Animalkind News

[p]Hey all you cool cats, dapper dogs, and rad raccoons! We know you’ve been patiently waiting for the date on our impending Alpha 2 playtest. The team here at Uncommon has been working fur-iously behind the scenes to ensure our Alpha 2 build is the best it possibly can be… and we’re happy to say, we have an official date![/p][p][/p][p][/p][p][/p][h2]What can you expect from the Alpha 2 playtest?[/h2][p][/p]

• [p]Explore the wilds: Players can now travel from their home islands to a new wilderness region. Meet up with friends and discover ancient ruins and other hidden secrets… Adventure awaits![/p]
• [p]New animal friends: A capybara, beaver, and bear join the cast, oh my! These new animals are waiting for you to find and befriend them in the new wilderness region. And who knows? Maybe you can convince them to move to your island![/p]
• [p]It’s harvest season: Farming comes to Animalkind! Grow various crops, bushes, flowers, and trees! You can create cozy groves and beautiful gardens. The world is yours to grow![/p]
• [p]More decorations: More customizations and decorations have been added to the game for Alpha 2, so you can really make your house feel like a home.[/p][p][/p]

[p]And those are just some of the highlights! Join us August 21st to test out Alpha 2 and help us shape Animalkind into the best game it can be![/p][p][/p][p]Haven’t signed up yet? Get those little paws over to the Animalkind Steam page and sign-up now! [/p]

[p]We’re happy to announce that Alpha 2, the next closed playtest for Animalkind, is coming in July 2025! Special thanks to IGN and Future Games Show for working with us on the announcement! 🐾 [/p][p]Some quick details though:[/p]

• [p] This will be a closed playtest but players can sign-up to participate on our Steam page, just like with our previous Alpha 1 playtest.[/p]
• [p] Sign-ups are live right now, yes RIGHT NOW.[/p]

[p]We’ll be following up with more information in the weeks to come, but here are just a few things we’re excited about: an entirely new area to explore called the Wilderness, new NPCs to befriend, character customization, and (so many) improvements to our UI. To join the list for Alpha 2, pounce on over to the Animalkind Steam page and sign-up! 🐾[/p]

Hello there from Uncommon Team HQ!

Since it’s been a little while since our last major update, we wanted to fill you in on some Animalkind news. Before we dive in though, we just wanted to say thank you for sticking with us on this journey. We’re excited to bring Animalkind to you and your support means so much to us. And now… onto the news!

[h3]Animalkind at IGN Live[/h3]

Summer is fast approaching and that is an exciting time for us, as we’re going to be making an announcement during IGN Live on June 8th. We’ll have more to say afterwards, so keep an eye out and if you can try to tune into the event.



[h3]Development Update[/h3]

While Alpha 1 was an exciting glimpse into the future of Animalkind, the truth is that there was still a lot of game to build and realizing our vision for the game has been keeping us busy. We still have a ways to go but at this point we’re happy to share some of what we’ve achieved since Alpha 1, in the form of bullet points!

Major Additions

• The Wilderness - players can now travel to a new part of game world, the wilderness, where they can meet other players and new NPCs.
  
• Farming and Cultivation - players can now plant and harvest a variety of crops in the game. This may be a great way to earn some treats or cook food for your friends…
  
• Customization - players now have many more customization options for their player characters and their mechs.
  
• Art (So. Much. Art!) - there are so many new assets, animations, and effects in the game. We hope you love them as much as we do!
  

Iterations and Improvements

• Contextual Tutorials - players can now learn about the game naturally as they progress, triggering tutorials when they run into new content or mechanics.
  
• User Interface - the UI has been a major focal point and we’re rolling out updates to many of the menus and interfaces across the game.
  
• Decoration - we’ve made the decoration system easier and more powerful, so you can more easily create the ideal town or home that you’re imagining. However, beds can no longer be used to create improbably tall towers.
  
• Terrain Modification - we’ve made modifying the game world’s terrain easier and more powerful as well (what could wrong?!).
  

This is only a portion of what we’ve been able to do with the game though, and there is more we’d like to do! Stay tuned for more details and updates soon™️.

[h3]Community Update[/h3]

With our focus on the game itself and the upcoming events, we’ve been a little quiet in the Discord server but we are ready to change that. We’ve recently brought on some help to tidy things up and make sure the server is a safe, warm place to share, listen, and be heard. You may have noticed some changes to the server - that’s just part of this process. With the game progressing as well as it is, we’re looking forward to having more to share with you.

[h3]A (Quick) Word from the Studio Head…[/h3]

With Alpha 1, we wanted to share the earliest version of Animalkind that we could and learn from you and the rest of our community. We’re glad that it was well received and we learned that players are excited about where we’re taking the game. With Alpha 2, we finally have a chance to share some of what we think is most special about Animalkind: Delightful, cooperative multiplayer. Playing together is a cornerstone for our game studio philosophy and we are excited about what we’re cooking up for this build!
-Steven

On behalf of the Uncommon Games team, thank you for being part of the Animalkind community and taking an interest in our game. It means a lot to us!

Welcome back to another blogtastic… well, blog! We’re making a game and that game is called Animalkind. In case you missed our first blog post from earlier this month, we’ve got a closed Alpha playtest coming up that many of you signed up for over on Steam and we’re so close to getting some adorable corgis in mech suits into your hands. Before you venture out into the Wild and start getting your craft on, we wanted to share a little more detail to set some expectations regarding the upcoming Alpha and what will - and what will not - be available.

We show a lot of stuff we’re experimenting with for Animalkind on our socials with our videos, but we wanted to be clear that some of what you may have seen will not be seen in the upcoming Alpha. This first Alpha is about getting you familiar with your home island and the world of Animalkind for the first time. It’s also about giving a taste of the creative ways you can enjoy this experience solo or with friends and getting a general idea of the various town-building and world-editing tools within the game. But… more on that later. For now, here’s what you can expect from Alpha 1.

To read the FULL blog post, you can check that out right here!

Corgis. Mech suits. CORGIS IN MECH SUITS. (and other adorable animals, of course)

Welcome to our first official blog post here at Uncommon Games where we wanted to formally welcome you into the Animalkind community! You may be asking yourself, “Self, what is Uncommon Games and Animalkind?” What a brilliant question, fellow indie connoisseur, let’s dive in.

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

Create, explore, and become a part of the cozy world of Animalkind; a whimsical online gaming experience where you can choose from an array of characters to don a spiffy mech suit and dive into a new world ready to be explored and creativity conquered. This will be an ongoing gameplay experience, so the game will grow alongside the community to further push the boundaries of what creative crafting can look like if you could have your dream customizable island. We have quite a few folks obsessed with games like Skyrim and Dragon Age on our small team, so fully expect some recreations of our own favorite gaming adventures getting shoved in your faces on our social channels. And who knows? Maybe that will inspire you to wholesomely craft your own dream crossover.

Read the full post on our blog at Animalkind.gg!