In a surprising double-combo, at DevGAMM Lisbon, our team at Whales And Games won the award for Studio of the Year during the Spotlight Awards by Game Dev Lisbon! The very next day, Townseek won the prize for Best Game from Portugal at the DevGAMM Awards! Receiving both these awards fills us with immense honour, and we're incredibly proud to receive them as a team! To commemorate the occasion, we've drawn a special artwork to celebrate both of these awards! Whalechan, Capt. Jawline and Watt Zapp dressed in their fanciest outfits and were overjoyed to walk on stage to receive the awards!
To explain the background to these awards, earlier this month, our team attended DevGAMM Lisbon, a local conference focused on talks, networking, and its award show! Being two days long, it was a fantastic couple of days where we got to hang out with our colleagues, friends and meet even more developers from all over. It just so happens that networking with other developers is one of our favourite things to do! We also took the opportunity to attend some talks, take notes, and play some games. This year, our team was nominated for two different award shows happening during the event. The first of these was the Spotlight Awards, organised by the local collective of game developers at Game Dev Lisbon. In previous years, Townseek and our team received nominations in different categories but didn't win any awards. This time, our team earned the nomination for Studio of the Year. Alongside us as nominees, were the talented teams at Massive Galaxy Studios, Funcom ZPX and Digitality Games. Much to our surprise, Whales And Games won Studio of the Year!

Being around our local community for many years, we're really grateful for the jury for having picked us among our colleagues! Until our nomination, we hadn't stopped and reflected on the amount of work our studio did this past year. Between our trips and booths at GDC and gamescom, to the continuous events we put together, to all the work we've been doing towards bringing Townseek to its completion, we've really had a packed year! We're proud to be part of the Portuguese community and grateful for its vote of confidence for the year ahead. The second award show of the event was the DevGAMM Awards, put together by the conference's main organizer. Being an international contest, this marked the first time we participated with Townseek in an award show of its scale. We were very surprised when the international jury nominated us as one of the candidates for Best Game in Portugal. Alongside us, we shared our nomination with the excellent ARC SEED, Demon Spore, Gloomy Juncture and The Night is Gray, all of which have their own Steam page! Our bets were on some of the other games receiving the award, as all of them rightfully deserved to earn it themselves. Against all our expectations, to the point it left us shaking in shock, Townseek won Best Game from Portugal!

We're incredibly thankful to both the judges and event organisers for considering our game a worthy winner. We also really appreciate the feedback they've shared with us! Likewise, we also have to extend our thanks to Associao de Produtores de Videojogos Portugueses and Scorewarrior for delivering and making this award possible. If you'd like to review the award ceremony by itself, you can watch the video here! You can also read a recap of the event by the organizers through this post. You can spot the photos featuring us because of our Whales And Games themed hats!

Lastly, but not least, alongside the Spotlight Awards and the DevGAMM Awards, another long-running Portuguese showcase, Indie X Online, now in its sixth edition, also nominated us for Best Portuguese Game earlier this month! For that showcase, the award was won by Digitality Games for their upcoming game Floatylands. Still, we're thankful to Indie X and once again to Associao de Produtores de Videojogos Portugueses for including our game. It's been quite an eventful month! We're truly at a loss of words to express the gratitude we've felt over these past weeks. With everything that happened this year, we're privileged to have such overwhelming love and support from our friends, family, peers, colleagues, community, supporters and from such a diverse industry. These awards inspire us to push forward with our work. We aim to make the industry and the world a better place, even if just by a little.
While we have one last surprise related to the events we've attended throughout the year that we'll be posting on our social media channels fairly soon, this pretty much closes out our event season for the year. It's time for our team to prepare for the holidays. We want to take some time to focus primarily on the game and on our community. Finally, we wanted to close with a note for what's ahead, and we can confirm that Townseek will release in 2025! As we head into next year, we'll confirm a proper release date. We would rather not go through the irony of submitting our game to these award shows again next year.
We've been wrapping up pending tasks for the game and made great strides despite some challenges these last months. From improving the narrative, improving mouse controls, adding achievements, random events, and overall rounding off the game, we've been really busy! We're also addressing some of the last issues raised in previous demos. We're really thrilled with how the game has been shaping up! We'll be diving back into action and showing you more of the characters, locations, and details we have spread across Explora soon! As always, you can keep up with us by joining us on either our Discord server, through any of our social media channels, or by following us here on Steam!
Well then, it's time for us to respond to these awards in kind, seek onwards, and finish charting Townseek! Cheers! Whales And Games

