Hey Spiritfarers and indie game enthusiasts!

What a fantastic day for indie developers!

We're proud to have been invited to partake in the Triple-i initiative, a new collaborative effort that highlights fan-favorite developers, hype up established indie classics and showcases wonderful new titles.

For this occasion, we decided to celebrate with a special sale of all of our titles, starting now until April 15th!

Now's the best time to try out Jotun, Sundered and Spiritfarer, inside the Thunder Lotus Collection.



Happy to celebrate indie games with fellow amazing developers!

For more content from us, be sure to subscribe to our Newsletter! We have a lot of amazing content in the works that you will not want to miss!

-Med and the Thunder Lotus team


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Hey everyone,

Today, we're approving and locking in Steam's latest regional price recommendations on our games. Some of these new prices are a big change (check out the full list here), so I want to give a little context.

For those who are unaware, Steam doesn't simply use exchange rates to set prices. In a nutshell, they try and consider many factors so that, hopefully, the average consumer pays a fairer price in each country. Read more about their policy here.

We trust Steam with this; we always have, locking in Steam's recommended prices on all our games since we started publishing on the store back in 2015 - the alternative being to set, manage, and update prices manually across 30+ countries ourselves. As we understand it, Steam's new changes should account for all the crazy fluctuations in the worldwide economy over the past few years.

Special mention to fans in countries where the price changes are more dramatic - Turkey and Argentina, especially: we see you and appreciate you, and apologize if these changes affect you negatively.

What I can say is that we saw a huge increase in sales in your countries last year, but no increase in the number of players. Something like 85% of sales coming "from Argentina and Turkey" seem to be coming from people playing in other countries - people who are chasing the lowest possible price on Steam. This is apparently a widespread problem on Steam, which is why Steam is recommending an especially large increase in your regional prices.

This is not an easy decision, but we do agree with it - the alternative is basically encouraging people to abuse the system and pay far less for our games than we know they're worth. Thanks very much for understanding.

- Rodrigue and the Thunder Lotus Team

p.s. Unrelated but very important side note for y'all: please spare a kind thought for the people of Syria and Turkey, who experienced a devastating earthquake this week! We've made a donation to The Red Cross to support relief efforts in the region; if you're able, please consider doing the same. To our friends in the region, we hope you're safe and sound. ːstella_heartsː

Hey everyone!

Another year has flown on by, it's time for us to look back and reminisce on just about everything that happened in 2022... but first, I'd like to thank each and every one of you who have been supporting us, be it through reading my shenanigans, playing our games, making art, or being involved in our community. Your passion for games gives us the fuel to keep on burning as bright as ever! We really wouldn't be here without you! 🥰



Now, without further ado, let's dig into our recap of 2022!


The year started off fairly smoothly.
With the busy release of the Spiritfarer's Farewell Edition at the end of 2021, we figured we'd take some time to recuperate and properly prepare the rest of the year.


With the release of the Daffodil plushie last year, I figured it'd be fun to see which other spirit you'd like to see as a plushie. Figured it'd be fun to showcase my findings.

Since I figured ranking 10+ characters in order of most to least huggable would be a nightmare to decypher (and answer 😰), I narrowed it down to Alice, Atul, Stanley and Summer, and sent it to our Mailing List. With ~ 7000 votes compiled, the battle raged on and, in a rather convincing fashion, Atul was crowned our winner! 🐸




Through this experience with the poll, I've came to realize that I did not know much about who was reading my emails & blogposts, so I've started cooking up some fun small~ish surveys for our Mailing List audience to answer, in order to could learn a bit more about who they are, where they're from, what they enjoy playing, etc.

While there were no big surprises to share, it did confirm my suspicions that I was indeed talking to an amazing group of lovely gamers 🥰

Big thanks to everyone that answered my silly surveys!





We officially moved into a new, bigger office in the Saint-Henri neighborhood of Montréal, Québec.

