Hey everyone, we are back!

Its been quite a while since you last heard from us. But now were back with some good news. Get comfortable, because the Screeps: Arena project is coming back to life! The past two years have been challenging for our team. Towards the end of the COVID-19 pandemic, a key member of our team became critically ill, was on a ventilator and went through a long rehabilitation period. When the war started, as a Russia-based development team at the time, we were starting to facechallenges faster than we could resolve them. Services we relied on for development and communication ceased cooperation with Russian entities, refusing our payments. CircleCI irretrievably deleted our build system. Zendesk blocked our account without warning, preventing us from exporting support data. Our hosting provider stopped accepting payments from our bank accounts. Finally, Steam stopped sending us payments. All this happened against the backdrop of our team members grappling with adapting to a new reality and significant changes in personal life. But now, thats behind us. We've relocated our business to Armenia, and some team members have moved out of Russia. Weve re-established our development and business processes and are ready to share exciting updates about Arena, upcoming major changes, and the games future release.

What's new in this update

Season change

The core gameplay of Screeps: Arena and its primary distinction from Screeps: World lies in its seasonal system. Accumulating rating and fame points, leaderboards, and matchmaking between new and experienced players only make sense within a structured and time-limited seasonal format, when arenas are replaced regularly. We lacked this replacement system before. The key innovation in this update is the implementation and refinement of the season-changing mechanics in Arena. Were pleased to announce that starting today, the game is officially in a season called Beta. The previous season is now called Alpha. Well see how the naming evolves in the future. We havent drastically altered arena mechanics but have adjusted them just enough to render old written code suboptimal, necessitating adaptation without requiring a complete rewrite. In the future, well introduce more unique arenas and rotate them every few seasons. Your feedback and suggestions are very welcome. The season change also means all ratings and leaderboards have been reset, and old keys are no longer valid. Each season will feature unique seasonal items: Keys, Key Fragments, and Key Upgrades. Read below about what to do with outdated items. Arenas from past seasons are available in read-only mode for viewing ratings, player profiles, and saved replays. Playing them is currently impossible, but were exploring ways to implement this.

UI animations

This took longer than expected, but after a lot of trial and error weve finally found our footing and successfully integrated the Rive library to the game client. Now we have a way to start creating dynamic, animated interfaces in the game UI that don't hog your CPU like SVG animations do. You can see this on the start screen already, and we plan to add more engaging animations to almost every other game screen in the future. Using this library also helps our designer work more independently and accelerates our design/development workflow.

Crafting

Weve significantly expanded the crafting system and plan to enhance it further. We aim for Screeps: Arena to be more than a programming competition and include meaningful game mechanics. These primarily revolve around crafting and earning Fame. This update introduces two new item types: glyphs and paints. Combining them allows you to craft badges that are shown on your creeps and profile.

Quality-of-life improvements

Now you can launch a series of multiple Fame games with one click. You won't be able to interrupt this series so you better make sure you are not going to lose your reward, but this can greatly save time when you gain your Fame points.
With six arenas available for simultaneous play, keeping track of ongoing games can be challengingespecially since some games can last up to 10 minutes. To improve this experience, weve added active game indicators at the top of the window. No matter which game screen youre on, youll see your ongoing games in any arena, track their status, and quickly navigate to the desired one.

Node.js update

We have updated the arena runtime Node.js version from 16 to 22 (and V8 engine from 9.0 to 12.4). This brings new JavaScript and WebAssembly language features to your scripts.

Contests

Weve improved the contests interface. We hope they become a convenient way to play Screeps: Arena with friends, colleagues, and organize special events.

Coming soon

Dust

We plan to introduce a new type of crafting soontransforming any item into a certain amount of Dust. Dust can then be used to craft random rewards similar to a level 1 Fame chest. This is a great way to dispose of obsolete season keys or unwanted glyphs and paints.

Fame Modifiers

The Fame system will be expanded with new items called Fame modifiers, obtainable from Fame rewards. One such item can be used per Fame session, providing a bonus during the session:

• Strike: Winning three consecutive games grants an additional +1 chest level.
• Boost: Winning adds +2 chest levels instead of +1.
• Safety: Losing only deducts one chest level instead of two.
• Super Safety: No chest levels are lost upon defeat.

As regular items, Fame modifiers can be traded, sold on the Steam Community Market, or converted into Dust.

Release Roadmap

We believe were closer than ever to the games release. Theres still work to be done to optimize both the game client and servers, as well as several features and mechanics wed like to implement before releasesuch as those already mentioned. Well also identify areas for improvement in the season-switching mechanism as the Season Beta develops from scratch. However, most of the work on the game is already complete, and were confidently targeting coming out of Early Access and release in 2025.

