It's time for another chance to win a free copy of WolfQuest! Lucky winners will receive a free copy of WolfQuest 2.7 (and PC/Mac users will also get WolfQuest: Anniversary Edition Early Access for PC and Mac)! Winners can choose to get any version of the game (Mac/Windows, Android, iOS, Kindle).

If you prefer, you can choose the new Yellowstone Wolf Coat DLC (only for WolfQuest: AE for PC/Mac) or the WolfQuest Soundtrack and Music Extras.

Email your username (any username is fine, we just have to know what to call the winners) and your answer to the question: "What are three interesting facts about wolves?" to the email address contest1@wolfquest.org

All entries must be received before midnight (Eastern Daylight Time) on Tuesday, November 23, 2021.

Winners are selected randomly from complete entries. Please enter only once in each monthly contest. Each complete entry will be assigned a number. We will then use a random-number generator to generate three numbers. The entries bearing those numbers will each win a free copy of the game.

* Switched to colorblind-safe colors for Slough Creek territory map (somehow still had original colors from Amethyst).

* Player-wolf and NPCs sometimes have trouble finding the shortest path to nearby object like carcass or food chunk.
* Elk mother circling wolf and calf without attacking, and several other elk pathfinding bugs.
* Sometimes birds are motionless in sky.
* In certain circumstances, game gets stuck on black screen when Raise Pups quest ends.
* HUD resizes when launching the game each time.
* Some invisible obstacles in Amethyst.
* On some graphics cards, wet aspen leaves look bluish.
* Dead pup lying on ground has one eye open.
* Mule deer and cougar can't reach thair maximum flee speeds.
* Multiplayer: when joining a game, sometimes camera doesn't swing around behind the player-wolf.
* Wolf moves too fast when stalking.
* In Lost River, several stranger wolf scent posts are floating high in the air on the east border.
* Ranger crew cleared logs from Slough Creek wagon trail, and did it properly this time.
* Animals sometimes have non-glowing areas in Scent View.
* There are some whitebark pine trees in Lamar Valley.
* On Basic Vegetation mode, there are no willow bushes in Lamar Valley.
* One type of fescue grass has poorly-chosen LOD settings.
* Light snow appears oddly on leaves of creekside aspens in Amethyst.
* One spawn location for handbag is too close to a tree to be picked up.
* Controls Remapper fails after specific sequence of remappings.
* Typo.
* Terrain and water issues.

This beta is now available for Windows computers in the WQ:AE Public Beta branch (see instructions at bottom of this post.) In this beta, game saves and wolves ARE backward-compatible with the last released version (1.0.7la), so switch back and forth without any problems. Multiplayer is also compatible with 1.0.7k, so you can play with other players who have 1.0.7la.

NOTE: Beta 4 has debug code to help us understand why the floating scents occasionally freeze up and stop moving in the wind, so if this happens to you, please press F11 to submit a bug report.


* Player-wolf and NPCs sometimes have trouble finding the shortest path to nearby object like carcass or food chunk.
* In certain circumstances, game gets stuck on black screen when Raise Pups quest ends.
* Some invisible obstacles in Amethyst.
* On some graphics cards, wet aspen leaves look bluish.
* Dead pup lying on ground has one eye open.
* Mule deer and cougar can't reach their maximum flee speeds.
* Ranger crew cleared logs from Slough Creek wagon trail, and did it properly this time.
* Animals sometimes have no-glow areas in Scent View.
* There are some whitebark pine trees in Lamar Valley.
* On Basic Vegetation mode, there are no willow bushes in Lamar Valley
* Light snow appears oddly on leaves of creekside aspens in Amethyst.


* Switched to colorblind-safe colors for Slough Creek territory map (somehow still had original colors from Amethyst).

* Elk mother circling wolf and calf without attacking, and several other elk pathfinding bugs.
* Sometimes birds are motionless in sky.
* HUD resizes when launching the game each time.
* One spawn location for handbag is too close to a tree to be picked up.
* Controls Remapper fails after specific sequence of remappings.


* Wolf won't stop moving after grabbing hare or newborn ungulate.
* One type of fescue grass has poorly-chosen LOD settings.
* Typo.


