Now’s our chance. Our first go at settling and exploring this flooded world Let’s dip our toe in the water and see what bites.
Welcome to Floodland, “A taste of coming the fight for survival”
Our demo will be playable for a week from now until October 10th at 18:00 BST / 19:00 CEST / 10:00 PT
This demo sees your small band of survivors making camp and pitching the beginnings of your settlement. Before you can concern yourself with the wider world, you must see to your people's needs. Scavenge the local resources, explore your island, begin production and discover the means to set your sights beyond. Depending on how you use the speed settings, the first play-through should roughly take an hour.
You know what? Let’s keep this DevBlog short and we’ll let you go dive into the opening stages of Floodland.
If you would like to become a beta tester and provide feedback you can apply on our form here
And join us on Discord channel: https://discord.gg/Hnbxg9CJbZ
Wishlist us on Steam and keep up-to-date with our weekly DevBlogs which will continue to delve into the mudded waters of Floodland. The tide has risen and there is much to prepare you for before the November 15th release.
Join us again later this week on Thursday when we’ll explore the tech tree and city build elements you’ll use to advance your settlement next week Happy surviving, - Your Floodland Team
DevBlog 05: Exploration, Resources & Survival
“Greetings survivor”
We’ve settled here, but we can’t do anything without food. Then water. Once secured, we can explore the scrap and ruins that surround us. O.K Let’s see what we’ve gotta work with!
Welcome to Floodland, “We’ve got work to do”
To survive in Floodland’s watery post-apocalyptic world, you’re going to have to get comfortable with your new surroundings and discover what opportunities and challenges they hold. Here, we’re going to take a look at the three pillars of exploration, resources, and survival which will help you do just that. You begin in a small basic camp made up of just a few survivors huddled around a fire. You need to attend to their immediate needs, food, water and shelter.
Where and when to explore your immediate surroundings will be one of the first crucial decisions to make. We want to provoke a curiosity about your surroundings because this world is so different from the one you knew. You’ll need to understand how it has changed since the catastrophe and what opportunities lie in both the immediate vicinity and beyond.
In order to tease out this sense of discovery, we’ve implemented a feature which is quite rare in city builders, which is the fog of war. At first, you can only see what’s close to home and you’ll have to go out and actively search to discover the basic resources you need to get started on your journey. Once you’ve accomplished that, you’ll also discover the outlines of distant buildings and structures, but you won’t immediately know what they are, or what they contain.
It’s only as you get closer and commit to exploring them fully that you’ll learn their true purpose and how they might be useful to you. In this way we hope to keep fuelling your thirst for knowledge and ignite an urge to see what’s out there.
But to get started on your journey, you’ll need to search for the basic materials for survival which are based on Maslov’s hierarchy of needs. These include items like food, water, and the means to stay warm and get some rest. Some basic food items like fruit and fish can be grown or caught locally, and sometimes you’ll also unearth relics of the old world like canned goods which provide a welcome boost for your community.
Once you’ve satisfied these basic requirements you move up onto the next stage of Maslov’s pyramid which is relationships. This means finding fellow survivors, who you can welcome into your community and who you will need to make it grow and thrive. In this sense, people are a kind of resource too, and during your journey you’ll learn more about their stories and history and how they survived themselves.
By the end of the game you’ll also be discovering major new resource types which you’ll harness to become a more advanced society. For example, somewhere in this flooded world is a prototype power plant waiting to be discovered. Restarting its turbines will provide electricity to power your settlement, but while that’s in the far future for now, it’s an important goal to work towards.
One of the key tools for survival is the tech tree, but we’ll cover this in much more detail in a future DevBlog. We want to give that feeling that you’re not just living day to day, but actively improving your community’s lives, you’re constructing an actual society, not just a series of buildings. As your community gets bigger and better there are problems that go alongside that, questions you need to answer so that people can live in harmony while holding different world views.
Floodland also has procedurally generated elements to it so that no two games will ever quite be the same. Your approach may have to adapt from one playthrough to another because it may not be so effective this time. Locations, events, clans, resources and survival parameters will all change, so over the course of several different playthroughs you’ll be able to walk different paths. While there'll be some small tweaks and changes, the general map will broadly be similar. However, in future updates the scope of randomization will improve and expand. We want to give you many different ways to come to terms with the challenges you face in this intriguing post-apocalyptic world.
You’ve been drinking in the flavour of floodland and now is the chance to play. We’re excited to be a part of this year's Steam Next Fest!
A demo will be playable for a week from Monday, October 3rd at 18:00 BST / 19:00 CEST / 10:00 PT until October 10th.
