Table of Contents

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In honor of the Super Worm Equinox Full Moon, we’re officially launching Wolvden’s social media! Wolvden has official accounts on Facebook (/wolvden), Twitter (@WolvdenGame), Tumblr (wolvden) and Instagram (WolvdenOfficial) - and we have a fresh new “Coming Soon” page at https://www.wolvden.com!

We’re so excited to announce that we are officially entering a period of public development where we are going to be sharing some of the things we have been working on so far, and also what’s coming next.

We do not yet have an official launch date as we don’t want to put a ton of pressure onto the coding and art team - but we can share current progress, and our social media will be the first place to hear about our official launch date.

So please, follow us, share us with your friends, and follow along for (hopefully) weekly updates and teasers!

🐺🌕

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Deciduous Forest

Current Weather: Sunny

Earthy smells give way to a dense, wooded forest, thin streams of sunlight filter through the boughs of rustling leaves high above. The undergrowth is home to many critters and creatures, from bustling pheasants and grazing blacktails, to the mighty elk that wander through the trees. The tree canopies give some protection against the summer sun and cool rains that patter throughout the seasons. These woods are tranquil and enclosed providing many opportunities to stalk prey - could this be the place you decide to inhabit?

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We here at Wolvden have been deliberating over a decision for weeks now. We’ve finally decided that we’re changing the direction of the game to something a bit more.. frivolous and fun.

We would like to announce..

Moon-Moon Den!

You can bookmark us at www.moonmoonden.com for the full Wolvden experience coming soon to a screen near you!

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How Lead Wolves Work
In Wolvden, you will play the role of a lead wolf, which will be the one wolf in charge of the pack - the “head” if you will. This wolf will be the wolf you use to explore with, and is meant to be your character. It is the wolf you’ll see on the sidebar, the wolf you’ll participate in events with, and the wolf you battle with.

This wolf does not have to be male. You are perfectly able to have your lead wolf be a female if you prefer!

So how does breeding work?
In the beginning of development we tossed around a lot of ideas for how best to balance realism with enjoyable gameplay. The first idea was to have a mated pair - so a male and female that could only breed together and everyone else in the pack were almost ‘pack helpers’. The problems with this were fairly high - it meant that studding was no longer an option, and forced players into a playstyle where they had to have a male and female always. The next idea involved the possibility that breeding pairs were still a thing - but they could be changed out fairly often. This provided a few more problems - studding would be tricky, breeding would be severely limited by how often you could switch out your pair, it would mean constantly pairing and unpairing wolves, and female leads would be at a significant disadvantage compared to male leads as they would not be able to produce the same number of puppies a lead male could, assuming he had a lot of females in his pack.

In the end, we decided on this:

There is a single breeding male within every pack that chooses to have one. To breed within your pack, you must first designate a breeding male to be the ‘stud’ if you will, which is locked in as its own role, and carries its own retirement process. The breeding male can be bred to any female in the pack, and can also stud out to other players’ wolves if you choose to do so. The lead wolf - even if male - does not necessarily have to be the breeding male. The game does not force you to have a breeding male at any time - only if you wish to breed within your pack. So in theory, it would be perfectly possible to have an entire pack of females and to still produce pups by using outside studs. The flexibility this offers means numerous options for roleplay and doesn’t force a player down one particular route with what they want to do with their pack.

Can the lead male be the breeding male as well?
Yes, this is perfectly possible.

What sort of retirement process does a breeding male have?
Breeding males are locked into their role until they die once it has been set. You will not be able to chase off or kill a breeding male. If you wish to retire your breeding male early, there is a ‘castrate’ option which means he will be released into the pack as a normal member, but will be unable to be the breeding male again… Obviously. ;)

What about retirement for lead wolves?
The same applies to lead wolves - they are locked into the role until they die. This, again, can be bypassed by retiring them early if you choose, but the wolf will die and be sent to your dynasty.

What happens when you retire a lead wolf?
Your leader will be sent to the dynasty and die (or will already be there, if it died of old age). You will then be taken to a ‘Choose Heir’ page which will show you all possible wolves that could take on the leader role. You can choose one of these (including the breeding male, if applicable) to take over the helm or choose to reroll, which will give you the same limited customisation options to generate a new wolf entirely.

What happens when your breeding male retires, or you castrate him?
Nothing. The game doesn’t force you to pick another breeding male, and you are able to play the whole game without ever choosing one again. You just won’t be able to breed within your pack and will have to use outside studs if you want to produce more pups.

But I really wanted to have two leaders?
This can easily be simulated. On the pack page, the lead wolf is featured at the top of the page. There is also an option to pick a ‘featured wolf’ to appear alongside them. The title of the “featured wolf” and “pack leader” can be adjusted to different options - you could call them the ‘Queen’, ‘King’, ‘Mate’, or whatever you choose to be a better fit for the roleplay of your pack. By default, it will just be called a ‘Featured Wolf’ and ‘Pack Leader’. Users who do not wish to make much use of the RP elements of this feature could even use it to feature a particular wolf they have for sale.

*Please note, the image displayed is of an early mockup for demonstration purposes.*

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Be careful exploring when the sun is setting - crepuscular animals can get a bit.. grizzly.

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Another gorgeous wolf, who seems to be in our Desert biome. Our biomes feature diverse, interesting locations. Can anyone guess where this is?

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Seasons!