It's a really lovely place, with a lot of open space, a gym and an outdoor pool!
We still haven't fully made this place our own just yet, so I won't share any pictures, but we love it very much and we can't wait to share how it will look once we're done!

With it, we changed our routine from full remote, to two in-office days, which took a bit of getting used to, but we're all pretty happy with our current arrangements 😊👍🏻

I get to see trains go by every hour. 🚂


Soon after, Discord released a new feature called Events to all servers, so it seemed fun to try it out with our community.

Given my lack of culture of Ghibli movies, which were a huge inspiration for Spiritfarer, I figured I'd remediate the situation and host some movie watchalongs in our Public Discord. We'd get ourselves our own version of the film, synchronize on my timer and react together. We watched movies like Spirited Away and Kiki's Delivery Service.

It was a lot of fun, thanks to everyone that joined and hung out!
We also created an Events channel, for those interested in hosting their own event for the Discord community!





The long awaited, and often requested, Soundtrack Update was pushed live in mid-November, adding a lot of the missing tracks that were added with the Lily, Beverly, Jackie & Daria updates.

To commemorate this moment, and the shipment of the soundtrack's Vinyls, I sat down with MaxLL, our amazingly talented friend and composer, to talk about his processes while making the Soundtrack, and posted his answers in a Blogpost.




Alongside the Soundtrack, we figured we'd take a stab at updating the game's Artbook, to add the post-release content contained in the Farewell Edition.

Curious to know more about the Spiritfarer universe, see amazing high resolution art of all the locals & characters, and read about our inspirations? The updated Artbook is available here on Steam!





In early November, Discord approached us with a fun proposition to highlight our Discord community in a mini-documentary, focusing on Spiritfarer. We wholeheartedly accepted!

For the video, some members of the Spiritfarer team, two of moderators, a handful of community members and I had the wonderful pleasure of discussing with a lovely member of Discord's staff, about how our server came to be, how it has evolved in the last few years and how it has impacted our lives.

The video was released in early December and was teased at the Game Awards 2022.
If you haven't already, we highly recommend you to watch the video and join our amazing community. 💖




As always, we posted a list of all our favorite games we played this year! If you're looking for things to do during your holidays, I highly recommend you to check it out!




We're now days away from the start of 2023.

Truthfully, there will be a lot going on next year, a lot of things I'm super excited about, but a lot of things I'll be unable to share with you until the time is right. We'll be taking two weeks~ish off to rest and prepare ourselves for the exciting new adventures that awaits us. We hope to see you there! 🥳

If you want to stay up to date with our news, I highly recommend you sign up for our mailing list, if you haven't already!


Okay, that's all I have for 2022.

Thanks again for all the support, it really means a lot to us! Your passion for videogames grants us the ability to continue making what we love! Thank you for playing!

Stay happy, stay healthy and please don't forget to take care of yourself! Have a happy holiday season & a happy New Year!
See you in 2023!

Many hugs,
-Med and the Thunder Lotus team


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Mailing List: https://thunderlotusgames.com/newsletter/

To celebrate the long awaited Soundtrack update, which contains the theme for all the new spirits, islands and event (and some missing songs from the original game), I sat down with Max LL, our wonderful composer, to ask him some questions!


Max LL - Instagram


Will (the studio’s founder) and I are childhood friends. We used to play in a rock/metal band together in high school, Will as drummer and I as guitarist and singer. We share some great memories from that time. Those were also very formative years for me as a musician, I started trying my hand at writing, composition and experimented with different musical styles.

A few years later, as Will was contemplating the idea of starting a game studio, I was making my first steps in the film and game industry as a composer. We had kept playing music together through the years and it felt natural for us to collaborate on a first project, so Will asked me if I was interested in writing a musical theme for Jotun, which was still in its early conception phase. A Kickstarter campaign was launched, successfully funded, and this is what started this beautiful collaborative working relationship I’ve had with the Thunder Lotus team since.


Max LL, Ulric Corbeil Trudel & Ian Lafontaine working on Jotun's sound design.