* When joining multiplayer game, sometimes camera doesn't swing around behind the player-wolf.


* Popup dialogs (in Age Perks, when overwriting a save, etc.) don't appear when they should, so player can get stuck.

______________________________________________


1) In the Steam app, go to your Library, then right-click on the WolfQuest: AE name in the left column and choose Properties.
2) Then go to the Betas tab and select the WQ current Beta option in the pulldown. No password is necessary. Steam should then start downloading it. Later you can switch back to the public version in that Betas tab, by selecting NONE in that pulldown.

Patch 1.0.7l is now available for Windows and Mac on Steam and via the WQ game launcher. Watch the most recent devblog More Flora and Nimbler Navigation for an overview of the main improvements.

* These systems have been overhauled to be more robust. This should eliminate a lot of issues with NPCs becoming stuck at boulders, and they should be much more adept at avoiding boulders, especially when running (i.e. elk fleeing predators).

* New vegetation added: snowberry and huckleberry bushes in the woods, autumn maple saplings along creeks in Amethyst, fireweed and red paintbrush in Slough Creek meadows.
* Added a new option on Game Settings > Graphics Quality> Grass and Bush Diversity. What was "High" is now "Medium" and has some of the new vegetation, and the new "High" option has more of it at greater densities.
* A few junipers added on rocky outcrops around Slough Creek.
* Increased the forest ground clutter with more and bigger logs, more tree stumps, etc.
* Switched to a better tree shader for visual improvements.
* Rendezvous Site quests now extend into August, when terrain greenery is starting to fade and snowberry and huckleberry bushes have berries.
* Removed lodgepole pines from shady north-facing slopes and made them grow in clusters on sunnier slopes elsewhere.
* Rain and snow are more affected now by strong winds, falling at an angle.
* Refinements to fog fade in/out timing and speed when weather changes.
* Added strong wind and distant thunder sound effects when a storm is approaching.
* Improved cliff rocks at head of Boulder Canyon (just below First Meadow) and a few other places.
* Added a few more boulders to Boulder Canyon.

* Family Tree: Pup preview now indicates if pup is male or female.
* On Setup New Game panel, removed option to show dead wolves, and to keep Ironwolf difficulty level for each ironwolf.
* When viewing customization panel for grown pup, you can now scroll down to see which coat it has (but you still can't change the coat).
* When filtering games and wolves in main menu, cursor is now automatically placed in the search field so you don't have to click there before typing.
* Quest music for Find a Den will now play more often when in that quest.
* Added Login panel to game scenes (so you can log anywhere, not just in the main menu).
* More cleaned-up audio by SkyRIder: Pup whines, whimpers, and howls, and distant ambient sounds.
* Elk now lose energy somewhat faster when fleeing and will slow down sooner This is to rebalance the elk hunt now that the elk run at their maximum speed more reliably due to better obstacle avoidance.
* Minor reductions to memory load.
* Graphics quality pulldown is finally long enough to show all options without scrolling.
* After deleting a wolf in main menu, wolf carousel stays on nearby wolf instead of resetting.
* Halloween comes to Slough Creek.
* Clear wolf filtering when browsing Family Tree, to avoid confusion when returning to the wolf carousel.
* Increased decay time for carcasses (generally about 50% longer now).
* In Game Controls, added a toggle to invert orbit camera X axis
* On Load Saved Game, added readout for game map.
* On Load Game panel, you can now close the Filter pulldown by clicking anywhere outside of it.
* Adjusted camera swing-back movement after releasing right-click orbit, to return steering control to player more quickly.
* Refinements to snow accumulation/melting timing and speed on trees and terrain.
* On World Map, territory hex readouts are easier to read.
* Scent readout for individual elk indicates type of elk as well as herd.
* Refined the music logic for triggering Ride of the Wapiti (elk hunt) tracks.

* Pack Stats indicates which players are sleeping.
* Players in Limbo cannot be attacked by competitors or take damage from any NPC.
* Map markers for other players are now blue (to make them easier to differentiate from den icons in Slough Creek).

