Hoy!! it's been a lil over a year since the Steam Demo so a development update is long overdue! U・x・U
What have we been up to?
A bunch of things!
Community Feedback
Right after releasing the demo, we worked on integrating some community suggestions to the full game, such as bunny selection and renaming! It was already a planned feature but hey, figured we should implement it early~
When a bunny is clicked, it becomes the current selection and only its stats will be displayed in the cage!
Once a bunny is selected, click on its name tag to change its name! It doesn't get any easier U(ㅇㅅㅇ❀)U
You may also have noticed a new lil icon at the bottom right of the cage...
Well, after these small changes, we moved on to one of the big pieces of Horribunnies:
GENETIC MANIPULATION
Here it is in all of its unpolished glory!
This is the heart of the game, the one place where you will craft beauties and monstrosities alike~
Let's go over this bit by bit!
This part represents the genome of a given bunny, each pair represents a gene that will define one of the bunny's traits or behaviours! For example, there is a gene that defines the diet of the bunny, if for that gene, the bunny has both herbivore alleles, the bunny will be a herbivore!
Each allele of a pair is clickable for more info... and is up for manipulation!
To mutate an allele into what you desire, you pick a viable alternative among the ones you have discovered! Once you're ready, press Mutate!
This UI still needs a lot of work to look and feel even better (like have a lil animation when the mutation happens <3) but we hope you liked this early glimpse~
Other mechanics
Progress has also been made in other areas:
- Dynamic narration: As you may already know, the game will branch into different routes depending on your actions and how they reflect with your relationship with both Pâquerette and Ophéline. Well, time has now been spent designing the underlying system, with its implementation underway!
- Idle mechanics: SImilarly to other pet games, bunnies keep growing even when the game is off. This implies quite the work on saving/loading + simulating time spent! We're also making sure the game is as fun as for players who play small sessions (~5-10 minutes) and players who spend hours in one sitting so we've been working on mechanics to keep the game interesting for longer sessions, more on that in a later update!
Why is it taking so long??
If you've been following us for a while, you know that Horribunnies started being developed back in Fall 2019, meaning it's already been 2 years in the making! What's up with that?
A bunch of things as well!
- This is our first commercial release and gamedev is hard! We're a small team that, while a lil experienced with game development, started working on this one-of-a-kind ambitious project at our own pace! Please bear with us while we make this as good as possible U(⁎˃ᆺ˂)U Note that most of the team currently isn't able to work full-time on Horribunnies!
- We started working on a spin-off, Pâquerette Down the Bunburrows, back in April 2021, emboldened by how well received it was during Ludum Dare, we can now safely say this project is around 60% complete and we've been coming back to Horribunnies over the last months!
What's next?
- We'll try to make these development updates more frequent! We still have a lot to share with you all :3
- While we don't have a release date yet, Pâquerette Down the Bunburrows has also made some serious progress so expect some news in the coming months!
- Horribunnies continues its development! Its speed will depend on various factors, including the fundings we hope to secure, so no dates yet!
There you go buns! Hope you enjoyed this update! Please share your thoughts below: it's your feedback that will truly help make the game better!
If any, we already have one question for you: What genes/traits would you like to see in Horribunnies ?