Folklands News

Thank you to everyone who's reporting issues on the current playtest! We're gathering lots of feedback via Discord, and are working hard to make sure the playtest is running smoothly for everyone!

We've identified and fixed several bugs in the initial playtest build. For more information, see the full changelog below:


* Added an option to choose between exclusive and borderless fullscreen mode
* Added an option to specify which screen the game starts on
* Added resource tooltips to storage picker slots


* Slightly increased the walk speed of villagers
* Slightly decreased the resource harvest time for basic resources
* Noticeably reduced the frequency of the Rutai stone wall quest


* Fixed an edge case where a villager could reserve the last berry forever
* Fixed several issues with pathfinding over bridges
* Fixed several issues with pathfinding over resource deposits
* Fixed a case where two buildings would lock off each others entrances if built with a path running through one of their entrances
* Fixed several cases where villagers would report getting stuck
* Fixed some untranslated texts
* Fixed a case where you could store more than the allowed number of resources in a storage building by simply typing it
* Fixed a bug that could cause the game to seem soft-locked if starting the game without Steam running
* Resized bread so it is no longer enormous

Hey everyone, it's time for a new update! We’ve got some exciting updates coming your way as we get ready to release our new and updated demo close to the Early Access release in Q1 2025. We wanted to take a moment to chat about what’s in store and what you can expect in the upcoming updates.

[h2]What is Folklands?[/h2]
A basic question, but one that is easily overlooked - what is Folklands about, and how does it differ from many of the other games out there? At its core, Folklands is a settlement building game trying to stick closely to a well-established formula - but it’s still a bit different from other games in the same genre. While we’re not reinventing the wheel, we’ve set out to blend what we feel is the best parts of classic city-builders like Caesar, Age of Empires, Transport Tycoon, Settlers, and Anno with modern features and mechanics that today’s city-building games have to offer.

We’ve always loved the nostalgia of these games - not just for the gameplay, but for that special feeling they gave you; the satisfaction of building something from the ground up and seeing your people thrive. With Folklands, we’re aiming to recreate that feeling while at the same time focusing more on the folks in your settlement - their happiness, their desires and how it affects the flow of your settlement.



[h2]The Heart of Folklands: Your Folks[/h2]
The real challenge in Folklands isn’t military conquest but rather keeping your people happy as you grow your settlement. You’ll need to balance the needs of the common folk with the demands of the upper classes, manage your economy, and make sure your city is thriving in every way. Want to impress the nobles? You’ll need guards. Too many guards? That will annoy the commoners! Also, guards are expensive! And while placing that toolmaker smack in the middle of your settlement would be perfect for distribution, doings so could stunt growth as higher class folks don't want to live in cramped industrial areas.

It’s all about finding that sweet spot where your people are content - with luxuries, leisure, and even the occasional kingdom that comes knocking at your door for “peaceful” assistance. What’s the harm in denying them a few bags of grain?

[h2]New Challenges on the Horizon[/h2]
Keeping your folks happy is only part of the equation, and some players want more challenges. As we work through the EA period, expect to see optional challenges like floods, earthquakes, crop failures, pests, raiders, and more. The world of Folklands won’t always be kind, and you’ll need to adapt to survive. These random events will keep you on your toes, but with clever planning and management, you can weather any storm (literally).

[h2]Bring a Friend, or Seven![/h2]
From the very start of Folklands, multiplayer has been a core part of the functionality. As three brothers who love to play games together, we knew it was important to design the game so that we could play even with our different schedules -and we wanted the same flexibility for you. Whether you’re playing solo, with one friend, or a whole group, you can easily jump in or out of the game whenever you want. No need to worry if life gets in the way: if someone needs to step away for work, family, or anything else, the game can continue running with the settlement progressing in their absence.



If all players go offline, no worries! Just save the game and pick it up again when you’re ready to return. Folklands lets you play at your own pace, with your settlement always growing, no matter who’s around.

