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Latest Updates from Our Project:
💌 Devlog #11: New Outfits, New NPC, New Updates!! 👗🐠🎉
over 1 year ago
– Mon, Feb 10, 2025 at 07:11:14 PM
Hi Loftians! Happy New Year!! 🥳🎉 We hope everyone enjoyed their holidays and had time to dive into some of their fave games!
The past 3 months have been a crazy busy time for us, with the rollout of our Alpha playtests with our Alpha backers, and heaps of development work going on behind the scenes to make sure that everything was running smoothly. We're so happy with how the playtests turned out, and we're even more excited for the next round to come! Fortunately our team also managed to get some well-deserved break time over the holiday period, and we're now back in full-blown dev mode. This year is going to be HUGE, with some super exciting milestones, and we can't wait to bring you along for the ride.
Before we dive into our new devlog, we wanted to say a big thank you to everyone who has wishlisted Loftia on Steam already! We now have over 70,000 wishlists!! This is such an amazing achievement, and we can't wait to grow this number and get Loftia in front of even more players around the world. So if you haven't yet, please wishlist Loftia and share our Steam page with your friends!
🔓 New district unlocked!
In our earliest concept for Loftia's level design, we envisioned a vibrant world made up of four districts: Loftia City, Hanging Gardens, Salvage District, and Tech District. Over the past few months, we've been focusing on designing Loftia City, the first place you'll set foot in when you arrive in Loftia. There, you'll be welcomed by Pebble, Hazel, Amani, and many other NPCs who will show you around the city, from shops and restaurants to entertainment venues.
But now, we’re super excited to start exploring the next district – the Hanging Gardens! This floating island is known for its rich natural environment, and its abundance of rivers, gardens, forests, caves and other natural features.
One of our first concept sketches for this district!
Every district in Loftia begins as an idea – a mood, a feeling, a vision. But bringing that vision to life is more than just placing buildings and landscapes. Level design is about shaping the player's experience, and we consider many factors like where players can go, how players get there, what they encounter along the way, and how those interactions feel.
Designing the Hanging Gardens has been an iterative journey, much like many other aspects of game development. It's been a process filled with research, discussions, and constant refinement. We've debated everything—from how to structure pathways to whether certain landmarks should exist at all. Even a small tweak to the ground’s height can completely transform the gameplay experience. At the same time, we strive to ensure the environment is visually stunning, which makes level design a delicate balance between form and function.
Here’s a look at one of our design boards - filled with key themes and features that we want to showcase in this district. This helps us define the district's identity and helps direct our level design.
Game design's sacred sticky notes
What's next?
With the core structure of Hanging Gardens taking shape, we're now diving into the finer details. Some of our current ideas include:
🎋 A bamboo forest where you can grow and harvest bamboo
🎣 An aquatic floating village where you can learn how to fish
🌱 Community gardens where you can farm with friends
🌑 A dark forest filled with mysterious creatures and hidden pathways
But there’s still plenty of space to shape this world! What other landmarks, buildings, foliage, or features would you love to see in this area? Let us know, we’d love to hear your ideas. 💡
Early concept art of the dark forest, what wild vegetation you'd like to see in it? 👀
🚡 Meet Cliff! - Now our airtram operator has a name!
A while ago, we asked you to help us name our airtram operator, and we received over 1,000 amazing responses! Thank you so much for all your suggestions and we love them all! But after much thought, we finally locked in one name that fits him perfectly... Cliff!
Check our latest reel on Instagram and see how he looks in-game! We also added some animations to bring him to life 👀
Who is Cliff?
Cliff is in charge of Loftia's airtram stations and will help you travel around the sky islands! He's also an expert on gliders and all things aerodynamic.
When designing this character, we pictured him as someone super reliable and a little strict, but genuinely passionate about protecting others from harm. He takes his role seriously, often going the extra mile to make sure everyone’s equipment is in check and they’re aware of potential dangers. If you’re ever unsure about the best gliding techniques or need safety advice, Cliff is your go-to guy.
