Origin Story

The following text was shared by the developer of Knight Manager on the game’s Facebook group, and provides background on how this game came to be, and the (very small) team behind the game’s ongoing development to this day.

> I am a programmer and work at the publishing house. 40 hours a week. In my spare time, I myself enjoyed playing role-playing games on the PC.
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> When I heard that anyone can program for Alexa, I started building simple skills. After that small games. I then got attention from Amazon. At that time there was no possibility for purchases. Depending on how many users the skills had, there were then directly from Amazon a few euros.
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> I then teamed up with two friends (both editors) and we tinkered together after work. Mainly driven by the fun itself. Since we had already received small sums from Amazon, we were forced to found a small company to make everything legally correct.
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> When there was the possibility to offer purchases we tried it of course.
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> Since then, not much has changed: We work on our skills in our spare time (https://www.kroegoor.com/). We don't have an office building or expensive cars in front of the door. Everyone works from home and we meet in between to discuss and develop ideas.
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> Knight Manager was at the beginning nothing else than the battle command and the blacksmith. And if there wasn't the possibility to offer purchases then the game probably wouldn't have become much more. Without purchases I probably would have looked for another hobby sooner or later - after all we are talking about the time after the normal job.
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> I'm not a fan of purchases myself, and certainly not of pay to win mechanisms, but the sad truth is: without these possible purchases, the game wouldn't exist as it is now. In this respect, all those who enjoy the game for free should thank those who have already spent something. And I don't mean that in a bad or derogatory way - not at all. It's simply a fact that without these players the game would either no longer exist, or would still be very simple.
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> So purchases are a curse and a blessing at the same time.
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> Tens of thousands of hours of work have gone into the game. I get up at night when I get messages that something is not working. I take a laptop with me on vacation in case something goes wrong. I have various hard drives and backups lying here so that nothing gets lost. In the morning I read in this group and sometimes I get really frustrated when I am accused of being greedy or something. My wife is not always so enthusiastic about it but she knows that this is important to me.
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> So whether you believe me or not, I'm not getting rich off it. Just because of the many players worldwide, we have enormous costs that we can cover well. If I had sold all the hours to someone else, I would have more money in my account. Even though I enjoy it a lot, it doesn't mean that I would put all my free time into it for nothing. And Remember that not all the money reaches us. Amazon wants their share and so does the German state.
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> So if you complain the "developers", remember. I am just a guy like you and not a rich giant company. I make and change things because I think they are good for the game in the long run. And yes, I am wrong sometimes. But then I readjust.
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> And don't be angry with me if I don't react to everything. I get up to 50 emails a day. On a normal day, I answer them on the toilet, or while cooking - always when I have some time (and my wife is not looking).
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> I really do what I can and am always looking for a fair balance between your wishes and demands and mine.
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> I know I can't please everyone and probably never will but as long as there are enough people who enjoy the game and we can pay our bills with it - I will keep working on it.
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Learn more about how the game has evolved since the early seasons.