October is coming around the corner and I have exciting news to share to you guys!
I've been struggling to market Harvest Island for a while but I have a secret weapon that's going to change everything. A new trailer that I'll be posting. When will this be? That's a secret! But once this gets released, everyone will know about Harvest Island. Even the media! In the meantime, I've been trying to go viral on Tiktok and youtube. I'm taking a scientific approach to this and you can watch my progress! Be sure to follow my tiktok and youtube as well to see the shorts I've been making.
Updates on the game. The game is finished! Woooo! It's like 99% bug free. But I still have to go through the Japanese and chinese testing, so that's going to take a while. I do have bad news that goes along with this. I'm going to delay the game just a tiny bit but the game's release is still in October! This is mostly for Marketing and to give me a little bit more time to finish the testing. I'll let you know about the new release date once the new trailer is out.
Oh! And have you checked out the new Key art for Harvest Island?
Harvest Island in Tiny Team Festival!
Harvest Island is in the Tiny Team Festival!!! Woooo!!! In this special occasion, I have allowed streamers to play the extended demo! That means, for this broadcast, you get to see a lot more Harvest Island content wayyyy past the public demo. Give it a watch or visit Kitinue on her channel to watch the entire stream!
https://www.twitch.tv/kintinue
Since we got 2 months left before Harvest Island release, I'm going full ham on marketing the game! And going crazy.
Tokyo Game Show & Release Date!
Harvest Island will be in the Tokyo Game Show! Isn't that exciting news? Wooooo! Basically, the event will start from September 21st - September 24th. During this event, I will extend the demo indefinitely with all 8 languages done! Look forward to that!
And another big news! Harvest Island will be released on October 2nd, 2023! Woooo. Very very close to release! And since Harvest Island is a horror game, this is a perfect release date for those streamers that would want to stream horror games!
I can't believe it's almost done! The testing is about 80% complete. There's so much work to do to prepare for the release.
I hope a lot of people will like my game, just as the testers love it.
New Demo Update!
Welp, since the day I announced my delay, a lot of progress has been made. A lot of polishing has been made and a lot of balancing as well. There's even a fast travel! Check that out!
This past two weeks has been hectic for me that I forgot to post a new demo for the indie fest. So, I've uploaded a new polished demo for you guys to take a look and play! Hopefully I'm not too late. I'll also upload a broadcast sometime soon this week as well for those of you that just want to quickly glance at the game and check out how it is. I'll talk about the game development in my broadcast.
As for the game update and how it's going. I would say it's 95% complete. I just need to wait on a bit more art, make a bit more music, and have a few more testers to play the final version of the game one last time. Very very very close to being done. In my next post, I'll give you a confirm release date of when Harvest Island can be played. It really will be released this year!
Here's the list of new things: -Game scale (You can now zoom into the game 2x since people had a hard time seeing the game) -Text box animated to come from sides -Clear petting Objectives (This reduces confusion and helps balance the game when you feed, tend to the animals, and pet them) -UI Art implemented -Animals have Favorite foods (I'll let you figure the secret out :)) -New Heart Emoji - New fish animation -New coconut animation - New bugs animation - New Well watering Animation - New cotton animation - New apple tree animation - Replaced a few old object arts (Like logs, twigs, mussels, apples) -Refined part of the story's writing so that it doesn't feel repetitive. - New Character Portraits (Lot's of new expressions added) - Fast Travel added (There's an entire new world in that fast travel!) - Balanced food consumption and energy consumption for "Tutorial" part. - Extended the demo just a little bit more so that the game has a resolution and finishes the game's "Tutorial" and premise. -Added 3 children's story books (Read it in the father's room once you journey along the game a bit) -New Translations added (But this is a bit incomplete since I'm still working on this.) -Added Nap Feature
There's probably a lot more which I can't remember from the top of my head since I'm just working purely in getting the final game released vs keeping the game updated to you guys. There's a lot of changes and I know you'll like them.
