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That's some dedication! You have our permission to obsess over the full game when it's out, haha!

And we can't wait to see how everyone's playthroughs turn out!

Thank you so much, we're very happy to hear how excited you are! We feel honored to have been able to break your no-unfinished-games rule, haha! If you liked the demo, we can promise that you'll like the full game even more

We will take the time required to get all the things we need into the game, and if we don't make it by November, then so be it. But so far, it's looking good for the deadline ;)

Thank you, we're very happy to hear that!

Thank you, it's really encouraging to hear that!

Thank you, we're happy to hear that you enjoy the demo! You'll probably like the full game even more once it's released ;)

There's nothing wrong with your installation - the demo does indeed only last for 1 in-game year. The full game will contain all 5 years, though.

We're aiming for a release of the full game sometime this Fall (2024)!

You will be able to choose if you want to adopt or not!

Your spouse will present you with those options a while into being married. You'll only be presented with those options once. Your spouse  will have an opinion on it.

If you agree with them (adopt when they want to adopt, or don't adopt if they don't want to), your unique marriage relationship with them will increase a bit.

If you go against them (adopt when they don't want to adopt, or don't adopt if they want to adopt), it will affect your marriage relationship negatively.

There are also quite a few spouses who don't care what you pick, which means that you can choose whatever you want without risking them getting upset with you - or like you more, for that matter.

No matter if you go with or against your spouse, it will only have a small impact on the marriage relationship, though (for most characters, at least. It will be obvious if the impact is bigger, because your spouse  would get very upset if you go against them). It's generally pretty easy to make up for a potential negative impact caused by your choices with adoption. This is because you can increase the marriage relationship in the spouse's three unique married life events. But it's also possible to decrease the marriage relationship in those events, so it's important to listen to your spouse and understand them, if you want to maintain a good relationship even when married.

TLDR; It's ultimately up to you to decide to adopt or not. But since every character is unique, your spouse will have an opinion on the topic and it might affect your relationship with them in some way.

I hope that clears things up a bit!

I agree that it would be nice to have your own children! I myself would probably have preferred that option if I were presented with it as a player. In the perfect scenario, we would have that as an option, but there are several reasons why we opted for adoption only:

1: Having your own children would mean more graphical assets, which means more work for an already very large game. It would also require checking your player character's appearance against the appearance of your spouse and so on, which would make things quite complicated to implement

2: Having your own children would mean that the player would need to have an assigned gender, which we want to avoid. Alternatively, it would mean there would have to be some sort of "magical" childbirth (a stork or something), so that the gender of your character and your partner don't matter, which I personally am not a fan of

3: There are some characters that you wouldn't be able to have your own biological children with, which means that adoption would still be necessary in order to have a child with all possible spouses (if we assume there is no "magical" childbirth, of course)

4: By only having adoption, we can ensure that the children you can have are actual characters. Otherwise, they would likely be assigned one or two character traits, making them feel like cardboard cutouts and thus be almost impossible to give unique and interesting stories - especially endings. It would also make them a lot more complicated to implement. With adoption, we can also make the children a bit older, so that they can actually display their personalities, and not be static babies in a crib. The biggest reason why we went for adoption is to avoid the feeling of the children being props, which they often feel like in other games (like Stardew Valley, Story of Seasons/Harvest Moon, and probably Fable, too. I haven't played any Fable-games, so I can't say for sure)

I hope that answers your question without making you too disappointed! Hopefully, our decisions make sense when the game is fully released and you'll get access to the adoption-feature and see what colorful little characters the children are ;)

<3

<3

Hello! Currently, we have no plans to add such a tier or release an early build in any other way.

Scratch what we wrote earlier. We've posted a patch that may have improved the pixelation, but we are unsure. You would have to download the patch to see if anything has improved. If not, we will likely have to save that improvement for the full release of the game.

