What browser is it? If it's Brave w/ Shields Up & "Aggressively block fingerprinting", that will give the blank black game issue. Changing that to either "Block fingerprinting" (not aggressively) or "Allow fingerprinting" works for me.
very fun game, loved how unique the different characters were, can tell a lot of effort went into this one. allows for some very deep strategical thinking!
I was inspired by Mistercark's rat king run. Did not expect to break 1M damage, let alone 2M. Darrrrr and rat king are a crazy combo. God I love how many viable builds there are in this game.
Liked the game's mechanics and art style. I have played this game before but it's interesting how it became more balanced now and that you can create more synergies to progress more. Enjoyed the game overall!
Whales + Elemental Beasts are an obvious synergy. But adding Game Developers + Journeyman Thieves to the build is a less obvious but very powerful synergy. Thieves drain the Elemental Beasts down to 0 base damage; then Game Dev boosts their bonus damage & they can get huge damage. That was a fun win.
right, I was just wondering if it was difficult to setup. i.e. did you find it too easy? or did you feel like you worked for it? In general, we'd rather not nerf things outright that are fun, only if they break the fun.
Hey sheep and game dev is a pretty broken combo given that it's made out of a self-replicating common and an uncommon. It was strong before the game dev buff, but now it's ridiculous.
This was supposed to be a sheep + Red Dragon build... until I found an ascetic.
(Also props to the recruiter demon for spawning an extra life that got protected by my aegis 3 turns in a row. I didn't really need all that extra life, but who am I to complain?)
I think I have finally gotten the most difficult build, and the final build that can possibly beat the game: Vampire + Paladin.
The only other maybe-possible buildsI can think of is Rat-King + Rats + Darrr/Paramedics
Builds I think are impossible include:
Gold Dragon + Alchemist (the GD increases damage too slowly)
Phoenix + Hydra (probably not because the phoenix and hydra wouldn't be next to each other often enough to consistently increase hydra's damage)
Mechanical spiders seems impossible to get even close to the 40 damage/square you need to beat the final boss. Cockatrice eggs also seems to increase damage too slowly.
Other builds I've already beaten the game with include:
I appreciate this one as a full build. :) We're making some tweaks on the Steam demo to make it powerful but not ridiculous. I kinda don't like just nerfing things, though. It should explode into a million tiny bones or something.
With so many, and perhaps even many more units to come. Have you thought about making each run have limited classes? IE. one run could only spawn. Undead, demon, items, beasts. Or some such # of them? This could cut down on the vast randomness currently involved in the game and let there be more focus on intergroup combos? Could also allow for secondary keywords like water/fire/etc
That seems like a very sound approach and is how Hearthstone Battleground manages to have a large roster of units, but the player is still able to find synergies
You could also consider this as an unlock feature after beating so many levels. That way you unlock more ways to play as you play the game, increasing replayability.
You might also be able to unlock a slightly different starting militia, for example. Imagine starting with 5 rats rather than 5 citizens. Or 5 skeletons. Or 5 laser frogs.
yes Ghost description will be updated. Ghosts are unique in that they cannot be destroyed or protected, they decided themselves when they will leave! Thanks for playing!
It's very hard to keep an ascetic for the length of the game, and ramp it appropriately. I got lucky and pulled an IA 5 turns before this, and used her to drop nearly all the soldiers I had built up to nerf the ascetic.
Fun new (to me) build: Aegis + Green Hands + Archer + Machine Gun. Also Barbarians, but meh.
Darr and/or Hypercharger would have also been awesome in this build, but I never got them. I did get a Tax Accountant, but it was too late to really help, and I had to let it go poof so I could hope for medkits at the end (got a capacitor instead).
A fully-evolved Cycad's description appears to list it correctly as a plant, but the game seems to treat it like a monster; that is, a Monster Hunter can gain base damage from a Cycad and mark it for destruction, yet it can be saved from destruction by a Paramedic.
The Cloning Chamber description says "Adds an exact duplicate ..." which I would interpret as the new unit having the same stats as the cloned unit - e.g. if it clones a Priest / Paladin / Death Worm / Monster Hunter that has already boosted attack, the clone should start out w/ the same boosted attack. Currently it doesn't - the new, cloned unit starts out w/ the normal starting stats of the unit type. If the current behavior is intended I would suggest removing the word "exact" from the description to be more clear.
Just to add, two Aegis shields are nearly broken. They have near-complete board coverage if they are in adjacent opposite corners in the mid-ranks, and they can save anything from destruction, regardless of type. They're more powerful than the Paramedic for sustaining long-term effects, and if you have things like stasis or medikits they can allow you to maintain an near infinite loop to destroy bigger bosses with inferior units.
