- 1.0.19 - 9 September 2026
Areteion 1.0.19 Features Danger warnings now cover playing a card from hand: squares where the card would be open to destruction on the enemy's next turn are marked red among the highlighted placement squares. Hovering a card that is in danger names the warning above its card preview. Danger warnings are hidden in the final round once no enemy turn remains: throughout the final round in Solo games, and in games against an opponent when the player takes the round's last turn. The Power tooltip lists the turn so far: Power gained from Might, Power gained from effects, and Power spent. Reset All Progress, on the Profile screen: wipes the card collection, Olympian unlocks, Solo Constructed, Random Deck and Versus AI levels and ratings, Hero's Journey runs, records and the Hall of Deeds, custom decks and match history, on this machine and in Steam Cloud. Confirmed by typing RESET. Settings,…
- 1.0.18 Favor Rework - 6 September 2026
Areteion 1.0.18 Reasoning 1.0.17 was about taking the swings out: fewer runs ended by something nobody could have played around, less to hold in mind at once. Favor was the last piece still working the old way. Four separate counters were too many stats to track, and cancelling a curse was too difficult: it took enough Favor with whichever god got rolled, so in practice enough with all four at once. Favor is now one pool, one number instead of four, and averting a curse is one price you can see coming. With the cap gone, Favor left unspent is kept for a heavier round later. The danger warnings come from the same aim: less to work out by hand each turn. Highlights Favor: One pool, no cap, 10 to start. From round 5 every blessing and curse carries a price, 3 Favor rising to 15: pay to receive the blessing or avert the curse, or keep the Favor. Severity is set by the round. Three active Ol…
- 1.0.17: Persistent Power, a Bigger Board, and the Hero's Journey Rebuilt - 28 August 2026
Areteion 1.0.17 Reasoning Areteion launched as a game of tight puzzles: every turn a tricky situation to survive, and the rules were constrained on purpose to keep that tension up. Your feedback since launch, in the reviews and on the forum, has been clear about the price of it: too much randomness, too much to keep in mind at once, and setbacks that hit far harder than the mistake deserved. The sharpest form of it is a good run ended by something nobody could have played around. Hero's Journey is where the game's long-term fun should live, and this patch rebuilds it around that. Every journey is now five challenges, so each one matters, and a run that dies takes five challenges with it, not eight. Argonautica is open from your first run instead of waiting behind a Labors win. Card rewards offer rarer cards far more often, with free rerolls for when an offer holds nothing your deck want…
- 1.0.16 A New Domus Option - 15 August 2026
Patch NotesAreteion v1.0.16General(Experimental) Added new function option for Domus: "Unblock all tiles". Only offered while you have blocked tiles. Domus also gained "Cannot be Blocked".Weather: Snow / Heavy Snow: 1 / 2 Power is charged once per card each round, the first time it moves, swaps or attacks. That card's later moves and its attack are free for the rest of the round (was 1 / 2 Power per move, per swap and per attack). Attacking an Elusive card still costs its 3 Power every time.Heavy Snow: Removed: "Start of turn: Block all Mountains." No weather blocks tiles now.Weather is rerolled every round and can roll the same weather again (was a 60% chance each round to keep the current weather, mistakenly also applied to heavy weather). Rounds spent in Sunny now: ~52% → 65%. Rain and Storms now apply to neutral cards: Barbarians, Pirate Ships, animals and monsters have their Moveme…
- 1.0.15 Big AI Update & Board UI Overhaul - 14 August 2026
Comprehensive AI ReworkAll two-player modes have been reworked. The AI enemy is now always drawn from a set of 120 pre-built decks. Each deck also has a new difficulty scaling on top consisting of a flat Arete advantage and a fixed number of additional blessings the AI receives throughout the game. Through simulated self-play all the decks and their difficulty levels have been assigned a rating. In versus AI the player now also gets one rating per Olympian with an associated leaderboard (tracking rating, not levels)Hero's Journey no longer has a raw bonus scaling for its opponents, rather the rating of the opponents simply rises throughout the run. This will require a lot of difficulty tuning, but to me this is already MUCH more fun than before. Patch NotesAreteion v1.0.15AI ChangesImproved raw playing strength slightly.Versus AI ratings: Versus AI no longer has levels or strikes. Each…
