📅 It will start on December 8th and end 5 nights later, on 12th 2022.
Why did we choose these days? The answer is simple - our playtest will happen simultaneously with the #TurnBasedFest - an online festival for the people who make, play, and love turn-based video games. We’re taking part in it - both Ringlab and the Giwis.
What to expect from #TurnBasedFest? Be ready for lots of games and content creator showcases. Discover hidden gems (such as Scorchlands!), find hits on sale, and check out all the upcoming games that might be your next favorite.
👉 So, to be crystal clear:
📅 #TurnBasedFest and Scorchlands playtest will happen during the same days - from 8.12 till 12.2022.
Just a reminder - if you did not play the demo of Scorchlands, you can now sign up for Playtests and play the latest version during the #TurnBasedFest. We’re sure you’ll fall in love with Giwis and their colonies!
A few days ago we were showing you colonies and some systems surrounding them. We realized it was a fun idea, so it’s time to start a new mini series called Gameplay Insight. We’ll use it to show you a few mechanics implemented in Scorchlands 🐦. Today you can see the entire process of summoning the Nexus.
But first, here’s a GIF for you. ⤵️
What is the Nexus? 🗼
To quote Gunther, it is the “pinnacle of Speculative Givi Science” ⚗️. So basically, it does magic. 🧙♂️
This structure will help convert the planet's energy into a different kind of energy, letting you terraform the volcanic landscape. Nexus is love, Nexus is life. That’s why we put it on our key art! 👀
To use the Nexus you need to fuel it. And to fuel it, you need to gather resources and transport it to the structure through the transport lasers network. Build up your colony, gather resources, fuel the Nexus and use it – see what biome you can unlock next!
Last but not least.
Scorchlands is a part of DreamHack Beyond Indie Showcase. 🕹️
Check out this fantastic Steam event, there’s lots of great demos and live streams for you to watch! 📺
Wishlist Scorchlands on Steam 👀, follow Ringlan on Twitter and Star Drifters 🚀 on Facebook 👍 and Twitter 🐦.
When we’re writing these words, we’re on our way to Poznań - one of the biggest cities in Poland. At the beginning of every Autumn, MTP Poznań Expo is transformed into the location of one of the largest computer, console, and multimedia entertainment trade show in Central and Eastern Europe…👀
Poznań Game Arena, here we come! 🎮
📅 Save the date: 07-09.10.2022
📍 Booth 23 at Pavilion 7
Be there with us for the whole weekend - from Friday’s morning till Sunday’s evening!
We’re so happy to be a part of it once again. So, without further ado - we would like to invite all of you to…
This year, we’ll be showcasing four games.
First Dwarf, our upcoming Action RPG ⚒️
This will be the first time we’ll be presenting the game in Europe! 💥 We truly can’t wait to see what you guys think about Tru and Ragna. Our team was polishing the build for the last few weeks especially for PGA. In case you missed the info - First Dwarf is our new game expanding the Driftland franchise.
Scorchlands, the adorable city-builder with bird-like characters (they’re actually called Giwis 🐦)
Just a reminder - the demo version of Scorchlands is now up on Steam - we submitted it to Steam Next Fest. Seems like everybody digs the cute Giwis communities. You’ve got to check Scorchlands out! Poznań Game Arena is a great place to do so.
Brewpub Simulator, the game for all pub enjoyers 🍻
Psst… That’s the sound of a beer can being opened. We’re more into taps and craft beers - you will be able to verificate our passion about the golden drink by playing the demo version of Brewpub Simulator! We never showed it to anyone, this will be the first time EVER. We can’t wait for your feedback about this project! 🍺
Lumencraft 🕷️
This is a project that we announced last year - a lot of things happened along the way. The game’s currently in Early Access, what’s more - feel free to download the demo version and see how much stuff was added, tweaked and re-shaped since the start of EA. Lumencraft looks great, runs smoothly, and feels just like we imagine it - it’s a little tricky and spooky. What’s more, if you own a Steam Deck - this is definitely a game you want to try on this handheld.
Oops, looks like we’re already in Poznań. It’s time to set everything before you visit our booth! See you on-site - don’t be shy and come say hi. 👋
Yours truly,
Star Drifters 🚀
Steam Next Fest Stream schedule
Hey! Stay a while and listen. 🧙♂️
One of the most important online #IndieDev events has started - Steam Next Fest is here! Let’s do as we promised in the last issue of our Steam News.
