Temtem News

Hello tamers! We hope that you've had a good start to 2021 and that, whatever you're doing in this weird year, you're having a blast doing it.

We're writing today to share some insights on the current state of the project, our hopes for the future, and some questions you've been sending our way.

First and foremost, let's talk about the elephant in the room: is our current roadmap up to date? Unfortunately, and as most of you know already, it is not.

We made the current roadmap right after our Early Access launch in February of last year—before we knew the sort of year 2020 was going to be—and while we've always stressed the fact that the roadmap was not set in stone, it certainly doesn't match reality anymore. We've had to twist and change our plans quite a few times since the EA launch, sometimes because of good stuff, other times not so much. I'm sure you've all seen this happen a lot this year, and we understand this is disappointing for everyone (including us!). We're sorry.

You've been asking us for an updated roadmap, and we've been thinking hard about it, but in the end, it just doesn't feel like it would do justice to our vision for Temtem, and to you. Closed dates add a lot of pressure and put another load on our shoulders, and we want to focus on delivering the highest quality content possible, and ship it when it’s ready.

Rest assured, though: we’re still going to deliver everything on the original roadmap PLUS unexpected in-between content to keep things fresh between big updates! You've already experienced some of these unexpected features like the latest content update, which included fishing, dojo rematches, postal service, and wishing wells.  None of these features had been announced beforehand, and many weren't even planned, but looking at user feedback we believe they were necessary even if they meant a change in plans. We cannot blindly keep on developing the game we had in mind at the beginning of all this. New islands are important, but we believe that so is providing new content in-between. We hope these little surprises help make the wait between big updates a little more fun.

We want you to know what’s coming, but we want to make sure that we have the ability to make decisions based on giving players the best game possible versus making hard choices to hit our previously set dates. From now onwards, please take the current roadmap as a way to see all planned features in one convenient place.

Although we will continue working with the previous goals in mind, including the upcoming console launch and game completion, we'd rather keep deadlines internal only. That way we can continue working with a tight aim in mind, while knowing that our playerbase is aware that these deadlines are no longer solid and require a broader range of expectations. We're still working hard as ever, but we also want to avoid further disappointment to our community.

As for the often questioned “Cipanku when”, we’re currently targeting the end of March/beginning of April. There are some unknown features, things that will surprise and delight you, and we hope that. in retrospective. the wait will be worth it. We’ve currently halted all bug fixing to focus entirely on testing out the new content, but this also means some bugs might take a while to get fixed. We apologize for the inconveniences this might cause.

We know this isn't a fun convo, and we're sorry it's been such a long slab of text. Thanks for putting up with it, and for being patient while we found the right words. We wanted to reward your patience and support, and to balance all this boring news, with the very first look at ✨Cipanku✨:



Pretty, huh? This long-awaited island also includes some spicy new tems that will surely change the dynamics of the game up until now and a very long list of balance changes that have taken your feedback into account on top of what was internally planned. Some QOL changes heavily requested by the community (hello teleport!) are also on their way. And it's full of anime references, winks to pop culture and tons of little details that will be the delight of all us weebs.

Thanks, as ever, for your continued support and understanding. We'll do our best to continue progressing and improving with our help, and you can always reach out to us at our Forums, Discord Server, and socials.

Hello, tamers!

Today we’re releasing a new patch, and a very special one it is! Most of the features included in this patch are either suggested directly by you, the community, or generated based on current problems/feedback the community has. This patch was not originally planned on our roadmap and while working on this patch right now has an impact on our planning and the rest of the planned patches, we believe it’s important to improve the quality of the current version of the game without having to wait for the game to be fully finished.

The big focus of this patch is the economy. Up until now tamers only had two options if they wanted to generate pansuns: releasing Tems and getting a reward from the FreeTem! organization or winning ranked competitive matches. With this patch, we’re introducing two new weekly activities and a daily one, all of which are a source for pansuns and several new items that are debuting in this patch too.

We’re also doing changes to the luma Temtem economy, introducing a new active way to hunt for lumas which allow tamers to chain encounters and improve their chances at finding one of these rare Tem variations.





Yes, you’ve read that right. Players can now get a Fishing Rod at the Nuru Lodge in Kisiwa and it can be used in any water area which previously had a spawn zone.

