Update 0.5f - Iron Mountains Keep

We've not had any news for the past few days, but it does not mean we were idle! We were chipping away at three important things:

• Working on a new map

• Working on the map editor

• Fixing bugs!

It's an age old problem - what to show first to your audience. Do we want to show off the biggest bit - The map? Or should we leave that for later, so that we can build up tension with small updates and do a big reveal at the end. Everyone knows that the best thing to do however, is just to write meaningless drivel keeping the user on the page as long as possible, so the ads play. However, we have no ads here, so let's just cut to the chase...

Iron Mountains Keep

"The gates of the Keep slammed shut behind us with a bang. I've never seen people so sad. So abandoned. So devoid of hope. Flocks of ravens constantly circle over the city, like heralds announcing the end of the world. There will be no time to rest. An ominous aura extends everywhere outside the walls. In the distance, the thumping drums of the Greenskins can be heard, as well as the sounds of ghostly horns.

'Your friends are with you' Galahad, commander of the Lion Guard, told me.

I answered - 'Let's hope they last the night.'

Did you get the reference? ːB1ː

The new map is a twist on the already existing ones. You have one, elongated front-line, but it's split in two, meaning letting one fall can create problems for the second one. In the most dire situations, you can always retreat back to the keep, which is perfect ground for a last-stand type scenario.

Of course we also have new achievements associated with the map. There is one for beating the basic difficulty, and one for each Nightmare difficulty.

Mod support progress

Although the image below might not look like much, it's actually quite a breakthrough. We have managed to create a very basic map in an external mod project (which will be made available to the community) and import it into the game, as a mod. It's functional, although obviously a bit ugly at the moment.

We will now work on making the tool as accessible as possible.

For those of you who are curious, here are the details:

• Mod support will come in form of a Unity Project (external download)

• We are targeting Unity 2020.3.42f1

• At first we will provide very few visual assets, meaning the community will likely have to rely on free assets found on the internet

• Custom scripts are not supported

• Custom music will be supported

• Custom enemies are unlikely to be supported

• You can add as many waves of any intensity as you like

• You can override points needed for card draws, meaning you can create maps with limitless decks if you so wish

Technically, the build in this patch already provides custom map support but we're not quite ready to release the mod project to the public. However, if you want to try it out for yourself as an early adapter you can contact me on Discord (kommissar#8990). Please bear in mind you need to have some knowledge of Unity Engine or previous modding experience to make the alpha-tester experience worthwhile.

Patch Notes

• Added a new map

• Laid necessary groundwork for map editor and mods supporting custom maps

• Improved performance of various on-tick abilities, such as are heal and proximity boosts

• Localized 'MaxValue' text

• Catapult projectiles will no longer get stuck in the air when losing their targets

• Added new achievements

• Player units now have baked meshes, increasing performance

• Added new enemy: Bone Catapult

• Wall upgrades no longer close the wall panel

• Slightly increased size of Hero portrait and gave it a new frame

• Units will 'slide' less often

• Fixed number of starting resources on maps

That's all for now! I hope you will enjoy the new content and look forward to future stuff. We have some very exciting unannounced things that are not even mentioned in the roadmap, and I'm positive you'll love it! Keep well, and until next time! ːsteamthisː

The update is going to hit Steam in a few hours :)