Recap of the first year of Going Medieval
Greetings medievalists!
We want to do something different this time - we want to do a recap of the first year since our medieval colony sim builder launched in early access.
[h3]Launch[/h3]
Going Medieval launched on 1st June 2021, accompanied by this slick trailer:
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
Alongside this, we dropped the roadmap of what was coming next.
We thought we had a good thing going on, but we did not expect the game to blow up as it did. In its first week, it sold over 175,000 copies whilst maintaining an 89% rating. You understood the type of game we wanted to make, and the limitations of being an Early Access title. You had trust in us and you had patience.
The next couple of weeks were spent on bug fixing and improvements - with such a big player base, finding and reporting bugs became… very fast!
[h3]Experimental Branch - July 19th[/h3]
That’s why we needed a system that will help us identify those bugs before they get to a wider audience. The Experimental Branch helped us immensely here - eager players get to experience new features first while helping us discover bugs or issues. Once the experimental version is stable enough, we make it live on the main branch and make that a full update for everyone. Thank you all who partake in it and help us by playing on the experimental branch, Bug fixing is more manageable with you peeps.
While we did that, we also worked on new features and wanted to surprise you with them. This led to a quiet period which made some of you worried - did we abandon the project, are we doing anything at all? Understandable thoughts, but that was not our intention.
[h3]Medieval Monday Talk Introduction - July 26th[/h3]
Thanks to your feedback, it was clear that you wanted to hear us talk about the development, even when we have nothing immediate to show. To talk about ideas, challenges, future plans, to show that the project is alive and active. That’s why we introduced our Medieval Monday Talk blog posts. We would use Mondays to announce new things and give you a sneak peek at what we were working on. While they did not occur every Monday, we tried to be as transparent as possible.
[h3]Update #1 launch - August 9th[/h3]
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
Early on, we decided to do bigger updates that would appear every few months. That’s why Update #1 arrived after two months. Adding more storage options was always one of the things we wanted to do, but we didn’t expect that it would come so soon. You were very local about it and that’s why this update was all about Shelves & Racks. Of course, we introduced other things too, but storage options were our primary focus.
You folks were aware that after an update, the next couple of weeks would be focused on patches and hotfixes - Going Medieval is a pretty complex game and with every update, that complexity will increase. Some systems that worked perfectly previously would be affected by new changes and sometimes those would destabilize the game. We tried to convey clear messaging and your patience is appreciated.
[h3]Talking about Update #2 - August 30th[/h3]
These are the posts in which we started talking about new features. Presenting it via MMTs proved valuable for a couple of reasons - each blog allowed you to comment on the feature mentioned in that devlog, which would, in turn, give us insight into how excited were you, potential issues, and the ways those features would evolve.
This is also the period where we expanded the team by one programmer thus making Foxy Voxel an 8-member team. This one would be focused on automated testing and modding because we understand the importance of modding in these types of projects. He’ll also do other tasks, but that will depend on a team's availability, the scope of the tasks, etc.
Weekly talks made sure that the game development was very much active, and some of you eagerly waited for another Monday. Sounds like a win-win situation
[h3]Going Medieval is on GeForce NOW - October 11th[/h3]
Some of you wrote to us and asked us when Going Medieval will be on Mac or Linux. Our official stance regarding this is that we are focusing on PC only at this stage. We've been getting reports of people playing our game on Mac by using Windows via BootCamp and on Linux via Proton (with varying degrees of success). However, after looking into it - we’ve seen that GeForce Now allows streaming on Mac without any issues. Going Medieval was included in their library.
[h3]Update #2 - October 19th[/h3]
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
Even though this update was titled “Merchants & Diplomacy” and was all about merchants, trading, and factions, we also managed to upgrade a bunch of existing features by introducing a custom settler creator, relocating objects, and other various improvements.
But after that came a hotfix period, where we took time to fix existing bugs but also upgrade some of the systems of Update #2.
[h3]Our First AMA - November 25th[/h3]
We’d never held an “Ask Me Anything” session, so this was a pretty new thing for us. Our Discord server seemed like a perfect place for it, and it was awesome indeed. You guys are cool!
