We shipped a number of quality-of-life and performance improvements to make Athena Crisis more fun and faster than ever! Development of Athena Crisis is currently focused on 3 major area: Quality-of-Life, Performance and Mobile:

Quality-of-Life

There were two major quality-of-life improvements in the past month: Undo Actions: Up until recently Athena Crisis only allowed undoing the whole turn. This worked well, and gave each action especially late into a turn a lot of meaning, but it was occasionally frustrating when moving a unit to the wrong field, especially on small screens. In addition to undoing a turn, you can now undo every action up until the beginning of your turn. Undo was also added to the Map Editor and the demo at athenacrisis.com. If you are interested in how it works, check out the code here.
Custom Movement Paths on Mobile: In fog you might want to avoid certain fields if you know an opponent is there. On Desktop, you can use your cursor to draw a path for a unit to follow. On Mobile, however, this doesnt work. Moving a finger across the screen initiates panning/scrolling instead. Mobile browsers also give little control for gestures or disabling scrolling. Nevertheless, I wanted the UX for this to feel as natural as possible. The map now locks in when using a finger to move across the blue movement radius, but you can still pan the map outside of a unit's movement radius. Instead of adding a new type of interaction, this smoothly integrates with how movement already works. While just a few lines of code, it took half a day to put together to get the interactions to feel just right and make them work properly on mobile: disable scrolling, handle every input device at the same time, select the field when lifting a finger but only after drawing a custom path, and more. It made me appreciate the amount of micro-interactions and states that exist for each field (see Mask.tsx).
It felt incredibly rewarding to ship these features. Undo and touch interactions are so challenging to get right, but as you can see in the above code that is running in production right now their implementations are quite elegant.

Performance

We didnt invest in performance monitoring and development moved incredibly fast in the past six months. Together, those two things always result in the same issue: performance will regress. Recently Athena Crisis has been a bit sluggish, and draining battery. We deployed major performance improvements this week which will keep your devices cool, batteries lasting long, and frame-rate up and to the right. Athena Crisis is now faster than ever.

Mobile

The iOS App is mostly complete and was approved by Apple, and the Android App is just missing a few things related to In-App-Purchases. Keep an eye out for the release date! In addition to the above we updated the Desktop clients, fixed bugs, improved balancing and focused on upgrading to all the most modern tech to ensure Athena Crisis can keep shipping and moving fast. Athena Crisis is finally starting to feel complete, and today is the best day to try it!

[ 2025-01-24 14:38:39 CET ] [ Original post ]

Its cold outside, but Athena Crisis is warming up with a new deal. Grab Athena Crisis at 25% off in the Steam Winter Sale - our deepest discount yet! https://store.steampowered.com/app/2456430/Athena_Crisis?snr=2___

[ 2024-12-19 23:41:50 CET ] [ Original post ]

Time for the December monthly update! Athena Crisis will be participating in the Steam Winter Sale, where you can grab it for 25% off (the deepest discount weve had all year) - were biased, but we think it makes a perfect gift.

Yuki

Who doesnt love a Christmas flamethrower? This month were spotlighting Yuki, a lovable and hot-headed recruit. Just dont make them in charge of roasting the marshmallows. Yuki comes from the cold north, but brings warmth with them wherever they go. They look up to more experienced fighters to help them know when to turn down the intensity. As the leader of the flamethrower elites, they are known for reveling in the mayhem of a battle and getting a little bit carried away when it comes to burning things down.

Our Journey through the Multiverse

Looking back, 2024 has been a great year for Athena Crisis. The game launched in early access in March, hit 1.0 in September, and weve been releasing on-going updates and improvements ever since. We really appreciate all of you who have played the game, left us a review, provided feedback in the Discord, and helped to make this game something great! We want to give special thanks to all the members of the community that have been hard at work creating maps and campaigns for the benefit of other players. Okay, on to the updates! There are fewer player-forward updates than last months roundup, as a lot of work is happening behind the scenes to prepare for the release of the mobile versions.

NEW AND IMPROVED

• Improved: Transporter units When a transporter with units is moved, it now shows the moved icon above the "+".
• Improved: Mobile More mobile changes were shipped as part of app store reviews.

BALANCING

• Changed: Acid Bomber Unit Increased movement from 4 to 5, increased defense from 50 to 60.
• Changed: Sneaky Dragon and Last Resort When healing Dragons or Zombies when these skills are equipped, the price for healing is now reduced

We hope you have a great end of year holiday season, spend time with loved ones, and the chance to play some community campaigns when you need a break. As always, if you have any feedback, please hop into the official Discord and let us know!

[ 2024-12-19 18:54:17 CET ] [ Original post ]

Athena Crisis is part of the Steam Autumn Sale, available for 20% off now through December 4th. Check out our most recent Monthly Update for a full list of all the recent changes, fixes, and improvements we've made to the game. They include a brand new curated campaign, Pressing Onwards, created by a member of the community. Completing the campaign unlocks a new skill, Seatbelts On, a fun skill focused on Jeeps and their leader, Remy.

[ 2024-11-27 18:01:20 CET ] [ Original post ]

Players of Earth, welcome to your monthly update on Athena Crisis!

First, Athena Crisis will be on sale for 20% Off during the Steam Autumn Sale, so let your friends know! We're biased, but we also thinks it makes a great gift.

This month, were featuring the Commander. Armies are composed of master strategists and troops on the ground executing orders. Then, there's the Commander unit, who specializes in making the worst slide decks youve ever seen. Theyre not just bureaucrats though, as Commanders do provide your units with an attack bonus when they are adjacent.

The Commanders associated skill, Commanding Force, further buffs your leader units with a 100% attack bonus. Now thats synergy!

Weve made quite a few changes across the multiverse, which include: a new curated campaign from the community, new skills, quality of life improvements, and some exciting news about the future of AC on mobile platforms. Were also testing a new demo experience that will allow players to try out the prequel campaign. Lets get to it!

NEW AND IMPROVED

• New: Curated Campaign - Pressing Onwards This beautifully crafted campaign is a joy to play, and adds its own take on how the story might continue after the conclusion of The Athena Crisis campaign. By making this campaign curated, 47 more stars are now obtainable in-game. Completing the campaign will unlock the Seatbelts On skill, described below.

• New: Official Athena Crisis Mobile Apps for iOS & Android We are ready to start beta testing the official iOS and Android apps that will soon replace the current mobile web apps. If you'd like to test the beta apps, please inquire in the official Discord.

• New: Prequel Campaign Demo Experience We built a new demo experience which allows playing the full Prequel Campaign before buying Athena Crisis. If you haven't bought Athena Crisis yet and would like to give this new experience a try, inquire in our Discord.

• New: Favorite skills are now also displayed in the skill selector for invasions.

• New: Seamless Updates Athena Crisis will now automatically apply updates as you navigate to another screen. This should result in more seamless, faster and fewer broken updates. The update banner will no longer be shown on the main menu after the next update.

• New: You can now click the campaign name/copy icon on the top left of the campaign editor to share the link to a campaign with someone (e.g. for playtesting).

• New: You can now open the game info dialog while another player takes their turn

• New: Transported Unit Flyout When focusing on a transport unit, carried units are now shown just below the unit name.

• New: Content Reporting You can now report users or community maps and campaigns directly in-game. Please use this feature if you find any offending content or if you feel like something shouldn't be part of Athena Crisis.

• New: Improved Connection Handling The connection handling after restarting from an update or a loss in connection should be better now.

• New: The primary cards at the top in the campaign screen or in the map editor now have icons, indicating that you can interact with them similar to how you can expand the player card in-game.

• New: The Damage Chart now has number inputs next to sliders similar to the Entity Panel in the Map Editor.

• New: Actions to Increase Funds and Charges in the Editor You can now add actions to increase funds or charges for a Start effect or when achieving an optional objective. As always, you can choose which player will receive the funds, including allowing you to use dynamic player ids like "self" and "opponent". This also enables the ability to set asymmetrical funds at the start of a PvP game.

• New: The overlay menu now may have a "< Back" button which will bring you back to the previous screen. This is especially useful on mobile where you cannot easily press ESC/B to go to the previous screen.

• New/Changed: 4 day timer added, 1 hour timer removed Added the option for a 4 day timer. The 1 hour option was removed given low usage compared to the 1 day and 7 days options, and because it was closest to the real-time option in that it required constant attention.

• Changed: Changed the real-time turn timeout from 15 seconds per entity to 10 seconds (+60 seconds +small buffer).

• Changed: All number inputs (mostly in the editor) were changed to have slightly better number handling behavior.

• Changed: Damage Chart Updates

  • When navigating from a game to to the damage chart via the unit card, it will now show locked units that are present (and visible) on the current map

  • The damage chart now allows you to choose skills for both units. If you navigate from a game, it will preload the skills of the current players. Note that skill selectors are not shown if you aren't logged into the game.

  • The damage chart now shows buildings.

• Changed: Power animations sped up slightly.

• Changed: Labels from hidden objectives are no longer hidden when a visible objective also uses the same label.

• Changed: The map now grays out while you undo your turn.

• Changed: Settings menu layout is improved.

• Changed: The map list on a user's profile now has a share link.

• Changed: The power section of a skill description now has a background color to distinguish the description from the day-to-day effect.

• Changed: Sped up damage animations when activating a power.

INVASIONS

• New Invasion Skill: High Tide This invasion-only skill raises the water level and shrinks the map on each power activation, requiring 3 charges. The new skill is available in the shop.

• New: In a map with production and air or naval units, a Valor or Phantom invader may now receive an Airbase or Shipyard.

• Changed: Invasions no longer give out crystal rewards if the game was too short. Increased the time between chaos star reward reductions. The actual timing is likely to be changed.

• Changed: Spawns Significantly changed and improved unit counts, spawn locations and faction composition when invading. Invaders should now spawn further away from opponents and far away from HQs. Units are more spaced out, and more factors are considered when deciding on the unit count and unit types.

• Changed: Crystal Power Activations Various skill powers now activate when consuming a crystal, such as Defense Up, Commanding Force, Alien Invasion, More Power and Super Counter. This is meant to further encourage Power Crystal usage.

