first village mockups

First screenshots showing how our medieval villages will look. The house of choice was the ‘longhouse’, made from a basic wooden frame with walls made from ‘daub’ (earth and dung!).

‘house breaking’ in medieval times was literal! Fortunately for the owner there was very little worth stealing, a fire the middle of the house to provide warmth and cook with, straw mattresses and some basic utensils. The animals would typically sleep inside, although in their separate ‘byre’.

The houses were so poorly built, with no foundations, that they needed rebuilding from scratch every 30 years or so. As such they were probably very similar in style. Which is very handy for lazy computer programmers;)

Villagers were almost all farmers (either free or slaves owned by the lord)...

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Holgate Windmill gameplay

A short in game demo, walking down holgate road towards the still standing Holgate Windmill (the current structure is not medieval, but it is highly likely that a mill was built on this commanding position just outside the city). The video also shows some weather change tests as well as our trading engine. The voiceovers are temporary and will be replaced in due course;)

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fishing game / castle walkaround

Some fresh in-game footage, featuring our new ‘quest’ system which will allow 100s of mini games throughout the city, and using a radar / indicator UI to help with gameplay.

In this demo, the player starts at York Castle, and decides to go fishing. They need to go through the castle gates first (guarded by the very tough looking but bizarre sounding guards..), and hire a boat at the jetty. Each fish they catch they can eat, or take to the fish market (there were 2 main ones in medieval York) for a tidy profit – b

ut be quick, there is only a short amount of time to catch each one!

Note the comparison with the modern castle – the former gatehouse was completely removed and blocked up in the 19th century when the space be...

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Full city castle fly through

Showing York Castle around 1300, this video is an example of ‘in game’ footage, although for the best views we are allowing the player to levitate(!). Also using our new weather system allowing a change in weather / season, unfortunately also at the moment showing that its snowing inside the great hall of the castle . . .

We’ve included some modern images for context, and Yorks ‘secret castle’ (Old Baille) can be seen in the distance. Unlike the main castle, this was never rebuilt in stone and so today only the earth motte remains.

Watch this space for our new trading engine, allowing the player to buy and sell authentic medieval goods from 100s of traders in and around York!

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new look vegetation / forest system

Our new look vegetation / forest system is up, running and pretty quick! A few in game screen shots including the Forest of Galtres and Holgate Windmill

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Roman York subproject demo

A quick look at our new look android based recreation of the Roman Fortress, complete with a (furniture free) Tribune’s house. These young men from aristocratic families were technically second in command of the entire 5000-6000 men that lived at York. There were 6 tribunes in each legion, and they each had a high status house in the fortress – located just off the main street (Stonegate). To the common solider however they were a joke – literally! The favourite joke of men on patrol went ‘why did the legionnary salute the tribune? Because it was dark, and he mistook him for someone important’.

For a better quality video click here

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GPS 3d map prototype

Testing out a new look 3d map as a layout for GPS based tours

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Merchant Adventurer Exterior Mockups

First look at our new merchant adventurer mockup. The eagle eyed amongst you will spot that Foss Bridge is yet to be built (and ouse bridge for that matter) . . but the hall is shown in its original context – the modern street of picadilly wasn’t built until the 20th century, and although details are scarce its thought there was a busy street underneath it – having good connections to the river and with a pleasant outlook towards the castle. Also now up and running – the ‘fire’ in All Saints church (pavement) which would have guided people lost in the forests towards York, a very crude medieval sat nav!

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Barley Hall Mockups

Located just off Stonegate, Barley hall is a faithful reconstruction of a wealthy medieval townhouse, discovered by chance during rennovation work to a much later building on the site. We’re still not quite sure how we’re going to integrate it into the main game, but as one of the very few faithful medieval reconstructions in the country no medieval game in York could be complete without it -Its also been a chance to fine tune the time of day / weather effects, everything from glorious summer sunshine to a freezing snowstorm!

 

barley hall
barley hall sunset

barley hall overcast
barley hall snowstorm
barley hall rain

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Weather, day timer, Forests, Plants and Snow!

This has been on the todo list for well over a year now, lockdown has really paid dividends – we finally have some really nice looking terrains, forests, vegetation and a weather / day system up and running..some beautiful forests and atmospheric effects that we had to share.

We’ve also managed to line it up so that the night sky looks just like it did in the 14th century with the correct sky map.

These forests will be surrounding the main game play area in York and allow the player to go on quests outside the city walls and out to the villages.

 

 

 

 

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