Golembert News

Just as time progresses, we also progress in our development. The past segment of time spanned 2 months.

[h2]So what have we been doing in these 2 months?[/h2]

[h3]1. We playtested and bugfixed approximately 10% of the game! [/h3]
This approximation was calculated from the number of main quests playtested (6%) and a vague assessment of tested mechanics (+4%??) – therefore it is probably not a true indicator of our current playtesting status. But it's only meant to serve as a rough benchmark to show how far our playtesting has progressed. And therefore 10% sounds about right: Because though we playtested and fixed a lot we didn’t progress very far in the game (about 2h in each playtesting session), mostly due to balancing issues (quests took a lot of time!). We are working on better balancing and will (hopefully) return with an approximation of 20% next month!!!

[h3]2. We (mostly) finalized the UI! [/h3]
We finalized most panels (main inventory, dialogue, trade, compost, sleep panel, escape menu in March; wiki, partially the Herbit map in April) to resemble the ‘open book’-like concepts we had in mind for them. There are still some UI panels to finalize (crafting, Herbit settlement, Crane’s card game) but we’re working on it!

[h3]3. We uploaded a new devlog!!! [/h3]
The viewer vladrez suggested more gameplay and mechanics content as a devlog topic – and Lion made a video about just that! So if you want to check out the current visual and technical state of the game check out his vlog. It covers the plant management, compost transformation, dialogue processing & questing, potion crafting, (Herbit) expedition management, trading/bartering, and wiki mechanics of Golembert.

[h2]’Wow, that sounds like a lot and little progress at the same time.’, one might say.[/h2]
And yes, that’s exactly how we feel. Though we worked through and finalized a lot of things, there is still SO MUCH to do before the game is ready! Therefore there is no time to waste: let’s continue with what we are currently working on!

[h3]1. We’re finalizing the island (& the UI)! [/h3]
While there are still UI panels unfinished we also have some areas on our island that need finalization (the beach, harbour, and forest area for example). Both UI and island are therefore stuff we are currently working on!

[h3]2. We’re reimplementing an advanced crop info UI! [/h3]
Because: who doesn’t love some good UI???!? No, seriously: while playtesting we realized that the information the player needs to achieve higher crop yields is not really accessible. Therefore we are adding a (hopefully very intuitively understandable) panel that you’ll be able to access via CTRL when hovering over a plant that shows you what yield tier this plant will yield on harvest and why.

[h3]3. We're (still) playtesting/working on a beta playtesting demo build! [/h3]
We’re at (approximately) 10% as I mentioned but next month we strive for 20%!!! (which is double speed considering this update covers two months) Purely mathematically that means that our internal playtesting/fixing will be done in February 2026 BUT I put my whole trust in the Omnissiah that we’ll reach that point earlier. Fingers crossed!

If you would like to playtest our game well before its (demo) release to give us feedback AND receive our game for free AND get a Steam gift card as a compensation for your efforts then you should consider following us on any social media so you do not miss the start of our beta playtesting program!!!

[h2]Thank you for your existence![/h2]

xoxo Goji Berry

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That means that 24,65753424657534% of the year have already passed!!!

[h2]And what did we do in the last
8,493150684931507% of this year???[/h2]

[h3]1. We (partially) finalized our UI! [/h3]
Up until now we only had a prototypical GUI ingame. Therefore we finalized most panels (main inventory, dialogue, trade, compost, sleep panel, escape menu) to resemble the ‘open book’-like concepts we had in mind for them. There are still a lot of UI panels to finalize (crafting, Herbit settlement, Crane’s card game) but we’re working on it!

[h3]2. We added Tomo & Crane to the game! [/h3]
Tomo & Crane are Susu's two crew members you probably already saw in their concept art form in posts or videos from us. We now finally had the time to finish and implement their render and idle animation so that Susu isn’t alone on her pirate ship anymore! That also means that we have all (physical) NPCs ingame now except for one secret NPC that will only be available at the end of the main story!

