The Hayseed Knight
A downloadable game for Windows, macOS, and Linux
Come and listen to the tale of Ader-sind of the Upperfield, the greatest knight the kingdom has ever known! The bravest! The most handsome! The...
yeah, no, let's try this again.
Join a ragtag band of misfits as they piece together how Ader, a one-eyed farmboy with seemingly impossible dreams, becomes the most celebrated knight the kingdom of Acazhor has ever known.
This gorgeous, fully-voice acted and animated visual novel unravels in unexpected ways with a perfect blend of mystery, comedy and romance, for a total of 20+ hours of gameplay!
- A grand, mysterious tale – Come, traveler, and listen to the tale of Ader-sind of the Upperfield! The greatest knight the kingdom has ever known! The bravest! The most handsome! The… yeah, no, let’s try this again.
- Choose Ader’s fate – Take care as you play, because your decisions throughout Ader’s tale will ultimately impact the strength of his bonds with the rest of the cast and decide the outcome of his story.
- Bursting with charisma – Every character you meet on your journey through Acazhor is fully voiced and overflowing with personality. Dodge prying questions from an enigmatic sorceress, scrape funds together for your next meal with a tone-deaf bard, engage in philosophical conversation with a giant tree man and more.
- Beautiful illustration and animation – Closer to a cartoon than simply a visual novel, every scene in The Hayseed Knight is hand drawn and lovingly animated to truly bring the characters and world to life.
- Passion project – Created primarily by one dedicated person over the last seven years, The Hayseed Knight truly reflects the heart and soul poured into it.
- Unique fantasy world – With deep lore and a history all of its own, the world of The Hayseed Knight extends much farther than this story and is ready for you to dive into using the in game encyclopedia.
- Queer romance story – In an unconventional tale told in an unconventional way, not even falling in love could be a straightforward affair. You’ll laugh and cry watching this touching romance unfold, layer by layer… always more to it than meets the eye.
Development has been completed for the main game (English), with work ongoing on the localized versions (Spanish, French and Japanese at the moment).
Achievements are only available on Steam.
If you'd like to support me making new games and taking THK to new heights in the future, there's a patreon and any contribution is really appreciated!
Keep up with development on twitter!
STREAMING:
- Streams and Let's Plays are really appreciated! I'd love to watch yours and share it, as long as you don't remove the voice acting, and that you leave commentary as you play.
- Please, do not redistribute.
Content warnings available in-game.
Purchase
In order to download this game you must purchase it at or above the minimum price of $19.99 USD. You will get access to the following files:
Download demo
Development log
- 1.8.1 aka FULL STEAM DECK, CONTROLLER AND KEYBOARD COMPATIBILITY!Jul 13, 2024
- 1.8.0.2, fixes, and the future of The Hayseed Knight!Jun 01, 2024
- The Hayseed knight, AVAILABLE ON ITCH AT LAST!Mar 09, 2024
- THE HAYSEED KNIGHT, FULL GAME OUT!Mar 01, 2024
- The Hayseed Knight - full release on the 29th of February!Feb 24, 2024
- The Hayseed Knight 1.7.1: 翻訳総改訂/Complete Japanese revision!Jun 21, 2023
- Chapter 4, now out on Steam!Feb 01, 2023
- ようこそ to The Hayseed Knight 1.6!Jun 06, 2022
Comments
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I loved all the characters but the best was saved for last. Djao stole my darn heart, the true beacon of hope, who hardcarried us out of Doom, who walked so Ader could run!
I'm so glad you enjoyed Djao so much!! She's my fave too <3
Thank you so much for playing the full game and for the review! If you fancy adding that too to the older steam one, that'd be extra awesome but no worries if not!
The steam review has been updated (same username) ~ pending the auto moderation I think~
Thank you so much!
Show post...
Your game has left a lasting impression on me. The innovation here is remarkable. I'd be thrilled to follow your work and grow together
Would it ever been considered for it be played on Nintendo Switch?
Maybe in the future! Right now, I'm only releasing on PC
super fun, just bought it on steam so i can play the rest of it. (:
Thank you! Hope you enjoy it!
Just finished chapter 4, love it!
I'm glad to hear so! I'm just starting recording the voice acting for Chapter 5 today, so hopefully it'll be finished by September!
