itch.io

Developer Log - Sept 24th, 2025

Hi reader,

Thanks for taking the time to read this devlog!  As a brief recap, we are the two person dev team building Wild Haven, a 4X nature ecosystem builder.  We want to begin by announcing our September Playtest!  If you are interested in trying out the latest build of Wild Haven please head on over to Steam to try it out!

Steam Link: https://store.steampowered.com/app/3157420/Wild_Haven/

The goal of this playtest is to get feedback on the tutorial and game systems.  The Tutorial takes the player through three separate levels with each level explaining different game systems and how to incorporate them into your play.  The tutorial ends with a free play level where you can try out each of the game systems, and build in whatever way you would like!

We hope this will be the first of two playtests that will culminate in the launch of a demo by the end of the year.  With each playtest, we would like to explore different aspects of the game to see how they resonate with players and how we can improve in the game.  For our next playtest, we will incorporate the talents system into the game, provide for additional win states and explore more of the characters you’ll meet in Wild Haven.

Once again we want to thank you for trying out our game and we would love any feedback on how to improve, any bugs you find etc.

- K & R

Developer Log - Aug 2nd, 2025

Hi reader,

Thanks for taking the time to read this devlog!  As a brief recap, we are the two person dev team building Wild Haven, a 4X nature ecosystem builder.  Firstly, we want to apologize for how long it’s been since our last developer log.  Even though we’ve been quiet, my brother and I have been working diligently on the game for the last several months.  We wanted to take this developer log to catch up on what we’ve been working on and what our plans are for the game!

To start with the long and the short, we’ve been driving to improve the game in two sometimes competing directions: increasing depth and refining our existing system.  To do that, we’ve been working through the feedback we’ve received on not only the core mechanical loop, but gameplay depth, visual clarity, UI flow and general quality of life requests.  

Balancing both the feedback we’ve received and the limited time and budget we have as indie developers, we’ve decided: 1/ to reduce the scope of the game by removing the Jumbo map size and alternate biomes.  This will help reduce the pure volume of content and additional systems required to make a Jumbo map size fun and wildlife for biomes such as wetlands/mountains/deserts feel alive. 2/ to focus on adding depth to our current gameplay systems by adding more variations on existing wildlife from different combinations, providing a more impactful questing and story system during runs, and reducing the number of talents but making each talent more impactful to the gameplay.  3/ to help align our game more with the 4X genre, we intend to change how pollution works to become a more active challenge for players. Additionally, in the spirit of the genre we intend to add multiple win conditions for a run outside of just the final score. 4/ Finally, we made the hard but logical decision to postpone the games launch till 2026.  We do not believe we have the bandwidth for an Early Access game and so want our first release to be the v1.0 release.

As for next steps, we believe constant but targeted feedback is important to understand if we are on the right track.  In that spirit, we intend to launch a limited time playtest of the game on Steam in August.  The playtest will focus on the introductory(tutorial) campaign and provide players with a much clearer understanding of Wild Haven’s core gameplay mechanics.  We will post a developer log update when we launch the playtest and hope to see you there!

Once again we want to thank you for trying out our game and we would love any feedback on how to improve, any bugs you find etc.

- K & R

That sounds good and no problem!

Added some feedback to your page, over all good job!

Fun game over all!  I liked the graphics, sound and it was challenging enough to play.

A couple of small things, when you die or level up the transition is a bit jarring with the UI changing instantaneously.  Would be nice to have a transition animation.  Also would be good if you could re-roll using bits for other options.  I didn't see that as an option on the level up UI.

Hi reader,

Thanks for taking the time to read this devlog!  As a brief recap, we are the two person dev team building Wild Haven, a 4X nature ecosystem builder.  This is a smaller release focused on fixing bugs that were discovered during play testing and from feedback!

Our next game update will be focused on a much requested feature, building out a proper tutorial!  Currently, we have a series of short clips to try and show off the main game mechanics but this is a very static and not that interesting way to learn to play a game.  Our goal with the tutorial will be to provide players with a campaign experience with each section of the campaign focused on learning and using different game mechanics.  

With the tutorial, we hope to lay the groundwork for the scenario builder feature within the game.  When each run is started and as the player goes through the run, the scenario builder will give the player different events/quests to complete.  The design goal with the scenario builder is to provide memorable experiences for the player through each run as they discover and interact with the game world. 

Once again we want to thank you for trying out our game and we would love any feedback on how to improve, any bugs you find etc.

