Genre: Role-playing (RPG), Simulator, Strategy, Indie, Card & Board Game
Fated Kingdom
Update #4
Version: 0.1.12.072.
Download size: 83 MB.
It's time for the fourth update of Fated Kingdom. Its main feature is text chat, which will help to establish communication with players found in the public lobby. In the future, we plan to improve the means of communication - add a voice chat and integrate the Discord. Follow the news to keep up with the work on the game!
Patch 0.1.12.072 is the foundation for a major update - «All the King's Men». The Kingdom of Kinmar will be invaded by the undead army. Ironically, these people once served the King. After losing the war with the state overseas, they finally returned home... To call to account their monarch!
New Content:
Text chat, which is opened with the ENTER key.
3 new cards: «Royal Ring», «Twist of Fate» and «Consecrated Hammer».
A new square on the outer path - Churchyard («Draw an Undead. -1 to Fate.»).
All dices have been enhanced, now they use the Physically Based Rendering technology (PBR).
Added 2 new zones for decks and cards in the Store.
Game Balance:
Guild «Arcane Commune»: an additional condition is introduced, now the Follower takes a Skill card when he does not have other Skill cards in his hand.
Guild «Pathfinders»: an additional option has been added, now the pathfinder can steal coins from other players.
Prophecy Cards: requirements for fulfilling conditions are reduced.
Card «Gatherer of Skulls»: the value is removed, because of which the card was too advantageous to choose.
Other Changes:
Fixed a bug due to which the cards could «drown» in the game board on the side of the player that connected to the server.
Fixed absolutely black deck texture.
Minor text and localization fixes.
Thank you for playing Fated Kingdom!
Update #3
Version: 0.1.11.069.
Download size: 88 MB.
Hello! We are pleased to inform you that the third update of Fated Kingdom is already available! It is worth special noting that this is a big step forward for the game, because now it integrates Steam functionality, such as creating public servers and display in the lobby, as well as connecting through the Friends List. This is not all that we have conceived, but this update will serve as a good foundation for the upcoming work.
We continue to add new content and improve the existing content. You will find 3 new cards, a new square, beautiful coins using a more advanced rendering model, and a Loading Screen.
New content:
3 new cards: «Giant Spider», «Direwolf» and «The Darkest Night».
A new square on the outer path - Workshop («Draw a card. You don’t discard Items until end of turn.»).
Gold and silver coins have been enchanced, now they use the Physically Based Rendering technology (PBR).
Added Loading Screen when creating a server and connecting to it.
Added experimental «magnetic» areas on the inventory.
Network:
The network part of the game is completely redesigned for integration with Steam services.
When creating a server, you can specify one of three options - «Public», «Friends Only» and «Private».
A list of public servers is displayed on the Join Screen.
Friends on Steam can connect to each other's servers using the context menu, which is accessible through right mouse click on the user name in the Friends List.
Other Changes:
Fixed a bug due to which the in-game cursor could remain active when opening the Help Screen.
Fixed a bug due to which the game could crash with an error when creating 3 games in a row.
Optimization of game resources loading, they are now loaded to memory as needed, not at startup.
Minor text and localization fixes.
Thank you for playing Fated Kingdom!
Hotfix 0.1.10.066a
Version: 0.1.10.066a.
Download size: 2.5 MB.
Fixed a bug due to which the «Players» and «Invite» buttons could be inactive.
The bug of the game board generation has been fixed.
Reduced the font size of the text in the «Card Anatomy» section on the Help Screen, now the text is displayed correctly for both supported languages.
Thank you for playing our game!
Update #2
Version: 0.1.10.066.
Download size: 77 MB.
Good day! We just released the second update for the digital board game Fated Kingdom. It did not come out as big as the previous one, but it also has several important changes. First, we continue to add new content - new cards and board squares.
Secondly, we improve the interface of the game. In this patch, players are finally able to adjust the volume of the sound and music. Continuing the conversation about music, it is worth mentioning that the soundtrack has updated with a new composition, which now meets players right after the launch of game. We hope that you will like the new music!
Thirdly, we correct bugs, many of which were found thanks to players feedback. This is far from everything we are working on right now. The main work goes towards integration with the Steam service. It does not go as fast as we would like, but soon there will be public lobbies in the game, connecting through friends list, text and voice chat!
