Happy Holidays and Here’s to 2024!

by on December 23, 2023 at 11:31 am

Things have been pretty quiet here, we know! But we’re pleased to say that as 2023 comes to a close, we’re hard at work on the future of Beyond the Western Deep!

New pages are in development as we speak, the Kickstarted physical rewards for Music of the Western Deep are primed and ready for shipping and signing, and Volume 3’s many physical rewards (including the book) are in production!

And what of War of the Western Deep? Well, development continues apace! Here are some development stats for you:

  • We’ve stubbed in temporary scenes (placeholder art, no voice over, simplified dialogue) and the game is about 2.5-3 hours long now! In terms of what we call “the golden path,” we’re tracking pretty nicely with our anticipated 8-ish hours of gameplay.
  • We’ve refactored our combat system to play nicer once we start adding new enemy types.
  • We’re getting new animations from Knights of the Light Table, and have more slated to be produced in the coming year!
  • We’re talking with a few publishers who have expressed interest in the project and may be able to help us finance the rest of the project. But anyone who knows the game development knows that 2023 was a BAD year for game devs on the business side, so a lot of these talks are due to continue next year. Because of the nature of these talks, we won’t be able to share much until we have something concrete–but the important thing is, people are excited by what they see!

Thank you all so, so much for a hugely successful 2023!

Western Deep simply wouldn’t exist without our reader and community support, and we’re so grateful to have you as a part of our journey!

And to wrap things up, a wonderful piece of guest art from reader Fabled Skies over on Twitter! Check out this amazing piece of Quinlan inspired by our initial Knights of the Light Table-produced Kickstarter pitch video:

He looks SO COOL Fable! We loved how he looked in the original animation and this is a fantastic homage to it. Your style is super energetic and we love how it looks!

Have a great holiday and a wonderful New Year, and we’ll see you all in 2024!