The Wandering Village is turning 2 years old today which means Onbu is celebrating its 1002nd birthday. Happy b-day, big boy!!
We thought this would be a good time to share our updated roadmap leading up to 1.0 with you:
For over 2 months now we’ve been chiseling away at the upcoming ‘Research & Economy Update’ which has been accessible on the Testing branch for a while already. We just pushed a big new update again a few days ago and it’s coming to the main branch in the next few weeks!
We’re currently hard at work implementing the story mode and ruins biome which will be the next update after the Research & Economy one. We also feel like the game needs a bit more depth and variety related to your interactions with Onbu before the 1.0 release of the game which is currently planned for the first half of 2025.
And lastly, to celebrate the occasion we’re running a special 50% off birthday discount for our Strategy Bundle on Steam for a limited time:
We hope you are doing well! While a part of our team is working on the new Ruins Biome and expanding the lore and story of the game, others have been working on some experimental changes for the game in the past 2 months. These include a reworked research system, a variety of new food sources for Onbu, clay and brick as new construction materials, and a new way to get additional villagers - just to name a few!
This version is now live on the Testing Branch. Some of the changes have a big impact on how the game plays and feels, so we would love to hear your opinion, ideally over on Discord!
Before you jump into the new update, here's some info: 🐛 Please report bugs using the in-game feedback tool in the top right corner of the screen. ✅ You can make videos for Youtube/stream the testing branch content if you like. 📝 Please fill out the feedback form after playing (can also be found in game)
In other news: As some of you might remember, we recently started a publishing branch additionally to developing our own games. Last week, we announced a new partnership for the game TerraScape and helped with the launch of the 1.0 update of the game.
Build gorgeous kingdoms on floating islands by strategically placing buildings in this cozy City-Puzzler. Discover secret combinations, take on weekly challenges and explore randomly generated maps in various single- and multiplayer game modes. Would be awesome if you check it out :D
And lastly, we’re once again co-organising SimFest on Steam! So if you’re on the lookout for awesome simulation games on a discount, give it a look 👀
Cheers & Thanks for your support, Stray Fawn Studio
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How to access the update:
This preview is not yet fully compatible with controllers and lacks localisation. Please note that builds on the testing branch are incompatible with your normal savefiles! In any case, it’s always a good idea to make a backup first. Here's how.
And Full Patch Notes:
A few notes before you get started:
Previous save files are incompatible with this experimental version, and saves made in this version won't be compatible with the upcoming official releases. Saves may break in between versions of this prototype.
Quite a few things are not yet translated - setting the game to English is recommended.
Gamepad support is not fully done yet, please play with keyboard and mouse.
This prototype contains many placeholder visuals and sounds.
Only the "Relaxed" mode is available in this version. As soon as we move forward with the changes, we will re-enable the harder "Survival" mode and Hostility Modifiers.
Villagers and Happiness
villagers only start having Needs when you have 15 or more villagers
Needs scale with the number of villagers instead of the number of days passed
new villagers want to join the village automatically every few days, as long as Happiness is high enough. This system replaces the productivity boosts from Happiness
all values related to Happiness and Needs have been rebalanced
revolts can't happen as long as Needs are below 1
drastically reduced amount of leaving villagers when a revolt happens
Research
research is now unlocked immediately upon selecting it
research now costs Research Notes, a new category of resources that can be produced by the Researcher and other science-centric buildings (Academy, Onbu Observation Post)
knowledge has been removed, since Notes fulfil the same purpose.
