Hello, delicious friends, Sunless Sea is turning 10 years old on the 6th of February, if you can believe it. Sunless Skies is already 6! My, they grow up so fast. We're having a celebratory sale in honour of the milestone, so a good chance to pick up any of the Fallen London Universe games at lifetime best prices. The game that originated the universe - the Zee, the High Wilderness, and every dreadful thing in them - Fallen London, is now 15! (Anyone making calculations about how old that makes us should probably just let that thought wink out like a false-star.) In celebration, Fallen London is getting a major adaptation for tabletop roleplaying, developed by Magpie Games. Magpie are the team behind Root, Avatar Legends, Urban Shadows, Bluebeard's Bride and many more wonderful games.
We hope this development will excite those of you who have asked us down the years if we could create a TTRPG system for this world. The initial project is to create the core rulebook and a supplement for London, with the dream being to follow that up with a Sunless Sea module, should everything work out well. We hope you'll take a look, and that this will enable you to have further adventures in the Neath, this time working together with your friends in pursuit of a grand, world-changing ambition. Cannibalism is not guaranteed, but can never be fully discounted when improvising a story with friends! The Kickstarter starts on the 11th of February, and you can follow it now to get a notification when it goes live.

Platform: PC (Windows/Linux/MacOS) Build Version: 2.0.5.6e8c8ff Release Date: 27/06/2024 Sunless Skies is now available on the Epic Games Store. There are a number of narrative fixes that have been included and we are updating the Steam and GOG builds with those fixes so there is parity across all versions.

Narrative bug fixes

• The icon for the Dominant in the Reach quality has been changed to prevent confusion over the quality requirements for prospects.
• Your skill qualities will now adjust accordingly when altering a Facet of your past when incarcerated at Piranesi.
• Quality requirements for prospects linked with the Devil's secondment at the Avid Horizon are now visible on the Bazaar interface.
• Many typos and inconsistencies have been fixed.

Today its been exactly a year since Mask of the Rose was funded on Kickstarter, and we've just released a demo of the first act, available right now on Steam!
Get the free demo on Steam, for Windows, Mac and Linux. Offering a condensed version of Act I of Mask of the Rose, youll be able to explore select locations across Fallen London, introduce yourself to some key characters and encounter Mr Pages, one of the mysterious new Masters who have recently taken over London, in its office at the Bazaar. At the opening of Mask of the Rose, Mr Pages has employed your housemate, Griz, who has in turn found a few pennies work for you as census taker. The census goes some way beyond the expected (Surface census forms never did ask if anyone in the residence was in love), so youll need to approach conversations with care to find out all you need to know. Demo Feedback We're really excited to know what you think about exploring Fallen London from this perspective for the first time. The very best places to talk about it will be the Steam discussion forums for Mask of the Rose, or if you want to join one of our community spaces, there's Discord, our forums, and the Fallen London subreddit. There are a few things itll be useful to know before you send feedback:

• In the final game there will be a text log, so you can scroll back through conversations
• There will also be audio sliders under Settings
• And of course, there will be saving in the finished game (the final version of Act I will be fleshed out from this version, so carrying choices over wouldnt be possible).

Tech bug fixes

• Your headlight will no longer pass through solid terrain.
• Weve made some changes to address the crashes seen when starting a new game on MacOS builds.

Narrative bug fixes

• It is no longer possible to finish developing Titania without completing two projects.
• It should now be clearer how to expand Titania across different captains within the same lineage.
• Speaking to the Caring Conductor when docked will no longer trigger a warning message that breaks docking.
• You can once again collect a bee from a Chorister-Corpse or the Flower Fields for the Abstemious and Patchwork Devils.
• The Abstemious Devil quest will now update in the journal once you've captured a bee.
• The Studious Companion will no longer incorrectly be mentioned when parting ways with the Pugilistic or Poetic Companions.
• The Pugilistic Companion is no longer incorrectly referred to as the Vigorous Companion.
• If you rid yourself of the Clay Conductor, the quest journal will now update accordingly.
• Once the Clay Conductor has been dismissed from your service, you can no longer continue to help him search for a companion.
• It should now be clear when you lose crew at the Giggling Place.
• The Repentant Devil will no longer incorrectly be referenced when speaking to The Defiant Devil.
• As always, a few more typos have been banished.

You may have seen that we Kickstarted a new game in the same universe as Sunless Skies in February this year. Now we're pleased to announce that it has a shiny Steam page!
Mask of the Rose is a romantic visual novel, so somewhat different to Sunless Skies and Sunless Sea. However, it's set in the same universe, and brings all of our expertise in writing deep, surprising, meaningful stories, this time on a more personal level. [previewyoutube=_Vzt2XceW-c;full][/previewyoutube]
Thanks to an unknown bargain, London now resides in a vast cavern under the earth. Down here, the sun doesn't shine, and Parliament has sunk into the Thames. Queen Victoria never emerges from her palace. Cats spy on their owners and whisper their secrets abroad. The fabric of strait-laced Victorian society has begun to fray. New Masters are in charge. Why are they so tall? And always cloaked? And why are they so interested in love stories? Even death itself has a twist here: the first murder victim since the Fall is feeling much better, and keen to see justice done. Unfortunately, as the doctor who treated him immediately before he expired, your housemate Archie is the prime suspect...

• (Re)invent yourself: who were you before the Fall? Who will you be now?
• Create outfits from a selection of clothing and unusual accessories to unlock different story options
• Fall in love with a cast of diverse Londoners, each with their own secrets
• Matchmake among your friends, or seek love for yourself (by any definition you like)
• Write love stories in a delightful minigame, and use them to impress the new Masters
• Pick up odd jobs to earn money and gather resources. How are you at rat catching?
• Solve the first murder since the Fall, with the assistance of the victim
• Discover cosy, mysterious and magnificent locations in a dark and delicious version of Victorian London
• Seek deeper and deeper secrets over multiple playthroughs

Update

Tech bug fixes

• The screen will no longer shake when docking, though the locomotive itself may judder slightly.
• After erupting from host locomotives, Guest tentacles will continue to writhe.
• Dreadnought Guest damage and death animations have returned.
• The animations on Chorister Bees wings should no longer freeze.
• Agent headlight intensity has been lowered slightly so it is easier to see their bullets on smaller screens.
• The chart label for the Eleutheria transit relay in Worlebury is no longer blank.
• Tutorial ambient messages and control prompts now have a background layer so they are easier to read.
• Gamepad exclusive fields have been removed from the Controls menu.

Narrative bug fixes

• The Researchers Crusade quest is now displayed in the journal rather than on the status panel.
• All references of Ministry-Approved Permits have been replaced with Ministry-Stamped Permits.
• The Poetic Forged Companion will no longer be mentioned when speaking to The Pugilistic Forged Companion.
• You will now always gain Terror when failing to climb the mountain at Lustrum.
• The Patchwork Devil quest will now update in the journal once youve captured a live Chorister Bee.
• If the Incognito Princess is on secondment you cannot forge a ring for her at Carillon, or help her meet the Measurer's demands at Crossroads.
• The safer and riskier options on prospect opportunities at Lustrum and Prosper now display the correct chance of success.
• Peculiarities on the status panel will now display a level description where appropriate.
• Several typos have been fixed.

Update

Narrative bug fixes

• It should no longer be possible to get stuck while speaking to the Phlegmatic Researcher about their requests.
• The need to collect a passenger for the New Street Line before going to the drop off point should now be signalled a little more clearly.
• Searching Elsewhere at the Sun-Shattered Dome will now degrade your suit.
• Captains with Past: A Bell Tolls will no longer see two options to dispose of their death at the Nurseries.
• Once you've dealt with the Vagabond at Old Tom's Well, there will no longer be a conversation option with the Minister which suggests you don't know what became of him.
• Captains participating in the Rochester Race in Albion will no longer be falsely told that they have 30 days to win, when in fact they have 15.
• Various duplicate occurrences of 'the' have been removed from the Court of Mules
• While stepping out of a circle at the Regent's Grave, it will no longer be suggested that you are, in fact, stepping in to it.
• Transporting a Workworld Runaway will no longer cause the amount of cargo in your hold to go out of sync.
• Captains will now be directed to the correct auction house when they receive a Prospect Opportunity.
• Several typos have been fixed.

Tech bug fixes

• Bronzewood has been reduced in size to ensure it never completely blocks the corridors in the Reach.
• Agents in the Blue Kingdom should no longer become trapped by Vaults or Enclaves of the Dead.
• The explosion SFX heard when travelling through the Albion to Eleutheria relay for the first time can now be muted.
• Loading at relays with mechanical problems no longer causes the heat bar to become misaligned.
• After suffering from mechanical problems the heat bar will return to full size after leveling up via the facet interface.
• Tooltips will no longer draw partially off screen, particularly when using the larger font size.
• The player log will no longer be spammed with errors when using a resolution with a non-16:9 aspect ratio on Macs
• Letterboxing on non-16:9 resolutions will no longer flicker and should now be black instead of red on Macs
• Storylets will no longer become frozen and prevent you from making progress.

Update

Tech bug fixes

• Quality Result text is now visible on Mac devices.
• Weve updated some blur shaders which may be causing UI transparency issues on Macs.
• You can now use keyboard thrust controls immediately after closing an interface, even if pressing the thrust keys with the menu was still open.
• Weve made some changes to make the scout behave better when it is deployed. If it refuses to be sent out again please send an in-game bug report so we can take a look further into why they are being disobedient.
• Ambient messages should no longer trigger on the same frame causing the text to double up over the top of each other.
• Weve made some changes to the avatar rendertexture to attempt to resolve the missing avatar in character creation that some Mac players are seeing. Since our office Macs are unaffected, we need volunteers to test this out and report back to us. Please create a new save and complete the tutorial to the point of character creation, then send an in-game bug report to us to let us know if your avatar displays correctly. N.B. If it does we recommend creating an avatar to replace the blank one in your current lineage

Narrative bug fixes

• If your Caged Catch escapes, the ensuing events will now always be described in correct prose.
• Once you have completed the Experimental Engine quest and received the Devourer of Distance, the Contriver's Collaborator will no longer incorrectly show up in your passenger list.
• When you are Assisting a Penitent Nurse, the journal will be less repetitious.
• Captains will now always be able to see some of the exploration options at Port Prosper, even if they do not currently meet the requirements for them.
• It is no longer possible to prematurely abandon your conversation with the Illuminated Archivist, and so become unavailable to reach the end of the associated story.
• It should now be clearer that the Office of Works may offer captains a task twice in a row.
• It should now be clearer that only one of the field samples is required to complete a quest at the Nature Reserve.
• Handwriting in the Abandoned Signal Box ledger is still poor, but this fact will now not be randomly repeated twice in the same passage.
• Paying off a Lustrum prospector will now cost exactly as much as claimed, rather than three times more.
• Captains who defeat a Resurrectionist will no longer be shown two different hull repair options.
• If passengers change their minds and ask to be returned to Port Prosper, captains can now oblige them.
• It is now possible to make a sacrifice to the Burrower Below while Adrift, so long as you have her attention.
• If you labour for Nostalgic Crockery at Worlebury-juxta-Mare, you will no longer be falsely informed that you will receive tea as a reward.
• It should now be clearer that a certain tea-related bargain can be available from a variety of ports.
• The scholars of Traitor's Wood will no longer request or receive consignments of literature if they are no longer there.
• Amberley Murgatroyd will now never falsely claim Midnight's Favour is more scarce than it truly is.
• It is no longer possible to meet Midnight through tea drinking if they have been met through the monastery.
• The Ministry of Public Decency has once again valiantly dispatched a number of typos.

• The micro stuttering seen on locomotives, agents and projectiles has been resolved - this has introduced a stutter when docking, we're looking into it.
• Prospect quality effects are once again visible.
• Mr Menagerie, the Inscribed Tinkerer and the Portsmouth Arsenal now state the correct level requirement for equipment and scouts.
• Several typos have been fixed.

As promised, Sunless Skies: Sovereign Edition is now available on PC and consoles! This is the games debut on PlayStation, Xbox and Switch, with many completely new features, fixes, and improvements. And if you already own Sunless Skies here on Steam, you can play it now as a free update!
There are many, many changes, but here are a few highlights:

• Major changes to character progression. Weve reworked the interface, and added new facets to define your captain did you lose your soul (and find it again)? Do you have a special connection with spies, devils, talking rats, or Rubbery Men? And legendary captains can now continue to improve their ability even after reaching the cap of level 20.
• A reworked and expanded starvation system. As desperation grows, you can now attempt to eat an unprecedented selection of unwise, unpleasant, or tragic things.
• A new exotic engine. Its very fast, but not very good at stopping...
• A complete rework of controller support and many improvements to interfaces, to make it as smooth and pleasant as possible.

Sunless Skies: Sovereign Edition is now live. For the full patch notes please see the following post: https://steamcommunity.com/app/596970/discussions/0/3132794099846307448/

Were glad to announce that Sunless Skies: Sovereign Edition will be released very soon, on Wednesday 19th May. This will be the first version of Sunless Skies we release on consoles, and will also be a free major update for everyone here on Steam!
This is a greatly enhanced edition of Sunless Skies, containing all additions and improvements weve made to the game since launch as well as many more completely new ones. Here's a link to the trailer! For the Sovereign Edition, weve reworked and extended the starvation mechanics. Captains will now find a range of increasingly dubious gastronomic options available to them as desperation grows. Weve improved character progression, with a new interface, a greater range of facets to define your past, and even a way for experienced captains to continue improving their capabilities after reaching the level cap.
There are also new trading opportunities to exploit, an exotic engine for your locomotive, better performance, greatly improved gamepad support, and literally hundreds of fixes and small improvements. If youd like to know more, weve included a more detailed list below. This ultimately took longer than wed hoped, partly due to the considerable scope and partly because it turned out to be pretty difficult to achieve the level of performance optimisations we wanted. But all is now well, and were very glad to be able to share it with you. We think this will be by far the best version of the game for new players, and we hope the new features and many quality of life improvements will make it exciting for the veteran captains among you, too.

For a while now, weve been working on a couple of new projects. Today were very excited to announce the first of them! Mask of the Rose is a romantic visual novel and prequel to all our other games set in the Fallen London universe. Heres the trailer: https://youtu.be/QujJ4oVaFKI Mask of the Rose takes place in 1862, mere months after London was stolen by bats. Londoners are still adjusting to life underground. The old street signs are being erased. New ministries and new festivals are being established. The mysterious Masters of the Bazaar seem to be in charge. You share your boarding house with a few other lodgers: Archie, a medical student discovering firsthand that Death works differently here. Griselda, a close aide of the new Masters. Horatia, the landlady with a soft spot for the Neath's native inhabitants. Harjit, the local constable looking for a missing person of his own. As you make a new life below, you may find yourself visiting the underwater ruins of Parliament; intervening in a murder trial where the victim is a witness; or steering a hooded, vocabularious Master through the subtleties of a London courtship. However you choose to live in the Neath, you have your own friendships and your own heart to look after. The art of Mask of the Rose draws on Film Noir, Victorian photography and Blitz-era Britain, and is an evolution of the Fallen London universes painterly style, keeping the atmosphere of the original but with more detail and depth. If youre a fan of the Fallen London universe, Mask of the Rose offers a glimpse of events weve never shown before, as part of a more personal story. You will get to explore the origins of beloved characters and institutions, as well as encounter brand new mysteries. Mask of the Rose is also an excellent introduction for players just getting started with the Fallen London universe. Well be running a Kickstarter campaign for Mask of the Rose in February 2021 - sign up on our Kickstarter page to be notified when the campaign goes live, and join our Discord or forums to discuss the announcement!

What about Sunless Skies Sovereign Edition?

New projects, plural?

#LoveIndies celebrates indie games and the teams behind them. We started this event in 2018 by rating, reviewing and recommending our favourite indie games, and inviting our community to do the same. This year's event takes place from the 1st to the 12th of June, with the Review Hour in the middle, on the 6th of June. #LoveIndies Review Hour is simple: spend just an hour going through your Steam library and leaving a quick review for any indie games which you've played, but not yet reviewed or recommended! Even a couple of words is great; every review helps us so much. If you want to participate in the rest of the celebration, which takes place on social media, here's the complete guide to #LoveIndies 2020. Feel free to share this with your friends and other indie devs who you follow. The more the merrier! On behalf of indie developers everywhere, thank you for your support. By taking part in #LoveIndies you're really helping us to reach new players and keep making more games for you to enjoy!

We're very pleased to be part of LudoNarraCon for the second year running! This is a virtual event hosted within Steam: a celebration of narrative games starring many of our own favourites, featuring developer streams and interviews, and a lovingly-curated Steam sale. It starts at 1800 BST on Friday the 24th of April. We hope you'll be there! Set yourself a reminder to attend!

Surprise! Sunless Sea: Zubmariner Edition is coming out for Switch on 23rd April and XBox One on the 24th! You may have heard that weve been working on console ports for Sunless Sea, and Sunless Skies: Sovereign Edition. Initially wed expected Sunless Skies: Sovereign Edition to release for PC/Switch/PS4/Xbox One first, with Sunless Sea: Zubmariner Edition following. Schedules on both projects have moved around a bit, meaning the release dates are now as follows:

• Sunless Sea comes to Switch on 23rd April
• Sunless Sea comes to Xbox on the 24th
• Sunless Skies: Sovereign Edition comes to PC, Switch, PS4 and Xbox in August/September

Releasing a game is a fiddly business. Theres no giant red button you can press to launch your baby into the world. In fact, there are so many buttons that when we released Sunless Skies on January 31st last year, everybody in the office got to click at least one of them. It took about half an hour. We stood around sipping champagne out of plastic flutes, taking turns with the mouse. That little ceremony marked the end of an arduous 17 months in Early Access, but we had no intention of stopping development. Since then weve released four major updates to the game, added new characters and stories, new enemies, new mechanics and innumerable smaller improvements. Weve changed offices, changed bosses, said goodbye to old friends and welcomed new ones. Today, a year to the day since launch, Sunless Skies has grown a great deal, and were not done yet. We still have a major update to release before we move onto new (and secret) things, but now feels like a good time to look back at some of the key changes in the last year...

January-March

April

June

July

September

November

December

The Future

If you've played Sunless Sea or Sunless Skies, you might be familiar with Fallen London! Fallen London is a text-based browser game set in a subterranean city inhabited by Victorian Londoners, talking rats, and people with the faces of squids. In the last decade, its grown from a handful of stories to a 2.5-million word epic with tens of thousands of monthly players. Wed like to think that its remained popular for the kinds of stories we offer. Not just the weird, inventively horrifying world, but the fact that you get to act on fantastically bad ideas, from publishing horrendous poetry to feeding your soul to a cat. To hear more about the celebrations we have in store for Fallen London's 10th birthday, follow us on Twitter or join our Discord.

Storridge's Definitely Umarked Playing Cards

Sovereign

Sunless Skies Patch Notes

• The correct category can now always be selected when submitting bug reports.
• High Wilderness inhabitants and other locomotives will now keep more distance from ports and relays.
• Curators, Logoi and Eaters of the Dead are less unrelenting in their pursuit.
• Various small adjustments have been made to ambient messages.
• The bug report interface now includes a link to the troubleshooting guide.

The longest nights of the year are upon us: the perfect time to lose yourself in the dark of Sunless Sea and Sunless Skies! (With apologies to the southern hemisphere; they do play equally well in summer.) Sunless Skies has a recent review score of 95% positive, and has been named a game of the year by The Washington Post, The Guardian, New Yorker, Kotaku AU, Paste and Slant. It's 50% off in the sale! Sunless Sea is also 95% positive, with 66% off in the sale, and its expansion Zubmariner is also reduced, by 60% - it really completes the experience, so we hope you'll give it a go.

Celebrating 10 Years of Fallen London

We are proud to be taking part in War Child's annual gaming fundraiser, Armistice 2019, which encourages peaceful gameplay during the month of November to coincide with Armistice Day.

What's new in today's update

About War Child and Armistice 2019

Updates

• Some balance adjustments have been made to lateral thrust.
• The highlighting and spacing on Storylet panels has been improved.
• Changes to your qualities are now presented more clearly.
• Storylet logging is now capped to the last few branches selected.
• The left stick on gamepads now scrolls and highlights branches (you no longer have to use the left and right stick together together).
• Storylet logging is now capped to the last few branches selected.

Bug fixes

• Curators will no longer pursue you endlessly across the High Wilderness.
• Focus can no longer be lost from the control menu when using a gamepad.
• Activating Full Steam Mode will no longer cause the Dendrified Vagabond to play a jig on his harmonica.
• You can no longer travel under terrain near Tiggelaar's Haunt.
• Headlights will no longer pass through terrain near Prosper or New Winchester.
• You will no longer collide with invisible obstacles near Braley Rock.

Sunless Skies: Soveriegn Edition will be released for PS4, Nintendo Switch and Xbox One in the first half of 2020! Sunless Skies: Sovereign Edition will include new content and various improvements, and will be released on PC at the same time as on console. Players who already own the game on PC will receive the Sovereign Edition for free. It's been a great year for Sunless Skies, thanks to your support, and we're delighted to be able to celebrate it with this enhanced edition.

What's new in the Sovereign Edition?

Exciting news for Sunless Sea fans, too!

Sunless Skies is nominated for three Golden Joystick Awards! If you've enjoyed Sunless Skies, you can vote for it under Best Storytelling, Best Indie Game and PC Game of the Year. Vote Here Sunless Skies is also nominated for four TIGA Awards, which are awarded by the UK trade body for games.
We're up for the Creativity Award, Best Game by a Small Studio, Best Roleplaying Game and Game of the Year! Game of the Year is decided by public vote: Vote Here As if all of that wasn't enough, today we were also awarded a Best Places to Work award by GamesIndustry.biz, which is very meaningful to us. Being a workplace where people can thrive and be happy is so important, and to have our efforts to that end recognised is wonderful. Thank you for all of your support. The Skies are yours, Failbetter Games

The Hoarder update for Sunless Skies is now available! This is one of our largest updates since launch here's what's new:

• Engine upgrades for your locomotive (the only feature people asked for even more than a horn).
• Full Steam Mode, which will let your locomotive travel even faster, at some risk...
• A new constructable transit relay. This is a substantial and dangerous undertaking, but once completed, it will allow direct travel between Albion and Eleutheria.
• A new quartermaster, the Chiropterous Hoarder.
• A way to report bugs and send feedback from directly within the game.
• More devils.
• Various smaller fixes and improvements (see the patch notes below).

