Townseek News

[p][/p][p]It's time to leave the seas and head to our next destination on our Tour of Explora! In case you haven't caught up yet, last week, we started a tour of the different towns you can discover in Townseek, starting with Sharkdwell.[/p][p]This week, we're looking at the feline town of Meowosville! As one would expect of cats, they really like cardboard and strings, and made their town to fit their needs. Being a close neighbour to Sharkdwell, it's one of the first towns you'll discover as you venture into land.[/p][p]Let's go meet these adorable yet crafty friends! Just keep an eye out for your belongings! [/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]Catfolk are very social and great explorers, and Meowosville is surrounded by equally interesting creatures. They're friends to the sandcastle crabs at the beach south of the town, and unlike whatever one might expect, they love playing with the dogs at the nearby Goodboi Park! Meanwhile, to the north, a group of territorial buff cats have claimed a cave and made it a gym for themselves. We recommend you admire their pectorals from a safe distance. 💪[/p][p]While Meowosville is the home to most catfolk, they actually have a long history of travelling the world! It's said that they come from the faraway deserts of Dunafar and that they crossed paths with the stone people of Stonehedge. They're actually the most numerous species in Explora! Keep your eyes peeled, and you might find some cats at some interesting locations.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]The merchant and host for Meowosville is Whiskey, and at his store, you're the boss! ✨ Like any good shopkeeper, Whiskey will charm you into buying his wares, such as Fish Burgers and Squeaky Toys. But if he happens to snatch your pouch, don't be alarmed! That's how catfolk play! He'll give it back if you chase him, along with some round pebbles.[/p][p]Whiskey isn't the only trader in the family either. While Whiskey prefers to stick around at home, his cousin Pawline travels and trades the world in her own airship. You might even get to meet her during your own travels! You didn't think you were the only one flying around, did you?[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]Fishing is also a big part of life at Meowosville! While fish is important to their diet, most of their fishing is actually recreational! During the main quest for Meowosville, Whiskey will introduce you to their prideful aquarium at The Big Bowl. Once you get a fishing rod, which Whiskey conveniently sells, he'll ask you to help fill it for an upcoming exhibition! 🎣[/p][p]Search for one of the many fishing spots around the world, like the nearby Atlantis, cast your rod and see what bites! There are many different kinds of fish to catch, and they're also a great opportunity to make some quick money. But if you want to complete your collection, your fishing rod will need to get an upgrade at some point. 🔥[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]For our behind-the-scenes development trivia for this week, Meowosville was the first town we designed for Townseek, all the way back in its game jam version. As a quick proof of concept to figure out how we wanted towns and characters to look, we designed the host for the first town as a blue anthropomorphic cat in robes. That helped us set the tone and themes we'd need for the rest of the characters.[/p][p]Having a cat-themed town also gave us the opportunity to reference one of our previous game jam games, Woofice Chair! In it, the player would control a dog in an office chair, defending their park from various waves of extremely muscular animals, which inspired us to add the Buff Cat Cave and Goodboi Park to Townseek. But worry not, the cats and the dogs sorted out their differences since.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]Speaking of cats and dogs, if you happen to be a pet owner, keep an eye out for more news early next week! 🐶 You might have noticed by now that the world is full of unique critters that we've created to populate the world. But what if some of your own pets managed to slip into Explora? 🔍[/p][p]Anyway, it's time to head to the next stop on the tour! Put on your rain boots, since we'll be heading to the swamps of the Driplands next! 🫧 If you'd like to share your favourite bits of the tour so far, consider joining our Discord server! Tell us what you liked about Meowosville and what you'd like to see next on the tour![/p][p]For now, have a safe voyage, and we'll catch you on our next stop next time! Cheers! 👋[/p][p]– Whales And Games 🐳[/p][p][/p][h2]Check the Tour of Explora for other towns! 🗺️[/h2][p]Sharkdwell 🦈 • Driplands 🌈 • Lawride Town 🍉 • Burrowburg 🐇[/p]

