Distant Kingdoms

A unique blend of City Building, Social Management, Exploration and Adventure gameplay.
Early Access launch trailer courtesy of Kasedo Games.

A unique blend of City Building, Social Management, Exploration and Adventure gameplay, Distant Kingdoms brings a rich fantasy world to life. Help the Humans, Dwarves, Elves and Orcs of Talam, begin anew in the fabled land of Ineron.

Steam store page overview

Distant Kingdoms is an ambitious socio-economic City Builder set in a medieval high-fantasy world with rich lore. A complex game where the player must satisfy the complex needs of their population, manage  production chains and explore an unfamiliar and hostile new world.

As part of my role as Lead Game Designer – and then Design Director – my day to day included planning and implementing new game features adhering to an internal roadmap, iterating on and re-scoping features to meet deadlines as dictated by production and the publishers, and ensuring the team were up to date on the game’s vision and direction at all times.

In addition, I created UI wireframes and flowcharts, and provided technical specifications to the programmers as well as asset lists to the art team to support its implementation. I also iterated on the game’s UX with feedback from the team, in particular the art lead.

It was important to me that the team felt they had a say in the game’s features, and I always maintained an open floor for suggestions and concerns. If a suggestion wasn’t workable I’d sit down with the developer in question and explained why we wouldn’t be able to take it forward – inversely if a suggestion was taken on board, I ensured the developer received all due credit and thanks.

After the game’s launch into Early Access, I monitored players’ reactions to the game, identified pain points and worked with the publisher to modify the roadmap as necessary, allowing us to pivot and remedy said pain points.

Overview of Work

Design

  • Principal vision holder, ensuring the team was in sync with the overall goals of the project
  • Created the original high-level design of the game
  • Wrote and maintained extensive design documentation, including art and audio asset lists, wireframes and technical spec documents
  • Shared responsibilities with the Narrative Designer to create a rich, vibrant new IP
  • Wrote and implemented numerous lines of dialogue, events and the tutorial
  • Designed, implemented and iterated on the game’s maps

Scripting

  • Worked with the Lead Programmer to set out the requirements for the creation of a proprietary text-based scripting language
  • Created an in-house Syntax Highlighting + Snippet extension for use with Microsoft VS Code to work with the propietary scripting language
  • Implemented hundreds of lines of dialogue, events, modifiers and other elements of game logic using the proprietary scripting language

Platform: PC
Publisher: Kasedo Games
Release Date: April 29th 2021
Role: Design Director
Tools Used: Unity3D, World Creator 2, VSCode, Microsoft Excel, Adobe Photoshop