Starting Note

Unlike with v0.1, the tower dev logs won't be the last in the line, nor will I be able to give all of them back-to-back. I'm just providing what's already finished at this point.

So here's the first tower coming in this update, Octogon Shooter:

Base, Up To Tier 2 Upgrades And The Ability

Octogon Shooter, before Tier 3 upgrades, is mostly unchanged stat-wise. The only thing that's changed is that costs have shifted around a bit.

• 1/x/x - Sharper Spikes

  • Price reduced from $300 to $250

• 2/x/x - Heated Spikes

  • Price increased from $500 to $750

• x/1/x - Quicker Engine

  • Price increased from $175 to $200

• x/2/x - Super Engine

  • Price reduced from $350 to $300

• x/x/1 - Small Sight Boost

  • Range ever so slightly increased from 120 to 125

Overall, I felt that Octogon Shooter's base was pretty solidly balanced in the original, hence why it's basically just price shifts here.

More importantly with the base, however, is the ability, Spike Storm. Due to the price shifts from the upgrades, the total price of Octogon Shooter's ability went from $1875 to $2050 ($2025 to $2214 in Hard/Master), so it'll take an extra round to get Spike Storm if Octogon Shooter is your starting tower.

Additionally, the ability has been nerfed in a few ways aside from cost, which is something I've been wanting to do for a very long time in the original, and finally decided on how to go about it.

The ability itself will now only last for 3 seconds (down from 4 seconds), which primarily affects its effectiveness against higher-health targets, as lower-health targets will be wiped out within the first second or so.

Additionally, the attack cooldown has been increased to 0.0375 seconds (up from 0.0333 seconds). This reduces the attacks per second from 30 to 26.67, and total attacks during the ability from 120 to 80.

The primary cases hit with this nerf are using it against higher health enemies and attempting to get a few quick shots off against far-distance targets.

As a side note, I tried lowering the damage of Heated Spikes down to 1 instead of the above collection of nerfs, but I really didn't like how it felt, hence why it's a collection of smaller nerfs instead.

Top Path - Meteor Shower

Top path expands on the idea that the top Ultimate, Blazing Cover, focused on in the original.

• 3/x/x - Ring of Fire

  • Every attack additionally spawns a ring of fire to burn several nearby enemies.

• 4/x/x - Blazing Cover

  • Spikes are replaced with explosive meteors, area flame is stronger, and both attacks deal significantly more damage to Shelled.

The primary focus with this path is more towards cleanup and solid area damage.

Ring of Fire's area flame has a solid amount of pierce and deals a decent amount of damage, allowing it to clear out smaller enemies quickly. Additionally, the spikes from its base stays, so it doesn't lose effectiveness against super close enemies. The ability is unchanged for this upgrade.

Blazing Cover is pretty much identical to how it was in the original. The primary difference, much like Magic Orb's Volcanic Wizard upgrade, is that the meteors take multiple pierce per hit, making pierce buffs weaker on it.

The damage bonus it has towards Shelled enemies should make it clear that this upgrade is meant for taking out swarms of Shelled enemies and lower, making it an ideal cleanup tower on single-path maps or maps where the end of paths converge.

It is important to note that pairing Blazing Cover up with towers like Master Brewer won't be nearly as powerful as it was in the original, due to both the weaker pierce buff synergy and other smaller changes to the tower itself.

Middle Path - The No-Go Zone

Middle path expands on the idea that the middle Ultimate, Overdrive, focused on in the original.

• x/3/x - Dual Engines

  • Doubles attack speed and spike count. Ability is changed to Spike Zone

• x/4/x - Overdrive

  • Doubles spike count and more than doubles attack speed.

This path is the primary one you'll want to use if you intend to use Octogon Shooter has a heavy hitting damage dealer mid/late game. The high density of spikes makes it perfect when paired with Brewing Station, as the buffs won't get drained super fast from attacks, causing it to deal tremendous damage to targets very close to it.

Dual Engines is an upgrade that you'll have to make a decision on using. It heavily shifts the tower into the close-range killing machine that the Ultimate is, but at the cost of Spike Storm getting replaced with Spike Zone, which only doubles attack speed for 5 seconds.

Overdrive is the ultimate end goal of the path. While you can spam Dual Engines and get a pretty good result, it is best if you go straight into this upgrade instead, as it'll take 5 Dual Engines to reach the same level as Overdrive, not including the costs for other support towers. The ability remains unchanged between the two upgrades.

Bottom Path - Heart of the Storm

Bottom path does the same as the other paths do, and just expands upon the ideas that bottom Ultimate, Endless Storm, did in the original.

• x/x/3 - Spike Sprayer

  • Halves projectile count, but turns the tower into a mini-Spike Storm with weaker stats. Spike Storm ability has twice the amount of spikes.

• x/x/4 - Endless Storm

  • Halves projectile count again, but fully shift into a permanent Spike Storm ability. Spike Storm ability is replaced with Raging Storm.

This path is a bit of an oddball. It can be applied in numerous scenarios, as it's basically the in-between of the previous two paths, being decent at both crowd damage and close-range stronger enemy damage, but not really exceeding at either. The big thing it has going for it, however, is the ability, which is a beefed up Spike Storm.

Spike Sprayer is pretty much what I stated above, half projectiles but it's like a mini-Spike Storm. The stats aren't up there, but it has decent speed and pierce, as well as always attacking with a larger range, so projectiles get to reach further. It does run into a problem with Brewing Station, unlike the other two paths, but that is the price you'll have to pay for a twice-as-powerful Spike Storm ability.

Endless Storm is pretty much entirely unchanged from the original. It improves itself to a permanent Spike Storm (although it will be weaker unless you have it at 2/2/4), with the ability simply beefing it up. Just like the original, this path is also the cheapest of the three.

When Time Trials are added, this path will likely be best for that mode, but we'll have to wait and see.

Ending Note

As Octogon Shooter now has proper sprites (some of which you've seen in this dev log), the game's icon will probably be changing to reflect the Octogon Shooter resprite. I'd also like to note that Octogon Shooter will be part of the tutorial as well, which I'll show some of when it's ready.

Also, as a minor note, Octogon Shooter's name is going to purposefully remain misspelt, as I feel like it's become part of the tower at this point.

The next dev log will be about Drill Sniper, which should be tomorrow.

See you next time!