Abalon News

We've just rolled a year past our 1.0 launch on May 11th and nearly two years since our early access debuted in June 2022, and WOW, I'm so grateful for the positive reception, your critical feedback, and the many hours you've enjoyed playing Abalon. Thank you all so much for being a part of our D20Studios community!

Today, I’m thrilled to announce the release of our 10th major update for Abalon! Per your many requests and feedback, I'm bringing you an enhanced equipment system that will allow you to fully upgrade the look, stats, and abilities of your team of adventurers.

[h2]Out with the old, in with the UPGRADES![/h2]
Let's be real, our old equipment system was a bit confusing. Sometimes it dropped as cards to place in your decks, and other times, it was a one-time use satchel card. And many a-wise player avoided the risks of giving their hard-earned artifacts to guardians (who took their treasures with them to the grave when they died).

In this update, I scrapped all that nonsense: All equipment drops are now satchel cards. And all equipment and artifacts are kept safe in your satchel whether you die, choose to swap with another equipment, or kick a party member off your team: your gear stays with you for the entire run! This is true even if you're playing perma-death mode or choose to equip your gear on a loyal or summon.

Here you can see an example of the Fighter Mage decked out with some gear including custom helmet, a mighty pitch fork and even a phylactery potion to ensure he doesn't meet an untimely demise.


Consequently, this also cleans up the status panel for the unit card itself (especially if you have multiple artifacts equipped) since it no longer has to show the status/keywords for equipped items.

Seeing the item graphics vs. pure text also adds a nice touch, and you can quickly access the full cards via mouse, keyboard or gamepad.

There are a couple rules in place to balance this:

1. Each character can equip a maximum of 8 items (so you'll have to make decisions about the best combinations and characters to carry each item)
   
2. If an item is unequipped during battle (either by choice, defeat, or an enemy effect) it cannot be re-equipped til end of battle (This is intended to prevent what would be a very tedious min/max strategy to equip an item, attack with ally, re-equip to another ally, attack to regain benefit, etc.)
   

Not only does all existing equipment become extremely relevant for creating your own custom character builds, but I took it a step further and added over 20 new cards to the game for you to experiment builds with. Go ahead and break my game!

[h2]New Shops![/h2]
And just how will you find and collect all that loot? Well, in addition to the new thematic shopkeeper, Vulcan's Forge, there's also the Traveling Salesman that offers a whole new purpose for the campsite.

Once found and rescued, the Traveling Salesman will join you at your campsite on every future run, offering a new set of gear to buy each time you light up the bonfire.


Yes, we improved the gamepad controls! Direct-access to satchel during combat.


Don't forget, all of the controller buttons are fully customizable to ANY game action you like from the game library. While you're there, give the game a thumb's up, too :)

1. Robust Equipment System: Customize each of your characters (skins, stats, and abilities) by equipping up to 8 pieces of gear. When defeated or swapping equipment, your gear automatically returns to your satchel for easy access. Thousands of potential combination to try and break the game with!
   
2. New Campsite Upgrade: Purchase new gear each time you rest at a campsite once you rescue the traveling salesman.
   
3. New Thematic Shop: Vulcan’s Forge (Sells Equipment/Artifacts)
   
4. QoL: Removed the on-grid status icons for four leaf clover, ghost in a jar, guardian angel, joker’s last stand, phylactery potion as these now appear in the icons above the card. Non-triggered surprises can even be unequipped and placed on different characters before they are consumed.
   
5. QoL: Red Soul Gems picked up as satchel cards will now deal damage when used on the boss after it has been injured. (Thanks Kaaz)
   
6. QoL: Traps can no longer be played outside of battle. Additionally, I’ve added the “Satchel” shortcut to the command menu so you can quickly access your traps and other satchel cards. Note: You can also map a custom button to “Satchel” if this isn’t fast enough for you. (Special thanks to VahidSlayerOfAll and flakesl)

7. QoL: Major control improvement for casting satchel cards overall - the camera no longer locks to tactical grid, but remains fluid in exploration mode, allowing you to equip quick successions of gear on different characters and resume movement immediately after.
   
