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I'm immensely grateful for the great reception the game has had so far, especially after such a tiny launch. And all of that brings new ideas and new motivation. So I've been hard at work to create at least a basic tutorial. I could complete this faster than I had hoped, so here it is. There is still much to improve about it and I will keep working on it. So I'd be excited for any feedback!
After a great suggestion in the Steam discussions, I added a new option to interact with the game state. When you offer a card to the Olympians it is removed from the game permanently. This allows you to get out of unpleasant situations where the board or hand was so crowded that essentially all further play was impossible. To start, offering a card rewards you with Favor with the Olympian of the card offered (1 for normal cards, 2 for epic or mythological cards). Offering cards on the board will additionally cost Arete equal to the card's Arete. So offering a card with 50 Arete will indeed reduce the current total Arete by 100 for the player.
Added Tutorial.
Added "Offer to the Olympians", a button in the top left of the game allowing you to remove any card you control on the board or in your hand.
Any card taking damage, from any source, now shows the amount lost in the game history log.
The history panel now also logs card draws (as a generic "Card Drawn" entry that does not reveal which card), plus Arete, Attack, Health, and permanent Movement changes.
Added a History tab in Settings where you can turn each history entry type on or off.
Hovering a history entry now highlights that card on the board (when it is still there).
Fixed characters forced to attack by effects like Thanatos' Bargain not triggering their own "after attacking" abilities.
Fixed a rare issue where the "card played" popup could get stuck on screen.
Fixed cards that had their rarity increased (lowering their max copies, e.g. Flurry moving from Common to Rare) still showing extra copies you'd collected before the change.
Fixed Aethalides, the Perfect Memory (and other effects that check cards played this turn/game) sometimes failing to find any eligible card and doing nothing.
Increased card rewards across every mode:
Solo Constructed, Random Deck Challenge, and Versus AI level-up wins now grant 3 cards (was 2).
Ranked, Quick Match, and Friend Challenge matches now grant 12 cards for a win (was 10) and 4 for a loss or draw (was 3).
Arete milestone bonuses at 750+ now grant 5 cards (was 4), and at 1000+ now grant 12 cards (was 10).
Hero's Journey win rewards increased across the board: Labors now grants 29 total cards across its 5 wins (was 22), Argonautica 46 across 7 wins (was 35), and Odyssey 58 across 8 wins (was 44).
Lowered the card reward pity counter from 5 to 3: if you roll a rarity with no cards left to give, it now takes only 3 such rewards (instead of 5) to auto-upgrade the next one to the tier above.
Card reward screens (both after a normal match and in Hero's Journey) now show your total cards collected once you've unlocked every Olympian.
The in-game Help overlay now explains exactly how card rewards work: rarity odds, copy limits, and what happens when nothing's left to give at a rarity.
Reordered the Leaderboards screen's category buttons.
Fixed the Card Collection count on the Profile screen overcounting, which could make it drift from or exceed its max.
Fixed Lynceus, the Far-Sighted not actually dealing damage to enemies on newly revealed tiles (now actually really fixed, hopefully).
Fixed Kapelon not counting the Fine Wine you just played toward its Arete gain, causing it to grant less Arete than it should (or none at all).
Fixed effects that reduce the cost of a random card in hand being unable to target Delphinia (or similar cards), since its increased cost from non-unique cards wasn't taken into account when checking eligibility.
Fixed invulnerable characters still taking damage from splash/AoE combat effects like adjacent damage.
Fixed a rare issue where playing a card or ordering a move/attack could target the wrong tile if the board had auto-scrolled (e.g. near the screen edge) right before releasing the mouse.
Fixed "gain Favor for all Olympians" effects incorrectly granting Favor to Olympians not active in the game, which could wrongly unlock their Favor-gated card effects.
Fixed characters forcibly relocated by effects like Zephyrus and Boreas landing on tiles that weren't properly revealed for their owner, which could hide the character or cause other display/targeting bugs.
Fixed card rewards showing only a bare Continue button instead of the progress display when you rolled a rarity with no cards left to give (progress toward an upgraded rarity reward).
Updated the artwork for Poisened Arrows (it had the same image as Flurry).
