Skystead Ranch News

The Kickstarter for Skystead Ranch is live and doing well; we are over a third of the way to our goal! As you might know, we are hosting daily fun and games for you all to take part in and this post is to share with you this week's schedule!

Check out the exciting page on our Website for the full update on what's going on and how to take part, as well as an archive of all the games and activities we did last week!
https://www.toastielabs.co.uk/skystead-activities


Back us on Kickstarter right now! If you can, share with your friends and family, or even ask for an early Christmas present!
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/toastielabs/skystead-ranch


As usual, we have some huge events this week!

• Steam Next Fest runs all this week. Make sure to check out our two Next Fest Demo streams where Lee will be playing the Demo!
  
• Thursday to Friday, we are attending EGX with our Remote Booth. If you are in London this weekend, make sure to head over to the ExCel center and say hi!
  
• We are hosting another competition to win more exciting prizes! This time, head over to our discord server and join #competiton-time for an easy one-click to enter for the chance to win 1 of 3 prizes!
  

Full details for the competition are available on the website! Best of Luck! 🤞

[h2]What is Skystead Ranch?[/h2]
Transform a desolate sky island into a vibrant sanctuary. Using your enchanted crook, cultivate your garden, befriend quirky creatures, build a home, and unlock secrets along the way. Each choice adds a personal touch to your unique Skystead Ranch!



Skystead Ranch is a farming/ranching/adventure game where you grow farms, decorate sky islands, and tame a wide variety of interesting creatures we call Skylet.

Play the demo now and let us know what you think!

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

[h2]The Demo[/h2]
This demo is just a sneak peek of what's to come.

Think of it as a proof-of-concept; The 3 playable zones you can explore in the demo will be a small part of a larger floating world with the ability to travel between multiple, vast biomes! Each brings an exciting variety of new, unique Skylets for you to discover and tame!

If you like the thought of that and can see our vision in the Demo, make sure you Wishlist the game here on Steam and check out our Kickstarter below!


Now that you've had a taste of the demo - we need your help!
The Skystead Ranch Kickstarter is here and won't be around for long! Check it out and make a difference while you still can!



https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/toastielabs/skystead-ranch

Click the link... Go on, do it, do it, do it ^

Check out all the tiers on offer and pick which one you like best.
If you can't help out directly but still want to help us make the game, even just sharing the Kickstarter page with a friend is a huge help!

Thank you for checking out our game demo and being amazing 💖

The Kickstarter for Skystead Ranch goes live tomorrow! As part of the celebrations, we are hosting daily fun and games for you all to take part in!

Check out the new exciting page on our Website for the full update on what's going on and how to take part!
https://www.toastielabs.co.uk/skystead-activities


Today we have 2 huge events!

• The Demo for Skystead Ranch goes live for everyone at 8 p.m. BST
  
• We are hosting a competition to win exciting prizes! Submit screenshots of your own designed farm/garden in Skystead Ranch with the hashtag #skysteadranch for the chance to win 1 of 3 prizes!
  

Full details for the competition are available on the website! Best of Luck! 🤞





Follow the Kickstarter today!
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/toastielabs/skystead-ranch

Since last month, we have made so much progress with Skystead Ranch! The Demo is very nearly complete, just in time for the Demo launch date and Kickstarter next week!

[h2]Tutorial Voice Over[/h2]
We have contracted a voice actor with a magnificent Scottish accent to provide a full voice-over for Skystead Ranch! Currently, that's just the game tutorial plus a couple of smaller lines here and there for when the player does certain actions.


The simple but considerable addition of a voice actor has greatly increased the quality of the tutorial as you now have a helpful guide to start your adventure with.


[h2]Sound Effects![/h2]
On the same topic, we have added a variety of sound effects!
These range from ambient noise for crackling fires, running water and the flying Skyboats to individual voices and sounds for all of the various creatures you will encounter whilst you play!


Play the demo to find out how each cute creature sounds!


[h2]Getting Demo Ready[/h2]
Serious QA testing has been taking place over the past few weeks, you may have caught some of the testing live on our Twitch channel! Make sure you follow us on Twitch to get notified of when we go live as we will be streaming a lot more Skystread Ranch content over the coming weeks.

The QA Testing has been vital for getting an in-depth list of bug fixes for our programmer Rob to work on. From minor audio bugs to game-breaking tutorial bugs, we have fixed so much in order to make the Demo experience as smooth as possible for everyone who plays!



October is going to be busy!
Keep an eye on all of our socials as well as this forum here in Steam as we are going to be posting a schedule every Friday to let you know what competitions, activities, livestreams and more we will be hosting on a daily basis all throughout the month of October!

[h2]Next Fest[/h2]
A part of this plan is the October Next Fest! Starting October 9th, we will be taking part in the October Next Fest to demonstrate what Skystead Ranch has to offer! Mark the week in your calendar as there will be Steam Broadcasts, a playable Demo and so much more to take part in all throughout the Next Fest week of festivities!



We are very close to the campaign going live! There are only 8 days to go until you can support the game development and get some rewards in return!

Click me ^

Ensure you follow the campaign to get notified the moment we go live so you can check out all of the exclusive backer rewards on offer!

Your support (even just sharing the link on your Socials) still means the world to us and will allow us to provide the best game we can for everyone. Thank you so much once again to all those who have already followed the campaign!
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/toastielabs/skystead-ranch

We are happy to finally announce that our crowdfunding campaign is now available to follow on Kickstarter! The campaign starts on October 3rd and runs for 30 days, so follow us now before you miss out!

Click me ^

Ensure you follow the campaign to get notified the moment we go live so you can check out all of the exclusive backer rewards on offer!

Your support (even just sharing with your friends) will mean the world to us and allow us to work together to provide a bigger and better game for everyone. Thank you so much to all those who have already followed the campaign!
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/toastielabs/skystead-ranch



Since last time, we have worked hard on two main aspects of the game flow! The tutorial and overhaul of the placeholder UI we have been using until now.

Progress was sidetracked slightly by implementing a debug and camera mode to allow us to set up scenes and Skylet animations for the trailer that was released today!

[h2]Tutorial[/h2]
We have begun work on a very important introduction to Skystead. We want to make sure the tutorial we offer is succinct enough that players can understand the early game flow without holding their hands too much.



An important part of this process we discovered, is ensuring the player is getting the needed feedback for when an instruction has been followed, which brought about the addition of these progress bars you can see below, either represented with percentages or number counts.



The tutorial is not fully completed yet so we will be continuing to share the progress over the coming weeks!

[h2]UI[/h2]
All of the UI we have shown so far on previous posts and on the Dev Vlogs have just been placeholder UI elements!
We have started with the creation of our own UI assets, allowing us to create the bespoke icons and tools we need to navigate the game whilst following the game brand and style.



The biggest part of the game UI will be the in-game book, or "Field Guide", whose purpose is for the player to discover and make notes on every Skylet they find. Our hope is to make the Field Guide feel like a dietetic book that the player will use to progress through the game, therefore over the coming weeks you will see the UI grow into a more recognisable book aesthetic.




We have also been hard at work on the game Trailer! Make sure you head back to the store page or go over to our YouTube channel to check out the Trailer for the game Demo!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCIAaqTS7k4

This trailer is just for the game demo, an updated trailer will be released towards the final release of the game.

Check back in the coming weeks to stay up-to-date with everything Skystead Ranch!

[h3]Follow us on Kickstarter now![/h3]