The characters are overdesigned, poorly written, and amateurly voiced, making them utterly unsympathetic. They talk and behave like a bad parody of sunday morning cartoon characters. It was baffling to see that after going through 8 content warnings on the game starts. Is this supposed to be for kids? Is it not? Characters behave like it is, but the content warnings suggest it isn't.
Either way, I dropped the demo half an hour in, because I caught myself thinking I want something bad to happen to all these people - anything that'd make them shut up and stop being a bunch of annoying morons. And that is definitely not the mindset I want to have while playing games.
Still, I appreciate the fact there IS a demo at all and I had a chance to figure out I didn't like the game before buying it and wasting everyone's time with a refund, so no hard feelings.
I wasn't going to reply to this originally, you're entitled to your opinion.
However it's been a month, it's still the newest comment, I've just finished writing a new chapter, and I'm honestly curious what does "overdesigned" mean, or how can any of this seem "amateurly voiced" to you with a full cast of professional voice actors that has gained multiple accolades in game events, started my voice director career 6 years ago, and received quotes such as "one of the best performances I've ever heard in an indie game" from voice actors of the degree of Sean Chiplock himself.
I don't know what point may have upset you so much about the game to prompt a review as viscerally negative as this, and I'm really sorry it made you feel like you wasted your time playing through it. If you want to share any further thoughts as constructive criticism (such as is the case with you not feeling the tone! That's 100% understandable), I'd love to read them.
If not, I hope you have a wonderful day all the same!
Android?🤔
Hello. Are you planning to release this on other platforms at some point or will the full game be a Steam exclusive?
Hey there! I want to eventually bring a full version to multiple storefronts as well as port to consoles, but right now developing the game itself on my own takes way too much time to also keep track of keys across different platforms.
That's perfectly fine! It makes complete sense to release on one platform first.
is this dead
Hey there! No, the project is very much still in progress.
I'm a disabled solo dev, and this is my passion project when I'm not working at my day job, so development between chapters and updates takes a very long time.
Because this is an episodic release, only the free demo is hosted on itch dot io at the moment to avoid having to figure out keys and versions across multiple marketplaces, but you can purchase the fullest version so far on Steam, which covers about 10 hours of gameplay so far, if what you're asking is if the story continues past this point.
The best way to follow development along is on my twitter account @SandraMJdev , or on patreon which I use as a devlog.
Hope that answered that, and that you have a wonderful day!
Why do the Linux instructions look so complicated? Why search for "cmd" when terminal (or pressing [Alt]+[t] would be faster? In the file explorer/manager there is usually a - right click - run from/in terminal option. you could do it straight from the folder.
All of this would be unnecessary if the .sh was made executable before compressing. And don't use .zip - use something more advanced like .tar.
Linux is usually easy to use(ZorrinOS, FerenOS, Elementry). This makes me feel uncomfortable like a teenage gamer trying to show their oblivious parent how to use a controller.
I haven't touched Linux in my life and I don't do more on my end than upload the build as ren'py gives it to me when I finish a market build (which contains files for Windows, Mac and Linux). As a Windows user I haven't heard of a .tar file in my life, the opening instructions were written for me several years ago by someone who wanted to help as there were no Linux instructions before them.
If the instructions they wrote seem overdone and you'd like to help future users, it'd be great if you could take the time to write a newer step by step guide. I'm just not sure why it'd make you so uncomfortable when there is such a thing as oblivious parents that need to be taught out there. Not everyone is equally computer-savvy :/
Wow, so kind. I feel like such a di** for being critical.
I'd love to help. You'll have to forgive me not coming up with something just yet but I'll put something up soon. When there's an x86, keyboard connected machine in front of me, I'll poke the game files and see if it sticks.
Thank you for being cool =)
Thank you for wanting to help! And no worries, it happens to all of us :)
Jimmeny crickets! even fo' a demo is surely magnificent! I-do hope so that this game will be at full release sooner!
Visual Novel with fantastic voice work about the story of a famous knight. The story progression is very pleasant to read, it has interesting characters and mystery to entice you to keep going with gorgeous art. The itch bundle version unfortunately only contains 2 chapters and the full game isnt finished yet, but this is among the most pleasant and endearing Visual Novels I've read in a while. I highly recommend staying and listening to this campfire tale. 4/5
More Itch Bundle impressions: https://tomalexi.itch.io/
Youtube Channel: http://bit.ly/YTPList
i just discovered this game from a friend mentioning it, and i really like how beautiful and charming are all the characters in it...
it seems like a good combination of a visual novel and of an adventure game (point n click/choices)
i like what i see in here, so keep up the good work, and stay cool!
