Thanks to everyone who has bought and supported Terrorformer TD since it came out last month! We are excited to share the first planned update with the world, which patches both the Demo and Full Game to the same version (1.044). As mentioned in the last post, this patch mostly addresses the game's terraforming system and map generation algorithms, with a focus on increasing variety across game sessions and overall replayability.
Map erosion and growth has been greatly increased, with the battlefield changing more drastically from round-to-round and after each ring of spawn tiles has been closed. Players must now purchase packs of terraforming actions at the Science Shop like any other upgrade or tower unlock; terraforming actions each have their own currency and no longer spend from a common pool of Map Points.

1.4 Changelog:

Gameplay & Balance Changes:

• Excavate can remove Blocker tiles now
• Player can no longer Seal Spawn Tiles; instead they have a chance to Seal after each round (the higher the Terror level, the greater the chance)
• Sealing all Spawn Tiles in a ring still expands the map outwards, but the algorithm for doing so has been changed to prioritize creating more interesting map shapes as the game goes on
• Extend has been added as a Terraforming Action; adds a Path Tile to an empty neighbor of a map edge tile
• Shift has been added as a Terraforming Action; lets the player move Spawn Tiles (and any attached Spawner) to any Path Tile with a valid path to the player's home tower.

New Content & Other:

• Science Shop no longer pops up automatically after each round
• Wave Info window is now displayed by hovering/clicking a Spawner
• Enemy Info window can be displayed by hovering/clicking an Enemy
• Demo Version: grey out Achievements that require the Full Game
• Adjust / Improve Terraforming Actions VFX & SFX
• Give more space / focus to terraforming sequences so player gets a better idea of what is changing
• Add floating text before/after each round for effect

Bugfixes & Known Issues:

• Update project to latest Unity 2022 LTS to address Render Texture issue (home tower preview on new game screen) and Mac/Linux missing icons issue
• Address some issues with tower/game stats dictionaries missing entries when setting/getting values
• Escape key should behave more consistently across all open windows now
• NB: Tutorial tips are disabled for now

Future Planned Updates:

November (1.5):

• Custom Map Editor (Steam Workshop)
• Non-Roguelike mode (buy upgrades/unlocks directly)
• Real-time mode (timed preparation phase, can only pause game by exiting to menu)

December (1.6):

• Map editor updates (more control over available towers/spells/enemies)
• UI Updates (new game, bestiary, game over)
• More detailed in-game stats
• New Currency (Red Gems): spend from main menu to permanently boost stats across all matches

Exciting news: terraforming updates are coming soon to Terrorformer TD! Map generation algorithms will now generate more interesting, random map shapes, with map erosion and expansion playing a bigger part between rounds.
Spawners will now Seal randomly based on the terror level after each round, forcing the player to adapt to the changing map more than ever!
To assist in counteracting this new terrain-based threat, the player will gain access to two new Terraforming Tools: Extend will allow the player to create more map, by adding path tiles anywhere around the outer edge of the existing terrain.
Shift replaces Seal; players can now move Spawn Tiles around the map to any valid location.
To make terraforming choices more interesting, Map Points will go away in the next update, and each Terraforming Ability will have its own counter. Players will be able to purchase Terraforming Abilities at the post-round shop, similar to unlocking towers or upgrades currently. Watch this space for more information on coming Terrorformer TD updates or Follow the game to be notified when updates are released!

Today's the day! After 15 months of development, countless builds, and over 2,000 demo players, Terrorformer TD is now available to purchase on Steam for PC, Mac and Linux! Try the free demo, then jump into the full game right where you left off! Battle endless waves of monsters with 25 different towers to unlock and build, then customize your home tower using components you earn as you play -- all while terraforming the battlefield into the ultimate deathtrap for your enemies... It has been a dream to work on this game ever since tower defense mainly existed in custom War/Starcraft maps -- hope you all enjoy it! View the release build notes here.

Patch 1.03: Release Edition!

Bugfixes

• Properly localize Screen Resolution confirmation screen
• Ensure the tower/spell cost shown when buying or viewing upgrades always includes inflation
• Fix issue where some Perks would either not load from save or could load twice

Gameplay & Balance Changes

• Add Money -> Mana conversion option to Post-Round Store
• Set most achievements/perks to be disabled in the demo version

New Content & Misc.

