It’s incredible to think that it’s already been a year since we put Wayward Strand out into the world. We’ve been so chuffed with the response that you all have had to this experience we created together, and thought it’d be lovely to reminisce about what’s happened during Wayward Strand’s first year, as well as giving an update on where we, the people who made it, are at!
First things first, to celebrate Wayward Strand’s release anniversary, we’re doing a pretty big sale - our first 40% discount. If Wayward Strand sounds interesting to you, or you've had your eye on it for a while, but weren't entirely sure about it, now is a great time to get your copy and give it a try!
After seven long years, we finally released Wayward Strand out into the world on September 15, 2022. We were so proud of getting it out there, and made sure to celebrate!
Right out of the gate were the AGDAs (Australian Game Development Awards), where we were nominated for storytelling and serious games, and the Golden Joystick Awards, with a nomination for best storytelling. We presented Wayward Strand at PAX Australia the next month, both with a booth at PAX Together, and a really wonderful panel where we discussed the game’s development.
It’s been so wonderful every time that we’ve gotten to show the game since it’s released, to have players come up to us and talk with us about their experiences with the game, and how it made them feel - PAX Together was the first moment where that happened, and it was incredibly lovely to hear from all of you, and to talk with you.
The press...
As the game was launching, we also started to see the reviews coming in. We didn’t really know what reviewers would think of the game - they play and write about so many games every year, so we had no idea whether they’d have time for our (honestly a bit strange) experience, where we ask quite a lot of the player - in a pretty much objective-less experience, it’s up to you to explore the game and discover things for yourself.
But we were really pleasantly surprised how many reviewers and journalists got what we were trying to do. We were covered a ton in international media, often with people talking about how Wayward Strand made them feel things that no other game had made them feel; how it’s a step in a new direction for story-focused games; or how it made them want to call their grandma.
We really appreciate how so many reviewers played and enjoyed the game on its own merit, instead of focusing on comparing it with other games, which doesn’t really make much sense to do with Wayward Strand, because it (and we) are trying to create such a different experience to so many other games.
The positivity was such that we ended up in several ‘best games of the year’ list, including the top Switch games on Metacritic for 2022, and the LA Times’ most memorable narratives of 2022.
2023
2023 has been a wonderful year so far - the biggest thing is that we’ve gotten to talk about Wayward Strand a lot more, now that it’s out and people can play it! After being interviewed by Alanah Pearce and appearing on the Eggplant Show, Georgia and Jason did a talk at GDC that focused on the narrative and NPC development of Wayward Strand, which is now on Youtube. (A clip from that talk recently got a lot of attention on TikTok!)
We were also nominated for the A MAZE awards, and Goldie and Jason got the chance to do a talk about why we love frustrating the player. (Thank you again to the audience for some lovely and thought-provoking questions!)
A few last things to note!
While we’re still progressing on an update to the game that would introduce within-day saving, due to Life Stuff (including some extended trips and one of the team’s family getting a new member), work on that version will be pausing for the next couple of months, and then after that there’s still quite a bit more work to go before it's done. So, we’re still hopeful that it’ll make it out there eventually, but wanted to bo honest in saying that we can’t make any promises on how soon.
Also, we’ve had quite a few people ask us about our next plans - we can't say too much just yet, except that we've got Some Stuff in the works, and that the team love each other and are excited to get to work together again! It's been an interesting year, as we've scattered a bit to work on different other projects and at different companies, but what we've been finding is that we're still committed and excited to get together again on more projects.
Thanks so much for your interest in Wayward Strand, and your support of one-of-a-kind experiences like this, made by independent game artists that are exploring new territories in interactive storytelling.
Spring Sale Discount, GDC Talks, Nominations and more!
Greetings, fellow Wayward Strand enthusiasts! We're here to share some exciting news and updates with you about the game and our studio, ghost pattern. We've had a lot going on lately, from GDC talks to award nominations, and we're thrilled to share all the details with you.
The first big news is that Wayward Strand is currently on sale as part of the Steam Spring Sale, at a discount of 20%. This is a great opportunity to pick up the game at a reduced price and experience the beautiful, interactive storytelling that we've poured our hearts into.
Also, if you played Wayward Strand and loved it (thank you!!), leaving us a review, even a short one, is a massive help for us with our first, self-published game! We'd love to create more innovative and truly original experiences like Wayward Strand, and having lots of positive reviews would be a huge help in getting us there.
