As we count down the final hours until the release of Harvest Hunt, let's delve deeper into the artistic and musical roots that define the eerie essence of our dark folk survival horror game.
ARTISTIC VISION
Uriel Cordas the mastermind behind the game's visuals, drew heavily from the darkly enigmatic themes of European folk horror. His style merges the grotesque charm of folk traditions with innovative influences from modern film and gaming. Notably, the team were inspired by the animator Yuri Norstein for his distinctive lighting and texture, and the painter Ludwig Meidner for his bold ink use and distorted forms. Even modern games like Inscryption, with their striking colored lighting, have left their mark on our visual narrative. The game's iconic elements, such as the Tarocco Siciliano-inspired cards and the Careto mask-wearing Warden, along with the whalebone hood of the Devourer, reflect deep-rooted cultural traditions, transforming them into key gameplay features.
MUSICAL ATMOSPHERE
Jeff Broadbent, a composer renowned for his work on titles like Diablo Immortal and Resident Evil Resistance, brings to life Harvest Hunt's suffocating ambiance through his music. The soundtrack is a homage to European musical traditions, such as fado, and echoes the haunting tones of horror film scores like those from M. Night Shyamalan's The Village. Broadbent's compositions are meticulously crafted to enhance the game's tension and dread, making every moment in Luna Nova feel as if you're stepping through a portal into a world of unrelenting fear.
The rich tapestry of sounds and visuals in Harvest Hunt promises an unparalleled horror strategy experience. Tune in to the game's haunting soundtrack on Spotify to get a taste of what awaits you in Luna Nova.
And it's not too late to ensure you're among the first to explore Harvest Hunt; add it to your wishlist today, and be alerted the moment it goes live:
Math class. Hockey practice. Taking a selfie with a vampire before staking him with a #2 pencil. All part of a typical day at school for Becky Brewster—new kid at Carpentersville High, latest in an ancient bloodline of spellcasting vampire hunters, and star of the upcoming cartoon dungeon crawler #BLUD!
7am - Bake Sale Prep!
The school’s fundraising drive is almost here, and Becky’s got just the thing to bring: the Apple Pie from her mom’s old cookbook! There’s a rad recipe somewhere between the 200-year-old technique for scrambled eggs, the grody description of Strzyga anatomy, handy instructions for creating a nexus portal, and the faintly glowing page full of indecipherable runes.
8am - Walk to School
Becky missed the bus (again), so it’s time to hoof it before the bell rings. Luckily Becky brought Brenda—an ancient wooden field hockey stick from the championship season of '95—to clean up the streets. Even better, Brenda’s just been fitted with a new umbrella attachment, serving as a shield against the rain and the rampaging monsters. Is every small town infested with so many bloodthirsty rats and vampire hatchlings? Just Carpentersville? OK.
9:30am - School Assembly
Today, Carpentersville High is hosting a very special guest speaker: none other than Geoff Freya, brilliant head of the ubiquitous social media and tech company Perch! He’s here today to talk about his vision for the MegaMultiverse, which he promises will revolutionize just, like, lots of stuff. No one’s quite sure what his spiel about the veil between planes and making graves barren has to do with that, but that’s why he’s the genius!
Lunch - “Hockey” Practice with Kristofferson
As if homework and real hockey practice weren’t enough, Becky’s mysterious mentor Kristofferson has put together a killer vampire-slaying curriculum. If she has any hope of beating Dragur, she’ll need to master her hockey-stick combos and the fine art of hurling wooden pencils (they’re basically stakes!) at vampires. Soon enough, Becky will graduate to advanced techniques, like wielding Brenda’s shovel and grappling hook attachments as impromptu weapons.
2pm - Get the Goat
The rival school mascot (truly the GOAT) has gone missing in a prank-gone-wrong, and it’s up to Becky to follow the trail of half-eaten garbage to the source of the mystery! Unfortunately, that mystery turns out to involve some cosmic-tier horror, turning the school’s hockey field into a #BLUD-y nightmare. Can Becky draw on her video-game-honed precision dodging and pattern recognition skills to get the goat back in its pen before the big game?
