3 Weeks To Go!

There are just three weeks left in this Kickstarter campaign! That seems like a long time now, but the past 9 days have flown past for us, especially with the plans and activities we have in the coming weeks! Today we celebrated passing the 40% funded mark as we surged past 100 backers. Thank you so much for your continued support. It truly does mean the world to us; you are all incredible people <3

Steam Next Fest and EGX

We kicked this week off with a bang as Steam Next Fest began! For those of you who dont know, Steam Next Fest is an online-only event where many game companies show off demos for their upcoming games. Since our demo has been live for over a week now, it would seem silly not to join. The event runs all week but we decided to do two livestreams on Tuesday morning and Wednesday morning, both of which Lee got upwards of 2000 concurrent viewers! As great as that has been, the event we are most excited about this week started today at the ExCel in London. EGX is one of the UK's biggest gaming events, where tens of thousands of people congregate to play games of all types, new and old. More importantly though, this year, Skystead Ranch has a stall with two PCs set up to play the demo! We unfortunately wont be there in person, but we will be "manning" the stall remotely from our office in Gateshead through Discord. Todays first day of EGX was incredibly heartwarming. Our stall had people attending all day; in fact, we barely had time to reset the demo between visitors, and had people playing until after closing time. The attendees got genuinely excited about the game and were lovely (despite us being sat awkwardly in a webcam window). If you happen to be visiting EGX this year (as we know some of our community members are), then make sure to check our stall out and hop on the left machine for a chat if you like!
The EGX team did a great job handling the construction and setup of our stall, look for yourself!

Deluxe Edition Deep Dive

In this update post, we wanted to go into depth on the Deluxe Edition tier on Kickstarter, what you can get, and what to expect. We want to be as transparent as possible, and a few bullet points in our graphics don't seem to be enough. After all, at the time of writing, it is our most popular backer tier - we know it's you Coloring Pixels fans out there isnt it? So, on top of everything in the basic The Game tier, you will be rewarded:

• 5 unique in-game cosmetics. We have some ideas on what we could do with this, from custom crook skins to visual effects cast from the character. Nothing is set in stone though, so if you have any suggestions let us know and we might just make it! We want to make sure that you have the option to equip them individually or all at the same time; we wont be giving you 5 different types of shirts that you have to choose from.
• Digital Wallpaper Collection. A set of HD files in various aspect ratios so you can liven up your desktop background, tablet, or phone screen! I know Jack is looking forward to making these.
• Music Soundtrack. We have had some great feedback on the soundtracks that we have had composed for our demo, and for the final release, we are hoping to have a lot more types of music available. Different sets of tracks for the time of day and which part of the island seems like a logical next step for us. We will bring it together in a handy collection for you to listen to at your leisure!
• Skystead Ranch-themed exclusive DLCs for three of our other games. We know this is what all the backers of this tier are after. We are happy to confirm that these DLCs will be full size, so 20 levels for Coloring Pixels, 21 for WooLoop, and a full world on hexceed, which we know varies in the level count but it will be on par. When the campaign is successful, we will begin working on these DLCs immediately. Jack will do Coloring Pixels, as always, and Lee and Icy will share WooLoop and hexceed.

We hope to target the release of these DLCs for early next year, whereas the other parts of this tier will likely be available much closer to the game's release.
Thank you to all of the backers of this tier, there are so many of you and we value each and every one of you. If you have any more questions about this tear, any of the other tiers, or Skystead Ranch in general, please get in touch as we will happily answer any questions! In the next few announcements, we are hoping to do a deep dive into some of the various in-game features that are in the demo and additional ones that we are working on for the full release. Stay tuned!

Thank You so Much!

We know, we know, another thank you, but it cannot be said enough! None of this would be possible without every amazing person that is reading this now. We are so lucky to have you with us on this incredible journey. Lets get this Kickstarter goal met and make something fun together! again THANK YOU! We leave you with a screenshot of the Skystead Ranch Community Minecraft server we launched this week as part of our daily activities to celebrate all things Skystead! We have built many challenges to complete, including a treasure hunt, jumping puzzle, maze, and a race course, and there is also something that looks oddly familiar in the layout of this island... - With love, from the ToastieLabs Team <3

[ 2023-10-14 13:24:11 CET ] [ Original post ]