Good news, everyone: my third game Blacken Slash is now available! [previewyoutube=hRDuwvwoQnU;full][/previewyoutube] Go get it, you won't regret it! Also: a big thank you to all of you! This whole solo gamedev adventure only works because of you so thank you, from the bottom of my heart! https://store.steampowered.com/app/1746560/Blacken_Slash/ Have fun! Best, ehmprah

- Fixed caching for iOS and Android purchases for offline play - The restart button is now disabled for daily challenge games - Restarting a game will now keep the selected supercharge - The score bonus for unused mastery points is now tied to the amount of waves played so creating and immediately abandoning games can no longer be exploited to gain infinite XP - You can no longer abandon an already abandoned game for infinite XP

I fixed a little error in the score calculation bonus I introduced in the last patch.

Sorry for the long silence friends, I was busy working on the spiritual successor of Core Defense Blacken Slash might be something you like, so check it out and wishlist it: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1746560/

Added

Changed

Fixed

Added

• Added simple export / import for profiles
• Even though the mobile version has thousands of players, the game has only a handful of reviews so I had to add a rating prompt on iOS and Android ;-)

Changed

• Endless rewards now always appear in the same order
• The keyboard shortcut to cycle the game speed can now also be used to reroll rewards

Fixed

• Removed deprecated range stat from ability details
• Fixed color picker bug which would sometimes lead to a missing primary color
• Fixed the infinite mastery point exploit
• You can no longer submit scores to the daily challenge abusing the infinite mastery point exploit

- Daily challenge submissions no longer fail when using the *Rocket Pod* - Daily challenge highscore cache is now purged upon submitting your run

I've been a bit busy working on my next game, which will be announced today but of course I've also worked on Core Defense. Here's the new patch I hope you like it. Do share your opinion on it and let me know what you think!

Added

• Added brightness slider to the settings
• New tower *Rocket Pod*: Randomly shoots AOE rockets which slow enemies.
• New rare upgrade *Storage* for *Ion Cannon* and *Hammer*: Can reload multiple shots which carry over to the next wave
• New rare upgrade *Status Immune* for *Sunbeam*
• Added option to skip details while choosing rewards
• New players can now get a prebuilt maze to start with
• Purchases on mobile are now cached for a week, enabling offline access
• Added increase and decrease buttons for the difficulty selection

Changed

• All abilities have been reworked and now hit all targets on the map and require no manual targeting; *Radiate* now radiates enemies instead of spawning zones, *Explosive* only deals half the damage.
• You can now see the daily highscores (but not the details) before playing
• Reduced spawn rate for *Kamikaze* by 20%
• *Executioner Damage* upgrade stacks 15 >> 25, damage 12 >> 10
• Reduced XP necessary for level up by ~ 25%
• Increased settings slider size for easier interaction on mobile
• The game speed button is now visible during the build phase
• New games now have the last used mastery page preselected
• Rewards to choose from are now sorted by type
• Reworked M7: the angry mobs button was removed, instead the effect is active all the time when using this mastery

Fixed

• Fixed mastery point notification appearing after level 25
• Fixed an exploit where you could immediately finish the wave
• Overlays now close properly when you click below the close button
• Fixed description and details for *Less is More*
• The second core in *Duality* supercharge now properly has vision
• Damage dealt now is properly displayed again

Fixed UI scaling bugs on 4k displays

Changed

• Ability upgrade *Slow Amount* 20% 15% (fixes unplanned interaction with the new upgrade limit modules)

Fixed

• Kamikaze hitting your towers no longer count as escaped mobs for flawless waves
• The *Grandmaster* achievement now unlocks properly
• Particle effects now respect the game speed, reducing lag at higher speeds
• Fixed kill bonuses and cap upgrades: all kill bonuses are now applied *after* the wave and are applied retroactively

- Fixed softlock occuring sometimes upon losing a run

A proper patch is coming soon, but meanwhile this little update fixes a few annoying bugs introduced with the expansion update.

