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We Happy Few - Welcome to Wellington Wells, you Saucy Minx

Created by Compulsion Games

A game of paranoia and survival, in a drugged-out, dystopian English city in 1964. From the studio that brought you Contrast.

Latest Updates from Our Project:

Update #18 - Surveys and weekly update
over 10 years ago – Mon, Aug 03, 2015 at 02:07:28 PM

Hello all,

 

Alright alright alright, it's been a big week in Wellington Wells!

BackerKit and Surveys

By now you should have received your BackerKit surveys! These replace the Kickstarter surveys, and help us figure out how to get you your rewards. If you haven’t received an email, please search your email for “BackerKit”, and you should find the invitation there. If not, please let us know!

For those of you still wondering how to claim your pre-alpha codes, you need to answer the survey and make sure all your information on your profile is valid. Once this is in order, you will be locked down and you will receive your code shortly. Do not panic if you don’t get it right away; we have to process this manually and it can take a few hours.

You guys have also asked us about the Contrast codes. They are on their way, but we are still waiting on backend access to this. As soon as we get them we will send them your way, again through BackerKit :)

Stretch Goal Update: Wellie Mode!

We are approximately CA$1000 away from Wellie mode! Hurray! Thank you everyone for your continued support.

Much of this recent push has been due to people upgrading their pledges on BackerKit, and new backers joining us. Thank you for helping spread the word, and welcome aboard to the new members of our community!

Weekly Update

As always, we’ve had a busy week in the studio. Here is what the team has been up to:

Narrative Team

Alex

I prepped some recording sessions with a couple of our main character voice actors. I also trimmed a main character’s playthrough scripts, as they were just a little bit unmanageable. 

Finally, I wrote some text for abandoned German occupation signs and wrote in-game dialog for two of our main characters.

Emmanuel, Rémi and J.R. have been working on the secret project, which getting closer and closer to reality!  

Art Team 

Whitney 

I have been working on a new concept piece! I cannot show it in its entirety yet, but here is a snippet!

Marc-André (Our new artist! Introduction coming soon.)  

I have been working on a filler building

Deven

I did a little bit of technical touching up this week - below are two shots of the top of the train station (that’s already in the build), which I’ve been quietly optimizing. 30k tris removed on each face this week, along with some other architectural improvements to the building!

here’s a winch/crane contraption.
here’s a winch/crane contraption.

Programming Team

Marc

We upgraded the engine to Unreal Engine 4.8 this week, so I worked on fixing issues that it brought, especially with navigation. I also did some rework on the spawning system for AIs, and adjustments to the save game system, so that we have a better feel of persistence for the world.

Aka the “your bathtubs full of corpses now store the corpses when you save” update.

Gameplay Team

Josh

  • This week was a lot of work on a lot of things:- 
  • Did a bunch of tuning on weapons and the feel of combat. 
  • Read TONS of feedback on the forums to see where we need to be focusing our attention for tuning of systems/play experience. (Keep it coming! :D) 
  • Wrote document to outline all scenario, encounter, and challenge content currently in the game so Alex can write reaction dialogue from the player character. 
  • Organized meetings with key members of the team and worked with Deven to get the train station’s architecture and game play experience to where it needs to be. 
  • Worked with G and Sam to finalize our approach to our next milestone. 
  • Created design goals and strategies for Vince to implement and work out.   

Vince  

We moved to Unreal Engine 4.8, so there were a few new bugs to fix in the build. Also, we noticed that loading a save game wasn't keeping track of map-specific NPCs (encounters, bridges, scenarios), and they would spawn again when reloading. So, I had to back into all the maps and use a different way to spawn the NPCs, so that they actually get saved in the save game data and they won't spawn back again.  

I also started a new scenario for the Garden District, and brainstormed a few ideas for new mechanical and futuristic traps to add challenge as you progress through the game.  

Finally, the [Censored] is now spawning in the game! It's massive, it's the most challenging encounter yet that leads to [Censored]. It's pretty simple for now, but I will be adding a lot of gameplay elements to it later. [Censored]!

Rainbows, we can't even.
Rainbows, we can't even.

No but really, it was this awesome!

Yours  

Team Compulsion

Update #13 - Second stretch goal unlocked, less than 48h to go!
over 10 years ago – Mon, Aug 03, 2015 at 08:49:14 AM

Hello all,  

We have raised over $295,500 CAD thanks to 6600 backers! Thank you all for keeping the train going during the last few days of the Kickstarter, it is really picking up steam. Yesterday, we unlocked the second stretch goal, Sandbox Mode!  

Sandbox mode will be a new game mode set in a world that you can customize as you wish (larger, smaller, more dangerous, less food, more Wellies, etc), this mode is geared towards mindless fun more than anything. It allows you to change the generation of the world to your liking, and may even allow you to share your game world with friends.

Last 48h!

