Dear nobles,
we're back after a long break.
In order not to repeat ourselves that a lot was happening again, although it is true, we will explain in more detail that after announcing the registration for playtests, we worked hard on all improvements. We are aware that at the present, still quite early stage, the game is not perfect. Nevertheless, we wanted to improve visuals, technicalities and narrative enough to properly present our concept.
We corrected hundreds of smaller and larger things, but we deliberately omitted some of them. Among those who suffered are polishes of many visual elements and unfortunately, optimizations to some degree. We hope that this will not be a major hindrance.
What will be available
As the title of the news itself indicates, we would first of all like to write about what you can count on during the playtests. As we described in the previous announcements, we will show the starting part of the game.
Our character is a noble, so we wanted the player to be able to feel it. Hence, we already have over a dozen different greeting animations (some of them shown above).
This does not mean that the start of the final version of the game will look exactly like this (we plan to add some additional activities/plot threads), but you will be able to see the prologue of the main campaign.
The entirety will begin with a simple character creation system, described in Dev Diary #7, and then, as part of the interactive intro, present the initial state of their lands.
Then there will be an opportunity to interact with numerous characters and try the core mechanics of the game - audiences (described in Dev Diary #11). There we combine human drama with purely economic decisions about the development of lands.
There will also be a more mechanical management of the villages using the estate map, which has really changed a lot since Dev Diary #4!
The whole section of the game is about an hour long and will include two turns - two months of time in the game world. This will allow you to see the consequences of some of your decisions, something that is supposed to be the essence of Noble’s Life.
The game has a lot of different options. Sometimes they are connected with each other, sometimes they are secret to be found, e.g. they become available only for a specific character origin, appear when the player has the right amount of supplies or discovered some information. Even the interlocutor's attitude towards the character can change the outcome.
Here we will allow ourselves to give you a little advice for the future - even small decisions may result in some cumulative greater effect later on.
This is a diagram of a single interaction within one of the aforementioned numerous characters. Since we really wanted to give a lot of options, but also to make the game realistic, we had to put a lot of work into it. Hence, the final scenario for the content of only these playtests is 116 pages long, precisely due to the multitude of different decisions available to the players.
And to be fair we point out that a huge number of solutions is Work in Progress, so if something doesn't meet your expectations, don't hesitate to point it out, because there is a good chance that we will be able to improve it.
What won't be there
There will also be no part of combat mechanics within the playtests. We do not hide that this is a very difficult and large functionality and it is not yet time to show it. I know a lot of people would like to see it, and I'm sure there will be time for that next year.
As the start of the game will be shown, many of the advanced features mentioned in Dev Diaries such as letter writing and court management will not be unlocked yet.
Unfortunately, there will also be no free exploration of the player's capital city. This function is almost ready, and if it had not been for the last month and a half that we devoted to fixes, it would probably be finished. However, we do not want to unduly prolong the start of playtests. We plan to present the version with this functionality sometime after February 2023.
When does it happen
Speaking of dates, when will the playtests start?
Unfortunately, we are still unable to provide an exact date. We would very much like them to start before Christmas, but we are withholding such promises.
We also plan that they will last a minimum of two weeks.
In addition, next week (We swear it's almost ready!) we return with a Dev Diary and then we may be able to describe something more specific.
Besides, if you have any questions, we always invite you to our Discord, where we answered all doubts so far. On Twitter, however, we announce various things such as this news.
We also thank you for your support and words of encouragement, which all the more motivate us to show the game from the best side.