It’s time for another beta branch with new content!
There are 6 new items for you to test as well as some item reworks, new options for lobbies and custom unranked games, and a lot of fun little polish.

Please try out the new green selection box by right-clicking - it only selects items in your inventory instead of grabbing the bags.

We also overhauled the tutorial hints, so don't be confused when the shopkeeper tells you something you already knew. (And let us know whether it’s working correctly!)


We have instructions on how to join the branch on our Discord server[discord.gg].

Please keep in mind that the goal of the beta branch is to find bugs and issues!

This patch is planned to go to main branch on February 14th, as usual with balance adjustments that are not yet in the beta.

P.S. Yes, achievements are coming with the full release - we are as hyped for them as some of y’all are!

New Items:

• NEW SKILL: Echoing Battlecry
  
• NEW SKILL: Enchanted Weapons
  
• NEW SKILL: Time Melting
  
• NEW SKILL: No Rush Please
  
• NEW RECIPE: Winged Boots
  
• NEW TREASURE: Happy Bomb

Lobbies:

• The host can now choose one of 5 matchmaking options, and check “Prioritize Host” so the other members are matched against the host more often
  
• Improved round time configuration and countdown animation

Other Additions:

• Added more custom rules (Configurable in lobbies and custom unranked):
  Sale chance, trade chance, treasure limit, and placing bags permanently
  
• Box select can now be done with right-click to grab non-bag items only
  
• Added more tutorial hints given by the shopkeeper
  
• Going up to a new rank in Ranked mode now gives a bonus of +10 ranking!
  
• Added a “reset filters” button to the item library
  
• Many new animations and polish to discover

Balance:

• [There will of course be more balance changes here when the patch is done]
  
• Reworked Obsidian Dragon: No longer has bonus attacks, instead gives crits to * weapon
  
• Reworked Stoned: No longer gives crit resistance, instead reduces damage taken
  
• Reworked Solaris: Now increases the amount of heat gained instead of cleansing
  
• Reworked Poison Goobert: Now heals instead of cleansing poison

Today we have a little teaser for the items coming to the beta branch - if all goes well next Friday already!

Besides that, there are some more balance adjustments. It turns out the love Pyromancer got last patch wasn't quite enough, so here is more!

As always, we’ll keep watching if this was too much, or too little, don't panic :)


Neutral

• Bloody Dagger: Cooldown 2.5s -> 2.4s
  
• Poison Dagger: Damage +1
  
• Lightsaber: Blind duration 5s -> 6s
  
• Knife to Meet You: Dagger speed bonus 15% -> 20%
  
• Lil Chestnut: Added 4 star tiles
  
• Ice Dragon: Block 50 -> 60
  
• Amulet of Steel: Block 25 -> 30, Block needed to gain Empower 35 -> 40

Pyromancer

• Fire Pit: Maximum health bonus 4 -> 5
  
• Sun Shield: Damage blocked 14 -> 15
  
• Burning Sword: Heat chance 40% -> 60%
  
• Burning Blade: Damage +2
  
• Solaris: Sun Shield Heat generation 60% -> 75%, Sun Armor Block 18 -> 20
  
• Friendly Fire: Cooldown 2.9s -> 2.8s
  
• Frozen Flame: Block 19 -> 22

Hello, everyone!

Backpack Battles will take part in the 2025 Steam Chinese New Year Sale from January 27th to February 10th, 2025.

During the event, you can purchase Backpack Battles with a discount of -10%. We hope you enjoy the game!

https://steamproxy.com/steamstore/app/2427700/_Backpack_Battles/

Here is a small round of balance adjustments, mostly catching up on some of the Pyromancer subclasses that fall behind in higher rankings. Unless something needs immediate action, the next adjustments will probably be with the next content patch. Stay tuned for the next beta branch coming soon(-ish)!

Neutral

• Holdall: Block 5 -> 6
  
• Poison Spear: Damage +2
  
• Hammer: Damage +1
  
• Investment Opportunity: Maximum health 2.5 -> 3
  
• Artifact Stone: Death: Cooldown 2.1s -> 1.9s
  
• Cubert: Chances 50% -> 55%

Pyromancer

• Burning Blade: Damage +2
  
• Friendly Fire: Cooldown 3s -> 2.9s
  
• Frozen Flame: Block 17 -> 19
  
• Sapphire Whelp: Mana Cost 2 -> 1
  
• Solaris: Heat chance 50% -> 60%, Block 15 -> 18

Reaper

• The Fool: Cost 4g -> 3g
  
• Darkest Lotus: Cost 7g -> 6g

Last week, we changed the Hero Sword recipe to include only a single Whetstone. Our first impression it that the changes have landed quite nicely and that they are here to stay.