I’m not the most eloquent communicator when it comes to describing music with words. Music can evoke an infinitely nuanced, complex and colorful array of emotional worlds in a way that other mediums cannot.

For Spiritfarer, it was important for the music to have both complexity and simplicity at the same time and an intrinsic emotional duality, even sometimes dichotomy. Grief is a complex and difficult subject matter that the studio wanted to portray in a cozy and lighthearted way. Thunder Lotus wanted the game to help us free ourselves from some of the taboos surrounding death and passing. The music needed to reflect that, so it could never be just happy, angry, or sad. Sometimes, moments of happiness needed to be accompanied by a form of melancholy, moments of fear and sadness by nostalgia. Finding the right tone for some of the game’s moments was definitely a challenge but I think I eventually landed in an emotional space that felt right. I tried deeply reconnecting with all the moments of grief I had gone through in my life to summon the appropriate musical energy.

In general, I’d say that the kind of music I had to write for Spiritfarer is one that comes most naturally to me and that made the project such a joy to work on.


Spiritfarer's Sheet music - Max LL


Nicolas Guérin, Spiritfarer’s creative director, shared a wide selection of songs with me at the beginning of the project. The genres ranged from manouche guitar, jazz and french folk to Ghibli film scores and 20th century classical piano music. We decided early on that piano was going to be heavily featured in the soundtrack. Indeed, piano is an instrument that feels very familiar and “cozy” in the western world as it is common for families to have one in their home. Stella plays acoustic/nylon guitar in the game, so that also became an obvious instrument of choice. Luckily for me, those are the two instruments I’m most comfortable with. Although coincidently, those instruments had not been used in any of the studio’s previous games. Playing guitar and piano for Spiritfarer felt like coming back home after a long trip abroad.

A wide variety of other instruments was also featured in the score: sitar, mandolin, dulcimer, shakuhachi, singing bowls, to name a few. The traditional orchestral sound was used to blend those textures and colours with the guitar and piano. It’s always present in a way that adds a more complex and profound emotional underscore when needed.


Max LL's creative space - Instagram

Some of the tracks were also written as duets. Conversations are an important part of the storytelling process, so it felt natural to have instruments “speaking” to each other, asking questions and answering, conversating (for ex.: the tracks Gurenu Fields, At Night and Hummingberg).


The creative process was different for each track, but it always came back to connecting emotionally with the subject matter of the moment. I try speaking a language with music that most people, even if they don't understand it fully, will be able to feel. Everyone will experience the game and music differently based on their own life experiences and upbringing. A big part of my work was bringing to life the emotions that the characters inside the game were experiencing. If the player can relate to those characters, he will most likely experience those emotions as well.


What Will You Leave Behind - Spiritfarer's Animated trailer

For What Will You Leave Behind, I originally wrote the first version of the song for the animated trailer that was launched a few months before the release of the game. The team had contemplated the idea of covering a well-known song, but I felt it was worth trying doing something original before venturing into licensing territory. I took a couple of days to write some lyrics and a first draft of the song. However, words on a page, an instrumental demo and asking the team to use their imagination wasn’t going to cut it. I needed to communicate the idea as clearly and convincingly as possible. This was at the beginning of the pandemic, we were all in lockdown and I didn’t have access to my usual network of musicians. So I asked my partner Maude, who has a beautiful calming voice, to sing the song in an acoustic demo I produced.

The team fell in love with the song and were convinced an original track was the way to go. The animation style of the trailer called for a dynamic orchestral score and therefore, for a voice that was going to be able to soar over the ensemble. I emailed Timbre, a talented soprano singer and harpist who’s music I truly adore, to ask if she was interested to work remotely on the project. She agreed, we were absolutely thrilled by her performance and the trailer was received with great enthusiasm in the community.