4:30pm - Mall Crawl
When you think about the fabled Carpentersville Mall, you probably think of the culinary cacophony of the food court, or the gleaming, glinting wonder of the jar store. But the mall’s also home to a labyrinthine basement filled with after-school activities aplenty. Kristofferson wants Becky to take out vampire nests. Becky’s pals Corey and Morgan want her to create a diversion with the water supply that fuels the mall’s flagship fountain (for world-saving purposes, of course). And it certainly wouldn’t hurt if Becky found a secret Token or two to add to her collection.
7:30pm - Spooky Evening Fun
Tonight’s the school’s Harvest Halloween Homecoming dance, and while everyone’s preoccupied with costumes, candy, and chaperoning, it’s the perfect time for Becky to battle the big baddies out to ruin Carpentersville’s fun! And what self-respecting vampire hunter would go to bed before staking out Old Pine Cemetery in search of ritual resources? Not Becky! Unless there’s a test tomorrow morning.
#BLUD arrives on June 18. Add it to your wishlist today!
The day is finally upon us, and the sands of Sophie beckon. Cast your eyes upon the very first gameplay footage of SAND, revealed today at the tinyBuild Connect!
"SAND is a PvPvE game where players operate mechanical walkers called Tramplers to explore the remnants of a once prosperous planet, now left in ruin. Explore a massive, procedurally generated world, survive encounters with rival scavengers, engage in massive scale Trampler battles, and make it off the planet with any valuables found throughout the world."
This summer, we invite you all to join us in the first beta for SAND, which you can sign up to participate in now on the Steam page 👇
Come and join us on on our social media pages to keep yourself up to date with all the news and updates for SAND or join the discussion over on Discord now!
Here we are at the halfway point! I had originally intended this to be patch 0.45, but I ended up adding double the planned Cursed Boons for this patch, and that brought me to the 50% mark on my internal content roadmap. I've also fixed a few bugs related to Theurgics and staff attacks that I introduced when fixing other bugs recently.
What's next? Like May was all about adding a lot of new boons (42 so far, in fact) and the Electromancer, June will be all about beefing up the actual game mode content for both Delve and Arena. Expect difficulty 3 for Delve, difficulty 2 for Arena, new burdens and sacrifices, new enemy types, and at least 1 new boss in June.
If you're still with me in the trenches, and enjoying the game, now would be a great time to leave a review. Many of the reviews, good and bad, are from the earliest versions of the game and haven't been updated since. I'd love for more recent feedback to greet new players interested in checking out the game. I know I've said this before, but word of mouth is my strongest marketing tool as a solo dev, and making it in this industry is not easy. I can use all the help I can get, and I have so many games I still want to make!
Anyway, enjoy the patch! Until next time!
Patch 0.50 Changes
New Cursed Boons
Hail Mary Curse
Shocklight Curse
Spreadlight Curse
Power Transfer Curse
Broadbrief Curse
Phantomshock Curse
Focus Pyre Curse
Long Fuse Curse
Safe Space Curse
Karmic Curse
Beastmaster Curse
Short Circuit Curse
Chickenheart Curse
Hasty Summoning Curse
Quality of Life
Updated how Cursed Boons are added to the pool. Should now see a slight increase in variety.
Add Electromancer staves to the main menu area
Bug Fixes
Fixed an issue that would cause the resolution setting "Full Screen, No Frame" to revert to "Full Screen with Frame" on restarting the game, or exiting from a game back to the main menu.
Cleaned up various visual artifacts outside of the normal playing/viewing area when using the "Full Screen, No Frame" option on atypical resolutions
Added a floor to certain stat modifiers to prevent them from giving abilities invalid stats that could break abilities.
Fixed a bug that would cause the Static counter to appear over the boon/burden menus
Fixed some bugs related to the Electromancer's "Overcharge" innate. Boons that triggered effects when your innate was used could trigger the Overcharge ability itself, among other things.
Fixed a bug that could cause staff attacks and theurgics to break if your theurgic was used right when you leveled up in arena (a recent bug fix for theurgics made this bug possible again)
This update contains 3 new monster girls, a bunch of new skills and a new way to obtain and expand the skills for your party members via improv weapons!
The game finally supports modern WASD controls!
We've also fixed an extensive amount of bugs and issues reported to us over the past months.
