Update regarding v1

Hi everyone!

We hope you’re all doing well.

It’s been a while since our last update and we originally aimed to release Version 1 (v1) by now. The most important information first. We don’t have an exact release date for v1 (explanation further down). However, we’ve been quietly testing v1 with a small group of players, gathered a lot of feedback and polished the game. The feedback has been incredibly valuable in fine-tuning the overall experience of the game. Starting today, we’re expanding access to our v1-testing branch to all premium supporters* (Discord server subscription or Patreon subscriber) while we continue to improve the game.

v1 When?

Short answer: when it’s ready.

Long answer: We’ve been working on The Perfect Tower II since 2019 and a lot of our original ideas have been expanded over the years. There is a lot more content and deeper mechanics than originally planned. Even though the game already feels well rounded and has an ending, there are some things we just want to get “perfect” before we slap the v1 tag on it.

In the past months we have made a lot of progress on things, especially quality of life improvements, that we have previously had to put on the back burner to get all features done. We have tested those changes with a small portion of our player base and collected valuable feedback. We are now in the end stages of adding additional features and improvements. There would be so much more we would still like to add, but we also want to get v1 into your hands!

What does that mean for the release date? Well, we are close, but we don’t want to give an exact date because in the past it always ended up with us having to delay it due to work from other projects interfering with the development process. Since we’ve been on this journey with you for such a long time, we want v1 to feel right. This is not something that can be easily measured. We are fully aware there will be areas where players might expect different changes or more polish and quality-of-life features. Figuring out how to balance those expectations for every feature is and has been a tricky task for us. Once we have reached a stable and well-rounded v1 release candidate we’re going to announce the release date and use the remaining time to properly advertise the game. We will try to increase the community engagement to make the actual release feel a bit more lively than just a regular update. Even though we don't want to give an exact date, it is coming out before GTA VI. ːSheepː

Does that mean no more updates after v1? Of course not! Right after the release we are switching back to the regular update cycle. We will continue refining game mechanics, adding new features and of course, work on the post-endgame content and mobile version. ;)

v1 Testing Phase

We have been testing v1 changes since February with a small group of players and made additional changes based on feedback and test results. We’ve also started to replay the entire game ourselves to get a better feeling for the current experience. The result of those tests were 189 tasks on our Trello board, from which we have almost implemented all of them.

*Starting today, we’re expanding access to our v1-testing branch to all Eternal Flame or higher premium supporters, who have an active Discord server subscription or are a Patreon subscriber and who are on our Discord server.

The early game balance has changed a lot and is now faster and more streamlined. If you are thinking of playing on the v1-testing branch, a word of warning. There might be breaking changes that can alter your savegame and won’t allow you to go back to the public version (use a fresh save!). Save file migration works only one-way! Even though the testing branch is not exactly what will be the public v1, it does already contain the majority of changes that are going to heavily impact the gameplay. It’s better to wait for the public release, if you want the full v1 experience!

Some highlights of the v1 changes

Here are some highlights of the current v1 changelog. (~300 lines of changes)

Highscore Mode

When you beat the game for the first time, effectively at the point where you can watch the credits roll, you now unlock a Highscore mode that lets you start a new game with challenges that increase the difficulty. At the end of that new game you will receive a score based on how fast you have completed the game and how many challenge modifiers you have activated! These include things like buildings having a higher conversion rate or your blueprint size having a hard cap of 10 modules.

Module balance and scaling

The majority of all modules can now be tiered up to T250. Previously many of them stopped at T5 which kind of took away the satisfaction of certain modules when stopping so early. For some of them this was really bad in later stages of the game since they quickly lost all relevance, especially modules with absolute values.

The new scaling of modules with a new maximum tier varies greatly based on the original module effect. For some of them it was relatively easy to scale since they can just grow stronger based on their original scaling and still remain meaningful without breaking anything. Others were a bit more tricky due to %-based values like movement speed reduction which should not increase beyond a certain threshold in order to cause game breaking effects.

A few modules actually received a completely new scaling, making them a bit weaker during their first tiers but way stronger than their old limit on higher tiers. Specifically for some of the damage modules the damage scaling has changed significantly. They now have less harsh drop-offs when going to the next tier. Previously they landed in the 1-2 digits area after a tier up which made them basically useless.

