New Features
Mid-game save
Now you can exit and continue runs!
Multi-block placement in combat
An issue we've been thinking a lot about is how to give players more agency.
In combat, the brain dealing randomness limits the order you can play actions.
The game has been designed with this in mind, but it's still not ideal, and means players need to think about how a move will resolve before placing a block. When you place a block in combat, the order of actions resolve left to right, top to bottom. New players often overlooked this, as it's extra complexity on top of learning the rest of the game. We added damage previews to ease this, but often people would just look at the previews without understanding their moves.
Play the whole brain each turn!
Capture actions in the order you want to activate them, and use Redraw to discard uncaptured actions.
Virus Strain reworks
We'd done a full pass on Virus strain starter decks, along with the starting blocks and brain shapes.
In combat, it's easier to coordinate your moves with smaller blocks, so now virus strains start with smaller block shapes.
Spread tokens only spread in Exploration
To compensate for smaller starting block shapes we've added more Spread cells in Exploration, and we've made it so blocks won't spread in combat. Otherwise, placing a single block might fill the whole board, which is the opposite of our goal to reduce randomness and make combat more strategic!
Upgrades system redesign
One issue we've wanted to look at is the dominant strategy so far seems to be making one MEGA Action... Loading all Upgrades and Traits onto a single Action, which can be fun for awhile, but it's also not very challenging, strategic, or interesting for Upgrades to just make the numbers increase.
Branching Upgrades and new Actions
This new system is a massive rework to Upgrades.
Now, Actions in your deck have multiple levels of different upgrades which will transform them into different Actions or make them more powerful in a variety of ways.
We've added Blank Actions to the base decks, which can upgrade into very different types of actions to help specialise your deck.
This new system means a few things:
There's more Action replacement. Your deck stays leaner, giving you more access to the new upgraded actions while also making it easier to keep track of what your deck is capable of.
Virus Strains are even more like different archetypes, because you won't often gain new upgradeable actions in a run. These will likely be restricted to special events.
Deck power increase is more about synergising content than getting a big number.
Branching Upgrades in the Collection
The Mutation page in the Collection is now organised by upgrade level and rarity, and displays what Actions will upgrade from and into.
We've also included filters to hide/show Actions only available in the Shops, which cannot be upgraded.
Shop rework
With the mutation pool being completely reorganised into branching upgrades, we needed to rethink how Actions appear in the Shops.
Shop Mutations have Exhaust
The thinking here is that Mutations bought from Shops will be supplementary to the branching upgrade build. These Exhaust actions in the shop are all more powerful but can't be upgraded.
You can still add more upgradeable Actions to your deck via Mutation Choice Exits.
Reroll with currency
Currency is now used for Rerolling, and there's more currency in exploration.
Action removal
Shops also have one slot dedicated to removing an action. This slot will be replaced with a Perk when rerolling, so use it first if wanting to remove an action.
Streamlining combat, resources and rewards
With this update we've been working on an overhaul to how resources tie into rewards and the rewards you get from combat.
Our big goals here are to make the game flow faster so you're spending less time in UIs and more time exploring and battling, while also making it easier to understand how resources affect rarity.
Resources now affect the rarity/power of Exits instead of Combat Rewards
Resources collected in each depth will increase the rarity of the next Exit Event.
eg. If the exit will give you a Mutation, collecting more resources will increase the rarity.
This means you can see exactly how many resources you need for the next rarity tier while exploring a level. Previously it would also collect resources from enemies, but you wouldn't know ahead of time how many resources enemies would have, so couldn't plan for it.
Combat rewards are now set per encounter
eg. Currently, the Chicken family will always give a common Perk, Ibis will always give an upgrade, Elites will always give an epic Perk.
Encounters are auto-selected except for Elites at branching paths
To speed up the game flow and reduce overwhelm we've decided to randomise the encounters each run.
This means you don't need to spend time comparing details for regular encounters. It was getting to the point where we had so much information on the encounter screen that just wasn't a very interesting choice, and incentivised a boring way to play where people pick the same encounters over and over.
Enemies no longer drop resources.
As we added more enemy context to the encounter screen it just became a lot to have each enemy with a different amount of rewards. It also meant new players might not kill the enemy which has the reward, and not realise they've fallen behind a bit on progression.
The focus of encounter choice should really be on the enemies, and reading their Perks.
All resources to affect reward rarity are collected in Exploration. This means you can use the resource collection bar to accurately know what rarity you'll get in the next combat, and how many resources to aim for.
New Actions, Perks, Recipes, Elites and more!
We've also added a bunch of new Actions, Perks and rebalanced some encounters.
Many of the new Actions and Perks are Community suggestions, so a huge shout out to our Discord crew and everyone who's influenced the game so far.
Build Notes
ːFrogChampː = Community request or bug report
Features
Added Abandon Run button to the Pause Menu. This will allow you to restart the game while still extracting consumed resources.
Added resource bundles to exploration, and more resources overall. The base resource graphic now looks like a single resource.
ːFrogChampː Shops now include a Remove Action choice for purchase. This only appears once per shop, and its price will increase upon use.
Events now let you back out of a choice
Added an option in the settings to change the way tooltips appear. There are now three options: On Hover / On Hold / Toggle
By default this key is Alt, you can specify which key to toggle or hold in the control remap settings.
Added a grow brain tile to exploration
Translations
Reviewed Polish and added missing translations.
Added missing French, German, Russian and Japanese translations.
