Beta 1.2

Beta 1.2 is our largest update yet. Along with a major updates to the UI it has a new block, a new units, a bunch of sound effects, an almost entirely remade demo campaign, and more! For more details check out the Major Features listed below.

We have also managed to add several features and changes requested by players and fixed many of the pathfinding bugs people have encountered in the previous version of the game.

The demo campaign is almost entirely changed and is now a standalone campaign rather than a limited set of levels from the full campaign. It should also be a good representation of what the final campaign will be like. While the full campaign will have many more levels, the art style, gameplay, and design will remain about the same. The full campaign will be available when the game leaves early access which is currently planned for December of 2023.

Major Features:

• Updated UI. Tons of UI changes with most things being cleaner and better looking. Some new art, adjusted layouts, entirely new UI elements, and plenty of new sound effects when interacting with the UI.
• New Demo Campaign. The demo has been entirely remade with different levels, modifiers, rewards, and difficulty levels. The art has been almost entirely remade and the map is now slowly revealed as you beat each level.
• New block highlights. Now blocks that affect other nearby blocks will show colored frames around the affected blocks so it is easy to tell what does and doesn't get a bonus from it. It even shows up when placing a block so you can see just what it will affect if placed at the current location.
• Revamped Deck Building. Now called Token Sets, beating campaign levels will unlock new tokens or give you more of an existing token. The deck building layout has been improved and as several people have requested you can now hover the cursor over a token to see information about each item that it rewards. Tokens can contain from 1-3 blocks, tokens, upgrades, or a mix of the three types. In addition the required deck size has been reduced to 21 cards.
• Updated Tutorial. The tutorial has been improved with more information and a cleaner design.
• Updated campaign level preview. Besides the changed layout it now also shows what enemies will appear on the level, how many waves the level has, and the rewards for beating the level.
• Improved climbing. Now two units can climb at a time on each side of a block, letting them stay together a bit more and improving the speed at which they can traverse your castle. In addition enemies with a shield will now place it on their back while climbing.
• New block: Armory. Restores the armor of nearby soldiers when placed and after each wave. If a workshop is placed nearby it will also increase the health of the defenders' armor.
• New enemy: Crossbow. Enemies carrying crossbows will now show up in endless. They are more accurate than archers and have better armor though they don't have the extra range of longbows.
• More and Improved sound effects. Updated many of the existing sound effects in the game and added a bunch of new sounds to units and projectiles to make things feel more alive. Sound effects are now also affected by distance, quieter when zoomed out all the way and louder when you move in for a close up view of the action.

Changes:

• Improved flag designs both for the keep flag and for the enemy spawn flags.
• Added some weather effects to some levels (Rain, Wind, or Snow). The weather is only visual and has no impact on gameplay.
• New Level: River Island (Size 6).
• Flood Plains has been reduced in size from a size 12 to a size 10.
• Oasis has been reduced in size from a size 12 to a size 10.
• A new button has been added to the lower UI panel opposite the start wave button. In campaign mode clicking it will show your current deck and discard. In creative mode it will show an overview of all enemies set to come from each direction and has buttons for generating an entire wave rather than having to do it one flag at a time. In endless it shows the current progress on a new unit appearing.
• Day/Night Cycle display. Around the button mentioned above is a simple display showing the progress through the day. This makes it easy to see how much longer the enemies need to be held off before the assault fails and the next day begins.
• New Alerts system. Alerts will now appear on the top right of the screen to draw attention to certain events such as when enemies will start coming from a new direction, a new type of enemy appearing next wave, a trebuchet being build, etc.
• Invalid Block Placement indicator. Now when trying to place a block a red 'x' icon will be displayed over the current tile if the block can not be placed at that location. Clicking on the tile anyway will then display a message with information about why the block cant be placed on that tile.
• Owned campaign techs can now be clicked to refund them.
• Techs in the tech tree have their details hidden until the techs required to unlock them have been purchased.
• Adjusted the colors of locked, unlocked, purchasable, and owned techs to make them more distinct.
• Changed the +2 Stone Wall tech to now only give +1 Stone Wall.
• Adjusted wording of the unlock requirements for levels in endless mode to make it clearer.
• Barracks and Archery Range blocks now include some additional info in the info panel about how they prioritize where to send units. Additionally mousing over them will highlight the blocks they currently plan to send units to when the wave starts.
• Action cards now indicate in the info panel if they can be played during the building phase, during a wave, or both.
• Blocks that affect other nearby blocks now indicate in the info panel which blocks it is capable of affecting.
• Battlements can no longer be built directly on the ground.
• Stone Masons will now immediately heal blocks in range in addition to healing at the end of a wave. This makes them more immediately useful.
• Caltrops no longer deal damage to siege units, saving their damage potential for soldiers where it is more impactful.
• Slightly reduced Archer block and Battlement block min range.
• Minor adjustments to the main menu. Simplified the castles a bit so it doesn't look as messy and added some physical buttons in place of the old transparent white buttons.
• Removed the Damage Resistance upgrade. It didn't really feel that useful or exciting so we decided to remove it for now.
• Removed the Guard Post. We weren't happy with how the block looked or worked so it has been removed for now.
• Reduced the default number of soldiers restored by the keep from 5 to 3.
• Siege Ladders and Towers are no longer target-able once they connect to a block. All the more reason to take them out fast! They will still be destroyed at the end of the wave though.
• The Machiculations block has been improved. It now throws rocks at enemies within it's short range but you can also activate it to throw a larger group of rocks a bit further out at the cost of disabling the block for the rest of the wave.
• The ballista block has been slightly improved. Bolts shot by it will pass through enemies, armor, and trees, killing any unit it passes through. Deals high damage and sticks in siege if it hits them. When hitting the ground it will knock down and deal a small amount of damage to all soldiers in the area.
• Enemies can now walk over the alchemist block.
• Catapult block adjustments. Now fires three rocks at an area which deal damage to enemies hit or deal a small amount of damage in an area and knock down soldiers if they hit the ground.
• Rams now have a limited number of attacks. When used up the ram will fall apart as if it had been killed.
• Rams now sit a bit further back from the block they are targetting, making it easier for them to be shot by nearby blocks.
• Soldiers now have their health restored at the end of a wave but not their armor.
• Adjusted the description for the Rally action to make it clearer that it isn't creating new soldiers.
• Adjusted the description for the Reinforce action to mention that it can also be played on the keep to restore a single keep defender.
• Wave generation has been adjusted to send more units to the directions that came in earlier so that new directions will be easier to defend when they first come in.
• Slightly increased the health of plate armor and slightly reduced the unit cost of units with plate armor.
• Rocks thrown by the Catapult, Machiculations, and enemy Trebuchets now have a couple different shapes instead of all being perfect spheres.
• UI sounds now have their own volume control slider in options.

Fixes:

• Fixed an issue with the Barracks and Archery Range sometimes trying to send units to already full blocks.
• Fixed soldiers sometimes getting stuck in barracks and Archery Range Blocks.
• Fixed the volley action not always showing the arrow trajectory preview.
• Fixed a potential soft lock that could occur with block placement.
• When placing a block onto a tile the drop speed is no longer effected by game speed.
• Fixed an issue during level load where some items trees/rocks would 'drop in' sideways rather then dropping down into place.
• Fixed an issue where some cards could be clicked while being moved to the hand, resulting in the card highlight being messed up.
• Adjusted movement code so that when enemies are bunched up on the keep they don't register as being 'stuck' since they are as close as they can get.
• Fixed a couple issues with siege units. They should no longer accidentally link to a block to the side of their path or walk into a block or the keep rather than linking to it.
• Fixed the volley action not being able to be used on bridges.
• Fixed some equipment and enemies being visibly removed from a level before the transition covered the view when replaying or returning to the level selection screen.
• Fixed an issue with enemies continuing to move and towers shooting at them after losing a level and then selecting to replay or return to the level selection screen.
• Fixed an issue with formation units spawning incorrectly which could sometimes result in a few units in the formation instantly falling out of the map.
• Fixed rocks disappearing right away instead of sinking a short way into the ground and persisting for a while.
• Fixed some issues with units crossing the ramps of Siege Ladders/Towers. They should have an easier time crossing over to the connected block.
• Fixed an issue where the Siege More Health level modifier was only giving the siege units more health when the level modifier 'wasn't' active.
• Fixed an issue with soldiers holding shields where their arms would 'freak out' when they were standing back up after being knocked down.
• Fixed an issue with enemy archers. They now correctly fire as a group and any melee soldiers will split off and continue on instead of waiting for the archers to catch up.
• Fixed an issue where pressing or holding the arrow keys while the pause menu was up would buffer the inputs and result in the camera suddenly jumping to a new position when the game was resumed.
• Fixed an issue where music or sound effects could continue playing even when the volume was set to 0.