This demo sees your small band of survivors making camp and pitching the beginnings of your settlement. Before you can concern yourself with the wider world, you must see to your people's needs. Scavenge the local resources, explore your island, begin production and discover the means to set your sights beyond. Depending on how you use the speed settings, the first play-through should roughly take an hour.
If you would like to become a beta tester and provide feedback you can apply on our form here
And join us on Discord channel: https://discord.gg/Hnbxg9CJbZ
Wishlist us on Steam and keep up-to-date with our weekly DevBlogs which will continue to delve into the mudded waters of Floodland. The tide has risen and there is much to prepare you for before the November 15th release.
Join us next week and we focus on the city building and tech tree as you seek to expland and advance your settlement. Happy surviving, - Your Floodland Team
DevBlog 04: Developers Vision
“Greetings survivor”
There’s a plan, but if we don't persevere there will be messy times ahead. Stay focused and we’ll get there in the end. We must rebuild!
Welcome to Floodland, “Now our eyes are open to this new world”
Floodland is not a game about the end of the world, but about the beginnings of a new one. When we came to create our overall vision for the game, we were inspired by lots of classic city builders, but especially 11 Bit Studios’ excellent Frostpunk. However, we also wanted to address some of the city builder’s limitations, and help the genre evolve by offering players a chance to think in new ways.
Our first thought was to create a sandbox-style experience, so you can choose from lots of different paths to bring society back from disaster. Our key focus is freedom; freedom to create your own society in whatever manner you choose. You can be a freedom loving libertarian, or a despotic authoritarian, or whatever you like in between. Even change your approach as circumstances change, but consider each style of government has advantages and consequences. We also wanted you to change from thinking like a city builder, to thinking much more like a society builder.
Another real point of difference is the setting. At first, our backdrop was a more generic post-apocalyptic one, but when we added the flood, it immediately became a much more interesting environment. We think it’s engaging and connects players with current environmental concerns with glaciers melting and sea levels predicted to rise. Linking it to the current climate crisis we’re living through grounds it in reality and makes it more relatable. It makes you think, what would I do in this situation? How would I rebuild?
Whatever way you decide, we’re going to equip you with all the means necessary to do so. If there’s one thing we want players to take from the game, it’s to feel the struggle required to create an effective community. There’s a myriad of key decisions to make, from covering basic needs like food, shelter, and water, to where you’ll focus your resources and manpower. When is a good time to expand? What risks will this bring? And even, what kind of people you’ll welcome into your collective? We also want you to see the outcome of what happens when you make even the smallest changes to your society’s organisation.
The key to building a functioning community is that you need a variety of different people with varying skills and abilities. So you’ll encounter different clans who have different world views that shape their relationships to other clans. Finding agreement between them and balancing their needs, is not only possible but desirable. It’s not an easy task by any means, but creating a common consensus, a social contract, will ultimately be key to your success. This is what makes Floodland different, you have to focus on building a working society, not just a collection of different buildings.
Other games' guiding visions are also slightly different to ours. They imply that during hard times people will turn on each other and make horrible decisions in order to survive. While that can happen, we’re much more positive than that. When you begin playing Floodland, the so-called apocalyptic event has already passed and as survivors you need to work together to not only endure, but to prosper, while trying to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past.
Ultimately you’ll go through times of stress, but also of comfort while you establish your society. Floodland is not a rogue-like game, you shouldn't need to restart a playthrough because there will be multiple ways out of problems. You’ll be treated as a mature player capable of making harsh decisions, which while characters in the game may judge your actions, we won’t :) Our lead designer Kuba Pałyska out it like this:
“There is hope. Now you need to act. It may have been our fault that we destroyed the old world, but we can learn the lessons. It’s a new beginning and you need to do your best to find a new and better way. In Floodland the choices you make will really matter.”
Wishlist us on Steam and keep up-to-date with our weekly DevBlogs which will continue to delve into the mudded waters of Floodland. The tide has risen and there is much to prepare you for before the November 15th release.
Join us next week and we focus on the exploration, resources and keys to survival that you’ll discover while playing Floodland. Happy surviving, - Your Floodland Team
DevBlog 03: Art, Aesthetic & Music
“Greetings survivor”
We’ve roamed far, finding only ruins and the ravages of nature. Now, on the basis of hope, we’ve stopped and can assess. We’re starting to get a feel for this hellscape and it’s mysteries But, while there is brutal beauty everywhere, here there is something else….
Welcome to Floodland, “Take a moment to soak it all in”
Take in the gentle sound of the wind, the soft lapping of water at the river bank and the warmth of our brand new world. When considering how we wanted Floodland to be seen and remembered, and with the things we’ve all lived through in recent years, at the forefront of our minds, we decided upon the ethos of pushing realism to the level of hope.
