Hello incredible Voyagers! Michael / Spacenorth here with some community highlights, development insights, and upcoming events!

First off, a huge thank you to everyone who participated in our in-game photo contest! The talent and creativity on display were absolutely amazing. After much deliberation, we're thrilled to announce our three winners:

🏆 Grace: “Never Succumb to The Deep”
🏆 Kanis - “Beauty and Denizens of Nera”
🏆 Violeta - “Waiting for the Sunrise With The Girls”

Congratulations to our winners! And to everyone who wants to see more amazing captures, check out the full gallery of entries – there were so many incredible submissions that choosing just three was nearly impossible!

In our most recent dev stream, our cofounders Ryan and Michael dove into a topic that's central to our development philosophy: how we're creating something unique in the beloved survival crafting genre.

Let's face it – there are some incredible survival crafting games out there! As players ourselves, we love so many of them. The challenge for us has always been finding the right balance between familiar elements that honor the best parts of the genre and new ideas that make Voyagers stand on its own.

Early in development, we had to place some big bets on what would make Voyagers special. These weren't just random guesses – they were deliberate choices that would shape everything from art direction to gameplay mechanics:

We wanted the ocean to be central to the feeling of exploration in our game! This bet shaped:

• Sailing mechanics that feel meaningful and fun
  
• Underwater exploration with unique resources and dangers
  
• Skimming across the waves with surfboards and spirit magic

The world is filled with spirits in need of help. In return, they will teach you new recipes and give you magical powers:

• Rescuing threatened spirits scattered throughout Nera
  
• Spirit companions that accompany you everywhere you go
  
• Elder spirits that bestow powerful magical abilities
  
• Fighting the corruption that threatens this magical world

This wasn't an initial bet, but emerged as a strong differentiator:

• The colorful, vibrant world of Nera stands in contrast to many darker survival games
  
• The beauty of the environment has become one of our most consistently praised elements
  
• A world that invites exploration through its visual wonder

After placing these bets, the most crucial part of our process has been building a strong playtest process so that we can always hear from YOU, our fantastic community of REAL players. For over 12 months now, we’ve been playtesting with you regularly and you’ve been contributing invaluable feedback to help us make the game better and better.

We put a lot of work into collecting that feedback and turning them into themes and trends that we can act on. Then we organize our development objectives around improving the player experience in targeted areas before bringing it out to playtest. That creates fresh feedback and we start this development process all over again! Here’s what it looks like:

• Gather feedback from everywhere
  
• Regular playtests (every two weeks!)
  
• Surveys after each playtest
  
• Discord conversations
  
• FeatureUpvote[voyagersofnera.featureupvote.com] board
  
• Responses to marketing like what gets players excited on social media?
  
• Find the patterns
  
• Categorize feedback into themes
  
• Identify both positive and negative trends
  
• Convert these into clear problem statements
  
• Turn feedback into action
  
• Connect feedback directly to new features or changes
  
• Create development milestones with specific player experience goals
  
• Iterate, test, and repeat!

Building and growing this feedback loop has been core of how we work. When you tell us something isn't quite right or that you love a particular feature, that directly shapes our priorities and development decisions.

We’re only a few months from launching into Early Access on Steam, and your feedback (plus excitement!) is the fuel for our development. Keep sharing your thoughts – they're invaluable to making Voyagers of Nera the magical experience we all want it to be!

Before we depart, we have a couple exciting events coming up very soon!

🎮 Next Playtest: This Wednesday!
Look out for patch notes dropping soon in our Discord server. We've got some exciting updates we can't wait for you to try and share your thoughts on!


🎨 MS Paint Fan Art Contest
Our deliberately low-tech art contest is in full swing! Show us your best (or worst) MS Paint creations inspired by Voyagers. Enter here on our Discord channel[discord.gg] before next Monday!
Thanks everyone, and we’ll see you on the waves!

Michael and the Treehouse Team

Hello amazing Voyagers! Michael / Spacenorth[x.com] here with some truly magical news about our latest update to Nera!


We've been listening closely to your feedback and we’ve heard repeatedly that players want spirits to feel more integral to your adventure in Nera. We couldn't agree more! Spirits are one of the most unique aspects of our world, and we've completely reimagined how they work to make them more meaningful, rewarding, and central to your journey.

We’ve taken the Spirit Anchor even farther toward being the magical heart of your base! When awakened, your base becomes a true sanctuary for the spirits of Nera, offering them protection from the dangers of The Deep.

The Spirit Anchor starts dormant and must be empowered to level 1 to begin its magic. Once activated, you'll unlock the ability to rescue spirits you find throughout the world – but that's just the beginning! Every time you level up your Spirit Anchor, you'll gain new benefits from providing passive healing, cleansing corruption, and powering magical stations in a radius around it. And, once you can build more Spirit Anchors, allowing fast travel between bases!
(note: this isn’t part of the playtest build yet!)

What's a sanctuary without some lush amenities? You can now craft special structures to attract more spirits to your base, including spots for them to lounge, little pavilions for them to relax, or hot springs for them to sit in!

Each amenity you place contributes to your overall Sanctuary Power, which infuses the more advanced, magical crafting stations in your base - check out the details below!


We've completely changed how you discover spirits in Nera. No more dormant spirit eggs – spirits are now found throughout the world, some hiding, others in active danger from enemies.

Saving spirits isn't just about feeling good (though that's part of it!) – they'll reward you with incredible powers and knowledge.

We've added a wealth of new magical abilities that you can unlock by rescuing spirits. Echoes can now equip four abilities (2 major, 2 minor) with effects like:

• Seal of Restoration: Place a healing circle that restores allies
  
• Flame Mantle: Surround yourself with fire that damages enemies
  
• Lightning Bolt: Strike foes from afar
  
• Stone Form: Turn to stone when near death, saving your life
  
• Spirit Light: Your companion glows at night, illuminating your path

And many more! Some abilities even help with traversal, like Fleet Foot for faster sprinting or Webbed Foot for improved swimming.

Other spirits will unlock special knowledge, granting access to unique recipes like:

• Looking Pool to change your character appearance
  
• Glowstone Arrows - arrows that glow and light up any enemy you hit
  
• Bracelet of Breath - increased oxygen capacity
  
• Decorative Rugs - pretty rugs!

And more!


Your sanctuary doesn't just look pretty – it's functional too! Stations within your sanctuary radius can now be powered by magic:

• Repair Bench
  
• Looking Pool
  
• Mana Forge
  
• Imbuing Bench
  
• Smithing Station
  
• Imbued Storage

The higher your Sanctuary Power, the more advanced stations you can use!

All these changes are designed to make Nera feel more alive and magical. We want you to feel motivated to rescue spirits not just for gameplay benefits, but because you're restoring magic to a world that desperately needs it.

This is just the beginning – we'll be expanding the spirit system with more content, visual enhancements, lots of clarity work, and additional spirits in future updates.


These features are in our latest playtest build right now! While the UI is still a work in progress and some abilities might need balancing, we couldn't wait to get your feedback on this fundamental aspect of Voyagers.

Remember that these systems are very much in development, so please share your thoughts with us in Discord or through our feedback forms. Your input directly shapes how we refine these features!

- Michael and the Treehouse Team