DevBlog, November 2022

We have been silent for a long time and decided to fix it.

Development is moving slower than we would like, but it is still ongoing. Every now and then life throws delays and interruptions, but Sovereign's Will is a dream project and we will keep working no matter what happens.

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We’ve been working on several new game mechanics to make the game experience more complex and diverse.

📜 The first is the mechanic of activities. From time to time, you will get the Free Time event with several options to spend time. Do you want to sit in the library poring over ancient volumes or maybe you could visit the ancestral chapel or walk around your capital? Will you order a hunt and a noisy feast for your feudal friends?

Each choice not only affects the resources, but also gives special events: an accident could happen on a hunt, an ancient treasure might be hidden in the chapel, and in the city you can hear bards singing praise or cursing you for cruelty.

Currently in the demo version the player only reacts to the events that the game offers him. The activities will introduce an element of direct control into the gameplay.

📜 The second mechanic we're working on is the Council mechanic. The game has 15 characters with written biographies and personalities and for now these are just portraits on the map, but soon you will be able to interact with them directly.

Seats on the Council are limited, you will have to decide which characters are most useful at this stage of the game. Each of them has unique properties, both positive and negative. For example, the scholar feudal lord Balduin von Rassum will give a bonus to the economy and construction, but prestigious noble dynasties will be unhappy that you have given a position to someone from such a humble family. By accepting Olivia Hanström into the Council, you will be able to improve relations with the indigenous people of the Ikdari, but this will scandalize the clergy and Olivia herself may have more expectations from you.

The Council will react to your actions. The peace-loving characters like Balduin or Reverend Albert are disgusted by cruelty and resent the focus on the military while others will eagerly reproach you for showing weakness and pandering to the crowd. Member of the Church will expect you to follow the traditions and won’t support something they would think a heresy. A character dissatisfied with you may even want to leave the Council and you would have to negotiate.

Moreover, it will be necessary to take into account how the characters in the Council fit together. The unbridled Olivia and the prim abbess Augusta hate each other, and this may result in an event for their confrontation. On the other hand feudal lords Gottfried and Gerhard get along pretty well, however that might threaten you with an excessive strengthening of the feudal faction.

⚒ Along with the mechanics, we are gradually improving the audiovisual component. We’ve improved the Codex, redesigned the event window, and added sounds for interacting with various parts of the UI, for example the sounds of turning pages.

📝 We have also more than doubled the pool of random events so that the game grows not only in depth, but also in breadth. Expect new short stories about different aspects of life in your lands from political intrigues to amusing peasant superstitions.

Many thanks to everyone who follows the game. Your support and interest give us the strength to continue! We will try to be more active and publish development news more often.

Long live the Sovereign!