• Changed: Biome Change The first use of a Phantom Crystal may change the biome.

• Changed: Buildings Valor and Phantom invaders may receive Barracks or even an HQ on larger maps.

• Changed: Medic You might receive a Medic and more initial funds.

• Changed: Bubble Wrap The Bubble Wrap power is no longer activated when using a Command Crystal.

• Changed: First Invasion Improvements When somebody activates a Power Crystal for the first time, the first invader must use a Valor Crystal. Once a Valor player invades, Phantom and Command invaders can join too. This restriction is automatically lifted once the player receives their first Chaos Stars.

• Changed: The number of skills that can be brought into an invasion is now determined by the number of unlocked skill slots the Power Crystal player has.

• Changed: Various small improvements to the invasion panel.

• Changed: Wild Companion The skill now activates when consuming a crystal, and when the skill is equipped while invading a game, you may receive a Shelter instead of a HQ/Barracks.

• Changed: The shop now explains more clearly how the stars calculation works, and that Campaign and Chaos Stars are equal.

• Fixed: Buildings no longer spawn on top of ships.

• Fixed: Spawning buildings in an invasion no longer makes the units on top of those buildings disappear for a brief moment.

• Fixed: Charges are no longer instantly used while more than one invasion skill is equipped and when consuming a crystal or firing.

NEW SKILLS

• New: Loose Cannon Power This power allows completed unfolded units to act again for 4 charges.

• New: Sneaky Dragon Ever wanted to turn a Saboteur into a Dragon? Well, now you can! You can obtain this skill by beating the Sneaky's Impossibly Lethal Challenge campaign in the community campaigns list.

• New: Seatbelts On Completing the Pressing Onwards campaign will reward you with the new "Seatbelts On" skill, a fun skill focused on Jeeps and their leader, Remy.

BALANCING

• Changed: Bubble Wrap Skill Increased the required charges from 6 to 8.

• Changed: Rocket Launcher Increased cost from 275 to 300, decreased defense from 20 to 15, debuffed attack against ground, artillery, low air, and rail units by 5.

• Changed: The AI will no longer move supply units towards units with supply needs if it can't actually supply them.

• Changed: Status effects can no longer become negative, (e.g. when you have 5 skills equipped).

• Changed: Dragon Fire The power now also applies to completed Dragon units.

• Changed: Attack Up When activating this power, Soldier units now receive +1 range.

• Changed: Blood Moon Blood Moon was refocused to apply to soldiers only. Its day-to-day and power no longer apply to other units, but Air Soldier units are now explicitly included to all status effects from this power.

• Changed: Last Resort The power now spawns one Pioneer prior to converting units to Zombies, and it activates when using a Phantom crystal. Given this change, the chance of spawning with Zombies in invasions was slightly reduced again.

• Changed: Surge of Vitality Medics now receive a 50% attack boost. The power now gives a 200% attack boost to medics instead of 250%.

• Changed: Alien Invasion Reduced the cost for Aliens from 450 to 400.

• Changed: Bubble Wrap When a Medic or Support Ship unit heals another unit, that unit receives a bubble for one turn.

• Changed: High Tide Add a day-to-day effect that increases the attack power of ships by 20%.

• Changed: Sneaky Sabotage Reduced the defense buff for Saboteurs from 300% to 100%.

FIXES

• Fixed: Turn order is no longer mixed up when a power activates by consuming a crystal.

• Fixed: Rescuing a unit that is tied to objectives of an opponent now ends the game if the opponent can no longer win the game in another way.

• Fixed: An issue where the amount of stars in the shop was not instantly updated after a campaign game.

• Fixed: The zoom button is now always on the bottom right in a game instead of the top right.

• Fixed: Fixed an issue with the objective dialog on narrow screens.

• Fixed: Recent skills that are auto-selected in the campaign should work correctly regardless of how many skills you unlock within a campaign game or whether you have these skills unlocked or not.

• Fixed: The display of the overlay menu on narrow screens has been adjusted.

• Fixed: The game info dialogue and the opponent attack radius buttons were swapped as a result of some playtesting. Feels better that way.

• Fixed: Opposing long range units that cannot move/act now overlay their movement and attack ranges.

• Fixed: Crystals as part of story effects no longer accidentally activate powers.

• Fixed: The Maximum Sniper skill can now be used in the Map Editor again.

• Fixed: An issue with number inputs for map stars in the editor.

• Fixed: An issue where an invasion attempt failed accidentally.

• Fixed: When activating a power while other powers are active, it now only highlights the units matched by the current skill, not all the units that get a buff from all powers.

• Fixed: The escort by amount and label objective no longer triggers when there are no units with the associated labels on the map.

• Fixed: Some issues with number inputs related to map stars, and added the ability to remove stars from a map.

• Fixed: An issue that prevented using the Maximum Sniper skill in the Map Editor.

• Fixed: Inferno Jetpack power activations during invasions now properly spawn additional units. More on this skill soon.

• Fixed: You can no longer undo a turn after activating a power crystal.

• Fixed: Optional objectives that are the same as a win condition are now always fired when they both trigger.

• Fixed: An issue where triggering an optional objective would show a different optional objective as triggered.

• Fixed: You can no longer undo a turn after activating a power crystal.

• Fixed: Optional objectives that are the same as a win condition are now always fired when they both trigger.

• Fixed: An issue where triggering an optional objective would show a different optional objective as triggered.

• Fixed: Blood Moon Skill The heal effect of this skill is now additive to healing at a Repair Shop, etc.

• Fixed: The Leaderboard now scrolls entries into view when using the gamepad.

• Fixed: Restricted skills are no longer pre-selected for campaign maps or invasions.

• Fixed: When navigating between apps on mobile and audio is paused in the game, the music no longer accidentally resumes.

• Fixed: The note and link to the damage chart in the UnitCard is now only printed once, not once per weapon.

• Fixed: Undo/redo in the editor now also considers effects, fixing an issue when resizing maps with spawn effects and undoing the resize.

• Fixed: Many improvements to layout on narrow (mobile) screens were made.

• Fixed: An issue that accidentally allowed a player to spawn as a defeated AI when using a Command crystal.

• Fixed: Tons of mobile layout fixes. Athena Crisis should now work even better on any screen size.

• Fixed: Clicking the link to the wiki or discord on the tutorial menu no longer opens two tabs in your browser.

• Fixed: When viewing the Damage Chart while being logged out, the player color for columns was fixed to be orange again.

• Fixed: An issue where units in fog would sometimes reappear on the client. This was one of the major fog desyncs that we couldn't figure out for a long time.

• Fixed: Attack previews for Commanders were corrected.

• Fixed: When toggling an objective from non-optional to optional, it sometimes accidentally removed effects for another optional objective.

• Fixed: Improved behavior of pressing "escape" in the campaign editor.

• Fixed: Dialogue is no longer accidentally skipped when entering a new campaign map.

• Fixed: On mobile, tapping the description of a skill or crystal using touch input no longer activates the skill/crystal. The previous behavior led to confusion because most of the screen is occupied with the skill/crystal description and it was easy to accidentally activate them.

• Fixed: An issue where a player would lose visibility in a PvP game where all other human players were defeated.

• Fixed: Damage number animations should no longer get stuck.

• Fixed: Additional mobile fixes.

So, just a few things. Were dedicated to making Athena Crisis the best game it can possibly be, so if you have any questions or feedback, please join the official Discord and let us know your thoughts, and thanks again to all the players who have contributed so far.

[ 2024-11-27 17:00:06 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hurry to your seats and push up on those safety restraints, because Athena Crisis is currently featured in the annual Turn-Based Carnival, a celebration of turn-based games hosted by our good friends at Acram Digital! Turn-Based Carnival features a treasure trove of titles - including Nakazawa Tech's critically acclaimed Athena Crisis - that are sure to delight and inspire players who love strategy, tactics, and turn-based combat. From now until the final day of Turn-Based Carnival on November 20th, you can pick up your very own copy of Athena Crisis for 20% off! There's so much to enjoy in Athena Crisis, from the rewarding campaign featuring 50 unique maps, to the genre-expanding Invasions feature that turns single-player campaign missions into exciting online PvP battles for up to 7 players. But that's just the beginning! Uncover a host of other impressive features including:

• A rich map and campaign editor that allows you to create your very own adventures.
• Options to create, share, and play endlessly creative maps and full-fledged campaigns with old friends and new, including members of our vibrant and active online community.
• Instant cross-progression between PC, iOS/Android, browser and Steam Deck (Verified). Pick up right where you left off no matter where you are or what device you're playing on!
• A novel blend of classic modern military units with fantastical characters such as bombastic Bazooka Bears, zealous Zombies, and dangerous Dragons.
• Friendly vibes and chill music contributing to an accessible and welcoming atmosphere, balanced with deep and rewarding systems that genre veterans can sink their teeth into.

Any carnival is more fun with friends, so if you've already picked up Athena Crisis for yourself, now would be a great time to grab a copy for a friend! Athena Crisis is more than just a game - it's a community experience that is constantly being improved, refined, and optimized for the passionate players who have already discovered it for themselves. Find out today by picking up a copy of Athena Crisis and joining the official Discord. We would love to hear your feedback, discover your own creations, and hop into a campaign map to help (or hinder) your battles. We'll see you in the multiverse!

[ 2024-11-13 18:05:06 CET ] [ Original post ]

If you've been waiting to pick up Athena Crisis, there's no better time than now: it's 20% off until November 20th! You can take on the game's 40+ maps in the main campaign, fight against friends in online multiplayer, or take advantage of the Invasions feature to help out (or hinder) others, all at its lowest price yet. Youll be right at home in the world of Athena Crisis if youre a fan of Advance Wars and seeking a freshened up take on the genre classic. It expands the classic turn-based strategy genre with modern features such as:

• A robust map and campaign editor to create your own adventures.
• Options to create, share, and play endlessly creative maps and full-blown campaigns with friends and a strong online community, ensuring a constant stream of new challenges.
• Instant cross-progression between PC, iOS/Android, browser and Steam Deck (Verified). Pick up right where you left off no matter where you are!
• Faster gameplay and fewer stalemates to keep each match fresh and exciting.
• Blending classic modern military units with fantastical characters such as powerful Bazooka Bears, manipulative Zombies, and all-powerful Dragons.
• Chill and friendly vibes and music for a welcoming atmosphere, while remaining deep enough for genre veterans to sink their teeth into.

