[KICKSTARTER: 30% FUNDED!] Village Monsters - Animal Crossing, but with monsters!

[WarpDogsVG]

There is no "emperor butterfly" in that group, even if you translate the Japanese or regional names of those butterflies.

Hah, I never knew that! I'll probably keep the name anyway as I included two other fake species (President & Caeser) to along with the leadership motif of the Monarch and Emperor

I decided early on not to be constrained by, uh, 'reality' in terms of critter design - I've never been very good at following it

I really wish I had the money to support the kickstarter. This is looking fantastic. Will be trying the demo later

Appreciate the kind words. Definitely understand! Even just posting in this topic is enough for me, and the demos will always be free!

Reminds me of Harvest Moon

Yeah! I love all life sims, and that includes the Harvest Moon style - Stardew being one of the most recent

Still, this is much more on the AC side of the fence. No stamina meters to monitor, no farms, etc.

 

[Silversea]

Hah, I never knew that! I'll probably keep the name anyway as I included two other fake species (President & Caeser) to along with the leadership motif of the Monarch and Emperor

I decided early on not to be constrained by, uh, 'reality' in terms of critter design - I've never been very good at following it

I wish I could be like that.

If anything in my game is off I end up with a permanent eye twitch until it's fixed. My last argument with my project was that the fish were too big compared to the character sprites based on the real life equivalents I have to learn to ignore the constraints too! But I guess that's how I show my passion for my own project, making sure the details are right.

have to be careful or I still won't have a demo in the next 2 years xD

 

[WarpDogsVG]

Hello monster friends!

It's the weekend, and that means another edition of the Village Monsters Dev Diary Digest (VMD3)

The marathon continues! This past week saw the release of the latest demo, and it was a big one.

www.warpdogs.com/wererelease/

I want to thank all the people who took the time to share feedback! You are making Village Monsters a better game. You can expect another release tomorrow that contains more features and bugfixes reported via feedback

The Kickstarter is coming soon. Real soon. As in, in the next 48 hours! I'm so pumped. And nervous. Mostly pumped!

As with last week I'm going to keep the text at a minimum and make this a screenshot blitz. Let's get to it

I did a fair amount of work on the last hobby prototype, Cooking. It's far from where I want it, but it'll improve over time

Remember the potion system? I went and combined it with food effects to open the door for all sorts of goofy fun. Snowberry Shrooms now properly chill you to the bone, while Spicy Shrooms put an extra kick in your step

A new area, the forest, has been implemented. This is also your first chance to investigate some of the glitches and faults ruining the world outside the village

The first of many quests have been added - meet all villagers in town! There's no reward for finding them all (yet...), but it's a good way to track your progress

Finally, more helper text has been added to Home Customizer mode. You also are automatically placed in this mode when placing a new piece of furniture

 

[WarpDogsVG]

I wish I could be like that.

If anything in my game is off I end up with a permanent eye twitch until it's fixed. My last argument with my project was that the fish were too big compared to the character sprites based on the real life equivalents I have to learn to ignore the constraints too! But I guess that's how I show my passion for my own project, making sure the details are right.

have to be careful or I still won't have a demo in the next 2 years xD

I hear you. There's nothing inherently wrong with perfection, but you gotta know when you to hold them and when to fold them

Let's say you're opening up a new ice cream shop and you refuse to open until you have a perfect vanilla flavor. Months go by, then years, until finally you're satisfied with the color and texture and taste of vanilla.

You finally open...and all anyone wants to buy is chocolate

At best you wasted a bunch of time and money perfecting something your consumer didn't care about. Worse, you might not be in a position to capitalize on the chocolate craze and soon people lose interest

I highly recommend looking up Agile, especially as a solo dev where you are your own worst enemy

 

[WarpDogsVG]

Hey guys, another quick patch went up tonight in advance of tomorrow's Kickstarter campaign.

Like Alpha 1.01 it's a small patch, but it contains many more changes and even a couple new features, so it's worth checking out if you haven't exhausted the previous demo yet.

