Posted June 17, 2023 by Ezra Szanton
Is it bug fixes? no......... yeah I know I need to get on those - but you know what's more fun? MORE CARDS!
OK enough with the leading questions
I gave a talk recently about deckbuilder roguelikes! In the process of doing that, I interviewed a bunch of smart developers and I learned a bunch! One of the things I realized is that the deck strategies in Hellscaper were way too set. There were basically 3 different decks you could make, and your job was just to assemble them. No more!
I rebalanced all the cards so they have more *cross synergies*. You can still draft a #fire deck (although you'll notice that cinders now only needs 3 adjacent fire, and cinder demon only gives 7 points to compensate), but there are many more options now. How about the priest, who gains a bonus from adjacent tiles with "No Effect"? Or THE TOWER, which checks how many #darkness tiles are _below_ it on the board?
Everything in the game got a pass with an eye for this. I also decreased your number of rerolls to 1. I know that might be a little sad (rerolls are fun!) but having less rerolls means having to roll with the punches a bit more, and I think you'll end up drafting more interesting decks as a result. I'm curious what you think though - do you like the new changes? Let me know! (comment works great, or filling out our feedback form https://forms.gle/VNMR2WvXr57KkYTr5)
Cheers,
-Ezra