Cattails: Wildwood Story pounces onto Steam on October 20! đ
Hey everybody,
Huge news!! Cattails: Wildwood Story is coming to Steam on October 20! đ Watch the release date reveal trailer here:
The Demo is back for a limited time!
To celebrate, we've brought back the free public demo from now until Sept 20! Play the first season in the Wildwood by downloading the demo from our Steam page today: https://cattailsgame.com/wws
Dev Livestream #6 incoming!
We're also celebrating with a developer livestream this Saturday, Sept 16 at 5pm Eastern Time! Join us on our YouTube channel and chat about the upcoming launch. We can't wait to see you there!
The return of Wildwood Wednesdays!
Starting next week, every Wednesday until Oct 20 you can catch a brand new Wildwood Wednesdays video on our YouTube channel! Take a behind-the-scenes look at Cattails: Wildwood Story with these exciting videos about the features included in the game.
The first new Wildwood Wednesdays video will go live on Sept 20! Check back then for more.
We are super excited to finally be able to share all of this amazing news with you all. We can't wait 'til Oct 20! We'll see you in-game very soon.
Until next time,
-Tyler (@FalconDevelops)
September Update | Feature-complete! đ¤Šâ¨
Hey everybody! Weâve got a big update for you all today, so letâs dive right in and start unpacking all the juicy new detailsâŚ
September marks the end of the third quarter, which means our Steam release (Q4 2023) is just around the corner! And great news: Cattails: Wildwood Story is now feature-complete!
What does that mean? That means that every feature promised for launch is now implemented into the game, including all stretch goals! Over the past thirteen months we released regular updates to keep you all informed as we continued development of the project. This morning we put out a game update that is available through Steam to our beta-tier (and higher) backers so they can try out everything prior to our Steam release. Until launch, weâll continue to iron out any lingering bugs, glitches, and quality of life issues. Weâll also be working with our localization partners on the Spanish and German translations, which are underway and progressing nicely.
Letâs talk about some of the awesome new features included in todayâs patch!
Main Story
Last month saw the addition of the first steps into the exciting Main Story. Beta players were able to enter the first of the Dark Ruins and take on its many challenges. This month, weâve completed the three additional Dark Ruins, as well as a special finale sequence with plenty of rewards to cap things off. We donât want to spoil the story so we wonât say much, but these additions add quite a lot of new content to the game and provide the player with a very interesting choice to makeâŚ
If you play through the entire Main Story prior to launch, weâd love to hear your thoughts! Please consider leaving a comment below with story-related feedback.
Recruitment Items Status
A new menu was added that can be viewed at any time. This panel will show you the current required items at the Pillar of the Wildwood that must be donated in order to recruit new cats. It will highlight your currently-held items in black so you know which items you have ready to donate and which youâll need to still find.
We hope this will help make it easier to keep track of which items youâre looking for! Pause (or open your inventory) and use the left/right arrows at the top of the screen to access this new menu.
Misc.
-Buddies are now smarter about avoiding lava -An audio cue will play when the player becomes critically low on health (3 hearts or less.)
Demo & Steam Release News
The free demo, which launched on June 1, has been taken down today in preparation for the Steam launch later this year. We will have more to say on that very soon!
We are so excited to be entering the homestretch on this amazing project with all of you. Now that all of the features are implemented, we canât wait to get the game to all of you soon. Keep your eyes peeled for a release date announcement in the coming weeks⌠đť
Alright, that wraps things up for September! Weâll be back with another update post soon. Until next timeâŚ
-Tyler (@FalconDevelops)
We've been selected for Tiny Teams 2023!
We're very excited to announce that Cattails: Wildwood Story was selected to take part in the Tiny Teams 2023 games festival right here on Steam!
Tiny Teams runs from August 3-10. The event includes livestreams, demos, and plenty of awesome previews of neat upcoming games made by tiny teams.
August Update! | Beta v0.60 (the Main Story begins!)
Hello everyone, and happy August! We have another development update for you all with some exciting new features. Read on for all the details!