If you've already picked up Athena Crisis, now would be a great time to buy a friend a copy! Once they're in, don't forget to encourage them to join our official Discord to give their feedback or find someone to play against.

[ 2024-11-08 17:00:31 CET ] [ Original post ]

Command and Conquer is a rare map in that it seems to be designed to be played as a 1v1v1 map, but to make the most of it youll want to have the AI control the central Green faction. Youll discover why as you start the match: Red and Blue start on opposite sides of the map with only a Pioneer and a Jeep to begin with, and no ability generate funds at the outset. Youll need to quickly expand and build your economy before moving forward to strike at your enemy. The kicker? Green stands poised to ambush anyone who crosses the central island. Their AI is set to Passive mode, so they wont move on their turns if the AI controls them, but the snipers there have the ability to pick off almost anything that comes their way. Theyre too far from the rail tiles to be easily hit by a Transport Train or a Support Train, and they each have Medics nearby to support them if they take damage. Youll need to clear them from their mountainous perches before you advance across the island, or you can attempt to avoid them entirely and expand to the south or north to wrap around for a flanking assault on your opponent. This is one of the more interesting AI implementations in a PVP map that Ive seen, so give Command and Conquer a whirl!

[ 2024-10-31 23:11:54 CET ] [ Original post ]

In this months update we are introducing Costumes & Invasion Skills! You can now customize your faction for PvP with custom outfits for Pioneers, Infantry, Rocket Launchers and our new Vampire Medic. We also added exciting new skills to go with the theme, such as Blood Moon. This skill continuously heals units, but uses those health points when activating its power. We also added brand new invasion skills like Bubble Wrap that equip all units with a shield for one turn, and Charge Overflow which brings charges into an invasion right away. NEW AND IMPROVED

• Unit Costumes: You can now buy various costumes for units in the shop to customize your faction! Initially you can choose between 6 different styles for Pioneers, Infantry and Rocket Launchers AND you can unlock the Vampire Medic style. Happy Halloween!
• Leader Animations + Leader Medal: There is now a subtle animation on leader units to remind you which units are leaders. The leader icon was changed to a medal. The previous icon is now finally used for Effects again.
• Sea Barriers: Two Sea Barrier structures were added. They work the same as barriers on land. The Corvette, Frigate and Destroyer received the ability to attack structures. Frigates are the only long-range unit that can attack structures
• New Unit Moved Icon: Units that have moved but can still act now have a tiny shoe icon on the bottom right
• New Per-Player Rescue and Capture Flag: The icons for rescue and capture are now using faction colors. This gives more information when rescuing a unit is contested. Players can now give up in ranked games.
• Power Activations: The Player Card now receives a rainbow border when you can activate a power. Power activation animations were sped up by 4x when using the "Normal" animation speed, same as when using "Fast AI" / "Always Fast". This was indeed way too slow before.
• Super Tank Power: +2 movement for tread, heals tread units by 50% and increases attack by 30% (4 charges).
• Editor: Added a "Load Map" button to the Map Editor that takes you to the map list on your user profile. The Entity Panel now has text input elements next to the slider for easier adjustment of unit values

INVASIONS

• New: You can now bring skills into invasions! That's it, that's the feature. Yay!
• New: Crystal Rewards: When you activate a Power Crystal and you win against an invader, you now get a random crystal as a reward. When you invade using a Phantom/Command crystal and you lose, you will receive one of Power, Valor or Phantom/Command, whichever you didn't use to invade. The probability is related to the cost of the crystal.
• New: You may receive a supply unit as part of your spawns.
• New: When you activate a Power Crystal on a map without an HQ, one of your Barracks or Spawn Platforms converts into an HQ, which makes those maps more interesting to Phantom invaders
• Changed: On big maps, the deploy area is now slightly larger, reducing the likelihood that your faction will spawn far apart.

NEW SKILLS

• Blood Moon: This skill works best with the Vampire Medic costume. It heals units by 10hp at the beginning of each turn and increases the attack of Medics. When you activate the power it increases movement range of soldiers by 2 and attack of all units by 30%, but reduces the health of all your units.
• Bubble Wrap: This power activates a shield for one round which reduces the next attack to 5 damage. This skill is the first available invasion skill, meaning that it activates when you consume a crystal.
• Charge Overflow: The second invasion skill gives the user 2 charges when consuming a crystal, increases charge speed and uses charges for an attack bonus.

BALANCING

• Super APU Skill: The Super APU power now increases attack by 50% instead of 300% Last Resort / Inferno: Units in transporters now also get converted. Enjoy your Hovercraft Jeep Zombies!
• Damage: Damage is now always rounded up instead of rounded down which eliminates some (but not all) "99 damage" situations, like for example Bombers against Infantry with cover will now do 100 damage.
• Bombers: Damage of Bombers against vehicles was increased by 5, improving the Jeep match-up.
• Wild Companion Skill: The power for this skill now spawns a bear at the HQ as well as at Shelters. Increased the price of Bears from 250 to 350.
• Alien Invasion Skill: Increased the required charges for the power from 3 to 4.
• Large Footprints: Updated the cost of Ogre units from 300 to 350.
• Ogre: Added the ability to capture buildings, their movement range was reduced from 4 to 3, and attack buildings and structures.
• Acid Bomber: Supplies were increased from 20 to 30.
• Artillery Expert Skill: Changed the 20% defense increase for Tires/Tread to a 40% defense increase for Artillery, Heavy Artillery and Cannon units.

[ 2024-10-24 16:00:28 CET ] [ Original post ]

You can always win a map by capturing the HQ, but what if there *is* no HQ? In the latest Community Map of the Week, Explosive Supply Race by Flak, were left with another tantalizing option: blow up your opponents entire base with a bomb. Big bada boom! The players here start in an X pattern, with each player controlling two corners of the map. The goal: take a supply train laden with explosives and drive it straight to the enemy HQ, where it will wipe all of their buildings off the map, instantly winning you the match. Theres a system of rails that lead from base to base, but which will also slow down your early wave of pioneers. The supply trains you need to move are also out of fuel, meaning youll need to capture a factory before you can build a Jeep or another Supply Train to refuel it and send it on its way. Dont forget to build more rail units to escort it, though: if the bomb Supply Train is destroyed on the way to its destination, youll have to revert to a war of attrition and defeat all enemy units to win. (Fun fact: train units are twice as fun to use if you yell choo choo every time you move them. Try it out! Another fun fact: this map is inspired by the Payload races in Team Fortress 2!

[ 2024-10-18 16:39:26 CET ] [ Original post ]

It's been a busy week in Athena Crisis improvements and fixes! Check out all the latest changes below:

New Art:

• New Decorations: Over 30 new decorations depicting destroyed units or objects common to the autumn season. Perfect to depict devastation on the battlefield. (Check closely for a variety of very spooky Halloween-themed items!)
• New Structure: Destroyed Super Tank: Similar to the Crashed Airplane, you can now place a Destroyed Super Tank structure. You need to clear it to make way for units.
• New Airfield design: The design of the Airfield was adjusted to stick out more. The look was aligned closer to that of construction sites, cc @TheSneakyDragon.
• Changed the color of the "Destroyed House" to look less like a neutral house.

Curated Campaigns:

• There is now a new "Curated Campaigns" list that you can find from the campaigns screen. Curated Campaigns are high-quality, community-created campaigns that are well-tested and maintained. By playing them you can receive more stars and you might even unlock rewards. Don't spend all your new stars at once more items will be added to the shop later this week!

New Skills in the Shop:

• Dragon Fire: Unlocks Dragons. The Dragon Fire power deals massive damage to units adjacent to Dragons.
• Large Footprint: Allows recruiting Ogre's, with a power that benefits all soldiers.
• Wild Companion: Unlocks Bears, increases Soldier attack in forests and mountains, and its power spawns Bears at Shelters.
• Last Resort: This skill unlocks Zombies in the editor, and prominently features the "convert" ability but only for units with less than 10hp!
• More Power: Unlocks the Power Station in the editor, increases the funds multiplier of Power Stations and allows constructing Power Stations while the power is active.

New:

• Added gamepad/keyboard support for map filters in the new game list.
• Added the ability to define initial charges in the map editor. This should make it much easier to test powers, and might make for some interesting setups when you start a map with a charge. Thanks to @CoconutTank for the code contribution!
• Player skills in pending games are now hidden for other players until the game starts, cc @Legend.
• The game now distinguishes between Xbox, PlayStation and Switch controllers and displays the different button layouts in the settings menu and the tutorial.
• A "Ranked" tab was added to the "New Game" screen showing maps with the "ranked" tag. We'll try to keep a pool of PvP approved maps in there. Maps without the "ranked" tag can no longer be played as ranked games. cc @Legend, @Mstr.
• As a result of this change, we changed all ongoing ranked games into casual games and did a one-time reset of player ratings. Who will become the best Athena Crisis player?
• Activating a Power Crystal now immediately turns a game into a realtime game, cc @CoconutTank, @Mstr.
• Added a 1 week turn timer. Removed the 10 minutes turn timer.
• "click+shift" was added to creating and unloading units.

Fixed:

• Buttons to delete a campaign or update the play style are no longer shown when spectating somebody else's campaign. Other campaigns now show "Xyz's campaign" to be less confusing about where you are, cc @TheSneakyDragon.
• When there are multiple optional escort objectives and the player achieved one, it no longer changes the marked colors of the escort area.
• Fixed the actions diagram on the open source website, cc @CosmicCarpenter
• Fixed an issue where the map editor settings panel didn't reset the map size when inputing a large number.
• Labels on buildings associated with hidden optional objectives are now immediately revealed upon completing the objective, cc @Lukas.
• A small note was added to the create game and pending game screens when the first player who is starting a game is not the default first player.
• Fixed an issue that displayed unpublished campaigns in some situations.
• Fixed an issue in which captures were counted twice on the client, cc @SparkyDL2.
• Note: There will only be critical updates and bugfixes from now until October 22nd. Expect many improvements to invasions in the latter half of October!

