In discovering Ratop🐼ia, a downright adorable rat-themed city builder, I put my rodent avoiding days behind me. With its fairytale assets and nomenclature it promised a gentle foray into the life of꧙ a benevolent rat queen and her god-fearing subjects. I imagined long days brimming with rodentesque revelry and midsommar nights of placid quietude, walking the halls of my ornate mousehole. What I found instead was a rat-infested carnival of pestilence and despair.

Best laid plans

As base builder fans often discover, there's an order to things. You start building with th൲e more common resources dotted about the map, and as you tackle the research tree you'll delve deeper in order to gain rarer resources for more complex production lines. It's the basic sജurvival game stepladder.

In starting a new game of Ratopia, you first need to build a City Gate to let in migrants. Then you go about meeting their ever more elaborat🦩e needs as they become less and less comfortable with the iniꦐtial asceticism of a frontier lifestyle. Your Ratizens quickly grow tired of snoozing on the cold ground with zero entertainment so you have to scramble early, earning enough research points to work your way through several research trees in quick succession.

While the research pipeline is relatively freeform, in that you're encouraged to specialize depending on which resource you have greater access to, there's a core hierarchy of needs that have to be met early. Deviate from t🌼hat and you'll have a hard time clawing back a single mistake, as I soon found out.

The rat race

For my third playthroug🌃h in two days – I restart city b🍬uilders a lot – I decided to go without the tutorial. I didn't see the need to go through it all again. I had the general gist. At least, I thought I did.

I spent a lot of this playthrough exploring, which brings in a steady flow of research points each time you return with a new resource. I then built myself a Laboratory☂ to churn out and stack up even more research points before things got too heated. I thought I'd gamed it. I had a steady flow of research points, I'd locked in an easy food source. I'd even quelled their cries for a ci♑rcus and went about my day. Little did I know the wave that was about to break over my humble hamlet.

After a few days of car꧅eful consideration, working out each aspect of my base in great detail – from the efficiency of its layout, to the color of the wall hangings – it suddenly hit me. In the corner I spotted one of the many notifications I'd been ignoring for the past few hours of slogging away at my settlement, which noted that one of my Ratizens was sick. It was all downhill from there.

Like the Plague

Having been so enthralled with micromanaging my little rat village to within an inch of its life, I'd forgotten one simple necessity: toilets. Apparently the abundance of open pools dotted around wasn't enough for my bougie rodents – I suppose along with gaining sentience they'd relinquished their will to𝓰 wash.

Despite a steady flow of research points, I wasn't pumping out nearly enough to see me through the process of rectifying a disease-ridden dominion. In order to heal my Ratizens I would need to build a toilet to head the plague off at the source. Easy enough. But to actually treat the Ratizens I'd need a hospital, which needed fabric and stone blocks – two things I had been willfully neglecting – as well as a pharmacy to make the medicine, and a kiln to fire the charcoal for it. In other words, a full-blown pharmaceutical productio🐟n line. Not to mention the sheer rat power needed to get all this off the ground in time to save my people.

No. I was beaten. And in my attempts to emerge from the pl🃏ague infested hellscape I had created, I thought fondly of the Rim and of squirrel invasions. As unforgiving as the Rimworld's storytellers can be, I found myself wishing for my happy place. Because in this delicate dance of survival, beady eyes begged at me for a cure I could not deliver. And in my hubris, I watched my rat empire fall.

Looking for recommendations to add to your wishlist? See what's on the horizon in our roundup of 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:upcoming indie games.

"Hones🉐tly, it doesn't feel that long ago," Styczeń starts. "I remember uploading the build, crossing my fingers that things wouldn't immediately fall apart – and here we are several patches andꦚ plenty of additions later."

As of December last year, Manor Lords has sold over 2.5 million copies, which is seriously impressive for an early access city-builder made mostly by just one dev. Styczeń says the team is now up to nine devs, plus QA help from QLOC. More work is being 💖done with ꧒the game's AI, 2D and 3D art, maps, and more.

The game's AI opponent can now properly build a🌜 small village, and the dev team is changing pathfinding to help soldiers get in and ou𓂃t of castles properly.

Styczeń wants to keep the scale of everything period-accurate rather than using a common game design trꩵick of making paths and doors wider. "It's like the medieval constructors wanted to purposefully make it harder for large groups of soldiers to navigate ar๊ound the castle. Curious."

There are also changes coming to how you run your settlements, as "many buildings will now require upkeep." Blacksmiths will need 12 tools per year, and deep mines wi😼ll need planks.

A quarry for mining an endless amount of stones on rich deposits is also coming along with a lime kiln, as lime will be needed for "advanc♒ed stone construction."

Finally, new art for a lot of theꦍ UI keeps with the medieval aesthetic Manor Lords has. I think it looks delightful. Instead of a hovering icon on the map, you'll now see what looks like a more painted depiction of resources. These changes are also coming to the build menu.

There's a lotℱ to digest, so check ꧋out the full post yourself, .

In the meantime, check out all the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:upcoming indie games for 2025 and beyond.

The studio unveils Frostpunk 1886, an Unreal Engine "reimagining" of the original Frostpunk gem, in a new teaser trailer on . According to a recent press release accompanying the announcement, Frostpunk 1886 is "no mere visual overhaul" but rather an entirely fresh experience that stands on its own, building andꦜ expanding upon the foundation set by 11 Bit Studios' first city-building survival game seven years ago.

Frostpunk 1886 features content✤, laws, mechanics, and a Purpose path that are all new to the remake, making it perfect for both veteran fans of the original and those who have not yet played through Frostpunk before.

As 11 Bit Studios is using Unreal Engine this time rather than its own Liquid Engine like it did before, the upcoming city ♔builder will be expandable for years to come by fans as it's set to boast mod support.

Fans of Frostpunk have long ♏awaited official mod support, an inclusion that was "previously impossible to realize due to technical limitations of the original engine." This also opens up the possibility of future DLC𝓀 and expansions from 11 Bit Studios, much like Frostpunk 2 is receiving – but there's no telling what direction Frostpunk 1886 will truly take just yet until it launches sometime in 2027.

The exciting remake can already be wishཧlisted on , so if you're a fan of the originalꦕ and its sequel, be sure to add it to yours to keep up to date with any news from 11 Bit Studios.

It's only been in production since "early 2025," but Frostpunk 1886 "marks the start of a new era" for the dev – one with 🤡a heavy focus "on delivering in-house projects more frequently than ever before" – so it's certainly one to keep an eye on.

Looking for more? Here are some of the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best city-building games to play while you wait.

Tomas Sala is known as the mostly-solo developer behind throwback flight combat sim 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:The Falconeer and its 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:city-building spin-off Bulwark, and he's now "lobb♋ying and begging" Valve "to bring some social and follower improvements to Steam, so we can create loyalty in the place we create revenue" in a recent social media .

or studios on Steam right now means you'll simply get an email notification (that you can opt out of) every time they release a game, meaning players won't be getting regular updates from their favorite devs' new projects. Steam's follower system doesn't function anything like a traditional s🐬ocial media platform at the moment, but Sala thinks maybe it should.

Sala notes that "indies f***ing rock at" promoting themselves on social media, "but we need to tie this to the games we sell" as all of that networking is in vain because "the moment I make a new game it's gone." It would also function as a "path away from toxicity rather than towards it" since some social media sites are now notoriously overrun with (and sometime🐈s run by) lots of bad a🐈pples.

"To get Valve to let indies maintain a fanbase across/over/in between games," he continues. "The follower functionality is now useless, but letting us create long lasting communities players on Steam is the one solution for indie sustainability I have. I do this for survival, I spam relentlessly on this. You wont find a more dedicated Steam dev. Updates personal support. Night and day! But it's mostly in vain, the moment I make a new game its gone. I am terrified of the🦹 future marketplace for games!"

For now, keep an eye on the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:upcoming indie games of 2025 and beyond.

Styczeń shared a on Steam over the weekend, which includes everything from "fortified strongholds with modular upgrades to the introduction of Devil's Hill – a prime battleground and castle site." Devil's Hill is the name of the new map,💜 which features a huge hill surrounded by other regions. "I'm considering a game mode that places very valuable resources on that hill to have the Lords fight ov♑er it," Styczeń adds.

The city builder's existing castle planner (used to enhance your town and Manor House) has also "had a ton of work done to it," now boasting the option to upgrade modules and wall pieces individually, as well as "selectively add platforms wit🍌h battlements to the walls." However, the real star of the show here is the addition of stone castles, which look fantastic, and it's be🅷en revealed that going forward, the "size of the castle plan will be limited by the lord's rank."

As for the progression system rework, the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:sort-of-solo dev hasn't given any exact details beyond the general aim to "balance historicity and gameplay," noting that both creative and immersion-focused ideas have been pushed back for being either "too fantasy" or "too gamey," respectively. "I'm losing count but I think we're on our fourth design document... But things are slowly moving forward," the dev💯eloper adds, noting that he hopes to share more "in the next update, together with exciting news on the AI-controlled towns."

Right now, it's not clear when this new patch will be released,🌱 so we'll just have to watch this space. Clearly, ev🐠en though it's still in early access, Styczeń's game is threatening to eat up even more of our free time very soon.

You can find even more great things to play in our list of the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best city building games.

The demo for 9 Kings has seemingly been around for a bit, bꦯut the updated one is featured in Next Fest and most of its "very positive" reviews were posted recently. The game is billed as a mix of grid-based building where you turn "your city into the most powerful of all kingdom♏s," and card-based strategy where you craft a deck of perks, actions, units, items, and upgrades. It's all rendered in lovely pixel art and seems like the kind of hard-to-put-down snack game that could quietly devour an evening.

The grid is deceptively small: just 9 tiles to begin with, but with room to expand. Aggressive cards might destroy a plot of land to buff the adjacent ones, or cause a soldier defending your kingdom to explode on death and damage would-be invaders. Your deck reflects your chosen king, which are almost like classes, and difficulty settings spice things up further. Other cards may replenish a platoon, unlock a new unit like a sniper, or deploy defensive buildings. It feels like a mix of politics, i𒀰nfrastructure, and war – anything goes as you compete with other kings.

Some seriously weird stuff starts to happen when you ge⭕t into royal decrees, which seem to add passive bonuses or instantly dish out gifts like extra gold. You can summon defeated enemies to your army, reduce the cost of certain cards, or embrace the cultist life. Hey, sometimes it takes extreme measures to fight inflation.

"Find ways to break the game and become overpowered," the devs advise. "Grow you♐r kingdom in strategic ways, prepare for dozens of unique events, and show the world your kingdom can last longer than any other."

9 Kings is scheduled to launch in April.

Someone combined Diablo and League of Legends for a roguelike co-op MOBA with Risk of Rain energy, and it deserves the hype it's getting in Steam Next Fest.

As outlined in the for version 0.8.024, this update combines the work of the last two beta patches. Major changes include a rework to the cliff system – notably, it should now be more obvious where you can build and traverse, and pathfiꦡnding errors around them should no longer be a problem. 