We are well into Q3 2023; that means Q4 (Oct-Dec) is just around the corner, which is when we plan to launch Cattails: Wildwood Story on Steam! At this time we are well on-track for a release later this year. Stay tuned for a more specific launch date, but the announcement shouldnât be too far away. Thereâs just a few more features we need to hammer out before weâre ready to launch, including the Main Story (more on that below!) đ¸
Demo: Last Chance!
Weâve seen some great engagement with the free demo that started at the beginning of June and received some excellent feedback from those who played it. As we ramp up towards launch, we will be taking the demo down at the end of August. Youâll have this entire month to play it if you havenât yet had the chance; however, starting in September the demo will no longer be available!
Beta v0.60
A new game update is available now through Steam for our beta-tier backers! Letâs talk about all the changesâŚ
Load Times & Optimization
One of the things we worked very hard on this month was general optimizations, which should make the game run smoother and at a higher framerate; and significantly reduced loading times! On one of our development devices, the initial game load-up time was reduced from 74 seconds down to just 9 seconds đ
No matter what machine you are playing on, you should see a quicker loading time, especially on macOS devices. Weâve also added a handy loading bar graphic to help visualize progress as the game files are initialized. No more spinning beach-balls or âapplication is not respondingâ warnings! Hooray!
The Main Story begins!
Dark dreams have alighted upon the cats of your colony⌠Warnings and evil tidings from a mysterious source. What could these cryptic messages mean?
Scattered throughout the Wildwood are Dark Ruins, strange places built eons ago by cats who have been all but forgotten by time. To ensure your colony is safe, you will need to enter each and disperse the darkness within. Gather your wits, because several of these dangerous places are filled with puzzles, traps, and enemies!
In Beta v0.60, you can enter the first of these four Dark Ruins and tackle its many challenges. What answers lie within to the riddles that plague your colony?
For both new and existing savefiles, you can begin the Main Story after youâve visited the Temple at least once and sleep in your den on Spring 3 or later. The Main Story currently pauses after the first Dark Ruins has been purified, but rest assured that the other Dark Ruins and their challenges are coming soonâŚ
We are so excited to hear your thoughts on the beginning of the Main Story! It has been in the works since early 2020 and weâve put a lot of thought into the art, music, and narrative to bring it to this point. Each of the Dark Ruins will reveal a bit more about the truth behind the Wildwood and we canât wait for you all to discover it.
Thatâs all for August! Weâll be back in September with another development update. Let us know your thoughts and weâll talk to you again then! Until next time,
-Tyler (@FalconDevelops)
July Dev Update! Beta v0.50: Events, expanded Rival Marriages, & more
Hey everybody! I know weâre a couple days early but the July update is ready so here we are with the monthly development report!
We were thrilled to take part in Steam Next Fest during the month of June, a celebration of upcoming games with free demos. The Cattails: Wildwood Story demo launched June 1 in preparation for the event and is still live for anyone who wants to try it out. Weâll keep the demo up at least until the end of July.
We loved our time showcasing Cattails: Wildwood Story to players on Steam! We got so much great feedback and saw some excellent new traffic to the gameâs Steam page. Hereâs a couple interesting stats!
-22,500 users have downloaded the demo! -The median playtime for the demo is over an hour (thatâs super good for a demo! đ¸) -Cattails: Wildwood Story is currently ranked #558 out of all upcoming Steam games in terms of wishlists đ (roughly 30 games release every day on Steam so this is really, really awesome to see)
Beta v0.50
Weâve also rolled out a game update to our beta-tier backers! Please note that these new features are not available in the demo.
New Accessibility Features
Two new hotly-requested items were added to the in-game accessibility options menu: Auto-run and Alternative Text!
Auto-run: Turn this feature ON and your cat will always run automatically, without needing to hit the run key. (Default: OFF)
Alternative Text: Turn this feature ON and all in-game text will be replaced with a simple sans-serif font alternative. Weâre partial to the stylish hand-drawn font featured in the game by default, but we understand there are plenty of great reasons to want a cleaner, more legible option. Weâve selected Roboto Condensed - Regular as the alternative font as it generally fits the existing character of our custom font face. (Default: OFF)
Weâve also patched up a couple typos, made a few bugfixes, and added a âSell Everythingâ button to shops that allow you to sell your items.
