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[Tusky]

Hello! I’ve been working on a project for a while now and wanted to share it with the community!



Tourney is a sim game which will allow you to build up a medieval tournament ground, attract nobles & peasants, invite various knights and watch them compete, or just get everyone drunk.

Release date: 4th Nov 2021

Game Features

• Build your tourney ground. Event areas for jousting, melee and archery; and buildings such as apothecaries, blacksmiths, stands, ale wagons, hog roasts and more
• Choose your champion. Build their skills. Buy them the best armour and weapons.
• Fight your way to the top and win the tournament
• 13 playable houses with unique heraldry, traits and heroes
• Keep the peasants and nobility happy to keep the gold rolling in
• Hire staff members such as jesters and troubadours
• Lots of parody and hidden references!

Who is working on it?

Programming and art is being done by me. I’ve done a couple of games before, the most recent one is Escape from BioStation, a comedy about a robot that finds a magic squirrel that enables him to shoot acorns at other robots. Other than that are a few talented freelancers I've worked with in the past

More Links

Follow on Twitter! https://twitter.com/TuskyGames
Website http://www.tuskygames.com/
Steam add the game to your wishlist!
Development Plan https://trello.com/b/awbRyFXI/tourney-milestones
 

[Tusky]

It's time for my first update! so here are the things that have been ticked off recently...

Medieval Gifts

Before peasants would turn up, wander around and buy ale. Well now when they use shop outlets they’ll also buy a small souvenir! Below is a screeny. Most of them seem to have purchased a little novelty knight helmet. (The hat was decided by a Twitter poll)



Prices

Initially the shop outlets had a dual purpose. In order to buy items for your house knights, you’d have to place the right outlet. E.g. A carpenter would be needed to get a new lance etc
In practice however this did not really work well, so all that stuff is now accessible from the context menu for the knight themselves and can be bought whenever a player wants.

Instead outlets all have had some different options added. The main one is price management. Hopefully people will find that pretty familiar from other sim games.
In addition to that there is also a way to see what effect meddling with pricing has. So now on the main finances menu are some super exciting* finance menu graphs, along with good / bad thoughts visitors may have if they find things expensive or cheap.



Sounds

I’ve implemented a cool dynamic audio controller that works well. I’ve sourced some noises for horses galloping, trotting, snorting and that kind of thing. The crowd are quite the bunch of chatter boxes that clap and react to jousting.
To create the crowd noise I just used a few recordings of myself saying gibberish (a la sims). I have to say it’s quite strange to hear the crowd of myselves all muttering away to each other. I’m aiming to source some third party voices before I end up going crazy.

Unless that already happened? *jibber*

That's all for now. More soon

* If for some weird reason you don’t happen to find financial reports exciting, then here please read: “boring”

[Tusky]

Update for August!

Stable

I need to allow for 16 knights - so I came up with a quick way to invite them, you build a stable! This model took quite a long time but happy with the results.



Multiple venues

After some thought on how multiple event areas would work I came up with a plan.
Essentially now you can have 16 knights, and then you set off 2 groups of 8 at the same time. You choose an event venue for each group out of those that you've built. So for example you can have 2 jousting tilts, then set off 2 groups on each one. You could do all 16 bouts on one tilt if want some reason. When both groups are complete, the finalist from each group can square off in a final - but only if each group is doing the same sort of event (not if one is doing archery and the other doing melee - that wouldn't be very fair!). I need to tidy up the menu a little but it looks something like this:



New area

I've begun the enironment design for the second of four areas that will be in the finished thing. A hilltop castle in Avalon. It will be the location for levels 2 and 3, and I think is going to look drop dead awesome. I'll give a sneak of it in the weeks and months ahead as the models are completed.

Testing

level 1 was tested by a human other than me for the first time. There weren't any bugs really, since I've spent so long furiously squashing them over the last few weeks. The testing did raise an issue with the clearness jousting minigame, so I came up with a simpler, even better method of determining tactics.

Next

- I'm going to add the melee arena and mechanic for determining the winner by the next update

[Tusky]

Time for another update...

Avalon Castle

Levels 2 and 3 will take place in a clifftop castle in Avalon. The environment models for this are nearing completion, here is how it's looking at the moment:



Track

The work on the Tourney sound track is officially underway. Here's a little clip of the track which will be heard in the first level: https://soundcloud.com/tuskygames/tourney-track-one

Testage

Although not officially in alpha or anything, I have done a few tests on the first level. I like to get feedback as early as possible, to save having to rework anything too massively later on. The play throughs did bring up a few new todos which I have broadly whittled through. Notable among them are a help menu, and a button on building context menus allowing you to relocate them.

