About our Alpha Playtest and the future of Skygard Arena
1 AUGUST 2023
Hello for the first of many times, Tacticians!
First of all, I’d like to introduce myself: I’m Arnaud Jarry, Community Manager at Gemelli Games! You can find me on the official Discord server under the handle @mekklord, so if you have any questions or just want to chat, don’t hesitate to message me!
We have a lot to talk about today, starting with the results of our recent Alpha playtest!
Alpha Playtest Results
First, major thanks to everyone who played during the Alpha in July and provided feedback. This is so helpful to us to better understand our game and our playerbase and to steer Skygard Arena in the right direction. Speaking of, here are some stats from the Alpha!
We also collected some qualitative feedback - big thanks to all of you who wrote to us on Discord or filled out our survey! Here are the highlights:
What you like about Skygard Arena
The overall art direction;
Our lovely Heroes and their gameplay;
The fast pace of the battles;
The teambuilding mechanics and all the theorycrafting options it opens!
The strategic depth of the games and the intense tactical choices you have to make in battle.
What should / could be improved
Improving first-time user experience (beyond the tutorial): we are already working on this and adding pre-made teams for instance.
Reducing complexity in teambuilding: we are working on a few simplifications that will make it easier to build new teams, without removing the theorycrafting potential of the game that you love!
Making games less punitive, especially for new players: we have a few ideas here, from a better matchmaking algorithm to a potential new game mode (more on this below!)
In the long run, adding social features such as emotes, friends, guilds…
Of course, a lot of polish (especially on the UI/UX front) before the release… and adding new Heroes, items and Arenas!
With that new understanding, we also want to reflect on some potential changes for the future of Skygard Arena.
PvE Coming to Skygard Arena
First of all, we are considering ways to integrate PvE elements in Skygard Arena.
We have been positively surprised to see that the universe of Skygard and our core gameplay was attracting a lot of players of tactical RPGs. That being said, the game as it is today only offers a hardcore, sometimes overwhelming competitive experience. So we believe that PvE will enable us to provide a much smoother first time user experience, progressively uncover the depth of the game and tell a lot more about the lore of Skygard.
Rest assured, we are still committed to delivering an excellent PvP experience with a level-playing field for all Tacticians! If you’re here for the competition, you will still be able to head straight to the Arena and battle cunning opponents!
We're not entirely sure what PvE will look like in Skygard and we're going to explore a couple of options. Of course, we'll communicate our discoveries and direction as usual to our community, so stay tuned if you're interested in PvE content in general! This also means that the free-to-play monetization model might not be adequate for Skygard Arena, so we will be exploring other possibilities here as well. Once again, nothing is set in stone yet, and we'll be sharing definitive decisions once we've made them.
When’s the next playtest?
We know you're all looking forward to playing again - or, if you couldn't play our first Alpha Playtest, to play for the first time!
First, we can announce that there will be another large Playtest on Steam before the end of 2023! Stay tuned for the exact dates and sign-up.
Second, for those of who you are really eager to play, we will be resuming our bi-weekly community playtests shortly after the holiday season. The goal of these playtests is to test new features and balancing changes and make sure that we continously improve the player experience. If you're interesting in helping us, feel free to send me a message on Discord and we'll let you know if we're looking to add new playtesters!
Once again, we couldn't be more thankful to you for following and playing our game! Feel free to wishlist and follow the game on Steam if you have not already done it ;)
Take care and see you soon in the Arena!
