Gamble Tower cover
Gamble Tower screenshot
PC Steam
Genre: Strategy, Turn-based strategy (TBS), Indie

Gamble Tower

Playtest Halted
Hello everyone, sorry to be the bearer of bad news.

So, yes, we'll be halting the Closed Beta/Steam Playtest that was supposed to go on until December 12th.
You may have a couple of questions and be wondering why that is the case, so let me explain:

When?


If you are reading this, it's probably already done.
I wanted to put some kind of notice earlier but I got really sick again, so I wasn't able to do that.

Why?


Save System issues, a LOT of issues.
To be more specific:
- Saves could crash the game as soon as it opened.
- Saves between versions (eg. v1.0 vs 1.1) could potentially be breaking, so a save made in v1 would not work in v1.1
- Autosaves creating endless saves
- Saves sometimes just didn't work and you would lose all your data
Among other issues...

Besides that, there were the other many bugs, soft lockes and things like that.
(Which we already expected, but weren't able to handle properly due to those save problems)

Can't you just fix it?


We tried a lot of different stuff, but it seems like we'll have to create an entire new save system since nothing that we tried actually ended up being fruitful.
That was my mistake, I should have tested the save system further before making the playtest available, and for that I am sorry.

Will it return?


Yes, but we don't know when yet.
I'll be announcing a date in the future, but only after those save issues have been confirmed as fixed.
However, since we are approaching the end of the year, it's reasonable to expect that the beta will be back January or February.

End


With all that said, we are sorry, and I wish to thank everyone who played the closed beta until this point.
All the feedbacks, bug reports and playthroughs of the game helped us a lot and seeing so many people playing the game made us very happy.

See you again soon!

Playtest 1.3

Joining the Playtest


If you haven't joined our Playtest yet, you do so in the Store Page. Just click "Request Access" and you'll immediately gain access to the playtest build.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1577460/Gamble_Tower/

If you need to report a bug or provide feedback, please do it in our Discord Server. Or just come chat with us. :)

Change Log


Improvements and Optimizations


Events

  • Fixed an issue where the Gambler Coin Flip Event was not correctly checking for the player’s currency.

General

  • Fixed permadeath (Characters that died during Expedition Results will no longer reappear as selectable on The Inn).

Save

  • Made an early autosave system that saves the game automatically every 5 minutes for your currently loaded slot (up to 3 backup saves).

Stability

  • Fixed soft lock related to character details
  • Fixed soft lock that happened when an enemy died during Enemy’s Turn while you held a capture gemstone and there were other allied characters left to act.
  • Fixed exception caused by denying Bob’s request.

System

  • Fixed an issue where the User Settings would only load when opening the options menu.
  • Fixed an issue where the game would utilize a lower and incorrect screen resolution.

Combat

  • Automated should now decrease on any action, not only upon attacking.

UI Changes


General

  • Added Sound Effects to Menu Buttons.
  • Fixed an issue where the Resolution List in the Options menu would show duplicate values.

Combat

  • You should no longer be able to open character details while a character acts, which caused lots of issues.

Warden

  • Improved the Animations when Spawning Character Cards.
  • Fixed the positioning of Character Cards (No longer snap to a new position when added/removed).

Known Issues


We've found some issues that we haven't managed to fix it yet, but expect them to be sorted out in future updates.

  • Ailments and other effects won’t appear correctly if you are using “Use Legacy Character HUD” option.

    We removed the legacy HUD until we manage to fix this.


  • Save files may become corrupted/unreadable due to something, we don’t know what is causing that yet, but we’ll be implementing a new save file reader that will (hopefully) prevent that crash from happening.

    If this happens, you can try to move your save file out of your APPDATA (%USERPROFILE%/Appdata/LocalLow/Indiebuild/Gamble Tower) folder until the issue is fixed.


  • You may not get currencies if you skip the expedition result animation.

    For now, if possible, avoid skipping the animation, we’ll be working on fixing this ASAP.



Couldn't Replicate


Those could have been fixed due to other fixes or can still be happening. If you manage to replicate any of them, please let us know how to in our Discord Server.

  • Sometimes when loading a save, your health goes instantly to 0.

    If this happens, you can reopen the game (close the application) and it will be fixed.


Playtest - Hotfix 2

Joining the Playtest


If you haven't joined our Playtest yet, you do so in the Store Page. Just click "Request Access" and you'll immediately gain access to the playtest build.

Important Announcement


Stomt bug reporting seems to be causing a crash, if you need to report a bug or provide feedback, please do it in our Discord Server in the meantime!

