Bulwark: Falconeer Chronicles

Bulwark is an interesting experimental project, but I simply can’t call it a good game since it has way too many flaws. [list] [*] Exploration. One of the first things you do in most games is map exploration, since you need to know where to expand and want to find interesting things. Sadly, what you will notice almost immediately - traveling between islands takes way too long. Next you will notice that there isn’t even much interest on those isles, at best you will find basic resource nodes, but most of the time they will be empty. It gets even worse in the upper part of the map, where after some point you don’t even get islands any more, just a vast emptiness of the ocean. And at this point you will also notice that said part of the map is just a copy-pasted and mirrored small fragment of shallows - so why does this part of the map even exist, if it is nothing but a stub? [*] Combat. Sometimes you will encounter enemies while traveling - at this point a bar that shows powers of fleets appears and the combat starts that plays itself like an autobattler, so you can just relax and enjoy the spectacle. The funny thing is - out of many combat encounters I had I saw said spectacle twice - the rest of those combats happened somewhere in the clouds, so the only thing to look at was the aforementioned balance of powers. Extremely underwhelming. The problems however don’t end here: to recruit units you will have to spend a lot of hard earned shards, so you would want to pick the best ships - and there is basically no way to understand what even is the best ship since, while the game does show HP and 3 different kinds of weapons on said ship - it never properly explains how those things interact, so you are basically guessing. And if going off the vibes while making your fleet was the intended experience - why even show those stats in the first place? But well, let's say you did hire a freet, you fought and won a battle - and now you are getting a reward that is less than 1% of the value of units you lost. So not only the entire process was guesswork and waiting, even the results are not worth the time and resources you invested in it. So at that point I have one question: why exactly does combat even exist? [*] Building. As the dev says this is a casual builder with experimentation, so instead of minmaxing it is about the looks and vibes. However, to be able to build you need resources, and the bigger you want to build the better your resource extractors should be supplied with workers - so to do that you have to spam towers as dense as possible while making them as big and tall as possible - what contradicts the entire point of being casual and experimental. And while the style of those buildings and generation are really interesting features, if you are trying to make your cities efficient you will end up with the exact same designs very quickly. [*] Characters. There are a bunch of them in your employment as ship captains, generals and crafters. And, to be honest, I have a bone to pick with every single type of them. The main crime of generals is simply existing - you got my point from the “combat” section. Apart from that they require the biggest and fattest tower (again) to fit a lot of troops and said troops aren’t even better than the mercenaries you can find on the map. Crafters supposedly give bonuses - I can’t confirm that though as I have never seen a single mention of them doing it and never saw any output increase in the cities that hosted said crafters. Ship captains are the simplest and the most obvious of them all - they just move freight exactly between 2 ports and will only carry certain cargo types. And the problem with those guys is that there are way too few of them if you are planning to grow several big cities - you will simply lack the transports to carry all the resources to every location you need - but hey, you can buy DLCs for a few more traders! Oh, I will also mention that the characters are voiced - and while most of them will not be heard often, your advisor will constantly repeat information straight up from tutorials every time you obtain a new building/colony/extractor in the voice of the most boring professor in the university that puts you to sleep in the first 5 minutes of his lecture - and there is no way to shut him up and make him tell only useful stuff like events or spotted special buildings. [*] Diplomacy. There is a rudimentary system that allows you to ally yourself with any of the 3 major factions, by doing so you will get access to their wonder but will have to pay diplomacy fees to the other 2 factions. Switching said factions is extremely fast (you just need to replace all of the generals and crafters you use with the ones of desired faction), so after you got all the wonders the entire system is simply pointless - there are no benefits to being allied to someone, while you will have to pay fines until you go neutral again. [/list] Overall, while I respect some of the ideas behind the game and admit that building generation is impressive - the game those ideas are put into shows those ideas poorly. It almost feels like a test project to develop systems that will later be used in proper and better games. But this game? I simply cannot recommend it in its current form.

If you buy this game, don't wait past the 2 weeks mark to play it. If you can make it past the tutorial and are enjoying it, only then play more. Don't lock yourself out of the ability to refund this game, even if you paid pennies for it.

I love this game. The developer is passionate about it and continues to push out new updates well past when I would have expected, and each update is meaningful and has some new thing that really expands the experience. Keep in mind this is more of a 'vibes' game in a lot of ways. It's not a micro focused RTS or economy builder... it's much more about playing with things and watching your civilization grow and adapt. Definite recommendation.

