Folklands Preview

Folklands is an upcoming settlement builder developed by Bromantic Games, a team comprised of three brothers passionate about developing games. This indie title draws a lot of inspiration from many classics that paved the way for the genre we know today, and I was lucky enough to have a chance to try the early build and check out how it's coming along!

Although the game is in its very early stages (and I really do mean early), itsfoundation seems quite promising. The menus and HUD are easy to digest and understand, the graphics are easy on the eyes (although they will have an update soon), and there's a nice variety of buildings available. One of the mechanics I didn't know from any of the handful of colony sims I've played (I'm not the most well-versed in the genre) was the forester; this structure is vital to keep the woodcutter stocked up on trees.

One feature I did recognise, however, is the road system: for the citizens to traverse the town, there needs to be a walkway placed down. This helps in mapping out how you want the areas to be split, and thankfully, there's no punishment if you set them wrong, as you can easily delete them and try again; this made it easy for me to update the placing as I reached new tasks and had to add more buildings.

Although Folklands isn't overwhelming during the tutorial, as it takes its time explaining what to do next, I do feel like the menus and tooltips could use a bit more love to offer more information once you're left to your own devices. As someone who is still a newbie to the genre, it becomes very daunting to remember the how, when, what, and where of everything, so it's helpful to get a quick refresher without having to go through the whole tutorial again. 

That being said, however, the game is in its infancy, as there are many, many features still to be implemented; there isn't even a day and night cycle available at the moment. The demo I got to try out is in the span of about 40 minutes to an hour, so there isn’t much to explore yet, but what is already in place feels comfortable and easy to manoeuvre. 

I certainly think Folkands is on a steady road (hah, get it?) to becoming an accessible, easy-to-digest colony sim. If you like the genre and are looking for a title that revisits what made classics great, I suggest keeping an eye out on this one. You can find the developer over at Twitter and Steam, as they post dev blogs and updates.