Engine upgrades and Full Steam Mode

The Albion-Eleutheria transit relay

The Chiropterous Hoarder

Bug reports and feedback

Devilry

Additional patch notes

• Scouts now insist on being fed the correct amount of Supplies, even if this means opening a new crate.
• Tooltips for quest objectives are no longer indiscreet about potential plot developments.
• Sounds no longer get out of step with their animations when interfaces are opened.
• There is now a sound effect for arriving at transit relays.
• Many locomotives now have higher Quarters.
• The Agravain's base Hull has been increased.
• Cramped Quarters are now available at St Dominic's Augmentations in London.
• Engine Problems are now known as Mechanical Problems.
• Heat now accrues and dissipates smoothly, rather than in steps.

Keep in touch

Were busy preparing for PAX West, which starts on Friday! We're hoping to see some of you there. This will be our first major US event. Were honoured to be selected for the PAX 10, which is a showcase of the 10 best indie games of the year, as chosen by their mysterious panel of 50 industry experts. Here is the whole PAX 10 for your perusal:

• Wytchwood is a crafting adventure game set in a land of gothic fables and fairytales.
  
• The Devil's Calculator is a new, non-profit math game for numberphiles and lovers of logic and brain teasers.
  
• Heartbound is a non-traditional role-playing game about a boy, his dog, secrets, and sanity.
  
• Final Assault is a WWII themed Action Strategy Game that capitalizes on the full power of Virtual Reality.
  
• Epic Tavern is a fantasy-management-RPG where you rule the land from your Tavern.
  
• Deleveled is a cooperative single-player puzzle-platformer with no jump button.
  
• Deathbulge: Battle of the Bands is a role-playing game featuring musical themes with an affinity for the sick and righteous.
  
• Boomerang Fu is a frantic physics fighting game with an adorable cast of food characters.
  
• Plunge is a turn based rogue-lite set in a wacky medieval prison.
  

Hello skyfarers! We've got a small update for you today, and news of the next one. Here's what you can expect in today's update:

• Several creatures and locomotives have gained new attacks, improved AI, or visual updates. Here's a quick look at the new, much more menacing Scrive-Spinsters:
  More details on the specific changes are in the patch notes below.
• A horn for your locomotive. This has, bafflingly, been the second most requested feature since launch, and the number one source of creative gifts and submissions, including a chocolate train, an actual whistle, and a slideshow:
  The horn has no gameplay effects whatsoever, but we think it sounds quite nice. You're, umm, welcome.
• More variety for agent encounters in Eleutheria, bringing it up to the standards of the game's other regions.
• Many other fixes and improvements see the patch notes below for the full list.

• A new officer: the Chiropterous Hoarder! Recruit a winged horror of profound cunning and unreliable manners. Rumoured to have once been one of the Masters of old London, this peddlar of immortality has fallen on hard times. Take it on a macabre journey to perfect a new method of prolonging life. Perhaps you might become friends on the way. Perhaps you might become more...
• Engine upgrades. Your locomotive will receive a new slot for engine equipment. When equipped and when you have enough crew members to take full advantage of a superior engine your locomotive will be able to travel faster, at a premium in fuel...
• An opportunity to construct an additional transit relay. This will be a substantial undertaking, but once complete, it will provide captains with a quick and convenient route between two previously unconnected regions of the Skies.
• Probably, various other features and improvements we're not ready to talk about just yet.

Patch notes for the Horn Update

• Empyrean Outriders, Curators, Scrive Spinsters, Senior Scriveners and the Undeparted have had their movement and AI adjusted.
• Scrive Spinsters and Senior Scriveners have new models and attacks.
• The Empyrean Outrider no longer uses barrel bombs.
• The Curator's scream attack is faster, but no longer arcs towards targets. Its close range attack has been replaced with an area-of-effect attack.
• The Undeparted have a new attack.
• Nearly 100 new ambient messages have been added and another 40 or so have been updated.
• Blue Kingdom spawns have been adjusted for difficulty.
• Some enemies in the Blue Kingdom have had their stats adjusted for balance reasons.
• Active wells now exert gravity and damage engines that stray too close to their centre. A warning klaxon will sound if you are taking damage.
• The Incautious Driver will no longer speak on approach to the Fragment's Refuge if they have been seconded somewhere.
• Abandoned structures now have a chance of spawning Guest Dreadnoughts.
• Vitrified Structures will sometimes now reward captains with Condemned Experiments.
• Wrecks and Windswept Habitations now always display appropriate ambient messages.
• The ambient messages for the Shadow of the Sun platform in The Blue Kingdom now appear in the appropriate location.
• Several interaction prompts and messages on transient discoveries have been corrected.
• Resurrectionists are no longer referred to as Grave Robbers.
• Reach Marauders are no longer implausibly restrained when shot.
• There are no more invisible rocks around Polmear and Plenty's.
• The Empyrean Outrider's projectiles no longer shed hair.
• It is no longer possible to sell more items than you possess.
• Ratbite will now leave your engine at the end of her quest.
• Dining with the Deathless will now properly unlock new bargains at the Most Serene Mausoleum.
• The Ozymandias and the Orphean have now received the italics that were their due.
• Unidentifiable Squirmings will now direct captains correctly to St Anthony's Lighthouse.
• Captains may no longer visit the New Somerset Hunting Club if they have worn out their welcome in Port Avon.
• Interlocutors at Regent's Tears will no longer shift identities in the middle of a conversation.
• Several more quests are now marked complete in the journal when they should be.
• The Collective Conclusion is now tracked under events, rather than as a quest.
• The Researcher's Crusade is now tracked under Peculiarities rather than in the journal, since there is always something you can do for them.
• The time before you can learn the outcome of your efforts when meeting the Researcher's requests is no longer affected by how many of them you complete.
• A number of time delays that could be unreasonably long will now consistently last for 15 days.
• You will no longer receive messages about changing areas.
• There are now fewer extraneous full stops.

We're delighted that Sunless Skies has been chosen as one of the ten best indie games of the year by the mysterious and influential PAX 10 panel! It's a huge honour to be selected, and it means that we're able to make a rare US event appearance at PAX West in Seattle, from the 30th of August to the 2nd of September. We'll have as many pin badges as we can cram into our suitcases. Will we see you there?

The Vagabond update for Sunless Skies has been released! The following additions and improvements await your captains:

• A new officer, the Amiable Vagabond
• New story content for three of the Wonders of the Skies
• A new location in the mists of Worlebury: St Anthony's Lighthouse
• New agents for players to encounter in the mid-game
• Two new discoveries
• Numerous smaller fixes and improvements, including adjustments to spawning rates in Albion, which should be a little less intense now

The Amiable Vagabond

Wonders of the Skies and St Anthony's Lighthouse

• Climb to the bracing springs at the Regent's Tears in Traitor's Wood
• Tarry among the gargantuan flower-fields of the Apoidean Gardens, deep in the Leadbeater & Stainrod Nature Reserve
• Bear witness to the ceremonies at the Xanthous Moon on the outskirts of the Eagle's Empyrean

New agents

New discoveries

Other fixes and improvements

• Tackety scouts have had their brandy rations rationed and should now be less of a menace to passing traffic.
• When the workers of Brabazon drink your tea, this will now actually remove it from your possessions.
• If you have the attention of the Burrower Below this will now be noted on your profile.
• All the Winchester War event missions now appear in the journal.
• Backing out of Jubilation Day should not now prevent you from accessing it again
• Captains who learn the Third Rule of Piranesi will no longer easily forget it.
• Tolerating the intrusions of the Thing on the Mantlepiece now increases Terror, as it naturally should.
• If you order that a certain mirror be destroyed, you will no longer be able to dispatch expeditions through it.
• Your scouts will now appropriately report Fungal Fragments as ghastly rather than grave.
• Unlicensed charts will now be consumed at Faith's Fall.
• Several backer labels have been corrected.
• An unsuitable pronoun used to refer to the Energetic Mechanic has been corrected.
• After selecting a facet, the character progression interface will now display the appropriate Past.
• Various qualities will now appear in more suitable sections of the profile.
• Various typos and content inconsistencies have been eliminated.
• The Clockwork Sun is now hazardous to approach.
• The Medea is now a little more manoeuvrable.
• Weapon balancing:
  • The Uninvited, Blackjape, Jubilee and Saintfire weapons now do more damage.
  • The heat cost of the Golgonooza and the Uninvited has been reduced.
  • Range values for the Golgonooza, Blackjape and Saintfire have been adjusted.
  • Knockback values on the Tears of Astolat exotic weapon are somewhat calmer, though still considerable.

#loveindies

Follow development

Hello skyfarers! We're ready to announce the next major update to Sunless Skies the Vagabond update. This one will allow you to recruit a new officer: the Amiable Vagabond! A gentleman of the skies (and no fixed abode) who will take you to the abandoned quarters of the sky. Experience a tale of fortunes lost, found, and lost again. Meet the 'skylarks': the community of ragged wanderers who rove the heavens, and help them find the way to the Sugarspun Garden - a place surely too good to be true... The Vagabond update will also include:

• Stories at more of the great Horrors and Wonders of the Skies, such as the Xanthous Moon and Regent's Tears
• New agents and discoveries to encounter on your voyages
• Something new in the mists of Worlebury...

We're delighted to bring you another #loveindies celebration! #loveindies is a chance for players and developers of indie games to share their favourites with one another, discover some new games to play, and raise up games which deserve more attention. This year it'll be two weeks long, from the 3rd to the 14th of June in response to the excitement over last year's event. We've also introduced the #loveindies Review Hour, a global push to leave as many reviews on indie games as we can in one hour! #loveindies is open to all. Here's full participation guide. Feel free to share it with friends, your favourite streamers, or indie developers who might benefit from getting involved. Thank you as always for your support of our games and those of our fellow indies. It means the world. As ever, your friends, Failbetter Games

We're honoured to be taking part in the first ever LudoNarraCon! LudoNarraCon is a digital convention celebrating narrative video games, taking place right here on Steam. All the fun of discovering new games without the barriers of access to a physical event! From 10th to 13th May, developers from across the world will showcase their work in a celebration of interesting and innovative narrative games. This felt like a great idea to us, and we're so pleased to be selected to take part. We'll be showcasing Sunless Skies with a special pre-recorded stream, featuring interviews with Chris Gardiner (Narrative Director) and Paul Arendt (Art Director). If you want to catch the recording, it's on Tuesday 7th May at 1630 BST, with the incredible Callofcthulhu on Twitch! You can join in by watching the event live from 10am PT on the dedicated Steam landing page, and by checking out the live streams on the individual games' pages, starting at 11am PT. Thank you to indie game label Fellow Traveller for inviting us to take part!

The Wayfarer major update for Sunless Skies is now available! Here are the key features:

• A completely reworked Albion
• Many new story events for the gods of the sky
• Officer secondments
• New story content for spectacles
• Consequences for some attacks outside of battle
• Petrichor, the food of the Dead
• Balancing adjustments to Terror and Crew recruitment
• Many small fixes and improvements (see the patch notes for details)

Albion

Gods of the Sky

Officer secondments

Spectacles

• The War of Fossils
• The Grave of the Silent Saint
• The Rotting Celestial Behemoth
• Skyhenge
• The Avid Horizon
• The Horologion

Critical damage

Petrichor, the food of the dead

Survival balance adjustments

Follow development

Last month, we announced we were working on the first of several major updates to Sunless Skies, with a focus on providing more to see and do during voyages. We're now ready to talk more about that release: it will be called the Wayfarer Update, and it will be available on 9th April. It will contain a major rework of Albion, as well as many narrative additions see below for more details!

Albion

High Wilderness stories

• Many new ways to encounter the gods of the skies, draw their attention or their ire, and benefit or suffer from it.
• Suffering the attacks of certain foes may now have a variety of delayed consequences. In particular, caution when engaging Guests is now advised.
• It will now be possible to more closely investigate several of the greatest wonders and horrors of the skies when your travels bring you near them.
• Sometimes, you will be able to deploy your officers to pursue shore-side opportunities these will be focused around Albion for now, but we'll add more if you enjoy them!

• Follow our publisher page on Steam
• Follow us on Twitter
• Join the Failbetter Games Discord

Hello, delicious skyfarers! Today we have another patch with a range of narrative and tech improvements and fixes. Meanwhile, we're still hard at work on our first major post-launch update, which will be focused on adding more variety and depth to the experience while travelling between ports. We'll be ready to talk about the update's specific features and story additions a bit later this month. To be notified as soon as that happens, follow us here on Steam or @failbettergames on Twitter.

Narrative fixes

• The Heart-Catchers will now assist a captain whose death has been prophecied only once. After all, one foretelling of doom is happenstance; two seems like attention-seeking.
• The Repentant Devil's quest will now be correctly marked as completed in the event that he remains aboard your engine.
• Captains who drop off the Repentant Devil somewhere in Sky Barnet will now be able to reunite with him at the same location.
• The Truth ambition no longer directs captains to _Low_ Barnet.
• The Price of Charity now removes rather Visions of the Heavens instead of giving them.
• Captains may no longer infinitely renew their acquaintance with the Blind Bruiser.
• The Dismal Chamberlain will no longer attend funerals when his personal circumstances preclude it.
• Your journal will no longer incite you to export Sapling-Knots or Verdant Encouragement from the Nature Reserve if they can no longer be procured there.
• Hybras may now always be put to new purpose even if your captain died after finding it abandoned. (If this affected your game, selecting any branch on the Hybras Deserted storylet will put things right.)
• Dying at a certain point in the Fatalistic Signalman's story will no longer prevent future captains from pursuing it.
• It is no longer possible to get something for nothing when experimenting with alchemy in the Shapeling Vats.
• Captains who stand for Parliament in Worlebury-juxta-Mare will no longer be thrown out of the port afterwards.
• The Deathless will no longer set impossible deadlines when asking you to smuggle Starshine.
• After completing the Amenable Host's quest, future captains will now still be able to interact with him at Magdalene's (unless he has in fact gone somewhere else).
• Captains will now have permanent backstage access to Magdalene's so long as one captain in their lineage has discovered the Amenable Host's identity.
• Getting caught with contraband at Albion will no longer result in instant transportation to a relay.
• Captains who pay the Chrysanthemum Price will no longer receive a sudden windfall of Visions of the Heavens.
• The Illusive Forged Companion's magic show will now leave an appropriate impression upon your crew.
• A chorus of devils for the Well of the Wolf may now be gathered only once per legacy activity.
• Only spider-sweepers may sweep the well.
• There should be fewer printing errors in the Song of the Sky.
• As usual, many typos have been corrected.

Other fixes

• Segments should now always spawn correctly when entered.
• Linux users will now see their own captain's avatar instead of the default one.
• Randomly generating an avatar will now correctly select a random brow.
• Must events will no longer delay other must events from firing.
• Branch previews will no longer include rogue quotation marks.
• Branch previews now display a single sentence rather than the entirety of the branch text.
• Selecting branches with difficulty challenges will no longer cause the result text to draw downwards before snapping to the top of the storylet interface.
• Speaking to officers or closing the storylet panel when outside of ports will no longer result in a The Sky area interface.
• Players will no longer see a blank Leadbeater and Stainrod storylet before branches load.
• The bank button is now greyed out at ports where it is unavailable.
• The bazaar is no longer available at most platforms.
• Bazaar item tooltips are now formatted correctly.
• Equipped items for which you no longer meet the requirements are now clearly marked on the hold panel.
• Blast damage is now displayed on mine and rocket tooltips.
• The armour tooltip now displays your base hull instead of your current hull.
• Tooltips will no longer run over the edge of the screen.
• Tooltips on the character progression screen now show correct quality values.
• It is no longer possible for equipment icons to become stuck on the screen.
• Locomotive names will no longer overlap on the hold interface when inheriting a Spatchcock.
• Hull and Crew will no longer overflow on the hold interface when the font size is set to large.
• Quest icons are now aligned correctly in the quality result text.
• The Something Dark chart icon in Eleutheria is now replaced with something more specific once the player draws close to them.
• Investigating Curator's Eggs, Bully's Acres and Wrecks may now sometimes reveal enemies.
• Discoveries that have been fully exploited will no longer be marked on the chart again if you voyage close to them.
• Homesteads now display the appropriate animation after interaction.
• Discoveries will now never spawn on top of each other.
• Agents will now never spawn underneath discoveries.
• Damage visuals are now removed from agents if their health recovers.
• Scouts no longer discover platforms in the Blue Kingdom when traversing the Reach. (Unfortunately, a consequence of this fix is that players who have actually visited platforms in the Blue Kingdom will now need to rediscover them; until then, they won't show up on the chart.)
• Discovery icons on the chart will now always be the correct size when zooming out.
• Scouts now have additional messages.
• Mining sky-rocks in Eleutheria will no longer result in messages implying that the player is in the Reach.
• The Blue Kingdom chart is now correctly aligned in relation to the player.
• Players will now see the loading screen when using transit relays, rather the region's skybox.
• When loading a save, the title screen artwork no longer fades back in before transitioning to the loading screen.

Hello! This week we have another patch with more than 50 fixes. Among other things, we've resolved various UI issues and controller annoyances, and also reduced the number of accidental spiders, which we're told is a good thing. The full change list is included below. We're currently working on a major update that will be out in the next month or two, as we announced earlier in the week; and we'll also be releasing further patches with fixes and other improvements in the interim. Failbetter

Bug fixes

• The close button on the bazaar interface is now aligned correctly.
• The denominator is now visible in the bazaar and shop interfaces on 4k monitors.
• Direction tokens now display correctly in tooltips and quality results.
• The hinterlands of Lustrum hold many hazards, but invisible rocks near Salom's Fall are no longer among them.
• The bazaar interface will now correctly display cargo capacity after the player fulfils a prospect.
• The tutorial hint for reaching maximum hold capacity now fires when it should.
• A level up indicator is once again displayed on the captain's portrait when they are ready to select a new facet.
• Closing the centre panel will no longer cause the game to freeze temporarily after loading a save.
• Having a stat above 100 no longer prevents captains from using locomotive equipment.
• Dodging will no longer cause the player to take damage when attempted at the exact moment the locomotive overheats.
• The engineyard interface now updates when cargo is jettisoned.
• Qualities you no longer possess are now not displayed on the possessions and profile panels, instead of being displayed with a level of zero.
• Scrolling now works properly on the chart interface when using a 4k monitor and at the outskirts of a region.
• The opening animation will no longer repeat if you die before character creation.
• The Horror icon has been removed from the Well of Wonders.
• Titania's special prospects now provide more suitable rewards.
• Area names no longer overflow the area list on centre panels.
• Movement instructions at the beginning of the game now mention cruise control.
• The escape key once again closes the options menu while on the title screen.

Controller fixes

• Controller prompts no longer appear on interfaces when no gamepad is connected.
• There is now an appropriately located controller prompt for re-opening the centre panel while docked.
• Focus is now maintained on the tutorial interface.
• Tooltips are now displayed on the character progression interface.
• A feedback message is now given when attempting to equip officers and items while not docked.
• Trying to equip an item without meeting its stat requirements now results in appropriate feedback.
• Locomotive slot highlighting for equipped items is now clearer.
• It is now possible to cancel out of equipping an item.
• Interacting with interfaces after closing the chart will no longer sometimes cause your scout to set forth.
• Closing side panels will no longer remove focus from a centre panel.
• It is now possible to jettison items more than once while outside of ports.
• Pressing B within story branches to view branch requirements no longer closes the centre panel.

Content fixes

• The Clay Conductor's storyline may now always be completed, even if it requires him to be forthright about his feelings.
• The Heart-Catchers will now charge for their services.
• A Spider-Sweeper may now always sweep the well, as is proper.
• Skilled captains may no longer rinse the occupants of Langley Hall for their money via repeated games of cards.
• Captains will no longer accidentally stumble upon spiders at Langley Hall. Let it be known that Langley Hall is almost certainly not inhabited by spiders.
• The Unseen Queen will now reliably acknowledge your victory over a foe in a clocktower.
• Delivering the Sequencer's care package to Worlebury-juxta-Mare will no longer trigger an incongruous opportunity to deliver it to London.
• If you didn't share a moment with the Eccentric before completing her storyline, you may now do so.
• Sabotaging the activities of the Parsimonious Chairman will now conclude properly and result in a suitable reward.
• Temporarily backing out of a certain act when pursuing the Truth ambition will no longer make it impossible to complete.
• If Lord Rochester invites you to race to Titania, he will now actually turn up.
• The New Street Line story now provides more accurate directions as to the location of someone you need to meet.
• Captains who come down with a High Wilderness ailment will now always receive the one they should receive, and no other.
• It is no longer possible to impose statis on Hybras by dying at a certain point in the port's storyline. (If this has affected your game, performing any action at Hybras will resolve the problem.)
• Backing out of your own funeral will no longer forever bar you from receiving funerary rites.
• Rubbery Passengers will now only board your locomotive if you meet the requirements to convey them to their destination.
• A certain canine mascot will now wreak havoc a little less often, but also select the target of its affection with more determination.
• Defeating the final champion in a certain hidden ambition will now cause your journal to be updated correctly.
• Viewing the contents of a supply cache without actually taking any will no longer make you a debtor in the eyes of the Burrower Below and your crew.
• Returning to the Wreck of the Boatman will now never result in incongruous messages.
• The correct number of Experimental Modifications will now be deducted when acquiring a bathysphere.
• Successful mushroom foraging at Hybras will no longer give your captain food poisoning.
• Cricket matches are now a little less soothing.
• As usual, many typos have been laid to rest.

Its been a couple of weeks now since we released Sunless Skies, and were really happy with how the launch has gone. This is, by some way, the best critical reception one of our games has ever had. Sunless Skies has been called Failbetters finest hour by PC Gamer, Terrifying and exhilarating by PCGamesN, Essential by Eurogamer and A triumph by Gamespot. And at the time of writing we're at 87 on Metacritic, putting us right below a few little known games in their 2019 rankings called, umm, Slay the Spire, Apex Legends, and Resident Evil 2? Needless to say, were intensely grateful and delighted. Thank you to everyone who played Sunless Skies during Early Access: it couldnt have become what it is without you. Sunless Skies is doing very well for us commercially, too. Far better than we needed it to do. We occasionally receive sympathetic enquiries about our financial health from the community; to be clear about that, we're in a very good position, and now we're really looking forward to spending several months further extending and improving Sunless Skies.

