Jun 3

June Update Preview: The Way of Winter Scenario Optimizations

Once Human - Once Human

Since the launch of The Way of Winter scenario, we've been listening closely to feedback from all Meta-Humans. Based on your suggestions and our own gameplay tests, we've held in-depth discussions and made careful adjustments to improve the scenario. After the June 5 update, we'll release an upgraded version of The Way of Winter, marked with the "Update Test" tag. Here are the details of the update:

Thermal Tower Construction Rules Updated
Thermal Towers are now considered large structures that can be built within your territory. You can share their effects with other players via permission settings. They no longer take up large amounts of space in the wilderness.

Extreme Weather Rules Updated
Extreme weather will now spread gradually across the wilderness as the scenario progresses. In each phase, new extreme weather effects will appear—not just temperature changes, but special regional effects that bring different survival challenges. If players don't deal with the extreme weather in time, the temperature impact will spread to nearby areas.

New Large Public Structure: Chaosium Hub
You can use a special item called the Chaosium Heart at Chaosium Hubs to reduce the level of extreme weather in an area. You can also summon the Chaosweaver and defeat it to dispel the temperature effects. Doing so will completely remove the extreme weather for that phase. Also, you can spend Raw Chaosium at Chaosium Hubs to gain special regional buffs to help you survive harsh environments.

Scenario Ending Updated
All Meta-Humans will face extreme weather together. Your actions throughout the scenario will determine which ending is unlocked!
Work together to overcome the challenge and bring hope to the Snowy Realm!

Other Improvements
Improved the temperature-related prompts and transitions between regions, making it easier for players to understand and respond to temperature changes.

This update to The Way of Winter focuses on significantly enhancing the survival experience and adding more strategic depth to extreme weather mechanics. By improving how temperature control and weather systems work, we aim to deliver a more immersive survival challenge.
All other gameplay features—such as story tasks, dungeons, and Public Crisis Events—remain the same, which means the core of your The Way of Winter adventure is unchanged.
We invite all Meta-Humans to try out the updated Way of Winter. The update is still in development, and we'll continue to improve it based on your feedback. We also look forward to hearing your thoughts on the difficulty and system design through the community and in-game feedback channels!

Jun 3

Teaser for the next free themed update

Bulwark Evolution: Falconeer Chronicles - Muppetpuppet

Hi everyone,

Amongst the patches and the secret project (join the discord to learn more about that), I've been working on the next themed free content update for Bulwark.

So just gonna drop some teasing images here. These are of the "Behemoth Class" surveyor which has been discussed and requested first on the forums here. And it is coming and will be one of the main additions for that upcoming (likely late summer) update.

So this is going to be a three tier upgradable big ass surveyor. I am thinking you need to both buy the various tiers and make sure the commander building it has maxed out resources of everything to get all the tiers. It's going to be wildly OP and thus wildly expensive as it should dominate any combat engagement. (we all want something OP eventually right?)

I also want to address the following:

I read a user review criticising my use of small DLC as it gave them a feeling of only owning part of the game. And I think that is an absolutely fair criticism, we enjoy games in a time where there is so much exploitative by game makers and publishers. So fair enough.

But let me provide my reasoning and lets have this discussion. So Bulwark is doing good but it's no Manor Lords, this is by all accounts a niche experimental game with a mid sized/small but dedicated audience. Folks who enjoy the risks the game takes by deviating from established norms and tropes. And I hope you all enjoy the continued effort I put into free content updates regularly in what is now over a year of dedicated support, even if recently I am also working on another project simultaneously. Your continued support is amazing and motivates me to keep going! Couldn't do it without you. (and the Behemoth is a nod to that gratitude).

But to also always need to find a stable source of revenue. But steam revenues are super launch driven and you make the long tail revenue proportionate to a the launch. So a lot at the start, not so much later on.

Small DLC offsets the deep discounting Steam forces on games nowadays (to gain visibility in festivals and seasonal sales, to get opportunities like daily deals etc). It allows me to sell bundles (which are really popular and always on sale) and have extra tools so the game can be discounted without succumbing to bargain bin practices and the slow slide into zero revenue.

So it's a vital tool in being a gamedev that's (working towards, not there yet) somewhat independent of needing a launch hype every few years. And not abandoning games at some time after launch. Something I had to do for Falconeer after 1-2 years cuz it just wasn't paying the bills. (Something I deeply regret and am using all your support to remedy in the near future, tease!!!).

I chose DLC items that feel harmless, some ships, some cosmetic stuff mostly, a few extra units here and there. And it's all a few bucks at most. Now the reason there is now quite a lot of DLC is that I do some every time I make a major free content update, so when I added the mongress trading pack, there were also free ships added in that free update, and every DLC represents a major free update that came with it. And there have been a lot!

For me all of this doesn't feel exploitative, would I prefer not to do it? Hell yes. I would love to sit here make video games and get them to my audience. Even for free, that's why I did the Moonpath Mods for Skyrim. But in the end I have a family and a house and a 17 year old car..;) and I need to survive.

Being a dev that is passionately bound to improve and support their game year after year has seen me use every tool Steam gives me to survive and use them well.

