Folklands News

A new month, a new devlog as usual. The new demo has been playing smoothly and mostly stable. We´ve recieved a lot of love and feedback on the new demo so far and we have patched some minor and some bigger issues for a better experience.

This month we've also finalized the new store artwork and interface details!



[h2]Next Tiers[/h2]
The demo contains 90% of the first 3 planned tiers, but the full version of the game has many more tiers of progression planned. Right now we are working on completing the demo tiers at the same time as we implement the next tiers - sowing it all together to make them fun, relaxing and challenging all at the same time.

If you want to see what we're working on, there is an official wiki with the progression system explained in more detail, here: https://folklands.fandom.com/wiki/Progression

Two of the features that have been essential to get right are the trading system and the way your settlement population grows - how new people arrive to your settlement and advance through the tiers.

[h2]Trading[/h2]
Since the demo does not unlock mining or producing your own tools, we wanted you to be able to continue playing and building your settlement in the demo if you feel like it. That's why one of the recent demo updates introduced the first preview of the trading system. This gives you a sneak peek into the surrounding Folklands kingdoms, as well as a little look at how trading and interactions will work. For now, it lets you get hold of tools to expand and grow your settlement with the features that are available in the demo. We've already seen some impressive settlements, and can't wait to see what you're all building!

[h2]Rewritten folk arrival and progression[/h2]
Until very recently, our solution to settlement growth was to spawn new folks when you built a house. This is true to the mechanics of some of the games that inspired Folklands (think Settlers and Anno), but play testing and streams have shown us that for Folklands, this doesn't really work well. So, we've updated the demo with a new folk arrival system, where folks will regularly immigrate to your settlement as long as you keep your existing population happy, and have enough free housing. This also means that if people start becoming unhappy because you deny them berries and water, they will actually start to leave!



[h2]Gameplay improvements[/h2]
The last thing we want to highlight are some gameplay improvements we're working on. Many of the game buildings provide service with coverage areas, so one of the improvements coming to the demo is an adjusted visualization of service coverage when building and selecting service buildings such as tax offices, builder's huts and fire stations.

In addition to this, placing roads have been improved by adding entrance markers when you build roads or buildings - so you can see where and if your buildings are connected to your road network. This also outlines the building footprints, so you can see why you can't build a road straight through the backyard of Günthers house.



The updates are coming soon to the demo, as we continue working towards the Early Access release. Let us know what you think in the comments or forums!

A new month means a new devlog! This last month we have been compiling the results from a play test involving over 500 players, gathering feedback on which systems work, and which areas to focus on. All of this - in addition to the to the great feedback you're giving us - will go into the updated demo, laying the foundation for the early access release later.

[h2]Building progress renders[/h2]
You've told us that you didn't like the build animations as much as we thought. This month we've worked hard on improving this. All buildings now have progress renders when being built, making the building process a more visual enjoyable experience.



[h2]New biomes and graphical improvement[/h2]
A functionality that's not part of the demo, but will be important in the full game, is being able to survey the map for resources and precious minerals - but they will not all be found in the same location. This month we improved the rock biomes, and added snowy landscape as part of the preparation for this later functionality. The main terrain has also gotten a big facelift with plants, grass and more adding to the variety of the world.



[h2]New map generator [/h2]
Building on the new biomes and improved terrain, the new start menu now lets you tweak and generate the random map each time you start a new game.



[h2]New settlement overview[/h2]
A recurring theme in the feedback we've gotten is the lack of information being delivered to the player about what happens around the settlement, and how it impacts the way the settlement functions. This month we added a brand new settlement overview window, which is exactly what you need to manage your town.



[h2]Notifications when things need your attention[/h2]
A flashy overview window won't help you much if your mind is focused on building new buildings while half of your settlement is on fire. Our new notifications system will alert you when things go bad or if anything needs your attention.

[h2]New quests & Event system[/h2]
The game now has a new quests and event system which does a better job at giving you more information on how to improve and grow your settlement. Visual cues have also been added to the interface to guide you to where you need to click. This new quest system is the starting point for the random event and quest functionality that will be added later.



[h2]Huffs and puffs[/h2]
The settlement is starting to come alive with more animations being added as your folks carry out their activities.

All this and a ton more has been added to the new demo, which you can try out already now!

Until next time!

Hey there, everyone! A long devlog this month, since so many things have been happening. Let's get rolling!

First of all: This last month, we landed a deal with a fantastic publisher, Tribal-Storm, who also publishes two other upcoming indie titles! Check them out here:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1717090/Into_the_Necrovale/
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2261350/Cozy_Keep/

Ok, moving on to what else we did since the previous update! This last month, we had several round of playtesting done for the current demo build. Lots of players played the game, gave feedback - told us what they liked and didn't like, and what they want more of. We always listen to all player feedback, so this was super exciting!



We always wanted to have the look and feel of the older games of which we draw our inspiration from. One of the decisions we made early on was to adapt a UI that reminded us of these old games (think Settlers 2/3/4, Caesar, etc.). Listening to player feedback, however, we realize that this kind of interface hasn't aged well, and doesn't scale with the features we wanted to build. Taking on board player feedback, we have completely redone the entire UI: menus, buttons, windows, popups and much more.
At the same time, we added many requested features and improvements requested by players, trying to make it a much more pleasant experience. It still needs some more finishing touches, but here is a sneak preview of the UI for the Steam next fest demo update:
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Graphical updates:
Having a publisher, means we can focus more on some much needed graphical updates. New in-game graphics for animations have already been added, and next on the list is a brand new tile set (landscape). Although we can’t show it yet, we're confident that it will be ready in time for the upcoming Steam Next Fest. This lets us add new biomes, new trees, new game mechanics and a lot more!

Other things we're looking forward to showing you are updated roads, bridges, gardens and many many other adjustments based on much feedback from the players.


We've made major improvements to the roads and pathfinding to make it a smoother gameplay experience. Several buildings now have animations to show you that they're doing stuff, and we added animations for more character actions.

There is much yet to be done before the game is ready for Early Access, but this is all shaping up to be an awesome demo update for the upcoming Next Fest!

What features would you like to see added to the game? Tell us about it in the comments!

Hey! Today we're back with another update teaching our folks new ways to fight fire! This version is live now for Windows and Linux, with a Mac build on its way.

• Fixed an issue that caused fire fighters drained for energy to never return home and refill, so they never kept working because they had no energy
  

Thank you so much for playing Folklands!

Another update has been released for the demo. Hopefully, all issues with fires spreading and resources not being properly transported have been eliminated!

• Fixed an issue that caused water present at fire stations to not be registered correctly
  
• Fixed an issue that prevented fire guards and tax collectors from properly servicing buildings in their coverage area
  
• Fixed several resource transportation issues
  
• Updated the tutorial with the Storage instead of the Warehouse
  
• Adjusted fires so it's easier to see which building is burning