Huge update with a new mode and plenty of improvements

⚠ Save Data Reset

First up, a reminder: your save data will be reset in this update!

This affects your game settings and any mid-game saves you may have left unfinished. This is due to some major changes which have made the old data obsolete. Apologies for any inconvenience this causes! I'll always avoid resetting save data whenever possible but the nature of Early Access makes it inevitable sometimes.

With that out of the way, here's the the good news...

📅 Daily Challenge Mode

It's here!

• Compete against other players to be top of the daily leaderboard in a unique set of randomly-generated stages.
• To make it fair, everyone gets exactly the same challenges: the stage layout, the enemies you face, the player perks you're given... right down to the tiles your opponents decide to step on to!
• Replay Daily Challenge mode as many times as you like to figure out the best path to victory.
• Come back tomorrow for a whole new challenge and a fresh leaderboard to dominate.

🥇 Leaderboards

You can now view the the Steam leaderboards in-game! (only if you're running the game through Steam, of course) No more switching out to your web browser to view them on the Steam page.

And, of course, you can see your performance in the Daily Challenge here too.

💀 New Trial System

This update brings big changes to how the game's Trials work. Instead of randomly being dealt one enemy and playing through 3 stages heavily populated by that enemy, the stages you face are now much more shuffled. You may now face any combination of enemies in each trial.

Currently, Snaptors and Kappas will appear in Trial 2. Redhorns and Hatcheries populate Trial 3. Trial 4 is a combination of all the above, plus their savage ball-chasing versions. All 4 trials include mixtures of the basic Mad Lad enemy and sometimes Ticks too.

Of course, this enemy list is only going to get bigger before the game is finished so you'll see much more variety throughout your runs.

This change has no doubt impacted the game's difficulty and it will probably need further balancing. However, I'm making an effort now not to get too bogged down in fine-tuning the smaller details constantly and instead focusing on the bigger stuff that needs to be added. Polish can come later! 😀

🔙 Restart Stage

Now you can do it! It's limited to once per stage though, so only use it when absolutely necessary.

🎮 Control Fixes

Several players reported that using a combination of mouse and keyboard to play would cause issues where the cursor would disappear. This has now been addressed. Noice.

❤ Enemy Info Popups

I've also added a shortcut button to view information popups for all enemies. These popups show every enemy's health and the order they will perform their next action (vital information in some situations!).

This is particularly useful when using a gamepad as you were previously unable to view information for enemies unless an attack was possible.

This new shortcut is mapped to the "i" key, or R1/Right Bumper on gamepads. Alternatively, just hover your mouse cursor over the new "Enemy Info" icon in the top-right corner of the screen.

🐤 Tweety Birds

They're here too.

Here's the full list of changes in this update...

🆕 Changes

• Added Daily Challenge mode with a new leaderboard every day.
• Leaderboards are now visible in-game.
• Revised the Trial system and how stages are randomly generated.
• Switched to use a Seeded RNG system for reproducible random generation.
• Trial intro sequence now shows more enemies.
• Added option to Restart Stage once per stage.
• Savage Redhorns, Snaptors and Kappas and non-savage Ticks will now appear in some stages.
• Tier 3 Strength perk now boosts damage by 3 instead of 4.
• Disabled auto-switch to next player when you Pass the ball (this is due to a bug that's difficult to fix but could cause a lock up of the game. I'll try to fix it later!)
• Walls no longer spawn near the finish line.
• You can now view all enemy info (health & act order) by holding the "i" key or R1/Right Bumper on gamepad, or hovering your mouse cursor over the new "Enemy Info" icon..
• Changed enemy health bar popups layout for improved clarity.
• Added popup text when stamina is restored or characters are stunned.
• Changed stun effects to tweety birds.

🐛 Bug Fixes

• Fixed crash when you pass the ball as the final action of your turn.
• Fixed crash that occurred when enemies were targetted by other enemies whilst stunned.
• Fixed aggressive Redhorn's attack animation showing the non-aggressive sprite.
• Fixed crash when turn par was above 16.
• Using keyboard controls will no longer hide the mouse cursor.
• 'How To Play' screen now shows correct keyboard shortcuts when using mouse & keyboard.
• Fixed enemy health bars being too low resolution.
• Fixed Windows mouse cursor becoming visible if you Alt+Tab out of the game then back again.
• Fixed tier 3 Powerball perk using same icon as tier 2.

I hope you enjoy this big update! It's been a lot of work but I'm really happy with the results.

For future updates I'm planning to expand the ways you can level up your players, and having another look at the way the scoring system works.

Now dive into that Daily Challenge and show the world how good you really are!

Matt