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...
About this Update
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.
Release Notes
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.
Bug Fixes
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.
Community Spotlight
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
Show Your Support with a Steam Review
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.
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.
Update #11 - Harvest World
Version 0.78.1 Release Notes
Hi everyone -
Just in time for Halloween and the Steam Scream Fest, we've just launched our second major update: Harvest World!
As I mentioned last week, Harvest World will be a continuous live update - adding regular new content through the duration of the event which will run through till the end of November. Here's what's included this week:
New Content in Harvest World - Week 1
In the first week of the Harvest Event, you'll explore an all-new biome populated for the autumn season with a haunted harm, investigate the mystery of the missing villagers and unlock a powerful new playable Summoner!
NEW SUMMONER: Clik'Clik, the Impaler is an insectoid (praying mantis) with a mastery of speed and mobility. Clik’Clik can fly around the enemy, summoning swarms and giving time for poison to take hold before delivering the killing blow. His harpoon ability allows him to pull enemies towards allies to trigger devastating combos.
NEW CARDS: Not only will you get the chance to fight against the evils of the Harvest World, you can learn these dark spells and unleash their horrors upon your enemies. Our new faction, the Withereds, has an entirely unique play style and feel allowing for all new kinds of creative synergies.
NEW BIOME: The new Harvest World biome contains various regions of differing terrain that will evolve over the course of this event. Currently, you can explore an autumn season forest and a haunted farm. During the event, you can choose to play the Harvest World on any chapter of your adventure. You'll be prompted to make your selection when you start a new adventure. After the event, we'll integrate the Harvest World content into the full game as a potential world that can surface by the procedural curation algorithm.
HIGH GROUND TERRAIN: Harvest World is the first biome to feature combat maps with tactical "high grounds", adding a new dimension to battle. Take cover behind a hill, knock enemies off, control the choke points, etc.
Bug Fixes
Fixed a bug that had broken regional population within biomes. Special thanks to Chumsie the Trustworthy for the detailed feedback that helped us uncover this issue. As a result the desert biome now has an entirely new section "Desert Ruins" that was originally intended for this world to accompany the boss area. Includes more maps with traps and obstacles.
Also wanted to acknowledge Irvine for bug with with the Combos Triggered Stat which was actually fixed in the previous release.
Fixed bug where replay button wouldn't function if trying to use after the defeat animation had played.
Fixed bug where environment objects (ex: chests) weren’t scaling to the proper size.
Coming Next
The grumbling croak of a woeful frog creature echoes from the marshlands. Was this another failed experiment by the creator of Rabbitus or is something more sinister afoort? A new hero emerges to to lead the investigation, familiar in both the arcane arts and attuned to nature. Who could it be?
Show You Care with a Steam Review
I can't stress enough how important your Steam reviews our to the continuing success of our project. If you're enjoying Summoners Fate and would like to help support us grow to the become the game of your dreams, please take a moment to write me a Steam review and let me know what aspects you're most enjoying and anything I can do to further add to your enjoyment :)
Your Summoner and hero party gather close to the Cosmic Tortoise - in a crackle of purple energy you find yourself transported to a new world... A brisk chill cools your skin. Dry, colorful leaves crunch beneath your feet. The musk of pumpkins and squash fill your nostrils. It is harvest season here, but something isn't right. An eerie calm unsettles you. It's too quiet. And what's happened to the villagers who should be reaping the crops?
Get Ready for Harvest World
We're excited to announce "Harvest World", our next major update and first seasonal event for Summoners Fate will be releasing next week on October 25 at 10:00AM PDT (UTC-7) to coincide with Steam Scream Fest.
The "Harvest World" update will add an entirely new biome to Summoners Fate packed with Halloween and Autumn themed content. Beginning October 25th and concluding at the end of November, we'll be incrementally adding new content to the game each week as you explore the mysteries of the Harvest World, including:
New tilesets with autumn trees, crops, swamps and more
Three new bosses including a tormented frog demon and the dreaded Demon Lord
New fate encounters with guaranteed more "goblin mischief"
Three new playable Summoners with unique play styles to learn and all-star decks to unlock
New enemies including the shambling, potato-sack-like husks known as the Withereds
New artifacts to further expand player agency and allow even greater synergy exploits
Open a portal to the demonic realms - there, within the dungeons of the Demon Lord may the fortunate discover the fabled hellhound kennels and recover a most rare and coveted prize: a hellhound puppy to call your own!
During the event, there will be a special "in-game" shortcut to teleport you directly to Harvest world so you can play the new content. After the event, Harvest World will be integrated into the full content of Summoners Fate as one of the random worlds you may encounter in your adventures.
Can't wait to learn more?