• Close targeting should no longer choose random non-flying mobs
• Unity supercharge no longer damages your units when damaging mobs
• Fixed endless modules duplicate rewards

The Mastery Expansion is live! Go get it and become a true Core Defense master! https://store.steampowered.com/app/1563040/Core_Defense__Mastery_Expansion/

Added

• Mastery: a permanent progression system with levels and mastery points
• Supercharge: optional difficulty modifiers on top of the normal difficulty levels
• Daily Challenge: daily run with fixed seed, difficulty and supercharge and an online leaderboard to show off your skill
• Overload 21-30: Added ten new difficulty levels
• Rainbow: after beating Overload 25 you can choose any primary color
• New tower Berserker: Loses health when attacking and deals percentage of maximum health as damage
• New mob Powder Keg: Deals considerable AOE damage upon death
• New mob Kamikaze: Flying mob which ignores walls and goes straight for towers or the core
• New achievement Master: Reach the maximum level.
• New achievement Supercharger: Beat each supercharge modifier.
• New achievement Pain Train: Beat the game on difficulty Overload 25.
• New achievement Abstinence: Beat Overload 25 without masteries.
• New achievement Groundhog: Finish a daily run.
• New achievement Apex: Finish a daily run with a score of at least 5000.
• New achievement Grandmaster: Beat the game on difficulty Overload 30.
• New module Reckoning: Gain 5% bonus score for this game.
• New module Common Stack: Increase the limit for all common upgrades.
• New module Uncommon Stack: Increase the limit for all uncommon upgrades.
• New module Rare Stack: Increase the limit for all rare upgrades.
• Added keyboard shortcuts for choosing and skipping rewards (1-5, Spacebar)
• New setting to disable damage numbers
• You can now hold the shift key to build multiple wall stacks at once

Changed

• Moved highscores to the compendium
• Run infographics now have color coded tower positions and rarities
• Removed the reward order from infographics for now
• The reset build button has a different icon and is now on the core
• Damage to cores or towers is now capped at 25% maximum health in endless mode
• Rearranged unlock thresholds for rewards
• Random zones no longer spawn on towers
• Reworked the range indicators for better legibility
• Reduced maximum amount of void zones from 10 to 5
• Increased endless health scaling
• Healer now grants all adjacent allies a 20% frenzy buff for 2s on hit
• Shield Generator now grants all adjacent allies a 20% frenzy buff for 2s on hit
• Sniper Damage upgrade no longer grants bonus damage, instead inceases kill bonus cap
• Less is more module now reduces reward options by 2 but grants extra bonus reward
• Endless Modules bonuses 1% 0.5%
• Boomblaster attack speed 0.5 0.4
• Boomblaster Speed upgrade stacks 5 3
• Lightning Speed upgrade speed 0.25 0.15
• Executioner Damage upgrade damage 9 12
• Sunbeam Damage upgrade stacks 15 20
• Hammerling all sizes attack speed 0.1 0.15
• Giant Kite damage 4 5
• Giant Sawblade damage 5 6

Fixed

• Mobs stuck at 0 health no longer occur when using the Cleaver
• Mobs split by the Cleaver now get their shield capacity reduced correctly
• The device's visual scaling setting no longer affects the game
• The add wall stack icon is now displayed in your chosen color
• The ion cannon rotation arrows are now displayed in your chosen color
• You no longer get a win streak warning when abandoning an endless game

Good news, everyone! The open beta weekend for the Mastery Expansion has begun! Right-click Core Defense in your Steam library, go to properties, select the betas tab and then choose the beta branch. To allow you to test all the content, you immediately have access to 30 mastery points without having to level up and beat all difficulties first. After the beta, your mastery pages will be reset, but you keep all progress. Please join the Discord server if you haven't already and do share your feedback with me! I can't wait to hear what you guys think about the expansion! Here's a list of everything that's changing with this update:

