The Woods
The Woods will be retired from Store
First of all, we want to thank everyone who supported us to this day and whenever we will release another game with a fresh start we will thank each one with a coupon or even a copy, we will see, but right now there is a long way ahead of us.
As many might have followed from the latest news, time got a real problem for us to get our updates cooked and published and we definitely know that we messed this up since the start. We are a 2 man developer team, both working fulltime and The Woods was always planned as a side project, never aimed to be big, but we dreamed our dream bigger and failed because of that.
We knew we won't have the time nor the resources to full fill what we wanted to realize and many might see this as a scam, but it wasn't intended to be like that. We thought we could get the game there where we wanted it to be, but as said we dreamed too big for our possibilities.
At this moment a bunch of people, their meaning we valued, started to talk us into decisions we regret and pushed us to publish the game as fast as possible no matter what. Afterward, we really regret this but well mistakes are made to learn from, and we are not here to blame anyone for that.
After the really bad start, I wanted to put all possible resources into this game to get it the way I dreamed of and started to redo the whole game from scratch again, put over 1000hrs into the development for 1 year. I might need to say, that I work as a game developer full time and have multiple projects running, so time became a really rare resource and I had to push back the updates over and over again.
In October this year, I realized that after all that time I spent on this project, the passion for this project gave way just for my personal ego to complete the project no matter what, just to show the potential we saw in our game instead of just canceling it and learn from made mistakes.
After serious consideration, the decision was made, that a 2 man dev team with little time won't be able to get this game done in the next year so we decided to retire The Woods from the Steam Store.
At this moment we don't know if we will publish the update we prepared, but we might keep this option open if we find our way back to this project.
Anyway, we still want to create games for you, since it is our passion, but at this moment we are not sure when we still start again since we need some time to talk about a new project, plan it more through and learn from all made mistakes.
Again we want to thank everyone for the support you gave and mention again that this is not an easy decision for us since we are giving up a dream.
Have a nice week
Cheers
Kevin from Moonware Games
Update 0.5 Teaser
we are currently working on some graphics, animations and animal implementations and this is a result we got out of this process. This scene is also a short teaser for the upcoming trailer of the new update we are currently working on.
The trailer for Chapter 1 will be public next week and the update a week later, hopefully.
Till then.
Best wishes
Kevin from Moonware Games
Final Update will need until Oktober 2019
I am sorry to announce this, but the final update I was cooking the last months for you, will need some more time till release.
The reasons for this decision are mostly because of my fulltime daytime job, my fulltime university life I participate next to my daytime job and my currently low free time to finish the project.
Also, I am currently the only one working on the project which delays all work I outsourced to my partner in the project, so I will need some more time to finish the project the way I dreamed of.
Many times I thought about cancelling the project because it is too much to do during my work time that there was no time for the project itself, but the last weeks and months I was able to sacrifice 2 to 3 hrs every day to work on the project again and to redo a lot of the work we had on our release, and not to forget, to improve it and to add in the new stuff we promised.
But because of the really bad start we had and my passion for this project, I want to finish this project and show the real potential behind our team and the whole project.
So, for now, I will focus to get the update done till Oktober 2019 and to do some more detailing and fixes in November and December to finally get out of Early Access soon.
Here is a little teaser of something new coming to THE WOODS:
TIll then
Best wishes
Kevin from Moonware Games
"Butterfly Effect" - Decision Based Gameplay
I want to get you some details about the concept of a new feature I was working on the last days.
The goal is to add decision-based gameplay, so whatever decision you take, it will have an impact on the game experience.
Of course, it is almost impossible to track every single decision made during the game, so I achieved a feature which marks the decisions which got an impact on the storyline. To replay different scenarios there will be a separate save file for each Story Decision made, so it is easy to load another scenario and try a different way.
As said every single interaction can and will have an impact on the game experience, but just these named "Story Decisions" will be available to replay once again, since they alter the story and end in a different outcome.
Every other decision intensifies or calms the game experience depending on which way you choose but this may last just seconds before you take another way and change these elements again in a different direction. To do not oversaturate it, the changes will happen delayed and slightly.
I will upload graphics and a few more details about how this will work in the next two weeks.
Till then best wishes.
Cheers
Moonware Games
New Level Design
it is a while since my latest announcement. I worked hard on some severe improvements of the overall level, including performance balances.
To keep the scary atmosphere I increased the fog and lowered the lights. Even without a flashlight, it is possible to see silhouettes from a certain distance.
Also, I improved the road, added curves and slopes for a more realistic road. I also aligned the edges to the forest, so it will be possible to reach the street. Some parts of the road are easier to access (on ground level) others need to be climbed through a slope, but the overall edges are smoother and more realistic than before.
As you might notice I also added a phone, which will primarily is used as a flashlight. But beware, since the battery can discharge from every usage
By the end of next week, I will set up a post about a new important feature which I am about to implement, till then best wishes.
Test Achievements visible for everyone!
until the end of the week, there will be 2 Test Achievements visible for everyone.
Since we are working at the moment to implement achievements into the game system, we need to test the achievements online. Unfortunately, it is only possible by making the achievements public to everyone.
So if you should stumble over these achievements just ignore them right now, since the real ones are coming soon to the game.
Cheers
Moonware Games
Steam Achievements coming to THE WOODS
as we announced in a prior post, we are currently working on the finalization of THE WOODS and are glad we can announce today the implementation of Steam Achievements for the Game's Full Release in Q2 2019
We worked on over 20 achievements for the game, some harder to get than others and even one or two only possible to reach with a lot of effort.
Later this week we will keep you up to date with a new Feature Peak.
Have a nice one!
Best wishes
Moonware Games
Feature Sneak Peak: Lock Picking
here is a short view into a new feature we worked on.
You can open locked doors, chests or drawers with 4 difficulties to find useful and important items, or to unlock new places and rooms.
A screwdriver and lockpicks are required and can be found on the game map.
EDIT: Important information about delayed updates and end of Early Access
we are very sorry that we couldn't follow our idea of updating The Woods in August nor in November. Unfortunately, both of us had some tough time with private work and family. Still, we worked on elements of the updates but we never finished to put them all together.
Now we found some time and continued working on the updates, which will change many elements of the game and bring it to another level and hopefully make it better as it is now.
We will finish our game also by Q2 2019 and will leave Early Access then.
Since some elements changed during our development we will update the Steam Store Page as soon as possible, the latest with the next update.
For the people who waited for the multiplayer, because of budget issues there won't be any multiplayer soon
Because of irregularities, we won't announce a particular update date.
We want to apologize again for the mess up and the hard delays. We will keep you up to date with video and images at least twice a month so you also will see our progress during our development.
Best wishes
Moonware Games
The Woods Performance & Hardware Survey
The survey takes 2 minutes only and is anonym completely:
Thanks for your time and your help!
https://surveys.enalyzer.com?pid=d5kaq6gu
Cheers
Moonware Games