BETA v0.9.00 Massive upcoming features

Beta Features and Content

Lots of new features and content to try!

We've been hard at work on a huge update, and want to get some new features into a Beta.

NOTE: The tutorial has also been updated to teach new features. We recommend replaying it.

These features include big system reworks, which are not finalised.

We'll continue to balance.

I've written out what we're thinking below, and why we feel this direction will help improve the game long term. We are always interested in your feedback though! You can join us on Discord to discuss.

This Beta needs a lot more balancing because of the scale of these changes, but we want to get you all involved in what we're working on as we continue, and hear what you think about these new systems.

Mid-game save

This is our first release of the mid-game save system, so you can finally exit and continue runs!

If you find any inconsistencies, please use the bug report icon in-game.

Multi-block placement in combat

An issue we've been thinking a lot about is how to give players more agency.

In combat, the brain dealing randomness limits the order you can play actions.

The game has been designed with this in mind, but it's still not ideal, and means players need to think about how a move will resolve before placing a block. When you place a block in combat, the order of actions resolve left to right, top to bottom. New players often overlooked this, as it's extra complexity on top of learning the rest of the game. We added damage previews to ease this, but often people end up just looking at the previews without understanding their moves.

Play the whole brain each turn!

Capture actions in the order you want to activate them, and use Redraw to discard uncaptured actions.

Virus blocks start smaller, and grow more from pickups

In combat, it's easier to coordinate your moves with smaller blocks, so now virus strains start with smaller blocks.

To compensate for this in the Exploration phase, we've added more Spread and Evolution cells.

Spread tokens only spread in Exploration

Small blocks are easier to manage in combat, but you still want blocks to travel further in exploration, so along with adding more Spread pickups we've made it so blocks don't spread in combat. Otherwise, placing a single block might fill the whole board, which is the opposite of our goal to reduce randomness and make it more strategic!

Upgrades system redesign

One issue we've wanted to look at is the dominant strategy so far seems to be making one MEGA Action... Loading all Upgrades and Traits onto a single Action, which can be fun for awhile, but it's also not very challenging or strategic.

It's also not very interesting for Upgrades to just make numbers go up.

Branching Upgrades and new Actions

This Beta has a massive rework to Upgrades.

Now, Actions in your deck have multiple levels of different upgrades, with each upgrade branching as well.

We've added Blanks to the base deck as a sort of 'wild card' that can upgrade into very different types of actions to help specialise your deck.

This new system means a few things:

• There's more Action replacement, so your deck stays leaner, giving you more access to the new upgraded actions while also making it easier to keep track of what your deck is capable of.

• Virus Strains are even more like different archetypes, because you won't often gain new upgradeable actions in a run. These will likely be restricted to special events.

• Deck power increase is more about synergising content than getting a big number.

Shop rework

With the mutation pool being completely reorganised into branching upgrades, we needed to rethink how Actions appear in the Shops.

Shop Mutations have Exhaust

The thinking here is that Mutations bought from Shops will be supplementary to the branching upgrade build. These Exhaust actions are more powerful but can't be upgraded.

Reroll with currency

Currency is now used for Rerolling, and there's more currency in exploration.

Combat reward rework

Combat rewards are now simplified so it's easier to make decisions.

A basic encounter gives an Upgrade, an Elite gives a Perk and Brain Growth.

Enemies no longer drop resources.

As we added more enemy context to the encounter screen it just became a lot to have each enemy with a different amount of rewards. It also meant new players might not kill the enemy which has the reward, and not realise they've fallen behind a bit on progression.

The focus of encounter choice should really be on the enemies, and reading their Perks.

All resources to affect reward rarity are collected in Exploration. This means you can use the resource collection bar to accurately know what rarity you'll get in the next combat, and how many resources to aim for.

Features

• Added Abandon Run button to the Pause Menu. This will allow you to restart the game while still extracting consumed resources.

• Added resource bundles to exploration, and more resources overall. The base resource graphic now looks like a single resource.

• New Exploration levels

Bug Fixes

• Fix tooltip text size on token tooltip

• Fixed Gameover screen tooltips sometimes appearing off screen

• Fixed issue with perk Grace applying to the player

• Fixed trail effect not playing when triggering Cleave or Chain Whip

• Fixed Overstimulate brain ability when used with Hyperactive perk

• Fixed spawned creatures appearing in the correct biome in the collection

• Fixed an issue where audio would play before the game loads

Improvements

• Reworked UI transition animations to be snappier

• Added a small effect on enemy intentions when they update

• When an enemy adds a status effect on themselves the next turn, it is no longer projected for your current turn.

• Updated Rabbit event win speech

• Perks that are start in virus strains no longer have a rarity, instead they will be labeled "Virus Strain"

• If you unlocked specimen before the collection update, it will now be visible

• Updated the combat tutorial

Balance

We've been balancing a lot of content to suit the new systems, but not all Virus Strains are updated for the new systems yet. We've only had time to test and rebalance the first few Virus Strains, so it would be best to play with Tickler if you want to try the new systems. It's best for us to focus on smoothing out the upgrade paths before rebalancing all the Virus Strains.

• Perk Stunlock now triggers on Action activation and not Action capture

• Growth now resets on capture rather than on dealt

• Spike Snipe is now Aimed

• Adjust Stun to be a Utility action

• Rebalance Onslaught - Gave Spike actions Instant and reduced to 1, added Spike Snipe to the starting actions

• Shedding buffed to Heal 2x Shield amount

• Reduce Onslaught health

• Actions which gain Adrenaline on self now have Instant

• Instinct Action gets buffed by Attack actions instead of Physical actions

• Spread Tokens now only spread in Exploration

• Added more pickups to exploration

• Hyperactive Perk effect has been changed to give uncaptured Actions +1 on each block placement

Other

• Rephrase enemy movement actions to be more explicit

• Added an animation to when game control tutorials appear

To access the Beta:

1. Right click Winnie's Hole in your Steam library, select Properties.

2. Select the BETAS tab and choose the Beta you want to install.