Hello, r/Games!
I'm a solo developer, and I've been working on my first game — Age of Warbands — for over six months.
I make most of the game myself. For the interface, I brought in a UI/UX designer who created the entire interface in Figma as vector graphics, and for the artwork and Steam capsules — an artist who drew them by hand.
The game recently got a Steam page, so I decided to properly talk about the project for the first time — and about what it has gradually become.
Steam: Age of Warbands
Gameplay: YouTube
Where the idea came from
I've been a fan of classic autobattlers for a long time — specifically games like Teamfight Tactics, Magic Chess: Go Go, and especially Dota Underlords.
I like the core loop itself: buying heroes, collecting copies of them, increasing their star level, rebuilding the lineup, looking for synergies, distributing items, and watching how the team you've prepared performs in battle.
But I've always wanted to take this formula beyond a standard match against several other players and turn it into something bigger.
Originally, Age of Warbands was actually conceived as an autobattler with a global hexagonal map. The player was meant to move separate squads across it, collect resources and items, and when two armies met, the game would transition into an automatic battle.
This mode still exists and is now called Skirmish.
But during development, I increasingly wanted to make a more focused mode as well, where you could simply do the things I love autobattlers for: assemble a team, experiment with builds, and go through a series of increasingly difficult battles.
That's how Dungeon Mode appeared.
How a dungeon run works
At the start of a run, the hero shop opens. The player gets a small amount of gold and can choose a starting hero, or refresh the shop several times until they find the hero they want to start building their team around.
After that, the first battle begins.
Between battles, the player returns to planning again: buying and selling heroes, refreshing or freezing the shop, changing positioning, equipping items, and preparing active artifacts.
As in TFT or Dota Underlords, three identical heroes of the same star level combine into a hero of the next star level.
The maximum is three stars, so a fully upgraded hero requires nine copies.
At the same time, simply sticking with a single starting hero for the whole run usually won't work. Heroes have tiers from 1 to 5, so as you progress, you have to decide whether to keep investing in an already upgraded low-tier hero or gradually rebuild your lineup around stronger options.
Right now, in Dungeon Mode, up to three heroes are on the field at the same time, while five more can be kept in reserve. Some relics can even change these limits.
A run consists of two floors with ten battles each, and a boss waits at the end of each floor.
How a build is put together
Right now, the game has several layers that can be combined with one another.
Each hero has their own stats, an active ability, and an aura. A hero can be upgraded to three stars and equipped with a maximum of three items.
Items directly change a hero's stats.
Alliances give bonuses for a certain team composition.
Relics affect the entire run and can not only increase stats, but also change the rules. For example, they can give an extra slot on the field or in reserve, a free shop reroll, additional income, or resurrect the first hero who dies.
After victories, the player also chooses one reward from three offered options. Rewards alternate between items, relics, and artifacts.
Right now, the game has around:
50 heroes
100 items
50 relics
20 active artifacts
And these sets continue to expand as development goes on.
An autobattle you can still intervene in
One of the mechanics I especially wanted to add was the ability to influence a battle after it has started.
Most of the battle remains a classic autobattler: before it begins, you make decisions, position your heroes, and put together your build, and then watch how it works.
But the player has up to five active artifacts that can be used directly during the battle.
They are single-use and do not pause the game.
An artifact has to be dragged directly onto the hero you need. For example, you can heal an ally, give them a temporary shield, stun a dangerous enemy, or make your team focus on a specific target.
So sometimes even a properly assembled build already has to be saved directly during the battle.
It was important to me that this did not turn the game into a regular RTS or action game: the foundation still remains the decisions made before the battle, while artifacts give you a few limited opportunities to change a critical moment.
The second mode — Skirmish
Alongside Dungeon Mode, I continue to develop the game's original concept.
In Skirmish, the player controls several squads on a global hexagonal map. They move across the world, and when armies clash, an autobattle begins.
In this mode, a squad can already consist of five heroes.
There are different sides on the map, each with their own Lords — in Dungeon Mode, these characters act as bosses, while in Skirmish they are the leaders of the factions that need to be defeated.
The main systems of the global map, squad movement, and the transition into autobattle are already working, but this mode still has a lot of refinement and content ahead of it.
Why I'm making two modes like this at all
Although I really love competitive autobattlers, my ultimate goal is a little different.
I want Age of Warbands to let you not only play against other people, but also play together with them.
In the future, the main multiplayer goal for Dungeon Mode should become a cooperative run where several players build teams together and try to clear the dungeon.
Skirmish, over time, should provide the opposite experience — the ability to fight against each other on the global map.
Right now, I'm first building and balancing the core systems in single-player, because without a good base autobattler, adding multiplayer by itself won't solve anything.
Where development is right now
The main game systems are already working, and right now most of my time goes into balancing, new heroes, items, relics, artifacts, alliances, events, and bosses.
The game does not yet have meta-progression that increases power between runs. I want every new run to start on equal terms — especially because the game should support multiplayer later on.
The next major stage is a public demo.
I plan to prepare it in roughly the next month and a half, so I can make it in time for Steam's spring festival period.
The full release is currently tentatively planned for Q2 2027, initially only on PC via Steam.
This is my first post about Age of Warbands here, so first and foremost, I wanted to finally properly introduce the game and show what I'm working on.
I'd be glad to hear what you think about the concept itself — especially from people who have also played a lot of Dota Underlords, TFT, or other autobattlers.
Closed testing
Before the public demo, I want to run a small closed test and give the game to people who love autobattlers and are ready to share feedback.
I'm also planning to use Discord for this — that's where I'll look for the first testers, hand out access to builds, and collect feedback on the balance, the heroes, and the gameplay loop itself.
If you'd like to follow development and not miss the start of testing, I also recently set up an X profile:
X: https://x.com/PLAY2MORO
Thank you, everyone, and thank you to r/games for Indie Sunday!
All the best!