For the first time, you can play with a different character. The current playtest build has a character select screen where you can pick from 4 characters, each with strengths and weaknesses.
The original character will be one of the base characters in the final game. It attacks for 40 damage, 5 times a second, and has a modest attack radius. This is where I want new players to start and discover the game.
I wanted an "accessibility-friendly" character for people who struggle to aim, like my older parents, my disabled brother, and even myself when struggling with RSI after testing this game for hours. I want those players to be able to play through the whole game and unlock all the levels and upgrades.
Wanda will automatically attack the nearest enemy or projectile. So no matter where you're aiming, you'll be hitting something. The trade-off is that its attack damage and attack speed are weakened, and you can't hit multiple enemies at once. This is countered by the amazing accuracy the character has (it never misses, unless there's no enemies on-screen).
This is a conversion of one of the Cursed Upgrades. The Potato cannot attack, but acts as a manager of a team of Baby Hands that do damage on its behalf. Enemies are frozen in place when you put the Potato on them, and Baby Hands prioritise those enemies, meaning you can order them around. You start the run with 2 Baby Hands and Mittens, which allows your Baby Hands to deal effects like poison and fire.
The biggest perk is that The Potato gets double upgrade levels. Every time you gain an upgrade level, you get a bonus one. This is a great way to build some powerful upgrades to balance the lack of direct damage.
Another Cursed Upgrade conversion. Does double damage and has a double-sized attack radius, but... the character itself can take damage from enemies. And if it dies, the wave is over. So you need to keep an eye on both your base's health bar and your hand's health bar. You need to be careful when picking up powerups to avoid getting clipped by emerging Mole Men and Blow Darts - the game has an extra layer of tension when playing as The Mortal.
The game previously had special black upgrades that would make the run much harder in exchange for a massive power boost. Like an optional challenge mode. I found that some of these were more like characters than upgrades, and were rarely selected by players due to their huge downsides. Worse still, I had to manage code to handle cases when players had multiple Cursed Upgrades active at once (the invisible Berserker Potato combo made my codebase a real mess).
I still like the idea of giving players the option of making the game harder, but I think there are better ways of doing that. Run-based games can have difficulty modifiers that players choose at the beginning of the run, or items that increase difficulty during the run. Cursed Upgrades were kind of like the latter, but went too far, wasting great characters on items that few players would use. I'd rather provide those options upfront.
So I've remove Cursed Upgrades for now and have started converting the more interesting ones to characters. The Potato (formerly Potato) and The Mortal (formerly Berserker Rage) are the first. I'll be converting more Cursed Upgrades into characters in the coming updates.