Hello everyone,
When we crossed 100,000 wishlists earlier this year, we were seriously surprised, and, of course, incredibly grateful. For where DREADMOOR was at that point in development, it was already one of the best votes of confidence that we could have received, so, imagine our surprise now, as we are already getting close to crossing…
DREADMOOR is still very much in development, and while we have always believed in the game, seeing this many of you show interest in it, follow it, share it, and wishlist it means a great deal to us.
So, before anything else, we want to once again give you our heartfelt thanks.
Where We Are Now
Since the 100,000 wishlist milestone, we have been focused on one thing, building DREADMOOR. The most important thing for us has not changed: we want DREADMOOR to feel like a proper survival fishing adventure set in a dangerous, flooded world, and not just a fishing game with some horror/tension elements added on top. At the same time, we don’t want to be a horror game where fishing happens to be one of the mechanics either. So a balance has to be made, meaning that fishing, exploration, crafting, progression, danger, and the world itself all need to feel connected.
To achieve that, a lot of our recent work has been focused on improving the fishing experience, expanding progression, testing new systems, and adding more danger to the world, especially during the night.
Each time we reached a milestone, we held a semi-private focus test where we invited members of the community (from our Discord) to play the game over a weekend and give us their feedback on the new features.
These focus tests have helped us improve the parts of the game that matter most, and it has also helped us better understand what players enjoy, what they find unclear, and what needs more work.
If you want to be a part of a future focus test, simply join our Discord and leave a message in the #general-chat stating that you’d like to take part, one of our team members will then get back to you.
The Support Around DREADMOOR
Another thing that has been very exciting for us is seeing DREADMOOR reach more and more people.
Since the 100k post, more players have discovered the game through Steam, our own posts, community discussions, and through creators and media pages who kindly shared DREADMOOR with their audiences.
We want to give a special thank you to everyone who helped spread the word.
Some of the support around the game has been genuinely surprising. IndieGameJoe’s coverage introduced DREADMOOR to a huge number of new players, Dexerto helped bring the game to a wider audience, and some of our own posts on TikTok and Instagram reached hundreds of thousands of views.
Of course, these posts are only one part of the story. The most important thing for us is that so many people have responded to the world we are building, and for DREADMOOR, that means a lot!
What We Are Working On
If you’re curious to know what we’re working on now, our focus is currently on these important parts of the game:
- Fishing and fish behaviour
- Progression and crafting
- Night-time danger
- Trawler systems
- Fuel and survival mechanics
- Puzzles and environmental interactions
- Creature encounters
- World-building and exploration
This might seem like a lot, but they are all so heavily connected that in order to work on one feature properly, we have to work on the others as well. Our goal has always been, and always will be, to not simply add more things for the sake of adding more things, but to ensure that every system has a real purpose in the game.
Get Involved with DREADMOOR
For those of you who are watching us, or perhaps have just discovered DREADMOOR and want to get involved with the project, please join our Discord.
Why? Because, other than the server being the best place to stay up to date on our progress, we use it to run our various game tests.
The early pre-alpha playtest was the first, and we are planning to run more. But perhaps more interesting to you would be that, for the most active of our community, we run focus tests where we gauge whether or not a new feature is good or not based on your feedback.
If you would like to join future tests, come hang out with us on Discord: https://discord.gg/dreadmoorgame
And of course, if you're already on the server and want to take part, just let us know! We will reach out to everyone who shows an interest.
Closing
With that, we’d like to once again thank you all for the incredible support. We will be back soon with more updates about the game.
On that point, why not let us know (in the comments) what you'd like to learn about DREADMOOR!
https://store.steampowered.com/app/3629430/DREADMOOR
OFFICIAL LINKS
Join us on Discord → https://discord.gg/dreadmoorgame
Follow on X → https://x.com/DreadmoorGame
Discuss on Reddit → https://www.reddit.com/r/DreadmoorGame
Watch on TikTok → https://tiktok.com/@DreadmoorGame
Explore on Instagram → https://www.instagram.com/DreadmoorGame