WAR RATS: The Rat em Up 1.0 IS OUT NOW!

Hello fellow rats!

I am super excited to announce that WAR RATS: The Rat em Up is now out of Early Access and in Full Release!

I will be writing the patch notes in here, but before that; I just want to say a massive thank you to everyone who's bought and played the game during Early Access. You took a chance with an unproven brand new dev in Early Access and I really appreciate it.

And an extra thank you to anyone who left a review and/or provided feedback. You really helped more than you know. I read every review, every piece of feedback. And I think I managed to fix all the main bugs and issues people had with the game. I couldn't do everything. And I'm sure I missed some stuff. I'm just one person making this game, but I tried my best.

And a big thank you to anyone who's just joining the Rat Army now! Welcome. And I hope you enjoy.

And to everyone who's supported me in any way in this crazy journey: Thank you from the bottom of my heart. It really means the world to me and my family you have no idea.

"Ok enough with the sappy squeakin thank-fest you rat!" I hear you skitter. On to the patch notes!

So, this is 1.0. Naturally, it includes all the updates I've added during Early Access. I'm not writing those things below though. This is just things since the last update. If you are curious as to what the older updates are, I encourage you to read the past patch notes/announcements. I documented everything.

And please leave a positive Steam review if you enjoy the game! It really helps a lot.

ENOUGH TALKING! WHERE'S THE PATCH NOTES RATDAMMIT?!

• OPENING CUTSCENE

  There is now a little intro movie that plays when starting a New Game.

• NEW NEST DECORATIONS

  Added 5 new Nest Decorations:

  • Cage

  • Reactor

  • CHz Piles

  • Hookah and Rug

  • (Sleeping) Pet Rat

• NEW GUNS

  • Added new gun: MacRat 10. This is an extremely rapid fire machine pistol. It is very inaccurate, short ranged and it chews through ammo like no tomorrow but it’ll melt stuff up close. Unlocked by clearing wave 15 on any Horde mode map. Uses Machine Pistol ammo.

  • Added new gun: MuskeRat. This is a semi-auto laser rifle. High damage per shot, long range and good accuracy. Decent fire rate and quick reload. Very good all round gun. Unlocked by clearing wave 30 on any Horde mode map. Uses Laser Rifle ammo.

  • Added new gun: Chaingun. This is an extremely rapid firing hard hitting ballistic weapon that has infinite ammo! But it takes a second to spin up its barrels before firing and it will only fire while you are stationary. But it shreds. Literally. To shreds you say? Unlocked by completing a New Game Plus run.

  Please note: The unlock conditions for these new guns are not retroactive. So get back in there and Rat em Up!

• NEW HORDE MODE MAPS

  • Added two new Horde Mode Maps: No Rats Land and Mount Killaratjaro. Each Horde mode map has a different Emplacement layout and wave compositions. So be sure to try em all out!

• NEW... THING!

  • Little Rat Cleaners will now appear to mop away blood pools.

• NEW MUSIC

  • New Track: Added an awesome new track from Anton Kiptily to rip and tear them rats to.

  • New Track: Ratnarok by Jamie Keen.

• NEW SKINS

  • New Head Slot Skin: RatishHelmet. A helmet with a wide brim innit. Awarded for achieving a RatPoints score of 200 or more.

  • New Head Slot Skin: Pirat Hat. Pretty self explanatory really. Awarded for winning the battle of CHz Ratfinery.

  • New Head Slot Skin: Eye Patch. You actually still have two eyes, it’s just for fashion. Awarded for winning the battle of Omahrat Beach.

  • New Back Slot Skin added: NyanRat! That’s all I’ll say about that.

• NEW BUILDABLE

  • Added New Buildable: Speed Shrine. This will buff your troops with increased speed by an extra 50% for 5 seconds each time they pass by.

• NEW ACHIEVEMENTS

  • There are 5 new achievements to obtain. These are all related to content that’s been added since Road Map Update 1 (which is when achievements were added in)

• NEW MAIN MENU

  • Reworked the Main Menu screen. Go take a look!

