Slope downwards to thy depths.
I have a memory of talking to Tomas Sala over Zoom or whatnot.
I have a memory of all that, and of thinking - oh, this guy is special.
Its oceans and sparse outcroppings of land where tentative, often warlike civilisations were forming like coral?
This didn’t feel so much like something Sala was making up.
It felt like something he had found and was showing to us.
What is this exactly?
God, I think it might be brilliant.
I think it is brilliant.
And it’s odd and slightly grumpy in places.
It’s wilful and distinct and it feels like nothing else.
And it is sort of a city builder!
But one that plays by the rules established by The Falconeer.
So let’s get at what that means.
Civilisation in The Falconeer is something that clings.
This is landscape without much in the way of flat surfaces, and it calls for a limpet mentality.
So it is with Bulwark.
You start with a tower, you connect it to resource nodes, and then you upgrade.
So far, so city builder.
But this is Tomas Sala, right?
Making the game in his own house, I suspect, and fathoms deep in his own imagined world.
Here’s the thing: this is not actually arduous.
And this is good!
It should feel arduous.
I play Bulwark for fifteen minutes and I’m properly exhausted - but I also feel triumphant.
It continues, of course.
The steady desire to rule more of the patently unrulable ocean.
