Remembering my grandfather - Husband, Father, Grandfather, Great-Grandfather, Great-Great Grandfather, WW2 navy veteran, electrician, worked for the newspaper in downtown LA, raised a great family. He told me he always wanted us to know our history and make sure we kept in touch with one another.
I was grateful to hear his stories, about our family history, and your words. He was a fighter until the very end and i hope to keep the family history alive for future generations so they can hear and pass on your stories to future generations.
When no one really believed in me or the studio, he would be the one to always tell me that we were gonna make it, that we were going to be successful. I did whatever I cold almost every Sunday morning that I was in California to make it out to see him, no matter how tired I was.
The world lost a Grover today, and I love and miss you grandpa.
Rest in Peace: Grover C Wimberly, Jr. - February 12, 1928-September 1, 2023
Here is our 71st update with what's going on at whimindie! This one is going to be a bit more Selatria focused, but also have some information on Spellbearers updates and upcoming conventions.
Selatria
We will be pushing one more final update to Selatria: Advent of the Dakk'rian Empire on Steam. This will be considered Version 1.9x (where as the Full Version will be 2.x) - Version 1.9x will roll-in the hundreds of changes and improvements we've put into the upcoming full release. Although this includes a lot of gameplay changes and several bug fixes, the biggest change is that we're aiming for all versions of Selatria to be compatible with the Steam Deck, and this will set the foundation for that.
Though Selatria: Advent of the Dakk'rian Empire will continue to not have Steam Achievements, save files that are carried forward to the Full Version will have achievements that are mostly retroactive. If you completed Chapter 3, they will all trigger/check upon finishing the first cutscene in Chapter 4.
Shadoe has also worked to re-record and edit the soundtrack to be compatible with Steam Deck, and we're now working on improving the performance on the Overworld so that it doesn't slow down on the Deck as much.
Selatria running on Steam Deck - Overworld Test Map
The Overworld is the biggest problem with the Deck at the moment. As you can see in the above screenshot, it's running at 60 FPS, but only after we stripped out all of the events and even the clouds from the area. So we're going to try our reworks and make adjustments in pieces to see if we can have a similar experience to the Desktop version.
There's also some other pain points that we still need to fix and adjust for a smooth experience. We are aiming for a late-Spring or early-Summer release. This may be adjusted due to several other high-profile games coming out.
As for the full game, work is continuing on the final chapter of Selatria. Most of the cutscene work and boss battle designs are completed, it is quite an uphill battle tying the different sections of the game together. Jessi, who worked on our trailers for our previous games, has begun work on the trailer for the final game, and hopefully we can show that soon.
Spellbearers
We heard your feedback, and we're planning on adding mouse support to Spellbearers! The mouse will act as a cursor for what direction the Spellbearer can shoot in. It can also be used to click options on the menu. We also plan to have it compatible with touch screens such as on the Steam Deck.
However, we're also working on updating the whole project to an LTS version of Unity so we can continue to provide stable updates for the game moving forward, so I will have to ask to wait on this feature a little longer. Sorry about that!
GDC 2023 Retrospective
This is the first development log entry since our time at GDC. I have a lot of mixed good and bad emotions to say about GDC. It has been 5 or 6 years since we last attended. The first time, we didn't know what to expect, didn't have any games released or to show, to be honest, feeling like it was a waste of time.
This year, however, we went in with a battle plan and got a lot out of it. We were able to have meetings and get contacts with the teams at Xbox and PlayStation, so things seem quite promising on the console fronts. Hope to share more concrete news soon. Some pictures below...
After meeting the ID@Xbox team, they gave us ID@Xbox boards. (Note the year! Eerie.)
Mizore and I meeting Tim Sweeney - Founder/CEO of Epic Games
Stopping by PlayStation HQ on the way home... for good luck
Though GDC went well for us as a studio, the overall show had very big problems. Especially with attendees who were drugged, harassed, and assaulted at the convention or GDC related after parties. This isn't what the game industry should be about. I am wary about going next year or taking any team members next year. I was already concerned about our team members when we split up to do different activities. Conventions (and associated after parties/dinners/etc) like this should be safe for all.
So Cal Retro Gaming Expo 2023
We will be demonstrating Spellbearers, Selatria, and Star Rider at So Cal Retro Gaming Expo in Ontario, California this upcoming weekend May 6-7, 2023. We're taking time to improve our newest game Delivery Issues using feedback we received from LVLUPEXPO and it will not be at this show. We hope to share more news about that game in the future.
