The Royal Writ news & patch notes

🎺 Hear ye, hear ye! 🎺

It is by royal decree that we announce we have joined the most dashing Games Collection in the realm!

The Royal Writ is part of the Jingle Jam 2025 Games Collection! We are so happy to be supporting 8 incredible charities by being a part of it. Donate over £35 and you’ll get a curated collection of amazing games, including The Royal Writ! Perfect to treat yourself with or makes an amazing gift! So if you haven't picked up a copy of the game yet, or you were trying to convince your friend to get into it, now's the best time - 'tis the season of giving 💚

Find out more and get your games here: https://jinglejam.tiltify.com/

Hey folks!

As the Steam Awards nominations open up, we'd love your support in nominating our little game for 'Most Innovative Gameplay'! We hope you've been enjoying the challenges that The Royal Writ throws your way - after all, we've seen your incredible strategies! Your nomination means the world to us:)

Necrology (currently in the beta only!)

We've added a necrology to the game!

This lists all your fallen soldiers, along with the cause of their deaths. Deaths are easy to miss sometimes, and as a new player their cause might not be fully understood, so this should help you figure out why a soldier might have fallen and how to avoid it next time.

An easier way to switch between branches

You can now easily switch to the beta branch (and back to the default one, if you like) right from the main menu!

Keep in mind that this option only shows up if you have the game's language set to English.

Full patch notes:

Main Game Version 1.0.0.2

• Added a button to switch between beta and stable builds in-game.

• Fixed the “Accept all the different opportunity types” achievement being ungettable.

• Fixed the promoted version of Margrave Mizla and his successor giving less power than specified.

• Fixed Borbak, long-neck liaison activating with Robert Horka’s arrow.

• Fixed Mercer Tarcha occasionally not giving armor to adjacent cards.

• Slightly changed the behaviour of Ibran, eager scout.

• Translation improvements for Simplified Chinese and Traditional Chinese.

Beta Version 1.0.1.1e

You can now switch to this version from the main menu! Alternatively, right click the game in Steam and go to Properties > Betas.

• All fixes and changes from Version 1.0.0.2

• Added Necrology, a list of all card deaths with their causes.

• Fixed Hugo dying after winning a battle if the card was previously a Papery Infantry.

Hello, beloved subjects!

We do hope fortune has been favouring the best tacticians and strategists this realm has ever seen!

The people of our allied kingdom, Dicealot, have today announced the date that they shall be open to the world! October 9th will be the day that people from all over may finally experience all that Dicealot has to offer. We trust that our subjects would show them the same love and generosity that you have showed us!

To celebrate,

We're running a quiz competition! Half the questions are based on The Royal Writ, and half the questions are about fellow medieval roguelike Dicealot.

Every correct answer = 1 chance to win. That means you'll have a chance to win even if you're only familiar with The Royal Writ, but the odds are higher if you also know Dicealot! All answers can be found in the demos for both games.

Take the quiz here!

PRIZE: 1x Steam key for either The Royal Writ or Dicealot (winner's choice!)

DEADLINE: Thursday, 25 September 2025 16:00 BST

Terms & Conditions apply.

Remember this painting from the main menu?

Have you ever looked at it and wondered why it looks so familiar?

Well, this painting is also based on a real one - George Washington's crossing of the Delaware River! This event occurred on the night of December 25th - 26th, 1776, during the American Revolutionary War. It was the first move in a complex and surprise military manoeuvre organized by George Washington, the commander-in-chief of the Continental Army. Here's the existing painting below!

There are so many IRL inspirations in this game! We've mentioned some of them in previous From the Court editions, but do you think you can spot any more?

Welcome once again, one and all!

We've got some 2 week statistics to share with you! How many runs went sour, how many were victorious and more!

Nearly 450 sharks, people. You've been busy. The dentist is going need a bigger office at this rate!

Check out this community member who is an absolute saint

Discord community member Noster managed to lose 0 soldiers. Not on their watch!

Also, ICYMI, there's a public beta open for you!

To access the public beta branch, right click the game on Steam, go to Properties > Betas, and select "public_experimental" from the dropdown menu. It's an experimental branch, so there may be bugs and new features may not be localized into languages other than English. But any feedback and bug reports are appreciated and will help us with future updates!

Want to be among the first to try out new features for The Royal Writ?

We've added a new public beta branch! To access it, right click the game on Steam, go to Properties > Betas, and select "public_experimental" from the dropdown menu.

As this is an experimental branch, new features may not be localised into languages other than English, and you may encounter bugs. As always, any ⁠feedback and bug reports are super appreciated - please just make sure to mention that your feedback is about the beta rather than the current main version. You can even join the Discord to drop your feedback and bug reports!