[h3]Talking about Update #3 - November 29h[/h3]
From this period, we started discussing features of update #3. Medieval Mondays showed us that you were skeptical about new upcoming features, mainly the introduction of seeds. We heard your feedback and really worked on it to make this not feel like a chore and micromanaging hell.
[h3]Update #3 - February 1st[/h3]
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
Beyond introducing "New Resources & Cultivation", we implemented things like settlers' aging, new buildings, new researchable stuff, and music!
[h3]Talking about Update #4 - March 14th[/h3]
This update has been a long time coming. Previous pathfinding fixes were done on a macro level, so once we adjusted something, it would be adjusted for every situation. This did not work for our game since players would create various different scenarios. The new system would work on a case-to-case basis. But, Update #4 would provide more than that, so we decided to introduce more animals and pets.
[h3]Our second AMA - April 14th[/h3]
We held another AMA because it was fun the first time and you guys deserve honest responses. We tend to be active on our Discord and reply if you folks have issues and/or need help with the game, but AMAs like these help us talk about the feature, which is always nice. We also have to extend a big thanks to our Discord Mod team and its community, thanks to them, Discord is a really helpful place for not only newcomers but seasoned players as well.
[h3]Update #4 - June 1st[/h3]
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
We released this update on our Early Access birthday. It felt right. Animal husbandry was introduced, along with all the important interactions with new animals. We also did a code cleanup and reworked how the game stored save files. All this meant that old saves couldn’t be supported by this update.
We tried our best to maintain compatibility, but it was not possible in this case. We understand that some of you were frustrated by this, and that’s why we kept the legacy branch in which you could play your old saves (minus update #4).
Since Going Medieval is still in Early Access, these situations might happen again. We’ll try our best to avoid it as much as possible, but if it happens again, we’ll notify you ahead of time.
By the way, did you know that to this date, Going Medieval has sold 600 000 copies and has over MILLION WISHLISTS!
As you know, we’re still in the process of bug fixing and making quality of life improvements - we want to do as much as possible before moving on to the next big thing. Here’s how the roadmap looks at the moment:
Still a lot to be done, but we are here for it!
We’d also like to say thank you to the helpful folks of Steam Discussions - thank you for providing advice and interesting insight to other people when we are not there. We're also constantly in awe by your epic creations in the Screenshot tab.
In fact, Players create wonderful settlements all the time, that we really want to share and promote your creativity. That’s why during this period we created Community Spotlight Videos where we would take your settlements and show them in-engine:
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
Think you have something epic and want to be in the video? Join our Discord and share your screenshots there. If it looks interesting/epic/awesome/aesthetically pleasing, one of the devs will contact you and ask for a save file, so we can make a video.
We also have to say big thanks to streamers/youtubers. Your video about Going Medieval ranged from informative to hilarious. We’ll try to spotlight a couple that caught our eyes (but in truth, there are a bunch that deserve a mention).
For informative ones, look at the playthroughs of SplattercatGaming, Raptor, and KatherineOfSky.
There are some hilarious videos made by The Spiffing Brit, Let's Game It Out, Drae and ambigousamphibian.
Then, there are those like perafilozof and Just Don’t Die, who spotlight the game in their own way and dissect it big time.
[previewyoutube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D34DVkn6wqQ[/previewyoutube]
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
We simply can’t list all of them as there are too many, but believe us - we love what you are doing and that you are having fun doing it.
Aaaaaand that would be all for now, folks. We’ll make another post soon, detailing what’s to come and how we plan to approach it, but for now, we want to say it again - Thank you for believing in us, and for playing our medieval colony sim builder. Going Medieval is only going to get better from this point on!
If you want to stay in the loop with all development news, follow us on Twitter. We also have a TikTok account which is sometimes funny, sometimes informative, but always Medieval. And of course, our Discord server which allows for faster troubleshooting, promotion of your content and is just a cool place to chill in general. Want more info? We have a helpful fan-made wiki - be sure to check it out.
That would be all for now. Thank you for your time and congratulation if you managed to reach the end - talk to you soon!
Foxy Voxel
Our Discord: Going Medieval server
Follow us on Twitter: @going_medieval
Our Facebook: Foxy Voxel
We are on TikTok, too: @going.medieval
We want to do something different this time - we want to do a recap of the first year since our medieval colony sim builder launched in early access.
