🏖️ 2024 Summer Update #02: Early demo steam keys are ready, and some feedback addressed...🏖️
about 2 months ago – Mon, Jul 22, 2024 at 08:06:43 AM

My Fellow Ravens!

Thank you so much for your patience! We've worked out some of the kinks of the early demo, and the rest of the steam keys have been sent! You should be able to access them via Backerkit.

Feedback Time...

We've gotten quite a lot of valuable feedback over the past few weeks - allow me to address some of them here rapid-fire-style as usual:

Feedback #01:
"The UI makes it look a little too much like a certain DnD-inspired title right now - will you be changing it?"

A: Yes! As mentioned in the previous update, we believe that the UI will be overhauled a couple of times throughout development (depending on the feedback we get from all of you). 

Our focus up to this point had been bringing up our core systems + the initial pass of our our story (which will also be evolving - more on that later) after our major experimentation period; Now that we're (largely) over that hurdle, it's time to re-inject our own flavor into the mix!

We've been assessing and messing around with a couple of visual styles over the past few weeks, and I think we may found something (relatively) unique that more closely aligns with the spiritual elements of our title - this brings us further away from the more commonly-used dice elements that you may have seen in other titles, but I think it gives it us a little more flair! 

*Inventory management and the UX of clicking through dialogue will also be improving...

Looking forward to showing it to all of you in subsequent builds! And on a related note...

Feedback #02:
"The combat feels a little too close to DnD right now, and is a little stiff and dissatisfying."

A: That's fair! We've been discussing this internally, and have decided to overhaul the combat skills, progression and overworld abilities to more closely align with the world and themes we imagined.

We want to be clear: we like the foundation of this system and the variety and variability that it brings (things like having two different types of actions, skills being tied to specific forms of equipment, class-specific skills, etc.)... 

But in terms of presentation, types of abilities, and how those abilities can better synergize - we're in favor of changing all of that for the better! We've already conducted some tests, and have settled on an exciting direction to head in. 

I can't promise that every skill / ability will be completely unique and something you've never seen before (we do wear our inspirations on our sleeves at times😅), but! I can say that our new approach will integrate our skills much more closely into our world design and lore. As always, it'll be a work-in-progress, and we look forward to more of your feedback on that 🙇🏻

Oh also: We'll be making attacks a lot flashier😉

Feedback #03:
"The story feels a little too fast right now, decisions (and their consequences) also don't feel clear enough...and where are all of the companion conversations?!"

A: No worries on that! This is still a first (public) pass of the overall story! We were interested in seeing what all of you thought of the direction in general...

We had initially planned to add in some smaller bits of content in this early build, but after discussing internally, we felt it was better to change up parts of the story that allowed for better understanding while still keeping it compelling. 

Duly noted on some dialogue choices not being clear enough! We're looking through ways to maintain clarity and keeping that riveting "what's going to happen next?!" factor. Though we would also like to humbly note this with regards to the story:

You will not be able to save everyone.

Art imitates life (as life similarly imitates art) - our intentions with this story are to simply encourage making decisions, and seeing what happens. 

When faced with equally good (or bad) decisions in a situation with less than ideal circumstances and information - what will you do? That has served as the basis for the stories we hope to tell here.

We're trying our best to make sure that each and every result you get is satisfying and entertaining, so please don't feel like you need to save-scum to "get the right content"!  

Technical Bug-fixes log

We've also managed to fix a few bugs since the early tests, of note:

• Fixed an issue where a YOUR_LOGS folder was being created on the desktop.
• Fixed an issue with characters occupying the same cell in combat.
• Fixed an issue where if you opened a specific door in the House of Song, it should remain unlocked.
• Fixed an issue where a specific interaction mentions you as "Jin" regardless of the name you chose.
• Fixed an issue with a stray interactable object in the Night Market.
• Fixed an issue where dialogue was not playing correctly in a certain section of the "Blood of the Covenant" quest.
• Fixed an issue where Ishii's was able to be "looted" without any consequences.
• Fixed the scroll count in Moonlit Hall.
• Fixed an issue where the "Level Up" button was unresponsive.
• Fixed an issue where right-clicking on items didn't bring up the inventory submenu.
• Added missing shortcuts on the hotbar.
• Fixed an issue where the player characters stacked on each other when using abilities in the field.
• Fixed the Soft-locking issue after a player drops an item.
• Fixed an issue where Soul Portrait effects were missing after loading a save file.
• Fixed an issue where the Item icon sticks onto cursor after double clicking on an item.
• Loot menu should work now when the "Space" key is clicked on.
• Fixed glitching on the movement path preview.

