A Very Short Note about the Beta <3
over 4 years ago – Tue, May 05, 2020 at 11:08:01 PM

Dear Travellers, Settlers and Nomads,

As you may already have read in our last update, we are preparing for beta which starts on launches this Wednesday. We've many backers joining us, but there's still room for a few more, so if you'd like to upgrade to become Secret Cultists, the possibility remains open until 14.00 CEST on Wednesday. Just log in to Backerkit using the same email as you do in Kickstarter.

We look forward to sharing Book of Travels with you - this week or on release in the autumn!

Best Wishes and stay safe,

Helen and the (extraordinarily busy and excited) team at Might & Delight

Beta Testing Info Coming Soon + Meadow
over 4 years ago – Sat, May 02, 2020 at 06:12:20 PM

Dearest Backers,

The time has nearly come for Book of Travels to get its very first outing. We are locking content, fixing bugs, tidying up little messes and polishing the silver, and we'll be writing to testers next Wednesday (5th May) with details, so keep your eyes open for that email! It will contain a lot of information about playing and feeding back, as well as your Steam key!

Playing together for charity in Meadow

In other news thanks so much to all who attended our Tenth Anniversary Play Event in Meadow last weekend. We broke our 10,000 player target and servers were bursting with players old and new (hello baby badgers!). Through that and our Steam sale we also raised money and awareness for mental health and games charity Safe in Our World, whose work is more important than ever in these times of pandemic and lockdown. So thanks for being there, for sharing or just for reading this and caring! If you missed out, then you can find the anniversary elephants as of next Wednesday as they will be reinstalled permanently (with a few more thrown in for fun) and because this was such a success we decided to add some new Shelter 3 animals in the months to come. (And if you're still looking for an elephant, just hop onto Discord and ask for some help!)

That's all for now - we are SUPER excited to work with you on the upcoming beta and to take this huge step closer to early access in the autumn!

Best Wishes and stay safe!
Helen and the team 

Free Weekend in Meadow + Charity Play Event! We are Ten Years Old
over 4 years ago – Sat, Apr 25, 2020 at 12:02:12 AM

Dear Backers,

About this time in April ten years ago, Might and Delight was born, and to celebrate suitably in these times of lockdown we're holding a great big Meadow play event. For the duration of the weekend all profit from our Steam sales will go to mental health and videogames charity Safe in Our World, and if we get 10,000 players joining in we’ll add 25% to that donation – so please hop into a grove! To make it even easier to play together Meadow will be free to play all weekend on Steam, so bring your faraway friends and loved ones... and help us get to 10,000 players by sharing the event on Twitter, Facebook and beyond! 

Mental Health and Videogames

Safe in our World’s mission is to create and foster worldwide mental health awareness within the video game industry and beyond. Founded by industry veterans in 2019, the charity is currently working to promote positive mental health in the Covid-19 crisis.

Play is live now and will end at midnight on Sunday 25th. As well as obelisks to unlock together, there will be some special edition statues of elephants to find, which will gain achievements. Devs will be popping in over the weekend so look out for their special dev skins, and you can find your new playmates on Discord during and after the adventure (#Meadow).  Click here, select Meadow and scroll down to play for free.

Play - and share!

Most of all we would love you to share the news on Facebook and Twitter so that we can get as many people partying for us in Meadow and raising money for Safe in Our World, so we'd be really grateful if you’d hit a share button below!

Thank you so much for your support through the years - we're so glad to have had you with us and we look forward to all we can create together in the years to come! 

Stay safe and be well,

Helen and the team at Might and Delight 

Gameplay Update - The Omnipresent UI
over 4 years ago – Fri, Apr 17, 2020 at 01:40:20 PM

Dear Backers,

Thanks for taking the time to connect with us during these troubling times. The following update was written before we found ourselves in such troubles. But as we wrote previously, production continues and we must pedal along as best we can... So we really hope that you enjoy this latest update from Jakob and the team - probably the last we have time for between now and launching the beta in just a few weeks' time. Stay safe and be well! And don't forget to leave your comments! /Helen 

Designing the UI for Book of Travels

One of the most crucial parts of any RPG is the interface: your inventory, your character screen, your skill book. Today we want to share the progress that's been made and invite you to look, judge and comment on this omnipresent factor: the UI!

Conventional, but with a difference

The interface is probably one of the more difficult parts to develop in any game, mainly because it comes with so many expectations. Its core purpose is functionality, but it’s also a vital visual component - one that appears on your screen almost the entire time you are playing.

Our idea is to make a somewhat classical interface that leans on many conventional solutions found in other games. But we also want to do it our way, adding flavors from the game’s ethos. One example is that we are using a lot of icons and symbols instead of text - not everywhere, and not only, but often. Together with inspiration from classical pen and paper roleplay, the style makes for an interesting mix of traditional and new.  To get around the annoying inconvenience that symbols can entail, one can always press the question mark to read about a particular UI-screen or use mouse over to write out the name of symbols. 

The look itself is inspired by paper and cards. Items and Skills are presented as cards and when creating your character you get to choose between different background cards that tell the story of your character. Being able to bring life to your character through its personality is vital for us, and we have added in many options to write your own custom information besides the choices of traits, origin and other factors that you must choose. 

HUD options

Skills and emotes are two major focal points of the ingame HUD and to always have access to these is very important. Their importance needs to balanced with the often large space of the screen they cover. So we've implemented functions that allow you to shrink, expand and hide individual parts of the interface - or hide it all together. Besides skills and expressions, energy and stamina status is visible in the top left corner, along with the “shortcut” buttons at the lower middle. Currently these include: Game view, Character sheet, Stats, Custom info, Inventory and equipment, Skillbook and Reagents, Map, Diary and notebook, Take screenshot, Menu/Settings.

We hope you've enjoyed this first peek at the interface. As fans of the genre it would be amazing to hear your ideas and feedback regarding the UI. Together we can fine tune this part of the experience so that it fits the game that we are creating, and the people we are creating it for! As always, thank you for your time and commitment! 

Best Wishes,

Jakob and the Book of Travels team

Beta is on track! + Another chance to join us in Meadow
over 4 years ago – Wed, Apr 08, 2020 at 11:50:05 PM

Dear Backer,

This is just a quick update to let you know how things are in our newly dispersed studio. We want to reassure you that the Might & Delight team are still going strong and production is still on schedule. That means beta testing is still on course for May 6th. We are really excited about sharing Book of Travels with you and we we'll be sending instructions to beta testers very soon!

If you are still to do your survey and collect your rewards be sure to do that here! (This is especially important if you are beta testing for us.) 

Play with the Devs

We had a great session last week, and we'll be doing another this Thursday! That's April 9th at 15.00 CEST in Grove 5 (see bottom left of the screen to select). Hope to see you there!

Best Wishes and take care,

Helen and the team at Might and Delight