The developer generously provided us an early access review key for the game.
Developed by Bromantic Games, this relaxing indie settlement builder—currently in Early Access—lets you construct and manage a village while meeting every need of your simulated settlers.Gameplay
Folklands delivers a complex gameplay loop that will feel familiar to fans of city builders, but its intricate systems can make it more demanding than expected. You start small, with just a Town Center and a handful of settlers, and must meet specific criteria—like gathering enough resources or building certain structures—to grow your settlement into a larger village. Key to this growth are Builder’s Huts, which serve a dual purpose: they provide builders to construct new buildings and maintain existing ones, but only within the hut’s limited range. These huts require a steady supply of planks to function; without them, builders can’t perform maintenance, causing buildings to deteriorate and eventually collapse, forcing you to rebuild from scratch. Buildings are also prone to catching fire, requiring you to construct fire stations—also with a fixed range, meaning you’ll need multiple stations for larger settlements. Fire stations, in turn, need a constant supply of water, adding another resource to manage. One standout feature that sets Folklands apart from other builders is the Exploration Tower: you must actively construct this building and send explorers beyond your settlement’s borders to expand your territory, adding a layer of intentional progression that feels rewarding when you’re not overwhelmed by other tasks.
The Exploration Tower and its menu, along with the range of the expansion
Sustaining your settlers adds yet another layer of challenge. They live in their huts, but simply building a berry hut or fishing hut isn’t enough to keep them fed—you must construct market stalls and manually stock them with a set amount of food and water. If these stalls aren’t consistently filled, settlers won’t survive, which feels tedious. They could easily fetch water from a well or gather berries themselves. This micromanagement, combined with the need to balance resources like stone, wood, and planks, makes the gameplay feel more stressful than soothing, despite the absence of combat or external threats. The Exploration Tower adds yet another responsibility, as you must manage explorers while keeping the village running smoothly. While the core loop of building, gathering, exploring, and growing your village has potential, Folklands currently feels more like a demanding settlement builder that requires constant attention to avoid collapse, rather than a cozy and relaxing city builder.
A settlement in the middle of being built.
Maps
The Game has procedurally generated maps, adding variety to each playthrough by allowing you to influence the landscape through in-game options, like map size, water level, and resource amount. These settings let you tailor the experience—smaller maps with fewer resources might feel more manageable, while larger maps with higher water levels could offer more space but also new challenges, like limited building areas. I don’t recommend anything above a small map size, due to significant performance issues. Larger maps cause the game to drop to 11-15 frames per second, regardless of whether you’re using a high-end gaming PC or a low-spec machine. The developers are aware of this issue and have been releasing daily hotfixes to improve performance, but at the time of this review, even small maps experience occasional frame dips, with larger maps consistently struggling at 15 FPS.
The few options you can tweak before starting the game
Sound
Folklands features a cozy and relaxing soundtrack that provides a soothing backdrop as you manage your settlement, offering a welcome contrast to the game’s currently demanding mechanics.The Soundtrack is cozy and sounds relaxing while you listen to your settlers mine stone (which has a sharp and high pitched sound) and chop wood (which is a pleasant chopping sound). Overall nothing to complain about, and it gets its job done quite nicely.
Visuals and Art Direction
Folklands welcomes players with a delightful low-poly art style that feels both modern and nostalgic. Viewed from an isometric perspective, the game’s world is a cozy blend of vibrant greens, warm browns, and autumnal reds and oranges, crafting a whimsical, storybook-like atmosphere. Trees and stones are rendered with simple geometric shapes, giving the game a clean, minimalist look that prioritizes clarity over realism, while the buildings and settlers are far more detailed looking. I really love how the visuals don’t feel cluttered or overwhelming—I can easily tell what each building, like the wooden huts or the storage, is meant to do just by looking at it. The settlers move with basic animations, bringing the settlement to life without adding visual noise, while the soft color palette—lush grass paired with fiery fall foliage—enhances the game’s relaxing vibe. Bromantic Games’ art direction ties this aesthetic together with a clear vision: to create a calming, manageable world. The lack of clutter and easily understandable building designs—like the central storage standing out clearly—make the gameplay feel intuitive, ensuring the player’s focus remains on building, while reinforcing the game’s relaxed pace, perfectly aligning with its promise of a stress-free, creative escape.
