Winter Survival News

It was supposed to be a day-long trip. A short break from your boring old life. But things went horribly wrong. You were attacked by a creature much bigger and stronger than you. Separated from your friends. Thrown into a place that wants to kill you every step of the way.



You have no knife, no gun, no weapon strong enough to keep you safe. And even if you did, you wouldn’t know how to use it. You’re just a regular person. If it’s you against a wolf, you will lose every single time.

The only thing you can do is try to defend yourself. It will make you feel powerless and small. But it is the core of your survival. You don’t want to conquer the wilderness around you. You only want to go home.



Here, you are the prey. And the best thing you can do is avoid everything that wants to eat you. Stealth is your best friend. Every animal has a range of hearing and sight, so pay attention to stay out of their way. Step lightly and look for dense bushes or anything that can make you harder to see. Use stones to divert an animal’s attention and clear your path.



If you’re spotted, you’ll have to run. Remember you’re slower than the beast that chases you. With only a couple of meters between you and certain death, every second counts. So memorize your surroundings to avoid getting cornered. Squeeze through the cracks, jump on ledges and use thorn bushes - whatever it takes to keep the animal away.



But what if you end up facing the beast? A fast, hungry wolf, ready to pounce and tear you apart? You can still survive, but only if you managed to craft some protection. Do you have a torch? Or maybe an arm pad? Use it to get rid of the wolf, but only for a while. You know it will always come back…

In today's devlog, we will introduce you to the second part of Reworked UI.

Below you will find information about such elements as:
- Sleeping (Reworked section)
- Campfire / Cooking (Reworked section)
- Journal (Added section)
- Status (Added section)

SLEEPING

The sleeping mechanic UI also received several changes.
You will now be able to see and control a detailed list of your sleeping factors, starting from the amount of time dedicated to resting. This in turn will result in other factors changing, such as you energy, health, hunter, so on and so forth, all of which are vital to your survival. In addition, sleep will feature a heavy impact on the sanity mechanic, but more on that in a different devlog.

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CAMPFIRE / COOKING

The campfire UI has also been rendered in a new minimalistic style. This should allow for observing much more of the immediate environment. The large, wide, screen-wide menu has been replaced by a small selection box which will allow us to access our resources. The start button - responsible for starting out main interaction with the campfire - will be placed in the middle of the screen along with a small time wheel which fills out during cooking progress.

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JOURNAL
Your journal will be the only thing that keeps you company on your long and cold journey home. Its sections are:

Bestiary:
Everything you need to know to survive in a place full of wild animals. You will learn:

Where to find them. Are they living in a dense forest? Do they prefer more open spaces? Or maybe they’d rather be near water?
How to hunt them. What’s their daily routine? How to spot their tracks? What’s their favorite food? Are they cautious or curious? Or maybe the risk of getting hurt is too great even to consider hunting them?



Quest Log:
Quest log is a personal journal of your character. It tells you what you need to do in more detail. If you ever feel lost, this is the place to look. It may give you a hint about where to find something or how to solve the problem at hand.



Books and Notes
Every book and note you find and read is here. They allow you to quickly refresh your knowledge about survival, the world around you, and things that happened before you arrived.



Effects
Trying to survive in a cold and dangerous environment will definitely take a toll on your body and mind. But you’re not defenseless. You can prepare for whatever comes your way and become stronger, even if it’s only temporary. This tab describes what can happen to you, both good and bad, and how it affects you. It also tells you how to deal with the bad. Did you trip and twist your ankle? You’ll learn how to make a leg stabilizer to heal. Did you make an effort to prepare a nutritious meal? You’ll be well-fed for some time.



Tutorials
A friendly reminder about what you can do in the game and how to do it. It includes skills your character learned in your struggle to survive.



STATUS

The Status tab in the inventory shows the most important information about your character. It shows:

How the temperature affects you. Is your character cold or already freezing to death?



Time of day. Knowing how much time you have until darkness comes is crucial for your survival. Being surrounded by dense forest in the middle of the night will definitely make your life harder.
Base stats:

Hunger. Remember that food is not only needed for your body to function. Being hungry for long periods of time will influence your mental state and the ability to keep yourself warm.

Thirst. They say you can survive a month without food but only three days without water. You can eat snow in case of an emergency, but having steady access to clean water is really important.
Wetness. Being cold all the time is painful enough. Imagine that you’re wet as well.

Heat. Cold fingers? Frostbite? Or even worse, hypothermia. Getting too cold is the easiest way to prematurely end your journey.