Rival Marriages - New Dialog, Mail, & Events
Last month we introduced the Rival Marriages feature to the game. This month we fleshed out some additional details that will make each Rival Marriage even more rewarding to complete.
-New Dialog: Unique dialog was added to each rival marriage spouse, including lines about their kitten(s) after they are born. -Mail: Youâll receive a thank-you note from each rival marriage couple after youâve helped them get together. -Events: Weâll talk more in depth about Events below, but each rival marriage couple now has 3 special Events that must be witnessed before they will pair up!
Events
This is the biggest new feature in Beta v0.50! Events are special cutscenes that play when certain criteria are met. During Events, we have a chance to show the NPCs that live in your colony in a fun new way with scripted dialog and interactions with other NPCs. Some Events require your participation, and there may even be consequences for your choices, so pay attention!
Weâve added 30 Events to the game in Beta v0.50. We also know that some players may not wish to experience the interruption brought about by Events (especially during replays or speed runs!) so weâve included a feature that allows you to bypass any event. Simply pause the game during an event and select âSkip Eventâ to instantly continue.
We trust that players who choose to watch Events when they occur will enjoy this new feature. Events have given us a great chance to showcase NPC interactions between each other (not just with the player) and really dig into the quirks and personality traits that make each character unique and fun to be around. You can really learn a lot about your neighbors by watching Events unfold!
Ok, that wraps up the developer update for this month! Looking to the future, we have a few months of development to go still with the impending addition of the Main Story. Weâll have more to say in a future post. Until next time!
-Tyler (@FalconDevelops)
⨠Demo Available Now! đ + Beta v0.40
Hello everybody! Itâs time once again for the monthly development update! And wow, what a month it has been! I canât wait to dive into all the details. BUT FIRST, a major announcement!!
The free public demo for Cattails: Wildwood Story is AVAILABLE NOW on Steam!!!! đťđđť
We have been working so hard on bringing the demo to life! This is the first chance that anyone and everyone can play a sample of the game for themselves. Just open up the Steam page, hit download, and you can play through the entire first season of Spring! Wow!!
We canât wait to hear all about everyoneâs experiences with the demo. Let us know if youâre planning to try it out! You can download the demo right now on Steam!
Beta v0.40
And thatâs not all! Weâve also got a new version, Beta v0.40, available now for our Kickstarter beta-tier backers. Please note that this update is only for beta-tier backers. Sorry demo players! Letâs talk about whatâs included!
Rival Marriages
By far the most exciting new feature in beta v0.40 is the Rival Marriages system! Certain cat residents may get to know each other very well and pair up as a couple.
There are certain predetermined NPC pairings. Once youâve befriended both NPCs of a potential couple and treated them very well, one of them may approach you and ask for a bit of relationship advice. You can either encourage them to get with their specified partner, in which case they will soon get married and move in together, or discourage them from pursuing a relationship, in which case they will listen to your advice and remain single.
Weâve done things this way to ensure that you, the player, arenât âlocked outâ from dating or marrying a cat that you really want to date by factors outside of your control. However, please note that if a rival marriage couple does end up together, they will remain together and at that point will not be available to romance in the future.
There are 5 rival marriage pairings. We donât want to spoil who ends up with who, but weâre happy with how it all came together and canât wait to hear what you think!
Rival Marriage Kittens! đ
Yes, thatâs right! Rival marriage couples can eventually have their own little kittens that will become a part of your colony!
Between the 5 rival marriage pairings, there are 8 new kittens that can be born! Weâve once again worked with the talented Narabas Artworks on bringing these kitten portraits to life. Hereâs a very limited sneak-peak at the cute new portraits đť
Of course, you can talk to, befriend, and buddy up with these new kittens as well. They add so much life to town with their energy!
At the moment, Rival Marriage couples may seem to get together rather abruptly. With everything going on (demo launch + other publishing tasks,) we were able to implement the Rival Marriages system, but not the other planned system which will support it: Events. These character events will allow us to inject some much-needed personality and pacing into the lives of the residents of your colony, and we plan to use them to make the build-up to a rival marriage proposal much smoother. Stay tuned for more on Events in future updates.