Update Plans

Just in time for the weekend, we have another 40 or so fixes, including an optimisation that should greatly improve performance in the storylet interface. We'll release at least one more patch next week, and we're expecting to say a little about our future plans then as well. In the meantime, thank you again for your enthusiasm, patience and support! The Sky is Yours, Failbetter Games

Patch notes

• Captains who run out of Fuel will now immediately notice and have an opportunity to take action, instead of remaining oblivious for several in-game days.
• Must events at Brabazon and Polmear and Plenty's will no longer commingle surreally with shop inventories.
• Terror cues are now attached to the SFX slider and can be muted.
• The Ambient SFX volume no longer resets when launching the game.
• Weapons will now fire while the cursor is over the heat bar.
• Rockets and the Wrath of Heaven will no longer fire when clicking on HUD elements.
• Gamepad controls are no longer present on screen when first loading a save file.
• The bank interface will now update when equipping hold items.
• The performance of the storylet panel has been greatly improved, particularly when a lot of text has been logged.
• Quality requirement tooltips now display on the prospects.
• Pending prospects for which you no longer meet the hand-in requirements now correctly display the image for the cargo they require.
• Scroll arrows are now present on the character progression screen on 4K monitors.
• Tooltips are no longer cut off on 4K monitors.
• The number of Sovereigns displayed on the hold panel will now update immediately when items are bought or sold.
• A captain who successfully escapes Eaters of the Dead will no longer be endlessly haunted by the sound of their jaws.
• Agents that have just become hostile will no longer linger after death.
• Port tooltips will no longer stop the locomotive from moving once the chart is closed.
• Centre and side panel tooltips will no longer trigger when viewing the chart.
• Locomotive movement will no longer become locked when opening the chart while in motion.
• You can no longer interact with officers while the chart is open.
• It is no longer possible to get stuck on the legacy screen when scrolling through the details of your inheritance.
• Transferring items to the bank when you only have a single item in the hold now functions as intended.
• Focus is now maintained on the Delete Save File confirmation window.
• Focus is maintained on the character progression screen after passing on a legacy.
• Focus is maintained on the hold after jettisoning items.
• It is now always possible to navigate between all facets during character progression.
• The option to sell Villainy Affiliation items to the Gentlemen will now appear correctly.
• The Gentlemen will no longer offer you prospects with impossible deadlines.
• The Tea for the Eagle's Empyrean prospect now grants a Moment of Inspiration, rather than setting Moments of Inspiration to one.
• Dying while in possession of a Ravelling Jack will no longer prevent your next captain from buying one. However, the Royal Horological Office will only return half the deposit when you return a Jack to them.
• When leaving the presence of the Pansekretis, if you were already in possession of your liver you will no longer have an additional liver inserted into you.
• Completing the Truth ambition now unlocks a new facet: a Terrible Secret to plague your legacy.
• The Corruption in the Court can now be completed: the Ombudsman will await captains at the Forge of Souls.
• It is no longer possible to become trapped in the Trials of the Dead, however narratively appropriate that might be.
• The Initiate of Carillon quest is now correctly tagged as complete when it is completed.
• Captains may now commission the Orator's statue at Titania.
• You may now return to the tour of Brabazon from the back streets if you have enough time.
• Hunting for the Verdance is now more challenging, and may require searching some additional locations.
• Some minor inconsistencies in the Long Passage storyline have been resolved.
• The Repentant Devil no longer lies about his qualifications when seeking employment.

Hello! We have a small patch today with a dozen more fixes, mostly for controller issues. These were planned for Thursday's patch. We were able to complete and test them today, though, and hope they will make the experience significantly better for controller users. So we're releasing them ahead of time. Thanks again for your support we'll be back with another patch later in the week! - Failbetter

Patch notes

• Scrolling with the R-Stick now works correctly on all panels. For now, shops and engineyards still require use of the L-Stick; the view will scroll automatically to selected items.
• Bargains can now be selected when there are pending prospects.
• The Menu Focus hotkeys are now disabled if a UI element is already selected.
• Shops now display LB/RB tips.
• We've added XInput Support.
• Locomotive navigation is now disabled when side panel icons are selected.
• On the officer panel, equipping or unequipping an officer no longer causes the selection highlight to jump back to your First Officers.
• There is no longer a delay when switching from a centre panel to the status side panel.
• Jettisoning items will no longer trigger an exception that impairs the functionality of the X button.
• Large weapons can now be equipped to large weapon slots.
• Port tooltips on the chart now display correctly on screens with all aspect ratios,and not just 16:9.
• Changing the resolution no longer causes the port tooltip trigger on the chart to become misaligned.

Hello skyfarers! We've been delighted and, honestly, a little overwhelmed by your response to the launch of Sunless Skies. Thank you to everyone who has been playing the game, sharing your enthusiasm or reporting issues! Our priority right now is to fix the bugs that made it into the launch release. We've just released our first post-launch update, with over 30 fixes for a range of issues, including various controller bugs. We've also fixed every content bug that required affected players to send us their save files. With one exception, if any of these were affecting you, all should now be well. The exception: unfortunately, if your captains Mirrors was reduced by taking the oath of silence on the Thief-Oath past, well still need to edit your save to fix it please contact us at skies@failbettergames.com. Well repair it and get it back to you as soon as we can. Also, if youre having controller issues that arent in the patch notes and played the backer build or an early access build, its likely youve been affected by a key binding issue. Were aiming to include a proper fix for this in the next patch. For now, please try this workaround: go to Options > Controls and select Restore Defaults with your controller enabled. We'll release another patch with more fixes later this week probably on Thursday evening GMT.

Bug Fixes

• Players no longer need a permit to travel from the Blue Kingdom back to the Reach anyone dying and passing on a legacy in the Blue Kingdom will now be able to return.
• All players will now be able to travel to the Reach.
• Weve fixed another Winchester War bug involving an invisible branch storylet. We think it was the last one, but if you do see one of these, please send your save file to skies@failbettergames.com. The issue is weird but harmless; if you do see it, just click that invisible branch and all will be well.
• The oath of silence option for the Thief-Oath past now increases Mirrors by three, as intended, instead of setting it to three. (If your character has been affected by this, please send your save file to skies@failbettergames.com; well repair it and get it back to you as soon as we can.)
• Players stuck in the Song of the Sky after playing the backer build should now be free of it.
• You can now move down officer interface and select officers using gamepads even when when you have no officers of a particular type.
• The screen will no longer shake after closing a facet selected from the second screen while using a gamepad.
• The highlight in the Hold now selects items correctly when there are more that two rows of items and the player is using a gamepad.
• Using a controller to cycle quickly through interface panels will no longer cause the wrong footer buttons to be displayed on the officer and hold panels.
• The area list will no longer remain open when selecting story areas using a gamepad.
• Gamepad users can now select port tooltips on the chart in order to see details about exports and fuel/supplies.
• Abandoned Structures in Albion now give out Condemned Experiments correctly.
• Bazaar selling visibility now works correctly on 4k monitors.
• The Undeparted now depart on death, instead of clinging tenuously to existence.
• Weve temporarily removed absurdly overpowered Guests wearing the shells of Dreadnoughts. (They slipped in by accident; well restore them in a future update when theyre finished.)
• Two branches of The Truth ambition no longer have mismatched requirements.
• Fixed mismatched text and requirements at Sweet Jane's Counting House.
• Removed duplication of branches on the Island of Unflowers.
• Fixed a repeatable experience grind on the Reunited with an Old Friend Storylet.
• We have fixed a text bug in the Mausoleum where you'd see plain Deathless due to level description values being incorrect.
• We fixed an issue where if you played the final branches of one route through The Truth in a particular order, you'd be locked out of completing it.
• You can no longer repeatedly drop off a Settler once they've died and youve decided to return them to Port Prosper you have to just take them back to Port Prosper.
• You now lose a Vision of the Heavens when using one to distract the caretaker during the Navigator's quest, as intended.
• You can now pick up Crew at Sky Barnet every 15 in-game days.
• The Sovereign requirement for funding Titania can no longer be negative.
• When searching for a Magician for the Navigator, you can no longer search over and over until you achieve success.
• When Facing Judgement, Captains with a very specific combination of soul flaws, terror and inspiration will no longer get stuck.
• You can now receive Mr Menagerie's Seal after hearing his final story, without needing to have heard all the others .
• You can now repair your hull after killing a Scorn Fluke.
• If you are pursuing the Truth, you can no longer lock yourself out of becoming close to the Calendar Council.
• The Amberley Murgatroyd story can now be continued even if he was banished before finding Clay Men for the Clay Conductor on Achlys.
• Sundry typos have been fixed.

Updates

• You can now reopen a ports storylet without having to undock and redock.

The 10k Challenge

Today, a day shy of two years since our Kickstarter launched, were pleased as punch to release the finished version of SUNLESS SKIES. Thank you for your support thus far, and for coming with us on the journey to the High Wilderness.

The Blue Kingdom arrives

• Four new Stations and three Platforms.
• Three new agents; Spirifer Engines, Eaters of the Dead, and the Logoi
• New transient discoveries: Blittering Rocks, Vaults, Enclaves of the Dead and Convictions of the Sapphire'd King
• New persistent discovery; the White Well and wonder spectacle; the Sun Monument
• Blue Kingdom Prospects and Bargains

Live Stream on Steam

The Sunless Skies OST

Limited Edition Merch: The Failbetter Games Collectors Badge Set and Presentation Box

Launch Excitement!

Build Version: Blue Kingdom update. 1.1.9.5.08b4e1b8 Release Date: 31/01/2019 Known Issues Greetings Skyfarers. After 520 days in Early Access, Sunless Skies has finally set sail and launched into the (High) Wilderness! A huge thank you to everyone who joined us on that journey, provided feedback and sent bug reports to us. Below is a summary of whats included in the launch update. Our final features are in and so are a tonne of bug fixes. We still have a number of outstanding issues to fix but well be putting out patches with various fixes over the coming weeks. As always, check out the Known Issues page first before reporting bugs directly to us at skies@failbettergames.com (not on the forums please, we dont man them 24/7 and can miss them).

Whats New

• Four new Stations and three Platforms.
• Three new agents; Spirifer Engines, Eaters of the Dead, and the Logoi (three variants).
• New transient discoveries: Glittering Rocks, Vaults, Enclaves of the Dead and Convictions of the Sapphire'd King.
• New persistent discovery; the White Well and Wonder spectacle; the Sun Monument.
• Blue Kingdom Prospects and Bargains.

• Aiming Assistance - determines how many player weapons arc towards targets and how aggressively they do so.
• Enemy Projectile Speed - determines the speed of enemy bullets making them easier to dodge.
• Supply Consumption - determines how long Fuel and Supplies last.

Updates

• Weve introduced a Texture Quality toggle in the graphics options - if you have issues going through Transit Relays, please try it with Texture Quality set to Low.
• Weve introduced a UI Transparency Toggle in the graphics options to help MacOS users who are seeing completely transparent interfaces.
• More agents have been introduced throughout the High Wilderness: Albion Marauders, Star-Seared Explorers and Resurrectionists (Grave Robbers!)
• Weve added letterboxing, so now you can select a non 16:9 resolution and play at full screen without the UI stretching.
• The Date has now been added to the HUD.
• Mme. Lumire's have been removed from New Winchester. Instead, there are new Storylets at a number of ports which allow you to trade story items for sovereigns and Experience.
• Locomotive prices have been adjusted. Their buy and sell price remain the same - they dont depreciate in value - this is a deliberate decision.
• Tier 2, 3, and 4 equipment prices have been adjusted.
• Additional advice about smuggling can now be accessed from the Blind Bruiser.
• The SFX have been divided correctly between the ambient and environmental sliders.
• Keyboard control prompts have been added to the Opening Game Experience.
• You no longer need the Assaying quality to harvest Stacks in Eleutheria.
• Labels are now a standard size throughout all regions.
• Bull Cantankeri now have their own loot Storylet.
• The Cantankeri loot Storylet now has more options.
• Candlewind and Storm that Speaks now appear in Albion.
• Storm that Speaks has been removed from the Reach.

Known Issues

• If you experience a hang or a crash at Transit Relays please set your Texture Quality to Low and try again. If you experience the same issue after doing this, please send us your output log and your machine specs (N.B. we will be continuing to improve performance and loading after launch to address this problem)
• If your controller is not detected, please deselect Xbox / Playstation Configuration Support from Steams Controller Settings
• If you experience transparent interfaces that make it hard to read text on MacOS, please turn the transparency off in the graphics menu.
• You will now be moved to New Winchester when abandoning the tutorial on a new save file - this is a temporary solution to prevent players spawning inside terrain after character creation - we will revert this once we have an elegant fix.
• Some players are experiencing issues with Steam Controllers - we will be looking at this shortly after launch.
• Controllers are not currently detected when using Steam Link - we are looking into a solution for this.
• If you created a save file during Early Access and you have died and passed on a legacy to a new captain you may be missing a particular quality needed to get into the Blue Kingdom. Send us your save files and well sort you out.
• If you played the KickStarter Backer build released on 28th January, and have experienced any of the following issues the send us your save files so we can repair them.
  • The Fortunes: Tacketies quality overflow
  • Getting trapped inside a Storylet when advancing the Song in the Sky ambition
  • Issues with the Black Box seen on the death of your first captain
  • We are aware that some players who played throughout Early Access may see the wrong Achievement incrementing when docking at ports (e.g. the achievement tells you youve docked at a Blue Kingdom port when you dock at a Reach port). Please send us your save files so we can resolve the issue.

Bug Fixes

• Remapped controls will no longer reset each time the game is launched.
• The Wrath crescent will no longer become stuck on the screen.
• Weve made a fix to the Smuggling Storylets that fire when travelling through Transit Relays.
• Quitting the game during Must Events will no longer stop the player accessing the content when they reload.
• Prospect titles are no longer cut off in Bazaar interface.
• Weve enlarged the font on final character creation screen to improve legibility.
• Text is no longer cut off at the top of the character creation screen.
• Weve fixed an issue which stopped chart assets from being removed each time the chart was opened and closed which lead to a performance drain.
• The Bazaar now has the same scroll bar as the other interfaces.
• The avatar is no longer affected by resolution.
• SFX for auras/AoE attacks are now in place.
• Equipment once again stacks in the bank.
• We've fixed the lag seen when adding and removing items from the bank.
• Your Nightmare level as indicated on the HUD resets when passing on a legacy.
• We've removed the second Transit Relay from the chart in the Hybras segment.
• All remaining interfaces have been updated.
• We've adjusted the way Nightmare are displayed in Storylets.
• Mr Menagerie's Last Voyage is now marked as complete in the Journal when he settles at New Winchester.
• The Transit Relay exit audio no longer repeats on arrival to a new region.
• We've removed the level cap which was preventing players from equipping items when their main stats went over 100.
• The Date now pauses when docked.
• Fuel now updates on the HUD if the scout is deployed whilst in dock.
• You can now interact with the Storm-that-Speaks more than once without having to leave and re-enter the segment.
• Cruise Control now breaks a player out of docking clamps.
• We've fixed a number of typos in Ambient messages.
• Weve reworked Transit Relay docks, you can now break out of them using forward thrust or R to undock.
• You can no longer shoot your way out of Transit Relays.
• We've fixed the issue where Storylet scroll bars intermittently cut out.
• The Winchester War now works correctly.
• Continue and Load are now greyed out on the title screen if you have no save files.
• Clicking on the area button on the Storylet interface no longer causes the area list to appear and disappear immediately.
• Weve fixed an exception that fired when entering the halo effect of weather in the Reach.
• Terror feedback is once again present on the HUD.
• Your headlight no longer passes under collidable terrain in New Winchester.
• The Battered signal box in Lustrum now has an actual signal box asset and a label.
• The strength of the candlewind has been reduced.
• The interaction area on the Storm-that-Speaks has been widened.
• Ambient messages and player locomotives will no longer appear underneath amber chunks.
• Text no longer overflows the legacy screen interface.
• Weve changed the quality requirement messages at the Mausoleum so they are clearer.
• The SFX for the Headlight toggle is now in place on all locomotives.
• Highlights on the Control menu are now brighter so you can see what is selected when using a gamepad.
• Players will no longer get trapped inside an endless Must Event during the Wreck of the Boatman quest.
• The chart now accurately reflects the Brabazon and Mausoleum segments.
• Weve fixed an exploit that made it more efficient to strafe across the High Wilderness than to use forward thrust.

Controller Specific Fixes

• We fixed an issue that caused players to become trapped in Storylets after opening side panels during Must Events.
• We fixed an issue that prevented the selection of the area list after opening the engine yard.
• You can now scroll down the Bazaar interface.
• You can now select a second prospect after claiming the first without having to redraw the interface.
• The headlight no longer switches off when closing the Chart or a Must Event.
• The focus will now remain on the Hold after jettisoning or equipping items, or cancelling prospects.
• You can now successfully pass on a legacy.
• You can now successfully complete ambitions.
• The Chart legend can now be toggled correctly.
• You can now zoom in and out of the Chart on gamepads.
• Facet icons no longer shake when they are selected with gamepads.
• HUD icons can no longer be selected when the control menu is open in-game.
• The footer panel on the engine yard is now aligned correctly.
• We fixed an issue that prevented tooltips from displaying if a controller was disabled in-game.
• We fixed an issue that caused focus to be redirected to the central panel after equipping items.
• You can now toggle quality requirements in the Bazaar and in Storylets
• Texture Quality on the graphics menu can now be toggled using gamepads
• Moving over to a side panel and back again from the engine yard no longer prevents you from purchasing locomotives.
• You can no longer travel with the Engine Problems interface open
• We fixed an issue that caused loss of focus on the Officer panel when equipping them after speaking to them.
• The focus will remain on the Officer panel when equipping Officers after interacting with them.
• We fixed an issue that caused item tooltips in the Hold to be displayed instead of those on bazaar interface.

Fixes from the KickStarter Backer Build

• The Fortunes: Tacketies quality will no longer overflow
• Weve fixed an issue with the Song in the Sky ambition which prevented players from progressing (if youve been affected by this, please send us your save files so we can tweak the necessary qualities)
• Weve sorted an issue with the Black Box seen on the death of your first captain (if youve been affected by this, please send us your save files so we can tweak the necessary qualities)
• Weve fixed two Blue Kingdom events which left players trapped in Storylets
• Weve made some adjustments to the credits and in-game backer labels
• You'll no longer see your old avatar superimposed over your new one when passing on a legacy

Watch the launch trailer on YouTube We hope you are as excited for the full release as we are! We'll be going live at 1800 GMT on 31st January with the launch update, which includes The Blue Kingdom region and a host of fixes, updates and stories.
At the same time, the SUNLESS SKIES 10k Challenge goes live! We're donating 1 to SpecialEffect for every minute of SUNLESS SKIES streamed in the 24 hours after launch. Find a streamer who is taking part by searching twitter for #sunlessskies10k. We hope you'll show them support and help us raise some much-needed funds for a great cause! Until next Thursday, we remain your friends, Failbetter Games

The Failbetter office is slowly winding down for the holidaysour last little revitalising break before LAUNCH(!)but before we snarf many a minced pie heres our exciting COMMANDER update! This release features:

• a huge new UI update
• all remaining player weapons
• updated docking mechanics
• and SMUGGLING [/list[ IMPORTANT NOTE: Please remember to we're no longer supporting save files older than the SURVIVAL build so please check this info thread for instructions Youll also notice weve upgraded the SUNLESS SKIES branding with a fancy new logo and delicious hero art! This has been an industrious journey and on the part of Paul, Tobias, John, Haley and Hannah who combined their art, design and marketing powers on this one.
  SUNLESS SKIES will launch on 31 JANUARY 2019. Were almost there! Thank you in advance to all our amazing backers and community members whove helped us along the way. In this final stretch we really appreciate any shares or word of mouth recommendations. Wishlisting the game will help us on this last push to launch! And if youre looking to be part of all our launch activities, your best bet is to join our Discord, where well be sharing plenty of tantalisingly secret things on the run up to the big day.

  Improved UI

  
  
  After our revamp of the Character Creation screens, the Reach update and throughout the evolution of the games branding, we felt that the UI within the game no longer matched SUNLESS SKIES general aesthetic. And we wanted to improve the experience of reading our stories, which is after all a core part of the game experience.
  Our artist Tobias is behind this beautiful update to our user interface and HUD. If youre keen to learn more about our sources for inspiration, Tobias is writing up a design blog all about his UI work! After designing an entire new framework he worked closely with our programmers Barry and Liam to implement it in the game.
  Its no small feat to get the new UI working for the mouse and keyboard controls, and syncing it up to work with game controllers added an extra layer of difficulty. Well be continuing to tweak and finesse the control functionality through till launch, so if you experience any weirdness, please check out our How to Report a Bug page.
  If youre interested in a little tour of the new UI, check out our stream from last week.

  All Remaining Player Weapons

  
  There are two new types of player weapon available in shops: mines and rockets. Mines detonate when anythingplayer included, so watch outenters their proximity zone. Rockets can be detonated remotely by a second press of the fire button.
  There are two versions of each new weapon type. The rockets are the Portsmouth House 'Albertine Candle' and the Portsmouth House 'Her Renewed Majesty's Jubilee, while the mines are the Wit & Vinegar 'Sneeze-Lurker', Wit & Vinegar 'Zounderkite'. There are also several powerful new exotic weapons hidden within the game. We cant wait until you find them

  Updated Docking

  
  As much as we enjoy watching all the dastardly ways players attempt to dock, we've added some improved functionality. You'll now need to use the 'R' command to officially dock at a port. This will then steer your locomotive into the appropriate position and open the port's info panel.
  

  New Content

  
  Our writers have been simultaneously working on Blue Kingdom content as well as weaving together and finalising stories across all four regions of the High Wilderness. Included in that was quite a bit of officer work including the Clay Conductor and two upcoming Blue Kingdom officers; the Forged Companion and Felined Eccentric. The Wealth ambition received some final adjustments and you can now retire in Eleutheria! Our Narrative Director Chris Gardiner has been furiously typing away at the last ambition, entitled The Stars are Dyingwhich will be available at launch.

  Smuggling

  
  Were sure a few of you have been waiting very earnestly for this one! This was one of our stretch goals on the Kickstarter for SUNLESS SKIES and were excited to offer MORE opportunities for nefarious deeds in the High Wilderness. Those wishing to earn a bit of extra cash will have to season their captains first, as Smuggling won't be available until mid-game. To begin a dangerous pirate lifestyle, keep your eye out for the Gloomy Middleman in London. Beginning this quest will lead you to a familiar face who'll be more than happy to teach you the ropes. If your captain has Villainy 3+ or Veils 40+, you maybe be approached by the Gloomy Middleman directly. Or, if you've found and turned in contraband, you can look into smuggling yourself.
  Once unlocked, items considered Contraband will appear in one shop per region across the Reach, Albion and Eleutheria, and will require you to pay attention to Prospects to make a profit. With Smuggling comes a new type of equipment for your locomotiveHidden Compartments. Use these to stow away any unsavory Contraband in case Customs comes sniffing around.