8. QoL: Fixed the issue with gamepads not closing cards when using the back/menu button (previously, this was triggering the main menu to open instead of closing the card) (Thanks Xargle)
   
9. Balance: Changed the minimum chapter the Wild Hunt encounter can spawn on from 1 to 2 (Thanks Dobermann)
   
10. New Artifact: Arcane Heart
    
11. New Artifact: Celestial Heart
    
12. New Card/Artifact: Crystal Sword
    
13. New Satchel Card: Dark Elf Armor
    
14. New Satchel Card: Dreadnought Armor
    
15. New Card/Artifact: Fire Staff
    
16. New Card/Artifact: Fire Sword
    
17. New Card/Artifact: Frozen Dagger
    
18. New Card/Artifact: Giant Spiked Club
    
19. New Card/Artifact: Glaive
    
20. New Card/Artifact: Ice Axe
    
21. New Card/Artifact: Ice Staff
    
22. New Card/Artifact: Morning Star
    
23. New Card/Artifact: Oak’s End
    
24. New Card/Artifact: Rugged Staff
    
25. New Satchel Card: Samurai Helm
    
26. New Card/Artifact: Serrated Spear
    
27. New Card/Artifact: Shuriken
    
28. New Card/Artifact: Snake Staff
    
29. New Artifact: Void Heart
    
30. New Card/Artifact: Warlock Staff
    
31. New Card/Artifact: Wizard Hat
    
32. Balance: Guardian Angel can now be gained as an equippable satchel card from the Fallen Angel encounter and found elsewhere as a satchel reward.
    
33. Balance: Reduced mana cost of Arcana from 2 to 1
    
34. Balance: Arcana is now an Artifact/Satchel in addition to a regular deck card
    
35. Balance: Poison Blade is now an Artifact in addition to a regular deck card
    
36. Balance: Necromancer Staff is now an Artifact in addition to a regular deck card
    
37. Balance: Shaman Staff is now an Artifact in addition to a regular deck card
    
38. Balance: Guardian Heart cost reduced from 750 to 350 (as it still works as healing potion consumable) but the other heart upgrades can be equipped.
    
39. Balance: Adjusted the gold prices of previously existing equipment
    
40. Fixed bug where rescuing hellound puppy didn’t always save the achievement if you exited before another player save data was written
    

[h2]Other New Equipment System Notes:[/h2]

1. For adventure and survival modes, equipment should now always drop as satchel cards instead of deck cards. If you find equipment cards with mana costs as rewards while playing adventure mode, please let me know via Menu -> Share Feedback.
   
2. Some equipment can also be placed in custom decks made for battle mode and fast adventure.
   
3. When you find equipment that can be played as a deck card in battle mode, you’ll automatically unlock the deck card version for battle mode when you find the satchel card version in adventure/survival mode.
   
4. I did my best to balance all of the the near gear, but please keep in mind this is a massive update with trillions of potential permutations. I'm certain you'll find ways to break the game, and I hope you have fun doing so! If something seems off or broken in a not-so-fun way, please let me know and I will respond as fast I can to get it fixed.

1. Upgrading the leaderboard with more categories (ex: top fast adventure player, top traditional player, top hardcore player, highest challenge completions, etc.)
   
2. Improved AI (3.0 Engine)
   
3. Multiplayer with Abalon Arena
4. More player requested QoL (randomized starting hero, saving starter decks, etc.)

Love what we’re doing here? Help support Abalon’s development by writing/updating a Steam review, sharing Abalon with a friend, and wishlisting our upcoming title, Abalon Arena.

Thanks for reading and being a valued player in our community!

~Ross

Warm D20Studios welcome to all of our newest Abalon players! Thank you so much for sharing your feedback in-game, on Discord, and on our Steam community page.

I’ve got our next major update scheduled to roll-out a little later this month that aims to add some highly anticipated player requested features. For now, here’s a quick update to take care of those bugs you’ve reported and keep your games running smooth!

1. Fixed bug where, when a bug triggers before auto save has completed, player's world is not populated with a boss key, skeleton keys, or soul gems. (Thanks SuperKickParty, Goo Sack!, tyr77987 and 陆泳)

2. Fixed bug where playing Abalon in offline mode would generate a "Steam Connection Error" repeatedly throughout the process of starting an adventure and selecting adventure options and result in a bug report being triggered once the adventure starts (which could then cause cascade bugs, such as the boss key not being populated or starting with the the wrong character). (Thanks Goo Sack!)
   
3. Fixed bug with rendering ultra high monitor DPI resolution 1365x720 with 300% scaling (Thanks kdgamers). 

4. Fixed bug where weapon/armor cards were showing the Consumable keyword when they were of the "goes in deck" type rather than the "satchel" type. (Thanks aPot).
   
5. Fixed bug where switching between Deck and Satchel tabs in the progression menu would sometimes not switch the mana icon to a satchel icon if the same card was immediately rendered.
   