Hey all, it's been a little while since the last development log, and I wanted to talk about some updates going on with whimindie for this year. This update is going to be a bit more text heavy than demonstration so thank you for reading this.
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Addressing the 2023 New Year's Day Cyberattack
As some of you may have seen and heard, I fell victim to a cyberattack on New Year's Day. After doing some travelling during the holidays and not getting much sleep (and not thinking clearly), I received a message from someone who I thought was trying to get their game up to a point to where they could pitch it to our studio. Little did I know that I was going to be the target of a cookie stealer Discord scam which used my personal login information on my computer to troll my Facebook and LinkedIn accounts, attack several other accounts (including Amazon and Reddit), and have them take control of our itch.io developer account.
For three weeks, they turned our itch.io account into "Wyntale" and uploaded versions of our games that contained malware and other viruses, using the same method that compromised me. After working with the itch.io Support Team, we were able to restore our account on Thursday, January 26th, and we rebuilt all of our pages and content and put our games back online on Saturday, January 28th.
We have taken measures to protect our studio accounts so that we can collaborate on updating our game pages in a way where 2FA-methods can remain enabled and we will no longer be accepting new game pitches/demos in a way we have done before nor will we allow play my game downloads on our Discord or through DMs.
If you're reading this and have visited or downloaded anything from "Wyntale Independent Studios" or "wyntale.itch.io" during the period of January 1-26, 2023 I recommend to please clear all of your cookies on all of your internet browsers, delete any installed programs that look suspicious, and run your antivirus programs and rkill to stop anything weird that may be running in the background.
We have also upped the requirements of new people joining our Discord that they must have a verified account with a phone number and unable to interact for 10 minutes so that we can evaluate those who come in and out of the channel. Furthermore, legacy members who have been sitting unverified on the server and haven't agreed to the rules of the Discord will be removed from the Discord on February 1st, 2023.
Thank you for your continued support and this is a situation that we will make sure will not happen again.
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Updates to Selatria
This is finally the year that we're working to complete Selatria. We're bringing a lot of hands on deck from our other projects to be able to finish cutscenes, dungeons, battle adjustments, and generally tie things together for the final game. We also made a handful of adjustments to the core game to make it Steam Deck compatible.
This Spring, we're going to be pushing out one final update to Selatria: Advent of the Dakk'rian Empire to update it with all of the features that we've developed for the final game and to finally give it some much needed compatibility with the Steam Deck. A shoutout to Shadoe and Jon for making all of the conversions required to get it playable. We still need to figure out a handful of bugs, so please wait a little bit longer if you own the game and have been trying to play it on go with the Steam Deck.
With Selatria: Full Version we will have a simultaneous launch for PC and Steam Deck so you can play on the go/docked or at your computer. We're aiming for the second half of the year for the full version and hopefully we have more details and updated assets to share soon.
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Upcoming Conventions!
This upcoming weekend, we will be making an appearance at Anime Gaming Expo in Fresno showing and selling Steam codes for Spellbearers!
We also have plans to show Spellbearers and Selatria at our return to LVLUPEXPO in Las Vegas in mid-February, So Cal Retro Gaming Expo in early May, and at a special shared booth at San Diego Comic-Con in July!
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Be sure to follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Twitch, and join our Discord! See you soon at Anime Gaming Expo in Fresno and LVLUPEXPO in Las Vegas! It's good to be back.
I'm going through a post-release depression atm after Spellbearers. I try not to use that term lightly, but a lot of symptoms are there. I'm tired, irritable, sad, lethargic, and have lacked the drive and motivation I usually do to keep things moving on over the past few weeks.
Even with Spellbearers being successfully Kickstarted, we used a lot of personal funds to make sure the project kept going and didn't become another Kickstarter failure as well as keep as much of the team together as we could during uncertain COVID times.
The typical advice I've received should have me glad I released the game. "You're farther than the x% of devs who didn't finish. Good job!", but at the same time I feel like I've wanted out after seeing how poorly the game has turned out to be financially.
It has had me consider really just looking at it and stopping and exiting while I could. I think it's the burnout speaking, but I needed some time to focus on repairing the damage to my savings/bank account to save the Spellbearers project. Selatria also needs to be finished.
Seeing today's news about Yoshi-P and POC was a good wake-up call on why I need to keep trying to make games. Yoshida is my favorite game developer and idol and it's heartbreaking to see his words come off like a politician in regards to Final Fantasy XVI. I would have liked to see this as a template to create more people of color. They could implement a character randomizer using their own implemented tools for XVI characters instead of having the generical look.
