1. Above Snakes
  2. News

Above Snakes News

Release Cover Art Reveal!



[h2]Video Version[/h2]

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Hello everyone,

My name is Tobi and I am the lead developer of the team behind Above Snakes. Today, I want to talk to you about the portrayal of our main character, Aiyana, and the exciting update we have given her! We wanted to take a moment to go in depth about why we chose certain design elements for this rework and why it was important to do so.

First and foremost, we want to say that we still love the original design of Aiyana. However, over the past two years, we have noticed that she is often mistaken as a fully native character when, in actuality, Aiyana is an individual that represents both the tribes of Above Snakes and its colonists. Aiyana's father descends from a tribe while her mother is a colonist from Corpse Creek (that’s all we can say without spoiling anything). As we are nearing the eventual full release of Above Snakes, it felt more important than ever to capture the essence of both in Aiyana’s design.

Additionally, we were made aware that the original art featured some historical inaccuracies in Aiyana’s portrayal. We aimed to correct those errors. Despite Above Snakes being a work of fiction and fantasy, some design choices broke the illusion of a believable world as it didn’t properly represent the whole of Aiyana’s character or background. We are happy to say that we did our very best to amend these concerns and to better portray Aiyana as she truly is.

For the new artwork, we worked closely with Native American fans and volunteers who were kind enough to offer insight about how to best express Aiyana’s background and how to tease the larger story of Above Snakes.

We want to offer a big thank you to the Native American gaming community for assisting and consulting with us during this exciting process! A lot of thought and hard work went into this new design. We also want to thank Lyubov Kolodeznikova for bringing this vision to life in such a beautiful way.

Full Artwork by Lyubov Kolodeznikova

Since we collectively put a great deal of thought and research into this new design, we want to highlight some key elements. Please keep in mind that, despite Above Snakes being a fantasy world, the game borrows heavily from the history of the American Wild West.

Firstly, we decided to stay away from feathers. Originally, we utilized feathers on Aiyana’s tomahawk and her bow but, historically, eagle feathers were considered to be a man's item.

Aiyana's dress is now a basic two-hide dress. The cream white color - due to the lack of heavily smoking the leather - are typical for Native American dresses from that period. Additionally, the dress is not heavily fringed on the sleeves. This style of dress could be anything from the northwest, Great Basin, the Great Plains, Great Lakes, and even representative of southwest cultures like the Jicarilla and Lipan Apache.

Aiyana is wearing white shell earrings that were common among many men and women west of the Mississippi River. They could be whelk shell from the southeast, wampum from the northeast, clam from the northwest, or pink concho (which is mostly white). In the southwest, it was common for men to wear headbands, but this was not a common practice for women. Therefore, we removed the headband.

Another key element to Aiyana’s updated look is her belt which would usually feature three items: a knife, a fire steel striker, and an awl. These were commonly found in historical depictions of Native American characters. In the case of Aiyana, we chose to go with a tomahawk to showcase her survival abilities - both for daily necessity and for fighting, if needed. The tomahawk was widely used by Native American tribes and is a symbol of both strength and skill.

Selection of used references.

Aiyana’s leather hat is an inheritance from her colonist mother. One of the most interesting details we’ve implemented into her new look is the change to Aiyana's initial black hair. Dark brown-black hair is a typical attribute for Native women, but since Aiyana’s mother is a colonist, we painted the tips of her hair a lighter color, almost blondish. The blonder tips typically appear in women of mixed backgrounds - yet another subtle nod to our protagonist’s heritage.

We decided against the more traditional Native American braid for Aiyana and instead went a slightly different route. Aiyana now wears her hair in some braids (not historically accurate) with looser hairs to again represent both sides of her family.

Aiyana's props were reworked to better reflect the materials available at the time, along with appropriate bead patterns. Even though backpacks were not exactly a thing, we imagined what a backpack could have looked like by taking inspiration from different handbags.

In summary, we put a great deal of thought and care into updating Aiyana’s design to better represent her background and show a greater respect to the inspirations that help breathe life into the world of Above Snakes. We hope you enjoy her new look as much as we all enjoyed creating it!

Steam Cover Art

Alternative Artwork

Please note that we will not be removing the old design associated with the game. We love and celebrate our initial rendition of Aiyana and will simply refer to that design as "Alpha Artwork." We want to encourage content creators, media, and fans to use the new design going forward when showcasing Above Snakes content.

Let us know your thoughts below! As always, thank you for following along on this incredible journey.