We're excited to have Townseek as part of this year's line up for the Indie Arena Booth at gamescom, flying the game all the way to Kln in Germany! Starting on the 21st until the 25th of August, well be showing the game at the world's largest gaming expo. We'll be showing the game as part of the Indie Arena Booth at F010G - E019 on Hall 10.2, alongside many other stellar games. In the case that youre visiting gamescom in person, well be distributing cards and stickers featuring Capt. Jawline, Whiskey, Fluffyroll, and more familiar hosts from the game, so please stop by and grab some!
This will also be the first time all of our team at Whales And Games is together at one event! We've always been partially as a team at different events we've had the game at since the beginning of development. Yet this will be the first get-together where all three of us are present! Well be sharing photos of the trip and gamescom on our social media. And of course, we'll also share our adventures through our Discord Server! Finally, as you might have realised by now, we've drifted a bit from our original release date in Early 2024. While we're still checking on a new release date we're comfortable with, we've decided to change all of our banners and release date to reflect the game is Coming Soon again. We're still hard at work with Townseek, but some things have required more time than we're originally expecting. Continents are much more detailed than we ever thought they'd be, and we've almost doubled the game story-wise.
We know many of you have been waiting for the game for a really long time. We really can't wait for you to get to visit Explora! We'll have to ask you to wait just a bit longer, but with us being at such a big event such as gamescom, we promise more regular and exciting news in the coming future! Thank you for sticking around and for waiting! Whales And Games

Discover some of the towns you can trade with in Explora! The Steam Capitalism and Economy Fest has just kicked off on Steam and with it, we're launching our new Townseek Economy Fest Demo to go alongside it!

Fly at your own pace, trade over 200 items between five different towns, upgrade and customise your airship, discover landmarks, find random events, and much more! If you've missed the demo during Steam Next Fest last year, this is your best opportunity to get a taste of the world and the characters we've got to offer, in an almost finished and polished state now! If you're a returning player, this demo introduces many quality-of-life changes that were suggested over the previous demo, and introduces much more personality to Explora. You can now talk with town hosts to learn more about the world. Landmarks you discover might be a bit different due to random events. Your journal now tracks various stats and records of your voyages. There's new accessibility settings to help with motion sickness. And of course, we've improved the overall performance of the game by a lot, among numerous other changes!
Not only that, we expect this to be the last demo before the game releases. The demo will be available during the duration of the Economy Fest, so make sure to play it while it's available! Given that, we'd love it if you'd share your feedback with us on the Steam Forums! Regardless if you're an invested trader, or a casual explorer, we would love to know your thoughts, quality of life tweaks you'd like to see, and any other features you'd like to see, either when the game launches or in patches afterwards!
Additionally, if you don't follow us on socials yet, we've also got a brand-new social home for Townseek! You can follow us for constant peaks and teasers over at our new Twitter account. This new account gives us a fresh hub to post about the uniqueness of Explora from a whole perspective. Of course, we'll also continue sharing more news on Townseek over here or through our Discord Server!
Townseek's development has been a massive journey for us. It's hard to believe that we will be releasing the game in a few months time. There are still a few more features and locations we want to make sure are in the game before we put it out, so we're quite not done yet. However, as soon as we're ready and settle on a release date, we'll make sure you know! Now then, get trading and fill your bag full of coins by trading among the many towns Explora has to meet! Cheers! Whales And Games

Hey there! Did you watch our new Townseek trailer during Wholesome Direct today? It was wonderful to have Townseek featured in our favourite cosy game showcase alongside so many amazing uplifting games, for the second time since we've started development! As we've premiered a new trailer during the direct, we wanted to break down some of the highlights of what we've shown today! [previewyoutube=sz14XEDA5ms;full][/previewyoutube] First of all, we're happy to confirm our release window! Get ready to travel the picturesque world of Explora when Townseek comes to Steam in Early 2024! We'll announce a specific date as we approach the end of the year. But first, we need to ensure every nook and cranny of the game is filled with delight and polished to perfection! We know that many of you have been eager to play it for a long time. We'll make sure to make the wait worth your while!

