Voyagers of Nera News

Hello Voyagers! Michael / Spacenorth here with exciting updates from our first dev stream about creating UI in Voyagers.

[h2]Fresh Off the Ship[/h2]
We've just wrapped up testing a build packed with changes directly inspired by your Demo feedback. If you played in that Discord playtest, we’d love your even deeper feedback here (Google Forms Survey).

For those who love the details, you can find the full Patch Notes here, but let's dive into the highlights!


[h2]Combat Gets an Overhaul[/h2]
The combat system has received some much-needed attention:

• New motion warping system makes targeting and hitting enemies more intuitive
  
• No more sliding past your targets
  
• Better enemy behaviors
  
• More predictable enemy aggro and leashing
  
• Goodbye instant night spawns in a zone around you.
  
• We’ve seen too many players die to unjust enemy respawns at sunset!
  

[h2]Intermittent Fasting[/h2]We've completely reworked the hunger system to solve some major pain points and bring it closer to what players have been expecting:

• Made a balance pass so there’s less frequent eating required - build and AFK without constant snacking
  
• Hunger no longer deals direct damage to you
  
• Instead, you can get hungry in multiple states, which reduces your max stamina, health, and oxygen in increasing amounts
  
• Cooked food provides healing over time
  

[h2]Looking Good, Feeling Good[/h2]
New particles, adding clothing/hair physics, and the character creator is easier to find.

• Character creation comes at the start of creating or joining a new server instead of being hidden in a menu
  
• Longer clothing now has proper physics and long hair is back!
  

New visual effects everywhere:

• Sea foam in shallow waters
  
• Wind trails and dust
  
• Underwater bubbles
  
• Improved character animations
  

[h2]Major Quality of Life Improvements[/h2]
Keybinding v1:

• We heard tons of great feedback on this and built our first version of customizable controls, making the game much more playable for non-QWERTY controls
  
• We're eager for your feedback on this!
  

Multiplayer Responsiveness:

• If you are a non-host player, gathering and inventory interactions will feel a lot more responsive now!
  

Crafting Overhaul:

• Removed fuel requirement to streamline the experience
  
• Added crafting queues to stack up multiple batches when you’ve got lots to craft
  
• Did a visual redesign of crafting and refining menus!
  

[h2]Keep the Feedback Flowing![/h2]
These updates (and many more) all came from valuable, insightful player feedback we got during the Steam Demo launch. Thank you for all the survey responses, FeatureUpvote threads, Discord messages, and Steam discussions that have helped us jump on just a few ways that we can make Voyagers better.

If you're interested in playtesting, be sure to sign up through our Firstlook here: bit.ly/VoNPlaytest

And there’s more changes right around the corner! We're planning to update the public Steam Demo build in a couple weeks with even more improvements and will be eager to hear fresh feedback from all y’all then. Stay tuned!

- Michael and the Treehouse Team

Hello amazing Voyagers! Michael / Spacenorth here with our first update of 2025!

[h2]Growing Community[/h2]

It’s been a month since our Demo went live and the holiday season (while we were hibernating) has continued to bring us EVEN MORE new Voyagers, with thousands of players and wishlists coming in from around the world! We've been especially excited to see so many new folks discovering the game in from the Philippines - Magandang araw!

[h2]We LOVE Feedback![/h2]

Your feedback has been absolutely invaluable in shaping our plans for Voyagers. Whether through our Steam Discussion Board, Discord, or FeatureUpvote, you've helped us identify exactly what needs attention. In our last post, we shared some of the big trends in feedback that we were seeing. Now, we've spent the first week of January mapping out our next steps based directly on what you've told us.

[h2]Immediate Improvements[/h2]

Our next milestone (like this month!) is laser-focused on addressing some of the most critical issues you've highlighted:

• Hunger Updates: We have heard your growling stomachs - food heals you, hunger no longer kills you and it’ll be easier to get out of a starving state!
  
• Refiner Overhaul: We're completely rebuilding the Refiner UI to be more intuitive
  
• Character Creator: Moving this to the start of your journey - no more customizing your look while starving or running around in your birthday suit!
  
• Keybinding: Get ready to re-bind keys to your hearts desire. A huge “thank you” to all our international players for your patience!
  
