It's Finally Time to Survive! (v0.12)

We entered Early Access about 2 months ago with an admittedly naive goal of releasing this month. Although we're not quite ready for a full exit from Early Access yet (y'all have had so many awesome ideas on Discord, and there's so much more we want to build!), the game is in a really good spot and we're already seeing a ton of players spend dozens of hours surviving late into the night.

Instead of rushing the full release, we're going to keep grinding on an amazing game, keep listening to your feedback, and keep building the game we want to spend our next thousand hours playing. We want to hear your suggestions, complaints, and survival stories; join us on Discord to join us on the adventure!

This is the biggest release we've had, by far, since the start of the game. There's so much to go through (sorry about your scroll wheel!), but I also want to highlight some awesome milestones we've reached with this version:

• 63 playable characters

• 30 unique levels

• 32 bosses to overcome

• 17 crafting stations

• 229 unique enemies

• 95 achievements

• 269 "base" items to find, plus (literally) infinite more to create!

Thank you everyone for being along for the ride so far! I believe we're making something awesome. :D

Well, there's a lot to get into on what's new, so lets jump right in!

New Game Mode: Daily Challenge

• Every day, a unique level will be constructed for you to play. You'll play as a specific character in a specific location and go up against a randomized horde that is the same for all players that day. If you can survive 30 minutes, the boss will challenge you!

• Try this level as many times as you want and shoot for a high school on either survival time or kills.

• At the end of the day, the level is replaced with a new level for the next day.

• We'll add leaderboards to this later; for now, we'd love to hear your feedback on what you like or don't like about this challenge!

New: Elite Enemies

• Regular enemies and miniboss enemies will now occasionally spawn as "elite" enemies with an additional ability to watch out for:

  • Volatile: Explodes on death, dealing fire damage to everything nearby

  • Standard-Bearer: Spawns gold tether lines to nearby allies; buffs them with speed and damage multipliers (max 8 allies)

  • Warded: Highly resistant to all damage except one element

  • Scorched: Leaves fire puddles in its wake that damage the player

• When any enemy spawns as an elite, they'll get a 2x HP boost and a large size boost (stacking with miniboss HP/size boosts).

• Regular enemies have a 1% chance to spawn as elites.

• Minibosses have a 20% chance to spawn as elites.

New Characters

Added 20 new characters to unlock, each with their own unique weapon and/or abilities (except Naked Guy):

• Esperanza - Comal de Hierro (unlock: Survive 15 minutes with Father)

• Nia - Market Basket (unlock: Hold 100 Gold at once)

• Zahra - Brass Tea-Tray (unlock: Survive 20 minutes in Shahaz Desert)

• Mei-Lin - Whirling Staff (unlock: Survive 20 minutes in Jade Court)

• Vael - Soulchain (unlock: Survive 20 minutes in Pandemonium)

• Saffi - Vialthrow (unlock: Survive 20 minutes in Witchwater Marsh)

• Aaran - Wave Beam (unlock: Survive 20 minutes in Char Wastes)

• Asha - Trishul (unlock: Survive 20 minutes in Sundarbans)

• Idessa - Iron Scepter (unlock: Kill 5,000 Fallen in any level)

• Adele - Greatsword (unlock: Block 5,000 damage with Armor)

• Halcyon - Singing Bowl (unlock: Kill 1,000 Goblins in any level)

• Noo - Tuft Toss (unlock: Survive for 20 minutes in The End of Time)

• Mauz - Laser Pointer (unlock: Survive for 20 minutes in Catacombs)

• Cassiel - Verdict (unlock: Survive for 20 minutes in Empyrean Spires)

• Kaine - Spear (unlock: Kill 100,000 enemies with a Spear)

• Cinder - Staff of Flame Wall (unlock: Destroy 10,000 Fires in any level)

• Vorth - Ring of Fire (unlock: Kill 100,000 enemies with the Fire Wand)

• Ronin - Ash-Edge Katana (unlock: Craft a Sword at the Crucible)

• Vesper - Hollow Censer (unlock: Craft a Relic at the Crucible)

• Naked Guy - Nothing (unlock: survive for 40 minutes in any level)