After a long wait, we have finally unveiled some things that have been holding on for a while! We'd like to start by introducing you to the nomadic town of Vushkaar! Nested within the ice continents of Explora, these tough dwarves are quite adventurous and restless! Be on the lookout, for they might abandon the area and pop up in some unexpected places! Vushkaar is also the last town from our original jam release to be adapted into the full game, and we couldn't be prouder!
In addition to the new town, we've also been hard at work crafting an engaging narrative for Townseek! We're thrilled to finally introduce you to Sir Reginald Sharkingston, the first shark to take to the skies and explore the world! Put together the lost pages of his journal and discover his captivating adventure as you discover new towns and learn more about the world! Where did he go? What did he learn? Did he leave any treasure behind? And how did the different towns of the world change him as a shark? We can't wait for you to find out!

Lastly, if you've played our previous demos, you know that we've got special companions joining us from other games! However, we've kept some of our most celebrated guests a surprise until now! We're proud to collaborate and bring Lil Gator from Lil Gator Game, The Lamb from Cult of the Lamb, and Claire from A Short Hike into the world of Townseek! If you're an indie game enthusiast like us, you might see even more familiar faces in the future! Besides our special guests, we've got many companions unique to Explora who can accompany you in your travels! From floating jellyfish, racoon rascals, to airplane kiwis, there'll always be a companion alongside you as you travel the world. Aside from these highlights, the trailer also included more shots of the game's exploration and trading! Since every trailer is someone's first time getting to know Townseek, we always like mixing it with clips old and new! From exploration, trading, to all of the different activities, there'll be something for you to enjoy in Explora!
Speaking of collaborations, there's one more thing! Wholesome Direct has once again teamed up with The Yetee to release shirts themed to the event! And the shirt featuring many of the games that have appeared on the event also features Townseek's iconic airship! These shirts will be on sale until the 30th of June, so go ahead and grab them while they're available! We'll make sure to grab some extras ourselves! You can find them in this collection! We're currently knee-deep in development and making great progress! Even so, we'll continue to update you with more news and development updates they come up. For now, if you'd like to support us, you can do so by wishlisting Townseek! Your wishlists are a tremendous help, both analytically and on a personal level!
Whales And Games, along with our publisher at Super Rare Originals, is humbled by the reception, kind words and enthusiasm that Townseek has received! If you'd like to continue sailing with us, consider joining our vibrant community at our Discord Server! Not only do we share more news and sneak peaks of the game's development, but also hang out, talk games, share artwork, and occasionally play games together! You're more than invited to join us! Time to sign off! Thanks again for everything and to Wholesome Direct and Wholesome Games for once again having us in their showcase! We hope you've enjoyed the news we've put together, and that you look forward to the game arriving early next year! Cheers! Whales And Games

Hey there! It's been a month now since we hosted our Steam Next Fest Demo and received your amazing feedback! As we continue developing the game, we're thrilled to keep up this momentum! Townseek is featured as part of the The MIX Spring Showcase! We're featured as part of both the Steam event and the livestream that happened earlier today! [previewyoutube=CIBGM2C0tyQ;full][/previewyoutube] We've revealed an exclusive look at the brand new town of Amperion during the stream, which we had never shown in any of the previous news posts or through social media! The town of Amperion sits to the north of the world close to the glaciers of Explora. It's an electrical town filled with all kinds of technology, sockets and screens, and home to sentient electricity!