So people who got this in the indie bundle only ever get a demo?
That's right— there are several free games and demos included in the 2000+ items bundle, such as this one!
Demos were specifically allowed and THK is still in development, so I decided to add the demo to the bundle as a gesture to show support to the cause other than my own donation.
None of us are benefiting from the aid money we are raising through the bundle in any way either, so rest assured that your purchase is 100% going to the UNRWA.
Hello, there will be more chapters in Steam or the game is already completed?
There's a total planned of 4 chapters and an epilogue! The full version on Steam includes up to chapter 3 so far, which is a total of 10 hours of content already! Future releases will be free for those who buy the game
Nice, thank you for the answear :)
I remember watching this game in one of the furnions I went, I recently found the card I got from the stand and decided to check it out, is amazing and I love it!
Muchísimas gracias! Me alegro mucho de que te haya gustado, la siguiente versión y capítulo deberían estar para antes de noviembre si todo va bien!
Hey, I only happened to find this game thanks to Twitter 2 days ago. And I have to say I loved this game from start to finish. I go so immersed into this game and I can't wait to see more from you!
Thank you so much! That feature sure helped a lot, haha. The next version + chapter 3 shouldn't take long!
I'm here and I'm waiting a Android version. I'm so excited
There's no plans for an android version in the foreseeable future, I've got my hands full developing the game right now.
Thank you very much! I'm working hard so the next chapter arrives as soon as possible!
Android please this look veryyyyyy fun I think I'm going to enjoy
i finished both chapter and the ending of the second one made me feel sick but in like a scared way lol, cant wait till chapter 3 is out
also just a question when do you think you'll be done the next chapter
If everything goes well, it should be out in late June/July :) For now, you can get access to a chapter 3 preview for 5$ or more on patreon!
https://www.patreon.com/posts/chapter-3-teaser-31577916
Yep I already subscribed ^^
And thank you for the reply
I liked it a lot
cant wait for the rest haha
as for the fighting system you could make it kind of like a point and click minigame were u can kind of interact with the enviorment a bit
or a beatemup style thing hahah
that's honestly the two options I can imagine xP
I'm glad you liked it!
As for the battle system, it's not that I don't know what I wanted it to look like, it's just that I don't have enough resources to make it. At this point, the hype for it has been way bigger than anything I could deliver, so I'll probably scrap it altogether.
that's understandable, though I could totally see some interactible scenes being fun to add
I like how broken Itch.io's search system is. Searching the game's name? Nope, not found. Searching the NSFW's recent tag? There it is.
It's specifically SFW. Just checked and it didn't show up there for me.
Merci beaucoup! I'm really glad to hear you liked it so much!
The translator for the French version is Benjamin Beziat https://twitter.com/SireRed and he writes his own books and game reviews too if you want to check out his work!
Well, I'm bowled over already! That's really great quality!
A momentary note that's not spoilery: well-done work on the foreshadowing. You can kinda see what's coming waaaay at the end, but have no idea how it gets there or the actual context, nicely done! I will be closely following this one...
Also,
precious, precious EinaUh, question. Is there/will there be romance in this, gay straight and everything else?
And didn't Ader used to be buff..?
There is romance, but this is not a dating sim.
Ader's sprite update happened exactly last year, haha.
I don't mind it not being a dating sim. Was just asking so I wouldn't end up getting my hopes up, haha.
Anyways, looks interesting enough to try out.
Greetings. I have been following the story in there not too long ago and I must say, I am very impressed by the amount of artwork done and the animatic cut scenes in dialogues. They give the story a good amount of life, especially that you animated the characters in a way accordingly to what they do in the narration in a simple yet effective way.
Also, I like the idea of adding choices of certain things and, to be honest, they can be grueling to me as I barely know its outcomes, but they are well-considered. The most favourite choice is the one where Eina has to curse Sep about something (which I took the butt-insult, which has been the most genius one for me) and I can tell that it is both filled with seriousness and humour. A great combination from my point of view.
