Hello, my name is Daniel, and I’m the lead programmer on Whiskerwood.
Just over 3 months ago, I announced in our last update that we would spend the next 4+ months making a massive expansion to Whiskerwood’s gameplay...
I am proud to announce that we are ahead of schedule and it'll go live on September 3rd.
We have a clear runway to ship our update and are working on polishing and debugging. We still have many bugs to fix and many mechanics to iterate on, balance-wise, but the big features are written and implemented!
Thus, I want to walk you through what we are adding to Whiskerwood and how it will change your gameplay. With special attention to how you should prepare your colonies. Namely: don’t block your main dock!
⚠️ Note on Save File Backward Compatibility
A number of players have asked if this update will break their existing save files.
The answer to that is a big: NO!
We’ve put a ton of work into supporting everyone’s existing islands. This means that even if you have a save file from the original version of Whiskerwood we launched in early access with, it should automatically upgrade to run in the new version of the game. Our goal is not to lose anyone’s save files. With that said, you might hit a bug we haven't found; in that case, please email me at [email protected]!
The Nautical Update
Our big focus has been on expanding Whiskerwood’s gameplay past the boundaries of your island. This means all ships are simulated traveling to your island from the far shores of the claw homeland.
Pirates, of course, travel from an actual pirate island. Thus, if you block your main dock, ships cannot arrive. The paths of all ships are simulated, and structures over the water can block ships. We know many players have built their colonies to exploit the old behaviour of the ships, where the ocean connection did not matter.
For now and the next several updates after this big one, we’ve added fallback code. If a ship gets blocked on its way to your dock, it will teleport to your dock.
Do not rely on this behaviour long-term.
Fight Pirates!
Speaking of pirate islands: you can attack those! Mount enough cannons on enough ships, and you might have a chance at eliminating a pirate island. This conflict will play a key part in the update’s new story campaign.
Inter-Island Trade!
If you can navigate your way past the heavily defended pirate islands, you might find yourself in the company of other friendly whiskers. These colonies, such as yours, are happy to trade directly at generous prices rather than rely on smugglers.
With inter-island trade, you can both sell your industrial outputs (or basic resources) for Goldbars. You can even import both basic resources and rarer items from these colonies, provided you find one willing to trade such things. Each Whisker island has its own personality, which guides its development. Farming colonies are only interested in farming items, but can offer farm produce in large quantities. Meanwhile, mining colonies are a great place to stock up on ores if your mines are running dry.
The Ocean’s Bounty!
Need fish? Perhaps a lot of fish? Well, we have got an ocean for you!
The wide-open ocean now contains resources you can harvest! Fishing spots, Guano Rocks, and the occasional salvage from destroyed Pirate ships dot the oceans.
Research and build the Deep Sea Fishing dock to outfit ships to harvest unlimited fish from the deep blue sea!
Or scrape Guano off the Guano Rocks to convert into unlimited fertilizer!
Build your Fleet!
Ships capable of navigating the open ocean are complex machines. They require waterproof hulls. They have construction times to match this complexity.
Consider building multiple Shipyards to maximize the production of extra ships. Once a ship is constructed, assign it to a work dock. This update brings many types of work docks, including a ship ferry (much faster than the raft ferry), fishing docks, guano docks, and even... Navy Docks! The Navy dock will unlock further in the campaign and allow you to manage a Nautical Military.
Sailors & Officers
Matching the complexity of construction is the difficulty of seamanship. Whiskers are not, by their nature, water-loving animals. Only a select few have the skills and temperament it takes to venture off land. These Whiskers carry the new Sailor skill, and their commanders carry the Officer skill. Officers are required by the larger ships, while smaller ships need only a light crew of sailors.
How Should You Prepare for the Nautical Update?
Our intention for this update is to expand the mid-game. For many players, your existing save file will have already reached the appropriate precondition to enable the expanded story.
If you are starting a new save file, try to research Tier 1 of research before the update drops to speed up your path to the big event!
To everyone reading: Thank you.
Thank you for playing our game. Thank you for your patience as we build out our dream game. And thank you for reading!
Daniel,
Lead Programmer on Whiskerwood
Steam Reviews: Your Feedback Matters!
We’d really appreciate it if you could take a moment to share your thoughts about Whiskerwood in a Steam review. Each review helps us understand what you enjoy, what you’d like to see changed, and what you’d like to see added next. It’s a powerful way for you to not only share feedback with us directly but also influence what comes next in a patch. We’re carefully reading through all feedback, and your opinion matters!
Join the Whiskerwood Community
Become part of the Whiskerwood community. Join us on Discord to chat with other players, share your villages, and see what others are creating. You can also follow updates and discussions on Reddit, stay informed through BlueSky and Twitter.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2489330/Whiskerwood/