What's next?

We're looking forward to hearing the rest of your feedback for this early build -- please use this link to our google forms, or feel free to share it with us on our Discord server!   

In the meantime, we'll continue expanding and refining The White Raven -- the next build will be our "official" pre-alpha demo! 

Till next time my ravens,
August from GatherRound

🏖️Summer Update: The early demo steam keys have been sent! 🏖️
3 months ago – Thu, Jul 04, 2024 at 03:23:11 AM

My Fellow Ravens!

The steam keys for our early tests have been sent! 
Please note that these are for an initial version of the early demo, so there will still be some bugs present. In fact, let's go over some of the caveats.

Caveat One: This is NOT a pre-alpha demo

We really consider this more of a pre-pre-alpha demo (which we're calling our MVP build) -- the foundation upon which we'll be expanding a whole host of mechanics and content. We view development very much like an onion: adding more and more layers on top of a core experience. 

What you'll be experiencing in this (pre)pre-alpha build is only 50% of the first area of the prologue. We're looking to add much more content and variability in how you interact with the stories found within the prologue area.

We'll be releasing an official (and open) pre-alpha demo in the coming months.

Caveat Two: This is not the final form of Combat

Keeping in line with Caveat one, we're looking to add even more aspects to combat - these include, but are not limited to:

• Reactions 
• Environmental / Combatant Interactions (e.g. slashing or shooting a lantern should cause a fire, Causing a gaping wound onto a target should cause them to bleed - that blood would then appear on the battlefield, etc.)
• Encounters that cause changes within the battlefield
• and more...

We'll be looking to add these slowly as we continue to refine the implementation of them throughout development, and will also be present within later stages of testing!

Caveat Three: Some in-game assets are also not at their final forms

Due to the sheer amount of unique animations for several different characters, some animations have "shortened" versions tied to them at the moment (for those who've played the demo already, weapon-actions and combat-artes are among some of them). 

The good news is: we (very obviously) plan to expand them out to fully fledged unique animations as well! We also recently made a breakthrough on how to more efficiently handle unique weapon sprites, so expect more changes like that to come in subsequent testing phases (we plan to do them every few months or so).

Also quick note to those to who are thinking of streaming this: I would strongly encourage you to hold off for now, as some music tracks are placeholder licensed music as our composer continues their incredible work in building out the track list for The White Raven. You should be good to stream our official pre-alpha build in the coming months though!  

For all our other backers...

We'll be ironing out some bugs and adding additional content before launching it for the rest of you! ETA for that is a couple of weeks at the moment -- I'll jump on again here once we're ready.

Now, with all those caveats out of the way...

Till next time my ravens,

August from GatherRound

🌱Developer Diary - Spring 2024 - Rewrites, MVPs, and...*gasp* an early build?!🌱
4 months ago – Mon, May 27, 2024 at 10:36:04 AM

My Fellow Ravens!

As some of you may have heard on Discord, we've been insanely busy prepping for a (really) early showcase of The White Raven for all of you awesome backers! Before that, let me catch you up on what we've been up to since the previous update.

First theme: Rewrites

Boy have there been (and will continue to be) some major rewrites in the development of the quests in this early area -- the average for each quest (in terms of words rewritten) is in the low 6-digits! 

Now words do not a good story maketh (manners do, of course), but we're not afraid of doing complete rewrites of storylines if we do not find them...as they call it in showbiz: entertaining.

  Please let us know about the quality of our stories by the way!

We'll continue to improve the story (both main and side quests) as development goes on, so radical changes may / will likely happen writing-wise; please bear with us!

Second theme: Expansion + polishing of mechanics 

One of the key things we've found during our time working on this early build was that: it was (relatively) easy to get 80% of the way there in terms of implementing new features, but that final 20%...that's where the magic is.

We've been spending a big chunk of our time tweaking mechanics, and trying our best to make sure things, well...don't break (An expansive RPG with several different branching decisions? A complex endeavor?! Who would've thought?!)