Thanks to Paweł Turaczyk - kantal, Jennifer Brosche, Pierre-Alexandre Rouillon, Riotloc and Dragonbaby.
Bug Fixes
Fix tooltip text size on token tooltip
Fixed Gameover screen tooltips sometimes appearing off screen
Fixed issue with perk Grace applying to the player
Fixed trail effect not playing when triggering Cleave or Chain Whip
ːFrogChampː Fixed Overstimulate brain ability when used with Hyperactive perk
Fixed spawned creatures appearing in the correct biome in the collection
Fixed an issue where audio would play before the game loads
Fixed an issue with depth 3 map not spawning
Fixed grapple sprite in tutorial
ːFrogChampː Fix Armadillo's first action
Added missing gain Forceful FX
ːFrogChampː Fix for Growth Trait
ːFrogChampː Fixed a mid-game save issue
Fixed bug with random ally speeches
ːFrogChampː Fix Olm Salamander's actions
ːFrogChampː Fixed some instances where exhaust was not removed after combat
Fixed tooltip for the enemy action Snipe
ːFrogChampː Fixed issue where Inspect icon stays visible when a choice in an event is made
Fixed visuals on locked actions on the upgrade event
Brain Ability Swap can no longer swap with captured actions
Fixed Gain a Trait visuals on hover
When hovering UI buttons the block gets hidden
Fix for Unbreakable perk
Fix incorrect number on a healing perk description.
ːFrogChampː Fix for tooltips staying up
Improvements
Reworked UI transition animations to be snappier
Added a small effect on enemy intentions when they update
When an enemy adds a status effect on themselves the next turn, it is no longer projected for your current turn.
Updated Rabbit event win speech
Perks that are start in virus strains no longer have a rarity, instead they will be labeled "Virus Strain"
If you unlocked specimen before the collection update, it will now be visible
Updated the combat tutorial
Added a new animation between combat rewards and getting the reward.
Updated Chinchilla event choices
Show Aimed or Reach visuals on tiles that have no board value
Added Inspect / Tooltip Hotkey to gain / lose event choices
The Add trait will update the Action Icon's numerical value when it is not on the combat board
The player's death effect overlay will only start when projecting your final move
Dungeon loot and level updates, new weird levels
Knockback tiles can have repeat on them
Updated the Mutation page of the Collection to accommodate Upgrades
Lock and Instant traits are now incompatible with each other
Added a tooltip for the Upgrade reward icon
Added reactive text on characters when blocking or immune to damage
Conduction Perk works with any combo action, not just Bonus
Backwoods boss redesign
Redraw Cat's eyes to fix perspective
New look Feeding Hole!
Balance
Added resource bundles to exploration, and more resources overall. The base resource graphic now looks like a single resource.
Perk Stunlock now triggers on Action activation and not Action capture
Growth now resets on capture rather than on dealt
Spike Snipe is now Aimed
Adjust Stun to be a Utility action
Rebalance Onslaught - Gave Spike actions Instant and reduced to 1, added Spike Snipe to the starting actions
Shedding buffed to Heal 2x Shield amount
Reduce Onslaught health
Actions which gain Adrenaline on self now have Instant
Instinct Action gets buffed by Attack actions instead of Physical actions
Spread Tokens now only spread in Exploration
Added more pickups to exploration
Hyperactive Perk effect has been changed to give uncaptured Actions +1 on each block placement
If adding a Spread token to a temporary Single Block, it will now apply it to all future Singles you pick up.
Fixed an issue when clearing mid-game saves
Fixed First Blood perk
Fixed an issue with Leech perk
Hybrid perk spawns mutations rather than just giving you the action tiles
Fixed an issue with Overstimulate causing softlocks
Fixed an issue when using Neuron Activation with an aimed action
Fixed issues with certain actions not triggering at the end of turn, or start of next turn
Fixed issue where some actions got the benefits of bonus twice
Fixed an issue where certain projections appeared as physical
Fixed an issue where Tooltips would appear in the wrong place for a frame
Fixed an issue where you start the tutorial and quit immediately it breaks
The perk tutorial will not show when you enter the bucket cubs event
Fixed Rabbit encounter softlock when using an aimed action
Updated Growth Trait behaviour
Updated Spike Storm behaviour
Updated Perk Transmit's behaviour
Updated Perks Rethink and Test Tickle
Updated Lock Pick effect
Outburst now Common and inflicts Counter amount as Lifesteal to all enemies
Fixed empty upgrade choice
Fixed issues with virus select screen visually showing the incorrect virus strain
Fixed Surge triggering on kill condition with each repeat
Fixed combat tiles turning grey after using a brain ability
Fixed an issue with an enemy's stun projection when using a brain ability
Changes to have the gamepad glyph appear on certain buttons
Changed Elephant's Forge perk effect
Action Upgrade changes: Removed overcomplicated movement actions which had multiple effects, connected the upgrade trees of many Actions missing pathways
Changed Perk rarities: Durable and Unbreakable up to Epic, Blood Splatter down to Common
Confrontation changed to only give self and closest enemy Counter
Changed Raze to inflict Piercing instead of instantly kill
Spread out higher value currency a bit more in exploration
Other
Rephrase enemy movement actions to be more explicit
Added an animation to when game control tutorials appear
Thank you for playing our game, we'd love to hear any feedback in the forums or on our Discord.
If you're enjoying Winnie's Hole we'd appreciate a review as this helps us get visibility and sustain our gamedev adventures!
Cheers,
Twice Different ːRoPFrogː