all places where knowledge could be earned (scavenging, trading) have been modified to reward notes instead
new building “Academy”. Allows to produce Engineering Notes, and offers advanced and more resource-efficient recipes for other notes
new building “Onbu Observation Post”. Allows to produce Onbu Notes
new building “Library”. Storage for notes
research button and all tabs in the research window now show the number of research items that you can currently unlock
hide research MissionWidget, since it doesn’t serve a purpose in the new system
trader will always offer some notes at random
Economy
production of wood and stone can now be automated very early on by building Gathering Camps. Camps are very quick to build and tear down, but cost Tools. You start with a limited supply and can gain more through scavenging and trading
Building upgrades also cost Tools (and no other resources)
a lot more trees spawn on Onbu. Large trees and rocks take multiple cycles to harvest, yielding a lot more wood but taking longer to clear
a lot more giant trunks and boulders spawn
herbs will spawn periodically after a while
you will start with a couple of free areas surrounded by lush forest, and will gradually need to free space to build your village
clay deposits spawn on Onbu. The new Clay Gathering Camp is used to harvest these for clay
the new Brick Furnace can produce bricks from clay, but needs fuel
damp humidity regularly spawns puddles on dirt. Puddles can be harvested for water, or will eventually turn into clay deposits if left alone
made most building costs quite a bit higher, and added clay/brick to the costs where it made sense
diversified building costs; different paths now focus on different ingredients (wood/stone/clay)
Iron Furnace and Glassblower now need fuel (wood, bile, biogas)
balanced production times of all buildings, with a focus on encouraging vertical scaling
beet does not survive freezing temperature anymore
Mycologist can plant poisonous fungi
refund 100% of resources on deconstruction (unless building is damaged)
most crops turn into a decayed version when decomposing. It can be collected for some fertilizer, or will disappear after a while. This gives a little catch-up opportunity and a visual clue that something was mismanaged
lock Stonecutter and Carpenter initially, as an entry-level research
rebalance radius and deco-value of decorations
rock trumpet gives 2 stone instead of 1
Summer Sale and Bundles
Dear Onbu Riders
Steam Summer Sale is in full swing and The Wandering Village is 25% off :D
We wish you happy shopping and hope you find some nice deals!
Cheers & Thanks, Stray Fawn Studio
Hotfix Patchnotes
Patchnotes v0.7.10
Bugfixes
Fixed a bug where the first time starting the game, the welcome screen was not interactable.
Patchnotes v0.7.9
Improvements
Added a loading screen if players have a lot of savefiles to give a smoother entry to the game.
Bugfixes
Fixed a bug where after loading the same continuous game the run went corrupt (village disappeared)
Hotfix Patchnotes
Patchnotes v0.7.6
Improvements
Added anonymous gameplay data collection. This tracks gameplay-events, such as when a tutorial step has been completed. We don’t collect any personal data. You can always opt out of this in the General Settings menu. This data helps us a lot to find out where people get stuck and enables us to improve the game.
Removed the intense mosquito sound effect from parasite events
Tweaked the Eleflea sound, making them less noisy in larger numbers
Bugfixes
Fixed wrong navigation with gamepad in research window
Fixed wrong entry selection in topbar with gamepad
Fixed parasite events on transitions
Fixed housing quality sometimes not updating correctly
Fixed Pest Control workers only targeting closest parasite despite having no fuel, ignoring eggs
Fixed randomly corrupting savefiles on xbox, added code to restore the lost savefiles when possible.
Stray Fawn Strategy Sale
Dear Onbu Riders
Steam has decided to feature our Stray Fawn Strategy Bundle as a Daily Deal today :D To celebrate the occasion, we decided to put a crazy discount on the bundle:
It’s a 'complete the set' bundle bundle which means you can still benefit from the discount even if you already own some of the games.
This sale is a great summary of what we’ve been up to, aside from the new Wandering Village updates: - We have partnered up with 4 dev teams making city-builders and support them with marketing. - 2 members of our team have started working on a small new game. https://store.steampowered.com/sale/strayfawn
Our own new tiny game: Dungeon Clawler, a Roguelike Claw Machine Deckbuilder...
Are both part of the upcoming Steam Next Fest and have a demo live for you to play starting now :D
We hope there is something for you in the bundle and if either of the upcoming games interest you, wishlisting it would be a huge help!
Thanks for stopping by :) Stray Fawn Studio
Parasites + Cults Update
Dear Onbu Riders
The parasites have crawled over to the Steam main branch and are now infesting all players! This update is all about parasites and …cults?
Various different parasites now inhabit the world. They can infest Onbu and be both harm- and helpful, depending on your current situation. If you’re feeling crafty, you can also build your own little parasite farm and harvest their eggs.
You can now feed villagers to Onbu. Not only does this fill up Onbu’s belly, but it also terrifies your villagers so much that they will stop revolting and start seeing Onbu as a divine being. They will then demand more sacrifices are made to Onbu, which turns your village into an outright cult! Please note that this is a fully optional mechanic which you need to research first so, it’s completely up to you if you want to go down this wicked route.