Hello, thank you for your input! As of now, we are unsure how to add different resolutions due to the way the game engine (GameMaker Studio 2) works, and it is unlikely that we will dabble in this with the demo. However, we will look into it for the full release of the game. Also, the native resolution of the game is 4K.

Mistwinter Bay

Hello everyone! We have very exciting news: the free demo is out now! You can find it here: https://swordlake-entertainment.itch.io/mistwinter-bay

We would like to thank everyone who has been keeping track of the development so far. We don't think we'll be posting any more devlogs on here, but you can always keep track of the development by supporting us on Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/swordlakeentertainment) and watching our video devlogs on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCICWzkpUmB-Xv_52sAh_tUw/featured). You can also find us on Twitter (https://twitter.com/swordlake_ent) and Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/swordlake_entertainment/).

Thank you so much for the support so far! We hope you enjoy trying out the game for yourselves!

Today, September 9 2022, we at Swordlake Entertainment released the free demo for our visual novel RPG, Mistwinter Bay! You can download the game from this page: https://swordlake-entertainment.itch.io/mistwinter-bay

About the game

More information can be found on the game’s page here on Itch: https://swordlake-entertainment.itch.io/mistwinter-bay

Images

You can download the game from this page: https://swordlake-entertainment.itch.io/mistwinter-bay

The demo release is drawing very close now - it's only two days left! Today, we posted the demo trailer on YouTube (and yesterday, we posted another devlog, talking about the creation of the town view. You can find it on our YouTube channel). Here's the trailer:

Have you made something related to Mistwinter Bay? It can be art, a video, a Twitch let's play - anything that you have created that is based on Mistwinter Bay. If you have something like that, feel free to post it here (or link it). We would love to see what you've created!

Mistwinter Bay is a game with a lot of dialogue - we don't even know how many words are in the demo. Since we're only two people working on this and English isn't our first language, there's bound to be grammatical errors here and there. This is the place to be if you want to report a grammatical error that you found in the game. If you instead want to report a crash or bug, go to the designated thread, found here: https://itch.io/t/2337271/bug-report

!PLEASE READ THE FOLLOWING INFORMATION BEFORE POSTING!

• Before posting, check you game's version number and the version number of the latest version uploaded here on itch. If your version number is lower (that is, it's older) than the one on itch, there's a chance that the grammatical error has already been fixed. Check the official bug fix report to see if that's the case.
• Before posting, make sure that no one else has reported the same error. If the error has already been reported, please like the report instead of making your own.
• Always include the game's version number (found in the lower left corner in the main menu, or alternatively by hovering over the game's installer)
• It's okay to report several errors in the same post. Just make sure that all of them include the following information:
  • Where was the text (in dialogue, menus, etc)
  • If it was in dialogue, who said it? (a character's name, "narrator", letter)
  • What words did the paragraph/line of dialogue start with? (this piece of information is the most important. It will greatly help narrowing it down, since it will be possible to search for the text in the game project)

This is the place to be if you want to report bugs for the game. With bugs we mean crashes and the like that make the game experience less than desirable. If you want to report a grammatical error found in the game, please report that in the designated thread, found here: https://itch.io/t/2337292/grammatical-errors

!PLEASE READ THE FOLLOWING INFORMATION BEFORE POSTING!

• Check the version number of your game and compare it to the latest version number, visible on the game's page here on itch. If your version number is lower than the one on itch (that is, your version is older), then there's a chance your bug has already been fixed. See official bug fix reports/patch updates to see if that is the case.
• Before you post, make sure that no one else has posted a bug report about the same issue. If someone has already made a bug report, like that report instead of posting your own. We may delete duplicate bug reports.
• When you post a bug report, make sure to always include the following information:
  • Version number (found in the lower left corner of the main menu, or alternatively by hovering over the game's installer)
  • Any sort of crash message, if the game crashed
  • When the bug occurred (what were you doing at that point in the game?)
  • If the bug occurred during dialogue, please try to specify which character was talking, what they were saying and so on. Any information like this makes it a lot easier to find a specific bug, since there is so much dialogue in the game.