Also, the characters are also well-made. They represent their gender and their age well and the choices of species are also good. Even their behaviour is pretty much well-distinguishable, like Ilegard being so big and strong yet so kind and respective and father-like, The Merchant being so loud, cranky and picky and Ader being so over-dimensioned, full of doubt, trying to be optimistic and yet very humourous and a would-be happy-go-around. Even Sep's design and behaviour is nice. Curious, a bit alluring and also: very persuasive whenever she's in a picky situation. And I didn't forget Eina of course; also, she is well-made and even that she cannot speak, her emotions and gesture can tell big stories, just like the dog named 'Gromit' from the popular claymation originated from the UK. I first thought is that she is evil, but since she is mute (except at her insult part), she isn't that bad and also, she is very caring to her friends, even if she is a bit mischievous.
Even the way of narrating is well-made. It's not just like in a book and they remind me heavily of those narrations in older games like Space Quest and King's Quest, adding a sense of surprise and curiosity in the entire demo. And the voice-acting is just spot-on; they represent emotions well, like anger, sadness, tempt and bossiness.
Even the encyclopedia of characters and places is well-bundled and easy to follow. And updating them from certain moments of stories is also a nice touch. However, I found an odd bug that makes the arrow show up in the gallery whenever I go to the encyclopedia. But, I think it get's straightened out sooner or later.
All in all, The Hayseed Knight is a well-written, beautifully drawn and exceptionally carefully considered visual novel that I can't wait to continue when new chapters show up, even if it's not entirely done. Keep up the good work there and I look forward to its continuation. ^^
This game is adorable, incredibly polished, and the dialogue and voice acting is superb. I love every character. I love Ader's adorable goofy self the most. What a joy. What a wonderful boy. I want to sit and have a conversation about farm tools with him.
I can't open the second page of the gallery after obtaining the kiss scene
it always says this when go on the second page
exception occurred.
While loading <'Crop' <'FactorScale' <'Image' u'CG/ch2 kiss/kiss 1.jpg'> 0.2375 0.2375 True> 0 0 500 250>:
File "renpy/common/00gamemenu.rpy", line 173, in script
$ ui.interact()
File "renpy/common/00gamemenu.rpy", line 173, in <module>
$ ui.interact()
error: subsurface rectangle outside surface area.
I don't what happened :I
It's a common bug since the gallery code I found and used wasn't very complete, haven't found a way to fix it permanently yet, but rolling back generally fixes it :(
I'll be switching to a different thing once Chapter 3 rolls out, sorry for the inconvenience!
Will there be a mobile version ?
I have a bit too much on my hands now to think about ports, but maybe later down the road :)
This looks delightful! If you're looking for reports of specific issues with the encyclopedia, clicking "Dawnsoon" shortly after the introduction of Eina causes an exception "ValueError: <store.EncEntry object at 0x7CD76B0> is not in list" at line 1866 of script.rpyc...
Thank you for spotting it!! I must have typoed something in the hyperlink that takes you directly to the encyclopaedia there!
Love this so far! Gyof's sing-song voice is the best.
Thank you! I'll make sure to pass the compliments to his VA!
can you make a android version
I remember this game! What happened to the original art style? Not saying it's bad but the last one gave off a disney type of feel.
Can you specify which one you're referring to, please? I've remade the whole art 4 times now in the two years I've been developing it :,>
The one where Ader was bulky and built! But I'm not complaining Im just shocked but wow you changed the art 4 times? That's crazy
Ahaha, yeah! I've always wanted this game to reflect my progression as an artist, and to use it as an excuse to improve too! It's one of the best things of making it all on my own, I get to experiment with the game
Ader was bulky for the first three versions, but he was changed back in mid 2018 for a veeeeeeeeeeeery long list of reasons. You can read a very quick TL;DR about it here: https://sandramj.itch.io/the-hayseed-knight/devlog/47200/redesigns-and-chapter-3... His VA changed too, by the way!
Really great game! The voice acting and art is great, and everyone really does a great job with their characters. The story was fun to read and the world-building is very detailed. In my experience there's enough explained so that everything's not confusing, without over-explaining anything. The gallery is pretty buggy as you mentioned; the first time I clicked a picture it worked fine, but then it would crash everytime I tried again. Definitely a good experience all around though, and I definitely want to see what happens next.
Thank you so much for your kind words, I'm glad you enjoyed the game!
