Mossfield Origins News

Hello friends!

We've been quiet for a while for various reasons, but since we're moving towards release we would love for you to try out the Mossfield Origins demo, and let us know what you think!

The demo is a small slice of the full experience, 20-40min on average, and isn't final. It could have bugs and performance issues, all stuff we're expecting. We'll be updating the build over the next week and more since the demo will also be in Steam Next Fest next week!

If you have feedback you can feel free to email us, or join the discord. Thanks and see you out there!



Join us for Steam Next Fest! And tell a friend!

Studio Any Percent has decided to move forward with self-publishing Mossfield Origins rather than partner with Kitfox Games for its release. We appreciate your patience as we settle into the new community set up!



To get the latest news on development as we move toward launch (later this year? 👀), sign up for our newsletter and join our cozy Studio Any Percent discord.

Join us for playtesting, sneak peeks, release + platform news, dev streams, Q&As and a friendly crowd to enjoy cozy games with!

A Wishlist & follow on Steam will go a long way for us! And... be on the look out for a Mossfield Origins demo at the Steam Next Fest event in October 💻👀🍂



scroll for some wip/not final sneak peeks!

Greetings Residents!

This past month has been eventful, both literally in real life and more virtually here on Steam. Happy Pride Month!

In real life, our main developer Ruby has been out of commission for a little bit (including resting up and staying healthy), but things are picking up again as we revisit our last bits and bobs before launch. We’ll hopefully have a roadmap and release date to share with you soon. (Here's a cute server giving some side-eye to a house)



Meanwhile, here on Steam, event after event seems to occur. For example, Mossfield Origins was selected by the Cozy and Family Friendly Games Celebration and the currently ongoing Future of Play Festival. We have more in store for the coming months, so welcome, any and all new residents who discovered us through these promotions. All we want to do is make a lovely little experience for you to play, and your wishlist and eventual purchase helps us go on to make more like it.

We’re up to more than 28,000 wishlists now, which is great, but if you have a friend who likes snack-sized builders, why not share it with them today?

https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/33081/Kitfox_Oceans_Day_Bundle/

One of the artistic goals of Mossfield Origins is to reflect a healthier relationship that’s possible between humans and the world(s) we live on, depicting a more sustainable approach to life and our habitation. If that’s a theme that resonates with you, it might interest you to know that Kitfox is also supporting World Ocean’s Day (that’s today!) with a special bundle! You can buy 4 Kitfox games at a discount, and your purchase benefits the Whale and Dolphin Conservation charity.

Thank you for your support!

-Kitfox & Any%

P.S.
Don't trust personal messages with links to download the game from the internet. Any tests we do will be via the official Steam client. Malicious hackers have already accessed some peoples' computers by impersonating us. Stay safe!

Good afternoon Future Residents,

A reminder that the Kitfox 10th Anniversary Sale is on for two more days. All our games are on sale, so don't miss out! This week's update shows off the visual upgrades we've beamed down to the planet. Even the textual elements are more clear. Read the full brief:




The building progress visualization module has been installed for Residents which helps clarify status (and just looks cool).


(view high quality)



Previous text display for the mission suffered some artifacts when rendered without high quality settings, and had issues with certain fonts and languages.

We redid all the text visualization to look crisp and clean at any quality or resolution (view the image below full size). We also implemented ways to share all the format and styles across the mission display such that we can change it in one spot and have everything update (e.g for user configurable text scaling and accessibility later).



Tech details ahead: Text previously was decent (msdf), but is now using the latest MTSDF form for best quality and scaling - if you're curious it looks like giant colorful blobs of letters before being shown!


(view high quality)



A little more tech related details on "how to fix the muddy colors and make them look better" by fixing the tone mapping.

For a small bit of history, when I started this project I implemented it as a blank void where I played with environment lighting. The left hand side was the default exposure for the environment, the right side is the exposure turned all the way up. I thought it looked a lot nicer, and continued to add grass, and then a whole game...



Along the way I must have had trouble with the look and for some reason hardcoded an extra "undo that exposure please" into the global display outcome (not a good idea!). This was kinda ruining all the colors, squashing them.

Once I noticed it, I realized all the colors, color grading, and tone mapping were based around this invalid setup. That meant redoing the look from the bottom up, making sure all the colors come through as intended, and just LOOK at the difference ✨



It's not that the game looked bad, but when compared with the new one and what I had intended visually, you can see how flat and muddy it was in comparison.



With all the colors cleaned up, I also added a debanding pass which smooths out all the gradients and colors and makes everything really satisfying.



- Wishlist and follow the game
- Follow the developer / and the publisher!
- Sign up for the newsletter
- Join the Discord

From your friendly developer Ruby, and friends at Kitfox Tanya + Alexandra.

Hello Residents, It's your mission director checking in with an update about the mission launch.
The preparation for the journey is moving along well, with a lot of loose ends cleared up and a lot of major improvements landing to make our experience better.

(Note some details/visuals are not final, and the gifs lose a lot of quality!)


Earlier versions of the camera were a little awkward, relying on keyboard keys and flaky screen edges (especially annoying when viewing from multiple desktops). The camera has been upgraded to drag based, so you can play with just a mouse if inclined (the keys remain).


(view high quality)



You'll also probably notice the paths are now cohesively connected. Our previous path representation (if you recall) left a lot lacking, and didn't quite convey what makes them relevant to the mission.

The placeholder paths from before were stones and didn't connect at all (WARNING: old image!):


The new paths are a lot better, and you get a lot more feedback about how they work and their connectivity and whether they're in use by a resident:


(view high quality)


When inspecting multi-space buildings on the mission, they didn't properly highlight all affected spaces which was unclear to Residents.



Now they do, and Residents appreciate it.






We look forward to launching the mission this year Residents, and hope you stay safe and excited. Follow along with the mission launch progress below:

- Wishlist and follow the game
- Follow the developer / and the publisher!
- Sign up for the newsletter
- Join the Discord

From your friendly developer Ruby, and friends at Kitfox Tanya + Alexandra.