Beta Launch + State of the Game | Kittens, New Intro, & More!
Cattails: Wildwood Story · published
Welcome back to another monthly update for Cattails: Wildwood Story!
It’s finally here! The month of March marks a very important milestone for the project. Right on target, we’ve officially launched the closed beta! If you backed to receive beta access (and did not already have access to the alpha phase,) you will find your download keys and instructions in your Kickstarter account inbox. 😸
We’ll be using this update to provide you with two important types of news. First, we’ll talk about the changes and new features that are now available in Beta v0.10 (Kittens! New intro! And more…) Then, we’ll talk more broadly about the road ahead for Cattails: Wildwood Story in the “State of the Game” section. We’ll wrap up with information about our upcoming livestream tomorrow (more on that in a bit!)
Beta v0.10
An incredible amount of work has gone into polishing the game for our new incoming wave of beta players, introducing new features that will be of interest to both our existing players and those who will be starting a new file. Alpha players, you’ll be happy to hear that all savefiles from the alpha will be fully compatible with the beta.
New Introductory Experience
Perhaps the most noticeable change is the new introduction! When creating your very first file, you’ll be ushered into a dramatic intro that will introduce you to several major characters, teach you how to play, and offer some exciting choices that will impact the starting state of your colony. We hope this new introductory experience will help you get a better feel for the world of Cattails: Wildwood Story as it sets the stage for your adventures.
Players who have already created a save file will be given the choice of whether or not to play the new intro, or skip it, during character creation.
Kittens! 🐈🐈🐈🐈
At long last, kittens have been added to the game! We know this is one of the most highly anticipated features and we are so excited to announce that players can now have a litter of their very own.
After marrying a cat of your choosing, you may eventually be asked by your spouse if you would like to start a family. You may choose to say yes, no, or maybe someday. If you say yes, the two of you will one day give birth to kittens!
Each of your kittens will have a unique dialog portrait and a special generated coat color that is based on the patterns of you and your spouse. We spent a lot of time perfecting the inheritance system so that it is capable of producing plenty of amazing, cute kittens that will be wholly unique to your playthrough.
In Cattails 1, each kitten could inherit 1 of 12 possible patterns based on you and your spouse; in Cattails: Wildwood Story, the possibilities are virtually endless! Your kittens will also inherit your body types and eye colors.
Another fun feature we’ve added to the game is the ability to dress up your kittens with accessories! Any non-pet accessory that you have unlocked can be equipped to any of your four kittens at any time. There’s nothing sweeter than a kitten in a costume!
Of course, once they are old enough you can take your kittens with you on your adventures via the Buddy System! While each kitten starts with an Active Trait and a Passive Trait based on their personalities, you also have the option to Retrain your kittens traits and set them to any choice you’d like at the cost of some XP.
We believe that the combination of these features will make having kittens in Cattails: Wildwood Story very rewarding as nearly every kitten in every playthrough will be one-of-a-kind.
After having kittens, you’ll also be automatically granted a copy of each of your kittens’ unique coat colors in your Coat Studio so you can wear or share their patterns.
New World Map!
Another feature that we’ve added with the beta is this beautiful new world map illustration by Narabas Artworks!
We couldn’t be happier with how it turned out. Not only is the artwork itself gorgeous, but the map is well researched and very useful for navigation as it is a great representation of the actual in-game world.
Here is an example of the new world map in-game with all the usual information overlaid. Quite an improvement from the alpha version!
State of the Game
Behind us now are the Pre-Alpha and Alpha stages of development. Now we’ve entered the Beta, which signifies that most major features are implemented at this point and the game is finally starting to shape up into a fun, cohesive experience. However, there’s still some time before the full release on Steam later this year, so I wanted to use this chance to give you all an update on which features have been implemented and which are still to come.
Base Game
Implemented:
-Hunting
-Combat, Influence System
-Friendship & NPC Schedules
-Dating & Marriage, Marriage Ceremonies
-Colony Layouts & the Build Menu
-Colony Stockpiles & Construction Projects
-Tasks
-Gardening
-Crafting
-Festivals
-Mining
-Coat Studio
-Kittens
-Buddy System
-Den Decorating & Furniture
-Complete Open World
-Skills
-2+ Hour Soundtrack
-Community Content API
-Tutorial + Intro
To Do:
-Achievements
-Recruit Cats to Colony (instead of every cat being available from the start)
-Main Story
-German + Spanish localization
Stretch Goals
Implemented:
-New Resident 1 (Rosemary)
-New Resident 2 (Zephyr)
-Wedding Venues
To Do:
-Museum of Curiosities
-New Game+
-Rival Marriages
-Expanded Mines
And here’s a reminder of our current planned release schedule for the full game. We’ll announce official release dates as we get closer.
-Q4 2023: Full Release of Cattails: Wildwood Story on Steam for Windows & Mac!
-Late 2024: Full Release of Cattails: Wildwood Story on Nintendo Switch™
At this time we feel confident in our ability to deliver the full release on time, as we have hit each and every deadline up to this point and have lots of time to finish up the core features of the game before the end of this calendar year. Hooray!
Dev Livestream #5
Lastly, we wanted to remind you that Developer Livestream #5 is taking place on our YouTube channel tomorrow, March 2 at 6pm Eastern Time! We’ll be playing Beta v0.10 to showcase some of the newest features and answering questions from chat. The livestream will run for approximately 1 hour and will be archived on our channel for those who want to watch it later. We’d love to see you there!
Before we wrap up the monthly update, I just wanted to give a quick shoutout to all of our amazing alpha players for their help in tracking down bugs and submitting feedback during the closed alpha test phase of the project. Thanks to you all Cattails: Wildwood Story is in a much better state than it ever could have been without your assistance. Your passion and commitment to the game inspires me daily and I’m so grateful to have such an awesome community behind the game. 😻
If you can’t find your closed beta access keys and you are entitled to receive them, please reach out either via Kickstarter direct message or to [email protected] and I’ll help get you sorted.
Alright, that’s everything for March! I’ll be back in April with yet another monthly update. Until then,
-Tyler (@FalconDevelops)