Development update December 2024.

First of all, thank you to all of you that have supported this game in 2024, it has been humbling and very motivating to see the enthusiasm for the game. We wish you all a great year ahead and a safe holiday season.

Okay, so for our last post of 2024, we thought it would be good to go over what we've been doing since our last update in September and give a bit of insight into where the game is in its development stage and what you can expect for the coming year. Here we go!

In The Dragon's Wake - Demo

Since our last update, we've been hard at work on an upcoming demo for In The Dragon's Wake. One of the challenges in creating a demo for an open-world survival game like ITDW has been in managing the scope and scale of the demo. The puzzles and progression in the full game is vast and some of the puzzles, temples and progression require the player to cross multiple biomes and areas to solve. So, while the regions of the island featured in the demo are large (very large actually), some of the puzzles and resources have needed to be reconfigured and relocated in order to incorporate the experience into the demo. This work, alongside the regular bug fixes, quality of life improvements and optimization has taken some time and testing to get right.

In addition to this, we are in the midst of adding Co-op support to the game (more on this below) and have been hoping to integrate this into the demo. This has been the largest hold up in terms of releasing the demo. We will continue working into the new year and do our best to get this feature in. However, if the demo is going to be held up for too long, we may just release a single player version and update the demo once we are satisfied with the Co-Op experience. We will be sure to update the community on this as soon as we know.

Our play testing for the demo is currently underway and will hopefully conclude in early January. As for the demo release date, once the testing is completed and we are confident in the polish and quality we will set a date immediately and update the community.

We want you to get your hands on the demo as soon as possible. The feedback from the community will be invaluable in refining the game for early access release.

Co-Op play - What kind of experience is this?

So, as mentioned in previous posts, In The Dragon's Wake was always designed and intended to be a single-player focused survival game experience. One of our goals was to build a survival game that didn't have a punishing grind where you felt like you need a team just to make simple progress.

This is not changing. If it is a focused single-player experience you are looking for, that will not be altered.

However, as development progressed, it was clear there was a lot of fun to be had fighting monsters, evading dragons and solving the islands mysteries together.

So, a drop-in co-op PVE experience is underway. This has required a lot of back-end re-working of our gameplay systems and will take some time to complete and test thoroughly. However, we are aiming to have this feature in the game at early access launch.

Development Progress - Just how far along is this game?

As previously mentioned, ITDW was designed as a single-player experience. We are now 3 years into development on this game and the single player portion of the game is very far along! Our planned early-access period will be approximately a 12-months.

Truthfully, we have shown very little of this game so far. While we will put out an updated trailer early next year, we really want the demo to be our best "first" impression. Some of the best parts of this game lie in the discovery of the world around you. There are many hidden areas, unusual creatures, interactions and even "Island behaviors" that we want you to discover on your own. With the intention of hopefully going a step beyond a typical survival game experience.

So, better or worse, we will save the best look at this game for all of you in the demo. You, the players, are the best source of feedback and guidance. And, with that feedback from the demo, we will refine the early access experience and hopefully shape a game that is memorable, polished, and (if we do our job) worthy of your time.

We are not quite ready to talk about early access release dates, however we do have one in mind. It is not too far out; however, the demo feedback will ultimately determine how ready we are. So, for now, the date will be announced after the feedback on the demo is considered, addressed and tested.

Thank you for all your support this year!

So, that's it from us a Front Door Games for 2024. We again want to thank all of you for the support this year. We have watched our Wishlist numbers grow and grow and could not be more grateful to everyone for considering our game.

Please be safe over the holidays and HAPPY NEW YEAR in adavance!

FDG :)