EBF4: Battle Mountain has been released on Kongregate!

Battle Mountain is a challenging new area which includes 8 new bosses, new equips, and survival and endurance battles. Everyone who purchased the Premium Pack gets the update for free, otherwise it’s $10. This version now has all of the content that the Steam version will have.

But do not fear! There’s also a lot of updates for the free version, including new bosses and music. So it’s worth replaying the game if you’ve wanted to.

The Steam version is coming soon, probably before the end of February. It’ll have trading cards, cloud saving, tons of achievements, and all of that cool stuff. Also considering bundling in the soundtrack.

The EBF4 update should be on Kongregate in a day or two, and on Steam within a month if nothing goes seriously wrong!

As I mentioned earlier, your old saved games should be 99% compatible.
The Steam version will also be compatible with saves from the web version.
(the auto-save feature will still use the old way of saving, so you can overwrite that file)

Omg, it’s a standalone application!

I’m currently working on the Steam trading cards, badges, emoticons, and all that stuff.
Looks like they want quite a lot of assets, so here’s a preview of some of them while I work on the others…

Some Cards:

The Badges:

Hey guys. I think I’m going to skip beta testing for the EBF4 expansion, and just test it live on Kongregate, under realistic conditions. (In case you missed this before; the expansion will be replacing the existing premium pack)

Here’s why I think this is the best plan:
• The new area requires a lot of game progress before it can be fully accessed. So it’s easiest to test it with existing saved games. (and most users will have saved games only on Kongregate)
• The new area is separate from the main storyline, so any bugs in that area shouldn’t stop you from progressing in the main game.
• The game engine is unchanged, so any new bugs will only be related to specific foes, equips and maps, and can easily be fixed or avoided.
• The expansion will only be available on Kongregate, so I’ll easily be able to update it if something goes wrong. (as opposed to the usual Flash game distribution model)
• Most people playing the expansion on Kongregate will be existing customers who already paid, and will be happy to get an update, even if there are some bugs in it. (as opposed to completely new customers on Steam)
• I don’t want to have an open beta, because I feel many testers will be less likely to pay for the content later.
• I don’t want to have a closed beta, because I feel I won’t get enough data for it to be particularly useful, and I don’t want to waste time managing permissions.
• 6,182 people own the premium pack on Kongregate so far, so that should be enough testers. (and the returning EBF3 bosses will appear in the free version too)

Old saved games should be 100% compatible. Unless you’re very unlucky and saved in the graveyard tombs, where I moved some stuff around. Then you might be trapped in a wall forever. I recommend starting a new game though, because the EBF3 bosses will appear in the main story too, and there’s a lot of small changes. Also, if you bought the old premium pack, you’ll already own most of the treasure you can find in the new area, unless you start a new game.

Anyway, the expansion is almost ready for release. I just need to finish off a few small things.

If you’re in the game credits (for designing a foe, translating, etc) and you’d like a free premium pack on Kongregate, contact me either on DeviantArt or through Email. (wherever we talked previously)

Some people may not have noticed yet, but you can find Santa gear in EBF4, as well as Christmas tree slimes.
This stuff only appears in December!