Talks at GDC!
Another bit of news is that we're headed to the Game Developers Conference (GDC) in San Francisco next week. Jason and Georgia will be delivering a talk titled "The Secret Lives of NPCs", where they'll dive into the structure and production of the unique narrative mechanics in Wayward Strand.
If you're interested in narrative focused game development, digital storytelling, or just want to know more about our game, and you're heading to GDC, we'd love for you to join us there. You can find more information about the talk and how to attend on the GDC schedule page.
Additionally, Maize and Tfer, leads on our audio team, will be delivering a talk called "An Important Conversation about Conversations," which focuses on the production pipelines and experiences of recording almost 20,000 lines of dialogue for Wayward Strand. Doing this recording with on a shoestring budget and ending up with such incredible quality VO is a monumental feat for a small indie studio like ours, and we're excited to share our process and insights with the community.
Both talks are happening on Tuesday at 10:50 AM, so mark your calendars and join us if you can. And, if we’re able to share the recordings in the future we will be sure to do so.
More Awards!
In other (and also good) news, we're pleased and humbled to announce that Wayward Strand has been nominated for an AMAZE award! The AMAZE award recognises innovative and groundbreaking games from all over the world, and we're honoured to be included alongside the other incredible titles.
We'd like to give a special shoutout to WINGS fund, who support the category we were nominated in. The fund focuses on supporting and empowering women-led studios, and it's an incredible and generous resource for our industry. See the full list of incredible nominees here.
Cool other stuff from the Wayward Team
But that's not all! We'd love to share the brand new trailer for our collaborator Olivia Haines' new video game, Surf Club.
Olivia is an incredibly talented game developer and artist, and we're honoured to have worked with her on Wayward Strand. Surf Club looks absolutely stunning, and we can't wait to play it ourselves. You can wishlist it on Steam now!
And a final note that Wayward Strand post-launch development is still ongoing, and we're working hard to add more save-load functionality to the game. We'll have more information to share soon, so stay tuned.
We hope you're all as excited as we are about these updates and news. Thank you so much for your ongoing support of ghost pattern and Wayward Strand - we couldn't do it without you!
Spring Down Under for the Steam Fall Festival
Hello!
It's Goldie! I hope you’re cosy and wrapped up in various blankets, hoodies, oodies, onesies or jumpers right now, because it’s time for the Steam Autumn Festival! My very witty title would have worked better if they’d called it the Steam Fall Festival, but I appreciate the language too. Autumn just has a nice ring to it, don’t you think?
Autumn.
Makes me think of all of the best parts. From the chilly, crisp air, to the warm ciders, grey skies…Beautiful golden leaves, darkening evenings. Late season honey, pumpkin soup, apple pie…and of course, videogames on sale uwu.
We’re dipping our toes into the world of sales - we’re offering a 10% discount on Wayward Strand this week - not bad! Maybe it’s time to pick it up, or maybe now is a good time to tell a friend or family member about us?
Ok I’ll fess up, it’s actually spring in Melbourne! We’re climbing out of winter (allegedly), but boy is it still cold, wet, windy. Almost as if…the climate has…changed? Nevertheless, it’s been lovely having lighter evenings. And some of the days have been glorious - warm sunshine, flowers popping off.
So how are we going? Pretty good. Busy!
What have we been working on?
Saves
The big one is saves. We definitely heard you loud and clear that we need more save points!
I want to be upfront: I, Goldie, am not a programmer. I usually do the art stuff for the game, so I won’t be the best person to speak to the technical particulars but I do understand that there’s a good reason that implementing saves into Wayward Strand has been quite tricky. I think it’s likely to do with needing to work out a way to let the game know WHERE every single character is at any point in time, as well as WHAT information that character has about you - what did you say to them, what have they said to you, do you know X, and have they told you their thoughts on it or not? What did you say to someone else and how does that impact them? All of that sort of stuff. Honestly, I’m sure it’s complicated.
If you’re curious about this work, I definitely invite you to come to our discord and chat about it with the people who are working at it.
