Skystead Ranch News

The team have been hard at work as ever making more content, more animations and even more progress towards our release goal in January!

Read below for more details and official confirmation of the release date for Skystead Ranch!


We started on this last month, but we are proud to share that we have all of the revamped player animations in-game and working smoothly! It took some fine-tuning from our programmer Rob to get them all lined up as intended, but now the animations are all looking great and transition between each animation smoothly.

From running, to digging, to even petting the cute Skylets all around your Skystead!




Not all work this month has been in the game editor. Lee has been making a variety of mini-trailers to help advertise Skystead Ranch to the masses! If you are here from any of the adverts we've shared on Reddit; Welcome! And don't forget to Wishlist Skystead Ranch now!

If you haven't seen any of the trailers but would like to watch them, find them here on our YouTube channel.

[h2]105 Buildable Objects and 114 Items! 😲[/h2]
Laura, once again, has surpassed all expectations and has been adding more and more 3D assets to the ever-lengthening list of Skystead Ranch "things".

Rob has finally had the time to start importing all of the assets and setting up the long list of prefabs to be used throughout the game design.

We have a staggering 105 buildable objects and 114 items that the player and Skylets can use, and this list is still growing as Laura continues to work into the back end of October! See all of the items that we were able to add in the last week below.


It's not just small items that Laura has been working on, more of the large in-world areas have been re-adressed too! Check out the Fishing pier below, now with added upgrades.


We realised the fishing areas we placed into the game were another area we could add to the player experience by providing players with more choices to upgrade and customise in-world areas.


Even more exciting news, we have started the commissioning of the game music for Skystead. We already have 2 pieces back and they are sounding great!

With a desire to be more ambitious and creative, we are working with the idea of an over-arching main piece of music that plays throughout and will change as you go from one biome type to another making the background ambient music thematic and changeable.

Once we have more music back, we will start adding this to the game and can hopefully show you what we mean!


If you have been following along with our bi-weekly Twitch streams, you will have already seen some Skylet creations. If you missed it, meet Loona! A cute moth-style Skylet that loves to come out at dusk and enjoys basking in the moonlight.



Tune in next week (1st of November) to watch more of Jack's wonderful creations live on stream.


As we are getting ever closer to release, we have committed to a release date of the 17th of January 2024. Make sure you mark this date in your calendars and Wishlist Skystead Ranch to help our development and stay up-to-date with all the behind-the-scenes news.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2399570/Skystead_Ranch/

For those of you who backed us on Kickstarter at the relevant tiers or support on Patreon, Beta access will be coming soon.tm so keep an eye on your inboxes for more info about that in the coming weeks.

With love, the ToastieLabs team

We are so close to the release of the game, it's exciting! Schedules have been re-assessed and we're ready to hit our goals!


Almost an ad-hoc idea, Rob implemented the basis of the photo mode in a week and it is looking and feeling great!



You can now take photos of your Skylets to record in your Field Guide. This is an evolution of the original idea we had to simply provide you with a picture in the Field Guide once you have discovered enough info on a Skylet - instead, it will be your job to take your own photos and get a rating depending on how good of a picture you take, neat huh? 😁

There is still a bit of work to do on this, such as updating the UI and fine-tuning some features, but all in all, it's good to go!


On the topic of UI, we have set Jack to work creating all of the bits and bobs needed to update the general UI in the game, as until now we've just been using coloured blocks and shapes for the most part!


There is always a lot more UI than you anticipate, here are all the elements needed for the Field Guide! Some of these will probably be seen in the main menu or other areas of the game, but the shop, menus and other UI we've probably missed at this point are still waiting to be addressed by Jack.

[h2]Cooking and Island Updates[/h2]
Laura, as always, has been creating a multitude of 3D assets, fully built and textured, ready to use in the engine! A lot of cooking and food items are prepped and ready for Rob to import to the build for testing.



Work has also begun on the next player zone, the mountain top! A whole new style of rugged rocks and lost ruins where cold climate and ancient Skylets will reside.