- 1.0.14 Weather - 12 August 2026
WeatherWeather has been reworked to have less of an impact on the game. It now primarily targets movement and should still feel impactful, but further tuning might be necessary. As a consequence of the waether changes all games will now start with 3 Power, no light rain 2 Power starts are possible anymore. Olympian CursesSome curses still were quite forceful on their lowest severity, this is explicitly how it is not supposed to work. When enough favor is accumulated, now all curse effects should really feel mild.Patch NotesAreteion v1.0.14FeaturesSelecting a card on the board under any weather other than Sunny shows a hint above it stating that weather's effect.End of game screen: next to Next Game there is now Modify Deck, which opens the deck you just played in the deck builder. Playing a Standard or Random deck shows Copy & Modify Deck instead, which saves a copy of that deck first;…
- 1.0.13 Overdraw, Salient, Poseidon Rework & Initial AI Changes - 9 August 2026
Patch NotesAreteion v1.0.13OverdrawSo far, drawing with a full hand was always just skipped, which led to lots of frustration and confusion. Now drawing an 8th card will be possible, but immediately afterward a choice will force the player to offer one of the 8 cards in hand to the Olympians. Only then, further effects will continue to run.AIAI now uses a completely new neural network based strategy. Its playing strength should be slightly increased. Its "personality" may differ substantially. In some situations it will play better, in some worse. Further AI improvements have become much more achievable and will hopefully ship in the next few patches. For now, no difficulty settings or AI bonuses have been altered. There will be a big rebalancing effort as soon as substantially stronger AI opponents are available. Salient KeywordAdded the Salient keyword, it is like Wild but with NO res…
- 1.0.12 Swapping & Olympian Effects Balance - 6 August 2026
Patch NotesAreteion v1.0.12FeaturesAdded swapping: two cards you control trade places in one simultaneous move, at any distance both can afford. Each pays the Movement cost of the route to the other's tile. Both must be free of summoning sickness and able to stand on the other's tile. Other cards do not block a swap, and having attacked does not prevent it.Added Upcoming Effects Preview (round 4+): shows your next turn's two possible Olympian blessings/curses, your Favor, and each one's odds. Toggle in Settings → Animation Styles → Upcoming Effects Preview. Not shown during the Tutorial.Demo: added Hero's Journey (Labors mode only). Cards earned count toward the 20-card demo cap. Added Labors leaderboard.UI Scale in Settings now goes down to 50% (was 85%).The 8 tiles around your Domus now always include at least one Field, Forest, Hill, Mountain and Sea. Applies to every mode and to bot…
- 1.0.11 - 3 August 2026
Patch NotesAreteion v1.0.11FeaturesThe demo now lets you earn cards through normal play, up to a 20-card collection limit; further unlocks (including new Olympians) require the full game. Your demo card collection carries over automatically if you get the full game on the same Steam account.While "Offer to the Olympians" is active, hovering a card on the board or in your hand now highlights it and shows a tooltip previewing exactly how much Favor offering it would grant.Background music now automatically dips in volume while the narrator is speaking (e.g. for unique cards or encounters), so the commentary is easier to hear. This can be turned off in Settings → Audio → Narrator Introduction.Bug FixesOrthrus, Two-Headed Hound now blocks half of its adjacent tiles (rounded up) instead of always two, so placing it in a corner no longer permanently blocks both of its only neighboring tiles.F…
- 1.0.10 Tutorial & Offer to the Olympians - 27 July 2026
TutorialI'm immensely grateful for the great reception the game has had so far, especially after such a tiny launch. And all of that brings new ideas and new motivation. So I've been hard at work to create at least a basic tutorial. I could complete this faster than I had hoped, so here it is. There is still much to improve about it and I will keep working on it. So I'd be excited for any feedback!Offer to the Olympians After a great suggestion in the Steam discussions, I added a new option to interact with the game state. When you offer a card to the Olympians it is removed from the game permanently. This allows you to get out of unpleasant situations where the board or hand was so crowded that essentially all further play was impossible. To start, offering a card rewards you with Favor with the Olympian of the card offered (1 for normal cards, 2 for epic or mythological cards). Offeri…