We’ve also been busy with patches of course! There are a few blog posts here on Steam outlining changes we’ve already pushed, if you’d like to check those out. Off the top of my head, there have been standard bug fixes, and we’ve also unlocked a few achievements which weren’t possible to get (they are now all possible to get!) And of course there's been the big change of letting players load in to any of the three days once they’ve completed a full playthrough. You can always see our full patch notes here. Speaking of achievements, a bloody huge congratulations to UnbrokenOdds who, as far as we know, was the first person to ‘100%’ Wayward Strand, in a way. They’ve collected all of our achievements which is a ridiculously big achievement in itself. I can’t imagine how many hours they played to do that! Well done to UnbrokenOdds, and to everyone else who is getting close, or who may have done it by the time I’ve posted this blog. Inspirational!
What else?
Well, as usual I’m going to remind you that reviews really help - we don’t have many but we’re reading them all and being filled with warm feelings, and appreciate each one. If you have 5 minutes and could sling a review on Steam, that would be super great!
Our other request is to think about anyone in your life who you think might be a good fit for Wayward Strand. If you’ve played it, you know that it’s highly accessible, and perhaps especially to people new to games. Maybe you have a family member who would like it?
We’ve been enjoying watching everyone Stream the game - get in touch if you’re on Twitch! The best place to get in touch is probably over on Twitter @WaywardStrand.
Oh!
We've been nominated for a Golden Joystick!
Did I write about that in another blog? Freakin’ wild. What a huge honour to be nominated for Best Storytelling - like…the games we are alongside are so, so great. It really made us feel proud and excited. At the time of posting, the ceremony is just 2 hours away - you can watch the award show at 12PM PST November 22 on Twitch or YouTube.
Jumplight Odyssey
Finally, did you know that our very own Jason was lead developer for League of Geek's amazing debut game Armello? Well, he was! League of Geeks have just announced a VERY cool looking game (two games, actually, but I'm gonna talk about the one with a badass space captain princess).
"Keep hope alive on your adventure to the mythical Forever Star! Gather survivors, repair and build out your starship, brave black holes, and fend off attacks, all while managing the daily soap opera of your colorful crew."
Kinda seems like Rimworld meets Two Point Hospital? Neato!
Anyhew, I will wrap this up, much like the gifts I'll be wrapping this time next month! Exciting times!
Love you, thanks for being here.
Goldie & ghost pattern.
PS: Steam backend can be quite confusing, so if this blog post disappears after the sale ends, I'll repost the newsy bits as a general update <3
TL;DR Steam Autumn Sale. Wayward Strand 10% off! Starts: Tuesday, November 22 at 10 AM PST (Nov 23rd 5 AM GMT+11) Ends: Tuesday, November 29 at 10 AM PST (Nov 30th 5 AM GMT+11)
Patch v1.0.4 live on Steam!
Hi all!
We've been chipping away at a bunch more fixes that players have been finding post-launch, and have bundled them into Patch 1.0.4; this includes a few issues that have been found by some diligent achievement hunters on our Discord - thanks to community members unbrokenodds and andre. in particular for the help! Speaking of the Discord, if you wanted to chat with us and other players about the game (or about your favourite '70s kitsch), you can join our Discord with this link: https://discord.gg/KDAMU3N
What we discovered when fixing the achievements is that some weren't accessible due to whole scenes not occurring; with over 1000 scenes in the game, we knew that there'd be some that wouldn't play for whatever reason, but it's exciting to say that there are now several additional scenes and sections of scenes that can be found.
We don't want to spoil too much, particularly because some relate to storylines that are hidden away in the game, but let's just say that fans of a particular character should make sure to hang out with them in their room on Day 3...
Roadmap
As per the roadmap in the previous update, improved saving is still slated for a future patch; the team are working on Wayward Strand alongside other work at the moment, so we aren't able to get updates out quickly, but we'll keep chipping away at them!
Patch v1.0.4 Notes
Here's the full list of fixes and improvements that we've done in this patch:
The Iilk storyline can now be experienced in full, and the 'Iilk Fan' achievement/trophy can now be correctly attained.
When the appropriate conditions are met, Casey is actually given the option to "tell a white lie", and the 'White Lie' achievement/trophy can now be correctly attained.
More opportunity is now given for Casey to follow up on Margot's request, to ensure that it's reasonably possible for the 'Careful With Your Words' achievement/trophy to be attained.
Fixes an issue where, after 5:30pm, the potential things that Casey or other characters could say and do were being significantly curtailed.