Importantly, the underside of the floating islands is being addressed too as we are getting near to making the updated Game Trailer and we want the game to look as polished as possible for this.


A really busy month for the artists! Jack has revisited the characters' textures and animations.
The texture has stayed mostly the same in terms for design, but with the addition of Substance Painter to Jack's toolset, he has gone over the original design and given it a bt more life, let us know what you think!


Every character animation was out-of-date with the changes to the game we made since the animations were originally made last October. This means Jack has had to go back to the start and re-rig and re-animate every single animation needed.



A lot of work indeed! But Jack has made amazing progress and we have loads of animations imported and ready to be thoroughly tested, thank you, Jack!


For those of you who missed our live streams on Twitch, at the end of August, Jack finished up the next Skylet, the Hootlet!



An Owl-like Skylet, the Hootlet stands almost as tall as people and really enjoys the night sky! Keep an eye out for them in the un-lit parts of your island.


As always, thank you all for your support!
Share Skystead Ranch with your friends and make sure it's added to your Wishlists! Beta is getting closer along with more demos to try out. Keep an eye out for more news on this in the future.

With love, the ToastieLabs team

There has been a lot of back-end progress this month that makes us feel like the end is in sight! But there is still plenty to do so stay tuned for more and more updates as we get ever closer to release. 💖


A large part of having a magical crook to farm and terraform your Skystead, is to be able to cast spells.
As of the creation of the prototype, all spells have started unlocked for the player to use, allowing you to make whatever you like right from the start of the game.

Although freedom of choice is important and fun, the current setup wasn't particularly good for game progression, we want you to feel like you are achieving goals and unlocking rewards. therefore we have begun work on tying the spell unlocks to the tutorial and to the game shop. As you progress through Skystead Ranch, more spells will become available leading to more variety of Skylets being attracted to your floating islands!



As you can see, there is still a lot of work to be done on the shop layout to make it more attractive, but the functionality is there and the remaining work shouldn't take too long, touch wood! 🤞

Another of the spells we wanted to address was the ability to destroy items. This was already in the game but the issue we had was the aiming this spell was notoriously difficult as unlike the other spells at your disposal, there was no visual indicator to help you aim your spell.



A small temporary UI has been added to show you where you are aiming, this effect will also snap to a nearby object, making your aiming that little bit easier as well. Small changes have been made to the particle effect too, see if you can spot it in game.

A small update on the saving and loading from last month! More corrections and fine-tuning have been made to the functionality - you can now delete saves to keep your game files clean! It's the little things that matter.


A lot of work behind the scenes has been happening with Rob importing all (well, a lot) of the assets that our Artists have been working on over the past few months into the game engine.
Our Patreons with access to our Trello boards will have noticed the art cards moving from left to right as they are being QA'ed and put into game!

[h2]Plushies[/h2]
Most of the new items are cute little plushies of the Skylets! These plushies will be linked to the Field Guide progress. The concept is, that once you have 100% of the information on a Skylet, you will unlock the ability to build a plushie of your favourite little friend that you have spent so much time learning about.



Here are a couple of examples, have a look in Sandbox mode if you want to see more!


Remodelling and Retexturing work has been done on the bag that your player character carries on their hip.
This was a task that needed doing to provide the promised reward to those of you who backed our Kickstarter back in October with one of the Pet tiers (or above) - A huge thank you once again to those of you who helped us reach that goal!

Jack spent some time editing the model of the Bag to make variations for the Cat, Dog and "Animal Lover" Tier rewards that you will have in the game only if you backed at one of these tiers.



When tackling this task, Jack also took a moment to retouch the original texture for the basic bag design to better match the new bags which are now being textured in Substance Painter instead of directly in Blender.
If you would like to see Jack making these bags, you can find the VODs of the Livestream where Jack worked on there here.


Our artist Laura is back from her holiday and working harder than ever! She has been working on the "large assets" that are found around the Sky Islands. The first of the tasks was to finish and/or break the large assets Jack has made. These include the Lift and Water Wheel which will be unlocked throughout the game and will eventually provide you access to new islands.



