Hello everyone!

This week’s blog post is a quick announcement to let everyone know that the South By Southwest (SXSW) build of Where Shadows Slumber is available for testing. We brought 13 Levels to SXSW last weekend, and now you can play them on your phone!

(Do you want to join our open beta? Android users can sign up on their own by going to our Google Beta page. However, iOS users should email me at contact@GameRevenant.com to be added to our list!)

What’s New In This Build

If you tested our previous build, you played the first 13 Levels of the game. The Worlds we showed off were the Forest, the Jail, and the River – in that order! This time, we took the River out (I’ve been working on it all week) and replaced it with the City. The City is actually World 4, so if you notice a spike in difficulty, that’s why. Like last time, this build is 13 Levels, with the 5 City Levels at the end. The first 8 will be the same. Sorry about that! Testing isn’t all glitz and glamour – sometimes it’s about playing the same thing over and over again until you find every last bug.

The City World is really cool – as you can see in the images posted here, it’s an impoverished desert city under heavy guard. The shadows from Obe’s lantern cascade over crumbling walls and the silhouettes of soldiers as you make your way to a palace on top of the city. All the while, a sandstorm is raging and Obe’s clothing flaps furiously in the breeze.

There’s one more surprise – we have cutscene animations now! They don’t have sound just yet, so your phone isn’t broken. (Don’t put that in the survey, we know already!) You’ll see both cutscenes right after you beat the third Level. There’s two in a row, for story purposes. Sorry about that. This won’t happen too often, but sometimes the story requires a climax at the end of one World followed by a brief intro to another.

There won’t be too many more beta tests, so please take this opportunity to download the build and try it out before we remove it from the store. To prevent people from getting full copies of the game or getting the experience spoiled, we may not release the full game to our open beta audience. Please test it and give us your feedback!

“Which one of you is ‘Grongus’?”

What We’re Looking For

Please fill out the survey for this build! You can find it here, as a Google Form. Answer all of the required questions and as many of the optional ones as you have time for. We go through this feedback in detail as a time and it really helps us.

There are plenty of bugs we already found at SXSW, and we’re sure you’ll experience them too. Thanks for testing!

SURVEY LINK: https://goo.gl/forms/fkQHZBtnPnR8boWL2

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Thanks for testing our game! Feel free to share your thoughts on the most recent build in the Comments section. You can find out more about our game at WhereShadowsSlumber.com, ask us on Twitter (@GameRevenant), Facebook, itch.io, or Twitch, and feel free to email us directly at contact@GameRevenant.com.

Frank DiCola is the founder of Game Revenant and the artist for Where Shadows Slumber.