Smalland: Survive the Wilds News

Hey Smallfolk!

Smalland has just surpassed 200k wishlists on Steam and we just wanted to take a brief moment to say a huge, heartfelt thank you from Team Smalland & everyone at Merge Games.

We hugely appreciate everyone who has been following the development of Smalland from the beginning and gave us chance to show you the world we wanted to create. We've picked up an amazing community here on Steam, across our social channels, the nearly 6000 members of our Discord & all of our new TikTok followers.

There are very exciting things we'll have to share with you, but today is a day to celebrate you, the community who is along for this ride with us and we are all so excited to step into the world of Smalland with you.

Thank you!

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Hey everyone!

I thought I'd hijack this week's FAQ Friday and spend a bit of time on the question of when Smalland is coming out.

It's a question we would love to answer, but we're just not in a position to do so just yet. Smalland has come such a long way over the last year and whilst it's obviously frustrating for some, we don't want to rush out a demo or early access to hit a date, rather we're letting development inform the date and when the time comes to give you some dates we'll be very excited to share that with you.

There's people who have been following Smalland for a few years now, but it's important to note that we acquired Smalland and completely rebooted the game, it's been in full development now for just over a year. Had Smalland not been public prior to the start of our development we would have had a much better timeline from announcement through release, but you can't put the genie back in the bottle!

So we wanted to tell you a little about what is being worked on by members of the team right now, to try and help give a little context as to why we're not releasing just yet.

One thing that happened this week is that the starting area had a new flora and fauna pass to bring that area closer to our vision of what the release will look like. This isn't just visual, but also from a level design perspective too, things like line of sight and where the scenery leads the player are important to get exactly right.

For some perspective on how that's come along over the last year, here's a couple of gifs that were shared on Twitter in February 2021.





Here is running around that same general area in the latest build.



As the level design of the game world has developed, so too have other gameplay elements that interact with the world. One of these is something that we have been working on this week, the grappling hook!

The grappling hook has been a point of contention in the team, some love it, some hate it. Some can't use it to save their life, others move through the world like Spider-Man (looking at you Producer Ben!).



Since earlier stages of development, the verticality of Smalland has really become a part of the experience and as such, we think there's a solid place for the grappling hook and we'll be working on some new implementations for this tool to see what form it will take for the early access. Do you know what will help determine the future of the grappling hook? Player feedback! Stay tuned...

Thanks for your patience, we're a small team making Smalland and we will have more news on the things you really want to know soon. If you like this and want us to delve a bit deeper into specific things that are being worked on behind the scenes, I'll make this a regular thing and pester the team for some fun things to share!

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Hey Smallfolk!



We are so excited for 2022 and what we can share with you, so there are exciting things to come, but we'll still be here to answer those burning questions in the meanwhile!

Without further ado...

Q - Will there be bigger areas on the map that are free of trash and leftovers of humans? Many of the little clips we have seen take place in polluted surroundings.

A - Yes, truth be told these are easier to create initially so when you see behind the scenes in some of these shots you have some of the more developed areas, whereas the more organic ones take much more time to create. So they look and feel organic, but still have regular gameplay spaces regarding size, height. Initially in the very early days we did lots of experiments and areas either looked right, or felt right, but rarely both, so it meant a lot of level design rules and revisions. But the short answer is yes, lots of overgrown areas.



Q - Can I only ride my animal friends, or will they protect me like the game horizon zero?

A - It depends on the creature, some follow and some are mounts when tamed. Mounts have different strengths and weaknesses in different situations. And your allies will sometimes attack when you attack like a loyal steed, or initially retreat but attack if you are attacked, some will attack a creature on the same level of the food chain, while others may run away. Some may also cause trouble and get into fights you might not want to have. We are trying to give the creatures as much personality as possible, but also look and feel like real creatures (which are somewhat expressionless), so this is being portrayed via audio and their behaviour to their surroundings.



Q - Okay. Sooooo I don't mean to be super technical, but watching your short diary #2 on armour, based on the insect faction you choose to work with, you stated that you are will be able to craft that insects armour, assuming that you will be rewarded with parts to craft blueprints or even the armour its self as rewards. However, my questions would be based on the armour, is it made from the insects themselves? And if so is that desecrating their dead to get the items to craft the armour? I know this seems a little dark but I am just trying to see this from an angle of what others might think as well. I think the armour sets are really good looking and assuming again that the armour you are showing looks to be like some of the highest tiered armour in the game you will be able to craft toward the end game or much much later. I would love to hear your feedback.

A - Great question, hopefully, we can give some of the insight here as this wasn't a quick decision.
The quick answer is yes, some of the armour is made from the same insect carapace as the species you are aligned with, which in human terms could be somewhat grim. This isn't the case with all creatures, but as an example, Ant armours certainly do use carapaces. This could, as you mentioned, be perceived a little dark but also is in line with one of the major tones of the game; the circle of life. Creatures who are friendly to you may eat one another as predator and prey. And certain creatures will not care about their allies being killed as they put the overall hive first and foremost.

But although we aim to make everything as relatable and realistic as possible, we also want to make sure it's fun and makes sense for gameplay. So in the case of Ants and wearing the Ant armour as a specific example, you have to work with the Ants and you need to earn their trust over time and when worthy, they will trade and gift you some of the elements you need including parts of their fallen for you to create an armour set, which the Smallfolk see as an honour.



Thanks for the great questions, as always!

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Hey Smallfolk!

As we head into the Christmas period and the team here take a little breather we wanted to take a moment to thank you for the support and excitement that you have shared with us this year!

2021 has been a huge year for Smalland. Development has come along so far, the community has grown so much and we have laid so much groundwork that will see us have an incredibly exciting 2022.

We know that many are desperate to get a release date for the demo and for Early Access, and you will hear more from us on that in the new year! Rest assured that behind the scenes we are very happy with development and we’re very excited to share this world with you!

Whether you’ve been here for the long haul, or you found us this year on Steam, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Discord or TikTok, or if your first glimpse of Smalland was at E3 or Gamescom 2021 we are so happy to have you in the Smalland community!

From the entire team here at Merge Games & the Smalland dev team, we wish you and your loved ones a Happy Holidays and a very happy new year. 2022 is going to be an exciting year for Smalland!

To sign off, we thought it would be nice to show you the faces of Team Smalland!

Hey Smallfolk!

We made a lot of new friends on TikTok this week so we thought a lovely way to help welcome them to the world of Smalland would be to do a Tik Tok themed FAQ Friday!

So here are some questions people have asked from over there!



You can earn various skills and advantages by working with a Creature Faction, ailing yourself and helping them in various ways in order to earn trust and advantages unique to a particular species or character.. Your choices here will impact the way you shape your character.





There are Toads within Smalland, huge lumbering Toads that secrete a deadly venom. They keep to themselves and are not overly territorial, but have an appetite for smaller creatures such as Ants. Maybe we'll learn more about Toads in a future Creature Feature...?





There are no humans in Smalland, their absence has made it safe for the Smallfolk to finally emerge back to the Land of the Small where they belong after going into hiding many generations ago. But, why are there no signs of life, and why is everything overgrown?



Thanks for reading and a warm welcome to anyone discovering Smalland for the first time!

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