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[ehmprah]

Hey everyone! I'm ehmprah and I want to show you peeps my new game!

Core Defense is a roguelike tower defense game with a dash of deckbuilding. Choose a reward, update your build, survive the next wave, repeat. Highly replayable through permadeath, procedural generation and challenging difficulty levels. You'll want just one more wave, just one more run!

It's already available for Win, Mac and Linux on itch.io and is coming to Steam next. Android and iOS versions are also planned! Check it out here:

Itch.io: https://ehmprah.itch.io/core-defense
Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1203360/Core_Defense/

I'll gladly hear your opinions, feedback or whatever else you might have to say :-)

[ehmprah]

Good news everyone – you have had to wait a bit longer for this patch, which I had sitting around half done for weeks now before I found enough time to finetune and finish it due to the Coronavirus madness. But at long last it's done and I'm very happy to give you the next version of Core Defense!

The "Procedural Patch" contains many balancing changes, mostly around streamlining the difficulties and closing the vast gap between early and late difficulty levels. I've also nerfed shields because they were massively overpowered.

There are three big changes I want to highlight: One is a new tower: the DISRUPTOR hits mobs with a status effect which inhibits all actions and attacks. And perfectly in line with that new tower is the EXECUTIONER rework: this tower now multiplies its damage by the amount of status effects on the target, so creating builds around this tower and many different status effects is now not only viable, but heaps of fun.

And last but not least: all normal waves are now procedurally generated. Ideas for preset waves kept piling up and I found balancing them increasingly hard, so I've opted for the randomization approach and during playtesting, it felt very good. I'm very curious for your feedback on this one though: it's a major change that influences many parts of the game, but from all the intended and accidental side effects I've found so far, I'm happy about all of them.

As always, I hope you have fun with this new version and I'll gladly accept all your feedback on the [Discord server](https://discord.gg/URcmzXm). And here are the full patch notes for version 1.5.0-beta:

**Added**

- New Tower: *Disruptor* (Hits mobs with status effect inhibiting all actions)
- Russian translation (thanks to Vadim, Huntsman & Necronomicon!)

**Changed**

- Towers can now only be built after building the first wall
- Removed the limited build radius for walls
- All normal waves are now procedurally generated
- Bonus rewards now roll everything just like normal rewards
- Halved mob health increase across all difficulty levels
- Shield and normal damage on the Core are now equally disabling the flawless bonus
- *Shuriken*: rare -> uncommon
- *Shield Generator*: common -> rare
- *Shield*: common -> uncommon
- *Tinkerer*: rare -> uncommon
- *Executioner* now multiplies damage by the amount of status effects on target
- *Executioner* base damage 20 -> 35
- *Executioner Damage* damage 12 -> 9
- *Executioner Damage Modifier* upgrade removed
- *Freezer* no longer damages, only slows mobs
- *Sunbeam* base damage 20 -> 40
- *Sunbeam* damage increase stacks 7 -> 5
- *Lightning* base damage 25 -> 45
- *Lightning Damage* upgrade damage 15 -> 10
- *Melter* base damage 25 -> 25
- *Melter Damage* upgrade damage 10 -> 9
- *Repeater* base damage 10 -> 25
- *Repeater Damage* upgrade damage 13 -> 10
- *Repeater Armor Penetration* upgrade removed
- *Shuriken* base damage 25 -> 50
- *Shuriken* shots now bounce back by default
- *Shuriken Bounce Back* upgrade removed
- *Shuriken Bounce Harder*: uncommon -> common, increase 5% -> 4%
- *Shuriken Bounce More*: rare -> uncommon
- *Shuriken Bounce More*: rare -> uncommon
- *Hammer* base damage 150 -> 350
- *Hammer Damage* upgrade damage 140 -> 100
- *Sniper* base damage 100 -> 200
- *Sniper Damage* upgrade damage 85 -> 65
- *Sniper Range* upgrade limit 10 -> 5
- *Giant Stinger* actions per second 0.15 -> 0.2
- *Shielder* Shield amount 0.05 -> 0.15
- *Big Shielder* Shield amount 0.05 -> 0.15
- *Giant Shielder* Shield amount 0.1 -> 0.3
- *Sniper Damage* upgrade damage 85 -> 65
- *Sniper Range* upgrade limit 10 -> 5
- *Giant Stinger* actions per second 0.15 -> 0.2
- *Shielder* Shield amount 0.05 -> 0.15
- *Big Shielder* Shield amount 0.05 -> 0.15
- *Giant Shielder* Shield amount 0.1 -> 0.3

**Fixed**

- The audio volume percentage now properly displays whole numbers
- Fixed roll chance for reward types
- Abilities now get properly deselected when the game ends
- Wall achievements are now properly calculated
- The highscore now displays the correct amount of walls
- Destroyed towers are now properly rebuild with empty shields

[ehmprah]

Good news everyone, after four weeks of squeezing in an hour here and there the new patch for Core Defense is finally done! Four weeks are not exactly the patch schedule I’m aiming for, but Corona takes its toll on all of us, so I hope you can excuse the long wait for this new version. Especially because there’s a whole bunch of cool stuff in it.