We will let y’all experiment for at least another week and keep a close eye on everything Hero Sword-based in particular.

We are having a new poll on our Discord server[discord.gg], by the way - so come by and let us know what you think.

Neutral

• Poison Dagger: Cooldown 2.5s -> 2.2s
  
• Bloody Dagger: Cooldown 2.8s -> 2.5s
  
• Spectral Dagger: Bonus damage 5 -> 6
  
• Shepherd’s Crook: Buff protection 25% -> 35%
  
• Stone Armor: Empower removal 1 -> 2
  
• Shelly: Cleanse increase 35% -> 30%
  
• Snow Stick: Cooldown 1.9s -> 2.1s, damage +1
  
• Knife to Meet You: Speed boost by daggers 10% -> 15%
  
• Mana Mastery: Cooldown 5s -> 4.7s
  
• Smelly Wall: Block needed 20 -> 18
  
• Pop: Speed per Mana 3% -> 4%
  
• Cthulhu: Cooldown 5s -> 4.5s

Pyromancer

• Chili Pepper: Cooldown 5s -> 4.8s
  
• Chili Goobert: Heal 12 -> 14
  
• Frozen Flame: Block 14 -> 17

Berserker

• Cheese: Cooldown 4s -> 3.8s
  
• Cheese Goobert: Maximum health 18 -> 20
  
• Deerwood Guardian: Heal 12 -> 15
  
• Brass Knuckles: Stun chance 40% -> 50%, stun duration 0.4s -> 0.3s

Reaper

• Demonic Flask: Damage 0.4 -> 0.35
  
• Strong Demonic Flask: Damage 0.75 -> 0.7
  
• Death Scythe: Stamina cost 1.0 -> 0.8
  
• Mr. Struggles: Debuff chance 30% -> 25%
  
• Mrs. Struggles: Cooldown 3.7s -> 4.0s

This balance patch will be more experimental than usual, with adjustments to the crafting paths of Spectral Dagger, all Rainbow Gooberts, and the Hero Sword (also impacting all its crafts).

We will be closely watching to see if these things are too strong, too weak and if they flow well and will adjust accordingly next week.


Neutral

• Poison Spear: Damage +2, Block removal 5 -> 6
  
• Spectral Dagger: Recipe changed to Dagger + catalyst Mana Orb (it will not be consumed). Damage 3 - 6 -> 1 - 3, cooldown 2.1s -> 3.0s, bonus damage 7 -> 5. This is an experimental change.
  
• Poison Dagger: Cooldown 2.7s -> 2.5s
  
• Bloody Dagger: Cooldown 3s -> 2.8s
  
• Hero Sword: Recipe is changed to Wooden Sword + Whetstone. Damage bonus 2 -> 1. This is an experimental change.
  
• Steel Goobert: Activations 5 -> 6
  
• Hero Longsword: Damage bonus 4 -> 3, damage -2
  
• Falcon Blade: Damage -2
  
• Crossblades: Damage -8, speed bonus 75% -> 60%
  
• All Rainbow Gooberts are now crafted without a (basic) Goobert. Activations needed 6 -> 9, Blind 4 -> 3. This is an experimental change.
  
