Info about Bulwark Evolution: Falconeer Chronicles: Official game description: INTRODUCING A CREATIVE SANDBOX BUILDING GAME: --------------------------------------------- Bulwark is about designing your fortress and expanding it into an empire. I hope you enjoy my attempts to experiment and evolve this game into something enjoyable and fresh. Bulwark also continues to evolve with each passing update, based on your feedback. So positive or negative comments are welcome. If it’s intended to help then it’s all appreciated, either here in the forums or in the friendly discord. Story: ------ You are in charge of the last remnants of free people on the Ursee, tasked with building a new home. Carve your path onto a world, tower by tower, wall by wall, sculpting from the daunting cliffs and perilous waters of an unforgiving landscape that refuses to be tamed. Game goals: ----------- Design fantastic ocean fortress settlements. Progress is simple, grow the populations of various factions and you will progress on their Soultrees. Unlocking commanders and captains that may work for you, unlocking new ships, units and abilities. Play Your Way: -------------- Bulwark - Explore the Great Ursee as you build your grand civilisation. Scavenge for resources,create trade routes and strike alliances with other factions scattered across the waves as you balance negotiation and conflict to grow your settlement. Freebuild - Enjoy a cosy ‘Freebuild Mode’, devoid of the conflict and challenges present in standard play, you can sketch and experiment without the need for resources, building without limits. Total Conquest - War has come to the Great Ursee. You start at war with every faction, diplomacy is disabled and the frequency and scale of raids is ramped up. It is no longer enough to just build - now you must survive. Building Resources: ------------------- Wood, stone and Iron aren’t stored or tallied up, the only thing that counts is distance, not cost. You transport resources along your network of towers as well as trading routes over the sea. Towers and walls within range of the resource can be upgraded and built for free, those out of range cannot. Splinters : ----------- The currency that powers diplomacy, army building, buying new locations and unique buildings is separate from resources, it runs on a currency called, Splinters. You gain these through population growth, trade with other factions or as rewards from combat. Challenge: ---------- The game challenges you to design and grow grand fortresses, often at little cost other than setting up trade routes for resources. As you grow you may invite in populations from other factions which unlock faction unique content from their “soultree”. But everybody hates everybody on the Ursee and doing so might lead to war or to loyal allies that merge with your empire. This sandbox builder has consequences! Release date: 26 Mar, 2024 Categories: Sandbox Creation, Base Building, City Builder, Resource Management, Diplomacy, Strategic Combat, Open-World Exploration, Ship Management - Hardware Profile: No data Feature extractions: - Community Price: No data - Playtime Metrics: No data - Time-to-fun: No data - Player Archetypes: No data Below are summaries of things people say about the game per category. Each point is assigned a weight that represents how often it is mentioned across all reviews. What players like: - Stunning visuals and atmosphere (weight 0.95): The game boasts beautiful and stunning visuals, a unique art style, and a captivating atmosphere that enhances the overall experience. The detailed environments, architecture, and landscapes contribute to an immersive and visually pleasing world. - Relaxing, chill city-building experience (weight 0.91): The game offers a relaxing and chill city-building experience, allowing players to experiment and create without harsh resource constraints or fail states. This casual and therapeutic gameplay is suitable for short bursts or extended sessions, providing a mindful and enjoyable experience. - Creative, intuitive building mechanics (weight 0.85): The game features simple, intuitive, and satisfying building mechanics that allow for creative freedom and the construction of impressive cities and fortresses. Players can easily create visually appealing structures without excessive micromanagement, leading to an enjoyable and immersive experience. - Intriguing setting and lore (weight 0.81): The game features an intriguing setting with rich lore and world-building elements that encourage exploration and discovery. The combination of city-building with adventure and exploration creates a unique and immersive experience. - Unique, immersive city-builder (weight 0.73): The game offers a unique take on the city-building genre, with immersive building and exploration mechanics. The reviewer loves the atmosphere and aesthetic of the game, describing it as a wonderful little art project of a game that is iterating on itself. - Fun, addictive gameplay experience (weight 0.6): The game is described as fun, enjoyable, and addictive, drawing players in and making it difficult to stop playing. Despite its simplicity, the game offers surprising depth and provides a rewarding experience that keeps players engaged for hours. - Active and responsive developer (weight 0.19): The developer is highly active, responsive, and dedicated to improving the game, providing regular updates and incorporating community feedback. This commitment to ongoing development ensures fresh content, bug fixes, and a continuously evolving gameplay experience. - Unique and innovative gameplay (weight 0.17): The game offers a unique and innovative gameplay experience with original mechanics and a singular vision. The art style and core ideas are solid, creating a captivating and unexpected experience that sets it apart from other games in the genre. - Diverse factions, strategic gameplay (weight 0.14): The game features diverse factions with unique designs and gameplay styles, adding variety and replayability. The addition of warfare and strategic elements, such as managing armies and trade routes, enhances the depth and engagement of the game. - Cool building aesthetics (weight 0.05): The buildings look really cool, and the megacities look pretty awesome and organic. The building style is