Hey there, Spiritfarers!

The Lily Update is ready to spread its wings, and Lily is finally making her debut to the Spiritfarer crew! This update is completely free! All you need to do is Update Spiritfarer! ːstella_happyː

Alongside Lily herself, you'll find some new features, a bunch of Quality of life changes and lots of Bug Fixes! You'll want to stick to the end, I have a handful of news that you won't want to miss!

Oh and, before I forget, here's the Lily Update trailer:


Before we dig into the meat and potatoes of this update, I wanted to let you know that we decided to make the Lily Update a bit smaller than the others in order to properly take the time and address the most common feedback we received since the game's release: Stella's Story and Spiritfarer's Ending.

We heard it loud and clear, and we agreed, so we really gave it our all to make Stella's story and its conclusion more satisfying. We're really happy with how it turned out, and we hope you'll enjoy it too!

Now, without further ado, here's Lily, the Butterfly Spirit!

Lily - The Butterfly Spirit

Meet Lily, Stella's younger sister.

She's here to be your guiding light by granting you the ability to navigate at night, and by offering a sweet and personal window into several scenes of Stella's life. 👀

Note that she'll only appear near the very end of the game, so it might a while before you'll get to actually meet her personally!

Patch Notes:

New Content:

• Lily can join your boat!
  
• Fishing can now be done in coop! 🎣
  
• Added a new atmosphere to Buck's event.
  
• New coop controller assignment screen.

Quality of Life Update:

• The boat can now travel at night after the first conversation with Lily.
  
• New visual effects when Stanley is found.
  
• UI now shows how many items can be added to stations.
  
• Recipe collection now shares the same sorting as the recipe book.
  
• Island's names now appear while fast travelling.
  
• Bus Stops are easier to see from the Fast Travel screen.

Click here for a list of all the bug fixes!

500k copies sold!

Spiritfarer is officially Thunder Lotus’ most successful project to date! Since its launch in August 2020, it sold over 500,000 units worldwide across all systems! ːcat_starsː

But that's not all, Spiritfarer is still sitting at Overwhelmingly Positive reviews thanks to you all! It received nominations at The Game Awards, The DICE Awards, and BAFTA Game Awards, and we won three categories at the Canadian Game Awards!

We're eternally thankful for all the support you've given us! Thank you so very much! ːstella_heartsː

Gustav update

We haven't forgotten about our announcement regarding Gustav's story. We're happy to say that we've collected invaluable feedback from a panel of gamers with disabilities, and will adjust the content accordingly, which we'll implement along with the Beverly Update this Summer. More information will come at a later date directly on our Website, please stay tuned!

LudoNarraCon

For those who might have missed it, we're taking part in LudoNarraCon this year! ːstella_happyː

Interested in hearing how we created Spiritfarer and meeting the team behind the game? Then you won't want to miss LudoNarraCon, between April 23-26.

I'll be joined by our Creative Director, Nicolas Guérin, and our Art Director, Jo Gauthier.

Mark your calendar and click here for more details and to look at our schedule!




Time to say our goodbyes for now!

Hope to see you this weekend for LudoNarraCon! If you can't make it, don't worry, I'll be back when the Beverly Update hits live this Summer! We're still putting the finishing touches on the more gameplay-heavy portions of the updates to come. In the meantime, go play through the Lily Update today! ːcat_coolː

Thank you so much for reading, and have a wonderful day!

Cheers,
-Med



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

LudoNarraCon is a digital convention to celebrate narrative videogames, which is hosted directly on Steam!

We're happy to announce that we'll be participating in the event with Spiritfarer!

Curious to know how Spiritfarer was made behind the scenes?
Just tune in every day between April 23rd and 26th from 1PM to 2PM EDT and find out!

I'll be joined by our Creative Director, Nicolas Guérin, and our Art Director, Jo Gauthier! I will be hosting and engaging in the discussions throughout the weekend! Please join in, it should be a lot of fun!

April 23rd: Q&A + Hangout

1PM - 2PM EDT

I will start the weekend by hanging out and answering all your burning questions live!

Please send me all your questions directly on Twitter using #SpiritfarerQuestions, on our Discord in the LNC-Questions-❓ channel or in this event's comments section on Steam!

April 24th: Approach to Narrative Direction

1PM - 2PM EDT

Nicolas will join me to discuss how we created the narratives to all the spirit, from techniques to methodology.

