Hello Seedlings!

Welcome to our wonderful weekly Wednesday washroom warblings.

This week we are giving you a sneak peek of a new combat Skill you can unlock from Master Jogon. This Skill unlocks the use of Effigies as an extra tool for your combat runs.

What are Effigies, we hear you shout?

Effigies are small wooden carvings of the 6 Goddesses that you can buy, win, find and be gifted.
One of each type can be taken into combat and used when you inflict 250HP of damage onto your enemies.

A bar at the top of the screen fills, after which you can trigger some incredible Goddess Power!
Below is an exclusive look at the power of Druida, Goddess of Orchards.

A hail of giant fruit rains down, giving your foes a deadly dose of vitamin C.



Once used, the Effigy burns up, so it will need to be replenished out of combat.

It can be a costly aid but can certainly get you out of a tight squeeze!

Each Goddess has a power appropriate to their speciality, so learn what each one does and the best situation in which to use them.

We hope you enjoyed this little look at a very enjoyable mechanic. We shall be back next week with more goodness, and don’t forget Monday’s QnA!

Until next time, friends.


Love,

Hello Seedlings!

We are opening the portcullis again for another QnA. Thanks so much to everyone who asked us questions over our various platforms during the past week!

We hope you enjoyed our sneak peek at the Achievement system too.

Let's dive into it! The QnA, not the castle moat.

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Q: Are Kickstarter rewards still coming?
A: Yes they are! Some of these rewards will be ready for 1.0, but some will be completed in the following months.

Q: Are there plans to expand the world map?
A: Absolutely. We have plans to expand the northern part of Quill in exciting post-release content.

Q: Are there any systems in place for breeding animals? If so, will the parents traits affect the offspring?
A: We initially wanted to have some kind of breeding, but time is against us. However, we will be looking to get something more developed in this area post-release, with perhaps something basic for 1.0.

Q: Are there any plans after 1.0?
A: We are working on ideas which will build on the features and story of 1.0. We are committed to adding fresh content to keep the world of Kynseed alive well into the future.

Q: Will there be a wiki or do I have to write everything on paper to remember?
A: Good news! We are creating our own official Wiki, led by our new experienced Community Manager, which will be a one-stop shop for all your knowledge needs.

Q: How can I submit bug reports after 1.0?
A: A system will be in place at the time of release, so more information will be given at that time.

Q: Is the price going to change when the game leaves Early Access?
A:Yes. The game will be raising in price on 1.0 launch day.

Q: Am I allowed to stream or make videos of Kynseed before it leaves Early Access?
A: You most certainly are! Many wonderful people have already streamed and made videos.

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And that's all folks.

Keep those questions coming and we'll see you again next week!



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P.s. You can also join us on Discord!

Hello Seedlings!

We've heard your cries from our Castle turrets and we are ready to catapult out some tidings with a tease of the Achievement system! As it stands, Kynseed has a total of 70 possible Achievements to unlock. That should keep the village quiet for a good while!

Whilst we are still ironing out the creases of the final achievement UI, we wanted to show you a little taste of what's to come. So take a look below at the 6 we have plucked fresh from the game!

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⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀        Absolute Beginners: Learn a skill from a master.
Skills are something you gain from the various Goddess-blessed Masters dotted around Quill. Fulfil each Master's requirements to gain valuable techniques for Cooking, Fishing, Melee and Ranged Combat, Gardening and more!

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⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀   In Good Graces: Make an offering to the Goddesses.
Each Goddess Day (days 7 and 14 of each season) you can make offerings at any Goddess Statue to gain handy boons, but also jinxes from the other jealous Goddesses! Work out what would benefit you that week and strategically plan ahead.

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⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀Allergy Season: Discover a Flower Bloom!
Events can be random or on the calendar, so keep an eye out as you wander the land. Events such as the Flower Bloom can be a great way to gather resources, if you can discover when and where they occur.

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⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀      You're Special: Specialise your shop.
After levelling up your shop Rep a bit, you will eventually unlock Specialisations from the Gnome Tinker of Tir Na Nog. With these, you can change how your shop looks and stock certain items, gaining more Rep while also unlocking new Perks to enhance your businesses.

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⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀   It was Fete: Win a village competition.
Each haven has an annual competition you can take part in. You will receive an invite in your mailbox, and the day is marked in your calendar. On the competition date, go see the Events Master and bring your best produce for great prizes and Rep gains.

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⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ The Tough Get Going: Clear Toughwood after travelling as deep as you can.
Toughwood is the nastiest place in southern Quill. Once your are fully prepped, enter this dark forest and head deeper until the 10th level. The monsters are much tougher but the rewards are far greater!

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And that's it for this weeks showcase. Short, but sweet. A bit like the villagers of Mellowfields.

Check back next Wednesday for another sneak peak into the development cauldron. Don't forget we have another QnA post on Monday too. We'll see you then, friends!



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P.s. You can also join us on Discord!

Hello Seedlings!

Welcome to the first of several Question and Answer panels. This is something we plan to be doing every Monday, so make sure to submit your questions in the comments below and we'll do our best to answer them in next week's QnA post!

