Update #33: Gear Up with our latest MAJOR update to Abalon!

Time to Gear Up!

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.

Out with the old, in with the UPGRADES!

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.)

Lots of New Gear to Discover

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!

New Shops!

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 :)

v1.36.0 Release Notes

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

Other New Equipment System Notes:

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.

On the Horizon

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.)

Support Our Community

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