Skystead Ranch News

That's right! We have officially moved into Alpha with Skystead Ranch. That means a select few people can play Skystread Ranch right now! If you are one of those with access, thank you so much for your feedback so far, it has been invaluable.

For everyone else, Beta is just around the corner so more and more of you will be able to get early hands-on play testing experience of Skystead, and we can't wait for you to see what we have done.


We have officially committed to adding Cooking and Fishing as mechanics to the game! A huge shout out to our volunteer, Cameron, who prototyped the mechanics to demonstrate the work needed to add them to Skystead Ranch.

Our artist Laura has already begun making various models to process the ingredients for cooking!
(Note: These are still a work-in-progress and missing textures)



[h2]What purpose will fishing and cooking serve?[/h2]
To ensure that the added mechanics fit the game and aren't just added on for extra content, we are integrating both the fishing and cooking into the Skylets behaviour, likes and dislikes - because, after all, your Skystead Ranch is all about your Skylets!

By adding the ability to crush, mix, chop and cook food, we are unlocking the potential for a much wider variety of food options for your Skylets, allowing you to spend more time with your favourite Skylets to discover what each wants the most and allowing each to have the best Skylet diet possible!

Fishing is still a WiP too, so more info on that soon! 🎣


Using your valuable feedback from the Steam Farming Fest, we have made a multitude of changes to Skystead Ranch - so thank you to everyone who filled out the feedback form or chatted with us in Discord!

[h2]Sandbox Mode[/h2]
Added as a way to showcase the game during the farming fest, we asked if you would like to see a Sandbox mode in the full game, and you overwhelmingly said "Yes!" so we've kept it and made it neater on the Main Menu.

[h3]What is Sandbox mode?[/h3]
Essentially a way to play Skystead Ranch without worrying about unlocking anything or having a need for resources! Enjoy the Ranch life with unlimited resources and access to everything from the get-go to build and terraform any scene you like without having to maintain a farm or manage your Skylets.

[h2]Longer Day and Night[/h2]
A small change, but important based on your feedback, is the day and night cycle has been made longer!
This allows you to get more progress made per day and enjoy the nighttime Skylets for longer at a time. This will be more important when we add more and more night-time-based Skylets!

There is still work to do on this as we need to re-calculate the growth times of all crops and trees to align better with the new day lengths.

[h2]Tutorial[/h2]
We already knew we needed a tutorial in Skystead Ranch, but thanks to your comments, we have pushed this up the timeline drastically! Originally planned to be developed in September, we have already begun work on the Tutorial now!


Currently, the tutorial takes you through the basic controls and how to use the Crook, but we are still working on the next stages, such as resource management and meeting the Skylets.
Voice-over work for the Tutorial will be added again at a later date.


Thank you to everyone for your continued support and interest in our Skystead Ranch development! Make sure you wishlist the game if you haven't already, and keep an eye out for more news soon!

Thank you so much for stopping by during the Steam Farming Fest! We hope you enjoyed playing the demo as much as enjoyed making it!

2134 unique downloads and over 300 wishlists! Thank you all for taking part! Your support and engagement mean the world to us here at ToastieLabs.

If you haven't Wishlisted the game yet, you can still do so here:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2399570

[h2]Bug Fixing and Feedback[/h2]
A huge thank you to everyone who submitted the questionnaire and provided valuable feedback. All of your responses have been logged and will be reviewed for the next stages of development.



Now the Farming Fest is done, what are the next steps?
Firstly, we're prepping for the private Alpha access for all of your Kickstarters who backed the relevant tiers. This Alpha will be similar to the Farming Fest but with bug fixes, balancing and more!

This is just the beginning!



A lot of work is taking place over the next couple of months to ensure the game is ready for future Demos and the Content Creator outreach.
You can stay up-to-date with our development progress every week over on our YouTube channel or in our Community Discord server.

Thank you all once again, let's keep Ranching! 🧑‍🌾

Thank you so much for stopping by during the Steam Farming Fest! It has been great so far and we're only halfway through the week.

2000 of you have picked up the demo for the first time this week and for a small indie studio like ours, that means a lot! Thank you 💓

Make sure you wishlist the game once you've given it a try!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2399570

[h2]Activities[/h2]
We still have our Farming Fest extracurricular activities running in our Discord! 😊



Make sure to stop by to chat with the devs and other players!


We spent some time this week editing and balancing the in-game economy! Nothing too drastic just yet, but we have been editing the build values of all of the buildable items and how many resources you get from your crops and trees!



We recognise there isn't a reliable method to gather the stone resource just yet, so we are looking to design some kind of "Rock tree" that will allow you to farm both types of building resources.

[h2]Bug Fixing and Feedback[/h2]
Various bugs have been listed in our Discord, and our programmer Rob has been hard at work addressing the most important of these, so thank you for your help finding and diagnosing these pesky problems! Please keep them coming!

Don't forget to hit that "Questionnaire" button in-game too, and let us know about your experience. Feedback is very important at this stage of development.


Thank you all once again, let's keep Ranching! 🧑‍🌾

It's time for the Farming Fest and we're taking part with Skystead Ranch!



