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In honor of the Super Worm Equinox Full Moon, we’re officially launching Wolvden’s social media! Wolvden has official accounts on Facebook (/wolvden), Twitter (@WolvdenGame), Tumblr (wolvden) and Instagram (WolvdenOfficial) - and we have a fresh new “Coming Soon” page at https://www.wolvden.com!

We’re so excited to announce that we are officially entering a period of public development where we are going to be sharing some of the things we have been working on so far, and also what’s coming next.

We do not yet have an official launch date as we don’t want to put a ton of pressure onto the coding and art team - but we can share current progress, and our social media will be the first place to hear about our official launch date.

So please, follow us, share us with your friends, and follow along for (hopefully) weekly updates and teasers!

🐺🌕

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Deciduous Forest

Current Weather: Sunny

Earthy smells give way to a dense, wooded forest, thin streams of sunlight filter through the boughs of rustling leaves high above. The undergrowth is home to many critters and creatures, from bustling pheasants and grazing blacktails, to the mighty elk that wander through the trees. The tree canopies give some protection against the summer sun and cool rains that patter throughout the seasons. These woods are tranquil and enclosed providing many opportunities to stalk prey - could this be the place you decide to inhabit?

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We here at Wolvden have been deliberating over a decision for weeks now. We’ve finally decided that we’re changing the direction of the game to something a bit more.. frivolous and fun.

We would like to announce..

Moon-Moon Den!

You can bookmark us at www.moonmoonden.com for the full Wolvden experience coming soon to a screen near you!

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How Lead Wolves Work
In Wolvden, you will play the role of a lead wolf, which will be the one wolf in charge of the pack - the “head” if you will. This wolf will be the wolf you use to explore with, and is meant to be your character. It is the wolf you’ll see on the sidebar, the wolf you’ll participate in events with, and the wolf you battle with.

This wolf does not have to be male. You are perfectly able to have your lead wolf be a female if you prefer!

So how does breeding work?
In the beginning of development we tossed around a lot of ideas for how best to balance realism with enjoyable gameplay. The first idea was to have a mated pair - so a male and female that could only breed together and everyone else in the pack were almost ‘pack helpers’. The problems with this were fairly high - it meant that studding was no longer an option, and forced players into a playstyle where they had to have a male and female always. The next idea involved the possibility that breeding pairs were still a thing - but they could be changed out fairly often. This provided a few more problems - studding would be tricky, breeding would be severely limited by how often you could switch out your pair, it would mean constantly pairing and unpairing wolves, and female leads would be at a significant disadvantage compared to male leads as they would not be able to produce the same number of puppies a lead male could, assuming he had a lot of females in his pack.

In the end, we decided on this:

There is a single breeding male within every pack that chooses to have one. To breed within your pack, you must first designate a breeding male to be the ‘stud’ if you will, which is locked in as its own role, and carries its own retirement process. The breeding male can be bred to any female in the pack, and can also stud out to other players’ wolves if you choose to do so. The lead wolf - even if male - does not necessarily have to be the breeding male. The game does not force you to have a breeding male at any time - only if you wish to breed within your pack. So in theory, it would be perfectly possible to have an entire pack of females and to still produce pups by using outside studs. The flexibility this offers means numerous options for roleplay and doesn’t force a player down one particular route with what they want to do with their pack.

Can the lead male be the breeding male as well?
Yes, this is perfectly possible.

What sort of retirement process does a breeding male have?
Breeding males are locked into their role until they die once it has been set. You will not be able to chase off or kill a breeding male. If you wish to retire your breeding male early, there is a ‘castrate’ option which means he will be released into the pack as a normal member, but will be unable to be the breeding male again… Obviously. ;)

What about retirement for lead wolves?
The same applies to lead wolves - they are locked into the role until they die. This, again, can be bypassed by retiring them early if you choose, but the wolf will die and be sent to your dynasty.

What happens when you retire a lead wolf?
Your leader will be sent to the dynasty and die (or will already be there, if it died of old age). You will then be taken to a ‘Choose Heir’ page which will show you all possible wolves that could take on the leader role. You can choose one of these (including the breeding male, if applicable) to take over the helm or choose to reroll, which will give you the same limited customisation options to generate a new wolf entirely.

