Hello there! We're actually glad you've visited the castle today - your timing's rather impeccable. There's been many hustles and bustles here at Castle PixelCount since we last talked and we'd love to tell you all about it. Come sit a spell.
Castle staff have been steadily picking up the pace of their work in preparation for exciting news on the horizon. In fact, our efforts have even caught the attention of a nearby renowned periodical! More on that later. We've also had a significant amount of leftover coal from winter which we've been shoveling as fast as we can into The Great Furnace and we're extremely happy to report that we're now producing steam!
Development Updates
Yes, that's right! Kynseed now has
a Steam page and is listed as Coming Soon! This is an incredibly important milestone for us and we'd love for all of you lovely backers to visit that page, give that 'Wishlist' button a hearty click, and maybe even come say hello on
the discussion forums (which we're always prowling on). Also worth checking out is the store page's short teaser video which hints at things to come. All that to say, we hope to see you there! Honestly, it's all a bit surreal seeing the game showing up around the Steam website.
As it happens, that's not the only place of interest that the game has recently shown up. Earlier this month, Kynseed was given a double page spread in PC Gamer magazine! Many of us on the team have been reading that magazine ever since we had an interest in games. In fact, our very own Charlie has been reading it since its very first issue! So to see this game of ours (and yours) show up in PC Gamer was both amazing and humbling.
The issue that we appear in (#315) is printed only in the UK, but from what we understand they do a reprint one month later in the US (and possibly other places). Though for anyone interested, there's also a digital copy which you can find
here. Alternatively, you can even get a physical copy shipped to you by going
here. (That works for international orders as well.)
Of course, it hasn't been just Steam pages and magazine pages keeping us occupied. We've also been making great progress on the game itself! Below are some highlights from the last few weeks of development:
- Sackloads of new environment art assets
- Many more NPC's animated
- Revisions made to the character sprites for better twin consistency
- New music
- Some new and ongoing concept art
- Additional sound effects
- New tools made (such as something new called the ComboBrush)
- Numerous region updates and tweaks (and plenty of layering fixes)
- Pig riding polish (because of course)
- Some updates made to the fishing system
- Plenty of gameflow revisions for spreading out and adding tasks
- Fun little things like dabbling with smoke particle effects
- And even added in an extra, most mysterious of regions...
Wish Upon a List
Steam is a magical land of video games where mere mortals have no direct control over where their game actually shows up on the website. Instead, Steam uses a mysterious wibbly wobbly algorithm. For games listed as Coming Soon, the total number of times a user wishlists a game is
the primary thing that Steam uses to decide where to show a game around the website.
In short, wishlisting Kynseed is one of the best and easiest ways to support this crazy little game. Also, even if you already plan to buy Kynseed (which, by the way, thank you!), it's still a huge help to have you hit the Wishlist button all the same. Also, feel free to give the Follow button some love while you're there.
Speaking of support, don't forget that there's still
the late backer program where new backers can support the game or where existing backers can upgrade to higher tiers in exchange for various rewards as well as our gratitude (the latter of which has questionable value). The reason we mention this is that once Kynseed releases on Early Access (which is Soon™), we'll be closing down the crowdfunding campaign and laying it to rest. It will have done its job, the little trooper. So for anyone who still wants to back the game, just head to our late backer page to get in on the action.
Springing Into Early Access
The relationship between video games and release dates has a long and sullied past, littered with the corpses of deadlines and delays. Today, however, we bring you good news on that front.
Our current projected window for Kynseed's release on Early Access is late March to late April. Obviously, we'd love it to be in your hands next month but if it is not passed by the Elf Inspectors then we will polish it a bit more 'til it reaches their Triple-Fae standards.
Once we pin down a more exact date you'll be the first to hear. (Actually, we might tell our mums first if that's okay.) In some ways, the first leg of this journey is nearing completion, and yet we're only just getting started. For those of you who have been following us from the beginning as well as those of you who have just recently joined our ranks, thank you for keeping us company on this adventure. This road we travel together is leading towards exciting things.
It was nice of you to pay us a visit here at the castle. We suspect that your next visit here will prove even more interesting. Also, if you felt like we didn't share as many lovely images with you as we usually do, that's because we're being sneaky by putting them all on our new steam powered page. So go give it a gander to see how things are shaping up!
By the way, do you remember that strange sound we kept hearing in the east forest last we spoke? It's been getting closer. Castle staff talk of it in hushed whispers. Thus far the townsfolk haven't said a word about it, though whether that's from obliviousness or fear is hard to tell. All we know is that something is coming for us...
- Castle PixelCount
