Wild West and Wizards Has Officially Launched!

April 28, 2020 willsterling23 0 Comments


Howdy everyone!

The day has finally come. Today Wild West and Wizards officially launches on Steam, leaving Early Access. I want to go over what has changed since the Early Access launch and what updates are coming to the game after launch.


WHAT’S CHANGED SINCE THE EARLY ACCESS LAUNCH?


Since the launch on Early Access back in August we’ve added a slew of new content and improvements to the game. Our main goal was to get the game more polished and make sure there was plenty of content to keep you engaged while you explore the new frontier. Here’s a list of some of the major changes we’ve made since then. 

- Two brand new classes have been added: The Witch Doctor and The Gunslinger. These classes come with unique starting abilities and their own talent trees changing the way you play the game. 
- New Map UI and quest marker system making navigating more fun but still leaving a sense of raw exploration to the game.
- Graphics improvements such as volumetric lighting and an updated UI
- New AI animations and physics
- A complete main story quest line with access to all three wizard tower dungeons
- New points of interests, puzzles, items, abilities, and side quests added throughout the world
- Performance improvements and bug fixes

These are just some of the changes we’ve made but overall we’re very happy with the state of the game and feel there is a ton of content to experience that should keep you busy exploring the Wild West for quite some time. 


WHAT’S TO COME


Our main focus with the post launch updates is to continue to add content such as quests, new points of interest, and new items for you to earn. The next update will feature multiple brand new high level bounty quests you can pick up in the various towns. These quests will take you to new dungeons and caves with puzzles, new enemies, loot, and of course, secrets. We also are planning some updates to add more quests to the guilds such as The Assassin's Guild and The Bounty Hunters Guild. 

We will share more about these new updates in the coming weeks.


WHAT’S NEXT FOR LAVABOOTS


In addition to working on new content for Wild West and Wizards, we are also working on our next project, a sequel to our open world pirate game, Salt. Salt 2 is still early in the works but we can’t wait to share more with you. Follow us on our social channels such Discord, Twitter, and Facebook for updates. 


Thank you so much to everyone in our community who has helped us shape Wild West and Wizards into the game it is today. Happy questing!

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Leaving Early Access and What's Next

April 21, 2020 willsterling23 0 Comments


We are excited to announce that Wild West and Wizards will be officially launching on Steam, leaving early access some time next week. We've had such a great time developing this game alongside the community and are proud of the world we've created together.

I want to go over what this means in terms of support for the game going forward, as well as what our plans are for the next project.


Post Launch Updates


We started working on Wild West and Wizards a little over two years ago. One of our main goals with this game was to cut our development time down to a two year cycle, but also increase the quantity and quality of content compared to our previous game, Salt. This was a challenge because this game, unlike Salt, was not procedurally generated. This means we had to build the entire world by hand which in theory takes a lot more time. 

Overall we are very happy with the amount of content in the game. Currently there are over 200 points of interest to discover, over 80 quests, three classes with unique talent trees, hundreds of items to loot, and a lot of secrets and puzzles spread across the world. Right now our development team only consists of two people, which means it can be a huge challenge trying to balance content, quality, and time with development. A lot of this also depends on how well a product sells which heavily influences how long we can support ourselves and the game. 

That being said, Wild West and Wizards didn't perform as well as we'd hoped but we were still able to complete our roadmap for the game and implement a ton of content. After launch, we'd like to continue to support the game with a least a few more content updates. The updates will include things like brand new bounty quests to complete, new large points of interests to explore, new quest lines, and new gear and loot to earn. We will also be fixing bugs and things of that nature as well.

From Desert to Sea


So what is next for us at Lavaboots? Some of you will be happy to know we will be working on a sequel to our open world pirate game, Salt. With Salt 2, we'd like to drastically improve the visuals and aesthetics of the game from the original, as well as focus on what made Salt so fun to play and add some new twists as well. A large focus with the sequel will be on exploration, crafting, and ship customization. We want you to really be able to make a cozy home on your ship and spend a lot of time crafting and making it unique to you. 

Obviously right now we are in the very early stages of development and design with Salt 2, but we will be releasing more info on that soon. We plan on taking the same approach that we did with Wild West and Wizards, which is to increase quality and content, but decrease the development time so that you can play the game quicker and get updates faster. 


We are so appreciative of our community and couldn't make these games without you! Stay tuned over the next few months for more updates on Wild West and Wizards, as well as updates on the development of Salt 2. 


Thanks for reading!

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