• Add toggles for Screen Shake and Chromatic Aberration camera effects in Settings
• Add toggle to turn off developer Analytics in Settings
• Add Reset buttons for Settings and Player Progress
• Add minimum save file version system to prevent loading old saves from breaking the game
• Add Perks & content to Level 50
• Add 50 more tower upgrades for end-game players
• Add achievements for defeating the game's bosses

Known Issues

• Players with save games prior to Tower Defense Fest version will need to start a new game instead of continuing an existing one

Patch 0.36: Tower Defense Fest Edition

Bugfixes

• Beam & flame/bio towers should no longer jump around while firing

Gameplay & Balance Changes

• Stealth is now treated as an Enemy Status Effect; it can be removed by Lookout Towers
• Lookout Towers and Executioner Towers now hit all enemies in range with each shot (like the Curse Tower)
• Curse Tower final upgrade changed to Stun, penultimate upgrades to Even More Range/Speed
• Enemies prior to Round 15 have been slightly nerfed, to give new players a more gentle difficulty ramp
• All enemy debuff status effects have had their max strength raised, increasing the amount that multiple hits will affect enemies

New Content & Misc.

• Localization support has been added for the following languages: Chinese (Simplified), French, German, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese (Brazilian), Russian, Spanish (Traditional Chinese will be added prior to full game release)
• Localizations can be viewed at https://crowdin.com/project/terrorformer-td; let us know if something could be clearer!
• Hotkey remapping has been added to the Settings menu (sorry it took so long, lefties!)
• Enemies now have death animations
• More in-game feedback when performing base/map management actions (map tiles rippling, currency icons popping, etc.)
• Change map tile erosion VFX from purple crystal to smoke poof
• Higher tier achievements & perks have been added, with even more interesting and varied unlocks planned for the final release version

Known Issues

• Players with save games prior to Next Fest version will need to start a new game instead of continuing an existing one

Patch 0.33

Bugfixes

• Optimize audio source priorities to ensure sound is more consistent during frenetic sequences
• Change stats dictionaries to use larger datatypes for players with long session histories

Gameplay & Balance Changes

• Add 12 new enemies
• Add true flyer enemy ability (flies over player towers)
• Add stealth enemy ability (cannot be targeted directly)
• Change bosses to spawn at the end of the first enemy pack of the round (instead of the end of all enemies in the round)
• Rework towers with fixed firing length to be more consistent at all game speeds
• Add cost inflation to spells and towers; will now cost more the later the round
• Ensure older towers are moved/sold for the amount they cost at time of placement

New Content & Misc.

• Tweak lighting values at low/high terror levels
• Replace Leaky and Loose maps with Tundra, Desert, Princely and Sunset maps
• Add Blocker tiles to map spawning functions; cannot be terraformed, built on, or walked over
• Each map has its own percent chance of spawning Blocker tiles
• Split out Global Leaderboard to be one per map
• Optimize tower stats system to create 90% less garbage (especially important in mid-to-late game)
• Soften lightning tower sound effect volume to reduce clipping

Known Issues

• Flame/Bio Towers and Beam Tower appear to jump around when playing on higher speeds

Welcome back to our Meet the Towers feature, where we showcase and preview the 25 towers available in Terrorformer TD. The final branch to show are the Explosive towers. Explosive towers focus on slow, heavy AoE damage and crowd control; but do half damage against shields, and three-quarters damage against armor.

Explosive I: Mortar Tower

Explosive II: Rocket Tower

Explosive III: Barrage Tower

Explosive IV: Proton Tower

Explosive V: Robomber Tower

Patch 0.32

Bugfixes

• Fix tooltips not working on resolutions other than 1920x1080
• Fix enemy list in Wave Info window disappearing after round 45
• Fix spawner path to tower not updating properly after certain terraforming actions
• Ensure Elevate cursor properly turns red and plays error sound when path would be blocked
• Fix bug with Stats by Round window when towers have been sold

Gameplay & Balance Changes

• Certain damage types and status effects (like Executioner or Black Hole) no longer affect bosses
• Enemy info shown outside of the bestiary has been pared down

New Content & Misc.