Fixed Dolos, Spirit of Trickery's text (sets cost to 1, not 0).
Fixed Gift of Beauty not granting any Favor.
Added global and friends leaderboards for the Random Deck Challenge (levels and highscores), accessible from the Leaderboards screen and from the Leaderboards button on the Random Deck Challenge stats panel.
Added per-Olympian Quick Match Rating leaderboards, tracking a skill rating for each god separate from Ranked (Friend Challenges don't count). The rating is never shown in-game.
Versus AI, Solo Constructed and Random Deck Challenge now let you pick a lower Challenge Level before playing, so you can practice new strategies on a leveled-up god without being forced into the hardest AI setting or Arete goal. Playing below your current level awards no level rewards.
Help overlay now explains meta progression: levels and strikes, practice Challenge Levels, card rewards, collection unlocks, and discovery.
Help overlay now covers Hero's Journey basics: modes, chances, challenges, and draft/collection rules.
Reaching your Arete goal in solo games now shows a banner letting you know you can end the game at any time, and the "End Game" button is more clearly highlighted.
Skeuophoros no longer grants Power to adjacent Phalanx after moving.
Archery Range now only grants +1 Attack to ranged characters played adjacent to it, instead of always granting +1 Attack (or +2 if adjacent).
Flurry is now Rare (was Common), costs 2 Power (was 3), and now only hits adjacent and diagonally adjacent enemies, instead of all enemies within 2 tiles.
Clarified Stoa's text.
Clarified Lynceus, the Far-Sighted's text: damage only applies to enemies on tiles newly revealed by the ability, not enemies already visible in range.
Fixed Dike, the Just incorrectly modifying current health.
Fixed Myrtilus, Cursed Charioteer not granting +1 Movement for this turn when played.
Fixed Mass Healing drawing a card for every healed character instead of only unique (Epic/Mythological) characters.
Fixed roguelike map generation occasionally placing your starting base directly next to the AI's with no buffer tiles between them.
Fixed Hero's Journey vs battles not awarding Arete threshold bonus rewards when their final Arete was 0.
Added a board Zoom slider on the game HUD (above Help / Settings / Resign); hide it via Settings → HUD → Show Zoom Slider.
Board zoom can now also be controlled with Page Up / Page Down and + / − (in addition to mouse wheel).
Board zoom: hiding card stats when fully zoomed out is now optional (Settings → Board) and off by default, so stats stay visible at min zoom.
Increased Versus multiplayer turn timer slightly to 20×round seconds (20s in round 1, 40s in round 2, etc.).
Versus multiplayer card rewards are now 10 on a win and 3 on a loss or draw (was 11 / 2).
Fixed discards visually emptying your hand when the opponent played them in 2-player games.
Fixed Snow / Heavy Snow removing Movement more than once per round (the penalty no longer stacks at the start of each player’s turn).
Fixed Sleep it off not reducing the returned character’s cost by 2.
Sleep it off can now only return a character you control (it could previously target enemies).
Fixed Iphigenia returning to the destroyer’s hand instead of her owner’s when destroyed.
Fixed Kidnapper putting stolen enemies into your hand without Movement.
Fixed Thanatos' Bargain, Rampage, and Ram and Rake only affecting enemy characters instead of all adjacent enemies.
Fixed Hera's Schemes not invoking a curse when you play a character.
Fixed Alala's +2 Attack / +2 Movement buff lasting past the end of the turn.
Fixed Euphemus, the Swift being unable to move between land and Sea tiles.
Aristeia, Finest Hour now grants +2 Attack and +2 Health, and this turn only +4 Movement and unlimited attacks (no longer grants invulnerability or temporary +5 Attack).
Fixed Diomedes (and similar damage-cap abilities) not limiting damage from effects like Firestarter.
Fixed Aristeia permanently removing a Hero’s after-attack ability (e.g. Ajax) after it wore off.
Fixed Agon (and other movement gains) fully refreshing spent Movement instead of only granting the stated amount.
Tightened multiplayer move/attack resolution.
Fixed multiplayer opponent Arete not updating when they play structures in fog of war.
Fixed false “multiplayer divergence” warnings on legal moves.