After weeks of development, Cliff has made the leap from concept to 3D model and he’s now officially in-game! We’ve just added animations so he can move, but his model is still a work in progress. Next up? Eye movement, blinking, and more subtle details to really bring him to life.
He's alivveee! (almost)
We're further developing this story and character now, so what other personality traits do you think he might have? Many of you agree that Cliff would crack some mad dad jokes, and we agree!
These are some of the sarcastic, punny jokes y'all have suggested on Instagram (we love these so much!!):
"I heard people dislike puns. Maybe because they didn't get the pun-chline, or find it a pun-ishment."
"Let's hope the airtram station won't jam, we wouldn't want that cliff-hanger".
"Rock-bottom or cliff-top, I'll be right here."
"Hi, I'm Cliff. Drop over sometime."
🎉Bonus Time!
Here's some snippets from our next NPC! Who do you think they are, and what do they do? 👀
Who could this be? 👀
👗 New player clothing!
We love player customization, so we're adding even more clothing styles to Loftia! We've received hundreds of different style suggestions on our last IG reel - thank you all for your wonderful ideas! Since then we've brought a couple of these to life, with more to come soon.
These are some of the clothing concepts we've designed for the Hanging Gardens! Not all these will be modelled and implemented straight away, and we'll be choosing various pieces and outfits to bring to life. However, we hope that in the future we'll be able to have all of these in the game! In the meantime, let us know which of these outfits you like the most 👀
🍃🏡 Homestead – Which outfit would you wear for a peaceful day on the farms? 🌼💛
✨🧚♀️ Woodlands theme with whimsical wings and a sprinkle of magic. Which one are you drawn to? ✨
🌙💤 Cute and comfy Pajamas. Perfect for lounging. Which set are you snuggling up in? ☁️💫
🎣 Fishing mini-game
We've shown you what fishing spots look like and the philosophy behind fishing in Loftia. But the question remains, what's the fishing mini-game like?
Well we're excited to finally show you a snippet of our first prototype! We're added a UI-based mini-game, and it's all about timing. Spot the fish in the water time your moves just right to hit the green zones on the ring, and reel in your catch! If you miss the green zones, the fish will slip away.
Let us know your thoughts! Still very much a work in progress 🐠
🦾 Player progression
In life, small actions add up, shaping who you eventually become. Similarly in Loftia, the effort you put into your favorite activities will contribute to your progression, making the world feel more alive and truly yours. The more you do, the more capable you become, and it's not just about being able to upgrade tools or build a bigger house, but it's about seeing yourself grow with every action you take.
In Alpha, you'll be able to progress through three different proficiencies, levelling up from Level 1 to Level 4:
🌱 Farming
🔧 Crafting
🔨 Salvaging
How does the progression work?
You'll get experience points when doing various activities like planting, harvesting, crafting, and more - with each activity giving you different amounts of experience.
Once you gain enough XP, your level will increase for that proficiency. But reaching new levels isn’t just for show, you'll also unlock perks that will make your gameplay more efficient and rewarding. You might also unlock new items, locations, and perhaps even NPCs!
We're currently working on the UI design for player progression! Let us know what you think.
Here’s a sneak peek at someperks you might unlock:
🌾 20% chance to get double harvests – Because who doesn’t love an extra batch of carrots?
🔩 40% chance of getting one ingredient back when crafting - A little extra efficiency goes a long way. Waste not, want not!
📦 40% chance of instantly destroying a resource node when salvaging - Less time chipping away, more time grabbing the good stuff.
We’re excited to see how you grow your skills in Loftia, and how these systems shape the way you experience the world. Our proficiency system and perks are still in development, and we’re actively refining them based on what feels fun, rewarding, and balanced. As we continue designing, we’ll be expanding progression with new levels, more rewards, and perhaps additional ways to specialize in different activities. So what kind of progression systems do you enjoy in games?
🌱 Community
On the community side, we've been hosting more events on Discord! We recently just hosted our Loftia Meme competition, and absolutely cracked up with all your entries!! Here are the winners of the event, along with some of our team favorites!
