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Check out this guest article by Michał Napora of Yaza Games. Inkulinati is coming soon to GOG.COM, but if you want to check it before the release, download the free demo now!

Hello! We are Yaza Games, a six-person studio scattered all around Poland. We graduated from the Warsaw GameDev School and have all been friends for years! We are now working on our first title, Inkulinati - an ink-based strategy game straight from medieval manuscripts, where a rabbit’s bum can be deadlier than a dog’s sword.



So, the first thing that you might be thinking is “Ok, well that is great and all, but what’s up with butt references and the fart jokes?! And why did the devs come up with all of these crazy weapon-wielding creatures?”

Well, actually, it’s not us that came up with this wonderful world - in fact, our ancestors are to blame! You see, our game is based on real-life historical medieval works, notes, and ideas.

All of our characters, scenes, moves, and actions are based on works from people that lived over 700 years ago. You could even say that the people that created these things are the oldest concept artists in game development history. So the praise for this creativity and imagination really goes to them - we merely brought it to the 21st century.

Hopefully, you are now looking at our game and thinking “Ok, this seems pretty cool, but what about the gameplay itself?” Well, we’re glad you asked! When it comes to games, our inspiration comes from titles like Heroes of Might and Magic 3, Worms, Slay the Spire, and more.

With our games, we want to achieve a sense of depth - meaning you can play the game the way you want. There are dozens of units (we call them Beasts) that you can use to build your army. Each Beast has its own strengths and weaknesses. We include classic conundrums, such as power versus agility, close combat versus ranged combat, healers versus tanks, and so on.

Then, you need to decide how you’ll handle these units when they attack. With friendly fire on, it adds weight to each decision. Will you use a unit that deals with damage in front of and behind them? What about units that have the potential to explode? We made sure to include plenty of brain-tickling variety in Inkulinati (hey, that rhymed!). This way, one path to victory might be a recipe for total disaster in other circumstances.



In addition to your army, the Battlefield itself is something that you need to study, analyze, and be wary of. The battleground itself is pages of medieval manuscripts. Each Battlefield has its own opportunities, threats, and quirks. Some levels are flat plains, while others might have towers that are perfect for ranged units. You could even end up on the high seas, where anything could happen!

Using the Battlefield to your advantage is key, but don’t get too comfortable, as the Apocalypse may be just around the corner. Yes, we said the Apocalypse! To make battles even more intense, an event of apocalyptic proportions is always a possibility. This could be deadly fires that start from the outside of the pages and work their way in, or disease that spreads through both you and your enemies’ ranks. There’s no mucking about when this happens - you have to settle the battle before the Apocalypse does it for you!



We hope that you like the look of Inkulinati and hope that you will check it out! Our demo is now available as part of the Made in Poland sale on GOG.COM, so grab your quill and mark your place in (and on) the pages of history!
A true piece of art, and with a fun and yet quite strategic gameplay.

Even our grumpiest gamer around will like this one.
I love it. Simply beautiful, to the wish list while publishing in GOG the full version!
Strange that no one thought of using this particular art style in a games-related context before, at least not to my knowledge.
A decent challenge on Hard difficulty and above, too. Got my ass handed to me by Hildegard von Bingen a few times already.
Post edited November 18, 2020 by Swedrami
I loved the Kickstarter to this one.
Intabuy when it will arrive :)
So super glad its coming to gog
It would make sense and hype the game more to localize it in Latin, too. I'm sure a professor would enjoy translating it!
Be warned, the game has an "action" element beyond the strategy: every time you attack, you have a moving bar and have to click to fix your unit's attack value (sort of like a sports game's power meter).
great, more temporarily available demos, entirely defeating their purpose. and I couldn't even watch the trailer the screen shake was so bad.
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Swedrami: Strange that no one thought of using this particular art style in a games-related context before, at least not to my knowledge.
there's this:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/917380/Lancelots_Hangover_The_Quest_for_the_Holy_Booze/
Post edited November 18, 2020 by Dohi64
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r8V9b1X3u9VcA12p: It would make sense and hype the game more to localize it in Latin, too. I'm sure a professor would enjoy translating it!
That's treading super-thin ice there.
The localization would have to be absolute perfect lest some perfectionist comes along and criticizes the shit out of your ridiculously poor attempt at proper Latin.
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Dohi64: great, more temporarily available demos, entirely defeating their purpose. and I couldn't even watch the trailer the screen shake was so bad.
Put it in your library right now, then?
It's not like the demo will be removed from your library once the deadline is reached...
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Dohi64: great, more temporarily available demos, entirely defeating their purpose. and I couldn't even watch the trailer the screen shake was so bad.
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Swedrami: Strange that no one thought of using this particular art style in a games-related context before, at least not to my knowledge.
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Dohi64: there's this:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/917380/Lancelots_Hangover_The_Quest_for_the_Holy_Booze/
No offense to the dev of that game, but that's not really comparable to Inkulinati's more defined outlines and contours, resembling this particular kind of medieval art style much better, imo.

Completely different visually but I guess Apotheon is an earlier example of taking inspiration from an old, or in this case ancient art style and turn it into a game.
The screen shake is atrocious, can't disable it either.
high rated
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Dohi64: great, more temporarily available demos, entirely defeating their purpose. and I couldn't even watch the trailer the screen shake was so bad.
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Swedrami: Put it in your library right now, then?
It's not like the demo will be removed from your library once the deadline is reached...
You're missing the point. I'm not worried about it being removed from my library, and I suppose Dohi64 isn't either. The problem is that having demos that disappear from the store after just a few days defeats — or at least diminishes — the very purpose for the existence of a demo in the first place.

A demo serves to give a better idea of the quality of a game. Gameplay might be a lot different than the screenshots make you believe, and a youtube video will not show you the gymnastics the player is doing to hit the right keys on the keyboard in a non-rebindable game. BTW, a demo can show you if the game even HAS the possibility of configuring controls that you won't see in most videos.

A demo can also serve as a technical test if the game will run in your machine. If your video card crawled and died under the demo you can be sure it won't fare better with the full game.

And lastly, the demo can be a marketing tool to let more people know the game. Naturally it takes a bit of work... that these developers have already put out. Why not take advantage of it?

In a few days, when the demos become unavailable (and forever after that), there will be new customers (or even old customers who couldn't check Gog in that small "window of opportunity", missed the news or changed their mind). None of those points above stop being true a few days after the demo becomes available, or even after the game is out. Gog is doing a disservice to us and themselves by making the demos available for just a few days. They already have to store the files anyway, might as well make them available "forever".

The only drawback I see is for games in a heavy development stage where after a while the demo shows a much earlier state of a game, but there are ways to deal with this and that isn't the case with most demos Gog made temporarily available anyway.
Post edited November 25, 2020 by joppo
It is great to see studios making demos. Well done!
It's a really good game. What is better, even demo has quite decent content (three "leaders" with different armies, four levels, you can play with AI or with other player). Although Master's army is extremely weird to play. I'd say that I prefer two more "standard" leaders (Hildegard and Godfrey)

The only thing which bothers me is... That I will need to wait for full version until next year. And yeah, that mini-game with damage... Maybe it's not something terrible, but I would prefer to have just my turn-based goodness without it. Still, I have hope that it will become popular and memorable game.