Welcome to an exclusive interview with Tomas Sala, the accomplished game developer behind the BAFTA-nominated Falconeer, a title that earned widespread praise and captured the hearts of players around the world. Today we explore his latest project, Bulwark, a highly anticipated game that has sparked excitement among gamers and fellow developers alike.
From the beginning of our conversation, it’s clear that Tomas’ passion goes far beyond his own work. He values transparency, knowledge sharing, and contributing to the growth of the game development community. Whether discussing design, artistic inspiration, or the challenges of production, his openness is refreshing in an industry that often hides its creative process.
This spotlight featuring the Unity team is a perfect example of how Tomas gives back to the community:
Although we don’t usually include videos within our interviews, this one stands out as an especially insightful contribution from a successful game developer. After reading the interview, we strongly recommend watching it.
Hey Tomas! Before diving into your recent work, let’s start with your journey. Falconeer—your BAFTA-nominated game—has captivated audiences worldwide. Before you entered game development, how did your path lead you into this world?
I’ve always wanted to make games. Like many players, the medium captivated me from childhood onward. Drawing turned into digital artwork in Deluxe Paint and Corel Draw, then into art school, then into early 3D tools like LightWave. From there it was Director, Flash, and my first 3D engine called Virtools — and I just never stopped. I’ve done so many things in this industry it’s a bit strange.
I’ve made games for brands, marketing, mobile, education, schools, even hospitals. I worked in VR, including one of the first Google Cardboard VR apps which reached over a million installs, then VR with SIEE for PSVR1. I also made mods — some players might remember the Moonpath to Elsweyr jungle-themed Skyrim mods. I created those and gave away a lot of models to the modding community. I didn’t make the Dev Aveza airship mod, but they used my base airship model. Modding led me into indiedev with Oberon’s Court, a game I never finished but that directly led to Falconeer, and then to Bulwark.
I’ve tried the Bulwark demo, and it felt truly special. The introduction using your own voice is fantastic. Could you give our readers a brief overview of Bulwark and highlight what you think makes it a must-play?
Bulwark is a strange mix of ideas. It’s an organic builder where you paint the landscape with fortified settlements. But it’s also an open world game, so you can build wherever you want. And it uses a minimalist UI to encourage chaotic creativity rather than a traditional goal-driven approach. Not that min/max efficiency mindset — I think that gets in the way of the childlike joy of creating a cool castle and enjoying the experience.
From what I understand, you’re developing Bulwark solo. How do you handle all the roles — design, programming, art, marketing, and everything else?
Yes, I mostly work alone. I have a publisher for marketing (though I still do some myself), and I’m lucky to work with Benedict Nichols, an amazing indie composer, for all audio. I code, animate, model, write, design, and do all the hands-on development.
When the project is close to completion, I work with Stefan Wijnker, who handles porting — adapting the game for different storefronts and platform requirements such as PlayStation and Xbox.
95% of the time I’m making the game by myself in the small studio I built in my garden.
My diverse background definitely helps, but I also genuinely enjoy working alone and experimenting with design and development. When I worked in teams, I wasn’t the most organized or the best team player, which is one reason I left that environment. This approach just fits me, and modern tools and the indie ecosystem make it possible.
A technical question! Bulwark is made in Unity and looks incredible. On LinkedIn you describe yourself as an “abolisher of textures,” which I loved. Can you share the secrets behind achieving such a striking look mostly through post-processing and custom shaders? Also, which rendering pipeline are you using?
The rendering pipeline is good old Unity Built-in. But I’ve replaced every shader with my own custom ones, which creates the unique look. I impose very strict limitations on myself to force creativity and discover new tricks to get the effects I want.
The game uses no textures (except the font map and a dynamically generated Perlin noise). Everything else is math — lots of sine waves in shaders — to handle shading and lighting. It’s not as hard as it sounds, it’s just a different approach, and it saves a ton of asset-creation time since I don’t have to unwrap or texture anything. It moves the effort into a tech-art pipeline. It took time to get right, but now it’s extremely fast for me to create new content.
I’m fascinated by the procedural aspects of Bulwark. The roads and structures integrate beautifully with the terrain. How did you achieve such natural cohesion between procedural and in-scene elements?
Haha, I think I’m good at smoke and mirrors. The implementation is nothing like something as elegantly designed as Townscaper. I designed a set of art chunks, buildings, and segments that work well even when they don’t connect perfectly.
The game is both messy and clean. My job is to make sure all that chaos still looks cool and cohesive. Smoke and mirrors.
After going through the journey of developing Bulwark, do you have any advice for indie developers starting their own projects?
Advice is tricky. The indie world feels intimidating lately: AI synthesis, a tsunami of new games every month, influencers who are unreachable or expensive, showcases that cost even more. It’s a daunting time.
But I believe this also means that the people who succeed won’t be those with the flashiest graphics — because those will soon be available to everyone anyway. What will set you apart is you.
If you find your own story, pour your heart into it, and shape it into something that resonates with others, you’ll create something unique — something that can’t be copied by AI, something that isn’t another clone competing with thousands of others. You’ll have created a piece of art that stands out by its nature.
That may sound idealistic in a world obsessed with marketing and discoverability strategies, but I truly believe that if you dig inward and connect with a real creative source instead of following the herd, you’ll find your own form of success.