Apart from that there have been some fundamental changes in the definition of certain modules (spoilers ahead). For example infinity modules now count as tier infinite, meaning they can be taken into any challenge, regardless of the tier restrictions of the challenge. This provides you with a new opportunity to beat more difficult challenges later in the game by simply using end game modules, effectively giving you a way to clear challenges without needing any strategy or guide if you make it to this point.

There have also been adjustments to the drop rates of modules as well as the fixed waves that unlock modules. Multishot is now unlocked earlier, giving you another option to clear your first 100 waves quicker. Many of the very low chance region modules have now received a boost along with more building skills and upgrades that affect the module droprate. It’s now less of a grind to unlock all region modules.

Headquarters

Apart from making the UI more concise with the overall style, the upgrade costs in the Headquarters have been balanced to be more usable in early game. Server costs have been significantly reduced and CPU/RAM upgrades have been balanced accordingly. Autoskip and Wave Streaming are two of the core software components, which is why we have reduced their price and install duration. They are now a more sensible part of early progression.

Software loadouts

One of the most useful additions regarding software are the long awaited and quite frequently requested software loadouts. They have always been on our planned-to-be-added list but never had a high enough priority to be added. Up to the point where we both fully replayed the game. You can now create, edit, import and export software loadouts for various scenarios in the game, allowing you to easily toggle multiple software upgrades on or off at any point. AI scripts also have full control over applying loadouts, meaning you can write shorter scripts that alter your current software configuration.

Factory

The early Factory received various changes in terms of balance, polish and progression. A few recipes have been adjusted to better match the early-game item availability. For example, the first tier of the town resource producer now requires T1 items instead of T2, effectively reducing its cost. Additionally, the production rate of the first two producer tiers has been slightly increased to provide a bit more than just a symbolic passive resource production.

The second floor also received a significant overhaul. The fabricator can now dissolve all items right from the start, but initially returns only 25% of an item’s original mass. Once an item has been scanned in the crafter, this value increases to 100%, resulting in a lossless conversion to mass. Fabricating an item now costs 3 times the original mass of the object instead of 4 times. You still need to scan items before being able to fabricate them. The scanning requirements for almost all items have been reduced.

With these changes you can immediately dispose of asteroid item rewards without having to scan a large number of items first, helping prevent your inventory from clogging.

There have also been numerous bugfixes and small quality of life improvements all over the place in the Factory that would take a while to list. You can find all of them in the release changelog once v1 is out.

Museum

We have re-balanced all artifact prices and research times to better fit progression. Power Stones also received a slight balance change (mainly the market). We added more achievements for a total of 74 right now and yes, there will be Steam achievements on release!

Quality‑of‑life improvements

We’ve unified and polished the user interface to give the whole game a consistent look. You can now right‑click to “buy max” on many upgrade screens and open your save‑game folder directly from the game. Many building prices and production rates have been tweaked to better match progression. All buildings now have 6 skills and 3 exotic skills

Hundreds of fixes.

The changelog lists dozens of bug fixes affecting nearly every part of the game. From collapsing tunnels using the wrong formula, to dashboard windows not closing, to AI scripts flooding log files and Factory recipes breaking, we’ve tidied up a lot of rough edges.

What’s next?

v1 is playable, but we’re still working on it. Our immediate priorities are polishing the game and continuing to smooth out the balance. We’re also exploring quality‑of‑life features based on your feedback. We would also like to rework the Nexus and Workshop UI.

We aren’t ready to set dates yet, but we’ll keep you updated as work progresses. We hope this post shows how much progress has been made and why we chose to not release v1 yet, as we wanted to build a better foundation for everyone. We’re excited to see what you think and we’ll continue to listen closely to your reports and ideas.

Since the start of development we received almost 5000 suggestions on our Discord and countless idea posts on Steam. Without your help we would have missed so many opportunities for unique ideas, quality of life features and satisfying game design decisions.

Thank you

Thank you for sticking with us and for all the feedback you’ve shared so far. Your patience and support have allowed us to make The Perfect Tower II better for everyone. We’re looking forward to reading your thoughts on v1 and to sharing more updates as we move toward the full release.

Cheers, SpeedyBrain and XmmmX

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