Still! It's incredibly early on in our development phase, and thus I ask for your patience on the experience not being the most polished at the moment. We'll continue fixing and squashing as many bugs as we can find!

Now, with all that out of the way...

Let's start talking about the early build we've assembled! 

While not all-encompassing, we think that this should serve well (adequately?) as a simplified version of The White Raven experience we'd like to develop.  

But ahhhhh there are so many features that we've either decided to approach later or (though we have early working prototypes) have made the decision to further refine them before including them in this MVP (minimum-viable-product). These include:

• Expanded camping and cooking features
• "Nergui"-like interactions & puzzles
• Duels / Challenges
• Pickpocketing
• More opportunities for interactions with your allies
• UI improvements
• a WHOLE LOT MORE...

Still, we're looking forward to all of your thoughts and feedback! We'll factor this into how we decide to approach designing both currently implemented mechanics and those still in our backlog. We'll also be doing more closed tests moving forward too!

So...what's next?   

We'll be looking to release a slightly earlier build to the wonderful backers who have signed up to help us test the early build (you can find the link here in our previous update) in phases beginning in a couple of weeks -- I'll jump on to provide a quick update when we're ready. (please note: this version will likely be much more "raw" and buggy in terms of an experience; we'll be relying on many of you to help us spot those bugs so we can squish them promptly!)

We'll then take some time to process some of your feedback, and try to incorporate some improvements to the best of our ability (during this current phase of development). After a few weeks, we'll be releasing this early build for the rest of our backers!

During this period of time, we'll also be engaging with a couple of investors in order to gain more funding for development -- I'll be sure to send an update on how that goes as well.

Please take note

This early MVP is not indicative of what we believe to be the full, final experience of The White Raven - we have so much more that we'd like to add, so much more we'd like to polish, so if you would like to experience the fully-fledged "1.0" version of it, please hold off for now! We'll continue updating the community on our endeavors and process, and if everything goes according to plan (fingers crossed), we'll be sharing much more about the title publicly in the coming weeks and months!

It's been a tiring, rewarding, at-times-equal-parts agonizing and fulfilling ride up to this point (and we're not even there yet), but we're humbled, blessed, and excited to continue this journey along with all of you. As usual, we'll keep at it.

Till next time my Ravens,

August from GatherRound Studios  

❄️Developer Diary - Winter 2024 - Old prototypes and progress made...❄️
7 months ago – Tue, Feb 06, 2024 at 07:54:44 AM

My Fellow Ravens!

On a previous update, I spoke a little about our early prototype demonstrating some of the elements we've been experimenting with. 

Today, I'd like to share a little more about some aspects of that, as well as some of the improvements (and overhauls in some instances) we've made thanks to some early feedback we've received.

I'll also be showing some early gifs and screenshots of what we've been creating, though please keep in mind that most of it is still extremely early and will (most definitely!) improve as we move forward in the dev cycle.

Now with all that said, let's begin!

Let's first start with the feedback...

As I mentioned in our Autumn 2023 update, we've managed to get some feedback from friends, family, and even some potential investors on our early build. From there, some quick (but relatively consistent) points emerged from that:

Takeaway 01: 

"The interactions and combat show promise, but it feels a little too...simple."

We have noticed that people found combat and narrative choices a little too...same-y (for the lack of a better word). We were initially a little puzzled by this - perhaps it was because you knew exactly how much damage you could inflict by looking through your stats? Was that too straightforward? Weren't they tried-and-true formulas of JRPGs? And what about the interactions? They felt..."okay", but weren't necessarily ground-breaking.

Takeaway 02: 

"It feels like we could be doing so much more in this world."

The original idea of (again, drawing from the old JRPGs formula) having characters traverse from point A - point B and experiencing stories, fighting enemies, while good (and certainly has worked for a very long time), felt a little...lacking in what we were trying to achieve. When faced with a world that fascinated them, the feedback we received was that "Hey! Give me more things to discover and interact with!" 

Those were the primary sources of our frustrations in the previous update - how should we approach this? What's the best way to move forward in this situation?

After going back to the drawing board with several smaller tweaks, we decided that a (slightly) more radical change was necessary...and thus we chose to take a chance (and potentially a page as well) out of the DnD formula.