The objective of our visual design, led by art director Konrad Czernik (Dying Light 2 and Shadow Warrior 3) is to create something timeless. Something that people can look at years in the future to inspire them artistically and help foster a new appreciation for the beauty of nature. We want Floodland to inspire you and create some hope for the unknowable future. Even if civilization fails, buildings crumble and all our cities fall, we are a part of nature and will always belong to it.
An important part of Floodland, something we’ve tried to really emphasise as we solidified the design, is the difference between what we call the old world and the new world. The remains of the world we know, and the world as it is now. We’ve highlighted their differences by carefully considering our use of geometry and colours.
Our main focus for the old world is to ensure it is always visible and distinct. The structures are based on sharp square and rectangular shapes and heavy usage of strong dark colours. Even the dirt underneath them is of a much darker shade staining the land. We want it to be clear that the remnants of the old world are just that, they do not belong here anymore.
The new world on the other hand is a new beginning. Brilliant and vibrant, the new world is a complex mix of natural colours and shapes that all blend together. As opposed to the old world, the focus here was all about synergy, creating a rich tapestry of warmth that seamlessly feeds into one another. The structures you build, the tents, the shacks, the workshops and even your people themselves all complement the land they are a part of culminating in a beautiful living landscape.
Floodland’s music was inspired by its distinct visual design. As we composed the soundtrack, we had a strong focus on complementing our art, with careful consideration going into ensuring it was not overpowered. We want the ambience to both encourage you along and make you feel like you’ve entered our world. As you play, we want you to feel like you yourself are a part of the hustle and bustle of the day, directing your people’s actions and to slow down during the peaceful quiet of the night as you contemplate what work needs doing come dawn.
We have a dynamic music system that adapts to in-game events and developments. If supplies start running low and your people grow increasingly unhappy, our music will adapt to reflect the dire events. As your settlement grows and becomes more complex, so too will the song’s texture with more instruments joining the melodies.
We co-produced and co-wrote the music with both Piotr Musiał, composer for Frostpunk and This War of Mine and the incredibly talented members of the Canadian indie-folk-rock band, Bruce Peninsula: Neil Haverty and Misha Bower. It’s been all pieced together and enriched by our composer/producer/sound designer Paweł Wawrzeńczyk. We are extremely proud of what we’ve created together and hope our music will instil you all with a sense of hope and appreciation for the new world that you can take into your own.
Wishlist us on Steam and keep up-to-date with our weekly DevBlogs which will continue to delve into the mudded waters of Floodland. The tide has risen and there is much to prepare you for before the November 15th release.
Join us same time next week as we plunge into the turbulent waters of the “Developers Vision”. Until then, happy surviving. - Your Floodland Team
DevBlog 02: Prologue & Setting
Greetings survivor, A scout has returned, this is the place! The key to our future lurks somewhere, amongst all of . . . this? Somehow, life finds a way, it has to. Before we go anywhere, rebuild anything, we need to explore and know more.
Welcome to Floodland, “what the hell happened?!”
It was the Event, right?. A cataclysmic CME, a giant expulsion of plasma from our Sun that decimated civilization. Or was it hackers, or a new kind of bomb. Eitherway, electronics the world over were fried, everything went dark, everything went silent, and so everyone was doomed.
No, no, none of that was it, the world didn’t end with the singular Event. The apocalypse was much more mundane than that. There was no terrible nuclear war that transformed the world overnight. No Hollywood style monumental tsunami ended society as we know it. It was a pandemic and the changed climate that did us in. A cost of living and energy crisis. A global depression, rampant terrorism and all those damn wars.
No, you’re both completely wrong, it was our greed, our out of control consumerism, tribalism and people like you spreading fake news. Then we had all of those natural disasters. Those forest fires, earthquakes, and of course the floods. It was a constant stream of tragedy after tragedy, of bad decisions and negligence until society hit a tipping point, until we could no longer manage and everything fell.
You’re all remembering it wrong, I think time may have gotten to you a little. None of that was new, as a species we’d dealt with it throughout history, yes? I’m sure things may have been rough for you at the time, but globally we would have recovered, if it wasn’t for the Event that is. It was the Event that ended it all.
The event concept art
People tried to prevent societal collapse of course, governments all around the world implemented extreme emergency measures, revolutionary new ways to generate electricity were researched, safe zones were developed, but it all came to naught. Resources were spread too thin and there were too many who needed saving. It was all far too late.
In a hostile inhabitable world and without a functioning society, those who had survived swiftly dropped in number, but humanity is nothing if not adaptable. All around the world, many lived. Whether it was on their own, or with a small group of like-minded people, humanity did not end and is far from extinct. Many years have passed since, the dust has settled, the waters have calmed and with the worst seemingly behind them, groups have begun to form, clans of like-minded people who are now looking to settle down and build a home.