Will mentioned to me a few times how much he would’ve loved hearing a calmer version of the song that had the same kind of intimacy the original demo he had fallen in love with had. I told him I’d try my hand at rearranging the song for the end credits if time allowed at the end of the project. So two weeks before the release of the game, I rewrote What Will You Leave Behind for piano and strings and asked Maude if she could once again lend us her beautiful voice for the performance. This became the song you hear when you finish the game and it’s truly heartwarming to witness how much it has touched and moved people everywhere around the world. In retrospect, it’s also one of the pieces of music I’m most proud of. Whenever I hear it, it brings back so many emotions from that particular moment of my life.


When I asked Nico to describe to me who Alex the Seal was, he told me he was a kind of annoying bus driver. I wanted to try something a little different, so I took a more radical approach and went a little crazy!

The irritating honking imposed itself and the percussion ensemble was a way to evoke the circus-like nature of his behavior. The out-of-tune trumpet felt like the proper instrument to act as his “voice” and I added some cheesy vocals because Alex felt like the kind of person who’d constantly be singing in a dooo dooo rhythmic manner while “driving” without too much regard for pitch. The resulting music is quite annoying, but that was all part of the original concept and it was a lot of fun to write!


Alex the Seal


The game was released a few months into the pandemic, one could say that it came at the right time and became a blessing for a lot of people who were trying to deal with a difficult moment in their lives. However, when the game launched, we were all apart, remote, separated. It made the moment very uneventful. We could see in the numbers that people were interested in the game but it all felt very impersonal and abstract.

Nonetheless, since then, the team and I have been submerged by an unbelievable amount of truly moving comments and messages from fans about how the game and music had helped them in a difficult moment in their lives. Some of the unbelievable testimonials we’ve received have been both heartbreaking and heartwarming. I’m so humbled and grateful when people take the time to write about their stories. I would love to be out there to personally support everyone that’s been through hardship, but I have to accept that it’s impossible. It’s comforting to know that the game and its music are now out into the world doing a little bit of good.

Spiritfarer is not only the studio’s project now, it has left home, has a life of its own and now belongs to everyone who wants to experience it. The initial launch was slightly bittersweet because of the circumstances I described above, but I think we all now all realize that Spiritfarer is a special project that we were all lucky to be a part of.


Spiritfarer's vinyl - iam8bit


To everyone out there who has been moved by Spiritfarer, who took the time to play the game, to listen to the music, to write to us, or share their stories, I would simply like to thank you from the bottom of my heart. And no matter the challenges you are going through, there are always ways to find support, don’t give up, the hard times will pass.



We truly appreciate the wonderful work you've contributed to our games over the years and are looking forward to our next projects together!

-Med and the Thunder Lotus team


Twitter: https://twitter.com/ThunderLotus
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ThunderLotusGames/
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Mailing List: https://thunderlotusgames.com/newsletter/

Hey Spiritfarers!

Small patch today for the game's Artbook & Soundtrack.

• Added pages for Lily, Beverly, Jackie & Daria in the Artbook.
  
• Added themes for the spirits, islands & event from the three content updates to the OST.
  
• Added some of the missing themes from the base game to the OST.

To celebrate this update, we also wrote a DevBlog with the composer of the OST!

Thank you so much for the support these last few years! ːstella_heartsː

-Med


Please check out the Original Soundtrack & the Digital Artbook if you haven't already!

Hey Spiritfarers!

Super fun announcement to share with you all!

Spiritfarer is out now on iOS and Android, exclusively for Netflix subscribers!



Ever wanted to take your spirit friends on a magical journey? Well, now's your chance! You're now able to play through Stella's adventures directly from the comfort of your phone!

We partnered up with our friends at Playdigious to bring Spiritfarer to iOS & Android, and we're super glad to announce that it's available to download through the Netflix mobile app!

Please let us know on social media where Spiritfarer has taken you, or where you have taken it! Hope you'll enjoy the experience, now on the go!

Cheers,

-Med and the Thunder Lotus team


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Mailing List: https://thunderlotusgames.com/newsletter/

Hey Spiritfarers!

Small patch today to fix some of the remaining issues most commonly encountered by players.