Alongside it, we've also shown the new town host, Watt Zapp! She'll give you a shocking greeting! And as you can expect, all of Amperion's unique items are modern and technologically advanced! What led to the creation of these electrical beings, and what's with the huge crater that is nearby? Those are some of the mysteries of Explora that you'll have to discover once the game gets in your hands!
The showcase features several other amazing indies as well, such as Viewfinder, Paper Trail, Moonstone Island, and more along with Townseek! It's really humbling to be a part of a class of so many great games we've been looking forward to! Please consider checking them out and adding them to your wishlist as well! You can learn more about the The MIX and the event by checking the showcase page over at their website! You can also check the Steam event and sale over on this page!
If you're joining in from The MIX event page, and have enjoyed what you've seen, please consider adding us to your wishlist and following the game! We have been hard at work in the game's development. And while there's still many months of work ahead, we're cooking an ocean's worth of content!
You can also join us over to discuss the event and the game over at our Discord Server! You can also give us a follow on Twitter for more sneak peaks and news of how the game is coming along! Alternatively, we'll continue posting news to the news section here on Steam! Feel free to follow wherever is most comfortable for you! Well then, we hope that you continue keeping our game on your sights! We look forward to showing you more surprises in the future! Cheers! Whales And Games

Hey Again! We're back for another live stream session! While the first session was pre-recorded, this second session will actually be live right alongside you, working and creating on brand-new stuff for the game! We hope that you join us! This time around, well be creating some assets for the game live using Clip Studio Paint! This live stream won't be possible without you around, so please make sure to join us with your questions and tell us what assets you'd ilke to see! We can end up making either a new cosmetic, a new critter, or something else entirely depending on how things go! Alternatively, you can pop in just to tell us how you felt about the demo!
And if you're yet to try out the demo, there's still time while Steam Next Festis live! If you're unable to join us for the live, we'd still love to hear your thoughts on the demo and the best way to do so is either on our special Steam Next Fest Demo - F.A.Q and Feedback Thread or through our Twitter or on our Discord Server! And if you're enjoying Townseek so far, please consider wishlisting the game! It helps us a lot! We'll see you along on the stream!

Hi there! More Townseek incoming! With the publishing cat out of the bag, or whale out of the net hehe, let's talk about Steam Next Fest! Here we have the first of the two live streams happening this week! For this Developer Commentary stream we sat down with Ryan Brown from Super Rare Games, our lovely publisher to take a look at this Next Fest demo build and chat about Townseek! And once you're done watching the stream, don't forget to play the demo yourself! We'd love to hear your thoughts and feedback and for that, our Discord is the perfect place to join afterward! And if you enjoyed what you've played, please consider wishlisting the game. It'd mean the world to us! [previewyoutube=GnzOJvtiVgc;full][/previewyoutube]

Prepare to embark on your first flight across the world of Explora! Steam Next Fest is now live, and along with it, were launching our brand new Townseek Steam Next Fest Demo and trailer! [previewyoutube=GnzOJvtiVgc;full][/previewyoutube] Soar the skies in this small snapshot of the games world! In this version of the game, youll get to discover the first journal pages of the legacy of Sir Reginald Sharkingston, meet Capt. Jawline and get your own airship. Youll meet various hosts along the way, discover interesting landmarks! You can also fish, mine, farm and dig for treasure around the world! Fly around at your own pace, or aim for completion! There are over 200 items available in the demo, including many cosmetics to customise your ship! If youre a new player to the demo, or a returning one from our Early Demo from last year checking on whats changed, we believe it will be a delightful experience for you!

Since you may have some questions about the demo, weve prepared a Townseek Steam Next Fest Demo F.A.Q. and Feedback Thread! As we intend to continue improving on the game, please leave us any feedback, from bugs you come around! You can also suggest improvements youd like to see, or even small critters and cosmetics youd like added to the world! And of course, you can also reach us out on Twitter and on Discord where we have channels specifically for you to leave your findings, questions and suggestions! The Steam Next Fest Demo will be available during Steam Next Fest and for shortly afterwards! While there might be future opportunities for demos in the future, we recommend you jump in now! Make sure to recommend your friends to play it as well!