Origin Stories have evolved

Initially, we had the idea of having "Origin Stories" define some early portion of your in-game persona, but we wanted to keep some other surprises hidden until...(insert climactic moment here), and thus, we kept the initial selection of those origin stories relatively obscure - all you would really have to go on would be a title, and a short description...

The initial feedback we received was...lukewarm. 

Players liked the idea of these Origin Stories playing some unknown role in the future, but they weren't quite sure what they provided in the moment within the early portion they played. So we went back to the drawing board, trying to reimagine what sort of role these origin stories could play, not only in the (semi) distant future, but also right now...

Finally, after days and nights of bleeding (theoretically[?]) in front of our screens trying to come up with something, an epiphany struck us.

Soul Portraits

Origin Stories have now evolved into Soul Portraits!

This fit our overarching thematic question of "What is the portrait of your soul?" wayyyyy more - let me expand upon it a little more.

Soul Portraits now grant you a couple of things when you select them:

• 2 Skill Proficiencies: We have "skills" now! It's a little complicated if you've never played DnD before (at least it was for me🥲), but they largely determine if you'll be able to spot something you otherwise wouldn't if you didn't have some level of proficiency, or the ability to deftly pick a lock (allowing you to have an easier time of it if you're good at it), have quick-twitch reflexes that enable you to move to a safe location in time, etc. 
  
  This enables us to present interesting scenarios that test your abilities / luck in one way or another - "will you be able to make that jump in order to strike a stealthy death-blow?" Situations like that present much more variation, and allow you to craft your own story! 
   
• A Soul Fragment: essentially "Soul-specific" dialogue choices you can make in conversation that reflect who you are, or perhaps trigger unique scenes that are otherwise inaccessible (perhaps due to you spotting something others could not, making a choice that others would not have thought possible to make, etc.)
   
• One Soul-specific trait or feat: The Soul Portrait you choose will also grant you a buff that is dependent on "who you are" - a little vague on this, but we'll be sharing more about this in later updates (after rounds of testing of course!)

4 Soul Portraits should be present within the early demo for your choosing, though we're planning on adding more soon! These should provide you with a starter kit to deal with the enhanced interactions we're implementing, and those changes are (almost) all governed by...

The Dice

Here's a little bit of how our interactions were before the new changes were implemented:

It was...alright. Not bad. Not great.
(We're overhauling this area and it's associated quests too btw) 

We decided to push for more outlandish (and sometimes chaotic) choices...that you'd have to pass a skill/ability check to successfully accomplish (inspired by little old games like Disco Elysium and Baldur's Gate 3) - but don't worry even if you fail a check! We've tried our best to make them as entertaining as we could regardless (we'll try our best to improve even more as time goes by too).

Some checks happen instantly in the overworld too - if you pass them, you might discover some secrets laying about...

This is just one part of our overall efforts to address the early feedback we've gotten up to this point - working like maniacs (sorry team) to provide an entertaining experience for all of you to enjoy! 

We may travel down the wrong path at times (and thus take a little longer to get to our end location), but it's only because we're constantly fixating on how to provide the best experience possible. Hopefully with a mindset like that, we'll get there all the same. 

Speaking of which, I hope we'll hear a lot more once all of you fine backers get your hands on the early demo! We should have a good estimate for that in the next update...

Quick Note on Combat...

Combat is something we're currently hard at work overhauling at the moment - we're also implementing dice rules into it in order to make it a little more unpredictable (in a good way), and a little more spontaneous (in a good way) - we've taken some heavy inspirations from the DnD series on this front too, so it'll function pretty close to games that are inspired by the long-running series as well (thankfully the math will be done behind the scenes, so you can concentrate on the fun!)

I'll share a little more about that in the next update! Combat will be a major undertaking, and I'm sure that we'll be tweaking / overhauling things all over based on your feedback - therefore I seek your understanding on this! And we're grateful to have all of you on this long journey we've embarked on🙇🏻

On an ending note

I'll say it each and every single time: We would've never gotten this far without all of your support. Y'all are the the fire that lights up our hearthstone. It's up to us now to try and regale you with a tale you won't be forgetting soon. We'll continue trying our best!

Nothing but love for all of you.

