Since the announcement of Haven and even more since the game launch, we have received a lot of amazing fan art of Yu & Kay (and also Oink, who is possibly the real hero of the game).
Between March 15th and 21st, we are celebrating Haven's amazing community. You can see all the details of our celebration week here and we are running a fan art contest with the theme “Dinner is ready!”.
The fan art can take the shape of your choice (drawing, illustration, sculpture, collage, installation...) but has to be created especially for the contest. You have to be the original author of it. The contest runs for two weeks, until Monday 29th March at 23:59 PM CET / 03:59 PM PT.
To participate, please send your fan art, your nickname, your social media profile, your physical address and the name of your artwork to fanartcontest@thegamebakers.com. Don't hesitate to share it also on social media with #havenfanartcontest or in our community hub here! Please note that you have to send us an email to participate, posting only on social media doesn't count.
Here are the prizes for the winners:
1st: Haven vinyl signed by Danger + Haven poster + Haven t-shirt*
2nd: Haven CD + Haven poster + Haven t-shirt*
3nd: Haven poster + Haven t-shirt*
“Coup de coeur”: Haven poster + Haven t-shirt*
*coming later
Good luck and we can't wait to see your creations!
Haven: Danger Virtual Concert, Community Week & First Discount on Haven!
Hello everyone,
Since the launch of Haven, we have been amazed by the reception of Haven by you, our fantastic community. We've received so much love, that we've decided to give a little bit back. We've organized a week of celebration, with some surprises related to Haven but also celebrating your creations.
But the BIG event of this community week is the Haven Virtual Concert by Danger! The concert, entirely created by Danger will be broadcast during a livestream hosted on Twitch. More info here: thegamebakers.com/Danger
We are also organizing a Ask Me Anything secession with Danger on Discord, a fan art contest, a live drawing session, chances to talk to the Dev team and a few more surprises.
Here is the schedule for the Haven Community Week:
Wednesday 17th at 20h30 CET: watch the Pégases Awards Ceremony to see which games receive prizes this year from the French videogame industry. Haven got 6 nominations! Watch it with us on Discord. In French with subtitles.
Thursday 18th at 18h CET / 10 AM PT: Q&A on Discord with Emeric Thoa and Audrey Leprince, Creative Director on Haven
Friday 19th at 22h CET / 2 PM PT: Live Art on Twitch with Simon Hutt Troussellier
Saturday 20th at 23h CET / 3 PM PT: Virtual Concert from Danger on Twitch
Sunday 21st at 17h CET / 9 AM PT: Q&A on Discord with Danger
Send your contribution before Monday 29th midnight: Fan Art Contest “Dinner is ready!”
We are also discounting the game this week so you can encourage your friends to get it! It’s the first sale and the game is 20%.
Haven - Regular Update February 9th 2021
Thank you so much for your continuous positive feedback on the game! Those 97% positive reviews over the last 30 days really make our day! We’re releasing today a new patch with some minor feature additions and improvements and a few bug fixes. As always, we appreciate your feedback, your help reporting those issues and your patience as we fix them.
Update v1.0.198
Feature addition and improvement:
- keyboard remapping: added the possibility to rebind actions to the arrow keys. - improved resolution options for ultrawide monitors. - the ability to flowburst doesn't consume flow anymore. - added a generic animation when using the shower after exhausting every dialog. - improved the navigation and animations for several creatures. - improved characters' animations during combat and roaming. - reduced the save file size. - added SFX when interacting with a Nokk.
Bug fixes:
- removed the stuttering while playing with a high FPS. - added corrupted save files management. - fixed a bug where players could be stuck in an islet after using Birble to teleport during the throw & catch tutorial. - fixed a bug where players couldn't leave the islet after getting back Kay's pants if going too fast onto the next islet while the characters talk about it. - fixed a bug where players could miss a mandatory cutscene before the end. - fixed a bug where players could miss the event to upgrade the gloves after repairing the last ship part. - fixed a bug where the game appears blocked due to the quick advance feature tutorial's popup being hidden by a fading. - fixed a bug where the time is frozen if starting a new game after the epilogue. - the game time does not pass anymore if the game is not focus. - correctly display the game time over 24h in the load game menu. - fixed Lonako islet where the characters could walk above the void. - prevent Beruberu to start fighting during the flowburst tutorial. - fixed a bug that could get the Beruberu stuck if the characters lose it by gliding onto a flying flow thread. - fixed some missing islet descriptions when discovered. - fixed several localization issues. - fixed a bug where a character could end at 0 hp after combat. - allowed the gamepad stick to be used during the cooking reward popup. - Misc bug fixes.
