Beastieball News

A BIGMOON BASH is beginning soon in Beastieball! During Bigmoon Bashes, coaches can challenge each other in open matchmaking for a limited time.

When: July 12, 2025 00:00 UTC to July 14, 2025 00:00 UTC (equivalent to Friday, July 11 @ 4PM PST to Sunday, June 13 @ 4PM PST) Guilds: Kichik VS Axolati VS Bildit!

During the event you'll have a Bash Rank, which will improve based on your performance. After it's over, you'll receive in-game rewards based on your participation, such as Social Battery and Sports Points.

This Bash will be a REMATCH between the 3 starter Beastie families! Players must bring a team which matches EXACTLY ONE guild. Your results will contribute to that Guild's success, and at the end one will be declared the winner! In the last Starter Bash, Kichik reigned supreme in the end. But with new animation and several balance patches behind us, maybe a new one will shine this time?

Players of all skill level are invited! All you need to do to participate is to play the game on that day and join the Bash on SportNet! SportNet is typically unlocked within the first 2 hours of your adventure, after beating your first Ranked boss. And if you aren't confident in your own Beastie team, you can use a randomly generated one instead - just go to Team Setup and set "Random Team" as your current team.

[h3]Official Game Rules:[/h3]
First to 2 Points wins
Standard time limit on move selection
No Undos allowed
No duplicate Beastie species allowed
Relationship Combos are disabled
All Beasties are set to Level 50

This past weekend we hosted a BIGMOON BASH in Beastieball, where coaches could challenge one another in fierce contests of sport! This was our first bash after June major milestone update with new balance updates, Beastie animations and localisations implemented. We saw a lot more action this time around with all the new players who jumped in. Let's see who came out on top!

But first: here are the coaches who achieved the highest Bash Scores in this event!
[h2]🏆 Top-Scoring Players[/h2]

1. Arc Tech (The Arcane Machines) | Bash Score: 3068
2. Astra (The Tiny Girls) | Bash Score: 3024
3. Satoros (The Diamond Ducks) | Bash Score: 2988
4. Bolimar (The Crimson Angels) | Bash Score: 2816
5. Stardust (The Starbound Dinosaurs) | Bash Score: 2800
6. • Scy (The Average Folks) | Bash Score: 2796
   • Dino (The Infinite Traps) | Bash Score: 2796
7. N/A
8. Kesephim (The Dazzling Lovers) | Bash Score: 2772
9. Zonk (The Exploding Enigmas) | Bash Score: 2768
10. AshleyETA (The Musical Girls) | Bash Score: 2748
11. Cantreep (The Lazy Lights) | Bash Score: 2732
12. Reverie (The Nervous Folks) | Bash Score: 2720
13. Igor (The Rutile Artists) | Bash Score: 2708
14. Kyyg (The Wacky Worms) | Bash Score: 2704
15. Ket (The Sea-faring Lovers) | Bash Score: 2684
16. Nalathni (The Cursed Nightmares) | Bash Score: 2624
17. Pyryn (The Exploding Rivals) | Bash Score: 2620
18. Score (The Jamming Ballers) | Bash Score: 2600
19. Kaybee (The Shining Wings) | Bash Score: 2584
20. P3Rcarus (The Roaring Novas) | Bash Score: 2576

Congratulations to the top-scoring coaches!

[h2]📊 Beastie Usage Stats![/h2]
As has become tradition, we've collected a ton of data on Beastie usage during this event and we're happy to share that data with you for further investigation!
[h3]> Check out the STATS here![/h3]

[h2]🕵️ Meta Insights[/h2]
I'm sure players will have their own discourse about the stats from this Bash, but here are my own thoughts on what we're seeing.

• An influx of new players means that starter Beasties are seeing a boost in usage again! But their winrates aren't as dominant as they've been in the past; Bandicraft certainly doesn't feel like the matchmaking demon it was in the initial balance patch.
  
• Lunaptra and Albrax make a surprise appearance among the top-used Beasties! I didn't see that coming; did anybody? Albrax's Tractor Beam enables some tricky and technical gameplay that we wouldn't say is for everyone, yet many players seem to have gravitated towards them this Bash.
  
• Grazada, Yamyth and Garood are the bottom-usage kings this time! Nothing new here, really, although don't let their low usage fool you; all 3 can be devastating on the right team.
  
• Rally has seemingly almost vanished from the usage stats! Beasties like Skulkapi, Noizard, Heliath and Cherrily who dominated Bashes throughout the spring are suddenly scattered to the winds and some are near the bottom of usage. Players might have gotten a bit tired of the strategy, or lost faith in it... but I think there's plenty of teambuilding space to explore there still.
  

