- Early Bird starting gold bonus from 500 -> 550.
- Enraged attack speed bonus from 65 -> 85.
- Hunter bonus damage to bosses from 100% -> 125%
- Hunter damage to mobs penalty from 25% -> 15%.
- Demolisher now provides a bonus 3% crit chance across all towers.
- Thinner damage to bosses penalty from -20% -> -12%
- Timewinder attack range penalty from -100 -> -40.
- Timewinder buff duration penalty from -50% -> -40%.
- Shifter Earth Hammer damage from 325+100/lvl ->325+120/lvl.
- Whirlwind Bombardment damage from 205+45/lvl -> 205+60/lvl.
- Cactus Uproot mana cost from 125 -> 105.
- Life Guardian's Impotent Mercy no longer set to autocast by default.
- Fixed issue where dragging an item from one tower to another using the popup item context menu wouldn't work correctly for HUD Scales other than 1.
- Fixed every single normal map in the game having an inverted green channel.
Order of the Gatekeepers
Balance & Bugs
Mutators Have Arrived!
I hope everyone enjoys this new update!
Patch Notes:
- Added Gameplay Mutators! You can mix and match different mutators to modify the game's core rules for fun or an added challenge.
- No Wave Delay:
- Removes all the time between waves so that players have to deal with a constant stream of enemies.
- Cannot Buy Items:
- Ever wonder if you could win a match with just towers?
- Adds one extra starting faction point.
- Ever wonder if you could win a match with just towers?
- One Health Mode:
- If a single robot escapes, players immediately lose the match.
- Enemies Drop Items:
- Not only will robots drop potions, but normal items too!
- Gold gain reduced by 90% with this mutator active.
- Combine costs removed from all items in this mode, allowing players to build Combination items out of Components they receive.
- Not only will robots drop potions, but normal items too!
- No Wave Delay:
- Endless Mode is now a mutator.
- Added new Achievements for completing challenges with the new Mutators!
- Holding the "Show Paths & Build Locations" hotkey (Default: Left Shift) now shows a quick readout of a tower's items as you mouse over them.
- Moving an item from one tower to another now shows the items currently on the tower you're trying to move the item to.
- When dragging an item from one tower to another, dropping the item on top of a specific item on the other tower will swap them.
- Optimized Shop Menu first open to have less of a stutter.
- Fixed Time Machine O Kosmos effect not having screen shake for multiplayer clients.
Bug Fix & Balance
- Time Machine Fast Forward buff cooldown reduction from 2.5+0.25s/Lvl to 2.0+0.2s/Lvl
- Vacuum Turbocharge passive mana spent to supercharge conversion rate from 1.4% to 0.35%
- Fixed moving Towers being broken in certain non-mazing levels.
A-Mazing Update!
I want to say thank you to everyone who gave me input over this past year on how to improve on the game, it has been incredible to see the different strategies people came up with and all the different ways someone has used their creativity to completely blow the game wide open.
Patch Notes:
- Added mazing gameplay!
- Added Reroute, Piecewise, & Lanelock levels with mazing enabled!
- On levels with mazing enabled enemies will use the shortest path they can find to reach the exit. Players can build Towers in these levels to block enemies and force them to take a longer route!
- Mazing levels contain a few pre-placed Towers to use as blockades. They can't attack or gain any experience but they do help you change the enemy's path by moving them around.
- Blockade Towers do not factor into any XP sharing equations. Having them near a Tower that is sharing XP will not reduce the amount given to other Towers.
- Players cannot cast Potions or the Scholar's Last Lecture on Blockade Towers to prevent annoying mis-clicks.
- The Whirlwind build cost from 100->225g.
- Added Fast Forward Toggle to options. Enabling this option will make fast forwarding toggle on and off with the hotkey instead of requiring it to be held down.
- Fixed warning spam in users' output logs caused by music tracks without dynamic mixing.
I hope you all enjoy this new gamemode and its levels! If you have any friends who are on the fence about trying the game out I have created a short four-level demo available on the Steam Store!
Bugs & A Bit of Balance
Patch Notes:
- Added a failsafe to the Tower targeting loop to prevent it from breaking in certain circumstances.
- Tunneler: Mole Beartraps now expire after 120s or if a player builds or moves a Tower on top of them.
- Tunneler: Mole Patrol can now be cast on any part of the level that is not currently blocked by a Tower.
- Hybrid Artillery: Mines now explode after 180s if no enemy touches them or if a player builds or moves a Tower on top of them.
- Hybrid Artillery: Mine placement logic changed to allow mines on buildable spaces that are not currently blocked by a Tower.
- Fire Elemental: Chain effect now respects level geometry better.
- The Whirlwind: Drop ability now deals 150 + 25/Lvl damage along with its stun.
- Enemy APC Explosion radius on death increased from 250->300.
- Black Hole: Insatiable Mass base mana cost increased from 7.5->8.
- Fireball: Build price increased from 85->125g.
- Potions & Scholar's Last Lecture items can no longer be applied to Support Structures to prevent mis-clicks.
