Fun Bugs - Chicken Bread!

 As I was finishing up the demo launch build of Witherspring Wilds to share with playtesters and doing some last minute tests, I came across something very bizarre. When I completed the Planting Tomatoes quest, Riley gave me Chicken Bread!

And, from that point on, until I restarted the game, all bread was referred to as Chicken Bread in dialogue (but not, unfortunately, in my inventory, where it was just plain old boring bread). Mind you, there is no such thing as Chicken Bread in the game, and I've never added an item like that!

So, what was going on here? I knew one thing - many food items, including bread, allow mix-ins - for example, you could add acorns to your bread dough to make Acorn Bread, or apples to your cake to make Apple Cake. However, there is no actual way to make Chicken Bread, as the recipe for bread only allows nuts or seeds, and the bread she gave me was normal, everyday bread, with no chicken mix-in. To add to the headache, when I reloaded the game and tried this again to track down the issue, it was back to normal!

It turns out the culprit was Chester, another NPC:

If you talk to Chester before Riley, he mentions Chicken Soup, which is a mix-in food item. But, he doesn't actually reference a specific item, instead it is a temporary item that is used for pretty much all dialogue. And it sets the mix-in to chicken to make it Chicken Soup for this dialogue. But, it never clears that mix-in, so any food mentioned afterwards that can have a mix-in, but doesn't have a mix-in set, will be Chicken!

The fix was simple - I just had to reset the temporary item after each reference. But it still remains a funny and surprising bug that was worth sharing. And ever since telling him about the bug, my 8-year old son won't stop singing about Chicken Bread!

Anyways, just wanted to share this fun tidbit as we finish up everything for the Witherspring Wilds demo launch! I'm excited that we will be sharing this game with the world in just a matter of days now! Keep an eye out for updates on our Discord!

Introducing Witherspring Wilds

There's always something refreshing about starting a new game project. There are endless possibilities and pure creative freedom. Designing new worlds and systems without constraints and seeing it come together into something new always brings me joy. And this time, I designed something quite massive, you could even call it a dream game (I certainly had many ideas for it in my dreams). While there's always a risk making something huge, there's also something special - as it gives that same sense of limitlessness that I enjoy so much about game development.

Witherspring Wilds is meant to be a truly open world game - with a very large realm to explore, taking place over many in game years, and eventually seeing multiple family generations. There's combat, mining, crafting, building, farming, spells (both combat and utility) - even creature taming. There are NPCs to befriend and romance, and they have their own goals, skills and stories. You can even hire NPCs to work for you - watering crops, building houses, etc - letting you choose what you want to specialize in, and what you'd prefer the NPCs to advance (or become a jack of all trades and do it all yourself).

The various systems overlap in many ways, and there have been lots of "Aha!" moments even for me, like when I realized that scarecrows (meant for farmers to keep Afowl away from their crops) could be used to set up movable safe zones you could snipe Afowls from within. My hope is that even beyond the story and questline I'm adding to the game, players will be able to create their own stories and emergent gameplay.

Unlike other life sims, in Witherspring Wilds, you enter a new world full of nature along with a handful of other NPCs. There is no village to start - you have to build it alongside the NPCs. As the months and years progress, the village will expand and become more modern, and you will have been a part of shaping it from the very beginning. There are very few limitations on what you can build, or where you can build it - the world is yours to shape and explore.

I have a lot of ideas for what you can unlock in game across the generations - both in terms of technology and magic. I think it will be really special to see the world and characters evolve over time. Taming is also really exciting - you're never required to tame animals, but all natural animals in the world are tamable and have many different uses as pets - from riding Goxen, to having a Cattern defend you from enemies.

There's a whole lot more I could tell you about this game, as there's a whole lot TO this game, but I think I'll end this blog post here for now! I hope you're intrigued by what you see, and maybe even excited - I'm certainly excited! It's definitely a big undertaking (and perhaps not the wisest business choice), but perhaps not worrying about the state of the industry and just making what I'm passionate about is the best idea - it's something only an indie dev like me could attempt!

If you're interested in learning more, join us on Discord or wishlist Witherspring Wilds on Steam!