• Fixed an issue where players would get stuck in stations when encountering a dragon or new location while playing guitar.
  
• Fixed a typo in Gwen's dialogue when she explains sleep.
  
• Fixed a missing chair in Hummingberg.
  
• Fixed Stanley causing a black screen when attempting to sleep while he was in Stella's cabin.
  
• Fixed being unable to sleep at minigame events.
  
• Fixed an issue where Gwen would appear on islands even when narratively they are supposed not to be able to do so.
  
• Fixed being unable to move the ship at minigame events.
  
• Updated Report a Bug to redirect to our support page.

Note: This update is only for the Windows version, Linux and OSX will come at a later date.

Hey Spiritfarers!

I'm happy to announce that we're proudly supporting the Whale & Dolphin Conservation for their World Oceans Day Steam sale! Spiritfarer will be joining a myriad of incredible games to help raise funds to protect whales and dolphins across the globe! 🐬

We will be donating 25% of the net revenue for each Spiritfarer sale directly to WDC, to support their conservation work!

About WDC:
WDC is the leading global charity dedicated to the protection of whales and dolphins. They defend these remarkable creatures against the many threats they face like captivity, hunting and whaling, pollution and entanglement in fishing gear. Their vision is a world where every whale and dolphin is safe and free 🥰

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Our game being so tied to sea exploration, we felt important to help protect its beauty and its inhabitants! Please join us in support of such a wonderful cause!

Happy World Ocean Day! ⛵

-Med and the Thunder Lotus team


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Mailing List: https://thunderlotusgames.com/newsletter/

Hey Spiritfarers!

Small hotfix today!

• Spiritfarer's custom cursor is back!
  
• Fixed an issue where events would no longer have any music.
  
• You can no longer play music for your plants during events.
  
• Fixed an issue with Alice's "On Shoop, Two Sheep" quest, where the key would not be collected properly, leading to a complete halt in its progression.

Hey Spiritfarers!

We're here today with a pretty long list of bug fixes in this patch.

• A black screen no longer occurs if you pause during the Mind Palace event.
  
• Alice now properly recognizes the Beach outfit.
  
• The wardrobe now remembers a full outfit's settings even when the player modifies a single item.
  
• Stella and Daffodil get teleported to Jackie whenever the other player triggers the conversation inside Gwen's house.
  
• The boat now properly continues to its destination after encountering a turtle sister.
  
• Sleeping while Stanley is in front of the bed in Stella’s cabin no longer results in a loss of functionality.
  
• Interacting with Stanley inside Stella’s cabin no longer causes Daffodil to fall outside the boundaries of the world.
  
• Sitting on a chair while the boat approaches the Everdoor no longer leads to a loss of functionality.
  
• The game's in-game clock no longer resets after 24 hours.
  
• Stella's arm now uses the proper lighting when fishing.
  
• The Everlight now appears properly during Loom and Woodcutting Minigames.
  
• The Touchpad Icon now properly appears in the rebind menus.
  
• Navigation inside the Control Rebinding screen no longer skips two settings when moving up from the Restore Default option.
  
• Tuna fishing music will no longer prematurely stop if your co-op partner stops fishing.
  
• Beverly is no longer behind Stella’s hat when hugged in ghost form.
  
• In local co-op, Daffodil no longer loses functionality when meeting the turtle sisters for the first time.
  
• Stella and Daffodil can no longer stand on an invisible platform in Stella’s Cabin.
  
• “The Real Spiritfarer” quest now properly subtracts a Lightbulb from your inventory instead of adding one.
  
• Daffodil no longer falls through the floor at multiple points in the game.
  
• Going back and forth quickly on the zipline no longer causes the sound effect to disappear.
  
• Stella’s bouncing animation no longer stutters when used on the umbrellas in Overbrook.
  
• Atul will no longer get stuck in a loop of exiting and entering his house if the kitchen is placed in a specific position underneath his house.
  