Be sure to join our Discord, to participate in more community events coming soon and hang out with us and other Loftians! We have some fun ones planned for this month 🥳
💼 Recruitment
Recently we've also opened a new position for the team:
Narrative Designer: As our Narrative Designer, you’ll help shape the world and storytelling of Loftia. This role will involve writing and implementing storylines, characters, dialogue, quest content, and more, contributing to a rich and immersive world for players to explore.
Requirements: At least 2 years of experience as a Narrative Designer or Open World Writer on a released game that showcases your worldbuilding and storytelling skills.
Please click on the link above to read more about the role, including responsibilities, requirements and how to apply!
And that’s our update! Thank you for being here and growing with us. In the next devlog, we'll be bringing another big Loftia update – Social Features! Can't wait to share it with you all!
Ready to hop into Loftia again?
over 1 year ago
– Mon, Jan 27, 2025 at 09:18:44 PM
This post is for backers only. Please visit Kickstarter.com and log in to read.
Alpha is here!
over 1 year ago
– Fri, Dec 13, 2024 at 03:57:06 PM
This post is for backers only. Please visit Kickstarter.com and log in to read.
💌Devlog #10: Loftia's New Trailer and Steam Wishlisting Page!!! 🎬✨
over 1 year ago
– Wed, Dec 11, 2024 at 03:41:20 AM
Hi Loftians!!
Exciting announcement: Loftia's Steam wishlist page is now LIVE with a brand new trailer! 🥳 This is a huge milestone for us as launching our Steam wishlist page as been on our to-do list, and we've been working on this new trailer for a while! This new trailer unveils our new Neighborhoods feature, which we've been keeping a secret until now. Click below to check it out! If you can take just a moment to wishlist on the Steam page, it would be a huge support, because it'll help get Loftia in front of many more people all around the world! 🤗 (even if you already backed, you can still wishlist and it will still be helpful!)
In the Neighborhoods 🏡, you can connect your personal floating island to others, forming a small community with a shared hub in the centre. Within this community, you can allow other people to visit your home, decorate together, farm together, or even host fun, social activities! What's even more special is that you can either form a Neighborhood with your existing friends, or choose to be matched with completely new players - giving you the chance to make new friends. We're so excited to see all the friendships and communities made through this feature, and hope this will make our cozy MMO even more social and fun!
Loftia Steam Wishlisting Party! 🌳
To celebrate this big milestone, we're hosting a special wishlisting event to gather as many wishlists as we can in the first week! Every wishlist makes a difference, helping us reach more players and earning more visibility for Loftia on Steam. So for this event, we'll be working together to grow our virtual wishlist tree! Every wishlist will help grow our tree, from sprout to fully grown, and if we hit our major wishlist goal we'll be gifting all our wishlisters an exclusive "Steam" themed in-game hat! Additional stretch goals will also be available for us to achieve, which will unlock even more community awards! 🎁
This event will run for a week, until December 18th, so let's work together to achieve our wishlist goal and grow our tree! 🌳 Everyone who is part of the official Loftia mailing list will receive the rewards from the event, so make sure to both wishlist and join the mailing list if you haven't already - you can do so from the event page on the Loftia website.
Now let's dive into our dev updates for this past month! 🎢
Community farming 👩🏻🌾🌾
From the very beginning of our gamedev journey, we knew we wanted farming to be a fun, social activity that can be shared with many players together. While multiplayer farming already exists on player islands and Neighborhoods, we wanted something that players could do with the wider community. It took us some time to think of ideas, and after a few iterations we're excited to show a preview of our Community Farming feature!
You’ll team up with friends to plant, water, harvest, and deliver crops as quickly as possible to earn points. The pace is fast, the stakes are high (okay, not that high—it’s still cozy). Everything’s faster-paced than regular farming—seeds come from dispensers, crops grow at lightning speed, and it’s a race against the clock. It’s the perfect mix of fun and frenzy, and we’re so excited to see how you’ll tackle it! We took a lot of inspiration from Overcooked and It Takes Two, where players have to co-operatively help each other achieve the goal.
But what's the purpose of the Community Farms? Well in addition to being a fun mini-game that can be enjoyed with both friends and new players, Community Farms act as a very important source of crops for the districts of Loftia! Your hard-work won't be wasted, as all the crops you help grow will be distributed back to the city - feeding Loftia's sustainable, circular economy.
And here's a little snippet of our Community Farming gameplay! Please note that all the art assets are currently placeholders. Let us know in the comments how you feel about this exciting new feature! What would you like to see, what references from other games does it remind you of, and you think we should take inspiration from?
You can team up with your friends, or be matched with new players!
Fish species! 🐡🐟
As some of you may already know from our Instagram reel, we're working on Loftia's fishing system! Fishing is a staple in many cozy games, but we wanted to put an eco-friendly twist on fishing in Loftia. Instead of fishing for food or profit, you'll be helping protect endangered species! We're exploring ideas like collecting fish for research, relocating them to safer waters, or even teaming up in groups to help with migration or hatching events.
Some species that we already have in mind include:
The Leafy Sea Dragon
The Red Handfish
The Umbrella Octopus
Splendid Poison Frog
Let us know what other species we should include!
DIY paints! 🎨
Allowing players to express themselves creatively is an important focus for us, and we love the idea of players being able to re-color furniture, clothing and cosmetics however they like. Which is why we've designed a new color customization system using flowers! Starting in the Hanging Gardens, you’ll be able to turn flowers into organic paints and use them to customize everything—furniture, clothing, tools, even your house!
This is just a snippet from Unreal Engine, showing how different pieces of clothing (even small details) can now be color customized!
How does this work exactly? Well you'll start by finding colored flowers in the Hanging Gardens. These flowers will mainly exist as primary colors, such as red, blue, and yellow. While you can just throw these into the Paint Maker and paint your items in these primary colors, the fun part is mixing your own shades of colors by using a Flower Mixer! This will involve a little color theory in the beginning, which we will help you out with, but over time you'll be a color master 😎
An example of what. the color customization widge could look like. It's still a work in progress, and the UI is just a placeholder!
For example, mixing:
Red Flower + Yellow Flower = Orange Paint 🍊
Blue Flower + Yellow Flower = Green Paint 🍀
Red Flower + Blue Flower = Purple Paint 💜
You can then put these flowers into the Paint Maker to produce your desired shade! It doesn't stop there, though. As there will also be black and white flowers out in the wild which will allow you to achieve lighter or darker shades.
Red Flower + White Flower = Pink Paint 🌸
Black Flower + White Flower = Grey Paint 👽
Blue Flower + Black Flower = Navy Paint 👖
The color combinations are endless, and it'll just be up to you and your creativity! We've already concepted designs for our Flower Mixer and Paint Maker below, and would love to know your thoughts on this new system 🌼🎨
Flower Mixer
Paint Maker
Let us know which design is your fave!
Community Highlight 🌱
We wanted to take a moment to celebrate all of you. Last month’s Pebble Moon Festival was one of the biggest events in our Discord, and it was such a joy to see so many of you get involved, make friends, and share your creativity.
Whether it was the stunning Autumn photos, the cozy art pieces that warmed our hearts, or the memes that cracked us up - these are the moments that make Loftia feel so special, and we’re so grateful for the incredible community we’re building together.
The event also involved some friendly competition between our three districts, and we're so proud of everyone for helping their district earn points! Congratulations to the Tech District for coming first and being the winner of the event! Huge shoutout to the everyone else in the Hanging Gardens and Salvaging district for participating and making this event super fun. If you missed out, don’t worry—we’ve got plenty more fun community events planned for next year. We can’t wait to see what you’ll create next!
That’s all for this update! As always, thank you for being part of this journey with us. We love hearing from you, so don’t hesitate to share your thoughts, ideas, or feedback!