A Note on New Game+ and Rival Marriages: Weâve made the decision to reset all relationships to their default values when a New Game+ file is created. That includes Rival Marriage pairings. In practice, this means that when you start up a fresh New Game+ savefile, youâll find any previously-paired Rival Marriage couples will no longer be together, and any kittens they may have had together will be gone from town. But donât worry! You can work to bring them together again, just like youâll be working to re-befriend the cats around town. By doing things this way, you wonât be locked out of dating and/or marrying these cats in your New Game+ savefiles.
Wild Red Roses
A minor tweak, but one that was requested by a few of our players, is that weâve added a spawn location for Red Roses to the Old Farm map region (upper-left hand corner of the map.) Each day 1 Red Rose will spawn here, so you can get started dating a cat of your choosing quicker if youâd like (before Ember starts carrying Red Roses at their shop.)
Localization Underway!
Lastly, we wanted to update you all on the status of our German & Spanish localizations!
Our localization partners are currently working very hard on bringing these translations to life, but localization is a very time-consuming process. Weâve done a lot of work behind the scenes this month to get the game ready for localization, but weâre only at the start of the journey.
A fun story: When we started development of Cattails: Wildwood Story, we sat down and did some quick-and-dirty napkin math, coming up with the conclusion that at the end of development the game would probably have around ~100,000 English words. Thatâs approximately the length of an average novel (!!!)
HOWEVER, what we didnât consider was all the stretch goals, character dialog updates, and extra fun stuff that weâve added along the way! When we crunched the numbers, we quickly found out the reality of the situation⌠The game is already approaching 200,000 words!! đ Twice our original estimate!
(Imagine this, but waaaay more text! These are the kind of files weâre working with as we localize the game.)
Weâre really happy with both the quantity and the quality of the text as-is, but all those extra words require a lot of extra work & time from the localization team! Long story short, things are happening on the localization front, but work will be proceeding at a slow-and-steady pace for the foreseeable future.
Okay, that about wraps things up for the June update! Please remember to wishlist us if you havenât already, and feel free to try out the demo if youâd like to see what the game plays like ahead of the full launch on Steam later this year.
Until next time!
-Tyler (@FalconDevelops)
Cattails: Wildwood Story - Become a Cat! đ Dev Commentary
Celebrate Steam Next Fest with the Cattails: Wildwood Story team!
Join the devs and learn more about Cattails: Wildwood Story, coming to Steam Q4 2023! đ
Cattails: Wildwood Story - Become a Cat! đ Dev Commentary
Celebrate Steam Next Fest with the Cattails: Wildwood Story team!
Join the devs and learn more about Cattails: Wildwood Story, coming to Steam Q4 2023! đ
Announcing the public Demo for Cattails: Wildwood Story!
We are proud to announce the â¨public Demo⨠for Cattails: Wildwood Story, coming to Steam June 1! đ¸đťđ¸đťđ¸
Cattails: Wildwood Story is participating in the Steam Next Fest - June 2023 edition, a festival celebrating exciting upcoming releases with playable demos, which kicks off on June 19. The free demo will be made available June 1 for download ahead of the festival. đ¸
The Demo for Cattails: Wildwood Story will allow the player to experience the intro & the entire first season of Spring, clocking in at over 3 hours of gameplay! The full release of Cattails: Wildwood Story is coming to Steam in late 2023 and Nintendo Switch⢠in 2024.
May Update! Beta v0.30: Expanded Mines, New Game+, & More
Hello and welcome to the May developer update for Cattails: Wildwood Story! Another amazing month of development is behind us, and weâre excited to release yet another test build for our beta-tier backers!
Exciting News Coming Soon!
While we canât give the details just yet, we wanted you all to be the first to know that weâve got some very big news for everybody coming later this month! Not an official release date just yet, but Iâm sure several of you will find it interesting đť Weâll have more to say in a couple of weeks, so watch your email inboxes and our social medias @CattailsGame and stay tuned!
