Fabled Lands News

Folks, yesterday marked exactly 1 year since the release of Fabled Lands! What a ride it was! With over 25 000 units sold and a score of 8.1/10 from 360 reviews, the game made it possible for me to experience the dream of being a full-time indie game developer. It is the reason I made lots of connections with lots of amazing people across the globe, both fans of the books and new fans alike.

Thank you for being on this journey with me!

Special thanks to the authors Dave Morris and Jamie Thomson who put their trust in Prime Games' capability to deliver FL to the modern audience as well as to preserve its spirit and brutality that won the hearts of the old fans, thus cementing its legacy in the ether of PC games.

You can check some of the very first concept arts and drafts the talented Bernar Aganchyan did that defined the look of the game way, way back in 2019:




Here's how that very first screen of combat looks like in the game today:



You can also read the blog post of how I discovered the FL gamebooks to begin with, and took a flight to London to show Dave and Jamie the first game prototype that helped me win them over and sign a contract: https://www.primegames.bg/en/blog/big-announcement


I am wrapping up controller support for Steam next week, and I'll start testing with people from the community. Drop a comment if you like playing games with your controller and you'd want to hop on the beta branch to tell me if it works!


Next in line will be the Switch release. The devkit from Nintendo Europe has already arrived, so the only thing left for me to do is work, work, work! :)

As always don't forget to wishlist the game to stay up to date with the latest news and updates:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1299620/Fabled_Lands/

Hey folks!

If you're a game developer, you're probably no stranger to the tedious and sometimes mundane tasks that come with the job. Adding support for new input devices like a joystick controller, for example, is one such task that can be incredibly time-consuming but is nonetheless essential to ensure that your game is accessible to as many players as possible.

In my case, I've been working hard to add joystick controller support not only for the Steam version of Fabled Lands but also for a potential Nintendo Switch release (Oh, boy, oh boy!). This means ensuring that the game can detect and respond to joystick input, mapping joystick buttons to in-game actions, and making sure that the game's UI is designed to accommodate joystick navigation.

That last part is a nightmare! A game such as Fabled Lands is heavy on the UI and mapping everything manually, adding lots of events, checks and whatnot in the code is killing my brain cells. Motivation going forward is my dream to eventually see the game on the Nintendo store as Nintendo is one big reason for me to fell in love with games growing up.

Of course, I am overexaggerating a bit as I love doing what I do. Even the less intricate parts of it. I have already been accepted by the Nintendo dev program and a Switch dev kit is on my way from Germany, so fingers crossed!

Unfortunately, this kind of work doesn't always make for exciting updates or flashy new features. It's easy to get bogged down in the details of mapping buttons and testing inputs, which means that progress on other aspects of the game can slow down. As a result, my regular updates have been a bit quieter lately, as I’ve been putting most of my energy into this behind-the-scenes work.

Of course, I don't want the players to feel left out in the meantime. That's why I've decided to release a new patch that adds some long overdue fixes and quality of life improvements even as I continue to work on the joystick support.



[h2]Incremented version to 1.1.5[/h2]
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• Reworked 'follow the old man' choice on The Isle of Druids. He now blesses you with a Luck blessing at the start of the game.
  
• Added a tutorial message to emphasize the importance of blessings.
  
• Added highlighting in the turn order view when hovering a unit in combat.
  
• Added clarity which blessing you have lost when losing a blessing at random.
  
• Added a new requirement to Rat Poison describing its precise usage to avoid confusion.
  
• Reduced volume of ambient sound effects that were too loud while at sea.
  
• Fixed Slave Pits in Aku not restoring your lost Stamina despite the text saying so.
  
• Fixed Merchant filters not getting properly reset when closing the shop.
  
• Fixed Merchant pricing text going out of bounds on Large UI option.
  
• Fixed saving and loading while in Chambara's explore option, causing a critical story bug on the luck dice roll.
  

Thanks to all the players posting their feedback on the forums and Prime Games' Discord giving me constant food for thought.

As always, don't forget to wishlist the game and follow the ride:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1299620/Fabled_Lands/

[h2]Incremented version to 1.1.4[/h2]
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• Fixed Bad Omen event sometimes displaying wrong text when losing your initiate status.
  
• Fixed several quest markers that do not match the corresponding map location.
  
• Fixed text sometimes scrolling outside of boundaries on small font size setting.
  
• Fixed text sometimes scrolling too far down when pressing a Continue choice.
  
• Fixed long meta text messages getting cut out with the recent changes to the font settings.
  

[h2]Incremented version to 1.1.3a[/h2]
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• Fixed very old saves (prior version 1.0) not having their character figure in the correct position (due to the changes in the save/load system in v.1.1.3).
  
• Fixed new game broken (due to the new save/load system).
  
• Fixed Quest Log Toggle label size issue due to recent changes to the font settings.
  
• Fixed Quest Log Toggle text sometimes being horizontally truncated on Mac OSX.
  

[h2]Incremented version to 1.1.3[/h2]
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• Fixed Ring of Ultimate Power issues with preserving correct Stamina when loading a save, when resuming the game, when entering and exiting combat.
  Important notice! The above fix tampered with the save/load system and may have caused unexpected ripple effects. Please, report if you find something odd with the new patch!
• Reverted Cursor toggle back to hidden for desktop users.
  
• Fixed various minor typos.
  

The Steam front page feautiring of Fabled Lands was a big success! 5000 units were sold over the last couple of days which is a record all time high! It helped the game to reach 25000 all time units sold. This has revitalized the gamebook cult classic for the modern days where Dave Morris and Jamie Thomson's monumental work deserves to be!

Looking forward to deliver the next chapters of this amazing world.

Living the dream as a full time indie game dev! I am excited for what's to come but one thing is for sure, leaving a full time job behind, taking control over your profession and turning it into something you consider a craft, is quite, quite tough but also so very liberating.

A huge thank you!



It took me some extra days with the first patch after the release because I was sick, but now I feel much better and was happy to sit behind "the wheel" again so to speak.

I decided to do something experimental this time around. People have complained about blurry fonts here and there so I have enabled to use the option of the much bigger UI for Steam Deck for desktop as well. Let me know if any issues arise from that! Oh, and don't turn off your cursor if you are on a PC, I'll tackle that option asap :D

[h2]Incremented version to 1.1.2[/h2]
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• Implemented a toggle option in Settings for players to utilize Large UI (experimental).
  
• Toggle cursor on/off for Steam deck is now visible on desktops (pending additional work).
  
• Buffed Warrior Maid enemy. Increased Chance to Block to 50%, Damage from 4-8 to 6-8.
  
• Fixed Stairway to Heaven achievement not unlocking, broken with patch 1.1.0n
  
• Fixed Tsuchigumo spider having negative Stamina when using Crimson Arrow on it.
  
• Fixed text when you didn't give your weapon to the Warrior Maid to not state it's later thrown in the water.
  
• Fixed meta text left-over from the books when you are faceless.
  
• Fixed changing profession in an Akatsurai shrine not changing your model immediately.
  
• Fixed text options not altering story text size and line spacing.
  
• Fixed camera not accepting input when mouse is over disabled map locations.
  
• Fixed camera sometimes detecting input touch drivers on desktop devices causing it to disable Pan and Zoom.