But what about the "magic" ale? It's a bit of a mystery what this line at the top of the patch notes refers to, but it seems it could relate to some changes made to water and ale distribution, which now see the two distributed "in a similar way as marketplace items." 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Sort-of-solo dev Greg Styczeń has two reasons for this – as well as the fact that he simply "wanted to a🌳dd Well and Tavern upgrades," he adds: "It's no longer enough to just have one Ale sitting in the tavern to upgrade the whole town." Tavern supply is one of the key requirements you need to fulfill to upgrade your burgage plots to level three, which – over time – is required to upgrade your settlement level. Based on these patch notes, it sounds like perhaps this lone magic ale might have been able to tick off this tavern supply requirement all by itself, but Styczeń hasn't elaborated. 

There's also a handful of new features to get stuck into. Beyond the new Winding River and High Peaks maps, a bridge-building system is now available, at long last adding a city builder staple to the hit indie. Additional🅰ly, distributing buildings like the marketplace and tavern now have an 'Overstock' option, which lets you pick a limit on how many extra goods are placed in them beyond what they actually require. 

The full list of bug fixes and additions is absolutely enormous – if you want to see everything version 0.8.024 has to offer, be sure to check out the patch notes. Styczeń has also issued a couple of warnings to players 🐠to take note of before diving in – "it's recommended that you back up your saved files before switching to a beta version," and you should probably remove any mods: "They will most lik🐼ely crash the game."

After 2.5 million sales, Manor Lords publisher says it "would almost be arrogant" to not be surprised by the city builder's success - but "you cannot count on it to repeat."

River Towns is the name of the game where you jump between levels to "place differently shaped buildings and make them fit into a limiꦡted area." Those buildings are basically shaped like Tetris blocks, so slot꧂ting them into just the right places is where all the fun's at. 

"As the town grows, more townspeople move in and bring life back into this♋ old and broken world," the game's blurb explains. "Throughout the game you encounter other objectives, such as gold to collect, trees to regrow and old monuments to rebuild. This turns the difficulty and possibility of collecting points completely u🌠pside down."

For such a creative idea, developer Frogsong Studios had a tough time getting to this point in development. On , studio co-founder and lead artist Anders Thelin explains that the studio had to lay off pretty much the entire team because, well, 2024 was a particul💙arly brutal time for developers just trying to stay employed. That's when Frogsong's founders met indie publisher Stray Fawn, and decide🦋d to pursue crowdfunding to help th🅠e game cross the finish line.

Thankfully, River Towns has already reached its $10,300 funding goal and raised nearly $13,000. That means backers🐟 have reached a new stretch goal, and Frogsong will add "new challenge maps on a regular basis with unique mecꦬhanics." And more importantly, you know, the game can actually be funded and come out. 

River Towns is aiming to release sometime in 2025, but for now, you can check out its ♛free demo on Steam.

For more, check out the other 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:upcoming indie games of 2025 and beyond. 

During a recent , Thomas Sala, the solo developer behind indie gems 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:The Falconeer and Bulwark: Falconeer Chronicles, was asked to give his opinion on Xbox's Game Pass model. The Falconeer, Sala's first title, made its way onto Game Pass around 🎃a year after its initial release, and thanks to the attention it garnered there🌳, he to be featured on the service again. 

"I'd be on Game Pass the moment they could fit me in, no questions asked," Sala begins. "Falconeer did about a million installs on Game Pass." He goes on to explain that, f♏or him, making ga✅mes is not about the money, and Game Pass was a great way for him to reach a new audience. "I'm a dev, I fucking want players, [I] don't care about the money, let folks play!"

Unfortunately, as Sala notes, getting your game onto Game Pass is not in the hands of developers or publishers, explaining that "Microsoft carefully curates Game Pass with a regular release cadence. If your game fits the schedule and meets 🍨expectations and you have signalled you're open to making a deal, Microsoft might offer you a slot."

That being said, Sala is still positive about the service and believes that for developers lucky enough to be given a slot, it can be hugely beneficial. "These things are up to the gods in Redmܫond and if you get in i🍨t's generally a very positive thing for a dev, especially in indie. They are more than fair in compensation and you get a huge audience."

If you're a subscriber, be sure to check out the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best games on Game Pass right now.

I played a lot of Manor Lords when it first came out, but as an early access indie game being worked on mainly by one person, updates aren't very frequent. That's fine. The game sold well, continues to do well, and the developer seems happy to spend time working on 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:a new map and features. However, as much as I love Manor Lords, I am looking for my next city building✅ fix⛎, and I think Foundation is it.

It's also a medieval city building that lets you construct without the guardrails of a grid system, but unlike Manor Lords the art style isn't as realistic and there seems to be more of a foꦕcus on building up intricate castles and structures rather than just roads and gardens.

Foundation has been in early access for over five years now, and its fans seem very happy it's finally getting a full release. "I haven't thought of this game♎ in a while! The last time I played it (Steam says 2022) it still needed quite a bit of work. I'll have to check this out and reinstall on release, I remember it being a pretty chill experience and enjoyed it quite a bit as a game to play with few expectations on my part," on Reddit.

"I'm a big city builder player and really loved playing Foundation. Its free gridless building was a lot of fun and allowed you to be really creative. It's not a super challenging game but still gives you things to work towards. I felt the biggest hindrances were the upgrade system and trading, it looks like they've updated the upgrade system into a tech tree which is great. Keen to🤪 get back into it," .

The most is: "I absolutely love the👍 gridless way to build and it has kind of ruined other builders for💖 me where you have to place roads."

I'🔯ll ha⛦ve to give it a go on January 31 while I wait for the next big Manor Lords update. If you want to give it a try yourself, there's a you can play.

While you're here, check out some of the other 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:upcoming indie games that you'll be able to get your hands on in 2025.

In a recent interview with the , Hooded Horse co-founder Snow Rui explains that the company was surprised by Manor Lords' reception despite the pre-release interest marketing and trailers generated. "It would almost be arrogant not to be taken aback by how successful it turned out to be," says Rui. However, she also states the importance of not getting ahead of oneself when dealing with succe𒁏ss.

The publishing lead shares one of the best pieces of advice she's received: Do not "roll too fast" upon finding favorable results. To Rui and to Hooded Horse as a company, it's more important to focus on being sustainable in the long run rather than to hang on ⛄to one big bang of a success story. "A breakout hit like this," describes the head, "you cannot count on it to repeat itself year after year."

Rui continues: "There will be people pushing you to have a different expectat꧂ion or treating the next year as a failure if the breaꦡkout hit doesn't repeat itself but that's simply not the case. So that's a matter of setting your expectations and centering who you are" - and while another Manor Lords would be nice, the publisher doesn't always need AAA-level sales for an indie game to be considered successful.

Here are some of the other 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best early access games you can play right now.

Overthrown is anything but "normal" - it's a city-builder sandbox hybrid in which you can lift and chuck pretty much anything you want, from boulders to buildings. Brimstone doesn't shy away from the unconventional either, opting to axe expected mechanics such as 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:fall damage because it's "annoying" and setting Overthrown apart from genre giants like 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Minecraftಞ with a unique twist on procedurally generated worlds.

In an interview with GamesRadar+, the developers delve into what makes their new game a one-of-a-kind experience amid other sandbox gems like 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Mojang's own. "While we're fans of the sandbox genre in general," writes Brimst🔯one, "there are certain elements we find to be a bit tedious such as inventory 𒊎management and the general grind necessary to progress and establish a settlement."

The devs say they hoped to avoid this grind: "What we wanted to do differently was to be able to automa🐲te away the repetitiveness with NPC citizens handling that and letting the player focus on exploration and combat instead, able to help out with resource gathering to speed things up, but still free to do something else instead." Their goal with Overthrown is simple - freedom and fun without stress.

"Our goal with Overthrown is to have a sandbox game that the player can just jump in and play by themselves or with friends, without feeling like they have to follow guides," as the studio puts it, "or min/max things to have fun." Whether a player is looking for a more relaxed experience or some action-packed combat, they can find it - and also seamlessly swap between both styles of play as they p🐲lease.

"Sometimes when I play I might spend a whole season just expanding and gathering nearby resources," explains a dev, "and at other times I&apos♛;m hunting (i.e. toying with) outlaws for a few days. It feels really flexible moving between the two." Brimstone is doing its best to ensure that Overthrown never feels empty, too - a problem that all too many sandbox titles arguably seem to fall victim to.

"The wilderness is something that we don't want to feel empty," describes the studio, "and that's wh🐓y we have several updates planned that will increase the variety of the world with new creatures, plants, and encampments." There's already plenty to liven up the world as the game൲ sits in early access, however, and Brimstone says it's part of what makes Overthrown so different from other games with sandbox-aligned play.

"Something that's unique in ಌthe game relative to most of the genre is that instead of having a procedural world that stays the same once generated (barring player input), in Overthrown new plants sprout and grow between seasons, and creature nests and outlaw camps appear in the wilderness," write the devs. These enemies can then actually fight each other "even if th♛e player isn't there to observe it."

This means that everything essentially keeps ticking just like it does in the real world, and🔜 players can interfere if they choose to. For instance, one could raid outlaws' bases before they've had the chance to recruit new members. If they don't, the outlaws could grow in size and become strong enough to attack. To add to this realism, Brimstone also has some changes up its sleeve relevant to the environment in Ov💞erthrown.

"In future updates, we're adding pollution that turns zones barren if excessive," reveal the devs, "and the tree density in an area will determine if a region counts as forest or grassland, meaning that excessive logging will make medicinal herbs and mushroomsꦓ stop spawning." It's a layer of realism I wouldn't have expected from the game that allows us to chuck entire factories with ease, but I'm so here for it.

If Overthrown sounds like it's up your alley as well, whether it be for its chaotic physics or for its city-builder m🅠echanics and real-world flair, you can snag it now while it's in early access on . The game will also launch on the Xbox Series X|S and PlayStation 5 in the future, so if you're on console you don't have to worry about missing out - I know I certainly wouldn't want to.

Looking for more of this year's bangers to play? Here are the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best games of 2024 to check out.

Just announced, Workers & Resources' next DLC, World Maps, will add eight new settings inspired by Euro🥃pe💟an countries, the British Isles, North Korea, and the East Coast of the United States. The game's concept focuses on players building up a Soviet Republic based on the principles of socialist societies, potentially expanding the nation of a workers first society across the rest of the world.

In a press release, the developers stated that "every map will differ in terms of overall size and the ༒challenges the local topography brings," which will pair with the game's focus on managing infrastructure and life within the procedurally generated locales.

While it was in early access for several years, Workers & Resources made its debut in June, and it earned considerable buzz from the sim community. Set in an alternate history during the War🌌saw Pact of the 1950s, the game lets players expand the influence of the Soviet Union throughout Europe. As your nation grows, you'll see it prosper or crumble throughout different decades from the 1960s to the '90s.

On the surface, Workers & Resources seems like a tycooꦚn game that tries to parody the Soviet Union and communism as an ideology. Still, as it turns out, the game is a fairly faithful look at what it takes to run a society and infrastructure of a civilization based on the principles of a workers-first nation. This plays out by making decisions that will cater to workers' needs, which means hiring specialists in key areas to handle certain goods and ensuring the population has access to proper healthcare, transportation, and education at all times during your expansion. Of course, with conflicts in and outside of your republics, inevitable decisions have to be made that could bend your principles.