[h2]Looking Ahead[/h2]
As we’re getting closer and closer to the Early Access release, we're getting more and more excited to see the towns, villages, and kingdoms you’ll create in Folklands. Your feedback has been invaluable so far, and we can’t wait to keep building upon this with the feedback you'll provide as you get to play the early access version. As always, you can follow the development of Folklands on our Discord channel, where we sometimes stream live and chat along with the players.

We’re looking forward to seeing you all in the world of Folklands very soon! ✨

Hello, everyone!

In today’s devlog, we’re diving deeper into our decision to make the switch to the Godot game engine, and why it’s been a crucial move for the game’s future. We'll also have a look at how the updated graphics are coming along!

[h2]Moving to Godot[/h2]
As we talked about in our previous update we took at step back to really review the feedback and suggestions from our community and players after releasing an updated demo last fall. During this review we uncovered several limitations with the original game engine we were using which would have been very hard - if not impossible to overcome. After investigating our options and looking for the option that would give us maximum re-use of the code and functionality we had worked on so far, we made the difficult but ultimately worthwhile decision to port the game to Godot. Porting everything to Godot promised a more robust engine, better performance and most importantly allowing us to expand and build the game in ways we had previously been limited.

So, what has this rewrite / port given us?

Performance & framerate: Despite all our efforts to optimize the game within our old engine, there were still significant performance bottlenecks that caused the game to struggle - not only on lower-end systems, but we were not able to take proper advantage of more performant hardware either. While the demo looked and felt polished (when it ran well), the performance wasn’t up to our standards. With Godot, however, the game runs at a smooth 60+ fps on decent hardware with very little optimization, and even on lower-end systems, we're getting stable and usable framerates — an improvement we’re really excited about!

Memory Usage: The demo was notoriously memory-hungry, requiring over 4GB of RAM just to start and play. As a result of this we had to scale back on animations and image quality in the demo just to ensure it ran smoothly. With Godot we’ve reduced memory usage by over 75% with the same content - already a massive improvement in efficiency.

Animations & Building Quality: One of the biggest compromises in the previous engine was the quality of animations, especially for characters. Because of memory constraints and increased load times we had to lower image quality just to make things run properly. With Godot, we’ve more than doubled the quality of each animation without any performance loss, and load times are snappier than ever. As we continue to work on and expand the game, we’re excited to introduce new character professions, which will come with more complex animations. The power of Godot is allowing us to make what we want and add it to the game with no issues so far.

[h2]Sneak Peek of New Buildings and Characters:[/h2]
That's a lot of technical talk, but we're excited and hope you are too! Of course we’ve also got a sneak peek of some exciting new additions to the game!

Check out these concept drawings of some of our new buildings and an introduction to the new "Baker" character who will be wandering around town. (Keep in mind, this is still an early version, so expect plenty of changes as we continue to refine things along the way to the final release.)



That’s all for now, folks! We’re thrilled with the progress we’ve made so far, and we can’t wait to share more with you in the coming months.

Until next time!

The summer is over by a long shot, the months are flying by and autumn is over us like that musky blanket in the back of your closet that you didn't know you had, never wanted, but can't seem to get rid of. It's time for another devlog - this time showcasing some of the new buildings we've cooked up vs the old ones, and a major reveal if you manage to get all the way to the end. No peeking!

[h2]Visuals[/h2]
The game visuals so far have served us well. They've managed to convey our idea of a retro-inspired settlement builder, but they haven't really *nailed it down*. Throughout the summer, we've been working closely with a graphics designer to really put our own lick of paint on the way our world looks and feels. We previously talked about some of the buildings getting a fresh coat of paint, but paint can only do so much - this needed a full redesign.