After having spent 7 years working with Wet and Dry seasons on Lioden, we’re incredibly excited to now be based in a temperate part of the world which can experience all four seasons! We’re most excited about winter, with those snowy hills and icy lakes, glistening in a pale winter sun… :heart_eyes:

Seasons will affect which encounters you find in explore, what prey there is to hunt, and even the difficulty of the biome. It will be more difficult to battle and hunt in freezing winters or blistering summers, depending where your pack lives.

Without further ado, here is our Deciduous Forest biome in all four seasons!

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"bluejay6 asked:
The white facial marking on the desert wolf is absolutely gorgeous! Question, will markings work the same as they do in Lioden, and do you have a few that are particularly interesting/pleasant that you might be willing to share the name of, or show?"



We like how markings are presented on lions with Lioden, so we will be keeping a very similar system with marking slots, opacities, etc.

A few names of markings we have that we really like so far: Urajiro, Irish, Butcher, Grizzle!

Here is Auburn Butcher on a Cream base *.*

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Mountains

Current Weather: Fog

Thin veils of morning fog obscure your vision of this mountain range, diffusing the sunlight and casting a dull glow upon dewy grass patches and trees. The clouds part, revealing snow-capped peaks that impose on the gleaming waters of the lake below. Mountain goats clamber the craggy cliffs to escape the prowling lynx and cougars, whilst elk and bighorn sheep forage the heavy grasses. There are many caves and crevices in the rock that offer some shelter against the harsh weathers up here - will this be where you find refuge?

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Weather

With varied biomes and all four seasons of the year, it’s only natural that we’re adding weather to Wolvden. With extremes of heatwaves and snow, each biome will have atmospheric weather overlays that represent the current weather. Weather will have some effect on exploring and hunting, and a few other aspects we have yet to announce!

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"tinykiing asked:
What inspired the loosen team to make Wolvden? I know lioden was just something to see how fast it could be done but became more. Was someone just like. Hey. Wolves. cool. 😂 or has it always been something everyone wanted to do?"

We’ve actually had Wolvden in mind since a few months after the Lioden launch. All of the admins love wolves, and generally like the mysticism around them - as well as the setting of North America. We registered the domain in 2013 and came up with some sketches for possible wolf artwork. Initially we thought of launching a few different games under the “Lioden” group, but Lioden grew extremely fast so we hunkered down and dedicated ourselves wholly to it.

Over the past year or so, we feel we’re reaching a comfortable point with Lioden that we can finally make Wolvden and gather all of the experience and knowledge we’ve gained from running Lioden for the past 7 years. Lioden will never be put on the back burner or be left with minimal updates - we actually still have many big plans for Lioden :)

Here are some of the sketches Xylax came up with all the way back in 2013!

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Today we’re excited to reveal to you a teaser of our biome system and the method of exploring them!
When you first join the game and create your lead wolf, you are given the option to choose between three “starter” biomes. You settle your pack here, it dictates the weather you experience as you take actions around the site. You can travel to different biomes to explore but first, you must scout out your surrounding territory!

Your home biome will be fully unlocked as soon as you move in, so you can start exploring right away. To explore any other biomes, you must first acquire a wolf to be your scout. You can scout any biome that has a border on your current one - so if your home biome is the Mountains, you may have Grasslands bordering with your biome, and it will be unlocked to send scouts to.

The biomes range in difficulty. The starter biomes are the easiest, and they expand outwards to the more difficult areas with harsher conditions and more frequent, dangerous enemies. The more difficult biomes will also take a lot longer to safely and successfully scout than the easy biomes.

You don’t need to stay living in a single biome - as you fully explore areas, you can choose to move your pack through the biomes. You will need to battle to defeat any competition for your new territory when you move, and the bigger your pack size the more space you’ll need.

There’s more still to tell, but we want to keep some things a surprise ;)

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Wolvden Pups!
Featuring “Aspen Trees”, “Red Spotted Purple Butterfly”, “Raspberry” and “Blue Jay” decors!

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Hi guys! We just wanted to let you know that we’ve heard your feedback about the puppy art and we will be adjusting appropriately. For now, here’s another wolfo ❤️

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Featuring Sir Cougar and friends.

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Thank you for the astonishing response to the Lethal Mutations poll, over 2000 responses! The final four are chosen, although it was close!

Wolvden will begin with the lethal mutations Conjoined Twins, Polycephaly (Separated Two Heads), Polymelia (Extra Limbs) and Brachycephaly!

The remaining options will appear as later additions to the game :)

(Google got a bit broken, the empty option is Polycephaly (Separated Two Heads))

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When considering wolves, we really wanted to utilise pack relationships and how well wolves work together. We also wanted to make sure that stats play an important role in hunting.

When starting out hunting, you first create a Hunting Party - this consists of up to five wolves. In the party overview you’ll notice Party Synergy and three hunting roles; Stalking, Chasing and Finishing. For a full hunt, you need 1 Stalker, 3 Chasers and 1 Finisher. These roles can be performed by the same wolf - if you only have a single wolf to begin with, they can fill all five roles on a hunt.

Party Synergy is an indication of how well your wolves are getting along and for how long they have been hunting together. This has a slow decay, so if you don’t use this party to hunt for a few days you’ll notice the Synergy starting to drop. Party Synergy can have a positive impact on how well your wolves do on a hunt.

Stalking requires a wolf who is adept with Smarts and Wisdom in order to track down the scents of various types of prey.

Chasing requires Speed and Agility to chase after the prey and wear it down.

Finishing requires Strength - having conserved energy throughout the hunt, letting the Chasers do their job, the Finisher makes a final effort to take down the tired prey, bringing back your dinner for the day.

