The latest update (v0.71) for Keep Defending now includes the penultimate level in the game's campaign which is called: Tower Of Stars.
This is a gate defense level where you need to manage the defense of 4 gates, 1 on each side of a central tower that's being attacked from all directions.
You can place teleports around the tower to help you go from one side to another, or place a teleport at the very top if you don't mind heights! :)
This level also introduces a new ally for your defenses: the Soul Collector.
If you struggle to shoot and reap the benefits of soul orbs as they rise from slain enemies, then the Soul Collector is the ally you're looking for.
If you have enough money to afford one...
Soul Collectors can only collect soul orbs that they have line of sight to, so the best position for them is as high as possible:
There are many new enemies introduced for this level and the action in the later stages is ferocious as can be seen in this YouTube clip:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5eMk004ESY
The headline features in the v0.71 update are as follows:
- New Tower Of Stars (Gate defense) map.
- New Soul Collector ally unit.
- Many new enemies.
- Steam achievements and leaderboard setup for Tower Of Stars.
- Fixed the player's position being set incorrectly when restarting a level after teleporting to a portal positioned higher or lower than the start portal.
- Fixed the camera jitter in the level select scene.
- Further improvements to the efficiency of Enemy AI.
- Ally AI is much improved with melee units (knights) behaving as they should.
- Ally AI is also much more efficient than before.
- Teleport behaviour has been amended. Previously after teleporting you were automatically rotated to face the forward direction of the portal you'd travelled to. This was fine for all levels up until Tower Of Stars where any auto-rotation can quickly be confusing. Now when you teleport you remain in the direction you were facing before you shot the teleport.
- Eagle Heights has received an optimization pass and is now much smoother on lower end hardware.
- A new setting called "Disable hand switching" has been included in the Options menu for players who keep switching bow hands while playing. Note that the setting can only be set while in the level selection scene, so be sure the bow was in the correct hand before returning to the level selection scene and checking this option.
- Fixed enemies freezing in mid-air when dieing.
- Hint messages are now closer to the viewer (but with a smaller font) so they appear in front of UI panels.
- Additional fixes and improvements.
Known Issues:
- Crows are not as vicious as they should be so Mutton Valley is a little easier than normal.
With Tower Of Stars done I've got one more level to implement and the Keep Defending campaign will be complete!
Next steps will then be to add missing FX, bug-squashing, polishing, and finally further optimizing (which I've already started).
And then we can leave Early Access behind!
Thanks for playing Keep Defending!