[h3]3. We tried to make our game controller playable – but failed (a bit) :-S [/h3]
We implemented the New Input System from Unity in our game and it works fine BUT we didn’t really think about controller playability when we designed the game’s UI (before that and in general). Though the New Input System makes it possible to use the UI with a controller it conflicts with a lot of useability we only designed for Mouse & Keyboard (and makes it frustrating to navigate ingame for all control devices). Therefore we will for now stick to our Mouse & Keyboard playability and will only consider trying to implement controller playability after our launch (or before it if we have spare time which is very unlikely lol but maybe??). That also means that our game will probably not be Steam Deck supported on launch. Sorry for that!

[h3]4. We uploaded a new devlog!!! [/h3]
Under one of our previous videos a viewer asked how we produce our isometric artstyle – and that’s exactly what Alicia talks about in her new video! You should definitely check it out!!! If you have a question we should answer in a video feel free to comment it here or on any other social media.

[h2]But enough about the past!
What are we currently working on? [/h2]

[h3]1. We’re still finalizing our UI! [/h3]
As I mentioned above the whole UI finalization process will still take some time.

[h3]2. We're (still) playtesting/working on a beta playtesting demo build! [/h3]
Sounds boring – and may be a bit boring… but it has to be done! Currently we are playtesting and polishing all our 1st chapter main story quests (the main story has 4 chapters). Cleaning up all chapters will (like the UI finalization) take up some weeks/months. Then we’ll playtest our cleaned build with friends – and after that with you???

If you would like to playtest our game well before its (demo) release to give us feedback AND receive our game for free AND get a Steam gift card as a compensation for your efforts then you should consider following us on any social media so you do not miss the start of our beta playtesting program!!!

[h2]Thank you for reading![/h2]
(and your understanding)

xoxo Gogo girl

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(in English: The year only starts after Carnival!!!)

Because February is the shortest month of the year this update will (probably) be the shortest update of the year too!
Or will it?????????????????

[h2]What happened this February?[/h2]

[h3]1. We reworked our Steam page! [/h3]
Did you notice?? :-) We mostly rewrote/streamlined its text down to three lists: one about the general contents of the game, as well as one about specific things our game will definetly 100% include and one about specific things it will NOT include. So maybe check them out if you haven’t yet to curb or hype up your expectations!!! (pls be kind to us)

[h3]2. We set up a Discord server! [/h3]
BUT we will not promote it/make it public for now because we do not really have anything to share that is not already publicly available through our Steam udpates, YouTube videos, or Bluesky posts.
BUT we will promote it/make it public AS SOON AS we have a beta demo build ready to share with you!

IF you would like to playtest the game well before its (demo) release to give us feedback AND receive our game for free AND get a Steam gift card as a compensation for your efforts then you should consider following us on any social media so you do not miss the start of our beta playtesting Discord program!!!

[h3]3. We added an ingame wiki! [/h3]
And it was easier to make than we expected! Now you can access all game data within the game. How long does a Strawberry take to grow? How much water needs a cucumber? What items does a Strength Potion cost? All that is now ingame accessible at all time. Wow!

[h2]And what are we currently working on? [/h2]

[h3]1. We're making the game controller playable and shortcuts self-assignable! [/h3]
We would like to get the game SteamDeck ready and one step in that direction is making it controller playable in the first place. We would also like to enable the player to assign shortcuts as they wish. So we do it!

[h3]2. We're playtesting/working on a beta playtesting demo build! [/h3]
This one is something that’ll take a couple of months because it includes a lot of finishing up and polishing BUT it is kind of the last step to a playable demo.

Again: If you would like to playtest the game well before its (demo) release to give us feedback AND receive our game for free AND get a Steam gift card as a compensation for your efforts then you should consider following us on any social media so you do not miss the start of our beta playtesting program!!!

[h3]3. We're making a new devlog!!! [/h3]
Wow, really?? We are doing it again?!? Yes, we are. This time Alicia will answer a viewers question about how she made our (non-)isometric artstyle in a detailed 7min video. The video will probably be released on the 14th of March on YouTubes. So stay tuned!