It's a compelling take on a civilization game and one that's incredibly timely now in the current and tumultuous state of the counter-economic/social system capit༺alism is now. That's why many of these civ games are engrossing - players get to decide how civilizations can grow and evolve with different ideologies and try to make the right choices along the way. And hopefully, things will work out well enough to prosper, that is, if other nations don't meddle too much in your affairs.

If you're in the mood for more games like this, check out our round-up of the 15 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best city-builder games you can play right now.

Speaking in an online , the dev describes a recent shift in feedback from players and says it serves as a good sign 💝for what's to come. "It makes me happy," writes Slavic Magic, "to see players openly requesting AI cities now instead of more economy refactors or simple industry types." He calls it a "sign things are moving forward I hope," and concludes by stating that he's personally "looking forward to it."

In a previous , the dev faced criticism regarding Manor Lords' updates and their content as a fan stated that Slavic Magic focuses "too much" on issues that "are not important or necessary" rather than things like "AI" or "other new ꧅stuff." Other players have since chimed in, similarly asking for AI cities and "new features/conte🤪nt" for the city builder - requests that seem to have now caught the creator's eye.

There's no telling what Slavic Magic has in store for fans, but it sounds like he's more than aware of what the community wants and is ready to kick it all into gear. It's nothing new for the dev, either, as he always seems happy to take feedback to heart - after all, he frequently releases patches addressing players' requests like the recent one bringing 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:changes to ale and water distribution following commentary from fans.

Love Manor Lords? Here are some of the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best city-building games to check out next.

Speaking in a recent , the dev first addresses a Facebook post in which a fan questions why he's "challenged" every time he wins, under which one commenter states "It's a bug." Slavic Magic says that no, it's not a bug, but asks the community "If the player wins the game but wants to continue regardless, should AI, diplomacy, etc. become disabled?" The top response under the dev's query doesn't answer it but rather criticizes Manor Lords&ap🌄os; past updates.

"Feels like that the main topics fall back," reads the fan's reply, "and you focus on too much content/issues which are not importa🎶nt or necessary." The dev has since also left a response himself,  addressing the topic of how he prioritizes the medieval city builder's updates and why patches contain what they do, whether it seems "important" enough or not. "I always focus on issues that people comment on/D🦩M the most."

Slavic Magic continues: "'We want fishing' I add fishing, 'We want butchers' I add butchers. Pigs. Trade overview. Stuff like balance or systems refactoring usually it's not super cool to rework or impressive to show off… but it's honest work." He's got a point - he frequently releases patches addressing players' requests, with a recent one bringing 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:changes to ale and water distribution following feedback from fans.

Manor Lords is getting new maps "soon," but the city builder's dev is clear that only "future expansions" could venture outside the base game's existing European theme

Speaking on the Thomas Brush podcast, Sal൲a says "You need to check if your game is going to be successful. If it's not happening, you need to make another game or reassess what you'reꦍ doing." His advice is harsh, but it comes from experience.

"The golden goose is𒀰 not making the game, but figuring out if the game is going to make money," he says. "If the game's not going to make money you shouldn't work on it. That's a brutal reality. I think mobile game developers have more or less learned that lesson. This is the jungle we're in now."

Obviously, Sala's advice is only for people who want to make games as a business. You could make a game in yo𒉰ur spare time that's just for you, or your friends, or just because you want to put some art into the world. But if you want to get into the business of making games, his points are useful.

He also says, "I do my games in two years, that's my goal. Less than two years to make big, visually stunning games. Not six ಞor seven years, 'cause that's just dumb." If you're trying to fund yourself or employees, it'll be hard to sustain a business for years with no income from sold games.

He explains he makes something quickly and then analyzes what works and what doesn't rather than trying to make something unique every few months and then going back to the drawing board. In this way you don&ap🔯os;t abandon what you've learned and can build on you♛r successes and mistakes.

A final piece of wisdom from Sala is about being realistic. "Validate early," he says, referring to setting a goal like achieving a certain number of wishlists or trailer views towards the beginning of a project. "Creators, we'll keep pulling that dead horse because we put all our love and energy into it, but for the money?🥂 You can't turn a turd into a hit. You can't polish up that turd, you need to let go and move on. You learn and you keep at it."

There's a reason creatives are told to kill their darlings. It's hard to admit something you love may not work commer🦋cially, but that d🌟oesn't mean it was a waste of time. You take the lessons you learned and apply them to something new.

If you want to support more of the talented devs in the industry, you should check out our list of 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:upcoming indie games.

Speaking on the , Sala digs into the amount of money players have at their disposal to spend on games, noting that "we've given up half the industry to games as a service like 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Fortnite." He continues: "They're taking half the money, together with old games, so publishers w💛ith back catalogs will als♑o survive."

But what about new games? Sala says "the market will just be smaller" – it'll "keep growing," and still "be healthy," but ultimately it isn't "as big as it has been because you're competing with all these things. If you're young and playing games, yeah, you're spending more money on Battlefield and Fortnite, and what&apo𒁃s;s left, you'll try an indie game once in🐓 a while. But you can only spend that money once."

Ultimately, that brings him to the point that "we're all earning half of whatღ we were earning four years ago" – a point that Brush agrees is "true," too. "It's literally half," he reiterates. Sala says this half is what "we were sharing with the publishers," which can lead to studios more seriously weighing up the decision to self-publish since they don't want their earnings further divided. 

Instead of finding a publisher, devs can "cut that out and make you🔥r own game," which Sala describes as an "interesting proꦗposition" since they can then make the decision to simply "release on Steam and play the Steam system, and if it's a hit, then I'll find a publisher to do all these other things." 

Porting to console, translating a game to more languages, or making deals with companies like Microsoft via services like Game Pass can come later in the process, if at all, he reasons, and this lightens the load on indies up front. Doing all of this stuff at once to ship simultaneously is "gone for me," Bru🐎sh adds. "I don't do that anymore." 

Sala is a vocal supporter of indie dev efforts, and previously told us that he thinks they should be given more room for failure since 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:"your first game always fails," but your "10th♑ game might b🔥e the next AAA studio."

Early access "comes at great risk," Sala said: "There are expectations, and you better deliver on the expectations."

澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Sort-of-solo developer Greg Styczeń shared some photos on Twitter of the new features coming to 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Manor Lords. When I played it at launch, I remember popping a well down and then forgetting about water for the rest of my playthrough – I never ran into any shortages. That's about to change, as wellheads will soon display the supply and demand of water in a given town, so you'd better keep an eye on it and build more if you don&💯apos;t want your subjects getting dehydrated.

Back in ye olden days, people often drank ale or mead instead of water because the fresh stuff could be unsafe for consumption. A bit of alcohol can help to kill bacteria and keep people healthy. So, it makes sense that the way ale is handed out in Ma💎nor Lords is also changing. One of the pictures shared by Styczeń shows a tavern with an entertainment supply and demand value. It's unclear at the moment if this is how many houses the tavern's radius covers, how much ale there is compared to how much people want, a combination of both, or lumped in with a broader entertainment need.

The developer notes that "some of yo🍨u have requ🦋ested" these features and they are currently in closed testing. So, we don't know when we'll be seeing these added to the game, but hopefully it won't be too long a wait – my people are thirsty.

We also got a sneak peak at t🌞he new map being added to the game. Currently, there is only one available, but th💝e resources get randomly generated for each campaign, helping to keep things fresh. While the original is a slightly hilly, forested landscape, this new one looks far more mountainous. This could help tremendously with the game's difficult real-time strategy combat component. I tend to play on the peaceful modes, or at least turn off unprovoked AI aggression because I find it too difficult to properly defend an entirely exposed town, so starting a city in a more defensible region with a mountain on one or more sides would be amazing.

There are more maps in the works, but Styczeń hasn't revealed anything about them yet. What we do know is they'll stick to the medieval European theme unless a 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:"future expansion" comes out. Other than that, the developer is doing "澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:nothing 'cool' sadly, it's hard work that's needed," so we can expect more improvements to Manor Lords to keep tricklinౠg in.

If you're thinking about diving in for the first time, we've got some 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Manor Lords beginner tips that will help you survive the harsh winters and deadly raider attacks.

The screenshot that's been revealed shows an alpine-themed location with a huge mountain towering above a village, which is covered in snow and surrounded by frosty-looking trees. that it&ap🐓os;s "inspired by Lauterbrunnen," a real-life location in Switzerland, which explains why it looks so scenic. 

Of course, it's worth noting that Styczeń mentioned "maps," plural, but has only teased one here. He's not given any indication as to how many are in the works, when they'll be released, or what the others will look like. However, responding to one player asking if there could be any Manor Lords maps that aren't based on "German-speaking areas of Central Europe," the "in the base game, sorry." He adds that there&apﷺos;d be "no problem" doing so in "future expansions" later down the line, though.

This upcoming content update is exciting for multiple reasons – not only does the map Styczeń has revealed look (literally) very cool but it's also been a while since he's said much about his city builder at all. Just last week, he reassured fans that he's still working on it despite his quietness, noting that he was "reworking the marketplace/supply and demand🐻 system to be less frustrating and also so that taverns and wells can also work with it." Meanwhile, he added: "Th🍬e others are working on UI QoL and consoles, optimization and crash fixes. Nothing 'cool' sadly but still it's hard work that's needed."

For more games like Manor Lords, be sure to check out our picks for the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best city-building games.

Last May, 18 months ago for those counting, Paradox Interactive seemed to have closed the door on Ci♓ties: Skylines' long roadmap with what was sup💙posed to have been the city builder's very last major update and mini-expansion. At the time, the company said it was shifting its focus to Cities: Skylines 2, but that plan hasn't gone so smoothly. 

The much-hyped sequel launched with ဣtechnical woes so glaring that they overshadowed basically everything else in the simulation. Months of patches and fixes haven't completely cured all of Cities: Skylines 2's ailments, though, as its 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:first ಞDLC was also struck with similar problems and was eventually made free due to fan backlash. More recently, developer Colossal Order 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:delayed all of the sequel's plan🍸n𝕴ed DLC - some packs were pushed♔ more than a year passed their original release windows - to work on the game's more pressing issues first.

On the heels of all that drama, Paradox Interactive is now going back to its most sure fire hit. Cities: Skylines (The First) just receiv🦩ed three new paid DLC packs themed around the great outdoors. The Mountain Village Pack and Map Pack 3 both focus on "mountain peaks and alpine terrain," while Radio Station Alpine Tunes brings new songs into the fold.

"We also want to reassure those of you that play Cities: Skylines 2, that the development of this new content for Cities: Skylines is an entirely separate effort," the publisher explained in its announcement . "Th✱e content you’ll find in this release for Cities: Skylines has been implemented by Tantalus, the studio who managed the console ports for Cities: Skylines. No resources were diverted from Cities: Skylines 2 for this - our friends at Colossal Order remain fully focused on developing and improving Cities: Skylines 2. This approach allows us to release some updates without compromising on either game."

Cities: Skylines 2 publisher says gamers are “less accepting” that games will “fix things over time” nowadays. 

In a tweet, Styczeń addresses sparse communication on Manor Lords' development, assurin꧅g fans that he's still working on the game, but not on anything particularly interesting. 