[h2]🙇 THANK YOU![/h2]
Thank you everyone for playing! It's always exciting to see how the meta is developing. Internally, we're seeing balance between all Beasties has been slowly getting closer and closer with each balance patch, and we've managed to do that without fundamentally annihilating strengths of any Beastie. We're taking lots of notes from these results and already thinking about what we might want to add and change next, but we might have less frequent balance changes going forward and give the community more time to develop and adapt to the meta of each individual balance update.

A quick patch with some fixes in advance of the upcoming Bigmoon Bash. This is a minor update correcting some issues introduced in our recent Milestone Update!

[h2]🚧Other Fixes and Changes[/h2]

• Fixed crashes to do with claiming certain Team Titles in Russian
  
• Misc. loca fixes
  
• The "back" button is now used to speed up gameplay during sports matches instead of the "run" button. When no Beastie is selected and no undos are available, the "back" button no longer opens the side-menu.
  
• Corrected issues with some playbooks in the Tower Tourney
  
• Corrected issues with some combo play effects that weren't updated to accommodate other balance patch changes
  
• Fixed an issue where re-sorting you Reserves while editing a returning Away Team would cause the "your team was healed" message to appear seemingly randomly
  
• Fixed a new issue causing Superorganism to not activate in Expedition mode
  
• Restored previous functionality for your in-game team to develop new relationships when used in the Tower Tourney
  

As always, we're working on lots of other fun stuff that you won't see for a little while yet. The community energy after a major update is always so wonderful. Even after working so hard to get everything ready for the previous update, rather than taking a break, seeing everyone's enthusiasm has only made me want to get even more ideas in! It's a while away yet but I'm already so excited for the next milestone...

* = Changed in update on 06/14
This is the first Milestone Update out of 10 planned.

For the first milestone update, we fully focused on animation for the starter Beasties. These are ones that are relevant to every single player, so it made sense to get these ones wrapped up first.


• Bongus: Animation COMPLETE!
  
• Surgus: Animation COMPLETE! (Marked as complete without making any changes)
• Illugus: Animation COMPLETE!
  
• Ostrisigh: Animation COMPLETE!
  
• Kassaleet: Animation COMPLETE!
  
• Hopra: Animation COMPLETE! *Added a minor idle anim variation
• Handicoot: Animation COMPLETE!
  
• Bandicraft: Animation COMPLETE!
  
• Shloom: Animation COMPLETE!
  
  
  The number of Beasties marked as complete has gone from 18 to 27.
  

• WAY MORE unlockable Team Titles!
  • The number of Title words in the game have expanded from 200 to 440. Yes, we have more than doubled the number of Titles available in the game now!
    
  • There a few ways to unlock new Team Titles now:
    • Defeating a boss in Super Tower Tourney (every 10 rounds)
      
    • Clearing a 5-round streak in the Draft Challenge
      
    • Reaching Flag 9 in the Mountain Expedition
      
      And, most notably...
      
    • Defeating another team using an unlockable title, typically via an Away Team or during a Bigmoon Bash!
  • Players who have previous records in post-game challenges will be gifted a bundle of new Team Titles upon loading the game. The number of Titles you unlock will be based on your existing records.
    
  • Titles have also been retroactively added for clearing a certain story encounter. Players who have already passed this story encounter will unlock the new Titles upon loading the game.
    
  
• New treats for your Beasties!
  • You can now find Ice Cream stands in certain game areas! Buy a stack of ice cream cones and throw them at your Beasties to give them a sweet little treat.
    
  • Daredillo Energy Vending Machines are now found in every populous area of the game. Check these out for some overpriced and unsatisfying drinks for your Beasties!
    
• Environmental improvements
  • Additional environmental details have been added to Jasper and Beryl
  • The moon now appears in the sky during Bigmoon Bashes
• New SFX
  • Added a few sounds which were missing for field effects like Rally, Dread, Trap, and Build
  
• New Languages!
  • The game is now fully playable in Simplified Chinese and Russian.
  • More translations are still on the way! We prioritized these ones during Early Access for the largest potential expansion of our audience.
• New music: SPORTS MATCH AGAINST GOD (Spoiler warning!)
  • This track was added for a certain lategame story encounter
    
  • Players who have already passed this point in the story will have the new song available in Music Setup.
    
  • The new track has also been added to the OST on Bandcamp!

BEASTIEBALL x BUGSNAX!

We're teaming up with our other favorite indie creature collector, Bugsnax! Both our games are now available in a discounted bundle. If you're a Beastieball fan, we can't recommend Bugsnax enough to you... it's got great creatures, characters and story that have stuck with us for a long time.

BIGMOON BASH!
An Open Bigmoon Bash is coming next weekend! All Beasties and coaches are invited to jump in and challenge players all around the world.