Along with the release of the demo, were also proud to announce that Townseek is being published by the wonderful folks at Super Rare Games as part of their Super Rare Originals label! We have been working together for almost a year now. Their talented, caring and passionate team has been a great support to day-to-day development and ensuring a smoother voyage for ourselves! And of course, we had to celebrate the announcement in our own Whales And Games way! As such, weve created a dedicated artwork celebrating all of the different titles that are part of the Super Rare Originals line-up! Were really glad to be part of such an incredible family of games.
Lastly, with Steam Next Fest we will also be hosting two live streams during the week! First off we will have a pre-recorded Developer Commentary with some developer banter as we play through the current demo! Later in the week, we will be having a live Behind-The-Scenes stream where we'll create assets for the game live! What will that asset be? That might just be up to the people on chat at the time! Make sure you dont miss it! Keep an eye out for the Steam Events for when these will be happening! And of course, feel free to jump in into the demo at any time! Thank you for following us along this development journey so far! We hope you have a whale of a time discovering all that Explora has to offer! Cheers! Whales And Games

Hey there! Other than our recent surprise release of Townseek's Early Demo, you might have realised that we've been missing in action with these news posts lately. Things have been really busy for us these last months! We've been working hard on Townseek every day! We've been participating in industry events all over the world again, attending conferences like the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, seeking publishing opportunities and deals for Townseek to push the game further. We've received new accolades, like being the golden bat winner at the Big Indie Pitch in London, and participating in a multitude of Steam events! And of course, there are also major milestones happening with Whales And Games, our studio which recently kicked off its 5th Anniversary celebrations! We're kicking off our 6th year by becoming an official limited liability company here in Portugal! It not only allows us to dedicate more time to Townseek and our upcoming projects, but also gives us the opportunity to put together many more projects and opportunities that we hope to unveil in the future!
But most importantly, we continue working day-to-day on the game! So, let's catch up, and get right into some of the latest Townseek news! As announced last month, we are currently running an Early Demo for Townseek through Steam up until the 30th of July! The original date was earlier on the 28th of June, but we have extended it to go alongside our anniversary celebrations and this brand-new status report. If you haven't tried the early demo yet, this week is your best chance to do so! Releasing this demo was a sudden decision for us. However, with the recent Dreamhack Beyond and Wholesome Direct Steam events, we felt this was the best opportunity for us to gather some feedback at this time. We also wanted to test out the initial impressions of player's of the game! We're really happy about the feedback that we've received so far! There are several tweaks and changes we already want to make in the game according to feedback we've received.
But we'll be leaving the changes we plan to do with the feedback for a future post, as we first wanted to reflect on the changes we've made for Townseek these past months. On the last big update we made on the status of the game back in November of last year, we talked about how one of our goals was to focus more on major game systems. Over the last months, that's precisely what we did! With those changes, several aspects of the game were greatly revamped since the jam version! Starting with towns, the town and trading experience in Townseek has been massively overhauled! With towns being the namesake of the game, our goal with the full version is to put much more focus on them. We want to bring unique charisma and attention to all of the different towns around the world. Originally, towns were just stops for trading, without much else to do besides exchanging inventory. Now, when you visit a town, you're first presented with a Town Hub, which gives you a small description about the town and introduces you to the town's host. You also get snippets of information about how the town trades, such as currency, categories, and items in demand. This interface also has a lot more charisma, with unique banners, icons and backgrounds for each of the towns. From this hub, you can select one of the three options of things to do there: Trade with Town, Town Quests and Talk with Host.
When you select Trade with Town you're presented your options to exchange merchandise with towns. We've changed the way that items are presented into easily readable grids on both your inventory and the towns. Hovering over an item shows new information beyond just their flavour text, such as the item's category, average price, and the status of the item within the town. Item categories define how the price of an item fluctuates in a town. Different towns will have different preferences in which item categories they're looking for. Some towns will favour Valuables, while others might value Food. While towns will favour some categories, there's a small chance you could be selling an item of the same category at a loss the next time you visit!
Towns will also sell unique items including Upgrades and Cosmetic Items for your airship. Most of these are, however, locked behind a Town's Reputation Rank. As you sell new items to a town or complete town quests (more on that next), your reputation with them will increase. After you obtain a certain amount of reputation points (RP), you'll rank up with that town! Ranking up unlocks a slew of new items, better category fluctuations, and more. Rank up with towns all over the world to complete your collection and uncover new areas to explore! Finally, one new additional town trading feature are the Items in Demand! Towns each will have an item in demand that changes from a pool of possibilities every few minutes. These items sell for much higher price than their average value. If you happen to have these in your inventory, they're a great way for some quick profit!
Another big new aspect to towns are Town Quests! Town Quests provide you with various tasks provided to you by each town's host. Some can include quests asking you to fetch certain items from other towns. You might have to engage in certain activities or deliver tourists from a town to a specific landmark in the world. There's even some unique quests depending on the location. Completing Town Quests rewards you with a greater amount of currency, reputation points and sometimes even items in a single go. Of course, rewards vary depending on the task, and the quests available rotate regularly. The amount of quests that you can take from a town at a time is limited. As you improve your Town Reputation Rank you'll be able to take more quests at once. With so many towns to explore, you'll have many quests at your disposal to tackle in the order you want!
These Town Quests also relate to the Journal of Sir Reginald Sharkingston, as you'll have to perform various quest branches in order to collect the different pages from all over the different towns. We'll be going more in-depth about how the game's story will play out into the game in future reports. For now, simply know that the way pages are collected is built directly on top of these quest systems. As development progresses, we'll continue balancing and experimenting with different town mechanics. Our goal is to create interesting and diverse quests. And of course, we're taking into consideration the feedback we've received with the early demo. We expect to have made massive improvements by the time that we get to show our game to the public again with a new demo! Additionally, as we mentioned previously in this post, we're currently looking into potential publishing opportunities for Townseek. We can't go in-depth at how conversations are headed at this time, but we believe that the game has some amazing possibilities headed its way! We hope to be able to speak more about them soon!
These last years of Whales And Games were very transitional for us as developers, with us figuring out exactly what kinds of games we wanted to make, and trying to find our place in the industry. Gladly, our fifth year and working on Townseek have helped us in all of those regards! We're incredibly grateful to be working on a project that means much to us. There are some really great people, even more than you might realise, helping us shape the project the best it can be! Of course, there's still a lot of work to be done until the game is actually out by next year and many more news will follow as the months go by. We can't wait to show you some of the stuff we're cooking in the background!
If you end up taking the Early Demo for a spin, we'd love to know your feedback through our Feedback Thread or by hopping over to our Discord Server! Alternatively, if you prefer more bite-sized updates and sneak peaks rather than these longer news posts, we continue posting progress through both our Twitter and through our Instagram. Thank you to all of you who have wishlisted and followed Townseek so far, and we can't wait to show you what's in store for the future! Cheers! Whales And Games