Fixed multiplayer matches where the opponent’s plays sometimes never appeared on your boards (leading to an eventual crash).
Improved ranked matchmaking so overlapping searches are less likely to sit in queue forever; cancel+requeue should be needed less often.
Fixed a multiplayer connection bug where both sides dialing could drop one player’s link leaving opponent Arete/board stuck on one client only.
Hardened multiplayer end-of-match rating receipt handling so a disputed/mismatched receipt no longer skips the end-game screen.
Card rewards now only show “Can now appear in Hero's Journeys” for Epics and Mythologicals that actually unlock that way (Commons through Rares and Heroes are already draftable once the Olympian is discovered since 1.0.5).
Hero's Journey: any discovered Olympian can start a run. Commons, Uncommons, Rares, and Heroes are always draftable; other Epics and Mythologicals still unlock through your collection.
Added a text search in Collection deckbuilding that matches card names, types, and effect text (e.g. find Warrior-synergy cards like Strategeion).
Collection deckbuilding now uses an Olympian dropdown (including All Olympians) instead of the image strip, so Olympian is an optional filter.
Fixed deck list card previews appearing far below the hovered row and getting cut off at the screen edge.
Flurry now deals 2 damage instead of 3.
Fixed Alecto, Fury of Wrath not reacting when an ability is activated.
Fixed Agon’s temporary movement boost sometimes lasting past the end of the turn if the card moved.
Fixed Versus AI matches sometimes ending early when a Hero’s Journey run was still active.
Fixed being able to add cards you don’t own to constructed decks, and to add more copies than your ownership or rarity limit allows.
Fixed constructed decks with more than 32 cards looking valid in Collection but not appearing in Solo or Versus (decks must be exactly 32 cards).
Reduced Versus AI card rewards, especially at higher levels.
Domus now starts with 12 Health instead of 10.
Fixed cards that return to your hand not having summoning sickness when played again.
Hero's Journey olympians now unlock after owning 15 different cards of that olympian (was 30 copies).
Split the Settings → Animations tab into separate Animation Styles and Animation Speeds tabs.
Added adjustable animation speeds in Settings → Animation Speeds (global master plus per-animation sliders for draw, destroy, damage, and more).
Made the default card draw animation about 10% shorter.
Destroying a card now plays the death effect and clears the card in one beat instead of back-to-back.
Fixed replays sometimes getting stuck waiting for you to pick a card or Olympian choice, and blocking the board from scrolling while a choice was showing.
Fixed Replays responding to player input.
Fixed Replays not recording skip actions in card choices.
Fixed Hero's Journey replays sometimes drifting off track partway through a match,
Replays recorded on a previous version can no longer be watched, since balance and rule changes could make them play back incorrectly.
Widened the cloud border along the bottom edge of the game board.
Added an option to keep the music playing when you switch to another app or window (Settings → Audio → Background Audio), with an optional slight volume fade while unfocused.
Added WASD support for board scrolling, in addition to the arrow keys.
Greatly increased card rewards in Hero's Journey and Versus modes.
The reward preview for multiplayer modes now shows the correct card counts.
A deep thank you to my wife, without whom this would never have been possible!
This is purely a passion project without any budget. So I’m happy it got this far. There is no marketing for it, so this launch will be small, but that’s okay and I am already grateful for all the people that checked out the recently released demo (which will stay available).
If there is some interest in the game, then I’ll be able to justify spending the time to implement so many things for this game:
While I hope that I can ship the small stuff fast (please leave your feature requests in the Steam Community forums!), the bigger stuff I can’t promise for now.
To the small handful of people who playtested all the different versions of this over the years, a huge thank you! This game is in the shape it's in because your feedback kept me going.
I hope I can bring enjoyment to a few people today. Good luck beating the highscores!
- juxtapositioned
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This page aggregates Steam news feeds, patch notes, and developer announcements for Areteion, sourced from official Steam community posts.
Major updates, balance changes, and seasonal events often correlate with player-count spikes — cross-reference announcements here with the live charts on the main Areteion statistics page.
Articles link back to Steam for full changelogs. SteamScope refreshes news entries as new posts are published to the game's Steam hub.