New Levels

• Blooming Gardens - unlocked by surviving 5 minutes in Plains

• Alchemaria - unlocked by surviving 15 minutes in Plains

• The Catacombs - unlocked by finding a crypt in the Cemetery

• The Dread Sea - unlocked by surviving 20 minutes with Guile

• The Spawning Pit - unlocked by surviving 20 minutes in Pandemonium

• Empyrean Spires - unlocked by surviving 20 minutes in Jade Court

• Sundarbans - unlocked by surviving 20 minutes in Witchwater Marsh

• Pandemonium - unlocked by surviving 30 minutes in Tristram

• The End of Time - unlocked by surviving 30 minutes with Epoch

• Threed - unlocked by surviving 20 minutes as Basil

• Rumbridge - unlocked by killing 1,000 Goblins

• Witchwater Marsh - unlocked by killing 10,000 enemies

• Jade Court - unlocked by killing 25,000 enemies

• Gloomshroom Kingdom - unlocked by defeating King Slime

• High Rule - unlocked by defeating the Thornwood Ancient

See previews of some of the new levels in this carousel:

New Bosses

• Maru, the Tenth Life spawns at minute 13 in Catacombs

• Mother Mirelock spawns at minute 13 in Witchwater Marsh

• The Jade Dragon (Yùlóng) spawns at minute 14 in Jade Court

• Naga Raja spawns at minute 14 in Sundarbans

• Master Belch spawns at minute 15 in Threed

• Vespera spawns at minute 15 in Apothecary Garden

• Count Draynor spawns at minute 15 in Rumbridge

• Belphagor spawns at minute 15 in Pandemonium

• Archon of Judgement spawns at minute 15 in Empyrean Spires

• Hollow Star spawns at minute 17 in The End of Time

• Eye of Cth-oh-no spawns at minute 18 in Alchemaria

• The Eighth Rank spawns at minute 20 in Chessland

• Lucifer spawns at minute 20 in Empyrean Spires

• The Hand of God spawns at minute 30 in Chessland

• A zombified version of your last run's survivor at their time of death will sometimes spawn at minute 30 in Cemetery

New Workstations

• Altar of Dominion can be found in High Rule

• Ash Mortar can be found in Sundarbans

• Mirepot can be found in Witchwater Marsh

• The Guide's Ledger can be found in Alchemaria

• Pandora's ? can be found in Gloomshroom Kingdom

• The Prism Engine can be found in The End of Time

• Hellforge can be found in Pandemonium

• Halo Forge can be found in Empyrean Spires

New Shrines

• Shrine of Light - will imbue Light Radius onto your helmet (or a random weapon if you're not wearing one) and adds a permanent +10% spawn rate to enemies for the rest of your run

• Shrine of Time Compression - speeds up game speed by 20%, stacking every time you use one

• Shrine of Fortune - gain increased gold find, magic find, and enemy spawn rate for 30 seconds

• Shrine of Swiftness - gain increased move speed for 30 seconds

• Shrine of Blood - gain a permanent 10% bonus to Might... at the cost of 50% of your max health

• Shrine of Echoes - your weapons fire +2 projectiles and 50% faster for 30 seconds

• Shrine of Distillation - all items on the ground nearby are transformed into Health Potions

Gameplay Changes

• Discovering new workstations now unlocks that workstation to spawn in all other levels.

• Rather than ending at 30 minutes, levels will now continuously spawn more and more enemies forever. Enemy spawn rate, health, damage, and speed all start ramping up exponentially after 30 minutes. Good luck surviving!

• Bounty rewards increased by 10x, and enemies with bounties now spawn 3x as often (in addition to normal level spawns)

Weapon Changes

• Weapons offered to you upon each level up are no longer random: they're now weighted by rarity, with rarer weapons becoming more commonly offered the higher level you get.

• Picking up a weapon you already have equipped will now upgrade your existing weapon instead of giving you a second one.

• Melee weapons that the player swings around themselves (like Cyclone Blade) will now properly rotate the player with the swung weapon.

• Beam-style weapons have been visually redesigned (and are beautiful!), rather than just drawing a single colored line for the beam. Go try them out!

• Added a new Poisonous Dagger weapon that applies Poison to enemies hit, available in the level up pool for all characters.

• Crafted weapons can now spawn multi-projectile weapons in all kinds of position configurations. Get to experimenting!

