights are the new vik vs vik AI, the new deployable items for the Bossgard survival mode.
See you there!
Update: Start Building!
Hey everybody, we’ve just expanded Bossgard with a nifty update: a Build Mode!
Are the breadmen too much to handle? Are the Drones swarming you to Hel? Is the Wanderer proving to be too much of a challenge? No worries!
Build a Ballista! No. Better! A Cannon! Or several. You know what goes nicely with Cannons? Walls. Go on, build some Walls as well. Bossgard’s an unfair place, might as well tip the scales in your favor.
Turrets, walls and traps can now be found as loot drops in Bossgard. They can pop out of barrels, broken down carts and all sorts of debris found throughout Bossgard. Just keep your eyes open!
Structures are built using precious Fire Essence, so it’ll be up to you to balance how much you spend on Heat and how much on deployable structures. Each to his own playstyle, we won’t judge!
Minion Levels
Enemies in Bossgard now get stronger with time. They’ll be colored differently according to their power level. The… um, red-er they get, the badder they are. Easy!
New Bossgard UI
We reworked the HUD for Bossgard Mode. HP is now represented as a big green Heart, Warmth is represented as a Lantern and we grouped all the powers nicely together. Also player characters now have a model of a Lantern attached to their belt.
Level Up Shrines
You can now level up your stats at Level Up Shrines by investing your Fire Essence in either Vitality, Damage or Mobility, allowing you to tweak the character to better fit your playstyle.
Vitality will incrase your total HP, making you more beefy.
Damge... well, will increase your Damage output
Mobility increases movement speed and dodge distance, making you more nimble.
Work in progress
We're still working hard on the system and a lot more is to come, for instance Spike Traps and Decoys, so stay tuned and do let us know how the new building system feels.
Viking Versus Viking Bots!
We've also finished working on the new AI for Viking players, they'll prove to be formidable adversaries in Viking Vs Viking Mode. Try them out!
All in all...
Besides this, we've also been doing some balancing here and there and of course, bug fixing. Again, if you stumble across any bugs, do let us know.
Please not that for the time being, these new toys are available only in the Bossgard solo mode, but they will probably be part of the PVP modes just as well.
