We're excited to share our first big update for Landnama! It's been almost exactly two months since the release and we have been hard at work to address all your feedback, and we'll continue to listen so we can evolve Landnama into the game you want it be. While staying true to the core gameplay mechanics, we've overhauled many of the game systems to add more depth and strategy, reworked difficulty scaling, and removed a lot of the punishing random elements that didn't feel fun.
To play the beta version of v2.0.0 right-click Landnama in your Library and choose "Properties". In the following menu select the tab "Betas" and choose the branch "v2_beta". Please note the beta branch is fully localized only in English, German and French as of now.
We'd love to hear your feedback on the changes, it has been and still is crucial in helping us shape the future of this game!
Here’s what this update is bringing to the game:
Objective and Upgrade System
We really wanted to streamline the game flow and have the upgrade system feel more organic. While the goal of a settlement is still upgrading the home tile to a great hall, the path there is quite different.
- Rather than paying for an upgrade with heart, players now need to reach a certain level of production per harvest.
- Once the harvest threshold has been met, the upgrade automatically begins, but is only completed via player interaction.
- Heart capacity is now increased by building houses and is no longer tied to the upgrade system.
- Upgrade levels have been reduced from five down to four.
- Players will now need to build right up until the final threshold is met, creating a more consistent experience throughout a settlement with less waiting.
Difficulty
Something we spent a lot of time looking at is how difficulty works in Landnama. We tried to move away from anything that felt too random or unfair, and allow scaling in a way that supports player autonomy. We now have three main variables that impact difficulty: the player-selected Hagalaz difficulty levels, events that players choose when to interact with, and map generation that changes based on region. For example, a normal difficulty level in the first region will be a substantially different challenge than Hagalaz 3 in the sixth region.
- Hagalaz difficulty levels have been changed from five levels to three and streamlined for a more intuitive difficulty scaling.
- Hagalaz levels now impact the upgrade threshold requiring higher production.
- Effects are no longer time-based but now last for the duration of a settlement, and negative effects are no longer as punishing.
- The Althing has been removed entirely.
Events
Something that was important to us was to try and give players more choice around when events happened and have the outcomes feel less punitive. We also wanted to have events be a part of the difficulty scaling to add a more substantial difference in the experience between normal difficulty and Hagalaz 3.
- Events no longer happen on their own, but are found when exploring unique tiles giving the players choice about when to engage with them.
- Events have a chance to be either positive (blessings) or negative (curses), with the ratio of positive to negative changing along with increased player-chosen difficulty levels.
- Hagalaz levels determine the ratio of positive blessings to negative curses, with more blessings than curses occurring at normal difficulty while scaling up to exclusively curses at Hagalaz 3.
- The challenge auto-pause setting has been changed to an event auto-pause that triggers for both positive and negative events.
World Generation
We wanted the regions to feel more distinct from one another while also allowing for more diversity in difficulty between them. If a player chooses to play the regions in order of difficulty through a saga they will have a noticeably increasing challenge.
- The biome algorithm has been tweaked to make regions more distinct with a predominant biome that will feature more prominently.
- Glaciers are now unbuildable dead tiles with their frequency increasing based on the difficulty level indicated on the region selection screen.
- Higher difficulty levels make finding buildable biome clusters more of a challenge.
- Unique tiles are more evenly distributed and have been increased to 25 per map.
- Exploring unique tiles will reveal an event, curiosity, or the landmark, and more will continue to appear as you explore.
Buildings
We wanted to change the building flow from the start to the end of a settlement. With this in mind, the building system has been rethought entirely and has been completely rebuilt around production.
- Each production building now has two support buildings that unlock with home upgrades for powerful builds that grow with a settlement.
- All buildings now have adjacency requirements and synergies with adjacency being a core element of how the entire build system functions.
- Each building also has both a primary effect and a secondary bonus that is given when built on a quality tile.
- Sacred buildings have been reimagined as a separate, unique heart production group.
- Caches have been replaced with Houses which are now the only avenue to increasing heart capacity.
- You can now open the build and home menus while the action is disabled.
- The building auto-pause setting now triggers not only when buildings are built but also when they're salvaged or destroyed.
Play Modes
- There is now a quick play mode where the player can select a clan, region, and difficulty level for a single settlement.
- The daily challenge still exists but can now be played multiple times, though only the first play will count towards the leader board.
- The monthly leaderboard now only allows one entry per player.
Masteries
- Once a player completes a home upgrade they receive a point to spend on a static mastery bonus tree.
- Each mastery has three tiers tied to a production type for choice based on need and strategy, and allowing the player to better adapt to map generation.
Clans
- Clans now have a starting bonus and a clan ability allowing for different play styles and strategies.
- Sagas will now require settling each region with a different clan, though if a settlement fails that clan may be used again.
Winter
- The winter formula has been simplified to depend only on the settlement's production.
- The Vegvísir now lets the player survive winter at the cost of all available Heart.
- Fixed an issue where you could click the Vegvísir button after finishing winter.
Renown
- A new rewards system for unlocking boosts, clans, and other game elements. The player accumulates renown by playing the game, with increased difficulty providing higher payouts.
General
- The top UI has been redesigned to be more clear and intuitive.
- Exploration time is now capped between one and six months.
- The game no longer auto-saves at the start of the year but after the last harvest.
- In the settings you can now override the language chosen via Steam UI.
- The Steam Cloud now properly syncs between different platforms.
This is an overview of the biggest changes, but there have also been many quality of life tweaks. There are a lot of changes, so please help us test, find bugs, tell us what works or doesn’t, what you want to see, and any feedback you have on these core changes. There’s more coming, but we want your help and ideas as we move forward, especially with content for the renown system.
We’re excited to get this in your hands for feedback, thanks for playing Landnama and we hope you enjoy the changes!
Mario, Michael & Mathias - Sonderland
