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Earlier this month, we took Legends of the Arena to Genesis X2, a convention focused on Super Smash Bros. and other competitive games (mostly fighting games, but there were TCG tournaments, rhythm games, and even Mahjong). It was our first time running a vendor booth, and we weren’t sure what to expect. Would fighting game fans be interested in a tactical board game? Legends of the Arena is heavily inspired by Super Smash Bros., but as a board game the mechanics are heavily abstracted (just a flat stage, far fewer moves, no items, etc.). Would we even have time to grab lunch? Would people be familiar with crowdfunding? After three days of demos, discussions, and intense battles, we walked away with tons of great insights, some new fans, and a new appreciation for high-level Melee play.

We’ve got some huge updates this month, including our next convention appearance, exciting character reveals, and our first look at final card designs!

Meet Us at Genesis X2! 🎮🔥

We’re thrilled to announce that we’ll have a booth at Genesis X2 from February 14-16, 2025, in San Jose, CA! If you’re at the event, stop by to play a demo, grab some free stickers, and chat with us about the game. We’d love to see you there!

As we wrap up the year, we’re excited to share some major updates and invite you to shape the game with your feedback!

Explore the Rules Draft 📖

The draft of our game rules is now available! While the images and formatting are placeholders, the content is ready for your thoughts! Please share your impressions (feel free to comment right on the doc) - your feedback is crucial in refining Legends of the Arena.

It’s been a busy month for Legends of the Arena, and we’re thrilled to share our latest updates with you!

Kickstarter Pre-Launch Page Now Live!

Our Kickstarter landing page is now up! Click below to get notified when the campaign goes live. Your support makes all the difference as we prepare for our mid-2025 launch!

Catch Alysia’s Art on Instagram

We’ve shared all of Alysia’s art on Instagram, including her powerful moves like Sunder and her ultimate Carve a Path. If you haven’t checked it out yet, head over to see her in action!

We’ve got some exciting news ahead:

Monthly Updates: Starting today, we’ll be sharing regular updates on game development, upcoming conventions (we’ll be at KublaCon Fall in the Protospiel room!), and more.

Art Sneak Peeks: We’ll also be showcasing new art and progress on our Instagram, so make sure to follow us there for exclusive visuals that bring the Arena to life!

Kickstarter Announcement: Our launch is set for mid-2025, and we’ll keep you updated on every step leading up to it. We’d love to hear from you! We made our first prototypes in 2016 and we’ve been iterating with your feedback ever since. Feel free to reply below and let us know what excites you most about Legends of the Arena or if you have any questions. Your thoughts and feedback mean a lot to us as we continue development.

Hey folks!

Just a quick update that Michael is at PAX Unplugged this weekend. Drop us a line if you would like to see the latest version of Legends of the Arena!

We’ve been hard at work since Origins adding character upgrades, reducing the number of cards in hand, and, most excitingly, changing to a KO count win condition where you score a KO each time you knock an opponent off of the map.

Why have a player aid?

Over the years we’ve written full rules for Legends of the Arena (and done blind playtesting with them as well), but for most playtests - where the goal is to figure out if a mechanic or component is fun - it isn’t time efficient to force players to read the rules first. In many cases it isn’t even worthwhile to write the rules; just have a vague idea of how the new concept should work and see if your players like it. However, the board game experience is intrinsically linked with the act of understanding and executing the rules, so some prototypes really do need to include rules text.

Welcome to the second installment of “Decisions in board games”, a three-part series on engaging players through meaningful decisions in competitive multiplayer board games. Previously we discussed why decisions are important and why you should have them in your game. If you haven’t checked that out yet, I recommend reading it first. In this post we will dive deeper into what really makes decisions “meaningful”. The third and final post will share a number of examples from Legends of the Arena and how we applied board game decision theory to create a more engaging experience for players.

Welcome to “Decisions in board games”, a three-part series on engaging players through meaningful decisions in competitive multiplayer games. In this post we will discuss why decisions are important and the basic outline of how to reason about the decisions in your games. The second post will be a deeper dive into what really makes decisions “meaningful”. The third and final post will share a number of examples from Legends of the Arena and how we applied board game decision theory to create a more engaging experience for players.

Where we started

We started working on Legends of the Arena with the goal of creating the team dueling board game we had always dreamed of as kids. The year was 2017 and we didn’t know anything about game design, but we knew the game needed to be fast, fun, and stand up to repeated play. The game system needed to be flexible enough to evoke the sort of awesome moves that characters in video games have - pull the opponents in with a giant hook, shoot a slow but terrifying death ray, or sneak up behind and escape quickly. We wanted characters to have fun, distinct playstyles, and we wanted those characters to maintain their playstyles when played competitively. Finally, we felt that players should be able to start incorporating counterplay (picking moves based on what they expect their opponent to do) with only a few games under their belt.