Long time no see: another Tower Petroleum update! Fixing some bugs, polished rough edges, a few improvements and WIP features -- based on your feedback.
The most important change is the balance for the first level. It was ultimately difficult to clean it up in the previous v2025-11-19-1 version now it would be much more forgiving.
Controls and Navigation
I am step-by-step working on the hotkeys/gamepad controls for the game, so now round start screen can be navigated with the hotkeys/gamepad
Same stands for the for the post-wave pickup cards screen
Added hotkey/gamepad support for turret purchase UI
Also for the turret upgrade UI
Cards in hand can also be controlled with hotkeys/gamepad
Introduced window edge camera scrolling (RTS-style cursor-to-edge movement). I sometimes work on a laptop without a mouse, so "hold-right-mouse-button-and-drag" trigger for camera movement is a bit painful to execute on a touchpad.
The gamepad controls are still very work in progress, but we would slowly roll it out for the early adopters to test. The ultimate goal is to make Tower Petroleum fully playable on Steam Deck
UI Improvements
Card tooltips now display during round start screen
Card tooltips added for post-wave pickup cards
Updated wave details button sprites (replaced placeholders)
Corrected the on hit ability activation cooldown text
Added a hint to the round start screen explaining the the cards you see are your actual starting cards
I also implemented two feature flags that can be turned on/off in the options menu:
Hovered card on top -- it this it true, then the currently hovered card in your hand would be positioned on top of all other cards closer to the player. I personally am not a fan of this, because this might hide the other cards under the focused one, but we've received feedback, that this might be handy. Hence added this option.
Reposition details on zoom. Once we've introduced the zoom and camera controls feature, it sometimes happens, that the details panel for turret purchase and upgrade UI would overlap with the other UI elements. I agree, that this looks a bit off, so when this flag is true, the game would dynamically reposition the details panel, so that it won't overlap. I don't really know my own attitude to this feature, since I would like the details panel be always on the same position of the screen: I know what to expect. So done this behind a feature flag.
Bug Fixes and Gameplay
As already stated: Costa fixed ultimately hardcore balance for the first level
Disabled camera zoom during round start game state
Fixed mouse scroll zoom jittering and targeting issues
Improved enemy spawn timing: subsequent packs/bosses now spawn immediately when previous packs are cleared (eliminates dead time)
Visual Updates
Vasia has updated Leaper enemy sprites
Costa restored shadows on the first level
Final Words
Our playtest is always open and is always public, so try it out and let us know what you think! Drop your comments here, fill-in the short questionnaire, join our Discord -- glad to hear from you in any media.
If you're enjoying Tower Petroleum, consider recommending it to friends, who love tower defense and/or deckbuilder games, and don't forget to add it to your Steam wishlist.
Proud Turkeys
