Period: September 19, 2025 Total Commits: 26

Daily Dev Update: Routing, Bots, and Reliable Spikes

Hey, here’s what we’ve been working on today. The headline items are Spikes getting more reliable, bots playing fair with humans, and a big pass on our monitoring/metrics stack so we can tune PvP performance and matchmaking with better data.

What’s New

• Spikes tower AOE now stays put (no more “sliding” damage)

  • The damage zone now remains centered on the tower for its full lifetime. This makes trap placements consistent and predictable. Good for choke points and layered slows where movement control matters.
  • Gameplay impact: reliable zone control; better synergy with stuns/roots that keep minions inside the damage field longer.
  • [screenshot: spikes tower AOE staying centered at a64cd7f]

• Minion unlock menu sorted by cost (cheapest first)

  • Small UX change with a big economic payoff. It’s easier to plan early-game pressure and pivot into mid-game comps without scrolling around.
  • Pairs nicely with tower sorting by stage to keep choices readable under time pressure.
  • [screenshot: unlock menu sorted by minion cost at a64cd7f]

What Got Fixed

• Critical bot desyncs
  • Missing minion configs caused some spawns (like brambleback) to fail. Bots now use the centralized configs the same way humans do.
  • Leveling logic was wrong on bot side. Bots now calculate level as current + 1 (same as players) instead of defaulting to 2, which was skewing power curves.
  • Replays/process: bots now process all ticks (not just action ticks), use server timestamps, and flag catch-up correctly. This makes state alignment far more reliable in PvP and post-game analysis.
  • Extras: better state diff tooling, fixed gold display in dumps, and consistent matchStartTime across clients.
  • [screenshot: multiplayer battle with improved bot syncing at 71af2c9]

Try It Out

If you want to poke at today’s changes:

• Play a few rounds at alpha.towerstorm.com
• Try Spikes as a lane anchor and layer it with CC to keep minions inside the zone
• Watch bot behavior during level-ups and multi-spawn waves; send notes if anything feels off

If you hit issues, quick repro steps or clips help a lot. Thanks for the reports—keep them coming.

[screenshot: spikes trap holding a choke under layered CC at a64cd7f]