The first update to the Kinghold Demo has just gone live, and it focuses on making the game feel faster, smoother, and more responsive.
The king's movement and attacks have been overhauled.
This isn't just an increase to speed, but the addition of an entirely new mechanic. By pressing CTRL or SHIFT, your king can now roll across the map with a burst of speed, getting you to where you're needed most.
Rolling uses 'action points'. Action points replenish at a base rate of one per interval, but can also be found in the form of pickups on the map. Look out for a new perk too which will increase the number of action point slots.
The king's strong attack now also uses action points, no longer costing gold.
The king's attack animations have been reworked for a more responsive feel. They are now quicker and also include 'jump attacks' to launch you into incoming waves.
Auto-attacking has been refined and will now trigger more reliably when the king is stationary and within range of a target.
With all of these improvements to the king, more enemies will now spawn across all difficulties in order to maintain the same challenge.
Card placement has been reworked.
Following player feedback, card placement has been refined. There are now three placement modes to choose from:
Quick Click - Hover over a card, rotate it with TAB or RMB, and then deploy it with LMB.
Positional Click - Choose the placement direction by hovering to the sides of the card, then deploy it with LMB.
Drag & Drop - Drag cards into position with LMB, rotate with TAB or the mouse wheel, then release to deploy. The Drag & Drop mode has been reworked for a smoother and more responsive feel.
Quick Click is now the default mode, but you can switch between all three at any time in the Settings menu.
A new map.
And finally, to make the most of the new rolling mechanics, a second playable map, Goblin Plains, has been added to the demo, complete with its own leaderboard.
Thank you to everyone who has played the demo and shared feedback so far. The recurring comments around movement and card placement were especially useful in shaping this update, and I hope these changes make the game feel much better to play.