Fixed softlock in mission 5 when dialogue appeared together with the colony level up popup. Thanks to kamilko for reporting

[ 2024-12-26 17:36:40 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello, we've added French localization, big thanks to Sykhasamann for the translation! Also, I made a couple of small fixes to UI to display text correctly. Andriy

[ 2024-12-04 17:35:24 CET ] [ Original post ]

Whoops, for some unknown to me reason hardware cursor stopped being visible on Steam Deck. I fixed it, so now you see a beautiful handmade cursor that I found on the internet (thanks to kenney.nl).

[ 2024-10-27 23:21:05 CET ] [ Original post ]

Welcome a new major update to Farlanders. It features:

• Full gamepad support
• Bigger font size and some UI readjustments
• German localization (thanks to Martin Winkler)
• Few minor bugfixes

Farlanders now has an official Steam deck verified status. It wasn't easy to achieve, because there are lots of menus and small text in the game. But I'm very pleased with the result, so please enjoy. Also, recently I announced my new game Super Loco World, it's about building and automating a railroad. Take a look! https://store.steampowered.com/app/3109280/Super_Loco_World/ - Andriy

[ 2024-10-22 21:43:41 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello, I uploaded a quick hotfix that solves the problem with huge colonies crushing the game. - Andriy

[ 2023-09-08 17:21:10 CET ] [ Original post ]

Greetings, I made some fixes and improvements. Daily challenge & Sandbox:

• After completing the daily challenge and returning to the leaderboard, the result wasn't properly highlighted. Now fixed
• 65 instead of 70 turn limit for daily challenge
• Added a slider in the sandbox for free terraforms frequency adjustment
• Added randomize map button in the sandbox which generates map settings using the daily challenge algorithm
• More resources on smaller maps in the daily challenge
• Easy terrain complexity is now harder in the sandbox
• Bigger maps in the daily challenge will have harder terrain complexity on average
• Sandbox and daily challenge panels position for various aspect ratios

Fixes:

• Added a description to the noise filter module that factories no longer dehydrate adjacent fertile soil
• The terraforms shop was sometimes not displaying the correct listings which led to the wrong terraform delivery

- Andriy

[ 2023-09-07 21:19:20 CET ] [ Original post ]

Greetings , I'm happy to announce a major Farlanders update together with the discount as a part of Ukrainian Games Festival (go see it!). Limitless play update introduces 2 new game modes that were promised earlier.

Sandbox

Customize level generation and game rules the way you want and play with no limitations. You can make a tiny map with super deep caves (up to depth -20) to play vertically; a giant map with flat terrain, no obstacles, and unlimited construction to test colony layout ideas without the need to worry about resources or terraforming; or just make a regular map, but remove some of the game rules (e.g. colony morale) to have a more chill game experience. The only limit is your imagination, and customization tools that I made .

Daily challenge

Once a day a new random map is generated for everyone. You have one try and a turn limit to compete with other players for the best score (colony population). I tried to make a big variety of possible maps in the daily challenge, some you might find unfair and too difficult, while others are more chill. My personal favorite is playing on a small or tiny map with deep underground caves, that's something that wasn't exploited during the campaign. Be aware, that the Daily challenge is not currently working on MacOS, due to 3rd party tools limitations.

3 New statues

There are 3 new statues designed by our Kickstarter backers. Each of them has a unique description, so don't forget to read it if you'll have one. Have fun, - Andriy

[ 2023-08-19 18:46:38 CET ] [ Original post ]

Greetings, I'm presenting you another QoL and fixes patch for Farlanders. Next, I'm planning to work on new game modes that were announced earlier: Sandbox, and Daily Challenge.

UX, Quality of life

• Don't let building the base when there is not enough space for expansion
• In the campaign, a little delay after the typewriter effect was skipped, during which you cant skip more text to avoid missing text by accident
• Setting to disable videos in the building preview panel
• Clearer description of the scanner effect
• Resize 'book interface' when its not fitting the screen on more square resolutions and larger UI size
• Change depth with shift+1,2,3... hotkeys
• Show to be revealed text as an objective during the gameplay when there are more objectives to come

Gameplay

• Option to change campaign difficulty
• Added ability to set a specific RNG seed for campaign mission

Sounds

• Dust storm sounds get quieter as you go deeper underground

Misc

• Added Crytivo splash screen
• Removed Jack of all trades achievement it was buggy and also the process of unlocking it seems tedious
• Easier to unlock 'Not a Single Drop Wasted' achievement