* Revised thumbstick movements in game panels, e.g. left/right now stays in header-button row and you must move down to jump down to main area of each panel.
* Added Emote Favorite to Controls Remapping.
* Added tip in Game Help about how to Fast Heal (in multiplayer) when using controller.
* When controller is enabled, default to Controller subpanel on Remap panel.

* Pups almost never die of sickness.
* If camera is low to ground, grass is visible through World Map is opened.
* When inside the den, fur is enabled even if disabled in Graphics settings.
* Unexpected error alert appears without cause.
* Dead pup is not positioned correctly in parent's mouth when being carried. (Also, the pup's eyes are open, creepy!)
* Wolves kick up snow when running on snowless riverbank pebbles.
* Rusty Bowl collectible object is not quite positioned correctly in wolf's mouth.
* File Sync issues, especially with disabling the syncing.
* Occasionally hare switches to wrong coat after dying.
* Hare has winter coat in Lost River if you play long enough in multiplayer.
* Can get stuck on Pack Info panel if trying to add friends while it is open.
* If another notification happens to be triggered while on the Age Perks panel at the end of Find a Den quest, you are stuck and cannot proceed.
* Sometimes when deleting multiple saved games, the wrong games are deleted.
* Remapping ESC key to some other function causes problems.
* Music cue for sick pup doesn't play.
* Sometimes rain falls only in a small area away from the player-wolf.
* In the Family Tree, if you choose a grown pup in the carousel, and then go up, up, up through the generations to the original parent wolf, and then choose another of that wolf's mates in the upper left pulldown, the panel layout breaks.
* Sometimes the scroll bar disappears on the wolf bio in wolf customization.
* Some carcasses don't glow sometimes.
* In Lost River, issues with Quest and Roaming music tracks.
* When a competitor grabs a pup, it drops it if the player comes close to it.
* Multiplayer: Sometimes other players don't have nametags (possible fix, please report if you see this still happening).
* Sometimes wolf coat changes when emerging from den.
* Buggy behavior with graphics-VRAM warning alert.
* Dead mate is shown in Setup New Slough Creek game if they were still alive in any Family Tree.
* Hare carcasses do not decay and despawn properly.
* World Map with territories displayed sometimes is grayscale.
* Footsteps and other sound effects keep playing when game is paused.
* Occasionally wolves sink into the ground.
* In Family Tree, pup animations in preview panel don't blend smoothly from one to the next.
* On some computers, part of the 3D wolf preview in the Family Tree is translucent.
* Sound of rainfall can occur without rain falling.
* Some interface elements are misplaced on certain screen resolutions.
* 3D wolf on peaceful death screen is placeholder, not player wolf.
* Issues with account registration and login.
* Oil Lamp collectible item does not show correct text when found.
* Age Perks are inaccessible to controller.
* Wolf attributes are not listed consistently on various interface panels.
* Occasionally the targeting arrow is not aligned above targeted animal.
* Snow appears on animals when it hasn't been snowing.
* Can't remove player from a pack.
* Terrain and water issues.

This beta is now available for Windows computers in the WQ:AE Public Beta branch (see instructions at bottom of this post.)

NOTE: If you tried the beta and then switched back to the last patch, 107k, the game is broken. Beta 6 fixes that, so if you get this beta, and then switch back to 107k, it will work properly. Sorry about that!


* These systems have been overhauled to be more robust. This should eliminate a lot of issues with NPCs becoming stuck at boulders, and they should be much more adept at avoiding boulders, especially when running (i.e. elk fleeing predators). We are still polishing this so if you notice any quirks, please press F11 to report them.

* New vegetation added: snowberry and huckleberry bushes in the woods, autumn maple saplings along creeks in Amethyst, fireweed and red paintbrush in Slough Creek meadows.
* Added a new option on Game Settings > Graphics Quality> Grass and Bush Diversity. What was "High" is now "Medium" and has some of the new vegetation, and the new "High" option has more of it at greater densities.
* A few junipers added on rocky outcrops around Slough Creek.
* Increased the forest ground clutter with more and bigger logs, more tree stumps, etc.
* Switched to a better tree shader for visual improvements.
* Rendezvous Site quests now extend into August, when terrain greenery is starting to fade and snowberry and huckleberry bushes have berries.
* Removed lodgepole pines from shady north-facing slopes and made them grow in clusters on sunnier slopes elsewhere.
* Rain and snow are more affected now by strong winds, falling at an angle.
* Refinements to fog fade in/out timing and speed when weather changes.
* Added strong wind and distant thunder sound effects when a storm is approaching.
* Improved cliff rocks at head of Boulder Canyon (just below First Meadow) and a few other places.
* Added a few more boulders to Boulder Canyon.