What happens when your breeding male retires, or you castrate him?
Nothing. The game doesn’t force you to pick another breeding male, and you are able to play the whole game without ever choosing one again. You just won’t be able to breed within your pack and will have to use outside studs if you want to produce more pups.

But I really wanted to have two leaders?
This can easily be simulated. On the pack page, the lead wolf is featured at the top of the page. There is also an option to pick a ‘featured wolf’ to appear alongside them. The title of the “featured wolf” and “pack leader” can be adjusted to different options - you could call them the ‘Queen’, ‘King’, ‘Mate’, or whatever you choose to be a better fit for the roleplay of your pack. By default, it will just be called a ‘Featured Wolf’ and ‘Pack Leader’. Users who do not wish to make much use of the RP elements of this feature could even use it to feature a particular wolf they have for sale.

*Please note, the image displayed is of an early mockup for demonstration purposes.*

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Be careful exploring when the sun is setting - crepuscular animals can get a bit.. grizzly.

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Another gorgeous wolf, who seems to be in our Desert biome. Our biomes feature diverse, interesting locations. Can anyone guess where this is?

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Seasons!

After having spent 7 years working with Wet and Dry seasons on Lioden, we’re incredibly excited to now be based in a temperate part of the world which can experience all four seasons! We’re most excited about winter, with those snowy hills and icy lakes, glistening in a pale winter sun… :heart_eyes:

Seasons will affect which encounters you find in explore, what prey there is to hunt, and even the difficulty of the biome. It will be more difficult to battle and hunt in freezing winters or blistering summers, depending where your pack lives.

Without further ado, here is our Deciduous Forest biome in all four seasons!

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"bluejay6 asked:
The white facial marking on the desert wolf is absolutely gorgeous! Question, will markings work the same as they do in Lioden, and do you have a few that are particularly interesting/pleasant that you might be willing to share the name of, or show?"



We like how markings are presented on lions with Lioden, so we will be keeping a very similar system with marking slots, opacities, etc.

A few names of markings we have that we really like so far: Urajiro, Irish, Butcher, Grizzle!

Here is Auburn Butcher on a Cream base *.*

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Mountains

Current Weather: Fog

Thin veils of morning fog obscure your vision of this mountain range, diffusing the sunlight and casting a dull glow upon dewy grass patches and trees. The clouds part, revealing snow-capped peaks that impose on the gleaming waters of the lake below. Mountain goats clamber the craggy cliffs to escape the prowling lynx and cougars, whilst elk and bighorn sheep forage the heavy grasses. There are many caves and crevices in the rock that offer some shelter against the harsh weathers up here - will this be where you find refuge?

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Weather

With varied biomes and all four seasons of the year, it’s only natural that we’re adding weather to Wolvden. With extremes of heatwaves and snow, each biome will have atmospheric weather overlays that represent the current weather. Weather will have some effect on exploring and hunting, and a few other aspects we have yet to announce!

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"tinykiing asked:
What inspired the loosen team to make Wolvden? I know lioden was just something to see how fast it could be done but became more. Was someone just like. Hey. Wolves. cool. 😂 or has it always been something everyone wanted to do?"

We’ve actually had Wolvden in mind since a few months after the Lioden launch. All of the admins love wolves, and generally like the mysticism around them - as well as the setting of North America. We registered the domain in 2013 and came up with some sketches for possible wolf artwork. Initially we thought of launching a few different games under the “Lioden” group, but Lioden grew extremely fast so we hunkered down and dedicated ourselves wholly to it.

Over the past year or so, we feel we’re reaching a comfortable point with Lioden that we can finally make Wolvden and gather all of the experience and knowledge we’ve gained from running Lioden for the past 7 years. Lioden will never be put on the back burner or be left with minimal updates - we actually still have many big plans for Lioden :)

Here are some of the sketches Xylax came up with all the way back in 2013!

