Hello again! Can you believe 2 weeks have flown by already? And WOW what an amazing 2 weeks it’s been. We’re absolutely thrilled with the community’s reception of Eastward and delighted that so many of you have already embarked on this weird and wonderful adventure with Sam and John. Thanks to each and every one of you who have supported the team at Pixpil and picked up a copy of Eastward - it means the world. Alright, gooey bit over.


We wanted to quickly address the current known bugs that the team is working on fixing. We appreciate those who took the time to send us reports, feedback and information on the Steam Forums, Discord, Reddit and everywhere else. Pixpil are currently working on a larger patch which will address a number of the bigger issues:

• Launching & black screen issues
  
• General data-leak crashes
  
• Cursor getting stuck
  
• Earthborn menu locks
  
• Offline mode support
  
• Rendering / fps issues with Xbox controllers
  
• John & Sam entering ‘out-of-bounds’ areas
  
• + other reported higher priority bugs

Switch-specific Bug:

• Friendly Spendie & King Krab shop softlocks

We’ve noticed a few players commenting about features which are already in the game, such as text speed options, so please check the in-game menu settings posting change requests! Several bugs and feature changes have already been resolved in post-launch patches, full Version History and patch notes can be found on the Official Eastward Wiki.

As we’re a small team we can’t always reply to every post, but we do read them all! If you’re a Nintendo Switch player, you may see patches release a few days later than on Steam due to the longer submission process, but rest assured they are in the works and on their way!


Following some important bug fixes, we will be moving on to QoL (quality of life) updates. So far we’re looking at adding the following features based on your community feedback:

• Higher resolution menu UI
  
• Sharper resolution for enlarged scaling output
  
• Fast-travelling in town areas (via the Map). Please note this will take some time to test to ensure players don’t miss important story triggers.
  
• Chapter Select for New Game+ for players who want to get all optional elements!
  
• Earthborn to be playable from the menu once player has completed the Main Story
  
• PlayStation controller UI
  
• Other minor tweaks such as more Salt drops

We can’t give an estimation of how long each of these features will take, as all will need thorough testing and localisation, but we will let you know how they’re coming along. If you have any other suggestions, please post them on the Steam Forums or the Eastward subreddit which we check regularly.

Another hotly requested update from the community is of course more localisation support for Eastward! Now that the game is out we will be reviewing the demand before we confirm which additional languages will be added. As Eastward is a story-based game, there’s a lot of text to be translated (approx 143,000 words) so please be patient as adding further language support may take some time to ensure high quality!

Finally, we wanted to briefly address the comments around the game’s resolution. While Eastward is a pixel art game, it’s not actually 2D at all, but in fact 3D with a 2D perspective! It’s how the Pixpil dev team has been able to achieve such a unique atmosphere, with the addition of shader textures and lighting systems in their custom engine. You might notice when you play layers of fog, or brilliant sunbeams casting down on the landscape at various points throughout the game day. Each pixel and bespoke lighting detail was handcrafted and took a lot of time to create, but we think our players appreciate the small things!

While Eastward is natively a 720p output, a baseline the dev team decided on early in the process, because of the intricate lighting techniques it can’t be simply ‘scaled up’ easily in a standard ratio like other pixel games. As mentioned we are also currently working on a patch to add a higher-res UI and a sharper resolution for larger outputs, which we hope will please the PC player community!



We know many of you have been enjoying bopping along to Joel Corelitz’s awesome soundtrack as you discover more of the wide world of Eastward, so here’s another music video for you - Glimmer!
https://youtu.be/e0DhUYABgn0
You can pick up the whole soundtrack here on Steam, or over on Joel’s Bandcamp.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1586600/Eastward_Soundtrack/


We’ve loved seeing how much wonderful fanart has been shared in the past few days - here’s some more of our favourites~


By Ksoja


By DEL('-'*)


By Onion_Shuji

That’s all for now. If you haven’t already come and join the community discussion over on our Discord or Reddit, and follow us on Twitter for more Chucklefish gaming news.

