Penguin Thoughts #5 - Medieval Fest
Juliet, go get your brother1, we have to get going. My Liege is going to Medieval Fest!
1For the non-loyal reader, Jellybean
Steam Medieval Fest
It’s been a little over a year since My Liege has launched, and now I am proud to announce that the game will be included in the Steam Medieval Fest!
Starting April 20th, My Liege will be… sorry, does somebody have a question in the back?
What is Steam Medieval Fest?
Oh, good question2! Steam puts on week long theme sales about 20 times a year. During the event, there is a special store page where games registered for the event are featured more prominently. These events have strict requirements which help make sure the games included all truly belong in the event.
For Medieval Fest, games needed to be:
Post-iron but pre-guns
Feudalism (ex. lords, nobles, emperors, daimyos, kings) are the primary political structure
The majority of the population are peasants
The weapons of choice are swords, bows, crossbows, and cannons (for siege purposes)
They are also strict about the game being truly Medieval. You can’t simply be “pre-electricity” or vaguely pre modern, if you are then you get the boot. Late 2025 there was a Steam “Political Fest” which My Liege did not qualify for because while there is plenty of politicking in the game, it lacked many of the features of a true politics based game3.
2Let me google that for you… jk, I can tell you more than google can
3Rude, but fair, I don’t think my brain could handle programming a politics game.
So, back to business, My Liege in Medieval Fest!
To commemorate My Liege’s inclusion in Medieval Fest, two major things are happening.
Launch of the “Community Feedback Update”4
The biggest sale in My Liege history! 75% off!
The Community Feedback Update5 has many of the features that are long overdue and helps me feel confident that I am once again putting my best foot forward.
The biggest sale in My Liege history is something that I’m excited for simply because I truly am hoping to just get the game in front of more people. As my first indie game, I am comfortable admitting that My Liege is not going to be a huge commercial success. I have already adjusted the base price at the start of the year based on several Steam reviews (from $15 to $10) and I am doubling down on those efforts by going for a truly eye catching percent discount. If there was a time to bust out the largest discount yet, a Steam Fest built for me shortly after My Liege’s 1 year birthday is it!
4More on this under the next heading
5What did I just tell you? Be patient!
Community Feedback Update6
With Medieval Fest as motivation I put together the first major update to My Liege in over 6 months. Similar to the price change, my goal with this update was to address some of the constructive criticisms that have come up over the first year.
6Now what are you doing? Go read about it! Why are you down here?
Feedback #1 - Choices do not matter enough for a choices matter game
Let’s have a moment of real honesty. This was the feedback that I was most afraid of receiving. In an age where Baldur’s Gate 3 exists, it is difficult to make a game that truly reacts to everything the player does. Managing the scope of the dialogue trees and storylines was one of the major challenges behind creating My Liege and the limitations I had from simply being one boy7.
Complaints about the genre I picked aside, there were very intentional choices made by me that admittedly contributed to this problem. I purposedly withheld information from the player because I wanted to leave you with imperfect information. This however makes it less clear what impact your choices are having.
To help resolve this, I chose to gamify two important items.
When a noble house’s opinion of you changes, you get a notification telling you “House Carlbridge Approves”8 or “House Stock Disproves”.
Choices now have icons that indicate you met a requirement in order for that choice to be available.
These two items combined will help players get immediate feedback that their choices are influencing the computer houses as well as feel more rewarded for their past actions by calling out the new routes they can take.
The kicker of this feedback is that these processes already existed in the game. The player just didn’t know about it necessarily so the game felt more linear than it actually was. However, at the end of the day, what the player feels is the most important aspect and I needed to adjust.
7Boi*
8Ew
Feedback #2 - The music was random and at times not memorable
I was not surprised to hear this, mostly I was surprised that anybody commented on it at all. Silly me to discredit the people over at somos gaming9 for they caught my music sleeping saying it lacked “detail and variation”.
That said, they were right. As were others that felt there were too many tracks that just “got lost” or “were barely there”. None of this is surprising considering I was just foraging the internet for free license music to fit the game. Ideally I would have had funding to commission custom songs to fit the game, but this is the life of an indie dev with limited resources.
To fix this, I spent more time scouring the internet until I remembered Kevin MacLeod exists and has excellent free license songs available. I already had a few songs by them in the game, but their catalogue is much deeper than I realized and they helped replace some of the less impressive songs10.
The other change I made was made it so the different stages that the story takes place on now have separate music from the background. Now the music changes more often to reflect the location the action is taking place in, which should pair nicely with the constantly shifting visual spaces you visit.
9Hablo Espanol?
10Huge thank you to my music feedback committee. Their opinions were the driving factor for which songs were used where.
One more final update?
Last newsletter I laid out a vision of what I thought would be the Final Update to the game11. Now here we are, a new update out, and I only hit 1 of the 4 bullet points.
Will there be another final update to My Liege? If we are going to be real, I would like there to be. I am feeling closer to being finished with the game, but there are still elements I would enjoy working on and “finishing”. That said, it is admittedly tough to work on a game that isn’t likely to reach a bigger audience at this point. I am far from done making games, I already have ideas for what a second game would be12, I just need to determine what would make My Liege feel finished.
I am going to sit on it, tinker here and there, and see what comes of it. I know I will likely update the game at least one more time, but I have no clue how much content will be in it or when that may be.
11My newsletter had incorrect future predictions? Mine? Nah, that doesn’t sound like me…
12Don’t get too excited, having a full time job would make any future game a “not near future” endeavor.
Well, how do I plan to wrap up the newsletter after that wishy washy note?
Easy, with a picture of SugoiPenguin Gaming’s newest Customer Service Pup, Eevee!
Until next time,
SugoiPenguin Gaming
Your friend in the video game business
