Hello all, it's been a while! Sorry it's been so long,
I've been trying to do more frequent nightly uploads only on the Discord due to a significant change in the balance.
I think it's in an ok enough place for an alpha.
And during all those balance changes, I had plenty of time to add quite a few significant new features!
It's a long list of changes, with an even longer list of balance changes at the bottom.
It's also the first time trying out using the website to add patch notes, so let me know what you think!
Super Significants
Localisation & Settings
The game can now be translated into different languages!
Currently, I'm working on adding a pirate language as I only know English
(I've tried to learn French and Japanese in the past, but sadly I've struggled).
There's still a lot to clean up, especially something like level name is used in multiple places rather than having just one reference.
This should be done over the next few updates as each duplicate is cleaned up one by one.
To contribute to a localisation, there are forums on Discord for it.
If you wish to contribute, there isn't any code required, and if you really don't want to touch the code,
you can just mention the changes in the Discord forum and a contributor will get to it as soon as they can.
We can also add localisations without making the available so even if you only want to contribute one translation, that's fine!
This pirate language still needs work! There are a few modules that aren't updated, along with many buttons.
If you're interested in making up some pirate, join in the discussion!
Don't like pirate but want another fun language? Create a post for it!
The discussions are only on Discord for now.
I will be looking into how best to open the discussions on GitHub too, but for now it's Discord only.
During this time you're welcome to open issues or email
[email protected]
with the specific changes you think should be made.
You can change your localisation from the brand new settings menu (there's a button on the main menu).
Saving
This is not completely tested.
There are likely still bugs, but saving and loading is now available.
The game will automatically save when a wave ends, and when a wave starts.
Any new save will overwrite your old save.
If it gets corrupted while saving, you save will be lost.
But, saving is now here, so if you need to pause for a bit, there's almost no worry that you'll lose your progress.
This also bring about a change to when we save to the leaderboard.
Rather than upload your score when it's game over or you pause the game,
we now save whenever the local save is made (after waves and when the next one starts)
meaning as soon as someone beats your score, it's saved.
We also don't retry the save if it failed, this way we're more likely to save a score
(even if it's a wave or two below what you achieved).
If you do discover any bugs related to saving,
please do make sure to report them on discord or email
[email protected].
Merged Modules
Two modules of the same tier, will now be merged into the next tier!
This means very, *very*, significant changes to the modules balance,
the highest level of each module has probably increased for every module.
For example, damage, range and fire rate now reach T7.
You can find the balance changes
at the bottom of this page
Tutorial
Add a tutorial that is rather boring and all text, but it's also only the first version.
If you're brand new to the game, or have already played a few times, do check it out,
as there's a few things in there that might surprise you.
There's also a wiki link within the tutorial so you can easily locate the wiki in-game.
GitHub Issues
This one's more for development, but we've moved from using the Notion To Do list to GitHub issues.
This allows other people to more easily collaborate, and better integrates the to do list with both code and pull requests.
The updates to the to do list are also more easily available in Discord too.
Privacy Policy
As I work towards publishing the game on the Play Store with the release of the beta,
I've been working towards meeting all their compliance stuff.
One of which is a privacy policy.
You can view it here: https://bestagon.alchemix.dev/legal/privacy.html,
and there's also a button in the settings to view it. A button will be added to the website homepage when I can.
Not So Significants
Shop UI Improvements
The Shop UI got some significant enhancements in terms of how well it scales with screen size.
On phones, it won't be quite so squished for example and all the text readable.
Due to an imperfect solution some of the text is tiny, and
issue #112 on github will remain open,
so it's noted as something that's still not finished.
The margins at the bottom and sides of the shop have also been reduced
while at the top text was added to make it clear that the game is paused while the shop is open.
New Art
The map and the fast enemies got some art improvements!
These do make the game slightly less clear and mostly add gradients.
There are plans to add art to all enemies and turrets before beta, but I'm not sure yet what it will look like.
This is separate from the 3d art attempts.
Level Removals
Both Hexagon and Polygon have been removed from the map pool.
This is because I'd prefer to focus on just three levels (those with unique balance) rather than having three levels with the same balance plus two others.
It devalues the levels that are balanced the same, and demotivates balancing Loop and Upgrade as the balance only affects on map.
The maps have not been deleted, but are just no longer packaged in a build, nor in the level select.
They may make a comeback at some point, but there's no plan for that currently.
GitHub Actions Working
GitHub actions are finally working! They now automatically build for Linux, Windows (64x and not).
These happen as soon as someone pushes to the repository (aka the new nightly/dev builds).
Sadly MacOS/OSX and Android aren't working, I'm aiming to look into these at a further date so everyone has access.
Other Changes
Updated Unity Version
We're now using Unity 2022 for the project.
While not a LTS version, it's stable enough that I felt I could use it after 2021 was crashing too much when I wanted to work.
Main Menu Improvements
Based on if you're playing the release version, the beta, the alpha or a nightly/dev build, the wordmark will change colour to reflect the version you're playing.
