Dispatch cleared the way for medieval narrative RPG Sovereign Tower as its developer says the line up was 'actually perfect for us'
If you're familiar with the narrative management genre, you probably remember Dispatch's rise to fame. The game's unique blend of character development, story-driven gameplay, and romance mechanics made it a hit among gamers. Months later, as I stumbled upon Sovereign Tower, a new medieval narrative RPG from Curve Games, those memories came flooding back. The Steam demo for Sovereign Tower was released a few months ago, and I was immediately hooked. At its core, the game follows a similar structure to Dispatch, where you play as a newly-appointed sovereign managing your realm with the help of a group of loyal knights. You take care of them, equip them, and send them off on quests. As they complete more tasks, they level up, becoming more efficient at handling specific roles. You can also give them trait boosts using unique items like smelly cheeses and magical swords.
While the core gameplay of Sovereign Tower differs from Dispatch, the framework beneath is familiar enough that the developers took inspiration from the former. Antoine Tabouret-Loudeac ("Gobert"), the creative and art director of Curve Games, shared how Dispatch influenced their design process. "There were a few mechanics that we wish we had, and obviously we couldn't add any more," he told me. "Then there were some of the mechanics that we were hesitating on that we had planned, and when we saw it done on Dispatch, we're like, we need to have it, we cannot cut this mechanic because it's working too well. So it was very useful to us because it's a super useful way to see what works and sticks and what doesn't work as much."
One of the key mechanics that Sovereign Tower refined was the level-up system. Initially, the team was unsure about how to implement it, but Dispatch provided clarity. "It was much easier to remember what your character has and to identify what each of these tags does," Gobert explained. The game’s character traits were initially more complicated, but they were simplified after observing how Dispatch handled similar systems.
Beyond mechanics, Dispatch also helped validate the market for games like Sovereign Tower. "It comforted us in the direction that we were taking," Gobert said. "Before Dispatch, when I made the concept for the game, there was nothing like it at all. Then a few months after I started working on the gameplay side of things, I saw the first trailer for Dispatch, and I sent it to Courto (Laly, co-founder and director of Wild Wits Games studio), and I told him, 'look, this might be a game that's similar to us, maybe we should take inspiration from it,' and Courto told me 'this doesn't have anything to do with what we're doing,' and then it really did and so I often make fun of him for it."
For marketing purposes, comparing Sovereign Tower to Dispatch has also been a strategic move. "It's very easy for people to understand the concept of the game now that Dispatch exists," Gobert added. There's also been enough time between the two games for fans of Dispatch to try Sovereign Tower out, which has helped avoid direct competition. "It would perhaps have been a lot harder to contend with Dispatch had Sovereign Tower come out at a similar time," Gobert said. "Thankfully that's not the case, and fans of this style of narrative management sim can now enjoy yet another fantastic game—talk about the best of both worlds."
Gobert concluded with a friendly nod to the Dispatch developers. "We're happy that Dispatch exists," he said. "And I hope that the Dispatch devs also play our game."
