Critias Empire News

Back at the start of February, I put out a call on a few discord servers where I regularly hang out for people to privately test the Critias Empire demo.

I am eternally grateful to those who gave their time to play it and give feedback! You've massively helped both from a technical perspective, and also in terms of both inspiration, motivation and helping clarify the path forward for the game.

[h2]Bugs Bugs Bugs - Part 2[/h2]

Just about every player who tried the demo found some bugs. Some really obscure ones floated to the surface, which was great. Perhaps more usefully, a variety of people played the game in ways that are just completely different from how I approach it. This in turn gave me a huge list of small improvements to make to the game. Some things players just didn't understand, whilst other parts of the game that are awkward or fiddly to play, that I've got used to, were made clear to me as not being ready for players.



In particular

• I don't have an ultrawide monitor, but a few testers did, and my "solution" for these screen types proved hopelessly inadequate. I now have a fix that I'm hoping to test very soon.
  
• Tutorial bugs continued to crop up. One especially nasty bug left players unable to rescue their mines and farms after a disaster, and actually gave them the wrong idea about how rescuing was supposed to work
  
• Lots of UI elements still don't update correctly, which is incredibly annoying as a player (if you think you have enough resources to do something, and then the game says "uh actually no, I just forgot to tell you").
  
• The error handling and bug reporting system was the worst offender in terms of me being used to it being slightly broken. A number of errors that don't actually affect the player and are more reminders for me, that should have been handled silently, interrupted the player and made the game seem way more error prone and buggy than it is. As well, my bug reporting system didn't quite report enough information for me to diagnose some of the really critical game breaking bugs, which is disappointing to say the least.
  

[h2]Foggy Horizons[/h2]

In feedback, Surveying came top of the list of half-baked features. I nearly didn't include it in the demo, but leaving it out would open up a big hole in the end-game. It's essential to the idea of resources refreshing and the player going from seeing disasters as purely negative, to seeing them as an opportunity to find new sources of rare gold and marble.



I have improved the usability of surveys, adding in some small quality of life features to make it a bit more usable. The biggest problem now however is that it's badly balanced. Surveying is (rightly) expensive, but the rewards simply do not match that. And the random nature makes it feel completely random and arbitrary. There's not much thought in surveying, which is no fun.

I plan to tackle this in two ways:

- Rewards for "failed" surveys.
- Clues on where actual useful results might be. I want players to be able to sniff out the valuable resources they want, or get a hint that what they're looking for just isn't there right now.

Hopefully I'll be able to talk more about this more in the next update.

[h2]Decisions[/h2]

Last month I teased a new way of interacting with the Gods, which I'm calling "Decisions". The general principle is that player actions don't directly affect God anger and patience, but instead have a chance to trigger a "decision". When triggered, the player is given a short scenario / story about what the Gods have been up to and think of the player's actions. The player is then given a couple of choices of how to react. Each choice has a chance for different good and bad outcomes. These outcomes in turn drive God anger and patience, which ultimately leads to disasters. Or maybe the Gods give rewards, making them no longer exclusively negative actors. Or even one God gives a gift and another gets super angry!

I think it'll make for a much more immersive way of interacting with the Gods, and bring the Gods closer to the aim of being a bit of a mysterious puzzle for players to have fun figuring out. Plus it should long term allow for fun things like playing Gods off against each other, sucking up to one God in particular, or manipulating the Gods into making "favourable" disasters.

[h2]What's Next?[/h2]

I've not had time to work on Decisions yet, but I'm convinced from talking to players testing the demo that it's the right way to go. I have applied to be in a Steam event in early April and if I'm accepted, then my aim will be to have Decisions in the demo, and the demo ready in time for the festival.

it will be tight, considering I am also now working on two further small games (which you can find here and here for those interested). Work on them is going well, but as with game development, there's never enough time for everything.

I've also not had any feedback from the publishers I contacted at the end of January. Partly I've been slow to chase them up, but I know some of them did play the demo (going by the in-game analytics), so if they were really interested, I think I would know by now.

