Blood Pact

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  Swear the pact

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  Scout your enemies

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  Activate relics you find

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  March into battle

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  Make the oath

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  Build your kingdom

# Blood Pact

A dark medieval kingdom-building strategy RPG where every oath, battle and sacrifice becomes part of your permanent history — and the kingdom you build remembers what you did.

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Inspiration

Most strategy games let you conquer territory, upgrade buildings and complete quests.

But too often, the world forgets.

A battle becomes a reward screen. A difficult decision becomes another completed quest. A fallen soldier becomes a number. A promise made ten hours earlier has little meaning once the next mission begins.

Blood Pact was built around a different idea: what if a strategy game remembered?

The game begins not with the founding of a kingdom, but with the destruction of one.

You survive its fall.

Then you inherit the responsibility for what comes next.

Blood Pact combines cinematic storytelling, strategic battles, expeditions and kingdom building with a persistent history system designed to make the player's decisions feel like events that actually happened in their world.

When everything has fallen, will you become the one who builds what comes next?

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What it does

Blood Pact is a dark medieval kingdom-building strategy RPG for mobile.

Players move between:

• cinematic narrative sequences;
• strategic decisions;
• expeditions and exploration;
• military campaigns;
• battlefield encounters;
• kingdom development;
• persistent Pacts and consequences; and
• the evolving Chronicle of their reign.

But these systems are connected by something more important:

Consequence.

Choices made during campaigns, battles and expeditions become part of the history of the player's kingdom rather than disappearing when a mission ends.

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A Fall Worth Surviving

Blood Pact opens during the destruction of an old kingdom.

The player experiences its collapse through a cinematic prologue:

• a wounded ruler;
• a burning throne room;
• the transfer of the royal seal;
• desperate decisions;
• sacrifice; and
• an oath that transforms the player from survivor into successor.

The choices made during these events establish the beginning of the player's history.

Who did you protect?

What did you promise?

What were you willing to lose?

Blood Pact remembers.

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Found Blackridge

Survival eventually becomes responsibility.

The player establishes Blackridge, a stronghold that begins with almost nothing and develops through campaigns, discoveries, victories and strategic decisions.

Blackridge is designed to feel like somewhere the player has genuinely created.

Its buildings, military capability, heraldry and monuments develop alongside the player's progress, becoming visible evidence of what has been achieved rather than simply numbers increasing on a menu.

The kingdom becomes both the player's strategic base and the physical record of their rise.

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Blood Pacts

Major decisions in Blood Pact are represented through Pacts.

A Pact is more than a quest.

It is a ceremonial commitment of the player's name, army or kingdom to a course of action.

Campaigns, expeditions and major kingdom decisions can therefore become promises whose consequences persist beyond the immediate mission.

The goal is to make important decisions feel like:

"I chose this."

rather than:

"I completed this."

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The Chronicle

At the centre of Blood Pact's persistence system is The Chronicle.

Important events from the player's reign can become part of a living historical record, including:

• battles;
• victories;
• defeats;
• discoveries;
• expeditions;
• major decisions;
• Pacts;
• kingdom milestones; and
• the founding and growth of Blackridge.

Instead of presenting history purely as lore written before the player arrived, Blood Pact gradually creates history around what the player actually does.

A major victory can become part of the Chronicle.

So can a disastrous defeat.

A new monument.

A dangerous expedition.

An oath.

A sacrifice.

The player's reign becomes the story.

Selected Chronicle moments are also designed to become shareable pieces of that history, allowing players to share meaningful events from their kingdom rather than simply posting scores or achievement badges.

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Battles and Expeditions

Players leave the safety of Blackridge to undertake expeditions and military campaigns.

These journeys can include:

• exploration;
• investigation;
• ancient ruins;
• encounters with local settlements;
• discoveries;
• ambushes;
• intelligence gathering; and
• battlefield engagements.

Combat is presented as part of the larger campaign rather than an isolated minigame.

Both player and enemy actions receive battlefield presentation, helping battles feel like clashes between two forces rather than one-sided attacks followed by statistics.

Victory may strengthen Blackridge.

Defeat may cost soldiers and resources.

Sometimes survival itself becomes the victory.

And whatever happens may follow the player home.

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The Veiled Host

Something is moving in the darkness beyond Blackridge.

Ravens arrive.