"I'm reworking the marketplace / supply and demand system to be 🌊less frustrating and also so that taverns and wells can also work with it," he sa🎉id. "The others are working on UI QoL and consoles, optimization and crashfixes. Nothing 'cool' sadly but still it's hard work that's needed."

Manor Lords may well be the most talked-about city-builder of the year, wracking up🔴 an astonishing three million Steam Wishlists before launching in Steam Early Access in April to rave reviews and 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:selling a million copies in a day. It's been very regularly updated in the months since with quality of life updates, balance tweaks, bug fixes, content additions, and just last month, 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:a rollover to Unreal Engine 5.

Things have indeed quieted down somewhat since that update, although 澳洲ꩵ幸运5开奖号码历史查询:the game continues to be a sales behꦰemoth. In response🦩 to a p🤡layer who had thought the market rework was complete, Styczeń clarified, "I thought so too but players were still messaging me that it's bad and needs more work so this is what I had to do." 

While we wait for Manor Lords' next update and eventual 1.0 launch, here are the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best city building games to play right now.

It appears to follow the blackened footsteps of — if you'll excuse me — cult-classic horror games like 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Cult of the Lamb and Cultist Simulator in imagining fringe religious activity as a sou🃏rce of mouthwatering power. Though Worshi🙈ppers of Cthulhu looks like an unconventional city builder in how willing it is to be at once bleak and celestial, its premise melds well with standard city builder goals, like acquiring land and authority.

And so, when boiled down, Worshippers of Cthulhu could be more of a fascinating colony sim rather than horror game; in a greenish world borne from H. P. Lovecraft's cosmic octopus Cthulhu, you'll need to manage your eager followers and build them new cities w🍃hile crushing or converting your opposition. 

That said, Worshippers of Cthulhu also has an irresistible supernatural aspect. While engaging in more mundane city management like supervising production chains, you'll perform rituals to seek blessings from the Great Ones, says the game's Steam descrip🧔tion. The more they favor you, the more your dark em♔pire will prevail.

"Our existence is a fleeting whisper in the cosmic winds," the description 🔥continues, "and only by awakening Cthulhu can we transcend our feeble existence𒐪."

"澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Anno but with🐠 rituals and cultists," said one pleased Steam reviewer. "Nice." 

𓆏You can test the boundaries of your beliefs with Worshippers of Cthulhu&𓆉apos;s Next Fest demo, which is available to download for free at the moment, or purchase the game in its new Early Access period. Crazy Goat Games anticipate Worshippers of Cthulhu will remain in Early Access for approximately a year, though the full game does not yet have a release date.

Doom Eternal and Vampire Survivors collide in this Steam Next Fest FPS roguelike that had me playing "one more game" all night.

As reported by , Layden stated that there's a "collapse of creativity in games today [with] studio consolidation and the high cost of production" during a Gamescom Asia panel. Sala caught wind of a post highlighting the ex-PlayStation head's assertion, and has now left a sharing his own thoughts on the matter: "I mean how often have we 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:indie devs ask✃ed, nay begged, for more support."

The solo dev's reply continues: "How often have we shouted that one needs to water the garden, not just harvest the fruit." Sala doesn&ap🐭os;t see a "collapse in creativity" - in fact, he states that creativity is "in abundance," but that's not always enough. It "needs to be cherished and grown," and the industry nee🔯ds to start placing "experimentation and art over profit." In a comment, Sala even calls this "one of the best times for games."

He writes: "The diversity and quality is breathtaking. But [to be honest] this is mostly also because we come from a time of money, but we are now in a time of tighten🅷ing belts." Sala concludes that "we will see if the big parties can internalize in the le♓ssons to keep innovating and stimulating small and midsize creativity" - and as a consumer whose Steam library is almost entirely made up of indie titles, I certainly hope his message reaches others myself.

Check out some of these 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:upcoming indie games for titles to keep on your radar.

Heading Hooded Horse's sales for the year right behind Manor Lords with 1.2 copies sold is 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Against the Storm, another successful city builder with a stellar rating of "Overwhelmingly Positive" on ജSteam. Together, the two games could make up almost all of the publisher's 4.5 million sales over the lꦿast 12 months - but they're not the only smash-hit strategy titles from Hooded Horse proving to be successful this year.

Empires of the Undergrowth, a personal favorite of mine in which you lead ant colonies, has sold almost half a million copies with over 450,000 sales to date. Norland, another medieval strategy game with more sex, drama, and Game of Thrones-style backstabbing, has managed to sell more than 300,000 copies since its early access debut this summerও. It's mind-boggling numbers all around, and it's not all Hooded Horse has to celebrate.

The publisher is also seeing some massive wishlist numbers - a whopping 9.5 million over this past year, to be precise. Falling Frontier, an upcoming real-time strategy sci-fi title that's honestly giving off some 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Warhammer 40,000 vibes, hit over 600,000 wishlists. Nova Roma, a vibrant city-building 🥃game set in ancient Rome, has earned more than 350,000 since being unveiled last year - and it's one that I genuinely can't wait ღto play.

Quite a few stunning city builders and strategy games make up Hooded Horse's portfolio, and the next couple of years will likely prove even bigger for the publisher. Any players with a love for either genre should have a quick browse thro❀ugh the entirety of the Hooded Horse collection on for titles to potentialꦕly wishlist. Now if you'll excuse me, I've got a list of games to browse and an empty wishlist to fill myself.

Manor Lords publisher says game devs and big corpos don't get on because making games is "fundamentally unpredictable"

That's according to Paradox Interactive deputy chief executive officer Mattias Lilja, who about the delay of Prison Architect 2, as well as the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:cancellation of Life By You, and reception of Cities: Skylines 2. Talking about the former, Lilja🎃 says there were "quality issues" – notably "not the same kind of bucket of challenges that we had with Life By You" – which ultimately led to it being pushed back "to give the players the game they deserve" when it launches.

It's more than that, though, as Lilja continues: "It's also based on the fact that we, in all transparen🗹cy, see that fans right now, with a squeezed budget for games, have higher expectations, and are less accepting that you will fix things over time. That's our take. The gaming space has always been the winner-takes-all type of environment. A few gam🐼es bring in most of the players, and most games are dropped quite quickly, and this is even more pronounced now, [during] maybe the last two years."

Lilja goes on to say that when it came to Cities: Skylines 2 – which launched last year to 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:major performance issues, and thanks to multiple delays still hasn't released on consoles – Paradox "knew we would have some issues, like in every release." He later admits that some of those things were "issues that we had not really understood fully, and that's totally on us." When it comes to the cit♛y-builder's performance, Paradox chief creative of🔥ficer Henrik Fåhraeus says in a separate conversation that "we underestimated how it will be perceived by players."

Slightly more optimistically, Fåhraeus says Paradox learned from Cities: Skylines 2 that "if we could have brought players in to try it on a larger scale, that would have helped," and that going forward, the publisher wants to have a "larger degree" of openness with players, "and quite eಞarly if possible." With that in mind, hopefully the publisher might be able to avoid the same pitfalls in the future. 

A year later, barely any of Cities: Skylines 2's first-year DLC has actually launched and now it's all been delayed again.

In a new announcement on , the studio celebrates the full version of its ga♛me reaching over 500,000 players. "I believe the technical term for that is bonkers," jokes the dev, stating that the success means there's more in store for Tiny Glade. "I was quite worried and stressed just before the release, since we already knew that we wanted to continue making Tiny Glade - we just didn't know whether it'd be꧒ viable. Well, now we certainly can, and we will!"

While there is indeed more in store, however, there's no strict "roadmap" yet - or maybe ever.♈ The devs are nonetheless taking suggestions seriously. "I'm happy to report that our inboxes, forums, pneumatic tube mail, and homing pigeons are absolutely overflowing with feature requests and ideas," the post continues. "There's a ton of stuff y'all would like us to add, and we certainly see patterns. There's a lot of stuff that vibes with us too."

So, "where's the roadmap?" According to Pounce Light, there is "a list of features that we'd love to see in Tiny Glade, but that list is not a roadmap, and we don't really want to have a roadmap." The reason is simple enough - "the only approach💙 that works" isn't a roadmap, but rather "evolving and adapting the design as needed, driven by our own intuition as well as your feedback." The devs "intend to continue doing just that."

Pounce Light will "keep tinkering," but it's "still a tiny team, and it is still a tiny game." For now, though, the devs are taking a little break "to breathe, pet grass, hang out with friends and family, and finish that nth 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Baldur's Gate 3 playthrough." New features will come afterward when there's "time to design, develop, and test." Fans should keep their ey𝕴es peeled for more - and check the indie dev duo's full post for further details on coming changes.

Steam's chillest new city-builder pushed to its limits with 30-hour recreation of Lord of the Rings' Rivendell

Last month, Tomas Sala released an update for his city builder that was so big, he changed the game's name, despite it being just six months from iꦏts initial, full launch. At the time, he said in a statement that "it'd be a disaster" for him to run an early access campaign, which I was curious to ask him about in a recent interview.

Sala explains that going into early access means😼 you're facing "as rigid a development as you [can] get." He says: "You know, you made some promises, and then you have to deliver on those exact promises. If you don't, people feel let down because they already paid money."

Continuing, Sala notes that "if you do [early access], it's fantastic" since it comes with advantages like "great feedback," but ultimately, it's still risky. "If you're really small and you're no꧒t, you know, thriving on your community in a proper sense, then it becomes a stranglehold." He points to indies that have been criticized for "not being able to deli𒈔ver on the hype, or taking too long" as examples of this. "When you sign up for a format, there are expectations, and you better deliver on the expectations," he adds.

Sala tells GamesRadar+ he thinks game development works better for him without the structure that'd be enforced by early access. As it stands, he feels freer to release new updates, and take "a month of just fucking around" to "make this cool thing," and his community is supportive of that. That "authentic relationship" with the community is important, Sala says – so much so that he thinks it's "the one thing indies have that giant corporations can't deliver."

Sala reckons devs should have more room for failure because "your first game always fails" and "their 10th game might be the next AAA studio."

Sala𒅌 tells GamesRadar+ that when he interacts with players online, "I get this comment, 'Oh, the developer is responding, oh my God!' The next day, there's a patch in the beta branch. 'Oh, go to the beta branch, try out this fix I made for you.' And they're amazed. I think that's actually a pathway for survival - all the struggles and all the turmoil the industry's in - to have a🎐n authentic relationship."

The current landscape is tough for indie developers - during our interview, Sala noted that 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:"your first game always fails" - but that relationship with fans can be a lifeline. "It's the same way where you see these developers who are also content creators, like Pirate Software, so they have a relationship with their audience," Sala says, referencing the indie studio founded by Jason Thor Hall,🤪 who has built quite a following on Twitch separate from his game development. "They're not just coming for the game, they're coming for you."

This is one of indie development's "non-reproducible benefits," Sala argues. "The new reality of this industry is gonna make that much more common, and it's actually the one thing indies have that giant corporations can't deliver. You can't put every Star Wars Outlaws developer on Discord and have them talk about it. You can do that once a week - you get the lead guy coming in,✃ or the lead woman, but that's heavily managed by PR. But if you're an indie you get to go 'It's just me!'"