Cheers,
Tobi

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1589120/Above_Snakes/

🐴 Devlog #9 - Corpse Creek and Horse Riding


[h2]Howdy and welcome to the first Above Snakes devlog of 2023![/h2]

We're excited to give you a sneak peek of one of the final biomes in our game: an epic, wild Western town called Corpse Creek. Corpse Creek plays a significant part in the story of Above Snakes and is a place you may discover towards the end of the game. We have also implemented horses, made adjustments to the cooking system, and have some other exciting features to showcase this month!

Watch the Devlog on YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_BI9fL_K_s
[h2]Corpse Creek[/h2]



Corpse Creek is a gigantic Western town and the fateful place where the plague first started. It is largely a ghost town now, as many of those who had survived fled from there. We don't want to give away too much just yet, because we want players to experience the biome for themselves.
Corpse Creek, despite recent events, still has inhabited buildings. However, the streets are littered with debris and the overall environment is eerie and atmospheric. It is sure to be a unique experience for players. We're putting forth a lot of effort into making this biome feel special. We're also adding interesting characters who will have their own stories to share with you. Our hope is that these characters help to add depth to the game. Byrd the bartender, for example, might already be familiar to those in our Community Discord server.

[h2]Horse Riding[/h2]





What kind of Western game would Above Snakes be if there were no horses? You can now find hitching posts with horses in certain places throughout the world that you can use for fast travel. For instance, there is a post located at the trading post, the tribal village in the birch forest, and Corpse Creek.
Using a horse costs carrots, but it's a great way to get around quickly. Carrots can be found in the wild and/or cultivated in your garden plots. Additionally, you can build your own hitching post at your base and own your very own horse!

[h2]Cooking System Improvements[/h2]



We've revamped the cooking system so that you now need to discover recipes before you can cook specific dishes. Discovery works by throwing ingredients together. After you have cooked a meal that results in a certain recipe, the recipe is "discovered" and added to your recipe book. For those of you who like to collect things, there are now books that you can find (or purchase) that teach you the recipes for certain items.



Of course, you can still throw every ingredient together, even if they won’t result in a certain recipe. For those, the sprites are now color-coded and icon-coded depending on the stats they provide. This makes it a lot easier to identify such things on your hot bar. We've also made it so that items that don't "make sense" to be cooked together will now result in inedible meals. For example, if you throw a couple of bones in a bowl, you can’t expect it to be an edible meal.

[h2]Multiple Save Slots[/h2]



There's no longer a need to delete your saved game! We've added the ability to have multiple save slots. You can now have up to 3 saved games at a time with story progression shown for each game.

[h2]Performance Improvements[/h2]

Lastly, we've made some big performance improvements to the game. We've reduced the initial loading time when starting up the game from around 30 seconds to just a couple of seconds! Now, you don't have to worry about the "black screen of death" anymore when starting the game (Beta testers know what I mean). We've also made some improvements to the memory management of the game, which means it now uses a lot less RAM. If you are an Alpha or Beta tester and were not able to run the game, now is a good time to try again. Let us know how it's running!

We hope you're as excited about these updates as we are! I can already tell you that we have a couple big announcements planned for the next few weeks! As always, we're looking for your feedback so please let us know in the comments what you think of Corpse Creek, the new horse riding, and the updated cooking system!

Cheers,
Tobi

Your Steam Achievement Ideas for Above Snakes!



Dear community,

We're looking to expand the list of steam achievements and need your help! Have an idea for an achievement that would be fun and challenging? Let us know in the comments below!

Something funny like hitting a rock for so long with an axe that you destroy it?
Something challenging like hitting a lost soul on the head by felling a tree?

We are looking forward to hear your creative ideas!

Cheers,
Tobi

🎁 Above Snakes Holiday Season Giveaway!

Happy holidays!

In the spirit of the season, we are excited to announce that we're giving away in total

4 Beta Steam keys, and 4 fan shirts to 4 lucky winners.

If you win one of the beta keys, you can play Above Snakes immediately!

We are giving away 2 of each on Youtube. All you need to be a subscriber of Square Glade Games and comment under this video:
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

And we are giving away 2 of each on Twitter:



  • This giveaway is free to enter.
  • The giveaway closes at 5pm CET on December 29th 2022
  • Winners will be chosen randomly on December 29th about 6pm CET and winners will be announced with a pinned comment under the Youtube video and the Tweet.


Happy holidays to everyone and thank you for being such an amazing community.
Tobi

🌱 The Beta is here!

We are happy to announce that the Above Snakes Closed Beta launched today. Everyone who pre-ordered the game at beta tier on Kickstarter back in January / February 2022 is now eligible to play. Alpha and Pre-Alpha backer's games are upgraded to Beta automatically. With that step we are on track with the Kickstarter and release roadmap and happy to fulfill backer's orders.

Read more:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/266687617/lonesome-an-atmospheric-wild-west-mystery-rpg/posts/3689886