I also want to say I'm very thankful for the \team at whimindie to keep things positive and moving along with our games while I've been mainly offline to collect my thoughts while I've been in this funk. Please give Spellbearers a play. Thanks for reading.
Here is our 69th update with what's going on at whimindie! Please note that a lot of this information will be cross-posted to our Spellbearers project page on Kickstarter for project backers.
We're finally here! The release of Spellbearers for Steam. The trailer above was edited by Jessica M. Jacuinde who also worked on a lot of the user interface in Spellbearers, and the narration was done by the talented Aimee Smith! If you backed us on Kickstarter, you should have been emailed your code. If you haven't received it for any reason, please message us on Kickstarter or Discord and we can get it sorted out. Aside from the Selatria tier which will be completely fulfilled when the game is completed, we have fulfilled the rest of the rewards possible for the campaign.
Now that we've released, we'll now be working on future patches and content for the game, and I also wanted to use this time to answer some FAQ from the conventions and community about some of our future plans for Spellbearers.
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Frequently Asked Questions from the Community:
Will you ever change levels to counter a meta or tactic, or at least tactics that are considered to cheese through the game or level?
There are some safe spaces in each fight/level where you can learn or practice a tactic, but we don't have any plans to change any tactics that cheese the game. It's already difficult as it is. If there's something broken though, like walls people can run through, we may make changes to that.
Will you ever add extra color Spellbearers? (Even if it means they will be DLC)
Yellow is a color I would personally like to see added - I don't want to put one in the game in a way that makes the character feel like an afterthought or DLC for the sake of being DLC, so we're going to watch sales, and see if this is worth adding in later with additions to other changes.
Would you consider adding a difficulty above Hard version? Like Nightmare difficulty or something for elite hardcore players.
We have the chance to see the percentage statistics for players who cleared hard mode. If a lot of people clear hard mode, we would like to do this, but if the percentages on clearing hard mode are still really low, then it might be best to hold off on the feature. The Hard mode is really difficult as it is.
Would you ever consider adding a boss rush mode?
I'm not sure we have enough bosses to warrant adding this. If we expand the game and add more bosses, this could be something to look into.
Would you ever consider a stat tracker for players, or at least the Highest score ever achieved for each level/etc? What about Cloud Saves?
We have plans for a future patch to add this! We want to add Leaderboards and cloud saves so your saved progress will transfer from PC to Steam Deck and vice-versa seamlessly. We want to show the players how they compare. I need to discuss with the team how best to organize it. I don't want an easy or normal player to be ranked higher than a hard mode player just because they made it further and have a bigger score/life count.
Would you ever release a Spellbearers official soundtrack?
The official soundtrack is on all major digital platforms already, and we're working on a physical release. Check us out on Amazon music or stream on Spotify!
What's the status on the console versions of Spellbearers?
We are currently actively working on the Xbox One and Series X|S version of Spellbearers and in talks to port the games to other platforms. Without getting into specifics, it's been an uphill battle to talk to other consoles, and if you enjoy playing the game we would really appreciate the positive word of mouth or positive steam reviews on the game to make it easier for us to work with them on porting the game!
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Finally, I asked some of the development team to share their thoughts on the release and I gave my own personal message as well. Please take a look!
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Messages from the Development Team Members on Release:
It has been a real pleasure to work on this game with such a talented team and to see an idea I had four years ago develop and finally come to life. It couldn't of happened without you all! My deepest appreciation to the Kickstarter backers and everyone at whimindie who made this happen. As I was inspired by other games to create this one, I hope this game may inspire some of you to create your own. Thank you, and I hope you enjoy playing the full release of Spellbearers.
Spellbearers Director Gerren Willis
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Wow, it's been four years since this game has been in development, just as long since I first joined whimindie as the Director of Marketing and Advertising! I can't thank everyone enough who supported this game from just when it was a small Kickstarter that very few knew existed and throughout the various expos and digital events the game has been presented at! As a marketer, this is one of my first projects, and I hope to continue introducing new games to gamers, whether old or new! As a gamer myself (a very terrible one, but I have fun), I know this will be enjoyable and fun for all. Spellbearers takes inspiration from great SNES games back in the 90s, like Super Smash TV, The Legend of Zelda: Link to the Past, and even Castlevania. It pays homage to those games and adds a new modern flair that just kicks ass and is incredibly entertaining for your friends and family in co-op mode! So I hope you have your couch all warmed up and the pizza and Mountain Dew ready to go because you're going back to the 90's with this game, and you're going to love it!
Director of Marketing and Advertising Jabari Mizore Lewis-Smith
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Heeeeeellllllooooooo!!! It's been a long road but here we are, release! I want to thank every single one of you for believing in Spellbearers and helping us bring it to life. I'm so proud of the team; they put in so many hours of hard work and I hope it shows in every pixel, in every sfx, in every musical note. We have many plans in the works and I hope you stay tuned for what we have cooking for Spellbearers and for our other projects. Until next time... keep it nerdy!
Spellbearers Executive Producer whimindie Administrative Director Paul Vela
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Thank you for all of your support! We have been working on this game for four years and I'm really happy to bring this game out to the world. Thank you to everyone in the team, and a massive thank you to our Kickstarter backers who supported us and were patient with us over the delays while we worked to get the game done. We have plans over the next year to now get this to additional platforms and work on additional features to Spellbearers, and to show the game off to many more shows and conventions! PS: Share with us on social media (@whimindie) if you stream the game! We would love to share it.
Hi everyone! Here is our 68th update with what's going on at whimindie! Please note that a lot of this information will be cross-posted to our Spellbearers project page on Kickstarter for project backers.
This update will also be primarily Spellbearers focused, as we will have more Selatria news to share in the coming months.
Spellbearers
In the last development log, I mentioned our timeline for soft launch and beta testing to take place in "Late July 2022". I apologize that we weren't able to reach that planned timeframe, but I am happy to say as of today that the beta version/early access of Spellbearers is now uploaded and ready on itch.io!
New Free Demo Available!
We have also uploaded a new free demo of Spellbearers on our Spellbearers itch.io page. This includes an expanded difficulty mode and updates to lighting systems, UI, and other effects. As with the previous demo build, it will only showcase Level 1. Please give it a play and let us know how you like it!
Below I would like to share some details about how code distribution will work for backers and for those who would like an early look at Spellbearers.
Early Access of full game on itch.io and first-wave code distribution to backers
Starting today, we will begin itch.io code distribution for Early Access for Spellbearers. We're using the time between now and Steam release to gather feedback and bugs so our official release in October can be as smooth as possible. We have a lot of backers to send codes to, so please be patient!
* Do note that during the early access period, you will be unable to accumulate or get credit for any achievements and we have disabled the feature temporarily. We are aiming to have implementation for this beginning in October with the official release.
Because we're still working on Achievement implementation at the moment, it will be necessary for us to perform a save data wipe/clear on launch day so that players who have played Early Access can be able to play through and obtain Achievements that might have been triggered and saved otherwise.
Steam Release Date Update
We will be slightly delaying our game release on Steam from October 7th, 2022, to October 14th, 2022. This will allow us to demonstrate our game at the upcoming Steam Next Fest, which we have a lot of plans for! Backers will be receiving Steam codes around launch day as well, so please look forward to it!
Regarding Steam Deck
For early access, we recommend playing the build with Proton Experimental settings ON to be able to play. It should run decently on the platform. We hope to have more consistent requirements of Steam Deck before the official release.
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Upcoming Conventions for our Games
Another reminder that we will be at the Mega Bit Game Expo showing Spellbearers, Selatria, and another game being developed by CSUSB alumni Star Rider in Simi Valley (Los Angeles) on September 11 at the Grand Vista Hotel!
We'll be demoing Spellbearers at the Steam Next Fest in October livestreaming Spellbearers and showing off our new trailer. Please look forward to it!
We will also be at Sin City Anime November 18th-20th showing Spellbearers and Selatria as well in Las Vegas! Please come and say hi! https://www.sincityanime.com/
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On a Whim! Podcast
We do a weekly podcast show where we talk about development of our games and other news going on in the game industry and other topics! Check it out on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. We put out a new episode weekly.
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That's all for this development log. Thank you for your support! See you Simi Valley in a few days!
I had this entry drafted since sometime in February, but left it as an empty entry until now. I'm personally against people just announcing publicly on social media about taking breaks (just do it), but at least writing it down here even if no one is reading may help me remember putting these words down on paper.
I'm going to take a much needed break from game development after my obligations for Spellbearers and Selatria are finished. That's not to say whimindie is done, though. We have other talents taking the helm for immediate next games in the pipeline, and we have the project management set aside to handle it.
I think I'd like to just take a good amount of time to relax without the pressure of getting something done outside of mandatory life/work.
And as my best friend puts it (constantly) - I can take a real vacation.
I promise I'm going to blog/write more often. Even if it's just my thoughts on web paper, it helps me get into a calmer state.
(Wow, my English was all messed up on this entry. I had to edit this multiple times. Time for sleep.)
