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.