* Family Tree: Pup preview now indicates if pup is male or female.
* On Setup New Game panel, removed option to show dead wolves, and to keep Ironwolf difficulty level for each ironwolf.
* When viewing customization panel for grown pup, you can now scroll down to see which coat it has (but you still can't change the coat).
* When filtering games and wolves in main menu, cursor is now automatically placed in the search field so you don't have to click there before typing.
* Quest music for Find a Den will now play more often when in that quest.
* Added Login panel to game scenes (so you can log anywhere, not just in the main menu).
* More cleaned audio by SkyRIder: Pup whines, whimpers, and howls, and distant ambient sounds.
* Minor reductions to memory load.
* Graphics quality pulldown is finally long enough to show all options without scrolling.
* After deleting a wolf in main menu, wolf carousel stays on nearby wolf instead of resetting.
* Clear wolf filtering when browsing Family Tree, to avoid confusion when returning to the wolf carousel.
* Increased decay time for carcasses (generally about 50% longer now).
* In Game Controls, added a toggle to invert orbit camera X axis
* On Load Saved Game, added readout for game map.

* Pack Stats indicates which players are sleeping.
* Players in Limbo cannot be attacked by competitors or take damage from any NPC.
* Map markers for other players are now blue (to make them easier to differentiate from den icons in Slough Creek).

* Revised thumbstick movements in game panels, e.g. left/right now stays in header-button row and you must move down to jump down to main area of each panel.
* Added Emote Favorite to Controls Remapping.
* Added tip in Game Help about how to Fast Heal (in multiplayer) when using controller.
* When controller is enabled, default to Controller subpanel on Remap panel.

* Pups almost never die of sickness.
* If camera is low to ground, grass is visible through World Map is opened.
* When inside the den, fur is enabled even if disabled in Graphics settings.
* Unexpected error alert appears without cause.
* Dead pup is not positioned correctly in parent's mouth when being carried. (Also, the pup's eyes are open, creepy!)
* Wolves kick up snow when running on snowless riverbank pebbles.
* Rusty Bowl not quite positioned correctly in wolf's mouth.
* File Sync issues, especially with disabling the syncing.
* Occasionally hare switches to wrong coat after dying.
* Hare has winter coat in Lost River if you play long enough in multiplayer.
* Can get stuck on Pack Info panel if trying to add friends while it is open.
* If another notification happens to be triggered while on the Age Perks panel at the end of Find a Den quest, you are stuck and cannot proceed.
* Sometimes when deleting multiple saved games, the wrong games are deleted.
* Remapping ESC key to some other function causes problems.
* Music cue for sick pup doesn't play.
* Sometimes rain falls only in a small area away from the player-wolf.
* In the Family Tree, if you choose a grown pup in the carousel, and then go up, up, up through the generations to the original parent wolf, and then choose another of that wolf's mates in the upper left pulldown, the panel layout breaks.
* Sometimes the scroll bar disappears on the wolf bio in wolf customization.
* Some carcasses don't glow sometimes.
* Footsteps and other sound effects keep playing when game is paused.
* Occasionally wolves sink into the ground.
* In Family Tree, pup animations in preview panel don't blend smoothly from one to the next.
* On some computers, part of the 3D wolf preview in the Family Tree is translucent.
* Sound of rainfall can occur without rain falling.
* Some interface elements are misplaced on certain screen resolutions.
* 3D wolf on peaceful death screen is placeholder, not player wolf.
* Issues with account registration and login.
* Oil Lamp collectible item does not show correct text when found.
* Age Perks are inaccessible to controller.
* Wolf attributes are not listed consistently on various interface panels.
* Occasionally the targeting arrow is not aligned above targeted animal.
* Snow appears on animals when it hasn't been snowing.
* Can't remove player from a pack.
* Terrain and water issues.


