Know Which Demo You Are Playing
The October demo gives you a working county economy to build before Early Access. You can found settlements, organize production, and connect regions, but its settlement progression stops at level 2. Knowing that limit saves you from treating unavailable higher-tier content as a broken unlock.
The official demo FAQ and announcements describe one demo map, the Commoner social class, and a planned November 5, 2026 Early Access launch. The developers have not given the current demo a confirmed end date.
Build a Connected Opening Economy
Use C, or Build New Settlement, to select a starting industry and place it on suitable blue-highlighted resource ground. In the tutorial, the first settlement belongs in one of the marked white circles.
Inspect food, wood, stone, and river flow before expanding. Assign a mayor through the settlement's empty red portrait, comparing their bonus with the building you want to operate.
Use V to connect neighboring settlement market squares. Roads enable local vendors to distribute goods after you assign a receiving food recipe or equipment need. If water blocks the connection, build a bridge before completing the road.
Add a wood-fed Carpenter's Guild so construction and maintenance have ongoing support. Later infrastructure also needs stone-fed masonry production. More food recipes can improve settlement efficiency, while equipment helps unlock additional building space.
Reach the Commoner Content
Fulfill a settlement's food and equipment consumption needs, then click Level Up next to the mayor portrait. Once it reaches level 2, open Buildings, select the green Commoners icon, and use an available plus slot to choose a higher-level building.
Small markets and raft ports are useful examples. Markets support land trade between connected regions; raft ports enable river trade. Demo rafts only travel downstream, and heavy interregional products such as logs, stone, clay, and sand require river transport.
Artisans and Patricians are outside the current demo's progression. Early Access is announced to extend settlements to level 4 and add those classes, ports with bidirectional sailboats, more than 40 production buildings, and 50 products.
Understand the October Save Boundary
Current October demo progress is intended to carry into the purchased game. The developers also say that older Steam Next Fest demo saves are incompatible with the October demo.
Those are different rules: continuing a June save into October is not the same as carrying October progress into Early Access. The announcement does not provide a manual file-copy procedure or promise a particular cloud-sync workflow.
The October version also incorporates changes that older playthroughs may lack, including movable settlements, removed mayor-swap penalties, clearer construction-point information, and improved input warnings.
FAQ
Is the demo free?
Yes. The developers describe the current demo as free and available through Steam.
Does the demo include Artisans?
No. Its stated social-class cap is Commoners at settlement level 2.
Can demo rafts travel upstream?
No. Upstream and downstream sailboat transport is announced for Early Access ports, while demo rafts are downstream-only.
Will buying later require restarting October demo progress?
The October announcement says that progress carries into the game whether you join at Early Access launch or later. That does not make old Next Fest saves compatible with October.