Fixes

• Normal prices text was missing on the trading screen
• Do not show the winter announcement if there is no winter
• An error was sometimes not triggered when purchasing a terraform with no free slots available
• Remove terraforming infographics from the map when deselecting with a mouse click on a terraforming card
• Correct terraforming preview during winter, when there is a dome over water
• Missing localization words
• Hide building preview panel when deselecting building category
• Building preview panel was sometimes outside of the screen space in the technology tree
• Make sure that it's impossible to research technology locked by tutorial in-between animations
• Fixed cargo fall animation
• Modules description was sometimes displayed as unavailable when selecting a technology
• Factory had shadows underground
• Block hotkeys during the loading screen so that it's impossible to skip dialogue accidentally

[ 2023-03-24 19:33:07 CET ] [ Original post ]

UX, Quality of life

• Display 'max' caption near the depth number when youre on the lowest possible depth
• Added video explaining area movement for Public Space
• In the building selection popup auto expand effects description for better readability when there are no area controls
• In the building selection popup display building development bonuses breakdown by default
• In the colony level-up popup display explanation that you need to pick a specialist before continuing
• Auto-save the game when closing the application
• Removed italics and better text readability in some tooltips
• Added undo turn option in the victory popup

Gameplay adjustments

• Smaller happiness decrease when going above 350 population. It will be possible to have 3+ colony morale with a population of 500 or higher.
• Added refined metal cost (6) to bacteria, grass, moss, and fungi to avoid confusion when you are getting a negative refined metal value after demolishing life
• New building development bonuses: fungi receive +2 from the underground house, the underground house receives +2 from the robotics gallery, the food silo receives +2 from a hydroponic farm
• Reduced base income from Grass
• Decreased science points price by 33% when selling them, fewer science points as the bonus from the latest colony level
• In general, more hidden under-ice anomalies on the surface that give science points
• Made Mycelium, A Step Toward Breathable Atmosphere, Left bank of Kyiv achievements a bit easier

Specialists adjustments

• Scientist: gives 3 instead of 5 free science points
• Botanist: gives bonus only to bacteria and fungi
• Entrepreneur: x2 more income from unemployed colonists
• Comedian, Musician: 0.25 happiness bonus instead of 0.15
• Engineer: minerals lifecycle bonus reduced from 20% to 10%

Campaign

• Revisited experience required for Marco to level up. Always show caption (with required manager level) on locked story files so that there is more sense in leveling up and going for side objectives
• Mission 4: easier to find water underground, slightly less metals
• Mission 5: a bit better starting positions, geothermal power on the surface, more passages underground from the surface
• Mission 6: more rare metals, more time to complete objectives, more geothermal power on the surface, lower pop goal, easier to discover underground level, a bit more stalactites
• Mission 7: no time limit in side objectives, slightly higher population required, more time to complete the main goal, slightly more resources underground, a bit more superquarks, more clear objective description

Free play mode

• Do not lock free play difficulties
• A bit less time for objectives in 'First metropolis on Mars' mission, added geothermal source on the surface for martian utopia and pioneers of cave agriculture missions.

Misc

• il2cpp compilation for Windows builds which might lead to performance improvements

Fixes

• Fixed broken achievements: Mycelium, A Step Toward Breathable Atmosphere, Jack of All Trades
• In the campaign, on relaxing difficulty, the experience that is used for leveling up wasnt calculated correctly
• Fixed a situation when in-game dialogues were locked and you had to undo the turn
• I think I found and fixed the occasional problem with dust storms in mission 7. Apologies to those who have encountered it.
• The text was sometimes missing in the game when using a certain OS language. It should be all working now
• Converted videos for building preview to another format and codec, which should hopefully fix problems with videos for every platform
• Inconsistent demolish tool behavior. Sometimes it was deselected after the use and sometimes returned cost wasnt displayed.
• Correct font for a letter in the campaign for non-Latin fonts
• Had to remove research flora under the dome technology from the checklist in mission 7 because it sometimes lead to cutscenes not working correctly
• Made it impossible to double-click the next turn button
• In the building selection panel, the module section occasionally displayed info from the previously selected building
• Disable the escape menu when a popup is showing or the turn is changing
• Reworked campaign progress saving system, to be 100% sure that the game is saved when youve completed the mission

[ 2023-02-09 15:20:02 CET ] [ Original post ]

Greetings, a new patch that I've been working on for the last week is now available. From now on, I will be making game updates using the normal procedure, meaning that first they will be tested on a beta branch. I'm making an announcement when an update is available on the beta branch on our discord. UX, Quality of life

