Nov 5, 2021

Suzerain - hopppi

Citizens of Sordland!

October has been very fruitful with major developments in both our projects. We have neared the completion of our implementation phase and even begun deploying on all operating systems we are targeting to release on for Project #2. However, several larger issues remain. There have been some memory challenges in one of them which we are trying to overcome as we speak. Our focus will be to finish the implementation and starting the testing phase in November.

The unannounced secret project has made massive steps forward with our first environment nearing prototype level completion. We have began sketching the second environment we are going to create. There has been major feature development progress, so we are very positive about the current status of what we achieved. Yet there are some major design hurdles and creative questions that have come up. We are trying to refine the core of what we are trying to build, and it is proving challenging. But we all are excited by these learning challenges which push our studio to improve. We are hoping to be able to reveal more before the end of the year.

We are very satisfied with the Suzerain Switch reviews, as well as with the interest from the Reddit community.

The most recent review on StackUp scores Suzerain on Switch with a 9 out 10.

We ran an AMA on the r/Nintendo subreddit at the beginning of the month, which you can still check out here in case you missed it. We're also planning to run a second AMA on r/NintendoSwitch in the upcoming weeks. Keep an eye on our Discord, Reddit or Twitter to not miss the dates.

On other news, Torpor Games continues to grow with Stijn Verstraete joining as a 3D artist, welcome Stijn!

Originally from Belgium where he studied Digital Arts & Entertainment, and worked for the VR games studio Critical Charm for just over a year, Stijn has joined Torpor as a 3D artist, mostly focused on environment and technical art.

Stijn enjoys telling stories through art, evoking certain feelings and making people think about our world, while making things look pretty.

Join our Discord to read more about Stijn's role and interests!

We look forward to sharing more news very soon!

Check out our Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, Discord and our newsletter to get the latest breaking news for Suzerain.

Vectern sis da!

Oct 1, 2021

September Broadcast

Suzerain - hopppi

Citizens of Sordland! September has been an intense month for us, with many developments and news.

First of all, Suzerain is OUT NOW on Nintendo Switch. Check it out here.

We're very happy with the reception so far, including several mentions in the press!

HeyPoorPlayer: Suzerain Review: Re-elected for a second term on the Switch

Nindie Spotlight: Mini Reviews: September 27th Edition [Nintendo Switch eShop]

Pixel Magazin (German): Das politische Drama “Suzerain” ist jetzt für Nintendo Switch erhältlich

On the 8th of October at 7pm CEST / 1pm EST, we will be holding an AMA on the official r/NintendoSwitch subreddit, come join us.

Suzerain is also part of Tokyo Game Show this weekend, with a -25% discount on Steam running until the 4th of October!

In other news, a new member has joined the Torpor Games team, welcome Kamila Shirinova!

Kamila is joining as Art and Programming Intern and is currently studying Information Engineering. Before that, she studied Computer Science for 2 years and has enjoyed drawing since an early age.

Join our Discord to read more about Kamila's motivations and interests!

Earlier this week, Ata spoke to Riad Djemili, CEO of Codecks, our favourite Project Management tool, about the development of Suzerain in the Game Production Podcast series. Listen to the interview here.

During the month of September, the studio has been very active, with our production capacity nearly doubling, due to Kamila joining the team and other members increasing their commitments. It was also the first time when most of the company was together in Berlin after 3 relocations were completed. It is usual to work with international colleagues online but having most of the team together in our new office is really something else.

This week we have also released our latest patch on GOG including the achievements feature.

After the release of Suzerain on Switch, we are now working on two main production pipelines.

The Suzerain-related second project is now speeding up in the implementation phase as we are increasingly adding more UI elements. Research also has begun on some OS specific subjects. We hope to share some teasers soon!

Meanwhile our second pipeline, the unannounced secret project, is ticking along very well with strong visual concepting and experimentations being concluded. We are also experimenting in a new visual environment, which is very exciting. Narrative design has received an overall push forward with the timeline being detailed and story subjects being documented at the high-level. Additionally we have begun the first UI mockups to begin designing the user experience from a visual and information standpoint.

To support some infrastructure and database questions of a completely new caliber than before, we have reached out to some developers from other games who have helped us raise the right questions and find the right answers. This was very helpful overall and shows the importance of the strong gamedev network as we also help out other developers with their questions.

All in all September has shown a great amount of progress. Looking forward to what October has in store.

Check out our Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, Discord and our newsletter to get the latest breaking news for Suzerain.

Vectern sis da!

