True King – A Hand-Painted 3D Turn-Based Strategy RPG | DO YOU HAVE THE SOUL OF A TRUE KING?

Description

“True King (prototype) – Heir To The Resurrection” is a hand-painted 3D turn-based strategy RPG for PC platforms.

A hand-painted 3D turn-based strategy RPG.

The King and Queen have been killed. Their newborn child thrown in the river, drowned. The kingdom is now run by a imposter. Years later, you return, the true heir, resurrected. Rumors spread across the land: “has our king returned?”

Travel the open-world fantasy landscape to each town, fighting to free each village from the royal guard. Convince them to join your forces, and challenge the castle with your army. If you fail, be resurrected again, observing the effect your actions had on a evolving population.

Do you have the soul of a true king?

Play as the rightful heir, lead the villages against their royal captors, and prepare to seize back the kingdom. A open-world 3D environment, with turn-based strategy gameplay to free each village from the royal guard.
Stay in favor of the people, or they will not support you as the rightful king. If you perish, be reincarnated again years later, and observe how the kingdom changes from your actions.
(Digitally) Hand-painted characters and environments, pioneering new character-animation techniques.

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Development History

“True King” is a strategy-RPG inspired by games like “Fire Emblem” and “Final Fantasy Tactics.” The developer’s first attempt at making a computer game as a student was of this genre (circa 2008), but after multiple attempts, this game was never finished. Development on the current iteration of this project began in late 2015, with early prototypes of the art design traceable in video as early as 2014. Gameplay design is meant to add new interactive elements (an open-world) outside the normally-linear progression of map battles. The developer also intended for the game to “feel” like an old JRPG, with the ability to move the camera to a top-down perspective for effect. Character animation uses updated techniques of “3D Cel Animation,” built upon past games from Dust Scratch Games.

The game was originally projected to be released in 2017, based on development schedules from the developer’s previous commercial works: “Drew and the Floating Labyrinth” and “Unfinished – An Artist’s Lament.” However, the developer began a full-time position at a different company in 2016 to cover living costs, and production stalled.

A teaser trailer was released on YouTube in 2016, providing a sense of the intended art design.

After a company change in 2017, the developer was able to dedicate more time towards finishing “True King.” He recognized how little time he had been able to work on the game up to that point: “I was exhausted from working over 50-hours every week, never-ending crunch-time. There were periods when I wouldn’t open the game files for months at a time, despite always thinking about it. Even when I found a less-demanding role at a different company, I was traumatized from that experience, and constantly finding excuses to relax and not work on projects when at home, or to work on other things besides programming.” Development began again in earnest in 2018, building off old project files initially saved in 2015. Pushing himself to work 6 hours a week, he estimates that over 300 hours had been spent developing “True King” as of January 1, 2019: less than half of the development time on his previous games, despite being spread out over years instead of months.

“True King” has been shown in its development phases at regular meetings at IGDA (International Game Developer’s Association) – Ann Arbor, Michigan branch in 2019. A demo showing off a new environment art-style was shown in June 2019. The developer stated in May 2019 that the open-world scene was fully traversable, and the first few minutes of gameplay (including strategy-maps) were playable, making up the foundation needed for most of the game’s mechanics. The developer cites the IGDA community (and ability to briefly showcase updates of his work) as a great motivator to finishing new parts of his game regularly. “True King” was on exhibited at GDEX 2019 in Columbus, Ohio.

A new release window has not been confirmed, although development is targeting completion by 2020.

In February 2021, “True King” was announced to release on May 3, 2021. It released on May 3 under the final title “True King (prototype) – Heir To The Resurrection.” Under the acknowledgement that it was still unfinished and buggy, but playable, the game was released for free on Itch.io, and all plans for a commercial release were abandoned. The game would receive “final updates” in the three months following it’s May release.

Unlike previous projects, “True King” was made entirely by one developer (including all aspects: programming, design, art, story, music).

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