[ 2024-10-11 16:31:00 CET ] [ Original post ]

Its another devious puzzle map from Dxdydzd. We already have to mentally fortify ourselves when we see the win in one turn notification on these maps, but seeing win in six turns might be even MORE scary. Theres only so many things you can do wrong in one turn to fail a scenario map, but when you have six turns, any step in any one of those turns might be the wrong one. Here, you have nothing but a lowly Pioneer and a Small Tank, and are asked to defeat two snipers and an APU in six turns. The Pioneer cant attack, and the Small Tank is not well-suited for attacking the enemy units, so how do you win? Perhaps the Radar Station has something to do with itor it might be a red herring, as we know dxdydzd is fond of those. Also keep in mind that ammo is limited: your tank isn't quite full, and the northern sniper is out of ammo, but the mountainous defense will make it more difficult for the tank to attack it. You can give Demolition a try right now! If youre playing on Steam, simply go to New Game and search for Demolition. Let us know if you beat it on the Discord or in the comments below!

[ 2024-10-11 15:30:53 CET ] [ Original post ]

The full experience of Athena Crisis has been out for a few weeks now, and weve got the reviews to prove it. Sitting with an excellent score of 83 on Metacritic and with a Recent Review mark of Very Positive on Steam, its been gratifying to see reviewers and players enjoy the 1.0 release, which includes the full campaign experience and the new Invasions feature. [previewyoutube=VhXYS9lgJbY;full][/previewyoutube]But dont take our word for it! Heres what reviewers are saying: Athena Crisis is crafted with love and shows in every corner. - Steam Deck HQ bursting at the seams with new gameplay mechanics - The Nerd Stash an incredibly competent tactical adventure inspired by Advance Wars - Hey Poor Player If youve taken the time to play and enjoy Athena Crisis, please consider leaving us a review!

[ 2024-10-10 16:00:43 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello all, If you haven't been following the Discord news channel, here are (many) of the changes and improvements we've made to Athena Crisis since it hit 1.0 on September 23rd. There are plenty more fixes that have been implemented in addition to this list, so please check the Discord if you'd like more rapid updates.

NEW AND IMPROVED

• Any type of casual PvP game can now be abandoned by a player, allowing you to clean up that list of games that has been sticking around. Thanks @Rishi is Here and @Jinjo for playing 3 games super quickly to make me realize I should enable this.
• Invasion messages on Discord now have better phrasing for games that have ended, and an "open in app" button was added.
• When there is no cancelable action in a game, pressing Escape now opens the overlay menu. This is a pretty big change to the cancel behavior, so please report any issues you might find and/or whether you think it would be better to add an option to disable this behavior.
• You can now horizontally navigate in landscape mode in the main menu/overlay menu. It was silly that this didn't work before, but I only changed the layout of the menu (adaptively!) about two weeks ago and honestly didn't even think about it.
• The damage chart is now public and no longer requires logging in.
• Secret maps in the main campaign are now highlighted as "Secret" in the level selection screen, cc @Kylestien.
• Brutes are now always listed in the damage chart since they come up early in the campaign + added a note that units have to be unlocked to be shown in the unit chart.
• click+shift: When moving a unit, you can press "shift" instead of clicking/enter to move the unit and then complete it and put it into waiting mode. This means you no longer need to press "Wait" or "shift" manually after a move, cc @TheSneakyDragon
• You can now pick the primary faction on a map. This allows you to create campaigns where the player controls any of the 7 factions, while also using the remaining factions as bots in the story, cc @Oinks, @Mr Bun, @Legend.
• Unit health is now shown in the map info panels on the bottom, cc @Risky (Glyph).
• The name of the player now cycles through rainbow colors when you can activate a power, cc @mrorie.
• Keyboard shortcuts are now shown in the settings. It's not super pretty, though.
• Unit Cards now show which unit the currently selected one is vulnerable against. The Unit Card was updated to also include all the units that are present on the map.
• Hovering completed units shows their attack radius.
• Achieved stars are now shown next to the map name in the campaign selection screen.
• The previous best is now shown in the game dialog while playing a game.
• You can adjust the difficulty of a campaign between games in the campaign dialog. You can find the dialog either by long pressing the campaign name in the campaign list, pressing the button on the right with the completion status, or the top left card with the campaign name in the level select screen.
• In the campaign, bot names are now just using faction names. Instead of "Purple Bird", they'll be "Purple Horizon" until somebody invades. Regular PvP games are unaffected.
• Tutorial maps are now persisted locally on your device so you don't lose your state when you navigate away. Unhappy to report that it is less code than it was before , just didn't have time to piece it together properly before 1.0.
• Barracks received a small style update to make them more distinctive from houses. Thanks @FaeWilds for the feedback.
• You can now give up a game by navigating to the right from the game info tabs with a gamepad/keyboard which should reduce confusion about which button to press quite a bit.
• Morale Boost is now explained in unit cards, cc @Pistolaceo, @chair summoner, @Oinks.
• Added gamepad/keyboard support for map filters in the new game list.
• Added the ability to define initial charges in the map editor. This should make it much easier to test powers, and might make for some interesting setups when you start a map with a charge. Thanks to @CoconutTank for the code contribution!
• Player skills in pending games are now hidden for other players until the game starts, cc @Legend.
• The game now distinguishes between Xbox, PlayStation and Switch controllers and displays the different button layouts in the settings menu and the tutorial.

BALANCING

• Medics can now rescue.
• Sneaky Sabotage: Saboteurs now receive 50% more attack and 300% more defense when using this skill.
• Some AI and draft skills were removed from the skill count in your profile, which should allow you to obtain 100% of skills.
• Some portraits for yet to be seen units were removed from the counter in your profile too, allowing you to obtain all current portraits.
• When using a Command Crystal, the Easy and Hard Mode skills are removed from the AI when they convert to the player.
• Minor changes of damage to structures by all units. The changes should not be more than +-5.
• New Heavy Equipment Ability: Rocket Launchers are no longer able to act after being dropped from transporters to counter the new Rocket Jeep meta that has developed in the past 24 hours, cc @Mr Bun, @Mstr.
• Unit Costs: Unit costs affected by skills are now rounded up instead of rounded down. When using Aggressive stance, some units might cost +1 now.

INVASIONS

• The maximum chaos stars a player can receive was bumped from 15 to 25 for Phantom Crystals, and 10 to 20 for all others.
• Winning an invasion now returns the cost of the crystal at all times. This also reduces the "risk" of using the power crystal.
• Fixed some issue related to who is "winning" an invasion. If the campaign player loses, active Phantom and Command invaders all win. The correct list of winners should now be shown as well.
• There is less leakage now when rounding down chaos stars that are being handed out. Players of the actually winning team (the ones who deal the final blow) may receive an additional star.
• Fixed a bug where multiple pending invasions would abort a command invasion.

Thanks! We'll see you in an Invasion soon....

[ 2024-10-07 16:48:17 CET ] [ Original post ]

If youre in the mood for a lengthy fight with a friend, Cornucopia Express by CoconutTank is the map for you! This 1v1 map features a number of stumbling blocks that will prevent an early rush and ensure that both players have a chance to expand before the fight commences. CoconutTank says: A cornucopia is known as a horn of plenty, and meant to be a symbol of abundance, or being able to have a lot. I designed Cornucopia Express with the idea of being able to build and use every type of unit, in some capacity. Whether or not the units are all equally useful will be left as an exercise to the players! And well, the Express part of the map name is taken from the very apparent and very large rail network that spans the entire outer edge of the map, and can also be expanded further inland with a little bit of railway construction. Both players begin on the central island with only 100 funds arriving every turn, and from there economic expansion is going to be critical in the early game, as most funds-generating buildings are a bit of a hike from your starting base. Progress is slowed by barriers sneakily placed around the starting area to make it a bit more difficult to expand quickly early on. Cornucopia Express is the definition of a slow burn, but eventually youll have to decide whether to keep expanding or rush your opponents HQ after destroying the barriers. Good luck!

[ 2024-10-03 17:50:42 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello everyone, we are so excited to announce that Athena Crisis shipped as 1.0 release on Steam yesterday. It's awesome to finally ship a version of Athena Crisis that we feel like is complete. However, we didn't want to just build a video game, we wanted to build a community! It's also why we wanted to build Invasions from the beginning. Very few people noticed if you look at the keyart you'll spot the crystals and portals off on the side. They've always been part of the plan. That's why there are crystals in the main story, and we are excited that after our characters just talked about them, we can actually interact with them as real items! The entire Athena Crisis multiverse is now finally fully connected, what you do in the game has an impact on others, and it enables emergent gameplay. It's a truly unique feature in this genre. Everything needed to fall into place to ship the feature on release day. Most systems were prepared to support invasions for the past 18 months. We intentionally didn't immediately announce it besides the teasers so that the community could discover the feature together. Thankfully, despite the massive changes, there are only a few minor bugs that will be fixed quickly.

Here is what's new from the past several days

• New: 6 Secret Maps & Secret Ending: The Athena Crisis campaign now features 6 secret maps that explore the factions in our main story further, bringing the total map count of both official campaigns to 50! All campaign maps now have star challenges assigned to them.
• New: Invasions: You can activate the new Power Crystals to enable co-op with friends, but they also open your world to other invaders who may want to battle you. If you win in an invasion you'll receive Chaos Stars, a new type of in-game currency.
• If you invade a player, you can always abandon (give up) the game. If you abandon a game after taking command of the AI, the AI will jump back into the game. As a reward for playing Early Access, each player received a number of crystals so they can try out the feature.
• New: In-Game Shop: You can use stars that you obtain by playing the campaign or through invasions to buy in-game items like crystals, portraits, and skills. Watch out and check back regularly because we'll be adding more exciting items (and skills!) soon.
• New: Feed: Games which can be invaded are posted in -invasions, but you can also view all ongoing games from the past day in a new news feed that's directly in the game. Active Invadable (is that a word?) games will always be on top of the list.
• New: Translations: The game is fully translated into 10 languages and we just shipped the most recent translation changes.
• New: Chaos Star Rankings: You can sort the leaderboard by chaos stars. Who is the most prolific Athena Crisis invader?

