Welcome one and all to the latest Dev Blog! We’ve got the weekly Q&A back, information on our upgrade to the Unreal Engine 4.14, details of our upcoming update with some exciting screenshots, The Black Death in the Top 100 IndieDB Indie Games Of The Year and our Dev Talk at Brewdog Leicester!

Weekly Q&A

Will the Combat System be improved upon in its current state and how?



Making changes to the combat in game is a big task. It involves changes to animations, programming, movement/controls and hit detection/collision. There are many elements that are involved in how the combat system is created for example adding different moves or weapon types requires a lot of work. We used to have a stance system built into our combat but this was removed based on player feedback. Combat is something that we would like to revisit sometime before we go into a full launch stage. If and when we do upgrade our combat system, due to the large workload it would more than likely be featured in its own update.

Why can’t a Smith produce his own tools? He doesn’t know how to make wood/stone tools which are required to mine metal and wood for the iron tools that he can make.

That is an interesting question!

The way our Professions work is to encourage group play, as an example you would have various players playing as different Professions within a town. One may be playing a peasant who is primarily a resource gathering profession and has the ability to craft tools that enable him to do this. Another may be playing as a Merchant who crafts the townsfolk’s housing items and makes a profit from goods sold and uses this gold to buy better quality materials and thus craft better quality items to sell. The Smith is primarily a crafting Profession and provides the Militia and Knight class with top tier weapons and armour.

Each profession has it’s dedicated role that has been created to work alongside other professions. Blacksmiths rely on peasants for gathering resources, peasants rely on militia for protection and militia rely on blacksmiths for weapons crafting and repairs.

To aid players who may be playing on less populated servers, in the new V0.11 Providence update we added various different vendors and merchants into Mercia including a tools vendor, he should have everything you need!

Engine Upgrade

Over these last few weeks we having been upgrading to Unreal engine 4.14. This has been a big task for the team and has taken a bit longer than we thought!

Implementing this has had an impact on what we intended to work on for the new update. We are now fixing issues that the upgrade has caused. In the long run it has been worth upgrading, it will now give us access to new features. This includes faster network replication which should mean better network optimisation for everyone!

You can read the Unreal 4.14 patch notes below.

https://www.unrealengine.com/blog/unreal-engine-4-14-released

Work In Progress – Server Changes

We have been working behind the scenes on dedicated servers for The Black Death which we know has been a highly requested feature from our Community! When this system has been implemented we will need your help testing them out. Your feedback will be essential as this is quite a big technical change for us!

We have some big news about our servers! With much consideration and thought we have decided to close London_05 and Frankfurt_03 and in it’s place open an Australian server!

UPDATE: As of the 16th December 2016 the London_05 and Frankfurt_03 servers have been official closed. In their place we have opened a new server, Sydney_01! Do not fear, if you had a character on either of these servers they are safe, along with your Inventory. If you owned any houses and had items stashed in storage containers they have been lost. Simply press the “Switch Server” tool and pick a server to get back into Mercia!

Thank you for your understanding and patience!

Update Details

We are hoping to have a new update on our Beta server soon!

We’ve got battlefields, new forest areas, Logger’s Respite and WetRock revamp and some grand housing complete with a full plot of land for the aspiring Peasant! We even have a Christmas vendor who sells seasonal items!

SIG_JC has been busy polishing and crafting more areas into the land of Mercia. Think you’ve explored everywhere in Mercia? Think again! There’s lots more to explore with new areas and reworks to older zones and forests to get lost in. Got some spare gold lying around? You will be able to purchase an Estate in our upcoming content patch. We even have a Battlefield with an NPC camp and forest perfect for those tactical battles where you can use the environment to your advantage. WetRock and Logger’s Respite have had a redesign to better fit the rest of Mercia.

– Crutchley Hill Forest

– Crutchley Hill Estate

– Capital City Path Polish

– Capital City Left Forest

– Path to Wet Rock polish and forest

– WetRock village redone

– WetRock village pine forest

– Estates Added

– Capital bridge forest redone

– Battlefield

– Battlefield NPC Camp

– Battlefield Forest

– Logger’s Respite redone

– Logger’s Respite forest

Our new battlefield areas are a great place for RolePlaying events and re-enactments, send us your best battle screenshots and get featured in our Community Corner on our Blog. We think this would be a great spot for some amazing battle scenes for big server events in game! We would love to see The Templars battle it out against The Watch.

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The cosy village just down the path from Ironhold known as Logger’s Respite has had a rework! It now features more up to date housing too.

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Got some spare Gold lying around? This stately Estate could be yours for only 12,000 Gold! Features a large plot of land perfect for all your crops with a tidy fence. Stunning glass windows and a fortress style roof for that Medieval touch. Included in this is a tower overlooking the manor complete with a bowman guard to protect the home.

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New Brick Paint!

SIG_Cam has been busy painting and re working the stone/brick textures. The new brick paint brings out the Medieval style of the old days, using height maps in the Unreal Engine to create depth and more definition. The new texture painting we feel is a huge improvement over the old one and adds more character to the design and style of The Black Death.

Check out this cool GIF that SIG_Cam made showing a preview of how he paints the new textures and blends them together seamlessly in the Unreal Engine. Working with such a powerful engine allows us to utilise the tools and systems to our advantage and with the new 4.14 upgrade underway this will add new elements and features we can work with.



Here at SIG we often take inspiration from famous landmarks and scenery across parts of Europe. For example did you know that the design and layout of Raven’s Reach is inspired by the Cite Dé Carcassonne in France? Closer to home, we will be having a look at Old John Tower, Leicestershire’s most famous landmark!

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Bradgate Park in Leicestershire is a huge 850 acres of land as has a lot of history behind it’s owners, ruins, monuments and the Grey family who once lived in the manor. You can find out more about the park over on their website. One such monument is Old John Tower which used to house a Windmill many years ago. It features an arched medieval door, old wooden windows with a decorative glass top, an archway on its left side, Medieval brickwork and a Turret style top. It has been known that it looks like an upside down tankard of ale with the archway being the handle! Check out the gallery below to see SIG_Emily’s photos of Old John Tower!

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Indie DB Awards

We would like to give a MASSIVE thank you to everyone in our Community! The Black Death made it into the Top 100 Indie Games Of The Year 2016! We couldn’t have done it without your support, we are speechless!

Head on over to the Indie DB website, under the Adventure category and cast your vote for The Black Death as the Indie Game Of The Year 2016! Every vote counts, don’t forget to share with your Friends and Family too!

Vote For The Black Death As Indie Game Of The Year 2016!

The Indie Awards is proudly sponsored by the Square Enix Collective​

Small Impact Games at Brewdog Leicester with SideFest and the Leicester Games Network!

A massive thank you to the team at SideFest the Leicester Games Network and Brewdog Leicester for allowing us to present our Developer talk and of course to everyone who attended; we hope you all enjoyed it!

“Steam Early Access is overstocked with survival games, but Small Impact Studios launched into it anyway – and The Black Death has built a player base as it approaches release. We discuss the double edged sword of early access, speaking to a community formed around an unfinished game, world building versus procedural generation, environmental storytelling in a multiplayer setting and planning towards shipping a finished game.”

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Monday 12th December 2016 19:00 – 22:00

Brewdog Leicester

8 Friar Lane, Leicester, LE1 5RA

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…See you next time!

//The SIG Team