Hey Rifters!
We are proud to release today's big update to Rift Riff! Below is an overview of everything that's new, plus a surprise mobile release, and a paragraph or two about what is next for the game and its developers.
Today's update is free for everyone who already owns the game and we'd like to ask everyone who hasn't left a review yet to do so on Rift Riff's store page. I know, I know, every Steam developer keeps repeating this, but it's really true that it helps in many ways – including, in part, motivating us to continue to work on the game. Thanks to everyone who already left a review; it really means a lot to us.
When we started working on Rift Riff, we made a point to make every tower we added to the roster bring unique gameplay abilities to the table, and the 5 towers we added with this update were no exception:
Boom: explodes when its health is depleted. Can be triggered manually, individually or as a chain reaction.
Firebreather: does damage over time, but also increases monster move speed.
Bait: pulls enemies towards it, allowing you to further adjust monster pathing.
Pylon: similar to the Obelisk, but with less health, and regenerates after a bit of inactivity.
Seeker: fires long range projectiles that hop to another monster after hitting one, doing less damage with each consecutive hit.
The 5 new rifts we added take you to 5 completely new worlds, each playable through 2 available scenarios. In some of the worlds, we put a new tower central to its design, while in others we focused on having a fun twist on the formula you came to expect after playing previous scenarios. As usual, the first scenario should be relatively doable, while the second is designed to be more challenging.
There's a lot more we added to this game, such as:
2 new monsters, who appear in the new scenarios in this update. The Sliver is a strong monster that briefly freezes when you hit it. The Tick is a healthy monsters that is also completely resistant to low damage attacks.
10 more challenges will test your understanding of the game's level design, the towers, and the monsters.
We further balanced the towers and enemies, mostly through various tweaks to upgrades.
A bunch of new music and character voice reactions were sprinkled throughout the game.
A few game-breaking bugs were fixed.
The full changelog can be found here:
https://steamcommunity.com/app/2800900/discussions/0/595148973628484603/
Aside from all the new content, we've also been improving the game's performance and interface to run well and feel native on phones and tablets, and today, finally, we are releasing Rift Riff on the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store. If you have a phone or tablet, grab the game here:
App Store (iOS): https://apps.apple.com/us/app/rift-riff/id6746967900
Google Play (Android): https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.adriaandejongh.riftriff
Rift Riff is 'try before you buy' on mobile, meaning you can download the game for free, play the first hour or so, and then unlock the rest of the game with a single in-app purchase. There's no ads and no tracking whatsoever.
The truth is that our work on Rift Riff will likely halt. Even though the game was received overwhelmingly positive, it hasn't reached as many people as necessary to make it financially sustainable for us to continue to work on it. The unfortunate reality of game development then becomes that everyone in Rift Riff's development team has to line up another project: another shot at making a game that may be more financially sustainable.
We may be able to add new worlds and towers and enemies in our spare time, or in between other projects, but there's nothing we can and want to promise at this point. We'd love to hear from you whether you want us to continue to work on Rift Riff, and on what. Again; hearing from players drives and motivates us, and knowing there is a high demand for content or features may push us to take the risk and invest the necessary months of development into it. Please leave a comment here or on our Discord.
Of course, we'll be here for maintenance, bug fixes, general support, and we're happy to answer all your questions. But for now, enjoy the new content, and talk to you later.
Happy Rifting,
Adriaan, Sim, Franz, Matthijs, and Professional Panda