The lift itself was a little tricky in the fact that we had to find a way to create a working elevator that does not look modern or use electricity. We managed to find a number of references in both real-life history and other fantasy settings to create this finished product, which we think, looks like a working lift whilst keeping that mystical yet rustic flair.


We say "working" but you can't ride the lift just yet!

The largest, and arguably most important of the big assets, is the player house! You may be aware from previous posts that the house itself was finished a long time ago with work even being done on the interior of the house too. But what we wanted to address was the house upgrades. The player house will be able to be upgraded in size as well as add on important room extensions, each that will serve its own purpose, from a greenhouse to grow crops in a more controlled environment, to a library to keep a record of all your hard work and progress.


We wanted the house upgrades to represent their purpose from the outside as well as inside, and we hope we've achieved this here, let us know what you think!


As always, the bit you've been waiting for. New Skylets!

Meet Wendi and Rhoss.
Wendi is based on the Wendigo from folklore but made 100x cuter! A hound like Skylet with a skull hiding its real face. This Skylet can only be found at night and appears to have many mysterious markings, I wonder what they mean? 🤔


Left: Rhoss, Right: Wendi

Rhoss is not fully finished, hence the lack of eyes to see where it's going! But don't worry, I'm sure by this time next week he'll be rolling around as happy as ever. A rolling rock covered in moss - Rhoss. Creative right? This little fella was designed because we thought something that rolled around the sky islands instead of walking or running would be super cute and we just wanted to give it a go!


As always, thank you all for your support!
Share Skystead Ranch with your friends and make sure it's added to your Wishlists! Beta is getting closer along with more demos to try out. Keep an eye out for more news on this in the future.

Summer is here and the weather is not the only thing getting hotter! 😎

We have begun work on some of the exciting and much-needed areas of the game such as the long-promised inside zones and the vital, highly-requested, save files!

More details below.


Rob has been hard at work adding the interior areas for the player house and cave on the beginning Skystead Ranch Island. Both areas are completely separate instances so some programming magic has been needed to ensure smooth unloading of the main playing area whilst loading the interior zone instance - this is made more complex with the save files which have also begun over the last month!

A lot of work went into the player camera to ensure you can see inside as you rotate the camera. 👀

We took inspiration from games like Sims and worked out how to make the walls between the character and the camera disappear to allow you to see inside. We're sure some improvements can be made so we will be looking for your feedback when you get hands-on with future demos.

[h2]House[/h2]
If you have played any of our demos, you will be familiar with the player house that you have been able to walk up to but not enter. Well, now you can!
Our artist Laura spent a couple of weeks designing the tileable wall assets so Lee and Rob could get down to designing the layout of the player house and considering its purpose.

Layout below:

*This player house links directly to player progression which will be started next on the roadmap

As you can see, a lot more work is needed to finish the house, but the starting idea is now in the game. You will start with a small room for your basics, a bed, maybe some storage and a little decoration. Then as you progress you can make the room bigger and even add more rooms for utility!

A Greenhouse to grow complex plants in your own house, a kitchen to progress further in the cooking mechanic and even a trophy room to showcase all of your fully unlocked Skylets (currently just a shrine to Shelly, we will add every Skylet to this room we promise!)

[h2]Cave[/h2]
Unlike the house, the cave is a zone for Skylets and farming, just like the outside islands.
The cave was an idea from very early development as we like the idea of a darker zone where all the Skylets who normally only come out at night will be able to live all day long without worry of the sun rising.



As caves are generally dark and damp, we have decorated the area with a variety of wonderful and whacky mushrooms, moss and other fungus-like vegetation - some of it even glows in the dark! 🍄

The keen-eyed of you will have noticed a big crystal-like gem in the screenshot, we are planning on adding a little bit of game lore and player progression to things you will find within the cave - more about that in future updates! 🤫



This is a feature we knew we'd need no matter what - but something we are taking even further due to taking your feedback on board about wanting to have a Sandbox mode.