We have been working hard over the past month to add and improve upon the farming aspects of Skystead Ranch.
You can try it out all week by downloading and playing the Pre-Alpha demo for free!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2399570/Skystead_Ranch/

Our game is still in the early stages of development so you will see many areas of the game that are still in progress, this gives you the unique opportunity to provide direct feedback on Skystead Ranch! If you follow the "Questionnaire" button from the game's main menu, you can let us know your thoughts, which we will review and take on board with the rest of the game development!

Thank you in advance for your valuable input! 🥰

[h2]Discord Fun[/h2]
Alongside the free demo, we have a giveaway and activities in our Discord all week long, make sure you join our Community Discord to get involved!



[h2]Developer Livestreams[/h2]
We are going live at least twice this week right here on the Skystead Ranch Steam store page!
Make sure you stop by on Tuesday and Thursday* to say hi to the devs and talk to us about our experiences with Skystead Ranch!

*Any additional live-streaming dates will be announced here on Steam.



No more waiting around! Download the Demo now and get Ranching on your very own Skystead!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2399570/Skystead_Ranch/

Big news! We're taking part in the Steam Farming Fest this month!

An opportunity to celebrate one of our favourite game genres - Farming! As Skystead Ranch has a large element of Farming we thought this would be the perfect opportunity for you all to try out the current game in a demo format.

That's right, at the end of this month, from the 26th of April to the 6th of May, Skystead Ranch will be available to download and play as a free Demo! Make sure you try it and let us know what you think.


Since last time, we have 6 exciting new Skylets in various stages of development! The new skylets are to fit a variety of gameplay roles as we introduce new themed zones.

Some are very small, some can even fly, but all of them are as cute as can be!

From left to right: Sizzle, Puffle, Tor, Bigby, Snarl



"Shiny" skin variants are also in the works as we are also improving upon the rare Skylet spawning! We have been changing up the colour pallet and adding emissive textures to give them that extra rare glow!




Our artist Laura has been hard at work making 2 new zones for you to play in the demo!

[h2]House Zone[/h2]
The House Zone is situated above the starting island and comes with your very own humble abode! The purpose of this island is to be more of a player hub, where you can upgrade your house, customise the area with decorations and even do some fishing and cooking! (Fishing and cooking aren't implemented just yet)



[h2]Forest Zone[/h2]
The second of the playable zones, like the starting island, is designed for you to farm, upgrade and discover new Skylets! The forest zone will be more lush than the first island with vibrant trees, dense undergrowth and all the wonderful Skylets that come with it!




With all the new additions to the game from the art department, we have been making sure we don't fall behind on the technical side too! Our programmer has been hard at work ensuring the frame rate, loading times, and other performance requirements are as polished as they can be.

One big step was reworking the 3D grass model! Updates to the grass shaders allow for lifelike movement without taxing the drivers and a change in the way the grass is rendered allows us to have a lot more grass density for a lot less performance cost.

Just look at that sweet grass!




Our motivation for performance improvement was twofold. It is important for us to provide a better game overall, but we are also excited to make sure Skystead Ranch is console-ready too!

We officially have a Steam Deck here at ToastieLabs! What that means is we are now able to officially support Skystead Ranch (and our other games) on the Steam Deck as we can do in-house QA testing on the Deck which we weren't able to do before.



With plans for Skystead Ranch releasing on the Steam Deck and Nintendo Switch, we have begun work on controller support as well as classic keyboard and mouse. Make sure you plug in your controller or play on your Steam Deck this month when the Demo goes live and let us know what you think!


"With controller support comes new controls" - Uncle Ben or something

[h2]Camera Controls[/h2]
Taking your feedback on board from the Next Fest back in October, as well as considering the player experience when playing with a controller, we have completely overhauled the player camera for Skystead Ranch.
No longer is the game a top-down one-directional camera, but is now a 3rd Person camera with full 360-degree control!

We're still working out the kinks when it comes to camera movement sensitivity, but the overall feel is much better for Skystead Ranch and we are very happy with the change. (Even if it does mean more work for the artists to fix the backs of the island that you couldn't see before, sorry Jack and Laura!)

[h2]Crook Controls [/h2]
The next set of controls to overhaul was the crook controls. The ability to dig holes, clear the earth and build items needed to be redesigned to fit with the new camera and controller support system.

An updated building UI has been added which makes the building flow much easier!


A lot of work is still needed to make sure this is ready for the demo, so best of luck to our programmer Rob!


To all of you non-native English speakers, we are very proud to announce that work has officially begun on localising Skystead Ranch.
The store pages and the base game are now translated into 11 additional languages!
Please note: All of the localising still needs a thorough QA so there may be an issue or 2 until we get that all fixed for you.

[h2]Localised Languages: [/h2]

• Chinese Simplified
  
• Chinese Traditional
  
• Dutch
  
• French
  
• German
  
• Italian
  
• Japanese
  
• Korean
  
• Portuguese
  
• Russian
  
• Spanish
  

Thank you for following our progress with Skystead Ranch! We invite you to play the demo from the 26th and let us know what you think!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2399570/Skystead_Ranch/

The game is still in early access so your feedback is very important to us. After trying the game, press the "Discord" and "Questionnaire" buttons on the game's main menu and let us know what you think in as much or as little detail as you like.

Thank you! 💖