Craftlings News

Hello there,

Let’s start with the Craftlings 1.0 Release Date Trailer right away — no long intro!

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]


I guess we’re really getting there. I can’t believe that after 4 years of intense work I’m finally releasing Craftlings next month!

Maybe you’re asking yourself how does it feel?
Honestly — kind of hard to find the right word! On one hand, I feel excitement and happiness that the first big chapter of my indie dev journey is coming to an end — and players will get their hands on Craftlings. On the other hand, I’m a bit uncertain about what the next chapter, starting after release, will be about!

But let’s keep our fingers crossed — because the players from Discord community and I already have plenty of ideas on how we could extend the core concept of Craftlings!

Craftlings has come a long way, from its first prototype and early demo under the old working title "The Settlings" in 2022, to today’s version that we’re currently beta testing heavily with focus on:

• Bugs & stability
• Performance
• Balancing
• QoL improvements

These priorities might sound obvious, but it’s not always the case — and not always possible. After a major change in the project structure back in October, my vision for the release was to reduce scope and spend more time on quality and player experience, rather than pumping out new features or levels.

And at this point, I want to say a huge thank you to all Discord members who are part of the closed beta — chasing bugs, making suggestions, and sharing level design feedback 💙
Believe me: without their dedication, help, and warm hearts, I wouldn’t be here writing this today.





There are 12 unique, handcrafted levels, and all of them are available right from the beginning.

Why?

I tried to offer a different experience and a different type of challenge in every map.
Some levels have layout or resource restrictions; others focus more on combat, including boss fights; and some feel more like a sandbox with freedom and plenty of resources to experiment with.

It was difficult to design them with a steady and consistent difficulty curve where unlocking them one-by-one made sense.
So I decided to open all levels from the start — letting everyone experience Craftlings in their preferred way and according to their own playstyle.

While designing them, I made it a priority that each level should feel different. I hope I managed to achieve this and that you’ll enjoy them!

I could write a lot about other game features like automation, the Town Hall upgrade system, the competitive rank system, or deep dive into economy or combat — but that would go beyond the scope of this post.
If you want me to cover any of these in detail, just let me know!



Before we jump into price, you may be wondering how much gameplay there is in the full game. My estimate was at least 20+ hours, but we already have plenty beta players with way more than that!
Additionally I strongly believe that the global rank system, which has 7 unique ranks for those who seek a bit of challenge and enjoy speedrunning, will offer good replayability on top of that! 🚀



Craftlings will release on January 15th, 2026.
The game will be available for PC Windows on Steam for $14.99.

Of course, a launch discount and regional pricing will apply.


With limited time and resources, I couldn’t keep updating the demo, and it is now outdated and will be removed — for the moment.

I say "for the moment" because I believe in the value of a demo and want players to try the game before purchasing.
However, if the demo no longer represents the game properly, harms the experience, or sets wrong expectations, it’s better to remove it until it receives a proper rework.

The time I’d spend updating both the main game and the demo is now invested into the quality of the 1.0 version — nothing more, nothing less. Just a simple prioritization decision. 😀

Thanks for reading and have a great day,
Ariano

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1771110/Craftlings

Hey everyone 👋

Thank you all for your kind messages and encouraging words after my last post — I truly appreciate your support!

Over the past few weeks, I took some time off to play games, spend time with family and friends, and focus on projects that brought me joy.
The break was refreshing and helped me recharge.

Thank you for your understanding and patience during that time ❤️

We’re diving into the beta test and pricing today — read on till the end, I’d love to hear your thoughts on pricing! 😄
[hr][/hr]
[h2]Remaining Work[/h2]
Now, I’m excited to return to Craftlings and complete what I started more than three years ago.

My goal is to finish and polish the game and bring it to you at the beginning of next year.
If everything goes as planned, I will announce the official release date in December!

Of course, there’s still work to be done before launch.
Here are the key areas I’m currently focusing on:

• New, professionally produced sound design
• Steam Achievements
• Steam Deck compatibility testing and fixes
• Balancing & bug fixing
• Quality of Life improvements

[h3]Closed Beta in December[/h3]
The last two items will benefit a lot from community feedback.
That’s why I’m planning another round of closed beta testing for the full version of the game in the first half of December.

