Hello Wranglers! We hope you’ve been keeping well!
I know things have been a bit quiet on our front, but we have been hard at work on getting the Closed Alpha version of Among The Wild up and running. One of the reasons we haven’t had much to show during this process - and it wasn’t for the lack of trying - was simply because so much was in flux, that whenever we consider sharing something we would think to ourselves “Yeah but in 2 weeks this will be WAY more representative of what we’re aiming for”. So we decided to wait until things are a bit more solidified (but still lots of room for feedback!) before showing anything off.
Anyways! Today in this post we’ll be going over some progress we’ve made - both on old features but also introducing some new features we didn’t even have a couple months ago. I’ve also made a video outlining this so if you’d prefer to enjoy this in video format with some nicer b-roll of the game itself, feel free to check out the youtube video.
But one quick announcement before we get into it! We have a release window for the Closed Alpha!!
We’re aiming for late November. This could still change, and if it does we’ll let you know, but this is the current plan. Note that not everyone who has signed up for a key will get one, and if you don’t get a key there will likely be future waves for keys - which we can provide more information on a little later. But for now, if you haven’t signed up for a chance for a key, you can do so on our website.
Now, on to the progress we’ve made in the game!
World Generation:
Among The Wild has procedurally generated levels, and has had that for quite some time. But we have added a bunch of improvements to how we generate the world. This allows us to have better control over the generation. For example: biome generation also takes neighboring biomes into consideration so the biomes transition naturally.
The new procedural generation also gives us the ability to generate biomes, sub-biomes, and bespoke themed points of interest.
Seasons (New feature!):
We’ve added seasons to the game!
This was a feature that we were initially tossing up whether it was necessary for the closed alpha or not, but given that we feel it may greatly affect the flow of the game we figured it would be better to get in sooner rather than later. And so here we are! The biomes change with the current season, and certain crops for example can only be planted in certain seasons.
Creature Trading (New feature!):
Making money is an important part of Among The Wild, and so we’ve added a new money making method: Creature trading! But creature trading isn’t only for selling creatures you no longer need, it also serves as a way to buy other creatures you might need. It’s still pretty simple right now, but we’re looking forward to seeing what it will become!
Building Improvements:
Building in Among The Wild is free form and you can use various different building pieces. You can rotate pieces freely, choose to snap to other pieces and sample from existing parts in the world.
But recently, with Simon’s Awesome Fence Tech™ (or SAFT), we’ve also made it so fences now follow the contours of the level instead of just floating off into the distance which makes building pens for your creatures much much nicer!
Other tweaks:
Gameplay speed/difficulty has been reduced.
Before things were SUPER chaotic: creatures were needy, money was scarce, quests were demanding. This quickly became overwhelming, and really limited the ways in which the player could potentially play the game. However, after adjusting things, the game feels far more accessible, more relaxing, and the days contain a bit more variety instead of a hardcore, frantic grind.
Fixing the save system.
The save system has been broken for quite some time now, and it’s suuuuper nice to have this back again. This is an obvious requirement for the closed alpha, but on a personal note I’ve had to say goodbye to too many creatures and builds I really cared for so I’m super stoked to have this feature working again!
Controller Support progress.
Among the Wild doesn’t have full controller support yet, but the goal is to fully support it. So we’ve begun work on controller support.
Story/Lore
We’ve also been working a bit on story / lore and world building and fleshing out characters, as well as revising quests in the game to see how that flows in the alpha.
Market touch ups
There is a market that you can visit in Among The Wild, and our 3D artist Marie has been giving it a bit of love (and some of the homes of the previously mentioned NPCs are starting to take form!)
Hats
There are hats now. See? Hat.
Things that aren’t done yet:
We haven’t implemented any of the inventory system changes yet, if you remember that video where we went hiking and talked about it. But we got some good suggestions from y’all, and we might be going with some of them.
Another thing we think won’t make it in for the closed alpha is localisation, unfortunately. At least not for the first round. But we do intend to have localisation support!
And that’s about it! I hope you enjoyed this little post here and we’re super happy to have you along for the ride!
Oh and in case you’ve missed our previous Q&A video you can check it out here:
Have a lovely weekend, everyone!
Jace