Added

• MASTERY: a permanent progression system with levels and mastery points
• SUPERCHARGE: optional difficulty modifiers on top of the normal difficulty levels
• DAILY CHALLENGE: daily run with fixed seed, difficulty and supercharge and an online leaderboard to show off your skill
• OVERLOAD 21-25: Added five new difficulty levels
• RAINBOW: after beating Overload 25 you can choose any primary color
• New tower BERSERKER: Loses health when attacking and deals percentage of maximum health as damage
• New mob POWDER KEG: Deals considerable AOE damage upon death
• New mob KAMIKAZE: Flying mob which ignores walls and goes straight for towers or the core
• New achievement MASTER: Reach the maximum level.
• New achievement SUPERCHARGER: Beat each supercharge modifier.
• New achievement PAIN TRAIN: Beat the game on difficulty Overload 25.
• New achievement ABSTINENCE: Beat Overload 25 without masteries.
• New achievement GROUNDHOG: Finish a daily run.
• New achievement APEX: Finish a daily run with a score of at least 5000.

Changed

• Moved highscores to the compendium
• Run infographics now have color coded tower positions and rarities
• Removed the reward order from infographics for now
• The reset build button has a different icon and is now on the core
• Mob damage to the core is now capped at 25% maximum health
• Rearranged unlock thresholds for rewards
• HEALER now grants all adjacent allies a 20% frenzy buff for 2s on hit
• SHIELD GENERATOR now grants all adjacent allies a 20% frenzy buff for 2s on hit
• SNIPER DAMAGE upgrade no longer grants bonus damage, instead inceases kill bonus cap
• ENDLESS MODULES bonuses 1% 0.5%
• Random zones no longer spawn on towers
• Reworked the range indicators for better legibility

Fixed

• Mobs stuck at 0 health no longer occur when using the Cleaver
• The device's visual scaling setting no longer affects the game
• The add wall stack icon is now displayed in your chosen color
• The ion cannon rotation arrows are now displayed in your chosen color
• You no longer get a win streak warning when abandoning an endless game

Good news everyone! I'm happy to announce the MASTERY EXPANSION for Core Defense is just around the corner, with an open beta weekend starting on March 5th. On March 19th the DLC will be released at a $4.99 price point with a 10% launch discount.

Open Beta Weekend

Mastery Progression

• Wave Preview: See which mobs will spawn in the next wave
• Angry Mobs: Enrage mobs for an extra bonus reward
• Corner Core: Moves the core into the bottom left corner

Supercharge

• Shootout: Only shooting mobs are spawned.
• Friendly Fire: Your units will hit each other.
• Rocketeer: Only Rockets are spawned.
• Speedy: Mobs are weaker but faster.
• Bossy: Every wave is a boss wave.
• Disabled: No ability rewards.
• Fragile: Don't let a single mob escape.
• Duality: Two spawners, two cores.
• Chaos: Random spawner locations.

Daily Challenge

Wait there's more yet!

• Five more difficulty levels: Overload 21-25
• After beating Overload 25, you can freely choose your primary color
• Five new achievements
• New BERSERKER tower: Loses health on attack but has insane scaling
• New KAMIKAZE mob: Flying mob which ignores walls and goes straight for towers or the core
• New POWDER KEG mob: deals AOE damage upon death
• Lots of bugfixes, quality of life changes and balancing

This patch fixes issues with the telemetry and fixes the missing option to turn it off in the settings.

This patch finetunes the new game speed and fixes bugs like attacks skipping frames on higher game speeds. If you notice any other differences, please report them!

Added

• Added new graphic for the void zones

Changed

• Changed the new game speed from 7x to 5x
• Removed the boss wave notification, instead the start wave button is now red for boss waves
• Switched from GameAnalytics to Firebase and changed the privacy policy accordingly

Fixed

• Fixed attack speed calculation / frameskips on higher game speeds
• Fixed missing attack animation for the Ion Cannon
• Overhealed health no longer disappears entirely upon damage
• Reload progress no longer displayed in build mode

I'm very grateful to be emerging from a mild Covid-infection and to be able to finally publish the changes I've been working on these past few weeks. As we're coming closer to the mobile release I've massively overhauled the game and added countless performance improvements! And as always there are other little improvements as well, so do check out the full patch notes below:

Added

• Added 7x game speed
• The game now tracks time played per run (at the top of the settings menu)
• The compendium now shows your fastest run record
• Added Speedrun achievement (win a run in under 10 minutes)