And WHOA I haven't run into that crash! So sorry to hear! Did it happen upon entering the gallery in general, or after clicking? (Apparently the image size I used for the thumbnails caused glitches so it'd be two very different bugs, haha)
After testing it a bit just now it seems to only happen on certain saves, and only when clicking the wall picture. I don't have any explanation for that, but I can get a video of it if you want.
Then I know exactly what it is, haha. The wall picture displays the last picture of her you stumbled upon (depending on the choice you made, it's one expression or another). I probably forgot to make some pic the right size to fit in the gallery :I
in order to fix the multiple entry problem there are a few options you could take:
1. instead of adding a given entry have a dialogue option merely switch a (readable/hidden) i/o trigger to possitive. basically all entries are in your book from the start, you just cant read them. with this a per save file and a as it is lived through option would both be easy to do.
2. when you have the go back option have a bit of code search for the entry triggers and remove said entries
3. make a given "add entry" command check for a file by that name first
4. have the encyclopedia check for and remove duplicates wheneveer it is opened up
5. have the game remove the entry summon command after it has been done once
6. have the reverse thing actually not reverse but instead create an identicle scenario that happened after what you already did but that wont trigger one time things again
I did the first, but the problem is that renpy rolls back save-dependent variables and the encyclopaedia I'm using is save-dependent, rendering that option unfeasible.
The rest relies on actually figuring out code, but I'm using this encyclopaedia framework https://renpy-encyclopaedia.readthedocs.io/en/latest/index.html .
The safest option would be simply to use hidden entries that get "unlocked", but I'm trying to keep the actual number of entries hidden :)
ah, that makes good sense for you reasons.
1: hmm yeah, that does make it rather tough, probably not possible to fix unless the encyclopedia was also linked in the same way entirely.
2: lol, yeah, code can be a pain to create, fair enough, and ill read that file in a sec
3: if you make each entry and its page itself hide then it would basically just skip the page and stuff. or you could have mixes of text and art and stuff so that even if it shows pages the actual amount of knowlege and stuff are hidden well behind blur and mystic moving stuff. you could even have it so that the "missing" pages kinda flit in and out of screen in the background with just lots of torn pages gaps in the spine of the book to say "well there is at the least a bit more to find" or something, or even just the flitting pages, to kind of give an idea of "you are not done yet" but it could be closer than they think or farther
p.s. read through the program, what about making the reverse time button trigger a re-locking of the hidden files? just have each chapter have a specific "key" in it that will call the re-lock function for all things in that chapter?
Really like the new update, but I think the music could use a little more variaton. Sometimes the tone of the music doesn't match the pace of the story.
Hey! Thanks a lot for your thoughts, I'll try to get a few more songs in future updates :)
Either that or just go through what's happening and make sure the music fits the tone of the scene. Where did the music come from, by the way? It's really interesting music for a VN.
Some are commissioned, some come from freemusicarchive.org
They're all listed in the credits in-game if you're interested!
Oh my, the new artstyle is so gorgeous - haven't seen it before because for some reasons I forgot to subscribe! Now I have to replay it!
Thank you!! Ader's dialogue and voice acting are completely new as well, hope you like it!
Was Wondering where all the Furry based games where located. Good to find some. And not sure if this is NSFW or not. Most i ran into are NSFW So why i am curious.
It's 100% safe for work :)
Not sure what I'm getting myself into here, but I think I wanna follow this along for its ride.
This is probably the prettiest VN I have ever seen.
Why, thank you! You're getting into a comedy with multiple POVs (and all of them are a bunch of dorks!)
I'm a bit curious though, are you advertising this at all? Or at least getting the word around? I'm surprised I've never heard anything about this even though you've been working on it for a while. In my opinion your first two chapters are easily good enough to show off a little bit and maybe get some more people following.
I've got my twitter account and I've gone to a few cons but that's it, I don't really have the funds to pay the voice actors and market, sadly, so I rely on people telling others about it for now :/
Your game has enchanted me, it is very well done and designed!
I want to see how your story continues.
But I have noticed a failure, if I keep skip for a long time, the game closes automatically.
And all the data I get about the world, including the characters, is erased, and they automatically go back to the beginning of the game, and they don´t collect anymore.
That is all.
I hope I have helped.
Oh wow, that's really weird, never heard of it happening before! Could it be that you skipped all the way to the credits, or just left the game skipping for a while and a bug happened?
It'd be really helpful if you could let me know your system specifications so I can look into it either way!
Thank you so much!