Medieval Mauj

Surviving the Middle Ages has never been this much fun

Medieval Dynasty
Rating: 4/5
Developer: Render Cube
Publisher: Toplitz Productions
Platform: PC
Price: Rs 1,490 for PC

Medieval Dynasty has you playing a young man who has come to find fortune and fame in a new land. The game plays like any other survival game where you have to build a town, manage its people, its resources and protect it against dangers. Unlike most modern-day survival games, you aren’t fighting zombies, or staving off the apocalypse. Instead, you are in the Middle Ages dealing with all the perils of being in that period. The game is also an RPG where your character becomes ever-powerful by gaining skills and knowledge. Here is the kicker though: if you die the game ends… mostly.

Medieval Dynasty starts very slow and I must mention that it has a very steep learning curve mostly because the game’s instructions aren’t very clear at times. You also don’t get to choose your gender or the way you look, which isn’t a deal-breaker, but it would have been nice to have the option. 

Despite the learning curve, you can somehow figure out what to do in the game. There are also many helpful guides online that can help you get through the first few hours of the game without dying. You start by collecting resources like money stones, wood, stick and ultimately money. You can also steal resources from unsuspecting locals; this however affects your reputation which is very important when you are trying to build your empire.

Once you collect enough resources you start building your town. I would suggest looking for a good place to build and not build your town next to the starter town. The open world is huge and there is ample space to start a town, look for something flat and near a source of water, preferably one you can catch fish in. 

Once you start building houses and different types of buildings, you can start inviting people to join your township. However, once they join, they are your responsibility. You have to get them a place to stay, a job to do, food and water. It can get stressful at times. The villagers also don’t get self-sufficient over time.

You can also get romantically involved with a woman and marry her in the game. Now it must be noted that you can only play this game like a man and you can only have one wife. Unlike most kings of the period, you can’t have multiple wives or have multiple romances. Once you marry, the romantic conversation tab closes for available women. You can still ask married women who will promptly turn you down.

The whole married thing also has only one purpose— to bear a son; needless to say, your first born will be a son. Having a son in the game supposedly means you play as them once they turn 18 and you die. Though, I didn’t get to that point even after 40 hours into the game, I did try dying after my son was born and before he turned 18 and I had to load a saved game to continue because I permanently died.

Though there are weapons in the game there isn’t much combat. The combat is mostly you defending against animals in the forest or against bandits. This can all be tailored to easy or difficult by changing the settings. The animals also are deadly in the game, it takes a long time to gain the strength to go against a bison or bear. Those are best hunted with a bow and arrow and from a safe distance so you can make your getaway.

The entire game is in first-person view which I thought was a disservice to the town building portion of the game. I would have preferred a top-down view that could help me better plan the town, instead, I was running around with the virtual shape of the building finding an appropriate place to dump it. The result was a very badly designed town, with no clear distinction between working areas, housing or resources. The other problem is that there are no builders in the game who will construct buildings, only those who repair. This means every time you lay a building down you have to spend significant time just hammering it down till it’s ready. This however is a minor gripe, but it isn’t the only one. Medieval Dynasty has some other bugs as well. Some can get you stuck in buildings while others can suddenly slow down frame rates and even cause clipping issues.

What’s going for the game is the never-ending list of things to do. There is always something to do and the rewards are satisfying and fair in most cases. Side quests and story quests help you build a reputation which in turn lets you recruit people and grow your empire. I didn’t mind most of the grinding either. The level ups were well-timed and most tasks resulted in more money and goods to sell. The best part is the vendors will pretty much buy anything you sell to them. The developers are also constantly updating the game adding new and interesting things. 

Medieval Dynasty is a fun and stressful game that I would happily recommend to anyone who loves the survival genre. The addition of the RPG elements means there is good character progression and there is always something to achieve even if you have to repeatedly grind to progress. The elements that I didn’t like, though significant, weren’t enough of a deterrent from the overall gameplay. For the asking price, this game is a great deal, it will keep you engaged for months to come.

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