Abalon News

The Kablooie Cultists, long know for causing chaos in the Harvest World, have gone too far this time. By practicing an ancient ritual known as the "Demon Dance", they have ripped open a vortex to a dark dimension of demons. Twisted, powerful creatures now threaten to invade the harvest world - unless someone is brave enough to dare traversing the portal and face the Demon Lord himself.

Those who make it to the Demon Realm have a unique opportunity, for it is said that deep within the Demon Lord's hell pit are the hellhound kennels. These beasts are vicious, but their puppies are highly coveted for their extreme loyalty and other-worldly abilities. They're also notoriously cute!

A quick aside: In what other game besides Summoners Fate can you start with the "Demonic Realm" and end on notoriously cute, I mean, come on!



In this update, the Demon Lord joins the host of three bosses that can potentially inhabit Harvest World during an adventure run. The added content makes Harvest World the most diverse of our current biomes, with as many as five distinct regions including an entire parallel dimension and a demon dungeon rumored to have a secret entrance.

I've also added our first "Nemesis" - a new mechanic inspired by player collaboration - who is an elite Summoner that actively hunts the player. Plus, another new player-created rivals team and a host of new cards (demon-inspired of course) - and let's not forget our new Summoner, the Priestess - our first playable hero to combine Celestial and Void magic.

Some of our new cards



Here's everything that's new and improved in v0.80.1:

• NEW SUMMONER: Ishari, the Priestess dutifully presides over the powers of life and death. She offers healing and longevity to her allies, and terrible curses upon her enemies. Our first summoner to command Celestial and Void magic.
  
• NEW BIOME: Demonic Realm
  
• NEW BOSS: Dante, Demon Lord
  
• NEW CARD: Satyr Archer
  
• NEW CARD: Satyr Champion
  
• NEW CARD: Satyr Warrior
  
• NEW CARD: Satyr Javelineer
  
• NEW CARD: Necropid
  
• NEW CARD: Oni
  
• NEW CARD: Naga Demon
  
• NEW CARD: Hellhound Puppy
  
• Balance: Demonic Lash changed from "Deal 3 damage. If it is an ally demon, give it +3/+0" to "Deal 3 damage -OR- Give an ally +3/-3 and +3 spaces per move until end of turn."
  
• New Mechanic: Nemesis - Roaming elites that pursue the player on a count-down mechanic based on the number of tiles they have traveled while exploring. Players cannot fast travel while chased by a nemesis. Players can retreat from a nemesis, but it will leave minions to guard the territory where the battle was fled.
  
• New Rival Adventurer team: "Blast to the Past" by player and community member, Inlaa.
  
• New Fate Encounter: Demon Dance - Fight against waves of powerful demons, influenced by a roll of your trusty D20 dice, to seize control of the portal to the Demonic Realm.
  
• New Fate Encounter: Hell's Kennels - Rescue a hell hound puppy, but beware the wrath of the Demon Lord!
  
• Improvement: Footstep SFX now match the material being walked on. This may seem like a small change, but it turns out players LOVED the splish & splash SFX of the swamp so much that I was inspired to do the same treatment for all of the other terrain types and it really kicks up the immersion.
  
• Improvement: Increased the movement speed in the overworld from 3 tiles per second to 3.5 tiles per second. Units move approximately 17% faster.
  
• Improvement: Units rushing the map will now start their rush from off screen as opposed to materializing on the map edge (which gave the appearance of them popping into existence rather than running from a previous destination).
  
• Improvement: Player will now receive extra mana each time they have discarded two cards in the same turn, not just the first time they discard two cards in the same turn.
  
• Fixed bug where Fire Trap would throw an exception when placed on the board.
  
• Fixed bug where the parallel animation engine didn't wait for surprise card triggers to complete before playing next animation in the sequence.
  
• Fixed bug where parallel animations could run while a spell card was casting. Any kind of cast events will now suspend other animations so they wait for the cast to complete before running.
  
• Fixed bug responsible for causing several of the desyncs reported with the AI
  
• Localization: All in-game translations for supported languages are now up-to-date!
  

Please support the development of this game by writing a Steam review of Summoners Fate. I can't stress enough how much this helps and how much I appreciate it. If you have issues with the game, please let me know and give me an opportunity to make it right.

Join the Discussion:
- Steam discussion board: https://steamcommunity.com/app/1681840/discussions/
- Discord: https://discord.gg/d20studios (RossD20Studios#2359)

Thanks so much!

~Ross

Hot on the heels of our 12th update for Summoners Fate since launch, Value has opened up calls for this year's Steam Awards. Thank you to my players on Discord for bringing this to my attention :)

Each Steam member can nominate a game for a single category, and if there's one thing I strive for above all else, it's delivering you a high quality gameplay experience. I do this by listening to your feedback, considering your ideas, and diligently working hard to provide you exciting updates.