So for now I'm going to continue working on the basis I won't have a publisher. That means taking part in Steam NextFest in June. As well, I now have a release date in mind, though I still need to finalise a few things before announcing exactly when.

Consequently, the game will initially release with fewer Gods, disasters and Tenets (features/systems). However, the feedback from the demo so far is that there's plenty to keep players entertained just with what is currently in the game. And nothing is getting cut. Those planned Gods, disasters and Tenets will simply move to being post-launch updates.

As usual, if you have any of your own feedback or thoughts on the game's progress, you can always contact me or leave a comment!

After spending the last 3 months of 2023 travelling South America, I am back to working on Critias Empire. A lot (lot lot!) of bugs have been fixed, the demo is ready and there's even a tutorial now!

[h2]Bugs Bugs Bugs[/h2]

Way back in August, I took Critias Empire to devcom conference in Cologne, Germany. Mostly for pitching the game to publishers, but I also had a table at the show on which I had the game running. I got a huge amount of feedback from watching and talking to people who played the game.

There were a lot of bugs, UX issues and things which as the developer, I could ignore or work around, but which tripped up new players completely unfamiliar with the game.



Since returning from my travels at the start of this month, I've been hard at work fixing more small things than I could possibly list in this update.

More heartening was seeing people understand the game and enjoy it, and then start taking about all the different aspects of the game. That was a really big morale boost for me personally and a good sign the game is on the right track.

[h2]So, what do I do?[/h2]

However, I didn't have a tutorial in time for devcom, and so I had to babysit the stand and explain how to play to each new player.

A tutorial therefore became top priority in the new year, both for the game in general, and also for the more immediate aim of being able to put a demo in the hands of publishers, and not have them go "ermm... bwah?... what?" when they open the game.



The new tutorial is more basic than I'd like, both in terms of content, and in only giving the player one way to learn. But I'm quite pleased with how it isn't too restrictive. The player can mostly ignore it, rather than being forced to jump through hoops. I know many strategy game fans are the sort to learn by jumping in and making mistakes, so this is quite important.

[h2]What's Next?[/h2]

The demo is all set up on Steam and ready to be launched. I sent beta keys for the demo to many of the publishers I pitched to in the summer, and a few more beyond that. Waiting to hear back from them before deciding if and when to go live.

The plan is to keep updating the demo and building it "in the wild". Ultimately I want Critias Empire to be a living game that continues to evolve and improve. So aiming to get into that mode from demo launch onward.

Priorities wise, there will doubtlessly be bugs and issues to fix once the demo goes live. Beyond that, I have some ideas on how to make interacting with the Gods a bit more fun and less formulaic.

And after that, the long planned "Festivals" feature should also give players an extra dimension when it comes to playing into or against the Gods.

Lastly, I have started working on a couple of new games. These small projects are designed to give me a bit of a break from Critias Empire, and get something out on the store that can earn a bit of revenue and sustain development in case I'm not able to find a publisher for Critias Empire. For those of you following me on social media, you may see me talking about them very soon. But fear not, as work is still continuing on Critias Empire in parallel.

As usual, if you have any of your own feedback or thoughts on the game's progress, you can always contact me or leave a comment!

In preparation for the demo, the game has once again been re-balanced, this time focusing on the gods Poseidon and Hephaestus respectively. With this has come new God related features, plus a lot of bug fixing and user experience improvements.

[h2]Gods Get Tough[/h2]

After meeting lots of publishers at Develop conference in Brighton in July, I realised, perhaps unsurprisingly, that they all want to get their hands on a demo of the game. So they can see if it's fun, or at the very lease see that it has the seeds for something great in it.

To that end, I decided to rebalance the game yet again. This time however, the focus was on making a really great demo to convey the essence of the game to potential publishers. That meant making what was already in the game more coherent and less a bunch of parts that would "eventually come together". Then making that shine.

In particular, the connection between the gods and the disasters was weak.

I decided to take the two existing disasters in the game - volcanoes and earthquakes - and pair them up with two gods, each of whom would spawn just that one disaster. Hephaestus is the god of volcanoes (amongst other things), so naturally he was paired with volcanoes. Meanwhile the earthquakes in Critias Empire are all about changing the land and sea, so made most sense to give to Poseidon.