Sala admits that community management is "a skill you've got to learn. I've gotte💮n frustrated and upset. I'm better at it now. You get a thick skin, and then you learn how to do it, and how to take everything as a suggestion and as a compliment. Even if someone is angry, they're frustrated with the game because they wanted it to be better. S🔯o in a sense that's a solvable situation."

One look at the for Bulwark Evol🦋ution will tell you that Sala's trying to build that relationship with prospective players early, as you'll almost immediately see a trailer where Sala himself runs down what to expect from the game. The might just prove the point, too: "Amazing developer = Awesome ꦰgame."

Check out all the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best city-building games. 

Watching Dotage exceed the expectations of Italy-based developer Michele Pirovano has been a real joy. We chatted with the indie dev back in December, and he told us he expected Dotage to "maybe ⛎sell some 100 copies", and with 20,000 copies sold at the time (obviously much more today), Pir👍ovano was elated. 

"It was my dream – actually, not even my dream, because I'm quite a risk-averse guy and I have my🅷 feet on the ground," he said of the game's runaway launch. "So I was not thinking it would be good. So when it did that, it was very, very exhilarating. It was perfect for me – for a week. And then I realized how much work keeping up with so many players would be."

Dotage's upcoming Switch launch is yet another important 𒁏marker of the game's surprise success, as welꦉl as a certain boon for overall sales. It's billed as a "merciless survival roguelite turn-based city builder," and that's pretty dang accurate by all accounts.

You play as a bearded village elder who leads his fellow villagers in the charge to survive the apocalypse, which belies the vibrant color palette and adorable pixel character models. Taking up that da🍌unting task means you'll need to manage your community, assign workers to various tasks, and expand your village.  "Grow crops, herd animals, bury corpses, forge tools, upgrade 🔯buildings, train professionals, and produce dozens of resources," reads the Steam description.

As for the roguelite element, that comes in every time your village inevitably goes under and your Elder remembers lost memories, thereby bringing "n𝄹ew ailments, the mysterious VIPS, new Elders," and more into the mix. Then there are "forces that govern your world," including disease, earthquakes, and, thank goodness, non-violent invaders like kittens, presumably just to keep the hope alive.

Here are all of the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:upcoming indie games to keep on your radar.

Speaking to GamesRadar+, Sala was asked to comment on the difficulty indie developers face building financially viable games and studios, specifically with regards to Steam's infamous 30% tax it charges developers, w🌌hich Sala previou🌜sly decried as a "relic" that "needs to go down". 

Th𓆏is time around, Sala spoke more broa෴dly about how the video game industry can support indie developers, saying "it's a given" that their first games fail commercially.

"We should add more pathways to make people learn where the⛦y can have a failure, because the developer that's failed at one game will make the second game [that's] better, and꧂ the third way will be even better, and their 10th game might be the next AAA studio."

Sala also made the case that major platforms "like Valve or Xbox" should invest more in indie 🎃developers because they won't have to rely as much on existing IP to drive business and so "there's something new in 20 years. If people like me die out, and it's all Fortnite for now, for 20 year🐷s, at some point, that's going to impact the big guys as well, because there's no cheap talent anymore, there's not people coming in because they're not learning the trade, they're not learning how to tell stories."

Taking place in the same universe as Sala's previous release, 2020'🦂s The Falconeer, but switching genres from aerial combat game to city builder, Bulwark Evolution: Falconeer Chronicles launched back in March and currently has mor♋e than 700 Steam reviews, 81% of which are positive.

Here are all of the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:upcoming indie games you should have on your radar.

In a press release, Manor Lords publisher Hooded Horse confirms that the game had passed 2.5 million sales - not bad when its solo dev's girlfriend said it would be lucky to get 7,000 wishlists. Clearly, that's cause for celebr🅰ation, so the next big Manor Lords pa🐭tch is leaving beta and heading to the main game.

Patch 0.8.004's headline change is the rollover to Unreal Engine 5, which should help deal with several bugs and crashes. However, theꦫre's plenty more directly relevant to players in here. Right up there is the introduction of💎 fishing, which comes with associated ponds, jobs, buildings, and, of course, food. 

Speaking of food, there's a new Butcher artisan conversion, 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:finally allowing you to 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:use excess sheep meat and create sausages. Thankfully, there are also new food spoilage rules, so if you end up with too much food, it shouldn't necessarily bite you too hard. Finally, a 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:new weapon type - crossbows - allows you to train🌳 and hire crossbowmen for yo⭕ur army.

The full go into a lot more detail about all of thosജe changes, but they also contain even more good news - publisher Hooded Horse is running a publisher sale on Steam, which means that Manor Lords is currently available for a 30% discount. That's the city-builder's biggest price drop so far, so if you're not one of those 2.5 million players yet, this could be your chance to get on board. 

Check out our list of the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best city-building games. 

As shared by the official , this loving recreation of Rivendell is a sight to behold. The entire build took about ꧃20 to 30 hours over the course of two weeks, but luckily you can watch a timelapse of the process below in just over six minutes. While Tiny Glade only launched on September 23, a few folks like the creator of this Rivendell, Alan Ward, were given keys ahead of time to help playtest before launch. Building the city of elves from Lord of the Rings is certainly one way to playtest a game.

The timelapse shows how large the suite of tools are for your own creations. From creating giant towers to cozy huts, it's no surprise that 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Tiny Glade had one mil♒lion wishlisꦚts on Steam. Maybe we will even see someone attempt to tওake on the rolling hills of The Shire or the hardened walls of Gondor next.

Now that Tiny Glade is officially out, we can only imagine the fun places that will be recreated, alongside all of the new and inventive things players will think of. In fact, in the previous Steam Next Fest demo players were already manipulating the toolset so much the d💧evelopers added new features to accommodate for half-timber-style buildings. 

If you're looking for more games like Tiny Glade, check out our list of 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best city builders you can play today.  

In a tweet earlier today, developer ജ11-bit Studios said it was "super happy to announce that we've already exceeded 350,000 copies of Frostpunk 2 sold." The tweet came early this morning, so that marks more than 100,000 copies per day since Fr🧔ontpunk 2 launched on September 20.

That's an impressive figure for any indie, let alone a sequel in what remains a relatively niche genre, but more important than that specific sales figure is what 11📖-bit says n𓆉ext. Namely, that "the total estimated sales revenue has already covered the costs we spent on producing and marketing the game."

That's huge news, meaning that from here out, Frostpunk 2 is in pure profi⭕t territory. Obviously, that's not how these things work out in reality, and while the studio has broken even, it still has to fund whatever comes next. Nevertheless, this does still count as a substantial hurdle, which it's good to see Frostpunk 2 overcome. 

As for what comes next, 11-bit has another game due to release this year - cloning-themed sci-fi survival game 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:The Alters - but the studio isn't done with Frostpunk yet. In that tweet, it also confirms that "the work doesn't stop here, we are continuously working on improving your experience with hotfixes and patches, and your feedback here is invaluable." It'll be interesting to see whether the team sticks with Frostpunk now, however - it's clearly a recipe for success, but it's also been the brunt of the studio's output, development-wise, for the last decade, 🐼whereas The Alters could spell the start of a whole new era.

Check out our 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Frostpunk 2 review - or another of the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best city-building games.

The Modern Archi💞tecture and Urban Promenades Creator Packs have been completed by their creators, but the devs say that the Asset Editor is taking priority as "one of the most crucial remaining features in fulfilling our promise to make mods fully available in-game," according to a .

"To ensure we don’t split our focus, we’ve made the decision to push the release of the Creator Packs to Q4. This will aℱlso affect the upcoming release of Bridges & Ports Expansion that will instead come in Q2 2025. We will continue dedicating our efforts to the base game before shifting focus to paid content💧. Our goal is to ensure the community is satisfied with the state of the game, and once we’ve achieved that, we’ll be excited to release these amazing packs to you!"

That now means that the Bridges & Ports expansion - the game's first major piece of DLC - has been delayed for a full year past its original intended release window of Q2 2024. For tho🦄se of you keeping track at home, here's how the game's first-year DLC roadmap has worked out so far.

• Beach Properties - originally intended to release Q4 2023, released March 25, 2024, immediately removed from sale and added ⛎to the base game after negative response
• Deluxe Relax radio station - originally intended to release Q4 2023, released March 25, 2024
• Urban Promenades and Modern Architecture Creator Packs - originally intended to release Q1 2024, now set to launch Q4 2024
• Soft Rock and Cold Wave radio stations - originally intended to release Q1 and Q2 2024, now set to launch Q4 2024
• Bridges & Ports expansion - originally intended to release Q2 2024, now set to launch Q2 2025

All these DLC delays aren't necessarily bad things, since it means the developers are focused on more fundamental upgrades to the base game. But the fact that Colossal Order is still working on getting Cities: Skylines 2 up to snuff some 11 months later is a pretty devastating comཧment on the state the game launched in.

Cities: Skylines 2's console ports have been delayed indefinitely due to missed "stability and performance targets."

Frostpunk 2 takes place decades after your Captain in the original game gathers survivors to build the first settlement of the arctic wasteland capable of surviving civilization-ending mega-blizzards. Years of relative peace - or the closest thing that is possible in a 🙈world frozen with no thaw in sight - have allowed populations to grow and a society capable of other things outside of basic survival to sprout. Mechanically, this means Frostpunk 2 makes the jump from smaller-scale real-t𝓰ime tactics to nearly full-blown 4x proportions, trading individual building placement, day/night cycles, and small maps with different kinds of zoning, and months moving by in minutes. An expansive overworld begs players to plant their flag in other territories, potentially operating more than one settlement at once.

Instead of stumbling on a lone generator out in the tundra, Frostpunk 2's story mode asked me to pick up the pieces of a crumbling New London as the super settlement from the previous game was rapidly falling into disrepair after the loss of its old Captain. At its most elemental, it requires the same diligent resource collecting and production management while also keeping my people warm, fed, and healthy. Where the original game focused ജon sending a handful of people out into head-high snow drifts to find scraps, Frostpunk 2 lays down more organized industrial operations from the start.

Cold comfort

Icons on the map identify regions that hold fuel to dig up, wood to chop, or plant-worthy soil to work, and painting over them with the proper type of district builds the appropriate set of buildings to get the stuff into your storage, their workforce needs regularly measured in the hundreds instead of the tens. These districts can be expanded over time, and become home to the sorts of specialty build🥂ings that spiced up the first, like the Research Institutes and𝓀 Hospitals. The scale up does make keeping track of these production centers easier.

Even though time moved faster, these points had way more total yield and tooltips that kept me aware of when they are drying up well before they do. It can be tricky to get the hang of all of the district buildings and when it's better to expand v🍰ersus building out a whole new zone. The latter is something I picked up over time, but a dozen hours into my New London revival concert, I still hadn't fully wrapped my head around the information overload of all the potential risks and benefits of these new locations.

Not every new addition to the basic setup feels impactful. A new secondary resource, good🅷s, is supposed to be a representation that society is far enough away from extinction that they can start enjoying tchotchkes again, 𓂃but I only ever had enough of these to meet demand for one five-minute stretch over the many hours it took me to beat the story, and I never felt a consequence for it or a pressure to create the extra district necessary to make more. 

