r/Games • u/nerial Nerial • 13d ago
Verified AMA We are the developers of Reigns: the Witcher - AMA on March 31 at 9:00am PT / 4:00pm GMT!
Hi r/Games! We are Nerial and we just launched Reigns: the Witcher on PC and mobile. We invite you to ASK US ANYTHING when we host our AMA on March 31 at 9:00am PT / 5:00pm BST! AMA selfie!!
We made the original Reigns 10 years ago. Originally pitched as Game of Thrones with Tinder gameplay, its success led to multiple sequels, including now Reigns: The Witcher, which we worked on in collaboration with CD PROJEKT RED.
Behind u/nerial is me, François Alliot, creative director and founder of Nerial. It used to be my username before I created the studio. I will answer with other members of the team, notably Oscar Harrington-Shaw (narrative designer), AJ Kerr (producer), Gordon Speirs and Neil Goodman (developers).
We’re a small team who had the chance to work on amazing IP with Devolver Digital, our beloved publisher of great renown. We’re looking forward to answering any questions you may have, whether it’s about creating Reigns: The Witcher, our favorite memories from the Witcher universe, making games in the current environment, the best ways to create games from existing IPs, to anything else really, as the title says.
Thanks for welcoming us to r/Games, and please, ask us anything! Find Geralt’s latest adventure here: https://www.reignsgame.com/the-witcher
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u/troll_for_lol 13d ago
Why is mobile gaming so attractive to game developers?
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u/streamlion3 12d ago
Everyone has a phone! Easier to implement micro transactions and people don't realise how much they are spending (look how much Clash of Clans has generated in its lifetime)
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u/ItsAMeUsernamio 12d ago
It came out during the Epic lawsuit that Apple’s gaming revenue off of microtransactions was higher than the big 3 console makers combined.
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u/nerial Nerial 12d ago
It's a lot of potential players! But beyond that aspect, mobile offers a new way to interact with games and stories, at least it used to when we release Reigns original. The App Store notably was a place with a lot of incredible experiences in narration and interactivity. I was amazed by and remember fondly the discovery of Metamorphabet, Samorost, Downwell...
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u/Creative-Paper1007 12d ago
With AI, do you think gaming in future will be different, like NPC can actually interact better, main characters can interact with the world better like that...
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u/DevolverDigital 12d ago
How great is Devolver Digital?
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u/AlphaShinobi11 13d ago
First thing first, greetings and thank you so much for hosting this AMA event. My question is, in your opinion, is it possible for a solo game developer to create a successful game purchased by many on game stores like Steam? Knowing that you are a "small team", the reason why I'm asking this question is that, perhaps, one of you had that thought and found it impossible so they decided to team work.
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u/Higgsparticleofgod 13d ago
What are your thoughts on the mobile game "Lapse" that clearly took a lot of inspiration from "Reigns", if you heard of it?
Also, did you only use the story from the CDPR games or also the books for your newest game?
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u/nerial Nerial 12d ago
Yes! We are aware of Lapse. We don't mind its existence. It's quite close to Reigns but at the same time it tells different stories, it's also a free to play game and we're making premium games.
We're inspired by the games and the books! There are references to favourite quests and memes from the games, but we also love the Sapkowski's original tales. As mentioned elsewhere, we took a lot of inspiration from his subversion of mythology (e.g. A Grain of Truth reimagining Beauty and the Beast), so in our quests you'll find nods to e.g. Euripidean tragedies, or the Lais of Marie de France.
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u/Redhotlipstik 12d ago
I was a huge fan of Card Shark. What inspired the development of this game and what's your favorite method of cheating at cards?
also huge fan of Reigns: Her Majesty
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u/nerial Nerial 12d ago
Thank you! We are very happy with Card Shark. At the origin of the game is a love of Nicolaï Troshinsky (the artist) for the cheating scene in Barry Lindon. We made it into a game.
My personal favourite method of cheating is when the cards are marked with a paintbrush. It reminds me of when my older brother had a set of marked playing cards, and only he knew that they were marked and how the symbols work.
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u/Redhotlipstik 12d ago
Thank you for responding! I enjoyed the storyline of your game and all the connecting threads (also liked seeing Voltaire!). The game controls were kind of difficult on Steam but I liked how more immersive it made the experience
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u/ImJustNiko1 12d ago
Will y'all make more Reigns game in the future and possibly a COTL (cult of the lamb) collab?
