August 2022: Patreon, Robot Farm, and We Shall Wake
Welcome back to NOKORIWARE’s monthly blogpost extraordinaire!
How’s everyone been? I’m excited to update you. We’ve actually done quite a bit this month. We have updates on Robot Farm, We Shall Wake, and we’ve made a new Patreon to hopefully help us obtain some additional development resources.
Since we’re so focused on Robot Farm these days, how about we start with We Shall Wake? Our We Shall Wake fans ask us about it a lot and we haven’t done much for them in the past few years. Not only that, this is DEMO 7’s seventh anniversary, so we’ve re-released it with some extra goodies that will hopefully tide them over for awhile.
We Shall Wake DEMO 7: Anniversary Ver.
So as I mentioned, August 2022 is the seven year anniversary of the release of DEMO 7 for We Shall Wake. It really takes me back, and I can’t believe it’s already been so long. I was just 17 when this thing was released, and I had just graduated highschool. I had basically no money to make We Shall Wake and had to rely on volunteer work. So if any of you guys that worked on We Shall Wake with me back in the day: thank you so much for believing in me, and thanks for putting up with a dumb teenager that thought he knew everything. Ha!
The We Shall Wake DEMO 7 Anniversary Ver. is a modern repackaging of the final version of DEMO 7 running on a newer version of Java. It additionally includes extra content such as old concept art and new gametypes for its Lambaste mode. Below is a full feature list, copied from its page on this website:
High-speed adrenaline packed combat that not only tests your ability to be aggressive under pressure, but look good while doing it.
Play “Lambaste” mode: learn what it means for a game to “criticize you harshly” and face an onslaught of unrelenting enemies. Try your best to survive.
Earn “Catalysts” from combat to upgrade MORS with new items and moves
Retrieve lore logs that reveal the future of We Shall Wake, and the past of Robot Farm
We Shall Wake DEMO 7 Anniversary Ver. comes with concept art used during the making of We Shall Wake DEMO 7, along with unused concepts that may someday be used in the final game
The game is now available, so download it and check it out!
Project Status: Is We Shall Wake dead?
I want to address the status of the project. We always get comments on Robot Farm content about whether or not We Shall Wake is dead. I want to say this now: We Shall Wake is not a dead project. But it is on hiatus.
To be frank: when we released it, we tried to get publishers to help us bring this thing to life. No one bit, and I was just a kid with no money. I was either going to have to make a Kickstarter and maybe get a small amount of money to build the whole game, or I was going to have to compromise and make it way smaller.
I chose to do neither. Instead, we put it on the backburner and started a project called Robot Farm. This is what we’ve been working on since. Now, you must be wondering “Why hasn’t it come out yet then?” Well, it’s not that simple either. I went to college which reduced the amount of time I had to work on it, but I’ve also developed a chronic illness that limits my productivity severely. We still don’t know what it is either, I’ve gone to many doctors over this time and haven’t been able receive a diagnosis yet. It seems to have them puzzled.
The illness essentially keeps me in pain 24/7, so not only do I have to deal with the general hardship of gamedev, but I also have to fight my body the way through. We also have no financial backing and never have, so we also have to find ways to cut costs and make do with what we have.
NOKORIWARE Patreon
So, to help with the cost of development of our projects, primarily Robot Farm right now, we’ve made a Patreon to hopefully help even things out. Of course, we don’t expect it to grow much for the time being until we’ve developed Robot Farm further and have more to show you, but hopefully in the future it’ll be a reliable way for us to fund our work and ultimately make something for you guys to enjoy.
Our Patreon is going to contain a lot of exclusive content you guys won’t want to miss out on if you’re a fan of NOKORIWARE and its projects.
Exclusive access to playable builds of Robot Farm
Access to concept art and other developmental documents
Get your name in the credits of our games, along with personalized messages depending on your plan
Community polls for the direction of Robot Farm
Be able to give feedback directly to devs and have it prioritized
Discord benefits and access to special channels
If you’re a fan of We Shall Wake and want to see it finished someday, we humbly ask you to consider subscribing and following the Robot Farm project so that we can start building up company assets to use for the development of our projects.
We’ve tried over the years to not ask too much of our followers, because we believe in only asking for money in exchange for some kind of product. We think with the Patreon, we’ve hit a decent middle ground where we can give you exclusive content in exchange for the subscription, while also developing our games that we can later sell additionally.
This month’s progress on Robot Farm
Finally, onto Robot Farm!
We’ve made a new webpage for Robot Farm! Check it out below:
This month we’ve been working on the foundations of gameplay and also polishing the World Editor. We’ve set up basic player movement and animation, and also finished integrating Lua into the game and World Editor so that custom code can be run. We’re continuing to polish and develop the world collision detection, and coding is underway for AI pathfinding as well.
From here, we’ll begin expanding the gameplay mechanics. Adding the game’s HUD, basic menus, as well as porting important gameplay code from the old 2D version of Robot Farm - such as stats, items, and so on. Robot Farm already has a complete design document and a skeleton of the story, so a lot of the development will just be re-implementing gameplay mechanics and doing some basic porting work from the old version of the game engine.
The first playable build of the World Editor is available for download!
We made our first build of the game available to our Patrons and testers. It’s a build of the World Editor, and they can now build maps for Robot Farm using our tools. Not only is the World Editor our tool for building the game itself, but it’ll be available for modders as well to create their own content.
It’s also a taste of what kind of content our Patrons on Patreon will be receiving. We’re going to go into it below a bit more, but Robot Farm is going to have public access demos to try, along with in-between builds exclusive to the Patreon as well with extra content to try out.
We’ve made a video showcase that presents a timelapse of a full making-of for a level in Robot Farm for this in-development build of the World Editor. Check it out, and consider subscribing to get access to it immediately! If you join our Discord community, you can also try out for officially making levels for Robot Farm and joining the NOKORIWARE team.
Robot Farm DEMO 1
We’ve also decided that we’re going to take our old fashioned We Shall Wake approach and start producing playable DEMOs that showcase our progress on the game. Each one will be adding to the last with additional gameplay features until we’re ready to produce the full early access version of Robot Farm. While we will be making these DEMOs free for everyone to try, Patrons will get exclusive early access to them, and potentially even getting exclusive access to some DEMOs. Right now if you subscribe early, you can get the “Trailblazer” founder’s plan for three dollars cheaper than what the equivalent top-tier plan is.
Robot Farm DEMO 1 is going to be focused on farming gameplay, and is going to try and contain the following features:
“Manual” farming gameplay: planting crops, taking care of them, and harvesting them. In the final version of Robot Farm, the player will be able to assist on the farm, but the focus will be also managing your Aokobots to have them help you expand your farms and automate them.
NPC interaction: dialogue, shopping, and romance systems. Future updates will also contain the systems for giving NPCs full schedules, as well as generating them for minor NPCs.
Basic exploration of maps: explore maps created in the World Editor and interact with them.
Full access to the World Editor: create your own maps and NPCs, mod in new assets, and explore them in gameplay mode!
Locking up for the month
August has been a busy month for NOKORIWARE! We hope you enjoy the new videos and also try out our new releases! Please consider subscribing to our Patreon and helping out. We’ll also be taking feedback from subscribers on what kind of content they’d like to see on there. Your wish is our command!
Thank you for your time! We hope you have a great September!
♥ NOKORIWARE