* Pack Territories do not appear on the Slough Creek world map.


NOTE: The previous betas said that this patch is compatible with the last released patch, 1.0.7k. That was incorrect, this beta is NOT backward-compatible, so you can only play with others who have this beta. Very sorry for the misinformation.

* Some trees and logs are pink.
* Multiplayer: Can't erase scent post made by rival pack.
* Trees move in wrong direction when bending in the wind.
* Main menu is glitched for new players or those who have not played the game for a long time.
* Elk do trample damage to other elk when fleeing, resulting in low-health and death among the herd.
* Boulder interferes with player-wolf trying to approach a collectible object.
* One boulder near Amethyst spawn point has many overlapping meshes, making it look very whilte.
* Tiny speckles on World Map.
* Huckleberry bushes in the Lamar on Low Grass Variety setting.
* Cottonwoods in Lamar Valley lack trunks when viewed at a distance.


NOTE: If you tried the beta and then switched back to the last patch, 107k, the game is broken. Beta 6 fixes that, so if you get this beta, and then switch back to 107k, it will work properly. Sorry about that!

* Elk now lose energy somewhat faster when fleeing and will slow down sooner This is to rebalance the elk hunt now that the elk run at their maximum speed more reliably due to better obstacle avoidance. We'd appreciate feedback about the timing and degree of slowing-down.

* Cottonwood trees missing from Lamar Valley on Basic Veg mode.
* On Controls panel, game controller image is shown below the keyboard image.
* "Too soon" popup when mate urinates on your marking/
* Sometimes the current quest music plays twice or more in a row, without switching to other roaming tracks in between.


* Refined the music logic for triggering Ride of the Wapiti (elk hunt) tracks.
* Adjusted volume of pup howl audio, reduced hiss.

* Multiplayer: Hearts appear over player when others howl.
* Autumn aspens and cottonwoods in Amethyst are bluish when seen at a distance and covered with snow.
* Terrain and water issues.


* Refinements to snow accumulation/melting timing and speed on trees and terrain.
* On World Map, territory hex readouts are easier to read.
* Scent readout for individual elk indicates type of elk as well as herd.

* World Map with territories displayed sometimes is grayscale.
* Stranger wolf packs are very bad at maintaining their territory.
* NPC animals can get stuck and won't move (or will move very slowly); mate won't respond to secondary howl.
* Wolf nose texture reverted to plain texture.
* At northeast rock den, pups are underground as they exit the den.
* Pup howling is too loud.


* Adjusted elk fleeing speed and rate of slowing down from energy loss.
* Adjusted camera swing-back movement after releasing right-click orbit, to return steering control to player more quickly.
* Adjusted grass levels around rendezvous sites for a more natural transition.
* Improved NPC pathfinding in Lost River downtown.

* There are no patches of tall grass, which makes newborn ungulates very hard to find.
* Burned trees at rendezvous sites flicker on and off when camera moves.
* Some fallen trees on clifftops in Amethyst.
* Newborn pups have messed-up textures on No Fur setting.
* Dead mate is shown in Setup New Slough Creek game if they were still alive in any Family Tree.
* Hare carcasses do not decay and despawn properly.
* Stranger wolves are still not as good as they should be about maintaining their territory.
* Debug code can cause an error when savnig game.
* Indian paintbrush grows on wagon trail (on Medium Grass Variety setting).


* A few missing patches of tall grass.
* Wolf sprint speed is one meter/second slower than it should be.
* Mate can get stuck circling tree or rock at rendezvous site.


* Various issues with NPC pathfinding (getting stuck at waterways, going in circles, etc.)


* Rangers cleared some fallen logs on the Slough Creek wagon trail.

* Sometimes severe performance slowdown when game is calculating long-distance NPC navigation.
* Beavers get stuck at water's edge.
* NPC animals can be spawned beyond edge of game map, causing games to fail to load.
* Cottonwood trees look bad at distance from some lighting angles.


* More optimization of new pathfinding and navigation systtem.

* Wolf can go through some tree stumps, and NPCs go on top of them.
* NPC animals can be spawned beyond edge of game map, causing games to fail to load.
* On World Map Pack Territory display, changed back to previous mouseover hex readout display.
* Summer pups have fur even if Fur quality setting is set to None.