Casey should no longer become stuck when accompanying Lily during her afternoon rounds on the first day.
During Lily's afternoon rounds on the first day, improvements have been made to the scene direction, and how Casey is managed, in Tomi's room.
On day 2, when Joe is helping Esther from the cafeteria, he will no longer float and the wheelchair will not appear in duplicate.
On day 2, when Casey is changing the record for Mr Pruess, she will now walk around Mr Pruess, instead of through him, and her bag won't float.
During day 2, Casey should no longer get stuck with Ted for long periods.
At the end of day 2, Casey should no longer become stuck by the nurse's station if she's around when Ruth calls in.
Casey won't running ahead of Tomi, when choosing to follow her.
Ted will no longer try to start a conversation with Casey, when she's on the far side of the cafeteria.
Increases audibility of Neil, when Lily is attempting to cheer him up on day 3.
Increases audibility of dialogue between Casey and Ida when Casey is departing Ida's room.
Casey should no longer be given the option to pick up a book, if she is already holding soup.
Fixes props being in an inconsistent state on day 3, if transformed by story events on day 2.
Resolves some more instances of characters talking over themselves.
Minor improvements to story logic.
Minor improvements to scene timing and direction.
Fixes typos.
Players will no longer have the option to start from a chapter if the required save data is missing.
Players will no longer get stuck in loading, when attempting to load a save file that doesn't exist.
Hitting the back button will now correctly leave the chapter select screen.
That's all for now! Oh, we also wanted to thank everyone for the lovely reviews that they've been leaving for the game on our Store Page - we've been highlighting some of our favourites on our Twitter: https://twitter.com/WaywardStrand
If you've played Wayward Strand and liked it, it would be hugely helpful if you could spend a few moments to leave us a review; we're a small indie team, and really appreciate your support <3
Patch v1.0.3 now available on Steam
Hey everyone - first, thanks so much for all the kind words about Wayward Strand so far! It's wonderful to hear you all connecting with it and discovering so much within the game.
We have prepared our first post-launch patch, and it's now live on Steam! This is mainly just a few key fixes for issues that players have found in the live version, along with a small quality-of-life feature.
Oh, a quick note that while the patch is called 1.0.3, it's the first post-launch patch - we did a couple of additional patches pre-launch.
Chapter Select
We've added a feature which allows you to choose which Chapter to load into - this will load the game up into the most recent save file for that chapter. This allows you to eg. start your most recent playthrough again from Day 2, or to play Day 3 several times over.
This will be handy for folks that are trying to unlock particular achievements, or who are mapping out what happens on each day in the game - or just for if you're keen to try one of the later Days again without having to play Day 1 all over again.
Roadmap
We've also begun work on the most requested feature so far, which is midday saves. We don't have an ETA for when this will make it into a patch, as it's a significant amount of work to implement and test, but wanted to mention that work has begun on this feature, and we'll be continuing that work as we can.
Patch v1.0.3 Notes
Gameplay
Mrs Beaumaris’s levitating clipboard at the end of Day 1 should no longer exist.
Casey now puts the shield in her satchel when the player selects that option.
Fixed an issue where both Joe and Casey could think that they had taken Mr Pruess back to his room on Day 1.
Mr Pettigrew now remembers that he’s met you if he sees you at the nurse’s station on Day 2 afternoon.
Fixed an issue where Dr Bouchard and Lily would say each other’s lines for a bit on Day 1 afternoon, and ensured Casey’s satchel wouldn’t do a little dance if she was in the room with Dr Bouchard during this scene.
Casey can no longer steal a teacup from Ida’s room when Ida suggests that you go see Mr Avery.
Ida’s knitting should no longer disconnect from her knitting needles and float up into the air.
Joe should no longer snap into the floor when giving Esther their meds on Day 2.
On Day 2, if you’re standing at the nurse’s station in the late afternoon, you should no longer be stuck there in some situations.
Fixed an issue where on the afternoon of Day 1, Lily would talk with Casey about Ms Hummel as if they hadn’t met, even if they’d all had lunch together.
Fixed several spots where characters wouldn’t have their prop states correctly restored at the end of a scene - characters in the Cafeteria should hang on to their spoons more consistently now.
Ms Hummel should no longer sit inside the table, or off in the middle of nowhere, in the Cafeteria.
