Hello,

We have made the decision to remove Legacy Version from being sold via Steam. We would love for all of you to move over to the newer VirtuaCreature, as it is bigger and better in every way! As a bonus, we plan on merging this version with the current game as an optional branch in the near future.

We are planning on removing Legacy Version from sale on April 3, 2023.

Thanks for your support!

We've revealed the new release date & reveal trailer for VirtuaCreature!

Come check it out at our new store page and give us a wishlist:

We hope to see you all there at launch!

Hello!

We hope everyone is doing well! To celebrate our progress this year both in development and releases, VirtuaCreature will be 80% off during the Steam Winter Sale!

While you're here, please wishlist the upcoming VirtuaCreature reboot, and follow our social media channels:

See you all soon!

Hello!

We'll be participating in the Steam Autumn Game Festival this year with a demo of the new VirtuaCreature! Starting October 7th, players will be able to download and play a special demo featuring both singleplayer and multiplayer content. We'd love for any owners of the current version to come check out what's coming! What exactly will be available is listed on the store page for the new release.


We hope to see you there!

Well, we were always bad at sticking to our plans.

Anybody that's been keeping up with this game for a while knows that sometimes the vision morphs and shifts around. So of course, only a couple months after announcing quite an extensive roadmap, the plan has changed. I'll do my best to explain what's going on so it doesn't seem like a rushed or last minute decision.

Around September, we were going to announce one of the more pressing details of Update 2.0 - That being a change in business model. The game was going to be moving from the standard purchase it is now to a F2P model in order to help bring in more people and keep the online elements alive. Even though we were planning on some in-game compensation for players who purchased the game beforehand, this still might have felt like a slap in the face for people who weren't expecting that huge difference.

Additionally, the scope of this update was much further reaching than we initially explained; old save files have been completely incompatible with this new version for a while, and the core systems fueling progression, like the way your stats are placed or how battle mechanics are calculated have changed to the point where someone familiar with the current version would not be able to immediately navigate the gameplay.

For these reasons and more, we've chosen to turn this update into a standalone game. This way, players who wish to keep or buy into the current version can continue to do so, while new or returning players who want the updated, expanded experience can easily install the new F2P version.

Soon after this post, this game will be renamed to VirtuaCreature (Legacy Version); we would like to keep the original name for the new release rather than brand it as a sequel, as this new game is what we think to be the definitive, fully realized vision of the original VC, not a future title.

In the coming months, a new store page will appear sporting the regular VirtuaCreature name, and that will be the place to look for news or updates on the game.

In regards to future devblogs or beta releases as discussed in our June post, we will need to take some time to organize and find the best approach. Polishing a build enough to show to the public on top of managing and preparing for this change is a lot of extra work, and it might be best for us to hunker down again and fully focus on finishing the game while we sort it out internally.

We're looking at this as a great opportunity to start fresh and build a long lasting, real community. To anybody that continually reads these, we appreciate you! We're hoping to see you on the other side.

Talk soon!

VirtuaCreature officially turns 2 years old on August 7th. Development of this game actually started in 2016, and I'm kind of stunned development is still going after all these years. Here's to the future with VC 2.0!

From now until the 10th, a special anniversary sale will commence. Snag VC if you haven't yet and come along for the ride!

See you all again soon!

Howdy!

We're back again to start sharing details! If you missed the announcement, I highly recommend reading our 2.0 roadmap announcement. Let's get into it!



We're not sure how often we'll be doing this, but for this month we've made a video going over the details of this month's devblog, as well as showing some exclusive footage!

The first few months of this update's development were spent transitioning the game from AS2 to AS3. Now that we're away from that very antiquated tech, we have some new core features available to us! One of these is a very requested QOL improvement, being proper in-game audio control.



Another highly requested feature is also currently in the works, that being Achievements! For now, we've just gotten a very basic Steamworks implementation finished along with a test to ensure achievements will function, so expect to see more about this closer to the update's release.

Minigames are probably the most maligned aspect of VC, so we took some time to largely improve them and make the process of playing them more fun. You can see a lot of the minor changes in the above video, so I will instead focus here on the largest overhaul: the Race game. It's virtually unrecognizable to the previous iteration, now playing more like an endless runner. The speed of the game will increase as you score points, gradually getting tougher.