When wolves finish a hunt, they gain experience, the chance of a stat point, and Role Proficiency. The only gain this for the first role that they’re set - so if one wolf fills all five roles, they will only gain the experience and role proficiency for Stalking.

The combination of good, appropriate stats, Party Synergy and Role Proficiency makes your wolves a very powerful team.

Hunting Parties are fully editable, you can add and remove wolves at will, along with renaming the party or completely disbanding. Be warned though - moving wolves in and out will vastly affect Party Synergy, as to lose a pack member in the hunt will disrupt the relationship between the group.

Part 2 is coming next week!

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You hunt in the biome that your pack lives in. Each biome has its own hunting “vista” which displays 4 sub-zones, each having their own chances of prey to hunt.

Starting a hunt allows you to pick wolves for each of the five roles. You need a hunting party to do this, you cannot pick wolves randomly from your pack.

Once you’ve chosen your wolves, you start the hunt! Your Stalker tracks down some scents and you get to choose which scent to follow. The types of scent trails your Stalker will be able to find depends on the Stalker’s Role Proficiency, stats, Party Synergy and difficulty of the biome. They will always be able to track down at least a Critter trail, though!

There are four types of scents: Critter, Small, Medium, Large. Each displays a different scent trail shape and colour to be easily distinguishable, as well as actual text to denote which scent trail is which. These scent trails have increased difficulty, the larger the prey is, the more difficult it is for your Chasers and Finisher to complete the hunt.

However, even if your hunters return empty handed, there’s a chance they’ll come back with something small for your pack to nibble on!

Final Hunting teaser coming next week ;)

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Hunting - Part 3

Some prey previews: Whitetail, Pronghorn and Beaver, oh my!

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Hoot, hoot.

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Progress on the puppy redraw!

(References are used only for anatomy reference when drawing, we do not own these photographs)

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Hunting biomes and other scenery is coming along nicely… Phew it’s getting hot in here.

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Now taking suggestions for additional Rollover messages ;)

*We’ve struggled to add gifs to posts before, forgive us if this doesn’t work, we will try re-creating the post if it fails :’D*

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MFW it’s 38° in the UK 😫

Explore in heatwave weather for your viewing pleasure!

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Beautiful pup :o

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A preview of our nice breeding page! Excuse the potato wolves, we randomised for demonstration ;)

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Any guesses what this friendly fella could be for?

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Those of you who guessed shop keeper are correct! Here is the first row of Crossroads Tokens :D

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So far…
Since there were no asks answered yesterday we thought we’d compile a list of all teasers and other information that we have released up until now!

If you’re new here…

Wolvden is an upcoming sister game to the existing game, Lioden, which will be a fun wolf-based role playing breeding sim experience (we honestly don’t know how to categorise this game any more). You look after a pack of wolves, care for them, breed them, explore a vast range of biomes, fight big and scary enemies, and hunt a variety of prey.

Beta Testing will be free to join, but will be by application process only, we will hand select those who will join us for testing.

Early Access will be paid, but we have yet to release any further details on this.

Wolvden will be free to play after Early Access.

Wolvden has official accounts on Facebook (/wolvden), Twitter (@WolvdenGame), Tumblr (here) and Instagram (WolvdenOfficial) - our landing page can be found at https://www.wolvden.com!

Information From Teasers
This is purely information that has been released on social media officially by us in the form of teasers.

• Biomes - Deciduous Forest, Grasslands, Mountains and Desert have been confirmed
• Seasons - All 4 seasons will feature in the game.
• Weather - Sunny, Fog, Rain, Heatwave have been confirmed.
• Dusk/Twilight has been hinted at, there will also be dawn.
• You can have one lead wolf, and one breeding male - they can be the same or separate. You can have a male or female lead wolf.
• Scouting - a new feature which will tie into exploration and discovery of new biomes.
• Lethal mutations will be in the start of the game - the starting mutations are Conjoined Twins, Polycephaly (Separated Two Heads), Polymelia (Extra Limbs) and Brachycephaly.
• Hunting Part 1 and Part 2 explain the hunting system!
• Fancy new breeding page allows you to compare wolf visuals directly.
• Crossroads will feature Location Tokens rather than a full map allowing us to easily add new places in the future!