Localisation Feedback

Is there something in the main game that doesn't feel like it's worded quite right? You can now submit suggestions for better translations directly through our localisation sheet!

Here are the updates coming to the beta:

Version 1.0.1.0e

• Added a hand size indicator

• Consumable, letter and spy cards no longer count towards the hand size (highly experimental)

• Added new mushroom Silk Shank that cures one ailment of a card

• Added new letter Paper infantry

• Added a Royal Copier event to before the final boss of Act II

• Changed ability of Repka, Tilemaker

  • Can be promoted any number of times

• Changed ability of Vaida, Mizanthrope

  • Shot: Steals 1 base power from all cards in combat

• Changed ability of Feher, Escaped Patient

  • Inflicted with any ailment:

    +2 base power

  • If it has over 4 ailments:

    Cure all its ailments

• Changed ability of The Lady of Misfortune

  • When played:

    All other cards in its lane gain 1 base power, fall back to hand and are inflicted with Spooked

• Changed ability of Kelemen, Executioner

  • When played:

    +2 base power per character card in hand

  • Kill a card in hand

    -1 base power per card in combat

• Changed ability of Kesi, (Still) Annoying

  • Double the base power it steals

• Changed ability of Kan, Short-Tempered General

  • Also give the knocked-out card 5 base power

• Changed ability of Bombardier Sorbus

  • Multiply the projectile’s base power by -1 instead of triggering the projectile

• Changed ability of Doctor Baltazar

  • When played:

    The brief power of bleeding cards is converted to base power”

Hello everyone!

Have you had a lovely week, full of good runs and huge hits? It feels like the game launched just yesterday, and somehow it's been over a week now! We've loved seeing you share all your screenshots - runs, decks, silly interactions - so glad you're having fun with the game!

Here's some more of the art from concept stages to full colour!

You guys seemed to really like seeing these (honestly, same) so we've got a couple more!

Bluebeard is such a nice shade of blue. God I love birds.

These guys have so much character even just in the concept sketch stages! Their 'concept sketch' is my best artwork honestly. Also those gems look so nice, my magpie brain is itching to steal them. Don't let King Mikolt know...

Community spotlight time! Here's some of the screenshots you've shared with us in our Discord!

Starting with some of the biggest hits you guys achieved, these are off the charts!

Credits: Cheychao

Credits: Noster

Okay.. if you thought those were big hits....

Credits: Trainzack

This one is kinda beautiful. It scratches an itch in my brain.

Credits: Trainzack

As always, please do keep these coming! They're so fun to see, and I'd love to share them in next week's From the Court! Be sure to join the Discord if you haven't to keep up with all The Royal Writ chatter - the community is super helpful and friendly!

• Fixed crash when getting the revive wheel reward twice with only one dead card,
• Fixed crash that occasionally occurred when saving and reloading at the final boss,
• Fixed Borka and Geiza giving 9999 base power blood infusions,
• Fixed copying a card onto a letter card at the Royal Copier killing the card at the end of a turn,
• Fixed nitwits softlocking the game in one-lane battles,
• Fixed fomite not getting educated,
• Fixed Book of Fungi not working correctly,
• Fixed Golden chainmail not updating card’s visuals when activated,
• Fixed cards flipping up without being drawn when activated,
• Fixed Guild’s token not giving equipment to some cards,
• Fixed "Packing a Punch" achievement being unachievable,
• Fixed Ipoi not working correctly with Feathers,
• Fixed anointed Arkosh having 0% extra power

The Royal Writ's Original Soundtrack, composed and performed by Narek Papoyan, is now available!

You can get the album here:

https://promtastik.bandcamp.com/album/the-royal-writ-original-soundtrack

Or alternatively, you can also listen on YouTube:

Hello one and all, and welcome to our first ever POST-LAUNCH From the Court! That's wild to me, the day seemed so far off, and now we're already 23 hours out from launch day! Whether you've been here from the early days or you're new here from Tiny Teams, you're all more than welcome and we hope you enjoy your stay.

How would you like to see some of the art from concept stages and layout to the final thing?

I'm so tempted to show you all of them today, but I've decided I'm going to pace it out and not spoil you with all the before and afters the devs have sent over. It's just tactical okay, how else am I supposed to keep these posts running weekly?

The nitwits are the banes of my existence but they still do have a weird charm about them.

Awww look at those ants go! Queen Cheperka wouldn't stop giving me her army yesterday. I was drowning in ants.