Changelog: New Content:
The Game Now Supports WASD Movement!
Added 3 New Monster Girls!
Added a new monster girl the "Dark Doppelganger" She has one H-Scene and can be recruited. She is a special variant of doppelganger.
Added a new monster girl the "Corpse Bride" She has one H-Scene and can be recruited. You'll find her in the mansion!
Added a new monster girl the "Zombie Girl" She has one H-Scene and can be recruited. Don't believe her appearance!
Added more to the main story, it continues upon entering the Spooky Mansion!
Monster recruitment is now (hopefully) working in the Cheat Room!
Added around 50 new skills and some new states, we've added many more skills focused on pleasure based attacks as well as fleshing out existing characters/enemies so that they have more versatility and usefulness.
Added around 40 new skill animations to go with some of the new skills.
Added a whole bunch of new items and pieces of equipment, 55 to be exact! Some have special features as described below!
Improvised Weapons now each have a unique skill attached to them that can only be used when the weapon is equipped. Using the AP system, you can master the skill by using the weapon in battle and earning enough AP points. Once you've mastered the skill, you can use it without having the weapon equipped!
Added some more little secrets and bits of flavour around the world.
Added some more locked chests in some locations.
Fixes and Tweaks:
The Goldeka Card Beasts tournament has been overhauled and fixed. Please try to break it!
Fixed issue of some party members not swapping correctly when recruiting new monster girls with a full party.
Fixed Hellhound triggering Dragon Girl temptation event and Dryad Game Over (Somehow).
Fixed some more collision issues in Goldeka.
Fixed typos in Second Campsite and Lass Request scene.
Fixed Lamia fight in pyramid being triggerable multiple times.
Fixed guard that replaces thrall by the whipping post in Goldeka being invisible.
Using steal no longer removes the gold from enemies drop pool, it is now extra bonus gold.
Increased the chance to steal items with steal skill.
Weakness and Resistance text now properly appears during battles when using attacks based on enemy strengths/weaknesses.
Added the Mansion to the Telestone menu.
Added a lever to the Pyramid Puzzle that resets the statues to prevent players getting stuck.
Improved Controller Integration
Improved performance in some areas, especially achievement triggers and other background events.
Improved behaviour of boat to stop players getting stranded after teleporting or loading saved games, it will now reset either to its original position or docking locations specified on the islands depending on where you are when you leave locations. It is a bit of a dirty fix but it'll stop frustrating situations for now until we can implement a better solution.
Goldeka port can now be re-entered from the boat dock if you decide to dock there or just want to re-enter the city.
Added Goldeka Port to the teleport menu for faster access to the boat spawn location.
More Fixes to TeleStones being able to be used during special scenes which would cause them to break.
Escape Scrolls have been adjusted and fixed in many places, they should work as intended in all dungeon locations now.
Game now correctly shows an icon on the task bar and window.
Current Known Issues to be fixed in follow up updates:
Story Skips are still disabled as they are not functioning correctly, after much work, we've made the decision to push the update without this function for the time being. It is far too buggy for us to push out just yet. There is a lot that we need to change in the back end in order to get it working more smoothly. Sorry for the inconvenience.
Actions in the Cheat Room may still cause bugs or strange things to happen during the story. (having certain characters before you are supposed to and etc.) We'll continue to patch it when issues are discovered.
For the time being, we have disabled the ability to recruit boss characters in the cheat room to avoid it causing conflicts during the story, once we've fixed some of the backend systems we'll be able to enable this function.
Some story dialogue CGs are missing flavour, more flavour text and etc will come in further updates. Especially we will be going back and touching up some cutscenes and dialogue to make them a bit more impactful.
Coming Next:
A Complete Graphical Overhaul to make the game look more unique.
More monster girls to fit the new areas. Coming next are some wild monster girls for the northern world map area, some Succubi and more!
Adding a bunch of new H-Scene sound effects to help set the mood. (they are already almost ready but need some tweaks).
More Main Story
More Side Content
We hope you enjoy!
More content is coming as well as more monster girls, the game isn't over yet!
If you find any bugs or have any issues, don't hesitate to post in the forums or get in touch with us, it helps us squash them as they are discovered.