Spirittea News

Hey everyone!

I'm so excited to get into today's update because honestly, it's the cutest feature I think I've ever seen in a game (as well as being pretty helpful!)! BUT! Before I get too carried away, don't forget we have a BRAND NEW TRAILER coming this Thursday, December 8th!

While I have to keep it very under wraps, I'm excited for you to get a feel for what life in Spirittea will be like, and start looking forwards to planning your time in your own mountain towns! If you want to make sure you don't miss it, make sure you sign up for a reminder here - https://wholesomegames.com/

So, what has Cheesemaster Games been so hard at work on making both functional AND adorable? If you've played the demo, you might have met these two cuties - two Shiba Inus!



Jan and Maru have had some visual upgrades to look more like their real-life counterparts! There have been so many visual upgrades throughout, but these two have been given a brand new mission to help out new players, so it was important they looked the part! Did you know that Shibas nearly went extinct during WW2?

Looking back at the demo and early playthroughs of the game, we noticed that folks were getting lost and finding it hard to navigate - something we definitely didn't want in our lovely calm game! So, we decided to allow a little extra time before spirit mode kicks in so that everyone can wander around and get their bearings, chat with the locals and get a feel for what building houses who! We made some map improvements that I chatted about in our last update, but you'll need to find people before they'll appear on your map - don't worry though, help is at hand.

No one likes being stuck at 25/27 townspeople met (certainly if your sense of direction is as bad as mine!) so we've drafted in loyal and friendly Jan and Maru to help! If you're not sure where to find someone, they'll happily sniff them out, and lead you to them! What useful neighbours!



We want to make sure throughout that we're keeping on top of making this a pleasant, chill experience for those who want to hang out, help their neighbours, have some fun and run their bathhouse. Being blocked by needing to find someone you've never met, or not being sure where someone is for a quest feels really unrewarding, so the work is going in to make sure everything is just as we'd like it, so you can fully enjoy your adventure the way you want to!

We'll see you on Thursday for some new trailer action!! I'm so excited that we're part of the game awards, and I hope you folks are too!

Hey everyone, it's time for another Spirittea update, and I'll have to be honest, there's SO MUCH to tell you all, I'm not sure what I'm going to pick to talk about!

First up, we've got some EXCITING NEWS coming in December, alongside some brand new game footage for you to have a peek at!



Spirittea has been picked to be included in The Game Awards Wholesome Snack Showcase! On December 8th you'll be able to check out a whole host of great games, some exclusive insights, demos and videos and new announcements!

We're so excited to be part of such a great event, and show off a whole host of new developments! I wonder how many of them you'll be able to spot! To be the first to see a whole lineup of wholesome games and to check out what's new with Spirittea, make sure you sign up at https://wholesomegames.com/ and tune in on the 8th!

Talking of new developments, we saw a whole host of you in the demo picking up furniture (sometimes not even from your own home!!!) and using it to redecorate! So Dan figured what better way to encourage more theft/personal expression was to bring in more furniture options (including a lovely piano, that plays something special!!) as well as some wallpapers, and some other lovely decorative items! You'll be able to make your home your own by buying bits and pieces from your neighbours and moving everything around so your space is your own!



Another thing we watched you do (through our fingers) was struggling to find some NPCs on the map as you started your adventures, SO! Our new updated map has each NPCs location on it! There are so many stories to discover and hobbies to join the town in, it'd be a nightmare to spend a whole day just trying to work out where a certain person was hiding - we've made sure that each townsperson has a tiny head that bobbles that you can follow around to make navigating that little bit easier! While it's nice that we have the notebook so you can track everyone's routines, we're excited that now no one gets left behind!

We've also been working on bath elixirs and cooking - you'll have to wait for a big update on those BUT here's a screenshot that I hope will tide you over until then! Can you work out what's new?



Thank you again from the bottom of our hearts for all your support and love for all things Spirittea, the game is really taking shape now and we hope you're looking forwards to launch almost as much as we are!

See you in the next update (which is right around the corner as we cannot contain ourselves any longer - the content going into the game is getting far too good not to share!

Hey there everyone, I hope you’re all keeping well! I know lots of folks really enjoyed our last update and a look into what goes into our lovely interiors, so we figured we’d update you on some work going on on the OUTSIDE this time. There’s a lot that goes into balancing the outdoors and filling it with the right things, as well as making it a nice space for you to enjoy. With all that in mind, here is some of the work that’s been going into your new world!