* Wolves pant a lot.
* NPC animals get stuck running in circles near water.
* Multiplayer: Non-host players can't move.
* Multiplayer: Sometimes other players don't have nametags (possible fix, please report if you see this still happening).
* Birds have trouble with pathfinding.
* World Map Pack Territory readouts are big and ugly, and if all hex percentages are shown, they stay onscreen when territory hexes are hidden.
* Wolf and pup animations in Family Tree preview panel sometimes stop playing.
* Age 2 panel on Age Perks sometimes has Stamina for all perks.
* Sometimes wolf coat changes when emerging from den.
* Buggy behavior with graphics-VRAM warning alert.


* If Grass Density slider is set at or near maximum, there's no an additional reduction in grass when in Scent View, so you can see scent prints better.
* On Load Game panel, you can now close the Filter pulldown by clicking anywhere outside of it.
* Removed debug code that occasionally affects game performance.

* NPC animals do not reliably avoid running through tree stumps.
* Sometimes mate stays close (too close) to player when in water.
* In Lost River, issues with Quest and Roaming music tracks.
* Pathfinding: Mate wobbles some when following player.
* Pathfinding: Elk jitter when colliding with trees or each other.
* Pathfinding: Mate can't decide whether to cross river.
* On World Map Pack Territory overlay, percentage overlay resets when toggling territories off and on again.
* Mouse cursor is too far from percentage readout on Pack Territory overlay.
* Bison walk in place when getting out of water.
* When a competitor grabs a pup, it drops it if the player comes close to it.
* Terrain and vegetation issues.


* Game fails to load in Slough Creek.
* In Lost River multiplayer, wolves are frozen after sleeping.
* Grass Density reduction in Scent View sometimes creates brief pauses, so we removed this feature.


* Game crashes when you bite a beaver (and possibly other times).
* Trees are rendered twice in Slough Creek, hurting performance.

______________________________________________


1) In the Steam app, go to your Library, then right-click on the WolfQuest: AE name in the left column and choose Properties.
2) Then go to the Betas tab and select the WQ current Beta option in the pulldown. No password is necessary. Steam should then start downloading it. Later you can switch back to the public version in that Betas tab, by selecting NONE in that pulldown.

We are in the last stretch of work for the next patch of WolfQuest: Anniversary Edition, which will be v1.0.7l. This will have several significant improvements:

Tommi has refactored and overhauled the NPC navigation, pathfinding, and obstacle avoidance systems, making those smarter and more robust. No longer will mates get stuck on a boulder while trying to cross a creek, or circle endlessly around a meat chunk. Elk are also much more adept at navigating around trees and boulders as they flee for their lives.  It makes moving through the game world feel even more immersive!


I have been working on improvements to the natural environment, adding more (and better) tree stumps in the woods and more ground clutter in the form of dead logs. Istvan Szala, one of our freelance 3D artists (who has been making some new stuff for the upcoming Lost River DLC), created models for snowberry and huckleberry bushes, and Indian paintbrush flower. Put together, these make the forest floor much denser, and more realistic (though still a far cry from the truly dense forests along the south slopes of Slough Creek).  The splashes of new seasonal colors are also very nice.

Along with helping me with those improvements to the environment, Andrei has been fixing bugs and adding polish is many different ways. (Many of these were suggested by players via Feedback and Bug Reports, so thanks for those! It is satisfying that the bug reports are trending to minor tweaks as we slowly but surely polish the game.)

And Mikko has been making steady progress on Slough Creek multiplayer, which is really shaping up and should be ready for public beta pretty soon.  I get to spend time actually playing WolfQuest (not as common as you might think) with our dedicated and amazing core beta testers who are crucial to refining and balancing the systems before releasing it to a wider group.

All of the above (except for Slough Creek multiplayer) will be in patch 1.0.7l, coming very soon to public beta and then full release.

_______________

WolfQuest: Anniversary Edition is available now for PC/Mac on Steam and itch.io, as Early Access. The game currently includes Episode 1: Amethyst Mountain, Episode 2: Slough Creek, Lost River: Classic, and multiplayer mode in Amethyst and Lost River. (Slough Creek multiplayer is coming soon,.) Once the game is completed on PC/Mac, we will turn our attention to other platforms. The next episode, Tower Fall (DLC) will follow. We do not announce specific release dates. We will release them when they are ready!