• There will be 1 breeding male, rather than free-for-all breeding.
• Battling will be similar to Lioden, Hunting has been revamped.
• There will be custom decors on Wolvden.
• We do plan to add events, though they may not be available for launch.
• We will have rollover just like on Lioden, except it will occur at midnight server time instead of 2:05am.
• The art and development teams are the same for Wolvden as they are on Lioden.
• Wolvden will have Gold and Silver Beetles.
• There are a couple of mutations planned for launch.
• There is visually no sex difference in the wolf art, allowing decors and custom decors to be more universal.
• You will be the leader of a single pack.
• We are trying to balance gameplay for both casual and hardcore members.
• We hope to incorporate storylines on Wolvden as well as some more on Lioden.
• Combo bases will exist on Wolvden.
• We welcome suggestions!
• We have no plans for a specific Wolvden app but we are working hard to ensure a good mobile experience using the website.
• We would like to continue the charity donations that we do on Lioden with Wolvden.
• There will be a way to change your Pack Name.
• Wolvden will be a 16+ game.
• We will try to have a wiki available for launch, or shortly after.
• There will not be any seasonal differences in wolf coats.
• Pup Stages will exist, either on launch or shortly after.
• Exploring will be a thing on Wolvden.
• The aging system will be the same as on Lioden. Please see Corrections.
• Pack names are alphanumeric, can contain special characters and emojis, and can contain up to 25 letters. It will automatically have “Pack” suffixed to the end. Please see Corrections.
• Claiming will be similar to Lioden. You can claim male wolves too!
• Some mutations will be the same as Lioden has, as they exist on wolves too.
• There will be personalities.
• Your lead wolf can be male or female.
• We do not have an official launch date yet.
• There will be a role similar to Broodmother.
• We will keep litter sizes the same as on Lioden. Please see Corrections.
• There will be leaderboards.
• There will be something similar to battle beetles, but not at launch.
• Poses will be available for both sexes as there are no visual lineart differences between the sexes.
• You will be able to live in different biomes.
• We have breeding items planned.
• Pack members will have personalities.
• You will be able tell which method a wolf likes when claiming.
• There will be a breeding request system.
• Wolvden will be based in modern times but events may transport you to different eras.
• We will give announcements in advance of releasing beta testing and early access information.
• Something similar to the Giving Tree will be available on Wolvden, but perhaps not at launch.
• Pregnant wolves will require nesting.
• Pregnant wolf art is definitely on the list but may not be available at launch.
• We are figuring out elderly wolf appearances.
• The site’s layout will be different, but you’ll still be able to code your dens.
• There will only be one lead wolf, you don’t control a pair, but we have options to allow you to role play a pair of lead wolves.
• You can switch out your breeding male early but you can only have one breeding male at a time.
• Official premade Wolvden avatars/tags will exist!
• Coat tiers will exist.
• There will be different titles you can set instead of “Lead Wolf”.
• Impression will not exist in Wolvden.
• Males can hunt.
• You will be able to move biomes.
• There are 76 starter bases prepared for launch.
• We hope to release Wolvden in 2019.
• We have mini games planned for Wolvden.
• We will not have an Alpha/Beta system built into the game as it has been disproved multiple times. However, we have left the room for roleplaying this if you wish to do so.
• Seasons will not affect breeding cycles.
• There will be a page similar to the Oasis on Wolvden, but renamed to fit with the setting.
• Different biomes will have difficulties which make them harder to scout, explore, and live in.
• We have had Wolvden on our minds since 2013 which is when we registered the domain name.
• You can fully customise an existing wolf, or create a new one, with the Wolf Customiser.
• Studding will be similar to Lioden.
• Creating your first wolf will be a stripped down version of the customiser, allowing you to hand-select the base, markings, etc. rather than rolling pre-set wolves.
• You can explore any fully scouted biome regardless of where your pack lives.
• Mutations will apply to both sexes as long as they’re not mechanically dependent on sex (e.g. double uterus).
• You will be able to communicate with all members of the game, not just those in your current biome.
• We welcome any Youtube channels (or other content creators) who wish to release content about Wolvden to approach us through support@lioden.com with the email subject “Wolvden Content”.
• Wolvden will be treated as a separate game to Lioden - you will not be able to claim your Lioden ID on Wolvden, or have any other account crossover feature.
• We have plans to make scouting more useful than to only scout new biomes.
• Scrying will be a feature on Wolvden!
• We will look into a name randomiser for Wolvden.
• We haven’t yet released any information about beta testing or early access.
• Scrying will have a SB cost.
• Some unique Wolvden features may potentially make their way over to Lioden depending on user feedback.
• We will be announcing EVERYWHERE when we release information about beta testing and early access.

• The aging system on Wolvden will last the same amount of time in real life, but in game wolves will live to 7.5-8 years of age.
• Pack names will no longer have “Pack” automatically suffixed, and can be up to 30 characters in length.
• Litter sizes will be 1-6 puppies with 1 and 6 being the rarest, the average being 3-4.

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Markings follow a somewhat similar pattern and setup to bases, and are categorised into color groups, marking shapes, and rarity tiers. Tier 0 contain all wild or common markings that are available in both wild wolves and starter wolves, whilst tier 1 contains custom only markings. All higher tiers relate to event only, mutation exclusive, combo, etc.

Markings that are the same and bred in the same slot have a 75% chance of passing directly onto the puppy.

Markings bred in the same slot that are different first run through a color combo checker - if both parents have compatible color groups that can produce a combo, this will roll a chance to get the combo color marking for the puppy. Whether it has a combo or not, the chance is 50/50 for which marking the puppy will inherit from the parents, with no parent weighting or bias either way.

If only one parent has a marking in that slot, the puppy has a simple 50% chance of whether or not it inherits it.

Once a marking is chosen, if the marking is tier 1 or 0, there is a very small chance that marking could mutate into a different shape within its tier. The color group, shape and tier will stay the same, but a new marking will be chosen within those parameters. A normal marking may turn into a ‘Heavy’ version of that marking, as one example, to give more variation within litters. These only have a chance of happening with certain markings.

Examples are as follows:

* Black Agouti x Red Agouti could produce Auburn Agouti from the color combos.

* Black Cape could mutate into Black Cape Ticking.



And finally! Stay tuned for a mutation GENETICS teaser next week!

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A preview of our new puppy art 🐺

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We think it’s about time we shared this! A couple of new things that we’ve changed since our asks, we wonder if you’ll notice ;)

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Poll: Age Displays

Following up from the poll earlier this week, we have another poll we’d like to share. More information can be found in the poll’s description :)

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Hi all!

The poll from last week showed that most of you want to keep the traditional years/months option. However, a good number of you wanted the newer option too. So we will implement both options! Thanks for your feedback guys.

For now, enjoy a little look into one of the Raccoon Wares stores!

