Farlanders
Demo available during Steam Next Fest
Be aware that the demo doesn't have a proper tutorial, so if you want to have a more refined experience I suggest trying Farlanders: Prologue which even has its own story.
Beta 2 - UI overhaul, Soundtrack
First of all, I want to thank you for your kind words in the previous update. It’s very touching and meaningful to all members of our small team. I’m sorry that I didn’t respond personally to each comment, that’s mostly because for some reason I don’t feel comfortable when people say nice things to me.
Currently, the game development is going with a good tempo, we had some difficulties with getting back to work, but it’s all good now. I also spent some time looking for new people to join the team (will talk about it).
I decided to change the format of this devlog and instead of the video I made an in-depth text version. Hope you will enjoy it.
UI overhaul
Probably, in this update, the most time was spent on overhauling the user interface. It was planned a while ago, but we were waiting for game mechanics to settle. I want to thank Alex from Crytivo who helped me with the redesign. Overhaul affected almost every UI element in the game. Some were beautified, while others were reworked from scratch. As you can see below, the game screen was changed significantly.
To me now it looks more clear and consistent. But I’m most proud of what we’ve achieved with building preview and tile selection panels. Building preview appears directly near the building icon that you hovered over. Information is divided into blocks and depending on the building some blocks might be disabled/enabled. For buildings that have a unique action, we will also display a block with a simple “GIF” that will show how the building works. For this panel, I took some inspiration from the Terra Nil demo, which is a great game btw.
For the selected tile we have a similar interface, but with few twists. Some blocks that are no longer important (like allowed terrain) are removed, and instead, there are a few new blocks: building progress, minerals capacity (for factories, or mineral tiles), research progress (for anomalies research), and others. Also in the top right, you can see a module button, which could be expanded into a fully-fledged interface for modules installation.
Another interface that was tricky to make is the trading screen, before this version we’ve already made a few iterations on it. This time we made it as simple as possible – each trading proposal has a number of traded goods, a price that you pay/get, and a green/red bulb indicating if the offer is good.
Proposals for sale are located in the same column as proposals for purchase. In the future we might make few small changes to it:
- Display icons under each column (resource) that are representing factors that are affecting the price. The main factor would be low/high demand for a specific resource. If you buy too much water – prices for water would go up
- Somehow make it easier for new players to understand that after selecting a trading proposal you still need to wait for 1 turn for it to be delivered
Loans & Parties
In the previous update I mentioned that mechanics in the game are more or less finalized, but as you already know with release dates, I shouldn’t be trusted too much 😳. So we’ve added a couple of new small mechanics, that should complement the game economy, or in other words, give you more options to spend money. Those are:
- Loans. Get money immediately, pay back each turn with interest
- Parties. Pay money to organize a party and get a temporary happiness boost. Note that each party requires a specific location, e.g. Park to make an open-air concert, or Airport to make an art exposition
New buildings
There are also a few new “buildings” to fill the gaps in the gameplay.
- Swimming pool. Built on the water source, and increases happiness in the area
- A drill machine, destroys neighboring walls (those that are underground)
- Explosives, or a bomb. Makes a boom which creates a canyon. Might be handy when you want to create a water source in the middle of 3×3 ground tiles
Winter event
In addition to the dust storm event that can mess up your colony in a few turns, we’ve added a winter event. During winter color palette changes to make your eyes rest a little from the overconsumption of orange. Surface water sources are frozen into ice which melts back into the water after winter is over. Water will stay in a liquid state if it has a water pump built on it, or if it has a special dome building that preserves above zero temperature.
The Winter event will not be available in the scenarios presented in beta 2, it will be included in one of the campaign missions.
Other changes
- Go back option in the migration dialogue. No more annoying mistakes when you miscalculate the amount of free houses for new colonists
- You can go bankrupt if your balance goes below a certain limit (the value is scaled to the colony size)
- New anomaly types, each type gives certain rewards: science points, terratech resource, electrical components, etc. This also includes surface minerals, that are easily accessible and might help to grow your colony faster in the early game
- Slight rebalancing & other changes that I forgot to mention
Soundtrack
From the beginning, I wasn’t sure whether we should make an OST for Farlanders (that costs money!), or just keep using free music (under CC license) which is good, but not unique. But at some point, I thought “there is already so much time and effort spent on the game, it deserves its own soundtrack”. So be it, as a teaser you can listen to the newly composed main menu theme.
Music is composed by Danil Dunets, you can listen to his other works here. Also, to sweeten the pill for the delayed release, we’ll give a free digital soundtrack to those who’ve pledged $15 or more (Martian+ tiers).
Further plans
For the game to be considered released we are lacking a campaign and playtesting with polishing. So our main focus, for now, is the Campaign. There is already some work done on gameplay and narrative, but I won’t spoil anything since it might change anyway. To make writing better compared to the prologue we now have Shervin Zadeh, a talented writer, who did writing for Luna’s Fishing Garden, another great indie game!