In the last update, we talked a little bit about setting the tone of the game, and hoping that our stylized interiors give you a real feeling of the people that live there and the ambience of the town. There’s a lot of work to balance making it a place where the townspeople clearly live, filling it with interesting things to investigate and filling it with things that advance the story and house our lovely spirits! Making sure that you have enough space to explore, and that the town is alive but not FULL is definitely a difficult balance to strike! I don’t want to spoil anything JUST YET about some of the things you can find and interact with in the world, but it’s definitely been interesting to think about where everything GOES.



Just like the interiors, everything has gone through planning and sketching, as well as just walking around the environment and feeling - what is this missing? My favourite example was the Temple area in the south, which just felt like it needed something more. We made some revisions to the temple structure itself, as well as added in some more rocks to make the environment a little more exciting, but it definitely needed some atmosphere. In the end, we included a bell that would be rung in the early morning and evening, which could be heard all throughout town - Just another little element that will hopefully add to the atmosphere of the town!

Just like the interiors, we want everything to be interesting, memorable and be interesting to explore - the world is full of things to find and collect, as well as people to hang out with and clues as to the whereabouts of the spirits, but it can’t ONLY be full of those things. One of the little touches you might have seen in the demo is the bus. Originally the road parts of town felt a little flat, so the bus was added (though it did drive off into the sea and mow down all the NPCs in the process…) and almost INSTANTLY the town felt more alive, more like a real town.



The next things we’re hoping will bring that breath of life into the game is the wildlife (which you might already have met!) and the townsfolks’ routines! There are some bird, frog and beach-based friends to discover in the demo!) and the NPCs going about their daily routines - I’m really excited to see these in action, showing off each character’s personality and giving you more to discover around the town!

Based on the Demo, where are you most excited to explore in Spirittea? I can’t wait to get exploring again and find all these little details. Did you have a favourite in the Demo? Let us know!

Hey everyone! We’re still hard at work on Spirittea, and thought we’d start sharing some regular updates on development, as well as a little insight into how Spirittea has grown over the last few years! We’ll start with an important process we think has been REALLY COOL to see grow!

One of the important things that we think really sets the tone throughout the mountain town in Spirittea is potentially something that most folks might not realise so much planning went into - interiors! These have slowly become a way to tell stories and get the players to feel at home with cultures they might not have experienced before.



From the shops and houses in town to your lovely, large bathhouse, everything has gone through meticulous planning from a sketch level right through to the pixel art you’ve seen in our lovely demo! It’s all been important to get right so everything in Spirittea feels authentic to itself and the real-world influences that give it so much life (I have some AMAZING photos to show you in a later update!!)

The biggest one that kicked off making sure each indoor area was full of life, was planning out and drawing all of the objects inside the first floor of the local shop. The shop is based on small little convenient store-type shops CheeseMaster encountered many times in Korea, particularly in more rural towns. Many of these shops felt very lived-in and almost doubled as a living areas.



We want each area to be interesting and memorable, rather than dull and empty. It was an important homage to the feeling of home that a lot of these cultures foster naturally! So many of these became important during this stage of development, like the convenience store, restaurant and player home, then the local carpenter's workshop/home, the coffee shop, and the apartment building.

“The interiors are chock full of details which makes each room take a long time. If I can finish one interior in two or three days I'm happy. I have to also plan out who lives where, and think about what sorts of things they might have in their home. It's a challenging task, but is quite fun!"

We really hope you enjoy discovering all these little details when you play, it’s been a pure joy seeing them all come together. With each new addition, the mountain town slowly becomes more and more alive, and we cannot WAIT for you to join all our lovely characters and spirits and learn all about them!

[h3]You've arrived at your mountain town destination, it's time to drink some Spirittea and settle into your new life surrounded by nature (and some spirits, of course!)

You can play the demo RIGHT NOW by heading over to the store page, and wishlist the game to be the very first to know when it launches! [/h3]

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1931010/Spirittea/

[h3]If you've not seen Spirittea yet, here's a peek at what you can expect when the game launches![/h3]

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

[h3]If you've got any questions or want to see the demo in action, we'll be streaming the game from 3pm BST on Friday the 17th! We'll see you there![/h3]