[ 2024-12-19 19:10:59 CET ] [ Original post ]

Greetings fellow players! In this update, we are excited to deliver a new major feature: contests. While its based on a long-awaited playing vs friend, contests are much more than that. Thanks to the community feedback, we developed them to satisfy many needs. Shortly, a contest is a short-term or a long-term event that combines a series of games created and managed by a single organizer. Lets take a look at how it looks.
Immediately after creating a contest the organizer can see the list of games of the contest, the list of players who joined the context, and controls for managing the contest. Usually, the first thing to do with the contest is inviting other players there. This is done by sharing the contest URL with players you want to invite. All they need to do to join is to open the URL in their game client. As soon as the contest is populated by players, the show is ready to start.
For each game in the series the organizer selects two players and an arena they supposed to fight at, then wait for selected players to be ready, then start and watch the game. Both players select folders with game code they want to participate with, then hit Ready.
The organizer may create as many games as necessary, although there is a limit of three simultaneously running games.
We see contests as a valuable tool of implementing many types of activities. Give the contest link only to your friend to play a private duel, or publish it in discord chat to organize a massive tournament with a bracket and rules you define, or even keep a contest to yourself to test one strategy vs another, possible scenarios are limited only by your imagination! As always, we appreciate the community's feedback, feel free to express your thoughts. We're looking forward to community events based on the new feature! Have fun!

[ 2022-11-22 17:33:29 CET ] [ Original post ]

Client version 0.1.17

• UI improvements around the game, primarily reducing a visual noise
• changed default URL scheme for shared games

Game API changes

• introduced Creep.spawning and StructureSpawn.spawning properties

[ 2022-11-10 10:55:20 CET ] [ Original post ]

Writing game code for Screeps: Arena has never been so easy and convenient! We are happy to introduce full IntelliSense support for game API in the recommended IDE (Visual Studio Code). Code completion, quick info, member lists, parameter info, it's all there for you!
Technically, it's implemented as TypeScript definitions together with the jsconfig.json configuration file. The game client automatically places all necessary files to your game code's folder and update them if necessary. Other changes:

• introduced TERRAIN_PLAIN constant
• Fixed few minor issues in the documentation

[ 2022-10-14 09:30:16 CET ] [ Original post ]

Client version 0.1.15

• Fixed tutorial
• Fixed few minor issues in the documentation

Server changes

• Fixed wasm support

[ 2022-09-26 18:25:02 CET ] [ Original post ]

Client version 0.1.14

• New minor feature: cancel test games and rematches
• Room objects multiselect changed from Shift to Ctrl (Cmd on Mac)
• Fixed the game client crash on trying to play with absent game code folder
• Fixed lots of issues in the documentation
• Many small UI improvements around the game

Server changes

• Game API is now available outside the loop function (although you can't affect the map state from there)
• Fixed issue with dropping resources into containers at the same tile
• Fixed duplicate console output on runtime error

[ 2022-09-18 20:17:53 CET ] [ Original post ]

Client version 0.1.13

• New feature: recently shared games
• Reworked rating history interface
• Many small UI improvements around the game

[ 2022-07-31 16:39:23 CET ] [ Original post ]

Client version 0.1.12

• Saved games count is now limited to 30 per arena

Server changes

• Replay data is now preserved only for last 100 games per arena, and for saved games
• Creeps now can't heal structures

[ 2022-06-03 22:04:58 CET ] [ Original post ]

Client version 0.1.10 with minor bug fixes

Server changes

• Improved games calibration, now it shouldn't bring new players too high in ranking
• Improved opponents selection for fame quest, last steps should become more challenging

[ 2022-05-15 12:30:12 CET ] [ Original post ]

Client 0.1.8 changes

• The renderer engine has been refactored that might have fixed some possible memory leaks.

Server changes

• Fixed an incorrect 'energy available' condition in the StructureSpawn.spawnCreep method, now it should return ERR_NOT_ENOUGH_ENERGY properly.
• Fixed the construction sites limit, each player can have not more than 10 construction sites at the same time.
• Fixed an edge case in fatigue calculation.
• Improved the matchmaking system to increase diversity of opponents.

[ 2022-05-03 22:34:34 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Added entity ID to object properties.
• Fixed critical issue which may disrupt game servers.

[ 2022-04-13 19:18:44 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Fixed Visual API to reflect the actual state described in the documentation. Take note that although this API change is breaking, only newly committed code is affected with it, existing code uses the old API.
• Improved some matchmaking parameters to increase diversity of opponents in rating games.

[ 2022-04-12 09:24:17 CET ] [ Original post ]

We are happy to announce that we're releasing Screeps: Arena to Early Access! After a long period in the Closed Alpha, the game is available now. If you have preordered an activation key before, you should be able to start playing immediately. We have many plans for further development, and need your support to continue with this project. Below is some information that we have posted regarding the EA release.

Why Early Access?

We have been developing this game for some time already, and want to present it in a playable state to the community to get feedback and suggestions.

Approximately how long will this game be in Early Access?

We expect that we will need a few months to polish it for the final release.

How is the full version planned to differ from the Early Access version?

The full version will have more polished UI, graphics optimization, sound/music. It will also have more features such as playing with friends, achievements system, in-game code editor, built-in TypeScript and IntelliSense support, modding tools to create your own arenas, etc. Game balance will be fine tuned but mostly remain within the same API.