Today's QnA isn't on a specific topic but gathers questions that you, the players, have asked us across various platforms, in regards to the game as well as the 1.0 update.

Without ado, here we go!

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Q: When is 1.0 coming out?
A: We are currently entering our polish and final testing phase for the game, and will have more news on 1.0 soon. If the game hits our quality target, which we expect it to, it will be out well before the end of the year.

Q: Will there be any updates between now and 1.0?
A: This is under discussion, but there are no main updates planned. However, we are considering an Experimental Branch update before launch, but will see how things go.

Q: Will Kynseed be coming to consoles?
A: We are absolutely planning to release Kynseed on consoles (it was born for the Switch). However, these things take time and resource so no official news as yet.

Q: Can I use a controller to play?
A: Absolutely! Kynseed was designed with controller in mind, but keyboard/mouse players have a wealth of options too to customise their experience.

Q: Can I play Kynseed on Steamdeck?
A: We currently have a Steam Deck Beta you can try. The aim is to be fully working on Steam Deck for 1.0. It looks and plays fabulously!

Q: Will Kynseed be available to play in x language?
A: We want as many of our international friends as possible to experience the game. Localisation takes time and money, so while we aim for a couple of languages initially, over time we will add more as resource allows. There are a lot of words and a ton of puns and wordplays to decipher!

Q: Is multiplayer something that will ever happen?
A: It will really depend on success and demand. A local co-op mode could be considered but there are no plans for online multiplayer.

Q: Can I continue from my current save when 1.0 launches?
A: Sadly we will be wiping all saves for 1.0. However, we are planning to keep an Early Access branch open for those who want to keep their current games. We will not accept or fix bugs from that branch though.

Q: Are all of the assets/artwork original?
A:Everything in-game was created by our amazing art team (and some other pieces done by ex-Lions in the earlier days). It's always a pleasure to see what they come up with each day.

Q: What engine did you use to build this game?
A: Kynseed is built using our own engine on a Monogame framework. Some technical people will know what that means. The rest of us just politely nod.

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Remember to submit your questions for us to answer next week! Thanks for reading.

Until next time,



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P.s. You can also join us on Discord!

Hello, Seedlings!

Welcome to our weekly update, brought fresh from the scribes in the Castle.

The ink had barely dried on the parchment before our delivery pigs raced out into the village. So, what tidings?

Well, things are incredibly busy with all manner of polish, fixes and tweaks flying into our internal dev build.

One thing we love to do while playing is to spot the wildlife we have begun populating the world with. You can see elegant deer milling around in the deep woods. Squirrels scamper for nearby bushes.


Hedgehogs waddle around looking very cute, and rabbits hop around looking for some lovely fresh dandelion leaves to nibble on. More creatures are being added, and they will be seasonal too, so expect to see springtime fawns, a lack of hedgehogs in winter and so on.



This is part of our ongoing polish to bring the world to life. Combined with the dynamic weather systems, other ambient life, NPCs, flowing water and floating objects, little animations and more, it makes the world a delight to run around.

We defy you not to chase nearby birds!

In other news, on Monday, we will be starting a new Q&A post where you can get some of your questions answered, so look out for that!


Until next time, friends,

Love,

PixelCount

Welcome Seedlings to another weekly update from our Gnomish scribes in the castle.

This week the team is beavering away on work for our own internal dev build on Friday, with a promise that ALL the UI will finally be in!

It has been a mammoth task (not actually done by a mammoth), but the effort was certainly worth it.
Along with the last remnants of that, we are also doing some changes to how the diagnosis side of the apothecary works to make it slicker and faster, and making it much clearer for players to select recipes and use the correct stations for their concoctions.

What else?

Well, our amazing Key Art is having its last tweaks for our big reveal.

Code are working on getting the traits fully in and functioning, as well as the remaining skills.

Everyone is cheerily piling away at making the game as good as it can be.

So, what can we show you this week as we have a little nosey in the development drawer?


The Wheel of Delight

Want to make babies in the game?

Well, we already know that the Stork delivers them…but how are they made?

Enter, the Wheel of Delight.

By gifting a corndoll to your loved one, you can engage in a delightful little bit of fun that may lead to an increase in happiness or an increase in family size!

You can help change the size of segments by boosting your Virility stat. I hear Lovers Truffles are a good thing to find with the help of your pet pig.

Please don’t take our word for it; have a peek at our little video showing this wonderfully tactile carousel in action!





Until next week, friends.

Love,

PixelCount

Hello Seedlings!

Welcome to a little update about where we are at, and what is happening in the Castle.

We are hurtling towards Feature Complete, as we aim steadfastly at that most precious and important of stages…the polish phase!

We plan to update you much more often with smaller but still very tasty information pies, baked in the best stoves Quill has to offer.

We shall be making more Twitter posts, and doing some fun things on our updated Discord, thanks to our sparkly new Community Manager.



Expect reveals and showings of some really fun features, such as this lovely little video we recently put out on Twitter. You can spot the Family Ledger, where you can give your loved ones a schedule and send them gathering; plus the arrival of a bouncy little baby via our old friend, the Stork.



Until next time!

