- World Forge Playtest now available! - 20 March 2026
Hello everyone,I am pleased to announce that the first playtest, dubbed "World Forge", is ready for action! What can you do in this playtest? Basically, you create world maps.The devil is in the details though, so here is a breakdown of things you can do:Create world maps procedurally using a number of parameters, such as landmass preset, humidity and temperatureObserve the distribution of the biomes in your world: Abyssal sea, sea, shallows, freshwater, grassland, forest, jungle, swamp, savannah, tundra, desert and barrens.Optionally use images (colors or just transparency information) to guide procedural world map generationCreate cities and road networks procedurallyBe able to edit procedurally generated maps, or start from an empty water mapPlace cities, and assign arbitrary properties to themCreate or destroy road networks, or procedurally generate them based on city locationsUse b…
- Enter the World Forge - 8 January 2026
Hello everybody and happy new year! Hopefully with a bigger games library and glorious gaming plans for 2026. While there are as usual various updates on the game since the last news item last September, I'm mainly going to focus on one in particular: the World Forge.In the latest version of the game (until the last announcement here at least), when you create a new world, you can customize it by moving some sliders and changing some presets: you can have more archipelago-style maps, more land maps, and so on. You can customize things like overall humidity or temperature too. The current set of controls give a good range of maps in my opinion, and then when you're done with that process, the system calculates optimal placement of cities. You get a look at these cities and the relationships to each other, and you basically make a character and start the game.Game modes and the World Forg…
- Starting GUI screens - 26 September 2025
Hello everyone!A few updates since last time, steering direction to something shareable in the near future.Starting GUI screensFrom the main menu until you get into the game, there are a number of screens. I have now added a few more screens (in bold) and redesigned existing ones, so that the order is now:Main menuGame mode (Campaign, Tutorial, etc)World creation screen (Biome)Society generation screen (cities, relationships)Player - Choose your people Player - Customise your looksPlayer - Assign attributes and skills There are randomisation options to make the process a bit faster if you want to get into the game quickly. You can see these in the following video:Mushroom patchesAdded support for patches of mushrooms or other herbs and flowers in outdoors levels. You can harvest these, and the yield quality will depend on your Crafting skill. QuickslotsIn the game there are a lot of "us…
- Art DIY - 14 June 2025
Hello everyone! First of all, I've made a variation of the existing trailer (soon to be updated in the Steam page) that includes some additions since the first trailer in the first 8 seconds. Enjoy! Alright, now down to business. Something has happened since the last update. It's small, but important. I decided to start making sprites! Now I'm not the greatest artist in the world (probably closer to the artistic antipode of that) but ... it's liberating, fun (and frustrating) and, most importantly for this project, ... Useful. Why useful? (TLDR: lack of an artist is not a blocker in content production anymore) My approach so far with game art, has been in the last ~10 years in this order: I'll surely find some good assets for everything I need ... right? Bah! I'm going to make software to make art for me! Nope that doesn't work. Well, I'm going to hire somebody In The Future to do all a…
- Quests and Conversations - 2 May 2025
Hello everyone! For this update, two more systems have been added into the game: quests and conversations. Here's a video that demonstrates a lot of the below: conversation, quest branches, group fights (militia vs undead), quest completion, quest chain, location hints. Quests Quests are very important in Sigil of Kings, so there are going to be plenty of them. Since the world is dynamic and unique because of procedural generation, all of these quests will be specific and uniquely tailored to your game. So, when developing a quest system, it's not just about creating quests and the UI, but we're creating a way to synthesize quests based on the state of this unique world. It's a long way to say it's harder than normal. The types of quests supported so far are plenty, and are pretty standard: kill enemy, get item, return item to somebody, be somewhere at a specific time, escort somebody t…
- Updates! - 7 March 2025
Hello everyone! Yet another late Steam update due to busy period at work! Here's what has happened in the past 2.5 months (spoiler alert: it's GUI and GUI-facing things): Calendar widget A new calendar widget provides information about in-game time, date, and moon phases. This can impact certain gameplay elements, such as spell effects, enemy spawns, or quest availability and timing. Combined with existing "wait" functionality, makes it very easy to control time flow. The art is work in progress (as all art is), but the concept will remain. (Calendar is a bit monstrous sized here, just to show it more clearly) Enchantments & Equipment Overhaul The enchantment system has undergone a big refactor for better and clearer support of absolute or percentage-based bonuses. E.g. do you deal 5 more damage, or 10% more damage? Also, is the bonus applied to the current weapon's values, or your tota…
- Potions, dungeons and telegraphing attacks - 18 December 2024