Haven - Regular Update December 15th 2020
We are amazed by your continuous positive feedback on the game! It’s heartwarming to hear how much you’re enjoying Yu and Kay’s story. We’re releasing today a second patch with some of your most pressing feature requests and some fixes to improve the experience. We appreciate your feedback, your help reporting those issues and your patience as we fix them.
Patch notes - Update December 15th 2020
Version 1.0.165
Feature addition and improvement:
Automatic backup save before ending: a save is created for those of you who will want to go back and explore the game before the end. For players who have finished the game already, when loading your epilogue save, a backup save will be created before the take off, giving you a change to revisit.
Co-op with Keyboard & Mouse and one controller: Ability to play co-op with Keyboard & Mouse + one controller (local and remote play).
Accessibility: Option to disable camera wobble.
UI: Ability to choose what button prompts are displayed
Bug fixes:
Gloves upgrade: Fixed a bug where Yu says she has enough hyper rust to upgrade the gloves, although this upgrade is not accessible yet.
Combat soft lock: fixed a bug where the characters would become unresponsive after using Help in combat.
Misc bug fixes
Haven Patch notes - Minor Patch December 9th 2020
A big thank you to everyone who’s playing Haven, we are receiving your fantastic feedback about the game and it’s heartwarming. We also enjoyed your first cosplays and fan-arts! We’ve prepared already a first patch to cover some of the most urgent fixes. We are working on another one that we will release soon and we will be bringing all of those to PS5 and XBOX (Series, One and Windows) as soon as possible.
We appreciate your help reporting those issues and your patience as we fix them.
Patch notes - Minor Patch December 9th 2020
Version 1.0.157
Bug fixes:
Turkish regional settings issue: When playing with Windows regional settings set to Turkish, some menu UI localization would not show up properly and actor voices were missing.
Blocking bug at the big door on Lonako: Some cases where the big door would not open. Running the update should fix the issue for users currently having the problem in their save game.
Unexpected behavior if you played the demo: Some users who previously played Haven demo could encounter a crash or unexpected behavior if they continue playing the game from a save from the demo.
Roaming stutter: Prevent some stutter that could happen routinely every 10-20 seconds while roaming.
Wide screens resolutions improvements: Display options now gives the choices of resolution wider than 16/9 for ultrawide monitor support and fix main menu out of the screen on very wide resolutions.
Today is the day! Haven is available NOW ✨
Hello everyone,
Four years ago we set out to create a game about love, and to build a game system that puts players at the center of a relationship. It was not easy, but all along the game development, we saw interest from players that we never saw before. They were longing for a game that makes them dream about love and fight for love.
[previewyoutube="OZpxY9BdsaI;full"]
This enthusiasm, your support, kept us fueled during the development, and today we are extremely happy and excited to share the game with you.
We hope Haven will make you smile, will make you wonder, and give you the chance to slow down a little bit. If it can bring you closer to the people you care about in real life, allowing for cosy co-op gaming sessions or passionate discussions on what you'd be ready to do for love, it will make our day.
Haven but also Haven Original Soundtrack are now available on Steam.
Thank you so much for your support and we hope you will enjoy this journey as much as we did!
The team at The Game Bakers
Yu and Kay Voice Actors Reveal & Interview
Hello everyone,
7 days to go before launch! I can tell you the bakery is buzzing here! We'll have ample time to tell you more about the game after launch, but there was something that we really wanted to share, as so many of you have asked: who are the amazing actors behind Yu and Kay! It's time to reveal them...
While casting for Yu and Kay we were looking for actors that would excel at conveying subtle emotions, every day life feelings, and be at ease with intimacy and humour. Those are challenging roles for actors as they require solid performer skills but also enough personal experience to recreate the texture of a relationship with authenticity. Working in London with the team at SIDE, we were very lucky to meet Janine Harouni and Chris Lew Kum Hoi!
