It's been an absolute rollercoaster this past couple of weeks! We have been overwhelmed with all of the amazing feedback and the sheer amount of people that played the Len's Island demo. Thank you!
Now that the demo week has closed, we are compiling all of the feedback received across all of our platforms and beginning the final stretch of development. We have heard all of your feedback, good or bad, and are now going over it all to see how we can make Len's Island the best it can be ready for the early-access release in October.
The Len's Island demo was a very bare-bones, throwing you in the deep end type of experience. We did this on purpose to gauge the response from players and figure out what aspects of the game perform well or poorly with little to no guidance from a tutorial. It's been incredible to see the impact Len's Island has made on so many people in such a short space of time. From the incredibly entertaining videos and streams we've been watching, to the funny and whacky bug reports, or the mind-boggling screenshots of homes, towns and cities built within the game. It's all helped us greatly to understand how you all play the game and what you want to get out of it.
As this was just a demo, we left a lot of key features and content out. Like I said before, it was a bare-bones experience. A big portion of the feedback and ideas we've received have been elements that are already in the pipeline for the release in October. Although we now have a much clearer idea of what the community is wanting and what content or features are most important. Below I've compiled a small list of features or changes that will be implemented into the October launch. This is just a small list of the key points that all of you have been asking about, there's a whole lot more that will be added or changed that isn't in this list.
What to expect for the October release:
- Additional WASD control scheme and controller support.
- Separate male/female versions of Len with more options for hairstyles/clothing & options to change Len's skin colour.
- A detailed tutorial during the start of the game, teaching you the core mechanics of Len's Island (If you didn't know, the full game takes place on a completely different, much larger map with multiple islands and a gigantic cave & dungeon system).
- Allow holding click/auto gathering for easier resource gathering (optional easier way to gather resources that's slower, instead of trying to hit critical hits every time).
- Major parkour & platforming changes. The short version is we will be making a lot of changes to the player controller and platforming to make it easier & more tactile. As well as changing the way we design these platforming challenges to avoid issues with the perspective. Most platforming will also be an optional extra and not mandatory.
- Many accessibility and quality of life changes to UI & UX. This covers a wide range of areas, though in general making things easier to read, font's bigger and focusing on making the experience of interacting with the game simply more intuitive, as well as adding more settings and control options.
- Major changes to the way the building system works, making shortcuts and multi-placing building pieces easier and more intuitive. Removing click-and-drag and replacing with click to enable. Along with enabling camera panning and tilt controls while in building/edit mode.
- Adding lots more building pieces, like ladders, hatches, more roofs and skylights and more.
- Adding several more food and farming items, like vertical lattice farms, water towers, wells, windmills and several big additions to the food & farming systems (including baking bread)
- Overhauling the current food system, we don't like the way it currently works with the pantry.
- Adding a workbench/crafting bench. You will be able to craft items directly in your own home, along with crafting & unlocking many other items throughout the game, this is a big part of the game and is a lot more in-depth than I can explain in a quick sentence.
- Shields and bows will be added, along with many weapons, tools, and new items to use.
- Enemies will be smarter, with several different types of enemies and bosses. This is a major over-simplification, the dungeons & caves will be a significant part of the game and incomparable to the demo.
- Ability to expand backpack and increase hotbar slots over time.
- Ability to attach different kinds of lanterns and lights to your backpack (hands-free).
Len's Island is developed by 2 people full-time. It's not an easy task to make a game at this scale with such a small team. We've spent many years pouring our life into this game and will continue to do so with all of your help for many years to come. This demo was another step in the journey to create Lens Island into a great game. We are very eager to show you what we have install for the release and how we plan to keep expanding the game after the early-access release.
We will continue to keep you updated with the development. If you'd like to follow our game closer, you can watch the development diaries on Youtube or join our Discord server.
~ Julian