There are also some social buttons at the bottom right, one for GitHub, one for Ko-Fi and one for Discord.
Enemies now rotate towards their target
The rotation is instant, but it means tracer (fast enemy) now actually looks where it's going. This was a small experiment during development to see if it makes units like the square better, and it appears it does.
Projectiles are now drawn on top of everything but the UI
Projectiles used to hide under other enemies and turrets, but they are now drawn on top meaning you can see them almost anywhere.
Many, many bug fixes.
Most of these were bugs discovered by new features and the nightly builds.
Balance Changes
Modules
Bombs
- Bombs now target the location of the enemy when fired, rather than chasing the enemy.
We wanted to focus on keeping bombs and missile separate, and while only bombs can be applied to smasher, bombs felt like a bad choice for shooter and gunner. This should change that and make bombs more unique.
- Bombs can now be applied to Lancer
Now that bombs target location, why not add it to Lancer?
Burn
Any Stats
|
Damage (% of max health) |
Tick Count |
Tick Duration |
| T1 |
+2% |
3 |
1s |
| T2 |
+3% |
6 |
0.5s |
| T3 |
+3.5% |
8 |
0.25s |
Critical
Any Stats
|
Chance |
| T1 |
+5% ÷ fire rate |
| T2 |
+12% ÷ fire rate |
| T3 |
+25% ÷ fire rate |
Fire Rate
Any Stats
|
Fire Rate |
| T1 |
+10% |
| T2 |
+15% +19% |
| T3 |
+25% +37% |
| T4 |
+55% |
| T5 |
+160% |
| T6 |
+296% |
| T7 |
+590% |
Giantslayer
Any Stats
|
Damage to Bosses |
| T1 |
+50% |
| T2 |
+100% |
| T3 |
+195% |
| T4 |
+390% |
| T5 |
+775% |
Instakill
Any Stats
|
Chance |
| T1 |
+0.5% ÷ fire rate |
| T2 |
+1% ÷ fire rate |
| T3 |
+1.97% ÷ fire rate |
| T4 |
+3.9% ÷ fire rate |
Poison
Any Stats
|
Damage |
Tick Count |
Tick Duration |
| T1 |
150 |
10 |
0.5s |
| T2 |
300 400 |
12 |
0.25s |
| T3 |
1200 |
14 |
0.25s |
| T4 |
3000 |
11 |
0.2s |
| T5 |
9000 |
10 |
0.15s |
Reload
Any Stats
|
Chance |
| T1 |
+10% |
| T2 |
19% |
| T3 |
37% |
- Fixed a bug where reload wouldn't trigger
Slow
Shooter, Lancer,
Gunner & Smasher Stats
|
Slow Percentage |
Duration |
Spin Up Multiplier (Gunner Only) |
Spin Down Multiplier (Gunner Only) |
Range (Smasher Only) |
| T1 |
+7.5% |
2s |
-10% |
+7.5% |
-15% |
| T2 |
+10% |
3s |
-20% |
+15% |
-22.5% |
| T3 |
+15% |
3.5s |
-30% |
+25% |
-30% |
| T4 |
+20% |
4s |
-50% |
+40% |
-40% |
- Slow is capped at 60% speed loss (was 80%)
Slows was a little too good at holding back enemies and made choke-points a bit too powerful. Hopefully this should help spread out players' defences.
Sniper
Shooter Stats
|
Range |
Damage |
Fire Rate |
Rotation Speed |
Bullet Speed |
| T1 |
+100% |
+120% |
-50% |
-30% |
+100 |
| T2 |
+175% |
+220% |
-75% |
-40% |
+150% |
| T3 |
+450% |
+375% |
-120% |
-70% |
+275% |
Laser Stats
|
Range |
Damage |
Rotation Speed |
| T1 |
+50% |
+50% |
-50% |
| T2 |
+75% |
+100% |
-65% |
| T3 |
+140% |
+180% |
-85% |
Smasher Stats
|
Range |
Damage |
Fire Rate |
| T1 |
+70% |
+100% |
-50% |
| T2 |
110% |
210% |
-75% |
| T3 |
+260% |
+350% |
-87% |
Stun
Any Stats
|
Enemy Chance |
Duration |
Turret Chance |
Duration |
| T1 |
7% ÷ fire rate |
0.25s |
4% ÷ fire rate |
0.75s |
| T2 |
15% ÷ fire rate |
0.5s |
7% ÷ fire rate |
1.25s |
- Stun now stuns turrets correctly
There was a bug preventing this from working, which has now been fixed,
there's an animation that plays that's similar to surge.
While stunned, the turret doesn't rotate, shoot or even make progress on it's next attack, but will still remember what enemy it was targeting
Surge
Any Stats
|
Fire Rate |
Duration |
Cooldown |
| T1 |
+175% |
3s |
4s |
| T2 |
+250% |
4s |
8s |
| T3 |
+400% |
2s |
3s |
Turrets
Laser
Laser Stats
| Damage Per Second |
Range |
Rotation Speed |
| 200 180 |
4 |
7 |
