Community Update - December 2024

[Majora]

Greetings Skylords!

A new month; a new Community Update! It's time to bring you up to speed with everything going on in Skylords Reborn!

• Yearly Feedback Survey

Every year, Skylords Reborn has a Feedback Survey. While it is typically released in the summer, we decided to give players more time to explore our new Campaign Maps before inviting you to share your invaluable feedback.

Because Skylords Reborn is a community project, we want to understand what our players enjoy and what could be improved. Your input is vital to helping us refine the game and expand our player base. 

We hope you’ll take a moment to answer the survey questions, as your responses will directly shape our development priorities. As a thank-you, everyone who completes the survey will receive two boosters. Your feedback will be anonymous.

• Christmas Event & Anniversary

This year, we have something very special planned to close out the holidays. Check back later this month for the official announcement of our Christmas celebration!

We are hard at work finalizing the challenge, but the special reward is already prepared. Players who complete the achievement will receive a new Promo Frost Mage card! More information is coming soon, so stay tuned!

The 4th anniversary of Skylords Reborn is also coming up. Traditionally, we celebrate this milestone with an announcement stream and a large content patch. But with a significant patch in September, the Halloween Event in October, and our plans for Christmas in December, it has been an incredibly busy period, and we are not sure if this will be feasible this year.

Rest assured that we are still hard at work on the second batch of new campaign maps, new cards and other features we are sure you will enjoy, but we feel rushing ourselves to release a content patch just to fit the anniversary window this year, is not the right approach. We would still like to celebrate this milestone with you however, so we will explore our options and let you know. 

 

• New Card Spotlight - Molt

We already talked a bit about Molt in our Twilight deep-dive last month, and are now ready to reveal the latest spell coming to the Twilight faction. Lets break down the card and share some of the thoughts behind its design.

Shed
Trigger a unit’s latent capacity for transformation. Target an own Twilight unit and trigger its transformation effect as if it had used Twilight Transformation. Reusable every 40 seconds.

Design notes:
Twilight Transformation has seen a number of improvements, such as reduced transformation time and a built-in cost reduction. At the same time, we have been steadily adding more transformation effects to the Twilight units to give the ability more strategic depth. Still, we are largely restricted by the fact that we cannot lower transformation costs without also lowering bound power costs in units. So as units scale in costs, our only choice is to make transformation effects scale in strength. We do not think this efficiency arms race is rightly achievable, so we are moving in a different direction through the introduction of Molt. For a low fixed cost, Molt will be able to trigger the transformation effect of any Twilight unit, meaning we can now design transformation effects with Molt in mind and not solely based on bound power costs. This also allows for more flexibility as players can now trigger transformation effects quickly and easily without having to make use of the often clunky Transformation process.

Molt will release alongside our next content patch, date to be announced. 

 

• Art Spotlight - Molt

The artwork for Molt (originally called Evolution during development) was created by SpiritAlpha. He envisioned Twilight creatures shedding their old skin, transforming into even greater monstrosities. SpiritAlpha quickly produced two early sketches:

      
 

We liked the early concept, and work continued on the one involved the Mutating Maniac. To ensure the artwork fit well within the card frame and kept the focus on the main design, we removed the extra characters. At one point, we considered depicting old skin transforming into new body parts, but we quickly discarded the idea, as it didn’t enhance the artwork.
 

      

We were pleased with how the artwork was progressing but concerned it wasn’t clear enough that this was a spell rather than a unit. We explored several options but weren’t satisfied with the results. The first attempt made the card feel like a binding spell, while the second clarified it was a spell but faced contrast issues when displayed in the deck bar. Wherever possible, we aim to ensure players can quickly identify cards at a glance.
 

      

We spent some time tweaking the base artwork, experimenting with various intensities of the blue glow to emphasize the spell aspect of the card. We also ensured the toxic Twilight clouds, iconic to the faction, were present to highlight the transformation effect being triggered. Ultimately, we chose a strong blue contrast against the creature and mirrored the artwork to further distinguish the card from its creature counterpart when viewed in the deck bar.

We are happy with how the artwork turned out and would like to once again thank SpiritAlpha for his incredible work and contributions to the game. Our art department is severely understaffed, and it’s almost entirely thanks to him that we’re still able to add new cards to the game.

If you’re an artist or know someone who can create art in a style fitting for BattleForge, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us! You can apply directly here, or contact Majora or Dutchy on the Forum or on Discord. 

 

• "How Does It Work" series - BFP

We recently launched a new video series on our YouTube channel, How Does It Work, where we dive into various topics that often raise questions.
So far, we’ve released a video on Void Power, the Root Network and a guide on how to install the game.
 

    

Another topic that often comes up is ''How do I earn BFP?", the topic of our latest video! 
 

 

We’d love to hear feedback from the community on this series. These videos take quite some time to create, but we’re more than happy to continue if they’re appreciated. 