Our dedicated concept artist has really gone to town, and recreated most of the buildings in the first three tiers. Focusing on that same "timeless but at the same time firmly set in the past" feeling that you got when seeing some of the old settlement builder games for the first time, the results speak for themselves. Here are a few of the concept drawings, before they have been turned into in-game buildings:



Transforming these buildings into rendered buildings in our own style is no easy feat, but luckily Simen (yes, all the brothers have names) is a skilled modeller, so have a look at how some of the new buildings turned out in-game:





The keen observer may have noticed how the colors "pop" differently in this picture vs how they looked before. That's because while we were updating the buildings, we also took some time to rework the biomes of the world a little bit, giving the flora some love and attention as well. This is ongoing work that we will continue to tweak and keep working on to make the game look even better - and we haven't really started with the visual effects yet.

This new art style coupled with the updated color palette really brings the whole game a lot closer to what we imagined starting out. Trying to really bring back that feeling of the old settlement builders - with a unified art style - while we still stay true to what the world and vibe of Folklands can bring to the table.

Having proper concept art for the buildings makes them more unified, but also allows us to add subtle hints of the game's lore. Later on, when we do the same work and refinements in the wildlife area, our vision of Folklands and its amazingly rich world will be even closer.

[h2]Not just paint[/h2]
Those who follow us on social media, might have picked up on something even more remarkable than a lick of paint or some new buildings, namely our new mascot



While our artist and designer brother (yes, Simen) has been busy updating the artwork, and our play testing brother (Sebastian) has focussed hard on how to implement what we learned from the demo and the feedback you keep giving us, we have also been "secretly" porting the entire game to Godot throughout the summer.

The challenges of developing games are not new to us, but sometimes you need to revisit your previous technical decisions and challenge them. Once we got past the content of the demo - which is basically a tech demo / vertical slice of what we want the game to be - it became obvious that we needed to find a better solution for several of the technical limitations imposed by our choice of engine.

Porting to Godot was a big task, but with a great community and support, the game is now running in Godot with almost all of the functionality ported over. The choice of switching to Godot has given us a significant performance boost already without even starting to optimize anything. It has fixed some really hard to overcome limitations in our previous engine and will give players on lower end machines better performance and graphical options. In addition to this, it also lets us experiment with more animations, multiple monitor support, edge scrolling, UI scaling, directional sound - to mention a few of the initial benefits.

Our next devlog will have lots more details on the the porting and what developing in Godot brings to Folklands, but in the meantime have another look at the cutest mascot ever.

Summer is over, and it's time for another devlog update! It's been a bit quiet on our front for a while now - our last devlog described the diplomacy feature and how this introduces you to the world around Folklands. In our previous devlog, we also talked a little bit about Raiders, AI and different interaction and conflict modes, spurring some of questions about how invasive these features would be. To put your mind at ease: the Raider, AI, and any other features that moves the game experience away from peaceful settlement building will always be optional settings. We're really looking forward to seeing your relaxing settlements, and at the same time we want the game to provide a challenge for those who want it.

So, what is new with Folklands, what has changed over the summer, and what else is planned?

As we touched on shortly in the last devlog, we wanted to share some exiting news of Folklands and also tell you why we have been quiet. While we can't reveal everything quite yet, we can show you something that will be very visible!


Feedback from players and our own playtesting is unanimous in that many of the buildings have problems with visibility - it can be hard to tell buildings apart, what tier they are, and some of the buildings are - if not boring, then definitely a bit bland. So - over the summer, we have been working closely with a concept artist to help us better make sure our game vision is reflected in the way to world looks.

And the results? Buildings that visualize the tiers, a more stylized look and a more coherent feel! We think they speak for themselves:

[h2]The original sawmill:[/h2]


[h2]The current sawmill:[/h2]


[h2]Concept art and new, updated sawmill:[/h2]


As you can see from these new designs and images, the visual style is more stylistic and detailed. Inspired by some of the older games you've played before, we've experimented with a visual style that combines fantasy and realism, while keeping to our original vision of the game. This new style also fits the world art and design of the folks - Sigrid and Olof - much better than before!

In our next devlog we'll have an opportunity to show how all these new buildings look in-game, as well as talk in more detail about something very exciting!

Until next time!