Bulwark Evolution: Falconeer Chronicles News

Time for a new update.

This update brings in the advisor voice recordings done by eminent actor Chris Lines, who brings a theatrical background and that deep raw voice to the game. Should make the tutorial a joy to listen to.

There are also two new 'commanders' in the freebuild mode. These are "faction leaders", a pirate king and mancer Lord Illuminator. These do not unlock units but rather them being installed in a command tower unlocks the following
-a palace
-top tier captains and commanders can now be found and hired
-conflict with a certain faction is immediately triggered.



So when the work on leaders/politics (they aren't in the campaign mode yet, work continues) is done , assigning a leader will put the world into conflict mode, you will be raided and you'll get a hostile reception when you meet some faction settlements. And the leaders are the key.
Two more leaders will join the roster in the near future
-Freehouse Pirate hunter (conflict with pirates)
-Imperial Inquisitor (conflict with mancer)


Additionally more fish were added to the ocean (yey)

Here's the full list:

• fixed showing harbor icon at distances to great to build
  
• added voice over recordings for advisor
  
• added leaders that can trigger conflict. (work ongoing)
  
• added mancer lord illuminator
  
• added pirate lost king
  
• changes to tutorial
  
  
• removed drag on photomode camera with mouse (work Ongoing)
  
• sharks now spawn where they should
  
• more fishes
  

As always things may break, let me know how you get on, and if you like the idea of assigning leaders to kickstart conflict!

Cheers
Tomas Sala

Time for another update.

the new update brings quite a lot of new things and prepares the way for even more. Most of it to do with enabling raids and regular combat situations .

You might have noticed that faction influence tab in the upper right of the resource flow (when an outpost , command tower or harbor is selected) or in the corner of the map.

This basically shows who is inhabiting your settlement and what faction the represent. hire pirate commanders, captains and place pirate outposts and your settlement turns pirate. Now the idea is that once a single faction reaches dominance (by virtue of their majority) you unlock a new section of the game, where you gain more beefy captains and commanders but also get into fights with all those that vehemently dislike pirates.

The first bits of this are now working, if you gain a dominant faction

• you may encounter/gain some of the better captains and commanders
  
• some captains might refuse to work
  
• hostile ships will sail up and try to raid your settlement occasionally.
  
• some random events instantly turn hostile if from a hostile faction.
  
• 
  

To make this work there are new additions.

• advisor mentions if a faction is rising and gains dominance
  
• compass shows incoming ship raids
  
• compass shows nearest combat
  
• compass shows nearest random encounter or ship for hire
  
• you can right click on the map to set a custom waypoint for your surveyor
  
• two new imperial combat captains
  
• captains won't offer their services if they aren't happy with your dominant faction
  
• notification on surface threat appearance and destruction
  
• re balanced faction dominance and influence of various elements
  

this all very early work and will be the focus of development going forward.

Other stuff in this update includes a change in how the cursor works while flying.
If you give a move command and then not move your stick or mouse the cursor will stay on the ground location you marked as the destination, sort off anchoring the cursor there. This reads weird but makes total sense when flying and helps you keep reference on where you are going and where to build. A small change with potentially a big impact, let me know how it goes down;)

there is also a bunch of other stuff , here's the change-list for this update, I am still waiting on delivery of the new voice acting lines, but expect that more towards the end of the week or after the weekend.

Fixes:

• removed controller inputs when mouse+keyboard is set as control scheme.
  
• turned on version number in the fps counter
  
• fixed the mouse cursor resetting to the edge of your screen sometimes with multi monitor setup
  
• turned of damage affecting vehicle speed
  
• surveyor cannot be given a command when hovering over a question mark
  
• resource flow does not disappear when orbiting the camera.
  
• scaled up the flying compass
  
• combat is indicated on the map and compass
  
• pirate outposts remove themselves properly after being idle or destroyed
  
• fixed broken settings screen (not visible but was bugging out)
  
• fixed clicking left on a settings wouldn't decrease the setting
  
• for controllers the cursor now stays/sticks on the last targeted destination for the surveyor
  
• for mouse the cursor now stays/sticks to on the last targeted destination if you don't move the mouse.
  

Our friends at Rogue Sun have today launched Tin Hearts on Steam.

Step by step,
Heart to heart,
Left, right, left,
We all fall down.
Like toy soldiers.

To celebrate the launch of Tin Hearts, which last week saw an animated prequel story narrated by legend Stephen Fry, Artists Aisha Vaughan and Kieron Pepper collaborated with Black Razor Records, the indie music label founded by Wired Productions, to create a cover of iconic and classic Toy Soldiers by Martika. The devastating beautiful track perfectly encapsulates the emotion of Tin Hearts, winner of the ‘Most Anticipated Nintendo Switch Game’ accolade during Gamescom 2022.

Watch below:
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Behind every brilliant invention, hides a magical story. Guide a troop of tin soldiers through a magical toy-filled world, in this immersive narrative puzzle adventure game from members of the team that brought you Fable.

March through 40+ levels of time-bending, soldier-routing riddles, using a variety of whimsical and inventive contraptions to bounce, shoot and glide them to their goal. Forge new paths for your toys to follow, and solve increasingly elaborate puzzles to unravel the emotional, thought-provoking story of love, loss and compromise centred around the family of Albert J. Butterworth, a genius inventor of Victorian times.