• Shelly: Cleanse increase 40% -> 35%
  
• Lightsaber: Damage +2
  
• Darksaber: Damage +2
  
• Jynx torquilla: Speed buff limit 40% -> 50%
  
• Prismatic Orb: Cost 13 -> 14
  
• Stone Shoes: Block 40 -> 45
  
• Holdall: Block 4 -> 5
  
• Shepherd’s Crook: Blind/Cold resistance 40% -> 50%
  
• Ice Armor: Start of battle Block 60 -> 75
  
• Frozen Buckler: Damage blocked 10 -> 12
  
• Smithing for Dummies: Stamina reduction 18% -> 22%
  
• Stoned: Block generation 70% -> 75%
  
• Hardwood: Block bonus 15 -> 16
  
• Slime Time: Cooldown 2.2s -> 2.0s
  
• Superspacious: Trigger speed bonus 5% -> 7%
  
• Spicy Banana: Heat chance 30% -> 40%
  
• Investment Opportunity: Health gain 2 -> 2.5
  
• Girl Power: Cooldown 6.2s -> 6.7s
  
• Blood Manipulation: Unhealing 20% -> 15%
  
• Heavy Drinking: Cooldown 8.5s -> 10s, Speed bonus 40% -> 50%
  
• Snowcake: Cooldown 3.0s -> 2.8s
  
• Pop: Damage +1

Pyromancer

• Solaris: Sun Shield Heat chance 40% -> 50%, Sun Armor Block bonus 13 -> 15
  
• Frozen Flame: Block 12 -> 14
  
• Burning Sword: Heat needed 5 -> 7
  
• Burning Blade: Heat needed 4 -> 6. Damage -1

Berserker

• Extra Angy: Duration 50% -> 60%
  
• Brass Knuckles: Stun chance 30% -> 40%, duration 0.5s -> 0.4s
  
• Deerwood Guardian: Mana gain 2 -> 3
  
• Hawk Rune (Weapon): Critical Hit chance 15% -> 12%
  
• Hawk Rune (Inventory): Cooldown 4s -> 3.3s

Ranger

• Markswoman: Damage 15% -> 20%
  
• Acorn Ace: Stamina reduction 10% -> 12%
  
• Ranger Bag: Baseline crit chance 10% -> 12%
  
• Yggdrasil Leaf: Heal 17 -> 15
  
• Fortuna’s Hope: Chance 70% -> 75%

Reaper

• Mr. Struggles: Debuff chance 35% -> 30%
  
• Mrs. Struggles: Cooldown 3.5s -> 3.7s
  
• Demonic Flask: Damage per debuff 0.45 -> 0.4
  
• Death Scythe: Stamina cost 1.2 -> 1.0

We hope you had wonderful holidays so far!

With 2024 coming to an end, it's time for a quick look back and a glimpse into the future of Backpack Battles.

For the development team (meaning Doro and Mario), this year was without a doubt one of the most exciting and wild ones ever.

We entered Early Access in early March and it was without exaggeration an overwhelming once-in-a-lifetime success. Collectively, all Backpack Battles players have a total of 30 million hours (or around 3500 years), which is mindboggling.

Thank you so much, everybody!

Since then, we did everything in our power to make this game as good as it can be.

We added many features, many of which were planned and part of the roadmap - and many of which came up over the last nine months.

So here are some highlights of things we added during the year:

• We had the honor to work with the devs of other indie games we know and love on crossover content, such as Balatro, Claws & Chaos, Magicraft, and Wildfrost!
  
• We added class badges, so accessing the items of multiple classes at once became possible
  
• We added loadouts, enabling more playstyles for each class as well as the option to start with a random selection of items
  
• We added a history where you can see your previous runs and do more fights with them!
  
• We added skills to make runs more varied and dynamic
  
• And just now, we added lobbies so you can play with your friends and Custom rules (both for lobbies and unranked games) for whacky fun runs.
  
• …And of course there also were the Rainbow Goobert and Ranger plushies :)

With the 0.9 update and during Early Access, we added a total of 173 different items! (15 of them being Treasure uniques) - 90 of them coming with the 28 major updates during the EA.


Originally, we planned to leave early access within 3-6 months. Looking back - well, we didn't.
As it typically goes, cool ideas pop up during development. And after checking back with you guys on Discord, we decided that taking our time and not closing ourselves off to cool stuff is the better way. This allowed us to implement features like the History, Skills, and Loadout options that we would not want to miss from the game anymore.

One thing you can be sure of is that we are going to fully release in 2025 though! (Stay tuned for an actual announcement)
We have been working on both the Mage and the Adventurer in the background the whole time, and lot of progress has been made.

There is also one thing from the original roadmap that is still untouched: At the start of 2025, we plan to check back with y’all to find out what you want from a ranking system as well as some improvements we have in the back of our heads.




We are now taking a short break and will be back with a very experimental balancing update on January 3rd. 😉

The next big update is ready to be rolled out!
Besides new items, the main focus is on the new modes: Unranked with custom rules and lobbies!

Behind this, there are currently two things:

1. Custom unranked games that allow you to queue against a ranking bracket of your choosing and select custom rules.
   
   
2. The option to create or join lobbies.

Of course, this is also a nice place where more custom modes could find their home in the future.


Lobbies are designed as a mode to play with a friend or many friends at a time!

You open a lobby by selecting “Host lobby” which will generate a 6-letter lobby code.

Your friends can then join by pressing “Join Lobby” and entering that code.

All players will play at the same time, with a timer (configurable at the start) ending the shop phase. You will then be matched against one of the other lobby members. Your goal is to win as many rounds out of 18 as possible.


Lobbies are not planned to become a public mode where anybody can join, this also means it will not be ranked.



Currently, there are 3 types of custom rules that can be enabled for unranked games - there are lots of opportunities to expand on that. We would love to hear your ideas for interesting custom rules as well.

We have been working on the lobbies behind the scenes for about a year now and for us, finally being able to show them is a huge milestone towards the game's full release.
When we started developing Backpack Battles, it was planned to become a tiny experimental side project.