If you have any issues or suggestions you can stop by the game's Discord or the Steam forums, I'm always open to everyone's feedback.
Bug Fixes & Small Changes
Patch Notes:
- Fixed all Towers failing to level if a player sells a Tower in the same frame it received XP.
- Presents now drop beyond wave 50 in Endless Mode (for real this time).
- Capacitor Aura will no longer consider abilities that cost negative mana to cast.
- Max Player Limit in multiplayer increased to 6. With the recent performance improvements this should be manageable for a midrange gaming PC to handle.
- Endless Mode delay between waves no longer the same as normal mode. The delay between waves will now reduce to 0s by wave 100. Speed waves will reach a wave delay of 0 at wave 150.
- Optimized Snowman bone hierarchy to improve performance when many are built.
- Reality Shard mana cost can now be reduced by its Tower's mana cost reduction percentage.
Upcoming Content
Right now I'm working on levels where players are able to build on the enemy paths allowing them to influence where enemies must go to escape. You can block off entire routes forcing the robots to go a very long way around the map depending on what your strategy is. I like how it opens up another portion of build strategy as well as providing great replayability as different configurations will lead to different enemy pathing.
At the moment I've gotten the mazing gameplay working for both singleplayer and multiplayer modes however I need to iron out a few major bugs with it that arise from enemies like the APC bot spawns and Toolbot resurrection. I'm also going to be adding a Tower to this mode that only blocks a space, providing no attacks or abilities. Whether this Tower costs gold or is simply buildable on a cooldown will depend on how playtesting goes. From my testing so far this is a necessity as otherwise it's simply too expensive for players to influence the pathing early on into a match due to the sheer cost of building 3+ extra Towers that may not even be within range of an enemy for the final path.
Mazing gameplay will be enabled solely for levels designed around it, users will be able to set their custom level to use maze pathfinding instead of the usual preset path in their map settings.
Another thing I'm working on is an additional faction with five new Towers. So far I've completely finished one of the Towers and I'm quite excited to get working on the rest. These new Towers will most likely be released after the mazing update as that is my current focus.
I post more incremental updates on my Twitter as well as the game's Discord channel as well in case you'd like to see more.
I'm excited to keep working on the game and I'm happy to see so many people have been enjoying it. Every time my Steam analytics tells me someone else got one of the absurdly tedious achievements it makes my day.
New Specialty
Patch Notes:
- Added Stockpile Specialty, Towers built with this Specialty gain an additional Item Slot!
- Stockpile Specialty gained from completing Singleplayer level 6, all other specialties require one less level to unlock. For anyone who has already completed level 6 they will unlock this Specialty automatically upon starting the game.
- Presents can now spawn beyond wave 50 for endless mode.
- Fixed Steam Rich Presence reporting the wrong difficulty for the host player in their friends list.
- Stun Immune & Slow Immune waves added to Serious Difficulty.
- Removed 'None' Specialty option.
- Fixed "STRING MISSING!" showing on the bottom of the Ash of the Scholar tooltip.
New Towers are the next big thing, just a bit time consuming. I'll have some teasers hopefully soon!
New Beta Build
You can opt into the beta by right clicking the game in your Steam library, clicking 'Properties,' and going to the 'Betas' tab.
What's in the Beta so far?:
- Added Stockpile Specialty, Towers built with this Specialty gain an additional Item Slot!
- Stockpile Specialty gained from completing Singleplayer level 6, all other specialties require one less level to unlock. For anyone who has already completed level 6 they will unlock this Specialty automatically upon starting the game.
- Presents can now spawn beyond wave 50 for endless mode.
- Fixed Steam Rich Presence reporting the wrong difficulty for the host player in their friends list.
- Stun Immune & Slow Immune waves added to Serious Difficulty.
- Removed 'None' Specialty option.
Some of these changes required a lot of stable code to be touched so I'm being cautious and making sure they're all tested and working before I put it on the main branch. I wanted everyone to be able to try out the new Specialty though which is why I've made the beta public for you all.
I don't think there are any bugs with it but I've been wrong before! Have fun everyone.
Weekly Patch
- Fixed Ash of the Scholar & Scholar's Last Lecture items not providing experience to nearby towers after being moved from the tower they were purchased on.
- Telescope, Monocle & Sharpshooter's Spot autocast radius increased from 500->600.
- Fireball Concentration mana cost from 3.5+0.1/Lvl->3.5+0.15/Lvl.
- Time Machine Relativity max slow from 40+0.2%/Lvl->25+0.2%/Lvl.
- Towers that reach max level no longer show the XP required to reach it in the level tooltip, instead it will show "Max Level!"
- Fixed issue with selling a tower that was currently applying a long duration debuff on an enemy.
- Fixed a crash players could cause by having a timed buff constantly refresh and never expire on their tower for an hour or so before ultimately having the main buff stack expire. (It took me a while to even figure out what was going on here but rejoice Endless Mode players with 5 of the same buff constantly casting on a single tower.)