People get more of a focus this time around. Workforce requirements for any project is usually significant, so keeping people healthy is of extra emphasis. In the tragic event that you are not able to meet their vital needs, Frostpunk 2 seems more forgiving about when they start to pay the price and how expensive it is. But since people are the rarest resource here, any loss of them hits hard. Outside of their gameplay role, they are presented with far more individuality and reverence than they were in the past. Every so often when a problem or concern arises, it's usually a large, well-rendered, solemn face with pain in their eyes asking me to fix it. The dark social commentary doesn't really hit as hard this time around, but that might be more because our real world feels a little darker than it did six years ago, and not due to some significant change in 11 bit's style of storytelling. The grim retro-futuristic Victorian buildings and characters still present a wholly unique steampunk-adjacent ae✨sthetic, properly capturing a world that got frozen in time in the last century, as well as the many little innovations humanity made since then. It's just hard to wax too poetically about its brutality whenℱ there seems to be so much of our own to consider.

Chilly relationship

The balance of making sure all of my bases were covered was still tenuous, but far more manageable out of the gate thanks to Frostpunk 2's excellent story mode. Its objectives do did double duty: provided a puzzle of city management that grew in difficulty over its five chapters, and were clear and clever ways to introduce all the assorted mechanics and troubles I would face if I left the campaign and attempted to grow a city from scratch in  the free play mode, nudging me towards valuable evergreen strategies on the way). Frostpunk 2 is not always clear on how to do some specifics – the tutorial tooltips have some blindspots on how to find specific actions buried deep in menus or explaining why a production would ꧟suddenly stop midway – but it's great at making sure I wasn't idling too much by always presenting some n༒ext big challenge to conquer.

Governing people in the original Frostpunk took my moral compass for a spin, but Frostpunk 2 do𝓰es everything it possibly can to br🅺eak it altogether. In the prior game, every decision felt like it came with pros and cons that hit most of the population with the same weight, ultimately making the whole experience a matter of choosing the pros that overall have more impact than the cons. But the 30 years between the brink of eradication and the fictional now has given the citizenry time to imagine what the future of civilization could look like, and they've divided themselves into factions based on those beliefs. Almost everything I did had some sort of consequence on one or more of these factions, usually with at least one liking it and one hating it. The efficiencies of fracking oil out of the frozen soil might please the technocratic Stalwarts but it's dangerous and the traditionalist Pilgrims will disapprove. Anger a faction enough and they will start to cause unrest in the settlement, potentially trying to actively sabotage your future projects or overthrow you completely.

The temperaments of each faction significantly impacted my ability to pass new laws in the settlement, too. No longer could I just do so with impunity like the original game. These factions combine to create a parliament that must vote on every proposal with the likelihood of my proposal passing determined by how many of these councilmen believed in my leadership and how many could be swayed to vote in my interests for favors in return. Every vote, even the ones that seemed to go reasonably🅺 my way, felt tense. It made trying to get things done a real struggle, but I really came to appreciate just how much trouble they can cause. Around the midway point and beyond in the campaign, I spent a lot of time granting favors and donating resources to individual factions in order to keep them compliant, years of barking back and forth between them all whittling down their tolerance for one another and their faith in me. Many of the choices you make are reversible or fixable in some fashion if you have the will, and a select few are not, and I think often about how things could have been had I made different choices or favored different factions.

Exploring outside the confines of my main settlement is a much larger endeavor in Frostpunk 2. Scouts still♛ adventure out into the tundra to find resources and survivors, but they search by regions instead of individual points. Once scouts make it to the region, they report back a set of points of interest that could reveal stockpiles, people, or outpost opportunities that create semi-permanent access to a particular resource. This time around, I also got opportunities to create secondary settlements like an oil field that I used to drill and ship the fuel back to my main city. These locations had their own populations, workforces, and 🎃resource needs separate from my other settlements, so if they couldn't gather or create all of the things they needed, my other settlements had to come together to fill the gaps.

This is really the only time Frostpunk 2's expanded scope felt consistently unwieldy. Bouncing back and forth between settlements to move resources around just so that they could survive another few months was tedious. It felt like I was mostly just treading water and not actually progressing, which was frustrating and not in the ultimately fun and thought-provoking way that the rest of the game can be frustrating. ཧI'm sure that this is something that takes practice to master, but at around a dozen hours in, imagining how much time I'd need to spend to "get good" at settlements puts my brain in a deep freeze.

Frostpunk 2 is the most engrossing city builder I've played since the first. Though its moral quandaries don't pull at the heartstrings as hard as it did back in "simpler" times, it challenges the mind just as sternly thanks to the expanded management systems and scope, the need to manage factions and politics on top of individual needs, and a great story mode that taught it all to me. Even if some systems get a little obtuse, or if expanding the balancing act 🐷to multiple settlements became a progress-trapping burden, rescuing humanity through urban planning and political gamesmanship has never been this enriching. I'd normally not recommend sprinting towards the opportunity to run a potentially fascistic post-apocalypse nation that might require you to mandate children leave school and become woodworkers, but let Frostpunk 2 be the exception.

Frostpunk 2 was reviewed on PC, with a code provided by the publisher.

My Time at Evershine doesn't see you take a rundown farm or workshop over like the other two entries did. This time around, you actually play as the governor of a brand-new settlement on the fringes of the Free Cities. This means that you're in charge of pretty much everything, from recruiting all kinds of❀ folks to yoꦰur up-and-coming town to taking care of its infrastructure from the ground up.

A whole new world

When I ask the developers about this integration of city-builder mechanics, vice president Aaron Deng assures me that the "core game loop" fans know and love is still there - it just comes with a twist, an added layer of depth. In Deng's own words, "The whole town is your workshop" this time around. I also made sure to enquire about customization and what this means for those of us who love decoratin🅷g things from the top down.

Much𝄹 to my delight, the entire settlement in Evershine is completely customizable to suit your tastes. The layout, exteriors, interiors, and even its inhabitants are determine꧑d by you, but that doesn't mean that you'll have to do all of the dirty work yourself. Running a town is no easy feat, but you can thankfully employ residents to help with constructing new projects.

They'll help you do everything from building homes to defending your settlement against enemies, although you'll have to ensure that they're comfortable enough to be efficient at their work. Its city-builder vibes partly remind me of 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Manor Lords - with𒊎 a far cozier setting and more RPG s🉐im-adjacent features, of course.

Never a dull moment

You can also expand your settlement by "taming" bordering territories for resources. This will unlock new resources and NPCs - and if you're worried that the sheer size will leave your town feeling dead, fret not. While My Time at Portia and My Time at Sandrock can feel a bit lonely at times, devs are working hard to ensure that Evershine doesn't. Acco🍸rding to Pathea, there are 8-10 romanceable characters and 20-30 "unique" characters outside of these "core" NPCs.

There are also "randomized" NPCs to "make up the rest" - something that I'm admittedly a bit concerned about. It's not that I don't want my game to feel more alive, but more so that I don't think that having randomized NPCs is the way to go about it. I'm content wit💜h the number of unique characters, though, and am hopeful the randomized ones don't take away from any immersion with their… randomness.

While I'm not thrilled to have these strangers in my town, I'm excited to bond with the new romanceable characters that Evershine has to offer. As revealed by Pathea, romance comes earlier than it did in Portia and Sandrock, featuring a bit more depth as well to allow for "meaningful relationships." Above anything else, however, I'm most looking forward t༺o the follower system. That's right - full-blown, JRPG-style followers.

The developer explains that players will be able to form a party with up to three other characters. You can choose who to bring along, meaning you can have a full party made up of a healer-type member, a more tanky adventurer, or someone who s𝓰pecializes in dealing damage. Or, if you'd prefer, you can party up with three friends instead.

Invite a friend or two or three

澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Multiplayer in Evershine is a huge step up from Sandrock's online co-op, and I already feel confident that Path༺ea will deliver this time around. It's no secret that My Time at Sandrock didn't follow through with the devs' promise of multiplayer, or at least not in the fleshed-out way that fans were expecting it to. In Evershine, players can actually ♑experience the entirety of the main game's story together from start to finish.

While onl♒y the host player can progress through all of the main quests, everyone takes part in completing objectives, and money is shared Stardew Valley-style. It sounds like it's the sort of multiplayer experience I expect out of both sim games and RPGs - the kind that I wanted out of Sandrock but didn't quite get. As the devs shared with me, even Evershine's map was designed to properly support multiplayer.

Pathea also put a lot of thought into mod support this time around, in both single-player and multiplayer modes. I've not dabbled in modding with the devs' previous two titles myself, but I'd love to see what more creative fans come up with come Evershine's release. This rings especially true for me with multiplayer - yes, I'm that one annoying friend in 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Baldur's Gate 3 with a hundred mods you need to match.

All in all, I'm thoroughly impressed with My Time at Evershine so far. M🥀y only concern is that with its addition of city-builder mechanics and the more "realistic" approach to visuals I was shown, Evershine will lose some of the My Time series' identity. With its integration of long-😼requested features, though, it's safe to say that the third game will stand apart from its predecessors in a positive way as well and hopefully set a solid foundation for Pathea's future titles.

Need even more to look forward to? Here are 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:new games coming this year and beyond.

Removing fall damage from Overthrown was a de🐠cision made by the game's creator because it's "annoying" but more importantly because their mother used to tell them "you can't just do whatever you want", . As it turns out, when you're an adult you can totally just do whatever you want, at least within the technical confines of the g🌠ame you're making.

This means you can leap off any cliff or fall from any height w🔯ithout needing to deal with the consequences that would plague you in other video games whose developers aren't trying to spite their mothers. 

Game✃ balance be damned, as removing fall damage will seemingly make things more chaotic by allowing you to surprise attack enemies from high vantage points or even just a tall tree that would probably break your leg if you fell from it. 

Overthrown also features other abilities like becoming a giant magnet to attract nearby items, but it has not been stated if that was added to spite a different family member. As you develop your city using this new urban planning method, you'll grow gardens, defeat bandits, and even build homes for your𓄧 citizens in up to six player co-op.

Overthrown is set to release in ea♍rly access on Steam in 2024. 

There are plenty of great indie games released everyday. Here are our upcoming indie games for 2024 and beyond.  

You might remember The Falconeer as that flight-combat launch title for Xbox Series X|S that had you flying a mass🌸ive, fierce bird across some gorgeous clouds and crashing waves. It was awesome, and solo developer Tomas Sala followed it up with a complete left-turn into a new genre.

Bulwark: Falconeer Chronicles came out as a "dynamic strategy game where you build, expand and defend a grand civilization, with modes ranging from🌳 peaceful creativity to intense warfare," all set in the same cloudy, dramatic world as its predecessor.

Bulwark was already an accomplished, well-received city-builder, but Sala recently published an update that was so transformative, the game also changed names from Bulwark: Falconeer Chronicles to Bulwark Evolutiꦦon: Falconeer Chronicles. The, ahem, evolution comes from the open-world content d🌳oubling, progression becoming much clearer, and a new Total Conque🌠st mode that puts you up against every possible faction in the game all at the same time. Chaos.

