Black Forge Jam

Hello everyone!
Back in December of 2023, halls of Studio Black buzzed with an exciting flurry of activity for the team’s inaugural Black Forge Jam: a three-day extravaganza of creativity and innovation, with just a dash of chaos. This wasn't your average development sprint. We threw the rulebook out the window (figuratively speaking, of course) to dive into the realms of "What if?" and "Why not?" for Crusader Kings III.

A Dive into Uncharted Waters
Imagine a space where time, budget, and the usual game plan constraints are sidelined, allowing for pure, unadulterated creativity. That's what the Black Forge Jam was all about. With 11 different projects on the table, different groups from the CK3 Dev team embarked on a journey to explore the unexplored and build the unbuilt, all fueled by a passion for innovation and perhaps a copious amount of caffeine.

Take a look behind the scenes of the Black Forge Jam:


What If…?
While the team experimented with 11 different projects during the event, these 5 ideas stood out after the work was done.

• Medieval Menagerie: Envision a court where your royal advisors are joined by loyal pets, each bringing a unique flair and emotional depth to your reign. This project focused on incorporating pets into the game, understanding the emotional impact they have on players, and exploring how to enhance that aspect of gameplay.

• Immersive Barks: Picture interacting with your subjects and hearing their whispered allegiances and concerns, enriching the tapestry of your kingdom's story without a single voice actor. Inspired by real-time strategy games, this project aimed to add small textual feedback from characters when players interact with them, enhancing the immersion and interaction.

• Death and Succession Dynamics: Delve into the complexities of royal lineage where death and succession are more than mere formalities but pivotal moments that can shape the destiny of your dynasty. This project aimed at making the death and succession process more interesting and giving players more choice in who they continue as, addressing scenarios where a player’s favorite character is not their heir.

• Karnöffel: Discover the joy and strategy of integrating Europe’s oldest known trick-taking card game, offering a new layer of historical immersion and leisure within your court.

• Intrigue Warfare: Imagine a realm where the dark art of intrigue directly influences the battlefield, allowing for more nuanced and strategic warfare decisions. This project aimed to better integrate the Intrigue system with warfare by creating new ways to use hooks on opposing commanders or knights and to interact with mercenaries.

The above projects represent the broad spectrum of creativity and innovation that our team poured their hearts into. But it didn’t stop there; ideas flowed, code was written, and the foundations for potential future expansions to Crusader Kings III were laid, so we’re just as excited as you to see what the future brings!


The Spirit of the Forge
What truly stood out wasn't just the projects themselves but the incredible energy and dedication of the CK3 team. There was laughter, challenges, and yes, the occasional cry of despair over a stubborn piece of code. But above all, there was an undeniable sense of camaraderie and shared purpose. The jam wasn't about delivering polished, finished products but about embracing the beauty of imperfection and the thrill of exploration.

Now It’s Your Turn
This jam was a testament to our commitment not just to Crusader Kings III but to you, our amazing community. Your enthusiasm, feedback, and support fuel our creative fires and guide our ventures into new territories. So, we're turning the spotlight over to you now. We've shared a glimpse into our world of creation and innovation—now tell us, what captured your imagination? Which of these projects would you love to see come to life in the game? Your insights, dreams, and wishes are what help shape the future of Crusader Kings III, so drop your thoughts on the projects worked on during the Black Forge Jam below!  

Flockingbird said: P.S. Regarding Medieval Menagerie: back around December or so, we had a new poster who asked for exactly what you’ve described (and got laughed at)—did y’all see that post? It wasn’t one of you devs trolling the forum, was it? (I’ll try to find that post when I have time to search.)

Haha, not quite. I think I briefly mentioned in the video that whilst the Menagerie in this format was put forward by me, the idea behind expanding the role of pets has been rife since before release really.

Most community comments have been stuff like "pls let me put them in the court room!" which is of course a great idea, but the Menagerie project deliberately aimed a lot higher than that. We always set out to make them actually matter to the player rather than just represent them visually, cool though the latter is on its own. Suffice to say we did a little bit more with it than we've fully shown with the video.  

riadach said: Don't forget the horsies. I always get annoyed when I'm told I have a warhorse yet cannot see him/her. Especially now that we use horses to travel on tours etc.

That was actually one of our stated goals, to make any system we have at least somewhat expandable. For all those non-modders out there, the current process of adding new pets - insofar as the idea of a new pet really exists in CK3 as it stands, given they're essentially just story cycles with unique modifiers - is finicky and pretty high-effort, and contained entirely within script. Some of the behind the scenes coding gubbins we did in those three days essentially converted the system over to code which inherently makes it a lot more scaleable.

So yeah, can't promise horses by any means, but the work we've done means that ideally should we ever want to go down the road of implementing this system, adding other animals like horses would be a lot easier than it currently is.  

PDXOxycoon said: I want to continue on the Minorities project. Make sure to let Trinexx know how much you all want it, so @Wokeg and I can get the resources to see it realised!

Also do this for Menagerie but accompany it with pictures of your pets so they're more attention-grabbing and thus will be seen more often by everyone, thus naturally biasing him towards vouching for it.