Thank you for reporting bugs and helping us ensure that Mistwinter Bay becomes as good as possible!

We are back with another devlog! This time, we discuss the game's artstyle and the road to getting the game to look the way it looks now.

As an example, there is one new short event where Dawn and Cecil interact. In order for this event to appear, both Dawn and Cecil must be living in the town and, naturally, be alive. There are also a few other requirements for this event that don't matter in the demo. The addition of this event also introduces a new "mechanic": the fact that it can become impossible for the player to hang out with and marry a character if certain choices have been made. This will, of course, rarely ever happen and will only be based on events that are deeply rooted to the characters in question. It is also clearly stated that a character has lost faith in the player once an event is over. In the full game, examples of events where this may occur is if the player is forced to support one country over another. Naturally, that makes the unsupported country's regent cross with the player, and all relationships that are deeper than surface level are impossible to achieve with that character from then on. As for why Dawn's and Cecil's event can make them that upset... Well, that's for you to find out when the demo is released.

Now, proper playtesting will be our main focus. We're getting really close to the release of the demo. In fact, we are happy to announce the estimated release date for the demo: September 9. That's Friday next week! We'll do our best to make the demo as good as possible for that date. Be sure to keep an eye out for the demo release and please consider subscribing to our YouTube channel if you're interested in the devlogs. We promise we have a lot more to show there in the future!

We have now released our first video devlog! In this video, the game and the process of working on it is summarized. Several more devlogs are already in production. (Don't worry, we're still working hard on the game, too. We can do both, since we are two people.)

We're moving closer and closer to the release of the free demo. By now, all planned major improvements and additions have been made. You can view this week's improvements in the video below.

By separating the mouths and eyes for animation, the player now has the option to choose a mouth. This has, of course, been added to the character creator. Also, the new background for the character creator can be seen in the video as well.

Last but not least, we've added a log to the game. Due to the way the dialogue is set up, it's not possible to have a log with several previous lines of dialogue. Instead, it's only possible to view the last line of dialogue prior to the one currently shown. We deem this to be sufficient, since it can be easy to skip over a line of text by accident at points and we only wanted a log for that reason. Besides, having some sort of log is better than not having one at all!

Besides the work on the game, we've also recorded and edited our first proper video devlog (devlog #0) and the script for devlog #1 is written. We'll inform you when a devlog is posted on YouTube.

Starting next week, we'll hopefully start proper playtesting, as well as complete a final long event. There is of course some marketing and business management that needs to be done as well, but all in all, it hopefully won't be too many weeks now until you can get your hands on the free demo. Stay tuned for more updates and info about the release!

Thank you! We're glad you like the art style!

Just like last week, we've been working hard on improving the game in various ways. The following video shows some, but not all, improvements made this week.

As shown in the video, a combination of images and sound make it more clear when the player switches to a different building in the town view. Having both images and sounds to convey that something is happening is usually a good idea. However, it's always important to not rely completely on sound effects, since there's the option to turn them off. The picture below shows the current appearance of the building information menu.

The dialogues have also been updated to make it more visually clear which character is talking. This is made using a subtle sparkle-particle effect behind the character. There's a bug related to this at the moment, which will be fixed next week. We also consider adding an additional visual indicator for the talking character.

Another visual indicator that has been added is a screen to indicate the end of a monthly event. Text, particle effects (if they are turned on) and a sound effect (if sound is turned on) tells the player that the event has been completed.

In addition to everything listed above, we have also been working on some other things. In the game, we've balanced food a bit, removed arrow buttons in certain scenarios (so that the start or end of a menu is clearly indicated) and removed the mouse pointer when changing rooms and other fading effects (to make loading appear smoother). Slightly improved loading has also decreased the live gameplay stuttering (which wasn't that big to begin with, but the less stuttering, the better).