Hey there! Long time no see! You might have noticed that we have been a bit missing-in-action in updates these last few months. You'll be glad to know that it's not because things have been slow on development, but in fact, much the opposite! Keep your eyes out, as we're about to unveil to you something about an early demo. Development on Townseek has been advancing at such an incredible pace these past few months that we've barely had any time left to write and make update posts! As the dust is finally settling down now that we've finished some big internal milestones; and as big partnerships are starting to come together on the horizon; we're planning to return to the monthly update posts! But, rather than having you wait or reading a news post to check on the status of the game, we're putting it in your hands instead! We're happy to announce that we've just released an Early Demo for Townseek available to download right now!
This early demo of the game features 5 different towns, over 20 landmarks to discover, and more than 120 items to collect! It also covers some of the original jam version's activities with fishing and mining; and introduces some new ones such as foraging and quests. While our internal development version has a lot more content at this time, like digging, bottles, and more towns, we believe this is a good vertical slice of the game! It shows you what we're up to without spoiling much of what we've got in the works! While the game is still very much a work-in-progress, and there's at least one year of development time left on the clock, we consider that now is a great opportunity to check on the overall interest in the game! Since we won't be doing early access, it's important for us to use opportunities like these to collect feedback on what we can improve on the game. It also helps us understand what folks are looking forward to; gives the chance for players to see how the game plays out; while also providing us the opportunity to receive feedback on what we should balance and polish!
The demo will be available until the 28th of June! It'll be available alongside Dreamhack Beyond, Summer Games Fest, Wholesome Direct, and while we're not participating on it officially, Steam Next Fest! We believe that's enough time for you to check on the game, especially as the demo should last anywhere from an hour or two for full collection completion. Of course, if you miss the demo for any reason, fear not! There'll be plenty of future opportunities for a new demo and more showcases later down the road!
In case that you have some questions about the demo and what's to come, please check out our Townseek Early Demo F.A.Q. and Feedback Thread! It should encompass most of the doubts that could rise. Naturally, feel free to let us know if you've got any further questions, and use the thread to provide any feedback about the game!
On top of the demo, there's a lot more happening around Whales And Games! We will be celebrating our 5th anniversary soon! Look forward to it, as it will include more in-depth development details and insight! Five years, where does the time go? We'll also be showing up on Wholesome Direct, this Saturday, alongside almost a hundred of other wholesome games. Pay attention as, while our time-spot will be a bit on the short-side, it'll include some new footage of towns that are not included in the demo!
And that's about it for now! We wouldn't want to stop you from playing the demo any longer, would we? Take it for a spin, and when you're done, feel free to either use the Feedback Thread or hop into our Discord Server to share your findings, opinions and feedback about our game! And for more frequent updates and sneak peeks, follow us on Twitter! We hope you have a whale of a time exploring this first look at the brand new world of Townseek! We'll be seeing you in the next post! Cheers! Whales And Games

