Abalon vs Here Be Dragons
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both games, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Abalon
Engage in tactical turn-based combat and deck-building strategy in a tabletop-inspired world. Command units, cast spells, and outwit opponents with creative combos and strategic positioning. Explore diverse biomes, collect cards, and build the perfect deck to become a legend.
- Turn-based tactical combat
- Deck building strategy
- Top-down battlefield control
- Over 500 unique cards
- Character-based abilities
- Creative combo system
- Procedurally generated world exploration
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Welcome to Abalon, a legendary tactical roguelike and deck building RPG! CARDS. DICE. TACTICS. Embark on epic roguelike adventures to explore a tabletop inspired world and discover its secrets. Abalon combines turn based tactical combat with deck building strategy. Defeat monstrous hordes and powerful bosses to reap the rewards of treasures, allies, and spells. Roll the dice and become a dungeon crawling legend! COMMAND LIKE A GOD Command from a top-down perspective that gives you ultimate control over battlefield tactics. Your characters look up to you (literally) as their god to indicate they are ready to receive your orders. Commands are intuitive: Drag cards to cast spells. Drag warriors to enemies to attack. Drag healers to injured allies to heal. Play fast and fluid with 3-5 minute battles and without having to wait for animations. You can even undo failed attacks to try different approaches. Endless possibilities are at your fingertips! OUTWIT YOUR OPPONENTS Defeat overwhelming odds by mastering tactical positions, backstabbing, feinting counterattacks, knocking enemies into allies to trigger combos, leveraging traps for bonus damage and exploiting spell synergies to manipulate the battlefield in your favor. Abalon is deceptively simple to learn with an unrivaled depth of mechanics that are challenging to master. Position matters. Facing matters. Terrain matters. BUILD THE PERFECT DECK Choose compelling characters like squirrel hurling druids, menacing liche kings, psychic lizard wizards and steampunk time traveling rats. Abalon has over 500 cards including 225 hand-crafted characters with distinct strengths and weaknesses. Select your favorite summoner, build your team and construct a deck of 20 cards. Abalon differs from other role-playing games by removing grindy leveling systems in favor of fixed character stats and abilities and interchangeable gear-based upgrades. Use everyone you have and experiment to create unique strategies. UNLEASH CREATIVE COMBOS Combine your units and spells to create game-breaking synergies: Hurl a squirrel at your opponent and command your critter to bite them in the butt. Cast Animal Growth to mutate it into a super hulk squirrel. Then use Breed to multiply it into an army of hulk squirrels and decimate your opponent in the most satisfying way! Discover something new each time you play. EXPLORE. ROLL DICE. MAKE FRIENDS. Explore an ever-changing fantasy world filled with colorful woodlands, frozen peaks, barren deserts, and perilous dungeons. Abalon is rich in lore, both gritty and humorous, and each biome offers its own characters to find and mysteries to unravel. Collect and roll D20 dice to determine the outcome of fate encounters and make friends with charming bears and birthday goblins. EXPAND YOUR COLLECTION Play for free and grow your collection with paid expansions. Abalon is a premium CCG and RPG that respects your time and money. There are no ads, randomized booster packs, cards to dust, or grinding to level up. Each expansion contains a curated set of content so you know what you are paying for upfront. Like a board game hobby, Abalon’s expansions enhance your existing content. We aim to support the game’s development for the next 10 years and beyond with additional cards, challenge modifiers, game modes and more for infinite replayability. PLAY ON ANY DEVICE ANYTIME ANYWHERE Abalon offers a true cross-platform experience with support for phones, tablets, computers, TVs, portrait and landscape orientations and offline play. ABOUT D20STUDIOS We’re a passionate indie game team who aim to inspire creativity, critical thinking and positive community in people around the world. We value player-driven development, quality products and excellent customer service, and we’d love to hear how we can make your Abalon experience exceptional. Discord: https://discord.gg/d20studios Email: contact@d20studios.com
Here Be Dragons
Embark on a satirical turn-based strategy adventure as a captain leading a crew of madmen to defeat legendary sea monsters. Utilize a unique dice system and command points to upgrade your fleet and overcome terrifying creatures, all while navigating a living map.
