We're excited to announce that Herald is taking part in the digital Steam event of AdventureX 22.

For the duration of the event you will be able to get Herald Book I & II for 60% off.
We will also be revealing the first teaser for Book III & IV, which will complete the journey of Devan Rensburg and the HLV Herald. This final chapter will be coming to Steam next year

For the event we've teamed up with MangoBtuber[www.twitch.tv]. Mango will be livestreaming Herald Book I & II, first here on Steam, and then starting from 21:15 CET on her Twitch[www.twitch.tv].

Patch 1.2.0 is here, with many small updates and several new quality of life features!

To celebrate this, Wispfire has live streamed about the contents of this new patch. You can watch this and other streams on our Twitch channel: https://www.twitch.tv/wispfiregames

Patch notes:

Before the year closes, a short update from Wispfire. In the past year our studio has been a bit in limbo. We were stuck in-between finding money to continue with Herald, and doing a lot of other stuff like work-for-hire projects, giving talks, doing guest lectures and pitching new projects that we want to do once Herald is finished. It sure has been a ride, but it has finally bore its fruits.

In the most recent update we showed you a bit of Herald: Book III & IV in development, and we also went in depth about our situation regarding funding for the project. We were struggling to work on Herald without the neccesary funds to pay for the more expensive parts, like voice acting and 3D animation. Regarding this particular roadblock, we have some exciting news that we can share.

In 2019, Wispfire will partner with researchers from the Utrecht University of the Arts[www.hku.nl] to do a reasearch project on Interactive Narrative Design, with Herald's final books as the subject of the research. To do this research we applied for a grant with the Creative Industries Fund NL[stimuleringsfonds.nl], and we got the grant! This grant is a giant step towards finishing Herald, because it pays for our livelihoods, which in turn frees up a budget for voice-acting and animation. The research will also provide us ample opportunity to experiment with gameplay mechanics that we will be able to use in Herald: Book IV and future projects.

There is even more that we can't share yet, but will be exciting once we get to it, so expect to hear back from us soon. For now, thank you for sticking with us, we've grown imensely from trying to keep ourselves standing in this competitive industry. But since 2018 marked our fifth aniversary, we're confident that we will be able to weather the troubles still hiding along our way. We would like to thank all of those who played Herald since its release, and we hope to see you again in 2019, the year in which we will resume full-time production on Herald Book III and IV again! :D

- The Wispfire Team

Hello all, it's been a long time since we gave you an actual update on development, so we thought we tell you where we currently stand with Herald. All of it is taking a lot longer than we want it to, and this is mainly because we have been trying to find funding for Book III and IV, but sadly haven't been successful in doing so. There are some very expensive parts of development that we can't do without a significant budget.

Reality is that Herald is a hard sell on the current market, story-driven adventure games are a niche, and we can't finish the game with only half a team working on it. To make up for this we're currently working on several side projects to support ourselves, as well as pitching new concepts to publishers that might be more lucrative and interesting for them to invest in. Such a project could potentially help fund Herald too, or at least buy us time to build a name for ourselves that will sway a party to invest in it.

Don't worry though, we aren't planning to cancel Herald anytime soon, it is just that we need to postpone the release date until we see an opportunity to properly finish it. As such, we aren't going to make any promises now, since that would be irresponsible from our part. But rest assured that we will keep you updated on any new steps we undertake to support Herald's development and secure its release.

In the past few months we have at least managed to build up a structure within the company that gives us the opportunity to work on Wispfire, while at the same time do some other work that earns us enough money to live from it. Herald is sadly not part of that structure anymore at the moment, but it is our ultimate goal to include it again sooner or later. And to prove to you that we haven't sat still over the past year, we wanted to give you a sneak peek into what is in store for book III.

In book III we finally get to see more of the Rani's lavish palace. The splendor of former glory is seen in the image below, which is the first of several extravagant rooms inside her personal quarters that you will visit in book III.

<Hover over black bar to reveal image>Of course Tabatha Veazie and her uncle Louis Morton have their own private quarters aboard the Herald too. This large cabin is an area in book III as well. Below is a screenshot of this area that shows Lady Tabatha's side of the room.

<Hover over black bar to reveal image>Now bear in mind that these are all development screenshots that we use to pitch the game to investors and publishers. These aren't the final product, and many things could still change once we're back in full swing. But these images do give you a glimpse of what is in store for when you will finally be able to enter these new areas in the game.

Notice the relative darkness of the images? Aside from just being nice moody lighting, it's also a hint to the direction that the story is going into. In book III night will have fallen over the palace as you start telling the rest of your story to the Rani, and darkness will settle in over our protagonists as well. The secret that the Herald harbors will come to light, and we'll discover why the Rani wants Devan to tell her his story. The way you will help Devan tell that story to her will ultimately determine the fate of many.

Thank you for checking in on us and reading this update. Once again, we're sorry we can't give you more clarity on the release date. We hope you'll bear with us for a while though. We'll always keep you updated on the most recent developments, and we'll post it here if there are any things of note about Herald or other story-driven games we're going to develop.