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Once your den is settled in your chosen biome, and your scouts wander off to discover new areas, the world map will slowly uncover, biome by biome! We’re showing less than half of the full map - something a new player might experience!

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Registration Customiser Demo!
The demo is here for customising your starting wolf - these are all the available options that you’ll be allowed to choose from to create your very first Lead Wolf on Wolvden!

Play around with the options - we’re excited to see what you guys create!

Click here to access the demo!

(Click here to view the wolf above)

Edit: In our excitement to release this to you we forgot one important detail - these options will be available for the first week of signing up, after which they will be trimmed down a bit. Sorry!

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Our shops are now being populated with content! We’re excited to see how you will decorate your wolf scenes!

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A peek at the top half of the wolf page, which displays how we’ve integrated both age options from previous teasers.

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A little look at how some wolf data is displayed, including some new indicator icons for mutations.

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Mutations & Secondary Mutations!
Last week we shared a teaser that revealed a new game mechanic in Wolvden: secondary mutations. This means there are two ‘slots’ available for mutations, and sometimes two mutations can be bred onto the same wolf.

There are some limitations. Not all mutations can be 'doubled up’. Normal mutations always take up the Mutation slot, and cannot be duplicated over into the Secondary Mutation slot. Secondary Mutations almost always take over the Secondary Mutation slot (which means it’s possible to have a wolf with no Mutation, but a Secondary Mutation present), but can in very rare instances double up, with one occupying the Mutation slot, and the other in the Secondary Mutation slot.

So Polycephaly, for example, will always be a Mutation, and never a Secondary Mutation. It consists of huge art changes.

Albinism fits as a Secondary Mutation, as it has more of a layering effect than a full art change. It can be duplicated with all other mutations, including other secondaries.

However, Polycephaly and Albinism can both appear at the same time on the same wolf!

Generally: large, drastic mutations will always fall under the Mutation slot whilst smaller changes, or perhaps even invisible mutations (an example being Double Uterus on Lioden) will be Secondary Mutations, or sometimes double up and take up the Mutation slot.

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This glacier at dawn background is stunning, showing off a lovely merle beauty 😍

Going forward we’ll be releasing smaller teasers as we are spending time finishing off coding the big features and entering into fixing all the nitty gritty bugs that are popping up.

In the mean time, please acquaint yourselves with the Registration Customiser Demo - and if you think you’d be a great tester, please sign up to our Beta Testing Applications!

Lastly, if you sign up to our mailing list (located on the front page of Wolvden) please add mailing@lioden.com to your safe senders - we had a few instances of the mail going to peoples’ spam folder or not arriving at all!

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A collection of sketches and doodles from this year of Wolvden. We wish you a very Merry Christmas to those that celebrate it and a Happy Holidays to those that don’t! See you on the other side! ❄️☃️🌝

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Some beautiful wintery explore encounters!

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Brrr! It’s cold outside. The wolves are snuggling extra tight in their caves tonight!

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Illnesses
While battling, or exploring, or even just rolling over for the day, you may notice that one of your wolves contracts an illness. Some are contagious, meaning they have a chance of spreading to your other pack members if they are not cured.

Illnesses have varying effects, including some of the following:

* For all illnesses, your wolf’s mood will drop twice as fast each rollover
* Some illnesses may cause your wolf’s HP to drop at rollover, and their HP will not replenish daily
* Some illnesses may prevent wolves from breeding
* Some illnesses can be fatal, if HP drops to 0 while the illness is active

Some of these illnesses are visual and will appear on the wolf’s art, such as Mange:



You will notice in this image that there are some items attached! These are medicines and each can cure one type of illness.

We’ll go more into medicines next week :)

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The Herbalist

With the implementation of illnesses, of course we need a system for curing them! We would like to introduce you to Herbert the Herbalist.

He is a wise grizzly bear who knows how to identify and cure illnesses within your pack. What’s even better, he will offer to take on one of your wolves as an apprentice Herbalist so that, eventually, you can do everything you need without his aid.

Your Herbalist will be able to learn medicine recipes and use the herbs that you find to craft medicines to cure illnesses. The only part that costs any money is a small offering for Herbert’s expertise in diagnosing which illness your wolf has.

Your herbalist gains EXP from diagnosing wolves, learning new recipes and crafting medicines. As they gain levels and experience in herbalism, the cost for diagnosing illnesses reduces, the time taken to learn new recipes and craft medicines also reduces.

Herbs and medicines are also tradeable so if you’re unable to gather certain herbs that don’t grow in your biome, you can trade with other members in different biomes.



To answer a few concerns raised from last week’s teaser:

* New illnesses will be included in your daily rollover notification. They will also get an icon in their status bar (similar to Hungry, In Heat, etc).
* Contagious illnesses are contained to the wolf’s cave.
* If you “quarantine” a wolf with a contagious illness in a separate cave, it will not spread to any of your other wolves.
* Wolves that are “unsorted” will wander the den and may spread any contagious illness to *ANY* wolf in your pack. It is highly recommended to use the caves system and not leave ill wolves unsorted.
* You will have ample time to diagnose and cure wolves, it’s only in the case of neglect that you will lose wolves due to illness.

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You’ve already got through the first stage.. what’s your next move for this Stoic wolf?

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Testing Announcement
Hi all,

We wanted to announce this sooner rather than leaving it to the last minute. We are SO close to finishing now! We have a handful of things left to code, and art keeps being added in on a daily basis. We’re in a very exciting place - but unfortunately it is unlikely we will hit the provisional testing date of February 20th, so we are going to have to postpone it.

