Break the Empire news & patch notes

This patch makes sure that all achievements are counted correctly. Previously two wasn't counted when starting a new game. My bad! Best wishes and lots of love! <3 PS: I used the same version number for this one, as to not invalidate any saved games.

This little patch does the following: - Starting a last stand inside a castle won't trigger the sneak-inside-castle achievement. - When entering the elven castle, summons will follow you correctly. - Mouse movement (Hold button to move) will correctly trigger area transitions. - Blood orb does not leave a splat on solid tiles. (That was just plain ugly!) That is it for now! Big thanks for the feedback and sorry for the annoyances! =) Best wishes and lots of love! <3 //Mattias PS: If you like this game, remember to leave a review and help spread the word!

This patch adds the following: - Two new areas: Elven Capital and Elven Castle. (Available after Breaking the Empire at least once!) - Three new enemy units + Two new bosses. - 10 new achievements related to the new enemies and areas. - Hold button to move (default will be a side button on the mouse). - You can now change the cursor sensitivity when playing with a gamepad. This patch changes the following: - You can now rebind the default mouse buttons, and also rebind other keys to the cursor. (If you experience any issues or find some weird bugs related to this, please let me know!) - It's now easier to see the marked tile when trying to spawn blood elementals with Nosferella. - The screen shakes when the player is struck, adding some more juicy-danger-danger-feel. - End-screen does not display unavailable enemies: If you didn't play through Dwarf Mines, you will not need to see that you slayed 0 dwarf miners. This patch fixes the following: - If breaking the empire with Nosferella first, her legacy perk will NOT be missing. - The player should not be able to spawn inside buildings while playing 'Last Stand'. - Damage related achievements are checked with all spells. (Previously 'circle spells' like Nosferella and Burnie has), didn't register. - You can start the game/go next by pressing spacebar after selecting New Game. - If empire dogs return as spirit animals (Drunh'Ko passive skill) they will fight for the player. That is it for now. As always: let me know ASAP if this causes anything unforseen! A billion thanks for all the support, feedback and bug-reporting! It means the world to me! <3 If you like this game: please leave a review and spread the word! Best wishes and lots of love! <3 //Mattias

This patch does the following: - Vampire fledglings will now inherit any relevant trait when 'born'. So go on: create those gigantic new born vampires! - Nosferellas bite-leap have a slightly larger hitbox. - When standing on flowers and having the relevant passive skill, Drunh'Ko will glow mana-blue, highlighting that his mana regen is more powerful. - Fixed a few typos and made some clarifications. (Like mentioning that you can reforge serveral items at once, at the ellforge*) - A few performance improvements. - Items "spark" more to highlight them better. A billion thanks for all the feedback and support! <3 Best wishes and lots of love! <3 //Mattias *Yes, it is wellforge, with a W, hence it is a magic well which act as a forge. =)

This patch adds the following: - Nosferella! A brand new character, a vampire, with 6 new active skills and 6 new passive skills. - 5 more achievements! - One more legacy perk, which will be unlocked when breaking the empire with Nosferella. - A new target setting: attack furthest. This patch changes the following: - When cursor aiming, the exact area and spot will be better highlighted. - The base code for tile-related functions has been improved for better overall performance! - Allies move around less, if close to the player. - Dogs have less psychic armour. - Color in certain menus are now clearer. - Split up the new game menu into two seperate pages, to avoid overwhelming players with info and make the game more readable in lower resolutions. - Improved Graethal's zombies and skeleton archers. They level up better. so to speak. - A little flashier victory screen. This patch fixes the following: - Show what will increase on first spell slot as well, if the player has one or more active skillpoints. - Menus (or the minimap) should no longer disappear off screen when changing resolution or switching into windowed mode. That is it for now! As always: should this patch cause anything unforseen - let me know ASAP! I am ready for hotfixing! A billion thanks for all the love, support, feedback and bug reports! It means the world to me! =) Best wishes and lots of love! <3 //Mattias EDIT: Made two fixes and uploaded them under this version: Nosferella could get stuck if dashing off screen, and one achievement didn't trigger when it should have. Thanks for reporting! EDIT II: Another achievement, Fields of Blood, didn't trigger properly - my bad! Fixed that!

So woooooohoooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 1.0 is finally here! After many months of polish, fixing and trixing, listening to feedback, and adding new content, the game has now left Early Access. I hope that this version is stable enough (it has been tested thoroughly), but should there be any issues: let me know and I will fix it ASAP! I don't really have much to say - I hope that the game speaks for itself! =) I also hope it gets some more attention ;D I really can't thank you guy enough! A billion thanks for your support and feedback! This game got a rough (perhaps deservedly so) start, but with your help it has come a long way! There will be more content added, of course! I still have a few characters I want to add, some new levels, items, etc. So stay tuned! And as always: If you like the game, please share it with your friends and leave a review! =) Best wishes and lots of love! <3 //Mattias

This patch makes more of the text prettier and readable, fixes a few typos and corrects some info that was off! Best wishes and lots of love! <3 //Mattias EDIT: Oh boy, important fix! I patched the game again under this version number because the big patch a few days ago removed almost all projectile-released sound effects! My bad!

This patch does the following: - Updates the main background (I have updated the store page assets as well). Burnie's face looks better, a little more vicious and less derp. - Text in menus have some displaced shadows, making them prettier and easier to read. - Added links to Discord and my other games on the main page. - Fixed a little issue with invisible inaccessible tiles near well forges. - A few other preperations for leaving Early Access! (Which will happen very soon!) Best wishes and lots of love! <3 //Mattias

This patch does the following: - Celestial Guardian can't ice shatter or be destroy in such a way that it prevents its 'final move'. - Acid will not lower fire armor for Burnie nor ice armor for Blizzie. - Demon hunters armor fixed, no 100%, and those dealing sharp damage will not have high armor against ice, that was just a miss from myside! - Greatly improved Blizzies ice block. Its delay is less, it gains more hp per level and is cheaper over all. - Items and drops are always outlined, making them easier to spot. - Drunko's poison thorns now deal damage to buildings as well. - Fixed an issue in which certain death causes did not display run time in Last Stand. - Added special text if 'winning' Last Stand. Best wishes and lots of love! <3 //Mattias

Before all details: After playing this latest version - do you think the game is ready for 1.0? Is it worth the 5 dollars? Stable and balanced enough? Let me know! (To be perfectly clear: there will still be more content added after 1.0, but is this game ready to leave Early Access?) This patch adds the following: - A new challenging enemy in 'Last Stand': Demon hunters! They come in four different versions: explosive damage, acid, sharp, or ice! - An epic, ultimate boss which appears after 20 minutes in 'Last Stand'. - 5 new achievements! - Acid tiles, damage and status effects related to this. (Acid lowers armor for 20 seconds) - A new soundtrack called 'Tread Carefully'. - Added a magic-melee sound effect, much more suitable. - Added the new assets as main menu background. This patch changes the following: - Spells will auto-attack cursor-selected buildings. Minions as well, if no other target nearby. - Holy mothers can only raise a maximum of five units at once. - 'Last Stand' mode has been greatly balanced. - Drunh'Kos 'Buzzed bees' greatly improved. - Castle looks prettier, furniture and statues spawn much more orderly. - Elementals count as 'minions gathered' as well. - Added kills + minion stats to default UI, at the bottom of player stats. - Hovering with cursor over spells will automatically show that descriptions + stats. - Greatly increases Graethal's poison immunity. - Balanced/lowered the extra spell cost for many items. - Craiga's movement spell now gets wider area with each rank but no longer strikes the same unit multiple times. - Reactions will not 'ripple' as far, attracting less new hostiles. - Critical- and damage perks are now correctly applied to skeleton shards. - Improved enemy AI if ranged and behind wall. - Ground fire damage increased from 3 to 5. - General boss moves faster. - Burnies dash is balanced and improved, same with Blizzie's movement spell, and Graethals. - 'Internal combustion' meta perk fires are greated more tightly together. - Burnie now starts with 50% armor to explosive damage. - Halfling mayors are added to 'Last Stand'. - Items which give health or mana from kills, give twice as much as before making them more useful! - Blunt damage affects attack speed much less, so it's no longer possible completely stun enemies in melee. - Holy beings (healers) will heal slightly less. (From 12.5% of max health down to 10%, but never more than 100 hit points.) This patch fixes the following: - Fixed an issue in which corrupted save files would cause the game to crash on start. - Legacy perks are now saved correctly! - Craiga's meta perk no longer blinking constantly at times. - Cain's mobility spell cuts mana regen in half, as it should. - Highlights targeted buildings correctly. - Craiga's moon shards no longer hurts friendly units. - First controls option was aligned wrong. No longer! - Wellforge ingame spawning looks better, pillar no longer floats over pits. - Conversion bar on bosses adjusted. - Removed one rather jarring sharp-dmg-vs-building sound effect. - Linked spells menu no longer goes off screen. - Legacy items in the main menu will not go off-screen if too many; instead, they align themselves in rows. - Fix a weird camera jank when clicking the right controller. - Fixed an issue which if you switched area while slowed, and then remained slowed forever. - Fixes wild-repeated stone fists facing the wrong direction. - Improved several sound effects. - Fixed issue when using escape to leave sub menus and projectiles started moving. I think that is it for now. As always: let me know if this patch causes anything unforeseen and I will fix it ASAP! A billion thanks for all the support, feedback and bug reports! <3 Please share this game with your friends and leave a review! Best wishes and lots of love! <3 //Mattias EDIT: Made a few more fixes under this version number: two crashes less, Cain's healing spell balanced (not as hefty increase per level), and wild repeats are not totally random but instead follow the previous projectiles general direction.