Stability Fixes



  • Fixed Inn Portal confirmation prompt softlock.
  • A softlock that prevents you from returning from the Orb Merchant in case you had a pet with skills should no longer happen.
  • Logs should be lighter.
  • Fixed an issue where you could reload the game after getting a boss gamble and fight a regular enemy instead of the boss.
  • First floor/combat should no longer repeat twice in a row.


UI


General

  • Fixed an issue where the Scrollbars would go insane when clicking on specific parts of it.
  • Fixed an issue where Indiebuild’s Logo would be blurry at the Intro and Credits.
  • Fixed the Flames Animation Loop


Warden

  • Fixed a bug where the Rarity wasn’t displaying correctly on the Frame Gradient


Menu

  • Fixed an issue where the Main Menu would be cut off in certain Aspect Ratios.


Level Rewards

  • Level Rewards will now automatically scroll to the latest unlock when opening it.
  • Fixed an issue where long item descriptions would have their default scroll position at 50%.
  • Fixed an issue where the Skill Tier Upgrades would have no descriptions (And show the previously selected description instead).


Skill Tree

  • Fixed and improved several Skill Descriptions.
  • Fixed an issue where the Skill Point Icon would overlap with the Skill Cost on the Skill Tooltip.


Expedition Result

  • Increased the Animation Speed of the Gambling Chip → Coin conversion.


Known Issues


Way too many to list here, but these are the most notable ones:

  • Gambler Coin Flip Event is improperly checking currency. This is already fixed internally and will be available in the next hotfix.
  • Trap Bug: Game soft-locks when an enemy dies during their turn, while having a Capture Crystal on the hand.
  • Characters are not dying.
  • Stomt is causing a Crash.


We'll also be adding an Autosave feature with automatic backups in the future.

Thank you for playtesting Gamble Tower!

CLOSED BETA DATE REVEAL!
Hello folks, I am happy to announce that Gamble Tower's closed beta will be held from...

November 29th to December 12th!

To commemorate that, I also made a video showcasing some of the beta:


This announcement was made to provide you with some other details, in case you are interested in taking part.

How can I participate?


A "Request Access" button will be available on our Steam page soon, we'll be announcing it first hand on our Discord, but we'll also make another announcement here on Steam to make everybody aware of that.

Is this access permanent?


No, for those who request access via Steam, the closed beta will end December 12th, so you will be able to play the game from November 29th until December 12th, after that you will no longer have access to the beta.

I already have a key, do I have access to the beta?


Yes, if you got a full game key from me or one of the devs, you will also have access to the closed beta.
We'll be uploading the same closed beta version on both sides.
The only difference is that those with keys will be able to play the beta even after the official beta period ends. (Essentially, until the final game releases)

Can I get permanent access?


If you are a streamer, youtuber, influencer or just plan to play the beta on video when it launches.
Just send me your channel/info through email, contact me: indiebuild@gmail.com
We may be able to send you a full key free of charge, no guarantees though.

If you already played the game on video/stream previously, you may want to wait a bit as we'll be sending keys for you very soon. (Yes, I do watch every video and stream that I am aware of :p)

Is this Early Access?


No, this is a free beta, you'll be able to participate free of charge while the beta goes on.

Why is the closed beta temporary?


Mainly because we need to be readily available during the weeks that the beta will be held, as we'll have to provide quick hotfixes, collect feedback/bugs and be able to communicate with the community in a faster pace than we usually can.

Besides that, we plan to keep working on the full game (using the feedback gathered to shape it a little bit better) as soon as the beta ends, so having an endless beta wouldn't be ideal for development.

How can I share feedback?


We'll be adding in-game buttons for bug reports/suggestions/feedback.
We'll also be providing a form (you'll have in-game access to that) with several important questions that will help us understand better how you feel about the game and what can we do to improve what we currently have.
After the beta ends, you'll still be able to give us your feedback through the Steam community or our discord.

Ending


With that said, I hope that you are able to participate and give us your thoughts about Gamble Tower.
I am very excited to share the progress with you and hopefully it will be a cool experience for everyone.

Thank you for your patience and see you later this month! :)

Progress Report 04 - It's Close!
Hey everyone, I hope you are doing well.
Lately I've been very sick due to some kind of flu (I am still a bit sick to be honest) so I couldn't post the report on the last week.
Here is the current milestone progress:

The image looks quite similar to the previous one, but in actuality we are a lot closer to a potential Closed Beta release than it seems.
Most of the features (like New Clan Unlockables) are around 90% done, with a few last touches remaining to be finished, but that data isn't conveyed on the milestone image.