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Today we’re excited to reveal to you a teaser of our biome system and the method of exploring them!
When you first join the game and create your lead wolf, you are given the option to choose between three “starter” biomes. You settle your pack here, it dictates the weather you experience as you take actions around the site. You can travel to different biomes to explore but first, you must scout out your surrounding territory!

Your home biome will be fully unlocked as soon as you move in, so you can start exploring right away. To explore any other biomes, you must first acquire a wolf to be your scout. You can scout any biome that has a border on your current one - so if your home biome is the Mountains, you may have Grasslands bordering with your biome, and it will be unlocked to send scouts to.

The biomes range in difficulty. The starter biomes are the easiest, and they expand outwards to the more difficult areas with harsher conditions and more frequent, dangerous enemies. The more difficult biomes will also take a lot longer to safely and successfully scout than the easy biomes.

You don’t need to stay living in a single biome - as you fully explore areas, you can choose to move your pack through the biomes. You will need to battle to defeat any competition for your new territory when you move, and the bigger your pack size the more space you’ll need.

There’s more still to tell, but we want to keep some things a surprise ;)

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Wolvden Pups!
Featuring “Aspen Trees”, “Red Spotted Purple Butterfly”, “Raspberry” and “Blue Jay” decors!

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Hi guys! We just wanted to let you know that we’ve heard your feedback about the puppy art and we will be adjusting appropriately. For now, here’s another wolfo ❤️

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Featuring Sir Cougar and friends.

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Thank you for the astonishing response to the Lethal Mutations poll, over 2000 responses! The final four are chosen, although it was close!

Wolvden will begin with the lethal mutations Conjoined Twins, Polycephaly (Separated Two Heads), Polymelia (Extra Limbs) and Brachycephaly!

The remaining options will appear as later additions to the game :)

(Google got a bit broken, the empty option is Polycephaly (Separated Two Heads))

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When considering wolves, we really wanted to utilise pack relationships and how well wolves work together. We also wanted to make sure that stats play an important role in hunting.

When starting out hunting, you first create a Hunting Party - this consists of up to five wolves. In the party overview you’ll notice Party Synergy and three hunting roles; Stalking, Chasing and Finishing. For a full hunt, you need 1 Stalker, 3 Chasers and 1 Finisher. These roles can be performed by the same wolf - if you only have a single wolf to begin with, they can fill all five roles on a hunt.

Party Synergy is an indication of how well your wolves are getting along and for how long they have been hunting together. This has a slow decay, so if you don’t use this party to hunt for a few days you’ll notice the Synergy starting to drop. Party Synergy can have a positive impact on how well your wolves do on a hunt.

Stalking requires a wolf who is adept with Smarts and Wisdom in order to track down the scents of various types of prey.

Chasing requires Speed and Agility to chase after the prey and wear it down.

Finishing requires Strength - having conserved energy throughout the hunt, letting the Chasers do their job, the Finisher makes a final effort to take down the tired prey, bringing back your dinner for the day.

When wolves finish a hunt, they gain experience, the chance of a stat point, and Role Proficiency. The only gain this for the first role that they’re set - so if one wolf fills all five roles, they will only gain the experience and role proficiency for Stalking.

The combination of good, appropriate stats, Party Synergy and Role Proficiency makes your wolves a very powerful team.

Hunting Parties are fully editable, you can add and remove wolves at will, along with renaming the party or completely disbanding. Be warned though - moving wolves in and out will vastly affect Party Synergy, as to lose a pack member in the hunt will disrupt the relationship between the group.

Part 2 is coming next week!

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You hunt in the biome that your pack lives in. Each biome has its own hunting “vista” which displays 4 sub-zones, each having their own chances of prey to hunt.

Starting a hunt allows you to pick wolves for each of the five roles. You need a hunting party to do this, you cannot pick wolves randomly from your pack.

Once you’ve chosen your wolves, you start the hunt! Your Stalker tracks down some scents and you get to choose which scent to follow. The types of scent trails your Stalker will be able to find depends on the Stalker’s Role Proficiency, stats, Party Synergy and difficulty of the biome. They will always be able to track down at least a Critter trail, though!