The two actors recorded the 80 000 words of dialogue together in the SIDE studio in London in 2019 and 2020, reenacting the scenes together to achieve as much complicity and authenticity as possible.
Before to meet Yu & Kay in a few days, here is a short interview of the actors behind them!
Can you introduce yourself? Can you tell us about you and your career?
Janine: I’m originally from New York but I’ve been living in the UK for the last 8 years. I’ve been lucky enough to voice parts in some really fantastic games and I’ve done small roles in fun films and TV series. Next year I’m going to be a series regular in a new sitcom called ‘Buffering’ on ITV2 next which I’m really excited about. But mostly I’m excited for comedy clubs to open up again so I can get back to doing stand up. I did my debut show last Edinburgh which got nominated for the Best Newcomer award. Which was a very lovely thing to happen and means I no longer have to do gigs in the basements of grimy pubs. I now do gigs on the ground floor of grimy pubs. So things are moving up in a very literal sense.
Chris: Not quite sure where to start. I originally trained in a drama school in the South of England and upon graduation left to work in the theatre and gradually building up into screen work - proud to say I'm part of the Dr Who universe. By chance, I stumbled into the voice over world. I was doing a theatre workshop and a friend asked me whether I did voice-over. I lied and told him I had done a few before and he suggested me for a videogame audition. I ended up getting the job and a hop, skip and a jump into the future and here I am doing Haven - a project which I'm very proud of working on.
At the very beginning when you started working on Haven, what did you expect? Did you expect that kind of game? That kind of dialogs?
Chris: From the first readthrough, I was taken by how naturally the script settled in the mouth - it had a simplicity that I hadn't experienced before and that's exciting. The words could go in so many directions. I didn't really know what Haven was going to be but knew that there was a beating soul that needed to be let out into the videogame universe.
Janine: I’m not sure what I was expecting. I had never worked on a game for that long and I had never done VO with another actor in the booth with me. It was amazing to get to spend that much time working on something. I really felt like I knew both our characters inside and out by the end of our recording. And it was incredible to get to work on such a rich and dynamic story. I just feel very lucky to be part of such a fantastic game!
Haven has a very special setting as it is heavily focused on two characters, a couple in love. How did that make the recording different from another game?
Janine: Lots of times when you work on a game you only record your lines. Sometimes you read with the director but lots of time you just record your side of the dialogue with very little context. Working on Haven was brilliant because I got to be in the booth with Chris. Which means we were able to react to each other and be in the moment. That’s something you rarely get to do when recording games. It made everything feel much more intimate and real. Working with Chris and our brilliant director Damien Goodwin, was a dream - I really felt I was in safe hands and learned so much from both of them.
Chris: So different! In most other videogames, you are in a booth by yourself and rarely do you get to hear what the other actors have created - you have to kind of guess and the director does their best to read in the plethora of other characters (sometimes to a hilarious extent). But with Haven, I got to work with the lovely Janine in the booth. This had a huge positive impact on both our performances. Aside from Janine just being fantastic, there's a chemistry that the characters had to have that you just can't recreate without having both people in the room together. It always made the recording sessions exciting - you don't know what your partner is going to throw at you.
Would you say you can relate to that couple, or to your character?
Chris: Kay I hold close to my heart. He's desparate to be cool but can never get it quite right. He's vulnerable and sensitive and a perfect match for Yu. She has a fire that keeps him in check and he has a jokey manner that pokes holes in Yu's armour. I think that's why they work so well. My partner and I share the same sort of relationship - we're so different in our tastes etc. But it's that different perspective that gives both the resistance we need and the freedom to be ourselves. I also definitely have Kay living in me - we're both kind of in awe of the world whilst bumbling through it completely lost. Might as well enjoy the ride whilst on it eh?
Janine: My real life partner is a lot like Kay actually - more cautious and analytical than I am. I’m more like Yu, a jump-into-things-now-and-figure-them-out-later kinda person. Which can be fun, but can also lead to some VERY weird nights out.
Can you share a funny or memorable moment that happened during the recordings?
Chris: The one that springs to mind are the "R" rated scenes. Performing it was hilarious because I went for it and knew that everyone around me was going to feel awkward. At the end of it, there was a pause, and Janine just said, "is it hot in here?" that for me was the best praise ever. That and Muffin and Cupcake! Can't forget the joy they brought.