New content:
3 new cards: «Scouting», «Weapon Sharpening» and «Quick March».
New square on the Outer Path - Outpost («May discard a Creature and gain 3 coins.»).
Added music volume and sound effect settings
Added a new music theme for the main menu, it can also be heard during the game.
Other changes:
The Card Anatomy section of the Help Screen is enlarged and now it's better to read.
The texts of the game Rulebook, History and Abilities of guilds are justified.
Fixed a bug due to which the Fate Sphere could disappear after the Help Screen was closed.
Inventory area for Items is enlarged and visually divided into 3 parts.
Rulebook reorganisation: the content of the «Wounds and Death» section has been moved to the «Wound Tokens» subsection.
Fixed a bug due to which the cursor changed its size after camera zoom.
Thank you for playing our game!
Check out new music theme of Fated Kingdom!
In the near future, the sound of Fated Kingdom will become more diverse due to the efforts of the beginning composer Dmitry Ustinov.
As a result of his hard work a beautiful composition was born, which you can now listen to in the video below, and after the update and in the game itself.
We will try to add more new music to the game. Also we want to add to the game as soon as possible the ability to fine-tune the volume of music and sound effects. Currently, in the settings, you can only enable and disable these audio categories.
The next Fated Kingdom update will be released at the end of this week or at the very beginning of the next!
Update #1
Version: 0.1.9.063.
Download size: 78 MB.
Hello! This is our first patch for Fated Kingdom. We focused on adding new content, optimizing and fixing bugs found in the initial build. We carefully read all your feedback and tried to include as many positive changes as possible, about which you wrote to us on all sites.
The main component of the update is the help screen, which will aid new players in mastering the combat system, will resemble the action of special squares of the game board and controls. The help screen can be enabled through the game menu or by pressing the F1 key.
New content:
A help screen that contains the following information: a description of the special squares and dices values, a management help, the ability and combat roll of the guild selected by the player, and a description of the card elements.
3 new cards: «Plank Shield», «Buckler» and «Tournament Shield».
New square on the Inner Path - Archive («Draw Skill and Creature.»).
A new graphic effect - dust particles flying over the table.
Optimization and technical issues:
Added support for 32-bit systems.
Optimized board texture, now it requires less video memory.
Increased the space of the guild history and ability fields, and also increased the font text size in the guild pick window.
Increased the font size on the Rulebook screen.
Fixed incorrect order of inventories on the table.
Fixed a sound rattling of coins when starting a new batch.
Fixed a bug with a slow scrolling speed in the «About» window.
Other changes:
Coins and wound tokens are now located more chaotically, so the table looks more natural.
Zoom with mouse wheel.
Rulebook correction: added clarification on the number of throws in
Combat and healing on the Castle square.
Rulebook reorganisation: the content of the «Fate» section has been moved to the «Fate Sphere» subsection.
Minor text and localization fixes.
Thank you for playing our game!
Key Bindings & Important Links
At the moment, the game has no control explanatory UI the ability to change the key bindings. As a temporary solution, you can use the list of all the contols below.
Hello, Steam! Our digital board game is finally available for purchase!
Fated Kingdom - a digital board game for 4 people, which does not put the player in the rigid framework of scripts and algorithms. To survive in a dismal world and save the kingdom of Kinmar, the participants of the game will have to throw dice, take cards from the deck and move the pieces on the board.
Game Features:
Classic tabletop experience in digital form;
4 player co-op;
Sandbox with no forced rules;
Realistic physics;
Dark and cruel fantasy world.
We are sure that hard work and careful attention to feedback will help us make a worthy game. For us, this is also important because we ourselves want to play it, see it as positive changes, and also be part of a friendly community.
We will be happy to receive feedback of any kind - suggestions, criticism, advice and just feedback.
The game is already available on Steam at a price of 205 rubles. Also, there is a 10% discount until June 4. Have fun!
Dev. Diary #4: The Rulebook
At first glance, it may seem that writing a guide on how to play your own game is pretty simple. Absolutely not!
And why write them, if it's a video game? After all, the execution of rules and the verification of certain conditions are usually delegated to the program. This is the main feature of Fated Kingdom - game does not control the implementation of the rules, giving party members the opportunity to decide for themselves what rules they want to play.