Let’s be clear, we are not that far off, but we want to make sure that we have everything ready to go for testing. What’s the point in having an incomplete game when bringing people in to test that the game is working? Coding has taken a bit longer than previously anticipated because during development we came up with extra ideas and little touches - typical scope creep! - that we think has made some great improvements along the way.

We would like to delay testing by just four more weeks - we’re shooting for the 19th of March now, with testers being contacted on the 16th with their signup codes and further instructions. Testers will be sorted into different groups so we have the option of quickly and easily assigning a particular group to test a certain area of the site. We expect all testing groups to begin testing at the same time.

We want Wolvden to be working mostly smoothly on entry to the testing phase. Ideally, we want to use testing as an opportunity to see how the game feels and to balance it - whether we need to tweak EXP that is given out, how we should tune battles, whether hunting is too difficult or easy, and so on. We also will be on the lookout for bugs, but ideally everything should be in a playable condition.

After an amazing amount of applications, we will also be closing the testing application form tomorrow, Friday the 7th February. Nobody with a successful - or unsuccessful - application has been contacted yet, so don’t fret.

Finally, thank you all so much for your patience and support. I hope you guys understand why we’ve chosen to do this. Soon after our testing launch, we expect to announce some information regarding Early Access and our launch date.

Stay tuned! :D

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Here’s how we draw Wolvden art! Some progression art of a bison carcass for this week’s teaser

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Another preview of our art process with a stunning Elk explore encounter!

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Just a quick peek at what we’re looking at in the office today.. 🐺

Lots of apps to go through, lots of time required as we’re reviewing individual apps.

Each accepted tester will be sorted into their own named testing group. This is so we can task a group of testers to focus on a particular area of testing as needed.

AS A NOTE: no acceptance or rejection emails are going out today. This is just internal selection for us and will be ongoing for a couple of weeks. 🥰

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Playing around in the wardrobe 🥰

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What’s your next move? 👀

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Which one will be your shop keeper? 🐾

We hope to see you at the stream on Wednesday! <3

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First Week Down!

One week into testing and our amazing game-wreckers are finding and breaking every little area of the game, so that we can fix, improve, adapt and overcome all issues! This experience and a new bug fixing system has taught us a lot and is so efficient, we’d like to move it to Lioden at some point!

Our testers are amazing and thorough, and we try to fix a ton of bugs and implement tweaks every day! It’s been only seven days and we squashed dozens, no, hundreds of bugs! We’ll continue to plow through as we keep enabling more features, we appreciate very much the dedication and eagerness of everyone who is participating.

…. We promise the game does actually work.

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Runts (& Largest Puppy)

Some litters may end up having runts born!

The larger the litter, the higher chance one of the puppies may end up being born a runt.

Runts are born with lower stats and a lower survival chance overall, and retain their ‘runt’ label throughout their lives.

Usually, when a runt is born, the largest puppy label becomes active on the highest statted puppy, too. That puppy gains a small survival chance boost at birth. It, too, retains its label throughout its life.

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Sorry for the silence over the past couple of weeks, but we hope to resume our regularly scheduled programming starting tonight with this preview of the Family Heritage: testers helped us complete a full heritage to display this week!

We may try to answer some asks on Monday, but to answer one very popular one now: there is still no official release date for Wolvden. Keep an eye on our social media ;)

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Testing Progress Update!
Hi all!

To update our previous bug report overview, we’re including a new screenshot of how our bugs are looking at the moment. Quite the improvement! We’re overall very happy with how testing is going, and we’ve moved into a game balancing area rather than pure bug testing.



Tester Inactivity
We have removed some testers from the testing phase as they hadn’t logged in for a couple of weeks. We know it’s a tough time at the moment, and we’re sorry to part ways with so many, but we’d like to publicly thank them for their time and we hope to see them at launch!

New Testers??? Yes, this means that we will be picking some more testers to join us on the testing server. We will not be re-opening applications, but we will be going back through some applications and picking applicants who maybe slipped through the cracks last time around.

If you applied last time but didn’t get in, and you have the time/enthusiasm to test currently - please send us the email address you applied with. We’ll dig up your application and see if you’d be a good fit!

Edit: We are no longer accepting new testers - thank you all for your interest.

What are testers, exactly?
Testers are akin to regular players who have access to an early version of Wolvden to help us test. These testers were chosen based on application alone (and not Lioden game history). This is similar to a “Beta test” of a game like World of Warcraft, where they have completed their internal alpha stage testing and are now allowing normal players on to help smooth out the creases and give feedback.

Testers are not part of the development or admin team, they have no final say in any aspect of the game.

Affiliate on Twitch!
Abbey has been streaming once or twice a week on Twitch.tv/lioden and we’re now an affiliate! She spends a few hours coding on stream and answering questions, along with showcasing various parts of the game. If you’d like to get a sneak peek at Wolvden and maybe ask some questions, the next stream will be tomorrow at 2pm BST (find your local time here: https://savvytime.com/converter/bst)

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A nice collection of sketches and finished art for the first NPC you will meet 👀

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⛰️ Upcoming backgrounds for Wolvden, not even testers have seen these! 🌳

Are there any special areas you love from the Americas that you’d be excited to see in Wolvden? We’ll be taking note ;)

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Herbalist Features!
A couple of new features have been added to make the Herbalist a more interactive and necessary role in your pack.

Foraging

Your herbalist can be sent out to forage, allowing you to collect herbs from your local biome for medicines. They can gain Herbalist proficiency and EXP doing this, as well as bringing back 1-3 herbs. The number of herbs brought back is dependent on season - winter will show a reduction in the number of herbs your herbalist can find.