unique, and the modality of the buildings is sure to keep you building for hours. - Good controller support (weight 0.03): The game offers controller support, making it playable with an Xbox controller. The controls are designed to be as simple as possible with gamepad or mouse, making the deliberate movement acceptable. - Excellent music and ambiance (weight 0.03): The music and ambiance contribute to an excellent overall experience. The atmosphere is rich and well done, with superb music and tunes. Common complaints: - Clunky and unintuitive controls (weight 0.76): The game's controls and camera system are frequently criticized as clunky, unintuitive, and restrictive, making navigation and building placement difficult. Players struggle with awkward camera angles, limited movement options, and unconventional control schemes. These issues detract significantly from the overall experience. - Poor tutorial and guidance (weight 0.73): The game suffers from a poorly designed and inadequate tutorial that fails to explain core mechanics, leading to player confusion and frustration. Players are often left to learn through trial and error or seek external resources. This lack of guidance contributes to a steep learning curve and a sense of aimlessness. - Lacks depth and content (weight 0.72): The game feels incomplete due to a lack of content, depth, and polish. Reviewers cite repetitive gameplay, a short playtime, missing features, and a general sense that the game hasn't reached its full potential. Some reviewers explicitly compare the game to an early access title. - Repetitive and boring gameplay (weight 0.68): The core gameplay loop becomes repetitive and boring quickly, often involving excessive clicking and a lack of meaningful choices. The building system lacks depth and variation, leading to a grindy experience. This repetitiveness diminishes long-term engagement. - Simplistic and shallow combat (weight 0.68): The game's combat system is simplistic, automated, and lacks strategic depth. AI opponents are weak and offer little challenge, further diminishing the engagement. Battles often feel inconsequential and lack meaningful player input. - Flawed resource/trade systems (weight 0.11): The game's resource and trade systems are flawed, with limited trade ship availability and unintuitive mechanics. Players struggle with establishing effective trade routes and managing resources across multiple islands. The limited number of captains creates a bottleneck for resource management. - Tedious micro-management required (weight 0.07): Micro-management is tedious due to clunky controls and a lack of streamlined interfaces. Managing trade routes, fleets, and commanders requires excessive manual intervention, disrupting the flow of gameplay. The port system is confusing and restrictive. - Artificial limitations on building (weight 0.06): The game imposes artificial limitations on building and resource management, such as restricted buildable areas and limited numbers of characters and buildings. These restrictions hinder player freedom and strategic options, making the game feel more constrained than other city-building games. - Technical issues and bugs (weight 0.04): The game suffers from technical issues such as crashes, a missing mouse cursor, and a lack of essential features like a save rollback. These issues can lead to lost progress and a frustrating player experience. - Underdeveloped faction interactions (weight 0.03): Faction interactions and diplomacy feel underdeveloped and can lead to frustrating situations. Acquiring a faction leader can trigger widespread hostility, and rival factions may declare war based on population growth. Gameplay feedback: - Relaxed sandbox city-building with RTS (weight 0.38): The game blends city-building with RTS and 4X elements in a sandbox environment. It emphasizes creative construction and exploration over complex resource management, offering a relaxed and meditative experience. The core gameplay loop involves building, connecting structures, and managing simple resources. - Faction interaction and diplomacy (weight 0.11): The game features interactions with different factions through diplomacy, trade, or war. Managing relationships between factions and protecting trade routes are important aspects of the gameplay. Population growth of opposing factions can create challenges, influencing diplomacy and potentially leading to conflict. - Exploration and resource management (weight 0.08): Exploration is a key element, typically done via an airship, to discover resources, new locations, and encounters. Resource management is simplified, but resources can be limited, encouraging strategic expansion and trade routes. Players must balance exploration with resource acquisition to thrive. - Shallow building and combat systems (weight 0.04): Some reviewers found the building and combat systems to be underdeveloped. The game may lean more towards exploration and expansion than deep city-building or tactical combat. This can lead to a less impactful experience when cities are attacked or when trying to create impressive city expansions. - Limited unit control in combat (weight 0.03): Players have limited control over units, often relying on mercenaries or pre-set squads. Combat is automated, with commanders providing combatants for escorts. This can result in a less strategic and more hands-off combat experience compared to traditional RTS games. - Large open world, random events (weight 0.03): The game features a large, open map with randomly occurring events, enhancing replayability. It includes both a campaign mode and a free game mode for varied experiences. Procedural generation contributes to the game's depth and ensures each playthrough is unique. - Trade routes and harbor management (weight 0.03): Establishing trade routes between islands requires harbors and skilled captains. These routes need protection from pirates and enemy factions. Buildings are constructed across islands, emphasizing the importance of interconnectedness and logistical planning. - Ocean-based empire creation (weight 0.03): The game emphasizes empire creation across a vast ocean map, combining RTS elements with unique features. It's set in a water world with original factions and gameplay mechanics. Players build on islands, explore, and