Our responsibility as developers is to initially provide the game with detailed guidance. The rules of the game began to be written even when the game itself did not exist at all. But even then the author of these lines clearly knew how about she should look and play. So, what is our project like?
Fated Kingdom is a turn-based RPG-adventure in which up to 4 people can take part. The game takes place in a fictional fantasy world, or rather in one of his kingdoms. It is represented by a game board, on which there are 40 squares, each of which is a separate location.
The characters of the players travel on the board with the dice, they fight with unfriendly creatures, and the trophies are exchanged for equipment and victory points. This simple concept is popular in both tabletop and video games. Of course, we have our own unique ideas, but this is a topic for a separate diary.
In the very first edition of the rules, we described absolutely all aspects of the game process, from choosing the order of turns and ending with an extensive list of home rules that can diversify the gameplay. As a result, we received a document of 26 pages (approximately 42 thousand characters) and began to doubt: will anyone read it all?
The entry threshold must always be considered, it does not matter whether a tabletop or digital game is involved. We took this hefty draft as a basis and began to iterate it, replacing large text arrays with laconic descriptions, and lengthy discussions with explanatory pictures. As a result, we reduced the text by about a third.
After that, it's time to some testing. We printed out almost all the content of the game, took out dices from a dusty box and began to play. After a while we found several things, which slow the game too much, make it too tedious and difficult to perceive. Subsequently, we fixed this by editing the rules.
Next on the line were tests with other people. We called friends and invited them to play. Many aspects of the rules were incomprehensible to them, so we had to re-write the rules completely, trying to make sure that all formulations were unambiguous. As a result, the rules were reduced by half and currently occupy 12 pages.
We added these rules to the GUI, providing an interactive table of contents. Due to the precise structure, it is very easy to find the required fragment, and several pictures were easily replaced by several pages of text. Of course, this is not the limit of perfection, and in the future we will certainly make many more edits, but now everyone can figure out how to play Fated Kingdom.
Dev. Diary #3: Creating a Trailer
Making a video of your game to show the general public is quite a non-trivial task for a small independent team. That's how we solved it..
The development of the indie project constantly forces us to yield and seek compromises. Much of what is available to major publishers and well-known studios is simply impossible to implement for several people. In the case of our digital board game called Fated Kingdom and even less - only 2 developers. But this does not mean that you can make a mediocre product!
We are approaching the release. The project went through all the necessary procedures in order to be released on Steam, and the issue of presentation of the game arose sharply. Of course, we already have some promotional materials, but to create a page in the store you need a trailer. Many perceive it as if it's enough just to load the cutting of gameplay moments, but everything is a little more complicated.
Trailer - this is a brief overview of the game, which has 2 goals at once. First, it must demonstrate the basic mechanics and features. This is necessary so that the viewer can understand what to expect from the game. Secondly, the trailer promotes the game, advertises it. Therefore, a good trailer always shows the game a little better than it is.
Indie development imposes a lot of restrictions, but both of these tasks are quite feasible if you approach the matter consistently and wisely. First of all, we sketched the general plan of the trailer: a short video synchronized to the beat of a stylistically suitable music, which shows the most important features of the game:
Classic tabletop experience in digital form;
4 player co-op;
Sandbox with no forced rules;
Realistic physics;
Dark and cruel fantasy world.
In the team there is nobody to make cool cutscenes and write music, so we immediately refused the first one and began to search the network for the second. In the end, the choice fell on the composition "Division" for the authorship of the Kevin MacLeod, who provides his music under the license CC BY 3.0. Of course, we had to try hard to sort out the rubble of his music, but it was worth it.
Next, we shot footage with GeForce Experience (supplied with the drivers of modern Nvidia graphics cards) and started editing in Sony Vegas. First two short animated splash screens with the logo of our studio and the Unity Engine that we use, then the gameplay, and in the end - an animated Fated Kingdom key art with the mention that the game will soon appear on Steam.
The most difficult thing was to adjust the video with the music so that all transitions occur in the same rhythm. Also we needed a little understanding of the work with layers and effects to make a beautiful splash screens. Otherwise, the trailer is quite simple, but it does not look like the some average gameplay cut.
