Last week, I began offering a separate beta build for Tomb of Tyrants; I know that technically the game as a whole is already in beta, but now you can test extra beta features and changes by checking out the "Betas" tab under the game's Preferences in Steam.
It's been a little while since the last main release (a long while compared to previous update gaps that averaged about half a week), and while I'll admit that some of that delay is due to an onslaught of escalating personal obligations, a lot of it is because I've been trying to improve some of the game's core mechanics, which has required a lot of playing and experimenting on my own.
But now you can help! By testing out Extra Beta 2015.04.25 and leaving your feedback (in this thread or with me directly), you can help me polish up or further revamp some of what I've been working on for the last three weeks.
The two biggest things going on here are big changes to matching and item usage.
Matching Changes:
Instead of grabbing entire rows and moving them left/right, you now grab individual pieces, which you can shift left/right or up/down! This works similarly to the old mechanics, where tiles wrap around, but now you can slide columns and even make multiple slides per move (up to 4), giving you much more control over the Hoard; you can target the resources you actually want, more easily set up large matches, and feel really clever when you do!
I feel that this is more engaging than the old mechanic, because it allows you to spend less time matching, prevents deadlock situations, and yet still allows for the tactics you may have grown accustomed to. However, the point of this testing (and, indeed, Early Access in general) is to find out if this is actually really fun and balanced!
Item Changes:
Usable items are now all re-usable with cooldowns. Instead of using items once on a floor, you now deploy them to a floor, and that floor will then re-use the item regularly. Items that affect the Hoard can simply be clicked to used, as they no longer target specific tiles. Items that previously affected either the Hoard or floors have been changed to only affect the Hoard (so no more using bombs on enemies--although some other item may very well be introduced to fill this role later =).
The goal here was to simplify, and you'll see fewer items in general, because you get more out of the items you receive. This should prevent the inventory from becoming cumbersomely cluttered with stacks of items that you feel pressured to find a use for. You can no longer purchase items, but floors that previously sold them now reduce cooldowns for specific classes of items (for example, the Acrid Alchemist reduces all potion cooldowns by 10 seconds).
I plan to push these changes out in a major release in the next couple of days, but I would love to hear more feedback before that happens. In the meantime, I am correcting some glitches, updating a couple of other features, and maybe adding a dash of new content. There are going to be some long patch notes in a few days =).
Thanks again, everyone!