Hey again, Pawsta-farians! 👋 Time to check in again!
Wholesome Games Celebration 🎉
First up we have some exciting news that our friends at Wholesome Games will again be shining a light on Pawsta again next week! We're so grateful that they're being so supportive of us, it's really an amazing honour! The art is also so much fun:
Here are some official details about the event:
The Wholesome Games Celebration on Steam will return August 7-14! Now in its third year, this event features world premiere game announcements, new releases, discounts, and demos.
Thank you all for the support! 🥰
August 7th will also mark exactly two months since Pawsta's Steam page debut! We have received so much support in this time, and it has been a huge source of motivation for the team!
Currently. we're standing at over 6,500 wishlists & we hope to gain more as we start translating the Steam page into more languages! Luckily, we're quite an international team & have plenty of indie friends in other countries so we're hoping to tick off a bunch! Here are some planned:
Italian, Swedish, Brazilian Portuguese, Simplified Chinese, French, Korean, German, Spanish (Latin America), Russian, Ukrainian, Polish & Japanese.
Welcoming Felicia to the team! 🤗
Since the start of July, I've had Felicia on-site helping with 3D and 2D art! It's also super motivating to have her helping me out full-time! Here's a pic of us wearing our Wholesome Direct tees:
She's doing a super great job of adapting to the claymation art pipeline & we can't wait to share what we've been cooking up! A big focus atm is expanding the pasta area and making it more Italian-feeling. For example, here's a cute little olive tree Felicia made to fit the theme:
Stay up-to-date with socials 🐦
We've also started being a lot more active on TikTok and other socials lately. So that it doesn't impact development too much, we've taken the advice of other indies, and just do a "marketing Monday" to come up with fun ideas, then spread them out across the week!
The aim is to reach other audiences this way & keep upping the wishlists so we have a stronger case for securing full-project funding & publishing! We're still finding our feet here, and have one video that's gotten 8k views, but absolutely could do better!
So we really appreciate any comments, likes & retweets as they tell the algorithm that it's good content that should be spread around further!
I'm posting plenty of behind-the-scenes stuff, memes, sneak peeks & even slice-of-life content as I want to mix my personal stuff to show that developing games isn't just about chaining yourself to a pc! As well as TikTok, I'm posting this content to Instagram, YouTube Shorts & Facebook!
Share Tasty Food Pics!😋
Our Discord is also getting more active, especially with food pics being shared!
It's no secret that Pawsta was inspired by the team's big love for cooking, so we're super happy to see that others are joining in with sharing recipes, meals & is super yummy pics!
There's plenty of internationals on the server too, so it's fun seeing some super varied & exotic eats!
If that sounds, up your street feel free to join in on the fun! We'd love to see what you've been cooking up/ or stumbling across, too!
E.g. here's a yummy Swedish-style strawberry cake Felicia made for my birthday a few weeks back:
Some small updates 🗞️
For those who are extra curious, here are some things we've been working on, except for upping our social presence, processing our new fandom, & teambuilding!
Designing a bigger Italian kitchen with Pasta and Pizza areas 🍕
Making fun interacts like objects that wobble when you click them! 🫵
Converting the game from 2D logic to 3D logic 🧊
Prototyping cooking minigames!🕹️
Better cameras, transitions & lighting 🔦
Stepping up our sfx/ music game by using FMOD 🎶
Adding an outline shader to interacts 🔳
Lots of planning & pitch building, so we can reach out to investors & publishers✍️
Here's a look at some of the protototyping! One big thing I'm pushing for is adding more playfulness to Pawsta. This means things that aren't exactly essential, but hopefully make you smile:
What's Next 👀
The next big thing on our calendar is a huge event... Gamescom! For those who don't know, Gamescom is a yearly convention in Germany (Cologne)! It's the biggest of it's kind in Europe! If you want to say hi & grab a sticker, maybe reach out on social media!
I'll be wearing chef's clothes & probably loitering mostly around the Spielfabrique stand, as I was part of their European Videogame Accelerator lineup this year!
And that about wraps things up for now!
Until next time..
Pawsta la vista! 🐭
- Harry