Hello!
We have some exciting news! The demo should (finally) go live by the end of next week, and we hope you'll try it out!
The game has gone on a long, meandering journey, and while we're here, we'd like to share some of the backstory on the journey so far.
A bit of backstory...
Seclusa started out as an 'idler' game. Well, more of an app, really. You would largely just sit there watching an elephant hanging out at a watering hole. It was heavily inspired by various live cams that show a similar scenario (but with real elephants, of course). We're very passionate about wildlife conservation in Africa, and this was going to be a very simple way to explore that in a virtual setting. We also think that the African wilderness is severely ignored in games. It's a wonderfully diverse continent with just about every sort of natural biome you can imagine, so trying to showcase that was also part of the incentive.
The game started small, but was always a project with lots of potential. Too much potential. Scope quickly ballooned, and for over two years of development we did our best to cling to all of the mechanics, assets, and systems we had dreamed up and implemented. Eventually, we realized that many of them didn't work with our tiny team of two people, or our original vision, and had to strip back the things that either weren't serving the game, or simply weren't feasible.
(Many of those ideas are now bubbling on the back burner of future exciting projects!)
Nearing the finish line!
In any case, we've come full circle! Seclusa will be a small casual game with a small price tag, as was always intended. It's focused on spending time at the lodge, both inside and out. It can be treated as an 'idle' game if you'd like, but there's also plenty of stuff to interact with, photos to take, and things to unlock-- Definitely check out our updated Steam page that has a new trailer, screenshots, and text-y bits for a good overview of what to expect.
Thanks so much for reading, and for your patience and support. We hope you enjoy our little game!