At the request of most players, the original limitation that could not be sprinted has been removed! Except for special tasks, all remaining areas can now be sprinted. Don’t forget to open Menu>Options>Enable Always Sprint
Today we'll be having a first look in the overworld map and the new travelling/free roaming system.
But first let's have a look at the old (Erannorth Reborn) and the new map of the Folkswave continent (Erannorth Chronicles).
Erannorth Reborn - Folkswave Continent
Erannorth Chronicles - Folkswave Continent
I tried to keep as close to the geographical features of the original as much as possible, but also took the opportunity to expand it a bit. The first map was created in photoshop using a stock map as a base. So my options on fleshing out the region was much more limited.
The new map is made in Inkarnate, which is a more specialized map-making software. So the result is much more closer to how I imagine the region in my mind. (Well as accurate as my meager cartography skills allow :P)
While in game you can pan and zoom this map around. You can also move around the map freely.
To compare it with Erannorth Reborn: in order to travel from Lanmerih to Lucina there, you'd click on your location (Lanmerih), then on the travel button to Lucina, spend the rations up ahead then go through a few nodes of the first destination area, and you'd arrive.
In Chronicles instead of initiating travel from the exploration menu, if you want to go from Lanmerih to Lucina, you just walk there. You can right-click to the map to travel anywhere. You will stop automatically once you reach the point you clicked or before that if you get fatigued.
ie. Starting from Lanmerih I was able to walk till Oggurnvald woods before I got fatigued.
At this point I can camp to restore my energy using the quick camp options in the camp ui
Or open the camp event where I can also do other stuff.
It took me one more camp, to finally arrive in Lucina.
Once in a location, you can still click on the town icon and see what activities or areas are available to explore. But as you can see there are no travel options.
You no longer need to be in a town to explore or do stuff.
Clicking on your character will bring up a wheel menu with various options. So I could for example explore the Nereis Reinforest. Or look for wood, brew a potion etc.
Last but not least travelling or camping in the overworld map can lead to encounters.
Speaking of which the battlefield UI has slightly changed since last time we talked. I dropped the miniature bases, added new card template and experimented with iconizing some additional texts like Ranged or Ignore Synergies.
Now all these are work in progress, and they still may change in one way or another. But it should give you an idea on where the development is heading.
Our team has updated the new swamp map. By adding a wooden fence to prevent Specters from attacking through the map. As well as placing items placed in order to increase the traveling distance for survivors' to run more.
Formed in 2014, Heilung is a European band that transcends genre and definition, with their atmospheric music taking listeners on indescribable journeys through history and myth via the realms of folk and rock. When Conqueror’s Blade entered into its own Viking Age in Season VII: Wolves of Ragnarok, we knew they were the perfect fit to score our saga of wolf-worshippers, berserkers, and mighty shieldmaidens – their songs Galgaldr and Alfadhirhaiti can be heard in the game’s current opening cinematic and the map Heilung Fjord.
As part of our ongoing series of Music Week articles, we spoke to Christopher, Maria, and Kai from Heilung about their music, influences, and how to best defend Heilung Fjord from invaders. The photographs featured in the article were taken by Coen Halmans and Kees Stravers.
Thanks for talking with us! Could you introduce yourselves?
Heilung: Hello and thank you from our side, we are Christopher Juul, Maria Franz and Kai Uwe Faust, the three core members of Heilung.
What is the story of Heilung, why did you first get together and decide to make music?
Heilung: In another time and age, Kai wished to record some of his poems and asked his friend Christopher, who is a producer, and they agreed on a trade – a tattoo for the recording. Christopher instantly got inspired by what Kai brought to his studio, and creativity was let loose as they began adding all sorts of crazy soundscapes to the poems. At some point, Christopher asked Kai if he could sing something. Kai, usually shy, mumbled and rumbled a bit, which resulted in him being unleashed in the recording room. Maria came along, got hit by a bolt of excitement and inspiration and added her voice to some tracks, and there it was – the little Heilung baby, still an unnamed little beast, but it crawled in our hearts and took off from there…
(Chris, by the way, does not have a single tattoo to this very day.)