- 1.0.9 - 23 July 2026
Patch NotesAreteion v1.0.9GeneralIncreased card rewards across every mode:Solo Constructed, Random Deck Challenge, and Versus AI level-up wins now grant 3 cards (was 2).Ranked, Quick Match, and Friend Challenge matches now grant 12 cards for a win (was 10) and 4 for a loss or draw (was 3).Arete milestone bonuses at 750+ now grant 5 cards (was 4), and at 1000+ now grant 12 cards (was 10).Hero's Journey win rewards increased across the board: Labors now grants 29 total cards across its 5 wins (was 22), Argonautica 46 across 7 wins (was 35), and Odyssey 58 across 8 wins (was 44).Lowered the card reward pity counter from 5 to 3: if you roll a rarity with no cards left to give, it now takes only 3 such rewards (instead of 5) to auto-upgrade the next one to the tier above.Card reward screens (both after a normal match and in Hero's Journey) now show your total cards collected once you've unlo…
- 1.0.8 - 21 July 2026
Patch NotesAreteion v1.0.8GeneralAdded global and friends leaderboards for the Random Deck Challenge (levels and highscores), accessible from the Leaderboards screen and from the Leaderboards button on the Random Deck Challenge stats panel.Added per-Olympian Quick Match Rating leaderboards, tracking a skill rating for each god separate from Ranked (Friend Challenges don't count). The rating is never shown in-game.Versus AI, Solo Constructed and Random Deck Challenge now let you pick a lower Challenge Level before playing, so you can practice new strategies on a leveled-up god without being forced into the hardest AI setting or Arete goal. Playing below your current level awards no level rewards.Help overlay now explains meta progression: levels and strikes, practice Challenge Levels, card rewards, collection unlocks, and discovery.Help overlay now covers Hero's Journey basics: modes, ch…
- 1.0.7 - 20 July 2026
Patch NotesAreteion v1.0.7GeneralAdded a board Zoom slider on the game HUD (above Help / Settings / Resign); hide it via Settings → HUD → Show Zoom Slider.Board zoom can now also be controlled with Page Up / Page Down and + / − (in addition to mouse wheel).Board zoom: hiding card stats when fully zoomed out is now optional (Settings → Board) and off by default, so stats stay visible at min zoom.Increased Versus multiplayer turn timer slightly to 20×round seconds (20s in round 1, 40s in round 2, etc.).Versus multiplayer card rewards are now 10 on a win and 3 on a loss or draw (was 11 / 2).Bug FixesFixed discards visually emptying your hand when the opponent played them in 2-player games.Fixed Snow / Heavy Snow removing Movement more than once per round (the penalty no longer stacks at the start of each player’s turn).Fixed Sleep it off not reducing the returned character’s cost by 2.Slee…
- 1.0.6 - 19 July 2026
Patch NotesAreteion v1.0.6BalanceAristeia, Finest Hour now grants +2 Attack and +2 Health, and this turn only +4 Movement and unlimited attacks (no longer grants invulnerability or temporary +5 Attack).Bug FixesFixed Diomedes (and similar damage-cap abilities) not limiting damage from effects like Firestarter.Fixed Aristeia permanently removing a Hero’s after-attack ability (e.g. Ajax) after it wore off.Fixed Agon (and other movement gains) fully refreshing spent Movement instead of only granting the stated amount.Tightened multiplayer move/attack resolution.Fixed multiplayer opponent Arete not updating when they play structures in fog of war.Fixed false “multiplayer divergence” warnings on legal moves.Fixed multiplayer matches where the opponent’s plays sometimes never appeared on your boards (leading to an eventual crash).Improved ranked matchmaking so overlapping searches are less li…
- 1.0.5 - 18 July 2026
Patch NotesAreteion v1.0.5Hero's Journey: any discovered Olympian can start a run. Commons, Uncommons, Rares, and Heroes are always draftable; other Epics and Mythologicals still unlock through your collection.Added a text search in Collection deckbuilding that matches card names, types, and effect text (e.g. find Warrior-synergy cards like Strategeion).Collection deckbuilding now uses an Olympian dropdown (including All Olympians) instead of the image strip, so Olympian is an optional filter.Fixed deck list card previews appearing far below the hovered row and getting cut off at the screen edge.