Until next time!

-allow the game to start in offline mode.

-add: startup language selector

-fix: incorrect physics setting in some scenes
-fix: autosave near the Mayor's House may block the game
-fix: the first Boss should not dealing damage when it's down
-fix: In Earth Born, players could fail to revive dead characters
-fix: In Earth Born, some message box could fail to close itself
-fix: fix some visual glitches
-tweak: small tweaks to the difficulty of the boss fight in chapter 8
-tweak: additional autosave after playing Earth Born and the Gacha machine
-client: supports to some models of Switch Pro Controller

-fix：players could fail to open the door outside the mall level
-fix：players could get blocked when loading from the savefile saved at Damcity outfield station.
-fix：incorrect collision in some levels
-fix：players could get across doors of some shut shops
-fix：players can't acquire Sam's ability after finishing chapter 3
-fix：players can't modify keyboard/joystick configuration in title menu
-fix：some incorrect autosave timepoints
-fix：following character could move without running animation
-fix：allow the game to start in offline mode

-client：add logging support

*BING BONG* Weeeeelcome aboard the Eastward Express! This is a multi-stop hype train that will take you all the way to the edges of our known universe. For your safety we would ask you to keep your arms and legs inside the carriage at all times, and please keep your belongings on your person, including any snacks, kitchen utensils, and Earth Born paraphernalia. Any unattended items will be devoured by the miasma. We hope you have a pleasant journey *BING BONG*

We are incredibly excited to finally share Pixpil’s Eastward with the world!

Out now on PC and Nintendo Switch, you can join Sam and John’s adventure through a society on the brink of collapse, filled with delightful towns, strange creatures and even stranger people! The population may be declining, but the world has never been more alive and in need of your help...

Check out the new Cinematic Launch trailer - including a teaser of our future collaboration with our friends at iam8bit on some physical products we know you’ve been asking for... More specific news on that soon!



Eastward will be available for $24.99 / £21.99 / 24.99eu (as well as other regional variations) and is playable in English, French, Japanese, Simplified Chinese and Traditional Chinese. Eastward’s gameplay clocks in at around 30 hours (depending on how you play), and as such boasts a rather sizable amount of words, so we’ll be considering future languages for localisation based on post-release demand! You can find more information in last week’s FAQ post.

A super cute merchandise range from The Yetee is also available today, with 2x t-shirts featuring Sam and John (cooking & battle themed), as well as an adorable Sam enamel pin! But that’s not all, we’re also excited to reveal we’re working with the team at Fangamer, on an awesome Eastward collection coming this Autumn. We’re talking posters, t-shirts, pins, and ...more!?! You’re going to want to sign-up for notifications over on the Fangamer page asap to find out as soon as it drops.

You might also notice we have a fancy new Eastward website, on which lurks some easter eggs and secret prizes to be discovered - take a look over at https://eastwardgame.com/!

Lastly, if you’re as excited about Eastward as we are, come and join the community discussion over on our Discord or Reddit, and follow us on Twitter for more Chucklefish gaming news.

Until then thank you, take care, eat snacks and enjoy Eastward! <3

Thank You to our community for all the lovely Fan Art!


By @nekocrocodile


By @PowieJosh


By @Woodspixl_


By @maikartsy

- Resolved an issue where joystick input would be lost when transitioning from one scene to the other, causing the player to stop moving when they enter new scenes.
- Turned off the Chromatic Filter effect in the title menu.

Hi everyone!

Wow, we can’t get over all of the incredible support and enthusiasm following Eastward’s release date announcement. If you left a lovely comment, tweeted the dev team, ‘Liked’ or shared the trailer, or even just watched it at all, thank you so much. We can’t wait to put the game in your hands on September 16th. Not long to go now!