- K & R

Log:

Bugs:

• Players couldn't select bottom right tile in small map mode.
• On loading a saved game you couldn't undo actions on the first turn.
• On loading a saved game the map size defaults to large even for medium sized maps.
• Fixed so bonuses show up on tiles when the game is loaded.
• Corrected water tiles interaction with dry grass.
• Wildlife will now only spread to other tiles when that tile meets the wildlife's requirements.
• On undo turn, if undoing an explore action the tile will now show correctly.
• Ground is still showing as toxic in certain scenarios even when not toxic.
• On mouse hover over the locked build options UI incorrectly changed its border.
• Fixed screen tearing on hidden tiles when the camera moves.

Hi reader,

Thanks for taking the time to read this devlog!  As a brief recap, we are the two person dev team building Wild Haven, a 4X nature ecosystem builder.  

We wanted to do something special for this release and so we are happy to show off our new illustrated key art for the game and our official announcement trailer!  We are excited to have gotten to the point where we could officially announce the game and excited to keep building to launch!

- K & R

Log:

Updates:

• Official cover art
• Announcement trailer

Hi reader,

Thanks for taking the time to read this devlog!  As a brief recap, we are the two person dev team building Wild Haven, a 4X nature ecosystem builder.  Our goal with this release was to release the bonus system for wildlife tiles.

With this update, certain wildlife will have bonus requirements that when met will result in the wildlife providing additional coins per turn.  These bonus requirements can be other wildlife being placed nearby or for plant life certain soil requirements.  There are three levels of bonus: Bronze, Silver and Gold and each level provides an additional coin per turn.  For animals with bonuses, meeting the bonus count against the available capacity and the system will intelligently prioritize meeting a wildlife's requirements over another wildlife's bonuses when available capacity is limited.

Our next game update may take a little while as we have something special planned for the end of March/beginning of April!  Once again we want to thank you for trying out our game and we would love any feedback on how to improve, any bugs you find etc.

- K & R

Log:

Updates:

• Implemented bonus system for wildlife.  Wildlife may have up to three bonus levels: Bronze, Silver and Gold.  Each level provides an additional coin per turn.  Animal’s with bonus requirements are impacted by the available capacity requirements.  Bonuses can be soil requirements or wildlife requirements.

Bugs:

• Available Capacity for prey and predators was including certain plants.
• Fixed UI issue where if tile had more than one requirement it would show as buildable even when all requirements weren't met.

Hi reader,

Thanks for taking the time to read this devlog; another one that took a lot longer than planned!  As a brief recap, we are the two person dev team building Wild Haven, a nature ecosystem builder.  Per our previous devlog, we wanted to create an update focused on updating the visuals from 8x8 pixel art to 16x16 pixel art.  

With this update, we started with the goal of upscaling the graphics to improve visual clarity and make it easier for players to see what they were building.  But we underestimated how long it would take, which seems like a running theme as first time game devs!  To add a caveat, we haven’t upscaled all the animations for animals so we plan to keep adding new animations with future updates.

To add to the challenge of getting out this update, we decided to introduce three new structure tiles: Junkyard, Metal Heap, and Trash Heap that you can discover as you rebuild your woodland forest.  With these three new tiles, we are also introducing 14 new wildlife tiles!

We hope our next update will be out sooner and are planning to introduce a bonuses mechanic for wildlife and improve our UI’s readability.  Once again we want to thank you for trying out our game and we would love any feedback on how to improve, any bugs you find etc.

- K & R

Log:

Updates:

• Update wildlife graphics from 8x8 to 16x16 sprites.
• Add Junkyard, Metal Heap and Trash Heap structure tiles.
• New Wildlife Tiles:
  • Protected Shelter, Field Mice, Woodland Vole, and Opossum tiles.
  • Entangled Vines, Yellow Trumpet Vines, Purple Heart Vines, Clematis Vines, and Honeysuckle tiles.
  • Compost Heap, Vining Tomatoes, Honeynut Squash Vines, and Field Pumpkins tiles.
  • Protected Hovel, Rattlesnake Nest, Chipmunk Burrow, Lynx Den, and River Otter Burrow.

That is great to hear you guys liked the game after playtesting it, and we really appreciate the feedback on the UI and readability!  We'll definitely incorporate the feedback on the UI into our future updates and fixes.

Definitely agree that the tutorial needs to be reworked and moved away from the videos to an in-game tutorial.  

For the main objective, we've been working on designing a task system to give some directed ideas to players as they progress through the game, but from your feedback it sounds like it would be important to build out a points system directly into the game so the player isn't surprised by the score screen at the end on their first run through.

Tried it out and it is a good start!  

