Oooooh! Shiny! Goblins love gold.



Learn more by reading our Summoners Fate Guide Part 3: Strategic Resource Management on Steam.

"Want to impress a fairy with your smooching skills? Spend some dice."  

Summoners Fate Guide Part 3: Strategic Resource Management is now live on Steam.

[Summoners Fate Guide]

New! Part 3 of our Summoners Fate Guide is now live on our Steam page. This is a series of posts on dedicated to introducing you to the lore, characters and mechanics of Summoners Fate. Part 3 of the Guide is called "Strategic Resource Management," where we cover managing your resources including your Summoner, your hero companions, your deck of cards, lives, gold, dice, and… marshmallows? 

Head over to our Steam page to check it out!

[Free Demo - Until Saturday]

Free Demo - Until Saturday




We are now offering a free demo of Summoners Fate on our store page that will be available during the Dreamhack Event, ending Saturday, 7/31. The demo features the Prelude chapter that will introduce you to combat and exploration and challenges you to fight one of the many powerful bosses at the end, should you dare... 

[Live Streaming Tonight - 7PM - 1AM MT & New DEMO]

Live Streaming Tonight - 7PM - 1AM MT & New DEMO


^{Click on this image between 7PM - 1AM MT tonight to view our live stream on our Steam page}

We're excited to announce that Summoners Fate has been featured in the Dreamhack Beyond Event on Steam that runs from Saturday July 24th-July 31st.

To celebrate, we're offering a free demo of Summoners Fate on our store page that will be available during the Dreamhack Event. The demo features the Prelude chapter that will introduce you to combat and exploration and challenges you to fight one of the many powerful bosses at the end, should you dare...

We'll also be streaming our full adventures mode and battle mode throughout this week so you can get a sneak peak of the gameplay in store for you in the upcoming full version. I will be live tonight broadcasting on Steam between 7PM-1AM MT. Be sure to check it out and share your questions and comments in the chat - click here for the Live Stream between 7PM - 1AM MT.

We look forward to seeing you there!  

[Choose Your Difficulty]

Choose Your Difficulty

Difficulty determines your number of lives (or continues), enemy health and the kinds of monsters you’ll face in battles. Casual mode is designed to help players who are new to the genre learn how to play, while Hardcore mode offers a roguelike experience with permadeath. The standard difficulty is balanced for those seasoned in turn-based tactics and deckbuilding games and new to the unique mechanics of Summoners Fate...  Keep reading on our Steam page. Part 2: Exploration of our Summoners Fate Guide is now live.

[Choose Your Difficulty]

Choose Your Difficulty

Difficulty determines your number of lives (or continues), enemy health and the kinds of monsters you’ll face in battles. Casual mode is designed to help players who are new to the genre learn how to play, while Hardcore mode offers a roguelike experience with permadeath. The standard difficulty is balanced for those seasoned in turn-based tactics and deckbuilding games and new to the unique mechanics of Summoners Fate...  Keep reading on our Steam page. Part 2: Exploration of our Summoners Fate Guide is now live.

[Lore - Our Unique Way of Telling Stories]

Lore - Our Unique Way of Telling Stories

Summoners Fate has a unique approach to storytelling. There are no complex names, politics or locations to burden your memory. There is no character dialog to scroll through. What remains is a personalized and emergent story experience that unfolds through your interactions in the game. This is accomplished by our signature lore mechanic.....Keep reading on our Steam page. Part 2: Exploration of our Summoners Fate Guide is now live.


^{Lore certainly paints a picture, doesn't it? If you see this lore, a Skeleton Dragon inhabits your world.}

[Summoners Fate Guide]

New! Part 2 of our Summoners Fate Guide on Steam is live. This is a series of posts on dedicated to introducing you to the lore, characters and mechanics of Summoners Fate. Part 2 of the Guide is called "Exploration," where we delve into our Mists of Mayhem, Fate Encounters, Lore & more.

Head over to our Steam page to check it out!

Have you checked out our Summoners Fate Guide Part 1: Why Do We Look Up? on our Steam page yet? We'd love you to visit, and give us a Thumbs Up if you liked it 

Part 2: Exploration is coming out tomorrow. In this section, we deep dive into our Mists of Mayhem, Fate Encounters, Lore, Difficulty & more. Here's a a preview GIF:

Check out this awesome preview article from Pocket Gamer on Summoners Fate!

