Abilities on Abilities on Abilities (v0.14)

The Bullet Fest here on Steam was so fun and we're glad to see everyone having a wonderful time with the game. The play time numbers are honestly insane; many of you are racking up 10-20+ hours so far and there are a few that're nearing 100 hours played!

This week we've got a ton of new updates across the entire game (including some incredibly fun new abilities on some characters...).

Scroll down to see what all is new; this big update is out now on Windows, Mac, and Steam Deck!

New Characters

• Casey, the baseball dad - Unlocked by killing 100 Bats in any level

• Bjorn, the lone druid - Unlocked by killing 250 Bears in any level

• Vohl, Shepard of the Dead - Unlocked by killing 5,000 Skeletons in any level

• Jekyll, the divided man - Unlocked by surviving 15 minutes in the Lab

• Corvus, walking pestilence - Unlocked by surviving 15 minutes in Witchwater Marsh

• Firebat, a man with a flamethrower - Unlocked by surviving 20 minutes in Char Wastes

• Elsbeth, the Plainswalker - Unlocked by surviving 30 minutes in the Plains

• Mire, the Bog Witch - Unlocked by surviving 30 minutes in Witchwater Marsh

• Spirit Bear, loyal companion - Unlocked by surviving 20 minutes with Bjorn

• Rampart, a literal tank - Unlocked by blocking 1,000,000 damage with Armor

New Character Abilities

• Roto: Hero's Party - Every 10 levels, another random survivor will join your party and fight alongside you (max party size of 5).

• Char: Cinder Touch - Your fire damage has a 30% chance to apply Burning for 3 seconds.

• Mortis: Beef With Death - Dying transforms you into a ghost. Kill enough enemies in time to revive.

• AddedMIraScholar's Vigor - Gain +50 Max Health every time you discover a new crafting recipe).

• Mandy-1: Zero-G Drift - Move around with suit thrusters a la classic Asteroids!

• Sproing: Packrat - Items in your inventory grant 30% of their affixes as if they were equipped.

• Brock: Homonculus - Your familiar follows you around and picks up nearby items.

• Robin: Robbin' the Rich - Attacks against elites have a 30% chance to drop a gold coin.

• Midas: Gold Blood - Your gold amount is your health pool.

• Anna: Pocket Change - Attacks cost 1 gold and empower for bonus damage (no bonus damage if you're poor).

• Tellah: The Final Teaching - Every 6 seconds, gain +0.1% Might and lose 6 Max HP. Upon death, summon the apocalypse.

Character Changes

• Kimbo's Focused Arsenal ability now also gives +1 projectiles to all of his weapons.

• Tyrael is now unlocked by surviving 30 minutes in Tristram, rather than 30 minutes in the Plains.

New: Review Recent Runs

• You can now browse your recent runs from the title screen. Go back and see your weapons, equipment, kills, and other stats.

New: Weapon Abilities

Weapons can now have additional abilities if some extra condition is met. Added the following weapon abilities:

• Star: Lucky Star - If you have 2 or more Luck, gain +1 projectile per attack.

• Harlequin Hand: Stacked Deck - If you have 5 or more Luck, gain +5 projectiles per attack.

• Coin Toss: Deep Pockets - If you're holding at least 50 gold, gain +2 projectiles per attack.

• Whirling Staff: Steady Breath - If above 90% health, gain +20% attack area.

• Greatsword: Mighty Swing - If you have 3 or more Might, gain +50% attack area.

• Comal de Hierro: Well-Seasoned - Gain +15% damage at weapon level 5.

• Meteora: Extinction - Gain +25% meteor size at weapon level 5.

Weapon Changes

• Plasma Pistol now fires in the direction you're facing, rather than auto-aiming at the nearest enemy.

• Added a new "chance to blind" upgrade, available to Dark Bomb, Devil Pike, Harlequin Hand, Hollow Censer, and Scythe weapons.

• Fire Wand, Flame Wave Staff, Meteora, Pineapple, Ring of Fire, Staff of Flame Wall, and Torch now have "chance to burn" upgrades.

• Poison Apple, Fang, Thief's Dagger, and Throwing Dagger now have "chance to poison" upgrades.

• Blizzard Staff, Freeze Ray, and Frost Nova now have "chance to slow" upgrades.

New Workstations

• Condenser: Merge 3 of the same item at the Condenser, discoverable in Alchemaria or the Lab.

• Distillery: Distill the essence of any item into a consumable potion, discoverable in Jade Court or the Lab.

• 3D Printer: Construct faithful reprints of items named by acronym, discoverable in the Lab.

Crafting Changes

• The wishing well will no longer produce legendary items when granting wishes.