The graphics are nice, but as a builder game it is not intuitive how or what to build. I became frustrated even following the tutorial. asked for a refund. 20/100

Tuturial is garbage. Voice is too silent. It disapears too fast, no next button option or recall what was said. There is no redo, or remove if you clicked and accidentaly placed a lane. The more I build the lower resource I get. I do not know if this shows total rss or just available at that perticular distance. Upghrade shold build up stone connection, once I build the last one - at least how I understood it, but it rebuilds the wooden one. Why does it even rebuild something to change nothing instead of saying 'this type exists already'. Make building placing a 2 step process... place ghost structure, after confirm, turn it into funtional structure. Select old building and placing HAS to be more distinct then just placing something down.

Chinese: 致开发者 我认为您的翻译软件是很不错的，所以我会保留中文，同时附上用机器翻译的英文，英文版本可能会存在一些错误，请您谅解。 以下是我想回复您的话。 感谢您的耐心回复，您说的确实对，是我欠缺考虑了，这是一个休闲游戏而不是策略游戏。在购买前，我被商店页面的游戏演示视频中优秀的画面设计和音乐所吸引并决定购买这款游戏，所以并未仔细查看游戏的标签，这是我的错误，向您致以歉意。 不过我仍然决定保留“不推荐”状态，这款游戏确实有非常优秀的地方，但在我看来，它可能并不值这个价钱。如您所言，它是一款休闲游戏(我也认为这款游戏在短时休闲游戏里算是优秀的)，只有轻度策略要素，这也意味着它对于玩家的游戏寿命是相当短的，如果游戏内容没有足够的深度去供玩家探索和思考，那么当刚玩这款游戏时对画面和音乐的新鲜感过去后就很难再带来什么乐趣了，这也是我玩了这款游戏8小时后便没有再玩的原因。 当我在度过游戏初期后，我感觉我像是坐在流水线旁的工人，做着简单的操作，并未感到休闲而是无聊，即使我在劳累地工作了一天后也会更倾向于游玩《Starsector》《Minecraft》等游戏进行休闲娱乐，或许您想给玩家带来的游戏内容就是现在这样，但我个人感觉这太过休闲以至于无法让玩家在新鲜感过后有动力去寻找让自己接着玩下去或者偶尔打开这款游戏玩一玩的理由，它的游戏寿命让我认为它不值76￥这个价格。 ——————— English: To the Developer I think your translation software is quite good, so I will keep the Chinese version and attach a machine-translated English version below,this is a machine-translation and may contain errors. Please forgive me,thanks. Here is my reply to you. Thank you for your patient response. You are indeed right, and I didn't think it through properly. This is a casual game rather than a strategy game. Before purchasing, I was attracted by the excellent visual design and music in the gameplay demo video on the store page and decided to buy the game, so I didn't carefully check the game's tags. That was my mistake, and I apologize for it. However, I still decide to keep my "not recommended" status. This game does have some very good qualities, but in my opinion, it may not be worth the price. As you said, it is a casual game (and I do think it is a good one among short-session casual games) with only light strategic elements, which also means its lifespan for a player is quite short. If the game content lacks enough depth for players to explore and think about, then once the initial novelty of the graphics and music wears off, it's hard to bring much enjoyment anymore. That's also why I stopped playing after 8 hours. After getting past the early phase, I felt like I was a worker sitting on an assembly line, performing simple operations—not feeling relaxed, but bored. Even after a tiring day at work, I would rather play games like 《Starsector》, 《Minecraft》, or 《Noita》 for leisure. Perhaps the game content you want to offer players is exactly what it is now, but personally, I think it's too casual to give players the motivation to keep playing or to occasionally come back after the novelty fades. Its game lifespan makes me think it's not worth the price of ¥76. 优点： 1.音乐、音效、美术风格都很不错。 2.自由度很高，基本没有什么限制，算是典型的高自由度模拟经营类游戏。 3.操作方式和玩法简单易懂，入门门槛低，难度低。 缺点： 1.玩法过于单一，内容不够丰富： 1.(1)：建筑方面，基本就是建造建造以及建造更多的塔楼，连线连线以及连更多的线做贸易路或者在建筑间搭桥 1.(2)：战斗方面，挂机等，没有像骑砍那样可以自己亲手舞刀弄枪冲杀敌人的设计，除了把可以超时空传送（当玩家视角切换到舰艇或者飞艇上亦或者其他建筑上时所有处于跟随状态的部队都会立刻传送到玩家摄像头所在位置）的部队送到敌人旁边外基本没有需要手操的地方，玩家自己能率领的部队上限到60后带几个从雇佣兵那里买的高级飞艇（破坏者等）基本就能在1v1的情况下依靠不断的局部胜利把敌人全吃了，虽然可以通过将定居点内指挥塔驻扎的指挥官设为突袭模式来让他们派兵打，但效率很低，不如自己带队打。 1.(3)：经营方面 1.(3).a：经营-外交方面，只要保持自己所有定居点内自身主阵营的人数占优，其他三个阵营保持同水平基本就不会有阵营主动找事，但如果玩家和某个阵营结盟的话，该阵营的敌对阵营就会与你有敌对倾向，如果不结盟的话 外交系统基本相当于不存在。 1.(3).b：经营-经济方面，经济系统基本不存在，只要按ctrl唤出资源流通界面后确保左下角四个资源条没有条是空的就能一直建造建筑，货币(也就是游戏内的灵魂碎片)最大的用处就是解锁地图上散落的特殊建筑、购买指挥官或雇佣兵以及船长服务、买资源采集器、买兵，除这些外基本就没别的用处了，多的货币只有当你操作失误损失部队后补兵用得多些。 1.(3).c：经营-行政/科技/文化方面：没有施政空间，不存在政策树等设计；没有科技树，不需要攀科技；文化除了要注意下航线船长的文化不要互相冲突以及不要让定居点的总人口中某个非主阵营的人太少外基本没什么存在感，但即使触犯了注意点也没任何惩罚，只是船长会拒绝与敌对文化的船长在同一条航线上工作，所有定居点中某个非主阵营人太少，那个阵营会有些意见，但基本没什么影响。 2.叙事性弱，游戏驱动力不足： 制作组可能是想像魂系那样，将具体的剧情和设定揉碎到不同角色的文本中实现相对碎片化的叙事，这是很好的想法，但魂系主要是靠勾起玩家的挑战欲和好奇心去主动探索危机四伏的地图以及面对强敌，事后给出的反馈也很足，没有人会拒绝在辛辛苦苦打完一个强敌后享受独属于自己的胜利果实，无论这果实是一把好看的刀、一把锋利的剑、更多的货币、一段足以打动人心的故事还是别的什么，至少我在每次打完BOSS后都会主动读完BOSS给的东西上附属的文本。而这个游戏给出的驱动力不足，先玩过空战猎鹰再玩堡垒战纪的老玩家或许会有动力去探索在空战猎鹰后发生了什么，但新玩家很难在没有足够动力的情况下去主动探索。 综上所述，现阶段不是很推荐购买，想休闲一下的可以考虑打折入手，原价不推荐，不过我的游戏时间不长，或许会有误或没了解到的地方，望谅与指正。