Hey there! Its time for another update on how the development of Townseek is progressing! As development on the full version continues, our focus has been on updating the content weve already got in-game. Our goal right now in early development is to keep improving on our existing jam game base, while we start to add some of the new content weve got planned on top. On the last news update, we showed some early previews of our new art direction and some new locations. We showcased a new town, Burrowburg, and one of our new biomes, the Golden Forest. This time around, were creating brand-new areas, while also improving on the existing content! Bear in mind that all the placement of locations and how the game currently looks is not final! Were still experimenting with some elements, and the final product might look different in some ways. But for now, wed say that the direction is right on track!
Coming back from the original jam version, weve remade the towns of Meowosville, Driplands, and Lawride Town with our new art direction in mind!Since we want these towns to feel more like a natural extension of the world this time around, they actually extend beyond their interacting area, populating more of the continents where they reside. The Driplands extend towards the nearby swamp, complete with crocodiles and frogs. Meowosville has a denser forest than Burrowburg and is close to a familiar dog park. Lawride Town is beyond a mountain belt, surrounded by nature and bandits. Aside from the towns and continents, were also focused on giving the ocean some additional personality! You can spot sharks, whales, and corals, and even some new landmarks! Given how important the ocean is to the world of Townseek, we felt it was necessary to spice it up too. We want there to be more ocean towns, and for the sea to add even more to the ambience of the game!
Another one of our goals for the game is to make as much of the sound design reactive and dynamic as possible. In addition to each town having its own set of instruments that plays when the player is in their proximity, were also adding in unique music tracks to each area of the map, giving each zone their own musical personality! Were also doubling-down on the unique ambient sounds and details for the new mini-biomes. In the Mossy Marsh that neighbours the Driplands youll be able to hear the sounds of the frogs and flies while flying above it. Likewise, you can hear a chilly breeze when youre in the snowy-regions and mountain tops. Weve also added an extra variety of forest and ocean sounds too! [previewyoutube=DKrnWqBW_8o;full][/previewyoutube] Finally, but not least, we had the pleasure to sit down with Joo Correia from Indie X, Portugals biggest indie game showcase, for a first look at the full version of Townseek! While most of the gameplay so far is based on the jam version of the game, we invite you to watch the recording of the stream! [previewyoutube=GSFpKiorLoY;full][/previewyoutube] During the stream, we talk about some of the gameplay work weve been doing in the background. These include improving our codebase and some of the new systems we have implemented in the background. Our goals for the next months are to continue implementing some of the new systems, features and side-activities weve got planned!
And thats it for this update! The holidays are practically here, so put your jolly face and join us at our Discord server to share the holiday spirit! And make sure to follow us out on Twitter for more Townseek previews! December will be packed with things to do, but well do our best to make this into a memorable end of the year! If we dont see you until then, then have some great holidays! Cheers! Whales And Games