Fixed the overlapping dialogue in Mr Pettigrew and Mrs Beaumaris’s phone conversation on Day 1, and in the Day 2 evening scene with Mrs Beaumaris.
Fixed some spots where Casey would write things down in her Notebook without having seen them.
On Day 3 afternoon, Ms Hummel will no longer teleport her watering can to herself, and waters her plants instead of watering Casey.
Ensured that the options display correctly when Lily offers Casey the glass of orange juice in Esther’s room on Day 1.
Ensuring that Casey actually refills Ms Hummel’s watering can on Day 2, if Tomi isn’t in the room and the player selects that option.
On Day 3 evening, Casey now puts the scarf into her bag, instead of her shirt pocket.
Fixed some spelling mistakes.
Improved audio levels for the records that are played in the Lounge.
Game Menus
Added a chapter select screen, allowing the player to replay from the start of each chapter, once they've already played that chapter once and have a save file for it.
Updated credits
Wayward Strand is Out Now!
Wayward Strand is now available on Steam - the ship is in flight! You can get it right now, and for the next few days, at the introductory price of 10% off.
We've been floored by the early reviews that have been coming out about the game - here are a few quotes:
"Masterful writing and voice-acting make Wayward Strand a great work of interactive fiction." - LadiesGamers - Two Thumbs Up
"The complexity of the simultaneous narratives that unfold around you in real time creates a beautiful experience that should be played by all gamers." - EXP Share+ - 8.5
"A rich, heartfelt story that will leave you re-entering reality with a renewed sense of curiosity." - Gameshub - ★★★★★
"For anyone at all looking for a heartfelt, honest and beautiful narrative experience" - Press Play Gaming
Thank you all so much for being on this journey with us - we hope you enjoy it.
(And after you play, we'd love it for you to let us know what you think, either in a review, on the forums, or on our Discord!)
Wayward Strand: Best Narrative at the Australian Game Design Awards nomination!
Hi everyone!
IT IS LAUNCH WEEK
First up, check out this short and sweet video which shows some emotional content from the team
Second up,
It's AGDAs time, baby!
We are incredibly honoured to have been nominated in a few categories - as well as given an honourable mention for another.
Finally, we have been awarded an honourable mention in the Accessibility category, thanks so much to our fantastic accessibility consultant, Cameron Hopkinson for their work on Wayward Strand there.
After many years of developing, plus a few stuck inside, we are very ready to let our hair down and have a boogie at the AGDAs this October.
Congratulations to all of the other nominees - it's really specially to be reminded each year of the caliber and diversity of games being made down under, and we give an extra special shout out to our mates Alex and Josh from 2pt Interactive. Both Alex and Josh contributed impactful work to Wayward Strand, and we are just so proud of them for absolutely sweeping in the nominations with their own game, Heavenly Bodies. Shout out all of the games, but we'll do just one more here for our colleagues - A big congratulations to the team at Samurai Punk, for their nominations with JUST released JUSTICE SUCKS: Tactical Vacuum Action
That just about catches you up with us. It's hard to believe there are only 3 more sleeps for us until this bloody ripper of a game comes out. If you watch the video at the top, I think it helps describe just part of how we're all feeling.
As ever, thank you for your continued and very appreciated support for us, and for Wayward Strand.
Goldie. ghost pattern.
OH, PS. Jason and I were on a podcast last Friday, it's really good. You can listen to us on Kritiqal Care here.
Cast Announcement for Wayward Strand
G'day!
As per usual, let's get right down to the meat and potatoes of this post: our cast!
Here's the announcement in video form
We want to start off with a huge shout-out to our four studios - Original Score in Melbourne, ZigZag Post in Sydney, Innenhof in Vienna and Voiceover Soho in London. Making people on three continents sound like they’re in one room is *hard*, but our audio director Maize Wallin and their team have had some of the best quality sound to work with, thanks to the hard work of everyone around the world who collaborated with us!
Without further ado...
It’s finally, FINALLY time to announce our fantastic cast! We don’t wanna wait one second longer, let’s just do it.
First cab off the rank: this one's no secret. Reprising her role from our 2019 demo, we have the inimitable Anne Charleston in the role of Ida Vaughan! Although many of you have recognised her from her iconic role as Madge on Neighbours, Anne has had a stellar international career in theatre, film and TV across Australia, the UK and Ireland. Working with such a legend of the industry was such a joy!