- Turn-based strategy gameplay
- Unique "living map" graphics
- Dice Activation System for combat and upgrades
- Collect and use Command Points
- Confront legendary sea monsters
- Satirical narrative and characters
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Here Be Dragons is a satirical turn-based strategy game featuring unique "living map" graphics, where you lead a group of crazed captains and eradicate legendary monsters in order to allow Christopher Columbus the discovery of the New World. STORY Christopher Columbus discovered the Americas in 1492. In 10 weeks. With 100 men. With 3 ships. This is a LIE! Firstly, someone had to defeat kraken and tritons. Someone had to vanquish the Leviathan. Someone had to banish all the ghost ships. The information about these deeds is missing from the archives, and you can’t find it in any great statesmen’s memoir. The knowledge of the “Avant Armada” was completely erased by some bloody officials. The people who took part in the expeditions were not sane people. Maniacs, psychos and common crackpots were forced by royal orders to eradicate Evil in the uncharted seas. “Here Be Dragons” describes these events. GAMEPLAY * Use original Dice Activation System to attack enemies, heal your crew, and upgrade the fleet. * Collect and use Command Points to turn the tide of the encounter. * Cross the seas with an ancient, living map, full of terrible creatures that want to devour you! * Confront the most fierce beasts that ever lived: leviathans and krakens, predatory whales and lustful mermaids. Decimate tritons, awake Dagon, and then erase them from human memory. SATIRE * Meet an extraordinary company of weirdos, madmen and oddballs. Their vices and virtues fuel the journey. * Experience clashes with bureaucratic machine. Don’t lose your mind when confronted by absurdities spewed by authorities and royal advisors. * Sniff at pirates. Ignore the settlers. You are above them. You are a monster hunter traversing through the aqua incognita. Who cares if you are insane?
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is price: Abalon at Free against Here Be Dragons's $4.99. Abalon also leads on rating (4.8 vs 4.0) and review sentiment (84% vs 53%). Here Be Dragons's advantage is in-app purchases (none vs 5). On ads, device support and iOS requirement there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
Abalon is free to download; Here Be Dragons costs $4.99 up front. Abalon sells 5 one-off in-app purchases. Here Be Dragons asks for nothing beyond the download.
Abalon holds the better App Store score, 4.8 against 4.0. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Abalon has 1K ratings behind it against 22, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 84% of Abalon's written reviews are positive against 53% of Here Be Dragons's.
Abalon ships an update every 2 days, Here Be Dragons every 2 weeks. The most recent releases landed on October 23, 2026 and October 16, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Abalon | Here Be Dragons |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free — better | $4.99 |
| Rating | 4.8 (1K ratings) — better | 4.0 (22 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 84.1% of reviews — better | 52.6% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 1K — better | 22 |
| Update frequency | Every 2 days — better | Every 2 weeks |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | No — better |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases — better | Paid |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod, Mac | iPhone, iPad, iPod, Mac |
| Requires iOS | 13.0 | 12.1 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 117 MB | 705 MB |
| Age rating | 9+ | 9+ |
| Developer | D20Studios, LLC | Marek Panczyk |
Customer experience
Abalon
Here Be Dragons
Bugs and requests
Abalon
Reported bugs
2 issues- Bugs in second chapter dungeon
- Unable to use satchel items
Requested features
3 requests- Controller support for Backbone and other third party controllers
- More variation in encounter types
- Dark mode option
Here Be Dragons
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
In-app purchases
Abalon
- Animal Gear$3.99
- Angels & Demons$7.99
- Dark Legion$7.99
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- Mean & Green$7.99
- Space & Time$7.99
Here Be Dragons
No in-app purchases
Questions
Is Abalon free?
Is Here Be Dragons free?
Which has better reviews, Abalon or Here Be Dragons?
Do Abalon or Here Be Dragons have ads?
Which is updated more often, Abalon or Here Be Dragons?
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