Greetings D20Studios fans and to our new community members!
I'm Ross Przybylski, the founder of D20Studios and the developer of the Abalon series of fantasy strategy games. Today, I'm super excited to announce the release of our first public demo for Abalon Arena that will run for the duration of the Steam Next Fest and through the following week for Steam's Remote Play Festival.
You're in for something special
Abalon has been in development since 2016 and has been driven and supported by player feedback since its inception. Prior to that, I launched our first multiplayer game, Hero Mages, back in 2009. My career long goal has been to capture the essence of what makes playing table RPGs, miniature tactics games and card strategy games so much fun and streamline it into an accessible experience that you can jump into with your friends quick and share epic moments together!
I hope our demo brings you this enjoyment and leaves you feeling excited for the great potential of what's still to come. I want to hear from you and learn how I can make this game the best it can be.
About the Demo
Our Next Fest demo focuses on our custom game lobby feature:
- Any player can create or join game rooms on our multiplayer server.
- Up to 4 players can play at a time, in 1v1, 2v2, FFA in both PvP and coop against the bots.
- Your room "vibe" is your way of signaling the kind of experience you want, whether you're a beginner looking to play other newbies or a pro looking for competitive matches. Or maybe you just want to try out some custom, player made maps.
- Each room generates a unique 5 letter code. Invite your friends to play by sending them this code. Join a friend's game using the "Join with Code" option.
- Up to 40 players can join a game room as a spectator. The game host can swap in/swap out spectators to join the next battle in the lobby screen.
- If you want a private, friends-only experience, you can provide a password when creating your game room.
All Cards Unlocked
We're aiming for a premium experience with Abalon Arena - no F2P gimmicks like loot boxes or randomized boosters. I want players focused on being creative and theory crafting the best strategies -not stressing about with FOMA for limited events or having to get that one rare card to complete their perfect deck.
I do think players will enjoy a progression / card unlock experience for the full the game (i.e. you unlock cards as you play matches) because it adds that nice sense of advancing and reward. However, I didn't have time to implement such a system for the demo, so you'll get to play upfront with all the cards unlocked, which is just all the better for helping us get some initial balancing insights before we officially launch.
Custom Deck Creation
We've provided a set of All-star teams ready to play out the box with some great synergies. But, you're welcome and encouraged to get creative and think outside the box by building your own teams.
To the battlefield!
Four player 2v2 matches are epic! Come join in on the fun. You have your choice of turn timer (unlimited, 2 min, 1 min) but I highly recommend 30 seconds for these larger games to keep the flow going.
What's Not in the Demo
Abalon Arena is pretty feature packed for the launch, but I didn't have a chance to get every feature included. Here's what not's not in the demo:
- AI 3.0 Engine - Our Next Fest demo is running our 2.0 AI engine - so you're likely to see some weird AI behavior and maybe some sync errors, too. Rest-assured, MAJOR improvements are coming to the AI engine. In the meantime, let us know what kind of whacky things you see it do by reporting in game -> Menu -> Share Feedback. This will build test cases I can use to improve.
- Async Multiplayer - This is a pretty big one that I think will be key to ensuring you can always reach a fellow player, online or off, and is coming soon but not in the demo yet.
- Cooperative Ladders - The ladders are Arena's singleplayer/co-op campaign experience. Effectively, these are chains of fights (i.e. gladiatorial tournaments) in which you battle together, carrying over health and artifacts earned between fights to defeat an ultimate boss. Not in the demo yet, sorry!
- Battle Log - This will eventually be a panel on the right side HUD that shows a list of all the actions/cards played.
- Ranked PvP
- Leaderboards
- Achievements
Join Our Community
Thanks for reading - and I'd like to close with an invitation to join our community and become an active player in shaping the future of Abalon Arena. Join our Discord, share in game feedback, and post on our Steam community page.
Here's a link to our Discord: https://discord.gg/d20studios
It's a great place to find fellow players and use our voice channel to get some big community games and tournaments going.
Thanks for checking out our game. I'll see you on the battlefield!
~Ross