We're so excited to introduce our Esther Fitzgerald - Michela Ledwidge! She's a director in her own right, working across all visual and digital media. Michela put so much consideration and research into her portrayal of our beloved Esther, and it shows - playtesters are already falling in love with this character!
We were honoured to work with Shane Clayton, playing the role of Ted Muir. Shane is a young Bunurong man, a performer, and an absolute delight! He brought spades of humour to the recording studio, and so much warmth and heart to the character of Ted.
Ahhhh, Mr Pruess. He's the character who has *easily* changed the most as a result of voiceover. When we wrote this character, we thought he was cold, inscrutable, solitary. But Erhard Hartmann infused Heinrich Pruess with such incredible joy, and truly brought the character to life - all the way from Austria! Erhard is a prominent actor in Austria and Germany, and we were so lucky to work with him - not least because he let us know that we had accidentally named one of our characters quite a rude word in German, which we were then able to fix!
It's been hard to keep this one to ourselves… the loquacious Neil Avery will be voiced by none other than living legend Michael Caton! You'll remember him from The Castle, or The Sullivans, or Last Cab to Darwin, but in truth, if you live in Australia and you own a TV, you can guarantee his face has been on it. Michael was so down-to-earth in the studio - quite the opposite of his character!
Next, another performer returning from our 2019 demo. Ruth Beaumaris will be played by Jenny Seedsman! Neighbours, Blue Heelers, State Coroner - you name it, she's been in it. Jenny brought a lot of care and warmth to the character of Ruth, even in her sternest moments!
The director of the hospital, Felix Pettigrew, is warm, energetic, and always immaculately dressed. Bringing his infectious effervescence to this role is Josiah Lulham! Josiah wears many hats, as a theatre actor, a facilitator, and an anthropology scholar. We could barely get a clean take with Josiah, with how much he was making us laugh in the studio!
Our Celtic Cuisinier may be shrouded in mystery in the game, but we can finally reveal his identity in real life. John Barrett is the voice of Devin the cook! John also helped us add some Irish language to the game, which was a real treat.
Sticking with hospital staff, nurse Lily Marshall will be played by Harriet Wallace-Mead! Harriet is an actor, a producer, and also a horticulturalist! Harriet is another actor that we worked with on our 2019 demo, and when we were casting for the final game, she was one of the first performers we decided on - Lily just wouldn't be Lily without this voice!
In Wayward Strand, Lily works closely with another nurse, Joe Tagliabue, played by the wonderful Peter Paltos. Apart from being an experienced and gifted actor, Peter also happens to be a healthcare worker! So he was able to bring so much wisdom and insight to this performance.
For some reason, we decided to record one of our saddest storylines on our very first day of recording. Thankfully, we were recording the delightful Jennifer Vuletic for the role of Dr Margot Bouchard, who brought so much power and humanity to one of our more heartbreaking characters (you'll see). From our first meeting with Jennifer, she was so positive about our work, which meant so much to us as a team. And I think we all shed a tear or two in the studio!
Dr Shen, our last staff member to reveal! Celine Shen is played by Renee Lim, who, believe it or not, is both a practising actor AND a practising doctor! So this role was a walk in the park for Renee, and she was another performer who was able to bring such a depth of subject matter knowledge to bear on her role.
Last, but certainly not least,
the player character; fourteen-year-old Casey Beaumaris. It is such an incredible honour to introduce you to Nancy Curtis. Intelligence. Humour. Work ethic. Nancy recorded a whopping 1200+ pages of dialogue in just 10 studio sessions. And she did it all with such ease. When we first heard a recording of Nancy, we thought Casey herself had escaped from the game and come to life. Working with Nancy was a true delight, and one of the highlights of making this game.
13 actors announced so far… are there any others? I guess you'll have to just wait and play the game to find out!
I can't believe we're just 4 weeks out from launch. Absolutely so excited my socks are falling off.
See you there! Lots of love, Goldie.
Wayward Strand - Launch Delay Announcement
Hi everyone!
There’s been some news, which is a bit of a relief for us. I’ll cut to the chase: we’re delaying the release of Wayward Strand.
We will now release on September 15!