• STEAM COMMUNITY ITEMS

  • I didn’t know this before making my own Steam game, but Steam only grants permission to implement these if your game meets certain quality and player number criteria. Well I’m happy to say that WAR RATS: The Rat em Up has met those criteria even during Early Access! So for 1.0 I have added them in. There are now badges, trading cards, emotes, profile backgrounds and animated avatars available. Gotta collect em all! Oh, sorry Nintendo! Do you have a patent out on those words?

• BUG FIXES, POLISH and QoL

  • Leaderboard now shows top 20 instead of just top 10. There's two new buttons to toggle between top 10 and 11-20. I did this just cause there's so many of you with insanely high scores haha! Awesome stuff.

  • New Game Plus now only unlocks once you’ve beaten the Campaign. Finally earning that name of New Game Plus.

  • Gear items will now disappear after 5 minutes if left on the battlefield. This was done to help with lost fps if playing a long battle. Also, it creates a nice sense of urgency to pick up juicy loot.

  • The Upgrades Menu in the Shop now shows a bunch of stats for all the Upgrades so you can better know what you’re buying. Also it’s just kinda neat. If you’re into that sort of thing I mean. Which I am. And maybe you are too. We’re not so different you and I.

  • Reworked Horde Mode flow. Now, every 5 waves successfully cleared, you will be given a choice. Either return to base and receive a reward, or risk it all for the chance of a bigger reward in another 5 waves. The rewards scale with how many waves you have cleared. But if your base is captured, you lose everything. No reward for you. Dying still lets you continue from the last cleared wave though.

  • Difficulty settings now affect enemy health. Cheasy = less health. Hairy = more. Ratgular remains the same.

  • Fixed Sentry Guns not facing left if dropped while you are facing left.

  • Fixed the game not registering if you beat a New Game + run.

  • Removed “Main Menu” button from Skin Selection Screen.

  • Lowered TRP requirement by 1 for some Nest Decorations: ChillSpot, LoungeSpot, Garden and RATMUTHUR

  • Removed passive healing from Rat Dealer’s Shop (This was supposed to be done in the Nest Update but I forgot)

  • Added “Total Horde mode waves cleared” to Stats book.

  • Added “Shock Ratter kills” count to Stats book.

  • Added a backing to the pop up message for Reset Stats in the Stats book.

  • Included Horde mode and NG+ stats in “Reset Stats” in the Stats Book.

  • Added the name Violet, my second daughter, who was born during production, to the special thanks in the credits.

  • Filled out the Codex with more stuff. Also added stats to the unit pages.

  • Removed “Shop” button from Horde Mode menu. (The shop is now in the Nest innit)

  • Updated Weapons Locker background art.

  • Fixed issue with Decorations Menu where on first loading it would show a blank icon for the top layer decoration even if one was already selected.

  • Added blood fades to more of the blood splatters that appear on the floor and reduced the time it takes for them to fade from 5 minutes down to 3. This should help clear up some lost fps if playing on a very long battle with many kills. Also visually it didn’t look so good.

  • Updated Loading Screen tip about hurting your own troops to: "You can set your Friendly Fire options when starting a New Game."

  • Added a fade to black and door opening sound when exiting the shop.

  • Changed the name of the “Rats Nest” level to “Rat Tunnels” cause now the Rats Nest is something else: your nest!

  • There was a chance that during the TechnoRat Base destruction cutscene in the Rat Tunnels level if a Rattite (the rock things) fell from the ceiling and you were on low hp it could kill you. This has been fixed.

  • Flame Ratter Mix gear item was missing the drop FX. Added that in.

  • Increased the range of the Ratvolver by 20%. And the range of the upgraded Ratvolver shot by 10%

  • Rat Grunts were multiplying some of their damage instead of adding it when upgrading their Damage stat, resulting in mega powerful death dealers if upgraded enough! This has been fixed.

  • Fixed a bug causing the Special Rat Cooldown upgrade to not actually apply a cooldown reduction when purchased. Oops.

  • Mk.II Turrat firing sounds were in the wrong channel. This has been fixed.