Most of the changes in this patch are more or less based on community feedback and I’m very thankful to have so many inspired and enthusiastic people on the Discord server who hunt bugs and come up with the coolest ideas for this game! The community was wishing for a manual control tower for example: behold the ION CANNON, which reloads very slowly but fires a massive AOE beam when you do finally activate it:



The new tower is a strong one, which is why I’ve added a new mob as well that counters it: the SPLITTER splits into two parts upon death:



I’ve also tweaked the visuals a bit so the rest of the game can keep up with the hefty new tower:



And this is just the tip of the iceberg – I’ve added new features, did some balancing and fixed several bugs, so without further ado, here are the full patch notes for the new version:

Added

Added Ion Cannon: manually fire this tower’s massive beam weapon!
Added Splitter: this minion splits in two upon death!
Added fullscreen toggle to the settings
Added option to turn off tips to the settings
Added list of all tips to the compendium
Added error screen on systems without WebGL2 support
Added wall layout to highscore cards
The last played overload level is now the default when starting a new game
You now get a bonus reward in your next run for the first boss you kill
You now get a bonus reward in your next run if you win the run
Added icons for all achievements
Added try again button at the end of the demo
Added Spanish translation (thanks to uperesito, KnightMare_XL & Salburual123)
Added Italian translation (thanks to MakinDay, mykys, TyKonKet, godhurIA, Nancy, frankieorabona, ricina)
Changed

Animations for AOE attacks are now slower and have a new particle effect
Removed 4x game speed and increased all previous speeds
Reduced mob damage and movement speed increase across all overload levels
Reordered overload levels, moving some harder modifiers to later levels
Waves now only roll ranged mobs 60% of the time
Disruptor Duration: duration upgrade 1s >> 0.5s
Executioner Speed: upgrade limit 10 >> 5
Hammer: base actions per second 0.25 >> 0.5, base damage 375 >> 175
Hammer Damage: upgrade damage 100 >> 50
Sniper: base actions per second 0.2 >> 0.3, base damage 200 >> 150
Sniper Speed: ugprade stacks 10 >> 5, actions per second 0.03 >> 0.05
Sniper Damage: damage 65 >> 40
Healer: base actions per second 0.1s >> 0.2s
Healer Speed: upgrade stacks 4 >> 3
Giant Regenerator: regeneration 5% >> 3%
Autoshields: module stacks 1 >> 5, shield amount 1% >> 2%
Nanobots: module stacks 3 >> 5, heal amount 1% >> 2%
Refine: module stacks 10 >> 5, damage bonus 2% >> 4% (incorrectly displayed 4% before)
Quicken: module stacks 10 >> 5, heal amount 1% >> 3% (incorrectly displayed 2% before)
Fixed

You can now unlock the achievements Eternal, Excellence, Pacifist, Immortal
The game no longer generates empty waves
The game now properly scales to full screen on Mac
Discovered rewards and mobs are now correctly counted in the compendium
Freezer range now upgrades properly
Damage numbers are now properly rounded
Switching profiles now properly applies settings

[ehmprah]

Good news, everyone! This is the last big patch of the early access phase before the Steam release. There was a lot of work under the hood like Steam achievements and cloud saves, which are in this patch but not yet visible to you until I send out the Steam keys to all itch.io owners – which I’m going to do some time next week, so you can test the Steam version before it’s publicly available.

But there also is a lot you actually can see already, like the new alternative primary colors which you now unlock by beating the game at Overload 5, 10, 15 and 20:



Lately the executioner combo was too strong, which is why I’m following up the Executioner nerf of the last patch with a new mob, the DEFIANT, which is immune to all status effects:



I’ve also tuned all boss waves to include additional side mobs which makes boss waves a little harder and more stylish:



Aaand I’ve become so annoyed at trying to find the right keyboard shortcuts for my abilities that I’ve separated the shortcuts for buildings and abilities; and while I was at it I also made those shortcuts configurable:



That’s not all of course, so here are the full patch notes for this last beta patch:

#### Added

- Added Chinese (simplified) translation
- Added *Defiant*, a mob which is immune to status effects!
- Added *Salvage* module, which grants a random upgrade when you skip a reward!
- Alternate primary colors are now unlocked on beating Overload 5, 10, 15 and 20
- Keyboard shortcuts are now customizable and separated between towers and abilities
- Manual control towers can now be fired with the corresponding keyboard shortcut

#### Changed

- Bigger mobs now have the same movement speed as the small ones
- Boss waves are now a little bigger and harder
- You now get one more tower to choose from at the start of a run
- The fullscreen mode is now toggled with the F11 key
- In windowed mode there now is a title bar
- The game now properly saves the windowed state, size and position
- The achievement *Singularity* now only unlocks if you have exactly one tower.
- *Repeater* tower now gains attack speed for every kill
- *Repeater Damage* upgrade limit 15 >> 25, damage 10 >> 7
- *Repeater Speed* upgrade removed
- *Sniper* tower now deals more damage the farther away the target is, base damage 150 >> 75
- *Sniper Damage* upgrade damage 40 >> 20
- *Melter Armor Reduction* upgrade limit 5 >> 3, reduction 2 >> 5
- *Repeater Speed* upgrade removed
- *Keep cool* module rarity uncommon >> common
- *Heal* ability range 1.25 >> 1.5
- *Shield* ability range 1.25 >> 1.5
- *Disruptor* base range 1.5 >> 1.25, status duration 3s >> 1s
- *Disruptor Range* range increase 0.2 >> 0.1, stacks 5 >> 15
- *Disruptor Duration* upgrade removed

#### Fixed

- The confirm dialog properly translates "yes" and "no" buttons
- The achievement *Keep 'em coming* can now be unlocked
- Fixed several bugs regarding the rotation interface for the ion cannon
- Healing in-between waves is now properly added to healing statistic
- Fixed movement speed calculation for status effects
- The compendium now shows the correct amount of discoveries