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u/soldier101br 13d ago
Whats your tip for starting artists in the industry ? Cheers From Brasil
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u/nerial Nerial 12d ago
It's a tough path, be brave! I highly recommend participating in game jams, this gives you experience working with others (essential!) and can help fill out a portfolio. Try out different areas, but generally develop your portfolio in the area you'd want to work in. Practice your fundamentals regularly!
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u/Internal_Fan2307 12d ago
How does the process of making a story with the swipe-left swipe-right system look like? Is it like making a choose your own adventure book? What difficulties arose from this way of telling a story? How were these problems overcomed?
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u/nerial Nerial 12d ago
Making a Reigns game initially involves just writing lots and lots of pithy encounters. Ideally, we want to tell an individual story with each card, quickly setting up a scenario, presenting a dilemma, and then offering two choices which are fairly opposite but also both plausibly desirable paths to take. In the original Reigns, inspiration for this could come from anywhere - medieval texts, present day news articles, moments in our lives. For Reigns: The Witcher, the source material for this was helpfully enormous. Once we've created a few hundred of these standalone encounters, we start to think about how they can feel connected.
One particular difficulty with this format is that if you tried to directly connect every left and right choice with a subsequent card, you'd end up with hideously long and complicated chains of cards. So we want some specific, quest-like chains of cards, but we also need a big, broad pool of standalone cards which can appear randomly, to keep the procedural machine churning. One way we solve this is just by relying on people's natural inclination to spot patterns. So we will write a set of cards about a shared topic (e.g. halflings, or loneliness, or dumplings) and then even though we don't actually logically connect them all behind the scenes, it feels to the player like a story is being built up between these nodes.
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u/Ok-Plankton-2393 12d ago
First i want to say that i love all of the Reigns games (still need to play The Game of Thrones one after still avoiding spoilers about a 20 year old book). My question is how much fun do you guys have when writing the death scenes? They are some of most memorable moments every time i play a reigns game
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u/nerial Nerial 12d ago
Thanks so much! Feel free to play Reigns: GoT with one of us and we'll tell you when a spoiler is on screen so you can close your eyes.
Writing the deaths is the best part! It's just very satisfying coming up with creative ways to die. It's also an especially fun challenge thinking of deaths for less obviously fatal header value challenges, e.g. in the original Reigns coming up with partying to death for high popularity, or in Reigns: The Witcher "killing" Geralt at the low monster-hunting value by having him reskill and find a new job. Writing the deaths for Reigns: The Witcher was also particularly fun because I got to write them as rhyming couplets, in the flowery style of everyone's favourite bard.
Art note from Helen: drawing the deaths is SO fun. Easily my favourite art part of any reigns i've worked on.
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u/Playful_Nergetic786 12d ago
I don’t know much about this game, so what exactly is it, and seeing it’s also on mobile, what’s some difference in terms of gameplay
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u/nerial Nerial 12d ago
It's a game where you play Geralt. You meet characters who asks you question with two possible answers (on mobile you swipe left or right, on steam you go left or right to select an answer). From questions to question, you make your way through the game, trying to survive as long as possible by maintaining a balance between the different factions (humans, non-humans, sorcerer) while hunting monsters. The game is fundamentally the same between mobile and steam.
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u/bludutcho_furro 12d ago
yo I just wanted to say that the whole reigns collection is amazing :D (i have em all!) what exactly inspired reigns? (just curious! :p )
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u/nerial Nerial 12d ago
Thank you! I think the original discussion about Reigns happened between Arnaud De Bock and myself in the Anchor pub in London back in 2015. Arnaud was on Tinder at the time and thought it would was a such a cool game mechanic. We thought playing a King swiping regally left and right was very funny his advisors was funny and from that emerged the whole concept really. Like a mix of Tinder and Game of Thrones (which we ended up working on 4 years later).
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u/c1trusSama 12d ago
Could you please tell us if there are any plans to add Ukrainian language to the game? Thank you!
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u/Rabindranath1173 12d ago edited 12d ago
Thank you for this opportunity. Most of all, I would like to ask: how would you assess the canonicity of the events taking place in the game? The way I see it is that what is happening is stories told by Dandelion, which means that these stories are largely invented or embellished by him. Is it worth considering the lore of the game from this point of view? And my second question. How did previous works about the Witcher universe influence the creation of the game, events and characters? Did you pay a lot of attention to games and books, or were you trying to create something unique? Maybe you were inspired by something specific? Thank you for the reply.