Besides work on the actual game, we have also begun working on a video devlog! Video devlogs are but one type of promotion that we have in consideration for the future, but we will see what works best in the long run. The main focus is, of course, the game itself.

We've been hard at work this week with improving and polishing the game based on feedback. The video below shows some, but not all, of the improvements that have been made.

The top bar shows town resources and other information. The lower bar shows the player's personal finances mainly used to buy gifts. Both bars are split in two parts, with the upper section showing the monthly income of that resource and the lower section showing the current amount of that resource. The town resource bar has five sections showing (from left to right): current population (which does not increase monthly), food, stone, wood and gold.

Gifts have also received icons to more easily show the price and impact of the gifts. This is shown further in the following screenshot:

As such, the gift menu now displays an icon for the gift, the name of the gift, the price of the gift (in coins, the new name for what was previously called "personal wealth") and the increase or decrease in reputation.  This menu also uses anew resource icon for coins, much like the resource bars previously mentioned.

Then there has been an update to the menus showing who can receive a gift. The following screenshot illustrates this:

Now, the menu shows a picture of the character in question. Not shown in the video or screenshots is that a character who has their birthday during the current in-game month has a highlighted box/button, to more easily distinguish them from others. Also, the portraits shown in the screenshots are also used in popups for reputation changes, as well as in the hang out-menu. The hang out menu has also been improved with an image (the same hearts that are used in the roster menu, showing the romance level) instead of text to show which hang out is available.

Last but not least, the trading menu has been updated, as shown below:

Now, the trading menu uses the new resource icons. The current amount of resources owned by the player is also displayed at all times. Instead of having the price per one chunk of resources (right), it now displays how much the player will receive of that resource. Arrows for changing the player's resources (the resources which are sold) are now only displayed if it is possible to go in that particular direction. That is, if it's possible to increase or decrease amount sold based on current resources. Some balancing is still needed for trading costs (especially food, which has been updated in other parts of the game, but the update is not represented in the trading menu).

We will continue to work hard on the game from now until the free demo release in the near future!

We are hard at work polishing the demo for the public release, as well as dealing with all sorts of things related to starting a business (there are so many applications to be done!). One of the things that have been updated recently is the main menu. Now, it has reached a stage that can be considered completely finished. The video below shows what it looks like now, complete with particle effects.

It is not too long left until the demo will be released. There will be lots of small but important changes made in the coming weeks, so stay tuned for future posts! (Hopefully, between actually working on the game and starting a company, we will have some time to give a few updates...)

It's been a while since we last gave an update. That is partially due to summer time, partially due to the process of starting up a company. However, we have been working a bit on the game as well, preparing and polishing the demo for its official public release. The video below demonstrates two additions that have been made this month (July 2022).

Besides the additions shown in the video, a third long event has been written and is currently being implemented. Depending on how long it takes to get our company approved (which in turn determines when the demo can be realeased), there may be time to add an additional long event and/or a couple of short events.

Today, the main menu has gotten a small update with the addition of some social media buttons. Clicking on these buttons will open a browser window to the respective social media page. The buttons are in the top left and are quite small by design, so as to not be too in-your-face.

The background may change before the public demo is released. Now, work will start on some optimization to reduce loading times (hopefully).

Now that all the characters in the demo have been revealed, it might be a good idea to show some in-game features and mechanics! So, for that reason, we've created a video that shows how the inn, building a lot and hanging out with a character works. It's demonstrated with Celia in the following video:

The current in-game season is winter, which is indicated by the visuals in the town view as well as the music.

In the town view, the player can see who is visiting the inn and for how long when they click on the inn-lot in town. The character who visits usually indicates which building they belong to, so that the player can build it and have them move in to town permanently. It isn't required to have a character visit the inn in order to have them move in, but they can't visit the inn after they have moved in.