Just had an odd moment where a Mad Scientist turned one of my Civilians into a Tax Accountant who marked himself for destruction on the next deployment.
A Tax Accountant drafted normally later that same wave made it through his usual 5 deployments before exploding into a cloud of W-2s.
I've seen this too. A Tax Accountant drafted normally starts w/ "Uses: 5", which counts down to 0 before it starts trying to self-destruct; while one created by a Mad Scientist starts w/ "Uses: -" and immediately tries to self-destruct.
Rat King seems bugged. It only multiplies damage by x0 when there are no adjacent pieces not no adjacent rats. unless that was a weird interaction because he got base damage added from tax accountant.
I can't help it: I absolutely adore the Hustle Goblin. I imagine him working out between battles with a mantra in mind. "When the team does better, I do better; when I do better, the team does better!"
Such a plucky little dude, I'll take him any time he's offered.
Slight bug on Phoenix: description says "Picks a ... piece with at least 1 base damage" but it can pick a piece w/ 0 base (and bonus) damage; I've seen it pick both items w/ 0 base damage normally (Cockatrice Egg), and units that normally do have a base damage, but have had all their base damage drained by Journeyman Thief.
Cockatrices are also slightly buggy: say "Multiplies each adjacent human's damage by 0x" but they don't (adjacent humans do normal 1x damage).
Another bug: if a Secret Chest is deployed on a winning (Victory) round, the boost to Add Militia is lost - the first Add Militia piece choice screen in the next fight does NOT only have rare or very rare.
yes, I think what is happening is something else is marking the book for destruction. Books will only merge with other books that are not marked for destruction. This will be fixed. thanks!
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The game just stays black when I open it, any reasen why? Im playing on the web version.
Oh that's strange, what browser are you using? Have you tried a different browser?
That makes sense, my browsers pretty weird.
What browser is it? If it's Brave w/ Shields Up & "Aggressively block fingerprinting", that will give the blank black game issue. Changing that to either "Block fingerprinting" (not aggressively) or "Allow fingerprinting" works for me.
Its Vivalida. I switched to a diffrint browser and that worked
very fun game, loved how unique the different characters were, can tell a lot of effort went into this one. allows for some very deep strategical thinking!
Thanks for the feedback, even more coming in our Steam version on Thursday!
I was inspired by Mistercark's rat king run. Did not expect to break 1M damage, let alone 2M. Darrrrr and rat king are a crazy combo. God I love how many viable builds there are in this game.
Hot damn, that's a combo!
So, I drafted a Rat King into my militia...
i do not have enough humans to sacrifice to the venus mantrap
Liked the game's mechanics and art style. I have played this game before but it's interesting how it became more balanced now and that you can create more synergies to progress more. Enjoyed the game overall!
The synergies in this newest version are amazing!
1. Game Developer adds its power to all pieces with 0 base power, then basically gains 1 power each turn. I had three to four of these.
2. Crimson Terror marks Beasts for destruction, absorbing their bonus power.
3. Sheep are Beasts that have 0 base power, but have a chance to multiply.
4. Darrrrrrr and Aegis protect Beasts.
I had a Crimson Terror with over 1,000 power. I one-shot Boss 12 with the Mayday.
I also had the Thief, which stole base power from my pieces and made them viable targets for the Game Developers.
Aegis + Secret Chest was also a very lucky combo, where the Aegis protected the chest multiple times in a row, allowing me to get several rares.
Note: If you have an Extra Life, do NOT take Recycler, or it WILL eat the Extra Life (which is an Item).
Loving the changes and new synergies, particularly the new monster content. Keep up the good work, folks!
Whales + Elemental Beasts are an obvious synergy. But adding Game Developers + Journeyman Thieves to the build is a less obvious but very powerful synergy. Thieves drain the Elemental Beasts down to 0 base damage; then Game Dev boosts their bonus damage & they can get huge damage. That was a fun win.
I approve of this strat!
Horny beast XD
Aren't we all!
Several hundred million teenage dudes, one mentality
BEACH HOLE
MUST GO TO BEACH HOLE
Got unifier machine fairly early. Rat king/lawyers/giant rats and a ton of luck on the way was pretty fun
looks like a good run... we like to see it! wow that Rat King!
Why is no one talking about the elemental beasts? These things are the dumbest things I seen if set up right.
They can casually one shot the final boss
And is able to do 30 million damage
We weren't sure whether Element Beast needed adjacency or not. How hard was it for you to setup all the fire? Did you use Chemical Drum?
Red Dragon, Chemical Drums, Aegis can create a lot of fire :)
right, I was just wondering if it was difficult to setup. i.e. did you find it too easy? or did you feel like you worked for it? In general, we'd rather not nerf things outright that are fun, only if they break the fun.
