New Update!
2025 is almost over! ☃️
I was reading through some old patch notes yesterday and suddenly realized that around this time last year…I hadn't even started working on Sealed Citadel yet!? This whole year has felt like it flew by, but looking back at the logs, it's actually been pretty packed. All of a sudden, we've got the Sealed Citadel, Infernal Shards, a bunch of new characters, towers, relics, and tons of stuff that wasn't even in the original plan. So really, thank you all for the support and feedback throughout the year! Thanks to so many of you playing and supporting the game, I've been able to keep expanding Emberward. (Sometimes I feel I'm working on a live service game 😆)
With the holidays coming up, I made an extra new event map for this update. Like the Misty Graveyard, this one is also a themed Endless Mode map with its own mechanic! On top of that, I kept filling in features that were planned before 1.0, like Custom Games, and reworks for Altar and Quests. I'm really curious how you all feel about the new endless map, do you want more maps like this or prefer modes like Daily Challenges? Let me know what you think after you try it!
For the next update, I'll be spending more time on some background stuff, like controller support and adding more languages (probably won't be finished in just one update though). Since they're quite complex to implement and there's a lot more IRL stuff at the end of the year, the next update might come a bit later than usual. I'll keep you updated if there's any news.
That's all! Hope you enjoy the new map and happy holidays! ✨
- Refi
New Features
Endless Mode
New event map: Snowridge Outpost!
While the adventurers celebrate the holiday, the monsters are attacking! So...let's exchange gifts and defend at the same time!?
In Snowridge Outpost, you receive gifts from other characters each round to aid your defense.
For example, Chunk gives you Mega Rune blocks, and Silas's gifts are packed with coins.
Although it's a holiday event, this map will not be removed after the holiday ends, so don't worry if you haven't unlocked it yet!
The achievement for this map will be added later (possibly 1.0). The game tracks your best record, so if you meet the requirements, the achievement will unlock automatically once it is added.
A new Random Challenge mode has been added to Endless Mode. Each time you enter it randomly chooses a map and anomaly effects.
Custom Game (in Campaign Mode)
Within each difficulty, the Custom Game option appears after all four regions have been cleared.
In a Custom Game, the Academy does not appear at the beginning. Instead you enter the Secret Vault.
Inside the Secret Vault you may freely select the towers (up to 8), blocks and relics you want to use. You can only choose the towers and relics that you have previously built or used.
Using a Custom Game will not record any data for that run, nor will it unlock achievements or award experience points.
Map
New node: Campsite
The Altar node will no longer appear on the map and has been replaced by the Campsite.
At a campsite there are three options:
Supply Station: Purchase supplies to restore your fire source's energy.
Circus: Spin a wheel to get new towers or relics!
Altar (...3.0):
You can sign pacts with the elemental altars and take on a challenge in the next stage. Succeed and you'll receive a powerful relic.
Each pact gives you different restrictions. For example, the Ice pact makes you unable to build towers during battle, while the Electric pact makes you unable to see the monsters' path.
There is no limit to the number of pacts you can get at once. If you're confident you can take all five (…but you really might lose).
Let me know what you think after you've tried the new altar! If many players enjoy this high‑risk/high‑reward mechanic I may expand the challenge types more.
Quest adjustments
Removed restriction‑type quests, such as "Do not build towers during battle".
Added some new quests.
Many people mentioned in feedback that some quests could fail just because you forgot about them, which feels bad. I tried several approaches (such as adding confirmation windows or more notifications) but...none of them felt right, so I decided to handle it together with the altar adjustments. Now the quests will ask you to reach a certain goal, and will no longer contain requirements like "don't do something in the game".
Relics
Added 5 new relics. These relics can only be obtained at the altar.
Game Adjustments
Elemental Effects
Charge effect adjustment
Now each electric tower accumulates charge at a different rate when hitting monsters.
The amount of Charge required to trigger the effect depends on the monster's size. The larger the monster, the more Charge is needed.
Some electric towers and relic effects have been adjusted:
Lightning Conductor: When your electric towers hit an enemy, there is a 5% chance to release a chain lightning that hits up to 5 monsters, dealing 10 electric damage and applying 10 Charge.
(It is still more of an early game relic, but it now has the ability to apply charge to many monsters so that it remains useful in the mid and late game.)
Static Shocker: When a monster's Charge effect is triggered, it also takes electric damage equal to 5% of its current HP (1.5% for bosses), up to 500 damage. This effect can only trigger once per 5 second on each monster.
(Because Charge now triggers more often, the damage dealt each time has been lowered.)
Amplify Poison: When a poisoned monster takes electric damage, the poison tick rate will be doubled for 3 seconds. When an electric tower hits a poisoned monster, there is a 50% chance to apply double Charge.
Overcharged Battery: When a monster's Charge effect is triggered, 10% of the accumulated Charge is evenly distributed to all monsters within 2 tiles.
Thunder Tower (blue upgrade): Deals an additional 250 Charge, divided evenly among all monsters struck.
Monsters
Monster resistance system
With recent updates adding many towers with crowd‑control effects, some combinations can produce extremely strong (or even invincible) control capability. Therefore monsters now have a resistance system.
Control effects such as stun, knockback, black hole accumulate a quickly decaying crowd‑control value. When this value becomes too high, the control effects applied to the monster will be reduced accordingly.
Under normal circumstances you shouldn't really feel the resistance system working. Only when a monster continuously receives a large amount of control effects will it gradually reduce their effectiveness, to prevent monsters from staying permanently immobilized.
Other Changes/Optimizations
When selecting the regions to start a run, you can now see your clear record for that difficulty/stage as well as your highest Infernal Shard record.
Scrap Tank Tower: When upgrading a Scrap Tank, a tooltip will now appear above it, making it easier for players to see the current level of the upgrade and what kind of upgrade the selected tower will provide.
When you gain extra cards in the game (for example from opening a chest), you will no longer fail to obtain the card because of the hand size limit, but you still cannot draw cards once you exceed the limit.
Some optimizations have been made to monsters and scene objects, which may slightly improve performance on low-end PCs.
The damage meter UI now remembers its toggle state. If it’s turned on, it will automatically be enabled at the start of the next game.
Bug Fixes
Fixed an issue where the red-upgraded Starfall Tower’s attacks did not target priority enemies.
Fixed an issue where the Axe Tower (and other similar towers) would sometimes fail to attack Ancient Defense Towers.
Fixed path issues on several maps
Fixed an issue where the tower build costs were not increased for Tana in Endless Mode.
Post-Patch Updates
Fixed an issue where the Scrap Tank Tower received incorrect values when upgraded.
Fixed some translation issues.
Fixed an issue in Custom Games where towers with build limits could not be selected at the start of the game.
Fixed an issue where Overcharged Battery could cause a crash under certain conditions.
Fixed an issue where the effect of Horror Mask did not move along with a tower when applied to a moving tower.
Fixed an issue where quests that require "Build X towers of a certain type" could count incorrectly in some situations.
Fixed an issue where Focused Fire caused towers to attack monsters outside their vision range in Darkness stages.
Fixed an issue where towers taunted by the Tanky Bot would attack the Tanky Bot when it's outside the vision range.
Fixed an issue where the Focused Fire effect was sometimes not correctly removed after the target died.
Fixed some UI display issues on wide-screen and 4:3 resolutions.
Added an option to hide completed achievements in the Compendium's Achievements page. This option will not appear if you have unlocked no achievements or if all achievements are already unlocked.
