Kill The Climbers Early Access Patch 0.51 Changelog:
Hi all, we've released a new patch for the Early Access version of Kill The Climbers, focusing on quality of life features, gameplay balancing, and some bug fixes!
With some help from your appreciated feedback and rounds of testing, we think we've been able to improve the game to an even more fun, fair, and playable state! The next patch after this one is planned to feature even more content additions, so look forward to that too!
Quality Of Life Features:
- Added a 3 second pause after closing the In-Game Upgrade Skill Menu via the 'X', so that players have a bit more time to readjust to the flow of gameplay after upgrading. If you don't want to wait the 3 seconds, you can simply close the menu via 'Q' or 'Tab' to instantly get back into the action.
- Added an additional Power Ups button at the Game Results screen to save players from having to go back to the Main Menu to purchase meta upgrades.
- Added Quick Exit Button to quickly quit to desktop.
- Both the Auto Abilities and Show Help/How To will be checked 'On' in the Settings at start of game.
- Made it more clear that Spacebar does Avalanche.
- Made it more clear that WASD moves the yeti.
- Put a GUI box around the in-game upgrade prompt to make it more obvious to players.
Balance Changes:
Climber Changes:
Developer's Note:
Further balancing of the various climbers will mostly have to wait until the upcoming climber abilities are all fully implemented. Look forward to them, they'll add much more unique variety to the enemies and extra challenge!
- Reduced Expert Climber Max HP from 8 to 6.
- Reduced Novice Climber Movement Speed from 1.5 to 1.25.
- Reduced Novice Climber Max HP from 4 to 2.
- Reduced Novice Climber Mountain Damage Value from 2 to 1.
Yeti Balancing:
Developer's Note:
The Yeti was designed as a high skill-floor and high skill-ceiling playstyle that offered a different experience from the other abilities given to the player. He can be deceptively powerful if you know what you're doing, but it's clear that beginners may struggle to fully utilize his potential. In order to make him more user-friendly, we've given several overall buffs to the Yeti and eventually plan on giving him more integration with other meta upgrades to improve his late-game scaling. Also, we're considering implementing an alternative mode to him that automates him like one of the other animal defenders, if the player doesn't feel like manually controlling him.
- Increased Yeti Max HP from 65 to 100.
- Increase Yeti Movespeed by +1
- Increased Yeti contact damage by +1
- Increased Yeti Dash damage by +1
- Increased Yeti Snowball damage by +1
- Increased Yeti Invulnerability duration while dashing slightly.
- Increased Yeti snowball sprite size slightly and snowball area-of-effect.
- Made yeti's Spawn Roar do an avalanche and then slow everyone to 1 speed for 5 seconds.
- Removed pressing 'X' to despawn the Yeti. This prevents players from accidentally 'killing' their Yeti without intending to.
Rockslide/Moonrocks Balancing:
Developer's Note:
As one of your primary abilities, the Rockslide's vertical clearing power was always intended to be significantly useful, particularly the higher up you drop it. After further testing and feedback, it became clear that the Rockslide had become the most popular and efficient 'meta' strategy, particularly if you place your cursor at the top of the mountain's peak. This becomes even more overpowered when you unlock the final 'Moonrocks' upgrade. So, in order to increase utilization of the game's other abilities and meta upgrades, we've endeavored to reduce the Rockslide's strength in various areas. In the future, we'll be adding and rebalancing other things to further encourage a greater variety of playstyles.
- Increased Rockslide Level 2 to do +2 Wind Damage for 5 seconds rather than +1
- Increased Rockslide base ability cooldown by 0.50 seconds.
- Slightly slowed down rockslide/moonrocks projectiles movement speed.
- Reduced rocks to only do a 0.25 second ministun instead of 0.5s at its Level 2 upgrade.
- Reduced Rockslide Level 3 to -0.25s CD instead of -0.50
- Reduced Rockslide Level 6 to -0.25s CD instead of -0.50
- Reduced Rockslide Level 8 to -0.25s CD instead of -0.50
Wind Gust/Mirror Gust Balancing:
Developer's Note:
Up until recently, one of the most critical functions of the Wind Gust wasn't yet functional, but we've since fixed it so that it properly slows enemies when upgraded to Level 2. This should allow it to be that much more useful, especially against fast enemies. We'll probably modify it further so that it serves its niche as a debuffing crowd control option, further differentiating it from the damage-focused Rockslide.
- Wind Gust now properly slows enemies at Level 2.
- Increase Wind Gust Level 2 to do +2 Rock Damage for 5 seconds rather than +1
- Increased wind movement speed by 1.
- Increased Wind damage by 1.
Avalanche Changes:
- Made it so that the upgraded avalanche freezes the boss for 3 seconds rather than 5.
Bug Fixes:
- Fixed bottom black border that was glitching.
- Fixed the time calculator at the Game Results screen being off by some seconds.
- Fixed the How To Play screen not coming up automatically.
- Fixed issue with animal dens being already placed at the start.
- Fixed frame outline on the "You Win!' screen.
- Fixed bug with avalanche that shook the screen so hard it disrupted the GUI.
Known Issues:
- There may be visual issues on certain monitors and resolutions.
- The 3 second pause after the in-game skills menu may not necessarily pause everything.
- Some animals sometimes may follow climbers without apparently damaging or killing them.
- Potential bug where the defender quantity meta upgrades can cause issues with animal defender behaviors and spawning. These defender issues may be present regardless of the meta upgrade.
- Some animal dens still aren't placed accurately in the Prep Phase boxes and maybe be visually overlapping with others.
- Extra animals from the Defender Quantity meta upgrade won't appear at the Prep Phase screen, will require you to put a skill point into a particular defender first.
- Doing avalanche at the game over screen may cause infinite shaking.
- Potential bugs with animal quantity meta upgrade which may not give as many as it should, or extra defenders may seemingly disappear after a time. Or, it could be that they're just stacked on top of each other perfectly so you can't see them all.
- Left-Clicking in the bottom left corner of the screen may cause your wind gust to disappear/despawn.
- Some climber abilities are not yet fully implemented and are a work in progress. For this and other reasons the game is currently easier than intended... for now.
Thanks for reading, now go kill those climbers!