[h3]Launch[/h3]
Going Medieval launched on 1st June 2021, accompanied by this slick trailer:
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
Alongside this, we dropped the roadmap of what was coming next.
We thought we had a good thing going on, but we did not expect the game to blow up as it did. In its first week, it sold over 175,000 copies whilst maintaining an 89% rating. You understood the type of game we wanted to make, and the limitations of being an Early Access title. You had trust in us and you had patience.
The next couple of weeks were spent on bug fixing and improvements - with such a big player base, finding and reporting bugs became… very fast!
[h3]Experimental Branch - July 19th[/h3]
That’s why we needed a system that will help us identify those bugs before they get to a wider audience. The Experimental Branch helped us immensely here - eager players get to experience new features first while helping us discover bugs or issues. Once the experimental version is stable enough, we make it live on the main branch and make that a full update for everyone. Thank you all who partake in it and help us by playing on the experimental branch, Bug fixing is more manageable with you peeps.
While we did that, we also worked on new features and wanted to surprise you with them. This led to a quiet period which made some of you worried - did we abandon the project, are we doing anything at all? Understandable thoughts, but that was not our intention.
[h3]Medieval Monday Talk Introduction - July 26th[/h3]
Thanks to your feedback, it was clear that you wanted to hear us talk about the development, even when we have nothing immediate to show. To talk about ideas, challenges, future plans, to show that the project is alive and active. That’s why we introduced our Medieval Monday Talk blog posts. We would use Mondays to announce new things and give you a sneak peek at what we were working on. While they did not occur every Monday, we tried to be as transparent as possible.
[h3]Update #1 launch - August 9th[/h3]
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
Early on, we decided to do bigger updates that would appear every few months. That’s why Update #1 arrived after two months. Adding more storage options was always one of the things we wanted to do, but we didn’t expect that it would come so soon. You were very local about it and that’s why this update was all about Shelves & Racks. Of course, we introduced other things too, but storage options were our primary focus.
You folks were aware that after an update, the next couple of weeks would be focused on patches and hotfixes - Going Medieval is a pretty complex game and with every update, that complexity will increase. Some systems that worked perfectly previously would be affected by new changes and sometimes those would destabilize the game. We tried to convey clear messaging and your patience is appreciated.
[h3]Talking about Update #2 - August 30th[/h3]
These are the posts in which we started talking about new features. Presenting it via MMTs proved valuable for a couple of reasons - each blog allowed you to comment on the feature mentioned in that devlog, which would, in turn, give us insight into how excited were you, potential issues, and the ways those features would evolve.
This is also the period where we expanded the team by one programmer thus making Foxy Voxel an 8-member team. This one would be focused on automated testing and modding because we understand the importance of modding in these types of projects. He’ll also do other tasks, but that will depend on a team's availability, the scope of the tasks, etc.
Weekly talks made sure that the game development was very much active, and some of you eagerly waited for another Monday. Sounds like a win-win situation
[h3]Going Medieval is on GeForce NOW - October 11th[/h3]
Some of you wrote to us and asked us when Going Medieval will be on Mac or Linux. Our official stance regarding this is that we are focusing on PC only at this stage. We've been getting reports of people playing our game on Mac by using Windows via BootCamp and on Linux via Proton (with varying degrees of success). However, after looking into it - we’ve seen that GeForce Now allows streaming on Mac without any issues. Going Medieval was included in their library.
[h3]Update #2 - October 19th[/h3]
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
Even though this update was titled “Merchants & Diplomacy” and was all about merchants, trading, and factions, we also managed to upgrade a bunch of existing features by introducing a custom settler creator, relocating objects, and other various improvements.
But after that came a hotfix period, where we took time to fix existing bugs but also upgrade some of the systems of Update #2.
[h3]Our First AMA - November 25th[/h3]
We’d never held an “Ask Me Anything” session, so this was a pretty new thing for us. Our Discord server seemed like a perfect place for it, and it was awesome indeed. You guys are cool!