There’s a new demo of Scorchlands available to download! 🐤
Go venture through Helia and help Giwis establish multiple colonies on the moon’s surface.
It’s an online festival, so there’s much more to unveil. 🚪
During the whole seven days of Next Fest, there will be multiple live streams from Scorchlands for you to watch. What’s more, Jakub from Ringlab will host a Q&A on Discord, so make sure you prepare a question for him.
Check our schedule for upcoming days:
3.10.2022 - 6.10.2022 - Scorchlands - World Destroying Fantasy Planetary Colonization by SplatterCatGaming 6.10.2022 - 10.10.2022 - Scorchlands - (World Terraforming & Colonizing Game) by Nookrium 3.10.2022 - 10.10.2022 - Discord Q&A
You can DM 💌 him on the game's Discord server or via Twitter (he’s there as @ringglan).
We hope you'll love the new demo as much as we do! Don’t forget to share your feedback on Discord - become a part of our fantastic community. Don’t make us beg, it’s fun. 😎
Of course we have some changelog for newest build! :
## [Steam Next Fest Demo Update] -- 2022-10-03
Changes:
- Add an option to control the hero just like regular units while in combat. - Combat tutorial has been reworked. - Laser beams without connection now visually flash when player is about to place a laser and connect them. - Added an additional hint when player is constructing lasers. It shows which direction the laser is facing. - Colony upgrade sound volume has been slightly reduced. - Cursor graphics have been slightly improved. - Added 20 more random colony names. - Various minor UI tweaks - Game text has been tweaked in several places.
Bugs: - Audio settings are now updating as they are changed. - Fix a rare bug where a player sometimes wouldn't be able to open pause menu by pressing escape button.
Wishlist Scorchlands on Steam 👀, follow Ringlan on Twitter and Star Drifters 🚀 on Facebook 👍 and Twitter 🐦.
The basis of a city-builder game is - obviously - building a city. Or, like in our case, a network of interdependent colonies. So, we decided to write a Steam News dedicated to this topic.
Building placement is an important part of resource management in Scorchlands 🐦, so let’s take a closer look at this aspect of the game. 🔍
When you plan out a new production district or want to set up a connection between two colonies, you’re bound to build a lot.
Good news: nearly all the buildings are totally free and you place them instantly! What’s more, you can move or destroy them whenever you want. 🎉
Thanks to that you can focus on the gameplay and not on gathering resources just to be able to afford a new building.
The only real limit is the borders of your colony, as you can only build inside. Colonies can be expanded to accommodate more buildings as you progress through the tech tree, but there is a limit on the number of colonies and colony upgrades. With that limit in mind, you won’t be able to place all the buildings in just one colony. When you get to that point, you’ll have to decide what to build in each colony and where. 🗺️
There are many ways you can set up the production of each available resource.
For example, you can:
create medium specialized settlements,
spend more resources on creating the main colony and surround it with smaller mining settlements,
create a spaghetti-like mess that will work just fine. 🍝
There are lots of different ways to approach organizing the colonies - the player makes important decisions about choosing the resources. All of them have some pros and cons, so choose wisely! ⚖️
Watching the districts and other things grow organically from your actions is one of the most satisfying things in the game.
Do you already have a method you’ll want to try? Remember to wishlist the game, it really helps us out!
Don’t forget that the demo version will come back to Steam during Steam Next Fest - it will begin October 3-10, 2022 @10AM PDT / 7 PM CEST.
Wishlist Scorchlands on Steam 👀, follow Ringlan on Twitter and Star Drifters 🚀 on Facebook 👍 and Twitter 🐦.
Some of you wonder what happened to the demo version of Scorchlands. In case you did not read the first Steam News announcing the game, the demo was available on Steam temporarily. We published it in August and it disappeared after two weeks since the day Star Drifters announced the publishing of the game.
Nonetheless, the community’s growing - more and more people visit the game’s Discord 🎧 server asking “what happened to the demo version?”. We got answers.
Surprise! The demo version of Scorchlands is back on Steam! 🐦
That’s not the only important thing we’ve got to share with you.
During the upcoming Steam Next Fest, there will be a stream from the latest build of the game! 📺
📅 Save the date! Next Fest will take place October 3-10, 2022 @10AM PDT / 7 PM CEST.
(and yes, it means that the release date will be announced sooner than some of you could expect).
