➤ I created some cool Will You Snail themed Steam profile pictures for you. Check them out in profile / edit profile / avatar.
➤ Reworked save / load system for better stability and redundancy. The already super rare save file wipes should be even rarer if not impossible now. Also remember that if you accidentally delete your save file in the save file selection, it's never truly deleted. You can always recover it from the save file directory on your PC.
➤ Reworked the look of conveyor belts to make it easier to see which direction they're currently moving in.
➤ Updated text translations. Various small improvements and additions for many languages.
➤ Images in the secret presentation room are automatically scaled to the correct size so you don't need to resize them manually anymore.
➤ If there happens to be a loading delay for any of the voice lines, the subtitle should no longer show up way too early.
➤ Removed two soft-locks where players could get stuck. One in the disco boss fight and one in a basketball level where the player could end up in a hole to high to jump out of.
For Modding:
➤ I added a new branch that was not complied using YYC. You can reach it by right clicking on the game in your library / properties / betas / select "sandbox" branch. This version should be easier to decompile and modify. This branch might also help with stability in some cases if you're one of the few people struggling with game crashes. Curious to see what you create! :)
➤ I made a tutorial on how to recreate Squid's voice effect for those of you who are interested in making an audio language mod. :)
➤ Remember to check out the existing modding guides here.
Up next:
For the next patches I plan to tackle more of your feedback to keep improving the experience, so keep it coming! Once the game is in a state we're all happy with, we can start thinking about adding more content. Join us on Discord to stay up to date with the development and to participate in some fun community events! :)
Thanks so much for all the support! Snail on! Jonas
Will You Snail? Is NOW Available!
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THE TIME IS HERE FRIENDS! “Will You Snail?” is officially available for purchase, and Squid the AI is ready for world domination! I guess it is up to you to make sure Squid does not get far, so ahh…Goodluck?
The game will be on sale for 15% off for its first week on Steam, so be sure to pick it up now before you lose that rad discount.
I wanted to thank everyone in the community once again for all of the love and support you have given to this project. Everything from translators, playtestors, speedrunners, and everyone a part of this snail family in general makes this game what it is today, and it would not be here without you. So once again, THANK YOU! 💜
And you know, with the game officially out now, if you are not already a part of our official “Will You Snail?” Discord Server, then you for sure should be! Remember those community folks I just mentioned above? Well they are super amazing and can be found in the Discord, so you know…snail on over already!
Until next time folks, stay safe and have fun gaming!
Cheers,
Jonas
Will You Snail? Releases On March 9, 2022!
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I can hardly believe I am saying this but…”Will You Snail?” is FINALLY releasing in less than 1 week on March 9th, 2022! It is honestly so surreal that we have come to the end of this road, but man oh man this doesn't mean our journey with “Will You Snail?” ends here.
With the release, I thought y’all would maybe want to rock some swag and play in style, so we now have an OFFICIAL “Will You Snail?” T-Shirt and Hoodie up for grabs! You can snag your very own today from our merch store: https://jonas-tyroller.creator-spring.com/
I wanted to take a quick minute to stop and acknowledge the hard work that all of my awesome community members have put into making this game come to life. If it was not for all of the playtesters and translators, “Will You Snail?” would not have been as accessible to as many folks as it is. And you know…hint hint, nudge nudge, we still have lots more to translate in the near future, so do feel free to stop by our Discord and sign up if you are interested in helping out!
Remember how I mentioned our journey for “Will You Snail?” doesn’t just end with the launch? Well, I am sure you are all very happy to hear that you will be able to continue seeing my beautiful face regularly on my YouTube channel with some FRESH content. If you are desperate and really need to see more of my face, don’t forget that I still post regular videos of me reviewing “Will You Snail?” Memes from our Reddit page and Discord server. So be sure to hit those up too and have a laugh!
For the game itself, will there be more content after launch? That remains to be seen. Let’s see how the initial launch goes first I guess. Haha. :D
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With that all said and done, I think that is more than enough banter from my end for now…BUT, you should 100% come bug me and share the hype with my community in our official “Will You Snail?” Discord Server! There are a lot of rad people there and we are always having a grand ol’ time. Maybe for just a little bit more incentive, we do have some pretty rad community events planned and possibly some giveaways in the upcoming future…
Until next time folks, stay safe and have fun gaming! Hope to see y’all on release day in our Discord!
Cheers,
Tanya Will You Snail? Community Team
Preparing My Game For Release...
🐌 It's Happening!🐌
The clock is ticking and the time left until Will You Snail? is released grows smaller. [previewyoutube="Ry5egJ8BBOY;full"] You thought this game would never come out. Surprise, it's actually happening! (I'm kinda surprised as well. Lol.)
So, What's The Current Status?
