Rack and Slay News

[h2]Patch notes (v0.78)[/h2]
Quality-of-life improvement: Items that have a percent chance to activate are now briefly displayed above the player character when they activate, so it’s not as easy to get confused by their effects or miss taking them into account.
For example:


Additionally:

• Added a "bridged hole" variant that has a gem in the center of the bridge instead of a coin. Who’s going for the risky shots?
  
• Chests now have a chance to spawn a gem instead of a coin on touch.
  
• Added a few new item-specific sound effects.
  
• Miscellaneous item tweaks, fixes and wording improvements.
  
• (Full Version) Added yet more run modifiers for daily / wild mode (e.g. "all spikes are volatile").

[h2]Patch notes (v0.76 & v0.77)[/h2]
Two smaller patches from the last couple days. They mostly contained some important fixes and full-version content, but I'll be listing their combined patch notes here for completeness.

• Improved collision accuracy, especially involving complex (e.g. star-shaped) obstacles.
  
• Fixed several bugs related to pausing the game in certain game states.
  
• Fixed a bug on high game speed where multiple bosses could spawn in the same frame.
  
• Implemented fail-safe for balls getting stuck on very high speed / power to prevent soft-lock situations.
  
• Fixed an issue where if the last enemy was defeated from you re-spawning on top of it, the level would take one additional turn (without enemies) to finish.
  
• (Full Version) New unlockable items: Phantom Spikes (volatile spike synergy) and Golden Balls (mini ball synergy).
  
• (Full Version) Added additional run modifiers for daily / wild mode.

Gearing up for the upcoming Steam Next Fest with pretty hefty demo update today! ːsteamhappyː

[h2]Patch notes (v0.75)[/h2]
[h3]New Content[/h3]
NEW: Collectible “Ball Pile” that shoots out 3 mini balls as soon as it is collected by you or an enemy.


NEW: “Boosting” variant of the Redirector that not only changes a ball’s direction but gives it a hefty speed-up as well.

NEW: Wall spikes now have a chance to spawn as “volatile”. Volatile spikes shoot across the arena as soon as any ball gets spiked on them, potentially killing multiple enemies on their path until they hit an obstacle. (In the last level of a run all spikes become volatile when you’re out of shots and haven’t defeated all enemies yet.)


If you pick up the "Spike Swallower" item you can also use them to bring the healing to you! :D


NEW (Not in the demo, but take it as a full-version teaser :D): Added a bunch of additional run modifiers for daily / wild mode runs, one of my favorites being “mini balls explode on impact”. Fun in combination with the new "Ball Pile" collectible!


[h3]Item Reworks[/h3]
A bunch of rather situational items were buffed or changed to make them more generally useful, so that even when you don’t fulfill their full effect’s requirements (yet) they can help you out in a pinch:

• Double Shot could get you into trouble too easily, so now it shoots a mini ball in the direction of your shot instead of shooting yourself again. Tip: Use it to e.g. get rid of those Toxy enemies that would damage you on direct touch.
  
• Rich Collector and Healthy Collector now have a (small) baseline of gold and healing they provide, so they’re not totally useless early in a run.
  
• Whoops now has a small chance to spawn a gem instead of a coin.
  
• Loot Box now gives you 1 gold each level in case you don’t have enough gold to receive a random item yet.
  
• It's Over Nineteen now grants you some shot power in case you don’t have more than 19% yet.

[h3]Miscellaneous Improvements[/h3]

• The tutorial and controls overlay now includes Q/E keys for slow aim rotation when using keyboard and mouse (previously a pretty hidden feature but depending on your mouse accuracy it can be useful for some players in certain situations).
  
• Defeating a boss now only counts as an “enemy defeat” (e.g. for certain item triggers) if it was the last enemy in the level (i.e. it was actually defeated and doesn’t immediately respawn).
  
• When you’re out of shots in the final level, the game now displays a reminder message on screen that you need to clear all enemies to finish the level.
  
• Minor tooltip improvements and bug fixes.

Hope you enjoy these updates and the new toys to play with! If you have suggestions for what else could be added, want to provide feedback, or you found a bug, please drop by the Steam forums, the Discord or let me know via Twitter!

Smaller demo update today, but some important tech improvements to ensure level generation can much more easily be maintained and expanded further in the future! Thanks to everyone who keeps enjoying the demo (and left their feedback on the Discord), good to see the increase in player numbers wasn't just a flash in the pan!
[h2]Patch notes (v0.71)[/h2]

• Balancing
  • Trinity now doesn’t triple itself, i.e. only works on (and will only be consumed by) other items. (Sorry about that, it's often fun to see things get out of hand on lower difficulties and there are still plenty of ways for the game to go crazy, but Trinity stacking could render even higher difficulties trivial sometimes, which was a bit much.)
  • Small tweaks to make difficulties 5-9 a little more intense on average.
• Improvements & fixes:
  • Added option to change target FPS in the advanced settings (default is uncapped as before). Should not affect most players, but potentially help performance on some lower-end devices.
    
  • Refactored level generation code to be much more robust in edge cases and be way easier to maintain or expand in the future. (You should not notice this for now unless you ran into a rare level-gen crash before.)
    
  • Fixed a few typos in tooltips and item descriptions.
    
  • Fixed a few minor visual bugs.

Today I'm excited to bring you the biggest demo update so far! All items in the game received brand-new artwork. You will face a variety of mid- and end-boss enemy balls in your runs, that spice things up by asking you to defeat them last in a level. Additionally all difficulties have been rebalanced, more art assets have been added, and all kinds of tweaks and fixes made their way into the game.

[h2]Patch notes (v0.7)[/h2]

• Bosses: Added 8-ball “boss” enemy variants. Meet them in levels 5 and 10 of a run.
  
• New item art: Added brand-new art for all items in the demo.
  
• Other art updates:
  • New look for the shot power gauge.
    
  • New “open” animation for treasure chests.
    
  • New art for hole bridges.
    
  • New mouse cursor.
• General:
  • Rebalanced all difficulty levels. Game is slightly harder on average, lower difficulties got a little extra spice, and difficulty scaling per level throughout runs was adjusted accordingly.
    
  • Added option to hide blood / skulls.
    
  • General wording pass on items and tooltips.
    
  • Lots of miscellaneous fixes and tweaks.
    

Also a big heartfelt thank you to everyone who checked out the demo recently (and to Olexa, Skoottie, CDNThe3rd, vampirechicken, wolvesatmydoor and Wallacetaa for showcasing it). Every bit of visibility and every wishlist helps a tiny indie operation like this one a ton. ❤️

I hope you continue to enjoy the demo, and as always if you have any feedback please let me know via Discord or Twitter or leave a post in the Steam discussions!

There's a new teleporter variant in the game that reverses the movement direction of any ball using it and opens up new room for tricky plays. Ball and bomb cannons have also been spiced up a little and now rotate a random amount after each shot meaning you may have to adapt your plans.

If you want to show off your latest trick shot, have suggestions for what else could be added, want to provide feedback, or you found a bug, please drop by the Discord or let me know via Twitter!

[h2]Patch notes (v0.61)[/h2]

• NEW:
  
  • Added "reverse" teleporter variant that flips movement direction.
    
  • Ball and bomb cannons now rotate after taking a shot.
• BALANCE: Nerfed a few items granting healing or max health cause they were able to make playing even on higher difficulties feel too safe.
  
• POLISH:
  
  • Made hole attraction radius a bit smaller.
    
  • Tutorial now only shows controls for your currently used input method.
    
  • Various minor fixes.