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Steampost of Lesser Updates 2

9 Apr

We’ve been hard at work on the game and our new feature complete demo. It’s all coming together steadily, and we thought it’s time to share some more with you:

It's not gambling - you're not playing for money. Just for your life.

Cormo has long left behind his ruinous habit of gambling. But it's hard to lose old habits. They don't want to lose you either.

On your explorations you’ll come across dice. Cormo fidgets with them, reminiscing for a moment before tossing them. He’ll never know what he rolled… but you will.

Scenarios are high risk actions that can be attempted using rolled dice - or just leaving it up to luck or fate.

This might be performing an acrobatic feat, trying not to throw up, or deciding whether Cormo’s will or yours will prevail. But the most important of them all is of course - FISHING.

Cormo can find fishing spots - but he never seems to catch any fish. In our game, you will fish out everything BUT fish - from utensils to old memorabilia. But don’t be sad, these items can be repurposed as gifts you can give to other characters, but more on that in a later update.

Constellations of the Mind

Where Birds Go to Sleep features “knowledge puzzles” akin to those in Outer Wilds; puzzles you might not even realise are there at first, and once you know the solution to them, you can solve them within minutes.

As you explore, you will come across clues to puzzles that will be collected into your Mindmap in the form of clue cards. The Mindmap screen is like a quest log, and it is an essential part of the experience.

A Tapestry Within

Almost every dialogue choice in the game subtly changes Cormo’s personality. The personality stats you get from choices were previously not shown anywhere at all, causing a lot of confusion as to what choices really did. Later, we created a section for them in the Inventory but it felt a bit too cramped. Now, stats have their own screen with flashy artwork and animations.

The stats affect things big and small - a different description, a different option, a different inner world - a different Cormo, wrestling for control against you based on these stats.

Chart the Unknown

In a few of our previous news posts, you could get a glimpse of our exploration mechanics and the map. In our next update, we’ll show more.

Help us make the game better!

The time for our new demo releasing is drawing ever closer. We've run a few rounds of testing on our Discord server that yielded invaluable feedback, helping us shape the game and make it better. We'd like to continue this trend, so if that's something you're interested in, join our server for when the new testing call opens: https://discord.gg/YSFbT3HzrH

Where Birds Go to Sleep

Where Birds Go to Sleep at Czech & Slovak Games Week!

11 Nov, 2024

Starting today, the Czech & Slovak Games Week begins until the 18th, and the (old) demo of Where Birds Go to Sleep will be available again during it.

As always, during the abovementioned time window we will be streaming the amazing Dustflower's pre-recorded playthrough of the very same demo.

Enjoy the sale, and keep an eye out on this space for our next update foreshadowed earlier.

Where Birds Go to Sleep

Steampost of Lesser Updates

20 Oct, 2024

Sorry for the long radio silence. We have been working hard on the game and made some really great progress. We're still working on our feature complete demo and have been prototyping different maps.

Here are a couple of things we've already implemented:

Inventory and Stats

If you have played our public demo, you'll remember the “Mindmap” screen, which was accessed by pressing “M” contained ideas about everything - the quests, the items you carry and lore.

The Mindmap has been separated into more traditional categories. The first is the inventory which allows you to browse, inspect, equip and use your collected items. Your accrued character traits were hidden in the previous demo, but now the system is transparent and you will be able keep track of them.

There’s also Thoughts, Clues and Nighthawks, we’ll keep those for another update.

Further UI Redesigns and Polish

We have been hard at work on a big UI overhaul, polish and quality of life improvements. We want to save some of the bigger ones for the next update.

New items get marked in the inventory by a dot on the tab it's in, and get a sheen to signal they're new.

Narrative Log & Dialogue Skipping

Due to popular demand, we have implemented a narrative log. You'll be able to summon it during dialogues to see what has been said, and the options you have chosen.

Another very sought after feature - “dialogue skipping” has been in the plans forever but originally we only wanted to enable it if you were replaying the game - this is not the case anymore, it'll be available from the get-go.