I would recommend adding some more "flair"? if that is the right word when you get a card correctly, showing how many points you get when you complete a set of cards before the next hand is drawn.  Additionally, it seemed like the countdown timer jumps even before two correct cards are fully visible?  It might be good to pause the timer while the second card is shown either correctly or incorrectly.

Developer Log - Jan 12th, 2025 Version 0.2.40

Hi reader,

Thanks for taking the time to read this devlog; the first of 2025!  

You can check out the game here: https://rchava.itch.io/wild-haven

As a brief recap, we are the two person dev team building Wild Haven, a nature ecosystem builder.  Per our previous devlog, with v0.2.40 we wanted to create a larger update focused on more choices for you when setting up the game.  

With this update, we added a new game selection option where you can choose between Classic Mode and One More Turn mode.  Classic Mode is the current version of the game with limited turns, and the ability to accumulate experience to unlock talents (coming in a future update).  With One More Turn mode, the game has an unlimited number of turns and all wildlife is unlocked at the start, but you won’t accumulate experience to use between runs.  For the demo, only Classic Mode will be available for now.

The second major feature for this update is new game map sizes.  With this update, you have three options: Normal, Large and Jumbo.  Normal maps are 11x10 tiles, Large are 23x20 tiles and Jumbo are 33x30 tiles.  Each map size also increases the number of turns you get respectively.  For the demo, only Normal and Large maps are available.

With the next update, we plan to update the types of structures you will encounter during a game and take another pass at the game map’s procedural generation.  Currently, you can find Derelict Sheds and Abandoned Houses as you explore.  We plan to add to these polluted landmarks and also let you find beneficial landmarks on the map.  This will also naturally result in more wildlife options and combinations.  Once again we want to thank you for trying out our game and we would love any feedback on how to improve, any bugs you find etc.

- K & R

Log:

Updates:

• Add game selection mode for Classic or One More Turn game mode
• Provide normal, large and jumbo map sizes with different game lengths.
• Right click, hold and drag to move the camera.
• Camera re-centers on selected tile.
• Add ability to end the game early.
• Custom default mouse cursor and when moving the map.

Bugs: 

• Explore build tooltip now says Explore not Grow.
• Moved tooltips for Next Turn and Undo Turn to prevent overlap with respective buttons.

Ah kk that makes sense.  Yeah, adding more interactions to the games is a good next step.  Looking forward to seeing what you build!

Hi,

I gave each of the mini-games a try.  Random thoughts/feedback:

•  I wasn't able to hear any sound.  Not sure if that is because of WIP or bug though.
• When you lose you should provide the ability for the player to go back to the mini-game selection screen.  Right now it appears you have to hit ESC and then go to game player.
• The mini-game carousel doesn't allow you to circle back to first game if you keep pressing the right button and similarly you can't go to the end from the beginning. 
• I didn't really get the point of the trampoline/camera game.  All the other games had points and lose conditions but those two didn't.
• The mini-games were a good variety of ideas.  I was pleasantly surprised by the 3D/2D mix for the car game.
• I could see adding more depth to each of the games as a next step.
• For the asteroid game it would be nice if you could move in one direction and shoot in another direction.  Seemed like you could only shot in direction you were moving.

Thank you for the kind words!  Yup, we'll be looking for music help early next year once we've prototyped out all the core systems and gameplay.  I've followed you on itch.io and will keep that in mind once we are ready for that stage!

Hi all,

We are looking for some updated feedback on the game.  Since our last request for feedback, we've made a number of substantial changes to the systems from real time to turn based, balance changes, a new soil system and updated UI.  We would greatly appreciate any feedback on how the game plays, any bugs etc.  Thanks!

Link to Itch.io page: https://rchava.itch.io/wild-haven

One run playtime: ~30 - 60 mins

Latest Developer log: https://rchava.itch.io/wild-haven/devlog/847458/wild-haven-developer-log-4

Tried out the game, and left a comment!

Tried out the first two levels of the game, and over all seemed like it had a lot of potential.  I really enjoyed the music and the tutorial explained the controls well.

My main issues were I would have preferred some kind of key re-binding for switching between red and blue and roll, the red and blue platforms were hard to see so I had to figure out how to progress through trial and error.

Yup, I've bought some art assets from creators whose art style I liked and thought could be well incorporated into the game I'm making.

Developer Log #4 - Dec 8th, 2024 Version 0.2.35

Hi reader,

Thanks for taking the time to read this devlog!

With this update, we’ve added a bunch of quality of life improvements(QoL) to the game.  A number of ideas which we incorporated based on feedback! The biggest being the ability to reset the turn.  If you don’t like the placement of specific wildlife, cleared something you didn’t want to or changed your mind you can reset to the beginning of that turn. 