Changed

• Massively overhauled the game with countless performance improvements
• On top of those improvements you can toggle an energy save mode in the settings
• Moved the game info from the top right to the top of the settings
• Abandoning a game now show the game over screen and lets you see the stats
• When opening menus during a wave the game is now paused
• The first tower choice now always has a guaranteed uncommon and rare
• Slightly increased chance to roll ranged mobs
• Stingers range increased by 50%
• Updated several translations

Fixed

• Fixed issue where deleting profiles could result in a gray screen
• Achievement icons are now displayed in your chosen color

While Im working on the mobile versions mostly I still found a little time to address a few nasty bugs and deliver some balancing updates to everyones favorite new tower, the Cleaver. Stay tuned for the mobile versions though, testing will begin soon, so make sure youre on the Discord server if you want to be among the first to try those out!

Added

• A new tip now explains how to unlock the other colors

Changed

• Cleaver rarity common uncommon
• Cleaver can now cleave each mob only two times
• Cleaver now locked until you reached 25k cumulative score
• Panopticon rarity rare uncommon
• Sawblade damage 3 5
• Big Sawblade damage 4 5, actions per second 0.5 1

Fixed

• The game no longer asks for telemetry consent before youve created a profile
• The unlock screeen now properly displays rewards next to each other
• You can no longer drag extra walls out of void zones
• Random zones no longer spawn on void zones
• Loosing in endless mode now properly displays Game Over
• You can now unlock winstreak achievements on higher Overload levels than required

As usual after a big update like the last, some things need finetuning. This quick bugfix patch takes care of those!

Changed

• You can now choose whether to play with the new random zones in the settings; to not overcomplicate things for new players, you now have to manually turn it on in the settings

Fixed

• Random zones now spawn on walls
• The wall build overlay now immediately shows once you've stacked the maximum amount of walls
• The towers in the highscore graphic are now centered again
• Zones no longer profit from range bonuses
• Splitters now properly inherit health and scale from their cleft parents

It took a while, but finally it's there: the big content update with wall stacking, random status zones, void zones, a new tower, several tower and ability reworks and a few fixes here and there! I sure hope you like this update, but as always: do send feedback my way!

Added

• All overload levels now have an increasing amount of randomized void zones which restrict building and enemy movement
• There now are temporary buff and debuff zones appearing randomly every ten waves
• New mob Agitator creates frenzy zones on the path
• You can now stack walls up to 10 times, granting 1% bonus range per stack to the tower on them
• You now have an option in the settings to always show tower ranges

Changed

• All healing units and abilities now heal a percentage of the target's max health
• Healing against the core is now only 50% as effective
• Speed status effect has been removed, Frenzy now affects both movement and attack speed
• Slow status effect now affects both movement and attack speed
• Defiant no longer is immune to statuses, instead it can only have one status effect at a time
• Healray was reworked and can now overheal targets up to 100% additional health
• Radiate ability was reworked and now drops radiation zones
• Sniper was reworked, no longer gets a damage bonus for far away targets but now has a minimum range and gets bonus damage per kill
• The Core now has a normal health bar
• Ion Cannon Damage upgrade stacks 15 20
• When adjusting music and effect volume in the settings, you now get an instant preview while sliding

Fixed

• Profiles with names containing non-latin characters are now saved properly
• The game no longer softlocks when building your maze before picking your first tower
• On window sizes between 1280p and 1920p all UI elements should be properly sized again
• Changing the language while on the map while choosing a reward now shows the right button

A few bugfixes for the win streaks. If you've contributed to the Core Defense translations in the past or if you'd like to do so, please head to Localizor, a lot of the translations are missing translations for recently added and upcoming content!

Added

• You're now being warned when you're about to break your win streak by abandoning, rerolling or overwriting games from the home screen

Fixed

• Losing in endless mode no longer breaks your win streak
• Overwriting an ongoing game with a win streak from the home screen now breaks your streak

This is just a tiny bugfix patch while I'm working on the mobile versions and the big content patch coming in November.