Since then, the game’s popularity exploded, and even though we decided to keep developing as a two-person team, we were able to commit to the project full-time.

We never considered adding a synchronous mode to this asynchronous game, but with the decision to make it our main project, we had the resources to consider the massive undertaking of adding a synchronous mode.

We are so hyped to finally get this feature out to you, and hope you have fun playing with a buddy or two! :)

• NEW MODE: Custom Rules Unranked
  
• NEW MODE: Lobbies where you can fight your friends!
  
• Overhauled item activation animations: They now jump, swing, wave, squish etc depending on their type when they activate!
  
• NEW RECIPE: Shelly
  
• NEW RECIPE: Poison Spear
  
• NEW RECIPE: Holdall
  
• NEW TREASURE ITEM: Lil Chestnut
  
• NEW SKILL: Dig Deeper
  
• NEW SKILL: Knife to Meet You

Neutral

• Falcon Blade: Speed bonus 30% -> 35%
  
• Lightsaber: Cost 12 -> 11
  
• Amulet of Darkness: Damage needed per debuff: 20 -> 22
  
• Prismatic Sword: Debuff chance 12% -> 10%, damage +2
  
• Frozen Buckler: Stamina removal 0.6 -> 0.7
  
• Stone Shoes: Block 35 -> 40
  
• Crossblades: Speed bonus 60% -> 75%
  
• Vampiric Gloves: Vampirism 5 -> 6
  
• Vampiric Armor: Health convert: 30 health to 75 Block -> 45 health to 100 Block
  
• Bagtacular: Fanny Pack speed bonus 6% -> 5%, Stamina Sack stamina regen 6% -> 5%
  
• Blood Manipulation: Cooldown 3.5s -> 4.0s
  
• Girl Power: Cooldown 5.5s -> 6.2s
  
• Smithing For Dummies: Stamina reduction 15% -> 18%
  
• Power of the Moon: Now gains maximum health instead of healing, amount 50% -> 60%
  
• Hardwood: Block 14 -> 15
  
• Stoned: Block 60% -> 70%
  
• Cubert: Chances 40% -> 50%

Pyromancer

• Solaris: Chance to gain Heat 30% -> 40%, Block gain 10 -> 13
  
• Everburning: Stamina reduction 40% -> 60%
  
• Frozen Flame: Block 8 -> 12

Berserker

• Deerwood Guardian: Heal 9 -> 12

Ranger

• Piercing Arrow: Luck generation chance 55% -> 65%

Reaper

• The Lovers: Damage 8 -> 7, healing increase 8% -> 6%
  
• Mushroom Farm: Mushroom requirement 3 -> 2

There are of course new recipes, skills, etc., but the focus is on the Other game modes tab.


Behind this, there are currently two things:

1. Custom unranked games that allow you to queue against a ranking bracket of your choosing and select custom rules.
   
   
2. The option to create or join lobbies.

Of course, this is also a nice place where more custom modes could find their home in the future.

Lobbies are designed as a mode to play with a friend or many friends at a time!

You open a lobby by selecting “Host lobby” which will generate a 6-letter lobby code.

Your friends can then join by pressing “Join Lobby” and entering that code.

All players will play at the same time, with a timer (configurable at the start) ending the shop phase. You will then be matched against one of the other lobby members. Your goal is to win as many rounds out of 18 as possible.

Lobbies are not planned to become a public mode where anybody can join, this also means it will not be ranked.

Currently there are 3 types of custom rules that can be enabled for unranked games - there are lots of opportunities to expand on that. We would love to hear your ideas for interesting custom rules as well.
We also work on making custom rules possible in lobbies soon!


We have instructions on how to join the branch on our Discord server[discord.gg].
Please keep in mind that the goal of the beta branch is to find bugs and issues! (And this is a huge feature, so expect many hotfixes!)
The update is planned to go live on December 20th, coming with balancing changes.

We have been working on the lobbies behind the scenes for about a year now and for us, finally being able to show them is a huge milestone towards the game's full release.
When we started developing Backpack Battles, it was planned to become a tiny experimental side project.

Since then, the game’s popularity exploded, and even though we decided to keep developing as a two-person team, we were able to commit to the project full-time.

We never considered adding a synchronous mode to this asynchronous game, but with the decision to make it our main project, we had the resources to consider the massive undertaking of adding a synchronous mode.

We are so hyped to finally get this feature out to you, and hope you have fun playing with a buddy or two! :)

- Mario and Doro

P.S.: We know many of you are hyped for achievements, and they are certainly coming with the full release!