Things are snailing along and nearly done! Lots of exciting stuff happening, including some mysterious announcements coming up in the near future...but you know, spoilers.
But in all seriousness, it's time to get this game out there! As much as I would like this game to be perfect, it's not. It has been many years in development and though it may not be the longest play-through in the world, and still possibly have some small bugs and such, I am super proud of how far the game has come and excited for all of you to try it!
It's not just the game to be excited about though! We've had some exciting developments in the community and there are still so many more to come. We now have a new Community Management Team onboard and are hanging out in the Discord, going to start some fun new stuff in the near future!
Speaking of fun things, I'll make another reaction video from the things I find in our Community Discord and the Snail Subreddit soon, so now would be the time to jump on in if you have not already!
But I wont keep you here any longer, I mean as you saw if you watched the YouTube video...Dev life is SUPER busy and SUPER exciting...So lots to get back to..ha..ha..
Thank you again to each and everyone of you for the love and support you constantly show to both me, and the general Dev Community. I am so happy to have such an amazing community behind me and this game!
Till Next Time,
Snail
Also...don't forget to join the Discord and make some fan art of snails or something...
Oh...and maybe follow the Twitter too, just in case you know🐌 : @JonasTyroller
It's been over 9 months since the last update so there is a LOT to catch up on. Please let me know what you think about the new changes and have fun watching the video! :)
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What's New?
Here is a quick summary of the video above:
I added a bunch of new dialog snippets to the game that you have to find and try to make sense of. Now you can finally learn a lot more about Squid and the Will You Snail universe (if you want to).
Squid has facial animations now.
There is a new more chill game mode you can play for killing some time or relaxing a little.
A bunch of new tracks were added to the soundtrack.
The colors of the game were reworked (AGAIN). There are multiple color schemes you can choose from in the menu now.
I made a ton of other little changes like adding save slots, polishing, but fixing, hiding some more secrets, and... and... and...
Translating a game with so much text is a massive pain for a small indie developer like me. Due to my lack of experience I made some pretty silly legal mistakes that caused both me as well as a lot of translators to lose a ton of progress. Pretty stupid and upsetting. Let's hope I learned my lesson.
I'm super nervous about launching the game cause my time and resource investments are just getting way out of control at this point. Making the game will cost me at least $20,000 and I already invested over 3 years into the development. To be completely honest, it's absolutely scary to think about. Yikes.
The release date got moved to Q1 2022. That should give me more time to fix the remaining bugs and do some proper marketing. What are a few months after 3 years anyways... and what are a few more months after that anyways... and what are a few more months after that anyways... and what are a few more months after that anyways... and what are a few more months after that anyways... For real, though, whatever state the game might be in early next year, you'll all get to play it! It's set into stone.
Join The Community
A few other places where you can get more involved and follow the development of the game:
Discord
There is already a fairly active and growing Will You Snail community on Discord. This is where we handle playtesting and community translations. A good place to hang out, ask questions and chat about the game. Join here: https://discord.gg/G3mRDrK
YouTube
I have a YouTube channel where I document the entire development process. The channel is also home to a bunch of other crazy game dev content (like generating infinite bathrooms) as well as a few tutorials. It's the best place to get a look behind the curtain and into my mind. Subscribe here: https://www.youtube.com/jonastyroller
Twitter
Here is where you'll likely find the most frequent updates. I use Twitter to get feedback, ask for your opinions, have a conversation and share my progress. It's the best place to get live updates on what's happening at all times. Follow here: https://twitter.com/JonasTyroller
Reddit
This one is not super active yet but I hope we can change that as we're getting closer and closer to launch. I love seeing your fan art and snaily memes. Looking forward to making more of those Reddit reaction videos for the YouTube channel. :P Join here: https://www.reddit.com/r/WillYouSnail/
This is a recent video of me checking out your snaily memes: [previewyoutube="qZWFqvG76MA;full"]
THANKS FOR YOUR SUPPORT
I want to thank you all very much for your support so far. It's absolutely insane how much you've already contributed to this game with your suggestions, testing, translations, motivation and mental support. This wouldn't be possible without you!! <3
Development Update
Hello there, I thought I'd give you a quick update on what I've been working on for the game! :)
Story Content
A lot of you wanted to learn more about the evil AI Squid and his past. I'm on that now, adding a bunch of story and secrets content (which makes these dev updates a little tricky, because I probably shouldn't spoil all of that before the game even comes out).
Working on story content is a super strange experience for me, as I've never done that for any of my games before. Not super sure how it's going as I haven't handed any of the new content over to the playtesters yet. Very nervous about that but I guess I'll have to do that soon.
So far I only know one thing: The story is pretty crazy and chaotic. Not sure if in a good way or in a bad way, but it's definitely something only I could have come up with... ehhhh.... :P
I decided to tell most of the story through simple text files you can read if you want to, but they are optional. The most important bits are told directly in game through Squid's voice lines and short story levels. You only find information in pieces so it's up to you to puzzle it together and figure out what's going on (if you care to find out).