When clicking on an unbuilt (but buildable) lot, information about cost and so on appears. Once a lot is built, it cannot be replaced. Immediately when a lot is built, the corresponding character (if there is one) will automatically move in to town. This can be seen when clicking on the built lot, where the owner's name is mentioned, or when looking in the character roster menu in the throne room, as seen in the video.

In the throne room, it's possible to see a list of characters who are available to hang out with. The first hang out event for every character can be played immediately upon them moving in, but the second one is unlocked when the reputation with that character reaches 25 or higher.

The final character to introduce for the demo version of the game is none other than the captain of the local guards: Celia Quinn. Celia inhabits the guard barracks, which is one building that doesn't share a lot with another building (unlike the mage tower/alchemist laboratory, fishing docks and lumber camp).

Celia is an ambitious, hard working and competent young woman who is determined to keep Mistwinter Bay safe. Having turned around one of the most dangerous districts in the Straenian capital, Freykeep, Celia has lots of experience cleaning up after scum and criminals alike. Her main motivation is to keep bandits away from people and she has done a good job with that so far - the number of bandits have greatly reduced since she took over the role of captain in Mistwinter Bay. As for why she decided to leave a prestigious job watching over a large district in Freykeep - well, that's a story she would have to tell. Perhaps over a mug of beer, followed by some dancing?

On a lot in a forest in town, it's possible to build a lumber camp (or another, currently unannounced building). If the lumber camp is built, the player can interact with a local lumberjack turned foreman: Hector Gray.

Hector belongs to a renowned family of local lumberjacks. Having learnt a lot from his father, grandfather and uncle, Hector is undoubtedly knowledgeable about everything that has to do with cutting, transporting and planting trees. Even though he is not very talkative, he is respected among the workers, as well as the town in general. Sometimes, he can be seen acting as a bouncer at the local inn for free. Needless to say, Hector is a competent and trustworthy man, even if he has a hard time conversing with others.

The next character is also the last of non-Straenian origin in the demo. She can join the town if the player builds the fishing docks (which, in the full game, will be on a lot that is shared with another building, much like the mage tower/alchemy laboratory). This, naturally, makes her a fisher and her name is Birgit Naggstrom.

Birgit moved to Mistwinter Bay from Utrua in order to get recognized for her hard work. She hauls immense loads of fish every time she goes to sea, yet that means little in a country that is focused on ship building and craftsmanship. Instead, she hopes Mistwinter Bay will be a welcoming place for people like her, who support independent and free-spirited women and who carry the love of Avarall in their hearts. However, it may be a bit tricky to keep conversations with her, since she is very timid...

In the demo, it's possible to choose between two buildings for one specific lot in the game. That lot is available for either the mage tower or alchemist laboratory. This means that the mage Alm and the alchemist can't live in Mistwinter Bay at the same time. With that explained, it's time to introduce the alchemist: Amari Englia.

Englia was called "The Whirlwind" back in Ethal, and for good reasons. She is energetic, impulsive and has a deep passion for alchemy. The strict rules around alchemy in Ethal didn't fit Englia's taste, so she moved where she was needed and where she could push the boundaries of alchemy. She doesn't stop at anything to pursue new alchemical knowledge that can benefit the world, even if it means danger to herself and her surroundings. Her ambitions are high, but just how high, the player may have to wait to find out...

Besides the three characters who already live in Mistwinter Bay at the start of the game, it's possible to have other characters move in. In the demo, there are five characters who can move in. They automatically move in when the player has built their corresponding building. It is also possible to meet these characters before they move in, if they visit the local inn. One of these characters is Alm Dryas, an Yscorian mage who lives in the mage tower.

Alm is a shy young Yscorian who left Yscor in hopes of being of help where mages are fairly rare. As a fully fledged mage, who has completed the required 40-year education in Yscor, Alm is more than ready to take on the role of Mistwinter Bay's mage. Although, he may not be fully emotionally ready. He still has a lot of insecurities, even fears, for all sorts of creatures and situations. But he is more than eager to learn about new things.

