Thank you for Next Fest, and duels worth watching

The free demo has been updated with cinematic officer duels: momentum you can see, signature moves the heroes actually perform, and a finishing blow. Plus what changed during Next Fest because of what you told me.

Thank you. Over the last few days, a lot of you downloaded the demo, played it, wishlisted the game and took the time to tell me what worked and what didn't. Next Fest is the first time this many people have played Three Kingdoms Reimagined at once, and reading your comments and watching your campaigns has been the best part of making it. Several of the changes below came straight from that feedback.

The biggest change is to the duels, so let's start there.

Guan Yu against Zhang Fei at Hulao Gate, the last seconds: Zhang Fei's Roar of Changban, then the finishing blow. Recorded in the current demo.

Two fighters, side on

Before this update, the two champions in a duel stood one above the other and spent most of the bout overlapping. Now they face each other side on, at a striking distance, and the camera comes in close enough to see who is doing what. Each exchange lands with a lunge, and the man who took the hit recoils.

Guan Yu and Zhang Fei squared up. The line across the top shows who is pressing.

You can see the fight change hands

A duel has momentum now, and it shows on the field rather than only in two health bars. The fighter who is pressing burns brighter, and the man being pressed gives ground, step by step. When the fight swings the other way, the screen says so.

The moment Zhang Fei takes the duel back from Guan Yu.

Signature moves the heroes actually perform

The famous officers each have a signature move, like Lu Bu's Peerless Under Heaven, Guan Yu's Green Dragon Crescent and Zhang Fei's Roar of Changban. Until now a signature was mostly a banner with an effect on top. Now the champion does it: a wind-up, then the move itself. Lu Bu drives through with the thrust, Guan Yu leaps and brings the blade down, and Zhang Fei rears back and roars. The banner moved to the top of the screen so it no longer covers the fight.

Peerless Under Heaven: Lu Bu drives through.

A finishing blow, and a fall

The ending used to be a stamp that covered both men while the loser faded away. Now the winner drives in for the last stroke, the blow throws the loser back, and he goes down to one knee with his weapon in the dirt. The winner stands over him. The verdict waits until you have seen it happen.

The verdict at Hulao Gate.

Duels in the middle of a battle

Officers who meet in the middle of a big field battle can still fight it out while the armies keep going around them. Those duels now get a challenge ring in both officers' colours, larger fighters and their own finishing cut. The battle doesn't pause and the camera doesn't move, so it works in multiplayer too.

Guan Yu and Lu Bu settle it inside the ranks.

All of this changes how a duel looks, not how it is decided. Battles play out exactly as before, with the same winners and the same numbers.

Also changed during Next Fest

Day 12 as Liu Bei. The war shows under Diplomacy, and Zhang Fei's request says what each answer costs.

• A calmer campaign map. Players told me the campaign map showed too much at once. Officer requests take up much less space and show what each answer costs. Who you are at war with now sits on the Diplomacy button, the latest report sits at the bottom of the screen, and labels read as plain sentences.
• Easier to read. Some of you noticed that names like Cai Yan were hard to read. The text font was losing pieces of letters such as Y, W and 4, worst on buttons and menus. Every letter is whole again.
• Auto-resolve fixes. An auto-resolved battle now shows you how the fight went before it offers the spoils. Allied troops left over after a battle no longer end up in your own army.
• Chinese. The Chinese version got a full revision: about five hundred lines rewritten under one set of terms, a new pixel title font, and lines that read as sentences instead of lists of fields.
• Written reports. Battle reports and dispatches read like accounts of what happened, and officers make their requests in their own temper, some bold and some careful.
• The character creator. Each Past you choose for your own ruler now changes one rule of the campaign, and its card says which.

What's next

I'm still working through your comments, and I read every one. If you played the demo, I'd love to hear how your duels went: who won, and whether the tide turned. If you haven't tried it yet, the demo is free and the update is live now.

Thank you again for making this Next Fest what it was.

Wishlist Three Kingdoms Reimagined on Steam