• Undo turn button in the escape menu. I think it was the most requested feature, so I had to make it.
• In the migration popup highlight in red color the reason why new people cant join your colony
• Videos in the building preview popup with explanations for Factories (Factories dry fertile soil nearby!)
• The building preview popup show info that plants require time to fully grow
• Tip in mission 4 about installing a Water Conveyor module after you are getting underground
• Button to show the next tip on the loading screen
• More loading screen tips
• Confirmation buttons for abandon run and restart game in the escape menu

Gameplay adjustments

• Slower happiness decay (decrease). This should make it easier to build and support bigger colonies.
• Leave sand tile after the silicon deposit is exhausted
• Slightly reduced income from life
• Added inflation for terraforming shop prices linked to the population size. It would slowly grow after your colony hits 200 population. This should make a late game, when you have a huge economy, a little more challenging
• Easier to scan solid walls (same speed as for regular walls), and harder to scan mountains on the surface
• Mission 7 changes:

[spoiler]- Mini objective to research the technology required for the artificial sunlight module - Bigger breaks between dust storms - More visible passages on the surface - More good starting positions on the surface - Instead of 1 big rare metal deposit, 2 smaller rare metal deposits on depth [-1] - Bigger room with a passage to the depth [-5] - Slightly fewer wastelands on the surface[/spoiler] Misc

• Keep running the game after switching to another program
• When failing to load a savefile, show a dialogue with possible solutions

Fixes

• Max Power achievement is fixed
• True Legend achievement extra check when in the main menu
• And That's a Wrap! achievement extra check when on the campaign screen
• Save file corruption because of the wrong technology research objective serialization
• Hide UI when losing population
• Localization fixes and adjustments
• Mission 1 was in the sandbox after the restart

[ 2023-01-26 15:14:53 CET ] [ Original post ]

Greetings, A new patch has been released to make the game more accessible and smooth out the learning curve. Among changes, there are improvements to mission 3 and 4 balance. More clear descriptions for colonists' migration popup, and terraforming buildings (they are 1-time use only). This patch should also fix most of the localization issues. While Farlanders may appear to be a simple game at first glance, it does have its own complexities. If certain mechanics are missed or misunderstood, it can lead to difficulties while playing the game. For example, if players don't realize that they can create water by placing a water terraform into a canyon, and instead are creating ice by placing it on a flat surface, they will have a hard time providing food and water for their colony. Or if players don't build scanners underground, the exploration process becomes tedious and not enjoyable. So my top priority, for now, is to improve the game balance and provide a better experience for everyone. If you have any feedback or questions, you can join our Discord server where you can get a quick answer about the game. I'll also try to reply to the comments on Steam forums whenever I'll have a bit more time. Overall, I'm happy that the game is finally released, even with some rough edges. Thank you all for the support, that means a lot to me! Cheers, Andriy P.S. Here is an interesting video that I used as an inspiration for plants mechanic in Farlanders.

[ 2023-01-18 23:36:00 CET ] [ Original post ]

Dear Farlanders community, I am thrilled to announce that Farlanders is officially being released! It has been a long journey, and I couldn't have done it without the support and encouragement of all of you. I want to express my deepest gratitude to each and every one of you for being a part of our community and for your patience during the development process. Your feedback and suggestions have been invaluable in helping me create the best possible game experience. I can't wait for you to experience the world of Farlanders for yourself. Thank you for your support, and I look forward to your continued feedback as we continue to develop and improve the game. Sincerely, Andriy Bychkovskyi https://store.steampowered.com/app/1318740/Farlanders/

[ 2023-01-17 16:04:43 CET ] [ Original post ]

[previewyoutube=omF4BR5AWe8;full][/previewyoutube] We're happy to announce that Farlanders is going to be released on January 17th, 2023 on Steam. Lead the charge in establishing a colony on Mars in a new turn-based strategy game with a nostalgic loot but very fresh gameplay! Also, you already can play the new Farlanders demo for free on Steam now! Please, share your thoughts about the game in our Social Media channels. We always monitor them and do our best to improve Farlanders!

Our socials

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[ 2022-11-30 17:10:12 CET ] [ Original post ]

Greetings , Im presenting you the final major update to Farlanders before the release. We have 1 more major update planned which will introduce Daily Challenge & Sandbox game modes but thats after the release.

Campaign & Narration

My main focus in this update was the campaign. This means implementing the story and working on actual missions. Thats a huge challenge to make missions not only interesting and diverse but also with the right difficulty and learning curve.
We will have 7 missions in the campaign, currently, 3 are available (Ill be adding the rest soon). It would be the good old desktoppunk (my invention ) that you had a chance to experience in Farlanders: Prologue but this time with:

• Various media (chat messengers, emails, video blogs, video calls, and even actual offline meetings between characters)
• Good writing (thanks to Shervin)!
• Lovely characters drawn by Anna
• Mars colonization, mystery, secrets, and a little bit of drama

Not sure why I decided to present info in this section as it is some kind of an ad, but I believe thats a huge step forward to what was done in Prologue, and you will enjoy the story. And btw, some of the media would have a voiceover.

