Screeps: Arena News

We are happy to announce that we're releasing Screeps: Arena to Early Access! After a long period in the Closed Alpha, the game is available now. If you have preordered an activation key before, you should be able to start playing immediately.

We have many plans for further development, and need your support to continue with this project.

Below is some information that we have posted regarding the EA release.

[h3]Why Early Access?[/h3]
We have been developing this game for some time already, and want to present it in a playable state to the community to get feedback and suggestions.

[h3]Approximately how long will this game be in Early Access?[/h3]
We expect that we will need a few months to polish it for the final release.

[h3]How is the full version planned to differ from the Early Access version?[/h3]
The full version will have more polished UI, graphics optimization, sound/music. It will also have more features such as playing with friends, achievements system, in-game code editor, built-in TypeScript and IntelliSense support, modding tools to create your own arenas, etc. Game balance will be fine tuned but mostly remain within the same API.

[h3]What is the current state of the Early Access version?[/h3]
The game is fully playable and has all planned content: Tutorial, 3 basic arenas, 3 advanced arenas, Fame system and rewards, inventory and crafting. You can play versus different opponents, craft keys, unlock new arenas and progress through the current season.

[h3]Will the game be priced differently during and after Early Access?[/h3]
No, the price will not change when the game leaves Early Access.

[h3]How are you planning on involving the Community in your development process?[/h3]
We are constantly in touch with the community using our Discord server and Steam forums. All feedback and suggestions are highly welcome.

We are happy to announce that on April 7, 2022 we will release Screeps: Arena to Early Access for general availability! If you have bought an activation key before, you will be able to start playing immediately on the launch date.

[h3]Why Early Access?[/h3]
We have been developing this game for some time already, and want to present it in a playable state to the community to get feedback and suggestions.
[h3]Approximately how long will this game be in Early Access?[/h3]
We expect that we will need a few months to polish it for the final release.
[h3]How is the full version planned to differ from the Early Access version?[/h3]
The full version will have more polished UI, graphics optimization, sound/music. It will also has more features such as playing with friends, achievements system, in-game code editor, built-in TypeScript support, modding tools to create your own arenas, etc. Game balance will be fine tuned but mostly remain within the same API.
[h3]What is the current state of the Early Access version?[/h3]
The game is fully playable and has all planned content: Tutorial, 3 basic arenas, 3 advanced arenas, Fame system and rewards, inventory and crafting. You can play versus different opponents, craft keys, unlock new arenas and progress through the current season.
[h3]Will the game be priced differently during and after Early Access?[/h3]
No, the price will not change when the game leaves Early Access.
[h3]How are you planning on involving the Community in your development process?[/h3]
We are constantly in touch with the community using our Discord server and Steam forums. All feedback and suggestions are highly welcome.

Hello everyone,

First, let us thank you for your interest in Screeps: Arena. It was a difficult time, a few months in a hospital fighting COVID-19 affected development of this project greatly. But despite all difficulties, we continued to work on the game. And now we are almost there. Today we are rolling out this release with all game mechanics we wanted to see in Early Access. All new mechanics are interconnected and interdependent so they can’t be delivered apart from each other. It’s not the final version, we continue to polish and improve some small things, but the game concept is finished now. And it is based on two things (except coding for arena battles): Fame and Crafting.



The first important mechanic is the Fame. Earning fame is like a daily quest available in every unlocked (see below) arena. When you take the quest, the game creates a ladder consisting of 10 opponents, where each opponent is stronger than the previous one. You are supposed to play against each opponent in a predefined order. You don’t see their names and versions, but you should expect that the next opponent will be stronger.



While you are progressing through the ladder you gain Fame Points and fame rewards. Fame Points is a metric of your profile tied to the season; it defines your place in the seasonal Hall of Fame. Fame reward is a set of random items that you can get into your inventory once a day (see below).

Each victory during this "quest" gives you one Fame Point and increases the potential fame reward level. On the first defeat you lose your potential fame reward for good. Draws does neither.

Between battles you can finish the quest at any time or take the fame reward of the current level. The more the reward level is, the more items you get (and the more valuable these items will be). Level 0 reward is nothing.



This means before every fame battle with every of the 10 opponents you need to decide do you want to take the risk and try increasing your fame reward (if you win); or not to risk and take your reward at the current level.



Crafting is a mechanic to transform components from fame rewards into useful items. Currently, you can craft only Basic Keys and Advanced Keys for unlocking basic and advanced arenas, respectively.

A Basic Key only costs 100 Key Fragments to create. An Advanced Key requires 300 Key Fragments and 10 Key Upgrades if each of the three kinds: red, blue, and green.



All arenas are now locked by default in each season, including Season Alpha. Your first unlock in each season is free, all further unlocks will consume crafted keys. Basic arenas can be unlocked with a basic key right away while advanced arenas require an advanced key and unlocked basic version of the arena.

All items will be tradable on the Steam Community Market. But we are not going to sell them at the official store; they will only be generated by crafting from fame rewards.

We hope that this new mechanic will be fun enough to allow playing Screeps: Arena as a game, not just as a hardcore code competition. It will give a feeling of progress, unlocking more content while you are progressing through a season. And Fame Points plays a role of an aggregated metric that combines both your skill and persistency in all arenas during the season.

Please test this new mechanic as you try the new release. We are really interested in how it feels in comparison to the previous “bare” game mechanic. If you feel it's satisfying, let us know. If you have any complaints or suggestions, feel free to share. We hope we will be able to release the final Early Access version on Steam very soon.

Screeps: Arena will present a free publicly available playable demo during the entire Steam Next Fest on June 16 - June 22.

On June 19 at 16:00 UTC we are going to conduct an official developers-backed Livestream! Our TOP-1 champion Screeps player Tigga will share his experience with Arena and present some gameplay, and two dev team members will be available in chat to answer any your questions.

UPD: Full recording is available on YouTube:
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

We have just launched the Closed Alpha stage of the Screeps Arena project! All Closed Alpha owners should be able to download the game and start playing immediately. There is a private discussion forum on Steam aimed especially at the game owners where you can participate. If you are an owner, start with reading this post:

https://steamcommunity.com/app/1137320/discussions/2/3132793555949735254/

If you are not, you can join our Closed Alpha by using Access Keys in the Screeps game. Welcome!