Some quality of life improvements have been released:
Overall player movement has been improved.
Jumping has also been revised in order to make it easier to land on platforms.
Added camera lag to smoothen out camera movement (Will be added to options menu so it can be toggled on/off at a later time).
Animal NPC's will now be able to collect fruits, etc. They won't actively go after items but when they do, they collect it for the player.
Thanks for playing, more updates soon!
Steam Next Fest Demo Update
Dear Community
Thank you all for participating in the Steam Next Fest 2022. Whiskered Away has been a project I've been working on for a while now, quietly and slowly but ever since the Next Fest was announced I stepped up my pace in order to reach a level of polish that can be expected of the finished version.
So I went and did just that. I managed to add a bunch of small little details right before the event started and I'm really proud of the current version of the game. As mentioned in the description, Whiskered Away is meant to be a fun little platformer that doesn't require insane skills.
My two main inspirations for the game are "Pikuniku" and "A short hike". Chill and relaxing games with and emphasis on chatting with lively characters and just having a bit of a goofy time. It's exactly the kinds of games I enjoy myself and that's the idea behind Whiskered Away. This way young and old can have fun exploring and just having fun.
Steam Next Fest Demo Update
So, I've received some updates from people in my Discord and now here on Steam. Everyone I talked to seem to have fun with the game but they all had one ask, which was to be able to skip chats, or speed them up, etc. I've been chipping away at the entire system and here's all the improvements I made to it:
You can now speed up the chat speed. Yes, inside the options menu you can decrease the time it takes for individual letters to be written. The default chat speed is set at .05 MS (milliseconds) but you can lower it all the way to .01 MS. This speeds up all the scenes immensely.
You can tweak the chat delay. I implemented the chat-delay in order to prevent people from starting the next part in a conversation too early. This is mostly helpful for younger players but not for everyone. Defaulting at 0.5 MS, chat delays can be increased or decreased as well. Again, lower numbers means faster respond times. You can set it to 0.1 MS to be able to go through chats like a mad person.
You can now skip through chats more easily. This means that if you keep pressing the chat button, it will remove remove the time it takes to write individual letters.
Live Stream
Before the end of the event I will be attempting to do a live stream at least once. I'm really not a streamer type but I would like to try to connect with the community a bit more, so let's see how it goes. I'll post another announcement before then!
The Future?
I will be looking into an option to skip entire conversations but am not entirely confident that I'm able to do that with the system as it is, and it's too much work to redo the entire thing either. I do believe that as it stands, it'll be good enough to speed through conversations for those who wish to do so.
As for the rest of the game, I'm still working hard on all the new levels, new animals and other creature you'll be meeting, adding some more abilities and just creating more fun little moments with a nice ending to wrap it all up.
I'm also experimenting with some new gameplay mechanics. Nothing crazy just stuff to add more variety and keep the experience interesting and fresh! I've got a good feeling about it and from what I've heard from you guys, I feel the game will be a fun experience, exactly what I set out to accomplish.
Support
For those of you who've asked for ways to support the game, you can do so by just being part of the community. Join the Discord Server and chat with me and the others in there or just leave feedback. It's always incredibly helpful when people tell me what they liked and disliked, perhaps even indirectly.
On top of that, people can support the game's development directly through MY PATREON.
Any support in any way is greatly appreciated. Just being supportive is already the biggest win in my book! So please, feel free to interact and share your thoughts.
Play With Gilbert
Whiskered Away is part of the Gilbert games. Play With Gilbert is a game made for young children and Whiskered Away grew out of that. If you're interested you can check that game out over here:
Again, thank you for all the support and all the feedback. It's been helpful to say the least and please, let me know if there's anything else you think the game could improve with. I can't wait to share what I'm working on, so until the next update;