Sep 7, 2021

August Broadcast

Suzerain - hopppi

Citizens of Sordland! There have been some important news in August, and we have also some updates coming up very soon.

Here's a little update from the team! As you have heard our Switch release is coming soon on the 23rd of September with pre-orders kicking live on the Nintendo Store on the 16th with a launch discount of -20%!

Mark that date down and tell your Switch friends! At the start of August, we made the final deliveries for the Switch release build. We achieved a high standard of quality for a platform we have never developed something for before. It was a great learning experience that took intense development time from the arrival of the dev kits in early January 2021.

To break it down the timeline looked like this:

Early Research and Design: December 2020 – February 2021
Implementation Tests: March 2021 – April 2021
Design Completes and Implementation Finishes: May 2021 – Mid June 2021
Testing and Polish: Mid-June 2021 – Early August 2021

All in all, we are very happy that this massive challenge for the development team is mostly out of the way. As usual we are already looking forward to updating the Switch version with a small polishing patch after we receive feedback from the players. Gamedev never stops!

Here are some fresh Switch screenshots:

As some challenges end new ones begin. Design work on the secret project has advanced as several feature concepts were laid out by our main designer Ilke with strong collaboration from the team.

Torpor Games is very excited to attempt to break game design norms (succeeding is another story 😉) by experimenting where we can and where it makes sense within the creative vision. Most of experimentation can be thrown away so we are not getting attached but attempting something fresh and new maybe even for the games industry is always exciting. Expect a tease about this in Q4!

Throughout August we worked on two Suzerain patches: 1.1.6 and 1.1.7. Both went live with a list of content updates, balancing, lore improvements, bug fixes and polishing. The two patches both contained 2.5 months of internal changes to the game.

We are happy to have reached a very high standard of quality and stability on the Suzerain PC version. Additionally, we have added Steam Rich Presence with live status updates from the game (some including your biased choices) landing on your profile and friends list. Juan has done a great job supporting the development initiative here.

The long-requested GOG Achievements also made it to the testing phase and once approved by the store should go live in September.

Mid-August we have decided to reset the repository of our unannounced project to start fresh on certain parts to refactor and improve while retaining old code structure to save time on development time. It’s been a bit challenging to get the ground running but we are very excited to have caught up on momentum with our first testable delivery coming internally in the second week of September. This project is key to helping Suzerain reach new audiences and to spread the message of our studio beyond our current reach.

Something else we announced in August is the We live In A Society bundle, which includes games that portray a systematic dilemma with social and political consequences.

You can now get all of this games with a -15% discount:

-Suzerain
-Death and Taxes
-Orwell
-Beholder
-Do Not Feed the Monkeys
-Not For Broadcast
-Mind Scanners

Get the bundle here: https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/22112

Finally, Suzerain has been selected in the official Tokyo Games Show line-up. We're super excited to see so much interest from overseas!

That's all for now! All hands are on deck, and we are cruising forward! We thank for your patience and support.

Check out our Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, Discord and our newsletter to get the latest breaking news for Suzerain.

Glory to Sordland!

Sep 3, 2021

Patch 1.1.7 Released!

Suzerain - Mr. Nowak

Dear Citizens of Sordland,

We hope you heard of our new big announcement at the Indie Houses! We are also releasing another minor patch with a new Steam feature to make your friends see what you are kind of up to in Suzerain!

Steam Rich Presence will now be enabled for all users.

[CLASSIFIED DOCUMENT]
[FOR YOUR EYES ONLY - CONTAINS SPOILERS]

Patch 1.1.7 (03/09/2021)

The patch applies on ongoing games.

Content

Added Steam Rich Presence which displays in-game updates

Balancing

Adjusted tax change conditions
Slight changes to mid-game crisis triggers
Revised some war success conditions

Bug Fixes and Polishing

Fixed a broken link in Turn 05 scandal scene
Changed gender equality situation update to be more actual
Fixed the resignation enthusiasm of Nia Morgna
Minor lore fix in Wehlen Civil War entry
Fixed a wrong Petr death fragment in retirement
Fixed a wrong news trigger for women's rights laws passage
Fixed a wrong Koronti ally comment condition in election speech
Removed wrong title of a PM in newspaper
Fixed several typos in codex, reports and news
Fixed several typos in scenes

Known issues

Lack of Assembly impeachment content

We are super excited to have shared our new platform launch for Suzerain. Take a look at our Discord or Twitter! If you liked Suzerain drop a positive review and spread the word.