We’ve also seen a lot of questions floating about - so let’s get those answered in a tidy FAQ!



When does the Pre-Order promotion end?
Eastward is available for pre-order now on Steam, GOG, Humble & Nintendo Switch, with a 10% off discount. The 10% off discount is for pre-sale only and will end at launch where it will return to full price.

What platforms is it available on?
Windows, Mac and Nintendo Switch!

How much will it be?
Eastward will be available for £21.99 / $24.99 / ¥ 2,680 or your regional equivalent, but you can currently grab 10% off if you pre-order before launch.

How long is the game?
That varies depending on how you play it, but we estimate around 30 hours. However, we expect many players may spend even more time chatting to Eastward's quirky NPCs, trying out various puzzle solutions, playing mini-games like Sam’s favourite in-game RPG, Earth Born, and hunting down all of Eastward’s hidden treasures!

How many players does it support?
Eastward is a single player game, with dual character control during combat, dungeon and puzzle-solving sections. There is no online mode.

Will it be playable in “X” language?
At launch Eastward will be playable in English, French, Japanese, Simplified Chinese and Traditional Chinese. We may expand localisation to further languages after launch if there’s enough demand, so let us know! As Eastward is a story-based game, there’s a lot of text to be translated (approx 143,000 words), so additional language updates may take some time to ensure high quality!

Will there be a soundtrack available?
If you bopped your head along to composer Joel Corelitz’s awesome beats during Eastward’s trailers, you’ll be happy to know we’ll be making the Eastward OST available for purchase and download. You can pre-order it right now on {LINK REMOVED}Bandcamp which nabs you the track "Iron Carbine" before release! If you missed it, you can read last week's Music Blog and interview with Joel Corelitz here!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1586600/Eastward_Soundtrack/

While we're on the topic of music, here's another taster from the soundtrack... :

Will it have a physical version?
We recently announced a Japanese Nintendo Switch physical version with our friends at Kakehashi. It will be available as both “Standard” and “Collector’s” editions at various retailers across Japan. The Standard edition includes 2 sticker sheets alongside the physical cartridge itself, and the Collector’s Edition also adds a luxury 2-disc CD soundtrack, and an adorable mini-figure of Sam! The artwork shown on the site is still a placeholder, so we’ll be sharing more information for our Japanese players too.

But what about the rest of the world? Rest assured, we’re working on it, and will have more news to share very soon!

I’m a YouTuber / Twitch Streamer / Content Creator, how do I get hold of a review key?
If any of the above applies to you and you’re keen to get early access to play Eastward when keys are available, you can request access by filling in our {LINK REMOVED}Content Creator form. Please note, we’ve already seen an overwhelming amount of requests, so keys are not guaranteed.

Lastly, if you're as excited about Eastward as we are, come join the community discussion over on our Discord or Reddit, and follow us on Twitter for more Chucklefish gaming news.

Not long to go now. See you at the finishing line.
-Chucklefish

Happy blog day everyone! We’re drawing closer and closer to launch (September 16th, save the date!) so we thought now was a great time to spotlight the main maestro himself, Joel Corelitz!

If you’ve been living in a post-apocalyptic underground mining town then you may not know that the BAFTA-nominated brains behind the incredible soundtrack to Eastward also worked on titles such as Halo Infinite, Death Stranding, Unfinished Swan and Gorogoa. What a roster! Eastward's soundtrack will also be available on Steam.

We took the time to sit down and splash about in that creative cranium of his and share a little music video of one of the game's tracks… enjoy!

CF: Hello Joel! Thank you for taking the time out of your busy schedule to chat with us about Eastward. Easy one to start: in 6 words or less how would you describe your work?

JC: Collaborator who translates ideas into music.

CF: Fans often say that the music to Eastward feels really fresh yet nostalgic, much like the art style of the game. Where did you pull your influences from when starting out?