[Guide to Summoners Fate]

We are beginning a Guide to Summoners Fate on our new Steam page. There we will be doing a series of posts on dedicated to introducing you to the lore, characters and mechanics of Summoners Fate. Part 1 of the Guide is called "Why Do We Look Up?"

Head over to our Steam page to check it out!

Good news! Summoners Fate is now on Steam as Coming Soon. We invite you to Wishlist it now and help us spread the word.

[Happy 4th of July!]

Happy 4th of July!

Whether you are shooting fireworks or having toasted marshmallows with your friends (even if your friend is a Bear ), we at D20Studios hope you have a great day.

Thanks to our player feedback, Summoners Fate now has new UI optimized for PC. Check it out!

[Summoners Fate Wins Big in the Big Indie Pitch Competition]

Summoners Fate Wins Big in the Big Indie Pitch Competition
First off, thank you all for being so kind, patient and supportive during our development process. It means so much to get your personal messages of encouragement and know that you're still behind me in this journey we're on together. I hope this update brings a smile and some joy to your day.

Check Out Our Award-Winning Pitch
I'm pleased to share that Summoners Fate just won third place in the Big Indie Pitch competition! Not only did we get a chance to validate our game with veteran game journalists and publishers, we also take away a $3000 prize package in marketing and exposure with Pocket Gamer and 148Apps.

Here's a video of the winning pitch I delivered:





But, the build Ross, what about the build?!
As ecstatic as I am about our recent victory, I am absolutely thrilled to announce the release details for our long-anticipated single-player build.

When to Expect the New Build:

We plan to release the new build to prerelease players next month (June). I've just completed all the content planned for this release, and now it's just a matter of fixing known issues and optimizing the experience. I don't have an exact date. The timing will depend on final testing as well as review process for the Apple submission. My goal is ASAP, and I will commit to delivering before the end of June, whatever state it's in.

What To Expect in the New Build:

The next release of Summoners Fate is all about the single player experience. When you first login, you'll be transported to the forest realm where you'll once again help Sylvia, the Druid save the forest - only this time it will introduce our free-roam, open world mechanics including campsites, lore and fate encounters.


The Cosmic Tortoise invites you to relax by the fire and play Summoners Fate.

Upon completing this mission, you'll be presented with our new Play menu featuring the fan-favorite tortoise who has evolved into a key character within the game, carrying the burden of your growing card collection as well as opening portals to new worlds. From the play menu, you'll be able to choose the new Adventure mode or Battle mode (the gameplay mode you know and love from our earlier builds).


Adventure or Battle? Choose Your Fate

Adventures have three chapters, each featuring a different world. You'll choose a starting Summoner and begin your quest to defeat the three bosses. Worlds are populated with a combination of hand-crafted battles, fate encounters, shops, treasure and camp sites, selected through procedural curation to ensure you'll have a unique experience each time you play.

Note: For the sake of getting this build out to you sooner, there will be 3 different world biomes (dungeon, forest and desert), surfaced in a linear order, and with fixed bosses. For full release, I have plans for at least 2 additional biomes as well as up to 3 potential bosses per biome. For future builds, the biome order will also become dynamic (rather than linear) with the enemies scaling in difficulty according to the number of chapter the world is played on.

Another great feature in the upcoming build: You'll be able to switch between single player and multiplayer/battle mode at will. Battles and deckbuilding for multiplayer can be accessed directly from the settings menu, and upon battle completion, you'll return seamlessly to your current single player world. And with our new asset caching, load times between battles have been virtually eliminated.


Lore - Our Unique Way of Telling Stories
Battles in Summoners Fate are complimented by story presented through fate encounters and lore. In a previous update, I discussed how Fate Encounters will use D20 dice to determine the outcome of light RPG scenarios (ex: freeing a caged bear) to deliver story, activate events and unlock new characters. Lore is a new mechanic to Summoners Fate that I designed to help bridge the gap between these encounters and the story of the world and its characters.