[h2]And that’s it already![/h2]
Almost the shortest udpate we did so far, wasn’t it?

Anyhow: If you want to get more dev content about our game check out our official Bluesky account or our unofficial Bluesky account. Choose wisely!

xoxo Camembert

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Happy New Year, Miss Sophie!

The year is already a month old (btw: are all years Capricorns because they were born at the 1st of January???) and I wanted to take the time I didn’t take directly after New Year’s to tell you all about:

[h2]WHAT WE DID THIS MONTH(S)![/h2]

[h3]1. We added a lot of descriptive/helpful texts! [/h3]
Well, descriptive/helpful texts sounds a bit cryptic now that I wrote it... What I mean with that is: we added tooltips for ALL items and objects, additional daily (random) hints (as an asynchronous tutorial expansion hmmkay), advanced tooltips (which give additional info about specific items like the fill amount of a watering can), an overview of all absolved quests (mostly just the quest description in past tense – very important to have!!!), and a lot of helpful dialogue for the compost, potion crafting and Herbit settlement panel (which you can also mute if they annoy you after a while lol). The ‘only’ texts that are now still missing are the FAQ-like Ask-dialogues of the main NPCs Helio, Susu, and Milly as well as the Wiki entries. We plan to add these in the next couple of months. Then all the words are said and done!!!

[h3]2. We introduced minor system adjustments! [/h3]
Wow, again a very vague wording! To explain that further: we made pot/raised bed plants only consider their pot/bed neighbours in their neighbourhood value calculation (they considered all plants in a radius around them before), refined the pathfinding system of the Herbit by increasing the number of waypoints from 200 to 700 and ‘deactivating’ pathfinding nodes when they collide with a placeable object (for example a pot) and reactivating them once they exit the collider again (for example on pick up). We don’t really talk a lot about these minor adjustments because they are hard to reconcile (as the agenda item title shows), but also because we mostly do more important stuff we want to point out in these updates. This time we didn’t!

By the way I am currently setting up a personal dev account on Bluesky to share all these smaller work pieces in a more informal way then we do on our official account. So if you are interested in something like that consider following me! If not: consider follwing our official account then maybe ;-)

[h3]3. We made a new devlog! [/h3]
Weirdly something we always declare in our third agenda item!!! This time it’s a walkthrough of our Unity setup. So if you’re interested how our in-engine setup looks like and how I work in it – check it out!

[h2]So what are your New Year’s Resolutions? Ours were [/h2]

[h3]1. Set up a Discord server! [/h3]
We plan to start Beta playtesting at the end of this year and want to have a Discord community hub for that. That’s why we are setting one up! If you want to playtest Golembert way before its release, be part of our development journey and even our credits, AND get a Steam giftcard for your service follow us on social media to get notified as soon as our Discord program starts!!!

[h3]2. Write the FAQ-like Ask-dialogues & implement and fill the Wiki [/h3]
As I said we only need the FAQs and the Wiki for our textual content to be complete. That’s why we want to finish these parts up in the next two months. After that we can focus on finishing up the visual content and playtesting. And then we are hopefully done???????

[h3]3. Finishing up the UI! [/h3]
We always had a self-made prototypical UI in our game but never really polished or finished it up properly. So that’s something we want to do within the next couple of months! After that there are still a lot of visuals that need to be finalized (partially the island, some NPCs, most customization) BUT here is also a lot of graphics we already finished completely (all item icons, plants, some NPCs). So we're out of the woods (I would say)!

Btw woods: woods you like to see or read more of our development? Then consider following us on Bluesky or YouTube!

[h2]Happy New Year again![/h2]
You still owe me $3.

xoxo Gonelli

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Hello world!

