Major update: Soundtracks, In-game Voice Chat and more
Thank you for your support of Whispers in the West. Since we released the demo during Steam Next Fest, more than 1500 players have tried it, and 1200 players have wishlisted the game on Steam so far.
We’re delighted by the positive feedback we received from many of you, and we’ve not sat back since the launch of the demo. After nearly two months of hard work, we’re delighted to introduce a few exciting new features:
Soundtracks This is music to our ears!! We’ve now included two beautifully composed tracks “Confronting the Man in Black” and “We Don’t Need Railroads” from Harvey Carmen(@composercarman ) in the game. Besides being a talented musician, Harvey has also been a long-time patron of Whispers in the West.
In-game Voice Chat We’ve made it easier for you to communicate with your friends by incorporating voice chat in the game. Of course, you can still use your favourite voice chat software like Discord if you prefer.
Improved Message Pinning feature Now you can pin messages directly in the dialogues, and pinned messages will be broadcast to your party, making it easier to take notes and community with your teammates.
Enhanced Case Report UI We have reworked the Case Report UI.
Game Flow Highlighting We have made it simpler and easier to follow the flow of the game.
Unity Analytics To help us identify and analyse any technical issues, we introduced Unity Analytics. This means we can fix bugs more quickly, leaving you and your team to solve the case with no interruptions. You can opt in/out of this feature in the game.
We’d like to present you with the best game experience possible, and we need your support! In case you missed it, we’re running a Kickstarter campaign to raise funds for three new mystery scripts. We’ve also hand-picked some unique merchandise for our early supporters.
Make sure you check it out here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/whispersinthewest/whispers-in-the-west
🤠 We are live on Kickstarter
Hello,
Thank you for supporting Whispers in the West so far. We’ve now launched a Kickstarter campaign to raise funds to continue the development and create some new stories.
Why a Kickstarter campaign?
We released a demo of the game on Steam in June. On the back of the positive comments we received from our players, we’re raising funds to create three new co-op mystery stories. If you’ve tried the demo, these new scripts will be in a similar format as the ghost story. Each of these stories will be an hour-long mystery, for up to four players to solve together.
Pledges start from as little as £20 (early bird discounts available until 4 Aug) and, as long as the campaign is a success, you’ll get a bundle of all three new game scripts (equivalent to three mystery parties for up to four players). We aim to deliver the stories by Q1 2023.
⬇️ Hear what the developers say about the campaign ⬇️
We’ve also hand-picked some unique merchandise for our early supporters:
A set of five Wild West postcards, featuring art taken from various locations in the game:
With a little thank you message on the back:
Exclusive 500-piece jigsaw:
Super limited-edition silver Sheriff Badge, made from 925 sterling silver:
Grab the early bird discounts before they run out!
❤️ Support us on Kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/whispersinthewest/whispers-in-the-west
Kickstarter Launching Soon
Thank you for adding Whispers in the West to your wishlist on Steam. We hope you’ve tried the demo by now - if not, now’s the time to call your friends, saddle up and start the investigation - it’s a lot of fun! The demo contains a tutorial (which is a mystery in itself) and a full, hour-long mystery for up to 4 players.
If you have tried the demo (thank you, you’ve made us smile!), we hope you enjoyed the stories. We’re going to be raising funds through Kickstarter, so we can offer you and your friends more mysteries to solve.
👉 Kickstarter page: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/whispersinthewest/whispers-in-the-west Launching on Thursday 28th of July at 5 pm BST
Why are we launching a Kickstarter campaign?
We’ve been engaging with our players since day one of development, it’s an absolute delight to see you enjoying the game. We’re very grateful to see so many of you supporting us along the way.
As a team, we’re big fans of offline murder mystery games, as well as multiplayer games - we love games that can be shared with friends. So we decided to create our own online co-op mystery game, and we started the Whispers in the West project a year ago. The game has received very positive feedback from players so far - over 80% of anonymous responders say they enjoyed and would recommend the game.