[h2]How Angry?[/h2]

All the previous work on disasters from months ago made it easy to set up and balance Hephaestus and Poseidon with their respective disasters. However there was no way for the player to ever see or get a sense of what was going on.

To solve this, the new "God UI" shows various indicators that the player's soothsayers and mystics have divined about the gods. The information is purposely ambiguous and mysterious, and the hope is that players will have fun figuring out the god's intent and behaviour from this.



The God UI also includes an "Appease" feature, which allows prayers to be spent to lessen a god's anger or increase their patience. I'm not sure yet if this is a good idea and whether it will remain in the game, but for now it's a nice way for the player to directly interact with the gods.

As well, the gods now have a positive or negative affinity with certain land-uses (buildings). I am also undecided as to whether this is something the game should be be so explicit about, or whether to instead have more subtle clues (spooky noises and vfx perhaps could be cool, but could also be missed by players? Rather than unambiguous big fat up/down arrows as currently in the UI).

[h2]Favour with the Gods[/h2]

To support all of this, the gods each get their own prayer points resource. This concept has actually been lurking in the game data for years, but was never used until now.



How this works with rescuing and repositioning in the immediate aftermath of a disaster is still being worked out. The current plan is to have the rescue cost in prayer points of each god be a combination of the god's affinity with a particular land-use, plus which god spawned the disaster now threatening that land-use.

If there's a volcano, then praying to Hephaestus is going to make most sense (and therefore make rescue cost in Hephaestus-points cheaper). After all, the gods are nothing if not egotistical, and anything that will make the citizens of Atlantis (and the player) pray to them more is surely a good thing.

Likewise, Hephaestus is probably going to want a hefty price for rescuing the temple of another god (say Poseidon). Whereas Poseidon will want any temple dedicated to his name to be preserved, and so make the rescue cost cheaper.

The only thing still to figure out is the UI for letting players choose whose favour they want to spend. Once that's done, I will be working on implementing this next.

[h2]Protection[/h2]

Another element of interacting with the gods that needs a revisit are shrines. These protect the land around them from disaster, but are frankly overpowered. The current thinking on this leans towards the idea that each god has their own shrines, and that these only protect against disasters spawned by said god.



How useful this actually is though will need testing. The hope is it will combine well with the plans for the prediction feature (aka prophecy UI). This feature has suffered greatly from constant changes to how disasters are implemented. Hopefully there will be time to finally re-implement predictions soon.

[h2]Floating[/h2]

In addition to pitching the game to publishers at Develop conference, I will also be pitching the game at devcom/gamescom in Cologne next week! In preparation, I had a few close friends play the game, and wow! There were a lot of issues. Lots of small user experience issues, rough edges and misconceptions. Plus a hatful of balancing problems. Though not many programming bugs or crashes, which is a good sign.

The results mean it doesn't make sense to have a demo for Steam Strategy Fest. It's a shame, but no point in releasing the game with so many problems. Not to mention the complete lack of tutorial.

However, of the very long list of things wrong with the game, I've already made some progress fixing them. More bad things are red, there's more feedback on why players can't do things, and there's even little floaty text boxes to show materials spent when building.



[h2]Roading[/h2]

The road placement UI also finally received somewhat of an update. It now shows the cost of placing a road section and will be expanded to include the benefits of placing road in a specific place. The plan is also to let multiple road sections be built without having to re-open the build UI every time.

[h2]What's Next?[/h2]

Top of the priority list are: The rescue cost revamp, shrines revamp, prediction feature re-implementation, finishing the road placement UI, and a whole lot of small UI things.

The aim is to get all that done at least by the next update, plus re-balance the exploration feature and refine the existing balance.

Which is a lot! Especially since I will be away travelling from mid September until the end of the year, and unlikely to get much work on the game done in that time.

That said, I am quite proud of the progress made on the game in the last two weeks, so I'm optimistic I can get at least some of that done. I came very close to burning out at the end of July. I took a break from work, cleared some existing commitments that were stressing me out and things have been much better since. (This is also why this update is a bit later than normal).

