PAX Aus is almost here, and to celebrate we're opening Gateworlds to everyone for another public playtest from October 9–14!
If you happen to be going to PAX Australia this weekend then come visit our booth (number 30) in the indie showcase area. If you're not able to make it then good news! you'll still be able to jump into the latest build of Gateworlds and try some of the biggest additions we've made since our last test.
This test will only run for a short period, but we will be announcing a much longer playtest very soon, so keep an eye out on our socials or hop into the Gateworlds discord if you want more updates.
We're also very excited to share some details on our newest features coming to this test...
We've added two completely new deities, each encouraging a very different style of play.
Levia, Goddess of Growth rewards those that learn to live alongside nature rather than simply stripping each world of everything useful. Grow excess food, build totems and feed animals to earn her favour. The more Levia favours you, the less aggressive wildlife becomes, making dangerous worlds easier to explore.
However, every natural resource you extract reduces Levia's favour. Chop down too many trees and your favour will drop, resulting in your Levia benefits declining greatly.
Levia also grants the Befriend ability, allowing you to temporarily turn a wild animal into an ally that will follow and protect your Gatefarers.
Irizaan, Incarnation of Flame, is on the other side of the divine pantheon and is the exact opposite of Levia.
Irizaan has a simple request of his followers: burn it all.
Fire empowers your colony, allowing Gatefarers near flames to move faster, work faster and build faster. However, you need to keep those fires burning or else your Gatefarers will move, work, and build much more slowly than normal.
Irizaan grants the Immolation ability that allows you to set fire to everything within a small area. It's really fun and maybe a bit too strong, but we're keen to see what shenanigans players get up to with it.
We've also completely overhauled the beginning of the game. You can now fully customise your starting Gatefarers and there's a new tutorial that will provide more step by step guidance on the fundamentals of the game.
The character creator: Before starting a new game, you can customise your Gatefarers' appearances, define their relationships with one another, and reroll their traits and skills.
We're particularly excited about this system because Gateworlds is ultimately about emergent stories and now you have the ability to shape those stories from the very beginning.
The Gateworlds Open Playtest runs across the PAX Aus weekend, October 9–14.
If you've played Gateworlds before, we'd love to hear what you think of everything that's changed. And if you've been following development but haven't jumped in yet, this is a great opportunity to see what we've been working on.
As always, feedback is incredibly valuable to us. Every public test helps us figure out what's working, what's confusing and what we should be focusing on next.
Thanks to everyone who's followed, wishlisted, tested and given feedback on Gateworlds so far.
We'll see you beyond the gate!
Hydrarch team.