Hello everyone!
It's been a while since our last Kickstarter post and the Fae have been getting restless, so to appease them here is another update from the depths of Castle PixelCount. If you are after more frequent and detailed updates we'd recommend keeping an eye on our forums where we've been posting in-depth development journals every Friday for a number of weeks. For those of you who are a bit chattier, we've also been hanging out on our Discord where we answer questions, get ideas, post pics, and engage in conversations about life, the universe, and waffles.
Development Updates
Over the last number of weeks, various bits and pieces have started shaping up and are now all assembled by tiny elves in the latest build of the game. Some of the things we've been getting up to lately:
The Vale
Charlie (@lionbum) has been mapping out The Vale in-game using existing and new assets so we can now run end to end through all the levels and get a sense of the scale of the world and what content is needed to fill it. Let’s just say, The Vale itself turned out to be fairly bigger than we originally imagined - and that’s just the starting region!
Character Art
Gary (@armyoftrolls) has been busy at work creating the majority of the bespoke NPC's for the Prologue (which is the chapter of the game we're starting with for Early Access). He's also been animating a number of characters and has even started work on animating the farm's animals. They're looking magnificent.
New UI
Jen's (@jenthethirdgal) work for the main in-game UI is now in the current build and work is in progress on their scale and how they fit together. (All the UI mockups are currently viewable in the dev forums for access backers).
New Music
Matthijs (@AynenMakino) has been creating more wonderful music tracks for the regions in the game with a few work-in-progress tracks posted in the dev forums. Charlie spends more time wistfully listening to the Candlewych Cottage track than is probably healthy. At last count, the game's soundtrack had passed the 1 hour mark!
Concept Art
Sarah (@BraveRobynArt) has been working on defining the look for some of the game's key buildings.
Environment Art
Matt Weekes (@matwekpixel) has been working his magic to make pixel versions of Sarah's beautiful concept art which we've been adding into the game. When concept art and environment art work hand in hand it leads to some very pretty results.
Stores and Jobs
Neal (@sporadic_words) has now coded in the rough forms of the goods store and tavern jobs, along with half a dozen summer events for the Prologue.
Prologue Gameflow
Charlie has also been setting out the gameflow of Early Access' Prologue in page after page of design docs. Work on all the game's dialogue is also well underway.
Weekly Playthroughs
Excitingly, the build is also at the point where we're now able to do formal team playthroughs every week. In these playthroughs we take detailed notes and share copious amounts of feedback with each other.
That's just a small taste of what we've been busy toiling away at. We'll be keeping these Kickstarter updates fairly broad, but if you prefer your development updates to be more frequent and more granular, be sure to check out our weekly forum newsletter, a mighty fine periodical known as The PixelCount Post that we've been publishing every Friday for the past 6 weeks. A warning though: the newsletter does contain attempts at humour that may make you either shudder or laugh. (Or likely both.)
The Road to Early Access
Now that we're at a point where the build is pulling together all the disparate pieces developed in the last few months, we've finally got a clear view of exactly how much work is left to be done. We're wanting to pack as much as we can into the Early Access release and, with the sheer amount of content we've been generating over the last month alone, we're starting to feel that it'd be best to continue working on the game a little past December. Plus, we want to give ourselves time to properly test everything as well! As to when we're going to be ready for Early Access, we'll just be a bit cliche for now and simply respond with a good ol' fashioned 'soon'. First impressions count and we want to make sure the code and content is in as good a state as possible for a proper Early Access release.
It's an exciting time ahead and it really is all pulling together rather nicely, so we'll continue working hard to get a lovely build out to all you special people as soon as we feel it has cooked enough in Old Mother Hubbard’s big development cauldron and to make sure it doesn't contain any bug-filled rotting apples. As always, a big hug and high-five for following Kynseed's development. Onwards we go into adventure!
Sneaky Peeks
We have a hefty load of new content that we have queued up for sharing in our dev forums very soon, but we don't want those fine folks to have all the fun, so we figured we'd show off a few things that you've not seen before. As usual, everything is still drafty and in progress. Enjoy!
This is a lovely track that Matthijs wrote for a very serene and peaceful region of the game. Just
imagine exploring the world of Kynseed while listening to these relaxing tunes.
https://i.imgur.com/xxnB8Jv.png
This screenshot is very much a work-in-progress region, but it's starting to come along.
https://i.imgur.com/0ELLBsc.png
These are some early drafts of the new character art that Gary has been working on. We've
made many more NPC's since this draft, some of which we'll be sharing soon in the forums.
https://i.imgur.com/CjPcaV3.png
Kynseed wouldn't be complete without its cast of critters. Here's a few you can expect to
make an appearance around the farm.
https://i.imgur.com/KLdvF8D.giff
The animations for the game are starting to slowly come together as well. Here's one such
animation for a character that we affectionately refer to as Moustache Bob.
https://i.imgur.com/AhiNmeh.png
Sarah's concept art has been invaluable in helping us nail the look of Kynseed's buildings.
Late Backer Options
We've been getting a copious number of messages from folks who are just now hearing about Kynseed for the very first time and thusly wished they'd had the opportunity to back the game, particularly for things like getting access to the dev forums to see what delicious content we've been cooking up behind the scenes. Additionally, we've also been hearing from a number of existing backers who would like to upgrade to dev access and/or other tiers. So amidst all the other busy going-ons over the past many weeks, resident jack of all trades Matt Allen (@MrMatthewAllen) has been hard at work setting up a Slacker Backer to allow new backers to participate as well as existing backers to upgrade for any who are keen to do so.
It's taken a fair bit of time setting up the various elements of the Slacker such as sorting out all the various upgrade combinations possible, making sure our website is super secure for payments, ensuring there's mobile support for the Slacker, figuring out the best approach for exchange rates, and so on. The Piggy Backer, as we've been jokingly referring to it amongst ourselves, will be available this week with an exact date to be shared by us very soon. (If not, we will post Matt's address so you can egg his windows.)
It's been truly magical seeing Kynseed go from the humble Kickstarter prototype to the build that we played this last Saturday. Things are shaping up very nicely and the entire team has gotten into a good rhythm with new code and content being added every day. As always, feel free to come hang out with us in the forums and on our Discord. The Kynseed team can be found on both nearly every day of the week and we're always happy to have people drop in and chat with us.
As always, thank you for following Kynseed's development and for joining us on this journey. See you around the community!
- Your friends at Castle PixelCount