Are the videos clear and interesting to watch? Are there any other topics you would like to see covered?
Please let us know your thoughts in the comments below! 

 

• Contribute to Skylords Reborn


Expanding on a game like BattleForge requires a lot of enthusiastic and skilled volunteers. While we are very happy with how the game shaped out to be, over the years we have struggled filling certain roles that are now truly becoming a problem for the health of the project. We would like to highlight a couple of positions that we could really use (more) people for. 

Critical: Artists

Despite multiple calls for help, we have unfortunately not received any applications for the artist role. Due to the remote nature of our team and current global challenges, both of our artists have been heavily impacted, with one now completely inactive. This has significantly slowed the release of new cards and placed immense pressure on our sole remaining artist.

We would like to stress our appeal: if you know any skilled artist who might be willing to contribute to Skylords Reborn, please forward them our way. Your support is vital to keeping the game alive and thriving!

For more information, click here. 

Critical: Marketeer

One of the most common pieces of feedback we receive from players is, “You should market the game more.” While we completely agree, this is easier said than done. Our options are greatly limited—paid marketing is off the table—and more importantly, we currently don’t have a dedicated marketer. Unfortunately, no one with the necessary skills or experience has applied for the role.

If you’re motivated, have a strong network, and believe you can help us spread the word about Skylords Reborn, we’d love to hear from you!

For more information, click here.  

Map Testers

With our increased focus on map-related content, we are looking for more Map Testers to help identify bugs and ensure balance.

As a Map Tester, you’ll gain early access to new maps and game modes, with the responsibility of playtesting and providing valuable feedback to the map development team. This includes evaluating the balance and fun factor of maps, identifying exploits, suggesting areas for visual improvements, and ensuring overall quality.

The availability of dedicated Map Testers not only improves the game’s quality but also significantly speeds up the release of high-quality content.
This is a non-staff contributor position. Tasks for these roles come and go, and they are a great way to help without receiving too much responsibility. 

For more information, click here.  

Other roles

Skylords Reborn is a community-driven project fueled by the passion and dedication of over 50 volunteers. We are always on the lookout for like-minded individuals. If you have a passion for gaming, programming, design, or marketing, we invite you to have a look at our open positions!

Don't have time to formally join the staff, but still would like to help out? Please check out this guide on how to support Skylords Reborn as a community member.

 

• Events

In between our monthly Community Updates, we host various events and tournaments, so be sure to keep a close eye on the in-game event tab and the forum calendar to stay informed and not miss out on any exciting events!
 

Current events:

• FINISHED - Seven Strategy Showdown 7 - Egg ball
The last SSS-event finished past Friday, and was one of the most unique events we have seen in Skylords Reborn. Find out the winners in the event stream, or play it yourself in a versus mode that is being developed in the future! More information.

 

• COMING SOON - Christmas Challenge
While not technically an event, be sure to check in for our Christmas challenge later this month!
 

 

 • SECOND PHASE - PvP AI programming contest
Get ready for an AI Programming Tournament, where the submitted programs will face off in an epic showdown to find the ultimate AI strategist! Players are still able to join this programming contest. More information.

 

• Host your own tournament / event
Want to host a tournament or event? Please reach out to our Event Organizer @Metagross31. We can help you out with various topics and are glad to discuss potential ideas. We can also sponsor the prize pool for your event. If you have a cool idea for a PvE event, or want to host a PvP tournament, please don't hesitate to reach out to us, we will gladly assist you.

 

• In Conclusion

That's all for this Community Update! We appreciate you taking the time to read through it.

As is tradition, we're including a scratch code as a small token of our appreciation for your support.
The code will reward you with a general booster: GIVE-FEED-BACK-TIME
Please note: Filling out the feedback survey also rewards you with 2 boosters. 

The code is valid until January 1st, when we will bring you another Community Update. 

We're always looking for ways to improve and value your feedback. If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions, please don't hesitate to share them with us. We'll be back next month with more updates on our ongoing projects and upcoming features.

You can also sign-up to our e-mail newsletter here.

Archive
• Skylords Reborn Documents (Deep Dives, Behind the Scenes, PvP Guide)  
• Overview Community Updates
• Community Update November 2024

[ChadNightshade]

This is Awesome! as someone who mains twilight I am looking foward to the molt! also have you guys considered adding the Twilight Hulk to the roaster? that would be amazing too he seems like he could also be a really fun unit! :) Otherwise been loving the changes to twilight regardless you guys made the game way more fun!

Edited December 1, 2024 by ChadNightshade

[DDrazard]

Superb work as A.L.W.A.Y.S. Also awesome!

[This Is Halloween_2]

Molt seems indeed amazing and may finally justify playing T2 & T3 twilight units against some of the current fire and nature staples at T2-T3.

I just find that 40s time limit before a second use is too much for a T2 spell, I don’t see a reason why it can’t be 25s like most spells. Longest lasting transformation buff is 25s right now.

 

Edited December 7, 2024 by This Is Halloween_2