April 25th: From Charon to Stella

1PM - 2PM EDT

Jo and Nicolas will join me to walk me down the evolution of Spiritfarer from its inception with Greek Mythology to what it became with Stella.

April 26th: Dissecting Stella's Story

1PM - 2PM EDT

Nicolas will join me to discuss the entirety of Stella's narrative, it's going to be spoiler-tastic!



We're going to be broadcasting directly here on Steam, but also rebroadcasting it live on Twitch and Youtube! Please make sure to follow us on these channels as well! ːstella_happyː

If you can't make it, no worries. The streams should be archived directly on our Youtube at a later date.

Remember to send me your question in the comments or on our Public Discord! And don't forget to tune in April 23rd 1PM EDT for our start to LudoNarraCon!

See you there!

Cheers,

-Med and the Thunder Lotus Team



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

Hello there, Spiritfarers!

The team and I are proud to finally unveil what we’ve been working on in the last few months. We’ll be releasing brand new content for Spiritfarer throughout this year!

Without further ado, here’s our Spiritfarer Roadmap! ːstella_happyː



We have three major updates in the works, all of which will be completely free! ːcat_starsː

We are currently planning to release them in Spring, Summer and Fall of this year, and they will contain their own set of changes, including new spirits, new buildings, new resources and overall quality of life improvements to the game.


As Stella is getting more familiar with the job of Spiritfaring, she starts to uncover some of her memories, which are starting to blossom as wondrous flowers over her cabin. These flowers house butterflies that roost to form...

Our brand new friend : Lily, Stella’s younger sister.



Lily is the only spirit that's active during the night. Just as she had been a shining presence in her big sister’s life, here she illuminates the night and lets you navigate your boat even when it’s dark! Isn’t that convenient!

In addition to adding Lily, we’ll be enhancing the cooperative experience with a brand new UI and the ability to do some coop fishing! All that and more! 🎣

The Lily Update is set to take flight this Spring!


While exploring Oxbury, Stella is accosted by a stranger who turns out to be her old neighbor Beverly! She’s been feeling rather lonely on this island and couldn’t be happier to have finally found someone to talk to about the past!



Speaking of the past, remember Overhead Projectors? To keep in line with our walk down memory lane, we’ll be introducing a new station called the Archive Room, where you’ll be able to inspect a brand new set of collectibles called Acetate Sheets. Who knows what kind of information these wonderful transparent sheets will hold!

We also have a plethora of quality of life tweaks in the works - full details to come at a later date! I can’t spoil all the surprises! ːcat_coolː

You’ll get the chance to reminisce about the good old days alongside Beverly this Summer.


Out of the blue, Stella receives coordinates for a new island that houses a run-down hospital. There, she’ll meet Jackie, the caretaker, and Daria, his main patient. Seeing that Jackie is overworked, Stella decides to lend him a hand.



You’ll be able to explore a whole new island, interact with two new spirits and experience a brand new event! Additional details coming later this year! 👀



All will be revealed when the Jackie & Daria Update launches this Fall.


More details to come when we settle on a specific release date for each content update. Remember that all these updates will be completely free!

Speaking of free content, I just wanted to let you know we added badges to Spiritfarer today, where you'll be able to unlock Spiritfarer stickers and emotes! Head to the Points Shop to unlock yours today!

Special thanks to our Discord community and all our Mailing List subscribers, whose feedback really helped us focus our efforts in the right direction for these content updates!

Oh, and one last thing, it would mean a lot to us if you could please take the time to review Spiritfarer!

Thank you so much for reading, have a wonderful day!

Cheers,
-Med

Hey everyone,

As this year draws to a close, I figured I'd take you on a journey back through memory lane and reflect on the... eventful year that was 2020... but first, I want to extend my deepest and most sincere gratitude to each and every one of you, who have supported us over these last twelve months and gave us the strength in face of adversities, and made this year truly unforgettable.

You're the best darn community we could've ever hoped for! 🥰



To celebrate the holiday season, we'll be partying in style with huge discounts on all of our games, including Spiritfarer. 

• Jotun & Sundered both have a huge -80% discount.
  
• Spiritfarer is also on sale ever sale at a staggering -25% discount!

Oh, you're in picking up all of them? Well, you're in luck! We actually have the Thunder Lotus Collection ready for you, with an additional -10% discount!
With deals this craaaazy, it'd be insane not to share!



Now onto this year's recap!

Start of 2020 - Winter

We started the year strong with a small event called... PAX East, where we got to meet so many of you... in person! Still wild to think we used to gather in large groups... 