This patch does three things: - Removes a game-freeze which happened when trying to summon in the middle of a dash over unavailable terrain. (Big thanks for the many and clear details on that bug-report!) - Legendary perks are now optional, to you avoid unwanted builds - you can just click "Done" without selecting any. (Great feedback, which might seem obvious but was totally lost on me until it was pointed out) - Slain royal wraiths do not add to 'minions lost'. Best wishes and lots of love! <3 //Mattias PS: If you like this game, remember to leave review and recommend it to your friends!

First of all: This patch does add controller support, but since I am not much of a controller player myself, please give me feedback! Now on to the usual: This patch adds the following: - Unlockable meta-progression perks, one rewarded by breaking the empire with each character. However, any character can choose these when starting a new game. They will be very varied and can alter the gameplay a lot! - As mentioned above: Controller support! This patch changes/balances the following: - 'Last stand' now requires that you first break the empire with that character. - Greatly balances a few spells and perks, most noticeably: Craiga's stone elemental and moon shards, Graethal's venom breath, Blizzie's ice on impact, and Burnie's healing when standing in fire. - It's now much easier to spot the castle entrance through the map. - Ensures all attacks have a crit chance. This includes movement spells, circle spells and a few more which previously could never crit. - Push-damage against terrain has been doubled. - Buildings will create less rubble when destroyed. This patch fixes the following: - Corrected the reminder popup. - UI can no longer be hidden in main menu. - Wraiths now have correct idle animation. - When changing resolutions, menus should not disappear off-screen sometimes. - Maybe less rubble from buildings. That is it for now! Many balances remain and with the new perks, more will probably be needed. As always: If this causes any new issues: let me know ASAP so I can fix it right away! And finally: A billion thanks for all the feedback and support! Remember to leave a review to help this game grow! Best wishes and all the love! <3 //Mattias EDIT: Uploaded a new version under this version-number. It fixes an issue in which the game got stuck at an unclosable menu.

This patch does the following: - Militias nerfed! Their member-amount has been cut in half, which hopefully offers a challenge while not being overwhelming. - No health regen when stuck inside blocks (like mountains) or while drowning. The health lost will also be percentage based. Previously, with enough hp-regen, the player could "drown" forever. - It is now easier to notice when minions can't be spawned due to minion limit. The icon will turn red and shake a little. - The tutorial has been slightly improved and information about meta-progression through achievements has been added. - Explosion in water close the map edged caused some glitchy auto-tiling. No more! EDIT: Made a fix so player minions are counted correctly in Last Stand mode. As always: a ton of thanks for the feedback, keep it coming! Remember: this is early access because I need your help! If you like this game: please leave a review! Best wishes and lots of love! <3 //Mattias