Fixed:

• There have been major rewrites and fixes to underlying systems around game actions, giving up, what happens when you miss a turn etc.
• Fixed some issues around game timers and the timer bar not showing up.
• Improved and fixed various design and styling related issues, polished up user profiles a bit.
• Made it so clicking a portrait in the player card and then pressing ESC will take you back to the game you were playing.
• Reduced volume of the fireworks sound.
• Broke and then fixed a bug where skills that the user already unlocked were "temporarily" unlocked again at game end.
• Fixed a bug where the game showed the wrong player turn banners in games with fog.

Improvements Shipped to Invasions Recently

• Every player invading with a Phantom Crystal now receives chaos stars as long as they are not defeated and the main campaign player gets beaten.
• There is now a small chance that something slightly more chaotic happens when using a Phantom Crystal.
• Adjusted the amount of funds a player receives when invading.
• Fixed a bug where the "Command" crystal was disabled when it shouldn't have been.
• Slightly improved player spawn points in some cases.
• Improved invasion Discord messages.
• Fixed an issue with multiple invasions at once.
• Fixed an issue where two crystals might get subtracted when invading (may need more testing).

And last but not least, some balancing changes

• Sneaky Sabotage: Saboteurs now receive 50% more attack and 300% more defense when using this skill.
• Some AI and draft skills were removed from the skill count in your profile, which should allow you to obtain 100% of skills.
• Some portraits for yet to be seen units were removed from the counter in your profile too, allowing you to obtain all current portraits.

If you've enjoyed Athena Crisis, please consider leaving us a review here on Steam! It really does help us out.

[ 2024-09-25 18:07:40 CET ] [ Original post ]

Athena Crisis 1.0 is launching today! We are shipping a major feature today called Invasions." Please read below for more details! If you're an Athena Crisis fan, please consider buying and reviewing the game today. If you haven't wishlisted it yet, you can find it right here on Steam. [previewyoutube=bWC1JOyP1EI;full][/previewyoutube] Here's what's new:

Invasions

Invasions are a unique feature that turn the single-player experience upside down and make the game even more fun. The crystals that were previously only talked about in the story are now actual items in the game that you can obtain or buy using Stars in the new in-game Shop.
Power Crystals are helpful, but also dangerous. If a campaign map is too challenging you can activate a Power Crystal to receive an attack bonus, but doing so will open your world to invasions. A friend can then join you for coop gameplay, but others might invade to hinder your progress or take over the AI of the main opponent directly.
At the end of a game with an invasions, the winning factions receive Chaos Stars, which supplement stars you receive from winning campaign maps to buy more items. The shop also features skills, portraits and soon unit customizations that you can unlock using stars.

Tutorial

Athena Crisis now comes with a complete tutorial with 9 maps. The last map even ties into the Prequel Campaigns story and answers a few questions that were left unanswered until now!

What else is new?

We polished every aspect of the game to get it ready for release. We adjusted the color of water in each biome, rebalanced various skills, completed the Spaceship biome, added hints for radial menus, fixed tons of bugs and we are launching a number of secret campaign maps this week.
If you haven't tried Athena Crisis yet, you can play one map instantly on athenacrisis.com. If you bought the game on Steam, please consider leaving a review. Thank you!

[ 2024-09-23 13:27:05 CET ] [ Original post ]

Sometimes when you want to balance a map for a turn-based strategy game, theres no better solution than a little symmetry. Perfectly symmetrical maps (or mirror maps) ensure that all players have equal access to resources, building sites, and travel paths, while still allowing for a wide variety of actual gameplay as individual players make their own choices regarding unit construction and which direction they choose to expand towards. (Did you know that theres a mirror tag in Athena Crisis allowing you to easily find all official and community maps that feature symmetry?) This weeks Community Map of the Week is Ocean Liner by Large Nuggets. Linerget it? Youre not going to build any cruise ships on this map, but both players will be encouraged to charge down the transoceanic rail line to get to the central island here, as it features both Factories and Oil Rigs. However, you shouldnt neglect to build up around your starting point, as there are Barracks, Shipyards, and building sites ready for the taking. (As another fun fact, most PVP maps are built to take into account whats referred to as first turn advantage or FTA, which indicates that its generally best to be the first person to take a turn as you can start your exploration or economy more quickly than other players. Generally this is balanced by ensuring that the starting player has a unit thats *just* outside the movement range of a building that can be captured, while the other players can begin capturing a building immediately on their first turn, but there are other strategies to account for FTA as well.) Obviously the central island is key here, and the fact that the paths leading to it are rail tiles will come into play: most infantry units, including Pioneers, will have their movement speed greatly reduced on rails, meaning theyll need a Jeep or other transport to move quickly along them. The player who winds up controlling the central island will also have the ability to create powerful rail-only units, like the Supply Train, Transport Train, and the mighty Mammoth rail gun. Of course, any combat on the rail line will necessarily be somewhat constrained since you wont be able to maneuver your units around the line, but smart players will also build a naval strategy to account for this, using Battleships and other units to bombard the land units as they come to and fro. If a player recognizes that theyre behind in the battle for the central island, all hope isnt lost: Tugs can help build a second outpost in the corners of the map, and you can build another Shipyard near your base to strengthen your naval forces, but youll be on the back foot economically, so act fast.

[ 2024-09-20 15:30:33 CET ] [ Original post ]

Meet Coco, the leader of the Dragons in Athena Crisis! Drawn into a conflict they neither understand nor wish to fight in, Coco now roams the multiverse, reluctantly defending itself against the forces that see them as a threat. On Cocos home world, dragons are revered as wise and powerful beings, but the forces involved in the current crisis only see a gigantic, flame-breathing monster. (And frankly, given the confusion and planet-hopping that the crisis entails, its hard to judge them for making snap decisions like this.) Coco desires nothing more than to return to its home, but for now, its journeys in the multiverse continue, with no end in sight. Perhaps you can help it by helping the crisis come to a conclusion? Dragons are one of the most powerful and rare units in Athena Crisis. Theyll show up periodically during the Athena Crisis campaign, where their fearsome breath will pose a challenge to any unit that they approach. Its similar in effect to the attack of the Flamethrower unit, but whereas the Flamethrower is generally only effective against other infantry units, the Dragon will be capable of severely wounding or defeating almost anything it can attack, including armored units and ships. Their main weakness, ironically enough, is against Flamethrower units, which can toast them from the outside with their flame attack, but Fighter Jets or a small swarm of X-Fighters will also prove effective against Dragons if your air force is well-established.

September Updates (So Far)

Tutorial Now Available!

From the Main Menu, select How To Play to experience the Athena Crisis tutorial! Were still building out the tutorial, so enjoy the missions that are there, but stay tuned for more before Athena Crisis hits 1.0 on September 23rd.

The Official Athena Crisis Wiki Now Available!

If you missed the news earlier this month, the Official Athena Crisis Wiki is now open to the public! This will act as a resource of tips, tricks, and information about Athena Crisis (and is likewise available on the go if you ever feel the urgent need to look up tips and tricks while at the beach). Check it out, and if you feel like contributing, feel free to edit some pages!

CHANGES:

- Tutorial maps now show the starting dialogue in the game info panel. - The game dialog now shows a down arrow when it can be scrolled down and the up/down arrows can be used to scroll. Made some size adjustments to the dialog.

FIXED:

- When pressing cancel with the gamepad while choosing between a unit and a building it will no longer open the game info dialog. - When navigating away from the game in the browser or on mobile it should stop playing the music. This makes it easier to play Athena Crisis in multiple tabs at the same time. This change does not apply to the app version. - When opening the campaign dialog in the campaign list or on the next level screen it now blocks navigation with arrow keys behind the dialog. - Aligned the container sizes in the next level screen. - Fixed an issue where units that were defeated by poison at the beginning of a turn or throuhg a counter attack would not correctly fire custom objectives. - More text-overflow fixes for campaign dialogue and tile/building dialogs, primarily for Russian. - Avoid overflowing the damage numbers in the damage chart by limiting the max number of labs to 20. - Added a note about charge bars in the skill dialog. - The attack range of neutral units is no longer shown when viewing the opponent's attack range. - The menu overlay now displays buttons in a columns on small screens where a single row would overflow. - The replay bar no longer overflows onto the player card on small maps.

[ 2024-09-17 16:07:08 CET ] [ Original post ]

Were happy to announce that the Official Athena Crisis Wiki is now available! Weve spent a lot of time getting this together, and were eager to see what you in the community will contribute to this wiki as we prepare for the 1.0 launch of Athena Crisis on September 23rd. There are already pages for all of the units and buildings in the game, alongside sections on How to Play Athena Crisis and some Tips and Tricks that might help you get through the more challenging missions in the game. The wiki could use some help in transcribing the games many Skills and adding some tips to the missions in both the Prequel and Main Campaigns. We have a longer page on the wiki with some basic tips on using the Wikimedia markup language and creating pages. Please give it a look and if you feel like contributing, wed be happy to see what you cook up! If you'd like to discuss the Wiki more, please leave a comment below, or join us on the Official Discord!

