After four months and hundreds of hours of development, I’m excited to announce that the first playable alpha for soundStrider has arrived. This release contains eleven palettes to explore, from familiar noises like rain and the sea, to otherwordly and musical textures that are left to the imagination. And its new demo allows players to explore four of them for free!

Version 0.8.0 specifically contains major improvements for expedition quests and three new palettes:

• Forest. Teeming with life, players will encounter small creatures, predators, and prey. Each world is populated with hundreds of exotic bird species that sing unique songs.
• Limbic. Have we been shrunken to microscopic size or swallowed by a giant creature? A limbic system simulates stress to influence heart rate, breathing rate, and pain.
• Pulse. An ensemble of rhythmic sounds evoke minimalist composers such as Steve Reich (Music for 18 Musicians) or Mike Oldfield (Tubular Bells). Each world has hundreds of unique songs to discover.

This is the first of many pre-release updates. Future updates will introduce more environments to explore and additional quest types. I look forward to sharing more of my progress soon. In the meantime, please share your favorite bookmarks below. Thanks for playing!

Alpha 1 changes

• Unlocked palettes
  • Astral
  • Beach
  • Classic
  • Desert
  • Industrial
  • Storm
  • Tundra
• New palettes
  • Forest
  • Limbic
  • Pulse
• Unlocked footsteps
  • Classic
  • Dirt
  • Rock
  • Sand
  • Snow
  • Water
• New footsteps
  • Squish
• Unlocked game systems
  • Tempo
  • Wind
• New game systems
  • Bird
  • Exploration
  • Limbic
  • Pulse
• Miscellaneous changes
  • Added Randomize Seed button to menu while in Free Roam
  • Added placeholder props to unfinished palettes
  • Added distance cues to compass waypoints
  • Removed return leg from expeditions
  • Connected expedition destinations with breadcrumbs
  • Added directional cues to breadcrumbs
  • Synced breadcrumb pings
  • Prevented expeditions from spawning in explored areas
  • Implemented save migration process for future updates

Demo-specific changes

• Unlocked palettes
  • Beach
  • Classic
  • Storm
• Unlocked footsteps
  • Classic
  • Dirt
  • Rock
  • Sand
  • Water
• New footsteps
  • Squish
• Unlocked game systems
  • Wind
• New game systems
  • Exploration
• Miscellaneous changes
  • Cleared incompatible saves
  • See above for full list of miscellaneous changes

Known issues

• Occasional performance issues in certain palettes
• Occasional artifacts on compass updates