• Combat Enhancement: Improving combat feel and hit detection consistency
  
• Better Hair and Cloth: Don’t worry, long hair is back with nice physics! Long clothes too!

[h2]On the Horizon[/h2]

While we tackle these immediate improvements, we're also working on some bigger features that need more time to cook:

• The Reef Returns: Our second biome is taking shape! There's still plenty to build before it's ready for testing, but we can't wait to show you the new landscapes, challenges, and discoveries that await.
  
• Skip the Night: Finally, a way to sleep through those dark hours
  
• More Underwater Content: New enemies to defeat and spaces to explore underneath the waves!
  
• The Ship: New functionality, putting stations on boats, and improvements to controls! And some epic storms to encounter…
  
• Spirits + Economy: We're reworking how spirits integrate with progression to create clearer goals and more meaningful choices in how you develop your sanctuary.
  

[h2]New Content When!?[/h2]

We are leaving the Demo up - so hop in or share with your friends whenever you like!

We’ll also be updating the Demo every month and posting Patch Notes to both show off the new changes and collect more fresh feedback to fuel development.

And if you're eager to playtest new stuff EVEN MORE OFTEN (and on more experimental changes), we've got you covered! Join our Discord and sign up to playtest with our test app - we run playtests every two weeks and love chatting with our community about all kinds of tentative features and feedback!

[h2]Thank You[/h2]

As we’ve said many times, every bug report, every suggestion, and every piece of feedback helps us make Voyagers better. We're reading everything you share, and it's shaping the future of the game in real time.

Can’t wait for you to see the new goodies, or at our Dev Stream this Thursday, from 5-6PM PT on Twitch!

Happy New Year!

- Michael and the Treehouse Team

P.S: Join our Discord ! We are actively looking for translators to help translate our proofread our translations.

Can you believe we are already (almost) half way through January already?

As part of OUR New Years resolution, we hope to bring gameplay and fun to you here on Steam. We will be re-running a couple of our favorite moments from creators who have played and enjoyed our demo on Steam so far! We've been running it since the beginning of the year, but we will continue to loop the following channels from our community!

https://steamcommunity.com/broadcast/watch/76561197984966522

If you want to follow their channels:

Kodeations:

• https://youtube.com/@kodeations
• https://twitch.tv/kodeations
• https://x.com/kodeationstv
• https://www.tiktok.com/@kodeations

MurningStar:

• https://www.twitch.tv/murningstar
• https://x.com/MurningStarr
• https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCaIutMPnJfTo4IXCfq9z8EA
• https://www.instagram.com/MurningStarr/
• https://tiktok.com/@murningstar

Meepii:

• https://www.instagram.com/luvmeepii/
• https://x.com/luvmeepii
• https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwL4MBIZAhnVlb_tEBf_8bA

If you stream on Twitch or YouTube, we may just feature a segment of yours as well! Stay tuned. We're always keeping an eye out for live channels here: https://www.twitch.tv/directory/category/voyagers-of-nera

Our team is actively looking at all your feedback (via the feedback survey in the demo) since our demo has been live. We can't wait to share more soon! Thanks for playing!

- Treehouse Team

Hello wonderful Voyagers! Michael / Spacenorth here, and wow – what an incredible two weeks it's been since we shared our trailer at the OTK Expo and launched our demo!

[h2]The Response Has Been Magical[/h2]
We're absolutely blown away by the response: over 10,000 players have embarked on their journey in Nera! Some of our most dedicated explorers have spent multiple DAYS of real-life play time sailing our seas (we see you out there!). And speaking of explorers, it's been amazing to see players joining us from all around the world – from Ukraine to China, Korea to Germany, UK to France, and even Australia! Each bringing their own unique perspective to our magical world.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

[h2]🌊 A Ocean of Feedback 🌊[/h2]
Your endless streams of feedback have been both heartwarming and invaluable. Thank you to everyone who’s taken time to talk in our Discord, fill out our survey, use our Feature Upvote board and message us on Steam - it means the world to us!



