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"The epic tower defense dark fantasy journey continues!"

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GemCraft Lost Chapter: Frostborn Wrath (also known as GemCraft - Frostborn Wrath on Steam) is the fifth installment in the GemCraft series developed and published by Game in a Bottle. The game was released for Microsoft Windows systems on Steam and GOG in January 10, 2020.[1]

Overview[]

Frostborn Wrath is the first game in the series to be developed for Microsoft Windows only, due to the previous games' platform, Adobe Flash, being deprecated and web browsers disabling the feature by default. As such, the game supports Full HD resolution, with all art assets made specifically for the higher resolution.

Many elements from Chasing Shadows return, such as skills, Talisman system, battle traits, strike spells, Endurance Mode, and Iron Wizard mode.

Changes[]

Gameplay Changes[]

  • Larger fields, with artworks all made at Full HD resolution
  • The game runs 3x as fast by default (though the graphics run slower on some computers).
  • Linked waves (two waves summoned at the same time).
  • One-click gem creation, pre-adjustable gem creation grade, upgrade gems in the inventory with the mouse wheel too.
  • New Enraging gem slot (can be used to enrage all waves).
  • Endurance Mode is available at beginning from Wave 1 (as a separate battle mode)
  • New Trial mode is available as a separate game mode for all fields (inspired by Vision fields from the previous installment).
  • Different map layout for each battle mode.[2]

Structures[]

  • New buildable structures are introduced:
    • Lanterns: Hits multiple enemies, but has fixed range and attacks 20% as fast as towers and deal 50% less damage.
    • Pylons: Fires high damage shots that ignores armor and hits three times to the next enemy or the same enemy, until it dies. They must be charged with tower shots, and their shots deals the highest damage a gem deals to it. Charges generated by tower shots provide diminishing charges, based on damage dealt and amount of shots stored. Up to 3 Pylon shots can be stored at a time.
  • A new set of hostile structures are also introduced as well:
    • Watchtowers, which shoot at almost everything, including friendly buildings, and can only be destroyed by bolt shots.
    • Snowy Pit: Regularly spawns white swarmlings that resist half the duration of freeze and whiteout strike spells.
  • Shrines now charge independently, do not cost gems to activate, and function as a combination of shrines from GCL. The Shrines may fire in up to 8 directions away from the shrine, gathers energy from all gems on the field, ignores armor, stuns targets for 3-5 seconds, and shreds a portion of the monsters' health. Any monsters surviving the hit will be stunned briefly. The number of health-shredding hits depends on the number of gems on the field
  • A new destructible structure, the Jar of Wasps, which contains gem wasps extracted from a Grade # [component type] gem. Can be destroyed with tower shots by selecting the target, or setting firing priority to "structures".
  • A new secret beacon, the Omnibeacon, combining the effects of shield, cleansing, healing, and haste beacon into one.

Talisman[]

Main article: Talisman (GCFW)

The talisman in this release is designed as a 5x5 uniform jigsaw puzzle, where fragments are the pieces. For the purposes of this guide, rows will be lettered from top to bottom: a, b, c, d and e. Columns will be numbered from left to right: 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5. Sockets will be named by their row, followed by their column. For example, the top left corner socket is (a1). Equip fragments into your talisman to receive their stated bonus stats. Upgrade fragments with shadow cores to increase their stats.

Monsters[]

  • Monsters no longer regain health gradually.
  • New flying ones / special enemies are introduced:
    • Wraiths, providing 15% damage reduction to all enemies per Wraith, stacking up to 90%
    • Wizard Hunters, unbanishable monster that destroy random structures as they walk towards the orb.
    • Swarm Queen, moves slowly on a specific square path and periodically lays monster eggs, which spawn swarmlings as the battle progresses.[3]. When the Swarm Queen is killed, she spawns 60-80 swarmlings.
      • Monster eggs may also appear on some fields.
    • Wallbreaker, slowly inches towards the Orb of Presence, along the path. destroys any structure in its way, including your towers built on his path, allowing it to take the shortest path to the orb no matter what. Cannot be banished. Only appears on specific fields and specific waves. Sometimes immune to damage until a certain wave/last wave is started.
    • Gatekeeper, the final boss of the game, with high health, armor, and various support abilities; grows fangs to bolster its support powers. Takes extra damage for a limited time when a fang is destroyed.

Gem Wasps[]

  • Gem Wasps now follow the mouse pointer, but it must be close to them for them to actually obey. They also have a much higher base lifetime.

Map[]

  • The map now consists of rhombus-shaped tiles instead of hexagonal tiles.
  • The mouse wheel now moves the map up or down, similar to dragging. There is no way to zoom the map.

