Alpha 0.10.0

This release focus on usability and interface, including an overhaul of card inspection. Main changes are:

• Fix camera and card tweens not converging on low FPS
• Add control hints for settings and packlist screens
• Improved code for handling colors
• New card AND body inspector
• Inspect your equipment and condition cards
• Inspect surrounding bodies
• Open packs in bulk!
• Improved card distribution in packs
• Minor bugfixes

Special thanks to @zugzug who contributed to this last release.

Alpha 0.9.0

This is a major balancing relase together with a new tile set! The main changes are:

• Armor cards can only absorb damage up to a certain limit
• Experience gain is now slower so the power curve lasts more sectors
• Card levels go up to 15 now
• Re-balanced monster drops
• Props that have packs now produce higher-level packs the further you go
• Monsters in the ruins zone are slower
• The second zone is now the Cave zone, with an appropriate tile set

Alpha 0.8.0

This release includes a series or bugfixes, balancing, and, more importantly, an improved character selection screen with complete information on the species and background you choose!

These and other highlights of this version are:

• Projectile animation now follow a curved trajectory
• XP points are distributed according to the distribution of cards in your deck instead of your usage ratings
• The Concentration card now buffs single-targeted damage instead of you anima score
• The Side Step card now costs only 1 focus
• All creatures have a minimum focus regen of 0.5/cycle instead of 0/cycle
• Packs have an image showing what monster it dropped from
• The effective power of cards now increases in only one of three ways: +1 every 2 levels, +1 every level, and +2 every level
• New prop: chest, which drops 1-3 packs with cards of all kinds!
• Slime and Imp decks are nerfed
• Reduce food spawn rate since they can be obtained from boxes
• Many rendering optimizations
• Configurable autosave frequency (only matters when the game crashes)
• When a creature dies, all conditions it placed on other bodies are destroyed
• Many small usability tweaks

Alpha 0.7.0

This release features inert objects which you can destroy, interact with, and play cards on!

The highlights include:

• Control hints are now context sensitive
• Added a new faction for game elements: "inert"
• Two new game props: crates (which drop food and, rarely, packs) and rocks (which just stand in the way)
• Card descriptions improved to preview static ability effects
• Two new cards: Create Rock and Static Field
• Hide life and energy bars when not relevant
• Fix many visual effects not appearing
• Fix energy system using wrong stat

Patch 0.6.1

This minor patch includes the following upgrades to the game:

• Highlight current turn's creature when it's not the player
• Lots of code clean up
• "Fast" cards now indicate that property with a "fast-forward" icon
• HP formula was revised with a focus on simplifying balancing encounters
• Similarly, we revised the formula for the power level of generated encounters
• Fixed drops not playing sound effects when you pick them up
• The game now accepts ESC as a "cancel" input
• The Dash card can now pass through bodies
• Change some colors in the UI

Alpha 0.6.0

In this major alpha release, we focused on improving the graphics and sound of the game. There is still a long, long way to go, but hopefully we maneged to enrich the experience further =). Another big feature is that cards can now have static abilities. Check out the new Bloodthirst card!

More specifically, this relase:

• Improved description of cards with triggered abilities
• Introduced static abilities
• Fix some animation quirks from the last patch
• Fix the second zone repeating itself
• Balance HP formulae to allow increase for all creatures
• Added pitch randomization to many sound effects
• A new tileset, but only for the first zone
• Changed the colors used in many places to fit our chosen palette
• Added sound effects to all card UI events
• Added level to cards, requiring actors to have that much of an attribute to play them

Patch 0.5.1

This is patch adds many usability changes that better express gameplay events in the game, including:

• The camera now focuses on who is taking the current action
• Spending focus plays a little explosion animation
• Changes in focus are now smoother
• There's a new animation for taking damage, including pixel art effects
• Fixes animation that indicates an actor taking action
• Adds the possibility of randomly varying sound effect pitches
• Adds damage and healing formulae to card effect rules text
• Adds sound effect for all damaging cards
• Adds particle effect for healing cards
• Fixes jump animation
• Adds projectile animation for appropriate cards
• Improves the description of Chained Energy

Alpha v0.5.0

This release is a major step: monsters can now finally use cards! This adds a lot of interesting possibilities and makes the game more "symmetrical" in the sense that you can do everything the monsters can – and vice-versa!

Full changelog:

• Fixed tutorial hint showing wrong button to use cards
• Extended the duration of the "Stun" condition
• Fixed tutorial hint about how to view collected packs never showing
• Enabled monster AI to use cards
• Re-designed the decks of all monsters
• Added heart drops to heal life
• New card "Bloodthirst" substitutes "Stunning Strike" in brawler's starter deck ("Stunning Strike" can still be obtained through packs)
• Added animation to announce cards monsters use
• Added control hint for "Idle" action
• Fixed crashes when monsters died
• Fixed drop animation not happening

Patch 0.4.1

This rather bulky patch to v0.4.0 makes two major improvements to Backdoor Route:

• Performance improvements in field-of-vision algorithms!
• Tutorial hints when you first play the game!

Hopefully, this patch makes the game more accessible to all =)

Downloads available on itch.io

Alpha 0.4.0

This is the fourth alpha release of Backdoor Route. As you can see, we aim to release alpha versions more often (hopefully every other week). Downloads available on itch.io.

This release includes:

• You now always have a full hand of cards, no food necessary
• However, reshuffling the discard pile onto your deck now consumes food
• You recover 1 focus per turn
• A preview of the next turns is shown on the right side of the screen
• Actions can either spend a FULL cycle of time, or HALF a cycle of time
• The card "Chained Energy" has been reworked due to the new mechanics
• Some performance improvements