Spooky Fields

Hello again, my lovely Cropdeckers!

Today, I'm sharing another free content update for Cropdeck. The spooky Halloween season is just around the corner, and I had a thought: isn't my game ultimately a Halloween game with all those pumpkin heads? No? So what is missing... zombies? Vampires? Literally a pumpkin crop you can farm? Or maybe a graveyard location? Well... So all of these are now part of the game :) Also, I squeezed in a few more things, including a new pet and a small new mechanic for all of slot-machine-roguelikey degenerates! :D

There is also a themed, time-limited event - Spooky Fields. All the Halloween-related cards, mechanics, and other items have a higher drop chance, so you don't have to rely on RNG that much to have fun with them. Also, you can now build your own starting sets at the Academy. What a time to be a farmer!

However, If you don't like the visual changes and Halloween item drop chance modifiers, you can disable the event from the in-game settings menu. Or if you like it so much, you can re-enable the event at any time! And for those, who don't find the new update fun, you can keep playing the v1.1 version using version_1.1 Steam beta branch.

There are also quite a few balance changes and game improvements. You can learn more about what's changed below, but if you don't like spoilers, just get into the game!

New content

Meet Balbina, the Goat

You can now play with Balbina. This cute little goat gives you a new type of challenge - you can not harvest crops by hand - scythes or sickles are NECESSARY! If that's not enough, one of her tiers introduces a new mod, Overripe, which makes fully grown crops lose value if not harvested.

Haunted Hills, a new biome

A new location that may give you some goosebumps! At first glance, it may seem like a wholesome field, where your pumpkins can grow in peace, but watch out for the mysterious Spooky Hands!

Return of the juicy pumpkin

Have you played the Cropdeck Playtest back in the early days of my game? If so, you may remember pumpkins. They now return to the game - refreshed and ready to be harvested... with a TWIST!

Spooky pack of scarecrows and new cards

What is a Halloween without pumpkins, right? A new squad of scarecrows joins the game!

Rare scarecrows:

• Outsider - Crops that grow on the field edges are worth 15% more coins.

• Corner Keeper - Crops that grow in the field corners are worth 50% more coins.

• Insurer - Every time a crop dies, gain 20 coins.

• Smoked - On the day's end, grow crops adjacent to fire once.

• Alchemist 🔒 - On a new day, cause 2 random tiles to be randomly set on fire or watered 2 times.

Epic scarecrows:

• Swapper 🔒 - 25% chance: On harvest, if the crop is golden, change 2 random adjacent crops to a golden variant (if possible).

• Zombie 🔒 - At night, revive dead plants and apply the zombie state to them. Also apply the state to 1 alive crop.

  • Zombie plants have lower value, but don't need water to grow.

• Gambler 🔒 - Spawn a slot machine on the field. 👀

Legendary scarecrows:

• Vampire - Every Saturday, at night, suck 1 stack of juice from each yield (up to 10). On a new day, use 1 juice stack to remove negative effects from 1 tile.

New cards:

• Necroplanter - Apply the zombie state to crops in range. Dead ones are also revived.

• Matches - Set a crop or a building on fire.

New hazards

To give you a bit more variety in the challenge, there are a few new hazards (some based on existing pet tiers).

• Dehydration - On harvest, water is removed from the tile.

• Contract - On the day's end, if you haven't harvested any crops that day, increase the next tax by 5 coins.

• Forestation - Tree trunks with bugs appear on the field.

• Overripe - On the day's end, every fully grown crop's yield value is decreased by 1 coin.

Starting sets overhaul

One of the most common problems raised by you was starting set randomness. Since they are semi-random, limited to only 3 options per run, and you have to pick one right at the beginning, it very often feels unfair and unbalanced. With this update, you can now reroll Academy options for free or build your own starting set!

Balance

Along with the major update, I decided to make some adjustments to the existing items. Thanks to everyone who allowed collecting the gameplay data! Without it, it would be just guessing :)

In short, I buffed the worst items and nerfed the most broken ones. Starred entries are the most crucial changes.