  STREAMS

  
  
  Tonight at 16:00 GMT FuzzyFreaks will be diving into the High Wilderness to explore the COMMANDER build! Join her for chats with a few of our developers like Tobias and Barry, as well as general hijinx and shenanigans.
  We've also announced our SUNLESS SKIES 10K STREAM CHALLENGE, a charity event for streamers and their communities. Were going to donate 1 to gamer charity SpecialEffect per minute of SUNLESS SKIES streamed in the first 24 hours after launch! The maximum donation will be 10,000 hence the 10k challenge! Thats about 166 hours of streamed content packed into a day think we can do it? Streamers who'd like to get involved can check out the streamer pack, which is full instructions and all of the information and resources youll need to take part. We hope youll join in, help us get the word out about SUNLESS SKIES and support an incredible charity at the same time!

  Festive Fallen London

  
  This time of year our free browser game, Fallen London, is full of festive (and not at all frightening) cheer. Rejoice in a special Advent reward each day until Christmas, send Christmas cards to friends or enemies, or uncover what all this bloody lacre is all about this holiday season. And on this very day, a new festive premium story by Cass Khaw will become available for purchase in Fallen London. The Ceremony is a festive tale of rubbery romance.

  Winter Sales

  
  
  Our games are made for long winter nights. This winterval enjoy Sunless Sea and Sunless Skies, which will be on sale across all our platforms! Sunless Sea: Zubmariner Edition is currently 40% off in North America. And both Sunless Sea, Zubmariner and Sunless Skies are currently on sale on GOG. Stay tuned for more sales as the holidays approach, and well see you in January! Fervent wishes for festive joy to you and all of yours, Your friends, Failbetter Games
  
  [ 2018-12-19 14:18:43 CET ] [ Original post ]

Build Version: Commander update. 1.1.7.4.f187636 Release Date: 19/12/2018 Known Issues Greetings Skyfarers. This is our last Early Access update before launch in January. We're now entering a busy period of polish and bug fixing in the run up to launch. There are several things you can do to help us between now and the big day.

• Wishlist the game to help us get noticed
• Keep an eye on our social media channels for updates. Weve got a lot of different things for you to get involved in leading up to the big day
• If youre currently playing then please consider leaving a review. We want honest, constructive feedback, and of course revisiting your review once we leave Early Access is always helpful
• Continue to be patient with us. There are a lot of outstanding bugs and we need to knuckle down now and fix these before launch
• If you find a bug, please take time to read the Known Issues list before sending a report in to us (this will be fully updated by the end of the day). We don't list every single bug in game for multiple reasons, but the vast majority of issues you may encounter are listed. Responding to tickets about known bugs is a huge drain on the resources of our small team. Similarly, please take the time to read the Bug Reporting page so you know what information to include in your reports.

IMPORTANT INFORMATION - PLEASE READ!

• A small feature has been introduced to the build ahead of its scheduled time. The Tower of Chimes Wonder is now interactable (like Regents Grave), but the content for it is not ready just yet. If you pass over it then youll see an interface pop up warning you that you are not eligible for the event. Unfortunately this will lock up your UI, but there is a workaround. Simply dock at a Station and play through any branch to unlock the UI.
• After using a Transit Relay, you now have to press R to undock yourself before you can move away. At the moment this is not very intuitive as the prompt will say Interact. The same applies if you close the Storylet after interacting with a Transit Relay and deciding to remain in your current region. While Transit Relays look like regular docks, they actually function differently. We had to make some recent changes in order to take account of the new docking mechanics, but we need more time to implement a proper solution to the Transit Relays.
• There are quite a lot of outstanding minor interface bugs, and a large number related to controller support. Redesigning the UI was a massive undertaking. While it might look like we just moved things around and made them look pretty, theres actually a lot of functionality changes under the hood. Weve caught a huge amount of game breaking issues that resulted from the rework, but the sheer volume of new issues has meant that a lot have had to be pushed back into the polish phase that we are now entering. If experiencing bugs frustrates you then we encourage you to either defer playing until launch or to stick to mouse controls for now.
• We highly recommend restoring default controls from the Options menu. This will allow you to get the latest changes to the controls (which dont update automatically with each new build), particularly for controllers. If you then wish to alter them to your previous/preferred settings you can do so.

Whats New

• Were famous for our writing, so our stories need to be easy to read and the main focus on the screen. Because of this Storylets now open in the centre panel.
• Within Storylets, the branch results remain on the page and scroll upwards before revealing the next set of choices available to you. This will allow you to look back on the decisions you've made and their outcomes.
• Locked branches are more easy to spot with their muted titles and quality requirement icons.
• The port index UI which displayed on the right of the screen when docking is now incorporated into the Storylet panel - mouse over the Storylet ambience artwork and the list will appear - you can switch between Stories and Shops and then select a relevant area to explore.
• While you can still grab and drag the Storylet interface with the mouse in order to navigate up and down, weve also added proper scroll bars which are much wider and easier to select.

• The icons for the side panels have moved to the right of the screen and the interfaces themselves now open on the right. When opened at the same time as a centre panel, they bump it over to the left slightly.
• You can no longer open two side panels at the same time as there is no functional need for this. The panels are easy to flick between using the icons or the arrows at the top of the panel.
• The Hold interface has been split in two, you can switch between the Hold and your Possessions via the buttons at the top of this panel. Collectively they make up your Inventory.
• Sovereigns are now shown in the Hold rather than the Possessions (they are also shown on shop and bazaar interfaces).
• The functionality of all other sidebar panels (Profile, Journal, Officers) remains the same.
• You can now drag equipment into slots on your locomotive.
• Goods now stack in the Hold.

• Engine yards have had a makeover to make the information they contain easier to process. All locomotive stats, including slot details, are now listed along with details of how your current stats will be affected if you trade in.

• The bank interface now shows your Hold inventory and your bank storage side by side.
• Equipment no longer stacks in the bank, but this is a temporary solution to problems encountered with the redesign and will be reverted on launch.

• The bazaar remains mostly unchanged though prospects no longer disappear immediately after they are claimed.
• The bazaar interface now shows the number of days until prospects or bargains renew at a particular Station.

• If you have unlocked the Bank, you can now purchase items from shops directly into your bank storage. You can also sell items directly from your bank too.
• You can now purchase different types of items from shops at the same time.
• You can no longer purchase more items than have room for in your Hold from shops.

• The Officer and Survival HUD have been jazzed up, along with the heat bar and side panel bar.
• The Terror bar on the Survival HUD no longer indicates varying rates of Terror gain. This will be fixed for launch.
• Weapons do not fire when the cursor is over the an interface, including the heat bar. Keep this in mind if your weapons appear not to work (an exception are the rockets and the Wrath of Heaven which will be fixed in the next update).

• Now the final UI is in place we have made the decision to support a 16:9 aspect ratio only, so now the only resolutions available in game are those that support 16:9. We understand some players will be disappointed we are not supporting 5:4, 4:3, 3:2 etc, but we need to maintain a consistent look and experience over all our interfaces which we simply couldnt do across varying aspect ratios. If your monitor does not support resolutions with a 16:9 aspect ratio then you'll need to play in windowed mode, rather than full screen to avoid issues with the UI. Alternatively, change the settings on your graphics cards to allow scaling. This will add black bars to the game but will allow you to enjoy it in full screen mode.
• For the same reason, weve removed the option to scale the UI independently. It now scales automatically with your resolution.
• 4k monitors are now supported.
• Weve removed the option to adjust Font size independently via a sliding scale. Instead we now offer two font size options Standard and Large. We are aware of several places where the font either does not scale or it overflows interfaces on set to Large. We are working to resolve all cases where this occurs in time for launch.

• New title screen.
• New loading screen.
• The Death and Legacy screen have been spruced up.

• Character Creation.
• Character Progression.
• The Chart.
• Various buttons such as those on the jettison interface.
• The Date is still not present on any of the interfaces - be patient, its coming.

• Firkin of Red Honey (produced in the Reach).
• Hogshead of Starshine (sourced in Eleutheria).
• Trunk of Illicit Literature (acquired in Albion).

• Reclaimed Marauder Mangonel - obtained from Reach Marauders.
• The Uninvited - acquired from The Guests.
• The Tears of Astolat - found by defeating Deranged Dreadnoughts.
• The Wrath of Heaven - sourced from Scorn Flukes.

Updates

• The Phlegmatic Researchers quest at Leadbeater and Stainrod have been reworked and now offer higher rewards.
• Goods (and Contraband) now stack in the Hold.
• Item weights are now shown on tooltips.
• Several pieces of locomotive equipment have moved to different shops.
• The Golgonooza and Saintfire are now large weapons.
• There are two new pieces of equipment: Concealed Cavities and Hidden Hold. Both grant the Hidden Compartments which aid smuggling.
• The Pluto Miniature Law-Furnace, Wit & Vinegar Hewing & Sawing Device, Armoire of Mr Gray, Expansive Wardrobe and Contentable Cabins now grant Hidden Compartments, but have also had their other stats adjusted to compensate. You may find your Quarters or Hold slightly lower the next time you log in.
• Armoire of Mr Gray and the Expansive Wardrobe have been renamed to Mechanical Turk and Cabinet of Curiosities respectively.

Known Issues

Bug Fixes

• You now lose Crew on a narrow success of Deranged Dreadnought loot Storylet rather than gain it.
• The Crown & Misery Pneumatic Mining Array now has the correct colour icon for its tier.
• All branch results at the Albion-Reach Transit Relay now move you to the Reach.
• The Main Menu no longer displays over the top of the Facet UI.
• The Main Menu can no longer be accessed while the loading screen is displayed.
• You can no longer hear engine strafe/turn noises when pressing A, D, Q or E in dock.
• The camera no longer snaps to the centre of the screen when starting a new game or passing on a legacy.
• You will no longer see erroneous text when moving between shops.
• Highlighting is now consistent across all side bar interfaces.
• The auto-docking sequence now completes before Must Events fire.
• Quality quantity numbers are now consistent throughout all interfaces.
• The minus sign next to Sovereigns in the Bazaar interface no longer changes to a plus sign when purchasing Bargains.
• We fixed an issue where the text in Journal could become misaligned when expanding and contracting the Journal entries.
• The navigation panels will no longer become stuck in the middle of the screen.
• Terror gained in Storylets now displays on the HUD immediately.
• We've fixed an issue with blurry text on the Storylet panel.
• The Storylet ambience will no longer remain on screen when returning to the title screen.
• The Port index UI no longer remains on screen when exiting a dock.
• We have the fixed the graphical flickering on interfaces seen when changing the UI scale. If you see any further instances of this then please send us a report and let us know the resolution you are using.
• Hull is once again updated immediately on the HUD when making repairs via Storylets.
• The Spatchcock, Parzival and Altani now have correct resale values.
• Backspace now allows your to delete characters when naming your captain or your locomotive.
• The Graphics menu now remembers the resolution you have the game set to.
• The jettison interface can no longer appear over the top of the Chart.
• The main menu can no longer be brought up on the character creation screen.
• We've added a confirmation dialog when deleting save games from the Title Screen.
• You can no longer fire weapons when the Moment of Reflection screen is open after passing in a legacy.
• Weve corrected more typos and grammatical errors in our content - thank you to those who continue to help us.

Welcome, skyfarer!

Start at the very beginning

New New Winchester

A thousand deaths in the skies

Save files

SKYFARER

JOIN OUR STREAM

Build Version: Survival update. 1.1.6.2.e8412a5 Release Date: 07/11/2018 Known Issues

Whats New

• The loading screen text on a new game is not displayed for very long - we will be extending the time so it can be read without having to rush
• In a future update we shall be adding tutorial tips which will explain controls and mechanics as you progress through the opening sequence and the early game - these need to wait until closer to launch when all features are locked down
• You need to shoot your way through the barrier at the end of the opening game area before you can reach New Winchester, in a future build this will be made clear with the use of said tutorial tips
• Its possible to come away from the wreck of the Ozymandias without a Scout. This is a player choice and it is signposted via the pink instructional text, this is not a bug. We will be adding other ways to acquire a Diffident Bat in a future update (other than from Mr Menagerie)
• If we have time we may tweak the opening sequence so you are shunted from the relay, or so it starts with you inside with the doors opening to reveal your locomotive - this is yet to be decided
• The chart in the starting area is slightly different before character creation, i.e. there is a gap in the terrain of the opening area on the chart - this is deliberate

Save File Support

Updates

• Victory Hall and Company house are now Platforms within the New Winchester segment.
• The quest at Polmear & Plentys Inconceivable Circus has been reworked.
• Weve made several updates to the chart: [olist]
• Regions are no longer in view of each other, instead you need to transition between them using the cycler.
• Weve restricted the maximum zoom level.
• The legend cycler works correctly in both directions. [/olist]

Bug Fixes

• Weve addressed some performance issues around agents engaged in combat.
• Players will no longer take damage when flying over the bullet colliders of rapid fire weapons before they despawn.
• Players will no longer get stuck in the Traitors Wood storylet.
• The Isambard line signal boxes now set qualities correctly on interaction, allowing players to complete the Fatalistic Signalman's storyline.
• Crew, Hull and Terror are now capped correctly.
• Vessel and backer names will now display correctly for Tacketies and Dreadnoughts in Albion.
• The name for the Curators will now display correctly when the headlight is shone on them.
• Terror once again increases after using the transit gate to Albion.
• The Fog of War can no longer be lifted to reveal the entire chart using the mouse wheel.
• The - and + keys now work correctly when using the cycler on the Chart.
• The Storm that Speaks no longer has a chart icon when encountered in game.
• SFX will no longer play at the same time when returning to the title screen from the Reach.
• The Altani once again has a large weapon slot.
• The avatar tooltip will now close down correctly when Must Events fire.
• We've corrected the wording on the tooltips in engine yards when trading in ships with the same stats.
• Weve fixed several typos and grammatical errors on the Legacy, Victory and Loading screens.
• We've fixed several typos in ambient messages.
• Weve corrected a large amount of typos and grammatical errors in our content - a huge thank you to the dedicated player who has been sending us lots of reports.

Our REACH update is now live! This update completely transforms the first region of the game and features improvements to Terror, Condition, Fuel and Crew. In case you missed it, weve also just announced some other exciting pieces of news: RELEASE DATE Sunless Skies has a release date! Its coming out 31 January 2019! Those of you who have been holding off until were finished now have a date for your calendar: hooray! SKYFARER To accompany Sunless Skies, we've released a free pen and paper RPG system, called SKYFARER, set in the Fallen London Universe. If you want to check it out, its available via digital download at failbettergames.com/skyfarer (for free)! FALLEN LONDON SITE REDESIGN Our free-to-play browser game Fallen London has a new face! Its the sites first makeover since its origins in 2009. Besides having a more modern look, its now on HTTPs, has some nifty sorting/organisational features, and has received improvements to help it run more smoothly in mobile browsers! Our festival of secrets and masks, Hallowmas, also begins 23rd October.

The Reach

• to adjust the segment design and pathfinding within the region to match the more evolved design strategy used in the later regions
• to ensure the atmosphere of the region matched the depth and complexity showcased in Albion and Eleutheria

SURVIVAL UPDATES

• Terror now increases at about half the rate it did before.
• Falling below half crew no longer increases the rate at which you gain Terror (expect to see new consequences for low crew in a future update).
• Terror reduction opportunities are quite different: Wonders now lower your Terror much more quickly, docking at hub ports like New Winchester will no longer set your Terror to zero (they will reduce it by a chunk if you haven't visited them too recently), other ports now have opportunities which include terror reduction options.
• As your Terror rises you will begin to experience Terror Events. The higher your Terror, the nastier they may be!
• If your Terror reaches 100 you will experience a dangerous event that is likely to kill your captain.
• However, a number of options there and on the Terror Events give you the chance to reduce your Terror by 50 in exchange for increasing your Nightmares. Oh yes, nightmares!

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Nextime, on Sunless Skies

Build Version: 1.1.5.3.aa85c96 Release Date: 10/10/2018 Known Issues

Whats New

• Ambient Terror now increases at a slower rate, approximately 1 point for every 20 seconds.
• This rate will still double if you encounter a Horror or if you turn your headlight off, and quadruple if both conditions are met.
• Falling below half crew no longer increases the rate at which you gain Terror (we will be introducing new consequences for low crew in a future update).
• Wonders now lower your Terror at a much quicker rate.
• Docking at hub Stations like New Winchester will no longer set your Terror to zero, instead it will be reduced by 30 if you haven't visited them too recently.
• Other Stations now have a set of storylets that you can play once per visit. Almost all offer a way to reduce Terror, and they might also offer chances to recruit crew, gain rewards, or have other effects.
• As your Terror rises you will begin to experience Terror Events. The higher your Terror, the nastier they may be.
• If your Terror reaches 100 you will experience a dangerous event that is likely to kill your captain. However, several options on the Terror Events give you the chance to reduce your Terror by a substantial amount in exchange for increasing your Nightmares.

Updates

• A bunch of new Prospects and Bargains are available in the Reach.
• The Prospect and Bargains directional system has been reworked to take into account that Eleutheria and the Reach now only have one ring.
• The Titania storyline has been reworked.
• The Traitors Wood content can now be completed.

Known Issues

• Erroneous text can be seen briefly when moving between shops.
• Several SFX can play at once when exiting to the Title Screen.
• When encountering the Storm that Speaks in Lustrum the Station icon will appear on the chart over its location.
• Some storylets can overflow Crew and Terror.
• Terrain on the Chart does not align perfectly on the segment borders.
• Patch notes on the Title Screen have not been updated, however the build number is correct - check you are on v1.1.5.3.aa85c96.

Bug Fixes

• We believe weve fixed the issue where loot storylets were not opening on Wrecks, however if you experience this issue in the new build, please send an email to us with your save files so we can investigate.
• The reversed surround sound has been fixed.
• Crew and Hull will now be removed when items are unequipped owing to Engine Problems.
• Locomotives will no longer become invisible when storylets fire during the transit gate animation.
• Peacock wind and Candlewind no longer slow the player down when travelling in the same direction.
• Peacock wind and Candlewind will no longer slow players out of docks.
• Prospect and Bargain details and Station descriptions can now be found on the chart for Eleutherian Stations and Platforms.
• Weve fixed the title of a Prospect for Langley Hall which referenced delivery to Pan.
• All Eagles Empyrean prospects can now be delivered.
• The Regents Grave Horror can now be interacted with correctly as part of the Traitors Wood storyline.
• You can no longer recruit two Reckless Drivers.
• The Reckless Driver will no longer appear at all Stations.
• We fixed an issue related to the Chorister Bee SFX which was causing exceptions in the output log.
• Credits are back in game.
• Correct change descriptions are now displayed when qualities decrease.
• Focus icons now show on twists.
• Prospect Accepted once again appears over the top of the card when clicking on prospects at hub Stations.
• Success, Failure and Narrow Success once again appear over the top of the card when selecting branches with a difficulty test.
• Level descriptions no longer act as spoilers in quality icon tooltips.
• Quality effect messages no longer appear twice in certain storylets.
• The [complete] tag will no longer be seen in the tooltips for quest objectives on branches.
• Values for qualities now display correctly in quality effect messages, e.g. An occurrence! Your 'cheerfulness at Titania' Quality is now ! will now show the actual number.
• Quality requirement tooltips now deal with singular items correctly.
• Instructional text is now displayed correctly on branch cards.

SUNLESS SKIES will be released on 31st January 2019. It will be available on Steam and GOG for PC, Mac and Linux. WATCH the live dev presentation from EGX which includes a preview of the revamped Reach! “We’ve used the time in Early Access to fill the world with the most glorious stories, and to refine the play experience: improving combat, tweaking the skyfaring experience, and closing in on a dark and dread-soaked atmosphere.” says CEO Paul Arendt. “The next update, due on 10th October, will include a complete overhaul of the Reach region and extended mechanics for Terror, fuel, hunger and crew.” To accompany SUNLESS SKIES, we’re releasing a free pen and paper RPG system set in the Fallen London Universe, available exclusively via digital download at tabletopgaming.co.uk.
SKYFARER: A Sunless Skies RPG is a pen and paper RPG system by Grant Howitt and Chris Taylor of Rowan, Rook and Decard, the minds behind Spire, Honey Heist, Goblin Quest, One Last Job and many other games. SKYFARER follows in the footsteps of their previous work with a focus on quick-form, rapid-fire play that leaves players wanting more. “‘Why don’t you make an RPG set in the Fallen London universe?’ has been a regular request from players for – oo, going on nine years, now. Working with Grant and Chris on SKYFARER to bring one of our worlds to the tabletop has been hugely exciting. I can’t wait to hear what delicious and horrifying adventures people have with their friends,” says Narrative Director Chris Gardiner. “We’ve tried to make the game friendly to new and experienced roleplayers, and to provide evocative adventure seeds to get things moving in an appropriately Failbettery direction. The game is completely true to our universe: player will find mystery, adventure, bad decisions, improbable characters, nocturnal horrors, and tentacles.” About SKYFARER: A Sunless Skies RPG While SUNLESS SKIES puts the player in the role of a Captain aboard a locomotive engine, cruising the skies looking for adventure and profit, SKYFARER gives players the opportunity to play the crew. Gunners, quartermasters, engineers, signallers – even mascots – are brought to the fore as the Captain is struck down by misfortune and the crew must band together to get out of, and probably into, trouble. Using a simple dice-based system, SKYFARER allows players and gamemasters to easily tell stories set in the FALLEN LONDON universe with plenty of climactic moments, tense stand-offs, and grim decisions. As characters risk life and limb, they’ll accrue Peril – the more Peril they have, the greater the chance of them meeting a grisly and permanent end. Luckily, things are made easier by spending Tenacity – a resource earned by acting in accordance with your character’s drives and beliefs. But how will those integrities change, now you’re out on the frontier of Victoria’s Empire? Download your copy from tabletopgaming.co.uk, and please let us know how your games go!

Today’s release is all about improvements to combat! In order to make combat more satisfying. We’ve tweaked a lot of AI mechanics so that we can make our agents’ behaviour more nuanced and layered. We’ll go over a few of the most exciting tweaks and improvements to combat below, but if you’re keen to dive into more design detail, our developer Liam McDonald has written a more in-depth design blog about these AI behaviours.

