Suzerain - political simulator & RPG hybrid by Torpor Games - now with Kingdom of Rizia DLC

[Trymon]

So I'm considered a radical centrist by the people, my Foreign affairs minister told me ...

Spoiler

-Agreed to control media with Marcel , as we all see how well it works IRL (tho i could only privatize 2 of the Big 4, the construction company and the mining one, never heard of the 2 others)

-Went alliance with ATO, and everyone in the region except the Commies (would have liked to help more that not-Saddam dude, seemed pretty chill)

-Took all the nationalist bills against the Blud, assimilation must continue if we are to be truly one nation ! (nearly got lynched at remembrance ceremonie of that Blud troublemaker, that'll teach me)

-Nearly destroyed the economy with the feminist bill, but gotta keep that mariage going lol

-Got like 90% of the vote for my new constitution, went middle road, conservatives and progressives loved me it seemed, well i didnt met much resistance for anything, even the supreme court and Soll appearance.

-Sent Franc to not-Harvard, then saw he took art studies... regret not sending him to military school

-Was surprised my health minister resigned , told me i can't stand with you after what you've done... uh care to be more specific ? no ? well bye then.

Overall went Mr nice guy, polite 90% of the time, but still harsh on some issues, like my VP (Rip) and my secretary
In the end, i dont think i went through much of a crisis, no plague, no war, no coup, no black tuesday, hell in my second term we could achieve superpower status and solve all problem without much blood shed

Very enjoyable game, lot of reactivity to your decisions it seems, so for sure i'll play it again with other choices.

 

[Marat]

So I'm considered a radical centrist by the people, my Foreign affairs minister told me ...

HA! You cuck! I bet you watch mainstream news!

i could only privatize 2 of the Big 4, the construction company and the mining one, never heard of the 2 others

The other two are private already. You get to nationalize them in planned economy run.

Was surprised my health minister resigned , told me i can't stand with you after what you've done... uh care to be more specific ? no ? well bye then.

Taking the media deal seems to be enough for him to leave, no matter the state of the nation or healthcare in particular.

Very enjoyable game, lot of reactivity to your decisions it seems, so for sure i'll play it again with other choices.

This game REALLY needs a fast-forward option. The first three or four chapters are always identical, the choices only come into play later, but the beginning always takes forever to click through.

 

[vota DC]

I won with emergency decree and massive cheating, since infinite budget was too honest I even took both highway and railroad, all regional investment, both modernisation and enlargement of the military and of course I chosen army, airforce and navy!
Killed some people (not just with secret police but also with capital punishment) and nationalised everything but still ended the game as a centrist (just a little left from Petr) despite people calling me die hard sollist ingame. Not sure, maybe because trick to keep wife and not piss bluds? I haven't reformed that much stuff, I even kept soll education and creationism.

 

[cyborgboy95]

New project annoucement soon!
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1207650/view/3023584435541415875

May Broadcast​

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 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.

Thank you for being there, stay safe and healthy.

Vectern sis da!

 

[Parsimonious cook]

Wonder if it will be another political sim or something entirely else...

 

[Infinitron]

Ata from Torpor Games is going live to answer the latest questions from the community and give some updates regarding latest developments.

 

[Ibn Sina]

Going full autocrat route and passing my absurd totalitarian constitution in the Parliament by 1 vote that basically made me king of the country for life was the most fun I have had in a while.

 

[Butter]

Just finished this. It's really not an RPG, but it's a blast. A bunch of Steam reviewers are completely fucking retarded and complain about the forced iron man mode. You have to just go along with the story and enjoy the ups and downs. I got impeached and imprisoned for life, I reluctantly sided with the commies, I alienated my entire family, and I caused the death of my close friend. Being able to reload and fix everything for the "best" ending wouldn't have been half as enjoyable.

 

[Lhynn]

It's really not an RPG

Infinitron be useful. Move this shit to another subforum, anywhere is fine, even the politics subforum.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

RPG Codex has adopted the position that in Current Year any game is an RPG if it identifies as one.

 

[GrafvonMoltke]

Still only 25% off in the sales; what a gyp.

 

[ELEXmakesMeHard]

Started playing this yesterday, just finished my 1st playthrough. Decided to be a rabid capitalist and sell out my country to the oligarchs & the West. Got divoced & impeached. But in my defense I also closed borders, oppressed minorities, and stood firmly against feminism.

