Northgard is a survival, real-time strategy game with 4x elements, seeing asymmetrical clans battle one another for supremacy. Players have to explore and conquer the land, but first, they have to settle and produce the resources they need to survive and account for the needs of their people.
Check the Steam page for Northgard:
Since I've joined the project, I'm in charge of defining and designing the content of new updates and new clans. I've also worked on a new campaign and a new game mode.
The most challenging aspect of the job, is to come up with new clans that manage to be unique, introduce and rely on new gameplay mechanics to challenge and have the player rediscover the game, without falling in the pit of over-complexity.
I like to define new clans with two major aspects. One feature they lack, and one rule they are allowed to break by their mechanics to compensate. Then I work from there to imagine the lore and background of the clan that would explain how they arrived at this unique position. I do a lot of research about historical and mythic references that could enrich the concept until it seems complete enough.
I then include the rest of the team and discuss the concept with them, exploring what they would like to do, what interests them, and rework the concept until we all share a common vision for it.
With the team, we quickly create a first playable version of the clan to test it. I like to go in with the most extreme version, see how it feels, and smooth off the aspects that go too far or do not work as I had imagined. As soon as we have a version that is okay with the team, we push to close beta and let players in, so we can know how they feel about it.
From there, we iterate with a new version released on beta each week to tweak balancing, UI, comprehension, or any aspects the players notify us about until the final release of the clan.