After 2 weeks on the beta branch, the New Dawn Update is going live!
Thanks to everyone who played our first beta session of the game. And a big thank you to the ones who took the time to share feedback. We’ve read all of it (yes, even that one), and we’ve learned a lot.
You’ve somehow managed to lift us up and humble us at the same time — which is a strange combo, but we kind of love it. Now the update’s out, so if we did things right, there’ll be more lifting. And if not, we are ready to be humbled.
PSA: We are sorry about this, but if you had started a run in the previous version then you will need to abandon that run, as the game will crash if you resume it. You may be able to finish it by reverting to the legacy branch. To do this go to the Steam Library page for Brotato, click on the cog/settings image on the right-hand side then Properties > Betas > legacy branch. Then you can come back to the new version once you've finished your run.
Here's a TLDR of the content, for full details keep reading:
6 new items and 1 new weapon
Ban system
Save profiles
Codex
Icons in character and item descriptions
VFX, animation and accessibility tweaks
Behind this title — which might be a bit too presumptuous for its own good — New Dawn actually packs quite a lot of new stuff. We aimed for a solid quality-of-life update, plus a few extra features we felt you wanted.
The beta helped us hunt down a ton of bugs and fine-tune a few new items that… let’s just say weren’t quite ready for prime time.
If you're more a visual learner, we've put everything in a VLOG for you:
Otherwise, read on for the list of new features:
Even though our focus was QoL, we still wanted this update to have a little bit of meat on it, so we added 6 items and 1 weapon. One item (fresh meat) is already unlocked. The others must be unlocked with an in-game achievement. Here is the list of the items with their challenge:
To unlock each item:
Fresh Meat: No unlock needed
Fruit Basket: Collect 100 fruits while at maximum health.
Candy Bag: Win a run without locking any items in the shop.
Ghost Outfit: Reach +70% Dodge.
Will-o'-the-wisp: Kill 30 enemies by burning them in a single wave.
Hourglass: During the last 5 seconds of a wave after wave 2, press 'Return to Main Menu'. Then press 'Resume' to try the wave again.
Next up is the new weapon:
Vorpal Sword unlock: Reach +100% Crit Chance. Have fun with those and let us know what you think! Now let's move on to the new extras...
This is something that we’ve seen wanted by many, so we are introducing a ban system to Brotato! You can now ban up to 8 items in the shop during your run.
To unlock the ban system, you have to win a run in Danger 3 or more.
Once unlocked, the ban system can be toggled on or off in the Run Options. We believe banning items is the way to go and that 8 bans per run is the sweet spot we’re looking for. The ban system was heavily discussed in the beta, but we are still looking forward to knowing what you think about that.
Brotato was always made with trials and errors, and we want to keep it like that, a game constructed in collaboration with its community!
You can now have 3 saves in Brotato. You can copy your progress onto another profile or reset the save. You can also unlock every item, characters, weapons and Danger level on a save (which will deactivate the earning of achievements, you’ll still have to get them the hard way).
This allows you to have a fresh save and keep your old one, copy your ongoing profile to go endless while starting a run 20 on another profile, lend Brotato to your annoying sibling with different track progression, etc. Possibilities are endless (and by endless we mean within the bound of 3 profile slots)!
The Codex gathers the Progress menu and information’s about Items, Weapons and Enemies.
Think of it as a wiki in the game with additional info like how many times you killed a specific alien and more!
We wanted to improve readability and make it faster to associate what items/characters works well with what stats. That way, you can make quicker decisions.
If it’s not to your liking (we spent some time on it but fair enough) this can also be deactivated in the Accessibility menu by turning off "Show effects icons", the choice is yours.
Already in the works under the Blobfish era, the game now supports Mac and Linux on Steam. Have fun with it!
We’ve added a lot of visual elements that fall into different categories. Now, Chest and LvUp icons are merged when you gain more than 4 during a wave.
We made some tweaks to curse and flames VFX to better set them apart (and we felt it was pretty). Plus, now you can distinguish your cursed turrets from the regular one.
You’ll probably notice it quickly; we’ve added an animation for beginning and end of run. Look at that brotato, landing on hostile ground after his crash! Don’t worry, this animation does not make you lose any time (if speedrun is the kind of thing that gets you going).
Last but clearly not least, we’ve added a bunch of options for you to changes the colors displayed in the game. All of that is in the Accessibility menu. For every change and addition, see the patch note at the end of the post.
Our first major contribution to Brotato is now in your hands. Play it, tear it apart, break the game and tell us what you think!
Like we mentioned in our Q&A, we did build a “Legacy” branch for those who would like to keep the Brotato version from before any Evil Empire update. Find it under “Properties” of your game in the beta tab.
Cheers,
Dalloks and the EE team.
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Content
- Added 6 items and 1 weapon
- Each item has been added to its corresponding ban list:
- Fresh Meat → Life steal list
- Fruit Basket → Consumable heal list
- Will-o'-the-Wisp → Elemental damage list
- Ghost Outfit → Dodge list
- Added 7 challenges
Features
- Added an Item Ban System in the shop with 8 ban tokens
- Added a Save Profile System with 3 slots
- Saves can be reset or copied
- All content can be unlocked per slot
- Added a Codex Menu
- The Progression Menu has been moved into the Codex Menu
- Added Item Description tab
- Added Enemy Description tab
- Added Weapon Description tab
Misc
- Added sorting options to all inventories (pause menu, shop interface, codex menu, etc.)
- Added an option to disable item cosmetics
- Added an option to customize bonus and malus colors in descriptions, as well as tier colors
- Added an option to switch title screen key art
- Added Mac and Linux build support Changes
- Banned Piggy Bank and Crown from the item pool after wave 20
- Added Charcoal and Gnome to the Cyborg's banned item list
- Made Gobbler unable to be buffed
- Added stat icons to character and item descriptions
- Added more in-game FX: flames, cursed, and critical damage effects
- Added Chest/Upgrade counter (icons merge when you reach crate or level-up milestones in a wave)
- Added start and end of run animations
- Merged General and Gameplay option menus
- Added different visuals for structure spawning
- Added responsive controller icons in solo mode
- Added button shortcuts to lock or ban an item in the shop, reroll in shop, reroll or ban a crate and reroll upgrades
- Made small layout adjustments to the main menu
- Added a "Verify Challenge Unlocks" button in gameplay options menu for players who have missing items from unlocked items, even though they completed the challenges linked to those items. And also for players who have unlocked items, even though they haven't completed the corresponding challenges. More Tech-Related
More Tech-Related
- Changed when burning is applied — it now triggers just before damage is dealt. This makes Will-o'-the-Wisp proc when one-shotting enemies with a burning attack.
- Updated Godot version to 3.6.1 and GodotSteam to 3.30 Fixes
Fixes
- Fixed Japanese Kanji appearing in the Chinese localization
- Made blood particles more subtle
- Made Trees no longer emit blood particles when hit