Hello everyone! One last update for Sigil of Kings before the end of the year. There is no overarching theme; just updates that I think you might find interesting! Potions and more There's a flexible enchantment system under the hood, but that doesn't mean that each item can do anything. It has to somehow make sense, even in a high-magic world. To introduce such a restraint, here's the current categorisation of items and effects: Potions: Boost your attributes, health, mana, or resistances, either temporarily or permanently. Bombs: Deliver devastating area effects like stun, poison, or fire to your foes. Oils: Temporarily enhance your equipment, offering tactical advantages without overpowering permanent buffs. Scrolls: Cast one-time magical spells with instant results. Tomes: Improve your skills or teach new abilities. Wands: Channel magic for powerful, single-use effects. Special Item…
- Quarterly update - 19 November 2024
Hello everyone! Late Steam update because of a very busy period with the (full-time) work that pays the bills. Sigil of Kings (SoK) is a passion project, which means that I make it during my spare time, but it also means that I get to make all the decisions and direction (good or bad). Work on the game has been continuous as usual, so here is a longer-than-usual update, which should also hopefully dispel any fear that the game is abandoned! Capsule art In case you didn't notice, the game has now new capsule art, which more closely reflects the game's theme and art style! You can see part of it at the game's Steam page, but here it is, uncropped https://i.imgur.com/rj9ZtgQ.png Linux port, aiming for consoles I've been careful to design the UI with controllers in mind, so that the game can play as well with 1) keyboard only 2) keyboard/mouse 3) controller only. And since my aim is to publ…
- GUI: Character Sheet, Controller Play, Contextual Actions and ... Waiting! - 25 July 2024
Hello everyone! Even more GUI updates this months, focussing on more screens and controller navigation. This time not just in terms of design, as some of the below videos were recorded stricly by playing with a controller. Character Sheet This is a screen that displays information about the character, status, derived stats, skills and attributes. This screen will also be used for levelling up, updating skills and attributes as needed. It will display active status effects on the character (muted, deafened, poisoned, etc), joined factions, renown, and all sort of quantities, eventually also all active enchantments from items, spells or otherwise. It's still work in progress, and will be revisited in the near future! Contextual actions Sigil of Kings is now set to fully support a controller, in addition to keyboard/mouse, so that both modes feel natural! For controller play, it's really u…
- GUI: Inventory, Equipment and Pause screens - 29 June 2024
Hello everyone! More GUI updates for this month, focussing mainly on in-game screens and overlays. The overarching theme is to be able to navigate the menus with a controller, as well as a keyboard/mouse combo; none should be a second-class citizen. Inventory menu There is now a prototype of the inventory menu implemented. It has the following features: The items are presented in a table format, with the different items as the rows, and the icon, name and a few properties (e.g. type, weight, value) as the columns. Items can be sorted in ascending/descending order with regards to any of the columns Selecting an item brings up a context-menu with available interactions with said item (equip, drop, use, etc) We can filter items by category; different categories are shown in different tabs. We can also filter items by contained text; there's a textbox where the player can enter part of an i…
- GUI work - 31 May 2024
Hello everyone! As promised, the monthly digest for Sigil of Kings has arrived. The GUI work has continued, with a number of improvements/additions. First, the video that showcases everything! Note that after the initial setup in the first two screens, shows a nice zooming effect into the world. At 00:28 you can see that the map that you created in the first two screens is really where you're playing in (no tricks!) and you can also see and enjoy the scale of the world! But I digress, back to the GUI updates: Overworld map generation GUI This screen has changed a bit to include biome distributions for generated maps, and it also allows to select random parameters, for repeated rolling of new maps. Society generation GUI There is now a new screen to show the generated societies, after the biome map has been generated. Here, up to 255 cities are generated and distributed on the map, place…
- Regular steam updates, starting today - 4 May 2024
Hello everyone! With this post, I want to share with you the state of the development of Sigil of Kings. I have been working continuously on the project since the creation of this Steam page, and I share weekly updates on various social media (Reddit/Twitter/Mastodon/Youtube - if you are interested in regular, but more technical/design updates, follow me there). Unity to Godot Last September I decided to port the game from Unity to Godot, as I am very invested in this game and I want it to succeed and get out there (to you!), and during this long journey an open source engine as the "vessel" is a more reliable long-term choice. I am happy to share with you that this effort has been completed successfully. This means, I have now changed from "catch up" mode (looking back) to "moving on" (looking forward) again. And it's very refreshing. Steam Regular Updates I wanted to use this opportun…