JC: I grew up in the 80s and 90s. Games of that era, in addition to being one of my favorite pastimes, were my earliest musical influences, so nostalgia was the easy part! I wanted the soundtrack to include the kinds of chunky lo-fi sounds we associate with 16bit games, and even though they pre-date Eastward’s art style, I wanted to include 8bit sounds too. Those sounds, produced by the chips from those old consoles, inspired me to be a composer. To me, they’re the heart and soul of video game music, and they deserve to be in any soundtrack that has anything to do with games of the past.

I wanted to spread those influences around though, because Eastward isn’t just about nostalgia - so they’re usually combined with more modern, higher-resolution sounds and production techniques to create a unique fusion that builds on that sense of nostalgia. The incredible world of Eastward, its story, locations, and characters were about as much inspiration as I needed! And classic game soundtracks were a huge influence of course. But because Eastward’s art style is a mashup of modern and classic, it gave me the freedom to draw from anywhere. Often, Pixpil had an idea of a style that would work for a certain area – for example, there’s this kind of loungy, Japanese Pop from the 70s & 80s that they sent me as inspiration for New Dam City’s theme, Saka No Machi. It worked so well that we used it for Go! Daniel! too.



CF: When considering those influences, how did you go about composing a soundtrack that stands out? (which it very much does in my opinion!)

JC: Thank you! It’s all about variety – just like the world of Eastward, which feels so rich and full of life. For the soundtrack to support such a vivid experience, it needed to feel like more the sum of its individual influences. The goal was to blend as many styles, techniques, and sounds as possible into a collection of pieces that feel like they belong together on the same soundtrack. It turned out like a tribute – my love letter to video game music.

CF: Which is your favourite track and which was the most interesting to create?

JC: It’s hard to pick out of 70+ tracks! But Johnny’s is definitely one of my favorites - I had so much fun creating Eastward’s expression of such an important genre staple. No classic soundtrack would be complete without shop music!

CF: Yes! We’re huge fans of shop music here. Speaking of retail… coming off the back of Death Stranding, was it at all difficult to switch gears?

JC: Switching gears is one of my favorite things about what I do.

I’ve been involved with Eastward since 2016. During that time, aside from Death Stranding, I scored Gorogoa, Halo Infinite, and a handful of other games I can’t talk about yet!

I also designed sounds for electric vehicles, a surgical robot, and composed music for installations, a feature film, and commercials.

Jumping in and out of different worlds keeps my perspective on each one fresh so I can stay focused on creating the perfect fit for each one.

CF: It’s really cool that you get to work across different industries and bring those learnings along with you. Where does video game music fit into the realm of contemporary composition in your view?

JC: I’d put it up against anything. There’s so much freedom in game music. It can be adaptive, or just loop. It can be any style or genre. The only restriction is that it has to fit the experience – from a standpoint of mood, but also in terms of the say it’s presented, or implemented in the game - so in that sense, it’s always functional, sets it apart from other genres or mediums. And that adds an interesting dimension to the process - always a unique and fun puzzle to solve.

But I think maybe what I love most about video game music is that the memory of playing the game is fused hearing the music, so that you can listen to the soundtrack after you play and instantly remember the mood and emotion of the place or point in the story when you first heard it. It’s like the perfect souvenir.

CF: A souvenir, what a wonderful way to describe it! Speaking of memories when creating, how has the music developed from the start of the project compared to the final tracks we’re hearing in Eastward today?

JC: Pixpil had a very strategic compositional plan for the whole process. Each piece on the soundtrack is either about a place, a character, or a mood. We decided to start with a character - with Alva’s theme, The Curious Princess, and once it was in a good place, we moved on to the next piece. So the development of the soundtrack was like creating building blocks, with the sensibilities of each piece informing the next. Because we constructed it that way, we didn’t end up with too much material on the cutting room floor. Terminal, which was I think the actual first piece I wrote, ended up in a very special place in the game.