August from GatherRound Studios

📆 Developer Diary - Autumn 2023 - Our journey so far, and our path moving forward 📆
12 months ago – Fri, Oct 06, 2023 at 02:58:09 AM

My fellow Ravens,

I've been hearing some concerns ever since we switched to a quarterly update format - allow me to address some of that today, and assure you that production is progressing along.

First up, I think it'd be informative to start from the very beginning - we're peeling back the curtains, so you can have a look at some of the inner workings behind our process. Well now...

(*August from the future here: get ready for a long one today)

Before Kickstarter...

When we first started thinking about The White Raven, I was most concerned with coming up with an experience that promoted freedom of choice and most importantly, the ability to affect change in the stories around you.

I started thinking about the RPGs I grew up playing and loved - the Fire Emblem series that saw you commanding a whole army of characters you could end up in romance with, the Persona series that went into an even deeper layer and really made you fall in love with the compelling cast of characters (ditto for the Mass Effect / Dragon Age series as well by the way - absolutely loved them).

At the very core of it, I started pondering about a central question:

"How do we let players truly play their own Jin?"   

Having said all that, we knew we didn't have the resources to be able to pull a massive grand adventure off from the get-go (or did we? [spoiler: we do not...yet.]), and were thinking of just maybe creating a simplified, encapsulated adventure - and started showing off some quick (and, to be honest) messy, isolated pieces that we thought could work.

But...something was nagging at me. 

In the back of my mind.

"Would these systems really all gel together?"

"There's something...missing. What is it...?"

And then, Kickstarter happened. 

Joined by almost 3000(!) of you (and to this day...thank you.), we managed to raise more than I ever thought we'd be able to to make this happen, and around the end of the campaign, a thought worm (BG3 fans this is for you) started burrowing its way into my mind:

"Wait at this rate, we... might be able to do this."

"We might actually be able to build it out to our initial vision..."

With that in mind, we went off spelunking in the depths of the game-design caverns, trying anything...and everything - looking for a unifying theory that could tie in all of our old (and proven) systems that appeared in RPGs of yore while allowing players to view them in a fresh light - in essence:

"How do we combine the best qualities of western-styled RPGs (effectively CRPGs), and the best qualities of eastern-styled RPGs (effectively JRPGs)?"  

(*completely subjective of course - your mileage may vary)

Fast forward a couple months later, and we're tired. Exhausted.

We'd been endlessly searching. Endlessly failing. 

Were we wrong to have tried? should we have just been like the others - on the safe, oft-traveled path? We were in the abyss - blindly walking, with no end in sight...

...

...

then, we found it.

Our Golden Formula.

this. This. THIS, is our golden formula.

We finally found the specifics of how to tie everything (our systems, story, art) together - what to include, what to exclude (for now at least), and what is special about our title. 

It's not perfect yet. Even though we have the blueprints, how we implement it in every single quest you come across will have to be tested (by you!), refined, tested again, and polished. But, with this completed vision in-hand, we're much more confident in delivering a compelling experience - a story worth telling.

As a result of that however, we've since expended quite a bit of the initial funds we've raised via Kickstarter...

So We're Betting The Farm On This. 

Along with all of my personal funds, we've managed to raise a little bit of funds via friends & family to allow us to fully deliver on this vision. 

We already have an early working prototype of this, and have gotten some initial feedback on it from potential investors and partners - they love the potential, but would like to see a little bit more before fully committing. 

We're currently working towards this, and it'll serve as a prologue of the project itself - for the awesome people offering to help test our title out early, we have your contacts no worries, we'll be in touch soon! (as for the others, if you're interested, please check our spring update to gain access to it when it's ready!)

Back into the submarine we go~

For now at least. 

I apologize that it's taken this long for us to get here, but we believe in our hearts, our minds, our souls, that this is the correct path to take - we believe that if executed correctly, we might have something truly special on our hands. 

This was something that we never thought we could do, but with your help, your support -

We dared to dream. 

Thank you. From the bottom of my (and the rest of team's) heart, thank you.  You started this story with us. We will do everything in our power to make The White Raven a special experience. This is our vow.

We will not give up. The White Raven will live on.

If I may humbly ask - Stay with us, just a little while longer on this journey, and (dare I say), please look forward to what we have in store for all of you.

Till next time,

August from GatherRound Studios