Changed

• Updated Chinese translation
• Updated German translation

Fixed

• Your language setting is now properly loaded when starting the game
• On widescreen monitors rewards look like they should again
• Fixed status effect icons being displayed incorrectly sometimes

Over a month without a patch not the schedule I am aiming for but somewhat justified due to health issues. Also I've done a lot of work for the mobile versions, which are coming along nicely. But here's a long overdue patch for you with some balancing and bugfixes!

Added

• The game now tracks your win streaks
• New achievement Relentless: "Win 10 runs in a row."
• New achievement Unstoppable: "Win 5 runs in a row on Overload 10 or higher."
• New achievement Double Trouble: "Win 2 runs in a row on the highest difficulty."
• Core Defense now asks for your permission to send anonymous usage data for balancing and improvement purposes
• Repeater details now show the attack speed increase and overall limit for the kill bonus

Changed

• All difficulty levels have been reworked: all reductions for roll chances and reward amounts have been removed in favor of more difficult mobs
• You can now always start the wave without building all walls: now only towers have to be built to start the wave
• The description for the Singularity achievement now clarifies that abilities are not allowed
• Giant Kite damage 5 4
• Colossal Kite damage 16 12

Fixed

• The music is now properly looping (big thanks to Failix!)
• The ESC key now closes overlays without opening the menu
• Fixed softlock sometimes occuring when deleting profiles
• Removed obsolete tip regarding cooldown reset
• The endless button no longer appears when you die on wave 51
• Towers uncovering the fog of war now take range modifiers into account
• Abilities now play sound effect when used
• In windowed mode on Mac there now is a title bar to drag the window
• Fixed startup issue on Mac
• When loading a game saved while looking at the map during reward selection, the button now properly says "Claim reward" instead of "Start wave"

The endless mode turned out to be too easy and this patch is making it harder and brings a bunch of balancing changes and bugfixes. Please note that your highest wave record will be reset so we can set new records!

Changed

• Increased the health scaling for the endless mode
• The flawless bonus is now only denied if mobs escape
• Increased chance of rolling shooting mobs by 15%
• Removed Keep it cool module and enabled it by default
• Updated Chinese, German and Indonesian translations
• Giant Shielder shield percentage 15% 10%
• Melter default target preference is now random
• Disruptor rarity common rare
• Further reduced the maximum amount of explosion particles
• Reverted the health scaling nerf from last patch (back up by 5%)
• Hardened Core damage reduction 15% 12%
• Increased base health for all colossal mobs by 10%
• Added background for the reset build button

Fixed

• You can no longer gain the Unblocked achievement after gaining walls through core modules
• The game will no longer sometimes crash when the Sniper is destroyed
• Upgrades gained through Salvage are now discovered in the compendium
• Mob kills can no longer be negative and break the pacifist bonus and achievement
• The Registrar achievement no longer unlocks too early
• The amount of runs played is now properly counted again
• Tower deaths are now properly counted for the highscore graphic
• You can no longer drag walls which have a tower on it
• Fixed GSOD for mac users
• There now is a boss wave with the Colossal Penetrator

The first patch since the Steam release is finally done and I can't wait for you guys to get your hands on it! It's packed full of cool things, many of which have been suggested in the past two weeks so first of all: thank you very much for your invaluable feedback! With your help, this game is going to be amazing! There now is an Endless Mode, where you can see how far you can push it after defeating the final boss. There's a host of new buttons that help you do what you want to do and a host of new little gizmos giving you the information you need. I'm very happy with this update and I'm confident, you'll like it, too. Do tell if you don't or if something isn't working as it should I'll fix it as soon as I can. But without further ado, here are the full patch notes for version 1.8.0:

Added

• After defeating the final boss, you can now continue in Endless Mode!
• There is a new hidden achievement!
• Added Belarusian translation (thanks to )
• Added Turkish translation (thanks to rastabarkan, joker3111, Rheora)
• Added button to restart run to the ingame menu
• Added button on build screen to completely reset the build
• Added button on reward screen to toggle the map
• Added a delete button for inactive profiles
• The game over screen now has a button to get back to the main menu
• The skip reward button now shows a + sign for every skip bonus
• Healray now has target preferences
• Lightning Debuff new upgrade increases debuff on mobs hit
• Radiate new ability makes mobs lose 75% health over time
• Endless Damage module increases damage and stacks infinitely
• Endless Range module increases range and stacks infinitely
• Endless Speed module increases speed and stacks infinitely

