ReformistTM checked out Sovereign Syndicate:

SOVEREIGN SYNDICATE Gameplay

The isometric RPG Sovereign Syndicate will be released today:

Sovereign Syndicate

Explore an open world in this Victorian steampunk cRPG. Choose from three playable characters with branching stories that intertwine. Investigate, interact, and take action to leave your mark on the world and its inhabitants. No random stat points here, use your skills to level them up, and trust your fate to our tarot card chance system.

So, how will you solve your problems? Combat, persuasion, magic, explosives? The choice is yours and all your cards are on the table; but be careful, the docklands aren’t for the faint of heart.

Tarot Card Chance System – Leave your dice at home as you interact with a variety of characters. NPC’s react to your gender, race, appearance, and choice of dialogue, so you’d better look and act the part if you want the “right” results. But not everything is certain, luck plays a role and it’s all in the cards with our tarot card chance system.

Skill and Etiquette System - The skills you use will improve your ability, while ignoring others will cause them to stagnate. Master the skills you choose and learn more about the world and its inhabitants to unlock special dialogue and skill-check options.

So go, see, do! And don’t be afraid to try the unconventional. Drown yourself in gin? Sure, provided you’ve got the constitution for it. Smoke that opium? Certainly, but be careful not to doze off - it might not be safe here. Put it all on black? You only live once, as they say. Even in failure you learn something…

A Rich Open World to Explore - A steampunk fantasy-inspired Victorian London awaits; filled with interesting characters and locations. Explore the back alleys, opium dens, brothels, and more at your peril, or relax and enjoy their simple pleasures. Investigate, interact, and take action to forge your own path.

Three Characters, Three Different Stories – Play as one of three characters with stories that intertwine through the city’s docklands and unfold based on your choices.

• Atticus Daley, an orphaned minotaur magician crawling out of the bottom of a bottle to find a sense of belonging, and his next fix.
• Clara Reed, a corsair with a checkered past, and a cunning woman with a rebellious streak. Follow her on a search for vengeance, and the courtesan killer.
• Otto, the trusty automaton and companion of engineer Theodore Redgrave. More than just the sum of his parts, Otto wants more to life than servitude and utility.

Each character has their own mix of skills, equipment, and expertise, and they might just have to work together to succeed. Will you trust your companions, and should they trust you? Not everyone is a hero after all.

Features:

• A large open world to explore, 20 different locations spread over the city’s east docklands
• Three playable characters
• Three intertwined stories to experience
• Branching narrative and dialogue system
• Character customization
• Tarot card chance system
• Single-player
• Optional Hardcore mode
• Multi-language support

Mortismal Gaming reviewed Sovereign Syndicate:

Sovereign Syndicate - Review After 100%

But Why Tho checked out Sovereign Syndicate:

REVIEW: ‘Sovereign Syndicate’ Explores A Dismal But Beautiful London (PC)

Crimson Herring Studios’ Sovereign Syndicate is generally impressive, but it is all the more so as the studio’s first outing. At its core, it is a narrative-focused RPG set in a fantastical steampunk London that uses tarot decks in lieu of dice rolls. On top of those bones, it layers in strong writing, intricate worldbuilding, and a dense web of choices and consequences.

[...]

TL;DR

Sovereign Syndicate utilizes its pacing to gradually pull the curtain back on a world filled to the brim with character and detail. It allows its story to be delicately planned and comes together brilliantly while setting up possible sequels. I for one, will be extremely excited to return to the world of Sovereign Syndicate if any of those sequels come to fruition.

Score: 8/10

Couchpotato spotted some reviews for Sovereign Syndicate:

Gameshorizon: Sovereign Syndicate Review: Brilliant But Difficult To Get Into - Score: 8/10

RPGFan: Review - Score: 76/100

PC Gamer: Review - Score: 80/100

Mortismal Gaming: First Impressions

I Dream of Indie Games reviewed the upcoming isometric RPG Sovereign Syndicate:

Sovereign Syndicate Review - A Tarot Card-Fueled RPG!

Couchpotato spotted an FAQ for Sovereign Syndicate:

Preparing for Launch & Frequently Asked Questions

January 15th Launch Details

Hi Everyone,

The team had a nice break over the holidays but we’re back to work preparing for our upcoming launch on January 15th! Thought I’d take a moment and review some frequently asked questions and let you know about what we’re working on.

