Abalon News

Merry Christmas, everyone!

According to our roadmap, I had planned to release our Winter content update in time for a Christmas event. As things turned out, I had so much feedback to catch up on after the release of Demon World that I was unable to make this deadline. Sometimes it's necessary to take a beat and fix those bugs.



Let me say just how much I appreciate the detailed feedback and support from your in-game reports, Discord messages and Steam discussions. This made all the difference in getting these issues fixed and I hope you enjoy a smoother experience.

The Winter update should be coming out in the next few weeks. In the meantime, I promised I had a special announcement to make before Christmas (aside from the gift of many bug fixes, of course)...



At the request of our Discord community, I've decided to open up our internal multiplayer testing to a small cohort of players from our Steam community. Woah!!

Before you get too excited, please note this is not an "official" feature release. Per our roadmap above, the full multiplayer isn't due till spring. What I'm aiming for here is a small initial audience of active community members who are willing to accept the very early development phase of our multiplayer feature and help shape it directly. It'll be a step beyond the typical Steam Early Access, and I will be personally corresponding with players directly for feedback.

To keep these conversations meaningful and productive, I'll only be accepting a small group at first. For anyone interested, please head over to our Discord server where you can find the details on our #announcements channel.

[h2]Why not roll out multiplayer to the entire Early Access?[/h2]
Simply put: When a game has multiplayer, players expect a large audience and judge it based on its multiplayer features. Releasing this feature en-masse opens us up to to reviews and critique for expectations I simply can't deliver on yet. The worst thing that can happen to a game is to release multiplayer too early because players might assume the game is "dead" - which creates a self-fulfilling prophecy where the game actually does "die". Rather, we are a fledgling seed with the potential to grow into something big. So, I won't release the multiplayer as an official feature until it's ready to meet the Steam community's expectations.

This multiplayer prerelease is my way of rewarding our active players and ensuring the future of this game and community for everyone in the Steam community. As we continue to progress, I'll keep you informed with additional opportunities to get involved.

I'll be taking tomorrow (Christmas) off to be with my family, and I'll be back on Monday to help start getting players setup in the multiplayer prerelease. Enjoy your holidays!


Here's everything fixed in v0.81.1. Keep an eye out for your Steam handle. I do my best to personally thank individuals who help contribute to improving the game with each update!

1. Fixed bug "BB" status that was lingering on the Birthday Boy (Thanks N.N.Q)
   
2. Fixed bug where player couldn’t undo an action that resulted in their own defeat. (Thanks mr.kitty and BlackDragonMagic)
   
3. Fixed bug where Chilled Status was stacking its effect (but not reporting this on the status pane). Chilled no longer stacks. (Thanks mr.kitty)
   
4. Made it so that any unit that Inflicts Freeze now deals Ice Damage with their attack as well.
   
5. Fixed bug where Spell Damage bonus modifier was not applying on the text of certain cards until undoing an action. (The bonus was functional, but the card did not have the green numbers reflecting this) (Thanks mr.kitty)
   
6. Fixed bug where Cat Caller lost her animal buff ability when triggered as an ambush encounter. (Thanks mr.kitty)
   
7. Fixed bug where Ice Trap wasn’t dealing Ice Damage. (Thanks mr.kitty)
   
8. Fixed bug where Cat of Nine would appear to infinitely attack a vigil unit (ex: Samurai). This was the result of the cat reviving itself after each counter attack of the vigil unit and attacking again, but the parallel animation system wasn’t waiting between each attack to show the revive. Thanks (Otherwise Occupied)
   
9. Fixed bug where flying units moving over other units might end their movement facing the wrong direction. (Thanks mr.kitty)
   
10. Fixed the design of several maps in Harvest World that was resulting in enemies spawning in unreadable areas. Thanks to many players for reporting these occurrences.
    
11. Fixed bug where attempting to portal to the next world while Red Starlings were in the party could result in the party not teleporting correctly and the portal becoming missing upon game reload. (Thanks Thăm Ngàn, 余常乐, Frosty the Pyro, and Meeky)
    
12. Fixed bug where loading a game while Red Starlings were in party would show double the stat buff from the starlings on each member until the player enters a battle.
    
13. Fixed several typos/text in lore and prompts (Thanks mr.kitty)
    
14. Fixed bug where chests on a treasure map adjacent to a shop could become tagged as belonging to the shopkeeper (Thanks Filthy Goon)
    
15. Fixed bug where player could attack items in a shop before exploring the shop map by extending the mist around shops to conceal these items.
    
