- Update Time - 25 September 2026
Latest Alea stuff. Some of this may have even been in the last test.The coolest new thing, in my opinion, is teammate x-ray vision. This was a much-needed feature, and I finally implemented it.Work on the new character continues. Not quite ready yet. OTHER NEW STUFFThe bug weapon skins all have their own icon and are fully implemented. Submit bugs to get them!"Reflect!" is now a status effect messageTornado now has more dramatic hit impact VFXTornado now has a longer window before it can be cancelled, preventing accidentally double tapsDivine Drive now has more dramatic hit impact VFXFlooded Castle got some visual improvements for more readabilityImproved some collision & dithering on Harbor & Snow Bridge mapsThe Hub now actually kills characters who go too deep in the water, instead of teleporting themRemoved the slo-mo effect on kills. I felt this was too jarringDragon's Breath has mo…
- Alea Update - August 27, 2026 - 28 August 2026
New StuffYou can now see queue numbers in game. This should help players coordinate matches more easily.The Rest button is now a lot more obvious:Many new UI settings added, including FOV, Vsync, and a timed confirm/cancel modal when changing your resolution:⚔️ Weapon SkinsThe biggest thing I'm working on right now are weapon skins. Technically there are some in the game, but they're just the defaults. I have this all working internally, but I really need to clean it up before I make it official, so expect that in the next patch.🐞 BugsFinally fixed a bug where screen-space UI elements would not tick their animations when offscreen. This is why you'd see, for example, a stale "Burn!" toast message on an enemy's health bar if you looked away from them after applying itFixed a bug where dodging could cause Paladin heals to sometimes miss youFixed a bug where the Rest icon was not updating…
- Alea Update - August 2026 - 4 August 2026
PLAY TESTThe playtest weekend went very well. We had good turnout and tons of matches. Alea continues to be well-received by new players.Most importantly, the underfilled-matches (1v0, 2v1, etc.) problem does appear to be addressed with my new matchmaking changes. This was by far my biggest technical problem, so it feels good to see it working properly now.NEW CHARACTERMost of my current work is on the new character. The first of his forms is 90% done, just adding things like sfx, etc.Nothing official to show yet, but if you've been watching YouTube or TikTok, you may have seen a sneak peak...COSMETICS: WEAPONSCurrently, the only cosmetic type that exists E2E is Emotes. I'm about halfway through the 2nd type, which is Weapons. This involves a lot of boring backend stuff, but I'm about ~50% done.Mostly I've been going through all the client code and refactoring it, as until now it's all…
- Free Playtest starts NOW! July 24-26 - 24 July 2026
Alea will be free to playtest this weekend, July 24-26!No signup required. Just download the Demo from the Steam page and you're in. Joining Discord is advised to coordinate games. If you find any bugs or have a suggestion, use the in-game form to submit.If you can, record some clips! I'll compile them for social posts.Most importantly, have fun.See you in the arena.
- Demo Live! - 15 June 2026
Alea is playable for the week, starting right now. No access required, just download the Demo from the Store Page.In particular, I need to test:Matchmaking EndpointNo user-facing changes here, but it's totally rewritten under the hood. This is by far the most critical feature. If it breaks (it might) I can switch it live back to the old version.New Character: PaladinThis big boi is now fully playable.Use his hammer to smash your enemies, or switch to twin shields to support your allies. Balance, Game Feel, etc.The usual stuff.I've also added a lot more general information to the game, including UI stuff (health, orb) and even some basic game info dispensed by a cute entity in the hub.
- Update: Storm, UI, Fixes - 14 June 2026
--- GAMEPLAY ---- Sudden Death storm now stops at ~25% complete for about 10s- Securing an elimination in Arena mode now produces a slow-motion effect for 1.5s--- UI ---- Health & Max Health are now displayed in the HUD- Deployables' (Banner, Snowman) tooltips now state their duration - All holdable abilities now explicitly state so in their tooltips, with emphasis- Loading screen tip about Hobble now explicitly states its effects- Fixed a few typos in various tooltips--- BACKEND ---The biggest change. Until now, polling your queue status was done client-side. This has one major issue: if players force-quit the game, their queue does not drop, inevitably leading to underfilled matches. To fix this, I set up a backend that deletes the matchmaking ticket if it hasn't been polled recently. Preliminary tests of this look good, but I won't really know how this works until we get a bunch of p…
- Insider Gaming Interview & Showcase - 29 May 2026
Yesterday, Alea was featured in the brand new Insider Gaming Showcase. Over 50 upcoming indie games were shown. It was a lot of fun.I also did an interview with Insider Gaming, which you can see here:Full showcase:Every game can be found here:https://store.steampowered.com/curator/46062138-Insider-Gaming-IG/sale/insidergamingshowcaseExpect more updates soon.