If you’d like to participate, please let me know in the comments — or, even better, join the Discord server and ping me there:
👉 Join the Discord

Let's fight the bugs together!


[h3]Sound Design[/h3]
For the sound design, I’ve teamed up with a talented group of audio designers from Helsinki (Symbisonic) who fell in love with the project.
They’re currently crafting a completely new sound experience for the game, and I can already tell it’s going to sound amazing!

[h3]Achievements[/h3]
As for the Steam Achievements, the concepts and artwork are already done — I just need to implement and test them.

Milan, the artist behind the achievement portraits, created a series of illustrations representing people who contributed to Craftlings’ development.

Each achievement will unlock one of these portraits when you complete specific challenges — things like building, expanding, surviving, fighting, or experimenting.

And yes, there’s even one of me!
You can unlock it by finding and opening barrels in the game (which probably explains why I’m wearing a barrel instead of pants in that one 😅).


[hr][/hr]
[h2]Your Input: Game Pricing[/h2]
There’s also a lot happening behind the scenes related to release logistics and marketing — and one area where I’d really value your opinion: pricing.

Based on your experience with the demo and what you’ve seen on the Steam page, what price would you expect for the full version of the game?

For context, the full game will include:

• 12 unique levels
• 25+ standard buildings and plenty of resources
  
• Many quest-specific buildings
• 3 distinct biomes
• 4 types of trainable warriors
• 3 unique bosses across all maps
  
• 25+ hours of gameplay
• 7 unique, global ranks for speed running

I’d love to hear your honest thoughts. Don’t worry — I’ll filter out the outliers 😉
With no publisher setting the price this time, I’d like to hear your opinions first before deciding on the final pricing.

Here’s a new screenshot from one of our recent beta testers to wrap things up:


That’s all for now, thanks for reading!
Ariano

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1771110/Craftlings

[p]Hey folks, Ariano here, the solo developer and creator of Craftlings. I am writing to you in my own name to give you some heads-up on things going on with the game right now.[/p][p]I would like to start and recap what happened so far and how grateful I am to be here, despite the fact that certain things did not always go optimal in the past.[/p][p]To be honest, it has been an incredible journey for me in the last 3 years! Full of emotions, ups and downs, with big opportunities and wins and also some heavy crisis and doubts – all needed for great learning and boosting my XP level![/p][p]Craftlings is my first Steam project. It started as a hobby during my parental leave back in 2022 when my kid was in kindergarten. Of course, I have dreamed about building something which could sustain my life as solo developer – who is not? But as I said, it was just a dream at that point.[/p][p]In January 2023 I should go back to work, and before that I wanted to release a demo and see what you think about the game in its current state.[/p][p]From this moment, plenty of things have changed… I got laid off, but the demo got some great attention. It was even streamed by a big German streamer, Gronkh, to 28.5k viewers!
I gathered a few thousand wishlists in just a few months and had to make an important decision – what to do next?[/p][p]On the one hand, I was forced to secure my family financially – as simple as quickly getting a job would do this! On the other hand, I wanted to continue working on Craftlings. I felt that with family duties I could not do both in parallel.[/p][p]After a longer discussion with my wife, we decided I should stay at home and continue working on Craftlings – The Settlings at that moment, for those who still remember the old working title :)[/p][p]With some savings and a limited amount of money for living, I should try to secure some funding and find a way to build the game. I guess it was quite naive to believe that I could do this, having just a few thousand wishlists and some traction on Twitter, but I had to try it. I felt that life was telling me I have to go for it![/p][p]While working on new versions of the game and constantly updating the demo based on your feedback in 2023 and 2024, I also put a lot of effort into marketing. I was quite active on Twitter and also ran paid ads with really limited money on different platforms, trying to find a way to simply just get seen. This effort and the additional time spent on building relationships with influencers and participating in several Steam events helped quickly to reach over 50k wishlists.[/p][p]The momentum was there, publishers started knocking on the door. Next to the game development and marketing work, I also started a series of workshops on how to create and run a company in the game industry in Germany. This was an additional and necessary thing in my eyes that I had to do to increase my chances for sustainable success and also protect myself from making simple mistakes, since I am not a native German speaker and not a German citizen.[/p][p]Still with limited money for living but with huge hopes for the future, I started talking to several publishers. During this time, in the negotiations, I learned a lot about how the game industry actually works and what my position is in the hierarchy. I learned how fast some scouts can get excited about the game after seeing a big YouTuber playing the demo and how the excitement diminishes once you start talking about concrete steps, needs, deadlines, and scope![/p][p]I was incredibly lucky that I even had the chance to go through it, and in the end I secured a deal which gave not only the desired financial security for plenty of months but also some extra resources for additional work on audio & visuals and a significant marketing budget![/p][p]This changed my life. I was optimistic, and I met great people who helped me bring Craftlings to a new visual level, with Milan and Dubi from Croatia putting their hearts into improving the look and feel of the game – thank you guys for your hard work![/p][p]I had financial security and could focus only on game development, leaving a game with 85k wishlists to a team of professionals who would lift it even higher! And I did it – I thought that if I worked hard, stayed transparent, and was a good team player, with a game that had strong momentum on social media and an easy-to-understand, strong marketing hook – everything would be good, right?[/p][p]And things changed again... The publishing contract was terminated. I am not allowed to talk about anything what happened, what was inside the contract, what the consequences are for me, how the cooperation went, what I did, what they did — absolutely nothing...[/p][p]I was aware of the fact that a sudden termination can happen while signing the contract, but my initial optimism, need for financial security and the great marketing performance of Craftlings that I achieved with limited money in 2023 and 2024 completely covered the fear this might ever happen.[/p][p]Unfortunately I was wrong and my life changed again in just a matter of days. I lost my financial security; I now have an unfinished game.
Why did it happen? I really don’t know, but at that point it doesn’t even matter anymore! The world is moving fast, things change all the time, and the whole publisher story is already past. I want to look ahead and find paths to bring a great game to you. I don’t want to disappoint the 125k of you who wish the game will release at some point soon! So now I have to answer the question again: what to do next?[/p][p]And I can promise you that I will do my best to find a way to finish and release Craftlings soon. I just need some time to create a plan. I have to wear multiple hats again, find alternative paths for going forward, estimate personal risks, design the final scope, implement missing parts and — last but not least — recharge my human batteries.[/p][p]Believe it or not, as grateful as I am for everything that happened to me and to the game (I have probably reached more than most starting indie developers dream of), it cost me a few hit points and I need them back to be able to finish and release the game.[/p][p]So if you want to help, do not turn away from Craftlings — have some understanding of my current situation and the short break I need now, and give me a 💙 or whatever you want to share with me in the comments.[/p][p]Thank you for being here, for reading this, and for your patience![/p][p]Coming back to you soon,
Ariano – an independent game developer[/p]

