RiftMode
Wild fog swamps the uncharted edge of a brutal, estranged world. Here, raw wilderness is my greatest threat. My realization that I must establish a thriving settlement in this space hinges upon successfully handling daily survival and navigating an intricate network of resources, everyday projects, and financial outlay. Balanced timber reserves of fallen trees and the building of simple dwellings of rough-hewn stone offer immediate shelter to newly arriving settlers. Markets, mines, large farm holdings, and lumber mills very rapidly fill chests with foodstuffs and timbers to build and repair the physical perimeter of my emergent community. The simple watchtower of rough-hewn logs, even higher when successfully built as a heavily masoned fort, helps to defend this boundary from all manner of creeping creatures. Governance of this domain comprises material wealth and defensive capability, realized by administration of a court of dignitaries. I distribute amongst them various trusted advisors to sway between different governing factions as I assess in great detail their varying benefits to the entire system. As with all things, however, my tenuous hold on this space is frequently and without warning shattered by sudden episodes of illness or worse, sudden complete madness that sends all of my carefully laid administration into instant complete chaos. As if external events weren’t enough to continually test my iron resolve to survive and flourish in this bizarre and wild place, I am from time to time granted unexpected, miraculous and therefore inherently uncertain harvests. Sometimes, patrolling knights, emerging from the mysterious tree-line in the midst of the densest, blackest of fog, are forced upon me to make yet further hasty decisions as to whether I must admit desperate new refugees to the safety of my perimeter, or slaughter them forthwith as nothing more than dangerous, malevolent revenants. And then there is the glow of a single egg, discovered half-buried in the forest floor. Is this amazing and deeply, newly wondrous item a good omen, one that will manifest in some immediately obvious and very desirable fashion to bring great, and lasting prosperity to all of my people, or is it some quite different, and far more malevolent artifact – something entirely capable of the complete and utter bringing down of everything that I have worked so tirelessly to build?
In turn, every apparently minute decision made to organize the seemingly endless piles of cards of various types, plus manage and negotiate the day-to-day struggle to obtain and allocate the basic physical resources required to sustain life here, has seemingly immediate and very great effects upon this community of people to generate in turn the most profound, and far-reaching of effects upon the individual himself. Discreet, and secretly corresponded with in their many missives of intrigue, other, entirely mysterious figures from outside of this simple world go yet further in testing my nous and corruptibility by negotiating in our secret correspondence to offer me as yet unknown and so very great favors, which in turn manifest in mysterious, sealed letters of seemingly heavy content that arrive clandestinely at my door in all hours of the day and night – only for me to struggle in turn with the heavy moral burdens of the deeply dubious nature of their true, underlying motives and purposes to be forced into making a series of perhapsonseuingly catastrophic choices that determine the course of my entire journey and sharply diverge into completely different and surely equally magnificent ways in which I might go on to develop this place and all of its inhabitants. It goes without saying that all of this is perfectly realized upon the surface of this wonderfully simple, beautifully abstracted tabletop, upon which are fought out in Fraisch-esque detail my very greatest struggles. Yet, upon closer inspection of this charming and beautifully painted terrain of physical pieces upon a very essentially simple board of beautifully hand-carved, interlocking wooden cubes, I begin to sense an apparently unnoticed shift in point of view, to be increasingly drawn into some first-person, utterly engaging and totally fantastic ‘other world’. The physical board of cards, coins and tiny wooden figures of peasants and travelers that comprise this game is in fact but the palest of thin disguise for something so very, very much greater. And so it is that while I focus upon the very painstaking, and so very tedious task of shifting the cards of this game in all of their seemingly minute and fractional variety from one place to the other upon its surface to bring about the slow, and so very gradual evolution of this most delicate of balanced systems – I am, at the very same time, powerfully and little by little drawn to the fully engaged and all the more ‘real’ first-person reality that lies beyond. With every newly made decision and corresponding action, upon this surface, between and upon which I toil in such silently laborious depth, the borders which so clearly and distinctly separate ruler from game – and that most uniquely specific game from fully realized, exotic world – begin very slowly to dissolve and disappear before my very transfixed eyes to be replaced by nothing whatsoever, in effect – by nothing at all.
Features include:
- Play cards and manage resources to build your settlement and keep your people happy and thriving.
- Face moral choices and unpredictable events that threaten peace.
- Choose your political allies (Curtes) carefully and encounter mysterious figures offering quests that shape your destiny through branching paths and difficult decisions.
- Buildings and Resources – Gather wood, stone, and coins to expand your village. Collect food to feed your villagers and keep them happy. Manage your resources wisely: build Residential Structures – like houses and manors – to grow your population; Productive Buildings – like farms, markets, mines, lumberjacks – to collect resources; Military Structures – like towers and fortresses to defend.
- Curtes and Politics – The Curtes is the heart of your domain: your government. It’s your task to assign the right characters to each role within the Curtes.
- Each character brings their own trait and effect: use their powers wisely to serve your strategy and try to build a politically aligned faction with similar traits to unlock powerful bonuses.
- Event cards – Your village will face strange and sudden events. A miraculous harvest: gift from the heavens or ancient curse? Knights in the woods: refugees or revenants? A strange egg: good omen or the spark of calamity? Each event demands a decision, but you won’t know the outcome until you choose. What seems like a blessing may hide a curse, and what feels like a threat might bring unexpected fortune. The consequences will affect your resources and may even change the state of your village. You cannot escape fate, but you can choose how to face it.
- Quests and Encounters – Throughout your reign, six mysterious figures will cross your path. Some will ask for favors; others will plant seeds of doubt; a few may try to guide… or manipulate you. It’s up to you to decide whom to trust and whom to reject. But every choice comes at a cost. This is the main storyline of the game, told through a series of letters. Your replies shape your path and determine your destiny, leading you toward one of several possible endings.
What dark secrets await those who look beyond the carved wooden pieces on the board? Can an administrator truly trust the cryptic letters delivered by enigmatic outsiders in the dead of night? Do you have what it takes to guide a vulnerable village through unpredictable twists of fate? Find out when Midgardr comes to PC via Steam on January 8, 2027.
Also, play the Midgardr Demo today.
Enjoy the trailers — until the Rift opens again, know that you’re appreciated.