[ 2024-09-13 16:11:44 CET ] [ Original post ]

Construction of the mausoleum of Emperor Qin commenced in 246 BCE, and eventually grew to require the labor of 700,000 conscripted workers to complete the almost 100 square kilometer necropolis city. An even more fun fact: Qin wasnt even dead when this work began. He was only 13 years old! If there is such a thing as *pre*crastination, surely getting a jump start on funeral planning for an emperor in his early teens is a signpost example. More importantly to the Community Map of the Week, Emperor Qins burial grounds contain almost 9,000 life-size terracotta figurines, destined to protect the Emperor from whatever challenges awaited him in the undiscovered country of the afterlife. Terracotta Armies by CoconutTank has a fun twist on this story, in that you will be able to reanimate its armies using the Rescue ability on your Pioneers and Saboteurs to create a fighting forcebut your opponent will be doing the same thing! This map is utterly packed with neutral units, belonging to neither side, at the outset of the map. You each start with one Pioneer, which youll immediately send to your side of the map to begin Rescuing as many units as you can and converting them to your side. Theres a lot of strategy at play here, obviously. Do you attempt to Rescue as many Pioneers as you can at the start of the map, risking an early rush from an opponents Flamethrower or Humvee? Do you attempt to move north or south towards the naval and aerial units to build a mobile army? Do you focus on vehicles and attempt to repair them at the Repair Stations near you? The more powerful units on each side are near the edges of the map, and since you cant pass over Neutral units, youll need to rescue every unit in the way before you can unlock the Heavy Artillery, Brutes, and Bazooka Bears that are locked up deep behind the lines. Whatever your strategy, heres hoping it works for you on this 1v1 PVP map. For extra excitement, try playing Terracotta Armies with Fog of War activated, and maybe spice things up even more with a no attacking until turn 15 house rule. By that point, who knows what your opponent will be cooking up!

[ 2024-09-12 19:48:40 CET ] [ Original post ]

Welcome to another devious puzzle map, this time by dxdydzd! Much like First Puzzle by Flak, Miraculous Recovery sees you attempting to win a battle in one turn, without using skills or constructing any units. You have more units than your opponent does, but theirs are stronger than yours and more resistant to your attacks. You can find the map here if you're playing in a browser; if you're on Steam, you can find it by selecting New Game from the main menu and searching for "Miraculous Recovery." If youre stumped, here are a couple of hints: [spoiler]Saboteurs are capable of Sabotaging enemy units to reduce their supplies, but theyre also capable of Rescuing the neutral units next to your Pioneer. Youll need to Rescue a unit twice to convert it to your side, but you have two Saboteurs and the Pioneer that are capable of doing so.[/spoiler] [spoiler]Consider the title of the map: Miraculous Recovery. Could you need to perhaps bring a type of unit back from the dead to succeed?[/spoiler] [spoiler]The Lab is a red herring - you dont need to capture it to beat the map![/spoiler]

[ 2024-09-06 19:10:39 CET ] [ Original post ]

In a classic Liebnez/Newton situation, nonograms were invented in the late 80s by two Japanese people working independently of each other. While nonograms might not have quite the import or utility of The Calculus, they have at least offered a bit more entertainment to the puzzle-minded among us for the last 35 years or so. Most of us are familiar with nonograms through the work of Japanese game studio Jupiter, which has been creating Picross games for Nintendo since the mid-1990s. A new challenger has arrived, however! Thanks to dxdydzd, you can now play Picross directly in Athena Crisis. Instead of numbers, this Picross map uses X-fighter units with variable health. The number of X-Fighters indicates the number of unbroken lines of houses that you need to capture in that row or column. The health of each fighter indicates the number of houses in each unbroken line, with 1% health indicating no houses at all, 25% indicating one house, and so on until a 100% healthy X-fighter indicates four houses in the line. So, for instance, the fourth column has three X-fighters above it with 100% health, 25% health, and 25% health. In that column, youll need to capture four houses in a row, then have a gap of some length, then capture one more house, then another gap of some length, then capture another house. Or, for another example, in the first row from the top, there are two X-fighters with 25% health, indicating that you need to capture two houses in that row in some order, so long as there is a gap between them. If you want more tips for solving a nonogram, the Wikipedia page is a great resource! Once you have the basics down, head on over to the Picross map and give it a whirl for yourself, or you can find it by searching for "Picross" in the map selector. See if you can uncover the hidden image!

[ 2024-08-27 20:07:02 CET ] [ Original post ]

Our first Community Map of the Week is First Puzzle from Flak! Not every community-made map in Athena Crisis is meant for PVP fights: some of them are intended to give your brain a bit of exercise by requiring you to beat them in one turn, or use the mechanics of the game in unique ways to solve a puzzle. The aptly-named First Puzzle map is one example! In this devious puzzle map, you have one turn to defeat all of the enemy units on the map. You are not allowed to use skills! This is a test of anyones combat acuity as you will need to perform your actions in a specific order to achieve victory. Give First Puzzle a try right here! (If the link doesn't work for you, try selecting New Game from the main menu and use the Search function to find First Puzzle.) If any of the enemy units are still standing at the end of your turn, you lose! You can always try again with the Undo Turn button, though. If youre stumped, try revealing these hints one at a time: [spoiler]1. You can pick off four enemy units by using only four of your units to attack them. [/spoiler] [spoiler]2. After that, one enemy unit will require two of your units to attack it to destroy it, and one enemy unit will require three of your units to finish it off. [/spoiler] If those don't help, here is the full solution: [spoiler]Fighter destroys Sea Patrol from the west. Anti-Air destroys X-Fighter from the west. Heavy Artillery destroys the APU. Cannon destroys Infantry unit. North Copter and Rocket Launcher destroy Small Tank. The three remaining units destroy the Anti-Air[/spoiler]

[ 2024-08-21 15:46:51 CET ] [ Original post ]

Meet Gharf! As the leader of the Zombie faction in Athena Crisis, some call him The Dead Honcho, the Brain Gourmand, GharfEsquire?!? If you need someone bitten, infected, or just plain eaten, Gharf is yourthing. Its not just about conspicuous consumption, though: Gharf has trained its troops to be *extremely* effective on the battlefield. They are persuasive fellows, capable of infecting anything they touch and turning them to the zombies side with a single attack. Were not just talking infantry units, either: these zombies can turn *anything* they hit into a friend, whether its the lowliest Pioneer or a Mammoth tank trundling down its rails. The targeted unit will take damage from the Zombies attack, and will also manage to use the last shreds of their sanity to counterattack the Zombie (if capable of doing so), but after that, you will now have a slightly dinged-up new unit to use on your next turn. Needless to say, if you can convert your enemys most expensive units to your side, youll both negate a large resource expenditure of theirs, and also hopefully use your new toy to turn the tide of battle. But wait, theres more: Zombies are capable of all of the battlefield actions that the Pioneer units are, meaning they can construct new buildings at construction sites, Capture buildings, build rail tracks, and Rescue neutral units that they come across. Theyre *mostly* about eating brains, but dont think that thats all they have to offer. (Thanks to Legend on the Athena Crisis Discord server for naming Gharf!)

August Updates

Beta Campaign Now Available!

If you missed it earlier this month, the entirety of the main campaign of Athena Crisis is available in Beta form! You can find it by going to Campaigns, then Official Campaigns at the bottom of that screen, then selecting The Athena Crisis - Beta. Were still working on balancing changes to the campaign to ensure that it is both fair and challenging, so if you play, please drop by the Campaign channel on [the official Athena Crisis Discord] to give us your thoughts!

New

• Based on a random reddit comment suggesting to change the water color for the desert we brightened up the water colors for the desert, and darkened them for the snow biome. This should give both of those biomes a more distinctive look.
• Added an explanation for how many units need to be defeated to achieve the Power star.
• Spaceship biomes now have a building that corresponds to Barracks so you don't have to rely only on the HQ/Command Center on those maps.
• `no-skills` and `no-fog-change` labels: Add these labels to a map, and players won't be able to select skills or change the fog setting when creating a new game. The `no-skills` tag also works for campaigns. This should be very useful for puzzle maps.
• A Try Again button has been added when giving up or losing in a PvE map.

Balancing

• The Maximum Sniper skill was changed to only apply to the current leader unit. The passive power is still applied to all snipers.
• Increased Anti Air defense from 15 to 30, increased Anti Air attack against Low Altitude by 10, and increased Sea Patrol attack against Amphibious and Ships by 10 each. Without skills, an Anti Air will now beat a Helicopter that attacks the AA first.
• Low Altitude units can now enter Space in the Spaceship biome. It makes no sense, but is more fun to play.
• Increased charges for "Bazoo's Bond" from 3 to 6.

Fixes

• Action Cards in the editor were showing units that had "self", "team" or "opponent" colors as neutral.
• Moved the button to show the opponent's attack radius from `shift` to `a`.
• Medbays can now be placed in the Spaceship biome in the editor.
• Gaps between multiple skill selectors were fixed in the player selector on the pending game page.
• Fixed an issue with Research Labs showing through fog in the game preview on the user profile.
• Units that are not allowed in a specific biome no longer show up in the unit or tile cards.
• The game no longer applies poisong twice when reloading a map with poisoned units at the begin of a turn.
• App Scaling: The Athena Crisis app should now automatically scale the game much better on 4k+ screens with a low device pixel ratio. No change is expected on small screens or on screens with a high device pixel ratio (often referred to as "Retina Displays").
• Fixed a bug where selecting a map in local mode with a gamepad would navigate to the main menu instead of the create game screen.
• My Games Menu Button: The "My Games" menu button should now correctly show up both in the main menu and in the overlay menu if you only have local games or if you only have finished games. The logic for the button in both places was aligned, cc **@CoconutTank**.
• My Games list: The "Finished" button in the header now also shows up if you only have local finished games.
• Snow Biome: Fixed a small pixel bug with single Rail Track fields that were broken in the recent water color update.
• Sandbags: Sandbag decorations were recently limited to trenches only, but there are many existing maps with sandbags on plain fields. The change was reverted and sandbags can be placed on many regular fields again.