There are four types of scents: Critter, Small, Medium, Large. Each displays a different scent trail shape and colour to be easily distinguishable, as well as actual text to denote which scent trail is which. These scent trails have increased difficulty, the larger the prey is, the more difficult it is for your Chasers and Finisher to complete the hunt.

However, even if your hunters return empty handed, there’s a chance they’ll come back with something small for your pack to nibble on!

Final Hunting teaser coming next week ;)

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Hunting - Part 3

Some prey previews: Whitetail, Pronghorn and Beaver, oh my!

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Hoot, hoot.

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Progress on the puppy redraw!

(References are used only for anatomy reference when drawing, we do not own these photographs)

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Hunting biomes and other scenery is coming along nicely… Phew it’s getting hot in here.

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Now taking suggestions for additional Rollover messages ;)

*We’ve struggled to add gifs to posts before, forgive us if this doesn’t work, we will try re-creating the post if it fails :’D*

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MFW it’s 38° in the UK 😫

Explore in heatwave weather for your viewing pleasure!

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Beautiful pup :o

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A preview of our nice breeding page! Excuse the potato wolves, we randomised for demonstration ;)

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Any guesses what this friendly fella could be for?

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Those of you who guessed shop keeper are correct! Here is the first row of Crossroads Tokens :D

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So far…
Since there were no asks answered yesterday we thought we’d compile a list of all teasers and other information that we have released up until now!

If you’re new here…

Wolvden is an upcoming sister game to the existing game, Lioden, which will be a fun wolf-based role playing breeding sim experience (we honestly don’t know how to categorise this game any more). You look after a pack of wolves, care for them, breed them, explore a vast range of biomes, fight big and scary enemies, and hunt a variety of prey.

Beta Testing will be free to join, but will be by application process only, we will hand select those who will join us for testing.

Early Access will be paid, but we have yet to release any further details on this.

Wolvden will be free to play after Early Access.

Wolvden has official accounts on Facebook (/wolvden), Twitter (@WolvdenGame), Tumblr (here) and Instagram (WolvdenOfficial) - our landing page can be found at https://www.wolvden.com!

Information From Teasers
This is purely information that has been released on social media officially by us in the form of teasers.

• Biomes - Deciduous Forest, Grasslands, Mountains and Desert have been confirmed
• Seasons - All 4 seasons will feature in the game.
• Weather - Sunny, Fog, Rain, Heatwave have been confirmed.
• Dusk/Twilight has been hinted at, there will also be dawn.
• You can have one lead wolf, and one breeding male - they can be the same or separate. You can have a male or female lead wolf.
• Scouting - a new feature which will tie into exploration and discovery of new biomes.
• Lethal mutations will be in the start of the game - the starting mutations are Conjoined Twins, Polycephaly (Separated Two Heads), Polymelia (Extra Limbs) and Brachycephaly.
• Hunting Part 1 and Part 2 explain the hunting system!
• Fancy new breeding page allows you to compare wolf visuals directly.
• Crossroads will feature Location Tokens rather than a full map allowing us to easily add new places in the future!