What is the current state of the Early Access version?

The game is fully playable and has all planned content: Tutorial, 3 basic arenas, 3 advanced arenas, Fame system and rewards, inventory and crafting. You can play versus different opponents, craft keys, unlock new arenas and progress through the current season.

Will the game be priced differently during and after Early Access?

No, the price will not change when the game leaves Early Access.

How are you planning on involving the Community in your development process?

We are constantly in touch with the community using our Discord server and Steam forums. All feedback and suggestions are highly welcome.

[ 2022-04-07 19:44:14 CET ] [ Original post ]

We are happy to announce that on April 7, 2022 we will release Screeps: Arena to Early Access for general availability! If you have bought an activation key before, you will be able to start playing immediately on the launch date. We will update this post with the Early Access info once it's released. Stay tuned!

[ 2022-03-30 19:29:44 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello everyone, First, let us thank you for your interest in Screeps: Arena. It was a difficult time, a few months in a hospital fighting COVID-19 affected development of this project greatly. But despite all difficulties, we continued to work on the game. And now we are almost there. Today we are rolling out this release with all game mechanics we wanted to see in Early Access. All new mechanics are interconnected and interdependent so they cant be delivered apart from each other. Its not the final version, we continue to polish and improve some small things, but the game concept is finished now. And it is based on two things (except coding for arena battles): Fame and Crafting.

Fame

The first important mechanic is the Fame. Earning fame is like a daily quest available in every unlocked (see below) arena. When you take the quest, the game creates a ladder consisting of 10 opponents, where each opponent is stronger than the previous one. You are supposed to play against each opponent in a predefined order. You dont see their names and versions, but you should expect that the next opponent will be stronger.
While you are progressing through the ladder you gain Fame Points and fame rewards. Fame Points is a metric of your profile tied to the season; it defines your place in the seasonal Hall of Fame. Fame reward is a set of random items that you can get into your inventory once a day (see below). Each victory during this "quest" gives you one Fame Point and increases the potential fame reward level. On the first defeat you lose your potential fame reward for good. Draws does neither. Between battles you can finish the quest at any time or take the fame reward of the current level. The more the reward level is, the more items you get (and the more valuable these items will be). Level 0 reward is nothing.

This means before every fame battle with every of the 10 opponents you need to decide do you want to take the risk and try increasing your fame reward (if you win); or not to risk and take your reward at the current level.

Inventory and Crafting

Crafting is a mechanic to transform components from fame rewards into useful items. Currently, you can craft only Basic Keys and Advanced Keys for unlocking basic and advanced arenas, respectively. A Basic Key only costs 100 Key Fragments to create. An Advanced Key requires 300 Key Fragments and 10 Key Upgrades if each of the three kinds: red, blue, and green.
All arenas are now locked by default in each season, including Season Alpha. Your first unlock in each season is free, all further unlocks will consume crafted keys. Basic arenas can be unlocked with a basic key right away while advanced arenas require an advanced key and unlocked basic version of the arena. All items will be tradable on the Steam Community Market. But we are not going to sell them at the official store; they will only be generated by crafting from fame rewards. We hope that this new mechanic will be fun enough to allow playing Screeps: Arena as a game, not just as a hardcore code competition. It will give a feeling of progress, unlocking more content while you are progressing through a season. And Fame Points plays a role of an aggregated metric that combines both your skill and persistency in all arenas during the season. Please test this new mechanic as you try the new release. We are really interested in how it feels in comparison to the previous bare game mechanic. If you feel it's satisfying, let us know. If you have any complaints or suggestions, feel free to share. We hope we will be able to release the final Early Access version on Steam very soon.

[ 2022-03-14 16:38:50 CET ] [ Original post ]

Screeps: Arena will present a free publicly available playable demo during the entire Steam Next Fest on June 16 - June 22. On June 19 at 16:00 UTC we are going to conduct an official developers-backed Livestream Event on the Steam Next Fest! Our TOP-1 champion Screeps player Tigga will share his experience with Arena and present some gameplay, and two dev team members will be available in chat to answer any your questions.
And now take a look at our new trailer: [previewyoutube=LkXuGcrCZtU;full][/previewyoutube]

[ 2021-06-14 14:11:06 CET ] [ Original post ]

We have just launched the Closed Alpha stage of the Screeps Arena project! All Closed Alpha owners should be able to download the game and start playing immediately. There is a private discussion forum on Steam aimed especially at the game owners where you can participate. If you are an owner, start with reading this post: https://steamcommunity.com/app/1137320/discussions/2/3132793555949735254/ If you are not, you can join our Closed Alpha by using Access Keys in the Screeps game. Welcome!

[ 2021-05-06 16:15:40 CET ] [ Original post ]

Screeps Arena preorder is available now! Use Access Keys (in-game items in Screeps World) to purchase a Steam copy of the release or closed alpha version of the upcoming game!
See more info in this post: https://steamcommunity.com/games/464350/announcements/detail/2917730185258141559

[ 2020-11-02 20:14:32 CET ] [ Original post ]