Quite a few people have played Alien Cow Rampage by now, and were kind enough to give some feedback- I am glad that the original release is almost bug-free and can be considered a stable base. But in terms of balance it is clearly not even close to “perfect”. What’s more, some of the stuff I put into the game makes relatively little sense when I look at it now. So a rather large update is in order and I am working my way towards it. Here’s a few of the things that will be adressed.

Better Combat

Combat makes a large portion of the game, yet it is rather simplistic. Also, while there are four classes, none of them feel really different in combat- they all need to rely on the same tricks and can hardly develop a unique strategy. I feel that much of this comes from the fact that any fight is nothing but D6 rolls. My plan is to replace this with custom combat dice: D6 with different symbols for attacking, blocking and a class-specific special move. This should make combat more interesting, give the classes some more justification, and it also opens up the game for those who like to tweak rules and develop finer strategies.

Interface Polish

Hotkeys, soft screen transitions, and an options panel have been requested. ACRONYM was made or a monthly competition and I left these “small touches” for later intentionally, but they’ll all be included in the next update.

Difficulty Settings

I made the game rather “hard to beat” and this did not sit well with everyone. While I think that a solo game needs to be hard in order to provide a challenge that makes a win “feel earned”, who am I to deny a more casual player their fun? Easier (and harder) difficulty settings are currently being tested, and I wish to implement a table of “custom challenges” too (like beating the game in a certain time or without ever building any equipment)… there may be in-game achievements :D

Better TB mechanics

As a turn based game ACRONM doesn’t always do the best job at telling you how turns work. I rewrote quite a bit of the core mechanics to make things easier for players who struggle with making it “in time”.

Halloween Hijinx- AddOn

Since ACRYNOM is made to resemble a physical boardgame, an “add on” has been on my personal wishlist from the very start. Or… several of those. You know, a couple of extra “game things” to add to the base game. A first test with a “Halloween theme” looks really promising, adding a couple of new cards, two new enemies (Ghost and Nosy Kid), two new Invaders (The Riftjumper Twins) and even a fresh music track. I am really very exited about it.

If nothing goes wrong, the game will update middle of next month. Let me know if you got some additional feedback or suggestions- and thanks for playing, everyone!