Hello dear Saeges!
It’s almost the end of 2023. We hope you’ve had a great year and are ready for the upcoming holidays to reward yourselves with some good rest and some great meals, because you deserve it!
Before we go on to our holiday breaks, we want to share a last devlog for this 2023 and take a small look back at all the things we did during the year.
A productive 2023
The most exciting thing we did this year was without a doubt launching our Steam page. After almost 2 years of development, Farmwand was finally ready for you to wishlist. Even though it felt like a baby step towards the release, it still was so surreal to see Farmwand really show up on Steam!
During the past 5 months more than 600 of you have wishlisted our game, for which we are deeply grateful. We appreciate all the support we have been receiving, and we want to thank each and every one of you for liking our game and believing in us. We truly hope you will keep following our indie dev journey and help us share the magic of Farmwand so that everyone can enjoy this fantasy adventure together ❤
This year we made a great amount of art for the game. We finished all the base crops, most of the wild animals and all the base farm ones. We also created many different magical creatures that you may meet in the wild, both friendly and foul, and several that you can keep as pets or care for in your farm.
We also heard our stomachs rumbling and decided to add plenty of mouthwatering dishes. Yet there are many more still cooking.
We are expanding both the quantity and variation of customizable items so that you can decorate the inside and outside of your farms however you want.
We have written and designed most NPCs that will not only populate Farmwand’s world but also light it up with their own charm and quirks. Along with the NPCs, we are also working on the interiors of the many shops that you will visit in Lunahweld town, each of them filled not just with products but also with many little details related to the people that live in them.
On the tech side of things, we have reached version 2.0 of our customization system, the inventory and the crafting. Most of it keeps evolving as we move towards a playable release. We have improved the world renderer with fully custom tools, brand new trees, grasses and terrain. And of course, we had to show it all in a super cozy autumn scene. And right at the year’s end, we began upgrading our characters to have fully 3D faces (with far more expressive results!) and our whole project to Unity 2022.
But not everything went smoothly. It was a rough time when Unity decided to give a scare to the whole industry, sending us scrambling for options and forcing us to take a pause and see what to do next. Luckily common sense prevailed, and we could resume the work soon afterwards.
Around that time, we also decided to prioritise the sections of the game that mattered the most to you, which meant putting the very complex and time consuming LAN portion of the game on hold, to focus on the single player and local co-op portions exclusively.
But during those challenges and hard times, your love and support helped us to see them through, and have made Farmwand a lot better in the end.
Honestly, it is strange to sum up everything we’ve done this whole year into a short devlog, but we feel this overview can help both you and us to know that all the work for Farmwand is going on steadily and, dare we say so ourselves, quite splendidly :)
A more amazing 2024!
What are our plans for next year? Mainly, to have something playable to share with all of you! We can’t wait for you to get Farmwand in your hands, or at least a small part of it.
We will be working a lot early in the year on building the settlements, quests and storylines for the game as well as on the whole magic aspect of it. Putting the “WAND” in Farmwand, so to speak. We also want to release a lot more videos showing you more gameplay, and even some local-coop action.
Early Access? Only time can tell, but we are very excited and motivated for a new year full of magic, and full of Farmwand. And to you, we wish a year full of happiness, friendships (new and old!) and everything that makes your heart warm and cozy.
Happy holidays, and an awesome 2024 to all of you!
J & D