Hey there! Since its been a while since the games announcement, we wanted to begin providing some updates about how development of the full version of Townseek is progressing! While we normally post full Status Reports at our studios blog that cover everything were working on across projects and our community, our news posts here will be exclusively focused on Townseeks development, unless one of those additional projects or community events happens to involve the game as well! Our goal is to post these on a regular monthly basis! Sometimes we might take a bit longer or an extra month, but rest assured were always working our hardest and giving our best on the game! There are a lot of new features we want to include in our new full version of the game that were currently developing. These are even more apparent if youve played our original Jam Version of Townseek. One of these is a new, colourful art direction thats accompanied by a much larger and interesting world to explore! Today, and to get started with one of these news posts, we wanted to show you a peak of how that art style is coming along.
At this time, were currently working on blocking out our new world map and detailing our first continents and areas. Weve had the chance to experiment with our new art direction by designing a new continent that is host to the town of Burrowburg and their adorable bunny inhabitants! Our end goal is to take the same soothing and curiosity-inducing feeling of the previous sepia-style map from the original game Jam Version and translate it to this brand new colourful art direction. Were aiming to give more charisma to each individual location and make each place you visit a memorable one! Speaking of locations, in our previous version of the game, you could come across landmarks that were independent points of interest, like a big character or some interesting monument, spread across the map that youd stumble upon and discover. In the full version, however, we want to have groups of landmarks that are part of larger zones all-together.
One of these new landmark areas were currently working on is the Golden Forest, an area filled with autumn and maple coloured trees. Despite being its own big area, it is also the host to its own smaller landmarks like a Beehive Colony. Of course, thats just one of the many areas that weve got planned for this full version! From snowy and icy peaks, marshes and beaches, theres a lot of new stuff to love in this map of the game, and we hope that you look forward to exploring it! In future updates we also hope to share some more insight on how some of our game mechanics are going to come together. Up until now, towns in the game were mostly trading outputs, where you could sell and buy items to have enough gold to purchase balloons and tools. We want to increase the protagonism of towns and we have some systems designed through which we hope to achieve just that! For now, make sure to add the game to your wishlist! It really does help us out!
While the holiday season seems to already be quickly approaching, were still celebrating our communitys Whaloween event until next week! Make sure you keep your spooky costumes on and join us there! You can also follow us over on our Twitter where we frequently share Screenshot Saturdays previews of Townseek!
As we continue developing our art style and as we have more progress to share, we hope to see you in future posts! Cheers! Whales And Games

Townseek, our exploration-trading game, is coming to Steam with a bigger world, a new main quest, new activities, new towns to seek, and more! Tasked with re-assembling Sir Reginald Sharkingstons journal, you must travel far and wide and discover what the world has to offer! Trade merchandise with towns and complete their requests. Fish, mine and farm to complete your collection! The whole world is your sea now, so be sure to see all that it has to offer! Make sure to wishlist the game and follow us for more news, sneak peaks of the full version!
After many years working across several game jam projects, our team at Whales And Games is proud to be announcing the first upcoming full version of one of our games! Townseek was originally created in a game jam, during Global Game Jam 2021. While we were expecting a quiet release, the reception we received on the jam version blew away our expectations. We received many comments with praise for the game and suggestions for more features and town! It became clear to us that players wanted to continue exploring this world weve created! Building on top of the latest jam version, there are several new features were working on for this full-version for Steam. These include a new colourful art direction; a new main quest featuring the journal of Sir Reginald Sharkington; new-side activities such as farming and digging for treasure; and of course, several new towns and townspeople to seek!
If you have any questions regarding this new full-version, weve prepared a discussions thread with a FAQ with most answers you might be looking for! Over the next few months, we will continue sharing news about the game here on our Steam Announcements! We will be going deeper into new features as we design them, and, of course, you can be on the lookout for regular Status Reports. And of course, we'll also be updating the store page regularly!
Finally, but not least, you can also follow us over on Twitter where we share progress frequently! We also invite you to join our Discord Server! We've got dedicated Townseek channels for general discussion and suggestions there! We hope that you follow us for this new voyage into Steam, and that you look forward to seeking new towns in this new full-release! Make absolutely sure you have wishlisted us, as it really helps! Cheers! Whales And Games