Scrolls containing lore can be dropped by defeated enemies and discovered while searching objects. The text in these scrolls can:

Identify and provide flavor and depth to characters you encounter in the current world you are exploring
Reveal the identify of the world boss and tactics useful for defeating them
Reveal interesting insights about the world of Summoners Fate (this is called "universal lore")
We've found that lore can foster emergent story telling due to the random timings of its reveals with the encounters in the world. I think lore will also help further connect you to the characters you so diligently command in battle.


If nothing else, lore should ease any concerns you may have about the characters looking up at you

Until Next Time
I know you're all super excited to get your hands on the new build, and believe me, I am too! I can't wait to see our Discord and forums ignite with your feedback and ideas for new fate encounters and lore. I have a strong feeling the new adventure mode is going to spark some amazing creativity in our community.

See you next month for the release of Summoners Fate adventures!

[Ancient Blade]

And so the prophecy foretold, a future generation of D20Studios developers would rise up and do great things... Ross's son Wesley and Peter's son Michael create a game together in their first game jam!

Ancient Blade


For those who aren't familiar, a game jam is an event where participants are challenged to create an entire game over a short period of time (in this case 48 hours) that meets a particular theme. For this year's Global Game Jam, the theme was "Lost and Found". My son Wesley pitched, designed and programmed "Ancient Blade". He worked remotely with a team member (Peter's son Michael) who created artwork for the game per the asset list defined in his game design document. Throughout the event, he took feedback from industry professionals and applied this to improve his game with each iteration.

I was in awe to see how fast his young mind works and how passionately he embraced the challenges he encountered to make his game the best he could. While it's no secret Wesley looks up to me and wants to be a game developer like his daddy, in these moments watching him, he was my inspiration and role-model to aspire to.

Play Ancient Blade at: https://globalgamejam.org/2021/games/ancient-blade-3

[How Randomness Contributes to Strategic Thinking]

How Randomness Contributes to Strategic Thinking

As an interesting follow up to my appearance on Keith's show, we got to talking about the value of strategy games and the role of randomness. Keith has some interesting points about how randomness should be avoided in strategy games, but I believe randomness actually contributes to the development of strategic thinking and can be an effective mechanic. Here's why: https://gamasutra.com/blogs/RossPrzybylski/20210127/376691/How_Randomness_Contributes_to_Strategic_Thinking.php

[Let's Talk Tactics Game Design]

Let's Talk Tactics Game Design
Today I'll be making a guest appearance on Keith Burgun's game design show to discuss Summoners Fate and game design. Keith is a fellow tactics developer currently working on Gem Wizards Tactics.

Should be a lot of fun - join us at 12PM MT at Keith's twitch channel: https://m.twitch.tv/keithburgun/profile

[Dev Log 12: Fluidity and Seamless Open World]

Dev Log 12: Fluidity and Seamless Open World

How we're using fluidity to build a better experience

Good day D20Studios fans I wanted to thank those of you who've reached out to me personally regarding updates on the game. It's very heartwarming and encouraging to know you're still excited about Summoners Fate. Rest assured, this project remains my top priority, and my communication remains sparse only because I'm so focused on doing everything I can to get the next build out. I don't have a release date for that yet, but what I can say is that it will be significant and hopefully deliver on your expectations. Here's some of the progress I've made to show we're moving in that direction.

In previous updates I've discussed that one of my goals for single player is to create fluidity in the moment-to-moment interactions as I believe this will significantly contribute to a feeling of joy as you explore the open world. To expand more on this concept, I define fluidity as a seamless connection between intent and response. Friction is anything apart from your own input that delays or inhibits your intended response or breaks your connection with the experience of the activity.

Oftentimes, friction is caused by poor controls or bad camera angle. But, the biggest friction culprit is undoubtedly waiting for the thing you intended to happen to happen; or, in the case where you made the wrong input, waiting to try again. Imagine trying to shoot a basketball into a hoop and improve your skill by gradually moving further and further from the goal. Each time you have to chase the ball, that delay causes a loss of focus that inhibits the joy you would otherwise feel in hearing a consistent sound of swishes. Now imagine how much better the experience would be if a ball magically appeared in your hands immediately after you took a shot. A consistent series of swooshes in a row is not only rewarding, but provides a meaningful sense of skill and joy in pure connectivity with the activity itself. And, even if you miss the basket, the removal of any delay provides immediate ability to try again so you can excel and do better. When there is fluidity, even failure can be fun because there is the joy of overcoming challenge and a feeling of growth in doing so.