To keep with the trend of QoL changes, we’ve added another step in the build process to make it easier to understand the requirements for building wildlife, and we’ve frozen the soil informational bar when you select a tile.  We’ve also added tooltip information to both the build requirements informational pane and soil informational bar and added tooltips to the build button to explain why you can or can’t build specific wildlife.  Finally, we moved the clear wildlife button to the soil informational bar to show that the option is tied to the tile and not to the wildlife.

With our next update, we plan to make major updates to the how tiles are generated, what is placed on tiles and how large the map can be.  Right now with every run you are fixed to a 11x10 grid, which is a good size, but what if you want to explore in a specific direction and just want a larger map?  With this next update, we plan to add those options!  Once again we want to thank you for trying out our game and we would love any feedback on how to improve, any bugs you find etc.

- K & R

Log:

Updates:

• Add an undo button to return to the game to beginning of the turn.
• Freeze soil informational bar when tile is selected either on top or bottom.  Provide on hover tooltip information.
• When out of turns have next turn button be animated.
• Add two step process for building wildlife to make it easier for player to understand what wildlife’s requirements are.
• Move clear button to bottom away from wildlife build options.
• Show total coins per turn gained per turn.
• Add tooltip info for why player is unable to build wildlife.

Bugs: 

• Fixed pixel font for readability.
• Some wildlife outside of a tile's influence/range was not correctly showing up as dependent on said tile.
• New wildlife builds aren't correctly registering for some wildlife requirements.
• Update coins icon and animation to match coins per turn icon.

Developer Log #2 - Version 0.2.25

Hi reader,

Thanks for taking the time to read through this.  From the feedback we've received on our demo, https://rchava.itch.io/wild-haven, we spent the last couple of weeks on two main areas; the first being the end game and the second being the build tree for the game.  

Each run has an ending once you’ve reached 100 turns but it was pretty unclear how to compare your runs. To answer that, we’ve worked on building out a scoring system.  Now when you reach the end, you’ll receive a score based on how many and what kind of plants, and animals you’ve built.  You receive a higher score for adding more complex animals and for filling up the map.  We plan to iterate on the scoring system with bonus modifiers and a task system that is to be implemented later.

The second piece of feedback was on the balance of the build tree.  It felt like some wildlife was super important to place on the map such as Beehives but other wildlife went nowhere (Birch).  We feel like this is going to be a long work in progress as we iterate through the game but we took another pass with a focus on how plants interact with one another.  We’ve separated them into three groups, brush, grasses, and trees.  Brush and grasses affect the type of trees with brush growing Oak trees and grasses growing Maple trees.  Additionally, we wanted to make the choice of types of plants that grow on toxic soil more impactful with specific ones unlocking different parts of the build tree.

I played Brotato but on my phone and I don't remember it feel as constricted.  But probably best to only act on this if you get the same feedback from others.  I might just be an outlier here.

Feels like a good start for a survivorlike!  I was able to get to level 10 before dieing.  

A couple of things I noticed:

1. The map felt constricted once I got to higher levels so would be interesting if you could unlock more of the map as you go through progress waves.

2. The coins? are too large and take too long to get to player and created a lot of visual noise at the higher levels.  Maybe change the shape of the coins to they aren't similar to projectiles so easier to differentiate. 

3. Provide a flash on character when hit or some kind of visual indicator.  I didn't really see anything.

Look forward to your next major update!

I tried out the game and it was okay.  The instruction were easy to understand and the game was quick to pick up and get going.  My main issue is it felt like it took a while for power ups to show up and their didn't seem to be a diverse amount of enemies.  It might be good to have waves for the player and to speed up when they start to receive powers or RPG style mechanics.  Right now felt a bit too straightforward if that is the right word.

Thank you for the feedback!

For the red tiles, yup the wildlife's requirements weren't being met.  We are currently working to flesh out the consequences where you will lose that wildlife and have the tile change in different ways.

That makes sense.  A mix of hints in description and we were thinking of an encyclopedia of sorts?

Yeah, we were thinking of implementing a scoring system at the end of the run where based on the level of wildlife placed and resources gathered would get a score for that run. 

That is great to hear and thank you!  We are hard at work implementing that extra stuff right now.  Our goal is to have more of it ready with next build.

Checked out your menus and the information looks well presented with the only exception being the green and red text is sometimes hard to see against the background.  The main thing I can think of was the backgrounds could use some more variation for breaking up the lines of text?  Right now the menu backgrounds feel a bit plain which is fine is you are going for a very minimalist look but maybe have a way to break up the background like a repeating pattern etc.  And if you have a moment I'm also looking for feedback on my game here.