Melee

As the player moves thorough the game - a number of new structures get unlocked (unsurprisingly). One that I have recently finished is a building that allows for sword fighting. Here's a small demo, which also showcases a new knight model dressed in "Paladin" armour (working title)



Next

- Nobles
- Jewellery stand

[Tusky]

Aaaaaand the Tourney Kickstarter is live!

It's been a busy few weeks - getting to launch, but now you can help support the game by backing and bag a cool reward or 2! 

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/tusky/tourney-the-medieval-tournament-simulator?ref=3aec4p

The project has actually been up for about 2 and a half days, and has got a fair amount towards the goal, but it's a long way to finish line yet! The support so far has been awesome. I’d like to say a massive thanks all who have pledged, shared or otherwise helped out on the socio meeds (Every or retweet or share is really appreciated)



It feels like a bit of a juggling act - balancing promo, answering questions and everything else (Love an excuse to use that gif!!!).

I'll still try to share updates here as well, but in the meantime: thanks again

[Tusky]

Greetings and well met one and all!

So it's getting to the mid point of the campaign and it's closing in on 50% funding too, which is fantastic - but there are only 2 and a bit weeks left - I think that it might be a bit of a photo finish!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/tusky/tourney-the-medieval-tournament-simulator?ref=1nkzo7

New mini campaign

I thought it would be fun to introduce a new reward to keep things moving... THE PATRICIAN (insert Pratchett reference)

This level unlocks access to a new sandbox mini campaign which will follow the fortunes of "Squire Plip", entering his first tourney and embarking on a journey to knighthood, and be an additional hour of gameplay! The story will eventually go on general release as a DLC but this way is cheaper and you get it right away. PLUS your name will be put in the pool of names for nobility!

Development



Anyway even though most of my time has been on the kickstarter, I'm still plodding along when I take the occasional breather. I'm working on a troubadour model, which will be a member of staff that wanders around entertaining everyone. I'm going to do a backer only update about the creation of the model in about a week.

Anyway, thanks again if you have supported the ks campaign - and if not... I'd really appreciate your support!

[Alain]

Hey Tusky, I wish you all the best for your Kickstarter campaign and the troubadour model looks nice so far!

[Tusky]

Hey Tusky, I wish you all the best for your Kickstarter campaign and the troubadour model looks nice so far!

Thanks very much! Yeah it's coming along - should be done in a few days.

[Tusky]

Very happy to announce that the game has met it's funding target! Quite overwhelmed at the support.

There is just under a day left on the project if you want to get involved  https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/tusky/tourney-the-medieval-tournament-simulator?ref=1nkzo7

I'll be posting a more thorough post in the coming days once I'm out of ks admin mode 

[Alain]

Congratulations Tusky, that is great to hear and I'm looking forward to read your more detailled post!

[Tusky]

It’s the new year! It was a fairly hectic end to 2020 - caused mainly by the.....

kickstarter campaign

Which I mentioned in the last post.

I’d really like to thank those of you that backed it. It was really close throughout the run of it. ?unsurprisingly it was a really busy 30 days. For the most part, right up until 2 days before it was trending to somewhere between 95% and 100% funding (you can see how close it was on this https://www.kicktraq.com/projects/tusky/tourney-the-medieval-tournament-simulator/ graph ). It made for quite a nail biting month!

Thankfully there was a big upswing in backers over the last couple of days and the target was met, and finally settled at 111% of target! Tough to say exactly what caused this, but there was some good coverage, like on indiedb and a couple of interviews like this one https://indiegamepicks.wordpress.com/2020/12/09/tourney-interview/, and a lot of people kindly sharing and spreading the word.

It's meant that the plan I had for completion this year can now go ahead! And as since that’s done I have been fully back into development mode.

Equipment

The next environment that is going to be built is Atlantis. I've made a start on putting the level together in Unity. one of the main challenges here will be that there is slightly restricted space for building... since you'll have to place them on the rooves of buildings since everything is half underwater!

Anyway something else the environment features, is knights that have the highest tier equipment on. So mostly so far this year I have been modelling new gear. Here is the fruits of that labour:



Here are the lower three:



Nobles

Another element is the implementation of nobility. Visitors to the tournaments will always be in two classes: peasantry and nobility.

