Hi everyone,

I've just published a new version of the game! There are, of course, a few bug fixes and quality-of-life improvements, but also two major changes to the core gameplay.

Spell

The spell upgrade is now a building that can be purchased, instead of a simple button on the main screen.
Why? Because this new approach fits better with the rest of the game—and it’s also less broken.

A few players warned me that the spell was too powerful. However, the real issue wasn’t the damage—it was that the spell was always available. All other buildings are random; you can’t just buy the same one over and over. But with the spell, you could.

Now, since the spell takes up space as a building, I might actually have to increase its power to compensate.

Growth

Growth costs were originally a pacing mechanic to encourage players to build more than just minion-generating structures. Each time your population increased, the population cost also went up.

However, it didn’t quite fit with the core loop. Population caps are a staple of base-building games, but I decided to move to a new mechanic instead: Upkeep.

Upkeep means you must spend resources over time to maintain what you’ve built. This encourages players to invest in their economy as well. It slightly changes the flow of the game—you now spend less money upfront, but you’ll have less income per wave.

What’s next?

If these two changes made the game a bit simpler, the next one might do the opposite.

I want to revisit digging. My goal is to remove the increasing cost per dig and instead introduce different rock types that cost more gold the farther they are from the lair. This will require redrawing the tiles, but it will also give me the chance to experiment with a new “fog of war” effect.

Currently, the tiles further away are already semi-transparent on top of a dark background. So in a way, there’s already a fog of war. But I’d love to make it slightly animated to bring more life to the scene.