March 2023 Playtest
We in Snow leaf studios are super excited to announce our second closed playtest for the Brew discord! Last playtest was in August 2022 and many things have changed since last time you guys were let into the alchemy tower! In this devlog we would like to show you guys a little glimpse of the things that you can expect to see next week!
Levels
Starting with the rooms in the rogue-lite part of the game. We have spent a lot of time polishing the already existing mechanology rooms, they have evolved a lot from their look in the old playtest! New lighting, many new props and hero assets combined with a new shader are some of the things we worked on.
On top of set dressing and lighting the old rooms, we have created two brand new rooms. So, right now there are five room layouts to fight enemies in! Each of these rooms are split into three sections, ending in a “Relic Chest” as a reward from finishing all sections!
Relics
We have also added the previously mentioned “Relic Chest”, this chest will spawn after a room is completed and will contain a choice between three relics.
Relics are Brew’s rogue-lite items, they affect your gameplay by giving you small upgrades in the run.
Relics were in some of the first iterations of the game, but we remade the system completely, on top of adding many new relics. There are still some unfinished things with them, like the in game UI or the art for the relics themselves, but we hope that you enjoy testing them out nonetheless!
Enemies
Every enemy in the game has gotten a texture update and some balance tweaks. But, the biggest enemy update are these guys in the picture below.
We have added two new enemies, a flying enemy that shoots potion bubbles at the player and a miniboss shield enemy that uses a laser beam and knocks the player away with their shovel.
These enemies have been played against in local playtests, but this is the first time we let our discord try their best against them! Good luck!
Potions
The biggest part of this update, the three new elements. Water, Storm and Ice. Each of these can be drunk and thrown to affect the player’s gameplay. Some might be a bit complicated for now, in the actual game, you will have to upgrade your potions to get them to the level they will be in this playtest.
Water
Two water ingredients combined together will give you a water potion. These potions are very reliable for when you need healing. By throwing the potion, it spawns a water wave that drags every enemy it touches along with it, inflicting it with the WET effect.
Drinking water makes the mouse be able to dive into the floor, turning invincible in the meantime. Every enemy the player hits while swimming, will be knocked back and inflicted with WET. While in the potion is active, the dash bar turns into a stamina bar and using “E”, will make the player cannonball, dealing damage to any enemies it hits.
Killing an enemy inflicted with WET, will have a chance of dropping a healing orb.
Storm
A fire ingredient combined with a water ingredient gives you a storm potion. Throwing it will create a storm cloud that automatically attacks enemies below it. If the player goes below the cloud, they gain the chain lightning passive. While below the cloud, the player’s basic attack will chain and hit multiple enemies at the same time.
Drinking storm gives the mouse a triple electric dash, this dash can be cancelled whenever and damages enemies in the way. It also gives you a secondary ability in the “E” key, this ability is an electric wave that damages enemies.
Ice
An air ingredient mixed with a water ingredient gives you an ice potion. When thrown, it spawns an ice wall that blocks enemy attacks. Once one of the wall’s pillars has taken enough damage, it breaks, dealing damage to enemies around it.
Drinking the ice potion makes an aura around the mouse, enemies will be slowed inside this aura will be slowed and eventually frozen if they stay too long. In addition, if the enemies get attacked the freezing effect will happen faster. On the “E” ability, the mouse can spawn a mini ice pillar that knocks back enemies and creates small cover from enemy attacks.
And that’s about it! We hope you guys enjoy the playtest! Remember to wishlist Brew on steam and send us your feedback on our discord! See you soon!