Hello everyone! It's been one year since Recesses released, and I'm still amazed by the response you all have given it.
Getting to Very Positive on Steam was something I'd never thought possible (I figured I'd get 2 negative ratings and tumbleweeds), so thank you to everyone who has helped it get there!
As a small celebration of the one year anniversary, I've prepared a little content update for the game by adding four new cards (plus a few other things). If you want a breakdown of the updates, then read on. And if not... then don't!
To confirm you're playing on the latest Version 1.1, go to Game Options and check the upper left corner. If it's a lower version, just restart Steam and it should update automatically.
Each of the new cards added in this update is a "captain," with an ability that triggers *inside* of the spaceship. And here's all four of them:
All of the captains were designed to help strategies that I felt could use a little boost. If you want to explore them on your own, go for it! But if you want more details on the thought process behind them, here's some details on each card.
(There are some spoilers for other rare cards in the explanations, so it's recommended not to read those if you haven't finished the game yet.)
- Created to boost Battaliens with big weaknesses, particularly the Essences, turning them into 8-power monstrosities.
- Another goal was to make synergy cards like Puuts Admirer and Tel-maq Resonator stronger if they lost their ability.
- Now if your Puuts Admirer gets Ossh'am-ed, you can give it +4 power and take down that Ossh'am in battle!
- Created to boost "sacrifice" synergy spaceships, which were fun and strong but also fragile.
- Can also help players struggling against Elders: just sacrifice something that negates an ability when it dies, and that'll help even the playing field.
- Lots of fun cobbling together a win after getting a bunch of random Gross commons. It's Brepch Sogworm and Lethoggl Doozer's time to shine!
- Created to boost win-ability synergy spaceships in a way that's not just increasing the win-ability Battaliens' power.
- Another goal was to give mono-Scary a way to work with win-ability Battaliens like Sevir Intimidator and Ignix Fearfire.
- Has the potential to be the most dangerous of the Captains combo-wise, but where's the fun without a little danger??
- Created to boost the "beefy dudes" spaceship. The ability your 9-power card gets can be a "before damage" one, a "dies" one if it's going to die, or a "wins" one if it's going to win.
- Another goal was to help boost Elder ships, since Cnyr7w Captain will always give an Elder Battalien a random Elder ability.
- Can be used *against* Elders too: if an enemy Elder took your ability/power away, now you can get a new ability to whack back at it!
The Captains can be obtained normally as you progress through the game. To find out how to specifically obtain them, click/hover over the spoiler below.
You can open Captains in booster packs after encountering Emily. They appear at the same rarity as normal rare cards.
If you don't want to wait, there are cheat codes to add each one to your collection. To enter a cheat code, go to the main menu, press enter, then type the code, then press enter again. If you hear a sound effect, you did it right and the card is in your collection.
- To get Katsi Captain, enter the cheat code "doesyourshiphavetuna"
- To get Phlek Captain, enter the cheat code "thiscardissick"
- To get Kahaz Captain, enter the cheat code "leadingfromtheshadows"
- To get Cnyr7w Captain, enter the cheat code "chargedupandincharge"
Since it wouldn't be fair if only *you* got to use the Captains in battle, I've added Captains to some of the opponents' ships throughout the game.
I've only added Captains to ships that already changed each time you faced them (opponents with non-changing ships did not get them), and they only use their Captain ships about 25% of the time. To see where, click/hover over the spoiler below:
(Spoilers for late game battles are included too, so it's recommended not to read if you haven't finished the game yet.)
- Level 1 Emily can have any one of the four Captains
- Level 1 Ms. Raven can have Phlek Captain, Kahaz Captain, or Cnyr7w Captain
- Level 2 Eugene can have Katsi Captain or Kahaz Captain
- Level 2 Tatiana can have Phlek Captain or Cnyr7w Captain
- Level 2 Mr. Whittier can have Katsi Captain
- Level 3 Joey/Wires can have any one of the four Captains
- Level 3 Goatee can have Cnyr7w Captain
...and there may be one more secret captain somewhere too, hehe.
A few other small updates to the game:
- Brepch Skinshedder had its two -2 weaknesses changed to two -9 weakness to, ironically, make it stronger.
- Lethoggl Blobbuddy had its two -4 weaknesses changed to two -8 weaknesses to synergize with Brepch Skinshedder without changing the card's power significantly.
- Tel-maq Symmetree now has a +2 strength to Scary, increased from +1, to bring it in line with multi-turn-play cards like Oowoo Cozycoach and Puuts Peptalker.
- Ob'itzan Glarer now has 7 power, increased from 6, to bring it in line with niche cards like Sevir Screamer and cards with dies abilities like Phlek Parasite.
Finally, two new pieces of art that are not spoilers on their own, but the explanations of the battle where you encounter them are.
- Metl now transforms the enemy Battalien into this image when using its first "Useless Rock" ability (art by Junkyard Dawg who did the other Butt-aliens card art):
- Metl now transforms the enemy Battalien into this image when using its third "Technological Consciousness" ability:
I've playtested the changes as much as I can, but I'm sure I've missed some stuff. If you run into any bugs or have any other questions/comments, let me know in the Steam forums.
Thank you again for playing!
-Sanjuny