A bit difficult, but not that bad
Explosives, constructs, and aegis can get pretty op! Especially with the 1 time 10x damage. 2 turn last boss.
yes we are seeing this as well. Aegis has been tricky to balance with a destruction build. thanks for the feedback!
Hey sheep and game dev is a pretty broken combo given that it's made out of a self-replicating common and an uncommon. It was strong before the game dev buff, but now it's ridiculous.
Gamedev is REALLY strong now, blame @ichiro
I didn't think the dev would actually do it, but they updated and fixed a *ton* of problems, and updated a lot of content.
Some new balancing issues aside, it's a huge improvement! Wishlisted.
Thanks Corona! Even more content to come for our EA launch!
Aegis being protected now is really strong! but you might need it for the up coming Ascensions!
although all that health seems crazy pants...
This was supposed to be a sheep + Red Dragon build... until I found an ascetic.
(Also props to the recruiter demon for spawning an extra life that got protected by my aegis 3 turns in a row. I didn't really need all that extra life, but who am I to complain?)
I think I have finally gotten the most difficult build, and the final build that can possibly beat the game: Vampire + Paladin.
The only other maybe-possible buildsI can think of is Rat-King + Rats + Darrr/Paramedics
Builds I think are impossible include:
Gold Dragon + Alchemist (the GD increases damage too slowly)
Phoenix + Hydra (probably not because the phoenix and hydra wouldn't be next to each other often enough to consistently increase hydra's damage)
Mechanical spiders seems impossible to get even close to the 40 damage/square you need to beat the final boss. Cockatrice eggs also seems to increase damage too slowly.
Other builds I've already beaten the game with include:
Hell Hounds
Ascetic
Tinkerer + Soldiers (Mecha)
Darrr + Beasts (esp. Ferret) + Diversity Demon
Grey Goo + Gold Goo
Tax Accountant + 3x Paramedics + something above
Any I've missed?
> Ascetic
I appreciate this one as a full build. :) We're making some tweaks on the Steam demo to make it powerful but not ridiculous. I kinda don't like just nerfing things, though. It should explode into a million tiny bones or something.
I lost at Burny's Unleashed Dog. It seems impossible to get any further unless you have amazing RNG.
With so many, and perhaps even many more units to come. Have you thought about making each run have limited classes? IE. one run could only spawn. Undead, demon, items, beasts. Or some such # of them? This could cut down on the vast randomness currently involved in the game and let there be more focus on intergroup combos? Could also allow for secondary keywords like water/fire/etc
That seems like a very sound approach and is how Hearthstone Battleground manages to have a large roster of units, but the player is still able to find synergies
You could also consider this as an unlock feature after beating so many levels. That way you unlock more ways to play as you play the game, increasing replayability.
You might also be able to unlock a slightly different starting militia, for example. Imagine starting with 5 rats rather than 5 citizens. Or 5 skeletons. Or 5 laser frogs.
Yes! Different starting groups has been talked about and we are looking into that!
We are also doing more broad synergies to allow you to get out of tough spots when you need to...and also just to help keep the game exciting.
We are doing NextFest on Steam on the 19th of this month, that version will have more experimental updates, so be sure to check it out!
Looking forward to that. Will they be doing one of those developer plays videos along with your NextFest entry?
we haven't set the schedule yet for that week, but we hope to do a few streams like that.
Looks like the Aegis piece doesn't prevent Ghosts from destroying themselves; not sure if this is intended behavior or not.
Also, congrats on the Steam listing! Already wishlisted. :-)
yes Ghost description will be updated. Ghosts are unique in that they cannot be destroyed or protected, they decided themselves when they will leave!
Thanks for playing!
Dog catcher has to be the most hilarious unit in the game! 😂![]()
we love the Dog Catcher, we want it to do more!
Is it intended that 3 Apprentice Thieves = no choices at all?
Makes sense to me: each Apprentice Thief removes one option from the draft list. Maybe if you had a Cornucopia... :-)
yes, this was by design if you picked 3 thieves. of course I said to Ichiro: "who would ever do that?"
Mister Cark would do that. He did that! That's awesome.
Paladin and Vampire: a winning team.
they aren't supposed to be friends, but I supposed even Lex Luther needed Superman...
The Ascetic is a challenging piece to balance but I feel like you handled this well!
Fun new (to me) build: Aegis + Green Hands + Archer + Machine Gun. Also Barbarians, but meh.
Darr and/or Hypercharger would have also been awesome in this build, but I never got them. I did get a Tax Accountant, but it was too late to really help, and I had to let it go poof so I could hope for medkits at the end (got a capacitor instead).
255 on an archer? I'd love to know how you got that high.