In our most recent dev stream, we shared some of the feedback we’ve heard and what we’re going to be working on next. Voyagers of Nera: FeatureUp! Most of the feedback fit into a few different categories:



We've been thrilled to see so many players fall in love with the same things that excite us:

• The art style and atmosphere of the game
  
• The pure joy of skimming across the waves
  
• The Environments - our first biome, the Embrace, has been super fun and interesting for players to explore!
  

You've given us great feedback on features that need iteration or more depth:

• Making boats more engaging with more stuff to do
  
• Breathing more life into our underwater spaces
  
• Refining combat to feel more polished
  
• Spirits are super appealing, but feel optional. They need better integration throughout the game
  
• More interesting frictions and attritions
  

A lot of survey responses, posts and streams also gave us great feedback on some big deal-breakers:

• Need keybinds! (coming soon)
  
• UI is confusing people (ongoing work)
  
• Character creator happening at start of experience (coming soon)
  
• Hunger is constant and annoying (Attrition 2.0 coming soon!)
  
• Lack of controller support (coming before Early Access)
  
• Those pesky holes you keep getting stuck in! (ongoing work!)
  

[h2]The Road Ahead[/h2]
We’ve been planning out our work based on this feedback and will be jumping straight into 2024 with two main focuses:

• Adding Keybinding
  
• Combat Enhancements
  
• Hunger system improvements
  
• UI improvements (crafting, refining)
  
• Better analytics to get better info on player experience
  

[h2]Exciting New Content[/h2]
And then we’ll get into some big content and mechanics changes that we’re excited to work on:

• New biome: The Reef
  
• Including the return of the glider!
  
• Improved ocean gameplay
  
• More things to do in the ocean
  
• More boats and ways to upgrade your boat
  
• Underwater fauna and flora
  
• Storms!
  
• New ocean enemies… like a massive sea serpent that attacks the boat
  

[h2] 🎅 A Holiday Thank You 🎄 [/h2]
Your feedback and enthusiasm have made these past weeks truly special, and are helping us make the game better every day. To express our gratitude (and spread some holiday cheer), I wrote a little poem that I shared during our last dev stream: Twitch VOD / YouTube Mirror



From all of us at Treehouse, thank you for being part of this journey and happy holidays!

Michael and the Treehouse Team

P.S. Keep that feedback coming – it's the best gift a dev team could ask for! 🌊✨

Hello amazing Voyagers! Michael / Spacenorth here, and wow, what an incredible week it's been!

[h2]Making Waves[/h2]
Last week, we shared our new trailer at the OTK Winter Games Expo and launched our demo into the wild. Here's the reaction from some of the OTK Co-streamers who watched it live!
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

And the excitement continues – this week we're thrilled to be part of Daedelic's Four is a Party Multiplayer Celebration alongside some fantastic indie multiplayer games! Check it out here: https://store.steampowered.com/sale/fourisaparty



[h2]What a Response![/h2]
The response has been absolutely incredible. THOUSANDS of players have set sail in Nera, with hundreds joining our Discord community. We've seen some truly amazing creations – the bases you're building have blown us away! And to the clever explorer who found our original prototype fish hidden in the game: we see you! 😉


[h2]Pure Joy[/h2]
As developers, there's nothing quite like watching players finally experience what you've been pouring your heart into. Every reaction video, every excited message, every screenshot shared – it's all been incredibly validating. The positive response to the demo has exceeded our wildest expectations!

Want to see what we mean? Check out this collection of our favorite streamer moments:
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

[h2]Your Feedback is Gold[/h2]
Beyond the excitement, you've all been providing incredibly valuable feedback. From progression pacing to UI improvements, from highlighting what's exciting to pointing out what's confusing – every piece of feedback helps us chart our course forward. We've already got a treasure trove of insights to help guide our next steps!

https://voyagersofnera.featureupvote.com/



[h2]Thank You![/h2]
To everyone who's downloaded the demo, shared their thoughts, reported bugs, or told their friends about Voyagers – thank you! Your support means the world to us! And if you haven’t had a chance to check it out yet, the Demo is STILL LIVE. Go ahead and download it now, or send it to your friends any time.

During the last few weeks of the year, we are going to be planning out our roadmap for the next few months. Stay tuned for more updates as we continue to evolve and improve the game - we can’t wait for you to see all the things we’re cooking up!

- Michael and the Treehouse Team