We are happy to announce the release of the 1.3 version of our free game app. The key feature in 1.3 was taken from the tabletop world of Ortus Regni gameplay. Specifically a system where you play a series of linked Ortus Regni games, with the winner required to play the following game with the same deck. This creates an interesting meta deck design situation. With the physical card game this is often played as a “Best of X games” format. Here we simplified that with a 3 win counter, to win the overall match-up. Thus you can play a mini-campaign style series now in Challenge Friend mode.
( Note that you can play a Series Game also against AIs, if you want, by simply not inviting any Friends in the Challenge Friends lobby. )
New features added in 1.3:
• Series Games in Challenge Friends options now! A mini campaign, win 3 games to win the series, and winners have to play the following game with the same deck.
• Server side stability refactor, so that Challenge Friends games should now be stable with asynchronous play, and timed games gained stability as well.
• New songs in the game and menu lobbies, plus a full sounds effects refactor with unique ambient room sounds for the medieval game rooms.
• Your Find A Match leaderboard history is now saved in your account profile :)
Keep in mind the meta of a Series Games match-up when making your decks, as other Earls can build new decks with foreknowledge of what you are bringing to the table.
We have also revised the sounds effects in the game and its music; we’ve added more medieval songs (technically from the Elizabethan period).
And we also rebuilt the game server to eliminated some issues that were popping up in Challenge Friends games, particularly one that could freeze asynchronous Challenge Friends games. This server rebuild also tackled some stability issues with timed games and forfeits. We are very happy to have had a chance to revisit the server code.
Thanks for trying out our medieval world (!)
Ortus Regni news
We wanted to let you know about some of the Ortus Regni projects that are in the works.
1) Server side update.
We are aware that there are some stability issues in the current Ortus Regni server. Over the last year we kept adding new features to our original code base, and some of those implementations did not “work and play” will with each other.
The main bug is one that can freeze up asynchronous Challenge Friends games. This is very frustrating for players, of course, since these games might run over a week and then suddenly be frozen when you are already invested in your game. We knew that had be to fixed fast, but were not able to easily do that with the current server. So we changed tack (see below).
The second, and slightly related, bug involves timed games and hits (more rarely than the above issue) in Find A Match games. It looks like a freeze, and you may be waiting for the other player to complete their turn without realizing the game has actually proceeded, but you don’t see it. If spotted, you can quickly try leaving the game and returning (by going back to Find A Match, and being reconnected).
The good news is that we have been hard at work on a complete server code rewrite for some time. Yup, a clean slate, accounting for all the features now implemented in Ortus Regni. With this new server we aim to eliminated all the above known issues. That new server is in testing now - it’s the server so we have to be careful of course - and this will hopefully launch around the end of this month or soon after :)
2) App update.
We have also been plugging away on some small updates to the app itself. This should have a bit more love for a couple of the already existing features. We'll remain mum on those until we officially announce its launch and the items that made it into the build. This may also land around the end of this month, or soon after.
3) Tabletop (original) Ortus Regni variants in the works.
In the world of tabletop Ortus Regni we will be posting several quite dramatic variant rule sets - on ortusregni.com - in the coming month. There are three new tabletop play modes being developed. Like all the variants that we have posted previously they use the heart of Ortus Regni's rules, so they still feel like Ortus Regni, but explore new game spaces in the system. And, as always, are playable simply with the original game boxes, no added purchases required.
We’ll tease a little about those: One is much more deterministic (chess or Stratego like) and you make no decks; another is a hybrid of a more traditional board based strategic war-game & normal Ortus Regni simultaneously; the third is a system that allows you to play Ortus Regni with poker chips and betting, approaching the game more like it's a poker night (it’s always fun to bust out the poker chips).
The last two of the new rules above will have custom variant play mats available in our online store, but as has always been the case with our options and expansions for the tabletop game there will also be free PDFs for you to use. Even if we think the mats are really nice to use :)
These new rule sets really up the level of thinking required - strategically and tactically - and are thus meant for moderately advanced players of Ortus Regni. But they also maintain most of the existing core rules of the game, and maintain the feeling that you are indeed playing Ortus Regni, but with new horizons.
And for those who might only know that we are on STEAM, I should note that we also have the free Ortus Regni app available for iPads and Android tablets from the Apple App store and Googleplay :)
And *all* of our available platforms interact and play with each other. And your Ortus Regni account will log you in on any of them. Plus, if you "star favorite" your main 5 decks those will be in the cloud and available to you on any platform.
Thanks for visiting a corner of the Middle Ages with us (!)