You can grab the latest it and read the patch notes right here

 

[WarpDogsVG]

Oh, hello there! Village Monsters is now officially LIVE ON KICKSTARTER! Come, help me build a village!


https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/389391560/village-monsters-a-monstrous-life-sim-game


There's also a new OP (the old one was getting pretty stale) and a new trailer!

 

[dedenne]

Good Luck!!!!
I have pledged in happiness!!!
if only I could pledge :/

 

[Silversea]

Good luck! I'll see if I can help.

 

[WarpDogsVG]

Good luck! I'll see if I can help.

Thanks! I'll need it It's been a fun ride already, though

Good Luck!!!!
I have pledged in happiness!!!
if only I could pledge :/

I more than appreciate a pledge of happiness after all this stress!! thank you!

 

[WarpDogsVG]

Phew, what a whirlwind the last 36 hours have been. I'm not exactly sure how much sleep I've grabbed since this thing launched, but it's surely not a lot!

Hopefully I'm not being too annoying spamming this, but I'd be remiss not to include a link to the Kickstarter at the top of this post

A few notes!

• I am super insanely happy to report the game has reached the 20% funding mark! There's still plenty of campaign left, but I cannot even properly express how much gratitude I feel toward people that have backed already. Thank you!!!
• A number of tiers have sold out already, but the Early Bird tier - where you can grab the game for $12 - still has ~60 slots
• Today I also added an additional reward I'm calling Village Younger. The Village Elder tier - the reward that allowed you to design your own monster - sold out very quickly on the first day. This new tier is identical to Elder with one difference: the monster you design will be added to the game after launch. This is so that we have enough time to design and create a really cool monster without impacting the overall schedule of the game

Things will most likely slow down from here on out if previous Kickstarters are any indication. I'm actually ok with that, as I'll use the 'downtime' to resume working on the game. I'm hoping to get out several new releases between now and the end of the Kickstarter, though of course they'll be smaller in size than the previous bi-monthly demos.

Thanks as always for following along!

 

[WarpDogsVG]

The whirlwind rages on.

It's stressful, sure, but there's also something fun about running around like your hair is on fire - it makes the days feel a lot more productive

I'm foregoing the typical weekend digest this week because a) I don't have time, and b) I didn't really do a whole lot on the game this week/ Still, I do have a few things to chat about, so let's make like a gun and bullet.

Oh, and again, I'd be silly to not link to the Kickstarter at the top of the post! If you like what you see in this topic and want to support me, then please consider sharing or making a pledge.

Regarding Kickstarter...

• Early this afternoon I crossed the 30% funded mark, which is a tremendous milestone. Thank you to everyone who has backed the campaign! Your support has given me so much motivation.
• The Early Bird tier is just about sold out - as of writing this there's only ~15 slots left. Act fast if you want to get the game at the lowest possible price
• The newly introduced Village Younger tier has slots left as well. If you're interested in a monster of your design being added to the cast of Village Monsters then please take a look
• I've started posting longer looks at the various systems and features of Village Monsters on Kickstarter. The latest one is on the Mysteries system. They're view-able by anyone - no backing required

Regarding the Game...

• Another Alpha 1 released today. You can grab it right here. Alpha 1.03 brings with it some more bug fixes, but more importantly it's the first demo that includes Linux support! You'll see a separate link on the Downloads page for Linux. I haven't forgotten about you, Mac - it's just a lot harder to get you up and running on Virtual Box
• Alpha 1.03 also re-implements the ability to swap your gender - a much requested feature
• Finally, Alpha 1.03 makes it a bit easier to send feedback. It seems some people were having some issues, as my inbox has been full of feedback emails that look like the below. That should hopefully now be fixed

​

Well, that'll do it for now. Hopefully this coming week is a bit slower, as I'll be able to get more done on the game - including more dev streams!

 

[KaydeeKrunk]

I want a pocket horse.

 

[Jake]

Hey there, unfortunately we do not allow advertising outside of Forum signatures, so please keep all advertisements for this project within your signature. Best of luck!