Anyway, let's start.

News and Announcements


A Wednesday Devsnippet about Stable Diffusion!


Previously I said that I lost plenty of devsnippet footage through bare misfortune, I explain that a bit further on the beginning of this new video:

This new Wednesday Devsnippet is focused on the usage of artificial intelligence image generators (like Stable Diffusion) to help speed up the process of making game art.
It is quite interesting in my opinion so if you are interested in AI, generators, game art or stuff like that, it may be worth your while! (I added plenty of resources on the description also)

Making a new NPC


I am currently working on the Loan Shark (the character silhouette in this announcement's capsule is hers), I used SB (Stable Diffusion) to speed up the process, but the art still lacks a bunch of polish and refinement.

It is interesting to see how the SB slowly works its way through a fitting result though, and yes, the Loan Shark is indeed an elderly lady.

I'll talk more about the mechanics later, but to summarize it:
Since characters cost coins and die permanently, it is possible to enter a softlock state where you are not able to play due to not having enough characters for an expedition and also not having enough coins to buy a new character.
That's why a Loan Shark of sorts needs to exist.

Progress In-Game


5 New community designed Upgrade Crystals!


Before getting sick I was preparing a devsnippet where I show the development of all 5 upgrade crystals ideas submitted by our Discord community members.
I have shown the Toll Crystal previously, so here is another one, designed by BlackDragonMagician:

There are other three crystals that I'll be showcasing on the next video, so stay tuned.

Polishes and Bugfixing


Polishing and bugfixing is something that will have to be executed until and probably during the Closed Beta itself. Jaqueta is doing a great job polishing several VFXs and UIs in the game, take a look at the poison effect he made:

(May take a huge while to load, so here is the direct link instead)
I am mostly focusing on the bugfixing and audio part, as you'll see below.

SFX and Soundtrack


I have been working on pending voice acting, SFX and soundtracks for the game.
On the topic of soundtrack, the dynamic battle music for the Jungle Segment has been finished

There are 12 separate tracks that will alternate in play in different moments (when a character attacks, dies, on enemy's turn, etc.), and it took around 6 different iterations to finish this song, but I think it will sound cool and fitting on the final product.

For the voice acting, I only managed to finish the Warden and the Troll for now, since my voice is absolutely dead now that I am sick, but I plan to finish all 15-ish remaining characters alongside my wife soon.

Sound effects are also being made, there aren't many instances of missing SFX but I tend to take the opportunity to do some other polishes simultaneously.

Anyway, those aren't things that can be shown unfortunately, but I hope your ears like what they hear when you play the Closed Beta! :)

Others



  • After testing the game for a bit, I decided that the Jungle boss is balanced for now. We'll have to collect feedback on the Closed Beta to do further balancing.
  • We'll be taking part on the Steam Next Fest that will be happening on the end of this month. (Steam Scream Fest)
    I'll be doing a proper announcement eventually.

Plans and Wrapping Up


For the next week, I hope to get rid of this damn flu.
And of course, I plan to address the "80%ish done" features to turn them into 100% done ones instead.
The delayed devsnippet about the Community Upgrade Crystals will be happening next week unless I am still too sick to record/edit stuff.

And I think that is it. See you soon!

Progress Report 03 - Slow but Steady
Hello there! Here is this week's progress:

As you can see, the exact progress amount is a little bit hazy, it's around 60% but I don't know the exact number, so I left it as 60ish% haha.
A new more precise number will probably be available next week.

I also updated the progress tasks by putting some small gears on the ones that are currently being developed. (They look like yellow flowers though)

News and Announcements


Using A.I. to speed up development


We are currently experimenting with the Stable Diffusion, which is an AI that is capable of generating images based on text or image prompts.

The technology has advanced a whole lot and it is even capable of generating competent and coherent game art! Of course, any art created by the A.I. need to be tuned and refined, several times, but it still helps to speed up the 2D art creation quite a bit.

This Undead summon right here was created by using Stable Diffusion!

I'll post a video (maybe a Wednesday Devsnippet, maybe something else) perhaps this week showing how it was made from scratch.

Upgrade Creation Event


I am holding a small event on our Discord where we take new Upgrade Crystal suggestions by the community and implement them into the game!

We'll be implementing around 3 new upgrades created by the community into the game, I select the ones that I think are fitting and use a spinning wheel to decide which ones end up in the final build.

