Hey there,
I've been working on finding a publisher for Folk Emerging, which is going well. It's important to find a publisher that truly understands strategy games and that will support its long-term development.
This process has also led to the decision to convert the map of Folk Emerging from 3D to 2D. This gives better results for less effort, time, and money. It makes it easier to achieve the desired aesthetic (90s history textbooks), it's easier to de-bug, and is more performant.
So, I've got the game fully functional in 2D with placeholder visuals, and I'm excited to share some concept art and some work-in-progress screenshots of the rework!
2D map
A quick test piece from a 2D artist:
Here are some very early work-in-progress screenshots using placeholder elements from the test piece:
Gameplay Updates
Here are some of the recent gameplay updates, addressing some feedback from the initial playtests and publisher talks:
- Diet points: now multiple species can be food sources, with bonuses at each level as diet points accumulate for each species
- Ecoregions: tile chunks with the same climate & terrain share a foodweb instance, and the entire ecoregion is highlighted when hovering over tiles
- Less frequent Food choices: choosing a food source used to happen every turn, but now it only happens when entering new ecoregion or a food source has depleted
- Impassable mountains: natural borders; all lowland chunks remain reachable
Here is an example of how ecoregions are partitioned:
There is a lot more in the works that is not yet ready to be shown. I'm holding off on a public demo for now, as publishers tend to want to be involved in demo releases, and I'd like to give the publishers I'm talking to a chance to participate.
I look forward to sharing more updates soon!
Cheers :)