As Moonfrost’s first Alpha playtest comes to a close, we were impressed with what our pioneering playtesters got up to. From ‘terraforming’ the earth with the mighty Earthquaker (imagine Thor’s hammer but in farming form) to harvesting blueberries… Which was very impressive as we didn’t put any in this playtest.
Before we dive in let’s review why we wanted to run this playtest.
Firstly, we wanted to say a massive thank you for your ongoing support and patience as we build this pixel-perfect world you will know as Moonfrost. We even reached 20,000 sign-ups for playtesters! 🤯
Secondly, we wanted to answer these key questions:
— Have we achieved our goal of how we want the game to feel as you play?
— What it is like to be the player?
— How are the controls?
— How satisfying is it to do the small actions? E.g. swing an axe, plant a crop, run around etc.
— What do you like to do most while playing?
And boy oh boy did the playtesters come through on this one! They not only provided us with all the answers to these crucial questions, but they rocketed us upward in our game development by capturing bugs, providing crucial feedback, insightful feature suggestions, review videos, screenshots and much much more!
Let’s take a look into what Moonfrost’s first alpha playtest looked like for our playtesters!
Farming
Beginning with a handful of basic stone tools and a small bag of crops, playtesters took it upon themselves to clear up the farm. As they progressed in the alpha playtest they unlocked better quality tools, new crops and seeds, leading to eventually unlocking our power tools — which players loved.
‘I had so much fun playing the demo. The art, music, and environment are all beautiful. I love the addition of the new power tools that you don’t see in other farming games.’ — CourtneyD
badtripp8875 and every new player’s view entering the game for the first time; a small plot of land that has been overgrown by wildflowers, weeds, rocks and the odd feral chicken.
‘I also REALLY LOVE these graphics’ — CozyAlice
16 players managed to harvest our ultra-rare Golden Turnips… oooh shiny. We know what you’re thinking… what are these going to be used for? Well, well, well, my curious friends — each crop has a few different quality rates; these are pretty special and are worth a pretty penny.
We can safely report no insects were harmed. Players got to enjoy a variety of wildlife in the game ranging from crows to fish, dragonflies to chickens and even a dog — but he is a little shy so most only heard him…
‘Even the dog barking got my dog barking lol he never really falls for barking in games but this one got him!’ — Bass‘I loved the test. The atmosphere, the music, the animals. The details. Seriously. Loved everything.’ — Marcio
Exploring
Even in this small alpha playtest we wanted players to experience what their homestead could look like in the future. Playtesters were able to adventure off at their own will, and most members were pleasantly surprised.
LastxFantasy and many others ventured south in-game and stumbled across this beautiful small sunflower field. Some players decided this was a perfect spot to relax and listen to the music of Moonfrost, whilst others wanted to… let’s say… clear this prime bit of real estate for future renovations!
‘Here’s me in the lovely sunflowers 🌻 The Music and aesthetic is sooo good and calming!’ — LastxFantasy
6 players managed to harvest blueberries, which were not even meant to be in this playtest! Credit to the foragers… Paradise_phantom, Artemis969, Vieksi, GeekyBatt, Vanomas, Fwachabala and spikewing!
‘I found blueberries haha I love this game and can’t wait’ — GeekyBatt
Whilst exploring there were some secrets to uncover hiding in our game world, one was this chest… image captured by Jackhauteville.
‘I saw that one tweet about the chest, because I found it in the playtest and wondered what will eventually be in it.’ — Puffin
'Found a chest I couldn’t open, was such a tease!!!!!!’ — Razzle
'Was it possible to open the chest?’ — Vitaly
‘The game is awesome but … I’m pretty curious about the chest’ — blank842022
‘I wish this chest was clickable.’ — Silvennia
It looks like this player had fun chasing some residents of the pond around as they dispersed to move under the cover of the lily pads.
Bugs
It wasn’t all perfect — as we have said a few times now, this was our very first closed alpha playtest so there were a fair amount of bugs.
To be exact, the community registered and logged 33 unique specific bugs in our Discord bug forum, with additional members creating videos and even a guide on how they experienced the bugs! This is very beneficial for us as game developers so another massive thank you to you bug hunters, here’s a handful of ones they discovered and logged.
Faith and several others noticed an issue that when harvesting resources, specifically ores in this case, locations that had a height elevation near the resource itself impacted the drop location. In this example, the ore dropped into an unreachable position meaning playtesters had to get creative to retrieve their hard-earned resources.
For example, mywifeboughtthis thought to use a certain power tool to retrieve their goodies.
Joshuaalex123 was the first to log: when you are harvesting wood with a stone axe, if the final swing of the axe breaks the tool whilst cutting down a tree it would result in no resources being dropped.
You’re left with a broken axe and no resources for your efforts. Sigh.
This wasn’t a design feature but maybe it should be… (runs off to tell the designers of this groundbreaking feature- sorry not sorry for using that pun).
Final Thoughts
We wanted to use this space once again to say a MASSIVE thank you to all our playtesters and community members for your support, trust and input for Moonfrost. Together both the development team at Oxalis Studios and you, the players, will create the best free-to-play life sim farming RPG.
We are all Moonfrost!
If you would like to start your adventure be sure to sign up on our website, and we’d love for you to become a part of our ever-growing community of awesome people. Be sure to join our Twitter, Discord and YouTube for more sneak peeks, game updates, music releases and — of course — more playtests!
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