When is the game releasing?
January 15th, 2024

Is it 1.0 or Early Access Release?
1.0

What platforms are you releasing on?
PC initially, hope to release on PlayStation and Xbox at a later date.

What storefronts will you be on?
Steam and GOG for sure, talking with some others but nothing confirmed

What languages will be available on release?
English only at release, if the game sells well we'll use some of the revenue to fund other localizations.

Will there be voiceover?
Not at launch, hoping to do this as part of a definitive edition some day if the game sells well.

How long is the finished game
Most players will take 8-12 hours depending on reading speed and the number of side quests they do. There are multiple endings as well, so you'd need to replay a few times to see everything and get all the achievements.

How much will you sell the game for?
$19.99 USD with standard Steam regional discounts and a 10% launch discount.

Does the game work on Steam Deck?
Yes, we’re still waiting for Valve’s Steam Deck build review certification but we’ve built the game with their Steam Deck Development Guidelines in mind and our internal testing has been good.

Does the game have controller support?
Yes

I’m in gaming media, can I get a review key?
Evolve PR is handling our key distribution through their Terminals.io platform. You’ll need to register there and request a key.

Other than that, we’re taking care of some last minute polish items, small bug fixes and such as they crop up. Super Excited to share what we’ve been working on, thanks so much for all your support.

As always, if you’d like to follow our development more closely you can subscribe to our newsletter and join our discord.

[...]

Until next time, Take care!

Couchpotato spotted a story trailer for the upcoming isometric RPG Sovereign Syndicate:

Official Clara Story Trailer

The steampunk RPG Sovereign Syndicate got an update:

Game Update: Controller Support and other Quality of Life Features

More Demo Updates Ahead of Steam Next Fest

Hi Everyone! Exciting times over here, checking in with another game update.

You may have noticed we pushed an update to the demo recently. We’re preparing for the upcoming Steam Next Fest October 9-16th and we’re making sure everyone gets to see the latest and greatest.

We’ve also been working to improve our UI and tutorials and add some quality-of-life features. This includes the controller support, font scaling, and UI improvements you can see in the latest demo. We’re also adding some additional features at a later date, including Twitch integration, Steam achievements, and a frame rate limiter.

As we mentioned in a previous update, we weren’t certain what we would be able to deliver for localization and platforms at launch until recently. Now that we’re further along and have more clarity on our budget, we can commit to an English PC launch. We’re hoping to follow that up with additional languages and platforms depending on the game’s sales. We’ve made the related updates to the Steam product page so users will know if the game isn’t in their preferred language.

We’ve been working hard in QA finishing up the game as of late. We’re now content complete and into the bug fixing and polish stage. We’ll have an announcement with a release date very soon, so stay tuned for that!

As always, if you’d like to follow our development more closely you can subscribe to our newsletter and join our discord.

Until next time, Take care!

Thanks Couchpotato!

Crimson Herring Studios published new gameplay footage for Sovereign Syndicate:

Sovereign Syndicate Exclusive Gamescom 2023 Trailer | New Gameplay Footage

Thanks Couchpotato!

A new demo for Sovereign Syndicate is available:

New Demo Out Now!

Refreshed Demo Release and Patch Notes

Hi Everyone!

We've just released a significant update to our demo, please see below for all the details. Appreciate you taking the time to play and providing your feedback. There's a feedback form on the in-game options menu or you can join us over on our Discord and chat directly with the dev team.

Discord: https://discord.gg/vrVrE3vBSx

GAMEPLAY
- Implemented traits system and integrated with major arcana tarot cards
- Streamlined tarot skill check and level up system
- Vigour and Nerve resources changed to Temperament
- Made inventory items consumable where appropriate
- Improved mouse sensitivity

GRAPHICS
- Improved cinematography to better frame player and prevent occlusion
- Reduced fog and bloom
- Improved real-time lighting and shadows
- Improved navmesh and pathfinding to prevent environment clipping

UI
- Updated dialogue panel with iconography to better communicate changes to secondary systems
- Re-formatted dialogue panel to provide better text readability
- Improved tutorial screens and skill check information presented to the player
- Improved in-game menu screens to better communicate information to the player
- Updated UI to better scale at higher and wide screen resolutions
- Updated player HUD to better display information on current tasks

Until next time, Take Care!