As usual, if you have any of your own feedback or thoughts on the game's progress, you can always contact me or leave a comment!

While there's not much visually to show off recent progress on Critias Empire, a lot has been happening in the background. As well as taking a much needed vacation (2 short ones in-fact!), I've been polishing the game for pitching to publishers and an eventual demo.

[h2]Trailer Time[/h2]

Critias Empire has evolved over the past year and a half since the first trailer was released. It was high time a new trailer with updated graphics was made, and that's exactly what happened in June.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

For those of you who haven't checked out the Steam Store Page recently, you can also see new screenshots of the game, in addition to the new trailer.

[h2]Pitch Perfect[/h2]

I'm currently looking for a publisher for Critias Empire, and I must admit I underestimated the amount of effort that goes into the process. Not only does the game need to look great (which benefits everyone), but putting together all the disparate thoughts and underlying ideas behind the game into something both coherent and presentable has taken a lot of effort. Think multiple powerpoint presentations, each for a different situation or potential publisher, detailing every part of the game development process.

[h2]What's Next?[/h2]

Road building is scheduled to get a new UI in the coming month. Also on the cards is laying the design and code foundations for eventually making a tutorial. Depending on the time, I also want to circle back round to the exploration and prophecy UIs and make them both more visually appealing and more useful.

I'll also be at develop conference in Brighton, gauging publisher interest and getting feedback on the game.

As usual, if you have any of your own feedback or thoughts on the game's progress, you can always contact me or leave a comment!

Throughout the game's life, the disasters in Critias Empire have been limited to earthquakes and the terrain shifting they induced. As cool as they are, it's time to add in more different disaster types, which is the focus of this update.

[h2]Eerie Silence[/h2]

It's important that the player knows when a disaster is imminent. Not only so they can prepare, but just as importantly, to give them a sense of tension and anticipation. Already in the turn before a disaster, the music changes from baroque/romantic classical music to an eerie ambient background track. But that can be easy to miss if music volume is turned down, as can other signals such as the disaster countdown turning red.

To fix this and add extra immersion, the map now gains a grey pall, the seas turn a stormy grey and the clouds that fringe the game map turn to brooding thunderclouds. All in the turn before disaster strikes.



In the turn immediately after a disaster, the clouds and seas remain dark, while the lighting intensifies to reflect that the world is suffering the aftermath of disaster.

[h2]Then Boom![/h2]

Nothing says disaster like a volcano. Especially when we have the very real historical eruption of Mount Vesuvius, that famously destroyed Pompeii and Herculaneum, as dark inspiration. Ironically that eruption helped preserve and inform much of what we know about the ancient Mediterranean world today.

In fact, the cover image of this update is of a later (probably fictionalised) eruption of Vesuvius, by painter Joseph Wright of Derby, which matches the broadly Romantic art movement style of much of the art of Critias Empire!



In terms of how volcanoes affect the game, clearly anything in the path of the volcano or the lava streams it sends are going to get destroyed without intercession of the Gods. I.e. spending prayer points to relocate those land uses and buildings in the turn immediately after the disaster. Just as how it currently works with earthquakes that leave cities, farms, mines etc underwater.

I would like to at some point make separate shield and stratovolcano disasters. The latter would rain down ash and send out pyroclastic flows, rather than flood the land with lava streams. However that will have to wait for later.

[h2]What's Next?[/h2]

For the time being, I'm going to concentrate on updating the steam store page screenshots and making a new trailer. There's also still a bit of tidying up the volcano code to do.

I'm also going to stop making predictions about when a demo or the game will be released. This month I was hoping to work on Critias Empire much more than I was eventually able. Suffice to say, there will be a demo at the point where I feel the experience can really shine and give an authentic flavour of what the final game will be like.

To that end, I also aim to begin a new round of balancing before the end of May, and will most likely be more of a fine tuning of the existing balance rather than anything radical.

As always, if you have any feedback or thoughts on the game's progress, do get in contact or leave a comment!