These two classes each feature their own versions of outlets, stands and staff. For example below is a jeweller wagon, that you can purchase that is preferred by noble visitors.



Next:

Guards and robbers

[Alain]

That's great, congratulations on the successful Kickstarter. Looking forward to those guards and robbers!

[Tusky]

I didn’t post an update here last month D=

Sorry! To make up for it.. Here is a run down in what’s been finished since my last post...

Guard & Robbers

I’ve completed work on a new member of staff & mechanic. It’s a guard with some stocks.
The reason for the guard is to watch out for robbers. These more usavoury visitors will wander around your tournament outlets and steal a cut of your profits! You can send the guard off to catch them.
Then the visitors can have a lovely bit of target practice...



Wine Merchant

This is a vendor I implemented into the game a while back. The wine merchant provides slightly posher drinks to visitors than the humble ale wagon. This is one of several that nobles prefer to use - along with the jeweller and luxury pie seller.



Archery

A third event type to compliment the joust and the melee: archery. Pretty self explanatory, not much I need to explain about this, really. The mini game that goes along with this will be what I’m working on next - so the player can play the event insead of the AI. I was in two minds about how to implement the minigame. Whether to have is actually a skill based aiming mini game, or something to do with selecting tactics & so on like you do for the joust. I think that I’m going to go for something skill based, though.



Delivery Ship

Atlantis is sinking! So instead of a horse and cart, the visitors will come aboard this:



Will try not to leave it so long next time!

[retrophilion]

Such lovely graphics here, I love it, makes me all warm inside.

[Alain]

I'm getting attached to the look of Tourney more and more. That ship is a beauty!

[Tusky]

Thanks so much both!

New update Time!

Atlantis

This environment is the third of four I will be creating for the game. I now have all of the building models completed that I wanted to do for it. The one that took the longest - and that I am most pleased with is this (aquatically appropriate) big statue of Amphitrite - who was wife to Posiedon. This is to go with my take on the Atlantean mythos - that it may have been an ancient Greek island lost to the sea.



Thoughts

A lot of comments and questions I was getting concerned would I be referencing x or y thing in the game. I had indicated that there would be "pop culture references", although beyond the cast of knights being recognisable I had not yet implemented anything else.
Well this month I implemented "thoughts", or rather: things the knights and visitors say to eachother from time to time. These include:

• "You seem like a decent fellow, I hate to kill you"
• "Tis but a scratch."
• "I’m not superstitious, but I am a little 'stitious"

I want to make them quite infrequent but well timed and varied enough that they are amusing - but not annoying and repetitive.



Archery minigame

I needed a minigame for the archery - like there is for the other events. This one is a fairly simple aiming minigame.



Main Theme

The composer working on the project recently completed work on the main theme for the game which I think is really great. He's done a video for it which is not on youtube so can't share easily but here it is on instagram and twitter

Next

3 stand alone scenarios / stories (one that is a bit more involved, and has 2 different conclusions) based in the 3 environments I've completed

[vivaladav]

This is a game I would definitely like to try! Also the fact that's is being made in Brighton is a nice bonus as I only have good memories of it. 

Are you planning to run any beta?
It seems you don't have a Steam page yet, even if you seem to already have a lot of content in your game... is it coming soon?

[Tusky]

This is a game I would definitely like to try! Also the fact that's is being made in Brighton is a nice bonus as I only have good memories of it. 

Thank you very much! Glad you like the look of it

Are you planning to run any beta?
It seems you don't have a Steam page yet, even if you seem to already have a lot of content in your game... is it coming soon?

There will only be a closed beta available to people that backed the kickstarter.

Funny you should mention the steam page. I was thinking it was a bit overdue myself - and have literally just started putting together some content for it. Hopefully I'll have it ready in 2/3 weeks.

[Tusky]

It seems you don't have a Steam page yet, even if you seem to already have a lot of content in your game... is it coming soon?

You inpired me, it's coming... RIGHT NOW   

It just got got approved today! (or more likely, last thing on Saturday) (unless there is no human involvement in the approval process)
Anyway: I'm very pleased

Check out the new vid, and add to your wishlist if you are so inclined!
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1631600/Tourney/

[Alain]

Great job on the Steam page, Tusky! If you allow me to comment on it: In my eyes your main capsule could be improved a bit. The colors and your overall ingame look are so cool, but in the capsule it feels a bit like your logo just floats on top of an ingame scene. But this was just my impression, maybe ask a few others first and decide then if you want to make any changes.