This takes an hour, and means that your herbalist cannot take any other activity while it’s active.

Herb Exchange

Some herbs just cannot be found in your biome, except through rare drops from some explore encounters, so the Herb Exchange is where you can trade in 3 of your more common herbs for one of the harder to come by herbs.

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Polymelia in front of Palisades of New Jersey

Look at this poor cute little wolfie! Just a preview of the art for one of Wolvden’s Lethal Mutations 💔

We have some big news coming next week, so make sure to follow us for updates!

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We’re excited to announce that Wolvden’s Early Access will be launching on the 25th September 2020, followed by the full launch of the game on the 9th October 2020!

This has been a tumultuous year so far, but we’re finally able to share a date for the launch of the game! It’s an exhilarating feeling to be able to announce this, and we hope that you’ll be there with us, either for our September or October date.

To pre-emptively answer a few questions:

When will Early Access sales be going live?
We haven’t quite decided this yet, but we will be giving lots of notice on social media when we know.

Is the game free to play?
Yes! After our Early Access period, from the 9th October, the game will be completely free to play - just like our sister game, Lioden.

How are the testing bugs coming along?
We’re down to 28 bugs that are unclaimed, 138 have a fix pending or are being investigated, 759 total bugs fixed (1367 individual reports condensed down to 925 due to duplicates or related issues). The majority of major bugs have been fixed and we’re now onto finicky little bugs. There is one bug which is plaguing some testers and getting them stuck in battling/befriending loops but we hope to have that solved relatively soon!

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Poll Time!

Thank you guys for your patience with us over the past couple of weeks - the devs have had a bit of a rough month or so, and haven’t been able to prioritise teasers as much. We’re also in the run up to bigger bits of anticipated news now - such as more information about Early Access, the actual sale of EA and so on. We’re starting to prepare some smaller teasers that we can release on Thursdays until we’re ready for these bigger events.

So, while we’re in waiting for bigger news.. let’s have a poll!

https://forms.gle/w67G8WjnxN3mnL6B6

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Stages of life ❤️

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As we approach the last few weeks before Early Access, we’re taking some time to appreciate some beautiful game artwork before the frenzy of working towards release truly begins ❤️

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Teaser Recap
With just over 5 weeks to go until Early Access, we thought it would be a good idea to have a bit of a recap on all the teasers we’ve released! We are expecting to be able to give you some news on Early Access sales in the next week or two ;)
We also have been accumulating a lot of new followers over the weeks, we’ve hit 4000 on Tumblr alone - thank you for your support! Anyone who has joined in the past few weeks may not have seen the earlier teasers, another great reason for a recap post!

This will be pretty brief, and there is a lot more information in our past teasers which you can find if you look back at our previous posts!

We will also be reblogging some older teasers that don’t necessarily make it into this recap over the coming week, so keep an eye out for those too!

Wolvden
Wolvden will be a free to play game that is launching on the 9th October 2020! You can be a wolf in charge of your own pack, exploring and encountering scenery, flora and fauna native to the Americas. Breed wolves to combine many different bases, markings and other features to produce beautiful puppies and begin your wolf pack dynasty this year!

We will be selling Early Access which will allow purchasers to access the game from the 25th September 2020. Details on how to purchase Early Access is coming soon!

We have a mailing list which you can sign up for at https://www.wolvden.com - we will be sending emails out with information about Early Access and launch date reminders!

Your Pack
You play the role of the Lead Wolf of your pack - this is a lone role, and will be the wolf that you create when you sign up. Your Lead Wolf can be male or female.

You can set a “Featured Wolf” which can be used for many reasons - it displays prominently on your den page. You can rename this position - perhaps the Featured Wolf is really your Queen, or maybe it’s your Breeding Male. Maybe it’s a wolf you want to draw attention to because it’s your proudest achievement in your breeding program.

Your Breeding Male is a singular role that can be separate from your Lead Wolf - especially if you have a female lead wolf. There can only be one Breeding Male, but it isn’t an exclusive role, so he can also be a Scout or a Hunter if you want.

The roles currently in the game are: Hunter, Scout, Herbalist, Pupsitter.

Hunting
You can create hunting parties which contain up to 5 wolves. Each hunting party requires wolves to take a specific formation, that of a Stalker, Chasers and a Finisher. One wolf can assume all 5 roles, but it will be more energy intensive for the single wolf than if you had 5 wolves, and it will need to rest in between hunts.

Scouting
When you start the game, you choose a biome to live in. That could be the Grasslands, Mountains or the Deciduous Forest. From there, you will need a scout to send them out and discover other nearby territories. Once your scout has revealed a new biome, it can travel further afield and discover even more areas.

Herbalism
Your herbalist plays an important role in pack life. They can learn and create recipes for medicine - something that will become very important when your pack starts getting sick! They can also spend their time foraging for herbs, so when your pack is well and there are no illnesses to tend to, they can spend the time gathering herbs for the future.

Pupsitting
All puppies need looking after while their mothers are sent out on hunts or scouts, so pupsitters fill this vital role. From birth to adolescence, pupsitters will make sure that puppies have the best survival chance possible - as long as they’re not overrun with pups!

Breeding
There is too much information to condense into a small paragraph about breeding, but know that we have a complex system with unique genetics to explore and play with. We will be starting the game with 2 lethal mutations - Polycephaly (separated two heads) and Polymelia (extra limbs) - as voted on by our social media followers.

Some mutations will be genetic and will be passable by two carrier parents.