I hope that clarifies things a bit. I know selling of separate bits and bobs might feel like you are missing out, but has over the last year or so literally enabled so much free content and updates. The revolution update, the edge update all the smaller content drops. The game has had daily deals, those are opportunities Valve only provides to games they feel deserve it. And making smart use of Steam's features is part of that.

Again thank you for all the support and keep also dropping both your honest criticisms and your desires. I do appreciate both and will keep working at making this game (and the Falconeer) worth your purchases.

Cheerio,
Tomas

Jun 2

An Interview with our Composer, Filippo Beck Peccoz

Innkeep - Beer Drinking Burke

Greetings everybody! For this month's update, I thought it would be cool to have a chat with our composer, Filippo. Because music is so integral to the experience, a good composer can really help make a game into something special. Fortunately for us, we have a great composer! We’re super excited about what Filippo has planned for Innkeep on the music front, and thought it would only be fair to ask him to share some of his knowledge about the craft and what goes into it.

Hi Filippo!

Hello Daniel, thanks for having me here!

First off, what kind of other games have you worked on? Are there some titles that people might be familiar with?

I’ve composed music for all the Mimimi Stealth-Strategy titles, from Shadow Tactics, to Desperados 3 and their last project, Shadow Gambit: The Cursed Crew. If you’re into visual novels, last year I scored “Tavern Talk” by Gentle Troll. A personal, but not well known title I’ve worked on is a platformer called “ITORAH”.

So how did you get into making music? Did you imagine you would end up specializing in video games?

I started very early - with gaming! Music came much later, at around 15 my brother and I were making a road trip to a medieval city in Bavaria (Regensburg), and as I stopped in front of a music shop and told him “you know, maybe I should try playing the guitar” he just got into the shop and bought me a beginner’s classical guitar. It was one of those moments. Since then, I have been loving making and learning about music.

The realization that I should try to combine my passion for games with music came to me later on, when I was already enrolling for a film scoring course at Berklee (in Boston). I went for film because there was no game audio curriculum back then, but I was already hell-bent on becoming a game composer!

How do you understand the role of music in the overall experience of a game? What is it that you are ultimately trying to achieve?

I always remind myself that I have the privilege to tell the game’s story through music. It’s such a unique standpoint: you complement what the players see and do, but you wield this powerful emotional tool and can illuminate some corners of the experience in a way that feels like you’re “unlocking” the emotional core of the game. In the end, it really is about storytelling to me. It’s the same way I listen to songs: I’ve always enjoyed following a song’s narrative or, if it’s instrumental, invent one in my head.

So, I always try to make use of music’s narrative power within a game!

(Filippo with his dog, Jigen).

When you look at making music for a game, what are first trying to understand about that game? How does that inform what you then try to do?

It always helps being able to play the game, even if in a rough state. But looking at concept art, and probably most of all, talking to the developers about their vision is what really makes me dive into the game. I always love when I can get on board early on, in order to have discussions about the music and see how they evolve as the project grows.

In my experience, the most fruitful conversations about music for a game happen when we talk about its intention, the overall vision, aspects of the main character… that’s when the “storytelling” mode turns on within me and I start envisioning instruments and musical elements for the game.

So what does the actual creation process look like for you? How do you move from concepts to compositions?

That is one hard question!! I would say, in general, I need a time of chaos. Of not really knowing where anything is going, if what I’m doing is kind of OK, if I’m derailing, if I should change my job entirely…! But once I emerge from this process (which sounds worse here than it is - I tell myself to enjoy it as much as I can) with a “musical palette” for the game, then actually producing music is quite concrete and pragmatic. I have a compass and I trust it because we built it together with the devs.

Although you’re working in what is ultimately a digital format, it seems like analogue tools (synthesizes, musical instruments) are still super important. Can you tell us about the role analogue tools have in the big picture?

To me, it comes down to recording acoustic instruments: I just love that stuff. Be it playing plucked instruments by myself or working with a musician who spent years to develop their ability, there’s something so magical about bringing these sources into the music.

That’s not at all to deny the incredible ease that computer recording has brought to us, mind you. But personally, adding recorded instruments (especially acoustic ones!) to the tracks always inspires me.

Are there some specific challenges that make composition for games different from composition for other mediums?

There are many nuances, but the clearest and most important challenge is this: most other mediums are linear in nature. In games, players decide what to do, when to do it (of course the extent of this depends on the game). I love this aspect of composing for games.

(Filippo's studio, in Munich. Photography by Janine Greifenegger).

Looking at Innkeep, what attracted you to the project?

The cheekiness of it, it’s grotesque in such a charming way! And your drive in bringing this game to life. That’s very inspiring to me.

Is there something in the game that you are particularly looking forward to working on?

Since I have a background in stealth games, I can’t wait to musically sneak my way around the Inn soon… 😁

Lastly, because I think some people might be curious, do you have any advice for people looking at getting into musical composition?

One thing that helped me a lot (and still does!) is figuring out how a song is constructed, and learning about it, listening to different covers of the same song is a great way to do it for me! I really recommend Gabb’s rendition of many 8bit legends on piano. He’s a wonderful musician.

For more hands-on topics about how to compose, 8 Bit Theory has a couple of very cool videos. But it really depends if you are starting from scratch or have some background already. If I can help in any way to start a musical journey, get in touch :D

Thanks Filippo!