Thanks Couchpotato!

Couchpotato spotted some game design changes for Sovereign Syndicate:

Discussing New Tarot Card and Traits Systems

Game System Design Changes

Hi Everyone, as promised, I’m checking in with another update on the state of the game and some recent changes we’ve made.

As I discussed in the last update, now that we’re further along in development we’re taking some time to re-assess whether the mechanics and systems we’ve developed are fit for purpose and reinforcing the core gameplay loop of exploration, storytelling, and meaningful dialogue choices.

Today I’ll be talking about our changes to the tarot card and trait systems.

Initially we were treating major tarot cards more as an augment to the card draw mechanic, changing how the minor arcana (used in place of dice) were drawn based on which major tarot cards the player unlocked and equipped to their decks. This was an interesting approach; but ultimately it was never as fun as we wanted, and a lot of players were confused by how this system interacted with the chance of success for a given draw.

Going back to our core gameplay loop, we asked ourselves how we could better design this system to provide more meaningful character customization and dialogue choices. As a result, we’ve simplified the card draw system. We’ve retained the minor arcana decks and associating them with the players attributes; but instead of having major tarot influence the card game, major tarot are now used to give your character traits.

This simplifies the card draw quite a bit, drawing one card at a time per attribute and minor arcana deck. The result is an easier to understand mechanic that feels more fair to the player and that allows them to focus more on core gameplay rather micro managing their major tarot equips.

For traits, we’d always been inspired by etiquettes in Shadowrun, specializations that players could select during character creation or earn during gameplay that would unlock special dialogue options and paths through the game. We’d iterated on this quite a bit earlier in development, but it never quite felt right.

Now that we’re using the major arcana cards to unlock traits, we’re able to make character creation and dialogue choices more meaningful and reactive to the player’s choices. With certain dialogue choices gated behind certain traits we’re able to offer more interesting choices in gameplay and provide more replay value as well. I’m really excited about how this change has made the game better and easier to understand.

That’s it for today, in future updates I’ll be discussing changes to the dialogue and UI panels and in-game options, so stay tuned for those!

As always, if you’d like to follow our development more closely you can subscribe to our newsletter and join our discord.

Until next time, Take care!

Cochpotato spotted some upcoming game system design changes for Sovereign Syndicate:

Discussing New Hope and Despair System

Game system design changes

Hi Everyone, it’s been a while since our last update. Wanted to let you know what we’ve been working on.

Now that we’re further along in development we’re taking some time to re-assess whether some of the mechanics and systems we’ve developed are fit for purpose and reinforcing the core gameplay loop of exploration, storytelling, and meaningful dialogue choices. I’ll be going over some of the changes we’ve made in the next few updates.

Today I’ll be talking about our change to the vigour and nerve system which we’re now calling hope and despair.

The inspiration for this started with other two resource game systems like Diablo’s health and mana or Disco Elysium’s health and morale. A standard health / hit points and a second resource that together manage damage and healing and consumption of a secondary resource that was used for some other purpose.

Initially we were designing interactions around having a cost to vigour or nerve depending on the inner voice used for the action, and designing areas, interactions, and consumables to restore or damage these resources.

While this system was okay, we didn’t feel like it was doing a good enough job of reinforcing our core gameplay loop and feeding in to meaningful and variable dialogue choices. So, we’ve redesigned it to a single resource meter that measures your characters level of hope or despair.

This meter is divided into five levels, Hopeful, Optimistic, Content, Weary, and Desperate. Different interactions and consumables still effect this resource; but more importantly the level will affect the dialogue choices you have available. For example, a hopeful character may have different dialogue choices or actions they can take in a given situation than a desperate character would, and these choices are gated behind the hope and despair meter to provide for some choice and consequence.

So far, we’re really liking the change and look forward to leaning into this mechanic to provide some more interesting choices to the player.

That’s it for today, in future updates I’ll be discussing changes to the tarot card system, the new traits system, and the dialogue and UI panels so stay tuned for those!

As always, if you’d like to follow our development more closely you can subscribe to our newsletter and join our discord.

Until next time, Take care!