Wolves can have litter sizes from 1-6 puppies, with 3-4 being the most common.

More Detail?
You can read more information about all of these subjects - and more - by just checking back through our previous posts!

We hope to see you at launch, if not in Early Access!

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Wolvden Early Access FAQ

What is Early Access?
- Early Access will be a period of time before the game opens to the public. It will happen after the testing phase is completed. Members who purchase Early Access will be allowed to play Wolvden and gain certain other benefits two weeks before the game becomes completely free to play.

When is Early Access?
- Early Access will begin on Friday 25th September 2020 - just over 4 weeks to go!

I saw that the packages were limited in amounts that could be purchased - what if they all sell out? What if I want an account ID that’s a bit higher than the allowed range?
- In the event that we sell out of the Crescent Moon, Half Moon and Full Moon packages, we have a second and third wave queued up. Each of these waves will have their independent warnings for being able to purchase.

If I buy “Moon Moon” am I guaranteed a low account ID from the wave I bought it in?
- No - Moon Moon is a random account ID, and only guarantees you Early Access to the game itself. If you want to secure a low account ID, you will need to purchase either Crescent Moon, Half Moon or Full Moon.

So, I’m sure a couple players will want the same ID numbers if they buy one of the early access packs that let you chose your ID (“cool” ones like 404 or 666). How are you guys gonna go about deciding who gets which ID?
- Purchasing account IDs will be on a first come, first serve basis. We have no plans to reserve IDs for anyone. When it comes to purchasing IDs, we are trying to implement a system similar to “ticketing”. When you select an ID, you then have a short amount of time (15 minutes) to complete your purchase. If you don’t complete your purchase in this time, it will be released back to the public for someone else to choose. You can try choosing the same ID again if it is still available after that time. IDs that are not available to purchase, either because they are in the queue or already purchased, will be unable to be selected from the list of available IDs.

Am I allowed to buy more than one Early Access account?
- You can only play on one account, so you can only purchase one account for yourself. We will be asking for the email address you intend to sign up to the game with so that we can tie the Early Access code to your email address. However, this won’t be tied to your PayPal account - so you will be able to buy more than one Early Access account, for instance, as a gift to a friend.

If I buy two (or more) accounts just for me, will I be banned?
- Possibly. If you purchase more than just one account for yourself and start playing on them both, we could restrict your access to only one account, even though you paid for that account. Please follow the Terms of Service that will be listed on our website at the time.

Okay, I’m sold! When can we buy Early Access??
- We plan on releasing Early Access sales on Thursday 10th September 2020 at 11am UTC, 4am Arizona time.

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Early Access Sales FAQ Part 2
We had quite a few eager questions over the weekend - thank you!! We will try to answer a few now, as well as give some insight into the Early Access Sales process!

Is PayPal the only way to purchase an Early Access account?
Yes - but if you don’t have a PayPal account, they also have a guest checkout where you can use a credit or debit card instead!

Can I purchase an account for a friend as well as myself?
Absolutely! You are not restricted to purchasing only one account, so buying for friends and family as a gift is fine, but please remember that you can only _play_ on one (1) account. If you are discovered to be playing on more than one, it could cause any accounts you have ever accessed to be subject to being permanently banned.

7am ET or EST?
Abbey doesn’t know how to tell the time, so in order to make up for a few small mistakes in the emails last week, we’ve added a handy countdown timer to the front page of https://www.wolvden.com ! Sorry for the confusion <3

Will you send out information about the second and third wave for anyone who missed out on the first?
If we even get to the second and third wave, we will definitely be sending out information in advance, but please be aware that we are less than 3 weeks to go until Early Access actually begins - they will be in quick succession if required!

So how does the Early Access purchasing system actually work?
We have designed Early Access purchases around a ticketing style system, where you choose your “seat” (or ID) and it locks that “seat” out for a while until you can continue to purchase.

Here is an image of the ID selection page:



And once you’ve selected an ID, you are forwarded to this page:



You have a full 15 minutes to complete from here, a step which - if you do have a PayPal account - takes only a minute or two. If you do not have a PayPal account, please be ready with your credit or debit card details for when you get to this stage. 15 minutes should be long enough for anyone, but we’d hate to see anyone experiencing any issues at this stage!

We hope this information helps, and we hope to see you around on Thursday!

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Early Access Launch Info!

Early Access is nearly here!
On Friday 25th September, Wolvden’s Early Access launches at 2am PST!

If you’re not sure what time this is for your time zone, we have added a handy countdown timer on the front page of Wolvden which gives an approximate time left.

We sincerely hope that everything goes smoothly, although if you’ve been at a game launch before you’ll know that sometimes that doesn’t happen.

We have made sure the servers are ready to go, we are doing some back end preparations every day leading up to the event, and all hands will be on deck on Friday to ensure that if we run into problems, we can resolve them quickly.

The Wolvden development team would like to take this opportunity to say a huge thank you for your support and excitement over the past 18 months since we first announced that we were in development. It’s taken a little longer than we first anticipated, but we’re finally getting there!



How do I redeem my Early Access account benefits?
When the game goes live, you will need to register an account - click the “Play for Free” button on the front page and you will be taken to a registration form.

Here you can design your first lead wolf, fill out your account details, and sign up - your benefits will automatically be applied.

Please use the email address that you reserved your account with to create an account. If you do not, you will not be able to sign up. If you are not sure what your email address is, please check your confirmation email if you received one.

When does Wolvden open to the public?
If you didn’t purchase Early Access, then not to worry - public release will be on the 9th October 2020 at 0:00 PST! We hope to see you there!