Festive Fear: Christmas 2023

Seasons greetings cryptid farmers!

I've gone ahead and finally updated the game with the annual Festive Fear update for this year. I apologise for the lateness (only 6 days to Christmas!) as life gets in the way sometimes, but otherwise this may be one of my favourite winter updates yet. Here's a quick rundown:

• The map is covered in snow
• All cryptids have Christmas skins again!
• Updated Christmas animations for the Snatcher (new dragging animation) and Ellie the Ghost (new costume)
• The Christmas tree crop is back 
• The map has some new snowy sprites for the house, market and tractor
• The UI has a drop shadow and a light outline

(Picture of the new UI)

This will be one of the more interesting winter updates as I'm experimenting with the UI this year. The winter map is a very pale blue which makes it hard for the regular UI to show up as all the text is white. I've made big leaps in the UI's design since last year with new fonts and animations, and now to test it out on harsh colours I've tried a shadow and outline style. Personally, I think outlines are against the spirit of Cryptid Farm's art direction sometimes, but sometimes needs must and I think this is a good way to tackle maps with difficult colour palettes. I will likely remove the outline again when the map returns to normal, but this was a fun problem to try to solve.

(Picture of the old UI in 2022. I think it's a real change up this year!)

(Picture featuring the Christmas Tree)

Be sure to check out the lower half of the map for a chance to get a Christmas tree seed! This whacky crop can make additional seed pickups once activated. Plus, it has collision, resulting in hijinks mostly. I love to bring it back around winter time each year for a bit of fun.

Development news: it's still on it's way! We recently put up the Steam Page with a lovely new trailer and the response has been great! I still need to keep promoting but a big thank you to everyone who has checked the game out recently. Development has been slow as I've had a lot of my time taken up by work these days (plus, you know, Christmas events), but that's the struggle of the non-professional game designer. When Cryptid Farm releases I have no doubt I'll be able to start dedicating more time to game development, which means more content for you guys!

That's all for now. Thanks for reading and happy farming!