Show your support for Summoners Fate by nominating us for Most Innovative Gameplay.

Much appreciation,

~Ross

On the outskirts of the scenic autumn landscape of harvest world, a murky swamp is home to a variety of aquatic creatures. Crocodiles, water drakes, and trolls all call this landscape home. But none is more feared than the dreaded frog demons and their overseer, Croakus, a powerful reverse empath. Empaths feel the emotions of others. A reverse empath makes others feel what it feels - and what Croakus feels is a LOT of pain!

So get ready to plop and splish'splash around the new turf, pay close attention to lore for strategy tips, and be on your guard as you traverse the swamps and take on your next challenge...



The first harvest world update brought a lot of new players to our community, many of whom have shared their excitement, ideas, and feature requests with me here on Steam and our Discord. I'm particularly excited about this update as it involved a great deal of direct player collaboration to hone the balancing and abilities of the boss. I know you particularly enjoy a good challenge... to a punishing degree in some cases... and I think the fight against Croakus won't disappoint.

Additionally, this update also features another player-driven collaboration: Rival Adventurers. These are player-created adventurer parties that I have injected into the RNG procedural population and will surface as Elite Summoners you can defeat to earn soul gems to help bring down the boss. Special thanks to Kaaz for sharing custom deck designs that were used for these characters. If you have a killer battle team you've constructed and would like to see as a rival in our next update, please share a screenshot of your team build with me.



Here's everything that's new and improved in v0.79.1:

• NEW SUMMONER: Quinn, the Rugged Mage embraces the raw fury of nature whilst remaining assuredly calm and in control as he boldly orchestrates combat from just behind the front line. Commands Nature and Arcane magics.
  
• NEW CARD: Arcane magic receives its first playable dragon, Stormbringer, who wields an electrifying chain lightning breath attack.
  
• NEW BIOME: Harvest world now includes a swamp region with new elite and aquatic minion encounters. All characters can wade through the new shallow water terrain, which provides protection against fire damage, but adds vulnerability to shock. Aquatic units can move faster through this terrain than other units.
  
• Deep Water: Deep water, found in rivers, is not traversable, but units can now be knocked into the water. The impact into deep water deals 3 unpreventable damage. Defeated units cannot Downfall. Surviving units are removed from the board for 3 turns.
  
• Shock Damage: All lightning spells now have "Shock" tag applied. Shock deals extra damage to units in the water.
  
• New Fate Encounters: The Dice Mistress offers the opportunity for high stakes dice rolling, including a chance to finally acquire those cards you haven't unlocked yet. Roy Blanchard will give you a tour of the bayou. And what swamp would be complete without gator wrestling?
  
• Rival Adventurers: Various rival adventurer parties will now randomly surface as elite enemies in Harvest world, and, soon, to invade the other biomes as well!
  
• New Boss: Croakus is a giant frog demon with powerful reverse empathic abilities. Any attacks to the front of this demon will result in it "sharing its pain" with everyone on your team it can see. Bring healing...bring lots of healing.

[h2]Bug Fixes[/h2]

• Performance Improvement: Fixed the memory leak that was causing lag to build up when playing the game for long sessions and adversely affecting frame rate.
  
• Performance Improvement: Vastly improved the texture packing algorithm which should result in smaller file size cache, less texture memory, and overall better performance.
  
• AI Improvement: Taught the AI to use the Abysmal End card
  
• AI Improvement: Fixed bug where AI would not attack with temporarily mind controlled units possessed by Vampires or Psionists
  
• Balance: Increased the health of the Bear from 12 to 13 and increased the size of its model to make it more...ummm..bear-like!
  
• Balance: Detonate spell is now stackable. Two copies of Detonate on the same unit will make an 8 damage explosion instead of a 4 damage explosion.
  
• Fixed bug with Withered Transmogrification - where, when mind controlling a withered, then attacking, you wouldn’t get ownership of the new withered unless you defeated it on that same attack.
  
• Changed the Walk 500 Miles achievement to "Walk 500 Miles...OK 100" and reduced the walking distance requirement to the equivalent tile distance of 100 miles.
  
• Fixed bug with using fast travel on the Fortune Teller map.
  
• Fixed bug where non-destructible barrels, crates and brambles could spawn in the non-playable border on the edge of the world map. (Thanks one of many)
  
• Improved the procedural population algorithm to prevent encounters (ex: Dinner A-Fowl) from appearing outside the harvest world and support encounters distributed across multiple biome regions in the same world.
  