We are delighted to be included in the Games Forged in Germany event on Steam until 31st July 2025.



The event features many wonderful games from German developers and publishers and all the information about the event, the discounts and the demos included can be found here: https://store.steampowered.com/sale/Games-Forged-in-Germany

Check out our demo as part of the event. Our demo features 2 playable levels where you can learn the basics of leading your band of hapless craftlings to create a settlement on the strange island they find themselves stranded upon. You’ll learn about building, production chains, resource management in level 1 and progressing to combat and advanced settlement building in level 2.

We love to see how you create and the ranks you obtain during the demo so feel free to share these with us on our Discord.

[h2]Demo Update[/h2]

Following feedback from the community we have made some updates, added new features and fixed some bugs in the demo today including:

• Optimized level 1 design and balancing for tutorial needs / teaching purposes
  
• Optimized texts in English and updated translation for German and Polish
  
• Added new OST, including new Main Menu Loop
  
• Bug fixes and optimization for better gameplay flow
  

We would love to hear your feedback about your experience with the demo. You can use the in-game link to let us know your thoughts.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1771110/Craftlings/

[p]We are happy to have Craftlings be part of SimFest 2025 - Workers & Resources Edition, the annual celebration of all things simulation which is running until July 28th! Under your steady guidance, you will be able to turn your diligent but hapless craftlings into a refined resource and gathering production chain.
[/p][p][/p][p]Experiment with the buildings at your disposal to optimize your craftlings production chains, to further streamline the efficiency of your blossoming village. Blast your way through the dirt, take risks, venture past your settlement to find additional resources, but be ever wary of what dangers lurks around the corner.

Now go forth and build! Play the Demo now! And join the craftling chatter on our Twitter, Bluesky or join us on Discord.

[dynamiclink][/dynamiclink][/p]