Join our community discussions on Steam and Discord (links below) - and ask away. You may just convince me to reveal some hints about the specifics of what I have in store for you. Or perhaps you have an idea for a special Halloween themed encounter you'd really like to see?
Event Starts: Oct. 14, 2022 at 12:01 AM EDT Event Ends: Oct. 23, 2022 at 11:59 PM EDT
We've recently updated our Summoners Fate Early Access build and free demo version with full controller support and many other player-requested updates. During the event, I'll also be streaming a developer "Let's Play" and answering any questions about the game via Steam broadcast chat and our Steam discussion board.
Summoners Fate brings together the best elements of tabletop gaming - including turn-based tactical combat, MtG inspired card strategy, and D&D inspired dice rolling events and adventures. What are you waiting for? Come check us out!
Update #10 - Big Controller Update
Big Controller Update
Version 0.77.1 Release Notes
Changes also apply to Demo
Hi everyone!
You asked. We delivered. Our "Big Controller Update" brings full gamepad controller support to Summoners Fate. It was an interesting challenge, and I learned a lot in the process, including some discoveries that I hope will help Valve further improve the Steam Input APIs. My son, Wesley, was a major contributor testing the controls and helping me find and fix all of the bugs. I even recruited the kitties to help test, but they mostly just looked cute holding the controller :)
Let’s dive in on the changes…
Full Gamepad Controller Support
Summoners Fate can now be fully played using only the controller and you can fully customize your controls via Steam Input. I recommend our Official Configuration as the starting point, as this includes all of the localized game actions.
Note: In order to use Gamepad TextInput (for naming custom decks, sharing feedback, etc.), you’ll need to run the game in Big Picture Mode. This is currently a limitation of the Steam Input API that I hope will be improved in a future version.
Full Keyboard Controller Support
In addition to being fully playable with just the mouse and just the controller, you can also play Summoners Fate entirely using just the keyboard. I’ve added full key mapping for all game actions as well as hotkey mouse over tooltips if you combine with mouse. All of the control inputs work seamlessly together.
Improved Targeting Controls
I received a lot of feedback on controls and realized that many players prefer the "click to select" -> "click to order unit" style rather than dragging the character with the mouse. So, you can now click units and view the movement path they will take as you move the mouse (without having to hold the button down). Then, just click to select a target. To make Sprintshot more intuitive, you’ll now see a new action flag to indicate move confirmation. To command a unit to move and shoot, decide where you want to move after selecting the unit. If there are targets in range, you’ll click once to choose where you want to move, then again to select the target.
Farshot units can now move and melee attack (Thanks mr.kitty). By default, they will shoot their target. To force them to melee, first click the adjacent tile near the enemy you want to melee. Then, select the enemy to attack them.
Improved Casting Controls
Casting spells is a lot easier now. Alternative to dragging cards, you can now click the card to initiate targeting. Then, select your target or cancel the action. Likewise, you can now click Satchel cards to cast them instead of dragging them.
Improved Deck Building Controls
Deck Building is much easier. Players can now click to add cards from their collection to their deck and click to remove cards. Dragging cards also still works. (Thanks yashakami)
Character Look Up Customization
You can now control the frequency that characters look up at you or disable the look up feature from within the Gameplay Settings.
Additional QoL Improvements
Made it so that spending marshmallows to restock campsite automatically sets up camp (eliminating need for a second click)
Make the "You’re almost there" prompt a tip that can be disabled (Thanks mr.kitty) and did the same for "Heart Container", "Soul Gem", and "Boss Key" prompts.
Fixed layout bugs for portrait/landscape mode (Thanks Yura)
Fixed Dreadnought Spellweaver so it can be discovered in exploration and unlocked (Thanks Latieon)
Changed "Exit Game" in Adventure mode to "Save & Exit" (Thanks RyuSage)
More To Come
I had more QoL changes planned that didn't make the cut this round. Expect these in a future update:
Mouse Binding
Quick Loot (button to insta-break barrels/gather goodies)
UI Scaling
Disable Screenshake
Disable individual SFX
Let Us Know What You Think
This update took a ton of work, so please let my son Wesley, our kitties and I know how much you appreciate the changes by writing us a Steam review on our store page. These go a long way towards building our community here on Steam, and we would most appreciate your feedback :)
We're approaching the timeframe I had hoped to release our next game update. I'm currently working on addressing the QoL requests I've received from you.
This includes:
Key-binding
Mouse-binding
Gamepad controller support
Disable screenshake
Disable character lookup
Various UI customization options (ex: larger cards, larger stats for visibility on TV screens)
Better overall controls for character movement and attacking (particularly sprint shot)
Many more usability + bug fixes
The full list is quite extensive, but just wanted to give a sense of the scope. As the game was initially designed for mouse-only control, adding key-binding and gamepad support has taken a lot more work than I'd hoped (and requires a lot more testing). But, I know how important this is for many of you, so I have diligently kept at it.