Heilung means ‘healing’ in German. Why did you choose this name for the band?
Heilung: We didn’t. The spirits told Kai to name the project like this.
How would you describe your sound to a new listener?
Heilung: Take a Norwegian Viking girl, a Danish Viking boy and son of a pagan priest, and let them meet a madman, half-animal, half-German, add a lot of drums, screams and angelic voices. Spice it up with a little dose of overtone singing and not too much psychedelic soundscapes. Let it simmer a little in the blackness of inspiration that already fed the Nordic myths…. Or, forget it and just listen to the music and make up your own mind. ☺
A lot of your music is inspired by ancient Germanic culture and the Viking Age. What drew you to these themes?
Heilung: They came naturally to all three of us already from our early childhood. Maria grew up in Borre, a little Norwegian village with a big burial field of Viking age grave mounds, and as a child she was playing on that very soil with the ancestors resting under her feet, always very aware of their presence and influence.
Christopher had the revived pagan beliefs of Scandinavia actively performed around him while he grew up, due to the position of his father as a Godi (a pagan priest with the right to perform wedding ceremonies).
Kai, growing up Christian, was nevertheless playing in Iron Age stone circles in the endless forests in the heart of Germany and started early to explore Germanic and Celtic art.
The three of them met through Viking reenactment markets, festivals that show the arts and crafts of the Viking period.
Do you feel a connection to older cultures and civilisations, such as the Vikings?
Heilung: Everything is interconnected, we still have our history on display in our modern-day culture, visible in the language, our ornaments, our religious beliefs, and so on. Also, our older cultures were dealing with the same basic questions and challenges of mankind as we still do today. It’s all love and pain. If you sit as a mother on the bed of your sick child it feels the same, whether they call your culture Viking or Indonesian. And the song you sing that night on that bed, means the same in all cultures and throughout all ages. We are all connected, through time and space, because we are all people.
Where else do you find inspiration when you’re making music?
Heilung: We all very often have the feeling that inspiration finds us, and it can be everywhere, no matter if it is in the dusty ruins of Pompeii or in the train. Nature is always a great source of inspiration though.
Each member of Heilung has a distinctive vocal style. Could you tell us about the different styles you employ when making songs?
Heilung: Whenever it comes to the etheric female singing, that will be Maria. She will employ everything from harmonies to the old Scandinavian cattle calls, from sweet whispers to heart-breaking screams of pain and anguish.
Christopher feeds the soundscapes with deep vocals and throat singing, but he also takes on whispering parts, and some tricky, rhythmic passages where Kai is out of his mind, twitching, barking and gargling. ☺
You also have a unique range of instruments, including ones made from human bones! Could you tell us about your different instruments, and the process of how you select them to create specific, unique sounds?
Heilung: That is a very complex topic, due to the fluid character of the selection process. We allow ourselves to really follow the flow of inspiration and it helps to have a sound studio with a lot of space, filled with a lot of instruments and things that makes nice sounds, and the technical equipment to capture everything. We make a lot of instruments ourselves or have them made by exceptional skilled craftsmen. It’s easy to imagine that you cannot buy the replica of a 12,000 year old flute made from a swan bone, tar and grass in the shop just around the corner. We give a lot of love to our drums, we see them as living beings, made from skin, bone, and blood.
What is the strangest thing you’ve ever used as an instrument?
Heilung: Bones from a 16th century plague mass grave in Germany.
You’ve referred to your live performances as ‘rituals’. What kind of atmosphere do you try to create at concerts to achieve this?
Music is the primal language of mankind. In music we can perceive the divine harmony of cosmos, so a ritual of music in our world is meant to connect people with this spiritual state of mind. So, we open up, we invite everyone to become one. One with the sound, the beat, be a part of our circle. We welcome you to a time space of freedom, getting lost in the music, the visuals, and the scents. The Heilung ritual is our invitation to disconnect from the now and to reconnect to yourself.
The world has changed a lot in the last year, and live music is unfortunately on hold for a bit. How would you recommend fans get into this same sort of ritualistic headspace at home?
Get some good headphones, take an hour or two just for yourself with a glass of wine or whatever you need to relax and just let go. Let the sounds carry you into our parallel world, just to return from it like from a good walk in the mountains.