Tin Hearts is out now on PC, PlayStation 4 & 5, and the Xbox family of consoles.

PCVR, Meta Quest 2 and PSVR2 are set to be released later this year.

Wishlist below:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1831700/Tin_Hearts/

I don't want to spam everybody's hubs with too many updates , so here's a collated overview of what got added since the last of these.

[h2]new content[/h2]

• added pirate commander
  
• added pirate commander tower props
  
• added missing freehouse commander tower props
  
• made some of the free build locations more interesting
  
• made the tutorial location more interesting and spread out
  

[h2]Fixes and improvements[/h2]

• changed speed of skyway construction
  
• closing the captain selector doesn't pause the advisor portrait animation
  
• made the outpost drop icon no-transparent to contrast better
  
• reduced fog in the maw, brought back eerie green mist in maw
  
• removed annoying accidental floor switch when building balconies or foundations
  
• dropping an outpost switches you to groundmode always, (resource extractors and harbors do not)
  
• fixed annoying misclicks on random events and ships
  
• changed tutoriual area to be more epic quicker
  
• made stone extractor slightly bigger
  
• can only demolish objects on one tower per "hold", so no autoskipping thru your entire settlement (prevent accidental destruction)
  
• added more advisor feedback on what you need missing resources for (upgrading or building)
  
• removed the "this is to steep" advisor warning when it wasn't the case
  
• prevented refugees from spawning on top of the resources
  
• fixed a bug in the resource economy system when you removed all outposts
  
• reduced the frequency of "a ship has entered your waters" notification
  

As always bugs may happen!

It's been a unsettling month but I am finally back to work and making progress. Because it's been quite long (3-weeks since the last update at least) and not my regular near daily pace I felt it was time to upload all the recent work.

[h2]New tutorial[/h2]
The major addition this time is a new Tutorial.

The new tutorial attempts to address the flaws in the old one. It doesn't start of in the air but rather building on the ground with several buildings already established. It also adds many more explanations and detail sections to get you into some of the workings of building in Bulwark. On top of that many more feedback moments and explanations have been added for stuff like the map, gaining outposts , captains and such.

One warning tho, Voice recording with Chris Lines (the actor behind the advisor) has been scheduled for late next week, but I didn't want to withhold you all from trying out and feed-backing on the tutorial after this long an absence. So Gary the Wired Production Community manager (nom de guerre :D3gausser as streamer) has voiced some placeholder lines for you all until Chris can take the time to put in one of his great performances .

[h2]Other content[/h2]
There is also a ton of changes and improvements incoming with this patch.
Chief among this is the ability to select which outpost you 'drop' from the surveyor. Once you've collected more than one (or in freebuild) you use the Qand E or d-pad up/down to toggle between all the dropable buildings you've got. An oft requested feature that will make it so much easier to make your favorite or mancer outposts.

Another addition is a Freehouse warbird stabler commander with it's own unique freehouse tower architecture.

[h2]Changelist[/h2]

[h3]New content[/h3]

• added a starting settlement for the tutorial
  
• New tutorial
  
• Placeholder temporery voice acting used until recording is complete later this month.
  
• added systems for static premade settlements and towns
  
• added selector function to your dropable inventory on the Q/E buttons or the d-pad up/down.
  
• added a freehouse stabler warbird commander
  
• New Mancer refugee event added.
  
• multiple new warnings and feedback added
  

[h3]improvements [/h3]

• surveyor hovers 80meters behind a tower, not on top of it.
  
• made it that the resource system updates directly faster after building a new tower, so you don't have to wait to see the resources update..
  
• improved the ground cursor workings of the surveyor, smoother and less janky
  
• made it so that commander HQ props only spawn in the commander menu.
  
• made it so that higher balconies don't always obstruct the construction of lower foundations.
  
• loosened the harbor build restrictions a bit (i.e harbors can be closer together)
  
• Changed the method to open the commander or captain selector to A/LMB so you can just click it when the line is retracted rather than "build"
  
• loosened the harbor build restrictions a bit (i.e harbors can be closer together)
  

[h3]minor changes[/h3]

• made balcony distance from the tower (how far it stands out, floor dependent, so wider at the bottom, tighter at the top)
  
• walkways from citadels are now iron/defensive
  
• stone walkways up to industry stay stone or iron longer. But have more floodlights and only the very tip (connecting to the extractor ) is wood
  
• made the dark patch on the construction FX fade in the ground fog (especially noticable in the maw etc)
  
• made the floodlights near industrial zones more common
  
• if you open the commander menu on an unfinished tower, it will cap it .
  
• building on seatrees now gets you a warning
  
• trying to add commanders or captains when you have none avail now gets you a warning
  
• made the distance balconies are set from the main tower also relative to the tower height, so a squat tower also gets the conical profile.
  
• balanced base production ranges to be higher for iron and stone
  

And thanks for all the sympathies on the previous post, it's been a bit of a month and I'm just relieved to be back to work again and getting new content out there for you all to try.

I wasn't able to record all the changes this time as I was well, pretty out of it for a bit, but most is documented. This is a major update so please let me know if something is broken.

Cheerio
Tomas