Wait, have you ever heard of 'Anting'? Apparently crows and other birds, when ill, roll around in ants as a form of self medication. I wonder if King Mikolt has been doing anything of the sort...

I guess not.

MORE community art from you fantastic people??

You guys are SO talented! Please keep the art coming because wow, I love seeing these critters in your styles!

This one's from Discord community member ratmclovin!

Last but not least, thank you for the reception to us launching the game!

Seriously, we've been so excited and hoping y'all love the game, and you've all come through! We've been reading through all of your reviews and we're so touched, so many kind and positive words for The Royal Writ 🥹 We're also suuuuuuper close to being 'Very Positive' on the reviews, so if you would be able to take the time to leave your feedback on the Steam page, it would mean the world to us! In the world of indie games, it's every little thing that counts.

That's all for this week's From the Court! We hope you have the best time in the kingdom of Aranfold, and if you aren't playing The Royal Writ this weekend... why?

Greetings, loyal subjects!

Welcome back to the court, we always love having you here every week!

Have you seen what the game looked like back in Ludum Dare?

Ludum Dare is an online event where developers are challenge to create a game from scratch in a weekend! They've been around since 2002 and run every April and October with a specific theme. The Royal Writ was created as a part of Ludum Dare 55, how cool is that? And now here we are with a game that is being fully fledged right before our eyes. Here's some before and after screenshots of what the game looked like back then compared to where it is now -

The City Before

The City Now

You can really see how much has changed from the early days, this was back in early 2024!

Shady Bargain Before

Shady Bargain Now

I don't think I can fangirl over the art style enough, it's so darn cute I need like 5 tattoos.

One of our producers has achieved peak Ant.

These darn ants... pretty signific-ant if you ask me. There are definitely ants in Simon's pants about this. You can't be ignor-ant about the ant army... okay okay I'll stop.

Nottingham Video Games Expo - Thanks for coming by!

It was so much fun to meet you guys and watch your strategies, even some of you beating the demos! (So I've been told, I wasn't there. Sounded fun though, I'm not jealous or anything.)

Thank you for playing the game and for all your kind words! We're less than a week away from launch and really hope you're just as excited as we are!

This is me after this long week. And probably for the forseeable future as I have given my life away to The Royal Writ. It has consumed me. It's too addictive.

Welcome to the 4th edition of From The Court - my, how time flies! We got our release date announcement last weekend (7th August for those of you slacking and didn't know yet), and now it feels like it's rushing up to us real quick. Just under 2 weeks away!

Have a look at some of these early development shenanigans

These are pretty old bugs when the devs first stared to try and expand the scope of the game

This one is an asset in a wrong space, when they were first testing out the wonderwheel. Funny how one small thing can lead to something like this! My dev expertise is limited to my comp sci classes back in high school and first year of engineering, so this is fascinating.

Here we have a picture of them trying to make the randomly generated map nodes work, but that took so much more time than expected! It's like a spider web. A spider web of confusion that even the spider would get lost in. It's me, I'm the spider.

Now, this one...

When I first saw this, I just had to know what on earth was going on.

"This one is funny, for some reason whenever we try to add some blur effects in Godot something always goes wrong, so we usually try some other solutions to make visuals more clear. But this time we persevered and had to go through bugs like this haha"

All this for a bit of blur. The things our lovely developers go through to bring us a quality game.

This last one is my favourite.

As a bird lover (bird tax of my old girl and her kids) I 1000% love whatever is going on here.

"Finding actually good fonts for the game was hard, this is a representation of a point where we gave up haha"

Honestly? Totally fair.

We're at the Nottingham Video Games Expo this weekend!

Not me, but you can catch our Product Manager, Matt, and our Video Editor, Reece at the expo! If you're around, say hi, play the game, and snag some of these super cool goodies!

Matt handmade these himself with a whole lot of love so you know they're extra cool stickers. Look at those wax seals! There's a whole variety of colours to choose from (except yellow, apparently we forgot entirely about the existence of yellow) and they're limited to the expo only!

We hope you're as geared up for launch day as we are! It's been so much fun and excitement during this whole journey to bring the game to you guys. Catch you in the next From The Court!

Hear ye, hear ye!

The moment ye have all been awaiting has arrived! Following our grand reveal at the Secret Sauce Showcase, we are thrilled to announce that The Royal Writ shall be released upon the realm to all you eager and loyal subjects on August 7th!

Mark thy calendars, for on this auspicious date, all strategists may finally command their full army of warriors in the complete campaign of sacrifice and glory!

🎬 New Trailer!