Nice, thanks for the feedback!  And noted about displaying how much of the current turn is left/speed of turn!

That was a cute game!  I really liked the whole presentation from the pixel art to the musics.  To keep to the spirit of the original snake the only thing I can think of that would be cool to have is a leaderboard to see how you do against others or even against yourself.  Also, if you have a moment I'm also looking for feedback on my game here.  Thanks!

Thanks Vezikool!  When you do get a chance would be great to hear your feedback on what you liked, disliked and easy/hard the game was to understand.

Thank you for the feedback, Wasabi.  I really appreciate it.

That is really good feedback and I appreciate it.

Yeah, getting a MacOS build ready definitely wasn't intuitive.  I had the benefit of releasing some stuff for iOS App store which made it a little easier.  Once I get a PC(hopefully soonish) I'll try it out!

Thanks for the feedback.  A lot more positive then I was expecting!  One question for you, how difficult/easy was it to understand the gameplay loop and what you could do?  I'm trying to understand if the tutorial is good or bad.

Your game looks really interesting, unfortunately I only have a MacOS(M1) so can't play Windows build.  If you have a mac or WebGL build I would be happy to try it out!

Hi there,

Thanks for reading this devlog, hopefully the first of many.  As an introduction, Wild Haven is a nature builder about rebuilding the forest to its once flourishing state. You, the spirit of a small shrine, are tasked with cleaning up your damaged land and bringing back the plants and animals. As you explore and grow, you’ll discover new wildlife and decide how you want to shape the landscape.

You can check out the game here: https://rchava.itch.io/wild-haven

My brother and I started building Wild Haven at the start of the summer as a fun project.  Our development got to the point where we asked ourselves the question why not release this as a full fledged game and away we went.  And now one summer later, we’ve gotten the game to a point where we are quasi-confidently ready to release a version to the world and hopefully receive some feedback. Our goal with Wild Haven is to create a sandbox where you as the player can build up the natural landscape while making trade offs based on the placement of resources.  Each unit you build is a potential resource for another unit down the road.  In addition, we want players to experiment and be happy with just spinning up a new run if they want to try something different.  We are still in the early days of hopefully realizing that goal but that is the plan!

For this first release, we’ve built out the core game systems of exploring the map, building wildlife on the map, a resource tree for adding more complex wildlife, and managing your resources.  We added some simple graphics, sound, a save system and procedural map generator but plan to flesh these systems out more in the future.  To help get you going, we also added an in-game tutorial and a how to play on the Itch game description.  Again, we would love any feedback on how to improve, any bugs you find etc. 

Hello,

We recently released our first demo of our game Wild Haven on Itch.io, and we were hoping to get some feedback.  The demo is an early build of the game and we are mostly looking for feedback on the core game play loop, and how difficult it is to pick up.  Of course, any other feedback is appreciated!

Link to Itch.io page: https://rchava.itch.io/wild-haven

One run playtime: ~15 mins

Developer log(with more details): https://rchava.itch.io/wild-haven/devlog/793764/first-demo-release

Premise: Wild Haven is a nature builder where you rebuild the forest and create a thriving ecosystem. Clean up the polluted land, strategically place different wildlife together to discover more complex plants and animals and return your land to its natural state!

I liked the ASCII art style and the overall flow.  I saw in the screenshots that you had multiple colors and so for the enemies it would be good if they had their own colors so they are easier to pick out from the money.  Also it would be nice to spacebar to jump.  But overall all nice job and hope to see interesting mechanics in your next levels.

Added some feedback in comments section.

That was interesting and not what I was expecting. 

I wish I had more feedback outside of it really felt experimental and unique.  

However, not sure if I encountered a glitch but this intense flashing lights which made it difficult to read after a bit and so I had to kind of call it quits to keep from getting a headache.  If that was intentionally, I would recommend providing a warning that game has strobing/flashing lights and even better the ability to reduce/turn that off.  If it was a glitch I'm on MacOS, using Chrome and played the WebGL version.

Hi all,

We've been working on Wild Haven for the bulk of the summer and just released our first demo!

Wild Haven is a nature builder about rebuilding the forest to its once flourishing state. You, the spirit of a small shrine, are tasked with cleaning up your damaged land and bringing back the plants and animals. As you explore and grow, you’ll discover new wildlife and decide how you want to shape the landscape.

Demo playtime: 10-20 mins

Itch.io Link: https://rchava.itch.io/wild-haven

Steam Link: https://store.steampowered.com/app/3157420/Wild_Haven/

DevLog #1: https://rchava.itch.io/wild-haven/devlog/793764/first-demo-release