TELLS

HEADLIGHT AWARENESS

AURA EFFECTS

VESSEL NAMES

TURRETS

NEW RAMMING BEHAVIOURS

• It isn't clear to players when an Agent was about to initiate a ramming attack;
• Since Agents move at their standard speed while ramming, it doesn’t feel like contact should be particularly damaging (and it can be hard to notice that you’ve actually taken damage);
• Ramming doesn’t create satisfying avoidance challenges;
• It’s not clear when a ramming attack has been completed or terminated.

NEW AGENTS

RECOIL AND KNOCKBACK

BLUE KINGDOM

OUR NEXT RELEASE: SURVIVAL AND THE REACH

STREAMING ON STEAM

SUNLESS SEA & PAX WEST

Build Version: 1.1.4.5.2f2c56e Release Date: 29/08/2018 Known Issues

What’s New

• A major overhaul of enemy AI: improved tactics, new aggro rules and tweaks to enemy movement.
• Enemies can now drift and use lateral thrusters.
• Enemies are more manoeuvrable and less likely to collide with terrain, if they do they can extricate themselves.
• New ramming behaviour for Cantankeri, Grievers, Chorister Bees, and Star-Maddened Explorers.
• Tells (animations and sounds) to alert the player that an enemy is about to launch a particular attack.

Updates

• The new Traitor’s Wood content is fully in place.
• The content for the Wreck of the Berrenger is now in game.
• The Incautious Driver’s storyline can now be completed.
• Headlights now flicker and cut out when entering extinguishments - sail carefully!
• Agents spawns have been reduced in Eleutheria and some segments of the Reach and Albion now that their behaviour has been tweaked.
• The Vala now has a quality requirement 50 Mirrors.
• The Pellinore and Moloch have had their Hull value increased. The Parzival, Bedivere and Agravain have all had their Hull reduced.
• The Agravain has been replaced with the Medea at the London engine yard.
• Balancing to Agent and player damage, as well as Agent HP.
• Hull repairs at Pan now cost Eleutherian Mysteries rather than Sovereigns.

Known Issues

• Arcing does not currently work for Agent to Agent combat.
• Audio cannot currently be attached to Auras so these attacks currently have no sound effects.
• The final audio is not yet in place for all Agent attacks. Placeholder SFX have been added in some cases.
• When docking after suffering from Engine Problems, if you have a full Hold the jettison interface will trigger twice (just press cancel each time to close it).
• Additional Hull and Crew are not removed when items are automatically unequipped on docking after suffering Engine Problems.
• Agent names are missing from Curators.
• Agent names for Glorious and Enduring Dreadnoughts do not display correctly in Albion.
• Agent health visuals (smoke, fire, blood particles) are not removed as Agents heal.
• Bull Cantankeri do not yet have a bespoke storylet.
• If a wrathful Agent loses wrath towards a player and subsequently regains it in another encounter, the wrath crescent will not display.

Eleutheria is the third region to enter Sunless Skies. We’re looking to create a feeling of dread throughout the game, and Eleutheria itself is the main harbinger: it’s the darkest region, with the most unnerving enemies, the most oppressive atmosphere and the most threat. We’ll expect your postcards!

How to find Eleutheria

What’s new in the release?

• Seven new Stations (normal ports) and three Platforms (smaller ports).
• Three new agents; Dousers, Grievers and Empyrean Outriders
• Two new Spectacles.
• New transient Discoveries: Stacks, Blind Hermits, Extinguishments, Crossroads and Amber Chunks.
• New persistent Discoveries: Well of Wonders and Wreck of the Berrenger (content for this wreck didn’t make the cut off for release so the model is in place and the content will follow in the next update).
• A new locomotive; the Medea-Class Destroyer is available at the Pan engine yard.
• The Altani-Class Outrider has returned and is available at Eagle’s Empyrean.
• New locomotive equipment and weapons are available at Pan.
• Eleutherian Prospects and Bargains.
• Blemmigans! The Blemmigan Voyager joins the game! This chap was unlocked as part of the community goals during the Kickstarter. This completes all of the community Blemmigan content! Hooray!

A note on performance

The Road to Full Launch

Live streams in the dark

Build Version: 1.1.3.5.4d9e3cf71 Release Date: 25/07/2018 Known Issues

What’s New

• Seven new ports (Stations) and three Platforms.
• Three new agents; Dousers, Grievers and Empyrean Outriders
• Two new Spectacles.
• New transient Discoveries: Stacks, Blind Hermits, Extinguishments, Crossroads and Amber Chunks.
• New persistent Discoveries: Well of Wonders and Wreck of the Berrenger (content for this wreck didn’t make the cut off for release so the model is in place and the content will follow in the next update).
• A new locomotive; the Medea-Class Destroyer is available at the Pan engine yard.
• The Altani-Class Outrider has returned and is available at Eagle’s Empyrean.
• New locomotive equipment and weapons are available at Pan.
• Eleutherian Prospects and Bargains.
• Blemmigans!

A note about performance

Skyfarers, in this update you’ll find a plethora of additions that embellish roleplay within Sunless Skies! This build also features:

• Updates to Character Creation
• A new Ambition
• New Origins and now Deeds
• 3 new Officers
• 4 new Mascots
• A slew of new locomotive weapons and equipment
• An interesting new twist on our FBG Podcasts!

CHARACTER CREATION

ORIGINS & DEEDS

AMBITIONS

OFFICERS

MASCOTS

NEW LOCOMOTIVE EQUIPMEN

NEW LOCOMOTIVE WEAPONS

WHAT’S NEXT

Build Version: 1.1.0.4.cd2a9a87a Release Date: 07/06/2018 Known Issues

What's New

Updates

• Agent movement is now halted when the chart is open.
• Some agent's movement parameters have been tweaked, Reach Marauders are slightly faster for example.
• All Isambard Line assets, including the signal boxes, have been updated to look dilapidated and to fit with their region.
• Ambient messages are in place around the Isambard Line signal boxes.
• We've made some optimisations to the interfaces in game which will improve performance.
• The game now continues to run/load when you tab out.
• We've reorganised some of the quality categories to tidy up the Profile and Possessions interfaces.
• We've reduced the Gratitude cost when purchasing items like Ministry-Stamped Permits and Savage Secrets from factions like Victory Hall and the Ministry of Public decency.
• You are now rewarded with Sovereigns on handing in port reports rather than fuel and supplies. The amount you receive has also been buffed slightly.

Bug Fixes

• Wrath and Weather Halo mechanics will no longer cause exceptions which cause the game to freeze.
• Dreadnought bullets now despawn and do not spam the output log with exceptions.
• We've fixed exceptions that were fired when engaging Curators.
• The ? chart icon now updates when the player encounters Transit Relays after being found by oblivious scouts.
• Spectacles, Transit Relays and Persistent Discoveries are now marked with their correct icons on the chart when discovered without the aid of a scout.
• Spectacle, Transit Relay and Persistent Discovery icons now persist on the chart after reloading the game.
• Kickstarter backers can no longer obtain multiple Cyclopean Owls.
• The controller instructions no longer overflow the storylet interface when UI scale is increased.
• You can now back out of all sub-menus on the Options menu using a controller.
• Instructional text now displays correctly on the character creation screen.
• Highlighting on Origin choices no longer persists if selecting a different Origin on the character creation screen.
• We have changed the wording on some origins and histories so they are less confusing on the summary panel of the character creation screen.
• Interface tooltips are no longer tied to the cursor.
• We've fixed the stretching in the Curator animation.
• Label overlap on the chart has been drastically reduced.
• Isambard Line assets are now correctly aligned on the chart.

Known Issues

• The Altani has not been reverted to three auxiliary slots yet (and will not be available again until Eleutheria is released).
• There are a few typos in the Officer's ambient messages.
• The Fatalistic Signalman's ambient message for Magdalene's is firing at Polmear & Plenty's.
• The Officer's chat interface can be opened over the top of navigation interfaces.
• You cannot currently open navigation interfaces alongside the Officer chat interface.
• The new Character Progression screen is affected by UI Scale.
• Locomotive descriptions on the engine yard interface is affected by Font Scale.
• The player's avatar is affected by UI Scale when creating a new character - if not set to defaults then the avatar will be blank.
• The new Character Creation screen is affected by Font and UI Scale.
• Some of the Ambition text is cut off on the Character Creation screen.
• Icons are stretched on the Chart legend.
• The chart does not focus on the player when it is opened in Albion for the first time.
• Tooltips do not work on the victory screen.
• The game fade-out and victory screen fade-in overlap.
• The red wrath lights on mechanical agents do not turn off once they disengage/flee.
• Red wrath lights on mechanical agents are not toggled on on secondary agents during 'wrath chaining' (e.g. when you anger a Tackety and his buddy comes over to help him fight, the lights will remain white).
• The headlight toggle is not currently mapped to controller support.
• The headlight toggle SFX is only in place on the Spatchcock.
• Purchasing a new locomotive with your headlight off will cause your new ship to load with the headlight on visually, but not functionally - i.e. you'll gain double Terror while the light is 'on'. You need to turn it off and on again to restore proper functionality.
• After purchasing a new locomotive with your headlight off you need to press L twice to turn off the headlight on your new locomotive.

One of the things we really wanted to finesse was the feeling of 'Threat' within the game. Sunless Skies is a brighter, more diverse landscape than Sunless Sea, so it's extremely important to us that there’s still has a sense of peril and dread.

WEATHER

WORSHIP

SCOUTS

OTHER IMPROVEMENTS

Build Version: 1.0.9.4.72fb12b Release Date: 09/05/2018 Known Issues In a nutshell, the Threat update is all about making the High wilderness feel like a more dangerous place. It is a more dangerous place. Be prepared to defend yourself. Be prepared to die, frequently. You are welcome.

What's New

• The Peacock Wind will increase your rate of Terror gain but also replenish your current barrel of supplies up to 100%.
• The Candlewind will increase your rate of supply consumption. Ensure you have enough sustenance before daring to cross it.
• The Storm-that-Speaks is an interactable discovery. If you can cope with the Terror gain and Hull damage on your journey to the eye of the storm, then perhaps you may speak to it.

• Bravery. Scouts are either Cautious and search for things nearby (Diffident Bat, Cyclopean Owl) or Bold and have a longer range.
• Curiosity. Scouts can be Diffident and only report a single find (Diffident Bat, Star-Smitten Bat, Intrepid Cavy), or they can be Inquisitive and spot up to three things of interest.
• Acuity. Finally Scouts may be Oblivious and simply mark locations on your chart (Diffident Bat, Star-Smitten Bat, The Ratronaut), or they may be Discerning and will categorise their findings with unique icons.

Updates

• We've revisited discovery and agent spawning in the Reach so the experience is more akin to that in Albion. Some discoveries that were released in the Albion update can now be found in the Reach.
• We've added a whole host of new ambient text including segment entrance messages.
• We've added four interactable Isambard line discoveries.
• You'll now experience new Nightmares as your Terror rises and your Condition worsens
• We've expanded the Winchester War content between the Tacketies and Stovepipes with added options to influence the course of the war.
• The Winchester War now has a greater effect on the spawning of agents around the Reach.
• New Prospects and Bargains.
• Hints are now present on the loading screen.
• Esc now closes interfaces.
• Bullets and their particle effects have been updated.
• The locomotive's smoke trail has been updated.
• New chart icons for Spectacles, Transit Relays and Discoveries.
• We've improved the UI highlighting for controller/keyboard support.
• We've made changes to the Prospects and Bargains interface to make it more user friendly.
• Current and example save files have been removed from the mode selection screen when starting a new game.
• New Term of Address options on character creation.
• Wonder and Horror music has been introduced to Spectacles.
• New SFX are in place throughout the High Wilderness including: docking, agent attacks, weapons fire, looting, fuel/supply barrel change and level up.

Bug Fixes

• You now have to turn controller support on manually in the control options menu. This is a temporary fix to stop gaming keyboards, mouse devices and non-standard controllers (e.g. foot pedals, arcade sticks, steering wheels) being auto-detected.
• Controller instructions will no longer become stuck on screen after death.
• The Interact prompt no longer appears over the top of the transit gates once activated and the animation runs.
• You can now open more than one section at a time on Possessions interface with a controller.
• The pause menu no longer opens behind the Chart.
• Homesteads now appear in the Prosper segment.
• Collision damage has been applied to Kisigar Gardens and Youngsfound assets in New Winchester.
• The Worlebury-juxta-mare label is no longer obscured by fog.
• Collision damage has been applied to all assets in Brabazon.
• We've fixed the z-fighting near Tuxeed Point in the Brabazon segment.
• Smoke is now correctly aligned with the pipes producing it in Brabazon.
• The headlight no longer passes over the port assets at the Royal Society.
• The new strafing and venting SFX are now present on all non-Spatchcock locomotives.
• Port Avon bells can no longer be heard when starting a new save file.
• Port Avon bells are now muted when storylets are open.
• Port Avon bells no longer distort with player movement.
• Various SFX are now muted when SFX volume is set to 0% (strafing, venting, docking, Magdalene's clock, Port Avon's bells and Scorn-flukes and Guest attack SFX).
• Port specific SFX are now heard when travelling to Albion and when moving between segments.
• We've fixed a bunch of typos and grammatical errors.

Known Issues

• The new docking SFX is missing at several ports
• The Wrath overlay can get stuck on screen after death or returning to the Title Screen
• The chart icon does not update when players encounter Transit Relays after being scouted by oblivious scouts.
• Transit Relay and Persistent Discovery icons do not persist on chart after reload

A new region—Albion—is now available! Welcome to Albion, skyfarers. Albion is the heart of the British Empire and home to Her Majesty Queen Victoria. Explore the empire's civilised stronghold and dig into the engines of industry, where manners must be minded and secrets are necessary. “The excited shriek of train-whistles. The hiss of steam. The clamour of countless voices. London.” In celebration of this momentous occasion, we’ve created a new trailer to give you a sneak peek of Albion! https://youtu.be/oiiRYVtze3Q Those looking to discover Albion should head towards Port Prosper to find the transit relay. Transit permits will be free during Early Access, though to make sure captains are seasoned enough for the journey, you'll still need to pay for either a Ministry-Stamped Permit or 2 Barrels of Hours before you travel. The addition of a second region brings Sunless Skies closer to our final vision of the game, with two more regions to come before full release. This update also brings:

Nine new ports, including its hub city London

Twelve new Discoveries, some more troublesome than others

Six new Spectacles, a few of which won’t terrify you

New agents, some who have felt the effects of artificial light

Build Version: 1.0.8.3.e51bc7cfe Release Date: 04/04/2018 Known Issues

What’s New

• Nine new ports.
• Five new agents (Scorn-Flukes, Curators, Star-Maddened Explorers, Glorious and Deranged Dreadnoughts).
• Six new Spectacles (have fun finding out if they are Horrors or Wonders).
• New transient Discoveries (Weft of Unravelled Time, Squirmings, Pardoner Eels, Grim Inscriptions and many others).
• New persistent Discoveries: Wreck of the Boatman and Well of the Wolf (which like Old Tom’s Well has a Spectacle-like Terror effect).
• The Altani-class Outrider available at the London engineyard.
• New equipment to boost your Quarters, Hold and Hull.
• Equipment which grants the Assaying quality (which you’ll need for all the eels and squirmings).
• Albion Prospects and Bargains.

Updates

• New Discoveries in the Reach: Fragments of the past, large Bronzewood pieces and fungal infested meteoroids.
• New quality and focus icons throughout the Reach (be aware there are still a number of placeholder quality icons in game).

Bug Fixes

• You can now interact with persistent discoveries more than once without having to leave and re-enter the segment.
• Homesteads now spawn correctly in Magdalene’s and Polmear & Plenty’s segments.
• Collision damage has now been applied to asteroids in the Magdalene's area.
• Qualities are now removed from the Journal once they are reset (as opposed to when they are completed).
• We made a change so that the in-game messages near Lustrum are easier to read.
• The venting animation on the Parzifal-class locomotives is now aligned correctly.
• We've fixed the scroll on the Hold section of the bank interface.
• The auto-docking system no longer puts a player's locomotive at an angle.
• You will no longer receive Hull damage when entering docks at angles.
• The camera no longer shakes when entering docks at angles.
• The level-up animation on locomotives is once again correctly aligned.
• Lustrum: The Mountain Beckons now shows in the journal.
• We’ve standardised the spelling of Dreadnought across the game.
• The avatar tooltip no longer appears on the Character Progression screen if opened while it is displayed.
• Crew can no longer be exceeded on the Homestead storylets.
• We've cleared up the confusion with the Amenable Host when speaking to him after the death of your previous captain.
• Hidden looting qualities now randomise correctly so you’ll see more looting opportunities for mechanical agents.
• The Headstrong Strongwoman's dialogue is now accurate according to whether or not her flyers need posting.
• The Phlegmatic Researcher's now continues to pay you for bringing him items for his private research.
• Handing in Hybras Pus to the Phlegmatic Researchers for private research no longer moves you out of the storylet.
• Damage to buildings at Titania from the Chorister Hive is now reported correctly.
• We’ve corrected some typos at the Leadbeater and Stainrod Nature Reserve.

Albion Known Issues

• The Interact prompt appears over the top of the transit gates once activated.
• Prospects are available at the Avid Horizon rather than bargains.
• Worlebury label can be partly obscured with fog (depending on the segment it spawns in).
• There’s some z-fighting near Tuxeed Point.
• Blocking is missing on a few assets in Brabazon.
• The headlight passes over the port/dock asset at The Royal Society (Airy House) and two asteroids in the Mausoleum segment.
• The transit gate activation audio repeats on arrival in a new region.
• The transit gate arrival audio is not yet in place.
• Scorn-flukes are not muted when SFX volume is 0%.
• The chart text does not update to say Albion when you move to that region.

Expect to be able to travel to Albion from 4 April! This second region brings the game much closer to our final vision. Albion is the heart of the British Empire’s territory in the High Wilderness; and the only place in the heavens you can reliably get a decent cup of tea. Its hub is London – your actual Victorian London – which has been flung into space by Her Majesty Queen Victoria. She rules it from the Throne of Hours, which allows her some dominion over time itself. We’re excited to get to Albion and dig into the engines of the Empire and all its dirty secrets. Albion includes writing by Failbetter collaborators Cassandra Khaw, Meg Jayanth, Harry Tuffs and Richard Cobbett. Expect to visit the Avid Horizon (the door through which Londoners entered the sky; now solemnly closed), the Clockwork Sun (greatest marvel of British Engineering), and Worlebury-juxta-Mare (a pleasant town on a sea of mist that definitely doesn’t squirm with noisome horrors). Sunless Skies will be released from Early Access in September 2018. Wishlist Sunless Skies here on Steam! You can also follow along with our development roadmap.

Patch Notes - v1.0.6.5.8046df9 (27th February 2018) Build Version: 1.0.6.5.8046df9 Release Date: 27/02/2018 Known Issues

What’s New

• Heat is no longer gained from forward thrust, it is now only applied when strafing and firing weapons (though we may add additional ways to gain heat in the future).
• Heat is a value which goes up to 100, once you reach 100 your vessel will overheat.
• The Heat bar warning light will turn on around 80% as an indication that you are close to overheating. There is also an audio cue.
• Consequences like the temporary loss of a weapon whilst overheated have been removed.
• When you are overheated you will be unable to strafe, though you can still turn, reverse and move forwards.
• Once overheated you will remain in that state for a few seconds. After the overheated period has elapsed your locomotive will vent Heat rapidly and you’ll once again be able to strafe.
• You can fire your weapons whilst overheated, but as a consequence you will take damage (10% of your max Hull value). When you choose to do this your locomotive will vent immediately and Heat will dissipate rapidly.
• You will be unable to fire your weapons if you are overheated and firing them would damage your Hull to the extent that it would lead to your untimely demise.
• Weapons now have continuous fire - hold down your hotkey/mouse button and the weapon will fire again as soon as it comes off its cooldown.
• If you are using continuous fire then your weapons will cut out automatically when you become overheated so you don’t inadvertently damage your Hull. Once you come out of the overheated state continuous fire will kick in again.
• Weapons have variable cooldown times and kick out different amounts of Heat (Jerusalem 30%, Emanation 50%, Brassraven 10%).

• Select Left Menu (Port Index UI or Always Storylets when not docked) - Ctrl + Left Arrow
• Select Bottom Menu (Navigation bar) - Ctrl + Down Arrow
• Select Right Menu (Officer HUD) - Ctrl + Right Arrow
• UI Move Up, Down, Left, Right - Arrow keys
• UI Cancel - Backspace
• UI Select - Enter
• UI Submit (equivalent to X on Xbox controller, used for Jettison, More Info etc) - Delete

• We’ve increased forward thrust so you get up to your maximum speed quicker. This should make you nippier in combat when you need to kill forward thrust, make a sharp turn and move full steam ahead out of the way of incoming enemy fire.
• In our last update we reduced the locomotive’s backward thrust so it’s much slower to reverse. We’ve buffed that a little in this build so it’s now a bit quicker.
• We’ve tweaked the skid suppression which will give you a little more control when strafing.

Updates

• Default controls for weapons have been changed to the mouse buttons - only new players installing the game for the first time will see this change. If you’ve been playing in Early Access and you want to see the changes you will need to restore defaults (from in game press Esc > Options > Controls > Restore Defaults).
• The Survival HUD now flashes when you take Hull damage.
• The Fastidious Inspector quest now requires items freely available throughout the Reach so players are no longer at the mercy of random Bargains.
• When weapons are assigned to mouse buttons they no longer fire when opening/closing interfaces. We had to apply this change to hotkeys too, so be aware that if you choose to use keyboard hotkeys to fire your weapons, they will only work when your cursor is not over an interface.
• Weapon keys can now be held down so that weapons fire immediately when they come off cooldown.
• We've increased the size of projectiles
• New ambient sounds are in place throughout the Reach.
• We’ve added some functionality which stops you from going over the edge of the Reach and as a result players will no longer get stuck on the loading screen when crossing the boundary.
• New in-game messages which trigger when you hit certain variable states have been introduced.
• We've made some adjustments to the camera zoom.
• The tutorial no longer opens up each time you close a Must Event or a Loot storylet.
• Quests are now marked as completed once the storyline is finished.
• Quests are now moved to the bottom of the journal when completed.
• Objectives (sub-quests) are now in place and display as bullet pointed lists in the journal underneath the main quest. When completed they will be marked with a tick.