[ 2024-08-19 18:08:33 CET ] [ Original post ]

The full campaign currently features 34 unique maps with many rewards and unlocks. Please keep campaign spoilers out of all the public channels. If you add your Discord username in the game's Account Settings menu, you'll be added to the private channel for campaign feedback. We are looking forward to hearing from you how you like the maps and units that you'll discover in the Athena Crisis, and what you think of the story. There is also a unique unlock for beating the campaign! You can find the new campaign in the official campaign list: https://app.athenacrisis.com/campaigns Now that the Athena Crisis campaign launched, the rift in the Prequel Campaign closed again and there is currently no crossover to the main campaign. The Prequel Campaign now features the original 10 maps again. Features:

• New: Campaign Map Replay Upon finishing a campaign ("100% completion), you'll be able to replay any map in any order.
• New: Unlocked biomes now show up on user profiles as part of the total completion percentage.
• New: Sneaky Sabotage Skill: Arvid and his Saboteur squad now finally receive a fitting skill! Charge the power of the Sneaky Sabotage skill and for one round anything that a Saboteur touches gets converted to that faction.

Balancing: The Super APU skill now also unlocks the Super APU unit. Fixes: Fixed various bugs related to the game info panel and a map's challenges. Fixed an issue with alignment between boxes on the Main menu that's been bothering me.

[ 2024-08-02 22:01:41 CET ] [ Original post ]

Monthly Update: Dion The Dinosaur

There are girls who are clever, and then there areclever girls. The Dinosaur unit in Athena Crisis has mysterious origins - perhaps one of the many universes connected to yours simply never saw the fall of the dinosaurs, and theyve been roaming their planet for millions of years, just waiting for the walls between worlds to weaken, freeing them to seek new, tastier prey. Whatever event spurred their arrival, theyre here, and youre going to have a tough time asking them to return home. As a secret unit, youll most often find the Dinosaur roaming the jungles and plains of Athena Crisis, free of allegiances to any side or faction, simply aiming to disrupt the best-laid plans of commanders everywhere (and snack on your infantry units). As you might expect, the Dinosaur brings to bear its mighty Bite attack on opposing units: at full strength this will generally be enough to defeat any unit its capable of attacking, which includes most infantry and armored units. Its tough skin makes it difficult to take down without suffering fearsome counterattacks, but if you have a Flamethrower in the area, one spray of fire should result in some tasty BBQ back at HQ after the mission.

Athena Crisis Is Now Steam Deck Verified

Our friends at Valve have issued a full Steam Deck verification for Athena Crisis, meaning that youll have the same wonderful experience on your Steam Deck when you play Athena Crisis as you would on your PC or Mac. You can try it today, and please let us know on the official Discord if you have any issues.

Coming Soon: Athena Crisis Merch!

Thats right, you will soon be able to show your Athena Crisis pride with a variety of t-shirts at the Null Store. Featuring some of our fabulous in-game art, these fine wool-spun t-shirts will surely make you the envy of your peers at your next game night. Keep an eye on the Athena Crisis Community Hub on Steam for more details as they get closer to production.

New Features And Updates

Per-Map Player Achievements

You can now rank yourself on each of the Prequel Campaign maps! Youll earn stars in four different categories after each map. Pace: How many rounds it takes to win. Power: The ratio between destroyed and lost units. A 10:1 ratio is best. Style: An adaptive goal that might be different depending on the map, like for example capturing a certain amount of buildings, how many units a player can lose or how many "one shots" a player did, ie. defeating a unit with full health in one attack Bonus: Whether an optional objective was achieved or not. You can review your Stars progress on your profile page, and you can also build Star rewards into your own campaigns using the map editor. Theres even automated suggestions for each metric that goes into the Star rating if you want to let the computer handle the decision-making.

New Additions

• Many new skills were added to unlock special units such as the Alien, Bazooka Bear, Acid Bomber and Super Tank.
• We added many new decorations so you can design maps that are even prettier.

Improved Gamepad Support

You can now use a gamepad or controller on the main menu, portrait selector, and when typing out a character name. If youre interested in playing with a controller, check out the updated button mapping here:

Status Effects

Units in Athena Crisis are now capable of afflicting status effects on their opponents. The Alien's poisonous bite will wear down a unit's health over time; unless you heal the unit, it will continue taking damage every turn until it collapses. Other units may earn the ability to deal status effect damage in the future, where appropriate.

Balance Changes

A number of balance changes were implemented based on player feedback, including:

• Alien attacks will deal less outright damage (to account for the new status effect indicated above).
• Zombies and a number of other special units can now attack low-flying aircraft. (Zombies can also now take over enemy units with a unit ability called Convert.) Aim for the stars, Mr. Zombie!
• The AI will now build fewer Jeeps and Support Ships. Theyll still build some, but they shouldnt flood their supply lines with easy-to-destroy units anymore.
• The AI will now also hold onto their Skill activations until it makes more sense to use them: earlier in turns, and when more units will be affected by the Skill.

[ 2024-07-30 15:00:03 CET ] [ Original post ]

Null Games and Nakazawa Tech are happy to announce that Athena Crisis will see its full PC release hitting Steam on September 23! Thats right, our journey through Early Access is coming to an end and in September youll be able to play the full Athena Crisis campaign for the first time. Here are some of the new features you can expect to see come September:

• The full single-player story campaign, featuring over 30 maps and missions.
• Brand-new units, enemies, and skills.
• Even more options for user-generated puzzle maps, PVP challenges, and full campaigns.

Wed like to thank everyone in the Steam community and the Athena Crisis Discord for their feedback during development, and we hope to play some of you in PVP on launch day. If you havent wishlisted Athena Crisis yet, you can do so on its Steam page right now! [previewyoutube=evF1axlll0w;full][/previewyoutube]

[ 2024-07-30 14:43:33 CET ] [ Original post ]

Here are some of the most recent updates to Athena Crisis! Attention Multiverse Travelers: There are reports that Act 3 has just caused a rift in the multiverse. We suggest checking if somebody arrived early at one of the Research Lab buildings in the Prequel Campaign! Start a new online Prequel Campaign to discover 10 new maps and unlock 3 portraits, 4 skills and two biomes one which you have never seen before! This brings us to 30 released primary campaign maps between Act 1 and 3, and we are getting closer to uncovering the secrets behind the Athena Crisis. New: Meet Ada, operating the Acid Bomber: Ada operates the Acid Bomber special unit, equipped with Corrosive Bombs and Corrosive Air Missiles that inflict poison. This was one of the earliest unit concepts and I'm so stoked that we'll finally get to meet her in the Athena Crisis campaign!
New: Power Station Building! You might come across this building in various places in the campaign. If you capture it, all funds generating buildings will produce 30% more funds per turn. New: All remaining tiles now have a description. Look out for the elusive 7th biome with a ton of fun tiles and explanations soon. Fixed: Multiple optional (+ 1 required) objectives can now be fired through a single trigger, thanks @dxdydzd. Updated Skill: Maximum Sniper: This skill now gives snipers the ability to capture buildings! The skill now also has a power that expands the Sniper's range by one.
New: Skillslot unlocks In future campaign missions you might be able to unlock another skill slot or two, finally allowing you to "Dual Strike" with your skills, if you know what I mean. New Skill: Octo Wrath: The power of this skill is devastating! It takes 20 health points away from every opposing units. The game was adjusted to allow multiple factions to lose through one action like activating a power to take out all remaining units. It's fun! New Biome Unlocks: The Swamp, Snow and Volcano biomes are now also unlockable! If you previously designed a map, they were backfilled. All other players have to beat the primary campaign to unlock them. New Building: Medbay This building works the same as a Shelter in the 7th biome which you can discover and unlock in Act 3. Fixed: Various fixes to polish the game.

[ 2024-07-25 17:11:00 CET ] [ Original post ]

New Skill: Alien Invasion: This skill unlocks the Alien. The power spawns Alien units at each HQ and Barracks. Biome & Alternate Keyart Unlocks: Support was added to unlock the hidden biomes and alternate keyarts in the main campaign. More on this later! Balancing: Unfolding a Sniper on a Mountain should stack it's vision bonus to +3, it was previously just +2. Fixes:

• The player card should no longer cut off when the player has objectives and skills.
• Bots no longer "temporarily receive a skill" at the end of a game.
• It is no longer possible to have two leader units when using Zombies to convert opponents to your faction.

[ 2024-07-22 20:06:11 CET ] [ Original post ]

Various improvements shipped over the past several days: New: Some skills like "Brutal Call" or "Commanding Force" will now show a brief scripted dialogue when activated by the AI. This will only happen if they have at least one unit that matches the type of skill, like the Brute for Brutal Call. We'll be adding more of these soon. Balancing: AI: The AI now builds significantly fewer Jeep and Support Ship units. I was watching somebody play on this absolutely massive map where the AI on one side built 11 Support Ships in 10 rounds In a playtest with the change the AI only built 4 Support Ships instead. AI: The AI makes a better determination on whether to activate a power or not, depending on how many units would be affected by the power. This stops the AI from activating a power at the end of a turn and not making full use of it. "Bazoo's Bond" Skill: This skill received a power which spawns Bazooka Bear units at each Bar building that the player owns. "Eagle Eye" Skill: Added this experimental skill that allows moving air units a second time but with an attack debuff. Fixed: When a long-range unit like the X-Fighter can attack from its current location, it no longer proposes moving elsewhere first. Polish: Various design and gamepad adjustments, notably the Skill Dialog with only a single skill is now much smaller, pressing "links" with the gamepad now shows the pressed style, the current round is shown in the game info panel, icon gaps were adjusted and the leaderboard now uses the player's chosen color for portraits. Also adjusted the attack animations for X-Fighter and Fighter Jet.

[ 2024-07-16 18:17:29 CET ] [ Original post ]

Finally getting back to adding new gameplay content as we are working on the full campaign. * New: Status Effects! When Aliens attack or counterattack, they inflict the opponent with poison and acid! Unless the unit is healed, poison takes away 20 health points at the beginning of each turn. * New Unit Ability "Morale Boost": Any unit adjacent to a Commander unit receives a 10% attack bonus. This bonus stacks up to a 40% increase if you surround a unit with 4 Commander units. * New Skill: Commanding Force: The power of this skill increases attack strength by 100% for one turn for leader units. * New: Gamepad support for the account settings page. * Balancing:

• Significantly reduced damage of the Alien's Bite attack.
• Changed cover of Ruins from 20 to 10.
• Lowered the "Cheap Trick" charge cost from 5 to 3.
• The Zombie's ability to take over other units was turned into a "unit ability" called "Convert".
• Some special units were changed to be able to attack low altitude aircraft.

