Citizens of Sordland! June has been a productive month for us and we've had some exciting internal developments at Torpor Games! Our design and development sprints on the product pipeline which we shared screenshots about previously has concluded, and we have entered the final polishing phase.
Cheers to Ozgun Kilit, our lead programmer, who is leading the charge on this front. The quality we have strived for will hopefully be appreciated when we finally reveal more information in the upcoming months!
In other news, Daniel Emig has joined the team as a programmer. Daniel studied Game Programming for 2 years, where he gained valuable experiences in multiple student projects on cross-functional teams. Afterwards he worked one year at a motion capture company and helped them create their own first (VR) game, for multiple platforms. Welcome Daniel!
With Daniel joining us we are picking up speed on another product pipeline. Design work has begun, it is a bit too early to tell how the implementation will proceed, since this one is just starting fresh, but it benefits a lot from the knowledge gained from the previous pipeline. Additional support is on the way with our new team member Juan, who will be joining Torpor in July and will push forward this pipeline with Daniel. More on the new team member on the next broadcast.
On the 10th of June we broadcast a live Q&A where we announced our biggest discount ever at -25% in conjunction with our Publisher Fellow Travellers' Steam Sale. Today is the last day to get Suzerain at a -25% discount as part of the Steam Summer Sale.
Another announcement we made during the live Q&A was that we have partnered up with The Life and Suffering of Sir Brante and Yes, Your Grace to bring the Fateful Hour Bundle, which will have a base discount of -15%.
You can check out the recording of the Q&A here if you missed it.
As we enter July, we are organising a community event, the Hearts of Iron IV multiplayer lobby with the Suzerain devs. There is still time until the end of this week to let us know if you'd like to participate. The event will take place on the 23rd and 24th of July between 5pm and 10pm CEST. For more info, join the Suzerain Discord Server.
Finally, our brand-new project has gotten greenlight for prototyping in our local state which means we can experiment on something new without financially putting the company in a high-risk situation. Most importantly it also allows us to hire new talent to push forward what we can do as Torpor Games and be more ambitious.
Ata and Ilke have arrived at Spelkollektivet in Sweden, where they have been working hard on researching detailed concepts and making sure that our core knowledge regarding the overarching subject and themes about this project are sound before the real experimentation begins in the upcoming months.
All hands are on deck, and we are cruising forward! We thank for your patience and support.
CItizens of Sordland, Suzerain is a finalist for the Games for Change Awards, in the Most Innovative category!
In addition to the Most Innovative category, you can vote for Suzerain in the People's Choice Award in the link below: {LINK REMOVED}http://bit.ly/G4C-PeoplesChoice[/b]
You can also register for the Games for Change Virtual Festival, which will run July 12 - 14. The festival will include:
Three days of live-streamed talks, panels, and special announcements from the G4C and XR for Change communities
A series of round table discussions geared toward professional knowledge-sharing
An interactive virtual Expo featuring games, XR experiences, sponsors, and G4C programs.
The XR Immersive Arcade highlighting the newest emerging XR experiences for social impact
The Games for Change Awards Ceremony and G4C Awards Showcase celebrating the 2021 G4C Awards finalists!
Additionally we have teamed up with The Life and Suffering of Sir Brante and Yes, Your Grace to bring you The Fateful Hour Bundle. The bundle will be at its highest discount ever today during its first 24 hours and will be at -15% discount after that.
Finally, if you have missed our live Q&A earlier today, you can check out the recording here.
Citizens of Sordland! We are currently busy working on a few new things we'll announce soon, nevertheless May has brought some news we want to share with you.
First of all: Suzerain has reached 2000 reviews on Steam. Thanks to everyone who has made it possible!
This week we announced our nomination at the Games For Change awards, in the Most Innovative category, as well as the People Choice's Award. You can cast your vote for Suzerain {LINK REMOVED}here. It is a great honour to be considered for such an important award among great company. The awards ceremony will be held on the 12th of July.
And another milestone: Torpor Games has turned 2. We sadly couldn't celebrate in person but managed to find a picture of the three founders from when Torpor and Suzerain were just ideas. Thanks to everyone who has been part of this journey.
In other news, we have a new addition to the team: Irene Preuss has joined Torpor Games as Marketing Manager. Originally from Barcelona, she has been working in the games industry for the last 4 years in business development, event organisation and marketing roles. She's also Marketing Manager of the Berlin-based indie studio Happy Broccoli Games.
We are very glad to have her work with us. Our experience with Irene has been amazing even before this. She has opened many doors for our game and company in the past before the launch, with her wide network and experience in indie-games as well as the Berlin games ecosystem.
The Torpor Games team will be travelling to Sweden this month to spend 6 weeks at Spelkollektivet, a community for indie game developers in the middle of Sweden, where we are hoping to meet other fellow devs, exchange ideas and find inspiration for future plans.
Finally, a brief update on development from the team. We have been working hard on our yet to be announced Suzerain-related project. Our team has moved forward to finalizing the implementation with only a few design tasks left.
Current estimates expect this work to be completed by the end of June after final polish and bug-fixing concludes. So far, two rounds of testing have occurred with positive results. Our initial performance and optimization challenges have also been mostly solved. Here are a few teaser images:
We are very satisfied with the overall experience and hope to reveal it soon to the masses!
On the other hand we have just finalized the concept phase of our second unannounced project. Currently we are seeking new funding resources to be able to achieve a high standard of quality and to alleviate other pipelines in the company. In June we will be starting the actual design phase which will take many months to conclude. We will share more news and updates regarding this in the upcoming months.