Spoiler

I'll start an autocratic Sollist playthrough tomorrow, to purify the nation.

 

[ELEXmakesMeHard]

Started playing this yesterday, just finished my 1st playthrough. Decided to be a rabid capitalist and sell out my country to the oligarchs & the West. Got divoced & impeached. But in my defense I also closed borders, oppressed minorities, and stood firmly against feminism.

Spoiler

I'll start an autocratic Sollist playthrough tomorrow, to purify the nation.

Just finished my 2nd incarnation. I went against all my instincts on the economy, and consistently sucked Soll's cock. Ended up suiciding myself as my nation was invaded by Rumsburg. Had invested heavily in my military, but had no allies, and the pincer maneuver apparently didn't serve us well. But it's not the final outcome that counts -- it's the people you trigger along the way -- and the Soll-cock-sucking approach triggered exactly the right people. So I at least had that going for me, which was nice.

Spoiler

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

Since you went full Malenyevist, you might as well have obtained an alliance with Valgsland and Comrade Hegel.

 

[ELEXmakesMeHard]

Since you went full Malenyevist, you might as well have obtained an alliance with Valgsland and Comrade Hegel.

I met with him to discuss trade. But despite my full-retard planned economy, he hated my guts and kept insulting me. I think it was because of how I kept prolonging the state of emergency, and banned Red Youth (I was playing a commie-hating Sollist).

Think I'll do a 3rd playthrough. Gotta achieve a successful ending. Might do a Donald Rumsfeld playthrough next -- economic liberalization, strong military, western alliance, some pragmatic reforms & de-sollinization, and 100% ethical.

 

[Nano]

I'm guessing the writers were inspired by that little incident with Putin's dog.

 

[Marat]

There is a scene where you can tell an oligarch "give me back my pen". Clearly a reference to Deripaska. The game is choke-full with various references to real-life political figures and their witty quips.

 

[cyborgboy95]

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1207650/view/2958288020008743829

July Broadcast​

Citizens of Sordland! Another month has passed and we can share a little bit of what we've been working on.

Our team has been diligently continuing working on several different product pipelines throughout July. We made solid progress on the design of two of them. One is being led by Daniel while the other is being led by Ilke. Our new programming intern Juan’s integration to the pipeline with Daniel has been smooth and we have seen a picked-up speed which we will reap the progress benefits of already this month. In that specific one we are looking at finishing design and setup in August to be able to enter the implementation phase.

Ilke has been working hard on game design for the pre-production and figuring out how best to place certain gameplay elements with their bespoke characteristics and traits in our upcoming prototype phase. This is for the project we received funding for, so we are super excited to attempt something different.

Ozgun and Ata have concluded the development and testing of the pipeline that we had shared screenshots from in June. Our publisher has given us some solid feedback and some QA support. We also had some quality assurance and feedback support from a professional developer for a week. Urzsula Kunarska provided valuable user experience feedback and bug reports to help us achieve a good amount of polish. We are satisfied with the quality of what we developed after spending more than half a year on this product. Very excited of what the user reception will be!

We made a graph of all the different pipelines for a better overview:

We will start revealing some of these products very soon - the next announcement for Project 1 will be at the end of this month! So, sign up to our newsletters[mailchi.mp] and our other socials[discord.com] to get our latest news.

A few weeks ago we welcomed Juan Franco Lagar as the new Programming and QA intern. Juan was born in Argentina and moved to Spain at an early age, and already as a teenager he discovered he wanted to work in games. After finishing high school he moved to Germany where he is studying Game Design at the University of Europe for Applied Sciences and is interning at Torpor as part of his studies. Welcome Juan!

On the 23rd and 24th of July we organised a community event, the Hearts of Iron IV multiplayer lobby with the Suzerain devs. We had a lot of fun with the campaign thanks to our great community.

We want to highlight that there were so many players who role-played and took the rules to heart ensuring it was a more social game with lots of negotiations and exciting developments.

All in all we call the community event a success and might consider more in the distant future. Many thanks to all players who joined and provided some good entertainment.

A special thanks to Kay for organising the event.

A few weeks ago, we did an interview with Kevin Fox from Paste Magazine last week about the development of Suzerain. You can read the full interview here[www.pastemagazine.com].

We are also extremely proud to have won the People's Choice Award at the Games for Change Awards[www.gamesforchange.org].
This would not have been possible without all your votes and support. We thank you deeply!

