Crown of Greed Interview – Steam Demo Expected In October

August Maciejkowicz: Crown of Greed is a strategic game based on the unique management of units compared to other RTS games. What does this mean? Well, the player can’t simply select a unit and give it orders like go, do, fight. One of the challenges we’ll face is persuading the inhabitants of the world of Rodovia to our will, mainly through gold.

The player builds new structures in the city, which in turn may grant access to recruiting units. There will be around ten diverse classes of heroes available, each with their own “free will,” making the gameplay quite unpredictable. Each hero class has several imposed traits that affect things like approach to exploration, combat, types of enemies, or activities in the city.

Balanced kingdom development will require blacksmiths, markets, or potion shops, all of which provide equipment to heroes. Players can influence heroes by giving them appropriate tasks – of course, they won’t be willing to lift a finger until the player pays the right amount of gold.

The world will be maintained in Slavic atmospheres, and the architecture and heroes will be a convergent response to the newer times of the Middle Ages relative to the Slavs. The game will offer a campaign with around 15 unique scenarios, during which the player will uncover the secrets of the succession of the throne of the world of Rodovia, along with all the horrors that come with it.

The campaign will also offer some degree of technological development, expanding their kingdom, so there will be similar mechanics to those found in games like Starcraft II.

August Maciejkowicz: The main inspiration was, of course, the Majesty game series, which introduced the mechanic of free movement on the map for player units. To a lesser extent, games from Blizzard, such as Starcraft and Warcraft 3, also had an influence on the game. However, Darkest Dungeon was a great inspiration, particularly in aiding the design of the characteristic and trait system, which significantly enriches individual gameplay compared to Majesty games.

August Maciejkowicz: Builders of Greece was our first project, which allowed us to gain a broader perspective on the new games we are currently creating. Working on BoG provided us with a lot of knowledge, especially regarding graphic optimization of buildings and other models.

Both productions are strategies that also give us a lot of programming knowledge to draw from. From the beginning of production, we were able to address issues we encountered in our previous game that we couldn’t fix. We certainly pay more attention to replayability and depth of gameplay now.

August Maciejkowicz: We are planning to release in the second quarter of 2025. However, this year, you can expect an open demo version, which will most likely debut at Steam Next Fest in October.

August Maciejkowicz: There is currently a significant deficit in productions similar to “Majesty.” Generally, after the second installment, nothing has emerged that offers gameplay of this kind. Looking through the current offerings of strategy games, there isn’t a similar one that offers what Crown of Greed will have.

Our assumptions seem to be confirmed because we see tremendous enthusiasm and interest in our title among fans of the genre. Even now, despite being in a fairly early stage of game production, we are gathering a growing community of players from around the world around it. We have also strived to differentiate ourselves graphically from the competition, which, so far, we have been successful at while maintaining gameplay clarity.

August Maciejkowicz: Heroes in combat will operate with several skills; currently, each class will have seven of them. The game will feature many types of enemy units, and sometimes they can vary significantly in their attacks or resistances, so some hero classes will focus on close combat, dealing significant damage and causing various effects such as bleeding, burning, or stunning.

There will, of course, be archers in the game who will eliminate successive enemy hordes from a safe distance. There will also be mages or heroes whose skill set will allow them to be considered support, relying on casting spells, curses, or summoning magical beings.

Additionally, the player will receive the ability to develop spells and then will have the option to use them on the battlefield if they have the required amount of gold.

August Maciejkowicz: As mentioned earlier, heroes will travel across the map depending on their specific characteristics. Hunters will be more willing to visit undiscovered lands, Knights will defend the kingdom’s borders, Rogues will seek opportunities for profit, and Berserkers will seek opportunities for battle.

There will also be a class that exclusively hunts living creatures on the map. In the city, there will also be differences in behavior; heroes will be able to gather in teams, shop, or drink in the tavern, while some will shun society and flee far beyond the safe confines of the castle.

Sometimes heroes will behave irrationally; for example, someone with a habit of kleptomania will steal from allied structures, and a glutton will be addicted to cookies sold at the marketplace.

August Maciejkowicz: We’ve been working on the game almost since the beginning of 2023. The biggest gameplay challenge is the AI of the units, which is constantly evolving. Just like in the final gameplay, even in our current development phase, it is sometimes unpredictable, but not always in the way we would like, of course.

This system gives soul to the whole world, and we are doing everything in our power to make the player feel that the in-game world is cohesive and truly lives its authentic, engaging life. The game will also feature a huge number of variables that will ultimately affect the replayability of each subsequent playthrough.

August Maciejkowicz: Unfortunately, the current size of our team does not allow us to take the risk of creating a multiplayer version for the game’s launch. However, we do not know how the situation will evolve after the launch and what demand players will have for this mode of gameplay.

August Maciejkowicz: After the launch, we certainly plan to continue development. A good choice would be to create an expansion with new maps or heroes. We have ideas for many additional features or the expansion of current ones, but we are not able to finalize them so far ahead of the premiere.