Horrible

A unique minimalist city builder with some minor RTS and 4x elements where the cities you build cling to the cliffs and sit in the shallows of a vast ocean world, the Ursee (the setting of the previous game [i]The Falconeer[/i]). ~Unlike most city builders, [i]Bulwark[/i] doesn't have you build roads or paint zones, instead it uses something of a node system; you place down a tower (i.e. a node) which automatically connects to a prior node. A tower can then be further developed and stylized to some degree which influences other nodes. This simplified construction method allows for relatively quick and visually interesting builds, though it does so at the expense of simulation aspects. ~Most of the buildings require resources--wood, stone, iron, as well as workers--to build or develop, but the resource nodes are not a limited resource and do not require micromanaging. Instead, the resources are limited by the distance they can travel from their source(calculated by "hops" between nodes), which in turn is effected by how many towers are connected to it. A wood mill, for instance, can produce more wood the more towers are connected to it, and the more wood made, the further the wood can be transported. ~On top of all of this, you can freely explore much of the Ursee via a surveyor airship (and later a warship)--guarded by a fleet of Falconeers or other combat units, initiate trade with other communities, or even declare war and conquer them. Combat is simplified too, units escorting your surveyor automatically attack, so there isn't much strategy beyond whether to get into a scuffle and how many combat units to buy. Despite being a simplified city builder (and blowing through most of the achievements on a single scenario), I've found [i]Bulwark: Falconeer Chronicles[/i] to be pretty fun and addicting, as well as kind of relaxing.

Bulwark: Falconeer Chronicles is less of a traditional city builder and more of an apocalyptic settlement survival game. Building options are intentionally limited, resources are scarce and spread thin, and the gameplay is centered more on survival and careful expansion than creative freedom.

Pobre y falto de jugabilidad. Los gráficos están bastante bien pero el juego termina siendo soso y aburrido. Falta ver más datos, la construcción me resulta caótica y mareante. Fala un mejor control de los barcos y de las tropas. Mejor comercio, mejor diplomacia en definitiva, me estoy aburriendo y no veo claro el reto a conseguir. Falta mejorar muchísimo este juego. No comprar si la oferta no supera el 80% de descuento. Al menos de momento!.