Hello Automon abusers,
Following up on the Automon Arena announcement, I'd like to talk about what's done, what's coming and why.
So, first of all, if you want to be up to date on all of this, you can join the Discord or follow me on Twitter or BlueSky
But if you want to be extremely out of the loop and only read these updates once every 3 months, be my guest.
So, without further aDON'T, newsworthy stuff:
The game is already publicly playable, and will remain so forever, at the Itch page. You can set up a game with your friends, or if you have none, bots. Though there is no tutorial so prior knowledge of the Automon is recommended.
I will try to set up a Steam page for Automon Arena sometime at the beginning of next year, to allow for more organic player growth through Steam. Ideally I'd like the game to look a bit better before that happens.
Some fun stuff to show how the game plays etc:
1. I actually got an artist instead of drawing in MS Paint with a mouse this time. Look at them!
2. Area navigation is completely different compared to original Automon - there's now a big shared map, and all players move at the same time. It's turn based so when going up against players, the game will proceed only when everyone selected their areas
3. To have a PvP fight, you need to physically find other players by going to the same areas as them (going towards each other also triggers a fight). You can see the other player's party, but you don't know what they'll actually pick for their team. But that goes both ways! Great opportunity for mind games.
Players have limited lives before they're out of the game, and PvP is a great way to murder someone out of the game completely
4. There are boss areas where you'll face a challenging mono-typed NPC. Just like fighting players, you won't know their team composition and it's selected by AI smart enough to consider your team's weaknesses in their choices (but not smart enough to arrange their team sensically... for now)
Why would you fight them? For now, just for fun because I didn't implement a reason yet.
(The plan is for these gyms to give out badges, similar to the original game, that boost your team in some way. Also, I'm considering the possibility of having a "Champion" area in the middle of the map, which requires a certain number of badges to enter, but will allow players to face a superboss (and the Pretty Good Three) and win the game by beating it, as an alternate win condition)
Have a Merry Christmas, and see you on Discord (or back here in 3 months I guess?)