Folklands News

Our live demo will be taken for a thorough run in this live stream. Watch us play the game, chat and banter and maybe even set a house or two on fire!

Hey everyone! We're happy to be part of the Steam Next Fest this month, which means you can try the demo of our retro-inspired settlement builder during Steam Next Fest from Feb 5th!
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In the demo, you can play through the entire first three tiers of gameplay. Build a peaceful settlement, harvest, produce and trade resources, expand your settlement and meet the changing needs of your people.

In addition to a full tutorial, helping you get going, you can also play freely on random maps as much as you want (within the first three Tiers of course).



If you like the game, remember to add it to your wishlist, and pop by our Discord to chat about the game or let us know what you think! You can also post your thoughts on our Community hub or use the in-game "Send feedback" function. We'd love to hear from you!



Keep an eye out for our upcoming live stream(s) - especially our Q&A live stream later this week where we answer all your questions!

Welcome to another devlog, a week late this time - but for good reason! The last month we have been working harder than ever on getting the new demo ready in time for the upcoming Steam Next Fest.

The current demo has been out for several months now, and has seen several updates. The last two months, however, we have only pushed out important fixes as we have been working on the updated demo. The changes are too massive to list them all here, but we'll list the most notable highlights, such as a major graphical update with a completely redesigned landscape and environment (including wildlife), tons of new features, building animations, city management options, graphs and statistics, and of course bugfixes. If you want to learn more, read on!

[h2]Graphical update[/h2]
The existing demo is a good teaser for the art direction we're aiming for, but it has always been partially finished with lots of placeholder art. In the updated demo, we have finished the new art style for the landscape and environment, bringing the world of Folklands to life in a way you've never seen before!

In addition to new animals roaming around the landscape, you will also see trees and reeds swaying in the wind, fields rustle was villagers walk through them, and tons of other small details to give you a sense of a living world!


[h2]Totally redesigned quests and tips system[/h2]
Many players have told us that while they understand the basics of the game, it would be nice to have a helping hand to get you going, as well as tell you when things are not working as they should. In the updated demo, we've focused a lot on improving this. One of these improvements is a completely new "Tips" system that will give you helpful tips as you play.


In addition to this, buildings will give you a lot more information on how they are doing, in addition to helpful tips on how to improve things such as production efficiency:


Service buildings such as the Tax collector's office, the Builder's hut and the Fire station have all received updates with helpful graphs and numbers telling you how the service is performing. The screenshot below is from an early version of this:


Villagers will now also tell you when they are experiencing problems, such as going hungry, having nowhere to live, missing their work tool, and a bunch more, which lets you address issues instead of wondering why your settlement is grinding to a halt!

[h2]New buildings and features[/h2]
No update would be complete without new buildings or functionality!

[h3]Exploration towers[/h3]

In the current demo, you were able to expand your settlement by building outposts. These buildings have now been renamed to "Exploration towers", where Explorers can work to gradually expand your settlement borders. These exploration towers are also used to discover mineral deposits - in the full game.

[h3]Bridges[/h3]
Were you blocked by the water in the demo - well, no more! Walk over lakes and rivers using the new bridges. In the full game you will also be able to upgrade to better looking bridges as your city grows!


[h3]Improved farming[/h3]
Farming has also seen a huge graphical updates with dynamic fields growing around your farms


The list is simply too long to mention here, and there are still a couple of surprises hidden in the updated demo. We hope you enjoy playing it as much as we enjoy making it. Expect the updated demo to be released sometime next week!

Enjoy this non-exhaustive changelog mentioning some of the thing we didn't already mention:

• Settlement name + badge / crest
  
• New in-game music
  
• Direction-aware sounds
  
• Onboarding tips
  
• Villager quests
  
• Statistics (tax, maintenance, fire)
  
• Player trading
  
• Tier information
  
• Pinnable resources and improved resource information
  
• Clear stones and trees in specific areas
  
• New "Socializing" need
  
• New Pub building with a new Beer resource
  
• New Brewery production building
  
• Villager warnings tab
  
• Villager feedback (icons when unhappy, hungry, homeless, etc)
  
• Updated animations when building
  
• Build order prioritization
  
• Variable villager walking speed depending on road stats
  
• Folks gather around burning buildings
  
• New and improved tooltips with keyboard shortcuts
  

Greetings, fellow folks and gamers. It´s a new month and time for a new devlog with an update on what we have been working on the last month!

But first a quick backstory:

Folklands is made by our indie studio named Bromantic Games. Our little studio consists of three brothers from the scenic landscape of Norway. Our game is not just a nod to our shared heritage; it's a reflection and a remake of the classics that shaped our gaming childhood - like Settlers, Caesar, Age of Empires, and Transport Tycoon. It's a journey into nostalgia, inspired by the games we grew up playing.

Folklands emerged as a tribute to the classics. It's more than just a game; it's a labor of love that reflects our shared memories, cultural influences, and a deep bond as brothers.


Folklands is created to be played both single- and multiplayer, where we will try and give you a full game experience whether you choose to play on your own or with someone you know. This means that the multiplayer aspect of the game is not just an additional feature; it's an essential part of the experience.



Playing together has always brought us closer as brothers and having multiplayer in Folklands provides an avenue to enjoy the game not just with each other but with old friends as well. From very early in the development cycle we have been making the game with both multiplayer and singleplayer in mind, making sure it is fun and engaging to play in both modes.

That's why features like being able to invite a friend into your existing singleplayer game makes sense to us - sometimes you'll be playing on your own and a friend or brother comes online and you just want to share the game experience together. Having different schedules means being able to easily hop in or out of games, and resume them when you want is crucial.

This month we have been hard at work integrating the mulitplayer feature of Folklands with the Steam networking service.


Folklands never has - and never will - focus on war, conflict or conquest, but it's made to be relaxing and challenging while you're building the medieval settlement of your dreams. We're including ways to interact with players, whether it's racing for territory domination, building exchanges or trading. The game will also include settings for difficulty and ways to compete for certain areas of the map, but all in the spirit of relaxing engagement.

We look forward to show you more of the multiplayer gameplay and how this all works together in a upcoming streaming video.

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!