Hey everyone,
We hope you’re all enjoying the latest Luna update and getting your fill of sexy time at the office! It’s been a wild ride so far, and we’re stoked to see your feedback and suggestions flow in. However, we know we’ve been a bit quiet lately, and we’re excited to fill you in on what we’ve been working on.
First off, our next character focus is none other than the lovely Tonks! She’s been a fan favourite for a while now, and we’re thirsting to bring her to life in all her glory.
In other news, we’re working on a significant update regarding the development of our game. In the world of game development, we like to say that a good User Interface (UI) is the unsung hero of a game. In the case of Witch Trainer Silver, we’ve never had the opportunity to focus on the UI to the extent we’d like.
That’s changing! We’re working on a brand new UI for the game that we believe will let us move forward in a more streamlined way. This new UI will also let us add in some new features we’ve had planned for a while now, such as proper Android, Controller, and Steam Deck support. That’s not all. One of the more requested features was more locations in the game. We’re working on that too, and the new UI will be able to support these new locations more effectively thanks to the changes we’re making.
Speaking of new locations, we’re back to working on the new map for the game! This one will be a big improvement over our old one, and it will allow us to add as many new locations as we want, all the while retaining the overall feel of the game. It’s a bit of a process, but we’re confident that the end result will be well worth it.
We’re also introducing a new system for tracking the status of locations. This will include a system that keeps track of your progress and tells you exactly where you are and if there’s an event available for the area you’re looking at on the map, or what characters are currently present in a certain location, etc. Stay tuned for future dev blog posts to keep up to date on what’s going on!
Moving on, once the dust settled after the Luna update, we’ve finally had the opportunity to sit down and discuss our internal plans for the game’s future. It took us almost a full month of working non-stop, but now that we’ve got a solid plan in place, we can start making some real progress because we have a clear vision for what we want the game to look like and what kind of features we want to add in the coming months.
We also have heard you loud and clear that you would prefer more frequent game updates, so after discussing things, we’ve decided to try to release preview builds to the public to get more feedback from you, the players, before we release it as a full update. Keep in mind that these preview builds will not be fully stable and might contain bugs, save support might not work and so on. They’re intended to be used as a peek into the future and give us a better idea of how you feel about the direction of the game, while also sating your thirst for something new to play with. š
Additionally, these builds will only be provided when we’re actively adding content or changing something major. The first one is going to be a UI overhaul, which is a huge undertaking. We’re planning to release this first preview build after we have a solid base UI built and a working map, so the changes will be noticeable right away.
You may have noticed we haven’t mentioned anything specific about Tonks yet. Don’t worry, she’s not forgotten. We’ve put down a solid foundation for her development and are currently planning her new scenes. Once the UI update is complete, we’ll start working on her content full-time, so stay tuned for that! You may be wondering, ‘b-but, won’t that take forever!’ Well, not necessarily, as we have a plan in place to make sure the UI and Tonks’ development goes as smooth as possible.
Moreover, we’re changing the way we release content by downscaling the size of updates, this will allow us to release more frequently with less downtime in between. Parts of the new interface are already in place and working well, we just have to polish it a bit more before we’re ready to share it with you. Look out for dev blog updates for more information on when the first preview build will be released and what changes it will bring.
On a completely different note, we’re always open to feedback and suggestions. If you have any ideas for the game that you think would enhance your experience, UI or otherwise, we’d be happy to hear them. You can always reach out to us on discord and let us know your thoughts.
Normally, that would be the end of the blog post, but we’re not done yet! There are a few other things we want to address in this post.
First, we want to say thanks for your patience during the past month. It’s been a long and gruelling process, but we’re proud of the work we’ve put in so far and we’re happy to finally see our vision come together. We know there’s still a lot of work ahead, but we’re confident in our ability to deliver something we can all be proud of.
Second, we want to let everyone know that we are working on improving translation support for players that prefer to play the game in their native tongue. There have been so many of you asking us about this for so long, and we’re happy to say that it’s finally on our radar. We can’t promise a timeline just yet, but we’re actively researching options and looking for a solution that we can implement without adding too much complexity in our already complex development process.
That brings us to another announcement: Fan-made Chinese Translation Project. We’ve been made aware of a community project aimed at translating the game into Chinese, and after discussions with the creators, we’re excited to announce that we’ll be providing the necessary tools and resources to help them along the way, opening up the pathway for other languages to be translated as well. That’s not all, the team behind this project has already finished translating most of the game’s text for the current version, and we will be releasing it as an optional download for players in the next minor patch. You’ll be able to switch between English and Chinese (and other languages when they become available) easily. Huge THANKS to you lads!
Before we sign off, we’d like to say thank you for sticking with us this far. You have no idea how much this means to us and how much we appreciate your support. It’s because of you that we get to make the game we love and share it with you.
Until next time,
Silver Studio Games š«”