Couchpotato spotted the April development update for Sovereign Syndicate:

PAX Recap and What's Next for Sovereign Syndicate

April Development Update

Hi Everyone, we’re all back and settled in now after a successful showing at PAX East! Thought I’d take some time and provide an update on where we’re at with Sovereign Syndicate.

I’m really glad we decided to show the game in person. We’d never had the opportunity before, starting the studio during COVID, and I was delighted and humbled by the positive reactions from so many people who enjoyed playing our game. If you were there and came over to see us thanks so much for checking us out and taking the time to play!

The prospect of showing the game in person like that also forced us to work on some additional polish and a re-release of the demo, as we wanted to make sure we were putting our best foot forward to any players, media, publishers, and other vendors. I’m really happy we put the time in and can show off a lot of the changes we’ve been working on since our initial demo release almost a year ago, and the feedback on the changes has been fantastic.

A special thanks to our team that travelled to show in person, and the team at PAX for being so accommodating and generous with their time to make sure we had everything we needed to have a successful show.

We’ll have more on our development roadmap and release plans in the next update; but if you’re interested in learning more about what it’s like to show art an event like this, Isaac and Chris sat down and discussed it for one of our developer blog posts over on our YouTube channel.

As always, if you’d like to follow our development more closely you can subscribe to our newsletter and join our discord.

Newsletter: https://www.crimsonherring.com/newsletter-signup/
Discord: https://discord.gg/vrVrE3vBSx

Until next time, Take care!

A new trailer for the upcoming Sovereign Syndicate demo has been released:

Sovereign Syndicate Steam Demo Trailer - Online at gamescom 2022

Guru Hoca checked out the Steampunk RPG Sovereign Syndicate:

Sovereign Syndicate | Game Review and First impressions (Victorian Steampunk RPG)

Crimson Herrings Studios are launching a public playtest of Sovereign Syndicate today:

New Playtest Launches Today!

Sovereign Syndicate Development Update August 2022

Hi Everyone!

It’s been a few months since our last major update. We’ve been hard at work on the game, incorporating all your great feedback from the last playtest.

We launched a new playtest today with all the latest changes. Head over to the Steam page and download the latest, or just update it if you kept it in your library from last time. The playtest is public and doesn’t require a key.

As I mentioned our last playtest generated a lot of great feedback, both positive and constructive, and we’ve spent the last few months reviewing this feedback and taking action to move the game forward.
Here’s an idea of what you’ll see in the latest version.

• New character creation and customization options
• Simplified skills and character sheet
• Improved tarot card mechanic
• Improved flow and readability of dialogue
• Improved communication of changes to your character, inventory, journal, and tasks
• Improved loading times and framerates

We’re excited about these changes and look forward to your feedback! As always, you can catch us over on Discord if you want to chat and stay up on all the latest developments.

-> Discord

Until next time, Take Care!

Thanks Redglyph!

There's a new trailer for the  isometric steampunk RPG Sovereign Syndicate - a demo is now available:

Sovereign Syndicate Updated Trailer | Isometric Steampunk RPG

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Keep an eye on our steam page over the next few days for a playtest of our upcoming playable demo.

Sovereign Syndicate is an isometric steampunk RPG inspired by games like Baldurs Gate, Disco Elysium, Arcanum and Divinity Original Sin. The game is currently in development by Crimson Herring Studios, a Canadian developer based out of Edmonton, Alberta.

Crimson Herring Studios posted an update about Sovereign: Syndicate.

Development and Funding Update

Major Funding Announcement!

Hi Everyone!

Happy New Year! Hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season. It’s been a few months since our last update but we’re looking forward to a great 2022 for Sovereign Syndicate.

It’s been a busy few months over here at Crimson Herring Studios, putting the final touches on our demo; but I wanted to take a few moments and share some really exciting news.

Our Game has been selected by Canada Media Fund to receive $250,000 in development funding!

Check out the announcement here:
https://cmf-fmc.ca/news/cmf-announces-a-4-4m-investment-through-its-prototyping-program/

We’re really excited about what this means for our community and everyone working on Sovereign Syndicate. Being able to grow our development team and accelerate production means a lot to us. And we’re hopeful this funding will open more doors to additional funding and business opportunities to help make the best possible game for our community.

Thanks again for all your support!

