Going Medieval Early Access PC Preview

Going Medieval from Foxy Voxel is a construction simulator with survival elements based in a medieval-style world. By default, the game features two scenarios: the first with three people during spring and the other a lone survivor in winter, respectively. Players can also adjust the frequency of enemy raids and the overall difficulty. However, Going Medieval’s real saving grace is the custom scenario where players can pick the amount of starting characters, supplies, and other conditions. All settlers are random, with different skills and quirks that give bonuses or penalties. While elders may have more skills, they are also years closer to death’s door. New players will want to aim for at least a decent builder, scholar, cook, and/or archer.     

Players can select to settle in open valleys, near the base of hills, or in rugged mountains. Each map type has different resource advantages, ranging from better plant soil or precious metals to mine. Conversely, a zone may be scarce of necessary materials and will need to be rationed. This is compounded by the seasons and weather effects. Spring is a good time to grow plants, but the rain may make it harder to work outdoors. Summer’s heat can cause items to mold and become rotten, autumn will reduce growth, and the world will outright freeze in winter. Players will need to prepare their settlement accordingly, or face problems down the line.

 

The settlers have basic needs including food, sleep, entertainment, faith, and thirst. Players will want to construct a means of cooking like a fireplace and butchery table, along with bedding and holy shrines. At first only foraging for mushrooms and berries is an option, but by advancing through an extensive technology tree the settlement can learn agriculture or bow crafting to hunt wildlife - melee weapons have a chance to mutilate the carcass beyond use and leave the hunter vulnerable to counterattacks. Oddly, no maps in Going Medieval feature any body of water like a lake or stream. Instead, settlements will have to brew beer, ale, or wine to quench the population’s needs. Not satisfying villagers may cause them to become unhappy, be less effective at work, or eventually abandon the group.

Each person can be given a schedule of times to work, sleep, or relax; along with which tasks are the most important - with rankings of first to fifth or to never do the task type. On a macro level, players do not give individuals specific assignments (though there is a direct option to temporally switch their top priority) and instead mark jobs for the entire settlement, with each person deciding if they are well suited. Certain jobs also require skill rank thresholds of ten or more. This can lead to some settlers bouncing all over the map, as their logic flow might dictate that they mine or hunt vastly different areas. It can also result in jobs not being fully complete, as a farmer may cut their harvest but leave it in the field, and the cook may be too busy to gather them properly as needed; or a multi-story building may be missing an entire wall as the ceiling is deemed more important.

 

Settlements can learn new upgrades via writing research in the form of chronicle books. Each new technology requires a different amount of research, and several advancements are gated by older tech. For example, making metal melee weapons requires both smelting and blacksmith. However, unrelated research may be an indirect necessity down the line. Players may want to create a clay hearth for cooking, but realize they can’t craft the materials since they haven’t studied weaponry. Research can take a long time, even if the settlement has a dedicated intellectual. To speed things up, players may want to prioritize multiple people to the job, even if they aren’t the brightest. 

Everything in Going Medieval will eventually die, decay, and decompose. This even includes books, equipment, and wood if not properly stored indoors and in a cool area. Simply leaving any item on a natural surface will cause them to lose hit points and rot. This can be especially annoying at the start of the game, as any chosen items will be sprawled all over the dirt. This is also true of enemy loot, which needs to be individually picked off the ground and placed into a stockpile. This means players will need to build many large rooms or entire buildings just for their growing collection. Even with storage, some items only last for a few days or a week, especially food. By learning to preserve vegetables and smoke meat, their life can be extended to months or even years. To help conserve items, players should highly plan when to plant, harvest, and hunt to avoid wasted supplies or lack of material.

 

Several events can occur as the settlement builds up. People may ask to join the village, while others may be refugees looking for safe haven. These new members may be injured or sick but can help the town once they recover. But most often it will be raiders coming to attack. At first, it may be a group of bandits, but over time it will become armored knights with trebuchets. Players can draft a militia group together for battle or build traps and other defensive structures. The fight will last until one side is killed or flees. Regardless, there will be injured who need healing, along with corpses the settlement should bury or burn to ash.

Even in early access, Going Medieval has a lot to simulate the experience of surviving as a band of fledgling settlers. It is still missing some possibly good features like easier micromanagement of jobs, a more condensed material flowchart, customized settlers, and hands-on tutorials instead of text. It is also rather immersion-breaking that water (along with marine life) and rain can’t be utilized at all, instead of being fully replaced by alcohol. Still, it is likely that some of these could be included in updates. This makes Going Medieval worth it for any fan of both city-building and survival games.
 

Kurtis Seid, NoobFeed
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