The First Game Alpha is Finally Releasing!

I have been hard at work on putting the finishing touches on Milestone Build 1 – Tales From the Herd’s first major alpha release – and you can still expect a regularly scheduled update on development at the beginning of April. But there’s something else I wanted to make a separate announcement about: that you will be able to play an early version of the game very soon.

Enter, Tales From the Herd: Prologue. This was originally just a simple proof of concept demo that will now be expanded to encompass Milestone Build 1, Milestone Build 2 – and all other future milestone builds from now until launch of the game on Steam. 

Prologue will be available to download on itch.io on April 18th, with a “pay what you want” model – including if you’d like it for free. Once acquired, you will own Prologue outright, and will not need to take further action to receive new milestone builds when they eventually arrive.

Furthermore, if you’d still like to support the project through Patreon, you can pledge to the Wayfinder Tier ($5), and gain access to the Milestone Build two weeks in advance (April 4th), a Steam key when the game eventually launches on Steam, plus your name in the credits. A charge will only happen per milestone release (each likely about 3-6 months apart), but even pledging just once will guarantee that you eventually receive a Steam key – you do not need to be active as a premium patron more than once for that.

Obviously with the change to milestone builds being available for free, it will be a lot easier for you to check the game out with low risk as it develops. But I still want to be clear about what Prologue is (and what it isn’t), especially if you’re considering becoming a Wayfinder on Patreon: 

• The milestone builds are an alpha state of the game, and likely to contain bugs, or play differently from the final game.
• While I wish the tremendous amount of work I’ve put into it said otherwise, Milestone Build 1 is light on content, and I suspect most players will feel “finished” with it within an hour of gameplay.
• Milestone Build 1 does not feature Eventide Spark.
• On the matter of Eventide, while I still haven’t been contacted by a lawyer or anything, remember that the appearance of the game and notably the characters may need to be changed on short notice – do not pledge if you suspect you wouldn’t enjoy the game if she ends up looking differently than she does in the reveal trailer.

So in essence, Milestone Build 1 and Prologue as a whole is designed as sort of an early look at the game, and focuses mostly on building up the world and mechanics. This is because during this phase things are likely to undergo changes based on player feedback or even just a change of heart I might have, and I want all of that to be settled before I start unfurling this grander narrative for the player.

Check out a rough plan for future developments below:

* To be clear plans may deviate from this roadmap, depending on the circumstances.

It is not because of my forgetfulness that there are no dates on this map – missing one date was already a lesson learned well enough for me to avoid using them. The hope though is that these chunk sized milestone builds will provide a consistent enough stream of content until the game arrives in its proper form on Steam; which is tragically but almost certainly still more than a year away. At least as it stands now, with my current job and abilities as a solo developer.

And you might be left wondering: why an itch.io release, and not just straight into Steam Early Access?

In short, expectations. Even though Early Access is clear about being a “pre-launch” version of the game, I don't think milestone build 1 has quite enough “game” to justify a Steam launch. I expect most people are looking to play Tales From the Herd when it already has a compelling narrative and a fair amount of life sim aspects, and so I don't want to ruin their first impression with a super early experimental alpha build. 

Prologue then, is for those who can’t wait to check this world out, and who would like to have their voices heard in its development. And if that sounds like you: I hope to see you in the village very soon!