Other / Uncategorized Changes[]

  • Certain field-specific soundtrack music from GemCraft: Chasing Shadows applies differently to FW; now, "Vision Field" applies to every journey level for fields that unlock new map segments when won. "Gembearer" music applies to trial and endurance versions of fields with tokens that resemble tome chamber field tokens from CS, which are now warmth spell and boss/special/journey fields.
  • The Tome Chamber field token from CS now applies to Warmth Spell field and boss/special/journey fields.
  • New mod buttons along the top row in the field selection hub.
  • Map-specific features (eg, warmth spell early on which triples gem wasp count for every gem bomb dropped on it).
  • Journal: Hovering over parts of the map on the first page reveals a pop-up of the title of the game that took place at each location (This feature was also present in Chasing Shadows).
  • The field unlock path seems to be slightly more linear.
  • Barricades: Function like walls, can only be destroyed by tower shots, cannot be bombed.
  • Gem target priorities can now be rapid-cycled by tapping the right mouse button.
  • Enhancement Spells start with 7 charges by default, instead of 12.
  • Gem bombing Flying Ones over your own structures will destroy those structures, along with any gems socketed inside of them.
  • Addition of a new Frostruined Wizard Tower: "Frozen grave of a fellow wizard"

Gems[]

  • The number of available gem colors are decreased from 9 to 6.
  • The Cyan gems (Healing Suppression), Chain-Hit gems (red in GemCraft Chapter2), the White gems (Poolbound), and the Black Gems (Bloodbound) have been removed. However...
  • The White gems' effect (Poolbound) and the Black gems' (Bloodbound) effect now applies to all gems by default. However, the bonuses apply only to the damage, and not the gems' abilities.
  • Red Gems now cause bleeding: targets suffer more damage from all sources for a period of time.
Gems
Yellow Gem
Critical Hit
Orange Gem
Mana Leeching
Red Gem
Bleeding
Purple Gem
Armor Tearing
Green Gem
Poison
Blue Gem
Slowing

Skills[]

  • Strike spells Curse and Wake of Eternity are replaced with Whiteout and Ice Shards, respectively.
  • 2nd ability for each skill increases every 5 levels instead of 3.
  • Orblets are now a skill-based feature, under "Orb of Presence", instead of a Battle Trait. Increasing this skill increases the number of orblets docked around the Orb of Presence at the start of each level, up to a maximum of 15 orblets.
    • Losing orblets also don't incur the 10% mana gain penalty (except on some trial fields that have them).
  • Wizard Stashes, replacing Tome Chambers, contain traits, skill tomes, talisman fragments, or shadow cores. They can be opened by breaking them open, but this must be done before end of the Journey Mode waves, or before the Orb of Presence is destroyed in Endurance Mode. Originally, many of the stashes were located in Trial Mode, but after an update in early 2020, all of those stashes were moved into Endurance Mode.
  • Gem component skills do not let you take otherwise forbidden types into fields not yet beaten on journey mode once. However, they do let you take corresponding gem types into fields for replay or on Endurance Mode, and are indicated by smaller images under "Available Gems".
Skills
Mana Stream
Wrath
Orb of Presence
Focus
Fusion
Focus
True Colors
Focus
Resonance
Focus
Demolition
Wrath
Critical Hit
Component
Mana Leech
Component
Bleeding
Component
Armor Tearing
Component
Poison
Component
Slowing
Component
Freeze
Strike Spell
Whiteout
Strike Spell
Ice Shards
Strike Spell
Bolt
Enhancement Spell
Beam
Enhancement Spell
Barrage
Enhancement Spell
Fury
Wrath
Amplifiers
Construction
Pylons
Construction
Lanterns
Construction
Traps
Construction
Seeker Sense
Wrath

Battle Traits[]

The game features 15 Battle Traits. Some are returning from Chasing Shadows, some are new. All traits can be raised to level 12. Each level of battle traits gives x0.1 additional XP multiplier and increases talisman drop rarity.

Battle Traits
Adaptive Carapace Dark Masonry Swarmling Domination Overcrowd Corrupted Banishment
Awakening Insulation Hatred Swarming Parasites Haste
Thick Air Vital Link Giant Domination Strength in Numbers Ritual

Fields[]

See Fields (GCFW)

Achievements[]

See Achievements (GCFW)

Synopsis[]


Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.


The story started centuries ago, with a wizard that fled to the freezing North from the Spiritforge, in an attempt to escape from the wrath of the corrupted Wizard Council. He hid in an abandoned wizard tower there, but shortly afterward, they found him and cast a devastating freezing spell around his area that froze him for centuries but failed to kill him.

During the time that he was frozen, he was still awake and saw everything that happened in the outside world, including the summoning of the Forgotten and several attempts to seal her away forever that eventually failed.

After reawakening, the wizard embarked on a journey towards the Spiritforge, battling monsters and demons along the way, while the darkness grows in strength.


Spoilers end here.


Development[]

The game's development was hinted at on December 23, 2015 in the developer's blog post.[4] Two years later, on December 22, 2017, the first screenshot of the new game was revealed. Game in a Bottle stated that it did not plan to use paid loot boxes or other pay-to-win schemes.[5] On August 22, 2018, the new game's title was revealed to be GemCraft Lost Chapter: Frostborn Wrath.[6] On December 2, 2019, a trailer for the game was released. The game was finally released on January 10, 2020, though multiple bugs persisted for another few months. The Chilling Difficulty, an easier version of the original difficulty mode, was released in April 2020. Some content remained missing until March 2021. The Iron Wizard mode was also released in March 2021.

Gallery[]

External links[]

References[]

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