Our court scribes have prepared moving images to commemorate this momentous occasion! Witness the splendour that awaits thee in our official release date trailer -

The time draws near when permanent consequences and strategic sacrifice shall be yours to command in full!

Be sure to wishlist The Royal Writ and join the Discord legion to stay up to date with all things The Royal Writ. Fear not - our demo shall tide thee over until the glorious day!

P.S., did you hear Ludwig call our game very wishlistable? He's not wrong. It is. It's addictive. Sometimes I play it for so long I forget I'm actually meant to be working.

Wake up Kingdom, it's time for another From The Court! We love asking the devs about their inspirations and thought processes during development and sharing them when you!

Have you ever paid much attention to the background in game?

I know I wanted to put little animations everywhere in the game, because generally not a lot of deckbuilders use 2d hand-drawn animations, and us working with it all the time it seemed like an opportunity to stand out visually this way. While it is a ton of work going through all the traditional animation phases (layout-animation-cleanup-coloring) it has such a unique vibe that we didn’t want to cut corners in this way.

One example is that all the backgrounds have little characters going about their day, all of them do something fun if you happen to take a look at it.

We love the little details!

Secret Sauce is TOMORROW??

Y'all. Time has simply crept up on us. We've been so so excited for this event and to hopefully welcome loads of new people into our royal and amazing kingdom humble little community! The debut showcase premieres at 11 AM PDT / 2 PM EST / 7 PM BST / 8 PM CEST. ICYMI: We've got a pretty exciting announcement during the showcase so you definitely don't want to miss it 👀

You can watch it at any of the below links!

Offbrand Games YouTube Ludwig Twitch Ludwig YouTube

Alright love y'all, support us in the showcase, let us know if you caught the big announcement and remember, permadeath will haunt you:)

Welcome back to another royal decree From the Court!

⏰Have you ever caught yourself playing The Royal Writ so much that you've almost missed something important?

Well, our MD, Simon sure did.

What's the longest you've played in one sitting? I feel like we should probably throw a warning label on the game.

🐑 If you're a hardcore LEGO fan, you may have noticed something...

Have you ever wondered why some of the characters look a little bit familiar?

Straight from the dev, Kornél: As I’m an avid collector of old LEGO sets, it's no wonder that a lot of times I’m inspired by their whimsical world. I’m especially a big fan of Fabuland, which I think found a perfect balance with their characters’ proportions and general cuteness, so from that point on they were the blueprint and some of the earliest characters are very much directly based on them.

Fabuland was introduced in 1979, btw. That's so much older than I am.

Here's another set that Kornél shared with us, you might notice the Robert Horka inspiration!

This is the Camouflaged Outpost from way back in 1987!

And a personal favourite from Kornél, the Fabulands fellas on their steamboat from 1985.

Inspiration can really come from anywhere!

🔎 Community Spotlight: Our King by BubbleWizardOG

One of our community members has graciously immortalised the King in a royal portrait! Thank you for this super cool drawing!

@wladternovik on TikTok

If you have anything cool to share with us, don't forget to join the Discord and do so, we love seeing your stuff!

Until next time 🫡

Greetings, royal subjects,

This week we're sharing some fun little tidbits from the world of The Royal Writ!

🔢 Community member Balthromaw has been hitting some absolutely wild numbers

Thanks for sharing the pics with us, Balthromaw, just a matter of fixing the exploit now hah!

🖼️ You might have noticed this intriguing little easter egg painting while playing the demo...

Deep lore...? What's the deal with four-legged animals among our anthropomorphic ones?

Here's some fun trivia: this artwork is inspired by a section of "Arrival of the Hungarians" - a circular panorama created by Hungarian painter Árpád Feszty between 1892 and 1894. The original masterpiece stands around 15m (50 ft) tall and stretches 120m (400 ft) long, featuring roughly 2000 people!

(The segment that inspired the painting)

Our version is... considerably simpler :') Check it out in the Options menu when you try the demo!

🐍 Last but not least, here's a gem from development - one small oversight that spawned an infinite loop

Borbak's ability is that you get a letter card if it enters a hazard

There's a relic that removes the starting letters from your letter pool, and instead adds a letter card which floods the battlefield with hazards

This way you create an infinite loop of.. well... what you see in the gif above :')

If you've got anything fun to show us, do drop it in the Steam Forums or in the Discord and we might share it in the next From the Court!

Greetings, loyal subjects!

'Tis with great joy and merriment that we announce The Royal Writ is part of not one, but two wondrous showcases! We are most honoured to be selected to feature alongside a fine fellowship of other remarkable games.