- 1.0.4 Hotfixes - 17 July 2026
Patch NotesAreteion v1.0.4Flurry now deals 2 damage instead of 3.Fixed Alecto, Fury of Wrath not reacting when an ability is activated.Fixed Agon’s temporary movement boost sometimes lasting past the end of the turn if the card moved.Fixed Versus AI matches sometimes ending early when a Hero’s Journey run was still active.Fixed being able to add cards you don’t own to constructed decks, and to add more copies than your ownership or rarity limit allows.Fixed constructed decks with more than 32 cards looking valid in Collection but not appearing in Solo or Versus (decks must be exactly 32 cards).Reduced Versus AI card rewards, especially at higher levels.
- 1.0.3 - 17 July 2026
Patch NotesAreteion v1.0.3Domus now starts with 12 Health instead of 10.Fixed cards that return to your hand not having summoning sickness when played again.Hero's Journey olympians now unlock after owning 15 different cards of that olympian (was 30 copies).Split the Settings → Animations tab into separate Animation Styles and Animation Speeds tabs.Added adjustable animation speeds in Settings → Animation Speeds (global master plus per-animation sliders for draw, destroy, damage, and more).Made the default card draw animation about 10% shorter.Destroying a card now plays the death effect and clears the card in one beat instead of back-to-back.Fixed replays sometimes getting stuck waiting for you to pick a card or Olympian choice, and blocking the board from scrolling while a choice was showing.Fixed Replays responding to player input.Fixed Replays not recording skip actions in card choi…
- Small Update - 15 July 2026
Patch NotesAreteion v1.0.2 Widened the cloud border along the bottom edge of the game board.Added an option to keep the music playing when you switch to another app or window (Settings → Audio → Background Audio), with an optional slight volume fade while unfocused.Added WASD support for board scrolling, in addition to the arrow keys.Greatly increased card rewards in Hero's Journey and Versus modes.The reward preview for multiplayer modes now shows the correct card counts.
- Launch Day Hotfixes - 13 July 2026
Thanks for playing and giving feedback! Here's a small patch with a few fixes: Fixed a bug where Invulnerable/Elusive effects (e.g. Divine Shield) could get stuck on a unit. AI opponents now correctly integrate the provided Might of enemy cards in their decision making. Fixed Olympian unlock pacing to not have way too many cards necessary for the first unlock. Now happens much faster. Added a new Edge Scrolling toggle in Settings. Please keep the feedback coming, I'll try to ship fast. And again, thank you for playing Areteion!
- Areteion has released! - 13 July 2026
A deep thank you to my wife, without whom this would never have been possible! This is purely a passion project without any budget. So I’m happy it got this far. There is no marketing for it, so this launch will be small, but that’s okay and I am already grateful for all the people that checked out the recently released demo (which will stay available). If there is some interest in the game, then I’ll be able to justify spending the time to implement so many things for this game: the missing tutorial bigger boards more Hero’s Journey variety (especially bosses) more map types and map variety better AI opponents better balancing new game modes and of course: so many more cards! While I hope that I can ship the small stuff fast (please leave your feature requests in the Steam Community forums!), the bigger stuff I can’t promise for now. To the small handful of people who playtested all th…
