The Prince is here: try it free for an hour

The Prince is a turn-based strategy game about winning people, not battles. You build towns on a board made of triangles, rhombuses and hexagons, set taxes, run services, and try to hold the largest population when the seasons run out. People are not a single happiness bar: they have needs, they get sick, they move away from bad rule and towards good rule, and a neighbouring village can choose to join you.

Today it goes on sale for $14.99 through the DFD Launcher and at prince.kodydennon.com. There's also a free demo: the whole game for 60 minutes of play, with an account. Your realm is saved as you go, so if you buy the full game, you pick up where the demo left off.

What's in this build

• A living board. Every building has its own model, people walk the roads, smoke rises from chimneys, and the seasons change the land, with snow in winter and clouds drifting overhead.
• An economy of short chains. Farms, camps, quarries and mines feed workshops and markets. Your towns share their goods, so a farm in one town feeds the others.
• Health and waste. Wells give clean water; neglected waste and crowding spread disease, and quarantine has a cost.
• Two ways to play. Compete against rivals (people at one screen or computer princes) for the largest population, or play the building mode: no winner, no deadline, just your realm, with a chronicle of its history when you retire.
• Timed seasons (a trial) for single-player games, with pause and speed controls.
• Sound and music for every season.
• Performance. A season now changes in about 0.6 seconds, down from 14.5, and the frame rate holds steady on modest PCs. Graphics and frame-rate settings let older machines and phones keep up.

What's next

The Prince is early: expect rough edges, and tell us about them. Online play, more of the society and politics simulation, and the long arc from Renaissance towns to modern cities are all still ahead. This devlog is where each step will show up.

Thanks for playing.