It was a difficult decision to make, because this project has gone on a long time already - some of you will have been waiting for it since we were in the showcase at PAX Melbourne in 2019, some will have been waiting since we showed it at Freeplay Parallels in 201...7? Really?
And on our end, we've been so keen for it to be out in the world!
So, why the delay?
In truth, very few games like Wayward Strand exist. When you set the timelines for making a new game, you might think about other similar games you’ve heard about or worked on. You might try to compare in your mind how long similar things have taken in the past. So, when we set out to make Wayward Strand, we had a think about similar games...
Games with 25,000+ lines of voiceover dialogue… … and with all action taking place within real-time mechanics… … and with 14 characters, each with their own 3-hour-long in-game journey… … and with richly decorated and intensely researched 3-storey doll-house worlds… … and with a focus on heartfelt stories, where the nod of a head or a momentary pause between dialogue can make a world of meaning… … and all made by a small, self-published indie team ːsteamthumbsupː
As you can imagine, we were left scratching our heads. Regardless, we did our best to set realistic timelines. But as we review each scene in the game and how it all comes together, we felt it was important to spend some additional time to bring the experience closer to our vision. We're doing our best to bring our characters and stories to life for you.
This delay means we can release Wayward Strand at a level of quality that we're very happy with. Importantly, it also allows us to do it in a less stressful way for the team. Wayward Strand is a game about care, and it would make no sense to make this game without caring for each other. From day one, we’ve been rigorously committed to empathy, openness, and anti-crunch. Game releases are almost always stressful and difficult for the teams behind them, so we're trying to find ways of approaching our release that reduce some of those pressures.
We’ve had so much excitement and support from people like you who are looking forward to playing our game. This support is something we cherish so dearly. Thank you for being caring and patient with us. We are so looking forward to sharing the game with you.
Thanks, love, ghost pattern
PS. Coming up later in the month, we'll be announcing our fabulous cast! Keep your eye out <3
LAST CHANCE to play the ‘old’ demo! @ Steam NEXT
Hello, It’s Goldie here!
Just a short post today, to let you all know that we’re part of Steam NEXT this week. Thank you for having us, Steam!
During Steam NEXT, our lovely demo will be live -
This will be the last time that this demo is available.
Bon voyage little demo! You have been a stable friend~
The strangest part about playing this demo, for us, is just how far we’ve come since making it. I’ve prepared a few screenshots showing some of the visual differences between then and now - it’s pretty incredible! We’ve been working so hard :’)
The team did talk about trying to make a new demo in time for Steam NEXT, but I’ll be upfront: we are just so focused on getting the game ready for release (and, in time for the steps which have to happen in the lead up to release - and there are a lot of steps!) that we couldn’t find any spare time to put tools down to switch our focus.
Ultimately, we didn’t want to pivot tasks, losing dev time, and then release a demo which we couldn’t promise to be bugless. We’re quite confident that the demo which is live isn’t buggy, so that’s what’s live for one last time. It's bittersweet, lovely little demo, goodbye, fare-well~
Tomi's garden finally looking lush!
Aside from the work which has gone into the look of the game, we’ve also been enjoying hearing our fully voiced cast of fabulous characters living in the world. It’s great fun to be walking down a hallway and have a character call out hello, or overhear some patients having an argument as you pass by.
On top of the excellent VO (and other amazing audio work), we’ve been working on our controller stuff, the UI and UX, adding some cool features to the notebook, and loads of new bits which I seriously can’t wait to share in the next demo, let alone in the full game!
On that note,
If you’re a streamer, or press, or know a streamer or someone who reviews games, please get in touch with us so that you can sign up for a key to play the game before it officially launches! You can reach out to us on twitter, or find our email at our website.
We're self publishing this labour of love, so any help you can give us will make a huge impact on getting this game in front of the people who love intimate narrative games, and we're super grateful for the support. We're feeling incredibly lucky to be making it!
Last one: my favourite:
TL;DR:
+ Our OG demo, which is stable, and lovely, is available to play right now as part of Steam NEXT, thanks Steam!
!!! It's very likely the last time anyone will ever be able to play it :') !!!
+ Work on the game continues and we can’t wait to share the full game (and hopefully one more demo which reflects the finished quality) with you soon!
Take care, lots of love, and enjoy Steam NEXT! I cant beliebe how many demos are up!!! Goldie.
