Daily Dev Update: Test Arena Unleashed + Faster HUD - October 18, 2025

Period: October 18, 2025 Total Commits: 9

Hey, here’s what we’ve been working on today. Mostly housekeeping that makes testing faster and matches snappier: Test Arena is now frictionless, the bottom HUD got cleaned up, controls are tighter, and a projectile upgrade bug is gone.

What’s New

• Bold move for testing: Test Arena now ignores gold and placement restrictions

  • Place towers anywhere on the map. No adjacency requirements. No blocked areas.
  • Spawn minions anywhere (including enemy side) to test targeting and pathing.
  • Unlimited resources behave as expected. No gold checks in this mode.
  • Why: Faster iteration for builds and target priorities without fighting the rules.
  • [screenshot: updated tower placement freedom in Test Arena at 2231588]

• Stationary minions for focused trials

  • You can drop minions that don’t immediately path. Useful for burn/DoT and target-switch testing.
  • Direct spawning (no temporary proxies), so what you place is what you test.

• New Delete key shortcut for quick sell/destroy

  • Tap Delete to sell the selected tower or remove a spawn. Mirrors the upgrade flow, but for teardown.
  • Why: Speed matters when you’re iterating on layouts or clearing mistakes mid-wave.

• Minion health bars are always green

  • Removed the yellow/red transitions. It’s simpler and easier to scan in crowded fights.
  • Why: Uniform coloring helps you read the board at a glance without color-hunting.

• Desktop HUD is cleaner and faster to use

  • Cost-based sorting for towers and minions (lowest to highest).
  • Grid layout on PC with up to 8 columns and multi-row wrap. More options visible without scrolling.
  • Mobile keeps a single row with horizontal scroll.
  • Why: You reach the unit you can afford right now, without hunting.

What Got Fixed

• Single-projectile towers now apply upgraded damage immediately

  • For towers that maintain a single persistent projectile (e.g., flamers), upgrading used to leave the old damage on that bullet. Now we cleanly recreate it so the new damage takes effect right away.
  • Result: Mid-fight upgrades feel responsive and actually change your DPS when you expect them to.

• Test Arena rules actually match Test Arena expectations

  • Unlimited gold validation now properly bypasses cost checks.
  • Placement restrictions lifted (no adjacency, no “own board only” gating).
  • Selection and sync warnings disabled for this mode to cut noise and speed up solo testing.

• HUD behavior matches the real component

  • Sorting and layout changes are applied to the actual in-game bottom bar (not a stray selector). Icons sort after filtering for unlocks, so you only see relevant choices ordered by cost.

Under the Hood

• Shared module imports cleaned up and documented

  • Removed a duplicate directory, updated path aliases, and wrote out how the setup works so it doesn’t break again. Development and production builds both resolve paths consistently now.

• Less console spam in Test Arena

  • Skipped extra sync checks and selection prompts for this mode. It’s quieter and faster to iterate.

• A couple of VFX assets landed

  • Dropped in particle textures for healing and stun effects. They’re ready for when we wire more status visuals into live gameplay.

Notes and Impact

• These changes are geared at speed: faster setup, faster teardown, faster reads on the HUD.
• If you’re testing synergies, you should be able to iterate on placements and upgrades without friction.
• If you notice edge cases with Delete (wrong target, odd timing) or the flamer upgrade behavior, let us know where/when it happens.

That’s it for today. It’s getting there—cleaner, quicker, and a little more honest about what’s happening on the board.