Dev Blog #3: The Future
Hey Adventurers,
Happy Holidays from everyone here at Spearhead Games! For the last few months in particular we’ve been making some great strides on development for Witchstone, so for this dev blog we wanted to give some updates about the state of the project, and what our plans for the near future look like. It felt like a good way to wrap up the year before we roll into 2021.
So what’s new? While it’s not finalized, we’ve made major updates to the UI, added new dialog sub-systems that allow a player to use their insight skill to gain ...well insight… into NPC’s motivations and desires, and generally added a lot polish to the functions that underpin the Influence System. Since a large part of the game’s design revolves around interactions created and moved forward by the Influence System, planning out the many modular events and independent NPCs that bump into each other as a result of your actions is where a lot of the dev time goes.
What Happened to the Kickstarter campaign?
We’ve had some fans also ask about the state of a Kickstarter, and we realized it would be helpful to give an update somewhere concrete here since other people are probably interested in the answer we’ve landed on. A Kickstarter is still being considered. But right now it’s not something we can put a time frame on because we’re actively exploring opportunities that allow us to extend our development time further, which would greatly boost the quality of the game.
On our end, this is a really good thing, but understandably when you’re excited and waiting on a game it could be frustrating news. Sorry about that, but we just want to make sure that as much as possible we make a great game, and there’s plenty of good examples of where taking a bit longer instead of rushing to finish results in a game not living up to its potential, and we’re not about that. We will make an announcement about crowdfunding once we know for sure one way or another, when we’re absolutely locked in on the future. As of now we’re focused on development, and deciding where it’s going to lead.
What about DEV BLOGS?!
We hope you’ve been enjoying these updates, and we plan to keep them rolling out monthly, and on occasion when possible maybe an extra one here and there. When we asked what aspects of the game people were interested in as a future topic, one of the most common answers was the combat system, so that’s right at the top of the list for upcoming Dev Blogs. We also want to do more Q&A blogs with the team, if you haven’t checked out the first Q&A with our art director Yan, it goes into all the inspiration behind the look of the game. We want to also get Q&A’s from teams whose work isn’t as often highlighted, but is crucial to what makes Witchstone tick. The plan for the next Q&A is to talk with the engineering team and get some specific insight into the actual nuts and bolts of how Witchstone handles things like dynamic storyline and branching narrative on the back end of the game.
Steam Page Updates!
We realized that the state of the game has come a long way from the current set of assets on the Steam page, so the very first thing we tackle will be updating the Steam page with a new set of assets that much better show where we’re at. It’s exciting to see the progress, and we want to make sure we’re putting our best foot forward for those of you who are just now possibly seeing the game for the first time.
We’d also love more feedback about what Dev Blogs you’d like to see, we keep a list of topics we think would be interesting, but also keep an eye out for what the community wants, because ultimately these posts are a way to talk about our game so that you get a feel for what our plans and ambitions for the project are. Knowing what about Witchstone excites you the most is exactly what we’d love to know so we can share that information with our followers.
The team is about to take a well-deserved winter break after a few extra-productive months, so we’re excited to return at the beginning of the year with new updates, new dev blogs, Steam page updates and more.
As always, If you’re interested in supporting the game right now, adding us to your Steam wishlist goes a long way to help us!
We’d love to hear your thoughts, feedback, or anything at all. You can get a hold of the team by following the game on Twitter! https://twitter.com/WitchstoneGame
If you’d like to be a member of the community, join our Discord: https://discord.gg/spearheadgames
If you want to be notified when we send out the newsletter with info about the studio, and general updates you can subscribe here: http://eepurl.com/dilhNP
Until Next Year Adventurers!
-The Spearhead Team
Happy Holidays from everyone here at Spearhead Games! For the last few months in particular we’ve been making some great strides on development for Witchstone, so for this dev blog we wanted to give some updates about the state of the project, and what our plans for the near future look like. It felt like a good way to wrap up the year before we roll into 2021.
So what’s new? While it’s not finalized, we’ve made major updates to the UI, added new dialog sub-systems that allow a player to use their insight skill to gain ...well insight… into NPC’s motivations and desires, and generally added a lot polish to the functions that underpin the Influence System. Since a large part of the game’s design revolves around interactions created and moved forward by the Influence System, planning out the many modular events and independent NPCs that bump into each other as a result of your actions is where a lot of the dev time goes.
What Happened to the Kickstarter campaign?
We’ve had some fans also ask about the state of a Kickstarter, and we realized it would be helpful to give an update somewhere concrete here since other people are probably interested in the answer we’ve landed on. A Kickstarter is still being considered. But right now it’s not something we can put a time frame on because we’re actively exploring opportunities that allow us to extend our development time further, which would greatly boost the quality of the game.
On our end, this is a really good thing, but understandably when you’re excited and waiting on a game it could be frustrating news. Sorry about that, but we just want to make sure that as much as possible we make a great game, and there’s plenty of good examples of where taking a bit longer instead of rushing to finish results in a game not living up to its potential, and we’re not about that. We will make an announcement about crowdfunding once we know for sure one way or another, when we’re absolutely locked in on the future. As of now we’re focused on development, and deciding where it’s going to lead.
What about DEV BLOGS?!
We hope you’ve been enjoying these updates, and we plan to keep them rolling out monthly, and on occasion when possible maybe an extra one here and there. When we asked what aspects of the game people were interested in as a future topic, one of the most common answers was the combat system, so that’s right at the top of the list for upcoming Dev Blogs. We also want to do more Q&A blogs with the team, if you haven’t checked out the first Q&A with our art director Yan, it goes into all the inspiration behind the look of the game. We want to also get Q&A’s from teams whose work isn’t as often highlighted, but is crucial to what makes Witchstone tick. The plan for the next Q&A is to talk with the engineering team and get some specific insight into the actual nuts and bolts of how Witchstone handles things like dynamic storyline and branching narrative on the back end of the game.
Steam Page Updates!
We realized that the state of the game has come a long way from the current set of assets on the Steam page, so the very first thing we tackle will be updating the Steam page with a new set of assets that much better show where we’re at. It’s exciting to see the progress, and we want to make sure we’re putting our best foot forward for those of you who are just now possibly seeing the game for the first time.
We’d also love more feedback about what Dev Blogs you’d like to see, we keep a list of topics we think would be interesting, but also keep an eye out for what the community wants, because ultimately these posts are a way to talk about our game so that you get a feel for what our plans and ambitions for the project are. Knowing what about Witchstone excites you the most is exactly what we’d love to know so we can share that information with our followers.
The team is about to take a well-deserved winter break after a few extra-productive months, so we’re excited to return at the beginning of the year with new updates, new dev blogs, Steam page updates and more.
As always, If you’re interested in supporting the game right now, adding us to your Steam wishlist goes a long way to help us!
We’d love to hear your thoughts, feedback, or anything at all. You can get a hold of the team by following the game on Twitter! https://twitter.com/WitchstoneGame
If you’d like to be a member of the community, join our Discord: https://discord.gg/spearheadgames
If you want to be notified when we send out the newsletter with info about the studio, and general updates you can subscribe here: http://eepurl.com/dilhNP
Until Next Year Adventurers!
-The Spearhead Team