  • Page 2 of the Weapons Locker was showing the wrong sub title. This has been fixed.

  • New Game Plus and Skirmish TechnoRat base destruction scenes had misaligned level title text. This is now fixed.

  • Added a “Continue” button to the Game End screen that plays after beating the Campaign. This will take you back to the Nest. Where you can then keep Ratting em Up with New Game Plus or such other things such as those such.

  • Added an icon above the TV in Basic Training to show when it’s interactable for the first time.

  • Added a massive flashing on-screen warning if you run past the tv in Basic Training without activating it.

  • Removed the ability to activate the Build Site in Basic Training if you had not activated the tv first, which would cause an inescapable menu situation.

  • Sometimes Horde mode would not advance to the next wave even though there were apparently no enemies left and it would say 1 remaining. This is due to a sneaky Supply Dratne flying overhead and just going on forever behind the TechnoRat Base on the other side. This has been fixed.

  • Updated the Nest to include a spot for the Horde Reward crate. (It’s next to the Horde mode door)

  • Reduced the costs of the Machine Gun and Mortar Team emplacements damage and health upgrades in Horde mode.

  • Removed the Campfire from the Shooting Range

  • Added the ability to go back to the Nest from the Shooting Range by walking into the Base. There is now a sign telling you this is possible as well.

  • You can no longer recruit Troops at the Shooting Range.

  • It is no longer possible to open the Build Menu if you have the Radio up.

  • You can no longer buy ammo if you have the max amount of that ammo already. Note that you still have to actually pick up the ammo for it to register as maxed out first.

  • Ratnum ammo cost 25CHz from the Ammo Dispenser but 35CHz at the shop. Ammo Dispenser now has the correct cost of 35CHz

  • A certain Artillerat that would shoot funny and die funny has now been fixed. I'm being cryptic to avoid (admittedly very minor) spoilers.

  • There’s now a “Next” button in the What’s New screen.

  • Changed the particle FX for the Troop Damage Up Shrine.

  • Added a little hour glass icon after Holding down any button to continue triggers on the Intro Screen.

  • If starting a New Game on an empty save slot, you are now asked to confirm your difficulty options.

  • “Press to skip” text that shows when cutscenes are playing is now smaller

  • Fixed some jank with the UI when using the Build Site Menu and the tooltips

  • Blunderbuss is now affected by Explosives Damage Upgrade.

  • A Fat Rat mini nuke was coming out of a loot drop instead of the gear item that turns your Ratzooka rockets into Fat Rats, causing a rare chance of a mini nuke explosion when killing enemies. Whoopsie. This has been fixed.

And that's about it really! If you managed to read all that, well done.

So what are next? What you gonna do now that 1.0 is out? Is something maybe some of you are asking. Anyone? Just me? Ok

Well, my immediate plans are to fix all the bugs that will inevitably start coming in as more people (hopefully) play the game. Even after testing loads I'm sure there's plenty of stuff to fix. Nothing game breaking has been found so far (now I've gone and jinxed it) so if you do encounter something terrible, please please let me know. Otherwise I don't know, and I can't fix what I don't know.

Then, things that you can count on being added to the game over time:

New Skins, Special Rats, Gear and Horde Maps. As well as any critical support the game needs.

Things that might happen but I can't promise 100%:

New Guns, Enemies, Buildables, Better Controller Support, New Game Modes (I have an idea for at least one, where you fight the missions alone without recruiting any troops. Lone Rat I call it)

And if this game sells well enough to allow me to continue making games, I plan to start pre-production on a new game in the WAR RATS world! It's gonna be in the same universe, the same style, but a different genre. It is most likely going to be some kind of city builder/turn based strategy game. Stay tuned! Make sure you follow me on my socials (just search for "wootusart") for upcoming news on that.

I just want to end with another thank you. Seriously I can't thank you all enough. You've helped make my dreams of being a solo indie dev a reality. And I just hope I can continue to make more games for you to enjoy.

One more reminder before I sign off to please leave a positive Steam review if you enjoy the game!

Happy Rat Killin.

Regards,

Brian