[p][/p][p][/p][p]If you've just been catching up with our Tour of Explora that we kicked off this week with Sharkdwell, why not take the opportunity to go on a trip around the world? Our Townseek Demo is part of the Debut Festival happening right now! 🦈🌏[/p][p]The Debut Festival version of our demo is the same as the one we took to BitSummit a few weeks ago, so there are no surprises for veteran explorers this time around. But if you haven't tried it yet, now is your chance to take to the skies, trade over 200 items between five unique towns, discover landmarks, and see what adventures await you across Explora![/p][p][/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]We do want to let you know that we're still at work on adding new languages (including Japanese, Chinese, and others) to the demo and that the translations are going really well! We're planning to have a new update to the demo with them and new quality-of-life improvements in the coming weeks. Thanks a lot to all of you who've left us your feedback! 👍[/p][p]Since this is the same demo, progress you make on it will carry over to the full game! That means your collected items, journal pages, and cosmetics will all be waiting for you when Townseek releases in full. You'll be able to pick up your adventure right where you left off! 🎉[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]These are exciting times for Townseek! You can look forward to more news as we continue our Tour of Explora next week with Meowosville. We're also preparing some surprises you won't see coming! While we're keeping them under wraps for now, we can't wait to show you what's next on your journey.[/p][p]If you do set out on a trip during the festival, let us know what you think! Leave us a review on the demo's page, report bugs you find, and share your suggestions and feedback with us on the Steam Forums or on our Discord Server.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]Thank you once again for being around! You make us smile like a shark! Cheers! 🦈[/p][p]– Whales And Games 🐳[/p]

[p][/p][p][/p][p]Gather around, explorers! ✨ With our updated demo and with Townseek on the horizon, we thought now would be a great time to take you on a Tour of Explora! There's many unique places and cultures to discover within the world. With so many locations, every couple of weeks, we want to give you a closer look at some of the towns, characters and stories you'll meet in the game.[/p][p]What better way to start this tour than from the town that you come from? From under the waves and in the middle of the ocean, we're starting this tour with a closer look at the steampunk town of Sharkdwell, home to Capt. Jawline, Sir. Reginald Sharkingston and, of course, to you! 🦈[/p][p]Let's get ready to depart on this journey together, shall we?[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]Sharkdwell is right at the centre of Explora's vast ocean, and is a popular hub for trading! Back in its former days, Sharkdwell was an unremarkable mining town hidden deep away in the ocean. It became prosperous after Sir. Reginald Sharkingston stumbled upon a cave full of a mineral he named Sharknite. That mineral turned out to have amazing energetic properties and changed the town forever. With it, Reginald helped fund and push through the invention of airships, the creation of mechanical legs, and the creation of Sharkdwell's steampunk culture![/p][p]Over a century has passed since airships were invented, and merchants now roam the world, trading between towns. Nowadays, Sharkdwell is the most important town of the ocean, and sharks are apex adventurers. While the average shark doesn't interact much with outsiders, others depart to nearby towns, bringing goods from the land.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]The merchant and host for Sharkdwell is Capt. Jawline, your friend, mentor and boss, in that order! Jawline is a retired airship captain and spends his days as a merchant at Sharkdwell. Alongside that, he works as an airship mechanic and helps train new sharks for exploring and trading. That includes you, his favourite pupil![/p][p]Jawline is also a direct descendant of Sir. Reginald Sharkingston. After tweaking your airship, Jawline hands you Reginald's Journal, allowing you to use it as your own. As you learn the ropes of exploring and travelling around, he asks you to help him find its missing pages. Could there be a secret reason for his sudden request? 🤔[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]Sharkdwell stocks many unique items in its trade and some favourites among seafolk. Some of the common items you can find in stock include the Algae Soup, Musical Conch and Mechanical Legs. Experienced traders can also get their hands on more airship supplies, as well as a plethora of sea creatures that can tag along with you on your journey. 🪼[/p][p]Being in the middle of the ocean, most of what surrounds Sharkdwell is water. But travel around, and you'll find places full of resources! There's the Shark Depths, the mine where Reginald first discovered Sharknite, and Atlantis, a fishing spot that fish love to gather around. While most of the landmarks you'll discover are on land, these places are a great way to start collecting items beyond trading.