Beta v0.30
A new version, v0.30, is now available on Steam for our early access backers. Thereâs several exciting new features, in addition to the usual bug fixes and balance changes.
Expanded Mines
If you enjoy your time in the mines, this update is for you! Weâve added not just one, but two new mines to complete, chock-full with new items, new enemies, new challenges, new floor types, and new rewards. When you reach level 100 of the first mine, youâll find the key to the second mine. Likewise, at the bottom of the second mine youâll find the key that unlocks the third mine.
Each of the three mines gets progressively harder and harder, so make sure you come prepared! (Especially once you reach the third mine, that one can be quite tricky đš)
Mines Two & Three feature new generation algorithms and lots of new items to unearth. In Mine Two, be on the lookout for Alexandrite, a precious gem that is extremely rare. In Mine Three youâll be searching the depths for Brightstone, a mythical stone with powerful properties.
Halting your progress are a host of new enemies with their own unique attack patterns. Take on Tremortroves, diabolical machines that generate harmful shockwaves; swarming Prowlers in their fragile nests; creepy Lurkers that cloak their presence and strike from the shadows; and plenty more intriguing foes.
Youâll also find new staircase modifiers! You may encounter a Candle challenge that requires you to extinguish many small lights in order to progress, or be greeted with false staircases in an Illusion challenge. Some rocks are placed directly over toxic poison vents, so watch for the telltale signs before you go rampaging through every boulder you see!
Thereâs also four new floor types to learn about before you go spelunking. For example, on Beach-type floors, youâll find a veritable invasion of Granite Crabs that nestle beneath the rocks. Fortunately for you they are slow and lumbering, but you may find yourself easily beset by several of these minions trailing you in a long line. Try not to get cornered!
Of course, thereâs plenty of new rewards for the brave cats who choose to take on these deadly trials. Each mine has two Power Paws to collect, which means that every Power Paw is now officially available in-game! Hooray!
The moles Molu and Molay will also open new Mole Cash stores when their respective mines become available, and each store has loads of cool stuff to purchase. From new pets to special items to crafting recipes, thereâs lots of neat prizes available.
Craft Supply Troves to greatly increase your colonyâs stockpile values; make Dynamite to provide you with a powerful way to progress in the caves; create Farsighted Orbs to magically discern the direction to the nearest downward staircase; or construct Bright Emblems out of fabled Brightstone gems to greatly secure your colonyâs claim over the wilderness.
New Game+
Start a new savefile and begin with several bonuses! New Game+ is available for any player with at least 1 kitten that has reached buddy level 10 (the max level.) In the future, New Game+ will probably also require that youâve completed the Main Story, but since the Main Story isnât implemented just yet, that is not currently a requirement :)
Visit the New Game+ Portal in the Temple to get started. Youâll pick a kitten to bring over to the new savefile. Youâll begin with their coat color, appearance, and accessories. Your old savefile will remain as-is and be unaffected by the creation of your New Game+ savefile.
When you first load up your New Game+ savefile, you will also be granted a pool of XP, Mews, Items, and Skills based on you and your kittenâs lives up to that point. In general, the longer youâve played on the original file and the more youâve accomplished, the bigger your starting bonuses will be in the New Game+ savefile.
Youâll also carry over your progress in the following areas: -All unlocked NPCs -All discovered Power Paws -Colony/Den layouts -All unlocked furniture -All unlocked accessories
However, everything else will be reset in the New Game+ savefile! Youâll be able to once again tackle most challenges from the beginning, including: -Relationships/dating/marriage -Map influence -Stockpiles/construction projects -The mines -Museum -Most achievements
We hope this New Game+ feature will allow players who want to maximize their time with the game plenty of additional time to explore the world of Cattails: Wildwood Story and take on its many challenges in a fresh new way.
Name Randomizer:
Ever get stuck trying to think up the perfect name? By popular request, weâve added a Random button to the name inputs on the character creation and kitten creation panels!
Disable Achievements:
Some of our players have asked for an option to disable achievement progress & notifications, so weâve added that option in the in-game Accessibility menu.
Alright, thatâs everything for the month of May! Stay tuned for that exciting news coming later this month (we canât wait to say more about it!!) Until then,