Another benefit of the engine switch was access to proper file methods, meaning we can consistently generate our save files in the same place and use whatever names/formats we want. While this already makes features like Cloud Saves much easier to implement, we took it a step further and completely redesigned our save system to take advantage of this.

Now, all important data such as money, chests, equipment, recipes, void mine progress, etc is shared between all creatures rather than being individually separated. This should help encourage players to raise multiple creatures as you don't need to worry about large amounts of repeated grinding and can spread your resources as you choose.

To emphasize this new freedom, the previous file select menu has been removed and replaced with the new Creature Box menu! Now you can effortlessly swap between your creatures or hatch new ones, right from the homescreen.



And that's all for this month! Please stay tuned as we have lots more to cover in the near future. Sayonara!

Hello there!


So, it's been a while. As stated when we last left, more is coming for VirtuaCreature. I didn't want to say too much before going through the motions and ensuring we were on the right path; this turned out to take a few months, as there was a lot of preliminary work to be done. But we're here now, and what matters most is the content, so without too much delay I'll get into what exactly everyone can expect going forward.


In 2019, we dedicated ourselves to 4 major content updates, released quarterly throughout the year. While this did have some upsides, mainly being the ability to modularize our rollout, it posed quite a few problems as well. While we were mostly able to separate the content in a way that felt natural, a few might remember the glaring "Coming in Update 1.5" button present on the Combat Plaza for nearly half the year. This is the hallmark of an unfinished product, and the additional 3 month delay for that content didn't help either. There was also the issue of holding people's attention; while we saw explosive sales shortly after announcing our previous roadmap (nearly twice our total sales in 1 day), all steam had run out by the end, even though the largest content patch came last. So, rather than repeat these mistakes, we decided to hunker down and take a new approach.

For the first few months of the year, alongside finishing Update 1.5, a new design document was drafted that would detail a complete overhaul for most of the game, from the backend tech to the nitty-gritty number crunching that goes into all of the mechanics. Then, we organized ourselves, adapting an Agile structure for project management that the larger industry has become known for. Since then, we've been exceeding our planned timeline, and feel comfortable sharing the early details of what is already the biggest update to VC.

Rather than a breakdown of quarterly updates, we've decided to hold off until the full scope of this content has been implemented. Instead, we'll be doing monthly or bi-monthly devblogs breaking down lots of these changes in detail. Eventually, betas will be released to help test and collect data, before the megapatch finally makes its live debut.


Below I'll talk in broader detail about (some of) the content coming in this update. This list is not absolute or detailed, so expect clarification, corrections, screenshots, etc later down the line.

The game has been fully converted from an old version of Flash to the newest version of Animate; while this may sound like a slight change, in reality it was a fairly lengthy language transition for the code, and all UI events had to be reconstructed from the ground up. This change allows us access to many things previously off limits, including:

• Steamworks integration; allows for achievements, stats, profile-linked features, etc.
  
• A file-based save system that allows for more consistent Cloud Save support.
  
• An audio control system, meaning individual volume levels for channels can be set.
  
• A better compiler with options for new platforms (more on that later).
  
• Better third party library support for features that have become standard.
  
• Some fun minor things like finally getting control of the application name and favicon.

Overall this new codebase is cleaner, faster, and brings many new possibilities for VC. In the first proper devblog, I'll be going over how the engine has already rippled QOL improvements and new features into the game.

This is something we need to be sparse about for now; the new engine allows us to port the game to MacOS, Android & iOS platforms. We're still in the earlier days of testing this, and haven't nailed down exactly what will be supported and when; we might opt for a global all-inclusive launch, or focus on steadily releasing ports one at a time. This gets even more complicated when considering third party libraries; We'll fill you in during a later devblog, where we will also show off changes that make touchscreen play more accessible.

There's so much going for this section that I will just be concise! As previously mentioned, almost every major mechanic is getting overhauled. This includes things like the save system, minigames, the arenas, stats, battle AI, and so much more. We'll reveal information over time as features become showcase-ready.

We are very excited about this one! However, this has received the least amount of development, so don't expect to hear too much about this until further into the year. Currently planned features include competitive & cooperative modes, a ranking system, and online events to give out goodies or assign tasks to players. Our hope is that this will foster a proper community that we can support for years to come.