Fishing has been one of the most requested features since Temtem launched, but we were very hesitant to include it. The main problem we had with fishing was related to the diversity of Temtem that appear on each island. Since islands are so huge and the amount of Tems we can do is very limited, sometimes we’re pretty low in terms of diversity for a specific area. Normally, while fishing in other games, players would expect to find new specimens they can’t find in any other way, however, that would reduce even further the diversity, so we took another route.

In order to make a meaningful fishing mechanic, we’re introducing a new Temtem in this patch: Koish.



Koish is a very unique Water Temtem that features 12 subspecies including one for each Temtem type (Water/Fire, Water/Nature, and so on). Additionally, apart from the 12 different subspecies, Koish also presents a set of unique mutations in each individual Temtem which generates over 10.000 different unique combinations. And why should you care about that? Well, because that is directly related to the first of the new weekly activities.

For this activity, the Nuru Lodge will only present one of the Koish 12 subspecies during that week and players will be asked to find a specific Koish specimen from that subspecies and they’ll need to comb the Nuru Lodge lake each week to find it. Players will only be able to do so using their new fishing rod since the lake is not surfable, so they will need to learn the ropes and be one with their rod.





The second weekly activity we’re introducing, which was also heavily requested by the community, is Dojo Leader rematches.

Each week, players will get the chance to re-match each of the dojo leaders they’ve already beaten during the campaign. The leaders will feature new team configurations from week to week, and the battles will use the competitive ruleset (including pick and bans!) with Temtem scaled to the player’s tamer cap. Get ready for a challenge!

Defeating the leaders will net you a good amount of pansuns based on how many tries you’ve needed to defeat them. Also, the first three Dojo Leaders defeated during the week will reward players with a Temtem Radar! (more on this later).



The last new activity is a daily one. The Postal Service at Uhuru has opened their doors and they’re swamped with a new line of work they’ve started doing recently. They’re in need of helping hands from Tamers who are up to delivering these packages to NPCs all around the Archipelago.

Each day players can get up to three packages they’ll need to deliver before the day is over. Do the job and get a reward. It’s simple, ain’t it?



And talking about rewards, we want to introduce the concept of Loot Pools, the new reward system we’ve designed for these new periodic activities as well as for future ones.

Instead of having a predetermined set of rewards each period (like the ones in the FreeTem! activity), rewards will be granted randomly from a bigger pool. Each activity has its own configuration of how much pansuns players will earn, which and how many items players will obtain, and the probabilities for each of those rewards.

We hope loot pools will bring more variety to the rewards for activities and make them a bit more exciting. We’ll be on the lookout checking the rates and making sure the rewards are good enough for all the activities.





Introducing Temtem radars. Radars are a new item type focused on chaining encounters to get increased Luma chances and Tems with better SVs. Each Temtem radar will help players track a specific evolutionary line in their natural habitats. While the radar is active, some Temtem will spawn in the overworld near their spawn zones, and approaching them will trigger a radar encounter.

Defeating or capturing a Temtem in a radar encounter will increase the chain. But running away from one of them or defeating/capturing a Temtem outside a radar encounter will break the chain and it can even break the whole radar if there’s any bonus active.

After the chain reaches 50 encounters, Temtem in the special encounters will start appearing with a minimum SV value of 10. 100 encounters and the minimum SV value will be 20. Reach 200 encounters and things start to get spicy – the Luma chance for those Temtem will be multiplied by 5. Reach 300 and the multiplier will be 10!

However, radars are limited to 400 encounters, after which the radar will break and players will need to acquire a new one. Defeating Dojo Leaders in their rematches will grant players new Temtem radars, up to three each week. Each Dojo Leader will have a different set of radars they can give you, matching Temtem types with their Dojo type specialty.





Remember the three wells at the Tasa Desert? Well, we’ve decided to give them some use. Find a WishYouWell coin, throw it into a well, make your wish, and get something in return! From small amounts of pansuns or fruits to pheromones or even some cosmetics. Who knew so much can fit at the bottom of an isolated well?

And of course, having wells only on Kisiwa wouldn’t be fair to the other islands right? So we revisited them and included a well in each current island in the game. Make sure to visit them all since rewards are different depending on your location!

But WishYouWell coins are not the only new item in this update. In addition to them, we’re adding Egg Technique Courses, a new Telomere Hack for swapping a Temtem’s trait, tickets for the Pro Incubators located in the Breeding Center, and Pheromones, which will increase the chances of encountering a specific Temtem species in the wild.

We could be talking all day about these new items and the rest of the stuff included like the Quest Diary (yes, finally), the list of improvements, or the never-ending list of bug fixes. But that’s a job for the complete patch notes which we recommend you to read right now. Or just hop into the game and discover all this by yourself!