They’ve survived, it’s time to start living.
The world of Floodland concept art
Floodlands is set in the ruins of the familiar, you lead a small group of survivors as they try to create their own settlement and develop their community on the little bits of land that aren’t fifty feet underwater. Your goal is to find a rumoured powerful generator that can supply unending electricity. Knowledge on where exactly the generator is located, how to operate it and even if it still works is long lost. The generator is little more than a myth, a dream, and there are much more pressing issues to deal with, but your people have that glimmer of hope to hold onto.
The world of Floodland concept art
It won't be easy, nobody doubts that. There will be setbacks and conflict, there will be struggles and loss, but they’ve been through the worst, they’ve been through the apocalypse and are still here. The ruins of the old world can be seen everywhere, dilapidated buildings, rusted shipwrecks and collapsed towers house useful supplies, relics, books filled with useful knowledge and perhaps other survivors, all waiting to be rediscovered. You’ll need to utilise everything you can find to keep your settlement happy and progressing forward to the better tomorrow that you have been entrusted to envisage.
Wishlist us on Steam and keep up-to-date with our weekly DevBlogs which will continue to delve into the mudded waters of Floodland. The tide has risen and there is much to prepare you for before the November 15th release.
We’ll be back on september 15th to immerse you in the rich art and music of Floodland, Happy surviving. - Your Floodland Team
DevBlog 01: Floodland Emerges
Greetings survivor, You awake, groggy and confused. Noticing you regaining consciousness, a dishevelled man approaches you. He hands you a broken cup containing warm water and a single mint leaf. You sip and find you remember little, you take in your surroundings.
Welcome to Floodland, “I hate say, I told you so”
Floodland is a Society Survival Game. It's on you to rebuild a city, a society and guide the future through a flooded post-apocalyptic landscape.
It’s being developed by Vile Monarch, the Polish game studio behind “Weedcraft”, ex-“This War Of Mine”-Devs, and published by Ravenscourt.
After unending fighting, famine and floods, cities have sunken under the sea, society collapsed and most of humanity has perished or scattered. Free from its case of severe human civilization, the Earth has begun to bloom and is once again a brilliant blue. With the remnants of humanity surviving day-by-day on small isolated pockets of highland, they look now to build themselves a home and a society worth living in. A return to the old ways, or is something even better possible? Can humanity flourish as part of the planet?
In Floodland, you explore a brand new world on top of the remains of the old. In order to progress your society, you need to secure food for your settlement, scavenge from the ruins of the old world and repurpose what you can in inventive ways. Rediscover knowledge and ensure its survival by passing it on throughout the various groups that form your society. These groups have their own skills, their own strengths and weaknesses. Carefully consider where they are best suited and what your settlement needs.
Together, you’ll utilise what you learn to improve your settlement and your communities daily life. Grow your city by building new homes and facilities, parks and places of entertainment, recreation, and worship. Refine building materials, recycle trash, prepare tasty meals, and protect your citizens. It’s a long road ahead, but Rome wasn’t built in a day
Society is, of course, more than a simple group of buildings and people. It's a shared idea of how to live alongside one another and the agreement to abide by rules and laws in order to prosper and coexist. In the new world, you have to choose what these laws will be and deal with their repercussions and consequences.
Rebuilding society isn’t going to be straightforward, it’s a puzzle, and you will form the law piece by piece as each situation arises, adapting it as circumstances demand. Naturally, not everyone will have the same opinion, people have their own ideas on how they should live and how crimes should be punished.
Clans based on ideology will be formed and discovered, all trying to exert their own influence upon you and mould society. How will you manage this friction between groups, prevent people’s unrest and keep the peace?
A new world means new problems. It’s on you to decide how to survive and deal with what life throws at you. Aggressive predators, threats to your food supply, outsiders, liars, thieves and con-men. Navigate forbidden love affairs, tragedies, old traditions and celebrations. Supplies are scarce, peace is tenuous and your burgeoning society is fragile. Every day is precious, and how you choose to spend your time will determine your settlement's fate.
“The idea for Floodland arose when we discussed conventions that are less explored in games, such as “mature and realistic post-apocalypse” and examples from other media such as The Road, Children of Men or even The Walking Dead. It felt especially timely and important to use these kinds of stories to discuss current world challenges. We’re firm believers that games are capable of talking about important topics while also being interactive and that they have the advantage that they don’t have to resort to just serving a message. Floodland’s goal is not to preach, but to have fun exploring choices, consequences and responsibility from various angles” - Kacper Kwiatkowski, Game Director at Vile Monarch
Wishlist us on Steam for weekly DevBlogs which will dive deeper into the mudded waters of Floodland. The tide has risen and there is much to prepare you for before November 15th.