Tacticon
Summoners Fate will be featured in the upcoming Tacticon event on Steam (an event dedicated to strategy/tactics games) that runs September 22nd-26th, and I wanted to let you know that I am pushing hard to deliver this update to you on or before these dates.
Twitch Streamer kormakrtv (https://www.twitch.tv/kormakrtv) will be interviewing me and streaming a Let's Play of Summoners Fate on Saturday, September 24th from 10AM-1PM MT.
Thank You!
Thank you so much for your patience and support of the game! I'm absolutely thrilled by the positive Steam reviews (I can't express enough how much these matter to me) - we're now at 93% Very Positive rating.
Any questions, concerns, or just want to chat? I can be reached as always here:
Don't you love it when your hot-fix needs a hot-fix? "It's a hot-pocket, hot-pocket!"
This fixes (hopefully for good) another bug with Error: Clock cycle error: TypeError: Error #1009 at hm.gameLogic::ProceduralSpawnLogic() that was preventing ability to start up battles for some players. Thanks for your bug reports 不赦之业 and Kuza :)
Update #9 Hot-Fix
v0.76.2 Release Notes (Hot-Fix)
Thanks everyone for your bug reports! Here's the fixes included in this patch:
Fixed bug where Big Beard would not drop his helmet as reward if player defeated him as the last unit using a mind control effect (Thanks 镜中人)
Fixed bug where Big Beard's health was being assigned an incorrect low value in higher difficulties of the Arena Ambush encounter. (Thanks mr.kitty)
Fixed bug where Error: Clock cycle error: TypeError: Error #1009 at hm.gameLogic::ProceduralSpawnLogic/removeSpawnPointFromArray() was thrown when attempting to enter the boss room because there wasn't a valid space for the boss to spawn centered with the hero. The boss will now pick a random alternative spawn point if it fails to find preferred spawn. This bug occurred as a result of expanding the potential boss fight rooms to medium/large within the dungeon. (Thanks wolvje27 and (●,...,●))
Psychic Loot Drop Functioning Correctly: https://youtu.be/hT07LVdxB8M
Psychic Loot Drop (Pre-Fix): https://youtu.be/u0g2wkcNDeA
Psychic Loot Drop (Post-Fix): https://youtu.be/A9cCqGbYdJM
Update #9 - Masters & Minions
Version 0.76.1 Release Notes
Hi everyone -
Thanks so much for your feedback and support! This is shaping up to be just the kind of collaborative Early Access I had hoped for. Over the past couple weeks, I've carefully reviewed your game balance suggestions as well as our Steam gameplay data and painstakingly recalibrated the game with a new difficulty curve that I hope will satisfy most players' desires.
I've also added a ton of new content to the game, so let's dive and see what's new!
New Content in Masters and Minions
As the name suggests, this update focuses on bringing new enemies to the game - a whole lot them - including 3 new bosses and 3 new elites (the Masters) and 15 new enemy encounters (the Minions). That's one additional boss per each of our current biomes, totally 9 bosses (3 per biome), plus new lore to boot!
In addition, Masters and Minions will allow you to unlock one of the game's bosses, the Liche King, as a playable Summoner. It's prestigious to play the boss, so to receive this reward, you'll first need to claim a bunch of souls, prove yourself in battle, and defeat the Liche King in adventure mode to unlock the Revenant Regicide achievement. Doing so will reward the Liche King as a playable character in adventure mode as well as unlock a new All Star deck in Battle Mode.
Big Balance Changes
Every aspect of the game's difficulty curve has been carefully re-tuned to create a more rich experience for beginners and advanced players alike:
The desert biome can now surface in the first chapter so that any biome can now appear in any order. The experience of each biome will be different depending on which chapter it is played on. For example, deserts in chapter 1 will not have heatwaves and deserts in chapter 2 introduce sandpit arenas.
Each biome has been re-calibrated with chapter-appropriate minion encounters: easier enemy groups in the first chapter and harder enemy groups in successive chapters.
Elites now have a progressive health distribution. This means the difficulty of each elite fight will escalate with each new elite encountered during the chapter.
Elites now have chapter-specific Minions. Elites in chapter 1 will have fewer minions so they're more evenly matched to the player's available resources and additional minions when they are encountered in higher chapters.
In novice mode, we've introduced a "mana curve" to Elites (-2 mana starting mana in Chapter 1, and -1 in Chapter 2) to help new players better onboard to the mechanics.