When you press "cancel" (ie "B" on an xbox controller), a text popup will appear on the bottom of your screen telling you to press it again to skip, to prevent you from accidentally skipping.

Day/Night Cycle

We have not mentioned this in the past, but the game features a day/night cycle!

Actually, it’s more of a morning/dusk/midnight cycle.

The three different daytime states make different areas accessible, they are used in various puzzles and give the world a different look.

Feedback is super important to us, and we're looking forward to releasing our feature complete demo into the wild to see what you all have to say about it!

And last but not least… FISHING. Yes, you can fish in the game. Look out for the next update to keep up with Cormo’s angling escapades.

Where Birds Go to Sleep

Where Birds Go to Sleep at GDoC Expo!

18 Sep, 2024

Starting today, the Game Devs of Colour Expo will run til the 24th, and the demo of Where Birds Go to Sleep will be available again during it!

We're preparing a bigger update to drop soon with a lot of new exciting progress shots to show, but it's not quite ready just yet. As always, during the abovementioned time window we will be streaming the amazing Dustflower's pre-recorded playthrough of the very same demo.

Enjoy the sale, and keep an eye out on this space for our next update!

Where Birds Go to Sleep

Where Birds Go to Sleep in the Women's Day Sale!

1 Mar, 2024

We are excited to be part of the Women's Day Sale running from March 1-10! Check out the wide range of discounted and upcoming games as well as demos! During the festival, we will be streaming Dustflower's pre-recorded playthrough of our (now outdated) demo.

We are working hard at the game and are excited to share updates about it soon!
Until then, take care!

Where Birds Go to Sleep

Storyteller's Festival 2024 Stream

1 Feb, 2024

We are excited that Where Birds Go to Sleep is going to be part of The Storyteller's Festival again and we'll be broadcasting the amazing Dustflower's playthrough of our demo today!

Where Birds Go to Sleep

Storyteller's Festival (Correction)

29 Jan, 2024

(Sorry for the repost of the event, the start date was entered wrong and apparently cannot be changed once the event is published!)

We are excited that Where Birds Go to Sleep is going to be part of The Storyteller's Festival again, starting later today!

Our Discord community[discord.gg] has grown over the past year and we are very grateful for the good time we're having there: there's talk about games of course, the games industry at large, pictures of pets and creepy crawlies and... an ARG (for those unfamiliar with the term; a sort of community puzzle) which has been going on for a long time, and finally we have the first 3 solvers: ːl_wingː lil scallop, minikrob and Sunny! ːr_wingː

We have been working hard on our feature complete demo and have posted some behind the scenes of it on our Discord (see them below), but for those of you who aren't on the server, we are working on it every day, making good progress, and we cant wait for the world to see it! In the meanwhile, our old demo is public again.

Some Behind the Scenes Videos

In this short video, you can briefly see a glimpse of our exploration prototype, then the inventory, clues and thoughts screens:

Here is a little sneak peek of the Clues screen - this screen is essentially your journal or quest log:

Last, this one shows the new main menu with animations and how the UX is improved in the Settings menu (instead of going out of menus, you can switch between menus) - this might seem like a small thing, and in isolation it is, but it's so close to my heart.

Thank you for your continued support, and until next time, take care!

Where Birds Go to Sleep

Where Birds Go to Sleep wins IndieCup's MOST PROMISING GAME AWARD!!!

25 Apr, 2023

We are super pumped to announce that our game has won IndieCup's MOST PROMISING GAME award!!

Thank you to IndieCup for organising the event, and thank you to everyone for the kind words and the support! This is a colossal morale boost for us as we work on our feature complete demo for one of the upcoming NEXT Fests.

In the meanwhile, we appreciate your support, and hope you stay safe until then!!

Where Birds Go to Sleep

Storyteller's Festival & Public Demo!