[url]

[/url]

Thank you for all your support.

Sign-up to our newsletter to get the latest breaking news for Suzerain or Torpor Games directly in your inbox.

Aug 12, 2021

Patch 1.1.6 Released!

Suzerain - Mr. Nowak

Dear Citizens of Sordland,

Hope the summer has been treating you well. Got some good news, patch 1.1.6 is released! We have been tracking all the bugs for a few months and have fixed all reported issues.

Additionally, we have made some minor lore fixes as we spotted some inconsistencies related to our new secret project. There might be more of these in the future.

As always massive thank you to our dedicated community members who are posting bug reports on our Discord server. Always make sure to read the bug reporting guidelines!

[CLASSIFIED DOCUMENT]
[FOR YOUR EYES ONLY - CONTAINS SPOILERS]

Patch 1.1.61 (15/08/2021)

The patch applies on ongoing games.

Balancing

Increased starting economy by 1
Slightly increased Autonomous zone Bludish opinion bonus
Added stability check for war plan success

Content

Made an improvement pass to Kesaro in the debate scene
In resignation scene Nia Morgna checks more conditions of the new constitution
Added term summary checks to Lileas Discussion in turn 09 and made minor improvements
Some changes on how crime situations are determined
Improved how the Bludish situation was updated in turn 09

Lore updates

Updated WHR codex entry
Updated Lotherberg Group codex entry
Updated a wrong date in the Wehlen Civil War codex entry
Updated Frens Ricter codex entry
Updated Walter Tusk codex entry
Updated Walter Tusk related news entry
Updated Greater Holsord Region entry to have correct adjacent regions
Added image to Gendarmerie

Bug Fixes

Fixed gamebreaking broken link in late briefing scene in turn 03
Added a prevention check for a branch that could be re-triggered with reload checkpoint. It would unintentionally allow both main paths of reform to be enable which broke the game setup
Fixed death date being the same as born date at 1958. Anton can't be reborn again
Fixed wrong naming of Consulate as Embassy in city and country reports
Added additional check to Lucian giving feedback about Marcel in the scandal
Added additional conditions for Lucian's recommendation regarding the extension of emergency
Fixed wrong debate feedback about passing Minority Rights Act by decree
Added slight variation to Leaked Scandals in the situation of impeachment removal by reform
Fixed wrong ACP article trigger when having SSP
Prevented free paid education for Franc if the player had no personal wealth left
Fixed potential wrong trigger related to Soll's Legacy achievement
Fixed bugged Denis character tag in Debate scene
Organized crime can be removed in other ways too now.
Fixed wrong report regarding Koronti after bad things happen to him
Reduced conservative vote support threshold estimate condition in turn 08
Fixed repeat of sentence in Soll trial
Economy feedback scene in mid game checks active economy to budget ratio in more detail
Some fixes in Prologue regarding lore consistencies
Fixed size codes that appeared in the summary screen
Fixed Oligarchs leadership triggers with Marcel
Updated Helji Island achievement description
Nia Morgna should be slightly more consistent regarding the reforms
Added missing alliance checks in certain parts of the Epilogue
Fixed party ranking triggers on certain weird situations where party leadership is hampered
Fixed wrong variable set on Bludish rights bill which caused war and wrong situation issues
Fixed Thank you Serge and 638 ways to Kill Rayne achievement triggers on other endings
Fixed potentially wrong condition for economic damages in turn 07
Fixed wrong city names for Valgsland and Lespia trade scenes
Fixed wrong debate condition regarding Denis accusing Anton of ending people's lives prematurely
Fixed wrong checks regarding which trade talk was attended in the scandal content
Tusk key figures update in Political Overview was synced with Codex update
Leste status during Anrica speech was adjusted for Sollist players
Fixed wrong trigger about Desollinisation in election speech
Alvarez is referred to as Prime Minister everywhere
Corrected several wrong Koronti Lead turn 09 scene checks
Improved some wrong responses in the War Plans scene
Fixed missing turn 05 variable check in turn 09 investigations scene
Fixed Aid naming
Fixed punctuation mistakes and other typos in a dozen newspaper articles
Fixed typos in reports
Fixed dozens of typos in the prologue and scenes

Known issues

Lack of Assembly impeachment content

We are back in the office in Berlin and very excited about our upcoming projects! If you liked Suzerain drop a positive review and spread the word!

Much love from from Torpor Games.

Sign-up to our newsletter to get the latest breaking news for Suzerain or Torpor Games directly in your inbox.