Hold hands in solo or couch co-op
Hey there,
On Wednesday, we announced the launch date. Haven will be available on December 3 (3X days left)! This announcement was the opportunity for us the write a new blogpost talking about Haven, in particular about the co-op experience. We let you with the good company of Emeric Thoa, our Creative Director.
In Haven, you play as two lovers who gave up everything and escaped to a lost planet to be together. It’s a romantic RPG about love and freedom, but a strong characteristic of the game is that you play two characters at the same time: Yu and Kay. It’s first and foremost a solo game, in which you play these two characters, but with such a duo for main characters, we couldn’t pass on the opportunity to make it also a couch co-op experience. In this blogpost, I’ll dive in details about the co-op experience for the first time.
Haven can be enjoyed solo, it’s designed for that. But at any time in the game, another player can join by simply taking another gamepad and pressing a button. The UI will show that co-op has started, it’s completely seamless.
Here, the UI shows another player just joined and triggered the co-op play.
An important part of the gameplay makes Yu and Kay explore the deserted planet gliding over the grass, collecting flow and food, and cleaning the rust in search for resources and new paths (learn more about the gameplay in our previous blog post). While gliding, one player is leading, and the other is following. The character that is following has the freedom to roam around the lead one. Each time you stop, you can exchange the lead, and “take the wheel” like it’s your turn to drive.
However, the following player is not just a co-pilot. They can control what we call a “flowblob”, a circle of flow on the ground that they can project around them to interact with the world as they glide. They can use the flowblob to clean the rust or gather resources. The lead character chooses where to go and the following character helps clean the area.
The flowblob can also be used to slow down a creature that’s chasing you:
In solo combat, the game pad is split in half. You use the dpad to load Kay’s actions and the buttons for Yu’s. In co-op, each player controls their character. The players have to combine their actions.
For instance one can be shielding while the other prepares an attack.
You can exploit temporary weaknesses by having a player stun a creature, while the other prepares an attack that will make critical damage. Or you can synchronize two similar actions on each character to make powerful duo attacks.
Last but not least, if one of your hero is down, the other one can help them stand up again.
While it’s common to see co-op mechanics for action gameplay, it’s much more unusual to see them intertwined in the storytelling. Narration-wise, when the characters talk, the player regularly has dialog choices to make, which sometimes have an impact on the game. When playing co-op, both players have to agree and validate the same dialog choice to progress. From what we’ve seen, it’s very engaging and creates heated discussions between the players on the couch.
We wanted to make a game that can be enjoyed by everyone: solo for a deep immersion with Yu and Kay, or co-op with a friend or a romantic partner. As you read this we are adding the finishing touches to the game!
Haven Original Soundtrack: physical editions available to pre-order
Hey everybody,
Haven's Original Soundtrack is composed by French electro musician DANGER (whose work was already featured in Furi). Today, we are thrilled to announce we cooked two physical editions: a double vinyl album and a CD digipack. The pre-orders of the physical editions start now!
The vinyl edition is inspired by the colourful watercolours of the game intro movie by Yukio Takatsu (Japanese animator and director). The album includes two vinyl records (180 g), yellow and red, in a “pastel grain” textured gatefold cover. The double CD edition is a 6-panel digipack and includes an 8-page booklet. Shipment of both editions is scheduled for late January 2021.
In the Haven original soundtrack, DANGER returns to his electro synthwave music style, adding more positive and colourful vibes to it, as well as elements of Vaporwave and Funky music, mixed with a new orchestral dimension.
If you can't wait, the first single “ 04:42 Still Free” is still available on Steam, Spotify and other platforms. What are you waiting for? Push the volume up and enjoy the music! 😜🎧
Haven will be available on December 3
Hello everyone,
That's it, we have a release date!!! We're so pleased to tell you that Haven will be available on December 3rd 2020. We are also happy to share with you a brand new story trailer "Can love conquer all?" Watch it below:
[previewyoutube="bVmGYPrzOxc;full"] The trailer has subtitles in English, French, German, Russian, Japanese, Italian, Chinese, Portuguese and Spanish.
Also check those new screenshots from the game:
36 days left before the launch of Haven! We can tell you we are counting the days too! Looking forward to having you play the game,