I actually still have pleasant dreams about how comfy this rug was, as some of you have pointed out.

PAX East was actually the last time we'd be able to showcase our game in person. While the pandemic wouldn't actually start for another couple of weeks, we did our best to avoid the PAX Plague by bringing around 1500 earphone covers, and roughly as many wet wipes to clean the controllers. We actually managed to run out of both midway through the last day of PAX.

We're still happy to this day of how amazing the event has been, thanks to all of you and (most of all) our volunteers: Greg, David and Joe! 😄

Proud, with an award in hand and a couple of awesome articles under our belts, we drove back to Montréal to continue working on completing the full game.

Spring

As the pandemic started and before everything started closing down, we took the utmost precaution and moved to working remotely, and to help everyone remember to wash their hands: we asked Atul for help!



With our plans steadily moving forward and Spiritfarer being steadily on track, we got the opportunity to release both of our previous titles, Sundered and Jotun, to Stadia.

Summer

It was at that point that we realized that the pandemic would be here to stay and that we'd have to release Spiritfarer remotely. While we were slightly bummed out, our wonderful partners at the Knights of the Light Table surprised us with the finished version of our animated trailer.



Reinvigorated, we worked with all our strength to get all the builds ready for publication, before our target date for release: Nintendo Indie World, on August 18th 2020.



When the day finally arrived, we were ready and we surprised the world by dropping the game live now! Proud with what we've just accomplished, we were met with thunderous applause from a rapidly growing community, a community that was built on inclusivity and respect. 😊



We really couldn't be happier!

Fall

When the spooky season rolled around, Stella & Daffodil got all dressed up to celebrate!



In the meantime, we worked on resolving most of the issues Spiritfarer had on release and pushed out a patch containing all these languages.

End of 2020

We mostly continued working on minor fixes, and slowly prepared everything we need for 2021. As 2020 draws to a close, we are eternally grateful for all the happiness and support you've all brought us.

To celebrate, Max LL, our wonderful composer, published the official sheet music for Stella's Departure.



We also decided to give some love back by publishing a list of all the games we've played this year. Curious what to do during the holidays? Try some of these games out, they're worth the detour!

What's the plan for 2021?

To get ready for next year's development cycle, we actually opened up our discussions to you all earlier this month. We shared our ideas and accepted any and all of your suggestions. Then, you voted on what interested you for additional Spiritfarer content.

While we haven't fully tied the knot on all our plans for next year, we were really happy with your suggestions and comments! We'll let you know what we'll be doing with your suggestions in early 2021, so stay tuned!



We also actually have a lot of exciting new plans, that are not just inside Spiritfarer, coming next year! So, expect a lot of amazing things coming from us, some of them might even be physical... wait did I just hear merch? You'll have to wait and find out 😉

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!


Well, that about wraps it up for today. So much has happened, it genuinely feels like multiple years have passed, yet here we are... at the doorstep of 2021. Thanks again for making this year so special!

Stay happy, stay healthy, and I wish you all a jolly good Holiday Season & a happy New Year!
See you in 2021!

Cheers and lots of love,
-Med and the Thunder Lotus team

Hey fine folks!

It's Thanksgiving time for our friends down in the US of A, but we're reminded that it's never the wrong time to show a little gratitude! In that spirit, we'd like to offer our warmest thanks to all of you for helping make Spiritfarer the most enthusiastically received launch in our Studio's young career! We wanted to make this game something special, possibly not everyone's cup of tea, but we never dreamed that the game would touch as many as deeply as it has.

So: thank you all for your love and support!

If you're feeling generous, we'd like to ask that you please help spread the word about our game:

• Please nominate Spiritfarer in the Sit Back and Relax Category (and of course any other category that feels right to you!) in The Steam Awards!
  
• Spiritfarer has been nominated in two categories in The Game Awards! We hope you'll consider casting your vote for Spiritfarer as Best Indie and the Games For Impact awards.
  
• Don't forget that the best way to help get the word for your favorite games is to please review the game on Steam! It really does make a huge difference, so thanks for taking the time!
  
• Finally, if you want to share the Spiritfarer love in real time with fellow fans (and the devs!) do please join our Discord Community!

That's all she wrote for today! Stay tuned for news about our exciting post-launch plans for Spiritfarer, which we're currently mulling over with great care.

Thanks again, y'all - stay safe, stay healthy, hug often.