I'd like to highlight awesome content creators who've shown a lot of love to Summoners Fate recently:

Kormaktv, who you may remember from our developer interview during the Tacticon Event in September, was the first debut our Harvest World update, which you can see the VOD for here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ls73cAwzkFI&ab_channel=kormakrtv

The results were bloody and devastating - apparently Vikings love a good fight, even if it ends in their annihilation ;)

Streamer Channel: https://www.twitch.tv/kormakrtv

Tudututu is a very passionate and enthusiastic gamer and the first to create an entire video series of Summoners Fate. Here's the first episode:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GfCuQqcZQJM&ab_channel=Tudututu

And he's got a second series already in the works for Harvest World.

Streamer Channel: https://www.twitch.tv/tudututu



Just another friendly reminder how much I value and appreciate your Steam store reviews of Summoners Fate. You can submit a review directly from our store page or directly from your Steam library if you prefer. These really help a bunch to get additional visibility and grow our player community, and of course let me know what I'm doing well and how I can further improve the game experience for you.

Join the Discussion:
- Steam discussion board: https://steamcommunity.com/app/1681840/discussions/
- Discord: https://discord.gg/d20studios (RossD20Studios#2359)

Thanks so much!

~Ross

We're proud to have Summoners Fate featured in the WePlay Expo, and to celebrate, we're offering a 10% discount through November 14th.

Summoners Fate blends turn-based combat and card strategy into a thrilling top-down RPG adventure that our players describe as a combination of Magic the Gathering and Final Fantasy Tactics. Now is your chance to pick up this amazing game and join our wonderful player community in shaping its future development.

Also stay tuned for more exciting content for Summoners Fate dropping soon in our next update for the ongoing Harvest World event.

Hi everyone -

Just in time for Halloween and the Steam Scream Fest, we've just launched our second major update: Harvest World!

As I mentioned last week, Harvest World will be a continuous live update - adding regular new content through the duration of the event which will run through till the end of November. Here's what's included this week:



In the first week of the Harvest Event, you'll explore an all-new biome populated for the autumn season with a haunted harm, investigate the mystery of the missing villagers and unlock a powerful new playable Summoner!

• NEW SUMMONER: Clik'Clik, the Impaler is an insectoid (praying mantis) with a mastery of speed and mobility. Clik’Clik can fly around the enemy, summoning swarms and giving time for poison to take hold before delivering the killing blow. His harpoon ability allows him to pull enemies towards allies to trigger devastating combos.
  
• NEW CARDS: Not only will you get the chance to fight against the evils of the Harvest World, you can learn these dark spells and unleash their horrors upon your enemies. Our new faction, the Withereds, has an entirely unique play style and feel allowing for all new kinds of creative synergies.
  
• NEW BIOME: The new Harvest World biome contains various regions of differing terrain that will evolve over the course of this event. Currently, you can explore an autumn season forest and a haunted farm. During the event, you can choose to play the Harvest World on any chapter of your adventure. You'll be prompted to make your selection when you start a new adventure. After the event, we'll integrate the Harvest World content into the full game as a potential world that can surface by the procedural curation algorithm.
  
• HIGH GROUND TERRAIN: Harvest World is the first biome to feature combat maps with tactical "high grounds", adding a new dimension to battle. Take cover behind a hill, knock enemies off, control the choke points, etc.

[h2]Bug Fixes[/h2]

• Fixed a bug that had broken regional population within biomes. Special thanks to Chumsie the Trustworthy for the detailed feedback that helped us uncover this issue. As a result the desert biome now has an entirely new section "Desert Ruins" that was originally intended for this world to accompany the boss area. Includes more maps with traps and obstacles.
  
• Also wanted to acknowledge Irvine for bug with with the Combos Triggered Stat which was actually fixed in the previous release.
  
• Fixed bug where replay button wouldn't function if trying to use after the defeat animation had played.
  
• Fixed bug where environment objects (ex: chests) weren’t scaling to the proper size.

The grumbling croak of a woeful frog creature echoes from the marshlands. Was this another failed experiment by the creator of Rabbitus or is something more sinister afoort? A new hero emerges to to lead the investigation, familiar in both the arcane arts and attuned to nature. Who could it be?


I can't stress enough how important your Steam reviews our to the continuing success of our project. If you're enjoying Summoners Fate and would like to help support us grow to the become the game of your dreams, please take a moment to write me a Steam review and let me know what aspects you're most enjoying and anything I can do to further add to your enjoyment :)

Join the Discussion:
- Steam discussion board: https://steamcommunity.com/app/1681840/discussions/
- Discord: https://discord.gg/d20studios (RossD20Studios#2359)

Thanks so much!

~Ross