As the great state poet and federal weirdo Tyler Okonma once said:

[h2]’CAN WE GO BACK TO NOVEMBER???’[/h2]
Oh, of course we can, darling! So here’s a little recap for you about what we did this (last) month (November):

[h3]1. We added the Herbit Settlement! [/h3]
As you may recall from a video we made there is a small creature roaming your garden called Herbit. You can interact with, talk with, and even receive quests from it. At some point it may invite some of its cousins to your island – and they’ll start a small village!
These cousins can be employed (for some veggies) to sail over to the other islands of your archipelago to get new seeds and/or items for you. To improve the cousins abilities for expeditions you can expand their settlement by leveling up their chambers, lighthouse, storeroom, and harbour.
Though we still use placeholder assets for the settlement and the archipelago map the Herbit Settlement is fully functional and only needs some more hints, tooltips, and regular banter from the Herbit’s cousins to feel right :-)
Oh, but speaking of tooltips...

[h3]2. We added tooltips, adjustable difficulty & time scales, and other quality of life features! [/h3]
Sometimes I (Lion) get a bit lost in details but these things were (mostly) really on my to-do-list! I swear!!!
But either way you’ll now be able to adjust the game’s difficulty in the settings. Lower difficulties make quests easier to accomplish by demanding less items from you to complete them, higher difficulties will demand more items.
You can also adjust the game’s timescale if you prefer to have a more chill game. Currently the standard time scale is already pretty low with 12min/ingame day but you will be able to speed that down to 24min/day or up to 8min/day.
We also gave interactable objects an outline on mouse hover over, added the possibility to use world tooltips, and added regular (UI) tooltips for items (so far). As Blink182 would say: ‘All the small things!’
But speaking of small things: we also have one BIGGIE for you this month again:

[h3]3. We made a new devlog! [/h3]
And it’s finally one that was made by Alicia again!!! It’s about the design process of our upper garden/watch tower area. Therefore it contains the ideation and production of environment (the tower), vehicle (the Trade Co. ship that docks at the tower) AND character designs (Milly & Maynard are on the ship) – so it’s almost a whole ingame scene design recap! Be sure to check it out on YouTube as long as it is still hot!

[h2]But beside YouTubez we are also working on a game! [/h2]
Oh, you already knew that? But I bet you don’t know what we are currently working on, do you? Well, then I’ll tell you...

[h3]1. We are adding tooltips over tooltips! [/h3]
We already have some tooltips and hints in our game but currently we are trying to fill up their ranks. Meaning: we are adding descriptions for all placeable objects (pots, lamps, et c.), excavated items (plants you dug out with a shovel to place them somewhere else), as well as tooltips for all ingame interactables (compost, water well, sleep capsule, potion crafting desk). Additionally we want to make tooltips ‘expandable’ (via pressing SHIFT on hover over) to give additional info about specific items (e.g. the fill amount of a watering can, the approximate buy/sell value of an item, et c.) and add an overview of all absolved quests (currently there is only a UI window for your currently running quests). Exciting!

[h3]2. We are adding banter dialogue for the compost, potion crafting, and settlement UI panels! [/h3]
As you may know (again) we implemented the (more complex) compost, crafting, and Herbit settlement UI in the last couple of months. They all came with new ingame mechanics (leveling compost chambers to access better compost soil tiers, ‘exploring’ crafting recipe ingredients through trial and error, leveling the Herbit settlement for better Herbit expeditions) AND all had a associated character sitting at the bottom of the screen in case you need any help (kind of like Window’s Clippit/Clippy). These characters (the ‘compost version’ of the Herbit, ‘crafting’ Helio, ‘settlement’ Herbit) currently only have tutorial dialogues/specific info to tell (like what compost value a selected item has in case of the Compost Herbit). That means: they still need some additional/banter and/or a FAQ-like dialogue if you need any additional help after the tutorial dias.

We are also planning to setup a Discord server in the next couple of months. Maybe even this month??!? Who knows!!!
By the way: did you know that we have a Bluesky account too? Maybe you should check that out!

That's it so far! We do not really have as much time to do stuff this month because of Chrisme and stuff but so do you! So keep that in mind and don't be too harsh on yourself. After all: it is Chrimse!!!
[h2]Have a nice last month of the year![/h2]
This is an automatic e-mail. Please do not reply.

xoxo Gogobee

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