The sweeping changes have certainly made a difference, though. Salas recently to say th𝄹at "you folks are digging the evolution," alongside a screenshot of the game's recent user reviews that were 97% positive. "That's insane, it's never been this high, for an experimental game that messes up the conventions..." More user reviews have been logged in the days since thanks to a massive 50% discount that lasts until September 20.

Check out some other 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:upcoming indie games to not miss a single release. 

You might remember that 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:indie developer Tomas Sala announced a completely separate name change for Bulwark: Falconeer Chronicles back in May, when he joked that its "full title" was now "Bulwark: Falconeer Chronicles, a bloody creative sandbox not a fucking strategy game, build some cool shit expect no endgame cuz a sandbox." Today's rebrand isn't the result of clear frustration, however – it's to signify just how much the game has, well, evolved thanks to this plethora of new changes.

Alongside the original Bulwark experience that existing players will know well, as well as its freebuild mode, Evolution brings with it Total Conquest – a challenging mode that'll set you off at war with every possible faction in the game. It sounds like pure chaos, and a press release teases that both the༒ scale and frequency of the raids we'll face will be like nothing we've "ever seen before."

On top of that, there's fresh mechanic🔯s to dive into (including new fortresses to unlock), progression has been made clearer, and as mentioned further above, the open-wo💃rld content has been doubled. Needless to say, even if you've poured hours upon hours of your time into Bulwark: Falconeer Chronicles, it sounds like there's tons more to do now. 

In a new statement, Sala says that "it'd be a disaster" for him to run an early access campaign, since "I don&apos🍸;t even know at launch where the game is gonna end up in six months." Even so, in Bulwark: Evolution's case, he's "still working away as if every week is a new launch."

While there are some massive changes being rolled out here, this isn't the end of Sala's work on the game. "Bulwark: Evolution isn't the endgame; for me, it marks what I cons🍰ider as close to a 1.0 version as I can deliver, but it's just another jumping off point," he adds.

Bulwark's chunky new update is rolling out on 🔯PC today, with the plan for it to follow on PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X|S and Xbox One later in the month. 

Be sure to check out our list of the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best city building games you can play today.

If you didn't already know, Valve takes a commission of 30% from developers whenever they sell a game via Ste𓃲am. So if yo🍒u sold a game for $10, Valve would take $3, and you'd be left with $7 – but this isn't always the case for indie developers who still have a publisher to pay.

That's the scenario Tomas Sala, indie developer behind The Falconeer, is speaking about in the tweet below. Sala argues that it takes "genera꧃lly at least half a million if not more in revenue for a dev to finally earn more than Valve on their own game," because indie developers still have publishers to pay even after they've paid Valve's Steam store transaction fee.

Sala provides a scenario where a theoretical indie game makes $750,000, and posits that the developer themselves would merely be left with $175,000 after everything is said and done. The veteran developer adds that while this could cover the indie game development costs, "we all know ♎indies work for free and spend triple or more than they get on development," so that's not really realistic.

"So Valve takes more than most indie devs up until really large numbers," Sala further wri🃏tes, 😼before adding, "The 30% tax is a relic... it's unearned and unjust..." and "It needs to go down." 

The 🀅Steam store tax is an issue that developers have been speaking about for a long time. Take this indie developer, for example, who took to to write that they'd made a profit of $400,000 on their game. Now, keep in mind this is a UK-based indie developer, so income tax, national insurance, and student loan repa💛yments need to be applied, but after all that, they're merely left with £53,380.

30% of their $400,000 was reportedly taken by "VAT/USA taxes/Refunds," while another 30% was taken by the Steam store tax. Even before UK national taxes are applied, that's merely $196,000, a far cry 🌃from the original $400,000 that they started with. Using this example as a case study, Sala's point about needing to earn over $500,000 to make more money than Valve sounds perfectly justified.

Take a look at our 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:upcoming indie games guide for a list of all the new small-time titles you can support.

Peter Molyneux recently said that his new god simulator Masters of Albion shouldn't get into any legal disputes for its setting of the titular Albion - another word for old England and also the fairytale world in Molyneux's Fable games - because the word in itself "can&apꦿos;t be copyrighte🌠d." Granted, he also admitted he wasn't totally certain o✅f th🎶at.

Lawyer Haley MacLean then jumped into the discussion on social media,🍌 with an explanation for "informational purposes only" rather than actual legal advice, breaking down the important dis🐼tinction between the word Albion and the world that Xbox has the rights to.

MacLean explains that Molyneux is right: "no one could trademark/copyrig꧙ht protect the word for a real/historical place in and of itself." Microsoft can, however, copyright a "fictionalized take" on said historical place. "It comes down to how much creative effort is taken to create a 'world' that has originality."

MacLean uses MMO Albion Online as a good example - a game that's set in a world called A𒊎lbion, but its Albion doesn't include Fable-y bits like The Hero's Guild, characters like Theresa, or other lore related to the series. 

"The questionꦛ isn't really whether 22Cans is allowed to use the word Albion but whether their take on Albion is substantively similar to the world/lore of Albion from Fable," MacLean continues. 

Things get a little tric🍸ky since Molyneux directed both versions of an ancient, whimsically magical England - silly chickens included. "A lot of what Fable was, a lot of what Masters of Albion is, is inspired by Guildford - the green rolling South Downs and the ancient ruins that were dot🐬ted around," Molyneux explained in an interview with , but chickens and rolling hills probably aren't copyrightable either.

Masters of Albion doesn’t have a release date yet, so why not check out the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best city-building games while you wait?

Speaking to, Snow Rui, CFO at Manor Lords publisher Hooded Horse, was one of many indie publishers to discuss the wave of layoffs that has rocked the industry over the past two years. "A lot of the cuts and unrest ♑come from public companies; 'shifting corporate priorities'," Rui suggests.

"I believe there's some inheren꧅t tension between public companies' desire to have predictable revenue trending well at quarterly and annual intervals, and the reality of game development." That reality, Rui says, is "fundamentally unpredictable both in timing and in results."

In other words, massive corporations want to be making the same (large) amounts of money every quarter, and that's not really how game development works. Larger influxes of cash will come in around launch and sales windows, but it's hard to predict what will succeed and what will fail. Manor Lords - 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:a smash hit despite its niche genre and mostly being made by a single person - is a perfect example of the fact that success can come from anyℱwhere. The same is largely true of failure, but that's not something that really works for the bottom line of large corporations 💜and their shareholders.

That could be bad news for indie developers, but Rui points ജout that it might also be bad news for those same publishers, since devs can simply decide to go to work for themselves. "Self-publishing and the knowledge needed to do it well has never been more available," she says. "Publishers will really have to prove their value and offer good terms, as self-publishing is not a bad alternative right now, and th💃at's as things should be."

Hooded Horse, it's worth pointing out, does seem to be a notable exception to some of these concerns. Back in April, as Manor Lords surged up Steam's wishlist charts around its release, the company's CEO, Tim Bender, told GamesRadar+ that "澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:we can ignore profits when we should. We're not non-profit or anything, but everyone agrees on it not being the only motive." That philosophy meant that the company could afford Manℱor Lords the delays it needed to launch in the best possible state. Not every company would afford a game that space, but if Rui's prediction that self-publication is more attractive than ever rings true, that might not matter for too much longer.

Bender is also a fan of self-publishing: "If I had a game, I would not sign with 90% of publishers"

Speaking in a recent with Pirate Software lead Jason 'Thor' Hall, Hooded Horse CEO Tim Bender reveals he'd steer clear of the majority of publishing companies - and why he'd do so. "If I had a game, I would not sign with 90% of publishers tha𝓰t exist out there. There are resources that you can learn," Bender says. Hall agrees, saying that he personally thinks the sentiment is "correct."

Bender continues, offering an alternative to publishers: "Developers - if you're the kind of person that you're willing to go out there and you're willing to start reading and learning and thinking about all these marketing things and t🐷rying your best to do on your own, you can get yourself to a state where you're 90% better than 90% of publishers at doing it and you won't charge yourself." It isn't all just about the money, either.

The publishing lead states that not only could developers cut costs that way, but they'd also have more interest in their game's success. "You'll care a lot more about your game, and in particular, you won't make certain mistakes that I see publishers often make - which is when marketing a game, trying to market it as something else that isn't quite the game but they think fits better into some other popular game,🔯" the CEO explains.

Bender concludes that "self-publishing is a fine way to go" - as long as developers know what direction to take and are willing to "learn." Earlier in the discussion, he says he thinks "so many games fail" because of bad contracts where publishers insist on making all their money back before devs get a bite of revenue - so his position on hiring a publisher from a developer🔜's point of vie💮w isn't all that surprising.

Love Manor Lords? Here are some of the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best city-building games to check out next.

Speaking in a new with Pirate Software lead Jason 'Thor' Hall, Hooded Horse CEO Tim Bender says that publishing contracts are often to blame for games' lack of success. "A sort of mainstay of publishing contracts - which I very much don't agree with … is 100% recoup terms where the publisher will recover first. All the sales will go towards recovering the publisher's costs before any 🔯sales revenue g🔯oes to the developer."

Bender continues, agreeing with H𓆉all as he refers to such publisher contracts as "absolutely devastating."

"It's terrible. It leads to - I mean, so many games꧋ fail, and the people blame the developers, and it's like, well, we know what happened. They were buried under recoup - no matter what they did ever, they 🍬were never going to get out from under that and see any money from the game and be able to support themselves."

"When you set up recoup terms you're basically saying the most important thing is tha♕t the financial product to the publisher succeeds because it's very protective of that - like getting all the money until the money comes back that the publisher put in is essentially saying 'I will not fail in the sense of financial project.'" Hall responds, stating that in that scenario, "there's no risk for the publisher" if the games end up failinไg.

"They've already made their financials back.🌊 At that point, it's just pure profit." Bender agrees: "The consequence is the developer gets no money until [the publisher gets it] back - it makes it much more likely to fail [for developers] … and it also makes it much more likely to fail for players." His point here especially makes sense - if a game is financially successful for developers, fans can expect🐽 future improvements and updates.

If it isn't - they can't, and "it's over."🃏 Success on the developers' behalf rather than only the publishers "makes it much more likely that games that could be improved after release answer player complaints and turn into a successful game for the players." Bende🍰r concludes his point by asserting that Hooded Horse is "the opposite" as the Manor Lords publisher doesn't "use those recoup terms" - a refreshing revelation to say the least.

Out of things to do in a game? Manor Lords dev has a good idea: "Enjoy other games for a while" and come back "when there's new fun stuff"

Gourdlets is genuinely one of the cutest city builders I've ever seen, and its concept is even sweeter. Created by indie developer Preethi Vaidyanathan – AKA AuntyGames – the whole experience is 🎃designed to be totally "stress-free" with "no objectives, no points, just good vibes." 

While you're tasked with creating a town for an ever-growing population of blob-like vegetable buddies (the titular gourdlets), your citizens are incredibly easy-going, and will "be happy no matter what." This gives you full creative freedom to craft the town however you please – you can focus on aesthetics, make something cool✅, or just mess around with the tools with no fear of the little guys yelling at you for one reason or another.