The Green Hands (w/ Aegis to keep it around) - Archer's bonus from being further back becomes additional base damage. Same for Machine Gun.
this is great!
Holy Cow x4!
Holy Cow does some real work. It's a real game changer in multiples.
:sweats:
A fully-evolved Cycad's description appears to list it correctly as a plant, but the game seems to treat it like a monster; that is, a Monster Hunter can gain base damage from a Cycad and mark it for destruction, yet it can be saved from destruction by a Paramedic.
I've noticed the Venus Mantrap is shown as a Monster, and wondered why it's not a plant anymore.
The Cloning Chamber description says "Adds an exact duplicate ..." which I would interpret as the new unit having the same stats as the cloned unit - e.g. if it clones a Priest / Paladin / Death Worm / Monster Hunter that has already boosted attack, the clone should start out w/ the same boosted attack. Currently it doesn't - the new, cloned unit starts out w/ the normal starting stats of the unit type. If the current behavior is intended I would suggest removing the word "exact" from the description to be more clear.
ah interesting idea though!
Two Aegis shields ftw. Between juggling a 1up and Medikit for most of the game, this group was the most underpowered winners I've ever had.
Just to add, two Aegis shields are nearly broken. They have near-complete board coverage if they are in adjacent opposite corners in the mid-ranks, and they can save anything from destruction, regardless of type. They're more powerful than the Paramedic for sustaining long-term effects, and if you have things like stasis or medikits they can allow you to maintain an near infinite loop to destroy bigger bosses with inferior units.
Just had an odd moment where a Mad Scientist turned one of my Civilians into a Tax Accountant who marked himself for destruction on the next deployment.
A Tax Accountant drafted normally later that same wave made it through his usual 5 deployments before exploding into a cloud of W-2s.
I've seen this too. A Tax Accountant drafted normally starts w/ "Uses: 5", which counts down to 0 before it starts trying to self-destruct; while one created by a Mad Scientist starts w/ "Uses: -" and immediately tries to self-destruct.
thank you for this find!
Rat King seems bugged. It only multiplies damage by x0 when there are no adjacent pieces not no adjacent rats. unless that was a weird interaction because he got base damage added from tax accountant.
yes this is a bug. thank you!
Just found that, despite Darrrrr's description stating that he saves beasts from destruction, an Improvised Explosive takes them out just fine.
yup that's a bug! I found it... thank you!
Not as broken imba as Paladin, but Mimic + Succubus & Vampires scales really well too.
Darr + beasts + Vampires do NOT scale like I was hoping... not that Vampires need any more boosts anyway....
Ah, gotta loved stacked multipliers: two active Diversity Demons, and a Power Pellet to boot.
very nice!
I can't help it: I absolutely adore the Hustle Goblin. I imagine him working out between battles with a mantra in mind. "When the team does better, I do better; when I do better, the team does better!"
Such a plucky little dude, I'll take him any time he's offered.
YES! love it!
Slight bug on Phoenix: description says "Picks a ... piece with at least 1 base damage" but it can pick a piece w/ 0 base (and bonus) damage; I've seen it pick both items w/ 0 base damage normally (Cockatrice Egg), and units that normally do have a base damage, but have had all their base damage drained by Journeyman Thief.
Cockatrices are also slightly buggy: say "Multiplies each adjacent human's damage by 0x" but they don't (adjacent humans do normal 1x damage).
Another bug: if a Secret Chest is deployed on a winning (Victory) round, the boost to Add Militia is lost - the first Add Militia piece choice screen in the next fight does NOT only have rare or very rare.
yes this is a known issue, and it may happen with some other pieces that are being reset in between bosses. Working on it!
Rat King also doesn't get 0x damage when it should.
Thanks, Beolach! I'm pinging Jon about these.
Yes you are right! We need to look at Rats I think and tweak them anyhow.
Raaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaats!
I see both issues! thanks for letting me know!
New personal best w/ my favorite synergy (Succubus + Convention Hall + Paladins): 947376 total damage. So close to 7 digits....
oh my goodness!
TYPO: Empty Canister is spelled “Cannister” in-game.
4 of my books were adjacent, and when they destroyed themselves no bookshelves were made :(
a couple of people said they have issues with books, I need to look into further. thanks!
Happened to me too.
It appears to happen anytime 2 or more adjacent books are each next to 2 books themselves, as they all destroy each other before one can transform.
A couple possible configurations where this can happen (B = book, X = Not a book):
| X | B | X |
| X | B | B |
------------
| B | B | B |
| X | X | B |
------------
| B | B | X |
| B | B | X |
Etc etc
yes, I think what is happening is something else is marking the book for destruction. Books will only merge with other books that are not marked for destruction. This will be fixed. thanks!
No problem. :)