Intelligence begins to surface.

Border incidents become harder to dismiss.

Incursions test what the player has built.

The Veiled Host is a slowly developing threat that creates tension beyond individual missions.

Rather than immediately revealing a conventional antagonist, Blood Pact introduces fragments of information and escalating encounters over time.

Players gradually discover:

• who or what the Veiled Host is;
• why it is moving;
• what it wants; and
• whether Blackridge is becoming strong enough to survive what is coming.

It creates a larger mystery connecting the opening chapter to the expanding world Blood Pact is intended to become.

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Cinematic Storytelling

Blood Pact uses cinematic sequences throughout important gameplay moments rather than confining storytelling to an opening cutscene.

Cinematic scenes can accompany:

• the fall of the original kingdom;
• journeys into dangerous territory;
• battlefield events;
• enemy attacks;
• major discoveries;
• encounters with settlements;
• relics and mysteries;
• stronghold development;
• campaign outcomes; and
• important narrative decisions.

These sequences are connected to actual gameplay progression.

The objective is not simply to show the player something impressive.

It is to make an event they caused, survived or failed to prevent feel significant.

Blood Pact aims to bring some of the atmosphere and emotional weight of larger strategy RPGs into a mobile-first experience.

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What Makes Blood Pact Different

Blood Pact is built around several connected ideas.

Persistent Consequence

Important decisions become history instead of disappearing after a mission.

A Kingdom That Reflects the Player

Blackridge develops as visible evidence of campaigns, discoveries, decisions and achievements.

Pacts Instead of Disposable Quests

Major objectives become ceremonial commitments with consequences beyond an individual reward.

The Chronicle

The player's reign creates an evolving historical record unique to their actions.

Cinematic Strategy on Mobile

Narrative, battles, expeditions and kingdom progression are presented as parts of a connected experience.

A Mystery That Develops Over Time

The Veiled Host provides an evolving external threat that gives players a reason to keep watching the borders of the kingdom they have built.

The objective is not simply to give players more systems.

It is to make those systems feel like they belong to their kingdom, their reign and their history.

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Monetisation and RevenueCat

Blood Pact is free to download and play.

Its initial monetisation centres around the optional Founder's Oath, implemented using RevenueCat.

The Founder's Oath is deliberately designed around identity, permanence and participation rather than selling combat power.

Players who choose to become Founders can receive:

• permanent Founder recognition;
• a numbered Founder identity;
• exclusive Founder heraldry;
• distinctive Chronicle treatment; and
• participation in a roadmap-shaping Pact that helps influence part of Blood Pact's future development.

The Founder's Oath is a one-time optional purchase.

A player does not need to purchase it to play Blood Pact.

This monetisation model was chosen because it fits the themes of the game itself.

Blood Pact is fundamentally about:

identity, oaths, history and permanence.

The earliest supporters are therefore not simply purchasing an item.

They are becoming part of Blood Pact's founding history.

RevenueCat provides the purchase and entitlement infrastructure behind this system while giving Blood Pact a foundation for future optional monetisation as the game expands.

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How We Built It

Blood Pact is being developed as a production-bound Android mobile game rather than a hackathon-only prototype.

The project combines technologies and systems including:

• React Native
• Expo
• TypeScript
• RevenueCat
• Android / Google Play distribution
• persistent game-state systems
• narrative state and consequence tracking
• strategic battle systems
• expedition and campaign progression
• kingdom and stronghold progression
• cinematic video presentation
• reusable battle presentation systems
• persistent Chronicle-style history

One of the core architectural challenges has been allowing the narrative, strategy and presentation systems to influence one another.

An event can affect the immediate encounter while also changing something that matters later.

A battle can affect the kingdom.

A decision can affect the player's history.

A Pact can create consequences beyond the screen on which it was made.

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Challenges We Ran Into

One of the largest challenges was connecting systems that games frequently keep separate.

A cinematic event cannot simply play and disappear if its outcome affects a later campaign.

A battle cannot simply return a victory screen if casualties, discoveries or decisions should change the kingdom.

And the Chronicle cannot feel meaningful if it records events that had no actual consequence.

This required careful work around persistent game state and the relationship between:

• narrative events;
• battles;
• expeditions;
• campaign progression;
• kingdom development; and
• historical persistence.