With the release of version 0.6.9 (nice), we’ve launched into the world two new and very exciting things: the latest breeder tem, and two breeder routes, the first two we’ve done. We’re also taking this chance to talk about a previously released breeder tem.

[h2]Platypet[/h2]

As I’m sure you already know, for the highest tier’s reward we gave some players the chance to create their own Temtem, just the way they wanted. Zephyruff and its evolutionary line were first. In PokeNinja‘s case, however, the ideal temtem he had in mind already existed.

When we reached out to PokeNinja, who was in fact, our first breeder, he let us know right away he had his sights set on a fakemon that had been making the rounds some years prior. PokeNinja’s son was in love with the little guy, and it had to be him. Together with PokeNinja, we reached out to the original creator of Platypet, Leopoldo Spagna, known online as 50shadesofHeliolisk, who had created the famous concept art sheet for Platypet back in 2018. He had created the designs for Platox and Platimous as well.



After reaching a successful agreement with Spagna, we purchased the rights for the design of Platypet and its evo line. It was PokeNinja himself who named them all, and teased them on his Twitter. We worked to make sure Platypet and its line fit in seamlessly with the rest of tems. In this case, though, we didn’t present a myriad of concepts, but a single one for each evolutionary stage, that went straight to our 3D artists. Behold, the full trio:







PokeNinja chose its typing, Toxic/Water, and decided on the pink luma color after having his community vote on it. We wrote Platy’s lore as a superstar, et voilà!

As for his route, the Barafu Glacier, PokeNinja consulted his peers and came to us with the idea of a frozen cave with interactive elements, which ended up being a musical puzzle. The NPC at the end of the route, Peyton, is named and takes after his own son, and is, of course, accompanied by a luma Platypet.



 [h2]Momo[/h2]
Momo is the most recent addition to the game, and one we’ve kept zealously hidden until its official reveal.

Kyle, its breeder, told us he was a big fan of Siberian Huskies, and as such, wanted one in Temtem. He came to us with a clear idea, and although we iterated a bit on the concept at first, it was fast, and already pretty close to what ended up being the final design.



When it came to naming the new tem, or choosing its luma coloration, Kyle gave us complete freedom, so we chose our final boss as an inspiration: Momo, Guillermo “YaW” Andrades’ Shiba Inu that sometimes drops by the office to keep everyone in check.



After making sure Kyle was fine with it, we had name, luma color, and gender ratio. Thus #099 was on her way to steal everyone’s hearts.

Kyle’s route, the Kilima Range, was at first a bit of a challenge because we originally hadn’t considered snow in the Archipelago. We weren’t sure how it would fit in, because with all islands being close to the Pansun, there is none that displayed snow or ice. He was, however, sure he wanted a snowy route, and it occurred to us that the peaks of the highest mountains in Kisiwa could be a place where snow fell and lasted, and stuck with that idea. The results are good and it doesn’t stand out in the Archipelagic lore, so we feel like it all worked out in the end. He gave us a lot of creative freedom on this issue as well, so we decided to have the route revolve around its breeder tem, Momo, and create a lore-filled snowy mountaintop. We even included a canid-shaped patch of grass for Momo!



This is all we have for now. Hope you’ve enjoyed knowing a bit more about these routes and tems as much as we’ve enjoyed designing them with our Backers. There aren’t many breeder Temtem left now, are you excited?

Hello, tamers!

Cutting it close for Summer, the long-awaited housing patch is finally here. As previously mentioned, this update is part of the Kisiwa cycle, with one more patch still to arrive, filled with exciting, unexpected content.



Let’s start with the most anticipated and awaited feature of this patch, housing. Let’s dive right in, there’s a lot to unpack here!



Starting on this patch, players will be able to obtain their own home in Atoll Row. Salamasina, the realtor for the neighborhood, has arrived at Coral Plaza and is waiting for new peeps eager to move in. As usual and since this is only the first iteration on this new feature, Housing serves a limited cosmetic and social function at this moment. Decorate your house and have your friends over, or go take a stroll along Atoll Row and see who’s home.



Instead of having an instantiated housing system, where players would travel to their house and wouldn’t be able to walk between all houses in the game, Atoll Row is an endless array of neighborhoods. You can walk the infinity of Atoll Row if so you wish, and take a peek into every house you find on the way. Every single player house in the game is in here, all connected together and without any loadings or waiting times.