Health. Cold weather, dangerous animals, spoiled food, injuries, or dehydration - it will all make you lose health. Don’t let it lead to your untimely death.

Energy. Surviving in the wilderness takes a lot of work. Every action costs energy. So make sure you have a good night's sleep. Otherwise, your journey will be much harder.

How insane your character is. Insanity grows when you suffer physically or mentally. If you neglect your well-being, your mind will turn against you. The consequences might be mild at first, like a headache. But if you don’t protect yourself against insanity, eventually, it might even take your life.

What effects influence you at the moment. Are you well-rested, well-fed, and ready to go? Or did you neglect your health and end up starving, dehydrated, and close to hypothermia? Everything you do is important. So don’t lower your guard, even for a second.

We know how important the visual design is in gaming, therefore in this devlog, we'd like to talk about the changes we've recently made in the UI of Winter Survival.

Our new UI can be split into two sections. Reworked and Added.

In the Reworked section, we'll talk about such elements as:
- Main HUD (Part 1) - Inventory (Part 1) - Crafting (Part 1)
- Sleeping (Part 2)
- Campfire / Cooking (Part 2)

And in the Added section we'll introduce such tabs as:
- Journal (Part 2)
- Status (Part 2)

HUD
When working on a new HUD, we tried to make it even more minimalistic yet still fitting to the game's general feel. We've moved everything to the left of the screen so as to reduce the amount of real life head bobbing 😉

You'll find all the important player-related information in the bottom-left corner. Hunger, thirst, temperature or sustained damages are all bundled in one place and much more readable. Quest as well as additional information can be found respectively in the top left and the middle left of the screen.

Main Hud Changes

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INVENTORY
First and foremost, the new Inventory contains a 3D model of our protagonist, which previously was only a 2D render.

Now you'll be able to see your equipment and its statistics even easier. All new equipment will also be visible on the character model. We've also reworked the equipment slots, weight system and the entirety of the icon design.

Reworked Inventory

New with TPP model

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CRAFTING

The rework of the Crafting section was a key point to us, as the previous version was found to be lacking in certain key elements.

Now, Crafting is much more advanced and readable. Like with the Inventory, we've redone the overall icon design. On the right side you will now be able to view the statistics of whatever item you're currently looking at. Thanks to the new design we believe it'll be much easier to navigate the crafting menus, and thus make it much smoother to learn to create what you want when you want it.

Reworked Crafting UI

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We hope you liked the new reworked features and check out the second part of the devlog on Monday.

Stay warm. Winter is coming!

Just a reminder to join our stream during Steam’a Survival Fest and have another look at Winter Survival. With the game going into Early Access in just about 2 months and an updated demo to be released along with it, there is a lot that will be going on in and around Winter Survival very soon!

In the real world, long before you die from starvation, you are likely to loose your mind and die by a consequence of it. Winter Survival is trying to add your mind to the already extensive repertoire of survival mechanics with the game’s sanity.
 
Whenever your body suffers, so can your mind and in turn you are beginning to loose your sanity bit by bit. You have to keep yourself warm, fed and hydrated. When you eat food you don’t know, you can get poisoned. If you don’t watch your step, you might fall and sprain your ankle. You’re just a regular person - wild animals and darkness scare you. Push yourself too hard, don’t sleep enough, and bad things will happen…
 


If you fail to take care of yourself, your mind will turn against you, make things more difficult, play tricks on your and even lead to hallucinations. Next time you wake up, things might not be the same. It might be just headaches. Panic attacks. Or you might see your organs rotting from the inside. Watch as the world distorts and collapses around you. Soon, you might not even know what’s real anymore. As you smile at the guy next to you, you forget you saw him before, frozen in the snow.
 
Sometimes, you can find comfort in your past. A picture of a lost love. A song shared with a friend. Other times, rely on simple things. A warm meal or a cigarette might be enough to get some relief. At least for a short while. But once you let your mind fall, you can never get your sanity back.       
 


You never know how much more you can endure before insanity hits. It might be the next time you go to bed. And when your mind weakens, it’s easier to just stay asleep. So as you fight to survive, waking up takes longer and longer. Eventually, you might never open your eyes again…
 
Normally, as you learn and adapt, surviving gets easier. But in Winter Survival, you can never let your guard down. The loss of sanity is an ever-present risk, lurking in the shadows. It feeds on your mistakes and makes it harder to live another day. Be careful not to lose yourself in your journey back home. 



If we got you interested in the game’s sanity system, make sure to follow us. We will look into the details of the sanity mechanics in a future DevLog.