To quote… Well, Steam, Steam Next Fest is “a multi-day celebration of upcoming games. Explore and play hundreds of game demos, watch developer livestreams, and chat with teams about their games in progress.”
So - celebrate it with us.
Changelog for new demo version:
## [Demo Update] -- 2022-09-22
Changes: - Players can now start building from outside colony borders when they are within 3 tiles of distance from colony borders - Players without an access to a mouse scroll wheel can now zoom in and out with [,] and [.] rebindable keybinds - Added an option to rotate buildings with Shift + mouse scroll wheel - UI scaling can be now tuned down to 50% to accomodate for ultra wide displays - Players can now pan the view in overview mode by moving the cursor to the edge of the screen - Game icon has been updated
Tutorial: - Camera tutorial has been tweaked to track cumulative zoom in/out instead of forcing player to zoom out far away - The final enemy wave in tutorial was adjusted to be a bit easier to beat - The font scale in mission panel and large tutorial panels was increased to raise readability - Most of the text in tutorial was reworked to be shorter and much more readable
Bugs: - Fixed rare issue after loading which would cause some terrain to become volcanic - Fixed a rare bug where mirrors would be rotated incorrectly after loading the game
Gotta go now 🏃♂️
Wishlist Scorchlands on Steam 👀, follow Ringlan on Twitter and Star Drifters 🚀 on Facebook 👍 and Twitter 🐦.
today we’re here to provide some insight about the famous red Giwi 🐦 from our key arts! He’ll be your in-game avatar.
Well, he's a bit lean back, which makes him very cool. Also, his smile is infectious. ☺️
As you know from the previous Steam News, Giwis can’t fly. They’re running back and forth through the hexes, so it was super important to us to animate the main character satisfyingly. He’s grateful now! 🏃♂️
His final design you can see in the GIF below:
Our main hero is a character we’ve most likely spent most of our time on from among all other models. 🚧 We had to be sure that our team made the right decision about his design, so we made many iterations of his design. He was evolving for quite a while before we decided that the version that you see is the right one.
Our hero needed to be visible from a distance because this is the perspective usually used while playing. The true magic happens when you zoom in on the Giwi. We were aiming for the cuteness overload! 😁
Now the character looks adorable and carefree in both their looks and movement. Did he steal your heart? 💖
If you want to talk about Giwis and all the fun stuff, join our Discord server 🎧 - Scorchlands’ community is growing fast! 🏃🏃🏃
The last, but not least: some of you asked where’s the demo version of the game. It was available on Steam and then it disappeared. Don’t worry, it will return sooner than you think. 🌝
To help Giwis, wishlist Scorchlands on Steam 👀, follow Ringlan on Twitter and Star Drifters 🚀 on Facebook 👍 and Twitter 🐦.
Today we are launching a small update for our demo. Thanks to your activity we've managed to fix several bugs. Here’s the full list of what’s new:
## [Demo Small Upodate] -- 2022-08-28
- Added option to save game for demo (later you will be able to use it as a starting point in full game) - After finishing the demo, player is no longer forced to menu and can explore the rest of the content in demo freely - The giant bugs at the desert have been nerfed and won't require a small army do defeat - Added option to rebind default WASD movement keys - Lasers are no longer displaying an error when there is less than 1 unit of resource transfer deficit (for example when transferring 15.5 out of 16 units needed)
To help Giwis, the game - wishlist Scorchlands on Steam, join our Discord 🎧 server, follow Scorchlands on Twitter and Star Drifters 🚀 on Facebook 👍 and Twitter 🐦.
Hope that the graphic promoting this announcement is funny enough 🙈
We promised to publish the demo as soon as possible, writing about it in the previous Steam News. It was ready to go when the game was announced, but there were some complications on the way and it’s finally published today. Enjoy! 🐦
The demo of Scorchlands is now exclusively on Steam - it will be there for 2 weeks.
The most important thing is - we want to know how you dig the demo. So, let us invite you to be a part of the Scorchlands community on Discord: https://discord.gg/wMD9DJek.
Feel free to write about anything Giwi-related. There are two representatives of Ringlab on the game’s Discord server: - Ring (Jakub); - MOONLOVER (the dev helping him out).
If you want to, you can also ask questions directly to our publisher, Star Drifters 🚀. They’re ready to answer them all. Time for a short pause. We’ve got something for you - here’s one of the concept vectors of the game. That’s the one blurred above.
Other breaking news: now you can see how Ring (Jakub) looks like.