This one was been inspired by our community member and dear friend Binho. We are still accepting submissions, so if you have ideas for new upgrade crystals, feel free to post it on our Discord!
https://discord.gg/4N2UWEx

Progress In-Game


The previously shown Snatcher Shop has finally been finished, however I have not yet started the last Tower Event remaining, which is a card shuffle event of sorts.
Besides that, that Undead summon shown before was also added, alongside the new Toll Crystal designed by Binho.

I wasn't able to do much else this week but hopefully we'll get to our milestone goal by the next month.

Plans and Wrapping Up


This update was shorter than usual, but I decided to keep doing those consistently anyway.
My plans for this week is to finish the last Tower Event (the card shuffle one) and maybe resume the development of the new clan orbs and artifacts that are almost finished as well.

This week we'll also have a new Wednesday Devsnippet so remember to check out and subscribe to our Youtube Channel if you haven't done that yet.

See you next week!

Progress Report 02 - More Events!
Hey there! I hope you are doing well.

This week's progress report is going to be quite short, but again, that was the plan anyway :P

No Tower Upgrades?


First things first, we'll be postponing Tower Upgrades/Unlocks to a next milestone. I didn't really talk much about this feature, but it was intended to be a way to unlock new stuff that would appear on the tower on future expeditions. (rerolls, new events, maybe npcs or objects)

That will take a bit of time though and it's not fully fleshed out on how it's going to work design-wise, so I decided to do it in the future, on the same milestone where I'll tackle some other progression systems.
I hope you understand.

Thanks to that though, the Closed Beta's progress bar had a big bump, so there is that!

News and Announcements


New Wednesday Devsnippet!


I explained a bit about the devsnippets previously, but basically almost every Wednesday I plan to have a short development video, those are called Wednesday Devsnippets, this one is the most recent one:

There I talk in detail about the new wheel of fortune, I also show a bit of footage of that new event.

I lost plenty of footage


Yeah, as the header suggests, I lost an entire folder of recent footage that I was going to use for this week's Wednesday Devsnippet, so we won't have a video this week, unfortunately. :(

I'll be recording new footage this week so that we can have a proper video on the next one.

Progress In-Game


Wheel of Gamblers


Huuuuge GIF below, may take a while to load, so here is the direct link in case it doesn't

There are plenty of possibilities (10 unique outcomes) when spinning the wheel, half good and half bad.
Let's see what you get!

Snatcher Shop (Gambling Shops)


Currently working on it. (W.I.P)
The Snatcher Shop is a different kind of tower event, a Gambling Shop.


The premise of gambling shops are that they appear on event areas, and they provide items in exchange for gambles, or gambling items of some sorts.


In the case of the Snatcher Shop, you may gamble against him by using coin flips and dice rolls in order to snatch his assets. If you fail though... Your items will be snatched instead!

Others



  • Jaqueta (the game's UX designer) also created a very neat "shuffling cards"-like event, I'll be implementing that this week.
  • We also won't be having skill tree icons for every skill during closed beta (we'll use placeholders for now), so that also bumped the progress.
  • This week a new project will be starting on my full-time job, I don't know yet how that is going to affect Gamble Tower's development but I don't think it will affect much (hopefully).


Plans and Wrapping Up


This week we'll probably be wrapping up all the remaining Tower Events and starting something else, we are still working out what it is going to be but it will probably be something "lighter" content-wise, like balancing the second segment's boss, fixing bugs and making SFXs/Voice acting.

Anyway, I hope the updates provided here were enjoyable, see you next week!

March Status Update
Hello everyone! It has been a while.
I am back with first and foremost a new devlog that you can watch by clicking here

And of course, a lot of new content related to Gamble Tower, along with images, gifs and all that.
Let's get started!

Inn and Meta-Progression


(W.I.P - UI still in development)


As you can see we can finally show you the Inn, There are new and familiar characters here! This is the place you go to in between expeditions, and it is where most of the meta-progression part of the game happens.



You can acquire new orbs, new artifacts and new general upgrades (like a shop reroll) that will appear on future expeditions as soon as you buy them.



Certain items and upgrades will only unlock when you reach specific levels, and there are currently four different types of levels.



You have levels for each clan, you will unlock things for that specific clan by levelling it up by playing characters that belong to that clan.
There is also the Gambler Level, that is the "player level" that you'll get experience for just by doing expeditions, levelling up your Gambler Level will unlock content that don't belong to any specific clan.

(Again, W.I.P)


Different ways of ending an expedition will result in different amounts and types of rewards, with those being EXP, skill points and currency.

