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Hey everyone! While the season usually brings snow, hats, candy canes – and plenty of "limited deals" trying to drain your wallet – there’s no festive skin pack here. Instead, I’ve just uploaded a small "living map" update for Feudums.
This is another incremental step toward the long-term goal of making the map look more alive and better represent how your serfs are actually assigned to their daily work.
The changes are compatible with the running game sessions.
So here comes another batch of handcrafted animations to breathe more life into your realms, including (but not limited to):
Stonemasons working their quarries
Updated Monks and Winegrowers for the Ecclesiastical Fiefs.
Improved Woodcutters with more detail.
Castle smoke effects for added atmosphere.
Finalized portraits for the new units, including an additional one (the 28th!) that will only unlock in the next game session, starting in the next 48 hours.
Several tweaks to the default rulebook — winters are now harsher for moving companies, units have been rebalanced, and more. Since rulebook adjustments are ongoing, the community Discord always has the up-to-date changelog!
Several issues in the Coat of Arms editor have been addressed, making error cases or validation errors easier to understand.
Minor fixes and improvements to in-game chat and private messaging.
Fixed the occasionally odd positioning for Castles on Hills.
Small fixes on some Improvement variations.
Overall, this update focuses on polish: tightening animations, smoothing out UI quirks, and preparing the visual baseline for what’s ahead.
Other than working on further UX fixes, I am continuing work on vassalage foundations + enhanced siege and occupation mechanics.
Thanks for playing, testing, and sending feedback — it really helps to shape Feudums into the game we all want it to be!
Work on the single-player mode has been significantly slower than I hoped — with time being tight, progress there happens in small steps. I’ll keep pushing it forward next year, but I still can’t provide an ETA for a demo or public preview. At some early point, I definitely want to make it available for an initial playtest though — so if you’re interested, make sure to stick around on Discord.
Multiplayer development has also moved a bit slower than I aimed for — part of my weeks go into making sure I can cover the bills and pay my two contributors, which inevitably reduces the time I can spend on the project and the constant context-switching also takes a toll. Still, Feudums has seen real progress this year, with several important changes and features added. I push the project forward whenever and however I can, and that won’t change next year either. Things may slow down a little early in the year while I take a short period for financial recovery, but development will not stop. I expect it to be a bit like 2024 — which, all things considered, wasn’t too bad for Feudums, right? :)
That said, my current plan — as long as life doesn’t throw anything really unexpected at me — is to move toward beta and an Early Access release sometime in 2026. But as a true indie, with no studio behind me and two kids to care for, long-term plans are always flexible.
If you’d like to help Feudums move faster, you can support the project on Patreon — even a few months of support makes a real difference. With enough active patrons, I could shift more of my time from contract work back into development. Next year, I’ll also plan to look into alternatives to Patreon. I’ve wanted to explore other options for a while — I just always end up spending my free time on development instead. :)
If you have any suggestions, I’d love to hear them!
Thanks again for sticking around, for your feedback, and for being part of this journey.
It genuinely means a lot.
- Mat
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