Welcome to the "MoonWard Going Forward" (MGF) blog!
I'm Mr. Slate and I'm here to let you know what's been happening with MoonWard as of February 2025!
Please make sure to check out the MoonWard demo on the Google Play Store and our Discord Community!
Let's talk about the new stuff! I'm focusing on the following in this month's MoonWard Going Forward.
Next Patch
Patch v0.9.49 for the MoonWard Demo on Android will come out on the 25th of February.
More Icons, Hexes and Music
Now that I'm mostly done with features, it's time to improve the variety of textures and music in MoonWard! There are three major upgrades coming in the next patch. More character icons, more hex variety for the map and more music for the county hubs.
Firstly, the new character icons (both player and enemy)! There are 20 base avatars, but I've split the images into layers so I can create a stupendous amount of variants. There are some brand new designs here as well. Technically, adding these will change some lore. For example, did you know that Ca'el are blue skinned? Well, they are now! And before I forget - huge thanks to Lorenzo “Zap” Papazzoni (check him out on the Friends page) for drawing these and being an absolute pleasure to work with once again!
Secondly, the new map hexes. The map in MoonWard is made up of hexagonal tiles. These tiles represent areas several kilometres wide and can represent forests, mountains, cities etc.. Without getting into the technicalities too much, there are a number of variants for each area type. So far I've only focused on adding variety to tiles that are present in the first and second county. There are 5 counties in MoonWard, however, and those have 10 distinct areas. On top of that some areas have unique hexes (like the dwarven city of county 2). All of this to say I've got a ton of hex variants and unique tiles (with their own variants) for the remaining 3 counties. I'm making all of these so all of them may not be done for next patch.
And lastly, new music for the hubs! Every hub in MoonWard is represented mainly by the map table. Each of these tables are in a tavern true to the flavour of each hub. Just as the visuals set a base for the theme of the county, the new music will enhance this and hopefully immerse you. I only just commissioned this work so I'll keep the credits... but... soon!
Quality of Life
This is admittedly the boring stuff. A few examples I've planned to do are - animated map zoom, some way to onboard during character creation (or simplifying the info shown on creation), some sort of manager for hub music looping and a way to disable a popup from the popup itself (without having to go to settings). There will probably be more but those are the big ones.
Full Game Content
I've transitioned into making a lot of content for the full game. Bounties and stories to be specific. So. Much. Writing... And some backgrounds, items, characters etc... But mostly writing. I should stop complaining because It's actually a lot of fun and the lore is finally paying off. I have most of the specs for both the bounties and main stories. I need to finish drafting the side stories but they're coming together too. It'll take a while but I'm aiming for a 5-6 hour main story campaign so it'll be worth it!
Features
Here's a list of done, approved and work in progress features as of writing this. The WIP percentages are all over the place, that doesn't mean I've started and stopped work on these, or working on them in parallel. In games development larger features are broken down in standalone tasks that can be as small as 1 hour. For example, a "New Enemies" task can be 4 separate tasks of varying duration and the tasks can be done in any order. So with that in mind...
Enough rambling! Here's the current approved major feature list:
DONE: Boss fights!
DONE: iOS Build. I cleaned up the iOS version and finished the content blocking logic. Builds to iPhone and iPad work 100%.
WIP 50%: New character art! In all fairness the art is complete, I just need to place it in the game.
WIP 10%: New music! Just hired a musician to do some more natural/diegetic tracks for the taverns/hubs. Really excited!
WIP 30%: Increased hex variation. This won't affect the demo as much because I'm fairly happy with the hex variety in County 1 and County 2. You'll be able to see the new hexes on the map but the counties will still be locked.
WIP 90%: More County 2 content. There will most likely be one or two more side stories for county 2 and that should be the end of content updates for the demo. I should really get to this. It's been drafted for weeks.
WIP 20%: Long term Save Game. Currently all of your characters are deleted forever when the game is uninstalled. This is obviously not ideal. Modern games save these in the cloud. I'm not interested in that. I did some research on this and it seems plausible. Will try to spend some more time on this in March.
TBD: iOS Release.
Pricing and Support
Lastly, I'd like to elaborate on a couple of things regarding the demo and pricing.
Price. The demo (and App Store intro version if that's even happening anymore) will always be free. The full version (on Android and iOS) will always be a one time purchase. There will never be any in-app purchases. There will never be any adverts. There will never be battle passes. There will never be Web3 technology.
Support/Patching. When the full version is released, the demo will continue to receive patches at the same rate as the full version. This will include new or changed content in county 1 and partially (side stories and bounties) in county 2, as well as any upgraded/new systems and mechanics available in those hubs. The demo will also get bugfixes and balance updates in parallel with the full version.
Before I go, if you'd like to support us, please check our Patreon and Ko-fi! Any donations and patronage towards Slate Games and MoonWard development are greatly appreciated!
Thank you all so much for your continued support! It's very humbling to be able to do what I love!
Like always,
stay awesome!
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