• Very beginnings of localization support
• Splinter projectile sfx decreased for clarity when large amounts of projectiles
• Enemy Heal Self vfx removed for clarity when larger amounts of enemies
• Downsample all 3d sfx to mono
• Add ability to close building/casting menus
• Move Music menu inside of Settings menu
• Move Card Unlock Progress window inside of Post Round Store window
• Add ability to toggle HUD on/off
• Add VSync and Show Range on Hover options to Settings menu
• Add cost tooltip to towers and spells on bottom toolbar
• Lower Buildable re-targeting from every .05s to every .1s for late-game scalability
• Add Abandon Game button inside bestiary so that progress and XP is still earned without having to lose a doomed game
• Disable UI Ratio slider on non 16:9 resolutions; add tooltip

Patch 0.31

Bugfixes

• Fix incorrect fallback keyword for skybox shader
• Home tower will properly load XP when resuming a saved game
• Fix alignment of Others line in Bestiary window
• Fix dictionary errors in looking up stats by round
• Fix possible error with tooltip not refreshing properly
• Optimize tower targeting code for better performance at high game speeds
• Optimize Tile Elevate code for better performance when map is large
• Fix Gravity Tower using EMP Tower projectile
• Fix error where the Achievements Tooltip wouldn't properly clear after MouseOut, leading to it accumulating more and more child elements until the in-game buttons were no longer usable

Gameplay & Balance Changes

• All home towers have had Home added to their name to differentiate them in the stats windows
• Highlight own score on Leaderboards
• Show Highlight based on best round reached in a game mode on Game Over screen
• Lower maximum game speed to 3
• Change game speed increments to 0.25 from 0.5
• Add ability to change maximums through unlocks for game speed, maximum map points, card draw size

New Content & Misc.

• Enemy info in the Bestiary is now shrouded from the player until the enemy is encountered in-game
• Add mysterious details about Enemy color-coding past round 25 to Bestiary
• Replace Discord link with Demo Survey link on Main Menu
• Add more perks for increased starting health, money
• Add icons for Terror Level and Enemy Strength
• Add separate skybox colors for each map mode
• Add best round / score / current leaderboard rank to New Game Window

Known Issues

• Toggleable Perks are off for now

Welcome back to our Meet the Towers feature, where we showcase and preview the 25 towers available in Terrorformer TD. Fourth in line are Support towers. Support towers focus on helping other towers do more damage or gain better stats through Support upgrades; as their name implies, they're rarely the star of the show.

Support I: EMP Tower

Support II: Lookout Tower

Support III: Gravity Tower

Support IV: Executioner Tower

Support V: Toll Tower

Tune in to watch us play Terrorformer TD live on stream during Steam Next Fest!

Tune in to watch us play Terrorformer TD live on stream during Steam Next Fest!

This week's build brings a dozen new enemies with it, meaning the game has unique enemies up to round 55 now! These enemies feature new abilities such as Dispel, which clears all negative status effects (or debuffs) from enemies, allowing them to recover their full strength. Enemies such as Doctoro (the floating witch doctor head, because of course) and the fourth boss, Curvanxion, are capable of aiding their fellow enemies with Dispel. Certain enemies past round 45 will also have the ability to Disable Towers, necessitating their destruction via long-range means. The aptly named Offbirb and the fifth boss, Magnaxion, are capable of disabling player towers temporarily. Watch out!
Check out the portraits of the new enemies above, and see if you can defeat them in the latest Demo build!

This week's build brings the last of the game's planned features, a Weekly Challenge Mode that asks players how far they can get with a common starting loadout -- and features its own leaderboards. Each week, a new challenge will unlock with its own loadout theme (and probably a punny name, if we're being honest here). This week, the first challenge is Bombs Away! featuring the Robomber Home Tower, which spawns an adorable little flying robot who roams the battlefield, dropping bombs on enemies.
Try it out today in Terrorformer TD's demo! And stay tuned for next week's challenge: Fun You Pay Me -- featuring the Toll Home Tower, which rewards the player with random currency every time it shoots an enemy.

Patch 0.29a

Bugfixes

• Fix a hotkey issue

Gameplay & Balance Changes

• N/A

New Content & Misc.

• Continue to add more achievements. Feel free to suggest some!
• Change Health/Money Exchange to be one per click
• Add Weekly Challenges with their own Leaderboards
• Change Post Round Card Unlocks to let player choose from a set, rather than just get what they get

Known Issues

• Toggleable Perks are off for now
• Build Cost and Sale Amount don't match exactly for towers
• Ice Tower is probably a bit OP

Patches 0.28a/b/c

Bugfixes

• Fix $0 sale price on first round Tower built
• Ensure Application Settings are saved even if Settings window isn't closed
• Fix Towers Built / Enemies Killed By achievements not counting properly

Gameplay & Balance Changes

• Change Elevate to raise Tile in increments of 1 instead of 3; change Max Height to 10
• Increase Ice Tower Slow effect & splash size
• Increase Laser Tower firing speed

New Content & Misc.

