Wander: Season 1, Episode 1 this Wednesday 19th, 4pm PST

I'm very excited that the first episode of our live streamed drama will be starting this week. Episode 1 will be live this Wednesday 19th of November, 4pm PST (7pm EST, 20th 12am GMT and 11am AEST)

Watch live video from Wander on www.twitch.tv
In Season 1 we're going to be following Sylvania, a young Oren, as she explores her dream of flying and realises that what she is, isn't all she can be. The series features a talented cast of actors and Qiao Li as the Director Of Photography. Live machinima hasn't been tried much before (or even at all on Twitch that we know about!) so we're pretty excited to be breaking some new ground. 

As well as getting much deeper into the narrative of Wander, we're also going to be showing off a lot of new content and features. 

We're also excited (we are a lot at the moment!) to announce that we will be in Las Vegas next month for PlayStation Experience. Come check out Wander there! 

Weather, new cultures, new Azertash city concepts!

Good evening, cats and kittens (and griffins)! Crystal here comin’ at ya with the latest from the Wander headquarters.

First off, I’d like to give a shout-out to the two newest members of the team: Tejay and Criss. Tejay is from the illustrious capital of our nation, Canberra and is doing modelling and texturing. Criss is based in Boston, USA and is helping with PR.  Also, the addition of Criss means that I am no longer the only North American on the team. *Cries* I’m slightly less special and interesting!!!

Next, our level and character designs are still progressing as awesomely as ever. We’ve got several new types of griffins, and I must say they look amazing. This has been an idea a long time in the making and I’m super excited to see these designs finally coming together.

We’ve also got some new mossy texture for our Oren, and as we all know it’s the little touches like these that really make a world feel alive.

In addition, our azertash design is coming along nicely. This is a character design with a ton of potential to look completely stunning, and we can’t wait until the finished product is ready to reveal to you all!

Speaking of azertashes, we’ve got some magnificent new concept art for some of our planned Azertash cities. These are looking pretty fantastic, and I just can’t wait until you guys can dive right in (pun intended) and start exploring these babies.

Another super cool feature we’re working on is - and stay with me now, folks - the weather. We're working on real-time weather systems for Wander which will have rain, clouds, storms, but most importantly, wind. Wind will be used for soaring flight, including the two major mechanics of soaring flight: thermals and ridge lift. Weather is modeled to have seasons, day/night cycles and cold fronts/storm systems, all of which combine to make flying different from day to day. To fly from point A to point B players will need to learn how to best use current weather conditions. This will add a totally new and challenging element to playing as a griffin, and those who assumed that flying would automatically be the quickest and easiest way of getting around may be in for a shock!

We’ve got some other exciting things in the pipeline; one of these things is so exciting that I can’t actually tell you what it is! All I’ll say is that it involves me, personally, working harder than ever before in a format I’m not familiar with (“I just assumed you could do everything!” - Actual quote from Loki), and some professional actors hanging around the offices. Was that vague enough? I promise you’ll be delightfully entertained once the big secret is revealed!

Finally, one last thing: those of you who have purchased the alpha will soon be getting steam keys for the alpha version; we’re just releasing them in a few waves so not everyone has to deal with the first few bugs, because how irritating are those, right guys? I mean, we’ve all played Bethesda games, amirite? (Just kidding! ILY Bethesda 5EVA!)

Anyway, that’s all from me! Time to get back to doing (SUPER SECRET PROJECT). Until next time!

Crystal

PAX Prime, Gamescom wrap up!

Hi All, Loki here. We're back in Australia after PAX Prime and Gamescom. We had an amazing time. It was the first time people played the PS4 version of Wander and we enjoyed showing off the all the changes we've made this year. Thanks to everyone who played the game, supported us and helped out with getting things to run so smoothly.

We're really happy with the response, thanks to MMOGames for awarding us Best Indie MMO at Gamescom

and to MMORPG.com for Honorable Mention for Most Innovative Game. It's fantastic to be discussed amongst games we have so much respect for. If anyone has photos of the booth, we'd love to see them!