Release Date Delayed
Harvest Island will be delayed. The amount of work is enormous with just translating, testing, and polishing alone. I can't finish all of this in 3 weeks. I have given myself 2 months to do this and it's still not enough. Harvest Island will be be released between June-September
I am a very transparent developer and this is what I need to get done before the release. Music - I need to add more music to the game. Polishing - The game requires a lot of balancing. This means testers needs to replay the game every time I make massive changes to the game's balancing and this can take weeks to finish. The game also requires more cut scenes and more writing. The story is complete and written. That won't change, but the extra writing is for more world building and more character development. There is also new illustrations that needs to be fitted into the game as well and that can take a week or more to import and fit for each dialogue. Translation - This is taking the most of my time this past two months. The amount of work to translate 6 languages is insane. I'm about maybe 50% done with this. Once that's done, there's the translation testing which hasn't even started because of the sheer amount of work from importing the translations work to the game AND programing the translations to fit in the game without causing any bugs/cut offs and other little annoying bugs that international players will face. I have tested my game in english but not other languages. Also keep in mind these translators are oversees and it takes roughly 16- 24h for them to respond which adds more time to the development.
I'm sorry that I have to delay the game, but it must be done. I do not want to publish a game that's filled with bugs, lack of polish, and subpar development. I've been pulling so many all nighters to make it to the release date but it's just impossible. The translators are struggling to meet deadlines due to unforeseen circumstances, there's not enough time for testing in their languages for better quality of translations, and there's just not enough time for me to test my game which most of the development time has been towards translations and fixing translations problems.
Two months is not enough time to finish all of these big tasks. I need more time to finish a game where you can enjoy playing.
The release date will be between June - September this year.
Harvest Island in the Story Teller Festival! Extended Demo!
Harvest Island will be in the Storyteller Festival! That means you'll be able to play the extended demo! There's lots to do! Like crafting, farming, petting wild animals, building, cooking, fishing, and the list goes on.
I'll also be playing Harvest Island as well! The broadcast will be on March 25th at 3PM PST! If you miss the broadcast, I'll also publish it on youtube!
Here's a helpful guide to start.
Harvest Island Complete Beginners Guide
Before the game even releases, I made a beginners guide on how to play Harvest Island. Hopefully this marketing stunt plays off haha.
Updates to the games development progress. Music: 90% done. Translation LQA: 5% done. Illustration/Character Design: 50% done. Story: 95% done. Need to add more lore to flesh things out. Trophies Achievements: 0% done Game Polish/Testing/Bug Fixes: 10% done.
Pretty much right now, it's all in testing phase to spot bugs and add last minute features incase the game is facing some balancing issue. Anyways, be excited for the game's release! We got about 1 month and 3 weeks left!
Why Harvest Island is in a Pseudo Ultrawide Screen
This is why Harvest Island is in a Pseudo Ultrawide Screen. Sometimes I stumble across other streamers that wonders why and so here I am, explaining why I did it.
As for the game development progress. Everything is going according to plan. Only 2 months left until the release of Harvest Island.
Here are some of the things I'm still working on.
More Character Portraits Music Quality assurance and language quality assurance testing Polishing game: adding a few more quests, fixing bugs, and balancing Trophies and achievements
Also, I'll be in the Mystery Steam Fest!
MY game development journey in making a trailer for Harvest Island
I never realized how valuable and important making a trailer could be, so I made a video about my journey in making this awesome trailer that revealed my release date. It took me 4 weeks to make this and it involved a lot of planning.
As for the game development progress. Only 4 months left before the release and I feel the pressure in getting everything done.
Some of the work I have to do: Writing 30+ minutes of more music. Programing the ending (only 10 minutes of gameplay left) Designing more art for end game things Grammar fixes throughout the entire game/improve dialogue. Translations for multiple languages Addition of Trophies/ icon images that go along with trophies Bug testing/balancing
The list isn't too bad but the amount of work is insane. Just for the grammar fixes and translation, that can already take me like 2-4 weeks to finish.
And pretty much that's it! The release is soon to come!
3 Years of Marketing Harvest Island
I made a youtube video about what I learned from marketing my game and a blog! Nothing new to update but steady game dev progress. I'm at the point where I finally have time to share my thoughts on developing Harvest Island so expect a couple of youtube videos!