In the four days since getting funded, we have blown past two of our stretch goals: 

  • Sandbox Mode 
  • Drug Paradise  

The next stretch goal is More Uncle Jack! We would LOVE to bring you more of Uncle Jack, because let’s face it, he is creepy-awesome. The audiobook idea seems to be very popular, so we’ll include this in this stretch goal as well.

Slacker Backers and PayPal

Many of you have been asking questions about whether you can contribute to the campaign, either through Paypal or after the campaign ends. Yes, you can! We will set up Paypal next week, which will allow those of you who have not been able to pledge (because KS doesn’t accept your card) using Paypal. We will keep this going, and all funds raised through Paypal will go towards stretch goals. It is not ready yet, but we will keep you updated and let you know when it is :)

Fan Spotlight!

We’ve been truly touched by all of you and the beautiful art you send our way, so we would like to share some of them with you all.

   
  

User @Bloodsrain on our forums posted the first fan fiction about We Happy Few, a creepy story based on the diary pages of a Wellie. Come join us on the forums to check it out, where you’ll also find fan theories, art, pictures of our cats, and more!

Finally, as you know we released a new build to our friends & family and PAX players. If you’d like to get a sneak peek of what the pre-alpha players will get access to next week, here is a video of Generikb playing with all the new changes.

Love, Compulsion Games

Update #15 - The KS campaign is over! But soon: Paypal!
over 10 years ago – Mon, Aug 03, 2015 at 08:48:42 AM

Hello all,   

The campaign is done! We ended up raising $334,754 CAD thanks to 7433 backers. We also reached 4 out of the 5 stretch goals we set: Drug Paradise, Sandbox mode, more Uncle Jack shows and authentic English weather!

Authentic English Weather means we’ll be able to have some proper rain, and can have an option for limited sunshine, terrible daylight hours, and other fun English things (present heatwave not included).

We hope that you had a nice and relaxing weekend. After 30 days of hectic campaigning, we certainly needed it.

We are back now and we wanted to address the most common questions we have had since the end of the campaign.

Post Campaign F.A.Q.

Can I back you even if the Kickstarter is over?

Yes you can, but not at this right moment, we are working on setting up the Paypal page. Once it is ready, we will let all you all know in a future update, and will also have it available on our website and social media. So, if you’d like us to reach Wellie Mode, we can still do it!

The same tiers will be available, up until the Vandal tier. We will close this off in a couple of months, as we’ll need some certainty over reward quantities to begin manufacturing and sending them out.

Where is my pre-alpha code/Contrast?

On its way! You will get these at the end of the week, on Friday the 10th of July, as soon as Pre-alpha Update 6.1 (the performance update) goes live.

Note from Sam: On the Kickstarter page, we said these would be available "immediately" after the end of the Kickstarter in the tiers, but said "as soon as we can figure out a good distribution system" in the FAQ and in multiple updates. It wasn't clear that this was going to be more like a week than an hour. Unfortunately we couldn't change the tier description once we realised the issue, so we were stuck with it. This is my fault, and I apologise for the confusion. Please let us know below if you have any questions about this.

My payment got denied, what can I do?

First off, this happens to the best of us, this is a judgement free zone. Second, you won’t lose your reward, Kickstarter gives you up until 2 weeks after a campaign ends to try again. If you have no idea why it didn’t go through, to be frank, we won’t know either. Your bank will be more suited to tell you, or alternatively Kickstarter support. If it simply won’t work, once we set up the Paypal page you can try again :)

Can I switch my PC code for a console code?

Unfortunately not right now. This is a decision we’ll have to look into later.

This week is going to be a busy one, as we are making a new build for all of the pre-alpha backers, setting up the Paypal page and the reward distribution tool, as well as working on some exciting surprises!  

Thank you everybody and congratulations to you too, you helped make this happen just as much as we did.

Compulsion Team

Update #16 - Slacker Backers, Pre-Alpha and Next Steps
over 10 years ago – Mon, Aug 03, 2015 at 08:48:12 AM

Hello all,

 

We hope that you had a good week! We have been rather quiet, but it has all been for good reasons.

This week the team has been working on:

  • Pre-alpha Update 6.1,
  • setting up our reward fulfilment and “slacker backer” campaign,
  • figuring out a good solution for sending out pre-alpha codes (done!), and  
  • as always, working generally on the game.

Reward Fulfilment and Surveys

As you guys probably know, sending out rewards to a community of 7 thousand people is a bit of an undertaking! We have been working with the team behind BackerKit to help us manage this, and things are progressing well (far better than we could have done on our own). They have recommended to us that we wait until 14 days after the end of the Kickstarter before we send out the surveys (so that all your information is final), so the surveys will come through in about 10 days or so, which will help us collect all the information we need to send out your rewards (both digital and physical).

So, in around 10 days you will receive an invitation to sign up to BackerKit, in the same email you used for backing us. Your profile in there will already contain your information from Kickstarter with your pledge level and everything. You will even be able to add extra items to your pledge, upgrade it, confirm your reward and manage your shipping information if you move between now and when rewards are sent out. Your digital rewards and codes for the final game will be delivered through them as well.

