What to Expect From Our First Animalkind Alpha Playtest

Welcome back to another blogtastic… well, blog! We’re making a game and that game is called Animalkind. In case you missed our first blog post from earlier this month, we’ve got a closed Alpha playtest coming up that many of you signed up for over on Steam and we’re so close to getting some adorable corgis in mech suits into your hands. Before you venture out into the Wild and start getting your craft on, we wanted to share a little more detail to set some expectations regarding the upcoming Alpha and what will - and what will not - be available.

We show a lot of stuff we’re experimenting with for Animalkind on our socials with our videos, but we wanted to be clear that some of what you may have seen will not be seen in the upcoming Alpha. This first Alpha is about getting you familiar with your home island and the world of Animalkind for the first time. It’s also about giving a taste of the creative ways you can enjoy this experience solo or with friends and getting a general idea of the various town-building and world-editing tools within the game. But… more on that later. For now, here’s what you can expect from Alpha 1.

What to Expect from Animalkind Alpha #1

The Animalkind Alpha will be available only on Windows Steam for now, though additional platform options are in discussion. For Alpha purposes though, Steam is where it’s at. If that platform availability has some hackles raised, the good news is that controller support for generic gamepads, Xbox, PlayStation, and adaptive controllers is available. That being said, you might want to peep the Known Issues section below for more details on that.

From availability to features, here’s what you can expect from the upcoming Alpha playtest. First up: Availability.

Alpha, and registration, are both available on our Steam storefront.
The Alpha will last for a very limited time and there will be a capped number of keys available.
If you are interested and were not able to participate in the first Alpha, no worries - more opportunities to play early are on the horizon. More on that at a later date.

Animalkind requires an online connection to play because of how it is designed around multiplayer experiences, though the fruition of that decision won’t be seen until a later time. We’ll share more on that later. We’re not there yet. We’re still in the dinner and flowers stage, OK? A little wooing, if you will.

Regarding minimum spec stats for Steam players:

OS: Windows 10
Processor: Intel Core i5 equivalent or higher
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460 or AMD Radeon HD 5770 /w 1GB VRAM
RAM: 6 GB RAM
Storage: 10 GB available space

The start date and duration of the Alpha will be shared in our Discord and on our social channels. For folks in it for the long haul, future playtest info will always be dropped in our Discord first and anyone who signs up with that interest will be added to the list for future inclusion as that player pool opens up with each playtest period before launch.

Speaking of the long haul, it’s also important to remember that any in-game progress made, including created worlds and characters, will not save and carry over into future versions of the game. What’s done in Alpha 1 stays in Alpha 1, you know?

But Is It Art?

Our game’s visuals are adorable but keep in mind, Animalkind is in various states of work in progress. We’re still cooking, as the youths say, there are some current in-game designs that better represent our aww-inspiring aesthetic than others in time for this Alpha, and we wanted to share a little more about that. We have so many exciting visual updates planned for the future as the game evolves into its final adorable form, but for now, here’s a sneak peek at some of those goals for future playtests:

[Alt text] A cute animated scene featuring a red squirrel and an orange corgi. The squirrel is standing on a stone path near a yellow house with a purple pawprint on the door. Sunflowers and a wooden fence are visible in the background under a blue sky.

Which visuals best represent the final direction for the game:

Character Models & Animations:
- Corgi
- Cat
- Raccoon
- NPC Animals
- Mech
Buildings:
- Houses
- Town Center
- Shop
  - We have more customization options in development (like wallpapers and floors) for future updates!
- And potentially more, we’ll keep you posted!

Which visuals are most likely to change:

UI visuals & animation
Environmental elements like water, clouds, plants, etc.
In and out of home customization like furniture or fences and how you interact with our environment
Day-to-Night cycle lighting

Your feedback here will be incredibly valuable, so don’t hesitate to share those thoughts with us after you’ve gotten some time to enjoy the world of Animalkind.

What About Gameplay?

For this upcoming Alpha, both multiplayer and single-player experiences of Animalkind will be available. While multiplayer is fun, we do recommend playing Alpha 1 as a solo player first, especially once you get past the fairly brief opening tutorial of the game itself. “But why,” you may be asking yourself. That’s a good question! And the answer is… mostly straightforward!

[Alt text] A colorful game menu for "Animalkind: Alpha" featuring a corgi piloting a robot crab, with a husky puppy and a raccoon running in a grassy field with pink flowers. Background shows quaint houses and trees. Menu options: Play, Worlds, Settings, Quit. Social media icons below.

Animalkind can support up to 4 players in total currently. For this Alpha, because remember - we stripped this bad boy down for specific feedback purposes, there is no in-game tutorial for how players can and should set up those created multiplayer worlds. That, and there may be some kinks regarding shared play with in-game direction offered by our oh-so-helpful cast of NPCs. If you’re thinking to yourself, “self, I don’t care about that, I still want to play with friends,” then here’s what you need to know about setting up your first shareable world in Animalkind:

In the game menu, select Worlds then select either Create a World or Join a World if a friend already made one.
If creating a new one, name it whatever you like (let’s keep it PG folks!) to move onto the Manage World screen where you can invite friends with instructions on how to share within the game’s interface!
- Note: Click “invite” to open up a new screen where players can select Steam friends who have also played Animalkind on Steam. If they have not opened the game yet and are not included in the Alpha test player pool, then they will not show up as a player to invite.
Invited players will see a list of created worlds that they have been invited to join up. Players can also decline invitations too if wanted – for those wanting to mosey around solo first for a bit.
As mentioned, each world is capped at 4 players max. For now, this is the plan, but we’ll alert all players of any changes to this via our social and Discord channels.

What Will (and Won't) Be In Alpha #1

Like with any Alpha, players want to know how long of an experience can they expect. Since this is the first playtest, this will be a shorter one. While a standard, straight-to-the-point quest run-through can be accomplished in as little as 2 hours, that doesn’t account for exploring the creative tools in Animalkind whilst exploring your brand-new island - which has no time limit while the demo is available. The length depends on whether players are looking to streamline the tutorial and task lists from NPCs or go rogue and spend some time exploring first. Either way, the experience is very much designed around your own pace and what you’re interested in exploring with this first play period. We’ll go into a little more detail on some of these further down in this blog, but for a quick look at what to expect, here’s what will - and won’t - be in Alpha 1 for Animalkind:

[Alt text] A 3D animated scene shows a village of colorful houses with animals interacting outside. A black and white cat sits near a n orange corgi sitting on the ground across from the cat while raccoon sits on a rock.

Single-player and multiplayer world options will be available.
You will be able to toot toot your way to victory with glorious rocket boost abilities via your mech suit.
Crafting will also be available.
Fishing and cooking. (We know!)
Night/Day cycle will be available, though the speed of this may change at launch.
Terrain editing, though in its most simplistic form.
Players will not be able to explore more of the Wild for Alpha 1, this will be available later.
We have some early interactions with placed items in our game - for example, try sitting on the chairs - but there will be more to come in the future!
Some of the animals seen in our videos will not be available for Alpha 1 but will be available at later times.

Just a quick note regarding accessibility: In-game settings are barebones for Alpha 1, which includes accessibility settings. We want to assure our players that accessibility is important to us. We’ll show more on progress made there also at a later time, but wanted to share that the options are limited currently but will not remain that way as we lead up to launch.

Regarding how much time it takes to “complete” the Alpha, playing in a multiplayer context will accelerate the completion of the formal content in the player’s home island. The cool news though is while that can hasten the official completion, it also creates opportunities for self-directed gameplay. The best of both worlds. Like Hannah Montana, but completely different.

That’s A Lot of Chickens Fishing (And Other Fun Activities)

What good game isn’t made even better by fishing, let’s be real here. It’s a cozy activity that gets that glorious sunlight into your veins and fresh air into your lungs. And hearts. But fishing in-game means you don’t have to wear pants, which clearly means digital fishing is superior.

Reddit, this is a joke.

Because fishing is basically the holy grail of video games, and because I may be a little bias in saying it’s one of my personal favs, here’s a quick intro into how to take on this activity during the Alpha. Keep in mind, this is an early look - we’ve got many plans for these cute little fishes, but for this upcoming play period, we’re focusing on getting you to an NPC named Samantha to get your first Animalkind fishing rod. You can also get the recipe from her, as well, to simply craft your own using the crafting bench, open up that handy radial menu to access your newly minted gear, and cast to your heart’s content. Or until you want to explore the rest of your island.

Pro Tip: The type of fish that shows up will vary randomly, and the type of fish will cause it to have slightly different behaviors during the fishing mini-game. The models for the fish are temporary and will be updated! But… you guessed it, more on that later.

[Alt text] A cute animated scene featuring a raccoon labeled "me" eagerly looking at a mech suit discarded behind them. They are outdoors by a campfire, labeled "delicious snackies", with a tree, grass, and flowers in the background under a partly cloudy sky.

Cooking also works similarly, you’re just going to want to talk to Barney to continue his questline and make sure you’ve got your campfire going instead of chattin’ up Samantha. Don’t worry, the characters you’ll meet will make sure you know what you need to do. And if all else fails, we’ve got a channel in our Discord where you can ask us for help directly! Not that we’re biased or anything, but we’ve been told we’re pretty cool, so… yeah. Discord!

Known Issues

Here’s a list of known issues that you should be aware of before diving in. Take it away, BG.

Multiplayer NPC Interactions:

The NPCs in your world will ask you favors as you get started in building your town. They serve as an onramp into various systems of the game. These are playable with multiple players but this may cause certain players to miss out on certain conversations or tasks. We will be improving this in later Alpha playlists.

Controller Support:

While controllers are technically working in our build, they are not fully supported. The UI does not reflect controller inputs and we plan to revisit some of the button mappings as well. It is highly recommended to stick with a keyboard/mouse for these playtests!

Crafting Table and Editing:

Because this is a sandbox test, the entire world is open to change by the player - whether that’s terraforming the terrain or moving large trees around. But please make sure to keep your crafting table unblocked! A lot of the early gameplay relies on crafting new tools and items so losing access to the crafting table would be… problematic.
You will also want to build at sea level for this Alpha to avoid a small bug regarding Barney's tent crafting questline.

We’re excited for you to dive in and share your thoughts with us! We’ll be sending out an email survey and soliciting that feedback-y goodness in Discord, so make sure you’ve got your eyes peeled. There will also be a place in the game that you can click to lead to say We’d love to hear what you think!

Before you go, just a friendly reminder to make sure you’re drinking that water and prioritizing that self-care! You can’t be your kindest, most dope self if you’re not taking care of yourself first. In the meantime, we hope to see you on the island and we can’t wait to share even more in the future.

Catch ya next time, friends.

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“I should go,”

🐾 Hippy

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