Unlike our previous games, we are developing separate save files for Skystead Ranch within the same game, allowing you to have many different Skystead Ranch save files on the same account! This is important for allowing you to play around in Sandbox mode and then switch over to the story mode without worry of losing either saved island.

Due to the more complex Save Files, we are learning a lot and there is still a lot to do to get saving and loading working correctly. Check back in future updates to see how we've gotten on - good luck Rob! 🤞


Onto the cutest bit! New Skylets! 🥺
Jack has been Modeling, Rigging, texturing and animating like a madman!

Left: Thaw Right: Skipling

Last week alone saw the implementation of 2 brand new Skylets!
Thaw is an ice golem-inspired Skylet that is related to the Bau and other elemental Skylets, it'll probably be a bit trickier to find than the others due to its slippery nature. 🥁

The Skipling is the last of our Kickstarter backer Skylets, a huge thank you to our backers who supported us at this tier and helped us get their own designs into Skystead Ranch! 💖
This cute little bird will skip around your Skystead and has an eye for the shiny stuff! Keep your precious shiny items out of its reach or it might just take them to its nest for safekeeping.


As always, thank you all for your support!
Share Skystead Ranch with your friends and make sure it's added to your Wishlists! Beta is getting closer along with more demos to try out. Keep an eye out for more news on this in the future.

That's right! We have officially moved into Alpha with Skystead Ranch. That means a select few people can play Skystread Ranch right now! If you are one of those with access, thank you so much for your feedback so far, it has been invaluable.

For everyone else, Beta is just around the corner so more and more of you will be able to get early hands-on play testing experience of Skystead, and we can't wait for you to see what we have done.


We have officially committed to adding Cooking and Fishing as mechanics to the game! A huge shout out to our volunteer, Cameron, who prototyped the mechanics to demonstrate the work needed to add them to Skystead Ranch.

Our artist Laura has already begun making various models to process the ingredients for cooking!
(Note: These are still a work-in-progress and missing textures)



[h2]What purpose will fishing and cooking serve?[/h2]
To ensure that the added mechanics fit the game and aren't just added on for extra content, we are integrating both the fishing and cooking into the Skylets behaviour, likes and dislikes - because, after all, your Skystead Ranch is all about your Skylets!

By adding the ability to crush, mix, chop and cook food, we are unlocking the potential for a much wider variety of food options for your Skylets, allowing you to spend more time with your favourite Skylets to discover what each wants the most and allowing each to have the best Skylet diet possible!

Fishing is still a WiP too, so more info on that soon! 🎣


Using your valuable feedback from the Steam Farming Fest, we have made a multitude of changes to Skystead Ranch - so thank you to everyone who filled out the feedback form or chatted with us in Discord!

[h2]Sandbox Mode[/h2]
Added as a way to showcase the game during the farming fest, we asked if you would like to see a Sandbox mode in the full game, and you overwhelmingly said "Yes!" so we've kept it and made it neater on the Main Menu.

[h3]What is Sandbox mode?[/h3]
Essentially a way to play Skystead Ranch without worrying about unlocking anything or having a need for resources! Enjoy the Ranch life with unlimited resources and access to everything from the get-go to build and terraform any scene you like without having to maintain a farm or manage your Skylets.

[h2]Longer Day and Night[/h2]
A small change, but important based on your feedback, is the day and night cycle has been made longer!
This allows you to get more progress made per day and enjoy the nighttime Skylets for longer at a time. This will be more important when we add more and more night-time-based Skylets!

There is still work to do on this as we need to re-calculate the growth times of all crops and trees to align better with the new day lengths.

[h2]Tutorial[/h2]
We already knew we needed a tutorial in Skystead Ranch, but thanks to your comments, we have pushed this up the timeline drastically! Originally planned to be developed in September, we have already begun work on the Tutorial now!


Currently, the tutorial takes you through the basic controls and how to use the Crook, but we are still working on the next stages, such as resource management and meeting the Skylets.
Voice-over work for the Tutorial will be added again at a later date.


Thank you to everyone for your continued support and interest in our Skystead Ranch development! Make sure you wishlist the game if you haven't already, and keep an eye out for more news soon!