Slacker Backers

We are also excited to announce the start of our “Slacker Backer” campaign! As our Kickstarter campaign has now closed, we wanted to make sure that people could still join the fun even if they missed our Kickstarter. If this sounds like something you or your friends could be interested in (in cased you missed the Kickstarter or your payment did not go through), then please check out our continued crowdfunding pledge page here.

BackerKit is helping us out with this as well, so all our pledges and reward fulfilment will be done from the same place. They don’t use Paypal, but instead use Stripe - the same payment processing service that Kickstarter itself uses.

And of course, everything we raise in our slacker backer campaign goes straight towards more stretch goals! So, Wellie Mode, and the other stretch goals we have planned, are still all on the table.  

Just a heads up, if you pledge to the pre-alpha tier right now, it might take a few days for your code to come through.

Pre-Alpha Codes

Yes, pre-alpha codes will be delivered today!

As BackerKit is not yet set up fully, we will be sending these by email. You will receive an email with the code and installation instructions, as well as links to our forum to help get yourself set up in our community. This email will be sent as soon as Pre-alpha Update 6.1 is live.

That exact same code will also be available in BackerKit, so don’t worry if you miss the email. Those who pledged to the best mate tier will get a second email with a second code. Don’t forget to check your spam, but also don’t forget that a Steam code can only be activated once, so don’t send it to your buddies.

Weekly Update  

We have just posted our newest Friday development update!  

We are also just about to publish Pre-alpha Update 6.1, and the build notes will be available soon.

Forums

As much as we love Kickstarter, the best place to talk about We Happy Few, to ask for technical support, to give us that all important feedback is on our forums. 

We’d love to have you guys sign up and come sharing the things you like about Wellington Wells. 

Thank you for your patience, 

OP will deliver. 

Update #14 - New stretch goal achieved! There will be more Uncle Jack!
over 10 years ago – Mon, Jul 27, 2015 at 05:59:30 PM

Hello all,

We are 18 hours away from the rest of our campaign, and have raised over $315,000 CAD thanks to more than 7000 backers! This mean that we have unlocked our third stretch goal: More Uncle Jack Shows!

We are just as excited as you are to bring you more Uncle Jack shows, and working with Julian again is going to be a real treat :)

Our next stretch goal is the amazing: Authentic English Weather, at $320,000. This is basically so we can make it rainy, dreary, with, as Uncle Jack says, (very) brief patches of lovely sunshine.

Closing the Kickstarter

The campaign is closing at 11:45am EDT on July the 4th. It’ll be a nice way to celebrate with our American backers!

It has been a very busy and tiring few weeks for us, although it has also been extremely exciting and a really big boost for team morale here in the studio. So, we’re going to take a quick nap on Saturday afternoon and Sunday, and otherwise will be back in the studio on Monday. So, please bear in mind that we may not be able to respond to questions between the end of the Kickstarter and then.

However, we do have some good news for pre-alpha players. We believe we have a solid code delivery platform for distributing the pre-alpha codes next week! The eta on this is Friday the 10th, as soon as Pre-alpha Update 6.1 goes live (see below), which will contain important performance options to allow the game to run on a wide range of machines. As soon as we push out the new build, we’ll send out a notification that codes are available!

For those people waiting for Paypal, stay tuned for news on this next week.

Weekly Development Update

As always, each week we post up a quick summary of what we’ve been doing this week at the studio:

Production

Sam

In the studio this week, we’re preparing for the incoming pre-alpha players from Kickstarter. The focus of this and next week is pre-alpha version 6.1, which will have improved performance on mid and lower end machines. So, half the team has been basically figuring out what kinds of options we can enable/disable to allow the game to run on less powerful hardware). This should be a welcome improvement to many players!

The other half of the team has been working on narrative development this week, investigating various technical and content questions that we still have to solve (like how do we control cutscenes and gameplay within a procedural world).

But, we also have one nice change that we’ll hopefully manage to do by next Friday - no guarantees on that yet though, so we’re keeping it as a surprise.

Gameplay Team  

Vince  

I've been working on the random encounters this week again. I've went through all our current ones with Alex, our narrative director, to make sure they were all coherent with the game world. So I am currently correcting them to make them narratively accurate.

I also tested them and fixed some bugs to make sure they are as close to the final version as possible.  

I've been brainstorming more ideas for random encounters also for the Village and more for the Garden District and started building some of them so that we can have a whole bunch of them for the next build!

Art Team  

Whitney  

This week I continued developing the Garden District. I finished an environment piece, researched interior paintings, and made more signage and story elements.

Emmanuel

Deven

Narrative Team

Alex

I worked on player characters stories with G and Finalized one of the Downer’s playthrough. I looked into a simpler mechanic for procedurally generated nightmares and rebuffed the opening scene. I also did some cinematics pipeline and worked on hiding places with Whitney.

Have a fantastic weekend everyone, thank you for all the support once again :)

The Compulsion Team