Here is what has changed in Voltwood since our last news post.
New enemies, built from parts
- Enemies are no longer drawn from a fixed list. Each wave in a map's rotation is built from its own health, speed, armour, shield and size, and wears its traits on top. The same map number still deals the same waves for everyone.
- Enemies have new bodies: eight machine families built from armour pieces, with legs, tracks, rollers and hovering hulls that move the way they are built.
- Traits are easier to read in a fight. A small marker over each enemy shows its health and its most important traits, auras show as fields on the ground, and healing, blinking, adapting and blocked status effects each have their own short visual cue.
- Select an enemy to see every trait it carries explained, with a countdown for the timed ones.
Everything open from the first wave
- Every tower module, both module slots, every Core module, every hero and every upgrade level is open from the first wave, so two modules can share a tower right away.
- Prices change from map to map. Each module, Core module and hero costs a set number of credits on a map, the same for everyone who plays it, so every map makes different choices cheap or expensive.
- INVEST raises the credits you earn at the end of every wave, and four global upgrades sit beside it: tower Damage, Fire Rate and Range, and Core Plating. Their prices change from map to map, the same for everyone who plays that map.
Faster between waves
- Every run plays at one speed, with no pause or speed buttons, and the build window between waves is 20 seconds on every difficulty.
- Ready early? Press SKIP WAVE, Space or G to start the next wave now.
- Tower upgrade hotkeys are now 1, 2 and 3, so W, A, S and D always move the camera.
Fusion, rebuilt
- Every pair of modules a tower can carry now fuses into a named combination, and every fusion says exactly what the tower does.
- When both modules are attack shapes (Splash, Chain, Ricochet, Multi-shot, Melee or Fire), the first is the tower's shot and the second fires from every enemy that shot reaches.
- A tower's second slot opens a fusion picker: every fusion it can make, the tower's stats before and after, and a live preview against a pack of enemies.
- Three new modules: Multi-shot fires at three enemies at once, Melee strikes point-blank for 300% damage, and Locked Direction fires along the direction you choose. The Fire Reactor is now a flame stream that burns every enemy in its line.
Par is the same for every player
Par now comes from the map alone, so everyone on a map chases the same number, and a better maze earns kills above par instead of raising par. Par also accounts for the enemies each wave sends, including tougher ones from difficulty settings, and it shows on the big countdown when each wave starts.
Each wave now puts Core health at stake: twice the wave number, shown in the Battle Plan before the wave starts. Miss par and you lose the share of the stake you missed. A near miss costs a little, a big miss costs a lot, and your shield pays first.
The Core runs the board
- Power is shared across the whole board, with no wiring. The Core's built-in Power Module supplies it, and you upgrade it for more. If the board draws more power than it supplies, the whole board browns out together and every tower fires more slowly.
- Core modules fire on their own cooldowns, cost nothing to run once installed, and hit for a fixed base damage that you raise by buying levels.
Building the maze
- The Quarter Wall: a wall block half a tile on each side, up to four in a tile. Two side by side close an edge; a single block leaves a gap enemies can squeeze through.
- Teleports always work. An enemy that walks onto a teleport's entrance always comes out of its exit, and you can no longer wall off an exit.
- No enemy flies any more: every wave walks the maze you build.
Heroes
Heroes hit for fixed damage that you raise with Hero Firepower levels at the Hero Barracks. Their abilities recharge three times faster, and heroes and champions now fight beside the enemies they target instead of standing on top of them.
Learning the game, and watching it back
- The tutorial is now three short stops: map zones, enemies and their counters, and building a maze. You can skip it or replay it any time.
- Every run you play from its first wave is recorded. Watch it back or share it from the Strategy Library.
- One thing to know: saves from before this update no longer load, because their waves would change under them, and a recording plays back only on the build it was made on.
Thanks for following along. Wishlist Voltwood and follow the page to hear about the next update.