We did plenty of interviews at Gamescom and PAX Prime. Thanks to everyone who interviewed us and shared our excitement for Wander. if you'd like to watch any of them on YouTube, here are two to get started with:

 We're very happy that Massively mentioned us in the Best Of PAX Prime 2014, "still on track to be something special. I called it the biggest surprise at PAX Prime 2013, and I'm pleased to see it's still happening and still weird and wonderful." Thanks Bree!

At both events we talked about some of the new stuff coming to Wander in the next few months. We've got some new art (from the amazing Ned Rodgers) to show, here's a new one of our Azertash

The underwater world of Wander is getting more detailed, and we're making progress with the underwater cities built by Azertash and Sea Hira. Here's the first glimpse of what is to come on those, we're still trying different things but hopefully this gives a good idea of what it will look like!

 

Cave cities deep in the ocean:

Hira / Azertash underwater and above water buildings:

That's it for me for the moment. Thanks again to everyone who helped out. It was great meeting so many amazing people who made Elaine, Sarah and myself feel so welcome. A special thanks goes to the team from Dragon Fin Soup for taking care of us and helping move our gear. Time for us to sleep a little and then get back to work.

Wander to be at Gamecom 2014 in the Indie Megabooth

Just a quick update, we're excited that Wander will be at Gamescom as part of the Indie Megabooth and we made a new (updated) trailer for the event. We look forward to seeing anyone going to Gamescom at our booth in Hall 10.

New Screenshots, New Concept Art and Gamescom!

Hello, everyone! This is Crystal here bringing you your latest Wander update. Those of you who've been on the edge of their seats now have my permission to relax.
First of all, we have here for you some amazing new screenshots, and I'll be honest with you guys, this is some awesome stuff.

Here we have our very first newly updated character, the Oren! Yes, she is a walking tree, and all those branches and leaves look pretty darn impressive in motion, if I do say so myself.

Next we have our second character, my personal favorite (so far): the griffin! Those of you who are familiar with the original design will undoubtedly notice that this one is a massive improvement.

Last but not least we have the griffin in flight. I won't spoil this moment for you with mere words; just take it all in.

Speaking of flying, our programmers have been hard at work hammering out the flight mechanics, and their efforts have paid off with a flight simulation that feels uncannily realistic. We're using the motion control features of the DualShock4 on PS4 and we're really happy with it.

In addition to this, there's just been a general massive improvement to overall performance, and as someone who only goes in to the office on a semi-regular basis I've noticed EVERYTHING about the game improving by leaps and bounds each time I see it. We're also pretty stoked that the Oculus DK2 is being shipped, though ours isn't here yet! Wander is practically tailor-made for VR and this newfangled "low-persistence" thing that all the cool kids are talking about means that people like me (AKA the most motion-sickness prone person alive) will actually be able to enjoy the experience for longer than twenty seconds at a time! Positional tracking is also great for that.

Now, some of you might be aware of a little thing called Gamescom that is happening this August in Cologne, Germany. Now, our very own Loki happens to have spent some time in Germany back in his wild younger days, and it looks like he'll be returning with Elaine and Seraphim to bring Wander to the European audience. So, those of you who plan on attending should make sure to drop by and see us, or contact Loki if you'd like to do an interview.

Finally, I've got a few more pieces of art to show you, and that is some very early concept art of our third character redesign: the Azertash! You may remember the original design, and if you do you'll notice that we're taking the character in a bit of a new direction. Still a lot of work to be done but we're all looking forward to getting another amazing looking character into the game!

Steam Support, Voice Actors and Screen Australia Support

Hey all, this is Crystal here to update you on what’s been happening around the Wander offices (my house *does* count as an office, right? And my cat counts as my assistant?).

First of all, I’m very pleased to report that we’ve been chosen to receive funding from Screen Australia, and I’m sure I speak for the entire team when I tell you how excited we are about this. Money (a loan) is great and useful when you want to make stuff good! Sadly, it appears that this type of funding is soon to be a thing of the past, so we’ll be sure to put it to good use. In other news… We’re on Steam, huzzah! We've got Steam support working, voice chat is getting there and everyone who's supported Wander so far will be getting Steam keys.

