Zugalu Entertainment has released its first game on Steam in early access. Thrive: Heavy Lies the Crown is a medieval fantasy survival strategy game that incorporates real-time combat and decision-making, allowing players to shape the game’s story.

The city of Aldamor has been brought to ruins by a mysterious toxic haze that killed most of its citizens, including the leader. You and a few others managed to escape in time and are now looking to establish a new home elsewhere. As the newly appointed ruler, you and your fellow survivors must build a new kingdom and restore it to its former glory.

Players will assign various tasks to their subjects, including resource collection, structure construction, exploration of the surrounding wilderness, and managing trade with other settlements. As your city grows, you’ll need to decide what kind of ruler you will become. Will you show compassion for your people and forge bonds with neighboring towns, or will you rule with an iron fist, suppressing your subjects and taking everything by force? Depending on your choices, the game will unfold with unique challenges and storylines.

The land of Nysamor is made up of diverse terrains, such as lush fields. The developers took much of their inspiration from other 4X world maps when designing it. As mentioned before, there are other towns controlled by AI in single-player mode. However, the game also features a multiplayer mode where you can compete against other players to create the strongest kingdom or collaborate to build the largest cities possible. Up to four players can join a game simultaneously.

Where Thrive: Heavy Lies the Crown differs from most other strategy games is in its combat system. To raise an army, you don’t simply pay for materials once. Your soldiers need to stay fed and hydrated to remain combat-ready, making food an even more valuable resource.

The game is currently launched into early access with around 80% of all content the devs want to add. This includes 20 hours of solo story content with three narrative acts and multiple routes to take depending on what kind of ruler you plan to become, a large map with 35 regions to conquer, 40 structures to build a settlement and defend it from others, and an endless mode in the form of multiplayer. The complete version of Thrive: Heavy Lies the Crown will incorporate more depth in its gameplay, enhancing both the strategic and management parts of the game. As well it will also introduce additional features for citizens so they have more to do. The developers are going for a 1.0 release sometime in the following year.

Thrive: Heavy Lies the Crown is available on Steam at a discounted price until November 13.