Rack and Slay News

It’s Steam Next Fest and Rack and Slay is participating to bring billiard roguelike wackiness to the event! The demo comes with 60 items featuring all kinds of fun combinations to explore, and full access to the 10-levels Crawl Mode through 20 difficulty levels.


As a reminder, here's what's coming to the full version on top:

• Many additional items to unlock for more complex effects and synergies.
  
• The shorter Delve Mode with double the item rewards.
  
• The one-level Raid Mode with random items for a quick burst of mayhem.
  
• Daily Mode featuring a unique set of game-changing run modifiers every day.
  
• Wild Mode for random (and sometimes pretty crazy) sets modifiers.
  
• Plus, obviously, all kinds of tweaks, fixes and polish all around.

If you like what the demo has to offer, please consider wishlisting the game. You probably have heard it quite a bit already, but it’s true that for a tiny indie dev project like this every single wishlist makes a big difference! So seriously, thank you so much for checking out the game! ❤️

Finally, if you have suggestions for what could be added to the game, want to provide feedback, or you found a bug, please drop by the Steam forums, the Discord or let me know via Twitter! Your feedback has played a critical role in shaping the game the ever since the first version of the demo was released.
Just some of the things that happened the past couple months:

• Replaced all item art in the game with shiny new graphics.
  
• Added a variety of 8-ball boss enemies to shake up your runs.
  
• Added many new objects, obstacles and collectibles for more variety.
  
• Lots of item reworks, balancing and new items for the full version.
  
• Improved difficulty scaling and more transparent difficulty selection.
  
• Quality-of-life improvements such as effect indicators and a new shot gauge.
  
• A new run-progression map so you can plan ahead for upcoming bosses.
  
• UI and look-and-feel improvements, including new sounds and visual effects
  
• Improved physics and stability even in extremely crazy combo situations.
  
• Hugely improved gamepad / Steam Deck controls.
  
• Countless bugfixes.

All this wouldn’t have been possible without your feedback, so THANK YOU! All the best everyone and I hope you have an awesome Next Fest!

P.S. You can catch a live stream showcase of the game by Graeme of 2 Left Thumbs this Tuesday and Thursday (both 8 PM UTC).

[h2]Patch notes (v0.8)[/h2]

• Added a “level map” to the shop screen displaying your current progress throughout a run and reminding you of when boss levels come up.
  
• Additionally, boss variants are now rolled when you start a new run, so you will be able to see a preview of which type of boss you’ll be facing in levels 5 and 10.
  
• Made some performance optimizations regarding physics, shot predictions and level generation.
  
• Fixed “restart” button to restart the same mode you’re in instead of a default run.
  
• Other minor fixes and tweaks.

With this patch I consider the demo ready for Next Fest (Feb 5 - Feb 12)! Looking forward to receiving your feedback via the Steam forums or Discord! And please consider leaving a wishlist if you like what you see so far. Every bit helps! ❤️

[h2]Patch notes (v0.79)[/h2]

• Added many additional item-specific effect indicators and sound effects.
  
• Added a few safer “bridged hole” variants with multiple planks.
  
• Gave keys a small point light so they’re not as easy to miss.
  
• Fixed active teleporters sometimes looking as if they were inactive.
  
• Fixed temporary power bonus not being considered for the shot gauge and a couple items if you had a 0% permanent power bonus.
  
• A few other minor fixes and tweaks.

[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!