Cinematic Presentation

Mobile cinematic presentation introduced additional technical challenges involving:

• video playback;
• transitions;
• mobile aspect ratios;
• performance;
• asset management;
• sequencing;
• playback reliability; and
• keeping the game responsive while supporting cinematic scenes.

Two-Way Combat

Combat presentation also evolved during development.

Early battlefield presentation needed to better communicate that two forces were actually fighting.

The combat system was therefore expanded toward two-way battle presentation, where enemy actions and player actions both receive visual representation.

This makes encounters feel more like battles and less like a sequence of player attack animations.

Connecting Narrative and Strategy

The broader challenge has been ensuring that cinematic storytelling does not sit beside the strategy game as a separate feature.

It needs to reinforce it.

A battle matters more when the soldiers shown represent forces the player has actually built.

A defeat matters more when those losses return with the player to Blackridge.

A kingdom milestone matters more when the player understands what it cost to reach it.

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Accomplishments We're Proud Of

Blood Pact has moved beyond a concept into a functioning mobile game containing the foundations of its intended gameplay loop.

The game brings together:

• the cinematic destruction of the original kingdom;
• player choices and persistent state;
• exploration and expeditions;
• battlefield encounters;
• two-way combat presentation;
• the founding of Blackridge;
• kingdom development;
• a growing library of cinematic sequences;
• campaign progression;
• Chronicle-style historical persistence;
• Pact-based decisions;
• the first stages of the Veiled Host storyline; and
• monetisation designed around the fiction of the world itself.

The achievement we value most is that these systems increasingly feel like parts of one connected game.

A journey can lead to an encounter.

An encounter can lead to a battle.

A battle can change the kingdom.

And what happened can become history.

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What We Learned

Building Blood Pact reinforced one design principle above all others:

Persistence makes relatively small decisions feel much larger.

Players do not necessarily need hundreds of choices.

They need reasons to believe the choices they make matter.

We also learned that cinematic presentation becomes much more effective when it reinforces gameplay rather than interrupting it.

A battle cinematic means more when the soldiers on screen represent an army the player has built and could genuinely lose.

A kingdom milestone means more when it exists because of decisions the player made to reach it.

A Chronicle entry means more when the event behind it actually changed something.

That relationship between presentation, strategy, consequence and memory has become one of the central design principles guiding Blood Pact.

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What's Next for Blood Pact

The Shipaton build represents the opening chapter rather than the end of the game.

The immediate roadmap includes:

• completing the public Android launch;
• expanding the Chronicle system;
• deeper kingdom development;
• additional buildings;
• more visible Blackridge progression;
• expanded expedition content;
• larger campaign chains;
• deeper strategic battle decisions;
• additional Pacts with long-term consequences;
• more cinematic encounters;
• expansion of the Veiled Host storyline;
• improved Chronicle sharing;
• Founder participation in selected roadmap decisions;
• balancing based on real player behaviour;
• reliability and performance improvements; and
• continued expansion following launch.

The long-term vision is for players to be able to look at Blackridge and recognise something that could only have resulted from their reign.

Their victories.

Their failures.

Their promises.

Their sacrifices.

Their history.

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Become a Founder

Early supporters can choose to take the Founder's Oath.

It is a one-time optional commitment recognising the earliest people to support Blood Pact.

Founder benefits are intended to include:

• permanent numbered Founder recognition;
• exclusive heraldry;
• special Chronicle treatment; and
• a voice in a future roadmap-shaping Pact.

Blood Pact remains free to download and play.

The Founder's Oath is about becoming part of the game's history, not purchasing an unfair strategic advantage.

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What to Expect at Launch

Blood Pact's first public chapter is designed to establish the foundations of the larger game:

• the cinematic prologue;
• the destruction of the old kingdom;
• survival;
• early expeditions;
• the first campaign;
• strategic battles;
• the founding of Blackridge;
• initial kingdom building;
• persistent decisions;
• the Chronicle;
• Pacts; and
• the first stirrings of the Veiled Host.

Blood Pact is being built to grow beyond that opening chapter through additional campaigns, systems, decisions and content.

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Final Words

Blood Pact begins with the fall of a kingdom.

What comes next belongs to the player.

Swear the Pact.

Survive the fall.

Build something worth defending.

Built With

• cinematic
• expo.dev
• firebase
• mobile
• onesignal
• replit
• revenuecat
• typescript