Salve Internet,

I am Carmine Siena from Corvo Bianco Entertainment and this is the first of many to come devlogs regarding the development of Villanus: Imperium Romanum.

First of all, let me tell you something about Corvo Bianco Entertainment. I founded it last year as an indie games studio to publish every already self-developed game, but mainly to create bigger and better projects. And this first big project which I am tackling on my own is Villanus: Imperium Romanum. I will call it Villanus, since it is shorter. When I say, “tackling on my own”, I really mean everything with the exception of the music, so design, programming and project management tasks. The soundtrack will be composed by a very talented musician, Markus Strausfeld, who I am glad to be close friends with.

So, let's get to business folks! Villanus is a real-time strategy game focusing on city building, resource management and business simulation which will be published for Windows, MacOS and Linux. As the name suggests, it is set in ancient Rome. You will be a praeses – a governor of Rome – being tasked with building a city and lead it to prosperity. To do so, you have to manage production facilities, fulfil the needs and wants of your citizens, trade with other cities or countries and substantiate your position by honouring the great empire.
The game will include a singleplayer endless game mode as well as a singleplayer campaign. It is also planned to create additional contents after publishing the game, depending on the feedback of the community.

Now, I can feel you urging to ask me about the current state of development. Don't worry! That is exactly what I want to talk about next. So, I started the conceptualisation of Villanus at the end of last year and did some minor work during the course of the first months of 2018, since I was focussing on my bachelor's dissertation back then. I started to really work on Villanus in mid-May – so, the development is now in its third intensive month. You might know how long it takes a big studio to produce a triple-a game, so I can assure you that the development will take at least another one and a half year, maybe even two years, since I want to really get it out in its best possible quality. Up to this very moment, I have the first draft of the UI and its functionalities ready, built-in the basic components needed to build, select and demolish buildings and also implemented some of the basic algorithms for producing goods as well as consuming them on the citizen-side. I assume you would like to see some screenshots or similar, but give me some few weeks to get this “white box” framework a little more polished. In this stage of development, I am not yet focussing on getting the graphics done which means that the images and footages to come will look rather “basic” for quite some time. Usability and gameplay first!

I am planning to publish a devlog around every two weeks, to involve you – the community – into the development from the beginning, and to be able to answer to your questions as soon and thoroughly as possible. In the meantime, you can contact me anytime. Corvo Bianco Entertainment is on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. Villanus: Imperium Romanum has also its own social media pages. Feel free to connect yourself, I am excited about every like, share and comment of you.

If you want to support the development of this amazing project, head over to our Patreon page and become a patron. I am very grateful for each and every one of you aiming to help me realising this game. And don't worry: you'll get some pretty cool benefits for pledging!

I am looking forward to hearing from you guys! 'Til then: happy gaming and “in vino veritas”.
Cheers!