We’ll be releasing our demo to our Discord community soon for some user feedback and QA testing. So head on over there if you haven’t already.

https://discord.gg/vrVrE3vBSx

Thanks Everyone, Take Care.

Sovereign Syndicate has a new dev update.

Sovereign Syndicate Development Update October 2021

Hi Everyone!

It’s been a little over two months since our last development update, wanted to share some of what we’ve been working on.

We continue to be surprised and humbled by the positive response from media and the gaming community. We had an article in PC Gamer that gave us exposure with thousands of gamers, many of whom added Sovereign Syndicate to their wishlists and joined our Discord community. It was great for the game and the community, but also felt really special to have an article in a major publication that I grew up reading and have been a fan of for years.

We’ve also been in talks with several publishers who have shown interest in helping bring Sovereign Syndicate to market. While we haven’t secured a publishing deal yet we’ve received some great feedback that’s helped guide our development efforts and we look forward to continuing the conversations.

We’ve also added some new folks to the development team focused on game design, interactive design, and animation. They’ll help us to better define our tarot card and skill mechanics, improve narrative and quest design, and develop more custom animations to supplement the mixamo animations we’ve been using during initial prototyping. I look forward to working with the team to continue improving the game with the goal of completing a vertical slice demo and having it up on Steam for you all to play by the new year.

Since the last update here are some improvements we’ve made:

New Content:

• Added two additional scenes, working on interactables, NPC’s and dialogue for these “levels”
• Additional original music and sound design

[...]

A teaser trailer for Steampunk RPG Sovereign Syndicate.

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Sovereign Syndicate is an isometric steampunk RPG inspired by games like Baldurs Gate, Disco Elysium and Divinity Original Sin. The game is currently in development by Crimson Herring Studios, a Canadian developer based out of Edmonton, Alberta.

Thanks Farflame!

Couchpotato spotted the steampunk RPG Sovereign Syndicate:

Sovereign Syndicate

Explore an open world in this Victorian steampunk cRPG. Choose from three playable characters with branching stories that intertwine. Investigate, interact, and take action to leave your mark on the world and its inhabitants. No random stat points here, use your skills to level them up, and trust your fate to our tarot card chance system.

So, how will you solve your problems? Combat, persuasion, magic, explosives? The choice is yours and all your cards are on the table; but be careful, the docklands aren’t for the faint of heart.

Tarot Card Chance System – Leave your dice at home as you interact with a variety of characters. NPC’s react to your gender, race, appearance, and choice of dialogue, so you’d better look and act the part if you want the “right” results. But not everything is certain, luck plays a role and it’s all in the cards with our tarot card chance system.

Skill and Etiquette System - The skills you use will improve your ability, while ignoring others will cause them to stagnate. Master the skills you choose and learn more about the world and its inhabitants to unlock special dialogue and skill-check options.

So go, see, do! And don’t be afraid to try the unconventional. Drown yourself in gin? Sure, provided you’ve got the constitution for it. Smoke that opium? Certainly, but be careful not to doze off - it might not be safe here. Put it all on black? You only live once, as they say. Even in failure you learn something…

A Rich Open World to Explore - A steampunk fantasy-inspired Victorian London awaits; filled with interesting characters and locations. Explore the back alleys, opium dens, brothels, and more at your peril, or relax and enjoy their simple pleasures. Investigate, interact, and take action to forge your own path.

Three Characters, Three Different Stories – Play as one of three characters with stories that intertwine through the city’s docklands and unfold based on your choices.

• Atticus Daley, an orphaned minotaur magician crawling out of the bottom of a bottle to find a sense of belonging, and his next fix.
• Clara Reed, a corsair with a checkered past, and a cunning woman with a rebellious streak. Follow her on a search for vengeance, and the courtesan killer.
• Otto, the trusty automaton and companion of engineer Theodore Redgrave. More than just the sum of his parts, Otto wants more to life than servitude and utility.

Each character has their own mix of skills, equipment, and expertise, and they might just have to work together to succeed. Will you trust your companions, and should they trust you? Not everyone is a hero after all.

Features:

• A large open world to explore, 20 different locations spread over the city’s east docklands
• Three playable characters
• Three intertwined stories to experience
• Branching narrative and dialogue system
• Character customization
• Tarot card chance system
• Single-player
• Optional Hardcore mode
• Multi-language support