25 Mar, 2023

We are super excited to say that Where Birds Go to Sleep is going to be part of The Storyteller's Festival!

------------------------

(Apologies for the repost - apparently the date of the broadcast was entered wrong, and Steam won't let me edit the start time!)

When:

AEDT: 9:00 AM 2023 March 26
PST: 2:00 PM 2023 March 25
CET: 11:00 PM 2023 March 25

What:

Our demo will be publicly available again!
For those of you who have played it last year in August or November, unfortunately this is the exact same demo, however,

there might be some content still that you haven't seen yet:

1. There's a big secret in our demo that we hid too well!

We learned such a big lesson with this one! Here's how to access it;
1. Sit on the bed in the tent where you can sleep
2. Open the mindmap by pressing "M" or the "options" key on your gamepad
3. Read the "Shireen's Locket" item description
4. Go straight to sleep!

2. And about those achievements...

The demo has 13 achievements, some of which you will have to replay the demo for. Here's some of the more obscure ones:

Locked Locket - see the big secret above!
Homunculus - during the boat ride, select the second option, then when confronting Dunlin, choose to pursue the accusation.
Naivete - during the boat ride, select the option to tell Dunlin the joke, then during the confrontation, press him about what you saw.
Cowardice - at the start of the Dunlin confrontation, choose to chicken out and not tell Dunlin anything at all.

As you can see there are multiple outcomes from the Dunlin confrontation, and they all have a different introspection scene afterwards. There are also three endings:

3. Replayabillity and endings

We consider the demo to have two kinds of endings;

The outcome of the Dunlin conversation (of which there is 4):

Depending on which option you choose at the start, Dunlin will either hate you or like you (this is expanded on a lot more in the final game!), and you will get a different attitude and reaction from him both in his exhausted dialogue and during the confrontation. See the achievements above on how to get the different outcomes from that conversation!

The end screen you get when you enter the forest:

These are different based on how many secrets you found.

Bliss - finish the demo with no secrets found at all (essentially just speedrun it and only interact with the "main story")
Schizotypy - finish the demo with more than one secret found but not all
No More Secrets - finish the demo with all secrets found: bonfire & Colonised Brain dream ("Think about the colonists"), shoes & Generous Envoy dream ("The shoes were so small"), clicking "Notice" after the bonfire section, having dreamt the secret dream (see above!)

Technically these can be obtained on the same save file, since you can reload your save, and interact with the content before going into the forest again.

--------------------------------------

Last but not least, we will also be running Dustflower's playthrough as broadcast during the event on our Steam page.

In the meanwhile we're working on a feature complete demo in the meanwhile that we hope to take to Next Fest when it's ready!

Most importantly, have fun playing demos during the event!

Where Birds Go to Sleep

Last Chance to Play the Demo!

27 Nov, 2022

Thank You

Big thank you to everyone who has played our demo! Your feedback and input has been absolutely invaluable!

The Demo's Availability

On the 30th we'll take the demo down. This time, we will disable it instead of hiding it, which means that even if you have it in your Steam library, you will not be able to launch it afterwards, so play it while you still can!

We might make it available again in the future, but we don't know when and for how long. Maybe as part of a Steam festival.

We Want Your Thoughts!

If you haven't already, we would kindly ask you to fill out this questionnaire[docs.google.com], regardless of having played the demo or not! Knowing your expectations and views on the final release helps us a LOT:

>>>QUESTIONNAIRE<<<[docs.google.com]

Developer Commentary Playlist

Lastly, we have uploaded the most interesting excerpts from our recent livestream where we discuss designs, lore, development and more, as well as a bunch of answer questions, with timestamps to allow easier navigation:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLkGaU_MYjwgfSvYe1HCd0NbNZm7HxTlbp

Very very big thanks for your continued support, it fuels us on our bad days. We have to make some sacrifices in our lives to develop this game, but knowing you are all excited for it makes things a little easier.

Thank you for being here.

Where Birds Go to Sleep

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