Exilian

Under The Yoke is a 2D medieval peasant life-sim. Players interact with the world through a series of detailed themed maps and menus with which they work, eat, politic, marry and die.

Beginning the game by filling in your entry to the Domesday book, you can customise your starting character's name, skills, personality and appearance before entering the world.

Starting out as a mere serf, you must make do with your meagre allotment of land and small hut. With the game's only loss condition being the end of your bloodline your goals are your own to make.

Will you drink and gamble your way into the hearts of your fellow villagers and into positions of respect in the village hierarchy? Brown nose your way into the respect of your lord, increasing your allotment of land and perhaps one day your freedom? Develop your home into a near cottage industry factory? Fall in love and live a simple life of subsistence farming with your family?

Under The Yoke aims to model medieval life as authentically as possible, from a tax system that includes payment in kind and merchet, to the complicated legal proceedings of the Hallmote, to the open field system and yearly crop rotations.

Part of modelling medieval life is the medieval village, live and grow with 10 other families through the ages, make friends, intermarry, usurp them from positions of power and interact with them in the dynamic event system.

At times you will often be confronted with unique events, either about historical events as they played out at the time, or a dilemma for you and a member of your family to resolve. Should you eat the berries from that bush or maybe do a taste test first? If you're not too skilled with herbs and if your character is mean, maybe they can convince someone else to try the berries first.

Under The Yoke spans hundreds of years of medieval history as your family passes from generation to generation and as we near the end of development I'm excited to share more with those of you who are interested.

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Hey, hey everyone. James has asked me to start posting about my latest and largest project Under The Yoke, a medieval life-sim from the perspective of peasants.

Some of you may remember me from Coding Medieval Worlds 2/3, or from the Jolly Boar Inn meet-ups where I make hilarious puns, but for those of you that don't know me, I am Owen of Priory Games an indie/solo developer of medieval games. www.priorygames.com (http://www.priorygames.com)

As I say in the post, after 2 years, Under The Yoke is reaching it's final stages of development and with finalised assets being added to the game there's a lot more I can finally start showing you guys.

This sounds like so much fun! Both from a "learning about medieval life" perspective, and in that it sounds like the sort of game I'd deeply enjoy to relax with and Not Panic about the world. I shall keep an eye out for its development!

I've had an eye on this on Twitter. Looking forward to seeing more! Great concept.

I've been mentioning UtY to some people at the International Medieval Congress this year and there's definitely interest here too - lots of people interested in doing more with giving people views of medieval peasant life :)

Thanks everyone for your responses so far! It's been a massive project for me so to finally get to the stage where there are things to talk about and stuff to show (nearly) is really exciting.

Firstly, oh my God how has it been 3 months (to the day) since I first posted. Secondly, the game finally has a Steam page! I missed the window for getting the demo up (by quite a bit) but will have a demo for all of you to play in the new year, for now, please go and check it out: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2592060/Under_The_Yoke/

Fantastic! Wishlisted. ;-)

Also wishlisted :)

Is the trailer on YouTube as well as Steam?

Hey everyone, sorry it's been so long since I updated this thread. I just wanted to let everyone know that there is now a free demo available to play here: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2592060/Under_The_Yoke/
I hope you all enjoy!

I gave it a spin last night. Seems like it's coming along nicely. Lovely art. Really nice work on the little icons.