• The wind animation from the middle chimney at Bottom Line Corp no longer cuts off abruptly.
  
• Repeatedly watering crops no longer causes Stella’s water animation to be skipped.
  
• Stella no longer gets caught on the environment when using the zipline in Hoseki Quarry.
  
• Saving/Quitting during the House Call quest no longer causes Daria’s icon to appear early in the Save Menu.
  
• Daria now plays her instrument properly during the Mind Palace event.
  
• Daffodil can no longer interact with the butterflies during the Hades events.
  
• Mickey no longer abruptly returns to Bruce’s head during their final conversation on the way to the Everdoor.
  
• Mickey no longer disappears too early during Bruce & Mickey’s Everdoor animation.
  
• Denizen lost at sea now properly acknowledges your presence.
  
• Turtles no longer disappear when going to sleep.
  
• Daffodil no longer teleports during a Spirit’s release.
  
• Going to sleep no longer crashes the game.
  
• The ground inside the Field no longer appears upside down during the Edit mode.
  
• Sheep now properly have wool.
  
• Explored parts of the map no longer disappear upon reloading.
  
• You will no longer get stuck in the game’s intro sequence.
  
• Alice’s quest no longer bugs out and she will give you her obol.
  
• ESC/Back buttons now work in the ”Report a bug” menu.
  
• It is no longer possible to lose functionality by remapping the buttons to navigate menus to the DualShock touchpad and relaunching the game.
  
• Save progress & boat will no longer merge with another save if you delete it without loading a saved game first.
  
• Hugging Daffodil near a wall in Gwen’s house will no longer cause Stella to fall through the wall and get stuck.
  
• Hugging Daffodil at a specific spot in Overbrook’s hospital will no longer cause Stella to fall into the background.
  
• Players will no longer need to readjust from interactable objects (ore, trees, etc.) after interacting with it the first time.
  
• Nordweiller’s map tooltip no longer shows three chests instead of the intended two.
  
• Stella and Daffodil are now properly forced to row the tender during the Everdoor sequence.
  
• Exiting the Blueprint Station no longer causes the game to lose functionality.
  
• Sleeping near the Everdoor while the ghosts are on the ship no longer causes a black screen.
  
• A crash no longer occurs when loading a save file that has completed Stella’s Last Voyage.
  
• Closing the game during Jackie & Daria’s quest where Jackie bursts into Daria’s house will no longer break the flow of the quest completely.
  
• Spirits can no longer be kicked-off the boat when moving builds to a higher altitude.
  
• Skipping the intro too quickly after starting a New Game no longer causes graphical issues.
  
• Going back into the game quickly no longer shows the map upside down for a couple of seconds.

• Spirits’ mood bonus for eating a food they enjoy is no longer mistranslated to food they dislike in Portuguese.
  
• Summer no longer says that she is not hungry when rejecting a hug, in Simplified Chinese.
  
• Torn Letter and the Crumpled Letter from Jackie both contained untranslated lines in Russian, Korean and Simplified Chinese.
  
• There is no longer a typo in Charon’s dialogue at the start of the game.
  
• The button icons and text no longer overflow the UI when reading letters in Russian.
  
• Fixed multiple food items in the recipe list whose text overflowed in Russian.
  
• Denizen name in Quest Log for “Perimeter Sweep” was untranslated in multiple languages.
  
• Doctor had an untranslated speech bubble after completing his quest at Overbrook in multiple languages.
  
• Denizens in Southpoint Docks were not translated in multiple languages.
  
• Gwen will no longer say a specific hour to wake her up instead of in the morning in Korean.
  
• Text to confirm an event will no longer overlap with the Yes/No options in Simplified Chinese.
  
• Pop-up notification about Jackie’s house improvements had an incorrect line break in Russian text.
  
• Russian text box no longer overflows when talking about Daria in the Archive Room Filing Cabinet.
  
• Text in the Main Menu now properly appears when first launching the game in Japanese, Korean, Simplified or Traditional Chinese.