Bug Fixes

• Spam clicking Facets no longer causes skill boosts to be applied multiple times.
• Navigation interfaces can no longer become locked to the middle of the screen.
• Navigation interfaces can no longer be brought up on the Title Screen.
• The patch notes no longer appear in-game.
• You will no longer receive Hull as a reward from Flotsam & Jetsam if your locomotive has max Hull.
• When collecting Hull from Flotsam and Jetsam, the correct amount of Hull applied is now shown.
• The Experienced gained label for Squire's House at Port Avon now appears in game on discovery.
• Double Terror gain now kicks in when you are down to 2 Crew on Parsival-class locomotives, rather than 1.
• Bargains are now removed from the Bazaar once you've purchased all the items available in the offer.
• If returning to the Title Screen and then continuing immediately after creating a new character, your locomotives equipment is no longer unequipped.
• Colliders on mechanical agents are now removed immediately on death.
• The Crew requirement for Conduct a nocturnal excavation at Port Avon has been lowered to 5 to accommodate Sky-Captains with Parsival and Pellinore class locomotives.
• You will now see the correct quality effect message when completing the Amenable Host’s Assumed Identity quest
• Once you’ve completed the Assumed Identity quest you will no longer see the option to tell the Amenable Host about his past.
• Port reports can no longer be farmed for Sovereigns at Lustrum and Port Prosper when the Winchester War changes
• Player's can now purchase all Ministry-Approved Literature bargains around the Reach.
• Sovereigns awarded for Ministry-Approved Literature Prospects have been adjusted so they are worth more than the value at Victoria Market.
• The avatar tooltip no longer gets stuck on screen.
• The avatar tooltip no longer appears on the Character Progression screen is opened while it is displayed.
• Officer slots will no longer remain in an expanded state if the main menu (pause menu) is opened over them.
• Engine SFX now play after death.
• Character names are no longer obscured by the Load button on save files (with default Font and UI scales).
• Increasing the Font Scale will no longer cause the cost of locomotives to become cut off in the Engine Yard interface.
• The fog around Carillion has been tweaked to remove straight lines.
• The line above the Bedivere-class locomotive in the Engine Yard and Hold interfaces has been removed.
• Erroneous graphical assets have been removed from the chart between segments.
• We’ve fixed a number of typos and grammatical errors.

Hello, skyfarers! We’re pleased to announce that Sunless Skies will be released in late September 2018! We’ll have an updated roadmap next week, but for now here’s the lowdown on our latest release: COMBAT.

GAMEPLAY

STORIES

SOON

Hello, Skyfarers! An update, in which we discuss the EXPLORATION release and the ever-closer reveal of ALBION! This release pulls in a lot of the work we’ve been talking about from recent sprints (TEKTITE and VEGA):
Discoveries and spectacles are now available! Scavenge from wrecks, harvest hives, investigate (or eat) fungal fragments, mine sky rocks for undiscovered hours, scour flotsam and jetsam for random treasures, and carry Curators' Eggs to port before they can hatch. At the edge of Old Tom's Well, you can discover the Pitchkirk and its bitter sect. Those who can prove they have been aggrieved may even be allowed to take part in their services and enact their well-rite: the Rite of Wrongs (which will modify your captain's skills). You’ll notice a lot of fun (“fun”) changes to Terror: new visual and audio effects and terror music made by Maribeth that will make the atmosphere more and more tense and unbearable.
Fog and locomotive headlights will work together to add atmosphere to your journey, help you target enemies during combat and make it easier to discern which elements on screen are possible to crash into. Docking will be automatic. You’ll be able to tell how many sovereigns you have more easily. The next release, coming at the end of February, will cover MOVEMENT AND COMBAT, including work based on your feedback. With exceeding joy, we can confirm the release after will be ALBION. A whole additional region, with its own look, feel and surprises. If you’ll permit us some over-excitement, it’s time to get on board the SPACE HYPE TRAIN.
It almost goes without saying, but releasing an additional region into the game will immediately make the play experience something much more like the final game; in all likelihood it will be the biggest appreciable change to the game during Early Access for you as players. We are intensely nervous and excited to reveal it to you.
Our next FBG Podcast has been moved to Tuesday 6 February at 4:00pm GMT so that we can take a moment to celebrate Sunless Sea’s third birthday. So bring your captain’s logs and memories to share! We’d also love to show off Sunless Sea fanart, so leave us a link here or tweet to @failbettergames and we’ll cover as much as we can! As ever, we’re taking your feedback on the Steam, GOG and Failbetter forums. We can’t wait to hear what you make of these changes! AND - hooray - you can come and meet the team to chat about Sunless Skies at EGX Rezzed! We’ll be there from the 13th to the 15th of April and we’re excited to see you. Your friends, Failbetter Games

Build Version: 1.0.7.4.1f12226aa Release Date: 31/01/2018

What’s New

Updates

• Sovereigns are now visible in the shop and Bazaar interfaces!
• The Spatchcock’s cargo space has been raised to 12.
• New items are available at New Winchester.
• The Bank interface has been reworked so that it is one UI element.
• New Title Screen, Terror and Death music.
• All locomotives now have their own unique engine SFX.
• Enemies now explode on death.

Bug Fixes

• There is now a delay between the triggering of in-game messages around ports.
• The camera overlay no longer persists after death.
• The focus icon no longer overflows the storylet interface at Traitor's Wood.
• Settlers can now be dropped off at Traitor’s Wood.
• The Possessions, Officer and Profile interfaces now auto-update if they are open when you obtain new qualities, officers, port reports, affiliations or peculiarities.
• When the Journal is open alongside a storylet it will now auto-update with quests when you start, advance or complete them.
• The Hold now updates automatically if it is open when accepting and completing Prospects or when purchasing a Bargain.
• Terror gain now stops correctly around all ports.
• Interfaces now open and close correctly after other UI elements have overridden them.
• Agents can no longer enter docks and drop loot which cannot be collected.

You may have noticed these past few sprint blogs that we’ve been changing the format a bit, as we add many large features into the game. We’ve also recently restructured our production process and in 2018 we’ll be handling these blogs and our FBG Podcasts a little differently! Instead of posting a development blog and podcast every sprint (or every other week), we’ll be shifting to releasing a blog and podcast per release build (when we update the live Steam/GOG builds for players)—so roughly once a month. Now that most of the structural systems and core gameplay features are in the game, we want to make sure each of these updates are packed full of exciting new features, screenshots and gameplay. That means our next development update (and game update!) will come the 31st of January, with our next FBG Podcast on the 2nd of February! In between these official updates there will of course continue to be patch notes, and Lesleyann and Haley will still be hanging around on the forums (Steam, GOG, FBG) to answer any questions you have and take feedback, too.

ART

CONTENT

GAMEPLAY & DESIGN

With the recent revamp of the proc gen system becoming available within the game to all, our focus this week has been to add some finishing touches to exploration in the Reach. Final touches and testing are being completed for Discoveries & Spectacles, which we hope to bring into the game soon. Additionally, the update to Terror’s visual effects and music are being finished as well.

ART

CONTENT

GAMEPLAY & DESIGN

Today our Prospects and Bargains trade system is now officially available to players on Steam and GOG!
To discover all the details and its mechanics, check out our Prospects and Bargains post. Or, if you’d like an in-depth look at the system, watch our latest FBG Podcast where Chris and Lesleyann walk you through the system in-game. Head over to New Winchester and visit the Promise of Days club at Wolvesey station. Here you can learn all you need to know from seasoned sky captains. Once you’ve picked up a couple of tidbits, then open the Bazaar and start wheeling and dealing. This update also includes:

• Bringing the new proc gen branch into the main branch of the game
• Directions, which will help players find ports mentioned in quests
• Bug fixes, which you can read all about in our Patch Notes

More About: Proc Gen Coming to the Main Branch

More About: Directions

Dev Blogs and Podcasts Christmas Schedule

Build Version: 1.0.6.3.4ea876f Release Date: 11/12/2017

What’s New

Updates

Bug Fixes

Now that the new proc gen system is accessible in Early Access via branch, the team has been busy QAing and bug fixing the Prospects and Bargains system, which is due into the game before the end of the year. Alongside that, Art, Content and Tech have continued their work on various tasks for our other regions like Albion and Eleutheria.

ART

CONTENT

GAMEPLAY & DESIGN

AUDIO

We are delighted to announce that the new procedural generation system, discussed in the QUINTESSENCE blog, is now available for Steam and GOG users. The new proc gen system addresses player feedback we've received about Sunless Skies feeling empty, as well as solving some tricky technical and design issues on our side. Its segment-based design allows us to create richer, more coherent environments, while still encouraging replayable exploration. We very much look forward to your feedback on the new design! Feel free to let us know your thoughts via our Steam, GOG or FBG forums. The new segment-focused proc gen system is available for players via a separate branch in Steam/GOG. This means that the original proc gen system of the game will still be the main playable build available to players when they login to Steam/GOG to play. However, if anyone wants to try out the new system, they can follow the simple steps below to try it out. A experimental HUD (where you view your fuel, supplies, heat etc. on the screen) will also be available in the new proc gen branch. Important Note: If you are planning to try out the new branch we would recommend creating a separate character or making a backup copy of your character's Lineage folder, as once you have imported your character’s save file from the main branch into the new proc gen branch, you will not be able to load that save file into the main branch again. More details about this can be found in our Patch Notes. STEAM

• Log into your Steam account Go to your Library and right-click on Sunless Skies
• Select 'Properties' and click on the 'Betas' tab
• Enter 'proceduralgeneration' into access code text box and click 'Check code'
• Click 'Close' and your game should update with the new proc gen build

• If you don't have it already, download GOG Galaxy. Only GOG Galaxy users can make use of branches!
• Log into your GOG account
• Right click on Sunless Skies and select 'Settings'
• Make sure 'Beta channels' in the top right of this page is set to 'On'
• Choose 'add private channels' from the channel dropdown menu and enter the password 'proceduralgeneration'
• Click 'Install' to download the new proc gen version of Sunless Skies

Build Version: 1.0.4.6.24e7833 Release Date: 29/11/2017

What’s New

The new trade system we're introducing in December to Sunless Skies will be an extensive overhaul that ties into storytelling, economy, UI and character progression. There's a lot to talk about, so we've divided this update into three sections:

• The TL;DR Version: a summary of what to expect
• Why We've Changed Trade: a look into our design process and goals
• The Nitty-Gritty: exhaust yourself with the details of trade

The TL;DR Version

• Bargains are opportunities to buy a good cheaply.
• Prospects are news of someone who's prepared to pay well over the odds for a certain good.

Why We’ve Changed Trade

The Nitty-Gritty: How Trade Works in Sunless Skies

• Each main port buys any trade good for its base price
• Each minor port sells a single trade good (its export), again for the base price
• Main ports only buy; minor ports only sell

Build Version: 1.0.3.2.1dcb4f0 Release Date: 15/11/2017 Greetings Sky-Captains, just a quick update to resolve a number of bugs introduced in the last patch, plus a couple of minor quick-fixes and content updates to boot.

Updates

• The Diffident Bat can now be jettisoned.
• The Diffident Bat is now available to buy at Abraham’s Engineering at New Winchester should you be cruel enough to jettison the one you currently own.
• We’ve reduced the cost of Hull repairs from 5 to 1.
• Branches to repair your locomotive’s hull have been moved from within the New Winchester storylet to their own storylet (Repairing your Locomotive) at Wolvesey Station.

Bug Fixes

• The Diffident Bat once again finds all ports in the Reach.

• All labels now appear on the chart when discovered in-game.

• Small weapons now remain equipped when purchasing locomotives with large armament slots (i.e. Parsival and Moloch class locomotives).

• Sovereigns now update when you have the Possessions interface open when buying items.
• You can no longer travel with interfaces open after opening and closing the character progression screen.
• You no longer have to click Wolvesey Engine Yard twice to reopen it after closing it down with the X.
• The cargo Hold now auto-updates if it is open when receiving and losing items via storylets.
• The Jettison interface now updates correctly when equipping a duplicate weapon.
• Opening a shop interface when you already have another shop interface open no longer closes the interface down.

• All locomotive sounds are now muted when SFX Volume is set to 0% within game.
• Locomotive SFX have been balanced to make the engine start/stop SFX less jarring.

• In-game graphical distortions and z-fighting should no longer occur on MacOS machines with NVIDIA graphics card (we are aware of the minor z-fighting on the chart and will resolve this in the future).

• We have removed the spaces before the full stop on various journal entries.

For this development update, we’re taking a dive into one of the most important systems in Sunless Skies: procedural generation. Your feedback in Early Access has been instrumental in some major changes coming later this month, that will transform the way Sunless Skies feels to play. AN ENDLESS VOID World building is hugely important to our games, especially because Sunless Sea and Sunless Skies focus so heavily on player exploration. We’ve been using procedural generation to create a populated world of interesting things to find in Sunless Skies. As Early Access opened, we heard fans say that Sunless Skies felt empty. While actual space can certainly feel like an unending void, we didn’t want players to experience the world we’ve spent months building and designing to feel uninhabited. Another concern we picked up was sudden environmental changes—one minute you’re flying past an asteroid, then a giant tree, then a clump of fungus and so on. Players were struggling to understand how these elements fitted together.
Currently in Sunless Skies, a region like The Reach is essentially a circle, divided into three rings (a core, an inner ring, and an outer ring). The game procedurally places the ports, agents and terrain inside each ring based on a system of tags that match sympathetic environments and decoration: this way we make sure palm trees don't appear next to the snowy port of Lustrum, for example.
(Original proc-gen example, where each labelled item can spawn anywhere in the core) This design was an iteration on the original proc-gen system we used in Sunless Sea. While it was faster and easier to use than the Sunless Sea system, which relied on a lot of data input, we soon realised that it wasn’t ideally suited to creating the rich, coherent world we wanted to build.
It also created its own technical and design issues for our team:

• It’s difficult and time consuming to create individual art assets that have the possibility of fitting anywhere within the region
• The unit of design (a singular port, rock, or homestead etc.) is incredibly small, and thus restricts the team’s ability to build the atmosphere of a region so that the geography echoes the narrative content
• It takes a lot of iteration to get the numbers right so that travelling through a region doesn’t feel empty

• the general atmosphere of that segment
• which ports will be included
• what the weather will be like
• the general art direction and colour palette
• which agents will be present (NPCs, beasties, etc.)
• the Spectacles and Discoveries within the segment
• which pieces of equipment will be most useful
• trade opportunities
• the audio required for the segment
• the log messages that will appear on screen
• and the geographical layout of the segment

Greetings Sky-Captains, There’s a number of new features in this build for you to get your claws into.

NEW THIS UPDATE

BUG FIXES

Today is a very exciting update for us (and you!) as today is our first feature update to the game! Once your game updates in Steam/GOG, you’ll be able to explore: Engine Yards, Banks, Legacies and—perhaps most excitingly—Character Creation. These features make up quite large systems within the game, and so we’ve spent this sprint and a few others tidying them up and bug testing them. Alongside that, we’ve also been working on Albion content, other large systems like Prospects and Bargains, and of course addressing feedback from players. NEW FEATURES ADDED Engine Yards: These are shops in port where players can purchase new locomotives. Instead of a straight purchase situation, players will be able to trade their current locomotive in towards the price of a new beauty. Be forewarned—locomotives are not cheap, and prices may change as we continue to balance the economy. Banks: Where players can store items that are taking up valuable space in their holds. Items stored in banks can also be retrieved by a new captain if your previous one had met their demise. To access the bank speak to the Scrubbed Clerk at New Winchester once you reach level 2. Legacies: Death is hard to avoid, but thankfully where one captain fails, another may continue on in their place and hope to further their great work. In Legacy mode, players can start from the last major port visited by their previous captain, with their locomotive, half their sovereigns, any items stored in their bank, a percentage of their experience, and all but one piece of equipment assigned to their locomotive. In Merciful mode, players can choose to either start with a new captain as in Legacy mode, or continue with their previous captain from their last auto-save point. Character Creation: Those who had fun with our Kickstarter prototype will find this familiar. This update allows players to select a character portrait, character name, what they’ll be addressed as, an origin story, their base statistics, and their chosen ambition. As a note: Character Creation is not yet fully complete. There will be more origin stories, ambitions, and facial features will be added later on. We’d very much appreciate your feedback about which type of features you’d like to see more of/which are lacking. Thanks!

ART Meet the Enduring Dreadnought, a fast and powerful locomotive available only to the agents of Her Enduring Majesty's Government. These locomotives are generally manned bv ambassadors, Constables, Ministers, and other enforcers of London's will - they are a sign of London's power wherever they travel.
Besides creating the above three-cylinder locomotive, Tobias was also tasked with the Aeginae, leviathans that dwell in the belly of the heavens. Usually, they are only glimpsed as sliding shapes–grand as mountain-ranges–in the fogs below. It is said that the suns have an ancient pact with them. We are keeping these under cloud-cover for now, but will be very glad to share them when we’re ready… CONTENT In preparation of adding Engine Yards, James dove into spreadsheeting work again to write content for within the Engine Yards, as well as cover where they exist in game, what their names are, and which locomotives they're going to sell. Alongside that, Chris designed and specified locomotive details necessary for players to be able to use the Engine Yards, for example: price, where locomotives can be bought, their qualities, quarters, hold and hull. This sprint also sees Albion and Eleutheria port work continue with pitches, writing and quality assurance. GAMEPLAY & DESIGN Besides a whole host of tweaks to Engine Yards and Banks, Mac has been working on the implementation of Prospects and Bargains, our system for trade in Sunless Skies. Chris and Barry have been working in tandem to this to implement the design-focused bits Chris has been working on. This allows our team to link the trade system to logical places within the game world. Our design team has also been busy discovering a solution to one of the main pieces of feedback we’ve received so far—that currently Sunless Skies feels quite empty. While actual space can feel vast and empty, we of course do not want our game to feel as such. Therefore, Liam, Chris and Paul have been discussing and rejigging how to lay out the world of Sunless Skies so it feels more full and lush. This has involved intense planning sessions and a redesign of how the world is procedurally generated within the game. We’ll share their solution here soon in fuller detail! If you have any questions regarding the new features, please join us for the FBG Podcast Friday 27th October at 16:00 BST! REMINDER: Any backers who have not received their game keys yet please email skies@failbettergames.com, as it appears that quite a few people’s keys got eaten by spam filters.

The office has still been a bit quiet this sprint due to quite a few people taking holiday in this post-Early Access launch time period. Our Albion work continues to forge ahead in each department. Alongside creating the next region, we remain focused on taking the feedback we’re seeing from players and having internal discussions about our design and production moving forwards. ART One area of feedback we’ve been looking at is Terror. Our first Focused Feedback thread on the forums was all about Terror, which led to the discovery that we could do a better job communicating/showing Terror levels to players in-game. Thus, Tobias has been working on how Terror levels and Terror increase are visually communicated on-screen. Later on, music will also be added to help illustrate this as well. Upon his return from holiday Paul began work on the Isambard Line assets which consist of gates and track. The Isambard Line will be a railroad line located in the Reach, owned by the Windward Company.
Players will have the option to fix the line and bring it back into service or leave it to disrepair. Fixing the line will help the Stove Pipes, while the Tacketies would be rather pleased if it stays unusable. If fixed, the line will act as a fast-travel service throughout the Reach, in a similar way to Currents in Sunless Sea. If left in disarray, you’ll have a better relationship with the Tacketies and may find new trade opportunities open up. CONTENT We’re thrilled to announce this sprint that Cassandra Khaw will officially be one of our excellent freelancers for the game! Specifically she’ll be working on Worlebury-juxta-Mare, a seaside-esque port in Albion. The writers (including our wonderful freelancers) are in full Albion mode and have been busy working away at the content for Albion ports and other bits of Albion content. Similar to Terror, we’ve also received some great feedback about the game’s economy, and so Chris has been looking into some solutions as he designs and write s content for Prospects and Bargains—or the trade system within Sunless Skies. Chris answered quite a few questions about the future of trade in the last FBG Podcast. MUSIC Maribeth, the exceptionally talented composer behind the Fallen London and Sunless Sea OSTs, has started creating the tracks for Albion. Since each region has its own unique atmosphere, the theme music for each region is extremely pivotal. Alongside the Albion music she has also been composing the Terror, Death, Victory and Hero themes. GAMEPLAY & DESIGN Mac and Barry have continued implementing both the Character Creation and Legacy systems. The Legacy system in Sunless Skies is designed both to respect players’ time and to address the change players will experience as the move through the map of the High Wilderness. In Sunless Sea, players always returned to London and often moved from right to left. In Sunless Skies, players will still return to major ports often, but there won’t be a singular ‘home’ port and we hope the circular structure of the regions will put more of an emphasis on exploration and cause more variance in travel pathways.
Players will initially be able to choose from two game modes in the Legacy system: Merciful or Legacy. In Legacy mode, when your captain dies, your new captain will start from the last major port that your previous captain visited, along with:

• Their locomotive
• Half their sovereigns
• Any items they stored in the bank
• A percentage of their experience

This sprint, seven of our crew headed to EGX to showcase Sunless Skies! New and veteran fans alike stopped by to give the game a try and we were delighted to chat with everyone and hear their feedback. On Friday, Chris, Lottie and Adam headed to the EGX stage to chat with Eurogamer’s Johnny Chiodini, which you can watch on Eurogamer’s YouTube page.
ART With the Early Access launch finished, Paul has departed for a well-deserved holiday, so the art this sprint has primarily been done by Tobias. One of the things he’s been working on is another locomotive: the Altani-class outrider, an evasive locomotive from the Khanate.
Alongside the Altani, he also tackled some Discovery homesteads. There are currently five types of homesteads: eerie, friendly, recently abandoned, hostile and pro-trading.
CONTENT Content have been continuing their work on Albion and its ports. James and Olivia have been finishing up the writing for ports such as the Serene Mausoleum and Brabazon Workworld, which Caolain has been mechanically QA'ing afterwards. Chris created the art briefs for Discoveries and Spectacles, which aren't yet in-game. Discoveries are points of interest in the High Wilderness. A Discovery could be something simple, like a floating crate of munitions, or could be the (hopefully) empty wreck of a crashed locomotive. These Discoveries will provide resources and stories for bold explorers to find. Spectacles are awe-inspiring locations in the High Wilderness. Some will strike terror into the hearts of your crew, while others may bring them comfort. A wise skyfarer will learn routes that will keep their crew's dread at bay. GAMEPLAY AND DESIGN Before heading off to EGX, Barry worked on the Legacy system. This included selecting a Legacy and how new characters are created after a previous character dies. Under the Legacy system, captains may find they inherit a few bits from the expired captain, such as their ship and some donations from the old captain’s acquaintances. Liam has been tending to the UI work for Character Creation while Henry and Mac have continued the tech work involved in implementing this system. Mac has also been implementing Experience Gain within the game, so that players will receive the proper figures upon passing landmarks. He's also been working on the Banking Service, which is a feature that will allow players to store some of their items in New Winchester to save space in their locomotive's hold. Shipyards are also being implemented, which give players the ability to rename their locomotive. Prospects and bargains have also been started. Once these are implemented, players will be able to scope out potential deals for trading. BUGS AND FEEDBACK This sprint we’ve started focused feedback sessions on our game forums. The first Feedback Focus we’d like to dive into is Terror. You can find these threads here on our Steam forum or on the FBG forum. REMINDER: Any backers who have not received their game keys yet please email skies@failbettergames.com, as it appears that quite a few people’s keys got eaten by spam filters. Our next FBG Podcast will take place this Friday 29th September at 16:00 BST! Come with your content questions at the ready, as we’re hoping to have a writer join us this week.