• Reduced the cost of each Altar of Dominion use from 2 essence to 1 and redesigned the interface.

• Revised the existing enchantments at the Hellforge to give more potent boons... and more powerful downsides.

• Added 13 new possible enchantment pairings (boon+downside) to the Hellforge's enchantment pool.

• The Hellforge now has an enchantments page that will show you all the enchantments you've discovered.

• Removed the essence cost of the Prism Engine and Halo Forge workstations; now only costs gold to use.

New Interactables

• Demon Altar: Offer enough gold (66) to immediately summon a boss, discoverable in Alchemaria or Pandemonium.

• Psionic Obelisk: Monster deaths nearby charge up the obelisk; activate it to deal massive area damage. Discovered in Threed.

New Levels

The Lab - Unlocked by discovering 20 crafting workstations

Deep Abyss - Unlocked by traveling down a whirlpool in Dread Sea or Witchwater.Steam post image

Hunting Grounds - Unlocked by surviving 10 minutes in Bovine Pastures

Mournhollow - Unlocked by surviving 15 minutes in Black Market

Tempest Reach - Unlocked by surviving 15 minutes in Dread Sea

Level Changes

• Forest now always spawns with a Wishing Well at the start instead of an Alchemy Altar.

• Interactable objects (workstations, shrines, destructibles, etc) should overlap each other far less often in all levels.

• Increased the variety of enemies that spawn in Catacombs (it's not all cats anymore) and Blooming Gardens.

• Redesigned the layout of Threed to feel more like roads in a town.

Enemy Changes

• Added a new Pickpocket enemy that has a small chance to steal items from your inventory on hit. Pickpockets drop all stolen items on death. Spawns in the Black Market level after 10 minutes.

• Added a new Fellow Survivor enemy that uses a random discovered weapon that you haven't used often. Drops it on death. Spawns rarely in many levels.

• Added a new Fallen Survivor enemy that uses a random discovered weapon. Drops it on death. Spawns often in Cemetery after 15 minutes.

• Cloudriders are now 3x larger, have 10x more health, and 30% resistance to Physical damage.

• The existing Fallen Survivor boss (spawns at 30 minutes in Cemetery) has been renamed to Zombie Champion.

• Significantly increased the XP gained from most early-run enemies in Witchwater Marsh.

New Bosses

• King Reolic, the Skeleton King, spawns at 30 minutes in Tristram. Replaces the 50x Butcher spawn that previously acted as a final boss for the level.

Gameplay Changes

• Elite enemies now drop essence when killed. This should result in significantly more essence to play with per run.

• Health and Adrenaline potions will continue to auto-consume upon pickup. Other consumables will now go to your inventory so you can choose the perfect time to consume them later.

• Consumables will no longer be included when auto-selling to merchants.

• Storage Chests no longer spawn in Daily Challenge levels.

• The game camera will now slowly pull back to reveal more of your surroundings periodically as you level up.

• Rebalanced item drops to favor commons early, ramping up higher-rarity items as you level up.

• Rebalanced item caches in levels (like Fresh Graves and Hidden Chests) to have more items when you have higher Luck.

UI Changes

• Added a filter to the character select screen to make it easier to browse characters by archetype (melee, ranged, mage, etc). There are over 75 characters now!

• Added a new Abilities panel to the inventory/equipment screen to list active character abilities in-game.

• Added buff/debuff indicators to the HUD.

• Locked characters now show their title as a little teaser, so you have a better idea on who to chase down next. :)

Steam Changes

• Instead of "Playing Alchemy Survivors", your Steam status now updates to who you're playing and where. For example, "Surviving as Tellah in Frostfell".

• Enabled Cloud Save to sync your saves across devices.

Settings Changes

• Added a "Clear Steam Achievements" in the data tab. It will reset all achievement progress on Steam.

• Added a new menu for clearing out crafted equipment from the game data, just like you can with weapons.

• The game slowdown when discovering a new enemy now plays 20% faster. You can also turn this off completely with a toggle in Settings.

Bugfixes

• Fixed a bug where the zombified-survivor-of-the-player's-previous-run boss (spawning at minute 30 in the Cemetery) wasn't always using projectile-type weapons correctly.

• Fixed colliders on Asha, Nez, and Pyke that made them much harder for enemies to hit than intended.

• Fixed a bug where the Amulet of Nine Lives would sometimes not revive survivors on death.

• Fixed a bug where button-mashing after dying would sometimes instantly retry the level instead of showing the post-game screen.

• Fixed a bug where several crafting workstations were always creating weapon-style images for new items, rather than relying on their item type.

• Fixed a bug where players would sometimes take environmental damage when their aura weapons overlapped with hazards (like Fire).