Sorry for the slight delay on this one, I was hoping to get it out on the weekend but had some pretty big changes to test, and some other big news that was keeping me busy.  I'll get right to the two biggest changes in the update:

Minion Cooldown is now "Delay"

Cooldown has always been a confusing stat, and the last thing new players start to figure out. It's a little hard to wrap your brain around a stat affecting the *next* minion. To make things easier, we've replaced "Cooldown" (a pause after this minion comes in) with "Delay" (the amount of time it takes the minion to come in). This is even represented in-game by how long the animation takes as they spawn in from the starting location. The biggest effect of this change is that minions who affect those around them should stack the little guys after themselves instead of before. This also seems much more natural, as you end up with sort of a mam-and-baby-ducklings formation, which is cute and therefore correct game design.

A New EXPERIMENTAL Snake Mode

In the main menu options, you'll now see an "Experimental Mouse Snake Control" checkbox. If you check this at the start (it's not changeable mid-game), then instead of controlling the snake with your keyboard, you can click on the screen to set a path to that location. You can do this as many times as you'd like until you finally click the exit stairs and the game will proceed as usual. Please be aware that this mode is brand new, and may have bugs. In particular, I'd advise only altering your minion order while in the store, as clicks may pass through the panel and begin moving your snake somewhere you didn't intend.

Please also be aware that we have no plans right now to replace the keyboard-control snake completely with this new mode. Our intent is to try it out and see what people think, and then possibly add it as either a difficulty setting (since it's easier to plan a perfect path, this does reduce the game's difficulty), unlockable ability, or a mode only used in special situations. If you try it out, please leave a comment and let us know what you think!

Other Updates:

• Gold & magic (healing/speed) shields
• New level layout - Maze!
• Minion count added to UI to help with planning
• Particle effects from previous run on next run entrance
• Pause on ESC menu
• Corridors between rooms can cut corners creating 1-tile gaps

Oh yeah, and that other big news? Here's a little sneak peek:

https://twitter.com/Immunity451/status/1533715938209677312