Begin your humble life as a lowly serf playing your own custom character. Armed with just an acre of land, a ramshackle cottage, and enough provisions to survive winter, your quest for prosperity begins.
Guide your family through the Middle Ages, from one generation to the next. Each character boasts distinct personalities, needs, and skills, and it's your duty to oversee every facet of their lives, from their livelihoods to their social circles and even their daily sustenance.
Every character possesses three defining traits—Mind, Body, and Spirit—that dictate their compatibility with others, preferred activities, and unlock unique event options. Choose wisely, as each trait brings both advantages and disadvantages, impacting their daily toil and needs.
Keep your characters content and productive by attending to their essential needs:
- Satisfy their Taste with over 50 authentic medieval ingredients.
- Grant them Rest, allowing them precious respite from their laborious routines.
- Nurture their Faith through immersive Middle Ages church experiences.
- Foster their Social connections by participating in genuine medieval social gatherings and building lasting bonds with fellow villagers.
Surviving in the Middle Ages demands a diverse skill set. Master the arts of Farming, Herbalism, Cooking, Husbandry, Carpentry, and Tailoring as you engage in the myriad tasks of a medieval peasant's life. From plowing fields to shearing sheep, there's always work to be done, though the season and the changing value of goods will keep you on your toes.
While you focus on your family, the village thrives around you. Forge friendships, pursue romance, and interact with your neighbours. But beware, as rival families vie for elections and jury seats. Consider forging alliances to collectively prosper.
Life as a peasant extends beyond the fields. Enhance your cottage and garden with handcrafted furniture that can elevate the value of your goods, whether for personal use or lucrative market sales. If space becomes a constraint, negotiate with your Lord for a larger cottage or garden to accommodate more furniture.
Farming entails more than just crops—farm animals provide vital resources. Purchase and breed cows, horses, goats, sheep, pigs, and chickens, each with their own unique needs and benefits. Opt for the strength of an ox or the speed of a horse, or reap the rewards of wool from sheep and the fertiliser from pigs.
Revive the age-old Hallmote tradition—an annual gathering of villagers to address legal disputes and elect local officials. Dive into the realm of politics, with rewards for winning elections and voting for allies. Your male family members might also be summoned for jury duty during village disputes.
Negotiate your feudal dues and responsibilities with your Lord. From farmland to meadowland, your home to your garden, all aspects of your life are open to negotiation. As a serf, you'll toil on your Lord's demesne or face fees, but earning their respect could pave your path to freedom. Rise to a freeman status and expand your rights, from baking your own bread to hunting in the forests. Under The Yoke intricately replicates the medieval rights system.
Immerse yourself in medieval England's vibrant tapestry through a dynamic event system, featuring hundreds of unique events that ensure every play-through remains fresh. From social intrigues to attending church, your choices shape your family's legacy throughout the ages.
Experience history like never before as your characters respond to the pivotal events of their time. With our dynamic event system, we weave 250 years of history from 1085 to 1335 into your personal narrative, enabling you to walk in the shoes of the common man as the world evolves around you.
🕹️ Partial Controller Support
🎮 Full Controller Support
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The long awaited V2 update is here!
Let\'s launch into the new features:
The Scheduling System
[img src=\"https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/44657956/3eca97c190724fbed98ab60540a8e1f6448fd1f6.png\"][/img]When developing the patch for V2 I wanted to include as much feedback as possible, one of the consistent themes I saw was around micro-management. The scheduling system is meant to address a lot of that feedback.
Each day is now split into 3 parts which can be filled with jobs, activities and opportunities to socialise. While there will be some micro in changing jobs around as the seasons change, you can both save and load schedules. Any time a job is not able to be fufilled, the character will default back to resting but that scheduled job will remain. You will also see characters moving around the map to their assigned workspace so you can keep an eye on what\'s going on.
I have also done some work on reducing the micro from all the jobs, for instance there is no longer a requirement to \'collect\' goods that take some time to mature such as dried meat in the larder or vegetables in the garden.
I also wasn\'t sure where to include this, by the serf tax week-work is no longer a job and instead acts as a flat penalty to skills, though not dramatic in the early game, you\'ll certainly feel it in the late game, incentivising that shift to gaining freedom towards the later game.
Lifestyle System
[img src=\"https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/44657956/6a5a962847d4339a0dbc2f2b93cf85272a427d8c.png\"][/img]The new lifesytle system replaces the old \'Cooking\' system and, I believe, adds to it significantly.
Now players will have control over the day to day aspects of their family\'s life. Firstly, the meal system has changed significantly, now players can opt into what ingredients they want their family to use when preparing their meals, while a peasant\'s stomach will be filled with bread alone, they will receive a penalty for such meager rations as well as a penalty to their taste, whereas a balanced diet will offer bonuses to both.
In addition to this, the old \'decay\' system which caused moods to tick down is replaced by a desire for goods which fufill each need. From Firewood and Blankets for rest to a Comb and Chess pieces for Social, each fufilled good will slow their respective mood drain, meaning characters can spend more time working. These new goods can also be crafted and gathered by the player or purchased in town.
UI Changes
[img src=\"https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/44657956/e5d01d6203bf31edcdbce12e60a4f81bbc9b1bdb.png\"][/img]
There are a plethora of UI changes across Under The Yoke, not least the top bar which will now carry the most pertinent information without needing to open separate menus. At a glance you can see your family\'s average mood, your animal fodder (if you have animals), your current money, your lowest food ration as well as your weekly consumption rate and your respect. Mousing over any of these will give you a full breakdown on how the calculation has been made.
Character Changes
[img src=\"https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/44657956/813cd7593a00d7875818f81a8648814f6de725d0.png\"][/img]Since characters are no longer dragged around the screen for jobs, I thought characters could do with a home of their own in the menus rather than relying on the character sheets (though they are still present). You can view everything about a character in here, with more info when mousing over.
New Game
[img src=\"https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/44657956/897ce0da46b7030b8d3ab948b838c68e74d87394.png\"][/img]The UI overhaul also applies to the New Game screen, this cleaner screen will be seen by most of you as V1 saves are not compatible with V2, unfortunately there were simply too many changes to make V1 saves viable.
Performance
It\'s hard to show in a screenshot but the game now will run much more efficiently, by pre-loading a lot of the assets most menus will appear vastly quicker than they did before the update.
Sign off
Hopefully you can already see what a massive overhaul V2 is, the vast majority of mechanics in the game have been either overhauled or replaced entirely. There are additional changes that I haven\'t gotten into here, frankly I don\'t want to spoil it all.
I really think this is going to change the game in a major way and make it that much more fun for new players and give old players an excuse to get medieval again.
I am both sad and pleased to say that I think this is it for mechanical changes to Under The Yoke, the game was never built with these mechanics in mind and some of the design decisions I made when starting development 3-4 years ago are both too difficult to replace and too difficult to design around.
There are other changes I would have really liked to have made, introducing a real Lord who you interact with and a whole favour system for other villagers are just two of many, but I think that will have to wait for a sequel.
I will of course be on bug patrol so please let me know if you encounter any issues either in the steam discussions area or on Discord, otherwise, enjoy!
Minimum Setup
- OS: Ubuntu or Similar
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