There is a new map in Conqueror’s Blade called Heilung Fjord, named in your honour! How would you defend it from invading armies?
Just feed the shaman some mushrooms, he’ll take care of it. If that doesn’t work, send the night warriors. If they f**k up, the snails will take over the defence slowly, and they never fail…
Your music is getting a lot of attention in the games industry at the moment! What games do you enjoy in your spare time (if any)?
Well…. this is quite personal, the games people play, you know… No, just joking. ☺ You can actually find us sitting on sheepskins and rocking chairs in front of the fire and playing a good old board game. You might not believe it, but most of the time we are really that old school.
Then there are of course the very physical and violent Viking age games, that sometimes erupt during a good party. But they are a different story for another time. ☺
Can fans expect to hear new music – like a follow-up to Futha – or see you back on the road in the near future?
We spend a lot of the cancelled tour time in the studio, as most musicians probably did. Our time there will lead to new releases, but we have a few projects before that and still some secrets up our sleeve. ;)
We are very positive to see Heilung back on the road in the last part of this year and hope to see you all out there. <3
Thanks to Christopher, Maria, and Kai for taking the time to chat with us! You can catch Heilung on tour throughout Europe and Russia in 2021 and 2022, check out their latest album Futha (available now on Spotify and Apple Music), and listen for their glorious music in Conqueror’s Blade throughout Season VII: Wolves of Ragnarok.
We are out of Camper Strong beer ... so it's time to get to hard work.
We spent the last couple of months designing basic features, story details, and unique ideas for Camper Flipper. We are sure that it will be a game like no other - Funny, polished, and nice looking.
We are ready to create a game that we would like to play, and also. we hope you will love to play. We will keep you updated about the development process, so stay tuned.
If you wanna know more about Camper Flipper and other Forestlight Games productions join our Discord community
Grab your player 2 and experience the entire Kitaria Fables campaign together!
Whether it's local co-op or remote play via Steam, you can explore Kitaria and have double the fun! Fight formidable foes, share your loot and use the resources to build an inventory of skills and weapons.
Farm Together
Teamwork makes the dreamwork. Keeping your plot of farmland in tip-top condition is even easier with a friend. Whilst you harvest the crops, your pawfect partner can start preparing the next batch to sell for Paw Pennies or turn into delicious meals!
Unlock new seeds, tend to your existing crops and build a farm to be the envy of your neighbours!
Fight Together
Double your firepower and protect your companion when you come across the dreaded Orc's and other adorable but deadly enemies. Use the freedom of Kitaria Fables' flexible combat system to compliment each other's strength. Hit your enemies with brute force together or balance with range and close combat - The choice is yours.
Explore Together
Use 2 pairs of eyes and 4 paws to discover the varied regions of Kiraria! Spot potential resources that you might have missed the first time exploring, locate hidden areas that you never knew existed and keep a look our for enemies, you never know what's hiding round the corner.
Who will you be playing Kitaria Fables with?
Want to see more? Keep up to date with everything happening in Kitaria over on our Twitter and our website - and dont forget to add Kitaria Fables to your wishlist too!
Get your engines running and cannons at the ready for more exciting new levels to challenge your rovers capabilities! Start prepping your blueprints, some of these levels will need brand new rovers specifically built to complete the puzzling missions!
Back To The Drawing Board
More unique levels are available as of update one of Rover Builder! These challenging levels will require plenty of redesigns to find the best rover for the job. From tight spaces and narrow gaps, to traversing slender beams across deadly drops, your rover needs to be uniquely customized to complete each mission!
Time For A Quick Redesign...
Almost There...
Perfect Fit!
Complete these puzzling levels your way. Get creative, learn to build imaginative rovers perfect for each scenario! Whether it be powerful cannons to destroy the AI, or agile builds to traverse difficult terrains, its for you to decide!
Stuck?
Check out the community rover tab in-game or on Steam for player-made rovers, or share your own unique builds!
Stay tuned for morehuge updates planned by joining our discord group, and share your builds, provide feedback or pick up tips and tricks from the community!