It really sounds like a creative player's dream, as seemingly everything is customizable. You can make the island you're building on as large or small as you want, embellish the outdoor space with buildings and all the decorations you fancy, and tweak the insides of the buildin𓃲gs, too. You can even give the gourdlets themselves some style with accessories and hats, so they'll look extra cute while living in the spaces you've created – you can even watch them enjoying activities like fishing and camping. 

If all that sounds as delightful to you as it does to me, then the good news is that there's not long to wait 🦄at all, as there's less than a week to go until Gourdlets' release on Steam. In the meantime, you can also to get a taste of what's to come.

For more cute games, be sure to check out our roundup of 15 games like Animal Crossing that are so wholesome it hurts.

We've been hearing plenty about Manor Lords' next patch for a fair few weeks now. Chiefly, this is the huge update that's going to 澳洲幸🏅运5开奖号码历史查询:switch the city-buil🧔der to Unreal Engine 5, while simultaneously 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:introducing the oft-requested fishing ꦉponds, as well as rolling out the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:introduction of crossbows as another ranged option for the battlefield.

So, a lot, then.ꩵ Revealing yet another feature for the new Manor Lords patch in the tweet below, developer Slavic Magic announces that you'll be able to turn "surplus" livestock into 'meat' and 'hides.' So effectively, you'll be able to consume any surplus sheep you've got hanging around, or take cows and turn them into hides with which to barter. 

"Does this mean we can eat sheep now???" inquires one Manor Lords player in the responses to the tweet, to which Slavic Magic simply responds with a "yep." Manor Lord🐬s does pride itself on being somewhat historically accurate for its time period setting, so eating livestock like🥂 sheep and cows slot pretty seamlessly into a game like this. 

Sheep have actually been a surprising problem for some Manor Lords players of late. Back in May, for example, one player defied Slavic Magic&apo🎉s;s advise and bred 2,100 sheep and counting, leading to them understandably drowning in wool. It turns out sheep could breed exponentially in Manor Lords, which lead to Slavic Magic issuin♍g some of the best patch notes of 2024 in an attempt to counter the issue and cap sheep breeding to one new calf per ten♑ days.

Just recently, Slavic Magic proposed something very positive for its players - if you run out of things to do in a game, simply put it down and come back la✃ter when there's new stuff to enjoy. The Manor Lords dev believes it's perfectly fine to put a game down and walk away for a while, which is actually something that Final Fantasy 14 director Naoki Yoshida has bee🍷n speaking about in similar tones for years.

Check out our 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Manor Lords trade route guide for an overview of how to establish trade routes as seamlessly as possible.

Too many games, and too many gamers, set themselves up for failure or disappointment by pursuing endless, repetitive fun over finite, memorable experiences,𝔉 so it's been encouraging to see more developers openly push back against♌ the "dead game" rhetoric – the ridiculous idea that a game with a conclusion is a game with a problem. Manor Lords dev Slavic Magic reckons the solution to this imagined problem is a simple one: play something else.

Responding to one Twitter user who running out of motivation to play Manor Lords after 34 hours, Slavic Magic : ">30 hours is a lot, thanks for playing! My advice is to enjoy other games for a while ( maybe? ;) ) and come back at a later s꧒tage when there's new 🎀fun stuff to experience and new challenges to take." 

Slavic Magic, thankfully, isn't the only one saying this. The makers of Final Fantasy 14 famously encourage the MMO's ravenous player base to play other games on a regular basis, for instance, and there's been a recent uptick in pushback against the mirage of the forever game. The community manager of Palworld, one of 2024's biggest hits, has shared some of the most salient arguments, reminding folks that player counts often don't matter and that it's frankly unhealthy for games not designed for months-long play to chase it. 

"I don't think you need to be pushing yourse♔lf to play the same game all 💙the time," community manager Bucky said. "It's not healthy for developers, it's not healthy for gamers, it's not healthy for gaming media, and it's just not healthy for our industry." 

Manor Lords publisher argues "not every game" needs to be a live-service, and developers should never be "forced to run until their mental or physical health breaks down."

I was, to put it bluntly, naive. Now, Eichenhau is nothing but ashes. Even if a loaf of bread survived the fires, there would be nobody left to scoff it down. At the time, the town꧑'s ꧋fiery demise felt sudden and brutal. In hindsight, though, I suspect it was doomed from the start. 

Plowshares to swords

It feels like I'm the last person to jump into Manor Lords. The medieval strategy game only entered Early Access in April, but it's already 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:sold over 2 million copies and exceeded publisher Hooded Horse's "wild hopes". I finally bought into the hype this week, and after several in-game years spent developing my urban planninꦿg and barley-farming skills, completed Manor Lords in its combat-free Rise to P𝓰rosperity mode.

Fresh off this success, I dived straight into building another town in Restoring the Peace, which introduces bandits and rival lords to contend with. I was keen for the addition of combat: I didn't have much use for things like iron – which is mostly used to create weapons and armor – in Rise to Prosperity, and wanted to get the full Manor Lords experience. To be completely honest, I also just wanted to turn my villagers into a well-armed fighting force. In 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Europa Universalis 4, I loved playing the English and bouncing my mega-fleet around the sea, preying on ships like crown-sanctioned pirates. I've won domination victories using most of the factions in Civilization 4, and can't remember the last time I passed a turn in Total War: Warhammer 3 without wiping out some form of sentient life. If you put me in charge of something, whether it's a globe-spanning empire or𒅌 my local bakery, I will find a way to militarize it. 

In Manor Lords, though, this is tougher than it sounds. You need to equip each household with gear to draft them into your militia – archers need bows in their home, for example, while swordsmen need… well, swords. But in the name of baby steps, I prioritize keeping my villagers well-fed and happy before even thinking abou🎃t revving up the war machine. 

My first red flag is a small notificati🐻on, which tells me bandits have made off with some of the town's meat. No problem! I can see that their camp is miles away, and assume that this is a one-off. But then my berries are pinched. So is the village's leather. Shortly after, another notification tells me that raiders are going to attack my village in a year. That's the last straw, and any thoughts of keeping my villagers stuffed and content go out of the window. Mines go up through Eichenhau's once-idyllic forest, while a household of nearby farmers are relocated to work in the new smithy. I even open smaller blacksmithing stations in several families' gardens, dashing their dreams of growing veg or raising chickens. 

Unfortunately, getting all of this running is a logistical nightmare. I can't quite turn my metal into weapons quickly enough, and the family I've got making bows keep running out of planks. By the year's end, I can muster a few half-strength units of archers and pikemen – just in time, as they rally in front of the town church just as scores of club-wielding raiders trudge into view. Despite being peppered by ar𒁃rows, the bandits reach my thin line of pikemen – most of them artisans and farmers until a few moments ago – and slaughter them in a particularly bloody battle, while another group kills the archers. At this point, the attackers have just 12 men left, but I can only rally another six pikemen and two archers. The survivors clash in thick woodland behind the village, and miraculously, we emerge victorious with a lone pikeman left standing. 

I wish I could say it ended there. Unfortunately, a much larger force of bandits attacks not too long after – thi꧙s time without the polite 364-day notice our last guests gave. Still struggling from logistic issues, made worse because Eichenhau's population has been decimated, the mustered defense is pathetic. They crumble under waves of brigands who sweep through the streets like a wildfire, pillaging what they can while putting everything to the torch. After pouring hours of work into the town, all I can do is watch as it burns.

It feels like a group of older boys have kicked my sandcastle down, and it's made me realize that Manor Lords is the only game where I prefer to give peace a chance. Here, I get more satisfaction out of building my settlements – watching the population increase, putting them to work and slowly expanding their borders – than I do from combat. As such, I've returned to Rise to Prosperity, where my benevolence means citizens ge🌠t to spend their days toiling in fields and mines rather than dying in some middling militia. 

It's the first time I've ever chosen to disable combat in a game, and it's entirely possible that the peacefulness of it all will eventually turn to mundanity. Give it enough time and perhaps I'll return to Restoring the Peace with my usual bag of tricks, prioritizing weapons ov🏅er wheat until the world is mine. But I can also see myself sticking with Rise to Prosperity, where the thrills of urban planning and ideal crop rotations await. Whatever awaits, at least I&apos🎐;ve had a taste of my own medicine. I finally know what it's like to be one of the AI factions I conquer in other games – and when the steel-plated shoe is on the other foot, I don't really care for it. Farewell, poor Eichenhau. We hardly knew ye.

Hit city builder Manor Lords is getting a new feature players have been begging for: "One quality of life feature a day keeps the negative review away"

In a new Twitter post, 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:kind-of-solo developer Greg Styczeń has teased a screenshot of a new feature that we can expect to roll out in🐼 an upcoming patch. As you can see here under the 'advanced' tab of the Dyer's Workshop, it'll soon be possible to set a 'consumption limit' as well as a 'production limit,' which sounds like a perfect way of making sure you don't 🌼burn through your entire supply of resources, or produce more goods than you need. 

Presumably, this won't just apply to the Dyer's Workshop – after all, players have been for some time now. It's a relatively small change, but should make a massive difference as you'll seemingly no longer have to manually pause the production of goods by clicking onto the buildings making them. Styczeń seems hopeful that this might boost the game's🅰 reviews, too: "One qu🅠ality of life feature a day keeps the negative review away?" 

It's not clear exactly when this feature will be available, but we do know that Manor Lords is set to get a significant update in the coming weeks that'll upgrade the city builder to Unreal Engine 5, as well as add the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:long-awaited fishing ponds, so perhaps it could come as part of that? Styczeń has teased that the Unreal Engine 5 upgrade "should result in a smoother overall experience," so stay tuned. In the meantime, players can get their hands on a selection of 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:new coats of arms designs, including two that feature snakes – something which "medieval games for some reason never add," so tha🌄t's pretty neat. 

Be sure to check out our top 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Manor Lords tips to help you create a thriving medieval city.

Manor Lords' next patch, 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:coming in the "next few weeks," is bringi🦄ng crossbows, fishing ponds, and much more to the bonafide hit city-🐭builder. Among the additions are new character portraits that you can choose from (get a glimpse via the new ), which prompted one Redditor to comment that the art "looks kinda AI-generated."

Styczeń was quick to squash any speculation, as the developer that there "is no way to AI generate this quality yet," while joking that there's "no need to insult [character artist Beata Krzywdzinska] by assuming it was." Krzywdzinska is the artist who c🅠reated the other beautiful Manor Lords portraits depicting all of the playable Lords and Ladies. 

The Manor Lords patch notes were just there to give us a quick preview of what's coming up next, so while some things might chaꦫnge between now and the update's release, it seems like AI is definitely off the table. Whatever AI can vomit out can't yet hold a candle to Krzywdzinska's work.

AI's use and impact in the gaming industry has been a scorching hot topic for months now, and it seems to be reaching a fever pitch as some of the biggest publishers on the planet, including Activision Blizzard, have 澳🥂洲幸运5开奖🌞号码历史查询:already quietly embraced the technology. Unionized video game actors represented by SAG-AFTRA also just 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:announced plans to 🎉strike against companies such as EA, Disney, and Activisi🍸on to secure protecti𝓡ons against AI.

Manor Lords publisher urges other studios to “take care of all the devs” instead of hunting for the next viral hit.