6. Fixed bug where, if the last enemy unit defeated is a minion summoned by a Dreamstealer, the lore hidden in that map doesn’t drop. (Thanks Fonz)
   
7. QoL Changed description of Lifesteal keyword from “Heals when dealing damage” to “Heals by damage from its attack up to target’s remaining life” to clarify that the ability only works with attacks (not spells/other abilities) and that you can’t suck extra life out of a 1/1 squirrel if you overkill it. (Thanks Sinzar)
   

Thanks for reading, and remember you can show your support for the continuous development on this game by writing us a Steam store page review :)

~Ross

This patch is intended to fix the Ultra High DPI Monitor issue we were seeing in the bug reports that prevented the game from running full-screen on those really fancy ultra-wide gaming monitors.

Special thanks to Chaplin for providing some additional help that allowed me to reproduce the issue. Awaiting a confirmation that we've resolved it for certain and then I'll update this post :)

Update (4/16/24):
We have confirmation that this fix does solve problem. However, if a player has previously rasterized the graphics in the old version, it's necessary to clear the cache so the patched version can re-rasterize the textures within the GPU resource limits.

Here's how to do that:
1) Force the rasterizer by exiting full screen (Ctrl+F) then re-enter full-screen mode (Ctrl+F) again.
or
2) Delete the existing cache: C:\Users[UserName]\AppData\Roaming\com.d20studios.abalon\Local Store\assetCache and restart the game

Minor versions don't require re-rasterization of the graphics which is why this manual process is needed. When we update the game to next major version (1.35) the rasterization will occur automatically.

[h3]Infinite Loading/Black Loading Screen:[/h3]
I’d also love to create a proper fix for the black screen/failed loading issue.
I’ve been unable to reproduce this bug, so if you’re experiencing this and would be willing to chat with me on Discord, I’m sure I could get it resolved.

Thanks for your continuing feedback and support everyone!

~Ross

1. Fixed bug where opening the map and pressing the confirm button (ex: space bar) generated an error. (Thanks Rakaran and Vincent for the repro steps)
   
2. Fixed bug where switching the map to a different floor and then attempting to select a cell with the keyboard or controller would generate an error. (Thanks darkmage101_ and Swiftflame)
   
3. Fixed bug in Korean translation where attempting to play endless in Survival would lock up the game (Thanks 어거스트)
   
4. Fixed bug where starting an adventure could potentially lock the game in an error loop if the final selected card choice isn’t hidden before the title screen is disposed. (Thanks MediocreJoker and Gizmo)

[h3]Ultra High DPI Montiors:[/h3]
I’m still trying to fix the 6K+ monitor resolution issue.
If you have a really high DPI monitor (6K+) and would be willing to help me debug this one, I’d greatly appreciate it!

[h3]Infinite Loading/Black Loading Screen:[/h3]
I’d also love to create a proper fix for the black screen/failed loading issue.
I’ve been unable to reproduce this bug, so ff you’re experiencing this and would be willing to chat with me on Discord, I’m sure I could get it resolved.

Thanks for your continuing feedback and support everyone!

~Ross

[h2]Turn Based Thursday Festival[/h2]

Abalon is proud to be featured in the Turn-Based Thursday Fest. Running April 4th - April 8th, the festival highlights a curated selection of turn-based games of all kinds.

[h2]Abalon Arena Demo[/h2]

We're celebrating with both a continuation of our ongoing discount and another run of our upcoming multiplayer, Abalon Arena, with a free demo that enables you to battle versus or together with your friends online or on the couch (and full Steam deck verified and controller support, too).

Check it out and let us know what you think!
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2352400/Abalon_Arena/

[h2]Thank you for your feedback![/h2]

I'm so glad everyone is enjoying our recent Fast Adventures update! We've received such a positive response to the new addition so far - thanks for letting us know how you feel! I aim to continue updating Abalon with more great features, so please keep sharing your feedback in-game and here on Steam :)

[h2]We'd love your Steam Review[/h2]

Aside from already being a valued player, the best way you can help support our game and development of Abalon is to write a Steam review. This helps improve our discoverability by letting other members of Steam community know you're having a great time. I also personally read all reviews to address feedback and further improve the game.

Here's how to leave a review:

From your Steam library, select the thumbs up or thumbs down and write a sentence or two about your experience. If you're dissatisfied with the game in anyway, rest assured, it's my mission to rectify that however I can, so please let me know what I can do for you.

I appreciate all of your support!

See you on the battlefield!

~Ross