Remember that you are always free to ask us any questions. For more specific requests we'd advise you to send us an email through info@wispfire.com.

Yours,


The Wispfire Team

Hey everyone! Have you been thinking about buying Herald: An Interactive Period Drama Book I & II, but weren't quite convinced if it's your style of game?

We've just released our free demo for Steam. This is the same demo we've used to show off the game at trade shows during production, but updated with the latest tech and bug fixes.

The demo takes about 15 minutes to complete and features a unique conversation with the Rani, a flyover of the Herald, and a modified version of the 'Missing Gun' quest from the main game.

If you want to play the demo, you can find the 'Download Demo' button on the right-hand side of the store page. Unfortunately, because of the way Steam works it is not possible to play the demo on an account that already owns the main game.

- The Wispfire Team

Hey everyone! We're excited to announce the release of the first Feature Patch for Herald: An Interactive Period Drama. This free patch adds support for dual analog stick controllers such as the Xbox 360 controller, the XBox One controller and the Sony Dualshock 4.

As many people have indicated to us, Herald is a very suitable game to play from the comfort of your couch. It's even more fun to play together with someone and get into fights over what dialogue options to choose. Couch gaming with a mouse has its downsides though, so even before Herald released we were already planning to add controller support, but unfortunately it didn't make it in for launch.

Now we could have just slapped a cursor on your right analog stick, pretended it's a mouse and called it a day. But we didn't want to deliver that kind of sub-optimal experience, so instead we overhauled the control scheme specifically for the couch experience.

If you have a GamePad connected you can go to the Gameplay Settings menu in options and choose 'Use Gamepad' to control Devan directly with the left analog stick.On the other hand we didn't want to lose the point and click elements of the game, so we did actually also slap a cursor on your right analog stick, with which you can inspect and interact with the environment.
If we were able to identify your controller, dialogue choices show the appropriate button images for dialogue choices. If we were unable to identify it, the Xbox buttons will be used as default. The journal and in-game menus have also all been modified to be usable with only controller input.

And of course, if you'd rather play with a mouse (or a Steam Controller), you can just turn the 'Use Gamepad' option off in the settings and keep playing with click-to-move as you're used to. If the game detects there's no controller connected, everything stays the way it was.

But that's not all! We've also made some other improvements here and there, and added another piece of music. Details are in the changelog below.

We hope you enjoy the update, and if you run into issues or have comments, feature requests, etc, let us know in the community hub!

- The Wispfire Team

To celebrate the imminent release of Patch 1.1.0 - the Controller Update, Herald will be 20% off over the weekend! If you were interested in Herald, but didn't buy it yet, now would be the time to act. And if you have any friends or relatives who you think might like Herald, now would be an excellent time to gift it to them as a present!

The Controller Update is the first feature patch for Herald and it releases today. It adds a new control scheme specifically designed for dual analog stick controllers. With the update it is even easier to play Herald from your couch, perhaps together with a friend!

Read the upcoming community announcement for all the details on this first patch for Herald: An Interactive Period Drama. And if you've bought and played the game, leave a review and let us know what you think.

And if you like Herald, join us on our social media channels and share our news about this sale and the Controller Update. We'd really love your support!
https://twitter.com/wispfire
https://www.facebook.com/wispfire
http://heraldgame.tumblr.com/


- The Wispfire Team

Hey everyone!

We're very glad to see the positive responses Herald has received!

OPNoobs: "Herald is a delight to play. It has a cast of complex, interesting, and incredibly voiced characters, beautifully captivating art design, and a fresh and fun story that will leave you wanting more." 9/10

http://opnoobs.com/reviews/indie/adventure/herald-an-interactive-period-drama-book-i-ii

TheHighEndGamer: "The world is engrossing and believable, the characters likeable or intolerable depending on the decisions you make." 4.5/5 Stars

http://www.thehighendgamer.com/herald-interactive-period-drama-review/

If you're interested in getting to see a little bit more of the game before you buy it, then we would recommend the following let's play video of our demo for a good and unbiased view of what the game entails:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZNxulQIDKE

The video does contain some minor spoilers!

Cheers,

The Wispfire Team!

A story three years in the making, Herald: An Interactive Period Drama has finally released! Whoohoo!

It's only been a day since release, and we've already received some very positive reviews :) But still, if you enjoyed the game after playing it, it would help us tremendously if you'd write your own review on the store page.

And if you'd like to spread the word without much hassle, check out the social media posts below, and share them :)

Twitter: https://twitter.com/Wispfire/status/834462412782841856

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/wispfire/videos/722309987937204/?permPage=1

Tumblr: http://heraldgame.tumblr.com/post/157576545639/herald-an-interactive-period-drama-book-i-ii

If you have any issues with the game, post it in the forums, or mail us at: info [at] wispfire.com

Cheers,

The Wispfire Team.