[h3]🍄 Traits[/h3]
• (NEW!) Confident: Gets +1 Body POW and +1 Body DEF boost when TAGGING IN
  
  
  
  • 🔄 Given to Supilero in place of Fearless
    
• (NEW!) Forager: Restores 50 STAMINA when TAGGING OUT
  
  
  
  • 🔼 Given to Supilero in place of Scavenger
    
• (NEW!) Thrasher: POW x1.3 when any Beastie on the opponent team is WIPED
  
  
  
  • 🔄 Given to Maraptor instead of Echo
    Echo made sense on Maraptor before the introduction of Quake, when instead it spread damage to both opponents. In general, we try to give Beasties a more offense-oriented trait and a more support-oriented trait; however, with splash damage changed to Quake, Echo became more like a support Trait, and one which was notably inferior to Clamor, so Maraptor was lacking in interesting build variety. The intention of Thrasher is to give Maraptor more of an effective aggressive role option again. This Trait is less tested than other changes in this patch and may require more testing and feedback to solidify.
    
• Slippery:
  
  • 🔻 New effect: This Beastie's damage is reduced 25%. Adjacent allies receive attacks in their place.
    This reduces ALL damage dealt, including via Nettle. Gremlur has strong offensive potential which they can invest in heavily since Slippery makes their defense stats irrelevant. Slippery also guarantees the option to double-use high value support plays. This trait adjustment means Gremlur gets less free value from this easy utility, but still can function as an annoying and sustainable field presence as intended.
    
• (NEW!) Adaptation: Copies their ally's Trait when they TAG IN
  
  
  
  • 🔼 Given to Gremlur as a recessive Trait
    Since Slippery now reduces Gremlur's damage output, and has basically always obsoleted their defensive stat spread, we wanted to give them an alternative mode which allows them to actually leverage their stats and offensive potential.
    
• Rumpus:
  • 🔼 Now triggers after every offense and defense turn, not just after offense.
• Agile:
  • 🔻 No longer confers a bonus for play effects with the "if ball is hittable" condition, ie. Juggle and Set.
• Flee:
  • 🔼 Triggers starting on 50 STAMINA rather than 49
• Precise:
  • 🔼 Given to Conjarr as a recessive Trait
  
  [h3]🏃 Plays[/h3]
  • (NEW!) Exert - Spirit attack, 65 POW. User feels 2TOUGH. -30 STAMINA.
    
    
    
    • Via level up
      
      
      
      • 🔼 Daredillo, Opposur
        
      
      
    • Via friendship
      
      
      
      • 🔼 Supilero, Grazada, Skiffrig, Squimage, Xiphosaur, Yamyth
        
      
      This attack combines well with other spirit options and gives spirit-focused offense teams a unique serving option that fits their unique strengths.
      
  • (NEW!) Echo Strike - Mind attack, 70 POW. Sets target's Trait to user's Trait.
    
    
    
    • Via level up
      
      
      
      • 🔼 Plumask
        
      
      
    • Via friendship
      
      
      
      • 🔼 Platypulse, Mistic, Trat, Magpike, Bindiva
        
      
      
  • Finisher:
    • 🔄 Updated text to reflect damage bonus starting on 50 STAMINA
  • Demolish
    • 🔼 80 POW (from 70)
      
    • 🔻 No longer gets a POW bonus when it clears field effects
  • Rocket
    • 🔼 Now always goes where it is targeted
  • Cook
    • 🔻 55 POW (from 60)
  • Grit
    • 🔻 60 POW (from 65)
  • Scream
    • 🔻 90 POW (from 95)
  • Contest
    • 🔻 Can now only be used at the net
  • Thriller
    • 🔼 65 POW (from 60)
  • Relentless
    • 🔼 70 POW (from 50)
    • 🔼 Can now use when WIPED
  • Challenge
    • 🔼 95 POW (from 85)
    • 🔻 No longer makes the target ANGRY
      Our experimental change to Challenge to make the target ANGRY was effective at giving Spirit offense better disruption options, but at too great a cost. Challenge offered too much value and interaction potential and became a very centralizing play that bolstered the effectiveness of Rally teams. In the past, players have voiced that they felt Spirit and Rally offense was lacking in strong disruption options. This experiment has showed us that Spirit probably doesn't need to have the best disruption options in addition to its offensive potential.
  • Doze
    • 🔄 New name: Exhaust
    • 🔄 New effect: Feel 4 WIPED
  • Torch Pass
    • 🔻 Lowers the user's Max STAMINA by 10
  • Team Chant
    • 🔄 New name: Chant
    • 🔼 Now only cures negative feelings, not positive ones
    • 🔻 Targets a single allied Beastie (self, ally, or benched ally)
  • Shield
    • 🔼 Applies 2 TOUGH (from 1) + 2 ANGRY
  
  [h3]👹 Beasties[/h3]
  
  • Collarva/Wormask/Plumask
    
    • 🔻 Plays Removed: Challenge, Supercommit, Sneak Attack, Call Out, Teleport
      Plumask is a Beastie that has been with us for a very long time, and from very early on in development was given new plays frequently as we added them. They were long overdue for a re-examination for what was actually uniquely relevant to them.
      