We'll talk more about that in the future, since there is a lot to show, let me show you some of the new characters!

Warden and Randomized Characters



The Warden is a demon skull that smokes souls, you'll always find him smoking on the left side of the counter at The Inn.

(Again, all UIs are still W.I.P)


The souls that aren't good enough to be smoked, are sold.
You can acquire characters and pets from different clans by talking to him and paying the price.



Previously (in the demo), pets and characters always had the same appearance, stats and traits, with the only variation being in the gender, that you could choose.

But we decided to change that, and now all those characteristics are randomized, so you can now have completely different characters even if they are from the exact same clan!

To support that however, we are remaking all the character templates from scratch, and that takes a bit of time. (They are already in game, but still need to have a lot of things tuned, and we didn't make the clothing for them yet.)

Before (Appearance):


After (Still being tuned):




We still have plans to add more randomized appearance traits, such as body proportions, scars and more. (Besides adding more variation of hairstyles, faces, etc. of course.)

What else!?


A lot more, we didn't even touch on Skill Trees and Tower Dangers yet, but I'll let those be properly talked about on another day. :)

With that said, we have two very cool announcements for this month, and I hope that I can share those with you as soon as possible!
Join our Discord if you want to be one of the first to know what we are doing.

I hope to see you guys soon, and stay tuned for announcements!

February Status Update
Hello everyone!
It has been around a month since the last time I've posted here, but we are still very much active in the development of Gamble Tower.

This post is not going to contain a lot of images or GIFs (if any at all) it's more a "status update" of some kind to literally update you on how the development is going, when can you expect the Early Access release and what content is going to be in it.

If you want to see how the development is going in depth, I recommend that you watch our new
January Devlog.

How is development going?


Development is going well, not necessarily the fastest it ever was but I can say for sure that the progress for the initial Early Access release is around 65% finished.
The plan is to be able to progress by 10-15% each month until we reach the point where it's safe to announce a release date again. (probably around 90% finished?)

What was developed and what is being developed during February?


We just finished the entirety of the second tower chapter/segment (With new enemies, bosses, etc.) and this month we want to "blockout" (make an unpolished version of) the entirety of the Early Access release, containing every single system and mechanic that we want to be present on the release.

If everything works out smoothly, by April we should have the EA more or less 80% done.

What are those systems that are being made?


Mainly meta and non meta-progression features, such as:

  • Permanent currencies that you can exchange for upgrades.
  • Randomized characters with skill trees. (Instead of choosing a clan, you'll buy characters and progress them if they come back alive)
  • Unlockables and XP
  • Tower Dangers (Difficulty System)


Basically 90% of those features are going to be present in the Inn, the place where you go to when you finish a run.

Why is the game being released in Early Access?


Even if the core systems of the game are going to be basically 100% present in the Early Access version of the game, we still want to add more content variety and adapt the game to the feedback that we receive from you.
We believe that by listening to what the playerbase finds fun and incrementing on that, we'll be able to have a full release with a much better game experience in the end.

When is the game planned to be released?


Gamble Tower's Early Access release is currently scheduled to Spring 2022. (Between March and June)
The full release is going to be from 6 months to 1 year after the Early Access releases.

How can I contact you or get more frequent news about Gamble Tower?


You can contact me through the email: indiebuild@gmail.com
Or you can just join our discord and send me a message :)
Discord Link

See you soon! And I hope to post more frequently here from now on.

DEMO 3b2 PATCH NOTES

FIXES AND TWEAKS


Artifacts


- Lumps of Coal's 2-stack effect should no longer have a burn limit of 4 instead of 2.
- Swapping artifact pages on the HUD should (probably?) no longer repeat the artifacts's effects.

Effects and Orbs


- Snowball's effect now works as it should. (It previously had issues with damage queueing)
- Snowsculpture's effect now clones the last summon instead of the first one.
- Demon Claw's effect will no longer attempt to force creatures that can't attack
(Trap, Ethereal Staff, Wishful Sprite, etc.) to attack.

Enemies


- Mimics and other coin thieves or coin removal effects should no longer make your coins go below 0.

Intersection/Shops/Gambling


- Artifact Saleswoman should now have her purple santa hat as intended. (It wasn't showing
on the shop, only on the end screen of the demo)

Interface/UI


- Fixed layer issues with Upgrade Crystals on Crystal Specialist where the crystals
were appearing above Artifact and Tower Danger menus.

Other


- Naughty Elf Cap's text should be correct now.
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