Cheers,

- Rodrigue and the Spiritfarer Team

Hey everyone!

What a rush! We surprise-released our cozy management game about dying yesterday, taking advantage of an opportunity to have Nintendo broadcast our drop-dead gorgeous animated trailer in their Indie World Direct Showcase! Have you seen it? Check it out!



We're simply in love with that video - we didn't make it ourselves, though (check the full credits in the YouTube description). But we think it captures the essence of what we want you to experience in Spiritfarer.

Of course, our Launch Trailer has all the juicy bits of gameplay you want to see, and is front and center on our Steam page.

You may be interested in checking out our Steam-exclusive Digital Deluxe Edition, which includes the stellar soundtrack by Max LL, and also a beautiful 95 page art book.



That's all I got for now, folks! Spiritfarer is a game that's near and dear to our hearts, and we're so very proud of it. We hope you'll enjoy the experience!

See you on the mystical seas!

- Rodrigue and the Spiritfarer Team

Hey everyone,

Just a quick heads up to ask you to check out the latest and greatest Spiritfarer Gameplay Teaser! Behold:



This new teaser finds Stella following Alice the Hedgehog Spirit on a not-so-little trip to heretofore unexplored locales, from the frozen landscapes of Nordweiler to the metropolitan areas of Oxbury. By the end, Stella is seen hurrying home, zipline-bound.

If you've been following us for a while, you'll also notice some new faces, such as Giovanni the Lion Spirit and Stan the Mushroom Spirit too!

Let us know what you think, please! And do please Wishlist and Follow Spiritfarer if you haven't already.

Cheers,

- Rodrigue and the Spiritfarer Team

EDIT: due to the revised dates for the Steam Game Festival, we have pushed our AMA to Thursday, June 18, at 12pm ET! Thanks for understanding!


Heyo!

🥳 All aboard for the Summer Edition of the Steam Game Festival! 🥳

Won't you please come join us for the Spiritfarer Developer AMA? Got questions for us? We'll answer anything you ask! (it says so right there in the title!)*

Date: June 18, 2020
Time: 12:00 PM ET
Where: https://www.reddit.com/r/Games/


❓ Can't make it to the AMA? Have a burning question? Please submit it in advance [[url=https://forms.gle/GtfU5nUVvmXZeJPv8]HERE[/url]], and we'll try our best to answer it during the event!

⏰ Please don't forget to set a reminder, too!




*Spoiler: If your question is "When will Spiritfarer release?", our answer will be: "We don't have a firm release date for Spiritfarer yet - we'll see what the future holds!" But if you wishlist the game, you'll know as soon as we do! ;)


https://store.steampowered.com/app/972660/Spiritfarer/

Hey everyone,

Just a quick heads up to ask you to check out the latest Spiritfarer Gameplay Teaser! Please feast your eyeballs on this:



In this teaser, we wanted to give a spotlight to some of the sprightlier platforming levels that we're designing as spicy interludes to Spiritfarer's cozy management and emotional narrative. Long time fans know that we do enjoy us some smooth and satisfying platforming gameplay, and I personally feel there's some silky smooth Eshe DNA in Stella's moves!

Let us know what you think, please! And do please Wishlist and Follow Spiritfarer if you haven't already.

Hope you're keeping happy and healthy out there, y'all!

See you out on the mystical seas,

- Rodrigue and the Spiritfarer Team

Hey everyone,

I hope that you and yours are all keeping it together out there, and staying healthy!

Did you happen to notice that the FREE playable demo for Spiritfarer is being featured in the Steam Game Festival - Spring Edition? It'll be available through the weekend before it's removed from Steam. If you haven't checked it out, this is your chance to get your first taste of the game we've been pouring our hearts and souls into for nearly two years now! (and if you have, maybe share with a friend who you think would dig it!)

Grab or share the limited time Spiritfarer demo HERE!

The demo is great, but TBH, it's just a little taster for the full game. Yes, production is rolling on at full tilt, and the whole team is spending this weekend playing through our first Beta build, before we're ready to release it for testing among a select group of players! Let it be known that the Spiritfarer Closed Beta is happening soon™, and if you're interested in participating, we're holding signups through our mailing list until March 25h!

Please head HERE to subscribe to the mailing list, and we'll send you a link to get yourself on the list! (Note: If you're already a subscriber, we got you covered - you'll receive the same link shortly.)

Hope to have you on the Closed Beta Team!

Cheers,

- Rodrigue and the Spiritfarer Team