  • Shooga/Supassum/Supilero
    
    
    
    • 🔼 Plays Added: Demolish, Thunder
      
    • 🔻 Plays Removed: Energized
      
  • Platenna/Platypulse/etc
    
    
    
    • 🔻 Plays Removed: Prepared Attack
      
  • Noizard
    
    
    
    • 🔻 Plays Removed: Forward Pass
      Noizard has continued to dominate usage since we reduced its defensive capabilities. Although this play isn't their flashiest option, it has enabled Noizard to serve a critical function as a support for hyper offensive partners. Removing this passing option pigeon-holes them more into their intended disruption role. We're curious to step back and assess their power level after this change, along with the various nerfs made to spirit offense that tends to pair with them. Further nerfs may be made if this hasn't pushed them far enough.
      
  • Gastic/Wisper/Mistic
    
    
    
    • 🔻 Plays Removed: Prepared Attack
      
  • Armantis
    
    
    
    • 🔼 Plays Added: Sneak Attack (As a level-up play)
      
  • Grazada
    
    
    
    • 🔼 Plays Added: Challenge
      
    • 🔻 Plays Removed: Supercommit
      
  • Hydrolm
    
    
    
    • 🔼 85 BPOW (from 75)
      
    • 🔼 Plays Added: Rocket
      
  • Heliath
    
    • 🔼 Plays Added: Thriller
      
    • 🔻 Plays Removed: Challenge
      
  • Maraptor
    
    
    
    • 🔼 89 BPOW (from 87)
      
    • 🔼 87 MPOW (from 85)
      
    • 🔻 81 BDEF (from 83)
      
    • 🔻 86 MDEF (from 88)
      

• Significantly optimized the map menu, particularly when zoomed out
  • From experimental: Fixed an issue preventing the map cursor from selecting icons near the world edges
• Re-increased the text size for the "MATCH SCHEDULED" UI event
  
• Fixed collision on large trees in Mythwood
  
• Fixed an issue where editing a saved team would list their equipped plays twice in the list of available plays
  
• Made Conjarr "Cryptic" trait pop up less often in reaction to certain attacks which didn't have relevant side effects
  
• Fixed a crash that occured when two Adaptation Gremlurs were fielded against two Mimicry Squimage
  
• Fixed some potential softlock issues around cutscene triggers for encounters against Jack
  
• Fixed an issue with loading Visual Studies in the Beastiepedia on MacOS
  
• Updated playbooks for post-game challenge Beasties to make use of new balance patch features. Also improved automated team building logic around Dreadful Mist.
  
• *Corrected some issue with displaying text in Chinese
• *Improved flow for starting up Tower Tourney - custom team selection is preserved between runs, and all startup settings are available in one menu before beginning play.
• *Improved flow for a returning Away Team - you can now edit the team before sending it back out, and your in-game party is healed automatically after you're finished responding to Away Team updates.

Another BIGMOON BASH is beginning soon in Beastieball! During Bigmoon Bashes, coaches can challenge each other in open matchmaking for a limited time.

When: June 21, 2025 00:00 UTC to June 23, 2025 00:00 UTC (equivalent to Friday, June 20 @ 4PM PST to Sunday, June 22 @ 4PM PST) Theme: NONE! All Beasties are allowed!

During the event you'll have a Bash Rank, which will improve based on your performance. After it's over, you'll receive in-game rewards based on your participation, such as Social Battery and Sports Points.

Players of all skill level are invited! All you need to do to participate is to play the game on that day and join the Bash on SportNet! SportNet is typically unlocked within the first 2 hours of your adventure, after beating your first Ranked boss. And if you aren't confident in your own Beastie team, you can use a randomly generated one instead - just go to Team Setup and set "Random Team" as your current team.

[h3]Official Game Rules:[/h3]
First to 2 Points wins
Standard time limit on move selection
No Undos allowed
No duplicate Beastie species allowed
Relationship Combos are disabled
All Beasties are set to Level 50

[h3]Note: Incoming Balance Changes![/h3]
This Bash will be played on a upcoming balance update which is currently live in Experimental. It will become part of the main game branch tomorrow, on June 12 as part of our first milestone update.