Steam Early Access and Alpha 5.0 Man the Battlements has been released

One of our biggest updates yet, Alpha 5.0 adds defending soldiers, and for those who purchase the game on steam both an endless mode and 5 more levels for the campaign. More details on the new features as well as balance changes and bug fixes can be found below. Special shout out to those on discord, especially WinterDryad and Chinbag who helped us catch and fix over a dozen bugs before the release. If you are interested in what we have planned for the future you can check out the in game roadmap which shows what we have planned for the next couple months and some of the things we would like to add in the future.

New Features:

• Defending Soldiers - Battlements and Turrets now have defending archers on them which shoot at enemies and can be shot by enemy archers.  Any defenders that are taken out are restored after each wave.
• Enemy archers now target your soldiers rather than your blocks. They will shoot a limited number of arrows at defenders that come in range and then when out of ammo will drop their bows and head for your keep.
• Endless mode - (Full Game Only) Purchase cards using currency you earn after each wave and hold out as long as you can as endless waves of enemies head for your keep and enemy ballistae shoot at your castle from the edges of the map. You can even spend your currency on techs to improve your castle.
• Card System Purchase (Endless Mode) In endless instead of building a deck and selecting a new pack after each wave you get to purchase cards. At the start and when beating a wave you earn more currency and are given a random set of blocks, actions, and techs to purchase. Some slots start unlocked but others need to be purchased before you can see what they contain. There is also a limit on how many of each block you can purchase but you can pay a small fee to refresh the store, giving you new options to choose from.
• 5 more campaign levels (Full Game Only) - 5 more levels for the preview campaign are now available. The campaign will be fleshed out more in future updates.

Minor Changes:

• Deck Building now displays only the current number in the deck rather than also showing the max number to make it cleaner and easier to understand.
• When opening in game pause menu the current wave is now shown at the top.
• Added some new sound effects for the UI. Tech purchase, selecting card in hand, and some campaign ui sounds.
• On the main menu it now indicates above the version number if you are playing the demo version of the game.
• Dead enemies and their equipment are now removed from the map after a few waves to improve the performance when playing a long campaign level or endless mode.
• Blocks now break if they fall into an invalid position instead of being deactivated and turning red.
• Updated all the levels, some have had major changes to the terrain and others have had their colors adjusted and more decorations added (Trees and rocks)
• In endless mode the tech you own will now be displayed along the top of the screen. You can mouse over them to see the description of what the tech does.
• Added additional enemy formation. There are now larger formations of enemies with shields and more formations of siege equipment with additional enemies following them.
• Made Archer Block windows and doors slightly larger. Additionally added a square shaped window variant and made Archer blocks alternate their window shape.
• Keep will now not only grow when placing blocks near it but also get smaller if you remove the blocks from around it. if a block is destroyed during a wave the keep will maintain its current size until the wave ends.
• Added some menu music to the Campaign, Endless level selection menu, and the creative mode level selection menu. When loading the menu one of the two songs is selected randomly. More songs will be added in the future.

Balance:

• Increased Archer block min range from 0.9 to 1.0 and decreased accuracy slightly
• Increased Ram and Siege Tower health.
• Increased Siege tower speed slightly.
• Reduced fire damage to Rams and Siege towers from 3x -> 2x
• Adjusted Campaign Difficulty, some of the later levels were too hard.
• Battlements now start with a single soldier when on their own instead of 2.
• For battlements each additional defender will be slightly less accurate than the previous.
• Made enemy archers more accurate since they now shoot at smaller targets.
• Reduced the cost of archers, and added more formations with them so they show up in greater numbers and more often than before.
• Battlements can no longer be placed right next to the keep, instead they must be at least one tile out.
• Crane action card can now only pick up the top block from a tower.
• Increased the number of soldiers in a siege tower from 6 -> 9.
• Reduced Arrow Slits block range slightly
• Increased Ballista Block damage for direct hits from 1 -> 3

Fixes:

• Fixed path on campaign map not showing up when first unlocking a new level of the campaign.
• Fixed an issue with the next level of the campaign not always being unlocked properly.
• Fixed an issue with campaign stars being incorrectly given in some cases.
• Battlement range and Stone Mason range now show correctly while placing and hovering the mouse over the block.
• Fixed Soldiers spawning next to the keep instead of at the flags.
• Fixed issue that caused some arrows to remain floating in mid air
• Reduced how much arrows will bounce off of towers
• Ballista bolts now properly damage and knock down enemies around them when hitting a bridge.
• Fixed Caltrops, Chevals, and Pitch will no longer make battlements flat on the side facing them.
• Fixed Caltrops, Chevals, and Pitch no longer take away the side of the keep
• Fixed an issue where an enemy that fell into water would not be killed and result in soft locking the game as the wave could not be completed.