The third and final character who lives in Mistwinter Bay from the start is Erewen Fossbearer, the local graveyard keeper. The Fossbearers have the oldest lineage in all of Mistwinter Bay and have looked after the graveyard throughout history. They may even have settled there when the town was founded, thousands of years ago.

There are many rumors about Erewen in town. They range from absurd theories about Erewen conducting occult rituals, like human sacrifices, to more valid questions, like Erewen's lack of visible emotions. Erewen is a big mystery to most people in town, yet there are three things everyone knows: they don't have a gender, they take great pride in their family history and work, and they are never seen without their fosslantern. As for what a fosslantern is - well, that is for Erewen to reveal. If they feel like it, that is...

The second character who lives in the town from the start is the innkeeper, Cecil Forthe. He runs The Winter Mist Inn - an old inn that is a great place to meet the locals. The Winter Mist Inn is the place where the player can meet potential residents - as well as hang out with people who already live in town via their respective second hang out-events.

Cecil is a bit of an odd innkeeper. He's well liked by regulars, but travelers can have a hard time understanding his relaxed nature and loose schedule. Although, most people warm up to him in time. Besides taking care of the inn and brewing its famous beer, he also takes care of his bed-ridden mother. He is one of few known Voidists in Mistwinter Bay. However, he doesn't seem to follow a particular Voidist faith. What he believes in is still a mystery to even the most loyal regulars.

Foreign leaders are of course very powerful in a narrative sense, but to the player, the most important and powerful characters are those of the nobility, middle class and lower class who live in Mistwinter Bay. Not only can the player date and potentially marry all of these characters, but they are also used to solve problems in monthly events. As an example, if a giant hawk attacks town, someone in town can be sent to shoot it or place a trap.

There are three characters living in town from the start. The first one is the priestess for the Avallerist chapel in town. Her name is Dawn Chamberlain.

Dawn moved to Mistwinter Bay a couple of years before the player returns to take over the throne. Dawn is well-liked for her kind and calm nature. She is very knowledgeable about all things Avallerist. She dislikes being the center of attention unless it's part of an Avallerist ceremony. Despite her kind heart, she has little patience for those who reject the god Avarall and turn to worship The Void instead.

Legends claim that the bird-like Ethalians stem from the ancient pastel birds, who in turn stem from The Bird of Life - one of the god Avarall's closest friends. Naturally, this makes Ethalians proudly Avallerist. Unlike human Avallerists, they mostly show their devotion through song. No other country on the continent is as musically centered as Ethal - then again, few can beat the Ethalian songstresses. The final foreign leader and the final "ruler" of a country of elementals is Ethal's most talented songstress, the Zei-Myori: Eria.

Eria encapsules the most important virtues in Ethalian culture: a gentle heart, physical beauty and an incredible singing voice. Her title, Zei-Myori, is proof that she is currently the best songstress in all of Ethal. The title itself gives her little power in Ethal, since it is ruled via direct democracy. Instead, her main responsibility is dealing with foreign diplomacy. Out of all the foreign leaders, Eria is the most likely to drop by in Mistwinter Bay unannounced. If she does, it's a good idea to keep the use of magic low. No one detests magic as much as Eria and other Ethalians do...

Deep in the forest filled land of Yscor live the Yscorians - a magic-loving, Void-worshiping people who stem from trees. They have appearances that are similar to human males, in some ways, but they outlive regular humans by hundreds of years. Their culture is heavily influenced by their religion and the country is governed by the High Priest, or Derem Somakk, as he's known in Yscorian. His name is Gaird Samarakk.

Gaird is not only the leader of the only organized, major Voidist faith, but also the most powerful mage on the entire continent. His power has in part been bestowed upon him by The Void Tree - the tree at the center of the Yscorian faith - and the staff he carries. Still, Gaird takes much pride in having been a strong mage long before The Void Tree began communicating with him. He is a generally calm and gentle man, but he shows little sympathy for those who oppose magic.