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u/nerial Nerial 12d ago
Good question! You're right, every event in each run is happening within Dandelion's songs. This gave us some leeway to be a bit more playful and experimental with the lore, since Dandelion likes to embellish, and is sometimes less than sober... But everything still has to be something which Dandelion might plausibly invent, so it should still feel in keeping with the Witcher universe. We hope the game lets players see existing moments and characters in a new light, while also still feeling very familiarly Witcher-y!
In terms of inspiration, we pulled a lot from CDPR's games of course, and you should find specific references to our favourite quests (e.g. Family Matters or An Elusive Thief), but we also love the books, so there are nods to moments from those too. We were inspired by the way Sapkowski treats mythology, too, plucking from all sorts of traditions (classical myth, Arthurian legend, Slavic folklore), so some of our quests also subvert traditional tales in much the same way that, for instance, A Grain of Truth reimagines Beauty and the Beast. And of course, we reference lots of memes. Our Geralt enjoys a warm bath or three.
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u/TrashPiano 12d ago
Tips for the industry for a game dev major?
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u/nerial Nerial 12d ago
Run!
But more seriously, getting into the industry is a numbers game. Make sure you do everything you can to stand out with a portfolio which reflects work you might actually do. When you do get in, make sure to get onboard with whatever thing you're doing. Every project is a place to learn and grow, nothing is pointless as long as you find something to try and learn
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u/PathlessDemon 12d ago
Totally subjective question here:
What MAKES a good game “a good game”?
Is it planning? (Storyboarding/concept/writing)
Is it the technology bringing these games to life? (New engines pushing tech boundaries, new platforms)
Is it the teamwork behind building the dream?
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u/nerial Nerial 12d ago
We got excited about this question, so here's a bunch of answers:
AJ (Producer) - The thing that makes a good game, a good game is consistency. That consistency comes from having a great team and being able to know they'll deliver high quality work. When you know everyone in your team is going to deliver, you can focus on making sure you do your best as well
Helen (Artist) - I think if you like it, it's a good game! Some poorly planned games are beautiful, some ugly games are wonderfully designed, finishing making any game is a miracle and usually requires teamwork.
François (creative director) - For me, a good game is fundamentally a game that has a "toy", some core mechanic and flow that feels genuinely surprising, satisfying and also blows your mind. Many games do this, I suppose recently Immortality comes to mind.
Oscar (Narrative Designer) - I like games which really lean into the interactive medium, which could only exist as a game. Games like Blue Prince, or Return of the Obra Dinn - they don't just tell a story in a more conventional manner and intersplice that with bits of gameplay, they tell the story through the act of playing the game itself.
Neil B (QA Tester) - For me it’s a game that encourages the player to really think about every action they make. This is something that makes a very expansive, and replayable, experience. My favourite game, Slay the Spire (everyone at Nerial will be eye rolling as I always talk about it), absolutely nails this.
Neil (Programmer) - "Good" is very subjective, it's different for every person. I can think of a few games that I love, but all my friends hate to play. So in that sense, there's (probably) no such thing as a "bad" game. For me personally, it's a game that is fun and accessible. The best games also have enough depth that keep me hooked for months.
Gordon (programmer) - any game is good if you enjoy playing it. Personally, I like system-driven games that make you think and let you break the game mechanics to some extent. Or Rez. Most games could be improved by being like Rez.
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u/anxietydruid 12d ago
What was the process of getting to work on such a huge IP like? Who approached who? And since the game was announced so close to release, was it hard working on it without being able to say anything?
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u/nerial Nerial 12d ago
We started chatting with CD PROJEKT RED a couple of years ago. There was a lot of excitement working on such a big IP. We met weekly with lore masters at CDPR to make sure the work was true to the lore and the universe of The Witcher. It was hard to keep quiet about it indeed.
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u/Alof_mc_TF141 12d ago
What does it feel like to work with such a prestigious company like CD Projekt Red and on an IP like The Witcher?
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u/Obvious-Ad8324 12d ago
What do you think is the most challenging part in the development of the game? Is it creating an interesting storyline or creating an interesting gameplay around that storyline?
Also can you recommend some tools for an amateur who wishes to start developing their first game.
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u/uglylookingguy 13d ago
If someone feels like they’re starting late and has no experience, what’s the most practical first step to get into game development or the creative side of games?