• Add Progress Bars to Achievements Window; mouseover the bar for full details of unlock progress
• Add more Achievements based on different stat counters
• Revamp tutorial

Known Issues

• Tooltips can be a bit wonky at the moment
• Turn off Toggleable perks for now

Just a quick patch here and a thank you to the loyal Terrorformer TD community that's formed since the demo first became available last week. We've seen great engagement with the game so far, and according to Steam, some players even have as many as 10+ hours logged in the game in the <1 week it's been out! So, as a thanks to those players, we're bumping the Demo Level Cap up to 16, which should be enough to upgrade your Home Tower Base and Home Tower Targeting to Intermediate level. Try it out and let us know what you think!

Welcome back to our Meet the Towers feature, where we showcase and preview the 25 towers available in Terrorformer TD. Third in line are Energy towers. Energy towers focus on range and attack speed, and specialize in damaging Shielded enemies.

Energy I: Laser Tower

Energy II: Hunter Tower

Energy III: Splinter Tower

Energy IV: Beam Tower

Energy V: Black Hole Tower

Patches 0.26a, 0.27a/b/c/d/e

Bugfixes

• Fix bug where home tower weapon wouldn't properly clear on game load
• Fix bug where selecting a new tower or spell wouldn't change what was shown in the Info Window immediately
• Fix bug where enemy spawn list was always cumulative and didn't reset after each round
• Fix bug with Black Hole warp status not working
• Attempt to fix bug where player gets stuck in modal window such as Card Unlock Progress during tutorial
• Fix bug where map points not properly re-set when loading a game/hitting undo all
• Fix bug where bottom menu panel is re-set to base management phase when exiting to menu and resuming during enemy attack phase

Gameplay & Balance Changes

• Split out Unlockables into separate window from Achievements
• Change Enhancements to be Roguelite perks, rather than Loadout items to assign
• Adjust and rebalance Spell and Tower unlocks upto level 32
• Remove One-Round Boosts from Post Round Window; add Science->Health Exchange
• Add max tile height for Elevate terraform ability
• Change spatial partitioning for enemies to favor a more balanced spawn
• Add per tick regen to all 3 bosses

New Content & Misc.

• Tweak skybox and lighting transitions one more time
• Update main menu logo to higher res version
• Add Home Tower Preview to New Game window
• Add/change all Spells in-game; bring all 13 Spells into game
• Add new achievements based on Tower type
• Add more detail to Leaderboard entries
• Change Leaderboard Score formula to result in much more reasonable numbers
• Change Steam Cloud to use Auto-Cloud, rather than Cloud API calls
• Add before->after tower level in Info Window when Elevating Tile with Tower on top

Known Issues

• Post Round Window is blank when reopened during a loaded saved game
• Spell buttons are not re-enabled when exiting to main menu and returning to game during Enemy Attack phase

Welcome back to our Meet the Towers feature, where we showcase and preview the 25 towers available in Terrorformer TD. Second in line are the Elemental towers. Elemental towers focus on applying status effects to enemies, without a lot of concern for upfront damage. Elementals are masters of the Damage over Time (DoT) effect, whittling away an enemy's health even after it's out of the tower's range.

Elemental I: Ice Tower

Elemental II: Flame Tower

Elemental III: Lightning Tower

Elemental IV: Bio Tower

Elemental V: Curse Tower

Elemental Upgrades

In anticipation of our upcoming demo release, we'll be spending time during March highlighting each of the towers available in the game, how they work, and what they currently look like. First up, the Kinetic towers! Kinetic towers are your traditional bullet projectile-based tower defense buildables; they generally fire single rounds at single targets, doing medium damage at a medium rate of fire--they're meant to be the workhorse of most games.

Kinetic I: Gun Tower

Kinetic II: Chaingun Tower

Kinetic III: Sniper Tower

Kinetic IV: Shotgun Tower

Kinetic V: Railgun Tower

Kinetic Upgrades

We're excited to announce that Terrorformer TD playtesting is now open for the month of March! Join the playtest and enjoy a first-row seat as the game moves through stages of development on the road to a release later in 2024. We're looking for anyone willing to give constructive feedback, whether they're Tower Defense pros or newcomers to the genre! Sign up using the Steam Playtest link on the game's main store page, then join the Discord to discuss your experience with developers and other players. We look forward to building this game together with its fans!