Scarecrows:

• ⭐️ Optimizer: Added a limit of 3 cards per day that can be drawn with its effect, so the core mechanic is still viable and strong but won't introduce nasty infinities.

• Introvert: Decreased the penalty for having more than 3 scarecrows from -25% to -15% crop value.

• Extrovert: Decreased the bonus for having 5 or more scarecrows from +30% to +20%.

• Lucky: Decreased the luck bonus from +50 to +30.

• Farmhand: Increased the threshold for recovering energy from 3 to 4 yields.

• Scarecrowstain: Increased the extra energy per lightning strike from 2 to 3.

Crops:

Buffs:

• ⭐️ Aloes: Decreased both the regular and golden variants' growth duration from 4 to 3.

• ⭐️ Caper:

  • Increased the base yield value from 12 to 15 coins.

  • Increased the bonus for adjacent seasonal crops from 1 to 3 for regular caper, and from 2 to 5 for golden caper.

• ⭐️ Fig:

  • Decreased the common card cost from 1 to 0 energy.

  • Increased the base yield value from 8 to 10, and from 10 to 12 for the golden variant.

• Cactus: Increased the base yield value from 20 to 25, and from 26 to 30 for the golden variant.

• Prickly Pear: Decreased the common card cost from 2 to 1 energy.

• Corn:

  • Increased the base yield value from 11 to 12, and from 15 to 17 for the golden variant.

  • Increased the bonus for harvesting on a sunny day from 4 to 5, and from 5 to 8 for the golden variant.

• Sunflower: Increased the base yield value from 10 to 15, and from 15 to 20 for the golden variant.

• Strawberry: Increased the base yield value from 10 to 14, and from 12 to 16 for the golden variant.

Nerfs:

• Red Pepper: Decreased the base yield value from 10 to 9.

• Green Pepper: Decreased the base yield value from 9 to 8.

• Cauliflower: Decreased the base yield value from 30 to 25, and from 45 to 40 for the golden variant.

• Bok Choy: Decreased the base yield value from 5 to 3, and from 10 to 7 for the golden variant.

• Cabbage: Decreased the base yield value from 20 to 18, and from 25 to 22 for the golden variant.

• Eggplant: Decreased the base yield value from 15 to 12, and from 17 to 15 for the golden variant.

Other:

• ⭐️ Huge Syringe:

  • Increased energy cost from 0 on rare/epic/legendary to 1/1/2.

  • Increased range for the legendary from 2 to 3 tiles.

  • Similar to the Optimizer, Huge Syringes were very often too powerful by default, while introducing infinities. An extra cost should fix that, while still keeping the legend powerful with a larger range.

• ⭐️ Scythes and Sickles can now remove tumbleweeds, not only wild vines.

• Lightning Rod: Decreased the rare card energy cost from 1 to 0.

• Scythe3000 with Fertilization: Decreased the common and rare cards' energy cost from 2 to 1.

• Scythe3000 with Water: Decreased the common card energy cost from 1 to 0, and from 2 to 1 for the rare card.

• Sunny Farm and Forest Glade biome difficulty has been slightly increased.

• Bone (the dog's one) will now protect from Grass Regrowing (both pet tier and the hazard), Dehydration (new hazard), and Insects hazard.

• Difficulty curve for the endless mode has been (yet again!) increased :)

• Market prices for all rebalanced items have been adjusted.

Other changes

• Added a danger icon above the tiles that will burn to the ground the next day. It is now easier to track the fires on your fields. Quite an important change with all of those new fire-related items.

• Improved tooltips for Aloes and Shield to properly display info about the protection.

• Improved shield and fire VFX so it is more obvious when they happen.

• Decreased the volume of the rain ambience.

• Fixed the Tribute hazard current state label.

• Fixed a few typos.

Have fun!

Thank you so much to EVERYONE who bought the game, gave it a try, shared it, or even watched and liked content about it somewhere on the internet. THANKS! I really wanted to give something back to the community - I hope you like this content update! This is probably the last one in the near future, as I am now starting a new project! :)

Have a great time playing and a fun Halloween,

– Piotrek