As there is still lots of work to be done, we cannot give a firm commitment on when this update will be released to the wider public; our best estimate is sometime in Q1 2021. Thankfully, we do have some other promises we can try to commit to in the meantime:

• Devblogs will begin in July and run concurrently with development until release.
  
• The first public alpha will be available for all VC owners in either August or September, depending on the stability of our main branch; this will not feature the full scope of content (hence the alpha label).
  
• A public beta open to any interested will be available in Q4; this will focus on testing online features and collecting bug report data before release.

We actually have quite a few social media channels that have gone relatively unused until now. Along with devblogs, we will also be using these pages to post clips or screenshots related to the game. This will be a fun way for us to quickly show off bits of progress without the need for a long write-up. Give us a follow!


We're very excited about the future and can't wait to share our new vision with everyone. Until next time!

Hello again!

We've come back to release a smaller patch, oiling out some kinks and making our 1.5 Update as great as it can be!

• Rebirth Towers no longer need to be unlocked linearly; the full set is now accessible immediately.
  
• Equipment info is now displayed when unequipping rather than just equipping.
  
• "Max" challenge variants now use level 99 scaling instead of level 50.
  
• "Infinite" challenge variants have greater XP boosts and can feature creatures up to level 99.
  
• Synth drops now give at least 1 of each color.
  
• Fixed equipment duplication bug.
  
• Fixed bug related to Void Tower.
  
• Fixed bug related to minigame staling.
  
• Fixed bug allowing early access to certain areas after rebirth.
  
• Fixed not having a type after rebirth.

This update also applies to the demo.

We hope you're having fun with VC!

The time has come!

VirtuaCreature's largest update has arrived! If you played during the beta, we highly recommend restarting your save, as many changes were made that may conflict with the beta save. Additionally, this update has instituted a mandatory wipe for saves made during any previous update. For more detailed info about what's new, check out our battle system devblog or daily tower devblog! Without further ado, here's what's new!

• New RPG battle system! Every creature now has a unique moveset, and you can face off in turn-based battles, taking full advantage of your stats and equipment!
  
• Battle Tower menu where you can participate in the new battles; unlock new towers through completion, including some secret content we don't want to spoil!
  
• Creatures can now Rebirth after hitting the level cap, resetting them to an egg, and increasing their stat and level caps in the process. You can do this up until level 99!
  
• The XP screen has been redone, now boasting a cleaner and more informative look.
  
• Steam Cloud saves are now available! Keep those saves safe.
  
• Massive HP increases across the board; base HP has been increased, and max HP has been doubled for all creatures; additionally, high-tier creatures receive nearly triple the HP increase per-level.
  
• Low-level creatures now have an automatic XP boost that gradually wanes as your level increases. No more tedium!
  
• The evolution requirements for all tiers have been reduced.
  
• The stats screen now has a menu for creature moves displaying the name, core, type, effect and damage.
  
• Cooking boosts now expire after 24 hours.
  
• "Press Space" prompts can now also be activating by pressing Enter, just in case.
  
• Certain homescreen status icons are now clickable and will redirect you to the appropriate menu.
  
• "Impossible" challenge variants now use level 99 creatures instead of level 50.
  
• Updated cheats menu.
  
• Arenas now reset the timer to 5 if the turn ends with a low number.
  
• Fixed certain arena types giving less XP than intentional.
  
• Fixed text error on Drill Boost screen.
  
• Fixed timer being visible on Lift before game starts.
  
• Fixed equipment text cutoff.

• Demo level has been raised to 20.

I will also attach a statement I made in a previous devblog for clarification:

I would also like to take a second to make an informal announcement. If you've been following these devblogs, you'll know I've been saying that this will be VC's final content update. I made a similar statement shortly after launch and it turned some people off of the game entirely, as they saw flaws that I too came to see eventually, hence these massive updates over the course of the last year. So, as the vision of the game continually expands, so do our plans. We currently do not have anything to publicly speak of, and it will most likely stay that way for a few months at least. However, please stay tuned in 2020 for more VirtuaCreature announcements. More is coming.

Have fun and I hope to see more of you this year!