I can already tell, that I definitely made some mistakes in the story department of the game, but that's material for a future development update after the release of the game when we know how everything played out. Remember, it's an indie game and we gotta finish this up this year so I'm taking some strategic compromises. For the most part, I think you will like it. :D
Almost Done
The good news is that the game is pretty much content complete now. That means: Most of the levels I want in the game are done, almost all of the 1150 voice lines are recorded and implemented, most things are working as they're supposed to. Even the polish of the game is at a point where I'm already fairly happy with it. It's pretty much done.
So what's left to do and when will the game come out? Weeeeell... I don't feel quite ready to announce a release date yet. I have an unannounced release date somewhere in October, but it's unannounced for a reason!! :D
Even when a game is basically done, often times it's actually not. We still gotta go through tons of bug fixing, implement some improvement suggestions from playtesters (especially testing the on-boarding experience some more to make sure new players will have a good time with the game), finish translating the texts to more languages and perhaps even translating the voice lines... if I manage to find an affordable way to do that for that many voice lines... yikes... and, and, and...
I also still want to reserve a reasonable amount of time just to focus on marketing before launch. As a solo dev every single thing you want to do takes up way more time than it's supposed to, so I'd expect the release in Q4 of 2021, but you know the drill... nothing is set into stone yet. All in all, I'd say the game is coming along very nicely, though, and I can't wait for you to finally try it.
Hey, if you haven't wishlisted Will You Snail yet, I'd really appreciate if you'd log into your Steam account real quick and hit that wishlist button for me. That way you'll get notified when the game comes out so you don't miss the launch. Great free way to support my work and should only take about 20 seconds. :)
Join The Community
A few other places where you can get more involved and follow the development of the game:
Discord
There is already a fairly active and growing Will You Snail community on Discord. This is where we handle playtesting and community translations. A good place to hang out, ask questions and chat about the game. Join here: https://discord.gg/G3mRDrK
YouTube
I have a YouTube channel where I document the entire development process. The channel is also home to a bunch of other crazy game dev content (like generating infinite bathrooms) as well as a few tutorials. It's the best place to get a look behind the curtain and into my mind. Subscribe here: https://www.youtube.com/jonastyroller
Twitter
Here is where you'll likely find the most frequent updates. I use Twitter to get feedback, ask for your opinions, have a conversation and share my progress. It's the best place to get live updates on what's happening at all times. Follow here: https://twitter.com/JonasTyroller
Reddit
This one is not super active yet but I hope we can change that as we're getting closer and closer to launch. I'd love to see your fan art and snaily memes. Looking forward to making more of those Reddit reaction videos for the YouTube channel. :P Join here: https://www.reddit.com/r/WillYouSnail/
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THANKS FOR YOUR SUPPORT
I want to thank you all very much for your support so far. It's absolutely insane how much you've already contributed to this game with your suggestions, testing, translations, motivation and mental support. This wouldn't be possible without you!! <3
Join The Community | Winter Demo
Join The Community
The development is making steady progress. I appreciate all of the excitement you're already showing for the game, so I wanted to let you know about the best ways to stay posted on how things are going:
Discord
There is already a fairly active and growing Will You Snail community on Discord. This is where we handle playtesting and community translations. A good place to hang out, ask questions and chat about the game. Join here: https://discord.gg/G3mRDrK
YouTube
I have a YouTube channel where I document the entire development process. The channel is also home to a bunch of other crazy game dev content (like generating an infinite bathroom) as well as a few tutorials. It's by far the best place to get a look behind the curtain and into my mind. Subscribe here: https://www.youtube.com/jonastyroller
Twitter
Here is where you'll likely find the most frequent updates. I use Twitter to get feedback, ask for your opinions, have a conversation and share my progress. It's the best place to get live updates on what's happening at all times. Follow here: https://twitter.com/JonasTyroller
Reddit
This one is not super active yet but I hope we can change that as we're getting closer and closer to launch. I'd love to see your fan art and snaily memes. Looking forward to making one of those Reddit reaction videos for the YouTube channel. This might be your chance to be among the first to be shown. :P Join here: https://www.reddit.com/r/WillYouSnail/
Play The Winter Demo
A lot of people don't seem to know that I published a free demo on itch about two years ago. The graphics are slightly outdated but the gameplay is roughly the same as it'll be in the full release.
The demo (or should I say mini game) is about 15 minutes long and has a beautiful winter theming. You hear that, northern-hemisphere-gang? Perfect time to give it a shot if you haven't played it already! :)
Thanks for all of your epic support and encouragement. I'm working hard and am very excited to share more with you soon.