Now on to the really interesting stuff! Well, interesting to ME, at least. First of all, fireflies! What do fireflies have to do with anything, you’re no doubt saying to yourselves? Well, I’m glad you asked. You can find these little guys in the world of Wander, and once you’ve befriended them they can be enlisted to light your way at night, point things out to other players, or you can just make them fly around in circles for your own amusement! You can see these little dudes in action by checking out the video below, featuring me (Canadian accent included) and Loki, the god of mischief himself, showing us how to direct fireflies like a boss.

You may also notice, during your travels through the rainforest, that sometimes you walk past a rock with some glowy symbols and it starts talking to you. No, you haven’t been inhaling too much spice, it’s all due to the excellent efforts of our fantabulous voice actors and our splendiferous sound designer/voice-over director/voice actor, Elaine. I honestly don’t think I could ask for a more talented and hard working group of people to bring my words to life. Everyone’s working super hard to fill Wander up with more lore and dialogue than you can shake a stick at, and this includes sitting in a stuffy tent covered in a blanket for hours in order to get the best possible sound quality. Believe me, it’s a VERY professional setup, and I’ve no doubt that you’d all be very impressed.

Speaking of sound, we’ve also got some pretty rad sound effects happening in our menus, It’s a little thing, but it’s one of those nice touches that picky people like me notice and appreciate. You might also notice something new on this site, a link to the wiki Gamepedia / Curse are now hosting the official Wander wiki. As a narrative focused game we're going to have a lot of spoiler warnings but we're excited to have a place where fans can formulate ideas. Of course, it's a wiki so it might just one more exciting way for Wander myths to spread.

Another thing we’ve been busting our humps over lately is the intro cutscene to the game. I remember a time, not so long ago, when we thought that cutscenes were a thing we could only dream about and long for wistfully. However, now that we’ve switched over to the better-in-all-possible-ways-engine, Cryengine, cutscenes are now a very real part of our lives. Particularly in the past couple of weeks, when we’ve spent a lot of time perfecting exactly what it is that happens during those first few minutes of the game. I’m sure Loki is sick to death of hearing me say “I want the tree big! I mean, really big! BIGGER!” But all in all it’s coming along well and starting to look pretty amazing, all thanks to our fantastic level designers, Aaron and Sarah. Loki and I *may* have had a childish argument or two over the amount of camera spinning we want to include in the intro (let’s just say, one of us watched a LOT of Sailor Moon as a teen. And that person is me.); however we’re pretty confident that it’s going to end up looking awesome.

Of particular relevance to me has been the progress of our new character designs. Our art director Garth and his team have been doing a bang-up job translating my concepts and notes into some pretty sweet-looking characters. They’re still in the preliminary stages at this point, but I have to say I’m blown away by their work, and I can’t wait until we can all see the finished products. To be honest, when I saw the first griffin model, I was so excited that *redacted by Loki*.

Anyway, I better sign off before this gets *really* uncomfortable! Until next time!

New Trailer

We've been hard at work over the last few months on the port and we're very excited to be able to show it off at last. Here's a new trailer for Wander. We'll have a few more coming in the next few months demoing new features.

Wander to use CRYENGINE®

In the last post we talked about lots of the things we have planned for this year. We have big plans to add to our fantastic narrative while making Wander look and sound great. We needed a game engine that could help us achieve that. We're happy to announce that we're now using CRYENGINE®. We're really excited about what we will be able to achieve.

What does this mean for players

Current players would have noticed there was no new release last month. Partly that was because we had a few days off for New Years and the holidays but it was also because we're working on the new version. There is going to be a bit of delay before the first new release is out.

The new version of Wander will use a lot less memory, run on less hardware and be a lot more beautiful. The most important thing is that the new engine gives us tools to get thing done quickly, meaning we can add more content. The screenshot above is running faster and smoother that the previous version of Wander, while also looking very pretty. We've only just started and we've got a long way to go but it's going to be an amazing journey.

There is a downside to this. CRYENGINE has no Mac support. If you've got a Mac and have already purchased Wander and don't want to play on Windows or Linux, please contact us about getting a refund.