Enemy Changes

• Rescaled difficulty of minibosses to make them feel more like miniature bosses:

  • HP increased by 100% (now 30x base enemy HP)

  • Damage increased by 50% (now 3x base enemy damage)

  • Speed decreased by 25% (now 3/4 of base enemy speed)

  • Increased size by 25% (now 2.5x base enemy size)

• Hundreds of new enemies have been added to the game across all levels.

• Enemies who are frozen now have an internal cooldown of 4 seconds (8 seconds for bosses) until they can be frozen again.

• The camera now shakes and pulls back 30% more (so you can see more of your surroundings) when a boss spawns.

New: On-Hit Effects

• Giant Spiders will now temporarily slow your movement speed any time you're hit by their ranged webbing attack (20% slow for 1 second).

• Damage from Calcified Miners now applies Brittle (-20% Armor for 2 seconds).

• Damage from Cathedral Horrors now applies Curse (-25% Might for 3 seconds).

• Damage from Snowmothers now applies Sluggish (25% increased cooldowns for 1 second).

• Damage from Prismites now applies Blind (-30% light radius for 4 seconds).

• Damage from Sand Cobras now applies Burn (2 damage per second for 2 seconds).

• Damage from Plaguebearers now applies Poison (1 armor-ignoring damage per second for 3 seconds).

• Damage from Quillbeasts now applies Bleed (3 damage per second for 3 seconds, but only while moving).

• Damage from Rock Golems now applies a 0.25-second stun.

• The codex pages for these enemies have all been updated with these details.

• These effects are also possible to roll as affixes on your own weapons.

King Slime Rework

• Instead of just being a big bouncing blob of goo who just bounces faster as you whack him, King Slime has learned some new (goo-based) tricks to defend himself with!

  • Phase 1: now leaves hazardous goo puddles where it lands

  • Phase 2: adds a 360-degree shockwave ring on every landing and drops even more goo puddles in the area

  • Phase 3: sheds off mini-slimes with every 10% HP lost; every third slam is empowered

Item Changes

• Consumable items purchased from merchants will no longer auto-consume on purchase. They now go to your inventory and you can manually consume them when you desire.

• Equipped items no longer also show up in your inventory list. Unequip an item to put it back in your inventory.

• Added three new affixes that can appear on items:

  • Melee Damage (increases damage done by your melee weapons)

  • Projectile Damage Bonus (increases damage done by your projectiles)

  • Aura Damage Bonus (increases damage done by your auras)

• Rebalanced Magic Find effectiveness: diminishing returns start kicking in above +100% Magic Find.

Furnace Rework

• Previously, the Furnace would "cook" any inserted item into some brand new item. This newly-created item would often have its own set of affixes, which was very hard to predictably craft.

• Now, the Furnace focuses on just applying heat to the existing item you put in, keeping its stats/affixes but applying one of four effects to the item overall:

  • Infused - Adds one new freshly-rolled affix

  • Tempered - Boosts every existing affix's value (by 25%)

  • Charred - Removes the weakest affix (only if there is more than 1 affix already on the item)

  • Purified - Strips harmful/negative affixes

UI Changes

• Added a new Hall of the Fallen section in the Stats section that reports on which enemies kill you the most >:)

• Added a "Save & Quit" button to the pause menu that will save your current game and quit, letting you later resume where you left off.

• Added an "End Run" button to the pause menu that will immediately end your current run.

• Your weapon toolbelt slots are now colored and have icons for each weapon's elemental damage type.

• Item tooltips have been redesigned.

Settings Changes

• Added a new Difficulty settings screen that lets you make the game easier or harder. There are multiplier sliders for Enemy Health, Enemy Damage, Enemy Speed, Enemy Spawn Rate, Difficulty Ramp Speed, Player Damage, and XP Gain.

• You can now delete specific weapons you've crafted from the game data (crafting new items literally adds them to your game data; this can remove any crafted weapons you specifically don't want to keep in the game).

• The "Reduce Motion" accessibility setting now applies to almost all animations throughout the game.

• Added independent mute toggle buttons for Master, Music, and SFX volume channels in the audio settings.

Bugfixes

• Fixed a bug where you couldn't navigate back to your inventory list when viewing your equipped weapons.

• Fixed a bug where clearing your game data wouldn't actually apply until you restarted your game.

• Fixed a bug where some workstations wouldn't show you had gold when you actually did.

• Fixed a bug preventing some players from changing their game resolution.