Sound design & Music

A lot of work was done on the game sound. So now we have a complete soundtrack and sound design, by which I mean:

• Visiting sounds for most of the buildings which is played when you select or construct the building
• Sound loops synced with building animations
• New SFXs and updates to old sounds so that everything sounds good together

Thats the first time Im putting so much effort into game sound, but it seems it was worth it and Im proud of the result. All credits to Danil Dunets and Ivan Turmenko! Ah, and you can check the game sound yourself in the video below. [previewyoutube=x1eNAvICSHU;full][/previewyoutube]

Building upgrade mechanic

I decided to go back to the old building upgrade mechanic. This means that instead of gradual growth (wait for a few turns for the building to develop) buildings will be developed immediately if conditions are met. It just feels better and fits the nature of the game which is about direct dependencies between terrains and buildings. But its not a simple revert to the old mechanic. First, we have a new animation for buildings upgrades.
And second, we took the good part from the old-new mechanic. Buildings might have more different bonuses from various types of buildings. For example, Greenhouse gets bonuses from both Greenhouses and Food silos, although Food silos give fewer points. This creates more possible interactions between buildings which leads to more possible game scenarios. Imagine you need to build a Spices greenhouse for which you need to have Greenhouse level 3. You can achieve level 3 by constructing 3 greenhouses nearby, but that might be tricky, so instead, you can build 2 greenhouses + 2 food silos nearby.

Other changes

As the game gets closer to the release we get more and more tasks in the polishing area. Ill try to mention the most important changes from what come to my mind:

• Complete revisit of the game text; new names and flavor text for buildings and terrains
• Robotics gallery, a new underground happiness building
• Adjustments to the plants (and other life forms) logic according to the changed buildings upgrade system. Plants require time to grow to the highest level
• Reworked technology tree; no more building level-ups in the tech tree, when you research a new building you get all the levels that are available
• Updated main menu; campaign difficulty selection
• Level generator improvement: rooms that are generated on the surface have softer edges, which means that there might be a passage between rooms that are not blocked by a canyon or mountain

Release date & final notes

Ill be honest with you I feel burned out and tired of working on this game for so long. Thats mostly because the game scope become too big. Now I understand that it was too ambitious for the budget and experience that I had. When I started working on Farlanders I never thought that the game would grow so much. But my conscience is clear, I think currently every game mechanic is in its place. And we got the most out of the original concept. As for the release date, it will be announced after:

• Playtests are complete and were sure that the tutorial is properly implemented and there is nothing fundamentally wrong with the game
• Trailer is complete
• The localization process is started

Also, I made a feedback and bug report thread on our forums. They would especially make sense after we release a new demo. And as always, join our discord. Thank you for following and #standwithukraine! Andriy

[ 2022-10-14 20:30:09 CET ] [ Original post ]

Farlanders demo is available for a limited time during Steam Next Fest. The demo features an introductory mission with a smaller set of available mechanics and no random map generation. It might take 1-2 hours to complete. 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.

[ 2022-06-16 16:56:25 CET ] [ Original post ]

Greetings , First of all, I want to thank you for your kind words in the previous update. Its very touching and meaningful to all members of our small team. Im sorry that I didnt respond personally to each comment, thats mostly because for some reason I dont 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 its 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 Im most proud of what weve 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 weve 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 shouldnt be trusted too much . So weve 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 33 ground tiles

Winter event

In addition to the dust storm event that can mess up your colony in a few turns, weve 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 wasnt 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. [previewyoutube=0IayfK0Lj_0;full][/previewyoutube] Music is composed by Danil Dunets, you can listen to his other works here. Also, to sweeten the pill for the delayed release, well give a free digital soundtrack to those whove 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 wont 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 Lunas Fishing Garden, another great indie game! Thats it you can join our Discord server, or follow me on Twitter, and maybe someday Ill start posting something interesting there , or even change my ugly avatar to something more professional.

[ 2022-05-30 01:46:35 CET ] [ Original post ]

You probably heard that Russia has invaded Ukraine. Our whole team is based in Ukraine, which means that the war has affected our lives directly. Because of that, we have to postpone Farlanders release for an unknown time. This doesn't mean that project is abandoned. I personally will work on it full-time, but we need to regroup and update the development plan because other team members can't work for now. You can read my thoughts about the war on Twitter. Thank you for understanding, Andriy

[ 2022-03-10 23:49:35 CET ] [ Original post ]