Over the past year, we’ve been hard at work, and we were delighted to gain some start-up funding and recognition through the London Games Festival and UK Games Fund. But now, we need your support so we can continue the development of Whispers in the West.
What will you get by supporting us?
With this Kickstarter campaign, we’re raising funds to create three new game scripts. If you’ve tried the demo, these new scripts will be in a similar format as the ghost story. Each of these stories will be an hour-long mystery, for up to 4 players to solve together.
Pledges start from as little as £20 and, as long as the campaign is a success, you’ll get a bundle of all three new game scripts (equivalent to three mystery parties for up to 4 players). We aim to deliver the stories by Q1 2023.
We’ve also hand-picked some unique merchandise for our early supporters. Make sure you check out the backer rewards section for a fun surprise once the campaign is launched.
Still got questions?
If you have any questions, suggestions or feedback, please connect with us via Discord, Twitter or Steam Community Hub. We’d love to hear from you!
We would like to thank everyone who has tried the demo for Whispers In The West for their support.
We have published a patch for the demo to address some issues we discovered during the Steam Next Fest. You can find the patch notes below.
UI Fixed player icons covering the main street name on the map. Links for the discord, website and twitter on the main menu are now clickable.
Cinematic Adjusted scaling on certain aspects of the outro cinematic for the ghost script.
Networking Added an error popup when you are disconnected from the Photon Network. When you are disconnected from the Photon Network, you will be automatically returned to the main menu where the game will try to reconnect automatically.
Fixes Portrait no longer disappears in the ghost script. Various UI positioning fixes. As a result of fixing disconnections from the photon network, players should no longer run into an issue where their character vanishes and becomes zoomed in.
Solve the mystery with friends
Investigate with k8 (@k8thesoot ) and friends https://buff.ly/3QtSbkt (Twitch) Sunday 5 pm AEST (Australia) Sunday 12 am Pacific Time (US)
Investigate with Cressup (@cressup ) and friends https://buff.ly/3O7zmCb (Steam) Sunday 1 pm BST (UK) Sunday 10 pm AEST (Australia)
Investigate with Leadin (@LeadinLP ) and friends https://buff.ly/3Qu7U2X (Twitch) Sunday 10 am EST (Canada) Sunday 3 pm BST (UK) Monday 12 am AEST (Australia)
Investigate with Kat and Friends is cancelled
Investigate with Kat and Friends at 4 pm Pacific time is cancelled for unexpected reasons - Kat's, unfortunately, experiencing internet issues in her area.
But we have three streams coming up tomorrow: @k8thesoot - Australia Sunday 5 pm AES - https://buff.ly/3QtSbkt (Twitch) @cressup - UK Sunday 1 pm BST: https://buff.ly/3O7zmCb (Steam) Dev Q&A - UK Sunday 2 pm BST: https://buff.ly/3O7zmCb (Steam) @LeadinLP - Canada Sunday 10 am EST: https://buff.ly/3Qu7U2X (Twitch)
Dev Q&A and Playthrough with Cressup and Friends
Watch as journalist and host of Adventure Game Podcast Cressup and her friends delve into the co-op mystery game “Whispers In The West” Just what sort of mysteries will be uncovered? After there will be a Dev Q&A stream with team Dissonant’s key members
Laura Cress(@Cressup) is a British journalist and the host of Adventure Game Podcast. Follow her here: https://twitter.com/Cressup
Investigate with Kat and Friends
Come watch as Kat_ri_elle and her friend investigate the various mysteries set in the wild west town of Brimstone, what secrets and mysteries will be uncovered? Be sure to tune in!
Katrielle is a Twitch variety streamer: https://www.twitch.tv/kat_ri_elle
Live now! Flex and Herds solving the mystery
Live now! Murder mystery critic Flex and Herds (@FlexAndHerds), also the host of Death of the Reader podcast has gone live. Will this mystery be too easy for them?
