Hey Backpackers!
This month’s big update is live now on the main branch!
Enemy Update
The Enemy Update is a big milestone: there are now 99 unique enemy types in Backpack Hero!
We've reworked and rebalanced every encounter in the game, there's more variety in combat, a lot more information, and more agency over your battles and runs (that includes Curses)!
-
We’re telegraphing enemy moves and abilities more clearly – with new opportunities to interrupt attacks and defend against harmful effects during combat. More information! More clarity!
-
No more curse attacks! – Curses are completely GONE from enemy attacks. Meaning they’ll no longer throw a wrench in your carefully planned strategies. You never have to get cursed.
-
Curses are a calculated risk – Cursed items are fun when you can build around them! Now you’ll be given opportunities to pick up curses from chests and NPCs in a way that you control: your choice if you want to take them!
-
Old Relics make a return! – We heard the complaints that old relics were gone! So we brought back some of the favorites!
All enemy encounters reworked and rebalanced:
- Significant balance updates to all enemies, encounters, and bosses.
- New enemy types – there’s now a total of 99 unique enemy types with countless more varieties, patterns, and encounters for each type.
- More enemy variety – enemies have more attack patterns and unique powers!
- More counters – counter the Robber Racoon from swiping your coins! If you attack him, you can stop him from running away!
- New enemy powers and hazards – unique enemy powers including reactive attacks and 5 new hazards!
- See enemy powers on their card and with their status effects – no more surprise block being added each turn!
- Old relics are back! We're bringing back the old bombstone, the conductor, the old cotton ball, the cracked bottle, the old stopwatch, and the old shield spirit! These have new names, new sprites, and some small balance updates. But all your favorite effects are back!
- Bug fixes Galore! Too many to even count!
New enemies and encounters:
This update introduces more than 12 entirely new enemies. Here's a few:
The Kestrel
A new foe from the bird empire!
The kestrel winds up very powerful attacks – but if you counter and attack first, they’ll cancel their big hit!
Queen’s Bees
You’ve battled bees, now face... ... even more bees!
These bees are much more dangerous than the bees you’ve fought before. They guard the Queen directly!
Lucky Wraiths
These Wraiths are lucky - lucky for you. Defeat them to steal their luck!
Gremlins
They like money and running fast. They will drop extra coins if you can beat them before they run away!
Returning Relics:
Hopefully these look familiar! We're open to returning any of your other old favorites!
What’s Next:
The Enemy Update is live now on the main branch and includes more changes and important bug fixes (pouches are fixed) – we hope combat and enemy encounters are now where we want them!
This update should be the last major stepping stone before 1.0 — we now plan to focus on Story Mode content, quests, and progression.
Story Mode is already in very limited testing and we’ll open it up to the public testing branch in the near future! We can’t wait for you to see how these recent changes play out in a more structured adventure!
Changed files in this update