🌑 Moonlite Madness Summer Showcase

Organized by the good folk of NeverMore Niche, this is the Summer 2025 edition of the Moonlite Madness Showcase! 'Tis their third and most grand showcase, be sure to show them (and us!) some love. There will be three main shows and demo streams throughout the event, all starting today!

Thursday, June 26th at 4 PM PDT / 7 PM EST / Friday, June 27th at 12 AM BST / 1 AM CEST: The Teasers and Trailers show on their YouTube channel.

Friday, June 27th at 5 PM PDT / 8 PM EST / Saturday, June 28th at 1 AM BST / 2 AM CEST: Gameplay Spotlights.

Saturday, June 28th at 12 PM PDT / 3 PM EST / 8 PM BST / 9 PM CEST: A special sneak peek of extended gameplays.

Watch on YouTube Watch on Twitch Showcase Page

🎮 Secret Sauce Showcase

This is the debut showcase by the lovely folk over at Offbrand Games! How exciting is that? The showcase premieres on Saturday July 19th at 11 AM PDT / 2 PM EST / 7 PM BST / 8 PM CEST. 'Twill also be co-streamed by Pirate Software, so you know it's going to be big! Tune in and you might catch a super special announcement for The Royal Writ 👀

OpenSauce Live YouTube Offbrand Games

🎬 Totally Biased Review

And last but not least, our video editor, Reece, played The Royal Writ and made this unbiased totally biased review of the game! You can check out the game in a bit more detail than the trailer allows and see for yourself just how great this game is! (We're definitely not biased and convincing you to get the game when it launched)

Okay love y'all, play the demo and leave us a review, catch us in the showcases, go forth on your world domination adventures, have great fun!

P.S., A bunch of Yogscast Games are on sale during the Steam Summer Sale, you should totally check them out.

The King would like to extend a royal thank you to everyone who played The Royal Writ demo during Next Fest!

We've seen some amazing card synergies and insane mults, but the fun's not over yet! We've decided to keep the demo up so you can get your royal fix.

P.S., We totally love a short king.

Hello, loyal subjects!

Have you ever booted up The Royal Writ demo, built your deck with your favourite characters and wondered, 'Hmm... I wonder which one of these super cool animals I would be?' (If you say no, we'll know you're lying. We think about it all the time.)

Well don't we have just the thing for that! Wonder no more, as we bring you The Royal Writ's Your Month, Your Character!

Discover which silly valiant animal warrior represents your birth month, and obviously that means it represents you the best.

Are you a January Osvat, the mace menace, or perhaps a December Domokosh with mysterious powers? Maybe the powerful May Kosha (our social media manager was totally not biased while making this).

Each one of these characters brings their own personality and abilities to the battlefield. From the dreaded Tax Collector of February (we all know that feeling) to the adorab...ahem, Fearful One of November, every month has its champion ready to march into battle for you!

Which character are you? Tell us in the discussions, we'd love to know! (I'm Cheperka, I get to build an ant army:) )

Don't forget to try out our demo in the Steam Next Fest and meet all these characters and more!

Join the Discord!

Attention, citizens of the realm!

We're absolutely overjoyed to announce that The Royal Writ will be a part of the Steam Next Fest!

For this special occasion, we've prepared an updated demo featuring some QoL improvements based on your valuable feedback. We would be most honoured for you to give the updated demo a try, and maybe even wishlist the game if you enjoy it!

The Tails of Cross-Kingdom Friendship!

In the finest tradition of indie collaboration, we've formed a wonderful partnership with the creators of Replicat - a roguelike memory deck-builder featuring personality-packed cats and wild card combos!

To celebrate this alliance, we've exchanged some pieces of our kingdoms:

• ⚔️ In The Royal Writ Demo: Keep your eyes open for some familiar felines! You might find that a clever cat from Replicat has wandered into our realm as a unique 'tilemaker' card, ready to serve the crown with their particular talents. 

• 🐱 In Replicat: Our very own King has ventured forth to grace their game board as a distinguished new card! Check out all that royalty across the realms!

                       

The Replicat team has also crafted "The Royal Deck" - a starting deck exclusive to Next Fest, built around our King! This special deck will vanish when Next Fest concludes, so go ahead and try it out while you can!

Try Both Royal Experiences!

We heartily encourage all deck-building strategists to experience both games during Next Fest. Witness the sacrifice of your loyal subjects in The Royal Writ, then test your memory and combo skills in Replicat's feline-filled world!

Join our Discord and share your tales of cross-kingdom adventures!

May both realms bring you joy and memorable victories!

Wishlist The Royal Writ The Royal Writ Demo

Wishlist Replicat Replicat Demo

The Royal Writ Discord