I almost never compose the theme first – I sort of “ease in” to the world, so that by the time I do the theme, the musical sensibilities of the world are really well established. On almost every project, the theme is sort of “discovered” accidentally. In Eastward’s case, the track Eastward, which contains the main theme, was written for a trailer and the melody just came out and felt right.

There was a point halfway through development (although we didn’t know it was only halfway at the time) where we’d sort of fulfilled the requirements of all our initial sprints, and I took a step back and thought: “this is a Pixel art game, we need more chiptunes!” So, I wrote some, along with additional music for various moods and locations. I think those pieces ended up being some of the most successful in the game. Strange Quest came out of that round. By the end, that “additional music” was about half the soundtrack!

CF: Honestly I don’t think you can ever have too much chiptune, though it does pluck at the nostalgic heartstrings for us. Looking forward, what would you like to see more of in the future of games composition, whether that be technology or technique?

JC: I usually try to make sure creativity and ideas remain the driving force, but I’m always looking for opportunities to experiment with new technology. There are some incredible innovations happening, particularly in adaptive audio. I’m particularly excited to hear how composers and developers use real-time, in-engine synthesis.

CF: Okay, now for the million dollar question. Which post-apocalyptic world would you rather live in, Death Stranding’s or Eastward’s?

JC: Definitely Eastward’s. A trailer in Potcrock Isle wouldn’t be a bad setup to hunker down after the apocalypse. Sure, there might be some giant electrified slugs to deal with but you just smack ‘em with a frying pan - way easier to handle than BTs!

CF: Finally, where can fans find your body of work?

JC: My site & portfolio is at http://joelcorelitz.com/about. My studio and audio-branding company is Waveplant, and I’m on Twitter & Instagram.

If you’re enjoying the soundtrack to Eastward so far, please reach out to Joel and send him your thoughts! Until then, we’ll be dropping a fresh new track from the OST each week for you to enjoy. You can also pre-order the OST right now on Joel’s Bandcamp and check back in to grab it on Steam. Bon appetit!

-Chucklefish

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1586600/Eastward_Soundtrack

Hey everyone!

Today we’re thrilled to announce the news we know you’ve all been waiting for… Eastward is coming to PC, Mac and Nintendo Switch on Thursday September 16th - and you can pre-purchase it on Steam for 10% off RIGHT NOW! Please note the 10% off is only available for pre-purchases, not after launch, so grab it while it’s hot~

The release date was just announced via Nintendo’s Indie World showcase - you can check out the heart-thumping new trailer right here (ooft still gives us chills):




We hope the video gives you a little taster of Eastward’s darker mysteries that are yet to reveal themselves...

Eastward will be available for $24.99 / £21.99 / 24.99eu (as well as other regional variations) and playable in English, French, Japanese, Simplified Chinese and Traditional Chinese. Eastward is a big game for an indie (approx 30 hours) with a rather sizable amount of words, so we’ll be considering future languages for localisation based on post-release demand.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/977880/Eastward/

We also wanted to add that it was wonderful to see all of your lovely comments recently when we released the IGN Gameplay Preview. Thanks to your feedback, the development team at Pixpil have been looking into extra menu options for text sound effects (including a ‘simplified’ version for folks who don’t like the retro text SFX), text volume controls and a clearer prompt for quick switching between weapons.

That’s it for now. As we approach Eastward’s launch, are there any other nuggets of information you would like to know? Ask us in the comments! In our next blog we’ll be chatting to Eastward’s composer Joel Corelitz and giving you all a little preview of some fresh Eastward tunes.

If you’re a streamer and keen to get early access to keys when they’re available you can request access by filling in our {LINK REMOVED}Content Creator form. You’ll also find answers and basic info about the game in our handy FAQ.

Lastly, if you're as excited about Eastward as we are, come join the community discussion over on our Discord or Reddit, and follow us on Twitter for more Chucklefish gaming news.

Until next time!
-Chucklefish