Hello Knights and Princesses,
We’ve been working hard on many aspects of the game, mainly focusing on improving the quality of every element. Of course, that takes a lot of time. With the last big update, we reached the limits of our abilities—so now every change comes with a longer learning process than we expected.
But that’s how it usually goes with indie studios, and we’re incredibly lucky to have been able to work on this full-time for over three years now.
Castles Return to the Game
This time, I’m not using anything from so-called asset markets.
For those who don’t make games: that’s a place where you can buy ready-made assets like castles under royalty-free licenses. It often speeds up production without hurting the player’s experience. But I’ve already seen three, maybe even four games from bigger studios that look very similar to Robber Knight—and that means it’s time to change things.
So I’m making everything myself, exactly tailored to the needs of the game. Before, I only created my own textures, but that often caused problems.
Parts were either too big, too small, or something specific was missing. This time that shouldn’t be an issue, and if it is, I’ll be able to quickly create whatever’s needed—whether for your knightly homes or your castles.
Here are a few behind-the-scenes screenshots from the process.
Combat System
We’re working on it in three directions:
Giving players more control over their character
Improving NPC reactions to combat, hits, etc.
Army management
1 – More Control
At first, we tried to replicate the combat system from Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, but that’s just too big a project for two people—at least for now.
So we’ve moved more in the direction of combining Mount & Blade with Chivalry 2.
Supporting both first- and third-person views is slowing us down, but it’s starting to take shape. In the end, we’ve decided on a directional combat system, since it works best for both leading armies and medieval duels.
2 – Better Reactions
This part is more tedious than difficult. We’re starting with fixing weapon ranges—you’ve often reported that AI hits you when it shouldn’t.
We’re also improving blood effects, adding proper animations depending on attack direction, and giving NPCs various shouts depending on the situation they’re in.
3 – Army Management
This part is delaying us quite a bit. We haven’t made significant progress yet. Formations still behave too randomly and often break apart. But we’re not giving up.
General Summary
We’re making great progress with visuals, buildings, and decoration elements, but the programming side especially animations, is giving us some trouble.
So if you have any requests for furniture, wall pieces, weapons, or buildings, let me know, I’ll be happy to make them and add them to the game.
As for armor, I’m still relying on my own textures but purchased models. My war gear still looks like blacksmith level 1, but I’m learning. Here are a few helmets from my training process.
Thank you for your time. We’ll keep going. As I’ve said many times before: however long it takes, it takes, but the project will definitely be finished, no matter what challenges still lie ahead.
Your scribe and developer,
Sartorian