In advanced and hardcore mode, the final chapter adds further additional Minions to Boss and Elite encounters for extra challenge, plus much harder minion mobs!
Improved enemy spawn logic now prefers placement of ranged units at the rear.
Additional Improvements and Fixes
*This update is also applied to our free demo version.
Improvement: Expanded the radius of a looting treasure chests to a 5x5 area around the player’s hero so that’s easier to collect the gold from sets of 3 chests if you don’t click the center one (Thanks Abaddon)
Improvement: Further improved parallel animation system to allow more concurrent unit movement and attacks where possible and fix some issues where newly created units could move/attack before they were finished being summoned or walk through units that were knocked back.
Balance: The Freeze mechanic has been changed to fix the OP perpetual lockdown Cora and Ice units could previously achieve on bosses and provide more tactical utilty. Details here. (Thanks all players who engaged in our discussion)
Balance: Dreadnought Spellweavers gain ability Inflict -2/-0 until end of their turn
Fixed bug where unit cards cast by Zenon or summon spells that were countered would remain momentarily stuck on the screen instead of being removed on cast.
Fixed bug where resetCardPositions() might try and act on disposed cardViews resulting in exception TypeError: Error #1009 at com.d20studios.aura.animation::Animate$/killProcessArray() at view.smartAssets::HM_CardHandView/positionItem() (Thanks LittleLionMan)
Fixed bug with localization where game state was storing the literal name of encounters rather than the localization id. This meant that if the language setting ever changed, the name would remain the same, and if the new language didn't support the characters, it would show no name.
Fixed bug where some elites (ex: Gremella) were showing the Sprintshot or Farshot keyword twice on their card. (Thanks RyuSage)
Fixed bug where equipment keyword was showing on some Elites (ex: Wight)
Fixed bug where clicking twice to interact with a chest would result in the game showing the nearby chest's gold removed before the animation to doober the gold had played.
Fixed bug Error #1009 at view.screenLayouts::TitleScreenLayout/jumpDevButton() (Thanks Baffledtoast)
Fixed bug where some unitViews were still lingering after disposal of the game view. Hopefully this also helps with performance and memory leak problems. Any unit views that were getting trapped in memory should now be getting disposed at the start of each new battle.
Fixed bug TypeError: Error #1009 at view::HM_UnitView/toggleLifebarStats() that could appear upon exiting game to return to the title menu (Thanks cxp032, Vindi008, fantom0020 and TheBaldr)
Fixed bug TypeError: Error #1009 at Main/handleExitToCamp() that appeared after the game crashed on entering the portal to complete tutorial (Thanks Cheschire)
Fixed bug where "I am currently unable to interact with the cosmic tortoise at the end of the tutorial." (Thanks tacocat and Squashbelge)
Fixed bug where units still lingering in the mist from past world saves (before our units in mist fix) would still show on the board.
Fixed bug where clicking on a goblin in the mist would result in the goblin party being repositioned away from their cake. They can't party without their cake, afterall ;)
Fixed bug where retreating from a goblin party and then returning would result in the goblins being repositioned and no longer around the cake. Let them have cake!
Fixed bug where TypeError: Error #1009 at hm.gameLogic::GameState$/getGameStateObj() could appear after retreating from a battle after having visited a map containing a shopkeeper. (Thanks 巷羽Azarisa and zyeast2005, scottoconnell30)
Fixed bug where TypeError: Error #1009 is called on PointValidMove(). (Thanks Muppet and 堵塞)
Fixed bug with Chinese translation of Ryu Sage Pendant (Thanks typiglet)
Fixed bug where hero could become "stuck" and have the screen jitter on last tile after clipping an obstacle such as a tree. (Thanks Wesley)
Fixed bug where some of the game server messaging (such as notification of in-game feedback being sent successfully) was not displaying.
Coming Next
Up till now, I've delivered regular weekly updates since launch to address most players' immediate concerns and keep everyone engaged. The next goals I'm working on include remaining QoL issues such as keyboard mapping, gamepad support, performance plus continuous bug monitoring and fixes and additional cards per our road map. There's quite a bit of work involved, so I'd just like to communicate that I'll be doing the best I can, but going forward, please don't expect regular changes every week ;)
Gamepad support, in particular, is new for me, and I want to make sure I spend the time to get it right. I'm aiming for another update between end of August and mid September - and I'll keep you posted in our discussions if I plan to change that as I work through the process.
Show You Care with a Steam Review
All these changes take a ton of work, and it's my pleasure to deliver regular new experiences for you to enjoy in the game. Help me out by taking a moment to write a Steam review and let me know what you think of the progress :)
And of course, I'm always available for regular communication via our usual means below:
