Silk: Wilderness Adventures

Silk v1.4 Out Now and Other News

It gives me great pleasure to announce that v1.4 of Silk has just shipped on Steam! This is the first non-Beta build... we're not quite releasing the game (controller support for PC is still missing for instance), but this version is the foundation of the Switch release and is very close to Master.

Our grateful thanks to everyone who has contribute to the Beta testing of the game! Truly appreciated.

And in other news:

• I've been running a series of Designer's Notes for the game on my original blog, Only a Game.
  • Part One of the Designer's Notes is called Silk is about... 200AD
  • Part Two is called Silk is about... 1984, and is about the debt I feel as a game designer to Mike Singleton.
• There is a slightly updated manual for the game in the usual place...
• ...and there is also now the The Unofficial 1986 Retro Manual, by DarkBlueMonkey, one of our stalwart Beta Testers. This is a huge document that reimagines the game manual in the style of the 1980s - you have to see it to believe it!

We are on the home straight for the game now - thank you all for your support!

Prepare for Version 1.3

We're very close to shipping v1.3, which includes a Control Summary on the pause menu and a How To Play tutorial (like the image above) on the start menu, plus a huge number of minor map and script bug fixes. We have also fixed the last of our major bugs, which included one related to the Unity compiler that we're especially proud about tracking down (if you've ever been in a settlement that didn't behave like one, you've fallen prey of this bug!). 

Thanks to everyone sending their thoughts and bug reports to the QA Report link we sent you all with your Steam keys - these all get read, but we can't act on everything reported because we're so late in the project. However, everything we can fix without delaying our Switch launch we have fixed, and every viewpoint raised does get discussed by the team and considered for feasibility.

I'm away next week on a much needed (but badly timed!) vacation, but I'll be back in time for our Switch Master Candidate submission which is getting very close now. Until then, expect v1.3 to appear on Steam sometime in the next day or so - and keep travelling the Silk Road!

New Manual

The Silk manual has been updated, including the map of the seventeen key cities, and an explanation of the goods bar. The latest version of the manual is always available from the Steam page.

Check it out!

Another Update Today

We're continuing to make good use of our final month of core development on Silk, balancing our bugfixing against requests from Backers for changes to the game.

Version 1.2 ships later today, which will see a new Notification system that should be easier to follow, a message on start up informing players that the game is keyboard controlled, the removal of the cursor in the game to help prevent confusion, a maximum frame rate of 60 FPS, a fix for the bug that causes some players to not discover the map, some new sprites, and a massive overhaul of the Bazaar scripts that fixes more than 200 subtle bugs.

We are looking at adding a control reference card to the pause menu... it should be possible in v1.3, which ships at the end of next week. There is probably only one more update after that, and then we're Master with only the porting to go.

If you have any requests or issues, let us know through any of the usual channels! We'll do what we can in the remaining time.

Class of 200AD

It gives me great pleasure to announce that the class of 200AD has been assembled and is now in the game, ready to be hired and taken off into the vast three million square miles of wilderness that is Silk! My infinite thanks to everyone who backed the game as a Personal Advisor Super Backer - you've added so much character to the final experience, and I couldn't be more delighted with how it has turned out.

Go forth and tame the wilderness together!

Your First Game of Silk

It's the Silk Beta Weekend, so we're asking all Backers to try and find some time to play the game at the weekend. If you come across any bugs, please use the link in the Keymailer email to report them.

And if you need some help getting into the game, do check out the Silk Beginner Guide over on Steam. It's intended to help players who are less experienced with videogames, but it will also help anyone who feels they might have missed something in the tutorial.

Please Wishlist Silk on Steam!

Silk is now officially on Steam - go ahead and visit Silk's Steam page and check it out!

Whether or not you backed the Kickstarter, please go to Steam and add the game to your Wishlist. We need all the support we can get at this stage and Wishlisting the game costs you nothing, but helps build our platform on Steam considerably. Please Wishlist the game, and ask anyone you know who might care about quirky neo-retro games to do the same!

If you are a Backer, you will be getting your Steam keys today. Watch out for the email, and I'll send a Kickstarter Update once they're all sent.

Thanks to everyone who helped us get this far! We truly appreciate your support.

Chris and the ihobo games team

Guess Who's Coming to Steam...?

The push towards Beta proceeds apace, and just this second I have certified the Beta candidate for release on Steam. That's the build every Backer of the project (and any of their friends they share their spare keys with) will be playing next weekend, chaos willing.

The Steam page has been approved - you can see the draft to the left - and we're just waiting on a few more things from Valve before we'll be ready to distribute Steam keys. We'll be sending an update via Kickstarter next week about this if all goes well, and then some lucky soul is going to be pasting a thousand alphanumeric codes into emails...

If you're a Backer, keep your eyes open for the update, and then watch your inbox for your Steam keys. You're about to begin your journey on the Silk Road!

 

Four Destinies

In preparation for the Beta, I've been frantically adjusting the Tasks for the four Destinies (the different modes, objectives, and difficulties of the game, in effect). I have tested the Traveller already, and the Warlord, and am in the middle of testing the Noble now.

I still have to tackle the hardest Destiny: the Rebel, which I know is going to be tough because they have to take on the entire Parthian Empire, and they are seriously deadly. I decided in my last game of the Warlord to go after Parthian Imperial Mints for the final victory... this was a huge mistake! Parthian troops are entirely made of cavalry, and I rolled in with a troop that was mostly made up of Infantry. They made me pay for my mistake!

The Steam page should be up next week, and once we have that we'll look at how to distribute Beta keys. Watch this space!

Nearing Journey's End...

We started pre-development of Silk back in June 2018, and went into full development in August. We are now just a few weeks away from having been working on the game for a year - and we are also less than two months away from being finished. For months now, tweaking the dialogue, maps, and world of Silk has been my life, but like all journeys, it must come to an end. 

The exciting thing about this, though, is that in just over two weeks time, Silk will be available in closed Beta to all our Kickstarter backers, and a few select friends of International Hobo too. The game is in a very playable state right now, and we're ready to let others begin their journeys on the Silk Road of 200AD. 

We hope you are ready for your own narrative exploration adventure, starting this August!