Changed

• Updated several translations
• After defeating a wave you now immediately get to the rewards screen
• Reworked the boss bonus between two runs: now you get one bonus reward for each of the first three bosses you defeat
• The mob health scaling per wave has been reduced by 5% overall
• The mob health scaling is now linear between wave 25 and 50
• You can now swap towers by dragging them on top of each other
• You can now drag built walls to another position
• The reward order in the infographic is now color-coded by type
• The flawless bonus tip now mentions both health and shield damage
• The last chosen game speed now persists between runs
• The Compendium has gotten a big overhaul: upgrades are now clickable and the details for mobs, upgrades and modules now show a lot more stats, also during the reward selection
• Unit details now show the damage dealt for towers
• Unit details now show module modifiers for damage, speed and range
• Hardened Core damage reduction 10% 15%
• Hammer range 1.25 1.5 tiles
• Splitter no longer splits when hitting the core
• Defiant health 50 40
• Big Defiant health 100 80
• Giant Defiant health 300 240
• Colossal Defiant health 1000 800

Fixed

• Tower death cooldown no longer skips a wave in Overload 9 or harder
• You no longer gain the achievement Big Shot when mobs do over 1000 damage to the core
• Bastion, Bulwark and A-Mazing achievements now trigger for walls gained with Something From Nothing
• The game now uses the correct %APPDATA% path for the saves instead of the default
• The game now shows healing numbers for regeneration between waves
• The range indicator for towers now includes Reach bonus

Good news, everyone! After months of polishing and finetuning, Core Defense is now finally available on Steam! So what are you waiting for? Go grab your copy and blissfully despair at the game's difficulty! If you like the game, there are many things you can do to help:

• Play the game
• Write a review on Steam
• Retweet the launch announcement on Twitter
• Tell you friends about the game
• Post the game on your favorite social network
• Join our Discord and tell me your ideas for the game

Core Defense is part of the Steam Game Festival and I'm very happy about that and will celebrate the occasion with an AMA / developer chat via Discord. Join me and ask me anything about Core Defense, the project's history as a spin-off from the multiplayer tower defense game Coregrounds, or about making an indie game as a solo developer.

Core Defense is part of the Steam Game Festival and I'm very happy about that and will celebrate the occasion with an AMA / developer chat via Discord. Join me and ask me anything about Core Defense, the project's history as a spin-off from the multiplayer tower defense game Coregrounds, or about making an indie game as a solo developer.

Good news everyone! After six fruitful months in Early Access on itch.io, Core Defense will finally be coming to Steam on July 31, 2020. Thank you for being interested in the game, playing the demo, giving me invaluable feedback and ideas and for helping make this game what it is now! The launch date announcement comes with a new trailer: [previewyoutube=47SFM1lvpq4;full][/previewyoutube] Please help me make this launch a success by:

• Wishlisting Core Defense
• Tell your friends
• Tell your favorite streamer
• Tell your favorite gaming sites and blogs
• Retweet the announcement
• Play the game on launch day and leave a review

In Core Defense you will ...

• Enjoy hundreds of hours of challenging gameplay
  
• Play in short sessions of under an hour or binge for hours on end
  
• Discover different rewards with every run
  
• Explore many different playstyles and strategies
  
• Loose yourself in the addictive loop of reward, build, battle, repeat
  
• Blissfully despair at the many challenging difficulty levels
  
• Unlock dozens of quirky and elusive achievements
  
• Share exportable infographics about your runs

• OS: Ubuntu 12.04. Fedora 21. Debian 8 or later
• Processor: Dual Core 2 GhzMemory: 2 GB RAM
• Memory: 2 GB RAM
• Graphics: Dedicated graphics card
• Storage: 300 MB available space