But if you don’t feel like walking, you can also travel straight to any house or neighborhood you want to using the pneumo-tube which will also allow you to travel directly to your friends’ homes or to any address you want to.

Dust off your interior decoration skills because the home decor business is booming, and furniture shops all over the Archipelago have opened their doors. As with clothing, every shop has its own theme, so make sure you check them all.


 


In this patch, we’re also including access to two new areas in Kisiwa. Both areas sit at the top of the Kilima Range so make sure to grab some warmth.

Riding the cable car on the Nuru Lodge area will take you to the snowy peaks of the Kilima Range where players will be able to explore a whole new route and also reach the Barafu Glacier, home of Musa’s favorite Temtem: Yowlar.



Apart from Yowlar, there’s another Temtem debuting in this patch and obtainable in the Kilima Peaks: Momo. The precious husky-like Temtem that appeared on Kisiwa’s promotional image and everyone fell in love with. Momo is also one the Tems designed in collaboration with one of our biggest Kickstarter backers (aka Breeders). Both Kilima Peaks and Barafu Glacier are also routes designed with the help of Breeders, but that’s something to discuss about in a future post.





This content update includes a few other changes too: it is now possible to navigate all UIs with the mouse only (the plan is to reach a point where playing Temtem with mouse alone is entirely possible) and we’ve expanded the Breeding Center which is now much bigger and better equipped.

We’ve also spent some time revisiting the current competitive balance. Like we’ve said in the past, we’re not yet entirely focused on balancing but from time to time we like to spend some time revisiting it and making some tweaks. Most of these changes have been inspired by community feedback and data reported by our analytics, we hope they bring more variety to the current meta (or change it entirely!).

If you want to read the patch notes to see all the changes and fixes, you can go here: https://crema.gg/temtem/temtem-0-6-9/

It’s been a long wait, but finally, tomorrow Kisiwa will open its doors to all Tamers. To celebrate the occasion, we’ve created a new trailer to announce it and showcase some of the features arriving with this patch.

Please, be aware the trailer contains spoilers about new Tems, techniques, and story bits. If you want to do a blind run for Kisiwa we recommend not watching it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHtQ8_PR5mU


As we already announced on our twitter and previously in the Early Access release, Temtem’s price is going to be increased with this new patch. The game price will increase from $35 to $37.5.

Temtem’s price will keep increasing with each big patch (aka new island) we release.


Apart from the new island (and all the things it carries: new Tems, techniques, traits, items…), this patch is packed with new features too. Since we merged the last patch of the spring update and the Kisiwa patch, all the features from that patch are included here. Starting with the Chat.



We’ve been working on the new Chat for several months already. Back in the Alpha days we did had a Chat functionality built in the game, but it was very very basic and it consumed a lot of server resources so we decided to rework it from the ground.

The chat features different tabs, the ability to whisper any user, or talk with your club mates. We’ve also been working under the hood to make it safer and include some security functionalities like blocking unknown whispers, blocking other users, reporting messages, implementing warnings and mutes, and some other mod tools that will help us to create a safe environment for all our users.

We’ve also included chat bubbles for the local chat, as well as the club and whispers chats. Chat bubbles will help the game feel more alive and communicate much faster with people around you. For users that prefer to not be distracted by others users, we’ve included an option to hide them entirely in the Settings menu.



Another big feature coming in this patch is the ability to create and manage Clubs. As you know, Clubs are our take for Clans in Temtem. Clubs can hold up to 50 members, and anyone can create one (assuming they have enough pansuns to pay the initial fee).

Creating a club will allow you to customize its banner, using an array of icons, backgrounds, different borders, and dyes, players will be able to create their own unique banner which will be displayed in every player’s profile and also inside competitive battles.

Being the first iteration for Clubs, this patch is not including any real gameplay features for Clubs (that will arrive in the future with Club Dojo wars) so for now, you can think of them as a social hub to be in constant contact with your friends in-game.



This patch is bringing more features and improvements for all like the new set of Emotes players have access to or finally being able to remap the keys or buttons however you like. We don’t want to spoil everything right now, so we will post the full patch notes tomorrow, and there, you will be able to read about the whole set of new features, improvements, and the never-ending fix list.


One of the most repeated questions in every patch is: is the cap level going to be increased? The answer is yes, for this patch the new cap will be 58 which is only 10 levels more but it is more than enough for these little fellas to reach their final step in their own journey…



See you tomorrow in Kisiwa.