Love,
PixelCount




You can follow us on Twitter and Discord for more updates using these links:

Welcome to another parchment of Quillian news, delivered by the news Chaffinches, as the Ravens and Pigeons are on holiday. We have been ferociously working on the game to hammer it into its final shape.

One feature we have always been keen on getting in is the idea of ‘NPC Stories’. What are they, you ask in whispered tones?

Each named NPC will say some flavour dialogue at each level gained on friendship, culminating in a bespoke task that you must complete before they 'love' you.

The new dialogue adds a bit of much needed depth and personality to the existing NPCs. Combined with an updated chat system and favours that are tied to their traits, the whole system really helps fill out the characters more.


You can find redemption in some NPC stories

Speaking of story, we are putting in more of the main story that you all so eagerly want, along with the player's main objective. Just what is your motivation to do the things you need to do? What’s that mysterious noise from the deep woods? What is behind that strange door? Who let the pugs out?


You'll need to get a handle on that door

One other area of the game which we have been putting a lot of code and art effort into is the User Interface, or UI to those who know their gaming acronyms.

The new UI system is now being implemented for remaining areas, such as the family ledger, shop ledgers and chat systems.

Using your lovely new ledgers, you will be able to assign shifts, send your family gathering or give them specific orders that will raise their stats via learning...from gardening to studying books.


Things are looking a bit shifty in the ledger

We have also been working on combat for Midwood, and Gary has done an absolutely magnificent job with the monsters and their varying anims.

Midwood’s creatures have a very different style to those of Simplewood, and are a bit faster and more aggressive. Get your dodging shoes on!


Our combat isn't a drag to play

There are lots of other treats being prepared, including the creation of new hubs, a new haven, generations, shop specialisations and more. So keep an eye out (not literally) for more developer updates in the coming weeks.


A big thanks from the team for your continued patience and support.

Happy chocolate egg eating time!

A comprehensive overhaul of the existing music and sound effects has been done with this update. New audio tracks and sound effects have been added to replace all of those by a previous composer.

With such a change, we will undoubtedly have further modifications based on spending many more hours immersed in the game ourselves and player feedback. So let us know your thoughts on any of the new sounds in the comments section as usual.

If you are getting any issues please send them in for us to look at (via discord or mailing bugs@kynseed.com).

A big thanks to all of your support whether by sending in bugs, leaving a review letting us know what you think, hanging out in the community, or even by simply playing the game.

Cʜᴀɴɢᴇʟᴏɢ
🔷 All music and sfx by a previous composer replaced
🔶 Ambient sfx are now dynamic based on nearby game objects
🔶 Ambient sfx are now positioned in stereo on screen
🔶 Footstep sounds expanded on
🔶 Music now packaged and streams in earlier, this should fix stuttering on loading levels and going into and out of shops
🔶 Music now has a pause between repeating
🔶 Music is more controlled not to start during more of the night time hours
🔶 Sickle/Mining gamefeel adjusted
❌ Fix for Poppyhill house wall being out of place
❌ Fix for some npcs where footsteps weren't playing when they moved left and right
❌ Fix for mouse showing in gamepad mode if you exit from the calendar into the journal
❌ Fix for some music persisting if you exit to the title
❌ Fix for crash on calendar

🔷Additionᅠᅠ🔶Improvementᅠᅠ❌Fix

P.S. For those lucky enough to have a Steam Deck, we've been working on compatibility and currently have a opt in beta branch named steamdeck that should work.

Spring is upon us and the dandelions are out in bloom in Quill.
Picking one, we can see it is time for a little update on what is going on inside the game.
Our industrious team of ten gnomes are tinkering away so here are a couple of things being forged inside their little houses.


One of the final elements of the game to get up to launch quality is the User Interface. As such, UI has been a big focus lately, with all of us playing some part in making the menus more consistent, intuitive, and responsive. They also look and feel lovely, like the ferns of Pinehaven.

In addition, we've been making significant progress on many of the remaining screens. This includes the interaction system, which has had an overhaul, with chatting streamlined like one of our finest racing pigs.



Work is also underway on the shop ledgers. When you are sat up late at night, the candle flickering, you need a reliable and informative book to do your accounts and stock. It also helps that it looks great too.


New look for blacksmith orders in the ledger


What is that over there, glinting on the horizon? Why it’s the exciting new title screen based on our brand new Key Art! We can't wait to show you - it is pretty amazing, even if we say so ourselves. Which we just did.


The second central area of the game we are getting launch-ready is the story and task system, including the main narrative thread and the unique adventures you will embark upon based on the numerous NPCs.

So, to start filling out the game with all the delicious content we need, we created an 'Event and AI behaviour Editor' or ‘EAABE’ for short. We may need to change that acronym.
This drag and drop game design tool allows us to easily create new events and the sim behaviours to support them. We've been replacing events that had previously been 'hard-coded' to now run using the new system, and the benefits to time and bug fixing have been more marvellous than Herbert’s beard.


This screen shows a few different parts of the tree for a cooking competition event


Each node is a small bit of code with settable properties making it easy to add new ones


We'll be posting more development updates in the near future, so keep an eye on the news raven to see what fresh produce Quill has to offer!