16. Fixed bug Where rescuing a guardian in a battle encounter, then reviving it resulted in it being unable to have it join your party. Ex: "I tried to talk to Gargantuant. Clicking him caused that I attacked him. I'm not in battle though." (Thanks N.N.Q)
    
17. Fixed bug where entering a dungeon room ambush could result in the ambush prompt not triggering and the monsters remaining idle and not attacking. (Thanks Filthy Goon, Lone Sylvan, and many others)
    
18. Fixed bug where player received a "drawMovePathArrow" error when attempting to draw a path through a portal or staircase when other units blocked the path. This resulted in the movement path being broken and the engine being unable to complete the request due to the invalid path. (Thanks LoneLord and Sane Snake)
    
19. Fixed bug where units with Regeneration ability that had additional Regeneration status effect applied would trigger their regeneration twice, resulting in twice their "Regeneration" X instead of the cumulative stacked amount. Likewise, fixed a similar issue for units with natural Vulnerability and an additional Vulnerability effect applied.
    
20. Fixed bug where the Grease spell’s Vulnerability to Fire effect was not functioning.
    
21. Fixed bug that would generate a #1009 error on soundManager::SoundRecord/resume() caused by the sound channel being overloaded while pausing/resuming the game. (Thanks to many)
    
22. Fixed bug where the procedural world generator could place the boss-key walled area around a farm map instead of a swamp map if Croakus is initially populated in the farm and then relocated to be placed in the swamp. (Thanks Nameless)
    
23. Fixed bug where hero could become trapped and unable to move if they ended a battle surrounded by firetraps. (Thanks JJinHEAVEN)
    
24. Fixed bug where portal of a boss defeated in the fire trap room could become unreachable if the boss is defeated in the middle of the firetraps due to the firetraps blocking pathing while exploring. The portal will no longer open on tiles that cannot be pathed. (Thanks corfaeitoic and cowapple81513)
    
25. Fixed bug that resulted in no portal opening when Nithsrot Gerr stole a Transfer Consciousness card and is then defeated while in the body of the new unit and likewise if Savage Transformation is stolen and he is defeated in bear form (Thanks N.N.Q)
    
26. Fixed bug where casting Savage Transformation and then Transfer Consciousness would result in your original summoner being lost and your soul being trapped in the body of the transferred unit forever.
    
27. Fixed bug where casting Transfer Consciousness and then retreating before the hero was defeated resulted in seeing two hero life bars above each unit.
    
28. Fixed bug where casting Transfer Consciousness while in a Fortune Teller animal form, then changing back into a summoner while your soul is in another unit and retreating or losing your original summoner in battle resulted in the original hero being lost.
    
29. Fixed bug where goblin party was dropping in then performing equipment spin animation instead of already being equipped.
    
30. Fixed bug where world could fail to load due to the game view transitioning faster than it takes to create the game engine.
    
31. Fixed bug where a large party of units could be truncated when exploring a narrow corridor exceeding 10 tiles in length. Note: A large party of units will still be truncated if entering an area with insufficient unexplored tiles to fit the entire party.
    
32. Fixed bug where units would "pop" into position when transitioning into new maps instead of completing their movement animation for a more seamless transition.
    
33. Fixed bug where keys and lore would not show on the map when having last moused over an area of interest (such as a campsite or stair case). (Thanks mr.kitty)
    
34. Fixed bug where retreating from a battle and then immediately opening the map freezes the character movement until restarting the game. (Thanks Nameless and ¯\_(ツ)_/¯)
    
35. Fixed bug where a procedurally generated river cut through a map and bull-dozed the crate containing the lore that was supposed to be hidden on that map. (Thanks Otherwise Occupied)
    
36. Fixed bug where silver key is missing in Harvest World because the swamp island treasure map was not flagged as requiring a key even though it had a locked treasure chest. (Thanks mr.kitty)
    
37. Fixed bug where lore spawned in the secret dungeon stair map but could not be retrieved because the map did not contain a destructible object in which the lore could be obtained from. (Thanks mr.kitty)
    
38. Fixed bug with the Discard for Mana ability where player can discard two cards to gain +1 mana. In the last build, I extended this ability so that it could be used more than once per turn, but I did not account for resetting the cards discarded flag. This caused an issue where any cards discarded after the first (including when a summoned unit was defeated) would generate 1 mana. This has been fixed so that you have to discard 2 cards for each 1 mana during a single turn as intended.
    
39. Fixed bug where the Demon Lord was regenerating life when demons were defeated instead of losing life points/health as intended. This was because the status effect storing his modifier was set to remove and replace instead of keep but modify existing.
    
40. Fixed bug where guardians in a standard 3 hero party could become lost when entering a prompted fate encounter (such as Dinner A-Fowl or the Catch of the Day) from an area outside the maps playable bounds that resulted in the Summoner needing to move onto the field. (Thanks Meeky and zac_s_d)
    

Want to see this game grow to become the premiere, go-to title in the tactical CCG genre? So do I! Help us get there by writing a Steam review for Summoners Fate. It doesn't have to be long, just enough to share what you enjoy most about the game so other players can discover us. I really appreciate your support :)

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

Thanks so much!

~Ross

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.