First off we would like to explain the recent break from our weekly blog posts. The holidays had tampered with our routine, and then when we got back into our rhythm were on a pretty good roll of turning out patches so we decided to take a little break and focus on generating content.

New Units:

Since the last blog post we have added 3 new units, and their abilities to CURE. This is very encouraging to us, as it show the streamlining we had spent precious development time on was in fact worth the investment. To see more information on any of these units check out our new units page. This page is still a work in progress but we will be keeping this page updated with information about each unit, including more advanced statistics about all of the abilities that will help all those build creators out there design their perfect units.

Blighter

The new blighter unit is quickly becoming one of our most popular and favorite new combat units. The blighter starts off as an average sized unit with slow reflexes, however they can quickly eject a dense cloud of damaging chemicals destroying enemy units. Unlike the colonizing enzyme, these chemicals quickly dissipate and do not stay in the environment for long. Also unlike Colonizers, the damage can stack from multiple Blighters. Blighters make great war units, capable of dealing out a fair amount of damage to enemy armies or large single targets.

Blight Ability:

A blighter creates an area of damaging chemicals around itself continuously, damaging any enemies caught inside the cloud until the ability is toggled off or the unit runs out of nutrients. Units will take damage from each of source of blight. This means a swarm of blighters can deal a significant amount of damage to one unit, because their attacks work together. Blighters can still be moved and controlled while blight is active.

Purger

Purgers can sacrifice themselves for the good of the colony by excreting the deadly chemical Lysozyme, that will kill enemy and allied units very quickly. These units while powerful need to be used carefully as you can easily wipe out your own allies as well as your enemies.

Lysozyme Secretion:

When this ability is cast the Purger will begin to emit a cloud of lysozyme from itself dealing lots of dissolve damage to anything nearby including allied units. As long as the Purger is alive the AOE of the lysozyme will continue to expand. Once the purger dies it will no longer emit and Lysozyme and the remaining lysozyme will begin to dissipate and after a length of time disappear. Once cast the Purger can no longer move or take any other actions.

Neutralizer

The neutralizer marks one of our first true support units. Neutralizers come with the ability to create Enzyme Inhibitors which can protect units from certain abilities such as blight and colonizing enzyme.

Enzyme Inhibitor:

The Neutralizer will create a cloud of Enzyme Inhibitors around it. Any unit inside this cloud will not receive damage from the colonizing enzyme or blight abilities. These units will also no longer attempt to absorb the Colonizing Enzyme Chemicals. This ability will also reveal any hidden enemies inside the Enzyme Inhibitor Cloud.

Up and Coming Content:

We only have two more units to finish before starting to implement the ability adaptations we talked about in Dev Blog #37. Adaptations are going to add a ton of new features to our current roster of abilities. We are currently planning on adding around 30 ability adaptations in total to the game before early access. Some of these adaptations will make abilities behave in entirely new ways.

A Whole New Progression:

With the addition of adaptations we may be restructuring how the game is played from the very beginning. Our intention was always to have players start with the colonizer and eventually unlock other units and ability adaptations as they play. Unlocking a new unit will happen through mutations just like ability adaptations and genes. The player will receive a new ‘Morph To’ gene that they can place on one of their units that will allow that unit to morph. For example a new player will start with a colonizer and after playing a few matches gains the blighter unit through a random mutation. After the match the player can go to the genetic engineering menu and add the Morph To Blighter Ability gene to their colonizer. In the very next match the player can now morph any of their colonizers to a Blighter. This means players will be able to make their own tech trees, and decide for themselves how important it is to morph from one type of unit to another. We may also implement the idea that players must actually win matches in order to receive their earned mutations. These small changes alone will drastically change how the game is played and give players a better sense of progression to their strains. Changes like these are going to be a major step in our efforts to balance CURE.

These are just a few examples of new content that we will be adding to CURE in the near futures so make sure make sure to stay tuned for all the new changes.