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Hello friends!
Here at Castle PixelCount (the magically metaphorical place we call home), we've been spending the last many months and countless hours building a charming and somewhat bizarre world from scratch - one square blade of grass at a time. As many of you know, we opened our doors at the very start and invited all who were interested to join our adventure. Many of you came along for that journey and have been helping shape not just that world but also the community that's grown around it.
It's hard to imagine that mere weeks ago we opened our doors even wider than before and invited folks from all corners to visit. New faces are now joining us every day and it's been incredibly humbling to see how everyone's been getting on with this early and unfinished version of things. For us, the days leading up to its release were exhilarating and the days after even more so. Many of you were there on its release day, eagerly checking over and over to see if it'd gone live. We do know how refreshing it is to hit the F5 key.
Now, just a few weeks later, we're already making preparations for some larger updates (when not amassing a chicken army, of course). We've even got a brand new trailer to boot, which you can take a gander at below. We also welcome you to rest a spell from your weary internet travels as we update you on our progress, as is our tradition whenever someone visits us here at the castle. So sit your buttress down and we'll tell you all about it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iL1CWWqDKws
THE FIRST STEPS UPDATE - COMING DEC 21ST
Ever since we launched into the wild and untamed land of Early Access, we've been keeping ourselves busy soaking in feedback and pushing out updates. Most of these changes (which you can see in our games update thread) were focused on taking care of some of the most commonly reported issues. But these updates are just us warming up. (We really should get our heaters checked.)
Kynseed has only just taken its first baby step. There are many more to go until it can start ordering alcohol. So these first few weeks were all about releasing fixes to make sure we first had solid ground beneath our feet. But from this point onward, we'll be shifting our weight from applying fixes to creating content. That doesn't mean we won't continue fixing things as we go, of course. Instead, it means we'll be balancing between the two. We'll squash bugs, create new content, that'll create more bugs, we'll squash those, then make new content again, get more bugs, and so on. The circle of life.
Our first major chunk of an update, which we're referring to as The First Steps Update, won't have any big or flashy features just yet. This one is all about setting up some basic things which we'll need in place before tackling larger complex systems. Below is a brief look at some things we'll be including in this update, but we'll also likely sneak in a few more bits and bobs as we can.
- Selling boxes will be added to Good Stores for selling your items. Each Goods Store will also have a specific item they may want, which you can sell for extra profit. A Good Store's wanted item will also change over time. So for example, three days later there may be a new item to seek out (or to have stockpiled).
- First pass of an NPC chat system to give more purpose to the NPC's. This very first rough system will include: talking to NPC's to reveal information about the world, discovering their favourite items, getting hints of their disposition towards you, and they may even ask favours of you.
- Mysterious Fae wanderers will soon be seen throughout the land. Most curious.
- Balancing of systems to create more of a healthy challenge where needed.
- Control fixes based on feedback for Mouse & Keyboard. (Improving controls will continue to be a constant priority for us, especially as more game systems are added.)
There'll also be some behind the scenes engine preparations being made which, although not that glamorous, will be crucial in paving the way for some of the meatier features down the road. Speaking of roads, one of the things we were keen to do here in these first few weeks was to get a sense of what specific areas of content players want to see us prioritize. In fact, the whole point of releasing Kynseed at such an incredibly early state is so that players could actually help steer the game's direction on a fundamental level. We have a plan of our own that we're following of course, but ultimately we'll be working with you all here in these first many weeks to help us map out the full itinerary of things.
Right now, Kynseed's core gameplay loop is missing some chunks. So many of these larger early updates will be all about filling those chunks in. And as you've no doubt deduced from this section's header, our aim is to get this update sent your way on December 21st! Just in time for a stocking stuffer. (Though, not really. Our keen developer insight tells us that digital items don't actually exist in any physically meaningful way and thus make for poor stocking stuffers.)
SURFING COMMUNITY CHANNELS
For those of you who've just joined this game dev adventure of ours, feel free to hop by any of our community channels to let us know how you're getting on with things. Or heck, you can come to just hang out if you want. We're laid back and like chatting about pretty much anything, ranging from the game industry all the way to our strong opinions on how hot dogs are not sandwiches. Don't let anybody tell you otherwise.
You can find little pockets of our community just about anywhere you look (including the links at the bottom of this update) and we're active and accessible in all of them.
Oh, and if you're thinking of streaming the game or want to make a let's play, don't hesitate to give us a shout! We like to hang out in stream chats as we find the time throughout our workdays. (Though sometimes we lurk, creeping on all you players from the shadows.) Aside from being fun to watch, we've also found them pretty invaluable for getting feedback. In fact, one of our favorite things to do is watch players intentionally deviate from the game's path, often with amusing results.
As always, thank you for paying us a visit here at Castle PixelCount. You're welcome to drop by any time if you're ever in need of updates or awful puns. (Or both.) So much has been happening lately that it'll be interesting to see how far things have progressed the next time we talk.
All in all, these past few weeks have been pretty exhilarating for us. We've put so much of ourselves into this project that releasing it publicly felt a bit like we were sharing some intimate personal aspect of our lives for all to see. So when we kicked things off a few weeks ago, we were preparing ourselves for all manner of reactions. We even got a backup bouncy castle, just to have something to fall back on. But the support that you've all shown has been incredibly encouraging and it means the world to us to see that so many people understand the spirit of what it is we're trying to do. Seeing all your excitement and kind words has added immeasurable fuel to our fires.
Now onward to the next leg of our journey together!
Love,
PixelCount