• There will be 1 breeding male, rather than free-for-all breeding.
• Battling will be similar to Lioden, Hunting has been revamped.
• There will be custom decors on Wolvden.
• We do plan to add events, though they may not be available for launch.
• We will have rollover just like on Lioden, except it will occur at midnight server time instead of 2:05am.
• The art and development teams are the same for Wolvden as they are on Lioden.
• Wolvden will have Gold and Silver Beetles.
• There are a couple of mutations planned for launch.
• There is visually no sex difference in the wolf art, allowing decors and custom decors to be more universal.
• You will be the leader of a single pack.
• We are trying to balance gameplay for both casual and hardcore members.
• We hope to incorporate storylines on Wolvden as well as some more on Lioden.
• Combo bases will exist on Wolvden.
• We welcome suggestions!
• We have no plans for a specific Wolvden app but we are working hard to ensure a good mobile experience using the website.
• We would like to continue the charity donations that we do on Lioden with Wolvden.
• There will be a way to change your Pack Name.
• Wolvden will be a 16+ game.
• We will try to have a wiki available for launch, or shortly after.
• There will not be any seasonal differences in wolf coats.
• Pup Stages will exist, either on launch or shortly after.
• Exploring will be a thing on Wolvden.
• The aging system will be the same as on Lioden. Please see Corrections.
• Pack names are alphanumeric, can contain special characters and emojis, and can contain up to 25 letters. It will automatically have “Pack” suffixed to the end. Please see Corrections.
• Claiming will be similar to Lioden. You can claim male wolves too!
• Some mutations will be the same as Lioden has, as they exist on wolves too.
• There will be personalities.
• Your lead wolf can be male or female.
• We do not have an official launch date yet.
• There will be a role similar to Broodmother.
• We will keep litter sizes the same as on Lioden. Please see Corrections.
• There will be leaderboards.
• There will be something similar to battle beetles, but not at launch.
• Poses will be available for both sexes as there are no visual lineart differences between the sexes.
• You will be able to live in different biomes.
• We have breeding items planned.
• Pack members will have personalities.
• You will be able tell which method a wolf likes when claiming.
• There will be a breeding request system.
• Wolvden will be based in modern times but events may transport you to different eras.
• We will give announcements in advance of releasing beta testing and early access information.
• Something similar to the Giving Tree will be available on Wolvden, but perhaps not at launch.
• Pregnant wolves will require nesting.
• Pregnant wolf art is definitely on the list but may not be available at launch.
• We are figuring out elderly wolf appearances.
• The site’s layout will be different, but you’ll still be able to code your dens.
• There will only be one lead wolf, you don’t control a pair, but we have options to allow you to role play a pair of lead wolves.
• You can switch out your breeding male early but you can only have one breeding male at a time.
• Official premade Wolvden avatars/tags will exist!
• Coat tiers will exist.
• There will be different titles you can set instead of “Lead Wolf”.
• Impression will not exist in Wolvden.
• Males can hunt.
• You will be able to move biomes.
• There are 76 starter bases prepared for launch.
• We hope to release Wolvden in 2019.
• We have mini games planned for Wolvden.
• We will not have an Alpha/Beta system built into the game as it has been disproved multiple times. However, we have left the room for roleplaying this if you wish to do so.
• Seasons will not affect breeding cycles.
• There will be a page similar to the Oasis on Wolvden, but renamed to fit with the setting.
• Different biomes will have difficulties which make them harder to scout, explore, and live in.
• We have had Wolvden on our minds since 2013 which is when we registered the domain name.
• You can fully customise an existing wolf, or create a new one, with the Wolf Customiser.
• Studding will be similar to Lioden.
• Creating your first wolf will be a stripped down version of the customiser, allowing you to hand-select the base, markings, etc. rather than rolling pre-set wolves.
• You can explore any fully scouted biome regardless of where your pack lives.
• Mutations will apply to both sexes as long as they’re not mechanically dependent on sex (e.g. double uterus).
• You will be able to communicate with all members of the game, not just those in your current biome.
• We welcome any Youtube channels (or other content creators) who wish to release content about Wolvden to approach us through support@lioden.com with the email subject “Wolvden Content”.
• Wolvden will be treated as a separate game to Lioden - you will not be able to claim your Lioden ID on Wolvden, or have any other account crossover feature.
• We have plans to make scouting more useful than to only scout new biomes.
• Scrying will be a feature on Wolvden!
• We will look into a name randomiser for Wolvden.
• We haven’t yet released any information about beta testing or early access.
• Scrying will have a SB cost.
• Some unique Wolvden features may potentially make their way over to Lioden depending on user feedback.
• We will be announcing EVERYWHERE when we release information about beta testing and early access.

• The aging system on Wolvden will last the same amount of time in real life, but in game wolves will live to 7.5-8 years of age.
• Pack names will no longer have “Pack” automatically suffixed, and can be up to 30 characters in length.
• Litter sizes will be 1-6 puppies with 1 and 6 being the rarest, the average being 3-4.