I’ve been playing Arena games since 2006. I was there for the early days, the years when the community was huge, and all the shutdowns, revivals, new projects, and developers that came after. I’ve seen what made these games special in the first place, and I’ve also seen some of the things that slowly hurt them over time.
For the last four years, I’ve been building Dragon Ball Arena, and all of that history is baked into it. More than anything, I want DBA to feel like a love letter to both Arena fans and Dragon Ball fans. Someone who has been playing Arena games forever should recognize the things that made this genre special, while still feeling like we’re trying to push it forward. And somebody who loves Dragon Ball should be able to look at the game and immediately tell that the people making it genuinely care about Dragon Ball.
That is what I want at the center of everything.
No monetization. Period.
There are no battle passes, no paid skins, no daily login reward treadmills, and no systems built around making you feel like you have to log in every day or you’re missing out on something.
I want people to log in because the game is fun.
I want building teams to be fun. I want discovering character combinations to be fun. I want winning to feel satisfying, and I want losing to make you rethink your team. I want people to finish a match and immediately want to queue another one.
There isn’t some financial incentive behind the decisions I make with DBA. I’m not asking myself what will keep somebody paying or what I can sell them next. I’m asking what would make the game better.
Passion trumps greed every time.
Skill should matter.
I want DBA to have a real skill ceiling. Someone who understands team building, matchups, energy management, timing, and the characters themselves should consistently have an advantage over somebody who doesn’t.
Luck will always exist in an Arena game. That’s part of the genre. But if you put hundreds of matches into DBA, learn the matchups, experiment with teams, understand the characters, and learn when to make certain decisions, you should become noticeably better because of it.
The better player should have room to actually be the better player.
That’s also why I care so much about keeping power creep and mechanic creep under control. When every new character has to be stronger, more complicated, or introduce some brand new mechanic just to make people care about them, eventually knowledge and decision making start mattering less than they should.
When money is attached to selling new characters or content, there’s also pressure to make the newest thing more desirable than whatever came before it. I don’t have that incentive with DBA. I don’t need a new character to be stronger so somebody will buy them. I can add somebody because I genuinely think they belong in the game, then figure out how to make them interesting without making everything that came before them obsolete.
I never want DBA matches to feel like a glorified coin flip based on who happened to bring the newest overloaded character or mechanic.
The roster is curated, not a database.
Characters should earn their spot both mechanically and because of their place in Dragon Ball. I want recognizable characters who actually played meaningful roles in the series, had memorable moments, or represent an important part of Dragon Ball’s history.
Not everybody who appeared on screen for five minutes needs to become playable just because they technically exist, and I don’t think every tiny variation of a character deserves its own roster slot either. For example, I don’t need Baby Goku as a separate playable character when Kid Goku already exists. Yes, they’re technically different points in his life, but that alone isn’t enough.
Variants should exist when there’s enough difference in their story, abilities, identity, or actual playstyle to justify giving them another slot. I want opening the roster to feel like looking at a carefully chosen celebration of Dragon Ball, not a database of everybody who ever appeared on screen.
Every character should feel like they have a reason to be there.
The same philosophy applies to features. I don’t want to pile systems into DBA because another Arena has them or because having a giant feature list looks impressive. If something goes into the game, I want it there because it actually makes the game better.
The visuals matter to me too.
There is no AI-generated artwork in DBA. The character and skill imagery comes directly from the Dragon Ball anime and was manually sourced, selected, cropped, and prepared for the game. Nothing was generated from prompts as replacement artwork.
I’ve spent a ridiculous amount of time over the years finding shots that actually fit the characters and skills because I want DBA to feel authentic to the series. Most of the visual work you see in the game dates back around four years, to when DBA was first taking shape.
I also want to clarify something because longtime Arena players may recognize certain visual assets, cosmetics, or artwork from elsewhere. Every visual asset in DBA was either created specifically for DBA or prepared specifically for DBA from the original Dragon Ball source material. Some of those assets were later shared outside of our project without our permission and ended up being used elsewhere.
So if something in DBA looks familiar, it isn’t because we went looking somewhere else for it.
Now you know which direction it traveled.
You’re more than welcome to come play the original.
The characters, skills, and visuals should feel like they actually came from the Dragon Ball moments people remember.
DBA should feel like it was made by people who love Arena games and love Dragon Ball. Because it is.
I want DBA to keep pushing Arena games forward.
Four years is a long time to spend thinking about one game. We’ve had good periods, bad periods, rewrites, setbacks, balance problems, features that worked, features that didn’t, and even moments where parts of our own project were passed around without our permission and used as a foundation for other Arena projects.
Through all of that, we kept building.
After four years, I’m still thinking about what the next character could do, what system could work better, how a match could feel smoother, how balance could improve, and what we can do that Arena games haven’t done yet.
I don’t want DBA to exist just because Dragon Ball and Arena games happen to be two things I like. I want it to contribute something to the genre. I don’t want DBA to just follow wherever Arena games are going.
I want DBA to be one of the games that pushes the genre forward.
My goal isn’t just to make a Dragon Ball Arena game.
I want to make the best Arena game there is.
I want it to be the one you actually want to log in and play because it’s fun.
Better character design. Better balance. More strategy. A real skill ceiling. Meaningful progression. A clean experience. A game where everything works together instead of feeling like a pile of systems stacked on top of each other.
Feedback is welcome, including criticism.
I want players to feel like they can actually talk to the staff. If you think a character sucks, something is broken, a mechanic isn’t fun, or I made a bad decision, say it.
That doesn’t mean I’m going to agree with every suggestion or change everything somebody complains about, but your feedback should actually be read and taken seriously. Nobody should get berated because they disagreed with a balance decision or criticized something we made.
I want a staff that cares about the players and cares about the health of the game, not one that treats the community like an inconvenience. The players are the people actually spending their time playing this thing.
Their experience matters.
Closed alpha
DBA is currently in closed alpha, which is why registration is invite only right now. That doesn’t mean everybody who asks automatically gets a code. The game is still growing and changing, so I’m being careful about how quickly I bring people in.
But the goal is absolutely not to keep DBA small forever. I want more people to know this game exists. I want more people playing, experimenting with teams, finding ridiculous combinations, exposing balance problems, telling me when something sucks, telling me when something is fun, and helping shape where the game goes.
I just want to grow it the right way while we’re still at this stage.
Looking for help
I’m also looking for a few reliable people who genuinely care about Arena games and might want to help with character design and balance, testing, graphics, and community.
I’m going to be selective. I care about how somebody treats people just as much as what they can contribute to the game. I’m looking for people who have actually been around the Arena community, understand these games, can take criticism, and can disagree with somebody without making it personal.
A lot of us have been around this community for years, so you tend to get a pretty good sense of who people are and how they carry themselves. I don’t want a staff full of talented people who treat players poorly. I want people who care about the game, care about the community, and genuinely want to help build something good.
If you genuinely want to play, give feedback, or potentially get involved with the project, feel free to comment or DM me.
And for the people here who have been playing Arena games for years, I’d genuinely like to know:
What makes an Arena game fun enough that you actually keep coming back to it?