I am looking for feedback - so please don't miss the final paragraph! This patch adds the following: - A new game mode, 'Last Stand', with 4 unlockable achievements. (A very difficult game mode!) - In campaign (the default game mode), you can now encounter militias - a small horde/army attacking you. +1 new achievement related to this. This patch changes the following: - Mana regen and HP regen are now percentage-based, greatly balancing the game and deepening the choice between a bigger pool (which now also increases the percentage-based regen) and increasing the percentage itself. -You can now equip and unequip items when interacting with in-game wellforges, making the experience much smoother. - Cobble and street tiles now have added particle effects when destroyed. - Dogs have slightly less psychic resistance. - Graethal's 'Sharp Bones' perk is greatly improved. - Many balance changes to Craiga—more starting HP and longer range. There was an issue with the 'Rock Solid' perk, where fists passing through enemies rarely hit another one. That perk has also been improved. Her base spell also travels faster and is slightly cheaper. - Stone rubble and rocks have had their contrast increased, so they should be much more noticeable. This patch fixes the following: - Fire elementals no longer get stuck randomly. - Clicking menus now properly pauses and unpauses the game. - Friendly ranged units now properly use ranged attacks against buildings. - All dead units now draw beneath the living. - It no longer incorrectly states that stone elementals cause fire damage. - Graethal's 'Wraith' spell now costs mana as intended. - Wraiths now fade more smoothly—no more ugly transitions. - Flyers have had their shadows adjusted for a better, more natural look. As always, tons of thanks for your support, feedback, and bug reporting! It means the world to me! This game is finally getting more attention, which just warms my heart endlessly. Last but not least: I want feedback! My initial plan was that 'Last Stand' should be unlockable, requiring the player to first defeat the emperor first with selected character. What do you think of this? Some might want the option from the beginning, but the game mode is very difficult, so new players might be frustrated, wondering why they don't last longer. Anyways, please try it out and let me know what you think! Best wishes and lots of love! <3 //Mattias EDIT: Local militia spawn chance was to low, so I fixed that and patched the game under the same version number.

This patch removes a bug in which objects in front of the player stopped fading occasionally. This has been fixed! Best wishes and lots of love! <3 //Mattias

Last patch caused a highly likely crash when switching between areas. My bad! Thanks for pointing this out and please accept my apology! Best wishes and lots of love! <3 //Mattias

This patch adds the following: - 5 new achievements! - An alternative start to your quests: start by invading a peaceful halfling hamlet! Comes with new enemies and a new boss. - Enemies can now have two new traits: 'sneaky' and 'holy'. Sneaky npcs are tinier, faster and deadlier, while holy npcs glow purple/red and heal those around them. - Each character's base stats are now visible when choosing characters. - Smoother area to area transitions with a little text. This patch changes the following: - Shadows look a lot better and their direction will vary throughout campaigns. - Water looks better and is more colorful. - When hit, the player flashes white briefly as well, highlighting damage. - Damage pop-ups are briefer but can last longer when the damage is high. - Legacy items will more clearly indicate that they are brought along. - Cain's paralyzing gaze no longer works on towers. It also increases by 2% per rank instead of 1, but freezes for 3 seconds instead of 4. - Craiga has a longer and a little better death animation. - In-game Wellforges give items directly into the inventory, so no need to unpause to see the new item, etc. - New items flash once when the inventory opens. - Improved road generation. - Craiga's intro scream was still too jarring, so it has been softened. - Craiga has more armor when starting. This patch fixes the following: - The map should no longer sometimes 'darken' and fade away, losing your exploration progress. (If this still happens, please let me know!) - Buildings and trees should no longer flicker between being faded and not. - Units spawning from buildings will spawn as hostile and start attacking the player faster. - Paralyzed units will no longer vibrate despite being dead. - The critical damage now works as intended. (The chance correlates to the description and level) - 'Lush glade' no longer stuns allies. - Gets rid of crash which occured when right clicking on an empty storage slot when using a Wellforge. - When Graethal repeatedly tries to spawn minions on stone, the 'nope-sound' won't play as frequently and there will be a notification. That is it for now. As always: should this patch cause anything unforseen - let me know asap! I am very ready for a hot-fix! A billion thanks for all the feedback and support! Finally: please leave a review and recommened this game to a friend or two! Best wishes and lots of love! <3 //Mattias

This patch makes sure that in-game wellforges are saved correctly to avoid future crashes. Apologies if anyone (other than yours truly) experienced those crashes! Best wishes and lots of love! <3 //Mattias

This patch does the following: - Several performance improvements. These will be most notable when the map is cluttered with lots of corpses, and the game should not experience nearly as big FPS drops as before. - Fixes a small issue with "dmg/mana" appearing to decrease with the next lvl, despite not. - A few typos fixed and some added clarifications. - Graethals Necrowarp attacks trees as well. - Tile-attacks (ice and fire) where checked twice, causing them to be overpowered and unbalanced. Best wishes and lots of love! <3 Remember: leave a review if you wish to help this game grow! //Mattias