- Limited-Time Demo: The Arena is Open! - 15 May 2026
The Gates are Open!The time has come. The Alea Demo is officially live from May 15 to May 18. Pls come test my game. It has cool characters. It has fun combat. It has chill ambient hub music. It even has a mascot now. You can leave feedback directly in-game. Joining Discord is probably recommended to coordinate matches.Alea Discord
- Demo, Balance, & Stamina - 15 May 2026
The demo is live! There's even some yet-unannounced content in there. For now, I’ll cover two big changes: balance and stamina.STAMINAStamina has been significantly changed. Here’s a summary: - Dodges are buffed. You travel faster, go further, and carry momentum - Dodges now fall into 3 tiers: fast, medium, and slow. Each is present in the current roster - As a result, dodges have an enforced cost; you can no longer dodge without the required stamina - Dodge costs are now denoted by divisions in your stamina bar - Dodging has new VFX - The “low stamina” state now occurs when you have less stamina than the cost of 1 dodge - Standard abilities now all cost 0 Stamina - Movement (jumping, dodging, sprinting) and movement-abilities (dodge attack, jump attack) still cost stamina - Stamina now continuously regens, at a reduced rate, while performing standard abilities - Charged abilities (ex:…
- Minor Update - 30 April 2026
I have 3 large content drops coming: Stamina changes, a big balance patch, and a secret third thing. Each of these deserves its own update. So, this is everything else.TL; DR - hit impacts, orb UI, feedback form. GameplayYou can now swap stance while in the Arena spawn roomAll projectiles now travel ~15% fasterAll projectiles now play their impact sfx locally for the player who owns themAbilities like the Archer’s Trap now trigger sfx locally for the player who owns themSome projectiles received increased impact VFX intensityArena Orbs now spawn every 25s (was 20s) UI/UXOrb spawn timer UI now exists in Arena modeSecuring an orb now shows the effects in your status effect queueHealth and Stamina bars now have semi-transparent background colorsAn in-game feedback form exists in the Esc menu. There are 2 types you can submit: bug or feedbackUpon queuing for matchmaking, the “Leave Queue” b…
- Parties, Group Queue, & More - 11 April 2026
The main new feature here is group queue. Every game has to have it, so I chose to do it now rather than later. This also means full party functionality is online too. If you've ever played any multiplayer game ever, you know parties can be inconsistent. That will undoubtedly be the case here as well.PARTIESParties are now fully functional. Press Esc -> Social and you'll see your Steam friends. From here, if they are playing Alea and eligible to be invited, you can click their name and invite them to party. In the party UI on the same screen, you'll get basic party functionality: promote, kick, leave. You'll also see your party in the top-left of the screen in the Hub. NOTE: Both inviter and recipient need to be in the Hub to send/receive invites. GROUP QUEUEQueueing as a group now works too. The same UX as normal applies. Press Esc -> Queue for mode. Your group size should lock you out…
- New Hub! (+ demo live) - 19 March 2026
NOTE: To find matches, I highly encourage you to join Discord: https://discord.com/invite/GvV3QVZYvN Finally, some real content: our new Hub is live!This Hub is completely new, built from scratch. It's been in the works for quite a long time at this point, so I'm very excited to finally share it with you. It's a huge visual upgrade, which I'm quite happy with. Here is a preview:In it you'll find:Target dummies to test your skills onStone rings that apply status effectsSome new content to keep you occupied between matches. It's a secret...log in to find out B)We still have the day-night cycle. I made the days and nights longer, and I made it always start at day time. So if you wanna experience chill nighttime ambience (you do), just hang out for a bit and wait for the sunset. DEMO LIVEAdditionally, our Demo is once again live for testing purposes. I'll likely keep it up for a few days.I'…
- (Slightly Less Boring) Update - 17 March 2026
Slightly-less-boring stuff today. But still pretty boring. Content soon, I promise.NEW WATERI finally got around to refactoring our old water system, and gave it a total visual overhaul while I was in the area. I'm pretty happy with the result. Expect to see a lot of this water in the next update.MORE BACKEND STUFFWe had a few bugs with inventory state, particularly on a first login. I reworked a lot of the backend structure and first-time login code. There is now a default inventory grant per hero, rather than all 3 heroes at once. This was necessary because we have new heroes coming. NEW CHARACTER (?!??!?!?)A new Hero is on the way. Not quite done yet, but all of his abilities are in now fully in place. Expect to hear more soon. PARTIES (not rly)Parties now technically exist. You can invite, leave, promote, kick--all the usual stuff. But if you queue while in a party, you will only qu…
- (Boring) Update - 11 March 2026
For our first major update, I give you...mostly boring stuff. The next update will be more exciting, but this is the kinda work that has to be done.UX IMPROVEMENTSOur biggest change here is that I've completely reworked the Interact system. You no longer have to look directly at the interactable entity. Now, interacting is based on distance only. I also improved the readability of the tooltip. Incidentally, this means Mages can interact with their Snowman quicker, which is a kind of buff.Switching Heroes in the Hub no longer respawns. It just happens instantly now. This was actually a very tricky change, but it's a lot more intuitive/smoothNew gameplay option: invert Y-AxisThe 3D Leaderboard now has a fallback font for special characters. No more squares/blanksExpanded the Auto-Target system to allow for self-casting. This will be used heavily in a new character (soon)Expanded the Auto-…
- PvP Fest -> (June) NextFest - 18 February 2026
PvP FestPvP Fest is over, and I am happy with the results. Thanks to everyone who downloaded & played. We got some wishlists, a bunch of new players, and reliably kept the servers online. The reception was very positive.NextFestWhile I originally planned on rolling straight into NextFest in February, I've decided instead to push Alea to the June NextFest. These extra few months will give me time to finish some crucial features and new content, as well as market the game more. Updates & PlayTestsExpect to see more updates here, as well as semi-regularly playtests (soon). Discord: https://discord.gg/GvV3QVZYvN