Finally, we are back in Berlin from spending six weeks at the indie game dev collective Spelkollektivet[www.spelkollektivet.com] in Sweden. It was an amazing experience and we can't thank all their members enough for their hospitality, love, comedy and the experiences we shared.

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

 

[fantadomat]

I am tired of half arsed unfinished games being released.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

I am tired of half arsed unfinished games being released.

Suzerain was playable enough in its initial release; the chief drawback was insufficient granularity and depth to certain routes, but they've continued improving the game in patches, so that now, for example, there are two different ways for a neutral/isolationist Sordland to thwart the Rumburg invasion, with success depending on consistency of choices relating to military preparation and wartime strategy.

 

[fantadomat]

I am tired of half arsed unfinished games being released.

Suzerain was playable enough in its initial release; the chief drawback was insufficient granularity and depth to certain routes, but they've continued improving the game in patches, so that now, for example, there are two different ways for a neutral/isolationist Sordland to thwart the Rumburg invasion, with success depending on consistency of choices relating to military preparation and wartime strategy.

As i said,it is unfinished,as you clearly stated too. I know that it was playable,i even finished it lol. The biggest problem is that the game is about reacting to things while lacking any initiative or ability to act. You can't initiate anything really,even diplomatic things.The whole game is about something happening and you making a choice lol. Another problem was all the cut/deadend story lines. Something interesting happens and promises to develop future only to be never mentioned again. Annoying thing is how impotent you are in many decisions,like losing your daughter to your sjws harlot and being able to do nothing. The wife should have been a choice and not a premade bitch that most players would hate.

 

[zool]

The biggest problem is that the game is about reacting to things while lacking any initiative or ability to act. You can't initiate anything really,even diplomatic things.The whole game is about something happening and you making a choice lol.

That bit I agree with, and that's a compartment where Hidden Agenda gives you much more leeway.

On the other hand, calling the game an half arsed unfinished game on release is just retarded.

 

[Ehrenmann]

I played the game for a bit, but got the impression the consequences are a bit arbitrary. It's more of a "chose a path and see what happens."

Maybe I judged the game too early though.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

As i said,it is unfinished,as you clearly stated too. I know that it was playable,i even finished it lol. The biggest problem is that the game is about reacting to things while lacking any initiative or ability to act. You can't initiate anything really,even diplomatic things.The whole game is about something happening and you making a choice lol. Another problem was all the cut/deadend story lines. Something interesting happens and promises to develop future only to be never mentioned again. Annoying thing is how impotent you are in many decisions,like losing your daughter to your sjws harlot and being able to do nothing. The wife should have been a choice and not a premade bitch that most players would hate.

We're all aware that Suzerain is really a CYOA that tracks a number of variables but is not remotely an RPG.

One limitation of this design is that it wouldn't have been feasible to give the player a choice of wife, because the amount of rewriting for the relevant scenes would have been prohibitive for the benefit provided. Though I should note that the wife's feminism also functions as a trap for unobservant players to torpedo their popular support by embracing policies that have limited appeal in Sordland.

On release, there were a few areas that needed further work, as I noted in my second post in this thread, to which you assigned a

rating, but the developers to their credit have continued to improve their game, which was already an impressive effort for the kind of game that it is.

 

[fantadomat]

On the other hand, calling the game an half arsed unfinished game on release is just retarded.

Which part? The games was clearly unfinished on release,from the looks of things it is still unfinished. Otherwise they wouldn't have gotten that much new content. Clearly the dudes run out of money and decided to push it out unfinished but finishable. Sure it is a passion game and good one,but still unfinished.

We're all aware that Suzerain is really a CYOA that tracks a number of variables but is not remotely an RPG.

Sure,still no reason not to criticize its low points. The game would have been better with the things that i pointed out.

One limitation of this design is that it wouldn't have been feasible to give the player a choice of wife, because the amount of rewriting for the relevant scenes would have been prohibitive for the benefit provided. Though I should note that the wife's feminism also functions as a trap for unobservant players to torpedo their popular support by embracing policies that have limited appeal in Sordland.

I agree...tho i do agree that benefits would have been big. After all it is a game about immersion and making your own way while navigating it. Choosing a wifu sounded the most logical thing in the game,you chose everything else and did play in your future story,so it makes sense to be able to chose a wifu.

to which you assigned a

rating,

Well yeah,it needs rework,but i find optimistic to expect it.