This update also features: - A new Onbu command - 2 new buildings - 4 new resources - Lots of improvements, bug fixes and balancing changes
Check out the full patch notes: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1121640/view/4152960970869774368
Once again a huge thank you to everybody who helped test and translate this update! Don’t forget that you can vote on your favorite suggestions for new features/future updates, please come join us on Discord.
Take a look at this recent development update post to see what’s next 😀 https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1121640/view/4185611434354635773
We hope you enjoy this new update and we can't wait to hear what you think.
Thanks for your continued support, Stray Fawn Studio
Parasites & Cults Update Patchnotes
Patchnotes 0.7.5
New features
Parasites Various different parasites now inhabit the world. They can infest Onbu and be both harm- and helpful, depending on your current situation. External parasites can be fought with the new Pest Control building, while internal parasites are removed by the Injector. Some external parasites even lay eggs, allowing you to collect them and start your own parasite farm. Or you can just cook and eat them.
Cult of Onbu You can now feed villagers to Onbu. Not only does this fill up Onbu’s belly, but it also terrifies your villagers so much that they will stop revolting and start seeing Onbu as a divine being. They will then demand more sacrifices to Onbu, or become more and more unhappy with each level of the cult.
Stand still command The hornblower now has a separate command to make Onbu stand in place. Useful in biomes where the ground is poisonous, or for avoiding certain parasites.
New buildings
Large water tank
Pest control
New resources
Eleflea egg
Poached eleflea egg
Sporemoth egg
Scrambled sporemoth egg
Balancing
Jungle flu affliction replaced with Plague Gnat external parasite
Tapeworm affliction replaced with Tapeworm internal parasite
Renamed Panacea to Insecticide, removed the need to research it and changed its recipe in the Laboratory to include Spore Essence
Improvements
Savefile performance and size optimization
Various performance improvements (UI, Jobs, …)
Added a visualisation layer for earthquakes on Onbu’s back
Added a heartbeat button to the top bar, showing details about Onbu’s current rate of metabolism
Changed Onbu interaction UI to the same style as the building menu
Added injector, feeding pump and Onbu punisher missions to Onbu interaction UI
Onbu movement notifications do not log transition states anymore
Workers now get their own seed resources (water for planting for example) when they have nothing else to do
Buildings now have different resource slot sizes per resource, preventing them from hoarding rare resources
Added a second row to the status effect display
When marking a house for deconstruction, the amount of beds is only decreased after it is deconstructed, making the transition to better housing easier
Bugfixes
Fixed a bug where the mouse cursor wouldn’t show up on consoles
Fixed a bug where quarry and sawmill would mine another boulder or trunk rather than the one the player intended
Fixed a bug where miners would mine on a empty spot
Fixed a bug where water was listed as last eaten food
Fixed a bug where saving in the world map view during an earthquake would trigger camera shake effect after zooming in or loading
Fixed wrong hiding/showing of gamepad cursor
Fixed repair tool filters
Fixed destruction tool shortcut
Fixed the plantation temperature sometimes showing the arrow out of range
Fixed a crash that could occur whenever poisonous fungi spawned
Fixed bug which lead to a missing village
Visual Improvements
Fixed door locations for Trade Post, Pest Control and Spore Distillery
Add resource stack assets for parasite eggs, simple and gourmet meals
Added parasite event visualizations in Onbu view
May Development Update & New Bundle
Dear Onbu Riders
We hope you are doing well!
We wanted to give you a quick update on the game's development:
We're super close to releasing the parasites update on the main branch for everybody to play.
Our game designers are exploring some experimental gameplay changes, mostly related to how research and scavenging works. This will soon be released on the testing branch for you to try out.
We're working on some new Onbu-related features. More infos soon!
We're making good progress with the Ruins Biome.
If you want to chat with us and other players and get more design insights, please come join us over on Discord :D
I wanted to let you know that we have a new bundle with The Wandering Village! Synergy was released this week and it shares a lot of inspirations with The Wandering Village, both related to artstyle (Möbius) and world setting (Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind). If you already own The Wandering Village, you can get an additional 20% off Synergy with this bundle:
