Today we’re rolling out yet another free major content update, the Encore update! This huge expansion gives each hero their own series of escalating Encore ranks to explore, and adds tons of new gameplay variety and new rewards to unlock if you can survive it all.
New Encore mode! Once you complete a normal run for the first time, you now unlock Encore mode. Each Encore rank adds new variety and challenge, encouraging you to experiment with each hero. The higher you can climb in a hero’s ranks, the higher the difficulty and the more gold potential each run holds. The upper limits of the leaderboards are now anyone’s guess!
New bosses! Too comfy with the Alchemist, the Cycloptopus, and the Giant Worm? We’ve flooded the dungeon with new variants! Try your hand at defeating these new dangerous lab experiments, answer the question of how many Cycloptopi you can fit in a room, and discover the inner workings of a steampunk robotic Worm.
Unique Sideshows! Each hero has a special Sideshow rank with completely new rules and challenges. Race against a ticking time bomb, push your luck with two treasure scarabs, defend your potions from those thirsty imps, and fight off a wave of fungal infection.
The Wheel of Woes! If you can survive up to Encore rank 3, you’ll see Ledger’s newest toy, the Wheel of Woes! Take a spin every act to take on a new game-altering rule that will make navigating the dungeon even trickier than before.
5 new Relics, including one that unlocks Endless Mode! That’s right, by popular demand, you can now tackle Endless Mode. Take that lucky OP build and see just how far it can carry you as the dungeon’s challenges keep escalating for as long as it takes.
More! 16 new challenging achievements. New accessibility settings for Game Speed and Arachnophobia mode. Lots and lots of balancing tweaks and polish to address issues you all helped point out!
This update brings us up to a solid version 2.0, two years after we first launched. Over the years, we’ve made the game bigger and better for free, adding a new playable hero class, daily & weekly challenges, seasonal events, new bosses, elites, monsters, relics, items, levels, achievements, and more. Thank you all for sticking with us through this journey!
After all that, it feels fitting that another awesome Peggle-inspired roguelike Peglin has started their journey into early access this week. They have a really interesting ball power-up mechanic and a different spin on the whole thing that is definitely worth checking it out. We’ll be releasing a Pegglelike bundle with them to celebrate at the start of the Going Rogue sale next week, so keep your eye out for that!
<3
Andrea, Wonderbelly Games
New Content:
- Encore mode now unlocks after winning a run with any hero. Each hero has 5 levels of Encore ranks plus a unique Sideshow to complete, each adding interesting new rules and rewards.
- Added new bosses: The Mad Virologist, the Mad Doctor, Greg & Carl, Bleary, Blinky & Goo, the Robotic Heart, and the Infected Heart.
- Added new monsters & hazards: Thirsty Imp, Strange Lab Rat, Toxic Mushroom, Doc’s Monster, Doc’s Helper, Plasma Globes, Robo Wormlet, Infected Wormlet, Sickly Valve.
- Added the Trinket limiter, encouraging you to make more strategic choices around Trinkets.
- Added the Wheel of Woes with 32 different rules to alter the dungeon and keep you on your toes.
- Added 5 new relics to unlock, including Endless Mode to really put your skills to the test.
- Added Game Speed settings menu options for changing physics simulation speed.
- Added Arachnophobia Mode to the settings menu to change spiders to cute lil’ blobs with no legs and a reasonable amount of eyes and remove icky sound effects.
- Added 16 new achievements. Can you beat the top Encore rank with any hero? Can you get a scarab multiplier of 20x? (Yes, that’s possible now!)
Balance Changes:
- Added +10 to the Warrior's starting health and increased the amount of health he gets on most level ups.
- Troll & Ice Giant regen amount lowered.
- Changed Gold Lust to give health immediately on use as well as per pot.
- Changed quests with longer form goals so that they can't be given too close to the end of the game.
- Changed the trigger conditions on the Gel Tamer's and the Goblin Poet's so that it's now more likely that you'll encounter the giants / spiders required to complete their quests.
- Changed the Gel Tamer's trinket Cube Whistle: "Take no negative status effects from Gelly Cubes. They only move when you fast forward."
- Added "Take no negative effects from Gelly Cubes" to the Cube Whistle.
- Added "Equipment in Brutes rooms is 1 level higher" to Grandma's Pearls.
- Added "+5 mana per skull smashed" to Lich's Spell Book.
- Changed Lyric Book to ALWAYS make orcs vulnerable (instead of first turn).
- Increased Ballet Slippers evade chance to 10% (up from 5).
- Added "Skeletons are no longer immune to Weaken" to Talisman of Mild Softening.
- Added an additional new trinket to the Gold Wheel of Wonders pool. Disinfecting Wipes: Remove all negative status effects when you land on the cushion.
- Moved Good Luck Charm and Protector's Ring into Blue Wheel of Wonders pool (from Red and Gold respectively).
- Moved Fluffy Robe of Restoration and Pendulum Power Pendant up to Gold Wheel of Wonders pool (from Blue).
- Increased gold value of Summoner Skeletons and Dark Elf Illusionists to make up for lost gold pots they replace on the board.
- Reduced the number of times you have to hit a broken peg before it poofs out of your way to 3 (from 5).
- Increased Cycloptopus gold values.
- Combining Curiosity and Fervor relics no longer results in 100% chaos rooms.
Polish & Bugs:
- Fixed druid blooms sometimes not appearing after switching armors (until you save/load again).
- Fixed druid treant charge cooldown time being slightly too long if you didn't have the "charge further" bonus property.
- Effects that target the nearest enemy now pick a random direction if there are no enemies to target (instead of always going to the right).
- If you're playing with a short aimer rule and you get the long aimer trinket, those rules now cancel each other out and you have a normal aimer (instead of keeping the small aimer)
- Druid wild vines properties & trinkets that make it target more pots now stack correctly if you have multiple copies of those bonus properties/trinkets.
- Fixed final boss so all enemies' health & damage scale with level appropriately now. (Previously only relevant if using Relics to boost enemy level)
- Fixed Concentration relic logic so that your streak isn't broken if a skeleton minotaur hits the scarab before the start of the first round.
- Fixed Diligence relic logic so it no longer deducts health for the turn you actually clear all gold pots.
- Fixed save/load issue with Cycloptopus that could make the big eye not become vulnerable after hitting a little eye.
- Fixed Rogue arrow property "double damage vs poisoned enemies" and Woodland Garb's double damage not stacking correctly.
- While pausing/quitting, the game now stays frozen if you quit mid shot (rather than resuming the bounce and making weird things happen).
- Fixed soft lock that could occur if you skipped the Gift Giver's final reward dialog.
- Made beam conductor dark elves not connect beams to/from any elves who are blind.
- Fixed rune totem to show correct visual state after save/load
- Fixed blind feedback (besides the icon) not showing up after save load
- Fixed Cycloptopus not save/loading all the eye states correctly.
- Enabled opening the map and equipment screens while receiving the trinket from the Wheel of Wonders
- Fixed Druid Thornbirds not passing through the tricky disappearing Grim Grifter presents.
- Fixed Druid Thornbirds not passing through the Cycloptopus big eye when it's closed.
- Fixed soft lock from save/load during Druid create sprouts in first turn quest.
- Fixed an issue with the Druid's winter event costume.
- Fixed some quests not triggering completion when they should.
- Fixed particles from air blasts that push you around disappearing too early. Now if you are going to get pushed, you should see the particles, even after freezing time to pause/aim/etc.
- Fixed a Cyclotopus bug that could get the big eye stuck closed during the turn it should have been stuck open.
- Fixed armored skeletons losing their invulnerability after save/load.
- Fixed UI bug with druid sprout quest displaying the wrong number in some situations.
- Druid Wild Vines targeting with the d-pad when using a controller now keeps the highlight on the gold pot the correct size for larger pots.
- Fixed final boss little worm butt bits so they no longer get destroyed by some invisible colliders associated with non-damaging properties/skills.
- Fixed bug where The Projectionist elite would only reliably show up for the warrior after receiving her intro dialog.
- Fixed bug that allowed repeated encounters with the same elite before they should be seen again.
- Fixed extremely rare crash that could happen in final boss fight at the moment of victory.
- Fixed hero projectiles getting deleted as soon as they were fired if you were too high above the board. (overly aggressive out of bounds clean up logic)
- Fixed Gift Giver not progressing his quest line if you completed the quest but dropped the trinket.
- Fixed Polymorph Staff frogs getting cleaned up after each round instead of waiting around for you to bonk them.
- Fixed soft lock with the final boss fight if you polymorphed certain enemies in that room.
- Fixed the Alchemist’s poison potions hurting the hero for an extra turn beyond normal poison stacks.
