Hello wonderful Voyagers! Michael / Spacenorth here, and wow – what an incredible two weeks it's been since we shared our trailer at the OTK Expo and launched our demo!

The Response Has Been Magical

We're absolutely blown away by the response: over 10,000 players have embarked on their journey in Nera! Some of our most dedicated explorers have spent multiple DAYS of real-life play time sailing our seas (we see you out there!). And speaking of explorers, it's been amazing to see players joining us from all around the world – from Ukraine to China, Korea to Germany, UK to France, and even Australia! Each bringing their own unique perspective to our magical world.

🌊 A Ocean of Feedback 🌊

Your endless streams of feedback have been both heartwarming and invaluable. Thank you to everyone who’s taken time to talk in our Discord, fill out our survey, use our Feature Upvote board and message us on Steam - it means the world to us!

In our most recent dev stream, we shared some of the feedback we’ve heard and what we’re going to be working on next. Voyagers of Nera: FeatureUp! Most of the feedback fit into a few different categories:

We've been thrilled to see so many players fall in love with the same things that excite us:

• The art style and atmosphere of the game
• The pure joy of skimming across the waves
• The Environments - our first biome, the Embrace, has been super fun and interesting for players to explore!

You've given us great feedback on features that need iteration or more depth:

• Making boats more engaging with more stuff to do
• Breathing more life into our underwater spaces
• Refining combat to feel more polished
• Spirits are super appealing, but feel optional. They need better integration throughout the game
• More interesting frictions and attritions

A lot of survey responses, posts and streams also gave us great feedback on some big deal-breakers:

• Need keybinds! (coming soon)
• UI is confusing people (ongoing work)
• Character creator happening at start of experience (coming soon)
• Hunger is constant and annoying (Attrition 2.0 coming soon!)
• Lack of controller support (coming before Early Access)
• Those pesky holes you keep getting stuck in! (ongoing work!)

The Road Ahead

We’ve been planning out our work based on this feedback and will be jumping straight into 2024 with two main focuses:

• Adding Keybinding
• Combat Enhancements
• Hunger system improvements
• UI improvements (crafting, refining)
• Better analytics to get better info on player experience

Exciting New Content

And then we’ll get into some big content and mechanics changes that we’re excited to work on:

• New biome: The Reef
• Including the return of the glider!
• Improved ocean gameplay
• More things to do in the ocean
• More boats and ways to upgrade your boat
• Underwater fauna and flora
• Storms!
• New ocean enemies… like a massive sea serpent that attacks the boat

🎅 A Holiday Thank You 🎄

Your feedback and enthusiasm have made these past weeks truly special, and are helping us make the game better every day. To express our gratitude (and spread some holiday cheer), I wrote a little poem that I shared during our last dev stream: Twitch VOD / YouTube Mirror

From all of us at Treehouse, thank you for being part of this journey and happy holidays!

Michael and the Treehouse Team

P.S. Keep that feedback coming – it's the best gift a dev team could ask for! 🌊✨