It is said that for every human being in existence there is a dedicated species of job simulator, a variety of job sim that speaks to that person, body and soul. In my case, that job sim is Medieval Machines Builder, probably better known as Siege Weapon Builder.
Its free-to-play prologue goes live later this week, on top of a demo from last year. I haven’t played either the prologue or the demo and who knows, they could be rubbish, but look, I had to spend three hours this morning queuing for an appointment, and all I wanted to do during those three hours was cobble together a trebuchet from plastic chairs and retractable tape. Let me do a quick 400 words on this? Pretty please?
Created by FreeMind S.A. and Solverto, who seem to have a good track record for this kind of thing, Medieval Machines Builder also has one of the most inspiring prologues I’ve ever read. “Thanks to your creations you will conquer more than one castle,” it intones. “The knights wage wars, but thanks to your machines they win them. You are Medieval Machines Builder.” Oh my god, I’m crying.
The siege weapons in question include catapults, trebuchets and ballistae, together with, pffff, battering rams, for the less elegant siegecrafter. To assemble them, you will need to find materials – chopping down trees, dragging the logs to a worksite, then cutting and planing the wood to make planks. You will need tools, such as axes and, er whatever they call the thing you plane wood with, which can be forged using hammer and tongs (“it’s time to feel like MacGyver and create something out of nothing”, the Steam page goes on, much to my excitement/confusion), or bought from cheery beardy folk at marketplaces.
Once you’ve prepped the components you slot them into quintessentially medieval holographic blue templates, then hammer in pegs and whatnot to finalise your breathtaking instrument of castle abuse. Then, at last, the Good Stuff: cranking back the firing arm and putting a big rock in the ladle, or whatever it’s called, and nodding in paternalistic satisfaction when you overshoot the enemy fortress and flatten your own cavalry instead. If rocks are hard to come by, it looks like you can also use the heads of your enemies as ammunition. Also cows, for the Monty Pythons among us.
I wouldn’t mind being a professional siege weapon builder in some kind of MMORPG – there’s a touch of that kind of thing in Elder Scrolls Online, but you do have to wade in and fight up-close eventually. If you’re a filthy contrarian who loves sieges but hates the medieval period, you might prefer Abriss, which is about smashing up Brutalist architecture in the far future.
