Jarl – Fantasy Colony Builder

[foggy ember]

Jarl is an immersive colony builder and simulator game where player explores mystique world of the fantasy Scandinavia. As the chieftain of your fledgling Viking colony, you are tasked to find and defeat the ancient evil corrupting your lands. As your colony expands, you'll get more resources and technology, attract famous heroes, and even catch the eye of ancient gods.

The game is inspired by games like Valheim and RimWorld, and movies like The 13th Warrior.

• https://jarl-game.com/discord
• https://jarl-game.com
• https://twitter.com/jarl_game
• https://youtube.com/@Jarl-Game-com
• https://reddit.com/r/jarlgame/

Jarl Game: Fantasy Colony Simulator (@jarl_game) on X

#Jarl is colony building game. 🎮 https://t.co/Ew2e0uEdUv 📺 https://t.co/GH1DlK6QJE 🧵https://t.co/EHHcUo3hgw

X

[red trellis]

Oh cool, I was wondering if this project would get a section

[foggy ember]

Interesting, what section?

Ah, you mean here

[red trellis]

Yeah, I mean here 😄

[red trellis]

By the way, lemme know when you're ready to do your Steam page

I'm pretty good at writing them, and I like to help out Bevy projects where I can

[foggy ember]

Thank you! I have most of the legal things done, waiting for the artist to finish promo art for it. Expecting it to be ready in March

[red trellis]

Awesome stuff. Planning on early access or what?

[foggy ember]

Yep, but first I’m planning to do a playtest. If things go as planned - late March.

[snow totem]

You can count on me to do a playtest

[inner badge]

Cant wait!

[foggy ember]

Recording of the latest stream is available on YouTube: https://youtu.be/qrxtXE9f0hQ

[proud tangle]

@foggy ember did you find any part of Bevy insufficient for your game needs and decided to use a third party solution or code a custom one by urself?

[foggy ember]

Not really, since all I really need is ecs integrated with wgpu and a programming language I enjoy working with.

[proud tangle]

I watched your video on youtube.
Did you use wgpu only for the shaders or did you somehow use it for all the rendering... I mean, did you use Bevy's 2d/3d rendering?

[foggy ember]

Lighting is implemented as a node inside of 2d render graph. The final post processing pass combines transparent 2d outputs and BML outputs before presenting. If you are curious, here is code: https://github.com/zaycev/bevy-magic-light-2d

[foggy ember]

Actually, one thing I wish I didn’t have to write myself - atlas sprite component that works with material 2d out of the box.

[foggy ember]

Quick Gameplay Video from the latest build.

[foggy ember]

Planning to stream progress on Jarl development on October 12th. Going to focus on UI this time: https://discord.gg/99JXRvAB?event=1287435875835187243

[foggy ember]

Progress on various in-game UI systems

[foggy ember]

Playtest emails + download links are sent 🥂 Please see details + instructions on my YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_tLzY-29qyM

[acoustic plume]

You sir are an example to me of what I aim to be congrats for your playtest

[foggy ember]

@acoustic plume welcome aboard!

[foggy ember]

🎉 0.1.4 Build with several bug fixes and quality of life improvements was uploaded to cloud folder

🟢 Added: MacOS support.
🟢 Added: custom cursors.
🟢 Added: new offhand torch item.
🟢 Added: FPS counter.
🟢 Added: ability to remove rugs and floors.
🟢 Added: improved HUD for mining.

🟡 Changed: more intuitive collisions with mining blocks.
🟡 Changed: placement of rugs and walls on water is disallowed. Other structures can be placed on water during playtest.
🟡 Changed: nerfed SmolderEdge item.
🟡 Changed: removed Fireplace asset (was added by mistake).
🟡 Changed: zooming is now smooth.
🟡 Changed: limited zooming range to reasonable values.
🟡 Changed: smooth camera can be disabled in config.
🟡 Changed: floors can be placed under constructed walls.
🟡 Changed: adjusted arrow speed.

⚒️ Fixed: added wall and palisade tiles (still incomplete).
⚒️ Fixed: item pickup animations.

➡️ Added configuration file.
By default, the configuration file is generated in:
Windows: %APPDATA%\Roaming\Jarl\engine.toml
Linux: $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/Jarl/engine.toml
MacOS: $HOME/Library/Application Support/Jarl/engine.toml

Example configuration file (will be created automatically on start):

window_resolution_width = 1440
window_resolution_height = 900
window_resizable = true
window_decorations = true
window_vsync = true
window_fullscreen_mode = false # Turn off fullscreen mode
window_cursor_scale = 1.66
camera_xform_blending = 0.05 # Camera smoothing
gfx_gi_denoise_kernel_w = 2
gfx_gi_denoise_kernel_h = 2
gfx_gi_direct_contrib = 0.5
gfx_gi_indirect_contrib = 0.5
gfx_gi_rays = 24
gfx_sdf_scale = 0.5
gfx_renderer_scaling = 4.0 # Pixel art scaling.
system_show_fps_hud = false
playtest_1_feadback_on_exit = false # Do not open the feedback form on exit.

[foggy ember]

It's been a while since the last update. Just wanted to let everyone know – I'm heads down working on crafting system and can't wait to share more details soon 😊 🔨 🪚

[split sphinx]

Still waiting for updates on crafting system, @foggy ember

[foggy ember]

Slowly working on it, check this: #showcase message

[foggy ember]

Sneak-peak of what's coming in the Jarl's upcoming second Playtest!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AftMi3sBsUI

🌟 ⚒️ 💀

[red trellis]

@foggy ember, you might be interested in https://bsky.app/profile/github.com/post/3m363dqiurc2y

GitHub (@github.com)

Working on a game? Open source, closed source, free, or paid. We want to see it! 🎮

We'd love to feature a playable version at #GitHubUniverse. Reply below with your repo, screenshots, or trailer. 👇

▶ Play video

Bluesky · Oct 14, 2025, 3:49 PM

[foggy ember]

Oh nice, thanks for tagging me!

[queen rain]

this game looks so cool

[quasi sundial]

this looks amazing, I'm so impressed

[buoyant gorge]

Hi, I came here to ask how you're doing the outlines with 2D sprites, because I understand that a shader is the way to go, but it seems that if you use 2D materials you can't use sprite atlas and things like that, and I was wondering if it was worth it. But then I saw this image, is it easier to just have a second sprite with the atlas perhaps?

[inner badge]

You can use a sprite atlas you just need to support it yourself in your shader I guess

[jolly pecan]

maybe https://github.com/theseatoad/bevy-simple-2d-outline can be a source material or be ported to bevy 0.17

[foggy ember]

Game outlines are done in shader. The atlas you quoted is for hardware cursor. As far as I remember on all supported OSs you just have to give a bitmap and hotspot, there is no built in way to do outline

[foggy ember]

Yeah, that’s a good place to start

[foggy ember]

Let me send some examples once I’m around my laptop

[buoyant gorge]

Than you very much, that would be great!