Making a map, making a game

Last update (on Substack) we talked about building a Steam page and working towards an announcement, which we were fully committed to at the time of writing.

Later that same week we talked to some of our good friends at Game Drive, who we have worked with before during our Ronimo days (we used to have a studio called Ronimo Games) They recommended us to delay our announcement until we were further along, and also to move it out of the busy end-of-year period. This was a tough call because a lot of marketing wisdom nowadays centers around grinding wishlists for your Steam page, and we can’t do that without the page being live.

Still, we decided to postpone our announcement. And in hindsight that is probably a good thing as we have since also changed our mind about the name of the game. After talking to lots of different people we feel The Chopkeeper is a really cool name for a game, but not the best for ours. Most people expected a very different game based on the name. We’ll keep the new name under wraps until the announcement, but as a hint we can say it has something to do with this guy:

This cool looking bear has become a central part of the narrative that we’re developing surrounding the events of the game. As such it makes sense to center the title on him as well.

Luckily we also got some great feedback on the game itself and have been reassured that we’re on the path to creating something fun. One of those proof points came from Jesse Cox, an old friend of ours who also happens to be a very fun YouTuber. He found our demo on itch and posted this great video of him playing it:

Mapping developments

In the meantime we’ve also been hard at work on improving the flow of the game in between rounds. The area map now operates on a system of days, with the ultimate goal being that players need to survive a set number of days and possibly complete a mission within that time. Here’s what it looks like now:

As everything in this post, the map screen is still very much WIP, but it shows you the current state. Additionally we’re experimenting with the way traders operate. From the way they move on the map to the way you engage with them, we’re continuously trying different things.

Currently they move on the map and can be escorted to camp at the cost of a day, which also moves the monsters. Then you can pick one of the traders in your camp to decide which one you wish to engage this day. In order to make them more part of day-style flow, we also moved their functionality onto the area map screen.

Finally, the merging and enchanting have now been separated into two different roles, as the combination was both heavy on the players and could lead to weird interactions when enchanting and then merging and vice-versa. Here’s a peek at the current enchanting UI:

There’s also completely new stuff happening on the map, including story events. But we’ll talk about those another time.

So, what do you think? Was moving the announcement the right call? What do you think of the changes to the trading and map mechanics? Whatever happens, we’ll keep you posted.