With Sunless Skies now officially available for Early Access / Games in Development, the MALMQUIST BIAS sprint was focused on analysing feedback and bug fixing. A few departments such as art have also begun to explore our next region: Albion. QUALITY ASSURANCE Quality Assurance, or QA, is a very important role in the games industry, especially during Early Access, where there are bound to be plenty of bugs about. QA testers are responsible for all things to do with bugs: finding, tracking, reporting, and being the relay between our community and our developers, not only for bugs but also for more general feedback. Even before launch, our QA Lesleyann was in charge of setting up the bug reporting pipeline for players, which you may have seen on our How to Report a Bug and Known Issues pages. Since launch, she has tackled over 300 bug report emails as well as scanning the Steam, GOG and FBG forums for community feedback. From there she has designed a lovely feedback grid spreadsheet (you know how much game developers love a good spreadsheet) to share with the development team so that we know generally how players feel about certain features, game balance etc. As we upload new builds of the game with bug fixes and feature additions or adjustments, Lesleyann will update the spreadsheet. From there, other members of the team can stay up to date with the players’ thoughts. ART Each region of the game will feature a distinct mood and ecosystem and thus one of the first steps for creating our next region, Albion, is deciding on its art direction. Paul and Tobias began the design and discussion by creating a colour journey. Colour journeys are quite common for things like film and television—it’s basically mapping out the colour palette for the region, in this case via outer ring, inner ring, and core. Below you can see a purposefully pixelated version:
From there, Albion’s ports can be conceptually sketched out, combining the writers’ descriptions and the decided colouring/mood. After it’s concepted, they check back with the writers to make sure that they’ve met the descriptions but also to make sure that the actual design of the part will work logically with the content they’ve created.

This also helps Paul and Tobias refine the art pipeline, so that they are designing the ports in the most efficient way possible. We wouldn’t want to have an artist fully map out, define, and polish a port only to find out a small detail about its construction that won’t work in-game alongside content. Tobias has also been continuing asset creation, such as the hefty cargo ship the Pellinore, as well as the devilishly handsome Kickstarter stretch goal, the Moloch.
Meanwhile, the Moloch is a beast of brass and steam! A midnight miracle of hydraulics! Furnished in the most indulgent luxury, with carpet so thick you'll lose your toes in it, and mahogany as dark as the inside of a confessional.
Manufactured by refugees from Hell, the Moloch is an experimental engine available only at the Royal Society. Tobias explains a bit about the influences on the Moloch: “With the Moloch, aside from the existing description created for the Kickstarter, my notes from our Narrative Director, Chris, were simply ‘luxury and brass.’ I wanted to avoid any immediate Hell Train cliches—no skulls and spikes—and instead looked at luxury cars from the early part of the 20th century, since there's something innately devilish to me about those sinuous cars that seem like 90% bonnet. They're a little ahead of our time period in Sunless Skies, but given how special this vehicle is, and that it was manufactured by devils, I felt alright about giving it an unusual twist. I also took inspiration from brass coated instruments such as saxophones for the pipework on the body, and added fins to give the silhouette a bit of extra character.”

Along with these locomotive models, Tobias also created a future Discovery.
CONTENT The writers have spent most of their time this sprint designing the foundations for Albion and its ports. Chris and James has been tackling the art briefs, while our freelance partners like Meg Jayanth and Richard Cobbett have been busy pitching their ports. We are also very excited to announce that Harry Tuffs, the developer behind A House of Many Doors, will also be working with us on a port for [irl]Sunless Skies[/ir]! TECH The Tech team have devoted quite a bit of this sprint towards working with Lesleyann to iron out the bugs being reported from Early Access. When we update the game on Steam / GOG with new builds that include bug fixes, we will be posting Patch Notes so players can see exactly which bugs have been fixed and which new features have been added. Mac and Barry have also begun working on some of the larger systems that we hope to get into the game in the coming months such as Character Creation and Legacies. NOTE FOR BACKERS: Please get in touch with us at skies@failbettergames.com along with your pledge tier level if you have not yet received your Early Access keys - thank you! It appears spam filters may have eaten quite a few of our key emails. Join us on Friday at 16:00 BST for the FBG Podcast! We’ll be there to take your questions and delve into the creation of Sunless Skies.

This patch is our first update and contains a number of bug fixes, listed below. Two big issues which have not been fixed as part of this update however are the disappearing ports bug and the corrupt save file issue which leads to a black screen overlaid with the HUD. Having looked at the code in question these bugs are not simple, quick fixes. We want to address these issues properly as we refine these particular areas of the game, especially since it also ties into the current work we are doing on Legacies. We don’t want to push out a temporary fix that may have other knock-on effects, however minor, only to have to revise again later down the line. I know how frustrating both these issues are, so this bit of news may be disappointing. But please rest assured we are working on these issues and we'll get solid fixes out for them as soon as we are able. We really appreciate your continued help and support, and of course your patience as we iron out all these kinks. Your bug reports over the last fortnight have been really helpful and your feedback has been excellent. Collecting it all has been quite a mammoth task, but the first batch is ready for our designers and writers to look at. Please keep all that feedback coming and together we'll make an awesome game. P.S. Please also remember to check out our Known Issues. Any workarounds are in red text.

Performance

Combat

Weapons

Content

UI

Misc

The time has come! Sunless Skies is now available for Early Access here on Steam and also Games in Development on GOG! We are delighted to invite you from the depths of the Unterzee to join us in the gusty, undiscovered vaults of the High Wilderness. The stars are dying; they leave behind territories rich in secrets and opportunity. Explore the Reach—the first, and most verdant, region of Sunless Skies. The Reach is designed to be a small but functional piece of the entire game. Fly a locomotive, engage in combat, experience Terror and Hunger, interact with stories, and die. A lot. Over the coming months we’ll be adding more stories, more regions, and more complexity to its gameplay—more of everything really. If you’d like an idea of what will be initially available from the 30th August, check out our development blog from yesterday and our FAQ. Over the past three months, 900 delicious alpha testers have been helping us uncover bugs, but if you’re looking to experience a complete game void of tech issues, we strongly recommend you wait until the game’s full release. However, if you are happy to traverse the High Wilderness first, reporting bugs and sending feedback along the way, then we hope to see you out there Skyfarer! The feedback we received during Sunless Sea’ Early Access absolutely made it the exceptional game it is today and we can’t wait to see what you think of Sunless Skies. And, if you’d like to pick up Sunless Sea for iPad, it’ll be on sale in celebration of the Sunless Skies Early Access launch for £6.99 / $6.99 from 30th August - 3rd September! Thank you for your support through everything, we have the most delicious fans. See you out in space!

Since our Early Access launch is just around the corner—18:00 BST 30th August (!)—we thought we'd go into a bit more detail about what you can initially expect in Sunless Skies.

What to Expect

• Explore the Reach in your locomotive
• Use your bat to scout for nearby ports
• Dock at 11 ports available in the Reach
• Interact with stories
• Engage in combat with sky-beasts and other locomotives
• Experience Terror, Hunger, and Heat mechanics

What’s Coming

• Character creation and progression: being able to select your character portrait, character name, and all the specific choices that makes your character yours
• Spectacles: awe-inspiring locations in the High Wilderness. Some will strike terror into the hearts of your crew, while others may bring them comfort. A wise skyfarer will learn routes that will keep their people's dread at bay.
• Discoveries: points of interest in the High Wilderness. It could be something as simple as a floating crate of munitions, or the (hopefully) empty wreck of some terrible locomotive crash. These will provide resources and stories for bold explorers to find.
• Legacies: death is hard to avoid, but thankfully where one captain fails, another may continue on in their place and hope to further their great work. They will begin their journey with equipment and contacts gained by their last captain, as well as their charts and a portion of their worldly wealth.
• Trade: there are lots of ways to make a living, and trade is one of the more reputable ones you can undertake. Whenever you dock at a port, you may find people willing to sell you goods at a cheap price, allowing you to turn a profit provided you can find a buyer. Alternatively, you may hear of people who have a need some specific goods. If you're able to source and deliver them, you will be richly rewarded.
• Kickstarter Exclusives: Owl scouts and delicious rabbit mascots! We will be sure to inform backers anytime a Kickstarter reward has been implemented
• [b}Difficulty settings: this is definitely a long-form task we’ll need player feedback on
• Accessibility features: currently UI and text scaling is an option but we have many more tasks to tackle
• Controller support: it’s mouse and keyboard for now but we’ve designed with controller support in mind

What Feedback We’ll be Looking For

• Is the game fun? What bits work and what bits don’t?
• Have you found any bugs or glitches?
• How does flying your locomotive feel?
• Is combat balanced? Are there areas of it we can improve?
• How is the difficulty within the game?
• Is your time respected enough?
• What accessibility features would help you play the game?

Following our Progress

• A new Development Roadmap to follow along with our development in Early Access.
• Development blogs which will continue, though after the Early Access launch we will be posting them on Wednesdays.
• Patch notes will also begin appearing in Steam and GOG so you can see exactly what has been added to the game each time we update the game.
• And of course any time we have massive updates to the game (new regions added, full-release etc.), we’ll be sure to post special announcements to let everyone know.

The KEPLER sprint brings us ever closer to Early Access / Games in Development. It warmed us to our core to see such excitement about the release date of the open beta for Sunless Skies. While there are still many new bits and bobs being worked on for the Reach and a some new tasks for our next region, Albion, most of the work we’ll be focusing on from now until the 30th of August will be bug finding, fixing, and feature polishing. Oh, and extra, triple, quadruple checks to make sure that space feels spacey enough before you lot burst through the gate into the High Wilderness. ART One of the new pieces art has been tackling is a bonafide art pass on the chart, or in-game map. Whilst we are always amazed and entertained with what the developers produce when implementing the functionality of the chart, after that's been finished art add their creative polish overtop.
Paul created the chart, focusing on ensuring it fit the branding and art direction within the game. There was a brief glimpse of what we imagined it might look like in the Kickstarter Trailer, but actual implementation has to consider the functionality in-game. This is only the first-pass, and we're sure it will evolve over time as we receive player feedback.
Meanwhile Tobias has been checking off many of the ambiences and icons that'll be needed for the Reach. In terms of characters, he's covered The Turbulent Fabulist, Prudent Secretary and Parsimonious Chairman. He's also been busy on the core stats icons and icons for character progression.
CONTENT Content have started an overhaul of quality assurance (QA) testing, which for us includes both testing the mechanics work as intended, but also editing the text where necessary. As they encounter bugs, they then of course work to fix them. Our entire content team works on this, along with Caolain and Lesleyann. Chris also worked with Liam to set up and fill out the content necessary for the locomotive equipment that will be in for the Early Access launch. Each piece of equipment requires an icon as well as a little bit of fiction. This also goes for our bat scout!
GAMEPLAY AND DESIGN Meanwhile in tech-land, Sam has started to dig into tasks that improve our content management system (CMS). These tasks range from small improvements like fixing preview images to larger tasks that allow the content team to work with a our CMS more easily as the add content to the game. Mac accomplished the loot implementation, completed locomotive dock loading, and fixed a variety of bugs. These ranged from faulty must-events to Hunger not being reset at ports to many smaller issues that our very helpful Alpha testers have reported! Adam and Caolain have continued working on the AI behavior for our enemies and sky-beasts, including Chorister bees and Scrive-Spinsters. Adam has also been making adjustments to player armament and player-locomotive lateral thrust to ensure the movement within the game feels 'right.' Launches are production's baby, so Lottie has spent a lot of last sprint finalising our Steam and GOG pages and making sure we're set up correctly technically—things like enabling different Kickstarter backers to get their appropriate in-game content, and making sure our distribution channels are clear so we can easily update with any new content later down the line. She’s let us know that this is “SURPRISINGLY COMPLICATED.” In order to make pre-launch as stress-free as possible Lottie has also focused on providing a clear plan of attack and acting as a repository for all last-minute tasks discovered in the run up to our final build. This leaves developers free for that final phase of polishing which makes such a difference to a game. Lottie also also worked with our composer, Maribeth, on Albion's music, so we’ll have a head start on our next region of the game. We won’t be doing a FBG podcast in lieu of giving our developers as much time as possible to work on Sunless Skies before the 30th, but you can expect us to be back on Twitch the 1st of September at our usual time of 16:00 BST!

Our JANSKY sprint leads us to a very special announcement—Sunless Skies is coming to Steam Early Access and GOG Games in Development the 30th of August! With that in mind, all teams have of course been working on buffing, polishing and bug fixing the Reach, our initial area for Early Access / Games in Development. ART One of the tasks tackled by the art team in JANSKY was implementing labels within the game. This means that as your locomotive cruises through the High Wilderness, any wrecks, ports or locations with names will show on screen. Paul has implemented this specifically in the Reach, and you may even see some of our backer-created location names appear!
As we continue towards Early Access / Games in Development, Tobias has been busy creating and tidying many different decorations and ambiences. One of the challenges specifically with decorations, is the balance between a space that is too sparse, or a space that is too dense—balance is very important. Ambiences pose their own problem, as depending on the content, there may or may not be an icon that covers a third of the art.
All the Reach ports are receiving plenty of buff and polish, and thus we’re happy to share a comparison with you: the first screenshot of Magdalene’s we shared versus the current version after some polish.

This sprint also received a lot of UI work from Liam, who created a new pre-roll for the title screen of the game for Early Access, along with adding crossfading to make UI transitions smoother. CONTENT The Content resource was a bit light this sprint due to our writers being busy on other projects such as Fallen London’s Election, Exceptional Stories, and Reworks project. One of the tasks they tackled was revising port area names in the Reach as they were too long and were being cut off by the UI. This is a great example of some of the conflicting pieces that go into game development and why it has to be so iterative. Chris and Olivia also worked with Richard Cobbett, one of our excellent freelancers, who was pitching his ideas for a port in Albion. Meanwhile, James worked on loot and death storylets for sky-beasts. Lesleyann also tackled testing the mechanics of the Magdalene port. GAMEPLAY AND DESIGN Besides his UI work, Liam also implemented the ‘options’ panel, adding audio and both UI and font scaling as options. A ‘graphics’ menu was also added by Mac, which when it is finished, will allow users to change their screen resolutions for the game. Mac also worked on implementing how players will be able to spend their experience points in the character progression screen. Players will be able to use their experience points on special storylets that will grant them skill stats. For example, in Fallen London they’re Watchful, Shadowy, Dangerous and Persuasive. In Sunless Skies they are Iron, Hearts, Mirrors and Veils.
When players spend their experience point, a roleplaying storylet will appear that will allow them to choose one of two options. Your choice allows you to shape your character and their history.
Adam and Caolain both worked on the design and implementation of two of our AI agents, Adam on the Cantankeri (which Liam showed in a previous podcast) and Caolain on the Tackety Scout. Alongside this, Adam also worked on adjusting many of the player controller variables. These adjustments affect how the player-locomotive move. The adjustments included things like max speed, lateral thrust and heat gained from thrust. All these tweaks are made to ensure that the movement and all the controls of the locomotive feels right when players fly through the High Wilderness, and will certainly be an area of feedback we're looking to receiving from Early Access. The tech team and Lesleyann have also working on finding and fixing any of the bugs scurrying about! If you’d like to know more about what to expect for Early Access, you can read more about it in our earlier post or, tune in to our next FBG Podcast on Friday 4th of August at 16:00 BST. Ahead of the podcast feel free to send any questions to @failbettergames on Twitter.

Skyfarers, ready your locomotives! Sunless Skies will be coming to Steam Early Access and GOG Games in Development the 30th of August! The feedback we received in Early Access for Sunless Sea was pivotal to its development, and we look forward to hearing your thoughts on Sunless Skies over the coming months. Kickstarter backers, keep your eyes on whichever email you used for Kickstarter for your key. Anyone else who’d like to join at this early stage will be able to purchase the game for 10% off its full price of £18.99 / $24.99 during the first week of Early Access. Initially, players will be able to explore the Reach, one of the four regions of the High Wilderness, with other regions being added in throughout development: The Reach is a verdant, sunless frontier. London pioneers—spearheaded by the avaricious Windward Company—establish far-flung colonies and plunder the riches of the region's ruins and wild gardens. But many colonists crave independence from the Empire, and the Reach is rife with conflict. Will you be one of the lucky few who strikes it rich? Or one of the masses broken amidst the green wastes? Mechanically, players can expect a broad skeleton of gameplay features to be available. You’ll be able to explore the skies, dock at ports, interact with stories, trade, fight and die. Opening the game to players in Early Access will provide us with crucial feedback and data to help us create a game that's delicious, delightful, and dangerous. We are incredibly excited to send you amongst the stars and look forward to experiencing this next chapter of development with you. Note: Please do keep in mind that like any Early Access game, Sunless Skies will not be in a complete state, and will go through changes ahead of its full release, based on player feedback and our development of the game. If you would like to wait until the bugs are ironed out, the gameplay is final and the stories are finished, we suggest that you wait until the official game release.

The INVARIANTHEORIE sprint continues our work at fleshing out the Reach ahead of Early Access. Art has been finishing up ports while also delving into even more ambiences, icons and decorations. Meanwhile Content have been working on experience accrual designs and working on Kickstarter backer rewards such as Correspondence and geographical location names. Tech have accomplished a myriad of different pieces to ensure all the bits and bobs are running for Early Access, including melee attacks, trade loops, scenic spawns and character progression! ART Now that many of the ports are on their polish stages, Paul and Tobias have been busy at work with ambiences, icons and decorations.
Many of the icons will be of characters involved in stories connected to the ports you visit. For example, last sprint we saw the Romantic Ornithologist, which players will meet at the Leadbeater & Stainrod Nature Reserve. This sprint Tobias has been hard at work on the Amenable Host, who will feature in Magdalenes.
Other icons and ambiences will incorporate landscapes for ports and places in the High Wilderness, as well as all UI, goods and quality icons within the game. Liam has also been attending to various pieces that required a UI pass, such as the Chart and Journal page. He's also crafted a UI style guide, so anyone on the team will have a clear representation of the design behind the UI. This will come in handy in case anyone else needs to tweak or make additional assets for the UI (or marketing assets) while understanding the master design behind it all. Alongside the UI work, Liam has also animated the Reach Marauder vessel.
Paul has also spent some time this sprint tackling the character creation and avatar generator assets, which you will have seen a prototype of during our Kickstarter! The prototype we shared only showed a few variations, but as we continue towards full release, Paul will be creating more assets for each category, such as chin, nose, brow, hats, etc. and will be working ensure there's more diversity available for players to choose from. CONTENT This sprint, Chris immersed himself in spreadsheets. First he tackled designing experience accrual, or how much experience players receive for defeating agents. His second delve into spreadsheets was to take a look at our Kickstarter backer responses for both those who get to create a Correspondence sigil and those who get to have a geographical location name. We provided the various backer tiers with different prompts for each, then Chris has a look and designs a name based on the information they've provided. For example, for the location name, backers provided us with:

• their full name, beloved's name, or pet's name
• their profession or hobby
• and their foremost virtue and chiefest vice

The HYPERGALAXY sprint finds us continuing to enrich the Reach. Art have finished their first pass at all the ports of the Reach and started on Ambiences, Decorations and a UI pass. Meanwhile, Content have written a tutorial specifically for Early Access, created a system to track faction conflict in New Winchester and created base content for Albion. Besides working on bug fixes for the Alpha, the Tech crew have been continuing their work on weapons, creating the in-game chart, and implementing plenty of UI and HUD systems. ART We had a very joyous moment during our Sprint Review meeting where Paul showed us a collage of all the ports on screen—the first pass on all the ports in the Reach is finished! Both Paul and Tobias will in a later sprint go back over them with polish to finalise them. Tobias has also begun creating Decorations, which are non-interactive background scenes that players will fly through on their journey through space. These may include things like the beanstalks below, or shards of wreckage from battles past.
Paul and Tobias also discussed Ambiences, which are the background scenes that accompany storylets.
Not all storylets will have need of an icon, so Ambiences need to be able to fill up the entire space and also give a sense of atmosphere and location.
Paul also did a pass over the UI, tweaking the art nouveau to be more functional (rather than overly aesthetic).

We have all also fallen in love with Tobias’ rendition of the Romantic Ornithologist.
CONTENT One of Content’s first tasks this sprint was to devise a simple tutorial specifically for Early Access. In it, players will be able to explore their ship and learn about the game's mechanics and setting. James and Chris have also been working on the Winchester War: the conflict over the Reach, between the Windward Company and the Tacketies. The fortunes of each side fluctuate as time passes, and players can throw their weight behind one faction, or try to play each against the other. If one side gains dominance, they'll seize New Winchester, driving their rivals out! This has been quite a feat for us, as the quality-based narrative (QBN) that's used within our games is designed for responsive, player-facing stories, rather than background simulation. We think we've cracked it, though! Cash and Chris have also been working on the first content for our second region: Albion. They began, of course, with London, where you'll be able to curry favour with the well-paying Ministry of Public Decency, or support the underground New Street Line. You can also take part in the wargaming weekends of one Mr H. G. Wells. A number of senior military figures attend them to experiment with new strategies. Play correctly, and with the move of a handful of tiny soldiers, you may be able to influence the outcome of the war in the Reach! GAMEPLAY AND DESIGN Mac has continued work on weaponry, specifically creating an arc mechanic to different types of ammunition. Not only does this allow our team to be able to create different movement to different types of ammunition, but is also part of our work on accessibility for difficulty settings. Along with this he’s also started to implement force, so if an opponent is hit with a shotgun, they will be pushed back by the force of it. This sprint Barry started to develop the player chart—the in-game map that allows players to see where they have been and what has yet to be discovered. Below is a shot at the first pass at this, which shows the fog of war around the player-locomotive. Below is a shot of Barry's work to date, using Failbetter's world-renowned programmer art! We'll be getting Liam and Paul to beautify it in the near future.
Meanwhile, Liam has been implementing plenty of UI, including the Hold, Possessions, Profile Page, Officers, and also some heat animations on the HUD. The Hold UI features multiples of items, as opposed to stacks, and visually updates in real-time.
PRODUCTION We're particularly excited to welcome Lesleyann, our newest Failbetter recruit, as QA tester on [ir]Sunless Skies! She's just getting started - getting to grips with the game to date, learning all 7,777 names of the office rats, etc - but will be vital in making sure Sunless Skies is the most polished it can be on launch. Our next FBG Podcast will be Friday 7th July at 16:00 BST! Feel free to tweet @Failbettergames your questions ahead of time, or ask in chat on Twitch! Our next sprint, INVARIANTHEORIE, where we’ll be taking a look at bug fixes from the Alpha, music and audio triggers, and implementing Scouts!