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]As a bit of behind-the-scenes development, Sharkdwell and the decision to theme the story around sharks were very much made up on the spot! Townseek was originally made for the Global Game Jam in 2021. Like every game made during a game jam, we had a tight time limit to work with and brainstorm ideas. When we were thinking about how to theme the player's blimp in a unique way, that's when the juxtaposition of a shark flying among the clouds came to us. And we went with it![/p][p]That led to everything else, from the idea of using a steampunk machine to fly around, to having the sharks take a central role in the world. For us, Townseek is a game about how travel and getting to know the world changes you. We thought there'd be no better way to represent that growth than going with a species that's never walked the land![/p][p]This also presented a fun design challenge! Early on, we were split between the decision to have sharks walk on the surface or looking like traditional long-tailed sharks, we came up with the idea of mechanical legs that they could attach and detach at any time! This also helped us improve the story, and show how determined Reginald was to explore and travel beyond Sharkdwell. ⚙️[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]Well then! That was our first stop, and quite an important one to begin with! Next week, we're highlighting the catfolk town of Meowosville, so keep an eye out for those feline troublemakers! 🐱 Meanwhile, feel free to join our Discord server to talk about your favourite part of Sharkdwell or which other towns you're eager for us to cover next![/p][p]We'll catch you up ahead on the next stop, so get on your airship and set sail! Cheers! ✨[/p][p]– Whales And Games 🐳[/p][p][/p][h2]Check the Tour of Explora for other towns! 🗺️[/h2][p]Meowosville 🐱 • Driplands 🌈 • Lawride Town 🍉 • Burrowburg 🐇[/p]

[p][/p][p]It's been a while since you've last heard of Capt. Jawline and from our team, hasn't it? That changes now! Our crew is taking Townseek on a remote trip to Japan and heading to BitSummit! 🗻 While we're not going to be there in person, we're sending it off with a brand new look in tow and a new adventurous demo for all of you who've been eager to play it! 🦈[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]That's right! Our Townseek Demo is back on Steam again! If you've not had the opportunity to take a trip through Explora yet, now's the best time to do so! Fly at your own pace, trade over 200 items between five different towns, upgrade and customise your airship, discover landmarks, find random events, and much more.[/p][p]And if you're a returning player, there're a ton of new things to discover as well! We've rewritten the early game and its story, improved gamepad support, have a new photo mode for you to take photos of your journey, new cosmetics to equip, new conversations to have with hosts, and a lot more. As a heads-up, the demo is currently only available in English, but we're working to add more languages to the demo (including Japanese, Chinese, and others) soon.[/p][p]We're really proud of the progress that we've made these last few months. The game has never played better! ✨[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]In addition to that, since we think this demo is finally a great representation of the full game, your save data from this demo will carry over to the full game! You'll be able to pick where you left off with your item collection, journal pages and quests. 🎉[/p][p]If you've enjoyed it or if you found any issues, give us a review on our demo page! You can also send us your feedback through the Steam Forums or join our Discord Server to report to us any issues or suggestions you have.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]We still don't have a new release date for the game just yet, but we're working towards it. We hope to have more news about it soon. While we've been quiet, we've been working non-stop on a lot of things that we think you're going to enjoy![/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]You can also notice that we're progressively giving a facelift to all the game's artwork with a new look! We've got a new key art updated to match the game's art style since our original key art better matched the original jam game artwork. We also have a new logo to go along with it. Gone are the days when we'd be called Ownseek. Explora has never looked better![/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]Alongside Townseek, our publisher at Super Rare Originals also has a few other games with their own demos during BitSummit. Phantom Squad, Moros Protocol and Gecko Gods each get their own piece of the spotlight too, so be sure to check them out. 🦎[/p][p]Well then, our demo is waiting! The whole world is your sea now, so set sail and see all it has to offer! Cheers! ✨[/p][p]– Whales And Games 🐳[/p]