[h3]Talking about Update #3 - November 29h[/h3]
From this period, we started discussing features of update #3. Medieval Mondays showed us that you were skeptical about new upcoming features, mainly the introduction of seeds. We heard your feedback and really worked on it to make this not feel like a chore and micromanaging hell.
[h3]Update #3 - February 1st[/h3]
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
Beyond introducing "New Resources & Cultivation", we implemented things like settlers' aging, new buildings, new researchable stuff, and music!
[h3]Talking about Update #4 - March 14th[/h3]
This update has been a long time coming. Previous pathfinding fixes were done on a macro level, so once we adjusted something, it would be adjusted for every situation. This did not work for our game since players would create various different scenarios. The new system would work on a case-to-case basis. But, Update #4 would provide more than that, so we decided to introduce more animals and pets.
[h3]Our second AMA - April 14th[/h3]
We held another AMA because it was fun the first time and you guys deserve honest responses. We tend to be active on our Discord and reply if you folks have issues and/or need help with the game, but AMAs like these help us talk about the feature, which is always nice. We also have to extend a big thanks to our Discord Mod team and its community, thanks to them, Discord is a really helpful place for not only newcomers but seasoned players as well.
[h3]Update #4 - June 1st[/h3]
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
We released this update on our Early Access birthday. It felt right. Animal husbandry was introduced, along with all the important interactions with new animals. We also did a code cleanup and reworked how the game stored save files. All this meant that old saves couldn’t be supported by this update.
We tried our best to maintain compatibility, but it was not possible in this case. We understand that some of you were frustrated by this, and that’s why we kept the legacy branch in which you could play your old saves (minus update #4).
Since Going Medieval is still in Early Access, these situations might happen again. We’ll try our best to avoid it as much as possible, but if it happens again, we’ll notify you ahead of time.
By the way, did you know that to this date, Going Medieval has sold 600 000 copies and has over MILLION WISHLISTS!
As you know, we’re still in the process of bug fixing and making quality of life improvements - we want to do as much as possible before moving on to the next big thing. Here’s how the roadmap looks at the moment:
Still a lot to be done, but we are here for it!
We’d also like to say thank you to the helpful folks of Steam Discussions - thank you for providing advice and interesting insight to other people when we are not there. We're also constantly in awe by your epic creations in the Screenshot tab.
In fact, Players create wonderful settlements all the time, that we really want to share and promote your creativity. That’s why during this period we created Community Spotlight Videos where we would take your settlements and show them in-engine:
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
Think you have something epic and want to be in the video? Join our Discord and share your screenshots there. If it looks interesting/epic/awesome/aesthetically pleasing, one of the devs will contact you and ask for a save file, so we can make a video.
We also have to say big thanks to streamers/youtubers. Your video about Going Medieval ranged from informative to hilarious. We’ll try to spotlight a couple that caught our eyes (but in truth, there are a bunch that deserve a mention).
For informative ones, look at the playthroughs of SplattercatGaming, Raptor, and KatherineOfSky.
There are some hilarious videos made by The Spiffing Brit, Let's Game It Out, Drae and ambigousamphibian.
Then, there are those like perafilozof and Just Don’t Die, who spotlight the game in their own way and dissect it big time.
[previewyoutube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D34DVkn6wqQ[/previewyoutube]
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
We simply can’t list all of them as there are too many, but believe us - we love what you are doing and that you are having fun doing it.
Aaaaaand that would be all for now, folks. We’ll make another post soon, detailing what’s to come and how we plan to approach it, but for now, we want to say it again - Thank you for believing in us, and for playing our medieval colony sim builder. Going Medieval is only going to get better from this point on!
If you want to stay in the loop with all development news, follow us on Twitter. We also have a TikTok account which is sometimes funny, sometimes informative, but always Medieval. And of course, our Discord server which allows for faster troubleshooting, promotion of your content and is just a cool place to chill in general. Want more info? We have a helpful fan-made wiki - be sure to check it out.
That would be all for now. Thank you for your time and congratulation if you managed to reach the end - talk to you soon!
Foxy Voxel
Our Discord: Going Medieval server
Follow us on Twitter: @going_medieval
Our Facebook: Foxy Voxel
We are on TikTok, too: @going.medieval