Now that we've spent some sprints building the Reach, GANYMEDE is where we begin adding flesh to the skeleton we’ve constructed. Art have continued their construction of ports, officers, locomotives and worked on improving the docking platforms. The content team outlined the next area of the High Wilderness: Albion. Tech have been busy implementing wrath, heat, armaments, shop mechanics and storylet UI. Art This sprint Tobias (formerly known as Toby here) began work on the Royal Society port! Backers managed to achieve all five portions of this port during the Kickstarter.
The once-moribund Royal Society of inventors, explorers, and scientists has received a generous grant from Her Enduring Majesty and a renewed mandate: to unravel the mysteries of the High Wilderness! Both Paul and Tobias also finished up some of the officers. Below you can see the Incautious Driver as well as Sunless Skies’ version of an old favourite, the Blind Bruiser.
Art also spent some time redesigning the docking experience at ports, which Tobias implemented.
With this version, players can pull into the dock from either direction, however, the dock will expel players’ locomotives out of the dock in only a single direction. The artists were far too delighted envisioning being able to rev up the locomotive’s’ engine so that docks would actually shoot locomotives back into space. This has yet to be tested as a possibility. Content This sprint, the content team have developed a comprehensive story document for the game's second region: Albion! Albion represents London's core territories, basking in the radiance of the Clockwork Sun. Creating a document like this is an involved process. We take our initial high-level outline of a region and drill mercilessly into it, pitching ideas for ports, quests, conflicts, and discoveries. Every member of the team pitches concepts and takes part in the discussion, and we bring members of other teams in (production, tech, comms, analytics) to pitch and contribute, too. Every pitch gets polished, expanded and tied into the overall stories of the region. Some pitches won't make it to the final game - we can't do everything we'd love to, so (as much as it pains us) we have to choose the ones that work best together. Then Chris takes the pitches and discussion and compiles them all into a document. Writers get an opportunity to make final amendment to their pitches, and then the document is shared with the whole company so everyone can offer feedback. That feedback is discussed, then incorporated into a final (ish) version of the document. Then we can start writing ports! Speaking of which, here's a sneak peak at the list of the ports we're considering for Albion, a few of which may ring bells for fans of Sunless Sea and Fallen London: Avid Horizon, the Clockwork Sun, the Brabazon workworld, the Most Serene Mausoleum, Worlebury-Juxta-Mare, Ephemera, Eagle's Empyrean, and the Floating Parliament. Cash and James also worked on one of the Reach’s remaining ports: Polmear & Plenty’s Inconceivable Circus, where weary acrobats and grizzled clowns entertain an audience of visitors. A handful of those visitors will choose to stay here, and never leave. Are they charmed by the magic of the Big Top? Or is it something deeper? Exceptional Freelancers We can also reveal some of the exceptional freelancers who have already begun work on ports for Sunless Skies. All three worked extensively on Sunless Sea, and are experienced with our processes and tools. They're already sinking their (very sharp) teeth into the new story possibilities offered by expansions to our narrative content system. These freelancers are: Meg Jayanth (80 Days, Horizon: Zero Dawn): who wrote the Isle of Cats and Varchas in Sunless Sea. Emily Short (Galatea, Inform 7, Versu) - who wrote Station III, Visage, Nuncio, Dahut, Anthe and Aigul for Sunless Sea and Zubmariner. Richard Cobbett (The Long Journey Home, games journalism) whose Sunless Sea and Zubmariner work includes Saviour's Rocks, the Empire of Hands, Mr Sacks, the Pirate Poet, Nook and the Gant Pole. Gameplay and Design Barry implemented heat, a subtle mechanic with big effects in-game. You'll primarily notice this in combat, when you'll see firing your guns and moving at top speed slowly increase your locomotive's heat gauge until - if you're not careful - your engines may overheat. This won't result in immediate destruction, but you'll be punished with an array of possible effects for running your equipment too hard. This applies both to the player's and agent locomotives. Barry has also implemented Wrath, which Adam discussed last week on the FBG Podcast. Wrath represents an agent's current hostility towards another agent or the player. This allows agents to fight one another when it logically makes sense, and also allows players to identify simple narratives in regards to why the fight occurred. Wrath is modified by provocations, which can be instantaneous (like being hit by an attack) or periodic (like a specific type of agent being a certain distance away). When an agent's Wrath towards any other agent or the player is at a certain level, the agent is marked as hostile and will enter combat! Meanwhile Mac worked on implementing shop functionality in ports, and our first run at the cannon and shotgun armaments, which are featured below (more glamorous gifs to come as armaments progress).
We've agreed the Art Nouveau style we'd like for our UI, and Liam's now going in and implementing this across the game. This should do a great deal to establish the tone and time of Sunless Skies. He’s also been refining the transitions to create a sleeker feel.
Our next FBG Podcast will be Friday 22nd June at 16:00 BST, where we’ll be happy to take your questions. Our next sprint, HYPERGALAXY, will feature bug fixes, weapons content and locomotive UI!

Our latest sprint FORTUNE continues the work of populating the Reach! Both character creation and character progression specs have been designed. Meanwhile, Tech was focused on finalising the storylet service, a fundamental piece of code which enables the player to interact with stories in-game. Both Art and Content have been continuing their work on filling out ports, locomotives, wrecks, characters and even our first Ambition! Art Both artists have been working at full steam this sprint. While Paul has been busy with the Leadbeater & Stainrod Nature Reserve, Toby worked on a port called Magdalene’s.
Pulled from the art brief: The glass spires of Magdalene's pierce the clouds like swords stuck in the firmament. If you’ve been enjoying our FBG Podcasts, you may have seen a sneak peek of Paul’s updated version of the Inconvenient Aunt during our art podcast. Here she is in all her inconvenient glory.
Toby has been bringing a few more locomotives to life. As we continue development, you’ll see various classes of vessel. Previously, we’ve shared a Tackety Scout. This sprint we have a Reach Marauder! A ship captained by the sky-maddened: those who have looked too long at the stars.
Content This sprint James was tasked with creating pitches for various locomotives that will be seen throughout the High Wilderness. Each vessel is pitched with a name, an outline of their fiction, an art brief, a difficulty tier, and proposals for their behavior. Chris and James also began work on the first ambition for Sunless Skies. This ambition resembles the 'Retire to a Life of Luxury' ambition from Sunless Sea. Unlike in Sunless Sea though, players don't have to retire in only London. In addition to accruing a big retirement fund, players need to purchase accommodation suitable to the manner in which they want to retire, and they can do so in any of the major hubs: London, New Winchester, Pan or the House of the Feather. Gameplay and Design Quite a bit of tech work this sprint went into preparations for the closed alpha. For example, Mac ensured there were versions of Sunless Skies across all three operating systems: PC, Mac and Linux. Liam and Mac also worked on the storylet service, which has many different pieces that allow the storylet content to function. These may include the functionality of how storylets update or how available storylets are called up when a player enters a port. Meanwhile, Barry has been implementing passions, which are what control AI behaviour when not in combat. Passions can have a wide range of effects: the possibilities include making a pirate hunt trading vessels, or causing a creature to seek out others of its kind, or visit particular features (like wells or wrecks). Note that these are just examples: we haven't decided exactly which ones to implement yet. We've designed the system to be flexible and easy to extend. Our next FBG Podcast will be Friday 9th June at 16:00 BST, where we’ll be happy to take your questions. In our next sprint, GANYMEDE, we'll be working to enrich the Reach with audio, legacies and scouts!

In order to help us find and fix bugs during Sunless Skies development, we will be holding a closed alpha, beginning 5th June!
GOALS This alpha will help us find technical bugs and discover initial player experience within the framework of Sunless Skies. WHAT YOU CAN EXPECT If you are interested in being involved with the development of the game and aiding the production of Sunless Skies, we'd love to have you join our alpha list. Joining the alpha means experiencing Sunless Skies in a very unpolished state, without all features implemented, and plenty of bugs. If that doesn’t sound appealing to you, it’s best to wait for Early Access, which will begin this summer, where players will be able to experience a more complete piece of Sunless Skies while we’re still in development. Early Access will start with a single region available to players in a close-to-finished state. TIMELINE Alpha testing will begin the 5th of June and run until the end of July. During this time, we will invite people from the alpha list in batches to help us test Sunless Skies, so it’ll be important to keep an eye on your email for your invitation link. REQUIREMENTS

• Must have a Steam account you can use
• PC/Mac/Linux operating system

• People who have played Failbetter games before
• PC gamers who haven’t played our games before (especially RPG fans)
• Players with accessibility requirements, so we can build Sunless Skies with specific accessibility feedback in mind
• People who have QA or previous testing experience (though not required!)

• This is a closed alpha, so not everyone is guaranteed to get in
• Only join the alpha if you don’t mind an unpolished state of play full of bugs
• You need a Steam account to help us test
• PC/Mac/Linux alpha will start 5th June alpha will close at the end of July
• You will not be able to carry through your character into Early Access

Our EXOGENESIS sprint is our first specific pass at populating the Reach, which means working on its denizens from officers to the agents you’ll encounter in the skies. Our art team, which has recently doubled, continued their work on ports, brought some agents to life, and created our first pass art pass over the UI. Content also continued work on various ports, while also creating a magnificent spreadsheet that will help keep track of Sunless Skies’ officers. Meanwhile, tech busied themselves with expanding on the pathfinding discussed last sprint, along with implementing tooltips (hugely important for our wordy games), balancing survival mechanics, and implementing agents. ART While Paul is busy tackling Titania, one of our more complex ports so far, we’ve wasted no time putting Toby to work. His first job was Hybras, a rather fungal settlement with a dark secret.
Toby also created one of our agents, a Tackety Scout, while Paul tackled the Scrive Spinster. During the Sprint Review we all oohed and awed over both, though the Tackety Scout stole our hearts. In James’ words, “It looks like it might explode at any minute....it's perfect.”
Meanwhile the art team has been giving Liam’s initial UI wireframes an Art Nouveau-influenced facelift. Below you can see some initial designs on how they might look, though we’re sure they will go through a few iterations.
CONTENT The writers tackled two more ports this sprint. James fleshed out the London stronghold, Port Prosper, where London Loyalists (or opportunists) can accept bounties for hunting pirates and Tacketies. Meanwhile Cash designed the Leadbeater & Stainrod Nature Reserve, where a research outpost conducts investigations into the secrets of the Reach. Officers Another beautiful spreadsheet has also been created, this time it’s all about officers. While the writers are currently pitching their content ideas for officers, this spreadsheet details which slot they’d go in (First Officer, Signaller, Quartermaster, Chief Engineer, and - of course - Mascot), where players would recruit them, which bonuses they’d provide, and how bonuses would change when upgraded. This lets us ensure that officers provide an even distribution of bonuses, and ensure that there are satisfying choices to be made for each slot. Non-Player Locomotives Meanwhile, we’ve started turning our Kickstarter backer survey responses into locomotive names! We’d like to note that no fewer than three people recommended “HML Ubiquitous” and we feel strongly that all three should be entered in the game. In Sunless Skies, when certain non-player locomotives spawn in the game, they're given unique names. So instead of seeing a generic Tackety Scout, you might see the 'UCE Vagabond'. These names are drawn from a list of six hundred entries inspired by our wonderful backers. Our task has been to take information provided by them and turn it into names that fit the period and tone of Sunless Skies. Six hundred times. Six actual hundred. If you haven’t filled out your Kickstarter Survey, please do so at your earliest convenience! And if you know someone who hasn’t, poke them! GAMEPLAY & DESIGN Continuing the pathfinding work for combat, Barry has focused on long-distance pathfinding this sprint.
Some background on this: pathfinding in Sunless Skies will be based on nodes, points on a mesh. When an AI agent needs to get somewhere, it looks for the best (usually, the shortest) path from its current location to the destination node. The world of Sunless Skies is very large, and pathfinding between nodes that are very far apart is computationally expensive. We could solve this problem by making it so that AI agents only move around when the player is nearby. But in Sunless Skies we want agents to sometimes remain active and pursue their own agendas at distant locations. So we need a more efficient method for them to find their way around. The solution we’re using is to group all the nodes in a given area together, and treat them all as a single point on a larger meta-mesh that covers the entire map. Even though it covers the whole map, the number of nodes on it is manageable. So the AI can use it efficiently for long-distance pathfinding, and then switch to local pathfinding to deal with obstacles in its immediate area. Our next FBG Podcast will be this Friday 26 May, at 16:00 BST! This week will be focused on art, to answer any questions you may have about the art process, especially now that we have multiple artists!

In DARK MATTER we foray further into combat! Tech have been busy plotting enemy behavior and implementing pathfinding. Meanwhile, our writers have continued spinning tales for the ports within the Reach. This sprint, we also welcome a new artist to our team—Toby! ART First off, a very warm and exceptional welcome to our new artist Toby Cook! We are delighted to have him onboard this space locomotive with us and we’re sure we’ll be featuring his work within these blogs sometime soon. Paul has been continuing to bring various ports within the Reach to life. This sprint, we’ll give you a glimpse of Traitor’s Wood:
Traitor’s Wood: “A gloomy forest rears up from a flinty outcropping. Grave firs rise in furrows behind the station, where a few gaudy tents have been set up, sheltering from the persistent drizzle. A great stone bulk, like a barrow mound, rises over the trees in the far distance.” Paul and Chris have also been fine-tuning the art brief process now that we have more than one artist! CONTENT James and Olivia fleshed out two different ports this sprint: Hybras and Magdalene’s. Hybras was a once-promising port, but suddenly and mysteriously became deserted. It’ll be up to you to uncover the fate of its inhabitants. Magdalene’s on the other hand is a port that will allow players to improve their Condition. For a price, the skilled staff at Magdalene's will tell you precisely the lies you need to hear. Terror works differently in Sunless Skies to Sunless Sea. Every time Terror reaches 100, your Condition worsens. Reducing Terror is easy; improving Condition is hard. But Magdalene's is one of the few places you can do so. But be warned: each time you do, the price goes up. Chris has also been putting his sinister talents into creating a Discovery called Old Tom’s Well. In Sunless Skies, wells are wounds in the heavens, often used to banish and imprison beings which are disinclined to die. At Old Tom's Well you can encounter the Cursing Church, a fledgling sect which considers the wells sacred. GAMEPLAY & DESIGN Now that Barry is back from his holiday, he’s been heavily working on different aspects of combat. One of the first things he shared with us during our sprint review meeting this week was the pathfinding he’s implemented.
Note: The light blue squares are the path for the agitated agent. The green line is its next target. Then he proved his driving skills as two enemy agent locomotives chased after him. Barry also implemented what we call Tactics, the motivation for which paths agents choose to take. We'll build on this further next sprint with Wrath and Passions, the driving factors behind agents' (locomotives or beasties) behaviour in-game.
Tactics are meant to be modular and reusable. In Sunless Sea players could expect enemy vessels or passive vessels, but in Sunless Skies it’s not so black and white. In the High Wilderness, players can expect to find these agents have a variety of different motives. When we design them, we’re no longer thinking “will it fight the player?” but rather “when will it fight the player” and “what else will it do?” Our very first sound effects have also been commissioned, such as different engine sounds for our three types of player locomotive, changes to Terror levels, and discover and general UI interaction sounds. Lottie and Liam have been working with the lovely Soundcuts team on these, the same audio production studio we worked with for Zubmariner's SFX. This Friday at 16:00 BST we’ll be holding our bi-weekly FBG Podcast on Twitch—we do hope you’ll join us! Lottie will be hosting this week, as Haley will be off on holiday in America, and will be joined by Sam and James. If you have any questions for them to discuss in the podcast, feel free to send them to @Failbettergames! Our next sprint, EXOGENESIS will be all about the people of the Reach, as we begin designing crew, locomotives, and more agents!

CHROMOSPHERE brings us our first animations and our first pass at quite a few complex tasks! We also get to see different terrain types within the Reach, animations for the player’s locomotive (so much steam!), and a few AI agent animations. Tech has been busy with our first-pass at combat implementation, title screens, storylet-UI, and collision damage. The Content team, besides writing up stories for wrecks and discoveries, have been very busy working out the complexities of a randomised loot system for Sunless Skies. In fact, we haven’t seen them in a few days. We should probably check on them. ART If you saw our Sunless Skies development roadmap, the term ‘iterative design’ will be very familiar. In a similar fashion, Paul has been iteratively creating ports within the Reach. He’ll lay down a skeleton of what each port could look like, and then at a later date go around and add more detail and finalised touches. In Chromosphere he’s been busy with the ports New Winchester, Carillon and Port Prosper.
In the third panel above you can get a glimpse of what a dock may look like (though of course things may change as we continue through development). Please be sure to mind the gap. CONTENT Content have been diving into maths this Sprint in order to create Sunless Skies' randomised loot system: the Cache of Curiosities! The Cache of Curiosities returns from Sunless Sea. It's a randomised loot system used to generate the contents of wrecked ships, abandoned homesteads, and secret stashes. We want to keep the surprise and flavour players got from looting wrecks in Sunless Sea, while using the content to convey tidbits about life among the stars. In addition, we've made it easier for writers to plug these rewards into their content. It’s now easier for them to adjust the average value of a particular cache, and easier to match rewards to challenges. The spreadsheets James forged in the creation of this content are as beautiful and terrible as an encroaching star. Also in this sprint, we've been working on Discoveries. Discoveries are randomised locations and objects you can find in the skies, which have content attached to them. They might be wrecks, homesteads, asteroids, or anything else we can come up with! One of the Discoveries worked on this sprint was the wreck of the Parzifal, one of the Legendary Wrecks! The writers also insisted on sharing pictures of mushrooms with the office throughout their research for some fungal meteoroids. GAMEPLAY & DESIGN Now that Mac's implemented a rough title screen, we've been playing builds of the game internally! Here you can see us oohing and awwing over his shoulder:
He has also been working on collision damage for players’ locomotives, by assigning different materials with ‘soft’, ‘medium’, or ‘hard’ qualities. When a locomotive bumps into something, it will take that quality along with the current speed, into consideration before tallying the damage done. Mac also took a look at creating a straightforward way for the Content team to be able to add or edit different content-specific areas within ports, such as stories or shops. Sam has been busy implementing Liam’s storylet-UI designs into the game so our writers can begin inserting actual content into the game and begin testing out stories. This sounds straightforward, but is quite a complex task and forms a large part of a Failbetter game! Meanwhile, Liam has been animating various sky-beasts and horrifying us all with his swarm animation.
Beside the bees (bees!) he has also been working on things like the Scrive-Spinster, with all their pages fluttering through space, and, very excitingly, one of the player-locomotive’s animations. Liam’s been working on animating our locomotives in a way that gives as much immediate feedback as possible, so players can see and feel how their locomotive races through space.
In order to do this, he’s been using the steam trails and some parallax. For example, the locomotive sways from side to side when it turns so it feels much more 3D and realistic in its maneuvering compared to the relatively static boat animations in Sunless Sea. Players will also notice that when their locomotive’s going full speed, the steam trail will appear longer than at slower speeds. All these pieces of animation work together to create a more satisfying feel to moving throughout the world. This Friday at 16:00 BST, we’ll be back with another FBG Podcast! We’ll be discussing the Sunless Skies Roadmap, so you if any question on game development scheduling or about the roadmap itself, please come join us on Twitch!

If you’ve been with us since the early days of Sunless Sea development, you’ll remember there was a Sunless Sea development roadmap. The roadmap allows players to see where we currently are in development, as well as where we’re headed. You can now find the Sunless Skies Development Roadmap on our website! We’ll be updating the page regularly and linking all of our development blogs to their corresponding sprints. We’ll also be discussing the roadmap on our next FBG Podcast on 28 April at 16:00 BST, in case you have any questions about game development or the roadmap itself!

The final sprint in March is BIG BANG! This sprint features quite a bit of work from our writers, as they begin to shape Sunless Skies with names and descriptions of sky-beasts and different vessel classifications. You possibly may have heard us mention bees before as well, which Paul has brought to life. Tech have also started the very first steps on combat with work on combat AI specifications.

CONTENT

ART

GAMEPLAY AND DESIGN

The second sprint in March, APHELION Pt 2, features an art terrain pipeline, a new port, character progression, and further work on implementing fuel and hunger within the game UI. This sprint also included some changes to the Terror mechanic.

ART

CONTENT

DESIGN AND GAMEPLAY

March’s first Sunless Skies sprint is APHELION. This sprint focuses on The Reach: the first region in Sunless Skies, where you will begin your journey. It also involves big chunks of setup for later regions: hunger, death, time, fuel - all of the basic building blocks of our game.

Design and Gameplay

Stories

Art

• Basic chassis (including the boiler at the top and crew quarters at the bottom)
• Armour
• Guns
• Colour flourishes

Hello. How are you? It's so nice to be back on Steam. You can wishlist Sunless Skies now! Hooray! If you wishlist, you'll get a notification when it's available in Early Access. Certainly worth doing if you're excited to jump in as soon as the game is available. At the beginning of Early Access we're planning to release a single region of the eventual four that will be in the game. It's up to you whether you can't wait and want to get playing immediately (in which case we'll really value your feedback!) or want to hold off until everything is complete, which will be around May 2018. We'll be sharing development updates for Sunless Skies here, but there are some more sources you might like to follow:

• Failbetter Games on Twitter
• The Failbetter Games Podcast on YouTube or live on Twitch every other week
• Sunless Skies on The Failbetter Blog