We've also got something else we're very proud of to show, our music is now recorded with our amazing musicians and here is an example from our intro voice over

We're still on Steam Greenlight if you haven't voted for Wander yet.  

A fantastic 2013 and big plans for 2014

It has been an amazing year for Wander and the team. We have been nominated for a number of awards and mentioned as one of the most anticipated MMOs of 2014 by our of our favourite sites, Massively. Most importantly, we now have a fantastic community of Wanderers. All of this before we have released Wander! We're really excited with what 2014 holds and we have some big plans!

Our success this year wouldn't have been possible without all the support we have received. We would like to thank AIE, the GDAA, Sony, MAINGEAR, AMD, GenAudio, Scalify, Oculus, Melbourne Fringe Festival, all our players and the Australian games community. Thanks for believing that a beautiful non-combat, MMO game was something worthwhile and that we were the team to achieve it; This year is the year we will!

We're very happy to have announced last year that we would be coming to PS4. It's exciting that it's now this year! Sony have been lovely to deal with and I recommend any dev who's doing an appropriate game to chat to them. So of course our biggest plan for 2014 is to release Wander. The main areas we're working on are the narrative, tutorial, collaborative mechanics, improved graphics, new cultures, expanding dream weaving, new ways of communicating, new music and improved sound design.

Game play: 

Our primary focus is making a great clear introduction for Wander and implementing all the collaborative ideas we've designed. Feedback on the dream weaving has been great and we're going to continue expanding how the lore unlocks elements in the dream weaving. We're designing interfaces to make this clearer for players while staying beautiful and immersive. We always try and focus on keeping UI out of the way, but we also need to communicate well.

Story: 

We've been recording all the lore with our wonderful voice actors last year and we're going to continue with that. It was great to be nominated for Best Narrative and hopefully this year we can win it. As all the cultures become clear in the narrative we're hoping that the depth and interest of the story draws players in. We're big fans of games with a strong narrative!

Graphics: 

We're currently working hard on the look of Wander focusing on clarifying some of our art direction, implementing all the new cultures and making sure Wander the best looking game that it can be. The water, especially underwater is receiving some much needed attention now. We're going over all our at to improve the look and performance of Wander. As we get closer to release we hope that better lighting, improved shaders and better streaming systems can allow Wander to really look great, while not needing quite as much resources as it needs now. Of course, if you have a next gen system, be it PC or PS4 we're hoping to give a next gen experience. Should we start saying current gen? A new year and a new gen, blog writing is getting confusing!
 

Music: 

One of the things we're fantastically excited about for this year is the new music that we've recorded at the Royal College of Music in London, with a collection of amazingly talented artists. We're very happy to say this music has been mixed and mastered by some of the most talented audio engineers in the world, at Astound Studios in LA. We're very grateful to GenAudio for helping with this. The music, and the rest of the soundscape will be presented using GenAudio's fantastic next gen audio tech called AstoundSound.

AstoundSound: 

As well as wanting Wander to be the best looking game it can be, we also want it to be the best sounding game ever. Game audio hasn't seen the rapid advances that graphics has seen over the last year and there is some great algorithms to improve immersion that aren't widely used yet. We're happy to be on the cutting edge of audio with AstoundSound. We want our rainforest to sound like it's all around you, and the 3D audio technology from GenAudio helps us to achieve that. Our sound designer luckily spent her holiday break recording even more lovely rainforest sounds and getting more reference material. We think that our opera singers, in a detailed rainforest will create a soundscape like no other. We're also planning to allow players to weave there own soundscapes in the dream weaving.

We're really excited about 2014, thanks for supporting Wander so far! Get on the forums, vote on Greenlight and chat to us if you've got any ideas.

Awards:
Nominated for Best Narrative and received an honourable mention for Best Art and Best Design - FreePlay 2013.
Nominated for Best Accessible Game - Australian Game Developer Awards.
Nominated for Best Graphics - hóPLAY 2013.
Selected for PAX Aus Indie Pavilion

Events Exhibited at: PAX Prime, PAX Aus, iFest, FreePlay
Featured Event at: Melbourne Fringe Festival