Citizens of Sordland! Another month has passed and it’s been quite eventful for us. Here’s an overview of our activities during the month of April:
Suzerain won Best Expert Game at the German Game Awards 2021. This is the highest award recognition a video game developer can be honoured with in Germany and we’re extremely proud. Thanks to everyone for making this possible.
Suzerain is also nominated in 2 categories at the Unfold Awards: Best Narrative and Audience Award, for which we will need your vote: ({LINK REMOVED}Vote here) - winners will be announced on the 20th of May!
Last week we participated in LudoNarraCon, the festival organised by our publisher Fellow Traveller, with several activities, including a developer interview and Q&A, the Sordland Documentary by the Templin Institute, as well as the reveal of the fanart contest results:
@Dy with the drawing of the 4 Presidents
@IngsocDmnt with the Wikipedia page of Sordland
and @Pyrde with the website http://sordish.org/ about the official language of Sordland
The winners have received the high recognition of Artist of Sordland in our Discord Server. Congratulations! Vectern Sis Da!
During the festival, Ata also led the panel ‘Good Stories Must Die’, with renowned speakers Annie VanderMeer (Guild Wars 2), George Ziets (Fallout: New Vegas, Wasteland 3) and Märten Rattasepp (Disco Elysium, Death & Taxes). You can watch it here if you missed it.
Last week, Ata also spoke about Suzerain, Torpor Games and indie game development during the Instagram Takeover of Factory, the co-working space and innovative community our team is part of.
On another hand, PC Gamer wrote a great article about Suzerain and the Novel Not New crew discussed Suzerain during an Abnormal Mapping podcast episode. More reviews also from Movies and Game Tech and the German online magazine Spielbar. It’s an honour to have Suzerain mentioned by so many media outlets, thank you!
Finally a reminder to fill out our merch survey - we’ve started the research for the feasibility of ordering merch so don’t miss your chance to share your thoughts with us!
We are looking forward to sharing more news with you soon! Hope you have a great May ahead. Stay safe and healthy. Vectern Sis Da!
Our publisher, Fellow Traveller is an indie games label publishing innovative story-driven games. Their newest game, The Invisible Hand is out today!
The Invisible Hand is a satirical take on stock market trading, where you’ll be empowered to pursue wealth and success… at the cost of everything else, in a story of finance and personal responsibility.
You begin the game on your very first day at the trading firm FERIOS, a brokerage where they turn a blind eye to breaking the rules as long as you deliver results. Profit is what matters and the rules don’t apply to winners. Plenty of others want your position, so it’s up to you to make money, at any cost.
Congrats on your new job, and welcome to FERIOS. It's time to make some money.
Buy the stocks going up, sell before they go down. Short the ones that are going to fall (or the ones you’re going to make fall). The more money you make, the bigger your commission. And you want that commission, don't you? Well don’t worry, the rewards are limitless, if you’re hungry enough.
We’re one big happy team here at Ferios and nothing brings the team together like competition.
So in the spirit of togetherness you better meet your daily profit targets and beat your coworkers’ results if you want to keep your job. We won’t hesitate to fire anyone who can’t or won’t do what it takes to succeed...
Patch 1.1.5 is released right before the kick-off of LudoNarraCon 2021 tomorrow. It contains some bug fixes and some polish to improve the overall writing quality! Thank you to our dedicated community members who are posting bug reports on our Discord server.
We will also reveal the art contest winners on tomorrow's Dev QA Livestream at 19:00 UTC on the Steam store page here. Make sure not to miss out on the Live Q&A with the developers Ilke and Ata from Torpor Games. Feel free to ask questions in the live chat or on the Discord server question and answer chat.
[CLASSIFIED DOCUMENT] [FOR YOUR EYES ONLY - CONTAINS SPOILERS]
Patch 1.1.5 (22/04/2021)
The patch applies on new games.
Balancing
Early crisis is harder to trigger under certain circumstances
Bug Fixes
Fixed a leaked scandals trigger that would result in a disappearing scene in turn 09
Fixed a missing company bribe variable regarding fulfilment of a promise
Fixed missing set Gender Equality variable in WLA bill
Fixed wrong conditions in the Final Supper scene regarding Deana's school experience
Changed wrong response description for lobbying decision
Improved some PresiPower tooltip text
Improved some MOD reports
Fixed wrong Franc university codex update
Fixed some typos in the summary screen
Fixed a few typos in codex articles
Fixed several wrong responses
Fixed several scene typos and bad wording
Fixed a dozen news and reports typos
If you liked Suzerain drop a positive review. Much love from from Torpor Games.
LudoNarraCon is taking place April 23 - 26, and Suzerain is exhibiting!
You can tune into the Suzerain Gameplay stream right here on the Steam page, at 11am PT Monday April 26 / 8pm BST Monday April 26
About the stream: The Templin Institute, a YouTuber investigating alternate worlds, streams his Suzerain playthrough! Will he turn Sordland into a communist utopia or a brutal dictatorship?
LudoNarraCon is taking place April 23 - 26, and Suzerain is exhibiting!
You can tune into the Suzerain documentary stream right here on the Steam page, at 12pm PT Sunday April 25 / 8pm BST Sunday April 25
About the stream: The Templin Institute, a YouTuber investigating alternate worlds dives into Suzerain, and the history of Sordland before Anton Rayne becomes president. Brush up on your Sordish history before you take the up the mantle of president. Sordland is depending on you. How will you lead?