This patch adds the following: - Enemies can now drop Health- and Mana potions. - Wellforges can now be found in-game. - Two new item effects: increased damage for a specific damage class, and gain mana/HP on kill. - Adds one new song to the OST. This patch changes the following: - Many of the base attack spells were horribly unbalanced - actually becoming more costly (damage/mana) per rank. They have now been balanced, and the damage/mana will increase when leveling up. (Big thanks to ShellBeachHun for pointing out this mistake !) - Attack spells now have additional info in the spellmenu: Damage/Mana. - Mana and Hp are maxed when switching area. Any negative effects are removed as well. - Finding 'fun and easy-to-use' items is now less rare. - Many other spells have been balanced as well. - The universal skills which adds mana and health now adds much more, making them more of a valid choice. - The universal skill for critical hit is now much better. Crit chance starts at 3% and is improved by +3% each rank. Minor fixes: - Got rid of overlapping text in Satyrs spell menu. - Added more variety to the UI-map: different colors for different buildings, etc. - Destroying a non-empty building will spawn wounded units. - Added a missing sound effect for when fire elementals die. - Easier to pickup stuff. (Items move faster towards the player and requires less distance to be picked up) - Corpse explosion on Ol' Stumpy doesn't result in immovable tiles. - Graethal warp landing has nicer and softer sound effect. I think these improvements greatly increase the pace and feeling of the game. Let me know what you think! And as always: a billions thanks for the feedback and support! Should this patch cause something unforseen: let me know! If you like this game: share it with your friends and leave a review! Best wishes and lots of love! <3 //Mattias

Wraith can now be summoned from corpses, as intended. That spell was broken, my bad! Thanks Rublz88 for letting me know! Best wishes and lots of love! <3 See you next year! =) //Mattias

This patch does just that: one crash less. This one was related to 'Unable to find instance for object index', while doing a distance check. MERRY CHRISTMAS Y'ALL! <3 //Mattias

Merry Christmas! Happy new year! All that jazz!! Here is what this patch adds: - A new character: Drunh'Ko the Satyr! So that's another six spells and six passives for you! He will make flowers bloom and blood be spilled! I think he is really fun to play, so please try him out! - 5 more Steam achievements! Here is what this patch fixes: - Added missing effects to the Wellforge. - Adjusted minion behavior to avoid attacking targets that are too far away. - Damage numbers for melee and ranged attacks are now color-coded to show what the damage class is (in the unit-info panel). - Fixed an issue where auto-spawning minions bypassed their cost. - Improved lighting effects for beings, making them visually consistent, following targets, etc. - Cain's healing sound no longer stacks excessively. - Updated the Necroblast hit sound effect. - Graethals passive skill that raises wraiths, are no longer limited by the maximum minion count. Its base chance per rank is now 3% instead of 2,5 and Wraith also fly, so they can cross water, etc. - Wraith skill now scales 3% per rank (up from 2.5%) and uses the flyers' grid. - Expanded attack settings for Burnies' Fire Rain ability. - Enhanced movement of XP pop-ups for better readability. (They move closer to the player at a more consistent pace, hopefully!) - Fixed missing outlines on beings when loading saved games. - Resolved an issue where Craiga could get stuck and take terrain damage after exiting a dash. - Craiga is now called 'the Geomancer', instead of Stonemancer. - Casting tile-creation items is now less spell-costly. - Fixed two memory leaks that caused stuttering during extended gameplay sessions. That is it for now. I really wanted something new for you guys before Christmas, so I hope you enjoy this patch! As always: should this cause anything unforseen, let me know - I will try to fix it ASAP! The game is picking up some speed, which is great, so big thanks for spreading the word! Please leave a review if you like this game - it really helps! Best wishes and lots of love and happy holidays! <3 <3 <3 //Mattias

Yepp, like the title says: - Redesigned to logo, I really like this one more! - Added another song to the OST. Best wishes and lots of love! <3 //Mattias EDIT: It also fixes a crash, at least I am pretty sure it does!

This patch does the following: - Improves road generation, ensuring there are no "gaps" on relevant maps that hinder the player from progressing. - Fixes an issue with buildings spawning partially outside the map. - Towers should no longer spawn overlapping each other in villages. - Includes a few aesthetic improvements to generation. Best wishes and lots of love! <3 //Mattias