That’s it you can join our Discord server, or follow me on Twitter, and maybe someday I’ll start posting something interesting there 🤔, or even change my “ugly” avatar to something more professional.
Farlanders release is delayed
Thank you for understanding,
Andriy
Beta 1 - Colony levels
Farlanders is moving into Beta! This means that main game mechanics are implemented and now we are focusing on improving the gameplay and user experience. Also, I'm excited to start working on the game campaign and narrative (it should be much better than in Prologue!).
The changelog:
- Colony levels that are tied to the population amount. Each colony level gives you rewards that might include new mechanics, resources, science points, or a special colonist
- Specialists - unique colonists that give your colony a permanent bonus or improvement. So far we have 14 unique specialists in the game.
- Migration waves, we got back to the old migration mechanic, but with some modifications (landing platforms required for a ship to land)
- Workers salary
- New 'book' user interface which unites all of the game screens
- Reworked trading interface
- In-game feedback form (press F10) which also sends us a screenshot and a savefile
- Procedural terraformings generation. Much more flexible and diverse than handcrafted terraforms.
- Better visuals for 1/2 enabled buildings. Dust on tiles that are polluted by factories and could not be transformed into fertile soil
- Technology tree is revisited, Game balance adjustments
- As always, lots of polishing and bug fixing (you can't check it anyway :P)
Watch my devlog for more details
[previewyoutube="aQxwFgjHRew;full"]
I can add that compared to the Alphas I'm much more satisfied with how the game is played, which gives me the confidence that we are moving in the right direction. More to come.
~ Andriy
Alpha 3 - Martian caves
I'm happy to present you with the biggest content update we've ever made for Farlanders. The main change is the addition of the 3rd dimension, or in other words, you'll be able to explore underground caves for rare resources and anomalies, or even expand your colony downwards. Underground levels consist of new terrain types with different rules of terraforming. To access the lower level you need to find a passage tile and build an elevator. And to scan the cave for the best direction for expansion you have a Radar building, which scans for hidden rooms and zones of interest such as anomalies, resources, or hidden passages.
Other important changes:
- Radar building which scans the area around for hidden anomalies, or passages
- Two new resources that are used for mid-late game buildings: glass and electrical components
- Resource deposits are now finite but could be restored with a help of terraforming
- New caves specific buildings, including lantern, hydroponic farm, fungi, underground housing, fertilizer
- Magistral wires and pipes communications. Some buildings are requiring this more expensive connection
- Reworked level generation
- Ability to purchase terraforming patterns with money via the trading interface
- Global colony happiness depends on the population size
- Money income per colonist depending on the happiness
Watch my devlog for more details
[previewyoutube="xmMEZrJMHT4;full"]
Contentwise the game is mostly ready, now it's time to move to the Beta phase and do a lot of polishing of game mechanics and UI. And of course, start working on the game campaign and narrative.
I'm proud of what we have achieved recently, and I have a feeling that we're close to creating something great and unique. But maybe I'm wrong, who knows ːsteammockingː. I'll keep you updated, and as always you can follow the development on Discord, Youtube, Twitter, or here on Steam.
~ Andriy
Alpha 1 & 2 - Trading, Greens on Mars, Technology Tree, Anomalies
I wanted to give you an update about the recent changes that were made to Farlanders in closed Alpha 1 and Alpha 2.
The main changes are:
- New buildings upgrade system, buildings are gradually growing depending on the environment
- Making Mars green: you can grow bacteria, moss, or grass outside of your living habitat, or create an aquatic ecosystem in the water
- Technology tree which lets you unlock new buildings, new building levels, or building modules
- Trading system 👩🔧, every 5 turns unique trading proposals from other colonies are generated
- Reworked colonists migration 🛂. It will work in a similar way to the trading system. Every 5 turns you’ll get various offers with new colonists and their requirements
- New navigation system for trading and colonists migration 🚀. With ships flying to/from other colonies
- Basic implementation of anomalies 🔎, or artifacts that could be found under ice, or mountains and could be researched with a Research camp
- Dust storm, new buildings/modules 🏭
- Game performance improvements 🛠
You can find more info in my devlogs:
[previewyoutube="S7fkbziNOZ0;full"]
[previewyoutube="RgfUXQEsRvQ;full"]
We are already working on Alpha 3, which should be the last alpha version, but it'll add a very important chunk of new content (underground layers!). You can follow the #materials channel on our Discord for Alpha 3 teasers.
Development is going at a good tempo, but still with a delay according to our Kickstarter roadmap. I honestly believe such delays are for the better, because we have time to implement what wasn't originally planned (like reworked colonists migration), but is necessary to make all game mechanics click.
As for the release date, I prefer to not give any estimates, but since we already made a public roadmap during Kickstarter I can't be silent. I plan to have a final build ready in December, but as it usually happens it might take longer. Also, December and January are not the best months for a release, because of the sale. So if to speak realistically, I expect the game to be released on February-March 2022.
I'll keep you updated, and as always you can follow the development on Discord, Youtube, Twitter, or here on Steam.
~ Andriy