Fixed: * Fixed a kerning issue where ij was appearing as i j in the Athena Crisis font. * Fixed an issue where labels associated with secret objectives were revealed in fog, cc @dxdydzd. We also made a large infrastructure update on the backend, but seems like nobody noticed so that's good.

[ 2024-07-12 18:15:48 CET ] [ Original post ]

Excited to launch a major new feature: Map Player Achievements! New: Per-Map Player Achievements Replay the Prequel Campaign and try to obtain all the Stars in the 10 original Prequel campaign maps! Each official campaign map now has up to four map performance metrics that players are evaluated on: Pace: How many rounds it takes to win. Power: The ratio between destroyed and lost units. A 10:1 ratio is best. Style: An adaptive goal that might be different depending on the map, like for example capturing a certain amount of buildings, how many units a player can lose or how many "one shots" a player did, ie. defeating a unit with full health in one attack Bonus: Whether an optional objective was achieved or not. New: View Stars on your Profile You can view the stars you received on each map on your profile page. New: Map Editor Map Player Achievement Settings: The Map Editor Settings panel received a new card to define the expected metrics for a map, including an analysis of past games that can give you an idea of which values to use for each metric. It currently proposes metrics close to the 20th percentile of players. However, it's always best to identify the best strategy and define metrics that you think are obtainable in your campaigns. Note that this feature is only available for maps that are part of a campaign. Fixed:

• Counter attack previews are no longer shown when attacking a neutral unit.
• Portrait selector no longer cuts off one portrait when the editor drawer is positioned to the left.
• Various other small things were polished/fixed.
• Fog games with more than two players are no longer shown in the feed on the main menu.

Stars will receive more meaning in the future, and we might dial in the goals for the Prequel Campaign a bit more. We are excited to iterate on this feature and are looking forward to hearing your feedback!

[ 2024-07-08 17:26:48 CET ] [ Original post ]

New: If you don't have units with an attack or production buildings you first have to build Barracks/Factory/Airbase/Shipyards before a House or Repair Shop can be built. This should reduce a bad experience where a player builds a house with their only pioneer and gets into an inconsistent state. Balancing: If a unit cannot be spawned and is blocked by another unit, the unit now attempts to be spawned in an adjacent field. If no adjacent field is available either, the spawn is considered blocked. Fixes:

• Fixed an issue where spawn effects from optional conditions weren't properly removed in the map editor.
• Fixed various map editor bugs related to effects/spawns.

[ 2024-06-24 18:47:22 CET ] [ Original post ]

Aliens in Athena Crisis are explorers from another dimension. They are mostly friendly, but when they are not, you dont want to face them on the battlefield! Rumored to possess advanced technology and abilities, and known to travel in spaceships, these canine-baring cryptids roam the battlefield in search of enemy units to inflict its powerful mandibular attack on. You or I would likely fare poorly were we to try and bite through armor, or metal, but defense is of little concern to an Alien unit: their attacks are powerful against infantry or armored units, with the ability to kill some units in a single fierce attack. In addition to its jaws, the Alien unit can also sabotage enemy units or rescue fallen friends. The Alien squads leader, Kai, is an interior designer known to disagree with humans about style. A xenomorph who loves interior design? Athena Crisis really does have everything. As a secret unit, you wont come across the Alien too often in Athena Crisis, but when you do, itd probably be wise to beat a hasty retreat, lest youre next in line to get your limbs bitten off.

New Features And Updates

Offline Mode (Beta) If you missed the last update, Athena Crisis now has a Local Mode that allows you to play a campaign or PVP maps against bots when youre away from the Internet! Click here for more details. Optional Objectives You can now outline optional objectives for your maps and campaigns in the editor. You can use optional objectives to insert dialogue mid-mission, give a player a skill, shuffle the player to a secret map in your campaign, and more! Spawn Effects In the editor, you can now trigger units that spawn when another condition is met. Perhaps you want to break your friends out of an enemy prison? In the editor, you can set a building to spawn units around it when captured! Theres a lot more underneath the hood of spawn effects; you can find more information in Christophs tweet here. Skill Balancing Ongoing challenge balancing continues to go on! A wide array of skills that your team can obtain in-game have been tweaked to encourage more variety in gameplay. Ongoing Optimizations and Bug Fixes As always, Athena Crisis is constantly seeing new performance optimizations and bug fixes. If youre interested in seeing whats changed over the last few weeks or months, please check out the News channel on the official Athena Crisis Discord.

[ 2024-06-24 18:43:57 CET ] [ Original post ]

Local Mode has now shipped! Athena Crisis now updates and syncs after starting, allowing you to play official campaigns and maps locally and offline. Save states from local campaigns and games are not synced to other devices you might be playing Athena Crisis on. We hope youll enjoy digging into Athena Crisis while you're at the beach, or on a plane, or climbing Mount Everest. You won't be able to view your online profile or leaderboards and you need to be online to play PvP matches against other Athena Crisis players. There's plenty more to come to Athena Crisis in the next few months before the full launch. Athena Crisis is still in Early Access, so if you are running into issues with Local Mode please report them on the Steam forums or the official Discord. If you would like to contribute to the open source version of Athena Crisis, you can do so on GitHub here. You can even make your own game based on the Athena Crisis codebase if you like! Thanks for all the feedback you've given us so far, and stay tuned to this space for our regularly-occurring monthly update in the near future.

[ 2024-06-19 15:29:38 CET ] [ Original post ]

Null and Nakazawa Tech recently teamed up with speedrun.com to throw our first-ever speedrunning competition for Athena Crisis, with $1,000 in prizes. Turn-based strategy games have a thriving speedrunning scene, and the team of players that assembled their skills in the Speedrunning channel of the Athena Crisis Discord certainly did their best to get through a curated selection of maps in the lowest amount of time possible. It was extremely interesting to see how the runs evolved over the 10 days of the contest. With our original set of maps it was clear that an entire run would be completed within five or six minutes, so to extend the challenge a bit, we added two custom maps at the end of the run to throw a bit of a monkey wrench into the event. The runners quickly dove in and Ronwin posted a time of just over 27 minutes the day after the challenge begun, and steady progress was made from there. Storied made a few leaps in the days afterward, setting three new records over the course of four days of strategizing. The strats improved with each submitted run, with Grondious eventually coming in with a sub 12 minute time on May 31. Not to be outdone, Storied improved on Grondious time by four seconds on the final day of the contest! Unfortunately for Storied, Grondious took note and eventually posted the winning time of 11 minutes and ten seconds, less than half the time the first run took. Congratulations to Grondious on their first place finish and the $500 prize! Storieds good work resulted in a second place finish and $300, while outlyer wound up in third place which will earn them a $200 prize. We really enjoyed seeing all the runs over the course of the contest. Thanks to everyone who participated or chatted about the runs in the official Discord; if youre curious about more Athena Crisis speedrunning challenges, the full prequel campaign is actively being run, with the #1 time being set last week by SeregaPlay. Join the Discord, make sure your mouse clicks quick, and maybe well see you on the leaderboards sometime soon.

[ 2024-06-14 19:39:17 CET ] [ Original post ]

Were thrilled to announce an Athena Crisis speedrunning challenge in cooperation with speedrun.com! With a $1,000 prize pool for the top three contestants, this is your chance to show the world your skill and speed with Athena Crisis, and also to win some sweet, sweet cash. The contest starts May 22nd at 12pm UTC, and ends June 2nd at 11:59pm UTC. Find the find the full rules and details about the category on the challenge page on speedrun.com. To plan your strats with other contestants, join the Discord:

[ 2024-05-21 15:00:29 CET ] [ Original post ]

Across the many worlds embroiled in the Athena Crisis, most conflicts pit humans against humans: tanks, airplanes, and infantry engage in battles for territorial control. Some, however, feature unexpected combatants. Diplomacy unknowable to humanity prevails, the rules of combat are even odder than our own, and creatures beyond our belief are let loose to turn the tide of battle. From one such world comethe Bazooka Bears. These shaggy scavengers are no stranger to the battlefield, arriving armed with a long-range bazooka attack. Their weapon of choice enables them to fire at all unit types without little fear of counter-fire, including against those in the air. If their enemies do manage to close the distance, they wont get a warm welcome - a high defense against incoming damage keeps them in the fight. Their attack and defense power is tempered by their lumbering pace when moving around the map. As a secret unit, you wont find a Bazooka Bear on every map in Athena Crisis, but if you do stumble across the squads leader Bazoo, youd better hope hes fighting on your side. If not, youll need to bring multiple units to bear on him in the hopes of slowing him down before he and his squad tear right through your army.

New Features and Updates

April was a busy month for Athena Crisis development! Here are some of the new features and improvements that were implemented in the past month, all of which should be live in your game now:

• Naval Overhaul & Balancing Inspired by modern naval strategies, all naval units have been overhauled and significant changes have been made for game balancing.
• News Feed The game now provides a feed of current events and allows spectating of any single- and multiplayer game, including a friend's game in fog via unique spectator codes.
• Custom Movement Paths Players can now control the movement paths of units, primarily useful to avoid running into opponents in fog.
• Difficulty Campaigns now feature easy, intermediate, and hard difficulties, with campaign creators having the option to lock-in a specific difficulty for perfect balancing.
• Unit Descriptions & Character Stories Every unit now has a description, and each leader character has a backstory, adding depth to the game's lore.
• Translations Athena Crisis is now fully translated to Spanish, French, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Brazilian Portuguese, Russian, Simplified Chinese and German.

Athena Crisis is on sale now!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2456430/Athena_Crisis/ To celebrate Bazoo and the boys, Athena Crisis is on sale for the first time

Join our community of players, map makers, and campaign creators

[ 2024-05-09 17:00:00 CET ] [ Original post ]