There’s a recording of a panel with Astrid and André interviewing me during devcom Developer Conference 2022 - Live from Cologne.
Looks like more and more people are interested in Scorchlands, which (obviously) makes us happy. Some videos were published on YouTube. Thank you for the warm welcome and the kind words! We put the links below. Also, Ringlab received a lot of positive feedback on Twitter. If you want to catch up directly with Ring (Jakub), that’s his profile: twitter.com/ringglan. 👈
To help Giwis and the world surrounding these bird-like buddies - wishlist Scorchlands on Steam, GOG 👴 or Epic Games Store, join our Discord 🎧 server, follow Ring on Twitter and Star Drifters 🚀 on Facebook 👍 and Twitter 🐦.
Look! The egg is cracking 🥚! What’s that? Is it a bird 🐣? Is it a human with a beak? Nope, he’s one of the Giwis! 🐦
But before we start, let me introduce myself. I’m Jakub, I’m the developer that created the Birdfolks you see here. The time has come to show you my beloved project named Scorchlands! 🎉
Giwis are the inhabitants of my dreamt world. Bringing them to your PCs will be better with a suitable partner (Star Drifters 🚀), who decided to publish my vision. I’ve got to say I’m super excited about working with them - I’ve got nothing but respect for this Warsaw-based team, they’re also developers and released Driftland - The Magic Revival - one of the Polish games that’s close to my heart. 💖
If Giwis could Tweet, they would post this ⤵️ Scorchalnds is a game in which you manage production of fantastic resources on a foreign, volcanic moon. Play at your own pace and relax in a setting that combines magic and science.
Unfortunately, Giwis don’t Tweet (just like Machete 😎), but I - catch me here: twitter.com/ringglan.
TL;DR - main features of Scorchlands 👀
Hex grid-based city-building – construct various buildings in your colonies. Each structure's productivity depends on neighboring resources and other constructions.
Complex resource management – it’s not only about extracting materials. Scorchlands takes account of logistics – the movement of resources between colonies and combining them in robust processing chains. And yes, we move resources using LASERS!
Terraforming for the greater good – use magic and technology to change the biomes on procedurally generated maps and exploit the new environment to gain its unique resources
Technology designed to give fun – there’s no fun in a sandbox if you don’t have the toys to play with. The technology system in Scorchlands is key for player progression and new discoveries open up new ways to play with the game world
Minimalistic combat system – when you get into a fight, positioning will be the key. Destroy your enemies by surrounding them and placing your forces in optimal locations.
The most important info for now is the fact that…
The demo version will be available on Steam in just a few days! 💪
Say hello to Birdfolks 👋 Who says magic and science don’t go along? The birdfolk of Giwi are curious explorers and inventors - what better way to satisfy scientific curiosity than an expedition to the moon?
The volcanic satellite, Helia, is filled with resources, so the daring explorers will not only discover new magical technologies but also harvest riches and establish colonies. Great discoveries aren’t easy to come by - the moon’s surface is full of dangerous creatures waiting to fight for their habitat. The Giwi will have to use magic not only to fend off any predators, but also to sustain their economy with arcane lasers allowing them to handle resource logistics by connecting all colonies into an industrial web.
To fully discover the mysteries of Helia players will have to establish multiple colonies on the moon’s surface, discover new tech and magic, terraform the hostile environment and fight against local creatures.
Meet Giwis AND find out why they RUN 🎽 Although avian looking, Giwi are flightless -- they have arms in place of wings, no really distinctly developed keel bone and mostly upright body posture. Their bodies are feathered, except their forearms and lower legs, which are scaled, have talons and are frail-looking (similarly to regular bird’s legs). Their heads also resemble the head of a bird.
The Giwi are actually pretty early in civilization/technology state: think what would happen if humans discovered overpowered electricity in the year 500 BC and 200-300 would have passed.
Below are some common traits that are often present among many of Giwis 👀:
tricky, reckless - they do not think things through often enough
crafty - they appear capable of making crazy contraptions or overdoing things in funny ways
harmless looking - even when it tries to, does not look like a badass
animal-like, cute design that resembles household pets nobody would ever hurt.
The last, but not least: To help Giwis, the game, and myself (in a way) - wishlist Scorchlands on Steam, join our Discord 🎧 server, follow me on Twitter (you’ll find the link at the beginning of this announcement) and Star Drifters 🚀 on Facebook 👍 and Twitter 🐦.