interact with survivors through recruitment or trade. - Self-growing building mechanic (weight 0.03): A core element of the game is the building mechanic, where structures seem to grow on their own. This mechanic is visually stunning but can also be complicated. The self-growing aspect adds a unique twist to the city-building genre. - Limited, faction-unique building types (weight 0.02): The game has a limited number of building types, but they are unique to each faction. Building placement is restricted by material transport distance and network connections. This encourages strategic planning and resource management within the constraints of the available building options. - Ship management and minimalistic combat (weight 0.02): Players face challenges in managing transport and escort ships due to limited captains. Combat is minimalistic and relies on RNG. The ability to teleport ships adds a strategic element, allowing for quick defense of trade routes. - Tower-based construction and resource distribution (weight 0.02): Construction involves building a foundation using towers, upon which residents construct their own houses. Connecting towers is essential for resource distribution, adding complexity to the building process. Towers can be upgraded to increase height and functionality. Performance notes: - Good performance and stability (weight 0.07): The game is generally well-optimized, stable, and runs smoothly across different platforms, including Steam Deck and Linux. Many reviewers reported no significant bugs, glitches, or crashes during their gameplay experience. - Gameplay mechanics need refinement (weight 0.02): Some reviewers have pointed out specific gameplay issues, such as the lack of tutorial information about exploration ship support during combat and incorrect battle locations on the map. Additionally, the immediate loss of battle upon survey ship destruction and the attack speed reduction when moving the survey ship were mentioned as potential issues. - Performance degrades later on (weight 0.02): Some players have reported performance issues such as FPS drops and slowdowns, especially later in the game or when near populated buildings. This suggests that the game's performance may degrade as the game progresses or when the player is in graphically demanding areas. - Graphics issues reported (weight 0.02): The game's anti-aliasing was called insufficient for the intricate graphics. Also, some players reported freezing issues on 4K screens upon initial game entry. - Node-based transport optimization (weight 0.01): The game uses node-based transport ranges, which reduces the computational load compared to calculating physical distances. This design choice may contribute to the game's overall performance and stability. - Decent audio-visual presentation (weight 0.01): The game's effects are considered good, and the sound quality is decent. This indicates that the game's audio-visual presentation is generally satisfactory. Recommendations: - Strongly recommended; great value (weight 0.42): The game is highly recommended overall, with many reviewers calling it a 'gem' and praising its value, especially for fans of city-building or relaxing games. Some suggest waiting for a sale, while others find it worth the full price, citing steady updates and developer support as additional reasons to purchase. - Try the demo first (weight 0.21): Many reviewers suggest trying the demo before purchasing to ensure the game aligns with individual preferences, as it may not appeal to all players. Some recommend it for its unique mechanics, music, and ambiance, while others caution about its lack of depth or unusual gameplay. - Potential; needs more content (weight 0.15): Reviewers are optimistic about the game's future, expressing hope for continued development, content updates, and quality of life improvements. Many are eager to see how the game evolves and suggest keeping an eye on it for future releases. - Good for sandbox builders (weight 0.07): The game is recommended for players who enjoy sandbox building and exploration games, particularly those who appreciate atmospheric experiences and creative freedom. It's tailored towards players who like to manage and build things without excessive hand-holding or complexity. - Play Falconeer first (lore) (weight 0.03): Reviewers suggest playing The Falconeer before Bulwark: Falconeer Chronicles to better understand the backstory, although Bulwark is understandable on its own. The game is considered approachable for various skill levels, encouraging experimentation and exploration within the Falconeer universe. - Must-buy when on sale (weight 0.02): The game is considered an easy no-brainer for the price and a must-buy when on sale. Reviewers recommend waiting for a sale before purchasing. - Acceptable, but not outstanding (weight 0.02): The game is acceptable, but not outstanding. Atmosphere alone is insufficient to make the game good. Other player notes: - Set in Falconeer universe (weight 0.03): The game is set in the same universe as The Falconeer, taking place 40 years after a major war. The title was expanded to clarify that the game is a creative building sandbox, not a strategy game. - Requests for new features/content (weight 0.03): Reviewers suggest the addition of mods, more diverse maps and environmental hazards, simulated people in cities, and naval combat features like turrets. - Unique city-sculptor, not RTS (weight 0.02): The game is a unique, experimental 'city-sculptor' rather than a traditional city-builder or RTS. Some reviewers noted that the game was mis-advertised on Steam with incorrect tags. - Cheap, optional DLCs available (weight 0.01): The game has cheap, optional DLCs that add a little something to the game and act as supporter packs. - Minimalist UI/UX design (weight 0.01): The game has a minimalist UI/UX design with limited functionalities, primarily using two mouse buttons and a map button. - Low current player count (weight 0.01): The game had over 800 players at release but now has around 10 online. This may indicate a decline in player interest or a niche appeal. - Free demo available (weight 0.01): There is a free demo available that allows players to experience a significant portion of the game without a time limit. Emotions: No emotions}