Grab your purse, WolfQuest is 25% off! That brings the price down to US$14.99, so if you've got WolfQuest on your wish list, this is a rare opportunity to save a few bucks. Or buy it for a friend -- especially with Slough Creek Multiplayer coming pretty soon!

Live the life of a wild wolf (with or without accessories)!

It's time for another chance to win a free copy of WolfQuest! Lucky winners will receive a free copy of WolfQuest 2.7 (and PC/Mac users will also get WolfQuest: Anniversary Edition Early Access for PC and Mac)! Winners can choose to get any version of the game (Mac/Windows, Android, iOS, Kindle).

If you prefer, you can choose the new Yellowstone Wolf Coat DLC (only for WolfQuest: AE for PC/Mac) or the WolfQuest Soundtrack and Music Extras.

Email your username (any username is fine, we just have to know what to call the winners) and your answer to the question: "What are three interesting facts about wolves?" to the email address contest1@wolfquest.org

All entries must be received before midnight (Eastern Daylight Time) on Tuesday, October 19, 2021.

Winners are selected randomly from complete entries. Please enter only once in each monthly contest. Each complete entry will be assigned a number. We will then use a random-number generator to generate three numbers. The entries bearing those numbers will each win a free copy of the game.

Slough Creek multiplayer is shaping up! In Amethyst multiplayer, it’s all about hunting and claiming a territory, but we know that the heart of the game is pups and many players are eagerly awaiting the opportunity to raise a litter of pups with a pack of friends.



However, the Slough Creek quests pose some new challenges that we did not face with Amethyst multiplayer. For example, in singleplayer, Slough Creek generally takes 6-8 hours to complete, but we understand that multiplayer needs to offer a shorter experience, so we have created an Accelerated time mode, where pups grow more quickly. We’re currently aiming for a full SC game session to take about two and a half hours, though we may tweak that.

We also decided to cap the number of players at four or five, reduced from the maximum of eight in Amethyst and Lost River. We know this won’t be a popular decision but we feel it’s for the best, to avoid crowding and navigation issues around the homesite and more importantly, to avoid having to crank up the game challenges to a crazily unrealistic degree just to maintain game balance. We’ve also got a plan for genetics and parentage, but will talk about that in a future devblog.

Today’s devblog video takes a look at those, along with some sneak previews of gameplay and — of course — some amusing bugs.
_______________

WolfQuest: Anniversary Edition is available now for PC/Mac on Steam and itch.io, as Early Access. The game currently includes Episode 1: Amethyst Mountain, Episode 2: Slough Creek, Lost River: Classic, and multiplayer mode in Amethyst and Lost River. (Slough Creek multiplayer is coming soon,.) Once the game is completed on PC/Mac, we will turn our attention to other platforms. The next episode, Tower Fall (DLC) will follow. We do not announce specific release dates. We will release them when they are ready!

Earlier this month, Susan (Pepper) and I (Dave/loboLoco) returned to Yellowstone on our third research trip for WolfQuest: Anniversary Edition (though truth be told, we didn’t need that excuse to make the trip again). We hiked into some areas of the Northern Range that we are considering for future game maps, and we also visited Slough Creek’s First Meadow again — it’s one of our favorite places in the world. I was curious to see how the real place compared to the game map that we created since our last visit two years ago. So today’s video looks at a few aspects of real nature and how the game shapes up in comparison — and a few ways that I’ve been working since coming home to nudge the game a bit closer to reality.



_______________

WolfQuest: Anniversary Edition is available now for PC/Mac on Steam and itch.io, as Early Access. The game currently includes Episode 1: Amethyst Mountain, Episode 2: Slough Creek, Lost River: Classic, and multiplayer mode in Amethyst and Lost River. (Slough Creek multiplayer is coming soon,.) Once the game is completed on PC/Mac, we will turn our attention to other platforms. The next episode, Tower Fall (DLC) will follow. We do not announce specific release dates. We will release them when they are ready!