Zero-Wait Retry
Summoners Fate has zero-wait time whether retrying a battle or undoing a command to try something else. If you fail a battle in the over world, you have the option to try the battle again immediately, or explore another area if you wish. Depending on your chosen game difficulty, retry may also exhaust resources to add further tension and strategy.

Fluid Controls
Eliminating friction may seem counter-intuitive for a turn-based game where "waiting for your turn" is undoubtedly one of the worst-case examples of friction that there is. But I think there is room for innovation to improve that experience. One of the ways I've already done this is by eliminating the waiting within your own turn. It's a very subtle thing - but players noticeably felt it and have commented during our public exhibitions: You don't need to wait for animations to complete to perform your next command. You can issue orders as fast as you want on your turn and the characters/cards will respond immediately (in some cases, jumping past previous animations to catch up) so they always respond in sync with your input.



Parallel Animation
It was among the pieces of the vision I had last year that this same principle could be applied on the opponents turn as well. I recall watching folks at conventions play the build and losing attention while waiting for the AI to move and attack its horde of skeletons one-by-one. Or, take for example a slow moving enemy like these withereds and having to wait for each one to slog its way over and attack before you get to take your turn again:





Sure, you can use the skip button to jump right to your turn, but then you're left trying to piece together what just happened to your team. Wouldn't it be a lot less friction if they just all moved and attacked at the same time? Here's that same scene with a new feature I've developed called "Parallel animations":





What once was a chore of slogging animations becomes a fast-paced onslaught that adds to the excitement of the battle. But what happens when something more complex than a series of move/attacks takes place? Well, the system is programmed with intelligence to automatically detect anything that might make watching the flow of battle confusing (a surprise trigger, multiple units attacking, getting killed on the same tile, etc.) and revert to serial animations on demand as needed. Players can also toggle parallel animations if you still want to see each animation one-at-a-time as they occur (which works great with the replay turn feature for when you want to study your opponents moves more closely).

Descending into a Dungeon
Fluidity is not necessarily about removing all waiting (which could be directly achieved by eliminating animations entirely), but delivering the appropriate amount of feedback to validate a player's input. Take for example descending into a dungeon from the over world. Putting up a loading screen between scenes is an example of the kind of friction I want to avoid. But, instantly jumping to the next scene also feels unsatisfying because it breaks the experience. So, I opted for an animation of the character descending the stairs with black fade to convey the players intended response and maintain the flow of the experience:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVPeEBwkhh4

Mist of Mayhem
One of the harder design challenges I've had with introducing open world to Summoners Fate has been reconciling the seamless exploration with turn-based combat. The problems lie in when (and how) to communicate the transfer from one control type to the other. Is it the proximity to an enemy that triggers it, or the entering of a new map? And what happens to the enemies when you retreat? Folks who played our PAX East demo got to experience one of my earlier solutions where I utilized a blackout on unexplored maps, with a yellow "portal" ring that served as the entrance to the level. It served its purpose, but it introduced a lot of friction in that the portals diminished your connection to the experience: they looked unnatural with the environment and they restricted your freedom to enter the map where you wanted.

For our latest iteration, we've introduced a "fog of war" style design thats often employed in real-time strategy games. Kelly has more appropriately named this feature the "mist of mayhem" since you're not actually at war and the revealed maps need not contain enemies (they could be more whimsical encounters with a fairy princess or a goblin birthday party).

The basic idea is that the world is shrouded in a mist over all the areas you have yet to explore. When you enter the mist, it disperses to reveal new areas. If there are enemies in the area you reveal, the camera pans to the battle area and tints out the non-playable area outside the battle. When you initiate a retreat, the mist reforms over that area, allowing the enemies to heal and reposition themselves relative to where you re-enter that map.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=go2eSsIvADk

This improves over our previous solution by providing the player with total freedom to enter a map from any direction and creating an aesthetic that feels natural in the environment. The border of the mist also signals where potential combat transitions could take place.

Keep in Touch
I remain diligently busy with completing single player for our next major build update. In the meantime, feel welcome to reply with any questions you may have. I am also available on Discord. Our verified server is: https://discord.gg/d20studios and my username is RossD20Studios. Hit me up anytime