Not the SteamFest | Folk Emerging

eXplorminate Intro:

This is an article series dedicated to the smaller developers, some of whom may not have managed to get onto the SteamFest. While we at eXplorminate do like the bigger games in the genre (Eo, Old World, Age of Wonders etc) I thought this was a great chance to highlight visibility for the smaller developers. I think the best ideas often come from smaller developers, who are more willing to bend the rules, challenge conventions and take risks. 

Game: Steam Link

Developer: Curious Dynamics (Enkidu), on the Discord.

For Folk Emerging, this ended up something like an interview. Enjoy: eXplorminate questions are in bold. We announced Folk Emerging a while ago, in this post.

What were your inspirations?

My inspirations for Folk Emerging start with games I played growing up, e.g. Civ II & III, Age of Empires 2, Rise of Nations, Sid Meier’s Pirates!, Populous The Beginning. These sparked my early interest in history and world-building, and I remember at age 7 taping together dozens of A4 pieces of paper, drawing huge maps of kingdoms and armies, and coming up with fun stories that would play out in those worlds. Folk Emerging feels like a natural extension of that impulse, and the visual style is inspired by the illustrations of the history textbooks I was reading at the time.

Later on I got a degree in biology, which eventually inspired the focus on climate and ecosystems in the game. I also came across interesting books that informed my approach to the prehistoric setting, e.g. The Dawn of Everything, and The World Until Yesterday.

I’ve certainly drawn inspiration from great games like Civ 6 (e.g. bargaining table diplomacy, city state system for spiritual sites), Old World (e.g. events, law pairs), Super Auto Pets (e.g. autobattler setup), Settlers of Catan (e.g. placement of structures between tiles), Six Ages (e.g. characters, art), and a ton more I’m sure.

Who are you?

I go by Enkidu, and I’m a long-time strategy player. I’ve mostly worked as a data scientist, now trying to switch to game development, as it’s super rewarding. I love how it’s multi-disciplinary and engaging both analytically and creatively, letting me work on design, programming, music, visuals, marketing, business, etc. I can pour all my energy into it and there’s always more to learn, which I enjoy.

Why the stone age?

I arrived at the Stone Age setting in quite a roundabout way. The game’s own “prehistory” is useful context: after working as a data scientist for a few years I’d started doodling a standalone map generator in Python with detailed climate simulations. I soon realised that if I put people on that map it could turn into a game, like the ones I played growing up. My initial fantasies were naturally way too ambitious, e.g. simulating Earth’s entire population, or to have a growing scope like in Spore. However, thinking through those fantasies did help me distill the central theme I wanted to pursue: The Individual vs The Collective, and how their needs don’t always align.

To do justice to this central theme I felt it’s important to simulate all the individuals in the collective, not just a small selection of a royal dynasty, for example. This created a constraint: I needed to choose a setting where the collectives are small enough to meaningfully simulate all the individuals (e.g. max a couple hundred). One setting that stood out was the Stone Age, when most of humanity existed in bands of a couple dozen hunter-gatherers. Given my life-long love of history, and how under-explored this time period is in strategy games, it felt like a great fit.

Choosing a specific time period rather than all of human history adds useful constraints and lets the game explore that era in much more depth. A great example is Old World’s focus on classical antiquity. In Folk Emerging I get to dive deep into prehistory and explore hunter-gatherer lifestyles, climates and foodwebs, the origins of the first cities, social structures, and the many technological and cultural paths humanity has taken (e.g. agriculture, pastoralism, seafaring, nomadism, sedentism).

What challenges have you faced?

Despite cutting down the scope significantly, Folk Emerging is still an ambitious game for a solo dev. Most of the work on it so far has been part-time, in between other work that pays the bills, which can be a challenge in terms of managing time, energy, and finances. I’ve had a couple months of full-time work on the game (as is the case now), which has felt good but is a bigger financial risk. 

Otherwise the usual gamedev challenges always apply: making the game good, the code reliable, the UI intuitive, the art not ugly, the marketing effective yet not sleazy. Art is likely my weakest skill, so I’ve worked with freelancer artists to help with the Steam page art and character portraits.

Why this battle system?

Initially I had a dedicated tactical grid map for battles, separate from the world map. It was fun but had several issues (e.g. battles could take a long time, they felt too separate from the main map). Also, during my talks with publishers, I was warned about how difficult and time-consuming it can be to create a satisfying and well-balanced tactical combat system. I concluded that even if I were to do it well, it would take away from the rest of the game and split both the player’s experience and my focus as a dev.

In the name of science, I buckled down and played a bunch of auto-battlers, and saw the benefits of such a system: deep strategic possibility space, no tactical micro-management, quick resolution, plus the shop-battle-shop cycle with accumulating and spending currencies naturally fits the 4X gameplay loop.

Why self publish?

I did try to find a publisher, and got far along the process with a handful, but it didn’t work out for several reasons, including: I don’t yet have a proven track record, the game looked rougher earlier in development, and I’d missed the early 2020’s funding gravy train so most publishers had become much more risk-averse by the time we were talking. There was even one that ghosted me at the contract-signing stage. Some of those discussions still proved useful, and I learned a lot about which publishers to seek and which to avoid.

Now I’m far enough along to where I’ve already taken on most of the risk myself and the finish line is in sight, so I see less reason to seek or accept a publisher. Plus, being fully responsible for every aspect of the game’s success has forced me to learn a ton, which will only help me going forward.

What’s your favourite game?

If I have to pick just one, I’d say Old World. I love it both as a player and game designer. Honorable mentions: Civ 2-6, Valheim, Factorio, Outer Wilds, Ozymandias, Star Wars Battlefront II (2005)

eXplorminate Thoughts:

Much like Aoiti (Imperial Ambitions), Enkidu started out by simulating things. I for one think that is really really cool. I’d like to put these 2 together in a room and get them simulating a world with dragonfire, eternally hungry Giants, blood drinking Vampires, and the societies that these would create. Oh, some magic too.

Folk Emerging has been getting some serious buzz in the Discord, and we have a channel just for it, here.

There is also some more mainstream attention here.

So, the tldr of this game is: The first 5 turns of Civilisation, made into a game. I mean, chopping wood and butchering are things you can research.

eXplorminate Outro: 

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