The MOKKOGRAD Report: May 2025
Hi Friends!
April! I turned 41 last Month and spent a good week or so being horribly exhausted from the Birthday celebration prep that I foisted on myself. Then the cold that I felt I’ve been carrying around for the last six weeks finally made itself known so the last week was then dedicated to not coughing all the time.
But it was still great.
Gamedev-News
Virtue’s Heaven is done, a build has been submitted to Steam and has been approved, all achievements are implemented and seem to be working (right now the overlay didn’t trigger, but I just assume that this will sort itself out). It’s strange, the last time I had nothing to do for this project was back in late 2017. Technically there are still some things that I could be doing, but aside from trying my hands at some better keyboard controls, I’ll put them all on a “maybe I’ll do those after the game is out” pile and focus on preparing the actual release instead.
I haven’t really done much press outreach for this game and aside from posting stuff on social medias, haven’t done any real marketing for it at all, simply because I just had no capacity for it.
So I’m going to try and get some more eyeballs on this game, but my expectations are slim. The game feels weirdly cursed in that regard to me and I genuinely don’t know how much any of what it does will work for other people.
I have some ideas for things that I want to do in the built-up towards the game’s release (May 20th, in case you forgot), but I have to prepare those first. Aside from that, if anyone who reads this covers games, or is interested in talking to me about Virtue’s Heaven and the ideas and story behind its creation, feel free to get in touch!
Blogpost-Shares
Nothing to share here, though I do have a rough draft about something game design related lying around that I might turn into something soon.
Interesting things I played/watched/read
I have finished Lord of The Rings for the first time in over 20 years and for the first time ever in English. Tolkien is a bit obsessed with the inherent qualities of regional human varieties (=he’s a bit of a racist in those books), but wow do I still like the story as a whole. Something I never noticed before is how Frodo isn’t really the protagonist of those books. Sam is. Up to the point where from the second book onwards, Sam is the viewpoint character, and Frodo becomes more and more distant. It also reminded me how bad of a job the Movies did with adapting the books.
I’ve also been playing videogames! Wow videogames! About ten days ago, I stumbled over a game called “Chaos Galaxy” and I was shocked that Steam actually managed to recommend me a game that I didn’t know about and that’s actually kind of interesting.
Chaos Galaxy is a small-ish Grand strategy game from what I think is a Chinese game developer? Either way, it's a nice space opera generator. There’s a big galactic empire that is about to fall apart. It has Mechs, big ships, different factions with different unit types and approaches and has a handful of scripted events that help shake up the game to make sure that you can’t just hang around in your corner and do nothing. It also does the unfortunate thing where one of the desert planet factions is a bit islamophobic.
The turn-based battles are a bit rough, because the AI is kind of cheating in that it always knows where you are on the map. So when you’re not careful, the AI might just murder your fleet. However, this also makes it fairly predictable in that you can kind of direct them towards specific locations on the map.
The strategy layer is pretty simple and this is how I like things. I get lost very often in these types of games, because of the sheer amount of information I need to process. Chaos Galaxy has two resources, a very simple diplomacy layer (basically you can easily improve relations with almost every faction just by giving them money for a few turns) and after a while there isn’t really anything out there that can touch you.
That does mean that the game kind of falls apart towards the end, but again I do like it when games just roll over after a while. It’s comfy!
After losing a week to Chaos Galaxy I then went over the Publisher’s other games and found “Banner of the Maid” which I vaguely recall seeing a cohost post about years ago. Banner of the Maid is a strategy RPG set in a fan fiction version of the French Revolution, where you play as Napoleon’s younger sister. I’m maybe a third into the game and it’s surprisingly good? The Drama is nice, I like the weird spin they put on real historical events and the battles are cool as well. Very puzzle-y in their approach.
Both of these games kind of make me want to check out more sort of average looking strategy games. I just like the rhythm of them right now and I like how they are just challenging enough to keep me interested, while also not being too demanding of me.
The Potato section
From the journal of Russet Wrinkle, Owner of the Upper Hills Potato Farm in the country of golden Hills. 40 days into what will be known as the eternal Spring, Year 492 of the Age of Hairs.
The world is good. There are still strangers about. The people in the tavern keep talking about Wizard problems and the Moon keeps growing though nobody seems to notice it. The important part however, is that the farm is doing well. The Potatoes are doing well. They grow faster, they grow bigger and the land has so many potatoes that we all got a whole Sack of Potatoes as a gift! There is so much to go around for everyone! If this is how the end of the world looks like, then I welcome it with open arms and a full belly.
Stats:
Destiny: 3
Potatoes: 7
Moon: 1
(Dice results: 3 - A knock at the door; 6 - +2 Potato
See you in June!
P.S.: More than ever, I would like to remind you all to wishlist Virtue’s Heaven on Steam:
Virtue's Heaven on Steam
The world ends tomorrow, your friends are imprisoned and those responsible for both have stolen the future. The time for deliberation is over. It is time to be reckless, irresponsible and beautiful.
